Lords Sitting of 21 March 1973

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

LAKELAND NATIONAL PARK ROAD POLICY
LORD HEWLETT: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the first Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether in view of the House's total opposition expressed on March 14 to the Minister's decision on the routing of the A.66 he will agree to visit the site, review his decision and meantime impose a stay of execution upon the scheme which threatens so adversely to affect the beauty of Bassenthwaite Lake.
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF THE ENVIRONMENT (LORD SANDFORD): No, my Lords. I have noted the views of the twelve noble Lords who spoke here last week, but my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Environment has taken his final decision. He has followed the main recommendations of his inspector, Sir Robert Scott, following a 32-day inquiry at Penrith from January to March last year. He has carefully studied the inspector's report based on the oral evidence of the 122 participants at the inquiry, and the written evidence in 145 documents. He has had the advice of three Ministers, each of whom has personally and independently inspected the route.
LORD HEWLETT: My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply. Is there no opportunity to ensure that this scheme is not proceeded with while the alternative route North of the mountains Skiddaw and Saddleback is further examined? It was the unanimous view of this House
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that the matter should be re-examined, and I thought that this was a revising Chamber.
LORD SANDFORD: My Lord: it is a revising Chamber so far as legislation is concerned. This alternative route was exhaustively examined at the inquiry.
VISCOUNT RIDLEY: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the attraction of industry to West Cumberland depends upon the A.66 being completed as quickly as possible, by whatever route is chosen?
LORD SANDFORD: Yes indeed, my Lords.

NATIONAL PARKS AND ROAD SCHEMES
2.33 p.m.
LORD HEWLETT: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether, in view of the deep concern felt in the House that the National Parks should be preserved from the intrusion of motorways and, or major road development schemes, they will consider strengthening the legislation so as to make National Parks inviolate.
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, the British National Parks are extensive. They included a total of 16 major trunk roads when they were originally designated. All these roads need improving from time to time, particularly to make them fit better into the landscape and to draw heavy traffic out of narrow streets in towns, and out of sensitive areas of the countryside. A quarter of a million people live in our National Parks, and many thousands more want to get into them and enjoy them. All expect modern facilities. I agree with my noble friend that every development in a National Park needs the most careful consideration by all concerned.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, (nay I put this question to the Deputy Chief Whip? On occasions noble Lords opposite have to try to control the number of supplementary questions. We are exceedingly grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, for giving such a lengthy reply.

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It really amounted to a Statement. Whereas I would not wish to be other than thankful to him for this, we have run into this trouble before, that if we get very lengthy Answers it is almost inevitable that we shall have a very long period on Questions.
LORD DENHAM: My Lords, I will take note of what the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition has said and will pass it on to my noble friend. But, in fact, looking at the clock I see that not a very long period has passed by already. Only three minutes seem to have elapsed.
LORD SLATER: My Lords, on the Question, is the Minister satisfied that adequate inspection is taking place? Is he aware that one is of the opinion that satisfactory inspection is not taking place even to-day, and that more inspection should take place in order that proper accommodation is given to the general public in the National Parks?
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, I am not quite sure what kind of inspection by what kind of inspector the noble Lord has in mind.
LORD SLATER: My Lords, I am thinking of the inlets to the National Parks and pedestrians and people travelling by motor-car having a better opportunity to converge on the National Parks than they have at the moment. Some of the roads leading to the National Parks are in a shocking condition and ought to be improved so that better accommodation may be provided for the general public. After all, they are termed "National Parks" but they do not fit in with what is required of National Parks so far as the general public is concerned.
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, but I think I covered it in my opening Statement—opening Question—opening Answer—
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Hear, hear!
LORD SANDFORD:—where I made clear that one of the reasons for the improvements which go on from time to time on the roads is specifically to produce
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better access for the people who want to visit the Parks.
LORD HEWLETT: My Lords, may I thank the Minister, and may I ask him, in relation to his "Question", "Statement" or "Answer", whether he can give an assurance to this House that on no future occasion will a major change be proposed in National Parks without the Minister's going and inspecting for himself and not just relying on the reports of others?
LORD SANDFORD: Yes, my Lords, I think I can certainly give that assurance. If there is any major change, Ministers will want to see things for themselves. But the procedure on which we rely is a public local inquiry conducted under an impartial inspector, at which everybody concerned has an opportunity to make his views known, and we must not do anything to short-circuit that.
LORD HEWLETT: My Lords, am I right in thinking that the Minister could reasonably be expected to go and see for himself before deciding on the report made to him by the inspector?
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, I was not denying that, but I was pointing out to my noble friend, and to the House, that there are Statutory procedures, and nothing that a Minister does or does not do alters the necessity to adhere to them.
THE EARL OF ONSLOW: My Lords, as the noble Lord does not deny that the Minister might have to go to see a site on future proposals regarding National Parks, why cannot he do it this time?
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, I have already made clear to the House that on this particular occasion, not one but three Ministers inspected the site.
LORD FERRIER: My Lords, with reference to my noble friend's "Question" or "Statement", can he tell the House whether this declaration of policy, more or less, also includes the policy of the Secretary of State for Scotland?
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, there is nothing new in the policy I have been outlining and it applies throughout the Kingdom.

AID TO ZAMBIA
2.38 p.m.
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether reports in the Press are correct that Zambia, a land-locked country, which since Independence has received from the United Kingdom £75 million in grants, subventions and credits, is now to be granted further subvention.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE): My Lords, we have been in touch with the Zambian Government about their current development needs. They have accepted an offer of £1 million interest free loan for British road transport equipment.
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, may I ask the Minister why it should be necessary to give this additional sum of the taxpayers' money on top of the very large sums already granted, since it appears to be a question of choice, not of necessity, that new routes are used when the historical route is still open to the Zambians? Also, why, since use of these earlier routes is still open, are they not being used? Further, has her attention been drawn to the map of Zambia indicating the several points where terrorists are being trained; and—this seems in collaboration with Tanzania—in the encouragement of a massive inflow into Central Africa of Chinese Communist soldiers disguised as workmen?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, in answer to the first supplementary question, we quite understand that the Zambian Government does not wish itself to be dependent upon the possible re-closure of the border with Rhodesia. On the second question, we have always said that we condone the action by terrorists of achieving their aims, their political aims—
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Not "condone"!
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, did I say
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"condone"? I apologise to your Lordships. I meant, of course "condemn" which does have rather a different sense.
LORD PARGITER: My Lords, can the noble Baroness say whether or not it is rather unfortunate that this vendetta should be pursued against Zambia which, after all, is only carrying out the mandate of the United Nations, as agreed to with the United Kingdom?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, I do not know whether this question was addressed through me to my noble friend, but the fact is that we voted for an economic resolution in the Security Council.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, in this matter of interest-free loans, is it not true that several other countries have been privileged to obtain loans of this character? Is it possible for the noble Baroness now, or perhaps at a later stage, or in writing, to convey information to Members of your Lordships' House, and in particular to me, as I ask the question, how many of the countries which have obtained this privilege of interest-free loans have failed even to return the capital?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR or BELHELVIE: My Lords, if the noble Lord would care to put down a Written Question, I will certainly reply in detail.
BARONESS LLEWELYN-DAVIES OF HASTOE: My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that we are grateful to her for the way in which she answered the Question about Zambia? Is she further aware that the map which her noble friend displayed was not of Zambia, but of Tanzania?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for her remarks, but perhaps she was in a better position to see the map than I was.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: My Lords, is my noble friend satisfied that the Zambian Government are really seeking to restrain troops, whether regular or irregular, from mining roads in the area? Is she aware that recently, due to an explosion, six Africans were killed and four others had both their legs blown off?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, it is my understanding that the Zambian Government

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are doing their best in very difficult conditions on what I am sure my noble friend will recognise is a very long border.
BARONESS GAITSKELL: My Lords, may I ask the noble Baroness whether it is not true that interest-free loans from our ex-colonial possessions are a very rare occurrence indeed?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, I think the noble Baroness meant "to our excolonial possessions" instead of "from our ex-colonial possessions". I would not say that they were rare.
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, since I failed to catch my noble friend's words in reply to the question put by the noble Lord. Lord Shinwell, may I ask whether it is to be understood that she said she thought interest-free loans were preferable to gifts? Surely that is bad business, and it would be better to make an outright gift?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, I am fascinated to hear what I might have said, but I am afraid I did not say it. What I said was that if the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, would care to put down a Written Question, I would answer him in detail.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, if I were to put down a Question, is it not likely that I should receive an Answer similar to the one that the noble Baroness has given me?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, I cannot believe that the noble Lord would not put down a Question if he had a chance.

ANNUAL REVIEW OF AGRICULTURE
LORD DENHAM: My Lords, with the leave of the House, at a convenient moment after 3.30 p.m. my noble friend Lord Ferrers will make a Statement on the Annual Review of agriculture.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
LORD DENHAM: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend the Leader of the House, I beg to move the Motion standing in his name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That Standing Order No. 38 (Arrangement of the Order Paper) be dispensed with on Tuesday next for the purpose of allowing the Lord Windlesham's Motion on the Northern Ireland Constitutional Proposals to be taken before Public Bills and Orders.—(Lord Denham.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

THE PERFORMING ARTS
2.45 p.m.
THE EARL OF DROGHEDA THE EARL OF DROGHEDA rose to draw attention to the progress of the performing Arts in this country and matters relating thereto; and to move for Papers. The noble Earl said: My Lords, beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. It is almost exactly a year to the day since your Lordships debated the Arts. Several noble Lords have felt that the time was right for further discussion, and therefore I, bad attender though I am and even worse speaker, have ventured to put down this Motion. It is difficult nowadays to get a consensus of opinion about many subjects, but I like to think that in relation to State aid for the Arts there is no argument. Without State aid many of the Arts would wither and die; and that is not the sort of prospect that we should welcome. I do not think we need to argue the case. It is a sobering thought that before the war there was absolutely no State aid for the performing Arts in this country, and that is virtually untrue, I think, of every other European country. The attitude here was that those who wanted the Arts should pay for them, and as a result far too little was done and the appeal was to a tiny minority. The suggestion that today's subsidies help a small élite is really the reverse of the truth: it is because of the subsidies that the Arts are being made available to all and audiences are growing.
Many people deserve credit for what has been achieved, but none more so, I have to say (and she has heard it before now), than the noble Baroness, Lady Lee of Asheridge—"Jennie" to so many of us—who was the first Minister specifically charged with responsibility for the Arts. The noble Baroness did an absolutely splendid job. She moved

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everything into a higher gear. She appointed the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, which was a great service to the nation, without question—alas!, he is not with us to-day. Above all, the noble Baroness insisted that there must be a handful of institutions which were upheld as centres of excellence and as setters of high standards, and her Policy for the Arts (Cmnd. 2601), published in February, 1965, is still very good reading.
Among the institutions which were regarded as centres of excellence was the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in which I must declare an interest, since I am its chairman. Jennie Lee has my eternal gratitude for the support which she gave to Covent Garden at a time when we were receiving 40 per cent. of the total Arts Council Grant. The proportion to-day is down to 12 per cent., and it will fall lower, not because Covent Garden is getting less money but quite the reverse: it is because so much more is being contributed. I think we should all praise the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, for what he has done in this regard since he succeeded the noble Baroness, and also for what he has announced he intends to do over the next three years. The promised Government spending is a significant increase in real terms. I know that the grants which have been paid out to the various houses and to the orchestras have resulted in a tremendous improvement in standards, as well as in a far greater supply of serious entertainment. What we have done here has, without question, received international acclaim.
My present concern is particularly with opera and ballet. Other noble Lords will, I hope, be speaking about the theatre. I should like to have seen the noble Lord, Lord Olivier, here so that I could tell him directly what a superlative job he has done as Director of the National Theatre. He is the universally acclaimed head of the theatrical profession, and no praise for his achievements can be too high.
As to opera and ballet, I am quite firmly convinced that these are very high art forms and they are truly international. Interest in them is growing all the time and it seems to me that in the modern jargon we could call ourselves "growth industries". We have just received the accolade from the Evening Standard:
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they have decided to add to their drama award awards for opera and ballet, and the editor of the Evening Standard certainly knows what he is about. But these two are very costly to present and the greatest enemy we have to contend with is inflation. At Covent Garden, 75 per cent. of the outgoings represent direct labour and salary costs, and the fees paid to artists are very largely determined by the international market. Here the fall in the value of the pound has not exactly helped. It is pretty depressing to reflect that six years ago one got more than 11 marks to the pound and to-day one gets less than seven. This is true of most of the other leading currencies in which the singers want to be paid. Any organisation employing artists of international standing is going to be hit by this factor, and at the same time we feel we have a duty to present these great international artists here—and of course many of them are by now themselves British.
For the corning year, Covent Garden will be receiving aid in the region of £2 million: that is, for the year beginning April 1, 1973. Sadler's Wells, including what it receives from the G.L.C., will get about £1¼ million. These are hefty sums but I believe they might be put into perspective if I tell your Lordships that for this year the Paris Opera alone is going to receive £5 million—that is the provision for their subsidy—and on top of that there are 12 provincial opera houses in France. In Germany, several cities such as Munich, Hamburg, Berlin and so on, receive aid of one kind or another and they each receive sums which compare not too unfavourably with the total amount of money spent here by the Arts Council. In Italy, special State subsidies for opera, theatre and ballet equal £23½ million, and on top of that the various local authorities give subsidising aid to theatres such as La Scala, Milan. In addition, such places are able to use their buildings rent free and they are given great help in other ways. Furthermore, Italy gives aid to the cinema industry to the extent of more than £14 million a year, so I do not think we should feel that we are overdoing it. If anything, the reverse is true.
At the same time, we are not complacent about the level of our expenditure. The Arts Council commissioned Messrs. Peat, Marwick to produce a report on the

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spending of the four main State-aided institutions: Covent Garden, Sadler's Wells, the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company. They handed in their report just over a year ago and said that, on a turnover of £7½ million a year for the four institutions, savings of £200,000 might be possible. This report was valuable. It was helpful to us and also reassuring. We are introducing a number of the suggestions for cost control which they recommended to us. One of the suggestions was that we should make a greater effort to raise money from private sources. We are doing something about that as well; and only the other day the American business community in this country were good enough to raise something like the sum of £40,000 towards the cost of a new production at Covent Garden. This was extremely good of them, and we are most grateful to the American Ambassador and his wife for the help they have given us here. But I feel that if Her Majesty's Government would do what they said was essential when they were in Opposition, namely, to assist with the tax deductibility of charitable donations—because they were very hot about this, and now you have to die before any benefit is given—this would, I am sure, give us a greater possibility of raising money from private sources than any other single concession.
I believe that they could also help if they would have another think about V.A.T. To have to add 10 per cent. to our seat prices (which is what it amounts to) is a serious blow, and we get no countervailing saving at all. The Chancellor has given a rather complex undertaking to compensate the State-aided enterprises for a fall arising from the imposition of V.A.T., but that is not the way to help attendances. And of course it is of no value at all to the commercial theatre or to the cinema, whose artistic importance cannot be brushed aside. On the Continent, V.A.T. is charged but the average rate there, I am told, is about 5 per cent. I believe that figure to be accurate. For the Chancellor to bring back what amounts to an intertainment tax of 10 per cent. is sad and bad. I would urge the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, to have another talk to his colleague about this, though of course I
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know how difficult it is to get anything changed once it has been announced.
Our concern must surely be to maximise attendances, and here the signs have been very, very good. The National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company have played to capacity houses all the time, and at Covent Garden our average level of attendance, except when we put on very modern pieces, is 90 per cent. Many of these are visitors from abroad and we are used quite a lot for official entertaining. So I think that on the whole these figures suggest, though we certainly have our tragedies, our disasters and our disappointments, that we are giving quite good value for money. Sadler's Wells at the Coliseum are coming up all the time. They are playing now to 85 per cent. houses and their work is closely co-ordinated with ours. There is a committee which is presided over by the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, who is on the boards of both Covent Garden and Sadler's Wells, and we work together to the best of our ability. Finally, I should mention the Festival Ballet, which is an important company and plays an important role. They seem to be sold out wherever they go; so I do not think we are doing too badly as regards attendances and I believe that London is extremely well provided for.
What we want to see, of course, is a greater dissemination of our work. Obviously, there are two main channels for this: first, television and radio and, secondly, our old friend the touring company. The B.B.C., on the radio side of things, do marvellously. Over this last year they have broadcast no less than 151 opera performances: some of them being repeats. The number of our own home products may be a quarter of that, but they do a great many relays from abroad, and it is of tremendous help in broadening the interest. The television side is not quite so good. They televised seven operas in 1972, and fewer ballets, unfortunately. But they have the spirit to do a little more, and it is tremendously important for us, since when they say that this is of minority appeal they probably mean that more people see the single transmission than come to Covent Garden or the Coliseum in the course of a year. Furthermore, they are dispersed

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throughout the length and breadth of the land; so it is tremendously important.
I should like to urge upon the B.B.C.—if my noble friend Lord Eccles could send them a message it would be good of him—to consider a Kenneth Clark or Alastair Cooke series type of programme. Kenneth Clark did a marvellous thing for the Arts. To do something which is accessible to ordinary people in terms not too obscure or recondite would be tremendously valuable. It would make people interested, and I can certainly suggest one or two people who could do this programme extremely well, including Lord Clark himself. It would be well worth while for the B.B.C. to consider this idea, and it would help us all.
As to touring, on the opera side this is in the hands of the Coliseum, together with Scottish Opera, the Welsh National Opera and the Glyndebourne Touring Opera. Ballet touring is undertaken by the Festival Ballet and the Royal Ballet, plus a number of smaller groups. Our touring problems, as your Lordships no doubt have heard, have recently been the subject of a little misunderstanding. This stems from the fact that Covent Garden operates two companies. One of these (the old Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet Company) was reduced in size two years ago for artistic reasons, and also, I am afraid, because of financial reasons at that time. The smaller group which emerged from this reconstruction continues to tour extensively, but it does not include in its repertoire the handful of large scale classics. Following the reorganisation the main company, the large company, undertook a provincial tour in 1971, visiting Bristol, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle and Southampton with virtually no support from the local authorities concerned.
Some of the ballets that were shown were given in productions taken over from the old touring company which had been contracted in size. Considerable compromises had to be made to these, both in the number of dancers and in the settings, since, with one exception, the stage dimensions of the various provincial theatres were considerably smaller than those at Covent Garden. The company was not satisfied or happy with the way their productions looked. They felt that they were not showing the regions
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the real strength of the Royal Ballet. Nor was the tour all that successful from the audience point of view, with an average attendance of only 70 per cent., which compares with 90 per cent. at Covent Garden. The prices we charged were less than half what we were charging at that time at Covent Garden. We did not have a tour last year, and we are not going to have one this year.
The future is important. I want to tell your Lordships that, first of all, Covent Garden recognises that it has a duty to get out in the regions so far as it can, compatible with its other duties and responsibilities. We are having active discussions at this very moment with the Arts Council, and we are working out with them a constructive plan which will concentrate upon certain of the key theatres which are geographically and otherwise most suitable for use, possibly helped by modifications to some of the buildings (which are not always what they should be) so that the need for artistic compromise is reduced to a minimum, and people in the Provinces do not feel that they are getting second best. But we have to solve these problems; we fully accept that. The noble Lord, Lord Feversham, who initiated last year's debate—and I am very happy to see him in the House—will be telling us, I am sure, something about what has happened in the regions. He presides over the Regional Arts Associations with a powerful hand.
I feel that in the final analysis touring from London is no substitute for the development of local talent and local initiative. The impressive evolution of the Scottish Opera and the Welsh National Opera companies is setting an extremely encouraging example to others. The noble Lord, Lord Rhodes, also, I am happy to see, is to say a few words to us. He has been working extremely hard to make the North-Western Opera Company, based on Manchester, a reality before the end of next year. Attitudes are constantly improving, but much effort is still needed to persuade the local authorities to do more. The G.L.C. admittedly contribute quite a lot of money to the performing Arts—about £1 million a year, excluding a notional figure for interest on the cost of the Festival Hall complex of buildings. This is a small proportion of London's total

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revenue from rates. Think, too, of the tremendous advantage to London from the point of view of tourism of the presence of so much artistic activity. The G.L.C. should stop patting themselves on the back about this; they ought to try to do more to relieve the Arts Council of some of their burdens in relation to London.
Before I sit down I want to refer to one further subject; namely, the sending of British cultural attractions overseas. Touring does not end with the regions, it does not end with the United Kingdom. I believe that far more should be being done overseas. A visit by one of our leading companies, by one of our leading orchestras such as the L.P.O., who were in Peking yesterday, does a fantastic amount of good. We should be engaged in promoting interest in our cultural achievements; other countries are not bashful in this regard. We can do so much more.
Last March, Mr. Geoffrey Rippon, who was the Minister for Europe at that moment, said that the Government had a plan for spending a sum not exceeding £6 million over a four-year period to improve our cultural relations with Europe. That figure was the absolute top limit of what might be spent. This sum was not simply to send the ballet abroad or the London Symphony Orchestra abroad, but included the sum of £600,000 for the new building for the British Council and British Institute in Paris, and a whole lot of other things as well. This money is not just to show off to the Continent what we can do in the performing Arts movement.
At present the responsibility for overseas touring, except when it is undertaken on a purely commercial basis, rests with the British Council. In 1971–72 out of their total budget of £15½ million, they spent a quarter of a million pounds on sending the performing Arts abroad. In 1972–73 they had another £2 million added to that total grant, but what they are spending on performing Arts going abroad is just about the same quarter of a million pounds. Knowing what it costs to send one company on an extended tour, a quarter of a million pounds does not go all that far. I suggest that with the British Council having so many important tasks to perform, consideration should be given to transferring to the Arts Council
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responsibility for sending the performing Arts overseas. I have no idea whether they would welcome this but I believe it makes sense. They are, after all, the body which has regular contact with the various organisations that they support, and they should therefore be in the best position to judge which companies can, and should go.
Following Britain's entry into the E.E.C. the Arts Council are surely going to have to broaden their horizon quite considerably in any event. I think they ought to be given a more specific duty to assist visits to this country of some of the famous foreign companies and foreign orchestras which come here. At present no one really has this responsibility on a continuing basis. The only person who does anything about it is Peter Daubeny, who has done marvellous work with his World Theatre Season. But he has done that for ten years, and he says that this year is the last, so after this goodness knows! what happens, unless he relents. I think the Arts Council should be asked to step in here. Their charter would of course have to be amended, but charters can be changed and the important thing is to assist in the cultural exchanges between the countries because we want to project the best manifestations of our country to the world at large. What I think about this is of no importance whatsoever, but what the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, has to say about it is very important, so I sincerely hope that he will he willing to express a view in relation to the possibility of the Arts Council taking over from the British Council and to say generally how he sees the development of our cultural exchanges in foreign countries.
I am grateful to all your Lordships for listening so patiently without an interruption. It is like making a maiden speech—it is marvellous. I hope you will forgive me if I have spoken for too long, but I should like to point out that I have been very careful to refrain from any reference to the redevelopment of the Covent Garden Market area. This does not mean that I do not think it is tremendously important, and I am delighted that Her Majesty's Government have earmarked the funds to acquire the land for redevelopment round the Opera House. It is still a long way from getting our

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dreadful amenities improved, and I am getting so old that I do not think that shall live to see this happen. But somebody will, let us hope, before the century is out. I do not think it would be a good thing if concentration on the regions meant that this golden opportunity were to he missed. We could do so much if we had a lottery. I beg to move for Papers.
3.14 p.m.
BARONESS LEE or ASHERIDGE: My Lords, when the noble Earl addresses this House on the subject of the Arts we all know that he speaks with a lifetime's knowledge and a lifetime's profound caring and therefore everything that he says is worth extremely careful consideration. I was delighted to find that I agreed with practically everything he said. It is most important that he should have reminded us early on that the Paris opera receives £5 million a year. We get better value from our opera companies than any other country in the world. I know, because when I was—I will not say "attacking" the Treasury, but when I was broaching the Treasury in the early pioneer days on this matter, I was careful to have comparative studies made of the cost; but it is so hard for many of our people to accept that opera and ballet must be highly subsidised. It is nonsense to think that we can have the standards which we insist on having unless a civilised Government are prepared adequately to subsidise. Far from Covent Garden or Sadler's Wells having too much money, if you went behind the scenes in the Opera House I. think your Lordships would be shocked. No well-run factory would put up with sonic of the conditions. So let us get that point settled straight away: we are not spending too much on our great national companies.
The noble Earl also touched on this point and I should like to complete what he said. If we go back to 1965–66, when we started the pioneer experiment of having a Minister responsible for the Arts, the four national institutions, the Royal Opera House, Sadler's Wells, the Coliseum, the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company received 46·8 per cent. of the Arts grant. By 1969–70 their proportional share was reduced to 32·5 per cent. I have been informed that next year, 1973–74, their proportional
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share will be less than a quarter; it will be 22·8 per cent.
You may wonder, my Lords, why there is so much criticism and so much discontent in the regions. I try to keep to the word "regions", but we all go hack to using the words "Provinces" and "provincials", which I know they do not like. The reason why there is so much discontent in the regions is a great success story. In 1965 there were only three Arts associations and only one of them, the North-East, had any real content. I can remember the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, putting on his priestly robes and travelling over every inch of this country as a dedicated missionary to try to wake up areas in which practically nothing of a high standard was happening. So we could not give money at that time to Arts associations that did not exist.
The success story is that the entire country is now covered by Arts associations. They are getting more money each year but they are not getting any-think like as much as they need. If I may now go to what I think is the "guts" of the situation, it is not that the Arts Council have not had their allocation of money increased year by year—we are grateful for that—and it is not that a higher proportion is not now being given outside the four great London institutions. What is wrong is that there is an absolute famine of decent concert halls in this country. This is what we ought to concentrate on. It is part of our history, because in earlier times it was always said, "Where there's muck there's money", and the money was made in the mucky parts—in the Black Country, in the coalfields, in the steel works and in the factory towns. But the great landowners, coal owners, steel owners and a great many more liked to spend their money in London and the Home Counties and therefore for historical reasons we have practically no decent concert hall outside London. That is why I consider that the most important departure during the period of the last Government was establishing the Housing the Arts Fund. I must make this clear: some people think that the Arts Council can allocate whatever proportion they choose of the total sum, whether it be £10 million, £14 million or £17 million, to the Housing of the

