Lords Sitting of 21 May 1973

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

FUTURE OF NAMIBIA
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have now reached conclusions on the report regarding Namibia (South West Africa) presented by Dr. Waldheim to the Security Council of the United Nations.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE): My Lords, Her Majesty's Government have always considered that the Secretary-General's mission represented the most hopeful approach to a negotiated settlement of this problem. That remains our view.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, yes; but is the noble Baroness aware that that is not quite the Answer to my Question? Does the noble Baroness remember that three weeks ago I put down this Question and she said that there was not time to consider this report? Has there not been time since for Her Majesty's Government to consider the actual report?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: Yes, my Lords, indeed, and that is why I gave the reply I did. I should not in any case wish to anticipate the debate of the Security Council.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, may I ask the noble Baroness whether it is not a fact that in the intervening three weeks evidence has been given, first, of the appalling condition of the African workers, and secondly, of the arrest of the African leaders and of those from the Ovambo? In those circumstances, is it not necessary for Her Majesty's Govern-
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ment, in a territory which is under United Nations' authority, to propose that its future should be determined by a conference representing our Government, the Republic, the tribal leaders, and the leaders of the African Parties?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: No, my Lords. The noble Lord knows well that we do not accept that South Africa's mandate has in fact been terminated; but we have made it quite clear that we accept the importance of the unity and the territorial integrity of South-West Africa, and we deplore any measures that tend to undermine them against the wishes of the people. On the other hand, we do not want to circumscribe the free choice of the people of South-West Africa in exercising their right to self-determination, although we think it would be better done on the basis of the whole territory.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, while thanking the noble Baroness for that much fuller reply, may I ask her whether it is really the case that Her Majesty's Government accept the mandate of the Republic of South Africa over Namibia? Has not the United Nations repudiated it? Has not the Republic annexed it? Why should Her Majesty's Government be supporting the Republic on this issue?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, the British representative in the Security Council in October, 1971, said:
"It seems clear that the South African Government have ignored the moral obligations undertaken by them under the mandate."
But he then went on to describe the legal complexities of the matter, which I do not think would be suitable for question and answer.

NUCLEAR DEFENCE INFORMATION AND FRANCE
2.41 p.m.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether information on nuclear defence, hitherto regarded as secret, is to be released to the French Government.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR DEFENCE (LORD CARRINGTON): No, my Lords.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, may I ask the Minister whether lie has read in the Press recently a statement, credited to President Nixon, that he advised the British Government to enter into negotiations with the French Government on nuclear defence whether any representations have been received from the American Government; and, finally, would he give an assurance that in the event of the United Kingdom Government agreeing to enter into negotiations with the French Government on this very important subject, no definite action will be taken until your Lordships' House has an opportunity of debating the matter?
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, the answer to the first question is, "Yes"; to the second, "No"; and to the third, that it is hypothetical.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, I excuse the noble Lord's frivolity. I should not have thought that this was a question which justified frivolity. This is a very serious question and I take a very serious view of the matter. However, may I ask him whether, if his reply to the first part of my question (whether a statement has appeared in the Press along the lines I indicated, namely, that President Nixon advised that there should be such negotiations) is, "Yes", anything has resulted from what he read in the Press?
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I did not know that it was frivolous to answer, "Yes", "No", and then, "It is hypothetical". If it is, I apologise. The answer to the question which the noble Lord has just asked me is that I have made it plain on a number of occasions in this House that any co-operative link on nuclear matters with the French is a long time in the future and therefore his question does not arise.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, why does the Minister regard the third part of my question as hypothetical? After all, is it not permissible in your Lordships' House, on a matter of this sort which is so vital to the interests of our country, and indeed to the world at large, to ask that there should be an assurance that in the event of such negotiations being in contemplation your Lordships'
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House should at any rate have an opportunity of debating them? What is hypothetical about that?
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, because Her Majesty's Government have not decided to do anything of the sort. Should Her Majesty's Government decide to negotiate with the French then it is a matter for Her Majesty's Government to decide how, when and whether to consult your Lordships.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, is the Minister aware that I have been long enough in this business to know that it is a matter for the Government to come to a decision? Of course it is. But surely it is proper in the circumstances that both Houses of Parliament should be consulted before a major decision of this kind is taken? May I have an answer to that question?
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I have already answered the noble Lord that there is no decision to do this, and therefore the question is hypothetical.

RESEARCH COUNCILS AND U.G.C.: MEMBERS' EXPENSES
LORD WYNNE-JONES: 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 it is now their policy to restrict membership of research councils and of the University Grants Committee to persons living in London or its immediate vicinity.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (EARL JELLICOE): No, my Lords. I assume that the noble Lord is referring to the problem which has arisen from the application of P.A.Y.E. to the reimbursement of travel and subsistence expenses incurred by part-time members of Research Councils and the University Grants Committee. I am pleased to inform the noble Lord that a solution to this taxation problem has now been approved by my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
LORD WYNNE-JONES: My Lords, I would thank the noble Earl for his Answer. May I ask him whether it means that members of these Committees who

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come from some distance will be put at no disadvantage compared with those who come from the London region? As I think the noble Earl is fully aware, at the present time under this new ruling those travelling from Edinburgh, say, would be paying out more in income tax than they would be receiving as an honorarium. From his Answer, I hope I am correct in assuming that this will not obtain in the future. But can he assure us that there will be no disadvantage to those coming from a distance?
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I can give the noble Lord that assurance. That is indeed the purpose of the solution which my right honourable friend has approved. In answer to the noble Lord's second supplementary question about Edinburgh, I think the precise mathematical result would depend upon the income of the traveller concerned.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, while being really relieved that it will not actually cost people money who partake in these discussions, would the noble Earl make arrangements to publish the exact details? Is it not possible for these matters to be completely isolated from people's individual incomes, since most of them are serving in the public interest without any remuneration in the real sense at all?
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I shall certainly be glad to consider that question. I think it would be difficult to publish details about all the individuals concerned, but certainly if there is anything I can do in that way I will arrange for it to be done.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: My Lords, as the noble Earl says that a solution has been arrived at, could he tell us what the solution is?
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I shall be glad to. I had not been asked that question. The solution is complicated and I shall therefore put my nose down in my brief and read it out. It is as follows. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has told me ("me" means myself) that from the taxation point of view there is no objection to Departments paying the holders of part-time appointments the full amount of their travelling and subsistence expenses and then accounting to the Inland Revenue for the relevant tax by reference to the P.A.Y.E. coding issue.
LORD PLATT: My Lords, does this mean that in future members of these Councils and Committees will get their full hotel expenses and subsistence expenses? Because this has never been the case in the past. Owing to the very high cost of hotels, the subsistence allowances never used to reimburse us the full amount. It always cost us money to belong to one of these Committees.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I am not absolutely certain that the noble Lord, Lord Platt, is bowling me a completely straight ball; I think there may be an element of googly about it. Therefore I should like to consider his question rather carefully and write to him, if necessary circulating my reply.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, since my noble friend Lady Wootton asked the same question as I did, but in more intelligible language, and since the noble Earl has still failed to explain how this system will work out, will he consider making a statement—not just writing to individual Peers—possibly giving examples of how it will work? I suspect that people may still get little benefit from these expenses and may be worse off as a result.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, again I shall certainly be glad to consider the noble Lord's suggestion. It is my understanding that while this solution is not designed to give a benefit over the system obtaining hitherto, it will mean, as I understand it, that there will be no question at all of people being worse off.
LORD BYERS: My Lords, did I hear the noble Earl aright? Did he say in his answer to the noble Baroness, Lady Wootton, that tax would be levied on travelling expenses? If so, is not this rather an odd principle?
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, perhaps I may put it another way. The suggestion is that the solution is for the employing Department to pay a grossed-up sum of such an amount as would leave the full amount of travelling and subsistence expenses in the recipient's hands after deduction of tax.
LORD WYNNE-JONES: My Lords, presumably the noble Earl can assure us that there would be no payment into a blocked account in the Cayman Islands.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, as the remuneration appears to be very small, am I to understand that there are a large number of women on these Committees?

PAGE REPORT AND TRUSTEE SAVINGS BANKS
2.51 p.m.
LORD HOY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will now make a Statement on the Report of the Page Committee which they received some weeks ago.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, the Government are considering the Report which covers a very wide and important field, and hope to be able to publish it shortly.
LORD HOY: My Lords, while expressing my thanks to the noble Earl for that reply, may I ask him whether he is aware of the disappointment that it will cause to Trustee Savings Banks? As the noble Earl knows, our Trustee Savings Bank is not only the biggest but the best in the world, and it is prevented from rendering services to its depositors in a way that it ought to be able to do. If the Page Committee have reported in favour of Trustee Savings Banks, will the noble Earl ask the Government to consider making a Statement with regard to them, without dealing with the rest of the question?
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, it is my understanding that the Report hangs together and should be taken as a whole. I appreciate the noble Lord's interest in and share his appreciation of the Trustee Savings Banks, but it would probably be undesirable for the Government to make piecemeal and "bitty" Statements about this very important and comprehensive Report.
LORD HOY: My Lords, is the noble Earl aware that the Trustee Savings Banks represent at least one in five of the population of our country; that if people want loans for personal business purposes they are prevented from receiving them from these Banks, and that the Trustee Savings Banks have to act as guarantors to the
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joint stock banks? Surely, in fairness, these Trustee Savings Banks, which have rendered such tremendous service to the country, ought to have at least equal rights in this respect.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I think the noble Lord is trying to make me anticipate the Government's Statement on the Report. As I informed him in my original reply, the Report is receiving careful attention and it is the Government's intention to publish it in the reasonably near future.
LORD HOY: My Lords, may I put a final question to the noble Earl? The "near future" is a very elastic phrase which is used by all Governments, but the Trustee Savings Banks cannot formulate policy until they have the decision of the Government. I should be grateful if the noble Earl would be a little more specific about what the "near future" means, and I ask him to accept that the Trustee Savings Banks cannot do their job until they have the decision of the Government.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I appreciate the noble Lord's legitimate concern about this matter, and I shall see that the point which he has put to me so forcibly is represented to my right honourable friend the Chancellor. But I cannot go beyond the definition of "in the near future", save to add that it really means in the reasonably near future.
LORD THOMAS: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that the Page Report deals with some extraordinarily complex matters connected not only with finance but also with emotional factors; that the affairs of the National Savings Movement have never been brighter than they are to-day; that the relationship between the National Savings Movement and the Trustee Savings Bank has never been better functionally than it is to-day, and that any premature Report would be less desirable than one which has been completely and wholly considered?
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for the question which he has put to me. It gives me an opportunity of saying, not for the first time, that I happen to share his views.