739
Arts Fund. I think that there would be much less misunderstanding over the whole field if it were more generally realised that this Housing of the Arts Fund is kept by the Treasury under very strict control. The Arts Council have no power to decide the amount they can allocate: the Treasury decide it. Why the Treasury decide it is because it is felt that every time a new project is brought into existence, that is another mouth to feed. So they keep it under tight control.
We were able to start in 1965–66 with a quarter of a million pounds. That quarter of a million pounds had to be used in order to encourage projects over the entire country—sometimes helping new theatres, sometimes concert halls; there were adjustments and variations. But imagine!, a quarter of a million pounds over the whole country. However, we started. The following year, instead of a quarter of a million pounds we were able to commit half a million pounds. That was in 1966–67. There has been a great deal to be thankful for in the sense of the continuity between the last Parliament and the present one in the stepping up gradually of the money available for the Arts. There is now a great network of Arts associations in touch with one another. The great orchestras have associations, the repertory theatres have associations. All that is going forward splendidly. But the Achilles heel, as I see it, is the Housing the Arts Fund, which was kept at half a million pounds for six long, discouraging years. For this reason, there is an almost frantic atmosphere in some parts of the country, a feeling that they were not fairly treated. We must think in terms of the fact that this Fund did not even stand still; because, as the noble Earl has said, there have been rising prices every year and galloping inflation recently. Therefore in fact there was less available to be spread over a hundred and one projects.
What was so important about this Housing the Arts Fund was that it was our first real breakthrough to the local councils; because the local councils were afraid to spend money on the Arts. Along with the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, I did my missionary work. No one can
740
say that we did not attend to the regions. We went everywhere. I was received by the civic heads, be they Lord Mayors or chairmen of urban councils, with the utmost courtesy and splendid hospitality. All that I could not get out of them was cash. And this was true whether they were Labour-controlled or Conservativecontrolled—because they thought it was bad business politically and were afraid to touch it. I used to say that my ambition was to make it politically more dangerous to refuse help to the Arts than to give help to the Arts.
My Lords, we have not got there yet, but we are on our way. We have roused the rest of the country and they are determined that they are not going to be second-rate citizens; that they are going to have the best and not the second best. Of course we are proud of the Scottish Opera Company and the Welsh Opera Company and proud of a great deal that is taking place all over; but we have still not solved this problem of buildings. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Fiske, is not here to-day. I remember that in 1964, when he was chairman of the London County Council, I went to see him and, to his dismay, suggested that instead of going ahead with plans for a second opera house on the South Bank, that scheme should be modified; that we should go ahead with a national theatre but that the first great purpose-built opera house ought to be outside London. He did not like that proposal. I think I broke the heart of Mr. Denis Lasdun, the architect; but Lord Fiske accepted that it was fair and so we went ahead with the National Theatre.
At that time I was in close co-operation with the late Sir Maurice Pariser of Manchester, who had persuaded me that Manchester was just about ready to provide its share, roughly on a fifty-fifty basis, in order to have a great opera house in Manchester. If that wonderful man had lived, would he have been able to get there? I do not know; but we must accept the fact that it has been tough dealing with our councils. The Paymaster General will correct me if I am wrong, but I think it is true that we have still not had a firm offer from Manchester. I should like to get that point cleared.
LORD RHODES: My Lords, perhaps in the course of my remarks I may say

741
what is the position with regard to Manchester, Liverpool, Lancashire and Cheshire. I will reply to that.
BARONESS LEE OF ASHERIDGE: My Lords, I know that the noble Lord is doing a wonderful job; but it is the fact that we were waiting year after year. Let me take the case of my own Edinburgh. I played bat and ball with the Lord Provosts for six successive years, trying to get a commitment. One said. "What about the Government?". I answered: "First, you must be able to persuade us that you will carry half the capital cost." It is a long journey. At the end of the last Parliament and at the changeover we had reached a point where at last Edinburgh was also willing to pay its share and the Government were willing to pay their share. I think it was in June, 1971, that the statement was made that the Government were willing to pay (I think, at that time) £2½ million. I should like to ask the Paymaster General why it is, since the money was made available all that time ago, that we still, as I understand it. have hardly a single stone laid. We do not seem to have got off the ground. That is another thing which is making us impatient.
The idea in 1965–66 was that the number of great opera houses and concert halls must be limited because they are immensely expensive. But I did not think it was too ambitious to think in terms of an opera house in Edinburgh, another in Manchester or somewhere in the Midlands and another in Wales, perhaps at Cardiff. No Government can make up for the shortcomings of the past. For historical reasons there was an absolute dearth of buildings and on this, the most sensitive area, I am deeply disappointed that more money has not been made available for housing the Arts. I know that next year, beginning on April I, we can have three-quarters of a million pounds. I think that is the sum, but I may as well be exact. A Question was asked in the House of Commons the other day, on March 13, about the position in regard to the Housing the Arts Fund. The answer that was given is that when it was introduced the Council were authorised to enter into a commitment for a quarter of a million pounds. In the following and each subsequent year the sum was to be raised to half a million pounds.
742
Then the Arts Council were informed that the sum for 1973–74 would be increased by 50 per cent. to three-quarters of a million pounds. In addition there has been a special allocation of £670,000, to be spent by the end of 1973 for projects in the assisted areas.
We do not look a gift horse in the mouth and we are glad of any additional sums but I want to put it to your Lordships that since this sum was not even standing still for six years, since it was diminished because of inflation, we are only playing with the problem by thinking in terms of upgrading it next year to the still relatively trifling sum of three-quarters of a million pounds. It is about time that we got our priorities right. It seems to me that with some of our Treasury officials, when they are asked to do something for Defence services, for Rolls-Royce or for Concorde, their vision becomes blurred, and the larger the sum that is to be paid from the public purse the more blurred the vision seems to be. You can get away with murder! But when you ask for a modest extra £10 million, £20 million, £30 million or £40 million (because we ought to be thinking of a sum of around £50 million at the very least) for the Arts, what happens to you? You have the Public Accounts Committee put on your tail and are given the kind of examination which the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, and Sir Hugh Willett had to undergo, at the end of which it was found that they had a perfect record. The money had been spent perfectly. But part of the trouble was that they were always trying to promise more than they had. Therefore, my Lords, although I have to miss out a great many other issues because we have a distinguished list of speakers who will be talking about films, repertory theatres, and all manner of subjects which I am not going to cover myself, I believe that the Housing the Arts Fund is the very guts of it, and if I can get a promise from the Minister to-day that he will look at this matter seriously I shall be very grateful.
I should also like him to tell me a bit more about the Special Fund that we have, this extra £675,000 for projects in the assisted areas, to be spent by the end of 1973. So far as I can gather, when the Government turned an economic somersault and from being deflationary became inflationary, there was a perfectly

743
proper desire to spend more money in the under-privileged areas in order to promote employment and improve the environment. We have the Home Secretary, the Minister for the Environment and the Minister for the Arts getting together, and the Arts Council are told, "This money will be available if you spend it before the end of 1973, so get on with it". I am not sure that that is the best way to go about the job. I am not such a great admirer of the French system: a great deal of central control. Of course, when Andre Malraux was their Minister for the Arts there was a magnificent Press in this country for their Arts centres, the great Maisons des Cultures, but it would be well worth while to find out what happened to most of those great French Art centres. Where they had genuine local roots and were responding to what people wanted they flourished, but where they were imposed on a locality from a centre they have withered away; whereas we can claim that our efforts—quite big in scale in some places and modest in scale in others—because they were properly rooted and in response to what people wanted, instead of withering away are going from strength to strength. But the great cri de cœur is that they require more money.
I do not like the idea of the political Minister telling the Arts Council where it is going to put its varied projects. By all means let us clear away the derelict areas, beautify the old industrial areas, have more employment, and the rest, but what are we trying to do? Are we trying to have a scheme to reduce unemployment or genuinely to meet the needs? I know that the Minister will tell us about the various schemes that have been promoted from this Fund. As I say, we do not say "No" to the money, wherever it comes from, but I still feel that it would be much tidier and more effective if, with whatever sum is made available for housing the Arts, it is left to the joint consideration of the Arts Council and the Arts associations, because they now work conjointly and they would be able to advise how best the money could be spent.
There is another figure I should like to have from the Minister if he can get it in time; if not, I hope that I shall be able to get it later. He will probably know it. At I said, this Housing the Arts Fund
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was so useful because it was the breakthrough to the local councils and to private donors, charities and the rest. I was immensely encouraged when, after we had committed £2¼ million from this Fund, I found that we had 124 projects of various kinds going which had attracted £10½ million. The breakthrough was that the money was coming from local councils, from private sources and the rest. I have inquired what the present state of play is, and if I have not got it quite accurately I shall be glad to be corrected. I believe that at the present moment about £5 million has been committed from the Housing the Arts Fund and that that Fund's £5 million is helping to support 169 projects. I believe that is the figure. At any rate it is 53 more, so if you add 53 to 124 you have the figure. That is fine so far as it goes, but since there is a genuine desire that all parts of the country should be considered properly, my plea to your Lordships this afternoon is not to be modest in this field. It is not that the great central institutions are getting more than their share. They are getting each year proportionately less of the total, but the total is dismally inadequate.
Then I come to the Royal Opera House report for 1971–72. That caused some of the difficulties for the noble Earl because what he said in fact was, "If you want an Opera House, go and build it and train your own companies." It is rather unkind of me to put it like that and I should much rather put it in the words of the report, which says:
"There is no other theatre in existence outside London which compares in size"—
with the Royal Opera House.
"This means that the majority of our productions cannot be seen effectively, and we believe that the degree of compromise in presenting them is such that we should not attempt to show them out of London until such time as theatres are built which will enable us to perform them in the way it was intended."
You may imagine how you feel when you are told that you cannot expect a visit from the greatest of our opera and ballet companies until you build your own opera house or concert hall.
THE EARL OF DROGHEDA: My Lords, may I just say to the noble Baroness that it was very sloppy drafting. I can say no more.
BARONESS LEE OF ASHERIDGE: My Lords, I know that the noble Earl is caught in an impossible position. I know that he wants to keep perfectionist standards; and he knows the difficulties in some of those old buildings. He says that there is to be no touring this year or next. But at the end of the day two things must happen: we must get ahead with modernising and with building, because there is the basic lack. I believe that the mood of the country now is such that they are just not going to put up with it if they think they are being "palmed off" with something that is second or third-best.
I leave the housing of the Arts. But what about housing the artists? In this field we have an absolutely disgraceful record. We have done nothing about it, and we are doing nothing about it in a situation where the days are over when a painter or sculptor was able to have an attic in which to carry on his work. At one time there was available the whole of Chelsea and the West End; then they went to Battersea and then they were pushed away from Battersea. My friend Bridget Riley and Mr. Henry Moore came to me at one time making a heroic effort to obtain warehouses in St. Katherine's Docks. How they worked in order to try to get a working place for a number of painters and sculptors! This position affects the theatres as well as other things. It is just not good enough. I hope that the Paymaster General will keep a weather eye on any new building. For instance, there is a great deal of talk these days about the development of the whole of dockland, to make there a new and lively environment, a place for people. If it is to be a place for people as well as business it will not be the kind of place people ought to have unless we make some provision for the artists.
I would say to the Paymaster General that we are all grateful for small mercies, but even allowing for the increases that there have been, the very valuable improvements in the grant to the Arts year by year, they do not operate in this field of land values and property values. That is where we are beaten. Therefore, that is the aspect that we should try our hardest to put right. As I said, I accept a good deal of what the noble Earl said about using television films, the cinema
746
and all the rest. Of course, if people cannot have halls for live performances, let us help them in every way possible. But television, radio, film is no substitute for the real thing. I find that ballet is hopeless on television. Opera is better, because you get the essential music. But do not let us anger people a second time by saying, "We are not going to help you to get the halls where you can have the real thing, but we will give you the second best". That is how they will look at the situation. If they have films on the television and the cinema as well, they will be stimulated. Every time you produce things on television you are bringing in a larger audience.
Finally, again I agree with the noble Earl that the Arts are not an élitist minority privilege. The capacity to respond to great music, great art in every form, is to be found in people living in the least salubrious parts of the country as well as the others parts. I have never lent myself to this theory, because I grew up in a home where my father had a great passion for opera, a much greater passion than I had, he having a better musical sense and a better ear. I was used to the old touring companies. I was used to the old music halls with all the fun. We have done a good job on the repertory theatre front. But again, it is not just a case of providing space for the artists to work in or to live in: a great many of the salaries paid to artists are pretty disgraceful. Do not let us forget that if you have been a dedicated musician, the time eventually comes when you retire. For such people there is no pension scheme; even our great orchestras have no pension scheme. Our repertory companies have no pension scheme either. We have got a small toe in the door in that we have been told that next year about 200 dancers of the main companies are to have a pension scheme, they themselves contributing 5 per cent. of their inadequate salaries.
I know that the Paymaster General does not have an easy job. I know that it is important, in your Lordships' House and everywhere else, that we should not indulge in artificial hostilities and tensions between London and the regions; we are natural allies. If we can only get more suitable buildings and more money, there is no reason why we should not all

747
have the pride and satisfaction of holding high the reputation of our capital city, holding its head higher than ever in the past in the field of the Arts, and at the same time get rid of a view very widely held at the present moment, that if you are not living in or near London you are condemned to a kind of second-class citizenship over all this wonderful field.

ANNUAL REVIEW OF AGRICULTURE
3.44 p.m.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I should like to repeat a Statement being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Minister of Agriculture on the Annual Review of Agriculture. The Statement is as follows:
"The Review shows that the general condition of the industry is good. Aggregate income, productivity, and investment have all risen. For some commodities market prices rather than the guarantees have become the main determinant of farmers' returns and the cost of direct support has fallen. On the other hand, the industry is faced with an exceptionally severe rise in costs.
"The Review has taken place in the new context of our membership of the European Economic Community and we have extended the scope of our discussions with the Farmers' Unions accordingly. We have confirmed with the Commission that the determinations made in the light of the Review conform with Article 54 of the Act of Accession.
"The determinations have also had to pay full regard to the Government's counter-inflation policies. In making our decisions, we have concentrated on the implications for consumer prices. In this connection, the continuing paramount need is to maintain expansion of home output of food. In general this is the most effective way to offset high prices brought about by world shortages. The determinations are fully consistent with our counter-inflation policies. The industry is being asked to
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set higher productivity against very much increased costs.
"There will be no immediate effect on consumer prices. As the cost increases this year show, farmers are very much involved in the fight against inflation. Their leaders recognise this. We are looking to the industry to make a positive contribution by absorbing a substantial part of their costs while continuing the expansion that is now under way.
"The main features of the determinations are as follows:
Guaranteed prices will be increased

—for wheat by £2·30 to £36·70 per ton;

—for barley by £2·00 to £33·20 per ton;

—for oats by £1·80 to £32·00 per ton;

—for potatoes by 45p to £17·00 per ton;

—for sugar beet by 26p per ton; the basis for the guarantee is being changed and the increase results in a guaranteed price of £6·97 per ton, roughly equivalent to £8·26 on the old basis;

—for fat sheep by 2·2p to 26·5p per lb.;

—for fat pigs by 3p which, after allowing for feed adjustments, gives a new basic guaranteed price of £3·27 per score;

—for milk by 1·5p to 24·6p per gallon; the Northern Ireland standard quantity will be raised by 22 million gallons to 142 million gallons; and

—for wool by 2p to 25p per lb.

"The guaranteed price of eggs is left unchanged. The calf subsidy will be reduced to £8·50 a head for steers and £6·50 a head for heifers. The basic 30 per cent. rate of grant under the Farm Capital Grant Scheme will be reduced to 20 per cent., but the higher rates of grant for certain special purposes—including drainage and benefits to hill land—will remain unchanged.
"A White Paper giving the basic data bearing on the Review is being

749
published to-day. This does not include, as previously, the schedule of the determinations which I have just announced. That will be circulated, together with a detailed note of changes in the guarantee arrangements, in the OFFICIAL REPORT, and copies

DETERMINATIONS FOR 1973–74

Guarantee levels for 1972–73

Guarantee levels for 1973–74

Commodity or production grant

As determined in March 1972 after the Annual Review 1972

Change from col.(2)

As determined after the Annual Review 1973

(1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

Guaranteed prices

Wheat (per ton)

£34·40

+£2·30

£36·70

Barley (per ton)

£31·20

+£2·00

£33·20

Oats (per ton)

£30·20

+£1·80

£32·00

Potatoes (per ton)

£16·55

+45p

£17·00

Sugar beet (per ton)

£8·00

+26p

£6·97

equivalent to £6·71 on the new basis

Fat sheep and lambs (per lb. estimated dressed carcase weight).

24·3p

+2·2p

26·5p

Fat pigs (per score deadweight)

£2·81

+3p

£3·27

related to a feed price of £1·96 per cwt.

related to a feed price of £2·53 per cwt.

On the basis of the current feed price this is equivalent to £3·24

Milk (per gallon)

23·1p

+1·5p

24·6p

Eggs—hen (per dozen)

160p

no change

16·0p

Eggs—duck (per dozen)

15·5p

no change

15·5p

Wool (per lb.)

23·0p

+2p

25·0p

Production grant

Calf subsidy—

per eligible steer

£11·25

-£2·75

£8·50

per eligible heifer

£900

-£2·50

£6·50

The basic rate of grant under the Farm Capital Grant Scheme is being reduced from 30 per cent to 20 per cent. The change will apply to all new applications as from the day after the announcement

NOTE OF CHANGES
CEREALS
1. The cereal year will be brought into line with that used under the common agricultural policy, i.e. a year beginning on August 1 instead of July 1 as at present. To effect this change, the 1973–74 cereal year will run from July 1, 1973, to July 31, 1974—a "13-month" year.
2. Guaranteed prices will in future be determined in£per ton instead of £ per cwt.
3. Target indicator price arrangements for wheat and barley will be abolished with effect from July 1, 1973.
4. As announced on March 7, 1973, the rye guarantee is to be terminated with effect from July 1, 1973.
SUGAR BEET
5. For the 1973 crop, if production from the guaranteed acreage (443,000 acres) exceeds the
of the schedule will also be available in the Library of the House of Commons and in the Printed Paper Office in the House of Lords."
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
Following are the schedule of the determinations and note of changes referred to above:
quantity fo beet needed to produce 900,000 metric tons of white sugar for which the British Sugar Corporation is obliged to pay the minimum beet price under Community arrangements, the Government will make up to the guaranteed level the average return for any additional beet from that acreage.
6. Producers have hitherto received a guaranteed price for beet delivered to the factory and have had no rights to the resulting pulp. Under Community arrangements they will receive a minimum price for beet delivered to "collecting centres" (normally at or near the farm gate); the ownership of the pulp remains with the grower, but it may be offered to the processor for puchase separately. The National Farmers' Union and the British Sugar Corporation have agreed on values for delivery to the factory and for the pulp rights. The 1972–73 guaranteed price of £8·00 per ton on the old basis is taken to be equivalent to £6·71 on the new basis. The guaranteed price for 1973·74 is expressed accordingly on the new basis.
7. The guarantee for sugar beet will be terminated with effect from July 1, 1974.
FAT CATTLE
8. As announced on March 7, 1973, the guarantee for fat cattle is to be terminated with effect from March 26, 1973.
FAT SHEEP
9. The estimated price for the year as a whole will be 27·0p per lb estimated dressed carcase weight. With effect from March 26, 1973, new scales of weekly standard prices and weekly estimated prices will be introdued and these scales will be adjusted to take account of the expected market situation for the year. The estimated price arrangements will be adjusted so that if the average market price realised should fall short of the estimated price in any week by more than 2½p per lb estimated dressed carcase weight, the guarantee payment would then be subject to a corresponding reduction, up to a maximum reduction of 1½p per lb estimated dressed carcase weight.
FAT PIGS
10. As announced on January 24, 1973, the flexible guarantee is to be discontinued with effect from March 26, 1973.
11. The use of a feed formula in establishing the standard price will in future be discretionary, so that the arrangement may be terminated at a suitable time. The new guaranteed price is related to a feed price of £2·53 per cwt., which is deemed to be equivalent to 1,000 points on an index representing the price of a feed ration. For every movement of 5·3 points from 1,000 points (equivalent to about 1·33p per cwt), the guaranteed price will be adjusted by 1 p per score.
MILK
12. The standard quantity for Northern Ireland will be increased by 22 million gallons to 142 million gallons.
EGGS
13. The estimated producer prices for 1973–74 will be 15·0p per dozen for hen eggs and 15·5p per dozen for duck eggs.
14. Guarantee payments will in future be made on eggs graded to the Class A standard under Community arrangements instead of the first quality standard under previous arrangements.
CALF SUBSIDY
15. The rates for Calf Subsidy Stage A will be reduced to £8·50 a head for steers and £6·50 a head for heifers for calves born on or after April 16, 1973. Payments at these reduced rates will not start being made until the autumn when calves born after April 15 will first become eligible for subsidy.
16. The rates of subsidy at Stage B will not be affected by these changes during the life of the present scheme.
FARM CAPITAL GRANT SCHEME
17. The standard rate of grant will be reduced from 30 per cent. of approved capital expenditure to 20 per cent. This new rate of grant
752
will apply to all applications for approval received after March 21, 1973.
18. There is no change in the special higher rates of grant for drainage, for certain works and facilities of benefit to hill land or hill farms, for re-modelling work consequent upon a farm amalgamation or boundary adjustment, or for certain orchard grubbing work.
GENERAL
19. Many of the above changes are subject to Parliamentary approval.
3.49 p.m.
LORD HOY: My Lords, may I express our thanks to the noble Earl for repeating the Statement that is being made in another place. I think he will agree that it is very difficult to make any real comparison of this with any other Price Review, because, as the noble Earl himself said, this Statement does not include the schedule of the determinations, and until one has that schedule in front of one quite obviously it is a little difficult to make comparisons between this and other Reviews.
May I clear up just one point? I think there is going to be some concern about the cut in the subsidy for capital grants, and indeed, so as to prevent any misunderstanding, when the Statement says that the higher rates of grant for certain purposes will remain, "higher" in fact means the present rate, does it not?
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord, Lord Hoy, for clarification? There are some rates which are higher than the 30 per cent. rates. Those higher rates will continue at their high rate.
LORD HOY: My Lords, I do not think the noble Earl is quite correct in saying that the present rates will remain the same but the other rates will be cut by 10 per cent. I am sure that your Lordships would like to know what in fact this 10 per cent. represents in cash. The noble Earl also said that these changes will of course have no immediate effect on consumer prices, and I should like him to define exactly what he means by "immediate". Does he mean that a little later on prices will go up, because this obviously does not cover the Statement made to-day that the price of flour, rolls, corn, et cetera will all go up 10 per cent.