GOVERNMENT STATEMENTS
EARL ST. ALDWYN: My Lords, with the leave of the House, my noble friend the Leader of the House will be making a Statement on public expenditure at a convenient moment after 3.30 p.m. This will be followed by a Statement to be made by my noble friend Lady Tweedsmuir of Belhelvie on the Icelandic fisheries dispute.
RHONDDA CORPORATION BILL [H.L.]
Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

CONTROL OF ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS BILL [H.L.]
LORD JANNER: My Lords, I beg leave to introduce a Bill to provide for the control of zoological gardens, to make provision for the care of animals therein and for purposes connected therewith. I beg to move that the Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a;.—(Lord Janner.)
On Question, Bill read 1a;, and to be printed.

EMPLOYMENT OF CHILDREN BILL
Read 3a, and passed.

MALLAIG HARBOUR ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now considered on Report.
Moved, That the Bill be now considered on Report.—(Lord Mowbray and Stourton.)
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Lord can give a little information about this Bill, and also about the following Bill. I myself have no doubts about this matter but, because of the interest in oil in the Shetlands, I gather that some noble Lords may be under a misapprehension as to the pur-
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poses of the Lerwick Order. It might be helpful if the noble Lord gave some explanation of the purposes of these two Confirmation Bills.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, in reply to the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, the purpose of the Order scheduled to this Bill is to authorise the Mallaig Harbour Authority to carry out works for the improvement of the harbour and to borrow money for the undertaking.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LERWICK HARBOUR ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, the main purposes of the Order scheduled to this Bill are to enable the Trustees of the Port and Harbour of Lerwick to acquire lands and to carry out works for the improvement of the harbour. I beg to move that this Bill be now considered on Report.
Moved, That the Bill be now considered on Report.—(Lord Mowbray and Stourton.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

WATER BILL
2.59 p.m.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Sandford, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. Before coming to the substance of the matter, I should like to offer your Lordships an apology. Before Second Reading was fixed through the usual channels for this date, I had entered into two not unimportant engagements this evening which are now, I fear, inescapable. This means that I shall not be able to be present for the latter half of the debate and I seek your Lordships' indulgence for that. The loss is mine as there was a time, before the Flood, when I was deeply and keenly involved in these watery matters, and I see that a number of noble Lords with whom I then had watery dealings are to speak in your Lordships' debate. I am sorry if I miss any of their speeches.
My Lords, in this Bill we are dealing with a vital commodity that, as a nation, we have for too long, perhaps, taken