753
May I ask one further question which affects the consumer? The noble Earl anounced an increase in the guaranteed price of milk by 1½p, and this, as I understand it, represents a guarantee of some £28 to £30 million. Perhaps he will confirm whether or not that is correct. Secondly, if it is not the intention of the Government to permit the price of liquid milk to go up and so recover this sum, I would ask the noble Earl how it is to be met. As I understand it, there is at present a £20 million deficit on the milk fund and that the Government propose to get rid of it by producing some statement or some Order to recoup the milk fund by a direct grant of £20 million. If the price of liquid milk is not to go up, does it mean that the £30 million will be recovered by increases in butter and cheese prices, so that the liquid milk, while remaining the same price, will in fact have to be subsidised by increases in the prices of butter and cheese? I am certain that noble Lords would be grateful if the Minister could reply to these points.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hoy, for what he has said with regard to this Review. I agree with him that it is particularly difficult to make comparisons with previous years, because now that we are members of the Community we have the transitional period to take into account and also the effect of Community levels as well as our own deficiency payment system. It is therefore difficult to make direct comparisons. The noble Lord asked what the situation was with regard to the farm capital grant scheme. I am sorry if I misunderstood him at the time. He is quite right in saying that the higher rate of grant will continue. It will be the 30 per cent. grant which will be dropped to 20 per cent., and the cost of this is likely to be in the region of £15 million a year.
The noble Lord also referred to the part of the Statement which said that there would be no immediate increase in food prices. My Lords, this is perfectly true. The whole object of this guarantee is to increase and keep the increase in production of the farms going, because if there is one way to keep down the price of food it is by increasing its supply. It is not anticipated that this will have any immediate effect on the price of food in the shops. The noble Lord referred to
754
the increase of 1·5p per gallon in price of milk and he also referred to the situation with regard to the milk fund. The Government's policy in general is that taking one year with another the guarantee is financed from the retail price of milk, and the general policy allows a good deal of flexibility. My right honourable friend has announced to-day, in reply to a Question in another place, that this year, in order to help the consumer and to assist the counter-inflation policy, it has been decided not to recover from the consumer the deficit in the milk fund at the end of March, 1973, and no increase in the retail price is contemplated during the next few months. I am grateful for the remarks which the noble Lord, Lord Hoy, made and I hope that when he comes to study the Review he will find it agreeable.
LORD BUTLER OF SAFFRON WALDEN: My Lords, is the noble Earl aware that this settlement is regarded as a very generous one? I should like to ask only one question and that is about the reduction in the calf subsidy. Could he make a further statement on that and give the reasons for it?
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, my noble friend will remember that the price of meat has risen a very great deal, and at the time the Gulliver Report came out it was considered that farmers have had benefits from the increase in the retail price of beef as it was affected by world markets. It has been considered prudent that the beef guarantee should be removed, as we discussed yesterday, and that the calf subsidy should be reduced to the present amount in order to take into account these increases which have taken place in the meat sector.
THE EARL OF DUNDONALD: My Lords, may I follow my noble friend's question concerning calf subsidies and ask the Minister two brief questions? First, I understand that, as applicable to Scotland, the drainage grant will remain unchanged. Will there be any changes in other general grants such as grants to improve fencing? My second question is whether there will be any alterations in the existing hill-cow subsidy applicable to Scotland.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, in regard to the last question the answer is

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that the subsidies will remain the same. With regard to my noble friend's first question about drainage grants, the rate of drainage grant will remain the same, and the fencing grants will also remain the same provided they were at the higher rate, If they were at the rate of 30 per cent. they will be reduced.
LORD HOY: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl for replying to the first part of my question on milk: that is, that the £20 million deficit will be paid by the Government. But he did not reply to the part regarding the new increase, which I estimate will cost some £28 to £30 million. Are the Government in fact going to accept responsibility for this £28 to £30 million or are they going to permit the milk industry to increase the price of butter and cheese to recoup the £30 million award which has been given under this Review?
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, as I am sure the noble Lord knows, the milk fund is operated by ensuring that the price for liquid milk is recouped either from the Government or from the retail sources. It has been decided that there will be no increase over the next few months in the price of milk. Of course, I cannot tell the noble Lord what will happen in the months and years ahead, but I can say that for the immediate future there will be no increase, nor is it anticipated that this cost will come from manufacturers.
LORD HOY: My Lords, it is difficult to understand the Statement, and I think we are entitled to understand it. If in fact the consumer is not going to pay either in the price of liquid milk or in increases in the prices for cheese and butter, then quite obviously somebody at the end of the day has to find the £30 million. All I want to know from the noble Earl is simply whether the Milk Board is going to be allowed to increase the prices of butter and cheese to recoup this £30 million, or will the Government do so? Is the noble Earl saying that if the Milk Board is not going to he allowed to do so the Government will recoup this £30 million in the same way as it has recouped the £20 million for the past year?
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, with respect, I think that the noble Lord. Lord
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Hoy, should await the outcome. I have explained to him that the Government have decided not to recoup the deficit in the milk fund for the past year. I have also told him that it is not anticipated that the price of milk will be increased during the next few months. I cannot go further than that.
LORD WOOLLEY: My Lords, is the noble Earl aware that the reception of this Review will not perhaps be quite so glowing as the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Saffron Walden, has indicated, and that it will probably have a mixed reception? Of course it is recognised that the Government have many difficulties, and that this is a very different set of circumstances from what has obtained hitherto. But is the noble Earl aware that, in particular, there will be concern about the reduction in the calf subsidy; that that would appear to be somewhat illogical at a time when farmers are being encouraged to increase beef production to meet the shortage; and that the effect of this reduction will fall particularly upon dairy farmers who are producing the majority of the calves which will be affected? Is the noble Earl also aware that the increase of 1·5p in the milk price is about half of the increased costs per gallon of milk production, and that that can be calculated to mean a reduction to the dairy farmer of about £10 per cow per year, which is quite a heavy reduction in his income? I think that this Review will be viewed with considerable concern, and not in the glowing terms which the noble Lord, Lord Butler, adopted.
May I also ask whether the noble Earl is aware that the reduction in the capital grants would seem to be somewhat illogical at a time when we are being advised and exhorted to equip ourselves to increase our efficiency, in order to be more competitive? But, in the same context, may I also say that I am sure there will be very great pleasure about some of the grants. In particular, I should like to mention the land drainage grant which has not been reduced, because this is generally regarded in the industry as being the most valuable of all the capital grants by which the Government assist agriculture, and there is a strong desire that that grant, at any rate, should not be tampered with. We are glad that it has not been tampered

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with now, and that it will not be tampered with in the future. But, overall, I think that this Review will be received with some bafflement. It will be appreciated that the Government have tried to act fairly in the matter, but it will have a mixed reception—and, I think, a pretty chilly reception from most milk producers.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, did not give quite the reception that I hoped he might give to this Review. He said that he was sorry that the calf subsidy has been cut, and that the price of milk has not gone up more than it has. I can understand his being sorry when any subsidy is cut, and of course it is disagreeable, but there has been a level of direct support through production grants which has helped the beef industry, and there have also been fairly high prices. So the Government felt that those factors, and the level of support which has been received from the Community system, made it reasonable to reduce the calf subsidy at this juncture. The noble Lord also said that he was sorry that the capital grants have been reduced from 30 per cent. to 20 per cent. There is always a very difficult balance in making any of these determinations, but it has been considered that if the return from farming operations is sufficient then, on the whole, farmers ought to be able to decide in what manner they should make their investments. The building investment, to which the noble Lord referred, was estimated in 1972 to be £167 million, which was an increase in buildings of somewhere in the region of 19 per cent. That is a fairly substantial increase which shows that the farming industry has taken advantage of the grants which have been obtainable, and is continuing to make the capital investment which is necessary for the future.
LORD WOOLLEY: My Lords, can the noble Earl confirm that the productivity performance of the industry continues to be a very good one, and a great deal better than the national average?
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, I think that I should have to have notice of that question, particularly in relation to the national average.
THE EARL OF ONSLOW: My Lords, would my noble friend like to comment on calf prices, say, three years ago and now? If my recollection is right, they have gone up very substantially. I am sure that this must justify the abolition of the calf subsidy.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, I would agree with my noble friend's first observation, that prices have gone up substantially. But I do not think I would agree with the second part of his question, that that would justify the abolition of the calf subsidy. If the Government thought that, the calf subsidy would have been abolished as opposed to being reduced.
VISCOUNT DAVIDSON: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that every Annual Price Review produces a mixed reception and that, possibly, the sooner these Annual Reviews are out of the way the better for the industry?
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, I quite agree with my noble friend that all Reviews produce a mixed reaction, and this one appears to be no different from the norm. But I would not agree with him that Annual Reviews ought to be a thing of the past. I am bound to repeat what I said to my noble friend Lord Onslow, that had we thought that Reviews ought to be a thing of the past, the Government would not have deliberately carried on with them. We think it is a good thing that the agricultural industry should have an Annual Review.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, would the noble Earl agree that the proposals which Signor Spinelli has now put forward to the Brussels Commission suggests that we should do better to return to the support price system, rather than have the intervention price system, thereby ensuring that we keep these Reviews?
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, certainly the support price system has a certain amount to be said for it, and that is why we are endeavouring to make our views on the value of the support price system known in the Common Market countries.

THE PERFORMING ARTS
4.8 p.m.
Debate resumed.
LORD ANNAN: My Lords, if we are quite ready to move back to the problem

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of how to provide spiritual food as opposed to material food, may I thank the noble Earl very much indeed for initiating this debate and say how much we appreciated the great survey of the problem by the noble Baroness, Lady Lee of Asheridge, and how we are, of course, awaiting with tremendous interest the speech of the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles. Sandwiched between an ex-Minister and the present Minister, I feel rather like a small eel—in fact, a smoked eel—and I am not at all sure how to begin, because I really have only one point that I want to make to the noble Viscount. I am not intending any synoptic description of how I see the performing Arts to-day. I just want to state a problem which has arisen in all our cities which I think will become more acute.
There has been a revolution in the country's attitude to the redevelopment of our cities. To begin with, the cause of the preservationists has gained enormous ground—and very rightly—during recent years. It is not merely historic buildings that we are being asked to preserve. We are being asked to preserve curious buildings, buildings of some intrinsic interest though they may have very little æsthetic value. We are being asked, indeed, to maintain the character of a neighbourhood. Parallel with this, there is also another movement, a movement against comprehensive development in our cities. Nowadays, people say they want a mixture of housing, of pubs, of shops with public buildings, with office buildings and other kinds of large buildings.
It is this dislike of comprehensive development which I think will affect some of the rehousing of the Arts. If that mood had prevailed in the 'fifties, when the scheme for the South Bank was being mooted, should we have seen that remarkable development which comprises the Festival Hall, the Queen Elizabeth Concert Hall, the National Film Centre, the Hayward Gallery and, now arising, the National Theatre? Should we ever have seen a development of that kind? I doubt if we should. Some people might well say, seeing that great sea of concrete, that this would have been a good thing visually. But from the point of view of the Arts, of course, it is a development of immeasurable advantage.
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It is precisely because of these changes of attitude that I think the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden is going to come up against a very difficult problem. We have seen that the scheme for the comprehensive, large-scale redevelopment of Covent Garden has been turned down—again, in my view, very rightly. I am speaking purely personally, but I very much hope that we shall preserve the character of the Covent Garden market area—and that we shall be able to preserve not merely the historic buildings there but many of the dwellings in which people live. But, of course, this creates great problems for the Royal Opera House, because for many years now we have had a redevelopment scheme the designs for which were approved by all concerned. These schemes began, as the noble Baroness, Lady Lee, suggested, primarily in an attempt to do something to improve the conditions for the artists who perform behind the stage and for all who work with them. Those conditions are as deplorable as, indeed even more deplorable than, those of the workers for whom the noble Baroness, Lady Lee, did so much when she was considering the question of a new library for the British Museum. That is one part of the redevelopment: we want to help our artists and our workers behind the scenes.
Then there is another part of it; namely, that something should be done to improve the amenities for those who pay to go to see the performances in front of the house. We also have a project—and, again, I think it is one which anybody concerned with the rationalisation of the Arts would think wise—for bringing the Royal Ballet School (and not merely the ballet school but all the practice rooms in which the artists of the Royal Ballet rehearse every day) into the Opera House, so that we can have a whole unified complex of opera and ballet. With this, of course, go plans for improving the stage and having a small auditorium. These plans have met with general approval. The Government have given £6 million to acquire land, and a blessing in general terms to go ahead. But since then the problem of the preservation of the Market area has arisen. On this question of preservation, I am sure that the directors of the Royal Opera House will be very happy indeed to acquiesce,

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even though it means a total revision of their plans.
It is at this point that I am asking the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, if he would have a look at this problem from the administrative angle. In such a controversial area as Covent Garden we need some super authority which will be able ultimately to give official approval to plans, not merely for the Royal Opera House but for other concerns and interests in the Market area. Could such an authority be set up? Could it be given delegated powers from the Department of the Environment or the G.L.C. to take decisions? Perhaps this is an impractical suggestion. Indeed, if I knew the administrative answer I should not be asking the question. But I hope the noble Viscount's Department will study this problem. It is not merely a problem for Covent Garden and for London. It is a problem which is going to affect every major provincial city. The noble Baroness, Lady Lee, was very rightly talking about the need to rehouse the Arts in the Provinces, and this, as is the case with our housing programme in all areas, does not mean just building new theatres or new houses; it means refurbishing old ones.
There is always a difficulty here, because these old theatres, some of which are rather grand and splendid buildings, are commercially owned. We must find some way in which we can blend the private enterprise which owns those buildings with the public enterprise which gives subsidies or benefits to the commercial companies which are running the buildings. This is going to need looking at administratively. This, it seems to me, is precisely where the Department of Education and Science can help. It does not need to interfere by telling the Arts Council and artists what to do: and I am sure it does not want to. Where the Department can help is by untying administrative knots and freeing the Arts from those shackles which, in our free country, are far worse than any vestiges of censorship which may remain. They are the shackles of administrative and governmental regulations which, to artists and those who help them, seem so often to impede every initiative that artists take. That is the matter which I hope the noble Viscount will look at, and see if he can do something to make this a less vexing
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problem for those who try to help artists in their work in the future.
4.17 p.m.
THE PAYMASTER GENERAL (VISCOUNT ECCLES): My Lords, I join with the other two speakers in thanking my noble friend Lord Drogheda for initiating this debate in such a charming way. My noble friend is, as every Member of the House knows, the most qualified of all of us to speak about the performing arts of opera and ballet; and, as those who recently went to the concert in Smith Square also know, my noble friend has at his elbow a most beautifully accomplished musician, and we are very glad that she has had such a success. Now I propose—and I hope this meets the wishes of the House—to make a few general observations and then, with leave, when I come to wind up, to answer as best I can as many of the questions that are raised in the course of the debate.
I looked at the Motion, and I saw that it referred to the performing Arts
"and matters relating thereto".
Now those words could be stretched to illustrate a very interesting development at the present time. The Arts seem to be merging into each other. The old boundaries, so skilfully defended in the past by the votaries of one or other of the Muses, are now being crossed and recrossed to form new and fascinating patterns. Works in the visual Arts, which used to be motionless and silent, are now made to move and emit light and sounds. What happens to objects—be they solid shapes, the human body, or the script of a play—now matters much more than the object itself. My Lords, we see potters turning into sculptors; weavers constructing pictures to hang on a wall; painters encrusting their canvasses with bits and pieces from the dustbin; and the hammer and tongs, with which we politicians traditionally have a go at each other—and not always only at our opponents, as the Party opposite will know—are now orchestral instruments. All this is good fun, and it is producing some very interesting new forms of art.
My Lords, if artists themselves want to change the roles and the public welcome their transvestite ambiguities, why is that happening? I think that the major

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influence must be television conditioning us to everchanging programmes, and experiences overlapping and running into the next ones. Television is accustoming the viewer to cross the frontiers between the Arts, and in his leisure time he is looking for a parallel experience outside home. This, I think it must be, which accounts for the extraordinary demand for multi-purpose art centres where, as on the screen, one can participate in a bit of everything, and the performing Arts have chances to attract new audiences.
I see these developments as a sign of life and greatly to be welcomed; so if we had the resources, we ought to be experimenting with art centres, sometimes purpose-built, sometimes an extension of an existing building—it could be the library or the museum—and doing this all over the country. I find evidence in all sorts of unexpected places of the desire that cultural experience should not be static and confined to one art at a time. For instance, very interestingly, a revolution is taking place in our museums and galleries in the way in which their collections are displayed—or would be displayed if the curators, especially in the provinces, had the resources at their command. A collection can be arranged as a series of objects each presented for its own sake. Or the objects can be related to each other, creating a synthesis between life past and present; telling some kind of human story, as well as being displayed each for its own intrinsic merit. There is no question—it is writ large in the attendance figures over the last two years—that it is the story-telling method of presentation which is attracting the new public. Surely, my Lords, it is of great social interest that the combination of one art with another and the relating of different objects to some ongoing aspect of life should now be popular, both with artists and also with the public. I think that here we have the key to the provision of cultural experience in stages which will carry those who are now outside the charmed circle of the scholar and the connoisseur little by little to a deeper appreciation of the higher forms of art.
My Lords, the Arts have always expressed and informed the life of the community. Whether to-day they are merely
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reflecting the whirlpool of change whipped up by science and technology, or whether they are themselves major instruments of the change we see all around us, is perhaps best examined in the context of what is actually happening in drama, opera, ballet, music, painting, sculpture, the cinema and the crafts. The first thing to say is that all these activities are influencing each other as never before, and in all these Arts the rate of expansion is greater than it has ever been. That is very satisfactory so far as it goes, but the demand is rising even faster. The desire to enjoy the Arts, whether as a performer or a member of the audience, feeds on the provision of facilities; and it is a natural and welcome reaction against a society which has paid too much attention to economics and to making money.
The figures illustrating the expansion in the fine Arts are to be found in the last Report of the Arts Council and I fully expect that next year's Report will show further unprecedented progress in all the Council's activities. I am not going to take up the time of the House rehearsing the story of all that is being so well done; but I should like to point to one or two features of particular interest. I was very glad that the noble Baroness, Lady Lee of Asheridge, concentrated so much on the Housing the Arts scheme, because I agree with her; I think it is underestimated, and very interesting things are going on in that sphere. The noble Baroness was right in saying that up to now the amount of money that has been committed is about £5 million. She was also right that the annual ration for commitment is now £750,000 and that in the course of last year there was this bonus of £675,000 to finance various projects in the assisted areas. The noble Baroness asked about that bonus. The reason for it was this: the Government felt that an injection of investment into the assisted areas for all kinds of purposes was justified, and naturally I thought that the Arts should have a certain amount. We were given this amount and it has enabled a number of important projects, particularly in Scotland and Wales—at Mold, Inverness, Kirkcaldy and so on—really to get going in a way that they would not have done otherwise, and I am very grateful for that.

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What that means in total is that £5 million has so far been allocated, and it has attracted £21 million from other sources; so that now we have £26 million for projects authorised to start. As I think the noble Baroness pointed out, this is a very remarkable story of "pump priming". It shows how a minority participation, in actual fact 18·9 per cent., from the Arts Council, in conjunction with local authority and private support, can lead to very large results. In view of what the noble Baroness said, I think I ought to make clear that it has always been the intention of Governments, the Government of her Party just as much as the Government of ours, that very large schemes should not be handled through the Housing the Arts scheme. I mean, for example, the National Theatre, the Barbican and Edinburgh Opera House. I might perhaps say that the Edinburgh Corporation have not yet promised their half of the money, now that it is seen that the opera house in Edinburgh is going to cost so much more, but we very much hope that successful arrangements will be completed soon. Then there is the project at Cardiff with which the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, is so much identified. I see that the noble Lord, Lord Rhodes, is in the Chamber, and no doubt he will tell us about a project at Manchester which, if it gets off the ground, will be too big for the Housing the Arts scheme.
In addition to that I think the House would be interested to know that over the last ten years 16 universities have built new theatres and there are four more university theatres being built now. These 20 theatres received not a penny from the Arts Council. It is the Gulbenkian Foundation and other great Trusts, and of course the U.G.C., which have backed these 20 theatres. But they are a very big addition to the places at which drama companies can perform. Turning now to the Arts Council's own field one can say that the repertory theatres—and there are five more now under construction—have been largely cared for, and in consequence it should be possible now to pay more attention to the concert halls which the noble Baroness rightly mentioned.
At my request, Mr. John May, Secretary of the Association of British Orchestras, drew up an admirable and ambitious plan showing the gaps through-
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out the country where halls are wanted for large and small orchestras. This plan is now being studied by the Arts Council who have been astute enough to lay hands on Sir William Glock as he left Broadcasting House and to persuade him to become the chairman of their Arts panel. I think we can expect both expert and sympathetic examination of Mr. May's plan. Both the drama and the music panels of the Arts Council report a sharply increasing number of small companies catering for small audiences and very anxious to be supported in touring around the country. Already, for example, the Arts Council make grants to 31 small drama companies—very many more than two or three years ago. This is an excellent movement for two reasons: first, it gives more authors, performers and producers a chance to see what they can do; secondly, these small groups respond to the minority interests that are growing among the public.
Turning for a moment to opera and ballet, on which we had such interesting information both from my noble friend Lord Drogheda and the noble Lord, Lord Annan, I would say that they are much more difficult to expand because of the cost per performance. For every performance of grand opera you put on, you need a larger subsidy. There is no way of covering the cost by increasing the output. The subsidy which my noble friend mentioned of £2 million to Covent Garden this year and £1¼ million to the Coliseum, £3¼ million in all, does not compare at all badly with the subsidies in most of the European cities where they have only one opera house. We are getting extremely good value for our £3 million because, as your Lordships know, Covent Garden and the Coliseum are both putting on a series of very fine productions. It is a great relief to me, at any rate, that the Coliseum is now playing to near capacity. Then there was mentioned the £6 million which we have provided to buy the land adjacent to the Royal Opera House. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Annan, that artists so much love performing at the Garden that they seem willing to put up with almost anything. But I also agree that much better facilities in their existing house—a second auditorium and a solution to the rehearsal problems for the ballet—are very badly needed.

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I would say, too, that we have to think ahead to the role which the Royal Opera and Ballet should play in Europe and on the television screens of the whole world. We cannot fully grasp the opportunities which are there without a major building programme. I was interested in what the noble Lord, Lord Annan, said about the administrative difficulties. Of course, this is always true with large planning schemes. I think I see what the noble Lord would like and I undertake to speak to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Environment and ask him what he thinks of the idea. In any case, it is probable that we should have to streamline the organisation for dealing with the Covent Garden building programme itself. My noble friend mentioned the main ballet company's reservations about touring. I was much cheered to hear his frank reference to the drafting of his own report. All I would say on that is that the negotiations are going on. I feel confident that a compromise will be arranged, and I think I must say that the dismay of people outside London that they might not see the Royal Ballet main company again was very strongly expressed. I think your Lordships would wish that that reaction should be taken account of.
Outside London, the Scottish and Welsh National Opera companies are going on very well. When they come to London to perform they will get a warm welcome. I look forward to nothing more than two-way touring between the Provinces and London. I do not believe that ten years from now that will be anything extraordinary. It is also true in opera, ballet and music that the sudden flowering of small groups, singing, dancing and making music, is one of the most significant movements of our time. The classic operas, ballets, symphonies and plays will, I suspect, go on drawing large audiences to big theatres providing that living artists are not breaking with tradition but absorbing and transforming it into new works of art.
I am a follower of T. S. Eliot: I think that in some way the past and the future are both contained in the present, and that is very true of the great traditions in the Arts. Anyway, we all know that new forms of Art are very uneven in quality
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and it is extraordinarily hard to know, when they first appear, whether they have any lasting quality. Because they are new they do not easily attract the audiences. That, for the Arts Council and for me, presents a problem of awkward implications, both of taste and finance. For example, the performance of new music requires more rehearsals than an item, say, from the classic repertoire. It must be very well performed and performed several times if the public is to understand what it is all about. If that does not happen it disappears before it has had a chance to be accepted.
Of course, poor box office returns mean large deficits, and large deficits mean large subsidies; but this would be true of almost all new and unfamiliar products unless they were skilfully introduced and at considerable cost. Manufacturers know that they have to spend much more on advertising a new product than on an established favourite. The reverse seems to be the practice in the Arts. The money available and the expertise required to promote and advertise the new works or new orchestras or new conductors are often, by all the experience of the commercial world, so inadequate as almost to guarantee failure. So I was very glad to learn that the Arts Council are planning to set up a publicity service and to give some aid to clients who, for one reason or another, cannot adequately promote themselves.
In this field of new Art it is bound to be difficult to know what to support. It is a matter of taste which has not yet had time to settle down; but I think that the taxpayer is entitled to ask that the quality of performance should be one essential test. A test that, for example, the London Sinfonietta and the Contemporary Dance Trust would pass with flying colours. The mistake which it would be easy to make is spreading the butter too thin, so that quality of performance and the money needed to publicise the product have to be cut below the level that makes sense. That said, I feel bound to add that, as at Newmarket, one cannot always back a winner. Once it is clear that a horse has only three legs, it is better to transfer one's investment on to another animal.
My Lords, I should like to say a word or two about the cinema. We owe a

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great debt to Mr. Denis Forman, the Chairman of the British Film Institute, who has carried through a considerable reorganisation with great tact and skill. It is quite clear that films made as an art form are immensely attractive to the young; that is to say, films made like a poet writes a poem or an artist paints a picture are, I think, likely to offer the most sensitive, moving and most easily understood interpretation of the joys and griefs, tensions and contradictions of our society. It seems clear that their appeal is wider than that of the other Arts. It is more immediate, and perhaps it is closer to the nerve and heart of the average television viewer. The British Film Institute has more money now to make such films, and I recommend to your Lordships Bill Douglas's "My Childhood." I cannot believe that life in a Scottish mining village could be better or more finely expressed through any other medium.
I should now like to say something about the National Film Archive. Neither the British Film Institute nor I are satisfied with its progress. At the present rate of transfer of nitrate film on to a safe acetate base it will take forty years to complete the transfer. As your Lordships will appreciate, a film in an archive is not the same as a book in a library. The master copy cannot be used for anything except making prints, which are then shown and studied: and the making of the prints is highly expensive. Further, too many of the films given to our Archive are in a poor condition and are not suitable for copying. The fact is that if we want our unique Archive (and in many ways it is unique) to be developed and acknowledged as the best in the world—and that we could do—we shall have to give it more resources; and we must consider a right of statutory deposit under which the Archive can select the new films it requires and get them in good condition. This is an important problem, and the longer we leave it unsolved the worse the trouble is going to be.
My Lords, there are many other aspects of the Arts which I must leave. I want, in conclusion, to return briefly to the essence of our policy. As I listened to the noble Baroness, I thought it would be fair to say that when a Government first decide to support the
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Arts they are very likely to develop their policy in three stages. They will begin by concentrating subsidies on their national companies in order to enhance the country's prestige in the world at large. Inevitably, that means favouring the Arts in the metropolis, which then provide increasing variety and enjoyment for the thin top layer of the population who are able and willing to go to the opera or the National Theatre. Secondly, they will try to extend performances of metropolitan standard to the Provinces, in this way catering for similar audiences for similar events. You only need the will and the money to carry out both these stages more or less satisfactorily, although in Britain we have a long way to go in regard to the second stage. But after a fair start has been made on stage 2, the policy has to be reconsidered if the Arts are to be extended to the great mass of the public who are not sufficiently prepared to move straight from no contact with the fine Arts to the appreciation of works of classical and modern masters. At this point there appears to be a choice. It is commonly believed that you can either go on directing all the available resources into enlarging the audiences, however slowly, for the highest art, or, in despair of ever being more than marginally successful, transfer your attention to popular Arts of, frankly, lower quality. You then try to adapt your methods to the culture of the working-class (as it was called), which is seen as something permanently distinct from metropolitan culture.
My Lords, when this Government came into office this choice was not posed. There was little discussion about the need to encourage other standards than metropolitan standards. It seemed to be assumed that to subsidise, for example, brass bands must be at the expense of the symphony orchestra. I could not accept this. I hoped that a new dimension could be added to the work which the Arts Council was already doing, and doing well, and that the new dimension would in the event prove to be a natural extension of the old. Without trying to define working-class culture, I do not believe that it is now so walled off and separate from middle-class culture as, say, Richard Hoggart would have us believe. I suppose some acquaintance with the maintained

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schools since the war taught me how much less there is to-day between the social classes compared to 50 years ago. Anyway, in 1973 everyone watches the television, and the television is producing a more unified culture. Of course there are distinct features in the popular Arts, in amateur Arts, and in the crafts, and there is life in these more humble manifestations which can nourish metropolitan culture. Equally, there is quality in metropolitan culture which the popular Arts need, and it should not be all that difficult to bring about a fruitful interchange.
Anyway, my Lords, this policy requires some re-organisation and extension of the operations of the Arts Council, and this the Council has in hand. By this time next year your Lordships should see the first results of the new regional and publicity department which is now being set up. We shall be moving towards a better balance between functional organisation of each art with its expert panel stemming from the centre, and territorial organisation of each region with its officers encouraging that mixture of all the Arts which awakes renewed interest and enjoyment in the life of a local community. My Lords, I have spoken for too long, and I apologise for that. I will stop now and, with your Lordships leave, rise later and answer the questions.
4.48 p.m.
LORD RHODES: My Lords, I, too, join in congratulating the noble Earl, Lord Drogheda, for having introduced this subject this afternoon and having spoken so well on it. I say quite sincerely that I only wish that I had the eloquence to deal with this subject as I should like to. I think that we have been well served in this country by our Ministers and chairmen of various institutions, including Covent Garden, and by the Arts Council, its Director General, its Chairman and servants. They have done a really first-class job and I say that without my tongue in my cheek or any attempt to "butter them up" for a grant the next time we run a festival at Saddleworth.
May I comment on one or two of the things that the noble Earl, Lord Drogheda, said. I would back him up on V.A.T. Are we going to start all over again the tiresome representations to
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perhaps an unsympathetic Government that we used to make for years about the reduction in entertainment tax? I sincerely hope we are not going to start that all over again. The noble Earl also made the point about overseas touring bodies. During last autumn I made an extensive journey to the Far East, Australia and South Africa, and I heartily endorse what the noble Earl said about the responsibility being firmly placed on the Arts Council or upon the Minister for the Arts for the arrangement of overseas tours by representative performing bodies from this country. To do this on the basic principle of sending quality overseas, instead of trying to make an impact on countries abroad in either a political or a trade sense, would carry a lot more influence and prestige with it.
Turning now to the touring of the Royal Ballet, I do not want to throw a spanner in at this juncture, but the last time the Royal Ballet came to Manchester I had great misgivings—not about the quality of the performance, which was superb—but on a more mundane and ordinary level. Do you know, my Lords, that some of those girls had only £17 a week and they were given £13 for maintenance during the week they were in Manchester? Moreover, thy had to find their own lodgings! I heartily endorse what the noble Baroness, Lady Lee, said about this factor. It really is time that we started looking at the more humane aspects of this matter, because unless we do there will always be a reluctance to tour in the Provinces.
The noble Baroness asked why there was no opera house in Manchester. I will try to explain. She was quite right in drawing attention to the activities of Sir Maurice Pariser. He had the right ideas at the time and he was able to make an impact on people connected with Manchester City to support the project of an opera house. Sir Maurice died and the idea lapsed. When I was Lord Lieutenant of Lancashire, seeing the bulldozing that had gone on and the shifting of populations from one part of the country to another, the upsetting, of communities, undermining stability, I recognised that the Arts can have the most powerful influence in stabilising and in the settling of communities and getting people to work together. The noble

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Viscount, Lords Eccles, spoke about this man began to built and was not able to in part of his speech, when referring to the impact of technology and science and what we in this questioning age are doing to help the quality of living, part from the material aspects of it.
I drew together the Manchester City Council, and the Councils of Lancashire, Cheshire, and Liverpool. The first meeting was to follow up the report made by the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, and the noble Earl, Lord Harewood, I believe, in 1969, when they suggested that Manchester would be an admirable place for an opera house. We did a really thorough investigation into the possibilities. We did our sums as regards audience prospects and we also went to a lot of trouble to find out how many people could get there; what parking facilities would be available, and so on; what impact the new roads, M.62, M.63, M.61 and the A.508 would have on the ability to get there. Then the North-West Arts Association came into the picture—I was not president then, though I am now—and they called a seminar which was chaired by the noble Earl, Lord Hare-wood, to examine the same prospects but laying much more emphasis on the practical aspects about setting up a company before building. My committee was then given the job of evaluating the evidence. The seminar had decided it would be better to start with a company for this purpose; and may I say that the state of play at the moment is that Manchester City, Lancashire County and Cheshire County are all agreed and are willing to back the project of the formation of a company. Liverpool at the moment is thinking it over and I am not going to say anything more about that, but I may be called upon at any time to go and address Liverpool council on the subject. Perhaps the less I say at this stage the better. They are very keen to come in too, but there are some very special things which need to be taken into consideration as far as they are concerned.
Now as to the building of the opera house, as I have mentioned before in your Lordships' House there is a quotation from verse 25, chapter 7, St. Luke's Gospel, where it says: which of you intending to build a Tower sitteth not down first to estimate the cost lest the neighbour should laugh saying "This
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man began to built was not able to finish"? At the time the opera house was mooted the cost was likely to be £½ million, but I could almost guarantee that it would be more likely £9 million to-day.
We could not get the same kind of tourist trade coming to Manchester to see an opera house they are getting in Sydney. I will come to the question of the alternative to this in a moment. If I do not mention the Sydney Opera House I hope somebody will shout at me and ask me to do so. I am convinced that we shall get off the ground with a North-West opera company, but the local authorities need encouraging and bringing along during this difficult period before the 1974 changeover. Anybody who has had anything to do with local authorities lately knows that many are bewildered and in difficulties from many points of view, and that to have got as far we have with three authorities saying that they will back it gives me the feeling that the venture will succeed. The Arts Council have been absolutely superb; they have been encouraging and generous in their offers. I am not going to say what they offered in case there may be a queue outside their offices in Piccadilly tomorrow morning.
What do we do when we have an opera company? How do we house it? This is all part and parcel of the problem. The noble Lord, Lord Annan, put his finger on it, and I think it was said by the noble Baroness, Lady Lee of Asheridge, too. We ought to make use of the resources that we have. We have two theatres in Manchester, one holds 1,995 people and the other 2,115. There is very little in it between them. I believe there is only room commercially for one; attrition in the commercial field can be slow. Somehow or other we have to speed up a decision as to which theatre is going to survive. We have carried out a theatre study. We know what the touring companies such as Glyndebourne and the Festival Ballet, and all the national companies, think about the accommodation. With a reasonable amount of money these theatres could be put into shape.
Sometimes we have an exaggerated idea of what Covent Garden wants when it goes out into the Provinces. Covent Garden, we think, is a Mecca for opera lovers. But we do not want them

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to become élitist. Do not patronise us in the Provinces. Do not let long-haired people think that we cannot appreciate the more humbler forms of opera. The noble Baroness, Lady Lee of Asheridge, talked about her father. My father was just the same; he earned no more than 26 shillings a week at any time in his life, but—my word!—he did know opera. And so did my grandfather. My grandfather could transpose an opera from a score with 103 parts for a brass band. He could do that as fast as anyone could write, and he never earned more than thirty shillings a week. These things are deep-rooted in the North-West. The Turner opera companies and Moody Manners and Carl Rosa used to tour these areas; and they put in something that we ought to be drawing on now, because it is still there. How are we going to do it? The first thing from our point of view is to get going with our opera company. We need the touring companies.
If a modest amount were spent on refurbishing one of the theatres, then in time, as Manchester became (shall I say?) the sophisticated centre of a large populated area, after 1974 they might get round to building an opera house. Manchester has had a terribly difficult time since the war. They have been finding their feet again. For instance Manchester had a satellite town of 120,000 people at Wythenshawe. There was not a single public building of any consequence there after thirty years which had to do with housing the Arts until twelve months last September, when they opened a precinct which cost £2½ million—and a fine building it is! It is expensive if you try to impinge Art on people; and I would draw attention to this absolutely first-class comment on page 26 of the Arts Council's report and accounts. The Director General says:
"The Arts cannot by blueprint plans, by subsidy or business promotion methods be legislated or coaxed into existence. It is the Council's function to give some national resources and encouragement whenever quality reveals itself, and to make the results available to as many people as possible".
Everybody ought to have that as a reference. Where is the quality? Well, anybody who looks at the B.B.C. television programme on a Saturday afternoon, "We Want to Sing", at five minutes past five, can find some. If you have any loss of
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faith in the future of our people in this country, or your area or region, you can get a little hit of a fillip by watching that programme. It is what this debate is all about too. The quality of those children is really fantastic and wonderful. They are not hand picked for the programme. But watch the programme and I need not tell you about it. Those children go on to secondary modern, grammar or comprehensive schools. Have you heard the youth orchestras? Have you seen them performing? There is not a town that does not have its school orchestra or brass ensemble in the length and breadth of Lancashire. Their quality of technique is first class.
I want to make a plea, but I do not know where or how to make it. This is what I should like to have guidance on. We have this wonderful education for children until they leave school. You see them come on the concert programme with great assurance—the way they tune up and begin playing. Then what happens to it all when they leave school and hand their instruments in? They are handing back their hopes; they are handing back the thing they are good at. The living of many professionals in future will depend on the education of and appreciation of other young people who also have technical skills. Can this follow through be done by adult education? Can it be done through the Colleges of Further Education? I should like to have a view on this, because I believe if we could avoid thwarting the effort of scholars and teachers by enabling them to continue their music-making when they leave school, we shall be doing a service to the country. There are many more things that I should like to speak about, my Lords, but I have been on my feet too long. I thank your Lordships for your indulgence.
5.10 p.m.
LORD DONALDSON OF KINGSBRIDGE: My Lords, to follow my noble friend Lord Rhodes is difficult because he speaks with such enthusiasm that one really is carried away and one feels that if ever any county is going to end up with what it needs, it is Lancashire. I am sure that we shall see an opera house there before we have finished. The noble Lord, Lord Robbins, asked me to make his apologies because he has been summoned away. Your Lordships

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will be sorry not to hear him, not only for his own sake but because you will be hearing only three and not four directors of the Royal Opera House this afternoon. That gets the proportion rather wrong. In view of the number of opera directors who have spoken, I shall not speak about Covent Garden, but I should like to take up one point made by the noble Lord, Lord Rhodes. Of course one does not want to nip in the bud the enthusiasm of the youthful musician by making him hand in his instrument if he is one of those who has reached a standard which can earn a living for him later on, but I think we have something very near over-production of absolutely first-class musicians. There is an enormously high standard in this country orchestrally at the moment—
LORD RHODES: My Lords, if the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, will forgive me for interrupting him, I was not speaking about making professionals of them; I was speaking about their ability to express themselves in the way in which they have been doing at school.
LORD DONALDSON OF KINGSBRIDGE: My Lords, I accept that and it is a perfectly sound answer.
Two years ago we had a debate on the Arts and I came prepared with tremendous ammunition to defend my noble friend Lord Goodman against attacks which never came, so I had to scrap my speech and I made a different one. Rather the same thing has happened to me to-day: I came here, having worked out a lot of figures to prove what the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, has accepted as being already part of everybody's philosophy, which is that phase one must be to build up the centre, and it is not until we have done that that we can get on to phase two. So it seems that I can scrap that piece of information which I was going to give to your Lordships.
I think we have underestimated the incredible difference between what happens now and what happened forty years ago when many of us were in our most active concert-going time. Forty years ago Lilian Baylis had started opera for the people at the Old Vic. My first Figaro I saw there with Clive Carey and Stewart Wilson. I was still at school but I remember it vividly. Then came John Christie at Glyndebourne in 1934.
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I went to the second night. There were 30 people in the house and John Christie said, "It's perfectly all right; I shall be turning them away next year"—and he did and has been doing so ever since. Sir Thomas Beecham started the British National Opera Company, which was rather more ambitious and worked on a wider field than Glyndebourne; but while Glyndebourne flourished with its rather select audience the B.N.O.C. went bankrupt quite soon, and so did Sir Thomas. That was rather a setback, but not for him, because he denied any liability on the ground that neither moneylenders nor the Inland Revenue really counted—which is a point of view many of us share. Those three pioneers were the last people in this country to try to run opera without public subsidy; Glyndebourne succeeded and the other two failed. The Old Vic failed in the sense that it failed to get the public trust quickly; the British National Opera Company failed altogether, but Glyndebourne has managed until very recently and I am glad to say has now joined the fold on a small scale, particularly in relation to touring.
I was not until the War, when the troops went to Italy, that the impact of Italian opera on the troops, when there was nothing else to go to, made it clear how ordinary people respond to the chance to hear opera if it is made easy for them to do so. This response has grown and has been nurtured and nourished by the Arts Council. In this House we have the noble Lord, Lord Cottesloe, the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, and the noble Baroness, Lady Lee of Asheridge. This House has played a large part in the building up of opera, and I should like to say to the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, what a wise appointment I think he has made in the present chairman, who is one of the few people who could carry on the dynamism shown by the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, in an effective way.
Exactly the same story is true in ballet. Dame Ninette de Valois persuaded Lilian Baylis to let her start a ballet with really no resources at the Sadler's Wells, and this built up to the Royal Ballet, which is perhaps the greatest in the world—anyhow, equal to any other. Meanwhile all the opera houses are full; the touring companies, the Scottish in the North and

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the Welsh in the West, play to large capacities—not quite full, but very nearly. There are a number of smaller companies, like the Phœnix, Ben. Britten's English Opera Group and a number of smaller ballet groups, all of which are doing well. And the exciting thing is that the musical director of Covent Garden is an Englishman; of the Welsh National Opera is an Englishman; of the Scottish National Opera is a Scot and of the London Coliseum is an Australian. Without being jingoist, we have not got a foreigner in the place; and when that is compared with what happened in earlier days it is a most extraordinary situation.
There are only two criticisms; one is, that there has been too much for London, and the other is, that there has been too much for opera and ballet. I shall not say anything about "too much for London" because I think that point has been well covered. On the other hand, we have not spoken much about the share that opera and ballet ought to get of the whole, and it is worth looking at. If we take ballet, it is really a separate Art, and if we look at the latest figure from the Arts Council we find that £350,000 is spent on the smaller ballet companies, including the Festival Ballet Company, and a share of the large figure which goes to Covent Garden goes to the Royal Ballet. I will not put a figure on that, but as the figure in that year was £1,600,000 it is certainly somewhat less than half. The total figure spent on ballet is probably somewhere in the neighbourhood of £1 million. I do not think anybody would think that considering the amount that happens outside London this is the least unreasonable.
Of course, opera is a more difficult problem, but it is a part of music and no assistance to music which excludes opera can be taken seriously, because Wagner and Verdi never wrote anything but opera and they are perhaps two of the greatest composers there have ever been. So one cannot just laugh opera off. It has to be dealt with and the only way it can be dealt with is by paying, and paying through the nose. This we have proved, and the Arts Council, supported by successive Governments, has allowed us to do so. It is perhaps worth noting that there are something like 1,000 artists (by which I mean performers on the stage and
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not behind it) in opera—not ballet—who are earning a decent living to-day. As it takes nearly as many men to keep one man on the stage as it does to keep one man in the front line, one can say that about 4,000 jobs are the result of the figure which the Arts Council spend on opera, which I reckon, if we deduct notional figures for ballet, works out at something not much more than £2½ million. That has to be compared with the £35 million which the Government pumped into the Upper Clyde to preserve 4,300 jobs. I think that is a useful comparison. We do not have to apologise all that much, my Lords.
I am not going to use my carefully prepared argument not to take money away from London, because I do not think that anybody is going to. So may I turn to an absolutely different subject which I believe is very important and which the noble Viscount touched on in a most encouraging way (and my noble friend Lord Lloyd of Hampstead and I will hold the noble Viscount to this); that is, the question of archives. Only in the last year or two has it been possible to keep records of the performing Arts at all. We have nearly perfect records of the written word. They are not always very easily accessible, but they are all there, perfectly catalogued and perfectly available. But we are building up in the National Film Archive, to which the noble Viscount referred, and in the British Institute of Recorded Sound, which his Department also subsidises to some extent, very comprehensive archives of both television and film material, on the one hand, and discs and tapes on the other. Neither archive is complete and both are daily becoming less complete, and that is what is worrying. I am here to ask the Minister to give immediate and special attention to this question because it is slipping through our fingers in a way which is really dangerous.
Archives are concerned not only with the performing Arts but also with contemporary events as history, particularly with newsreels, current events, interviews with great men and with the man in the street, discussion programmes and even political speeches. These combine to make up what is known as "oral history". In addition to that, the British Institute of Recorded Sound has a

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remarkable collection of wildlife sounds: recordings of 220 birds, 19 mammals, 8 insects, 3 amphibians and one reptile. Any classical scholar who wants to compare the "Brekekekex koax koax" of Aristophanes with the real thing is welcome to go to Exhibition Road and for no fee he can put on the amphibian record.
The Minister referred to compulsory statutory deposit. This is a very difficult subject and is more difficult in the context in which he was dealing with it, which is films, than in that of records and sound recordings. My noble friend Lord Lloyd of Hampstead has specialised in the subject of films and will deal with that when he comes to speak. I would only say that to have compulsory deposit of records or tapes is not expensive or difficult. It can be done quite easily. At the moment, it is worth noticing that the film archive gets less than a third of what it would get if it were able to select what it wants. As the noble Viscount also pointed out, there is a great deal of current work to be done in copying films which otherwise cannot be used. An archive of material which people cannot look at is rather less than totally useful. One might go so far as to say that it was totally useless, but that is not quite so, because it is an essential archive but it is nothing more. It is rather like the Treasury view, "Never spend to-day what will cost more to-morrow", that we should put ourselves in the position of spending a lot of money, and building up an archive which is about 80 per cent. efficient and which nobody can use. It may be all right, but I doubt it; and I doubt that the Minister thinks so. I feel that there is something to go for here.
Another thing which is very important is that both these mediums suffer violent changes. In records, there was the change from 78 r.p.m. to 33 r.p.m. At that stage the commercial companies found that they had stacks of records on their hands which were no longer saleable, and they dumped them. If the British Institute of Recorded Sound had had a fund on which they could call they could have bought these records for virtually nothing and preserved valuable archive material. The same applies with films, with the change already referred to from the nitrate film to the cellulose tri-acetate film. And there is also the advent of colour.
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I want to say one word about the British Institute of Recorded Sound. My noble friend will talk about the British Film Institute as he is a director. I am a director, though an almost incredibly non-technical director, of the British Institute of Recorded Sound. This has been a one-man band for much of its 25 years' life, conceived and achieved almost single-handedly by Mr. Patrick Saul. He now has powerful help in the formidable chairmanship of Sir Frank Figgures and has a powerful Council which can give him the kind of aid and support which he needs; and above all the B.B.C. have been consistently helpful and promised to go on being helpful. We house some 250,000 discs and tapes which is really quite a large quantity, and we have space to expand owing to the foresight of the Institute in buying a site for a very small sum of money but which is now worth a great deal. That action caused more trouble than anything else they did during the whole of their 25 years, but we are now all the best of friends and the potential profit has produced forgiveness and we are very well pleased.
The sums required to put these two things on a proper basis are not large. Each archive should be required to prepare a phased plan. I believe both are already doing so. That plan should be to bring them up to a state of total efficiency, equipped to take their places as integral parts of a national archive system. That involves a considerable and obligatory service to the public of the kind which the National Film Archives cannot give because they cannot produce their films. What we want, and what I am specifically asking the Minister for, is a firm hand to iron out the problems and to see that these two archives, which are both on the verge of becoming what we want, do not slip through the mesh. There are a number of problems, but none is one which the Minister cannot solve quite easily if he had the time and a little money. The cash is quite small in relation to the figures we are talking about. Both these archives are on the verge of what we want to see, but let there be no doubt of the artistic and historical importance of live performances of the performing Arts and oral history, a record of current events.

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In spite of the marvellous legacy of Greece and Rome, how much more complete would our understanding be if we could not only hear but actually see Socrates during his dialogues with Plato. The mind boggles at the thought. Or even if we could see a newsreel of the Ides of March. These are the things which in relation to today we are actually letting go and I regard it as extremely important that it should be accepted as the duty of a civilised society to spend this small amount of money to preserve these records.
I have only one more point to make and it is quite a different one. It must be the duty of the Arts Council to foster and encourage original contemporary work of all kinds. The reports shows that they are not backward in this respect and that in relation to opera both London houses have commissioned modern works from contemporary Englishmen. They have not always been entirely successful, but they are slowly building up a public for this sort of thing. We ought to urge the Council never to let themselves be driven into a position of censorship. They must draw the line between supporting what is new and original and what is ridiculous or obscene, but they must do it by backing individuals and giving them a free hand. That may well lead them to situations which are extremely embarrassing to defend, and that is why the chairman must be a man of courage and independence. I feel sure that the chairman is such a man and that this will be all right. But it is something which we have always to look at.
Looking at the thing as a whole, we are not asking for large sums of money. The Arts Council expects to spend £14 million in the coming year and the total expenditure on the Arts, which includes museums and galleries, is put at £41 million. This is 0·16 per cent. of the total Government expenditure. It is hardly more than half the spending on libraries. We are not asking for much more, but to keep up with what we already have means a considerable increase due to inflation. We are asking that we should maintain our standards; that we should give new money to the Provinces and we ask for a modest addition on archives. Before sitting
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down I would thank my noble friend—if I may call him so from so far—Lord Drogheda, for introducing this debate. It has been very interesting.
5.30 p.m.
LORD AUCKLAND: My Lords, I should like to add my own tribute to my noble friend Lord Drogheda, not only for giving us the opportunity of having this debate but for the characteristically masterly manner in which he opened it. At a time when our minds are very much on the disturbing scene of the international situation, on Ulster and on the industrial front, it is indeed refreshing to be able to turn to a subject more peaceful, and yet still vitally important, not only within this country but also as a great export potential. Several years ago I initiated a debate in your Lordships' House on one of the Arts Council's reports, and I then coined a phrase, "Penicillin before Puccini"—and I still stick to that phrase. Of course, if one looks at the matter from a financial aspect, our hospitals, our housing services, our roads, all essential services, need money; and there are those who say, "Well, are the Arts an essential service? We can perhaps do without Puccini and the great operas, but we cannot do without the essential medicines." Of course, in theory this is true, and yet the Arts in this country have been one of our greatest attributes for many years.
There have been in this debate a number of distinguished speakers who are far more intimately concerned with the Arts and far more knowledgeable than I. I can claim only a small role as a trustee of the relatively new Thorndike Theatre at Leatherhead in Surrey. We have had the honour of visits from both my noble friend Lord Eccles and the noble Baroness, Lady Lee of Asheridge. I should like to echo the tributes which have been paid to them. I think the noble Baroness in her term as Minister for the Arts really did a sterling job, and to her team and the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, certainly I know Miss Hazel Vincent-Wallace, the very dynamic director of the Thorndike Theatre, and others, are eternally grateful.
I might perhaps mention one aspect of this theatre. I do not want to be out of order in carrying on an advertising campaign but a new venture is about to take

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place. A performance of Arthur Sheridan's great drama The Rivals is currently taking place at the theatre. Shortly, it is going out to America, to the Bucks County Play House at New Hope in Pennsylvania, which also has, as I understand it, a fairly small but excellent repertory company. This company will shortly be coming over here, to Leatherhead, to perform one of Thornton Wilder's well-known plays, Our Town. I mention this because I believe this is the first time that a repertory theatre in this country has taken on an exchange visit of this kind, and one can only hope it will be the forerunner of many. There is no doubt that through the medium of the Arts a very great deal can be done in improving not only cultural relations but also international relations. I may say that the theatre itself is thriving. Not only does it put on some very resourceful plays, but some very fine Sunday night concerts.
While on the subject of repertory theatres, may I turn for one moment to Scotland, which has not yet been mentioned. Last year my family and I paid our first visit to that very splendid theatre at Pitlochry in Perthshire, the Theatre in the Hills, surely one of the loveliest settings for a theatre, and there was a really splendid company there, too. I think one of the great attractions, particularly to tourists, is that the kilted manager comes to greet each person on entering the theatre. As one who is indirectly concerned professionally with public relations, I believe this is an important factor.
If I may turn for one moment to opera, which has been mentioned, some years ago I had the pleasure of going behind the scenes at Covent Garden with the late Sir David Webster, prior to opening a debate on the Arts in your Lordships' House. There is no doubt that conditions for the artists and the staff are most inadequate, and one can only hope that with the redevelopment of Covent Garden and the theatre this will be put right. There is no doubt that Govent Garden has a tremendous appeal to international artists. I had the pleasure recently of talking to Kiri to Kanawa from New Zealand, and another fine artist (who was here for a time this afternoon) Martti Talvela, from Finland, and some very fine singers have come from many parts of the world to Covent Garden, despite the fact that faci-
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lities backstage are not all they might be. Standards are extremely high notwithstanding that. I would also endorse all that has been said of the Coliseum Theatre. Here opera, offered at somewhat less expensive prices than at Covent Garden, still maintains the highest standards. And, of course, we have these very fine Opera for All companies which go to many parts of the country and give performances of a really high standard. Those who regard this country as lacking in musical talent should really go and see some of these small performances.
Turning for a moment to our orchestras and concert halls, some years ago my friend, Mr. Basil Cameron, one of our finest conductors in his heyday, told me in no uncertain language of the shocking conditions in most of our concert halls in this country. I think, in fairness, since then there have been some improvements. Nevertheless, there is much room for improvement, and I hope that at least some of the outcome of the Housing of the Arts documents, which are now almost in the archives but nevertheless still very vital, are put into operation. I may say here that when I was in Finland three years ago I went behind the scenes in the then new National Theatre in Helsinki, and the storage space for props and other items struck me as being almost as large as, if not larger than, the auditoriums of many of our leading theatres.
Of course one must compare like with like, and Scandinavian countries have very much more room to build than we have, but it is something which, if we are going to maintain really high standards, must be looked into. My Lords, sonic of our provincial orchestras do from time to time undergo great financial crises. Bournemouth has this problem, and yet both in the concert hall and in the recording studio they work wonders, and under the late Constantin Silvestri from Roumania, and under their present Finnish conductor Paavo Berglund, they are going from strength to strength.
Last Sunday my family and I went to the Royal Albert Hall to hear the great Mahler Eighth Symphony. It was performed not by a professional orchestra but by the Cambridge University Music Society under that marvellous conductor, David Wilcox. I cannot recall a more moving musical experience and I think

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it proves one thing, that among the young people in this country—and I bear in mind, too, the fine National Youth Orchestra—we have some really fine up and coming musicians, not only in the orchestra but in voice as well.
My Lords, I hope that this debate will be widely read and studied by those in the various art professions. I think one thing is quite certain. The Arts Council is doing a very fine job. However, I think that some of our local authorities, despite the other priorities which face them at the present time—and they do have enormous social priorities—could do more. If there is one thing in which this country really excels I think it is in artistic talent; this cannot be said too frequently.
5.43 p.m.
LORD SOMERS: My Lords, I should like to join with practically everybody else who has spoken in thanking the noble Earl, Lord Drogheda, for having initiated this debate. It is not a subject which often gets an airing in your Lordships' House and I am very grateful that it has done so to-day. I think possibly that I should declare a few minor interests in that I am a composer, a member of the Composers Guild, a full member of the Performing Rights Society and also a director of one of our leading chamber orchestras, Philomusica.
My Lords, may I turn first to the problems of the orchestras. I do not think the general public as a whole realise what their problems are. I do not think they realise that it is impossible to-day for even a major orchestra like the London Symphony or the Royal Philharmonic to put on a concert without incurring a loss, and if it were not for the support they have from the Arts Council, of course they would not be able to perform at all. The expenses are terrific—the hire of the hall, the printing of programmes, the fees of the players themselves are all heavy burdens—and they just have to do what they can, but they generally end the season "in the red".
Many have said that the Arts Council are doing a splendid job. I agree that in many ways they are; but they are absolutely tied and shackled by the fact that they have not got enough money
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and if they have not got the money to give out to the orchestras nobody can blame them. I only hope that one result of our entering Europe—perhaps the only good result—will be that the comparison between what we do with what other countries do will so shame us that we will make a better effort. Support for the provincial orchestras comes partly from local government, as does that for the four London orchestras. Incidentally, before I leave the London orchestras, I should like to say a word about some grumbles that have been voiced about there being four major orchestras in London. There is nothing wrong in that. They do not play only in London. They are national orchestras; they travel over the whole country, and abroad. In fact, I was reading only the other day of the London Philharmonic playing in China and having an enormous success there. Although their head offices may be in London, they cannot be regarded as London orchestras, any more than can the Halle whose head office is in Manchester. But orchestras' travel over the country is limited to a certain extent by a lack of concert halls. Here I would join most heartily in what the noble Baroness, Lady Lee of Asheridge, said about the need for more building. As a professional musician, I was very glad indeed to hear her speak to-day. I think most of us feel that we owe more to her than to any other Minister who has been in charge of the Arts, because she really made a very great effort to help performing artists.
My Lords, we want more concert halls, and, incidentally, of a better quality. Even the Festival Hall behind the scenes was, until a short time ago when it was rebuilt, a very bleak place indeed. In fact, I remember once when I was in the Bach Choir going to the choir changing room—a very barren, large room where one had nothing except a peg on which to hang a hat and coat. There was nothing else there at all. Those behind-the-scenes quarters could be made much more suitable for artists who are about to perform.
Regarding the provincial orchestras, they, as I say, get help to a certain degree from local government. One particularly lucky orchestra is the Liverpool Philharmonic which gets splendid support from the Liverpool City Council. But they have a hall, and there are only a few major