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too much for granted; namely, water. It is vital not merely to the continuance of human life in these Islands but to our industry, to our agriculture and, indeed, to the progress of our technology, since the most technological of our industries are indeed very often very heavy consumers of this commodity. It also carries away, and provides essential dilution for, domestic and industrial wastes. It supports a rich and varied life for fish, and it provides a very important amenity and numerous opportunities for one of our great growth industries; namely, sport and recreation. A healthy thirst for water is one of the prime and principal characteristics of a modern industrial society. We in this country now consume more than 50 gallons per head per day of water. By the end of this century, I am told, we shall probably be requiring about twice that amount; and the fact that the Americans already use nearly three times as much water as we do is a significant pointer in this respect.
Curiously enough, at least for those who inhabit the Western or Celtic fringes of our Islands, we have less water in proportion to population than almost any other country in Europe, and yet our consumption—for example, for domestic use—is higher than in many European countries. Already one-third of our drinking water is drawn from the lower reaches of rivers into which sewage and industrial effluent has been discharged, and this proportion is bound, in time, to increase. At the same time, river pollutants are becoming increasingly harmful and toxic, and indeed varied, so that the task of making river water fit to drink becomes more difficult and more costly. The present forecast of drought this summer merely serves to emphasise the urgency of the problem with which we are faced. What we require now, my Lords, is a total approach to water which can take full account of all its different aspects and uses, and allow them to be planned and developed in full harmony with one another.
Your Lordships may recall the prolonged attention which your Lordships rightly gave to the Water Resources Act 1963, which I indeed had the honour to pilot through this House. Unlike that Act, this Bill has begun in another place. However, like it, and for good
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reason, I think, it is confined to England and Wales. At present the management of water services in England and Wales is fragmented between 29 river authorities, some 190 water undertakers and about 1,300 sewerage authorities. In September, 1969, the Central Advisory Water Committee was reconstituted with three noble Lords—the noble Lord, Lord de Ramsey, whom I am glad to see here to-day; the noble Lord, Lord Hirshfield; and my noble friend Lord Nugent of Guildford—as members: a pledge of political impartiality. Since I see that a number of noble Lords on the Front Bench opposite are scanning the Benches on this side for the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, I can inform them that he will arrive at any moment now. The Committee was reconstituted to examine the present system and to recommend the best organisation for the future. In its valuable Report published in April two years ago, the Committee said that it considered that there were too many authorities of too small a size concerned with the provision of water services in this country, and that serious conflicts and weaknesses were an inevitable result of this system. To take but one example, it is all too easy for an authority to baulk at the provision of an expensive sewage treatment plant which will benefit not its own community but some place further downstream of its local river. The Committee therefore recommended that the number of authorities managing the various water services should be drastically reduced.
After studying the Committee's Report, the Government concluded it was essential to set up a small number of regional water authorities, based on river basins, to be responsible for all aspects of water management in those basins. In addition, the administration of land drainage and fisheries was the subject of subsequent consultations between the Minister of Agriculture, local authorities and other interested parties. Following these consultations it was decided that these functions should also be given to regional water authorities, but subject to certain special arrangements which are incorporated in the Bill, primarily in Clauses 18 and 19. I think I can claim that the Government's proposals in

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these respects have met with general acceptance.
My Lords, we are all only too keenly aware, especially at this time of the year, of the pressures on our legislative programme. Because of this, we decided to confine this Bill to those matters which my right honourable friend the Secretary of State judged essential for the proposed reorganisation of the water and sewerage industries. Various detailed mattes that were proposed in Consultation Papers are not covered. In particular, the proposals for the more effective control of water pollution, which will embrace the recommendations of both the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, of which the noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman, is a distinguished member (and I am glad to see that he will be speaking later in this debate), and the Jeger Committee on Sewage Disposal will be dealt with separately in wider legislation for environmental protection. We intend to introduce this comprehensive measure as soon as we can find a legislative slot into which to fit it. The decision made by my right honourable friend not to proceed in the Bill with the Government's original and, indeed, rather controversial proposal to integrate the British Waterways Board's waterways with those of the new regional water authorities means that the Board, together with the Inland Waterways Amenity Advisory Council, will remain in being for the foreseeable future and will continue with their present responsibilities. The Board, of course, will need to carry out their functions in harmony with the regional water authorities, and the Government are confident that this should work out satisfactorily in practice.
My Lords, the heart of the Bill now before your Lordships is therefore the establishment, under Clause 2, of ten multi-purpose regional water authorities for England and Wales. The areas which they will cover are shown in Schedule 1; and, as your Lordships will observe, they are indeed extensive. This is because of our belief that they must be reasonably self-sufficient in water resources and able to make really effective use, either alone or in collaboration with their neighbours, of the very large projects now under consideration, to include possible schemes for large-scale storage in estuaries, like the
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Morecambe scheme or the possible Wash scheme. My Lords, these authorities will be responsible, as provided in Part II of the Bill, for water resources and supply; for sewerage and sewage disposal; for the prevention of pollution; for land drainage and flood protection; for fisheries; for the recreational and amenity use of their water space, and in some cases for navigation. This is big and important business, my Lords. Between them, these proposed authorities will employ some 75,000 staff, their annual revenue will be about £350 million and their investment budget about £300 million per annum.
These proposals are complemented by new arrangements at the national level—arrangements spelled out primarily in Clause 4. The Government attach very great importance to the role of the proposed National Water Council, which will be their main source of advice on national water policy. Its members will include the chairmen of the regional water authorities as well as members appointed by Ministers for their expert, specialised knowledge. The Council will provide the regional water authorities with a forum for the discussion of common problems, for forming a united view on matters of common interest, for the development and dissemination of uniform policy and practices, and for the provision of common services. It is also designed to have an important training function, since it will take over the existing organisation established by the Water Supply Industry Training Board for the water supply industry and extend it to all the functions of water authorities. In addition, it will advise Ministers, for example, in connection with the giving of directions to regional water authorities on their general economic and financial policy.
My Lords, the National Water Council will require free access to three central organisations which are to be set up for planning research and statistical information—three organisations which are an essential feature of the new system. It will have to be in a position to influence the work of those central organisations. Three units are to be established administratively which will take over work now being done by a variety of organisations. Initially, they will be formed by grouping these existing bodies and it is intended