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halls throughout the country which are big enough for a large orchestra to give a concert. The question is not one of sound or anything like that; but merely a question of expense. Unless you have a large hall, you cannot recoup enough from the number of tickets that you sell. Many have said that it would be a good thing if we could spread our four London orchestras throughout Greater London. Admittedly, that would be quite a good idea. But where are they to go? Where are the concert halls? One idea that I have been very keen about is the preservation of Alexandra Palace as a concert hall. That would make an excellent concert hail. There have already been some concerts there and, although there is a determined effort in local government to knock the whole place down, I think it is very well worth preserving. It is not at all a beautiful place from an architectural point of view, but it would be extremely useful for purposes such as the giving of concerts.
I should like to turn from the practical and financial aspect to look at the matter from the composer's point of view, because without composers the orchestras would have nothing to play. To-day, it is very difficult indeed for the average composer to get his work either heard or published. It is especially difficult for him to get it heard if it is an orchestral work, because the orchestras all know that they have only to include one unknown work in their programme and a quarter of the hall will be empty. There is no doubt that the British public do not want to hear what they do not know. This is an area in regard to which television could do a very good job indeed. Of course, I must grant that there is an enormous amount of music being written to-day which is not worth the paper that it is written on, but that cannot be said of the whole of it. There is some very fine music being written, and it is up to those who have any sense of selection at all to find out which is good and which is bad. Sometimes it just has to prove itself, by whether or not it lives to have a second performance.
As regards the publishing side, the publishers are in a bad way. One very good job that the Arts Council could do is to give publishers a subsidy for publishing new works. At the moment, practically the only publishers who are really doing
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any live work in London have said that they cannot take on anything that they do not think will make a good sale. I offered to them an oboe quartet. Naturally, that would not have a very large sale and, though they liked it as a musical work, they would not take it on, because they said that the sale would not be large enough. That wipes out practically all chamber music, with the possible exception of string quartets or piano trios. Therefore, the composer is in a very difficult position indeed in getting his work published. There has been a memorandum on this subject by the Composers' Guild, suggesting that there might be a change in the law of copyright, so that it would be possible to have composers' manuscripts photographed without transgressing the law of copyright. I only hope that that change will come about, because at the moment I cannot see any chance of the publishers ever getting on to a sounder financial basis. Their expenses are going up the whole time, and there is so much new work that they are finding it very difficult to choose which to accept.
I end on one subject which is very close to my heart, and that is music in the church. Having been an organist, I am very sad indeed at the fact that choir schools all over the country are closing down, right, left and centre. The result is that the supply of choristers for the various cathedrals and churches is becoming more difficult. There is also the fact that a choir school gives one a musical education which is never forgotten. One is taught to read music from a very early age; it teaches one the value of music and how to judge between good and bad. Many who have attended choir schools have become professional musicians in their later lives. Therefore, I feel that it is very sad indeed to see all that going by the board. I am afraid that the present trend in our church services does not help to encourage choral music. I only hope that some attention will be paid to what is happening and that these schools will be given some support, so that they may go on giving what they can to young and musically gifted people.
5.57 p.m.
LORD SNOW: My Lords, I have to begin by declaring two interests. First, I am a member of the Arts Council and a member of a new committee on regional

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development, on which I shall keep your Lordships for only a few moments. Secondly, I am employed by the noble Earl, Lord Drogheda, to write pieces in the Financial Times, so he is able to dismiss me if I say anything which he thinks is inappropriate. However, we all thank him for introducing this debate. I do not think I can remember a discussion in your Lordships' House which has been more generally harmonious, and that harmony I do not propose to disturb. There have been one or two fashionable stereotypes trotted out which I should like some private words about, but they are not important and, in general, we are all agreed.
We are all agreed on one or two very fundamental points. The first is that the concept of public subsidy for the Arts is now not controversial. That is beyond debate, and we all agree that that has to happen. There is no question about it, it is settled, the public accepts it, all opinion accepts it. Further, I would think only very foolish people quarrel with the fact that we subsidise ballet, opera, and works which do not command very large audiences. All Arts are minority Arts, except perhaps certain programmes on television and professional football. But if we are to be reduced to certain programmes on television and professional football, because that is all a large public requires, then we shall really be cutting our own throats and we shall deserve whatever fate befalls us. That would be egalitarianism gone mad. In fact, if you went to countries in Eastern Europe they would think it egalitarianism gone mad even to question the idea that one should pay for ballet and opera, simply because there is no other way of producing it. They do it themselves on an enormous scale, very expensively, although their standard of consumer living is of course far lower than ours. So these major problems are already settled. We need not worry about them; they are all right.
The problem which the Arts Council is concerned with is more local, more definite and, in my view, of considerable importance. It is: how do we get Arts out of London? Again, there is no discussion that there should be these great companies in London. That is fine, and they have reached a standard which is a credit to this country. But there is a lot
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of this country outside London, and somehow we have got to see that people are not starved of the higher standards of Performing Arts if they happen to be born in Kidderminster. This has been a question on the minds of everyone concerned for the last ten years. It is not something new. Again, there is a consensus of opinion—and I do not know anyone who dissents from it—that this has to be done by hook or by crook. It is not entirely easy. The Arts Council has been at it since 1965–66 and the present Government are deeply committed to it—and there is no conspiracy between the two; they happen to agree. They agreed in the time of the noble Baroness, Lady Lee, and the agreement is still complete. As the noble Baroness said, in fact the actual percentage of money spent on the major London company has gone down very considerably, from just under half the total subvention to the Arts Council in 1965–66 to rather under a quarter to-day, and that is at least an earnest of good intention.
There are other promising aspects. There are something like fifty working repertory companies, largely helped at least, and in some cases largely supported, by the Arts Council, in full and effective operation. As the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, reminded us, there are something like twenty university theatres working and active, but not supported so far as we know by anybody, except remotely of course by the State. Also some very good school theatres have started. We want considerably more than this, for one good theatre in a provincial town can make an immense difference to the general life of that town. It does not matter very much that it will attract only a moderately small fraction of the community. It is usually an active part of the community; a part of the community which talks about things, which works at the Arts, is at least a passive supporter of the Arts. Those are the people we want to link in any sort of general national artistic community.
Here I think I must give a faint dash of cold water. It should be possible—I am sure it is possible; and we are some distance towards it—to get a participating sense of interest in audiences and actors all over the country. It is unrealistic to imagine that we shall get regional art in the full creative sense. If anyone

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thinks you can produce regional art in a country this size, as the Americans have done in the South, he is completely misjudging how art springs. Southern America had a different history, almost a different culture, from the Northern American society. We have had nothing like that except in Wales and Scotland. It would be possible to produce an indigenous creative art in Wales and Scotland which it never would be in the rest of the British Isles in the narrow sense. The last regional artist of any consequence that this country produced was Thomas Hardy, and he was writing about a region he invented for himself existing at least thirty years before he was born. Since then, there has been nothing anyone could possibly call regional art. So let us not pitch our hopes in that direction too high. But we can, rightly and urgently, commit ourselves to getting Performing Arts effectively represented both in the communities and as a result of reciprocal touring or whatever you like to call that which the noble Viscount mentioned and which I think we are all extremely eager to see in full operation.
The noble Earl, Lord Drogheda, cheered us up—or, at least, cheered me up—by making a kind of statement of intention that the ballet company and the opera company hope, at least, to tour slightly more extensively than they have managed to do. I am sure he knows this, but we should all like to impress on him that this is something we actively wish to see. I know that in modern conditions touring is extremely boring. People like playing in the houses they are used to; and they like—and this is an important fact—London audiences. Just as London acting is some of the best in the world, so are London audiences some of the best in the world, and they do not like being parted from that very much. But the noble Earl used the word "duty". It is a very old-fashioned word, but there is something in it. Remember, any performers or any artists of any kind—actors, writers, whatever you like—really ought to consider themselves given a great grace if they can make a living out of doing something they very much want to do. It is a grace not granted to many people. It is not, one knows, granted to many actors. Many actors would give their ears to be employed by the large
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London companies, and I presume many dancers and singers would do just the same to be part of the ballet and the opera company. Therefore they ought to pay for this, and I think "duty" is not too harsh a word. They ought to consider this as part of their lives, and be prepared to pay a certain sacrifice for it.
Again, they may learn something from their colleagues in Eastern Europe. There is no question there of people saying, "Conditions are not entirely wonderful, and therefore we cannot go to Novo Sibirsk", or wherever it is. They just do; it is part of the artist's life. It is part of a writer's life in Russia to go to remote public libraries and make a speech. He is not paid. He gets his expenses, but nothing more. Even a foreign writer, if he is known in the Soviet Union, is expected to accept such an invitation. Not to do so would be distinctly bad manners, if no more.
Here I would put in one plea. The noble Baroness, Lady Lee, made an eloquent statement about housing the Arts. Again, there is nothing between us on this. We all think this is very important and that it must be done. But in demanding good conditions it seems to me important not to forget that sometimes one has to improvise. This country is very bad at improvisation. We congratulate ourselves on how frightfully good we are at it. In fact, we are worse than almost any country I know. We like to have every button stitched and everything perfect before we think any action is possible. This was one of our real troubles in fighting the Germans in the last war. They were masters of improvisation; we were not. We ought to be prepared to put up with a bit of difficulty. We also ought to be prepared to put up with a certain amount of negative improvisation. Here I support very warmly what the noble Lords, Lord Annan and Lord Somers, said. It is rather foolish, when we are desperately short of decent places in which to act, to pull down theatres in which it is possible to act. For instance, to pull down the Coronet Theatre is a ridiculous thing to do. It is a nice theatre; it could, with very little expenditure, be made an admirable part of North London. Alexandra Palace was mentioned. Let us do a little sensible negative improvisation there. Further, I should like to

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put in another plea to the noble Viscount to support what the noble Earl said about conceivable changes in taxation. We could get support from private citizens all over the country if the tax law for this kind of benefaction was something like the American one. At the moment we are in danger of getting the worst of both worlds: the worst of private enterprise, which does not give the money, and State subsidy which has not enough money to give. It is a foolish way of handicapping ourselves.
Finally, I should like to give your Lordships comfort. On regional development, the Arts Council are totally committed. We have already a new directorate of regional development under Mr. Neil Duncan who was head of one of the associations, the Southern Association I think. We have an active committee which many of us are sitting on including the panels, and a great deal of thought, energy and devotion is already going into it. I am sure we can make it a success and this discussion ought to help us to do so.
THE EARL OF DROGHEDA: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down I want to correct one or two small points. On the question of touring and the duty of Covent Garden, I was speaking in the context of ballet. I think the noble Lord, Lord Snow, mentioned opera and ballet. In fact, opera has not been expected to tour from Covent Garden since about 1960—I am not sure of the exact year. The other point I want to correct was when he said that he was employed by me. It was a tremendous distortion of the truth: we were both employed by the same employer.
6.12 p.m.
LORD LLOYD OF HAMPSTEAD: My Lords, one of the most interesting aspects of the noble Viscount's speech was his emphasis on the inter-relationship between the different kinds of Art as one of the most significant features of the Art world at the present day. Certainly there is no aspect of the Arts where this is more manifest than in the case of the film. Yet, surprisingly enough, one finds the art of the film is still somewhat undervalued and underestimated in this country. This is a pity and there can be no doubt that the British Film Institute has
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performed an immensely valuable service in seeking to promote that art. I am glad that the noble Viscount has paid a very well deserved tribute to Mr. Denis Forman for the skilful leadership he has provided at the Institute in the last few years and which has been of such immense value in enabling them to face the many pressing problems, indeed, the many challenging problems, which they have had to meet in recent years and which they are now fairly well equipped to face.
We have had the advantage of a Minister very sympathetic towards the problem of the British Film Institute, as we had in his predecessor, the noble Baroness, Lady Lee. That sympathy has been expressed in the most practical way by an increase in the financial grant. This is not to say that such an increase has thereby solved all the financial problems—by no means. Nevertheless, it has enabled some progress to be made. I should like particularly to welcome the matter to which the Minister referred, the increase in the grant to the Film Production Board which is a part of the British Film Institute and which has put them in a better position to encourage the making of experimental films. The importance of such films is made sufficiently manifest by the example which the noble Viscount himself mentioned, the film by the young and very promising director Bill Douglas, My Childhood, which was applauded not only by esoteric film critics and film festivals round the world but also by the general viewing public.
One of the most important branches of the British Film Institute is the National Film Archive. Here again I am extremely glad that the Minister has selected this particular aspect of its work for mention, because the National Film Archive, as he indicated, is in a somewhat anomalous situation from the point of view of its acquisitions. A very large amount of capital has been invested in the National Film Archive yet it has to this day no acquisition grant whatsoever. It has no money specially placed at its disposal to enable it to acquire the films it needs and therefore it has to rely on gifts. What it does, if I may use the phrase that my noble friend Lord Annan used in our debate on the Arts last year, is to avail itself of the begging bowl. It

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must appeal for gifts of selected films. This is a rather extraordinary way of trying to build up an archive of films which represents, quite apart from their artistic worth which is in many cases considerable, part of the living fabric of our society. One is perhaps tempted to recall the words of Hamlet when he referred to the players:
"… let them be well used; for they are the abstract and brief chronicles of the time:".
That could be said about the film, the film which chronicles our times and records it in so striking a way and which, if preserved, will be of immense value to posterity.
My Lords, once a film makes its way into the Archive it is used with loving care, but unfortunately that loving care is often bestowed upon an object which is hardly deserving of it. Without wishing to look a gift horse in the mouth I must say that the reason for this is that the gifts of film bestowed on the Archive are frequently extremely badly worn copies which no one would think of storing in an archive if there were any possible alternative. Unfortunately, in addition, many makers, producers and owners of films decline requests for copies. They may have excellent reasons. There may be no copies in existence but in many cases it may be merely a matter of policy. Be that as it may, copies of much of this material are not forthcoming. As far as television material is concerned, copies are practically never available; so there are enormous gaps in an archive of this sort. Year by year a highly selective list is drawn up by an extremely competent committee, but of that list only a fraction is obtained and of that fraction the bulk is in very poor condition. Surely that is not the basis on which one wishes to develop a great national archive.
What, then, is the answer to this problem? I venture to suggest that the only possible answer is a statutory right to acquire copies of any film or taped material which has been exhibited or broadcast to the public. Although the analogy is by no means very close, a similar situation arises with regard to printed books and the British Museum and other national libraries. In fact, a Bill for statutory deposit was introduced in the other place in 1969 by Dr.
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Kerr, but for various reasons it did not make much progress. I should like to emphasise that it is not the desire of the National Film Archive to preserve everything, after the manner of the British Museum which takes a copy of every printed book; they wish to continue their policy of selecting material. But it is important that this selection should not be limited to national film productions. It would be an absurdity to have a film archive which contained merely British films. After all, film is a great international art. One has only to mention it to realise how ridiculous it would be to exclude from a National Film Archive the most significant United States film productions over the last 50 years. That would indeed be Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark. A National Gallery limited to British artists, however meritorious such artists might be, would be a mere ghost of a National Gallery.
But, my Lords, the main problem here is that of cost. I must point out that though my noble friend Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge rightly drew attention to the somewhat similar problem with regard to the Institute of Recorded Sound, and emphasised that there should be no particular difficulty in giving that body a statutory right, nevertheless, from the financial viewpoint the problem is very different. Tapes and discs which embody the recorded sound that my noble friend desires to record—and indeed has effectively stored in his great archive of recorded sound—are comparatively inexpensive. One could envisage a statutory right to call for copies on rather similar lines to the book situation, and this would not cost the producers of tapes and discs very much money. But when dealing with film you are dealing with an expensive product. It costs a great deal of money to produce a copy of a film, particularly if it is a coloured film. Therefore one could hardly expect the cost of doing that to be borne by the producers and distributors of films in this country, and more particularly in the case of foreign film producers and distributors.
It is not much good having a statutory right of deposit in a National Film Archive unless there is some financial resource to back it. Otherwise you may be worse off than before, because you would have your statutory right but you would have no money to pay for what

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you need; and having that right might even have the effect of causing the gift system, on which hitherto reliance has been placed, to dry up altogether. Looking at the thing realistically, one needs, not a vast sum, but a not inconsiderable one, to back the statutory right of deposit; some kind of acquisition fund comparable with that given to one of our great museums.
As I have said, it was extremely gratifying that the Minister should indicate that he is alive to this problem. One can only express the hope not only that he will support the introduction of some form of legislation which will create a statutory right of deposit, but also that in some way or other—I do not seek to enter into any detail at this stage—he will make available some kind of acquisition fund which will enable the British Film Institute, through its Archive, to obtain a reasonable proportion of those films which are selected year by year. If that is done, we shall reach the stage when we may regard ourselves as possessing not only an important National Film Archive but also one of such significance that it would be in the forefront of the great film archives of the world.
6.26 p.m.
LORD FEATERSHAM: My Lords, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Hampstead, will forgive me if I do not follow him in dealing with the National Film Archive. It has been dealt with by a number of speakers and I do not think that I can add anything to what has been said. I am in a difficulty at this late stage in the debate. The noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, who spoke some way ahead of me, said that many of the arguments he had prepared were used before he spoke and so he had to destroy his. He also said a rather odd thing: that not long ago he had come to a debate on the Arts with arguments prepared to defend the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, which also he had to destroy. I was, of course, not surprised to hear that, because if ever a man could defend himself it is the noble Lord, Lord Goodman. If one prepares arguments to defend him I think that one should be prepared to scrap them at an early stage.
Nevertheless, my Lords, I think it will be difficult for me to make any new
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points. Many of the points that I should have liked to make have been made already, but I hope that I may be able to embellish one or two of them and even manage to contrive one new point. If I do, I shall precede it by explaining that it is a new point. I had to leave the Chamber for a short while and it may be that during my absence the point was made. In which case I hope that your Lordships will say, "Not original", to which I shall reply, "Yes it is", and you will say, "No it is not" and so at this late hour in the evening we may introduce a little theatrical excitement into the proceedings.
We are very grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Drogheda, for giving us an opportunity to discuss the progress of the performing Arts in this country. I am particularly pleased that it was the noble Earl who tabled this Motion. As we all know, he is the distinguished Chairman of the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden and, as he explained, he and his team are experiencing some difficulty in sending a major company of the Royal Ballet on tour in the Provinces. Here I should declare my various interests in this area. I am Chairman of the Yorkshire Arts Association and Chairman of the Planning Conference of Regional Arts Association. Both these bodies are concerned with the touring of major national companies. I also serve on the Arts Advisory Committee of the Gulbenkian Foundation, and over many years the activities of that Foundation have been directed towards the development of cultural activities in the regions. Your Lordships can imagine, therefore, how pleased I was to hear the noble Earl say that the Royal Ballet Company and the Arts Council were looking again at this question of touring. He said that one of the main difficulties which prevented a major production from being toured is that we do not have the facilities outside London, such as the size of stage and so on, to accommodate a major production. I agree that there are major difficulties in this respect and I very much hope that they are difficulties which can be overcome in due course.
It seems worth pointing out, my Lords, that until a few years ago the Royal Ballet was touring a major production of The Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake and these productions were reasonably

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received. The noble Earl mentioned a figure of 70 per cent. attendance. If a production were toured to-day, I believe that he would find the attendance would be somewhat larger. I believe that Covent Garden is going to continue touring its new group. This is the group which includes a substantial amount of modern work in its repertoire, new choreography and so on, a repertoire in which I have a considerable interest. But I have a suspicion that the interest of the ballet audience in the region is probably in the performance of the classics, and that the Royal Ballet will build up its support in the country more effectively by touring a classical programme. I do not want to make an issue of this point; I merely mention it in passing.
My final point on the touring of ballet is that there is not in existence any full-scale regional ballet company. So far as opera is concerned, we have the Scottish Opera and the Welsh National Opera; but with ballet we have just the major companies, the Royal Ballet, the Festival Ballet, and that is it. The Festival Opera, I know, maintains an extremely extensive touring programme, and this is very welcome. However, I believe that it would be most unfortunate if the Royal Ballet were to cut down on their touring activities; I do not think there is sufficient opportunity outside London to visit the ballet as it is.
I believe it is planned that the Royal Ballet will visit Buenos Aires later in the year and I close my remarks on the difficulties of this company touring major productions in this country by extending my warmest wish for a successful visit to South America. We in Yorkshire (and I think I can speak for the 5 million or so Yorkshiremen who in one way or another support the Royal Ballet) are proud that we have built up in this country a company of such quality and enterprise that it has achieved so magnificent a reputation throughout the world. We are proud that this company contains the talents of artists born and bred in Yorkshire, such as David Blair and Patricia Ruanne, both artists who always come back and tour in Yorkshire whenever they can. In expressing my sincere best wishes to this company in its tour of Buenos Aires, may I also express the wish that the South Americans will derive as much satisfaction from that
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tour as we have done in the past, and which I hope we shall enjoy in the future in Leeds.
THE EARL OF DROGHEDA: My Lords, I want to say just one thing to the noble Lord, Lord Feversham. Alas! the ballet company are only going to Brazil. We were going to Buenos Aires, but a short space of time ago we were told that the stage hands there were on strike, and the company were told that they could not go there. So we are going to spend rather more time in Brazil. Just for the Record, the noble Lord had better substitute Rio de Janeiro for Buenos Aires!
LORD FEVERSHAM: My Lords, I am delighted that the company are going to Brazil. I think it is a pity that they cannot go all over South America, but I am sure that in due course they will, and all over the world.
If I may turn for a moment from the ballet and look at the opera, the Royal Opera House Company of course ceased its major touring operation some eight years ago and the burden of touring devolved upon the Sadler's Wells Company. I should like to mention here how pleased I am to have seen the efforts of the Sadler's Wells Company during the past few months to encourage its supporters in the region. Not long ago this company held a conference attended by a wide spectrum of interests in Yorkshire to explain the arrangements which had been made for touring in that county during the spring and summer. Those who attended the conference were, I hope, able to contribute a few suggestions which may be of some assistance to the success of this tour. Certainly they expressed a great deal of pleasure at being able to discuss the tour with the national company involved.
With regard to the theatre and the touring of productions by our national companies, the National Theatre used to tour. They have not done so for a number of years. I very much hope that they can be persuaded to do so again. I do not wish to labour these points further, but I think they may demonstrate that over the past few years we have seen the scaling down of touring by our major national companies. I believe that there is an unfortunate trend, and I think that we must seek to find a way of reversing

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that trend. There has been of course a body of opinion—we have not heard from it to-day, and I hope very much that it does not exist any longer—which holds that no part of the United Kingdom lies beyond a five-day camel ride, and that because of the difficulties and the expense it is neither practicable nor desirable for our national companies to appear outside London. I will not attempt to argue with a logic which rides on camels, but I will attempt, if I may, to support my belief that taking our national companies out of London is desirable and that ways must be found to achieve what is desirable.
In putting my case, my Lords, I think that it is most important to take a broad view of the Arts in this country in the past few years. As has been said by a number of noble Lords, we have aimed high, and with great success, achieving superlative standards both in the performing and in the visual Arts at the centre in London. We have fine national companies and galleries. We have established such standards as are the envy of the world, and I hope that we can continue to do so. In saying that, I should like to join all those who acknowledge the excellent efforts of the Arts Council over the years, and link with these sentiments an acknowledgment of the progress made in recent years under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, and of course to join with all the acknowledgments that have been made to the the two Ministers for the Arts that we have had in this country.
I have always believed in the policy which aims to raise to the highest standard the various art forms. That must be right. By aiming for the very highest in art, we can construct the summit of the pyramid of our culture. But having said that, let me say that you cannot leave it there: you cannot have the peak of the pyramid suspended by some magical act of levitation above the desert and the camels. The rightful place for the peak of the pyramid is set firmly upon broad and well-engineered foundations, and if those foundations show signs of crumbling or of erosion, then they must be seen to and corrected. In this area I was particularly interested in what the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, had to say. I think it would repay many of your Lordships, and certainly it would repay me, to
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read carefully in Hansard what he said. When he looks at culture or the Arts he always presents an analytical mind, and when he was talking of the merging of the art forms and television and of multi-purpose art centres, feeling out for a key for spreading the higher art forms to a wider public, I think he may have touched on something. But I hope that I can add to that analysis, and also to the analysis of the noble Lord, Lord Snow, which I fell in with very closely.
We all agree that a society without a culture is a sick society. Here I think we should consider our great cities in this country and the many urban problems which confront them. The old slum street, the small community, had its own culture, based perhaps on the pub on the corner and the weekly "knees up". Down came the slums and up went the great towers of flats, conceived in the wildest dreams of the town planners, set in assorted patches of polluted grass or acres of concrete desert, pedestrian precincts filled with litter swirled round and round by impetuous winds created by carefully planned wind funnels. Your Lordships may feel that I exaggerate. But that is how I have seen this, and I have seen it a number of times. I have seen so often how the community spirit, and with it the culture of the old slum street (I do not know whether this is Lord Eccles's working-class culture; I do not like these definitions of working-class culture, middle-class culture, Fine Arts and so on, and I think we must bring these definitions down) has been incarcerated in such Concrete prisons and allowed to die. Henry Livings, the Northern actor and playwright, left London and returned to the North because he saw and felt the strain of urban life. As he put it: he actually saw people in the Tube train cry out in distress.
I believe that we must look to cultural needs at the very roots if we are to pursue any worthwhile policy for the Arts in this country. We have strong cultural traditions. We heard the noble Lord, Lord Rhodes, talking about Lancashire. If anybody gets up and talks about Lancashire, I think somebody has to get up and talk about Yorkshire. Take Yorkshire, and take the Yorkshire miner. This man had a feeling for music and a need for music. All day long he hacked coal at the pit face, and his hands were