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that they should be staffed by those at present employed in this work.
Perhaps I could briefly summarise and outline the three new organisations which are proposed. First, the Government propose that the Central Water Planning Unit, as a professional body, will take over the national planning function of the Water Resources Board, whose demise is provided for in Clause 30(a) and which has done really work of great value to the country. The planning unit will identify and study the main strategic options so that the national strategy for our water can be developed. The scope of the unit will be broader in a very important respect than the planning division of the Water Resources Board because that was limited to water resources planning. The new unit will cover all aspects, including, quality of national water policy. It is essential that the unit's reports should be objective assessments of the facts, independent of Government and of the water industry. Therefore the unit will be steered by an independent Committee whose chairman will be the Chairman of the National Water Council. Other members of the Committee will include representatives of the Water Research Centre, which I shall refer to in a moment, and of the Government Departments concerned.
The second feature of the new organisation provides for the effective management of research and development by the Water Research Centre. That Centre will be formed from a number of existing elements. First, it is the wish of the Government, and their expectation, that it will be based on, and absorb, the Water Research Association subject to the agreement of the Council of the Association, which agreement has, in fact, been given. Secondly, it will also take over the Government's own research establishment, their Water Pollution Research Laboratory at Stevenage; the major part of the technology division of the Water Resources Board at Reading, and part of the development division of the Department of the Environment's Directorate General of Water Engineering. Thirdly, it will assume responsibility for research and development commissioned by the technology division of the Water Resources Board and for about two-thirds of that com-
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missioned by the Directorate General of Water Engineering in the past. I apologise for these organisational details, my Lords, but perhaps it is just worth giving them as they do not emerge from a perusal of the Bill.
The Government's proposals will thus produce, in our belief, a powerful organisation for water research which will match the concentration of water services of England and Wales into ten powerful authorities. The Centre will initially become responsible for work costing about £2½ million at present. However, given the expanding programme of capital expenditure, and the growing problems facing the regional water authorities, particularly on the pollution and re-use of water, we expect the expenditure by the Water Research Centre to expand within a short time to something of the order of £4 million a year. Your Lordships will have noted that a Committee under the chairmanship of my noble friend Lord Bessborough has recently completed a comprehensive survey of the work of the research associations in this country, and in that Report the Committee endorse the Government's proposals for the re-organisation of research in matters of water. The third unit to be established as part of our new central structure needs less explanation. This is a Data Collection Unit which will be required to provide statistics; and statistics are very much at the heart of this matter, as those who are expert in these questions regarding water will know.
My Lords, I should like particularly, in introducing this Bill, to draw attention to the importance which we attach to the use of our rivers, reservoirs, lakes and canals for the purpose of recreation. I think that many of your Lordships will feel, with me, that we have been rather unimaginative and restrictive in this respect in the past. I know this is a view formed by members of our own Select Committee on Sport and Leisure, under my noble friend Lord Cobham, whose interim report is so relevant to this Bill. I agree with those noble Lords who feel that too often in the past we have allowed the water in our reservoirs to have been, as it were, sterilised when it was crying out for recreation use and when the potential users were crying out for the ability so to use it. We are all glad to note how things are now changing.

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Already, as a glance on any fine summer evening at some of our great reservoirs in this country will show—for example at Grafham, in Huntingdonshire, or Sibly-back in Cornwall, or Pitsford, in North-amptonshire, the water is not merely stored and sterilised; it is also used, as it should be used, for all sorts of things, including canoeing and sailing, and the areas round the reservoirs are used for all forms of good recreation. Plans now exist for providing further facilities of this sort as part of the proposed development of many of the very important reservoirs now under construction; for example, at Empingham, in Rutland, at the reservoir at Datchet, by the M.4, and at Tatting-stone, near Ipswich in Suffolk, and I am glad that this is so.
Now, however, for the first time, the Government are committed to ensuring that the best use is made of all our waters for the benefit of sport, recreation, conservation and amenity in the widest possible sense. Our proposals to this end were put forward in a consultation paper issued in August of last year, and are now provided for in the Bill. Clause 1 makes clear that the use of inland water for recreation must be one of the constituent parts of the national policy for water in England and Wales which the clause charges the Secretary of State to promote. The implementation of that policy will fall primarily on the water authorities. They are given a clear duty in Clause 20, and Clauses 27 and 21 are both relevant in this respect. The new authorities will thus be required to take full account of recreational and amenity needs in planning the development of the water resources of their regions as a whole and the requirements will be covered by the provisions of Clause 23 which relate to periodical reviews and a formulation of plans and programmes.
My Lords, I have noted that our Select Committee on Sport and Leisure have suggested, in their interim report, that this clause should be amended to refer specifically to positive recreational planning. Naturally we considered this proposal carefully, and have come to the conclusion that it would not be right to single out recreation alone in Clause 23 while not referring to other functions. But I can assure noble Lords that it is the Government's intention to move
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Amendments to Clause 22 at Committee stage giving the Water Space Amenity Commission a duty to assist the regional water authorities in the preparation of their plans for recreation under Clause 23. This will make it clear on the face of the Bill that plans for recreation are covered in Clause 23.
In order to advise the Secretary of State, the National Water Council and the regional water authorities in carrying out their respective functions in these particular respects, we have provided in Clause 22 for the formation of a Water Space Amenity Commission. It will have an independent chairman appointed by my right honourable friend, and the other members will consist of the chairmen of the water authorities plus up to ten members whom the Secretary of State shall appoint after consultation with the Countryside Commission, the Sports Council, the English Tourist Board, the local authority associations and all the other numerous bodies concerned with the promotion of recreation and amenity in this country.
Much thought has been given to the role of the Commission and we have received a great deal of advice on it from outside interests, not least from the Select Committee. In Committee in another place the Government undertook to consider a clearer definition of the scope of the Commission and particularly its promotional role, and my noble friend Lord Sandford will be introducing Amendments in Committee which will make this clear, including spelling out that it can collate and publish information and reports. The Government also intend to introduce Amendments to put into effect their promise to transfer to the G.L.C. from the Thames Water Authority responsibility for recreation and amenity on that part of the River Thames which is within the G.L.C. area.
Since that promise was made the Department of the Environment has been engaged in extensive consultations with a number of interested bodies, as my noble friend Lord Nugent—who has now joined us as I prophesied—among others, will be very well aware. All those consulted are agreeable to the principle that the G.L.C. should be responsible for recreation and amenity on the Thames where it flows sweetly through Greater London, and the necessary Amendment

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to this effect will be moved in Committee. The Amendment will thus give effect to the Government's intention to confer on the Thames Water Authority a duty to prepare within a given period a scheme for the transfer of recreation and amenity functions on the River Thames and its tributaries within the G.L.C. area to the G.L.C. itself. The Water Authority will be asked to do so in consultation with those concerned in the Greater London Council, the Port of London authority, the London Boroughs Association, the Common Council of the City of London and other interested bodies, and the scheme will be put into effect by means of an Order made by the Secretary of State.
My Lords, there are two other matters—I hope I have not been dealing with the Bill too cursorily but there are a great many speakers in this afternoon's debate—on which I should like briefly and in conclusion to refer. In the course of the Bill's passage in another place, opposition was expressed to the removal of functions from local authorities. There was also opposition to retention of the statutory water companies as agents for the water authorities for water supply in certain areas. In the Government's view, however, it would weaken local government and distract it from its essential role if it were involved directly in fields like water supply where its activities would have to he so heavily circumscribed by regional or (if the Party represented by noble Lords opposite had its way) by national control. These are difficult matters of judgment and a balance of interest, and the Government have given considerable thought to this particular area of the Bill. Our considered view is that the best combination of accountability to Parliament and acountability to local electors can be secured by regional water authorities in the form proposed in the Bill, namely, with a majority of their members appointed by local authorities and a chairman appointed by the the Secretary of State, who is, of course, responsible with the Secretary of State for Wales and the Minister of Agriculture for the national policy for water. I would hazard a guess that these are matters which will doubtless be ventilated in the course of our discussion this afternoon and possibly even
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go into the Committee stage, and I will not therefore elborate further on them.
The second matter on which, in conclusion, I should like to touch is the question of staff—one which naturally concerns me, wearing my Civil Service Department hat. It is my belief, my Lords, and I speak from some personal albeit rather out-of-date knowledge, that by and large this country has been extremely well served by the dedicated staff which have been handling our water services. It is essential to safeguard their interests in the course of this reorganisation, and provision to this end, including the setting up of a staff commission, is included in Clause 31 of the Bill. I am very glad that the noble Lord, Lord Cooper of Stockton Heath, has agreed to serve on this Commission; his experience here will clearly be of very great value.
My Lords, in conclusion I should like to summarise briefly the advantages which the Government see arising from the major and far-reaching reorganisation of water services contained in the Bill now before your Lordships' House. First, the changes proposed will in our view ensure the provision of the great quantities of water necessary for a rising standard of living and increased industrial and agricultural activity in this country. Second, they will ensure that the progress which we have made in recent decades towards making our rivers and our estuaries cleaner is maintained and, indeed, accelerated. Third, they will ensure that our national water resources are managed comprehensively on the basis of cleaner rivers supporting a full range of fish and other wild life.
Fourth, they will enable us to deal effectively with the increasingly more numerous and more complicated pollutants which are a by-product of technical progress, and so protect the safety of public water supplies and, in the final analysis, our environment. Fifth, they will retain democratic control, through the members appointed by local authorities, over these important services. Sixth, they will lead to a more efficient allocation of the very large sums which are being invested in our water services. Seventh, they will lead to the maximum provision for water-based sport and recreation compatible with these other objectives. In