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roughened by the work. The miner's hands were not the hands of a violinist, so he sang and blew brass, and he made his music in any way he could. Here is the power of man's basic need for the Arts. Never mind your working-class culture, your middle-class culture, your Fine Arts, or whatever you care to call it; these are the foundations of your pyramid. If you do not take care of these foundations, then you can forget about the pinnacle. The performing Arts at their highest level—indeed, all the Fine Arts—cannot flourish in a society which does not deal with cultural needs from top to bottom. That is a view taken by the regional Arts associations. It is why the regional Arts associations have formed and grown in recent years—because the need was there. We believe that we can help to build on the foundations, and we believe that this work involves making available to as wide a public as possible the highest standards of performance which we can bring into the regions. The noble Lord, Lord Snow, said that this matter of taking the Arts out of London had been concerning us for 10 years. I must say I have been attending debates on the Arts in your Lordships' House for perhaps six years and this is the first time that I have heard a majority of speakers in this Chamber taking this matter seriously as an accepted fact, and suggesting that we should get down to considering how it might be developed.
There have in the past been a number of interests concerned: there have been those concerned with professional work and high standards, those concerned with amateur work, those who are interested in London, and those who are interested in the regions. The whole subject, as I think one or two speakers have said this afternoon, has been knitted up with definitions and boundaries. This is most unfortunate, because as has been said, we have to consider the whole picture of the Arts if we are to arrive at a constructive policy.
I should like to revert for just a moment to points outlined by the noble Earl, Lord Drogheda, and the noble Baroness, Lady Lee. I agree entirely with what the noble Baroness said about the desperately inadequate state of our buildings outside London. It is very much a matter of finance, because large
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sums of money are involved. If we are to have a worthwhile policy for the Arts then we are going to have to spend more money and we are going to have to spend a large proportion of it on housing the Arts. I am most grateful to the noble Earl for having drawn our attention to the priority in the regions in this respect—this was a particularly unselfish act in view of the pressing need for a second auditorium at Covent Garden. It is a priority which is supported by that excellent report produced by the Arts Council in 1970 entitled, The Theatre To-day. It is a priority for the Government and for the great cities of our country. It is a priority at a time when rates are going up and there is roaring inflation. It comes at a time when many may ask: Can we afford a constructive policy for the Arts? It is not a question I can answer: it is a question which must be answered by the Government and the cities. But let me say this: if a society without a culture is a sick society, then can we afford not to have a constructive policy?
Let us look at the question of V.A.T. which is to be levied on the Arts. I do not want to labour this, but is it a sign of a constructive policy for the Arts? I had lunch in Sheffield last week with a number of steelmen to discuss support for the Yorkshire Arts Association by the steel industry. I was told, "Well, of course, we are a largely nationalised industry and the nationalised industries are not anxious to assist the cultural aspects of the areas in which they operate." I do not know whether that is true, but that is the gist of what they said. Is that a sign of a constructive policy for the Arts in this country? What signs have we seen from successive Governments to encourage private industry to deal in these areas? One can make similar points concerning the local authorities, but it would take too long. Let me say in this respect that we shall soon have a new structure of local authorities in this country and I very much hope that these new authorities, when they come together, will address themselves seriously to the cultural problems with which they are faced.
Perhaps I might also touch on the opportunities open to us by joining the Common Market. I was very glad to

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hear that the Minister and the Arts Council will be assessing the opportunities and seeking to make the best use of them. It has been said by several speakers that most of the other European countries, including Eastern European countries, subsidise the Arts to a much greater extent than we do. An interesting situation has already arisen whereby it is cheaper to book foreign orchestras for concerts than a British orchestra. For example, the Hungarian State Symphony Orchestra might cost less than one of our own orchestras. The fees are often the minimum allowed by the Visiting Orchestras Consultative Association. This is a matter of some concern, I should have thought, to British musicians and to all those who are concerned with our policy for the Arts.
I hope that we can continue to build a constructive policy for the Arts in this country, and I hope we shall develop a policy which looks to the wide field of our cultural needs. So far as the Performing Arts arc concerned I hope that our national companies will continue to tour out of London and that we can improve our facilities for accommodating them. I hope, too, that we can step up our support for rational companies located out of London, such as the Scottish and the Welsh National Opera Companies. I hope, as the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, has suggested, that we can import more of what is good and is taking place in the regions to London. The two-week visit of the Nottingham Playhouse to the Old Vic last year was an encouraging example. Perhaps one day we may arrive at the situation which I understand has occurred in France, where the title of Théâtre Nationale Populaire was shifted from a company based in Paris to a company based, I believe, in Lyons.
However, all this will take time and money to achieve. I believe there is still some cause for concern at the present time at our broad policy for the Arts in this country. We have made rapid progress in the last four years. Through the Arts Council and through the regional Arts associations we have the machinery on which to build further achievements. I hope that we shall make good use of that machinery. Speaking for the regional Arts associations, I
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hope that our support from central Government will continue to grow. But more important to us is the support of those whom we serve within our regions. We cannot make progress unless our new local authorities, local industries, private individuals and everybody within our regions, recognise the cultural requirements of our society and the part of the regional Arts associations in meeting those requirements. And unless we can meet those requirements I would say that we shall not create a society in which the Performing Arts flourish in this country.
6.47 p.m.
VISCOUNT ECCLES: My Lords, with your leave, I will just try to answer some of the very interesting points raised during the debate. I think that my noble friend Lord Drogheda must be satisfied with the large number of interesting hares which have been started this afternoon, and I can promise him that we shall follow them all up as best we can.
I start with a gloomy subject. My noble friend and also the noble Lord, Lord Snow, talked about tax relief for gifts and subscriptions to the Arts. Of course I cannot help agreeing with them that although it is better to have done something for the dead than not to have done anything for anybody—and we have done a lot for those who are leaving their works of art to museums or who, for that matter, sell them to museums during their lifetime—we have not yet been able to do anything for the ordinary subscriber to some society whose object is to further the Arts. This is a very broad subject and it would be almost impossible for any Chancellor of the Exchequer to select the Arts as one form of charity, if he could find the resources to do anything, and not do it across the board for charities. Once one gets into that area it is very large and the definitions are not very easy to draw. However, with the help of Members of your Lordships' House we could perhaps go on trying.
My noble friend raised a very interesting point, which was also referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Rhodes: that is, the question of whether we should make some change in the whole organisation for support for touring within the European Community. I can only give your Lordships my own views at present,

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because this is a matter which has to be discussed with a lot of people; but of course the British Council has built up very great knowledge on the mechanics of sending companies, orchestras and individual artists abroad and on receiving them and looking after them when they come here. One could not, without damaging the system, I fear, transfer that from them, because it is by no means an easy task and they have learnt a lot over a long time. The British Council has operated mainly under bilateral cultural agreements; that is to say, a pair of countries, one of which is ourselves, negotiates an exchange of culture frankly in order to promote the prestige of their own way of life in the other country. This is highly suitable in dealing with countries, for instance, of a different political complexion from our own, where the role of the artist is not the same as it is in this country, and where promotions of almost all artistic kinds are frankly political. In those circumstances, the bilateral agreement has proved its value and the negotiating team which the Foreign Office and the British Council put on do very well.
The problem is that when we join the Community one might say that the political reason for sending an orchestra or theatre company, or a film or art exhibition, to a member of the Community, does not or ought not to exist. Once we join the Community we ought to be exchanging each other's forms of art because we believe that there is a common culture and because we believe our artists are extremely good ambassadors and can learn a great deal by joint productions in other countries, and so on.
Whether that means that we should have a different organisation both for subsidising export of art from here to the Community, and, in return, for looking after artists coming from the Community here, is by no means an easy problem to solve. It is noticeable that the Commission in Brussels has a section that deals with almost everything you can think of on a Community basis, but not culture. In time it is possible that that may change. My own view is that when we are as close to the countries as we are to those of the Community, the initiative of going there and coming here should be with the artist. I do not think
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that we want a semi-political body, or anything of that kind to fix these things up; it would be far better if the artists initiated it themselves. I was talking the other night with Mr. Peter Hall the director-designate of the National Theatre. He already has ambitious plans for alternating the National Theatre Company with famous theatre companies in Europe so that they work in one with the other. That is excellent and has to be started by the artists and theatre managers themselves.
The problem is this: if they need to have some subvention to whom should they go? If they need to have some help in fixing up travelling arrangements (which are not always simple) to whom should they go? At present they would go to the British Council, and the British Council has done these things well in the past. But there may be a case for some modification, and I am grateful to my noble friend for raising the matter.
The noble Lord, Lord Annan, and also the noble Lord, Lord Snow, rightly pointed to the way that money can be made to go further by refurbishing existing buildings as well as, and in some cases instead of, starting from the grass roots. We found that that was only too true in schools. The minor works programme was one of the most powerful programmes in making accommodation do more than it otherwise would while one was waiting to rebuild new schools. Looking at the list of projects assisted by the "Housing the Arts Scheme" the Arts Council have had a pretty good minor works programme. I know that they are now thinking that they might do more, particularly with making the accommodation in the larger theatres and concert halls rather better.
The noble Lord, Lord Rhodes, as I hoped, gave us a splendid description of Manchester's dreams, and we all wish him great success. As I understand it, the accommodation (if I may call it that) that he and his Committee have come to with the Arts Council for, as it were, testing the water, looks like being successful, and I certainly hope that it will be successful. He said that the local authorities needed some encouragement. This was a point that was taken up by my noble friends Lord Auckland

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and Lord Feversham: local authorities should be encouraged to do more than they are now doing. I entirely agree. I am getting a little worried at the proportion between the grants from the Arts Council to the Regional Arts Associations and the income they get from local authorities.
If I remember rightly, we used to say that the ideal was one-third from the centre, one-third from the local authority and one-third from private sources. We never received the one-third from private sources. But there was a time—and then of course the figures were much smaller—when contributions from local authorities were much nearer those from the Arts Council. The estimate for 1973–74 is £1,150,000 from the Arts Council and only £350,000 from the local authorities. That is not good enough. It is not in the self-interest of the regions that they should let the Paymaster General become so largely the one source of finance. I hope that when the new local authorities get into their stride we shall be able to have a successful campaign and that their proportion will come nearer that which is coming from the Arts Council.
The noble Lords, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, and Lord Rhodes, had a small argument about young people leaving school and then having no instruments to play. This is a serious problem. We are spending large sums of money through local education authorities on arousing the artistic and creative interests of children at school. In many cases the schools have bands; they have instruments, they have painting materials; they have kilns for their pottery, and so on; but when the children leave school they do not find the facilities to carry on what they have learned to appreciate at school. The let-down is extremely serious. There is no doubt that one of the places where the pinch is felt is in brass instruments, the price of which has escalated, like the price of almost everything else one can think of; and the cost of buying a set of instruments for not too large a brass band today runs into thousands of pounds, and the instruments do not last for ever. Therefore this is the area in which we have to do something more through the Arts Council.
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As my noble friend Lord Feversham said, if you do not attend to the base of the pyramid the peak is always at risk. The base of the pyramid, whatever some of the professional artists may like or say, largely rests on the amateurs. It is through amateur art that the audiences come for professional art, and, very often, professional artists themselves. There is no doubt that although our society is much richer than it was before, it is not as good a collective patron as you would expect it to be for the amateur Arts. We seem to have been seduced by consumer goods, and as a rich people we do not seem to have the same form of patronage as when we were much poorer. Then eccentric people with money did a great deal for the Arts. It is a curious phenomenon and we have to make the public as a whole assume the duties of patron.
I was delighted that the National Film Archive was mentioned both by the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, and the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Hampstead. As I tried to say previously, this is extremely important and it is one of those cases which one can see in many of our archives and our museums, where really it is not right to allow the existing collection to deteriorate because you prefer to spend money on acquiring something new. This is happening, and here is a real case where we, the Government, have not spent enough money to prevent a great collection from serious risk of deterioration. If we get—and I would favour it if I could persuade others to join me—legislation for a statutory deposit, and if the National Film Archive at current prices selected what they tell us they would select, and if we had to pay 100 per cent. of the cost (and copies of colour films are very expensive), it looks like £400,000 a year. That is a lot of money suddenly to attach to an archive. I would suggest to your Lordships that in this country we have centred in the British Library that is coming now, the finest archives of the printed word and manuscripts anywhere in the world; and it always seems to me to be right to build on what you already have. I think it would be a great mistake not to try to make great archives of sound and film and also stills. The National Archive has over a million still photographs and

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posters, and other collections also exist, but because we are so rich in our printed archives it seems a thousand pities that we should not add the other sources of information.
BARONESS WHITE: My Lords, I apologise for interrupting the noble Viscount because I have not been able to be present at this debate, but the noble Viscount will realise that this is a subject in which I have been very much interested for many years. I would only suggest to him that films are peculiarly ephemeral and they can be so easily destroyed. In this they differ from the printed word, and therefore if one does not acquire at a time when one has an opportunity to acquire they may be lost for ever, much more easily than printed books may be.
VISCOUNT ECCLES: My Lords, I entirely endorse what the noble Baroness has said. It is heartrending to me to learn that in the case of some of the best news bulletins the film is scrubbed and used again and no copy is kept. It is things of this kind we have to turn our minds to, and we will, but it is complicated because interests are few and strong and we have somehow to meet them in what looks to me like legislation.
I was glad to hear the tribute paid by my noble friend Lord Auckland to the theatre at Leatherhead. It certainly is one of the best repertory theatres around London.
My noble friend Lord Somers is quite right when he says that symphony orchestras are extremely expensive. The Arts Council, through the London Orchestra Board, does its best to look after them. It may be some consolation to him to know that when one looked at their last four annual reports one expected them to show, when brought together, a large deficit but it was not so. Therefore, we cannot say that, given the present expenditure—they may well say that they would like to have higher salaries, or something like that—they are "in the red". The four orchestras are not "in the red". I find that the public demand is now for the smaller orchestras and that British composers to-day are not writing much music for the full symphony orchestra; they seem to be writing much more music for the small group which is specially prepared
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for that kind of music, but I cannot claim to be an expert. In regard to choir schools the situation is very sad. One of the things one learns in Europe is that the great tradition of Church music is dying out. The Minister of Culture in France was saying only about two months ago that Gregorian chants were almost extinct. This is very sad, and I do not quite know what any Minister can do about that.
I am glad the noble Lord, Lord Snow, mentioned the new regional department. Mr. Duncan looks just the man to be the director. The chairman of the panel is Professor Roy Shaw of Keele University and he knows as much as anyone I have ever met about this interesting problem of communication between one kind of culture and another and how one can introduce, by stages, art to people who have not been fortunate enough to have a home background where art was encouraged. I think we shall see some interesting things in that connection.
I have nothing more to say to your Lordships, except to do one blatant piece of advertising.
BARONESS WHITE: Not for the first time, my Lords!
VISCOUNT ECCLES: It is to ask your Lordships, if you have a quarter of an hour, to go to the Victoria and Albert Museum and see the exhibition of the crafts. This is the first time that British crafts all over the country have had an exhibition at our greatest museum of decorative arts, where practically everything you can think of is represented, but only by very well selected pieces. I assure your Lordships that the crafts in this country are about to have a great renaissance, but they need of course a public, an instructed public, who will not only give commissions and buy these things but raise their status and make the craftsmen feel that the old division between the arts and the crafts is no longer one we can support.
7.7 p.m.
THE EARL OF DROGHEDA: My Lords, I should like to thank all of your Lordships who have taken the trouble to come here to-day and those who have taken part in this debate, particularly our past and our present Ministers for the Arts who have given us most interesting

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speeches. I was very much encouraged by much that the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, said. I do not seem to have got very far with him on the question of V.A.T., but I suppose I did not really expect to. He said that so far as Europe was concerned this was more a question for the individual managements and the artists, but I cannot help feeling that there is going to be a bit of pressure behind us to encourage us to do things. I do not think it should be left entirely to Covent Garden or Sadler's Wells or wherever it may be. There should be a conscious policy of sending our cultural attractions abroad. I am not too happy with the idea of leaving things exactly as they are with the British Council. In fact the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, has a relatively open mind on this question, and we may see certain things developing. The noble Lord, Lord Auckland, expressed the hope that the debate would be widely read and studied, and I am bound to say, "So do I"; but we do not seem to be able to get Hansard very easily just at present. No doubt we can get a duplicated copy.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (EARL JELLICOE): My Lords, may I suggest to the noble Earl that we might rely upon the Financial Times?
THE EARL OF DROGHEDA: My Lords, they may put in a few lines, but there has been an emergency debate in another place, I think, which would command even more attention, even in the "Pink Paper".
I was delighted to hear what the noble Lord, Lord Auckland, said about the exchange of visits with New Hope in Pennsylvania. That is an admirable thing and I should like to see more of that happening. I was grateful to the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, for saying that he would speak to the Secretary of State for the Environment on the subject raised by the noble Lord, Lord Annan, about the possibility of some kind of super authority to watch over what is to happen in the Covent Garden market area. As to taking the Royal Ballet out of London, we are deeply conscious of our duties—I have used the word myself; it has been rubbed into me—and we shall do everything we possibly can about it, but we have responsibilities in
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London and we also have responsibilities to go overseas. It is very hard to divide the company up into small pieces, but we shall do all we can. I feel that bricks and mortar is a tremendously important thing and I thought that the noble Baroness, Lady Lee of Asheridge, made some powerful points under that heading. I am very grateful to your Lordships, and I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

REHOUSING OF HOMELESS FAMILIES
7.11 p.m.
LORD HYLTON LORD HYLTON rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are satisfied with the present arrangements for the rehousing of homeless families. The noble Lord said: My Lords, from the start I should like to make it clear that in speaking about homeless families I intend to confine myself entirely to those who are officially homeless—that is to say, to families who have applied to a local authority because they have lost, or are in the process of losing, their home. This question arises out of two Written Questions which I previously asked and which were answered by my noble friend Lord Aberdare on December 20 of last year and January 24 of this year. I may say that I am very glad to see that my noble friend Lady Young has been able to come into the Chamber, because the subject matter is one which goes right down tha boundary line between housing and social services.
To return to the Written Questions: the first concerned children taken into care because their parents were either officially homeless or living in appallingly bad physical housing conditions. The Answer on that point was that during the year ended March 1972, 6,510 children were taken into care for these reasons in England and Wales. In Scotland in the previous year the figure was 766. These are tragic figures when one bears in mind the very great stress that can be caused to a child simply by being separated from its parents; the impact of removal from its home and being taken into new, alien, totally different conditions. I say that, however good is the childcare and how-

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ever good the children's officers and the persons running the children's homes are.
It is perhaps interesting to look at the geographical distribution where these children were taken into care. In the period in question, rather over 1,000 of them came from Greater London. But there are very great contrasts between one London borough and another. In the case of two of the Inner London boroughs (two of the most hard-pressed boroughs) during that year each of them took only 10 children into care for these reasons, while in another two the figure exceeded 100. In the case of four of the home counties closely adjacent to Greater London there were over 100 children taken into care in a year. These differences seem to me to be too wide. I feel that they can be explained only by serious differences in policies between one local authority and another. It may be also that differing local authorities make varying and different uses of the statutory powers which they already have, and that surely is a most undesirable thing. The figures, to my mind, also indicate in some cases, though not in all, a lack of co-operation between housing departments and social services departments, even within the same county.
I went on to ask in the Written Question what is the weekly cost of keeping a child in care, and the Answer was that in 1970·71 the average cost was £10·11 per child. But there is reason to think that this cost figure has risen very greatly in the last few years and that in London, at any rate, it has now reached the level of £19 per week. I asked whether the Government could estimate the annual cost of keeping children in care because of homelessness. The answer there, unfortunately and regrettably, was that it was not possible to give the annual cost. The reason for that, it was stated, was that nobody knows how long the children remain in care. That seems to be rather an amazing state of affairs at a time when so many people are concerned with cost effectiveness. I wonder whether the Government would be prepared to state tonight that they want to see far more money spent on providing temporary and permanent accommodation and housing and far less on the taking of children into care.
My second Written Question was concerned with homeless families. I asked
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whether figures could be given for the number of lawful evictions and foreclosures which occurred in a year. That, I was told, was not available. It is known, however, that the number of families in temporary accommodation be-because they were homeless doubled between 1966 and 1971. It is known that applications for temporary accommodation are now running at an annual rate of 30,000 per year—that is, in 1972. If we take a rather low average number of persons per family—let us say three—that means that 90,000 persons or thereabouts applied to a local authority for temporary accommodation in 1972: a staggering figure, a figure equivalent to the total population of the city of Bath, for example. It is further known that the ratio of applications for temporary accommodation to actual admissions is of the order of four to one. It also indicates a very serious state of affairs and I should like to return later to the reasons for that curious ratio.
I asked in the same Written Question how many families were turned away by a local authority simply because no temporary accommodation was available at that time. That Answer was not available. I asked how many families had been placed in bed and breakfast rooms or in hotels by local authorities. Again, no one knows. I asked whether it was possible to make an estimate of the number of families who have been driven to living and sleeping in cars and vans or who are "sleeping rough". Again, no one can estimate that, but I assure your Lordships that it certainly occurs. I asked also in the same Question how many local authorities provide no temporary accommodation at all. Again, the Government do not know. My Lords, I feel that this written reply reveals a most astonishing state of ignorance. I should like to ask the Government what steps are being taken to remedy this lack of knowledge, which is all the more surprising when it comes after many laborious Reports and Inquiries—the Milner-Holland Report, the Greve Report, the Glastonbury Report and the reports of special Working Parties on homelessness in London, just to give a few examples.
What are the Government doing to create a greater sense of urgency among all those who have to deal with homeless families and the problems of homelessness? Are the Government

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intending to provide greater funds for rehousing homeless families? These. I hope, are questions which are capable of an answer. But the Question that I put down for today is not one which can be answered, or at least it cannot be answered in a satisfactory sense, and the reason for that is extremely simple. Most regrettably, the fact is that many homeless families are simply not rehoused. Within quite a short interval of time they are split up, divided and broken up. All too often local authorities have no alternative but to advise a homeless family to go to their friends or relations, to fit themselves in somehow or other. This simply delays the time of reckoning, because it leads to overcrowding, it leads to tension, family friction, husbands and wives separating of their own accord.
Another tactic which local authorities have been driven to is to say, "All we can do is to take your children into care", which, if accepted, immediately splits the family. If the offer is rejected, it probably means that the family in question simply goes over the border into some other local authority area. Let us take the most favourable instance, where an offer of temporary accommodation is made to a homeless family. This does not always apply to the whole family. In the case of some 13 local authorities the rule is that husbands cannot be accepted. This extraordinary rule still applies many years after the famous legal battle over the King Hill Hostel, where the judgment of the court apparently established once and for all that husbands have a positive right to accompany their wives and children. In other cases, I believe affecting some 11 local authorities, children over the age of 16 are excluded from temporary accommodation. Elsewhere artificial qualifications are required before temporary accommodation can be provided. Sometimes it is required that the family's name shall be on the housing list before temporary accommodation is given.
Other administrative practices for rationing this scarce amount of temporary accommodation include not having any rent arrears, or being subject to some kind of means test. In other cases hard-pressed local authorities try to send the homeless family who present themselves
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back to their point of origin or their previous address. This practice appears to be in complete contravention of the advice given by the Ministry of Health Circular No. 87 of 1948, which clearly stated that
"The provision of temporary accommodation is in all cases the responsibiliy of the authority in whose area the person happens to be when the need arises."
These administrative practices which I have described appear to me to contravene at least three Acts of Parliament; namely, the National Assistance Act 1948, the Children and Young Persons Act 1963, the Local Authority Social Services Act 1970. Will the Government give an assurance this evening that these three Acts will be uniformly applied throughout the country for the benefit of homeless families?
A recent Government decision made possible the admission into this country of some 300 members of Uganda Asian families whose wives and children, in most cases, were already in Britain, and by an act of clemency the husbands were allowed to join them. They had previously been separated by the accident of Statelessness. I should be delighted if the Government would give an assurance this evening that in a similar spirit they will no longer tolerate the splitting of British families resident in Britain. Perhaps they could go a little further and say they will no longer tolerate the shuttlecocking of families from one local authority area to another. That was something that frequently occurred under the old Poor Law, and it was something we had hoped had disappeared, but that seems not yet to have quite occurred.
Those of us who are concerned with homeless families are concerned on the merits of the question; none of us, I think, wish to make Party political points. It is in this spirit that I would quote very briefly from a joint circular which went out from the Ministry of Health, the Home Office and the Ministry of Housing and Local Government on October 31. 1966. The circular reviewed very briefly and concisely the causes of homelessness, and went on to suggest how it might be prevented and how homeless families might be re-established. I will quote very briefly from it. It said:
"The primary aim is to enable husband, wife and children to remain together."

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I think we would all agree with that. On the next page it said:
"The discretion given in Section 21, National Assistance Act, 1948, as to the admission of families in foreseeable circumstances should be—as it generally is—widely used without artificial discrimination."
Some of the practices which I mentioned earlier, to my mind, amount to artificial discrimination, which 5½ years ago was condemned and recommended not to be done.
I agree that there have been in recent months some improvements in administrative practices within Greater London. Nevertheless, a great deal remains to be done in the field of prevention, particularly in regard to eviction, and I feel that far more should be done throughout the rest of the country to put into practice the circular from which I have quoted. While on that point, I should like to ask the Government whether the reports mentioned in paragraph 11 of the circular, which were first asked for in March, 1967, are still being received. Surely these are such basic points of information that they should be required at least annually.
This question of homelessness seems to be tied up very closely with access to housing. I ventured to suggest in a letter to The Times on January 1 last that access is very difficult, when not impossible, for a family which either has never had a home or has just lost it; and difficult for this reason, that over 80 per cent. of the total stock of housing is either in owner occupation or else in council ownership.
Both those types of tenure have barriers erected round them: in the first case financial barriers, in the second case barriers of residential qualification and points schemes. To overcome these barriers—which used in the past to be possible through private rented accommodation, and which is becoming no longer possible because private rented accommodation, decreases and shrinks year by year and is largely now confined to luxury flats and tied houses—a vast increase in the amount of temporary housing is to my mind necessary, and I should like to ask the Government what steps they are taking to increase the supply of simple, basic but yet self-contained, temporary housing for families. Obviously it is not sufficient simply to
822
provide temporary accommodation. This must be backed up by permanent solutions. On that the evidence of Scotland and Northern Ireland is that the local authorities are unable to do enough to provide permanent rented accommodation, particularly for those earning less than the national average income.
I should very much like to hear the Government's reaction to the idea of creating a central housing authority in England and Wales, such as has been created in Scotland and Northern Ireland. This would be done not to abolish or take away the powers of local authorities but to supplement and reinforce them, to provide permanent solutions to follow on from the vastly increased temporary accommodation. If something on these lines could be done, my Lords, I feel that we may be beginning to abolish homelessness among families.
7.33 p.m.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, the House has come to know and to respect the very great interest, and, indeed, more than interest, the activity, of the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, in the subject of housing as a social problem and social service, and we have good reason to be grateful to him for tabling this Question this evening. I have the feeling that probably the subject deserves a full-scale debate, but, be that as it may, we are grateful to him for the opportunity he has provided. The debate is very timely, coming as it does so recently after the issuing of the "grief report" published by Shelter, with which I am quite sure the noble Lord is familiar. That report follows the 1971 Greve Report which stated that nobody knows, or has ever known, how many homeless people there are. The "grief report" illustrates again and again what homelessness means to those caught up in this acute, degrading social problem. The Question which the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, asks, is whether Her Majesty's Government
are satisfied with the present arrangements for the rehousing of homeless families",
and he said—I would like to go along with what he said—that we are not seeking to make a Party political point. However, I think his Question has to be seen against the mandate which was sought by the Government at the last Election when they said that they wanted power, as they

823
put it, to house the homeless. They declared:
"The problem of the homeless is concealed by unrealistic official statistics. We will lay down a more sensible definition and then make sure that families without a home or living in intolerable conditions receive priority ".
To this Question I am pretty certain we are bound to get an emphatic "No", if for no other reason, though I think there will be others, than that the "grief report" reveals the harshness of the situation existing at present and must prevent any showing of complacency.
I have been re-reading the Ninth Report of the Housing Management Sub-Committee of the Central Housing Advisory Committee, published in 1969. Paragraphs 328 to 351 deal with the homeless. These paragraphs can still be studied with great advantage and much in them is relevant to this debate. Inevitably in reading that Report my mind recalled the 1968 Report of the Committee on Local Authorities and Allied Social Services over which the noble Lord, Lord Seebohm—Mr. Frederick Seebohm, as he then was—presided. As your Lordships will recall, my noble friend Lady Serota was a distinguished member of that Committee. Again there is so much in that Report that is relevant to this debate. We find in paragraphs 401 to 413 particular attention paid to the part which local authorities should undertake in dealing with the problem of homeless families. In paragraph 401, they say:
"We recommend that housing departments should, as a few already do, assume responsibility for providing accommodation for homeless families."
Later they go on to say:
"The general responsibility should ensure that families do not break up and children do not become separated from their parents just because they cannot secure a home together."
Then we have Chapter 14 of that Report dealing with prevention, and there is so much in that which one feels needs constant study. I think it would be helpful if the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, is able to give us the definition of "homelessness" which the Government now use, so that we can better understand the figures which I hope he will provide showing the size of the problem to-day.
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There is a great deal that could be said about the work of Shelter, and I want to make only passing reference to it. We know that it is an organisation that has had dynamic growth and has been dynamic in the influence it has exercised. What does impress me is that Shelter to-day, I understand, is employing something like 90 full-time workers, and I would ask the noble Lord if he can tell us the extent to which this organisation is matched in the Department of Housing and Construction. I wonder whether he could tell us the size of the staff in the Department that is concerned with housing management, and how many of these are concerned with the particular problem of homelessness. As I recall, the Ninth Report of the Housing Management Sub-Committee told us that there was only one in the Ministry of Housing and Local Government at that time who was concerned with housing management. It would be interesting to have the comparative figure to-day. I think we shall be particularly interested in the size of the staff dealing with homelessness.
I want to turn to the duties of local authorities, which are pretty clearly established in the fields of both welfare and housing. As I see it, they have an obligation to ensure that displaced persons are satisfactorily rehoused. I do not want to detail all the arguments in Chapter 2 of the "grief" report, and I do not want to repeat all that the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, said; but I should like to ask the Government whether they accept the summary of findings set out on page 2 and, if they do not, which of those findings are not accepted. As has been said on so many occasions, people become homeless for a variety of reasons. None the less, those reasons can be classified and grouped, and effective policies must be devised and pursued vigorously to deal with the position. Central Government have an overriding responsibility here, and the answers to the questions which I put on staffing will give us some idea how that is being discharged.
The day-to-day task of coping with the problem is, of course, the responsibility of local authorities and, clearly, they have their own individual ways of tackling it. Some are a great deal better than others. To what extent do the Government give them directions or issue guidelines? And—if I may repeat the

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question put by the noble Lord, Lord Hylton—are they satisfied with the response that they are getting from local authorities? Do local authorities employ enough social workers to handle the problem of homeless families, and beyond that—and perhaps, in the long run, more important—to undertake preventive work on the necessary scale? Are the Government satisfied that there is adequate liaison between the housing and the welfare authorities, particularly—again, a matter which has been touched upon by the noble Lord, Lord Hylton—that section responsible for child care? I have been involved in the work of children's departments for a good many years during my service in local government, and I have been—and still am—appalled at the bankruptcy of a policy which has separated children from parents because of homelessness. I am not convinced that the need for such action has been justified to anything like the extent to which it has been taken. Too often, local authorities have held vacant for months property which could have been used to provide accommodation for the homeless, only because, it seemed to me, someone has been more concerned with getting them out than with keeping a family or families together; in other words, it has been administratively more convenient to keep property empty. I have mentioned preventive work, and this is an area where reassurance that everything possible is being done will be very welcome to-night.
I take the view that if a local authority evicts a family and causes its break-up, unless on the most exceptional grounds such as cruelty, it has failed utterly. This can happen when the housing manager and staff behave as estate agents. It is many years ago now since I was chairman of a housing committee, when we decided to appoint a housing manager. I looked for, and I expected to find in the applicant that we selected, someone of the attitude and self-involvement of Octavia Hill. We have too few people animated as she was animated, and there is a very great deal to learn if we go back and study her approach to the social problem to which she devoted so much of her life. It is because too little rehabilitative work is undertaken that we get some of the trouble we find to-day—I rather think a very great deal of the
826
trouble we find to-day. We want to know a very great deal more about the applicants for accommodation who disappear from the lists, those who are refused, put off. We shall never know the suffering, the intolerable strains that follow, and the tragedy that can ensue. I wonder whether the noble Lord can tell us if there is any serious follow-up of cases to evaluate the social consequences.
If I dared to take the time—and I do not—I should give figures for the authority on which I now serve, showing how many apply, how many are accepted and what happens to those who are not accepted. All too often, they go to accommodation similar to that from which they have been evicted and the strains begin all over again; but these can be written off as people who make their own arrangements. We get another group accommodated by relatives, and what strains can ensue as a result of that! Or accommodated by friends—and how long can friends put up with a family living with them? Too few are rehoused by the local authority. Some obtain residential employment, and they are evicted because they have already been in residential employment. That is one of the reasons for a great many people becoming homeless. One could go on.
London is unique and its problem is particular. One thinks of places like Centre Point standing empty for so very long. There it is, a symbol of homage to investment and profit-making, a hollow mockery in terms of human dignity. The "grief" Report makes clear that the problem is much more than a London one. I live in Surrey and, as I said, I serve on the county council there. That Report has made a very considerable impact, as a result of its revelations, in regard to housing in Surrey. I have no doubt at all that it was the publication of the "grief" Report which prompted what strikes me as a quite unprecedented action on the part of no fewer than 110 social workers. I shall be very grateful if the noble Lord will give me his attention on this point. Those social workers issued an open letter which began:
"We, the undersigned social workers employed by the Surrey County Council, wish to state our continued concern at the problems of homelessness and inadequate housing which exist in a county as affluent as Surrey. Even some of the temporary accommodation available is of an unacceptable standard."

827
After drawing attention to the division of responsibilities, land prices, house prices, the falling number of houses being built and other difficulties, they went on to say:
"Accordingly, we propose that an appropriate joint body be set up to represent the county council and the County Districts Association, both to press for additional resources and to plan for their most effective use."
They went on to suggest that in addition to the representatives of the county council and of the County Districts Associations, there should be representatives of social workers, including those who are concerned with the problem of homelessness, and—which struck me as quite a novel suggestion, but one well worthy of consideration—representatives from those who have themselves been homeless and have really experienced the problem.
I should like to know from the noble Lord—and this is why I asked him to give me his attention a moment ago—whether there is any movement in this direction throughout the country, for in Surrey, like other authorities, we face an increase in homelessness, although additional temporary accommodation is being provided. May I say, I hope without undue immodesty, that I think I can claim to have played some part in securing that additional accommodation. It was because it came to my notice that the council was holding—and had been holding for many months—houses that have been occupied by policemen and such people, so-called sub-standard housing, that I felt that an opportunity was being lost and homeless families were being unnecessarily deprived of accommodation. I hope the House will forgive me for that personal anecdote; but despite the fact that we have this increased temporary accommodation, still the applicants come, and despite using hotels as we have never used them before, a substantial proportion are not being accommodated by the authority.
It seems to me that we must repeatedly examine the effectiveness of the preventive work that is undertaken. The guidelines were laid down in 1968 and 1969 in the two official reports to which I have referred; and I think we must always question evictions of families by local authorities. I recognise the work of bodies like the Catholic Aid Society, to
828
which the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, gives of his time and support. More power to their elbow! But they touch only the fringe of the problem. Central Government must give the lead and local government must respond. It is not good enough to give way to the temptation to dismiss the problem as one created by people's own lack of foresight or initiative. The socially inadequate desperately need support, and at the time of reckoning what is to be said of us if we fail to remember that
"Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren ye have done it unto me"?
My Lords, we are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hylton. To-night we cannot escape from knowledge of the plight of these people, and if we close our eyes, then that, on our part, will be a deliberate act. But at the bottom of it all there is still a desperate housing shortage in areas of great urban activity, and always there is the continuing need to see housing as one of the most vital of our social services.
7.53 p.m.
BARONESS WHITE: My Lords, I should like to join in the thanks which are due to the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, for raising this Question to-night. My thanks, however, are tempered by the fact that it is plain to any of us who have tried to deal with this problem of homelessness that it needs a full-scale, whole-day debate to do it anything approaching justice. In a short debate at this hour, it is difficult for us, even between us, somehow to range over the very complex issues which are involved. Some of them are structural. In the Local Government Act of last year we were not able satisfactorily to solve the question of divided responsibility between different authorities. It is only in the metropolitan districts that one has in the one local government unit responsibility both for housing and for social services. Outside London, in the non-metropolitan county areas, these responsibilities are divided—and in a moment or two I want to say something about some of the consequences of this division.
That this is an increasing problem seems to be clear, and I shall be glad to know whether the Minister is able to give us any up-to-date computation of the

829
present situation regarding people classified as homeless; to which one must always add, as my noble friend Lord Garnsworthy indicated, the people who do not in fact reach the statistics because somehow or other they make possibly temporary arrangements of their own. But when the Greve Report was issued it was said that:
"In the decade between 1960 and 1970 the number of persons in temporary accommodation has risen in England and Wales by no less than 190 per cent.".
We have every reason to think that this increase is continuing. That is why I should like to have authentic information if it is available. The increase is continuing partly, as we know, because of the very sharp decline in the amount of cheap, rented accommodation which is available especially in the major cities, where housing which people in difficulties could sometimes find for themselves—accommodation of some sort—is now being so rapidly replaced by the developers with, as the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, said, shops, offices and impossibly expensive flats. So the scope of the problem is really enormous, and appears to be increasing; and, as I say, it is exacerbated by the structural problems of local government.
Within the last three or four years we have had a series of extremely interesting and well-researched reports, which have been mentioned by the two previous speakers. One which interested me especially—and I was rather surprised that the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, I think I am right in saying, did not refer to it directly—was a report on South Wales and South-West England by Bryan Glastonbury, and the comments thereon by the local authorities and the Departments concerned. The noble Lord is concerned with the South-West of England, and I am much concerned with South Wales; and I found that report, in addition to the London ones, particularly enlightening. But what emerges from all these reports is, I think, first, as the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, emphasised, the really quite astonishing lack of authentic information about this problem and of proper analyses in usable form of the great variety of categories of persons who are homeless for one reason or another.
It also emerges from all these reports that homelessness is a far more complex
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matter than mere lack of houses, serious as that is; and the house-building records in this country for the last year or two are, of course, very far from encouraging. But it seems plain that homelessness is a human problem as well as one of physical accommodation. This was made clear as far back as 1969 in Professor Cullingworth's Report, in which he said:
"It is by no means plain how far homelessness is a housing problem. To a major extent the problem may frequently lie deeper".
In the Glastonbury Report on South Wales, to which I have just referred, Bryan Glastonbury said:
"Homelessness is not mainly"
so far as South Wales is concerned—
"a matter of housing shortage, but of a number of complex difficulties. Marital breakdown appears to be central".
This, I think, is less true of London, where the sheer physical lack of accommodation is undoubtedly a major factor, and this may well be true also of other large cities. But, I repeat, it is not universally so, and therefore there is this much broader responsibility than the responsibility which lies directly on housing authorities as such.
Another factor which emerges from these various reports is the wide variation in the practice of different local authorities, and one would wish to know from the Minister what guidance has recently been given on such matters. Because, for example, the Cullingworth Report said:
"The policies of the London borough housing departments in relation to homelessness varied greatly. Some insisted on actual eviction by court order; others that people must be homeless through no fault of their own; others that there must be children of school age; others that the previous accommodation must have been unfurnished. Some insisted on a residential qualification even for temporary accommodation; "—
which I believe is strictly illegal—
"others did not".
Although this was written several years ago, one would wish to know what improvement there has been, if any, in the situation which was then described. As this is a short debate, having raised all these general matters, I should like to focus attention on one particular aspect

831
of homelessness. Recently there was a debate in another place on the plight of single persons. Our debate is focused more on the problems of families and both the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, and my noble friend Lord Garnsworthy rightly emphasised the problems of families with children which may be divided because of homelesness.
I want to take a different group of families, families where a mother with children is homeless because she has felt obliged to leave her home because of the behaviour of her husband. This matter was raised, as some noble Lords may know, in the Observer of last Sunday in an article by Christine Doyle. Having seen this article, I was so much moved that in the last few days I have made it my business to follow up the maters referred to in it. I also tried quickly to see what references there were to this category of homeless families in some of the Reports to which we have referred to-night. I was interested to find that in the Greve Report there was a particular reference to this matter. Professor Greve, referring to a survey dealt with in his book, said that over one-third of the families which are admitted to temporary accommodation are families where the mother is alone with her children—in other words, without her husband, mainly through separation; although there are some unmarried mothers. This is a very high proportion. When one goes a little further, as he did, into the analysis one finds that it is not always true to say that this was due to marital friction. There were other reasons: the husband's illness or his working away from home or because he was in prison.
In the South Wales Report it was suggested that domestic friction was the basic cause of homelessness for no less than 34 per cent. of the families in temporary accommodation. In London, for the reasons I suggested earlier, the proportion is much smaller, some 13 per cent. Even that represents a very significant number. Professor Greve went on to say that marital breakdown was the most persistent cause of homelessness and the most difficult to assess. He made the rather interesting comment that in the London area, the area with which he was dealing, the highest proportion of fami-
832
lies broken up for this reason are those London-born, the lowest those of Commonwealth origin, with the Irish somewhere in between. I mention this because there are some popular misconceptions on the subject.
He went on to say that the local authorities were reluctant to give accommodation in cases where marital disputes resulted in the woman's leaving the home with the children, or wishing to do so. In his survey, out of 59 applications from women who felt they were in danger at home of physical assault, only 24 were admitted to temporary accommodation. He said that admission was sometimes for night emergencies, and others occurred after a fairly long break-up of the family. Admission was much less likely where the woman had left home recently or where she had asked for accommodation to enable her to leave. The standard advice given to these women was to go back home or to see the probation officer to discuss a separation order. In only five cases out of the 59 did the social worker offer to visit the husband.
Professor Glastonbury's investigations led him to believe that homelessness tended to be a sequel and not a cause of domestic disturbance. He admitted that poverty, frequent moves and the strain of young families were among the causes of family breakdown. The official Report, a cross-check on the Glastonbury Reports, which was issued by the local authorities concerned and the Department, gave rent arrears as numerically the most important category of the homeless but said that family matrimonial disputes ran a very close second. For these reasons it seems to me that this particular group of persons requires some special attention. My attention was drawn to it by the article to which I referred, which was a description of a very small hostel for women with their children who had left home because of physical assault. I determined to find out a little more about this particular voluntary effort. It is a small house—condemned, incidentally—which may not be available much longer and which belongs to the borough council. It consists of four small rooms with no bath, no hot water and an outside lavatory. It has been opened some sixteen months. The small group of women running it began to do so because the problem

833
existed in their vicinity and they felt they had to do something to meet it. In the sixteen months, they have had nearly 500 requests for help.
On Monday of this week when I telephoned to check (and I cross-checked the facts I obtained) they had in that small house six women and eight children. There was a woman aged 30, who was six months pregnant, with a daughter of 8, sent by the Paddington Social Service Department; another was aged 32, with a boy and a girl, sent by a probation officer from Hertfordshire; another of 50, with a boy and a girl, sent by the Hammersmith Social Service Department; another of 28, with a baby of four months, sent by the N.S.P.C.C. and a health visitor; another of 50, with a girl of eleven, sent by the Hammersmith Citizens' Advice Bureau; another of 32, with a baby of six months, sent by the borough social service department. Some slept on the floor but all were thankful to be there because they felt safe. These women, I am assured, have suffered physical harm. It is not just a question of a slap or a punch which can sometimes happen in the best regulated families; these people have had broken bones, broken arms, broken noses. The pregnant women because of the assaults on them are terrified for the wellbeing of their unborn child. The analysis made by the women who run this tiny hostel are that the husbands concerned can be grouped into three types: psychopaths, alcoholics and straightforward bullies. The latter category is the easiest to deal with. In the short time of sixteen months in which the house has been opened these women have given temporary shelter to some 400 women who have applied. When a woman leaves she is given a key so that she can come back in an emergency.
The local authorities concerned very often do not have adequate accommodation to offer. Voluntary organisations are apt to say that they will take the children but not the mother, Yet, as was pointed out, in such circumstances the children are often desperately close to the mother because of the way in which she has been assualted by the father, and often the children themselves have been assualted. Where you have a woman in this condition, and often highly disturbed children, it is not good social practice to separate the mother from the
834
children. The other great advantage of this enterprise is that, with the help of friendly lawyers, they are able to give instant legal advice and obtain legal aid. In these circumstances that seems to me one of the most important things of all.
My Lords, I could go on further, but I hope that I have said enough to suggest that this really is a serious aspect of the much wider problem of homelessness. I gave notice to the Minister that I was going to raise this point and I hope that he may be able to say a little more about it. I did so partly because on August 15 last a letter was sent to the lady who is in charge of this hostel—if you can call a small condemned house such a thing. The letter was sent by Sir Keith Joseph. The women who have been working there wrote to him because they felt that the women who came to the hostel were not being adequately helped through the official provisions. They raised various questions with the Minister, including matters of supplementary benefit, and so on, which are not germane to this debate. But on the question of accommodation they received this reply in the letter from Sir Keith Joseph. He said it was the function of the appropriate local authority under Section 21(1) of the National Assistance Act 1948—and I want to ask a question about that in a moment—to provide temporary accommodation' to persons who are in urgent need. The letter went on to quote the provisions of the Act. The Minister continued:
"In reaching their decision as to whether or not to use their powers in any particular case local authorities are bound to have regard, firstly, to the total family situation and, secondly, to the availability of space in the accommodation available to them. It is by no means always the best way of helping husband, wife or children, to encourage the break-up of a family when there has been a serious incident or row, and it may sometimes be better to encourage the wife to return home before any irrevocable decisions are taken which may subsequently be regretted."
My Lords, I do not think it takes a great deal of imagination to appreciate the feelings of a woman, who herself has been knocked about, and may have also seen her children battered, if she is told that she ought to return home while possible legal action against her husband is being considered. The net result of her being away from home, one hopes temporarily, and getting legal advice may

835
well be that in fact the family may be re-united. This has been the experience of a number of those who have been to the hostel. When the woman ascertained her rights, and when the husband realised she had certain rights which could be enforced and that she was not utterly defenceless (if the husband was of the bully class, as opposed to the psychopath or alcoholic) matters were very often remedied. But the suggestion that temporary accommodation should not be provided because of some moral judgment as to the wife's duty to return to her husband is, to my mind, wholly unacceptable.
If a woman can show that she has been seriously physically assaulted it seems to me that she has a moral right to temporary accommodation, at least while the matter is being investigated and while remedies may be considered. The plight of some of these women has, I think, been desperate. The terms of the reply by Sir Keith Joseph leave me in considerable doubt as to the sort of guidance which may be issued from the Department. This is really what I wish to ask the Minister about. What guidance, if any, has been issued, or is likely to be issued in the near future, on this particular case of women who suffer "mugging" in the home? I am not speaking of just a casual slap or something of that sort, but a real, serious physical assault.
I ask this partly because there is some concern as to the position under the Local Government Act, 1972. In that Act the situation under the National Assistance Act 1948 is changed, and the schemes approved under Section 34 of the National Assistance Act relating inter alia to the provision of accommodation are now subject to the approval of the Secretary of State. Under the new legislation local authorities have now to take account of the approval of the Secretary of State, and it is he who may direct the extent to which they make arrangements for carrying out the functions, the proposals and the schemes which were formerly carried out under the 1948 Act. Therefore the Secretary of State is in a very influential position, because the local authorities have to take account of the directions which he gives to them. So I hope, my Lords, that having raised this particular problem of the battered wives who leave
836
home for what some of us at least think are very sound reasons, we may be told what directions have been issued or are proposed to be issued to local authorities. I shall be extremely grateful to receive a reply from the Minister. I can assure him that the matter will not be allowed to rest unless we get satisfaction on this point. Women's organisations are being alerted to this situation, and it seems utterly intolerable that one has to rely on the sort of provisions in Chiswick which I have described to deal with this special problem.
8.17 p.m.
BARONESS BROOKE OF YSTRADFELLTE: My Lords, the question raised by my noble friend Lord Hylton is of great importance, and that has been only too apparent from the various contributions to which we have listened. Homeless families or individuals seem to fall into two categories; those who would present no problem if they had a roof over their heads, and those whose homelessness follows from the fact that the family or individual is one with personal, emotional, or special social problems. Families in the first category include those who move from areas of high unemployment, where there is probably no great shortage of houses, and these people appear to be unconscious of the shortage of accommodation in the parts of Southern England into which they move. Work with comparatively high wages greets them there, but far too often there is no accommodation, or accommodation only at exorbitant rents; and nearly always there is an embargo on children of almost any age.
My Lords, I remember so well, when I was chairman of a metropolitan borough housing committee, often saying to our housing manager that if the people who wanted houses produced elephants or white mice they would be offered a key, but because they had children the doors were always shut against them; and that still seems to be apparent today. In London there are two boroughs which are continually faced with the problem posed by the arrival of such families. One is Brent, at the end of the M.1, and there I have had most interesting talks with three young men who are running a housing advice centre in which they pinpointed the problem with which they are having to content. The other

837
is Camden, which contains no fewer than three main-line station terminals. In addition to these families there are those living in "tied" accommodation, who when their job ends, lose their home as well. Then there are the hidden homeless—the young married couples or the single individual longing for homes of their own, who are forced to live with parents or in-laws when the time has more than come for them to have an independent home of their own.
For all of these the housing departments of the local housing authorities should be responsible rather than the social service departments. They present straightforward cases for the acquisition of housing accommodation, with no problems except the overriding need for a roof over their heads. This, my Lords, is the view taken by the three Departmental Working Party Reports compiled by the Department of Health and Social Security to which reference has already been made. Can the Minister tell us, when he comes to reply, on whom the responsibility for the homeless is going to be in future—local housing authorities or social service departments? I sometimes wonder how much co-operation actively takes place between the Department of Employment, the Department for the Environment, the Department of Health and Social Security and the local authorities for the planning of the housing required for active workers and their families. I wonder whether the Minister could inform us about this.
A move out of London to a new or expanding town might be a solution to many of the families arriving in London from areas of unemployment. But who is to be the intermediary to arrange these moves? In the first category I have spoken about, the skilled and semi-skilled often can no longer purchase their own houses when they arrive in a new area, partly because the down payment for a mortgage has greatly increased, and even if the family can collect the capital to put down, the mortgage payments are now higher than many council rents; and partly because builders' and decorators' costs have gone up so much that anyone needing work done on a house—tiles off the roof, exterior painting, repairs et cetera—cannot afford it. As a result of this, fewer people in the skilled and semi-skilled groups are purchasing their houses, and
838
the rents of both furnished and unfurnished property continue to soar.
My Lords, I believe that a considerable contribution to the solution of providing more accommodation without taking additional land could be found in a study of the amount of under-occupied properties in the areas where there is a shortage. For instance, it was discovered in Reading that 12,000 bedrooms were never slept in. In Berkshire there could be 19,000 under-occupied properties by 1980. The James Butcher Housing Association has built 270 houses for elderly people in Reading over the last seven years—some of the 270 houses having had a second occupant after the death of the first—and this has released 439 houses for family use. Thus, by building 270 homes for elderly people, the problems of 709 households have been solved. Taken nationally, if priority were to be given to the construction of one or two-person accommodation, built in groups of any number to suit any patch of land available—such as the ends of some of the long gardens at the back of roads of Victorian houses—many elderly people who are under-occupying large houses, and who would like to leave them provided that they were not moved out of the neighbourhood to which they had become attached, would be inclined to do so.
In addition to this idea, it should be possible to convert a great many under-occupied large houses into separate flats, which the owner of the house, living in one, can let to families needing accomdation of the kind that would then be available As well as planting trees and cherishing the countryside, could the Government set on foot a campaign to inspire local housing authorities to encourage and persuade those living in half-empty properties in both the public and the private sector to agree to the subdivision of their house, thereby providing house room for extra families? And would the Government consider giving better improvement grants for this sort of subdivision? While thinking of elderly people, is the Minister satisfied that there is a sufficient pool of purpose-built housing for them? And could the Minister tell us what Government policy is about acquiring empty properties for housing purposes by compulsory purchase orders?
The second category of the homeless presents a much more difficult problem.