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sum, the changes proposed will in our submission give England and Wales the most advanced system of water organisation in the world and one which matches up to our particular problems. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a;.—(Earl Jellicoe.)
3.28 p.m.
BARONESS WHITE: My Lords, we are indeed obliged to the noble Earl for his very clear exposition of the Bill which he has presented to us. As he said, it is a complex measure, touching as it does on water supply and conservation, sewerage, land drainage, certain aspects of navigation and fisheries, as well as amenity and recreation. As he also pointed out, there are, of course, two major omissions: water pollution and the wider environmental protection, which are to be reserved for further legislation, while the British Waterways Board, with its jurisdiction over the canals, is to be left in peace. We on this side have no quarrel about either of these omissions, although, of course, they make the present measure somewhat less than fully comprehensive.
The Bill before us, as I am sure we all realise, is extremely important because, as we move inexorably towards the maximum of disposable water available to us (and the noble Earl gave us some estimate of our likely consumption by the end of this century), we shall have to rely more on skilled management of the hydrological cycle and on more sophisticated methods, and in so far as this Bill by its reorganisation may enable us to use greater skills and greater ingenuity in our handling of water we naturally welcome it. But, my Lords, we on this side of the House, at least, are by no means happy about the Bill as a whole. In our view it contains major proposals which we do not regard as acceptable, as well as matters of detail which were left unimproved, in spite of a fairly long Committee stage in another place. There is, of course, a longstanding tradition in this House that we do not vote on Second Reading against a Bill which has been passed by the elected Chamber, and we have no intention of dividing the House to-night. But the Government will, I hope, recognise that on some matters there is considerable disquiet; and I believe certain dis-
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quiet on the Benches behind them, as well as on this side of the House. I would remind your Lordships that the Government have failed to secure the acquiescence of any of the local authority associations as to their proposals in the Bill, and still less of either of the two major Parties of the Greater London Council.
My Lords, it will perhaps not have escaped your Lordships' notice that I sometimes speak from this Box in the interests of Wales, and I can I think fairly say that the Midlands of England and Merseyside would come to a standstill if they could not rely on water from the Principality. Our problems as a supplying country are by no means entirely solved by the offer of a body with the high-sounding title of the Welsh National Water Development Authority. I am shocked that the noble Earl did not even mention it. Even if it sounds rather better in Welsh, Awdurdod Cenedlaethol Datblygi Dwr Cymru—
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I apologise to the noble Baroness for interrupting. I did not mention it because I had a horrible feeling that she would ask me to read it out in Welsh.
BARONESS WHITE: My Lords, I shall be perfectly happy if it is mentioned at some later stage by the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, in the vernacular.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND SOCIAL SECURITY (LORD ABERDARE): In English.
BARONESS WHITE: This Welsh authority will exercise some jurisdiction in parts of Cheshire and Herefordshire. But that will not make up for the fact that the heartland of Mid-Wales, the Upper Severn catchment, is to be torn out and added to the powerful Trent Authority to form a combined Severn-Trent territory stretching across the whole width of both England and Wales, almost literally from coast to coast, from Scunthorpe to Llanidloes, as the catch phrase went in another place. This is a jurisdiction which, I am sure your Lordships will appreciate, no self-respecting Welshman or Welsh woman can accept without at least some modification.
My Lords, there are one or two other regional water authority areas about

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which concern has also been expressed, particularly the proposed Anglian Water Authority and the Thames Water Authority. We shall no doubt hear more about both of those areas during our deliberations, and I hope that my noble friend Lord Garnsworthy, who will be winding up on this side of the House, will deal faithfully with the serious problems posed for London, which will be only partly mitigated by the Amendment on recreation and amenity which the Government have undertaken to put down as soon as possible, as was confirmed by the noble Earl in his speech.
The division of the country—that is to say, England and Wales, because Scotland has its own ideas—into nine regional water authorities, plus the Welsh authority, is, apart from the areas mentioned above, probably as fair a division as one could hope for, unless of course one adopted a different concept of a national water grid, centrally planned and supervised, with a degree of local devolution in matters of day-to-day administration, including, in particular, such things as recreation and amenity.
I do not propose this afternoon to go into the alternative philosophy, as one might call it, of water reorganisation, because I think our main duty is to deal with the Bill that the Government have presented to us. What troubles me about this Bill is that it seems to me that we are likely to enjoy neither the advantages of a centralised administration nor those of true local control. I am not certain whether all my colleagues on this side agree with me, and they may be reluctant to throw away a stick with which both sides might possibly wish to beat the Government, but my personal view is that it is not a true expression of the democratic process to create the hybrid bodies set out in the Bill. The regional water authorities, these multi-purpose organisations stretching over very wide areas of our countryside and serving the great industrial conurbations as well, will be composed of local authority and of nominated members. The local authority representatives will be marginally in the majority, though in some by a whisker only—a majority of only one on certain authorities. There has been, and will no doubt be further pressure to increase the local authority representation in the
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name of democratic control, and the Government have claimed virtue for the present proposals on this very ground, as was emphasised by the noble Earl in his speech. But what sort of democratic control are we really talking about? The local authority members will not be homogeneous. They will be representing different interests, different areas and different people. They will not be directly answerable to an electorate for the decisions taken on the work done by the regional water authority, because the responsibility of that authority will be much too much diffused for that.
On the financial side, the services under the new system—although the noble Earl said very little about this—are to be met largely by charges, not as at present through general rates. Therefore, in my understanding, the local authorities will not have the kind of financial responsibility which would make them answerable to the people.
If this line of thought is valid, as I believe it to be, the local authority representatives are there for one main function —although a very important one—that of communication: expressing the needs and wishes of their constituents, and in turn conveying back the reasoning behind the decisions of the regional water authorities. But in such a situation the principle of overall numerical superiority is surely something of a gimmick; it is a bit of bogus democracy, a bit of window dressing to cover up the fact that even the enlarged new local authorities are being further deprived by this Government of genuine functions. As with the new health authorities, there will be local authority members; but the local authorities themselves will be without direct responsibility. If we go on creating these vast ad hoc bodies for one function after another, one must ask oneself who will be left to concern themselves with running what remains of local government. I think many of us have received a cri de Coeur from the Greater London Council in which they say that this Bill, together with the National Health Bill, will result in the loss of some 15 per cent. of the council's staff and reduce by about one half the council's direct services to the people of London: and mutatis mutandis the same is true of the other local authorities in this country.