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It consists of those who are evicted for the non-payment of rent, those who are feckless and apparently incapable of planning, and those who are immature and who, even if they had a council house. would not look after it without skilled, supportive help. There are the single homeless men and women who drift about the country—the meths drinkers, the mentally disturbed, the discharged prisoners and so on. There are the families where the wife has been abandoned and left with the children. These are the people for whom the Social Service Departments should be primarily responsible. Given the opportunity, they might be able to prevent a breakdown, or they could conceivably deal with a breakdown if it occurred. They could attempt rehabilitation. They could give voluntary organisations, such as the Cyrenian Society, the Salvation Army, the Church Army, the W.R.V.S. and so on, every possible help in the provision and maintenance of their hostel accommodation for the single homeless men and women. And in the case of these voluntary organisations, who are doing such splendid work against almost impossible odds, could the Department of Health and Social Security not give capital grants for the purchase of property, as well as revenue grants in aid of individuals?
My Lords, what are some of the ways in which the homeless can be rehoused? There are the homeless family units which, by and large, are not satisfactory, though some are better than others. I are reminded here of a caravan site in my own County or Wiltshire—a site in private ownership on which there are 44 residential caravans in various degrees of condition. It is called the Linga Longa Caravan Site. It is a mile's walk to the nearest bus stop, where one can go by bus to Amesbury, eight miles away, or to Salisbury, 15 miles away. Two days a week a bus service from and to the site has been arranged. The site has no shop, no public telephone and no post box. Tenants have to carry their own coal or smokeless fuel to the site. Some push this on old prams, some get a friend with a car to fetch it, and some get desperate and use a taxi. The nearest doctor's surgery is three miles away. The caravans stand on gravel hard standings, but these do not extend beyond the wheels of the vans. Most, but not all, of the
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caravans have running water. There is a lavatory block at each end of the site. These are cleaned daily, but as the cleaning involves swilling with water, the floors are always wet. The electricity supply, by special arrangement, comes from an old army generator. The supply is inadequate, and each caravan is allowed only the use of a 5-amp plug. This provides a small one-bar electric fire, a light and a television. The residents of the caravans fall into two groups, Army and civilian. Many public-spirited people who have visited the site would like to see it closed. The families who are there would not agree. Much as they complain about the rents, the electricity, the repairs, the isolation and all the other disadvantages, they have found a refuge there in time of need. If the site were closed, or if it were upgraded, where would the present badly-off tenants go? My Lords, homelessness is a problem of the rural areas as well as the heavily populated urban areas.
For the families that are homeless and have social and emotional problems as well, there are the family rehabilitation centres run by some authorities and some voluntary organisations. For these to be effective there should not be more than 10 families in any one building. Some local authorities have a list of places willing to take homeless families in for bed and breakfast. Often the price is more than the family can pay and more than the supplementary benefit people will agree to pay, so that the Social Services Department has to supplement this under Section 1 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1963. This financial arrangement is unsatisfactory, and families with children suffer grievously if they have to trail around all day. They spend a great deal of money on food, and this reduces what little savings they have towards achieving a more permanent home.
A number of local authorities are now offering their empty properties, which are awaiting re-development, to their social services departments. They in turn are accommodating some of their homeless families in sub-standard accommodation, which can only be regarded as a temporary measure. The families have to move out when the houses are due for re-development, but this is a stepping-stone.

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Could the Department of the Environment encourage other local authorities to do the same and provide this kind of stepping-stone? Other sub-standard houses have been made available by the housing departments for the social services departments to run as "intermediate houses". They form an intermediate link between the homeless family units and possession of a council house.
All this caring for these particular problem families and individuals falls to the social services departments under the National Assistance Act and the Children and Young Person's Act, which lays a duty on the local authority, through the social services departments, to ensure that every effort should be made to prevent homelessness and juvenile delinquency, and thus to promote the welfare of children by keeping families together.
My Lords, the problem seems to be insoluble: yet is it? It seems to me that constant co-operation between the main Government Departments involved and co-operation at local authority level of the service departments such as housing and social services could vastly contribute to a smoothing out of some of the biggest obstacles and frustrations. There must be an end to the passing of the buck. "Where there is no vision the people perish". People are people: not just digits on pieces of paper. As people, they need all the support and help possible to strengthen the weak, to comfort the faint-hearted and to provide places in which they can live in reasonable conditions of comfort and security that to them spells home.
8.33 p.m.
LORD FISKE: My Lords, I am sure that speaking last before the Minister in the last debate of the day, it is my duty to be brief, and that I shall endeavour to be; but I must thank the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, for seeing that this Motion has come before your Lordships' House to-day, because the subject of homelessness is one that should constantly be brought before us, even if it is done rather sotto voce. There are reasons for this. We cannot blazon homelessness and do a great propaganda campaign against it, because if we do that, as we did in earlier years, then we find we increase the volume of homelessness, because the less scrupulous landlords will
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take advantage of the situation to use the various methods at their disposal to evict a few more tenants. There is no greater attraction to unscrupulous landlords than a house with vacant possession which probably can be offered for sale or for rent if just one more tenant can be evicted. So there is a danger in the very propaganda that accompanies the word "homelessness". Nevertheless, this problem must be kept before our eyes and before the eyes of the public, so that it is not lost sight of by a public which may not be intimately concerned with it.
I particularly appreciated what the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, said because he came straight to the centre of the problem in his first sentence: that is, the difficulty of defining the spheres of social services and of housing. To my mind, this is the nub of the problem; and to underline it I should like to tell your Lordships a little story which concerns my own public life and which is perfectly true. From 1955 to 1960 I was chairman of the Housing Department of the London County Council. At the same time another Member of your Lordships' House, the noble Baroness, Lady Serota, was chairman of the Children's Committee. We had an arrangement whereby allocations from the housing pool were made for special purposes—and one of the special purposes concerned urgent Children's Committee cases. We used to allocate these cases on the recommendation of the Children's Committee officers and—perhaps not invariably, but certainly within a very short time—most of them came on to my table as "chronic rent arrears". We did not know how to deal with these because we knew it would cost the County Council a great deal more money to have the families evicted and the children taken into care.
So we devised—and I never discovered whether the Children's Committee part was ever tied up quite legally and logically—a system by which the Children's Committee rented the flats from the Housing Department so that the Housing Department's accounts were perfectly straightforward and not in deficit, and the Children's Committee charged what they thought was a proper rent to the tenant of the flat. This worked very well. Of course it could only have worked in London, because London was the only county council in England (I am not sure

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about Wales) that was a housing authority. This made it possible for there to be two services in one building, under two colleagues who were in the habit of working very closely together.
Under the 1963 London Government Act that situation was split, because the housing remained with the Greater London Council but the children's services went to the boroughs and there was that break between the two services. All over the country at large now this situation will again be arising—a situation in which the children's services and the housing services will be in the charge of one set of local authorities. If that is so, then co-operation may be much easier, but from the experience I had then and from what I have seen of homelessness since, I would go further than that: I would make provision of housing for the homeless a social service entirely. I believe it creates difficulties in a housing department. It creates difficulties for housing officers, and I do not think that between the two we do the best for the homeless families or that we do as much for them as we might do if we regarded this as a family problem in which we were all engaged in looking after—I will not say poorer, but suffering brothers and sisters in our great family. Social service departments can do that far more easily than housing departments.
There is another reason for making a change of this sort. We are now going through the phase of seeing the housing service change. I do not want to put this too strongly or to start anything, but it is losing some of its social emphasis and acquiring more of a financial emphasis. In this case a situation could arise in which the Housing Revenue Account takes such losses on behalf of homeless families that the rent stucture of council tenants within that authority would be affected for the future. That, to my mind, would be quite wrong. This is a burden to be borne by the whole community and not by any section of it (the section in this case being the council tenants) if such a situation were to be allowed to arise.
That is another reason why I strongly urge the Government that they should look at making this a social service pure and simple, run by the social services department and the social services committee of local authorities. It would be
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a great improvement and it would run more smoothly. The people concerned, the homeless families, would get more assistance, more people would be rehabilitated—and that, after all, is what one is looking for. One wants to rehabilitate these people so that they can take their full place in society again, and I am sure that can be achieved much more quickly in the majority of cases. Of course there will be some cases where it may never happen, but we shall have to carry those, as in families we have to carry the odd person here and there who never quite makes the grade. Let us approach it in that family spirit through our social science departments.
8.41 p.m.
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, I know that I speak for all Members of the House, both those who have taken part and those who have listened to the debate, in saying how grateful we are to my noble friend for having introduced this debate. I know that I also speak for the homeless families, for they, too, owe my noble friend a considerable debt of gratitude for all the work he has done and continues to do, particularly in connection with the Catholic Housing Aid Society. I know we all acknowledge that with gratitude.
We have been discussing what is indeed a most intractable problem, if not the most intractable problem, that the social services and housing services have to contend with. If there were easy and clear remedies they would have been applied long ago. But the fact is that we have to face the stark and unwelcome situation where even in our affluent society this problem in terms of numbers is not getting better, but worse. The 1968 figures show that 3,600 families, consisting of 19,000 people, were in social services temporary accommodation. Three years later, there were 5,600 families, consisting of 27,000 people, in a state of homelessness, so we cannot take any comfort that such remedies as we have applied and such effort and resources as are going into this work are succeeding. I thought it as well to face that squarely at the outset. I also agree with the noble Lord, Lord Fiske, that it is desirable that we should be obliged to face this unwelcome situation from time to time.
It is necessary and valuable to have those stark statistical facts amplified in

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the way that they were by the noble Baroness, Lady White, who illustrated the plight of five or six particular families. The unfortunate fact is that those of us who have any dealings at all with these matters know that what the noble Baroness was saying may be repeated in many other instances. While I am dealing with the size of the problem, I should like to answer the question raised by my noble friend Lord Hylton and say we now receive quarterly returns on homelessness. I have not quoted the latest figures because the basis of the statistics has been changed, and I have used 1968 and 1971 because those are the latest set of figures over a reasonable period which show the trend. More recent statistics are available but they are not strictly comparable.
In answer to the noble Baroness, Lady White, I confirm that we are still not satisfied with the form of these statistics and, in consultation with the London boroughs (who are the people dealing with the worst and most intractable elements of this situation), we are seeking to make further improvements. So my answer to the question of the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, "Is enough being done?" is, "No, not enough is being done". We shall not be doing enough until the situation gets better instead of worse. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, that the first essential step is to establish the scale of this problem of homelessness. I confirm that we accept the definition of that to be whether people are suffering from a loss of a roof over their heads. We must then go on to analyse the origins of homelessness in alt its various forms. It is not a simple phenomenon—that has come out quite clearly in the debate. It is composed of an aggregation of a whole variety of different causes, each one of them calling for its own particular form of cure and its own particular form of prevention. I am glad that my noble friend Lady Brooke of Ystradfellte laid much stress on the latter important element in everything we do.
The statistics show that there are about six main causes of homelessness, many of them of a very different character. First of all, there are evictions for rent arrears by local authorities. There are evictions for rent arrears by private landlords. Another cause is family disputes. The
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noble Baroness, Lady White, is right when she says that family disputes are perhaps the predominant element making up homelessness in the South-West. But she recognised that the predominant element in London, which is caused by sheer lack of balance between housing supply and demand, is rent evictions and a number of other factors. I was glad that she brought that out because what I am saying now about homelessness generally when looking at national statistics changes again when applied to particular areas.
Those who are homeless because they are newly arrived in an area without accommodation are another cause. My noble friend Lady Brooke of Ystradfellte was quite right to mention that this is an element with which the boroughs of Brent and Camden—and I would also say that part of Westminster which is in Paddington, and several others, particularly those near railway terminals—have to deal with continually. I cannot see that we can ever reach a situation where that element in homelessness can be eradicated. It may be alleviated but it will always be there. Then there are unentitled occupants—squatters—unauthorised lodgers; and another element is landlords resuming the use of their property for themselves. Finally, there are a whole lot of other reasons which include, for example, newly-weds who have been living with their parents. One only needs this rehearsal to see that homelessness as a whole is not susceptible to any single solution, even supplying a sufficient number of houses, because that would not solve all those problems.
So much for the scale and for the multiple nature of the problem. Although it is of a multiple nature we can say that there are four strategies that have to be considered and developed in order to tackle it. I should like to consider the strategies that are open to us and the way in which they are being applied. The first I mention because it is the most basic and the most obvious; it is to bring the supply of houses into balance with demand and to create a surplus. Until that is done in each area homelessness in one form or another is bound to exist. The second strategy is to do more about improving the organisation for helping homeless families. That is the point on which the noble Lord, Lord

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Fiske, dwelt, and almost every other speaker said something about it as well. Third, to apply every possible short term measure to provide relief. I think this was the main burden of the remarks made by the noble Baroness, Lady Brooke, and I was grateful to her for it. Fourth, to step up all the other activities, mostly of a social work kind, designed to avoid and prevent homelessness occurring.
May I now deal with those four points in turn. The main answer, whatever the cause of homelessness, must be to provide enough houses so that every family can have a decent home of its own in the place where it wants it. Until that is done homelessness will persist. Nationally, we have now reached the happy stage where there is a surplus of houses over households, and in many areas—and I could instance the East Midlands, East Anglia, the West Riding of Yorkshire and North-East England—a mere shortage is no longer a factor in causing homelessness. The causes there, as the noble Baroness, Lady White, said, are more likely to lie in social problems such as family disputes, and they call for a social services rather than a housing remedy. We will come in a moment to the effect of those factors on the organisational problems.
Of course many large urban areas are still suffering from severe housing stress. These are the very areas, particularly London, where homelessness is at its worst. I think we have to remember that the number of homeless families—almost 6,000—is small compared with the total number of dwellings—18 million. I say this not to underestimate the intensity of the problem for the individuals concerned, because that would be no consolation to them at all, nor to minimise the seriousness in particular localities, because a surplus of houses in the South-West is of no help to the London boroughs, but rather to illustrate that I believe this problem is more capable of solution now than it has been in the recent past. Even in London, where the supply and demand situation and the homelessness position as a consequence are the worst in the country, the future, if one looks ahead, is very much better. Housing stock is increasing at the rate of some 24,000 dwellings a year and this, coupled with the fall in population trend, means that there is a real hope of
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producing an overall surplus of dwellings, even in London, by the end of this decade. That is not to say that other problems will not still exist. Of course they will: there will remain problems of distribution because one cannot live on one side of London and work on another. It will not mean that all the problems of unsatisfactory housing have been solved but there is a prospect of overall surplus in greater London this decade, and that is a new factor.
In other urban areas the forecast is more hopeful still. In many places supply is already pretty much in balance, and in Manchester, for example, the corporation estimate that there will be a surplus of dwellings over demand by 1977. Nevertheless, they are still pursuing a large building programme to meet redevelopment needs, and, not content with this, the corporation are putting out a further thousand dwellings to tender this year additional to their original programme so that they can accelerate their progress to a position of surplus.
Here I confirm to my noble friend Lord Hylton something that I said many times during the passage of the Housing Finance Bill and subsequently: there is no restriction on council housing programmes. Substantial subsidies are available to the housing authorities under the Housing Finance Act, specifically concentrated upon the places that need them and on the people who need them. But coupled with that there is the need to improve the existing housing stock as far as we possibly can. The 368,000 improvement grants approved last year is an all time record by a long way. I confirm to my noble friend Lady Brooke that this includes improvement grants for conversions, and I am also glad to say that having applied over recent months for different differential housing improvement grants to the assisted areas we are now considering the question of whether they ought not to be recast so as to apply to particular areas of housing stress. All this promise and hopeful signs of an adequate supply or surplus of houses in certain areas in the next few years is not of the slightest help to the family who are out on the streets to-day. So we must now turn to look at what we can do through the other three strategies—improved organisation, short-term first aid and help and preventive work.

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I will turn first to organisation, and this was the particular matter that the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, asked me about. May I first answer his question about staffing in the Department of the Environment. There are seven people in the Department concerned exclusively with housing management and homelessness, but there are very many others on the housing side of the Department who are also involved but who do not deal with the subject exclusively.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Lord could give a breakdown of the position. It would be interesting to know whether there are any members of staff of the Department specifically and exclusively dealing with this problem.
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, that is what I have just said.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I thought the noble Lord was referring to housing management.
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, it is housing management including homelessness. Perhaps the noble Lord will have a word with me afterwards. He can tell me more precisely what he wants to know and I shall be able to answer him.
There was one other quite specific point that the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, asked me; namely, whether we were in favour of a central Government housing agency. My answer is that we are not in favour of duplicating in Whitehall the executive responsibility of local authorities.
Most of what can be said, or what I would want to say under the heading of "organisation" arises out of the Working Parties set up by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Social Services, to which almost everybody has referred. These were to study homelessness, first in London and also in the South-West, and the organisations to deal with it. The noble Baroness, Lady Brooke, and the noble Baroness, Lady White, both spoke as though they hoped that as a result of those reports we should be able to pick up their recommendations, commend them firmly and clearly in a general circular and send them out for adoption without further ado. I wish it was as simple as that! However, I fear
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it is not. The main recommendations of both Working Parties were that housing authorities should be under an overriding duty to accommodate homeless families with children, and as the noble Baroness, Lady White said, that is almost certainly the right thing to do in a situation such as that pertaining to London, where most of the problems, and certainly the worst of them, are generated by the housing stress.
But it is not quite so clear that it is to be adopted in exactly the same way all over the country, because, as she herself recognised, there are some areas where the bulk of the problems are caused by family disputes and housing authorities are not geared to deal with matters of that kind. So right at the beginning we see that there are important qualifications to be brought into these main recommendations. But that was the main recommendation, coupled with the fact that social services authorities should cease to provide accommodation for the homeless; that all housing, both temporary and permanent, should become the housing pool as a housing function and there should be the closest co-operation between the social services and the housing departments, as the noble Lord, Lord Fiske, was urging upon us, and between neighbouring authorities. Many London boroughs have accepted those recommendations and I am sure it was right for them to do so. They have for a year or so been applying those recommendations to the great benefit of the homeless in their areas and their experience in so far as it bears on other authorities dealing with problems in the same form as they have, is being monitored and is guiding us to a method of organisation that can be applied elsewhere. But, as I say, the same conditions as apply in London do not apply everywhere, and the view of local authority associations will have to be sought and considered carefully before any general system is recommended if indeed any general system is recommended. For one thing it will be particularly necessary to ensure mutual support between social services authorities and housing authorities where these are at different tiers of the local government structure. Here perhaps I could go over this again because, if I may say so, I do not think that the noble Lord, Lord Fiske, got it precisely right. He is quite right when he says that of

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course the problem does not apply in London because all the London boroughs have both functions, the duties of housing and social services, but it also applies—and I do not think that he mentioned this—to the existing county boroughs who have both functions within the same authority. It will apply in all the new metropolitan counties where the districts within those counties will carry both housing and social services functions within the same authority. Fortunately these are the areas where the problems of homelessness are greatest.
LORD FISKE: My Lords, if I may interrupt, what I was trying to say was that in the situation where the counties at present are not housing authorities it does not apply, but under the new arrangements of the new Local Government Act, it will apply.
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, the noble Lord said what was in the last part of my remarks here. I agree that outside London and outside the new metropolitan counties, we are left with the problem. We have the problem now and we shall be left with the problem after April 1, 1974, because in the counties outside London, in the metropolitan counties the counties will be the social services authorities and the districts will be the housing authorities. But that is a problem which we believe can be overcome, and we have examples, one of which I shall be glad to quote. In Hertfordshire, an agreement has been reached between the county social services and the district housing authorities under which they work closely together, and a regular quota of houses is provided by the district housing authorities for the homeless who are coming under the care and attention of the county social services. I would, if I may, commend that as one example which we know, which may be of value in Surrey.
But organisational changes will not in themselves provide additional houses though we were glad to hear in the recent discussion with the London Boroughs' Association how much their adoption of these recommendations was helping. Boroughs such as Lambeth, Brent and Haringey are no longer evicting for rent arrears. There is no point in doing that if the problem is still with you. And
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they are making progress towards eliminating the old temporary, so-called "Part III" accommodation, and taking all homeless families into their normal housing stock. One borough is now within sight of taking into its normal housing stock all the families—at one time 80 of them—which they had previously been forced to accommodate in hotels. Lambeth, I am glad to say, has established a special co-ordinating committee with the various borough departments, the G.L.C., Police and voluntary organisations, specificially for dealing with homelessness. I do not see why others should not follow that example and the advice of the noble Lord, Lord Fiske, and do likewise. In the light of all that, the Government intend to work out with the local authorities the pattern which seems most suitable for all the various situations, in order that local authorities up and down the country should be better organised to provide help for homeless people wherever they may be.
The answer to the question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady White, is that we are not ready yet to give that guidance because these recommendations have such very different applications, depending on the scale and nature of the problem and the whereabouts of each particular kind of authority. But we aim to complete this process and to issue a circular later in this year.
LORD HYLTON: My Lords, may I interrupt for a moment? Could my noble friend say whether in this interim situation the Government will draw attention once again to the Joint Circular of 1966? I quite see that he is not ready to give new guidance, but at least the existing guidance could be applied.
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, I should be very happy to consider that. My own feeling is that we are doing better by the very close contact, discussion and consultation, which we are maintaining with the London boroughs. But I shall bear in mind what the noble Lord says and see whether between now and the summer something of an interim nature can be done. Before I leave that point I should be grateful if the noble Baroness, Lady White, would agree to my writing to her more fully about the particular centre which she mentioned, although it certainly illustrates what we have both

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been saying about this problem of organisation.
May I now turn to the short-term help and expedients which we should consider, and we are considering. One of the main immediate causes of homelessness is eviction for rent arrears. The introduction of rent rebates and allowances for all unfurnished tenants under the Housing Finance Act 1972 should help to prevent the need for eviction proceedings on acount of arrears where it is a straightforward financial problem. These schemes will be made more generous by the proposed £3·50 increase to the "Needs Allowances" at the end of April, and at the same time, as your Lordships know, we have just extended the rent allowance scheme to families in furnished accommodation. High on the list of causes of homelessness is eviction for rent arrears by local authorities—about 20 per cent. of all cases of homelessness. As I say, the general introduction of rent rebates will help in the straightforward cases. We shall in any event hope to work out with the local authorities alternatives to eviction in our discussions on organisation. A number of London borough authorities have already desisted in the practice of evicting for rent arrears altogether, and this is probably the area in which we are seeing the greatest improvement at the moment.
There was a proposal in the Working Party reports and in the Greve Report that there should be a system for receiving early warning of eviction through the courts and the rent tribunals. We have noted this, but it is something, as anybody can see who thinks about it for a moment, which needs to be used with the greatest discretion and caution. But it is certainly an idea we are considering.
One of the most immediate steps that can be taken, and almost every noble Lord has mentioned some aspect of this, is to ensure that every available unit in the existing housing stock is used to the utmost advantage. That goes for Lord Garnsworthy's empty police houses, and the review that Lady Brooke said was being undertaken by a number of London boroughs—and Islington is one we have noted particularly. It means using all the short-life property that can be acquired while waiting for redevelopment schemes. It means going for conversion of existing stock so as to increase its capacity. It
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means the release of stock by the rehousing of elderly people into smaller accommodation more suited to their needs and releasing larger accommodation for other peoples' needs, as the noble Baroness, Lady Brooke, mentioned. Some boroughs, including Lambeth, already arrange to pass on to a housing association any short-life properties which they cannot themselves economically bring into use, and any which the housing associations cannot use they pass on to recognised squatters' associations. All these expedients need developing to the full, and I shall be glad to confirm to my noble friend, Lady Brooke, that compulsory purchase orders certainly can be used as a last resort where property would otherwise be lying unused.
I turn to the final strategy of prevention—I apologise to your Lordships for speaking for so long. This is, of course, the best strategy of all, beside that of producing a local housing surplus. Its virtue is that it avoids the trauma and the wrench of leaving the family home, which not only wrecks the whole family way of life but makes such work as the Social Services Department is already doing virtually impossible until the family has become stabilised and rehoused in a new situation. Rent guarantees can sometimes be used effectively to provide time for social workers to assess the whole family situation. It is also sometimes possible (and perhaps it should be adopted more often) to arrange with the employer or the Supplementary Benefits Commission to withhold the amount of rent, so that payment may be made direct to the landlord or the housing authority. Other ways in which the local Social Services Department can give support include effective liaison, for example, with the local gas and electricity boards, to stop arrears piling up there; that liaison is certainly very often far from satisfactory. Simple training on how to manage the family budget or ordinary domestic work is another method which should be used to stabilise the family and assist it to function effectively. Voluntary agencies, such as the Family Welfare Association, can also be helpful in this field. There is no doubt a great deal more needs to be done.
There is the other aspect of attempting to help homelessness, by making sure that adequate advice and aid is available.

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Housing aid centres help, run either by the local authorities or by voluntary agencies, or in partnership; probably a combination is the best. Several noble Lords, I think the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy first, mentioned the "grief report". It drew attention to what it regarded as the unsatisfactory provision of temporary accommodation by the social service authorities and failure by the housing authorities to meet the housing needs of their district. I think from what I have said your Lordships can see the Government's approach to that.
To sum up, my Lords, the Government are indeed deeply concerned over the problem of homeless families because it is an intractable problem which is getting worse and not better. I think it is true to say that our long term policies will provide enough houses for all families, including the comparative few who now become homeless; and this is something which we are now beginning to see actually happening here and there in the country, and on the horizon in other places. But it is with the homeless who are with us to-day in increasing numbers that we have to deal, and we shall be dealing with them for some considerable time, particularly in London, where the problem is worst. Here we are achieving a considerable improvement in the rapid rehousing of homeless families by the London boroughs who are adopting the main recommendations of these valuable Reports. There is no doubt that my noble friend is quite right when he says that much more needs to be done not only in London but elsewhere. This debate has helped us all to appreciate that point and to reach a clear idea of how to deal with it.