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My Lords, what is even more disturbing about this continuing pattern of loose compromise between central and local control is that we are still bedevilled by the missing link—the Crowther/Kilbrandon Report. This could conceivably resolve the dilemma by creating large regional bodies, answerable to the electorate, but with financial and other resources sufficient to carry out the functions now being allocated piecemeal to new ad hoc authorities. I will not attempt to interpret the sibylline utterances of the Prime Minister addressed to the Scottish Conservatives on devolution beyond saying that they seem to me to add further confusion to the present rather clouded picture: I did not find them at all reassuring. But it appears to me, again, to be extremely unfortunate that we are presented with a Bill on major reorganisation without having had the opportunity of studying a Report which surely must be germane to the problem posed by the kind of reform suggested in the Bill that is before us this afternoon.
Having said that, my Lords, whatever regional pattern is ultimately accepted, we must of course examine its relationship with the centre, because these great services have to be planned, at least at strategic level, in the interests of the country as a whole. Here again, many of us are far from happy at the proposals contained in the Bill. When this Bill was introduced in another place, not a speaker got up, other than from the Government Front Bench, who did not express regret at the proposed demise of the Water Resources Board. Although its terms of reference proved to have been much too narrowly drawn, this organisation has been one of the great success stories of modern British administration. Any of us who have had occasion to deal with it have been impressed by its competence and by the well-founded confidence which enabled it to stretch its terms of reference to cover a good deal of additional work which it felt had to be done.
I have always supposed that to build on success was one of the guidelines of the Party opposite—but not a bit of it. The Water Resources Board is to be swept away, although I gather that the shell of the premises at Reading will be retained. We are to have a lot more entities, with complete disregard of
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Occam's law and none of them inspires me with great confidence. At the apex will be the National Water Council, composed as to one-half of chairmen of water authorities and one half of nominated members plus, as the Bill stands (though there was dispute about this in another place) a nominated chairman. It will have far wider functions than might be suggested by the wording of the Bill, including advising the Government on such matters as tariffs, costs and profit targets to be applied to the regional water authorities. Its own executive functions seem to be almost derisory, being confined to testing taps, and so on, and some training of personnel. But it is to have what the Government are pleased to call "free access" to the three new central organisations for planning, for research and for the gathering of statistical data, which will be set up by administrative action and which are not therefore directly referred to in the Bill at all.
We are obliged, again, to the noble Earl for the description he gave of the proposed Central Water Planning Unit, which was rather derisorily referred to as "Coypu" in another place, the Water Research Centre and the Data Collection Unit. I believe it is here that the Government have gone off on the wrong road. We take no exception, of course to the absorption into this proposed organisation of existing research bodies, but I cannot believe that free access by the Water National Council to these three bodies is sufficient. I do not think that planning and research should be separate. I do not think the case for hiving off the Data Collection Unit is very strong, but that is of rather less significance. Surely, the success of the Water Resources Board has lain precisely in the fact that it has had under one roof not only a forceful Director but two Deputy Directors, one being the Chief Scientist and the other the Chief Planner. It has been this propinquity, this meeting of minds, which has led to so much concentrated and creative activity. Not that the Water Resources Board did all the work itself—well before Rothschild it had adopted the practice of contracting out much of its research—but there was a central unity of purpose which I believe will be lost in this Whitehall bog.

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Of course, the scope of work will be different. The new larger authorities will do much of the regional planning and also perhaps some of the research which has hitherto come under the Water Resources Board. But the fact that the Water Resources Board is to issue within the next few weeks its comprehensive national water planning study—which, if the Government have their way, will be the last gasp of the dying swan—does not mean that things can just rest there. We shall need further synoptic studies covering the wider responsibilities of the multi-purpose bodies set up under this Bill and taking account of changes of circumstances and knowledge. Three separate bodies under a distant and shaky umbrella will not, to my mind, produce the best that we could have.
These are fundamental weaknesses of structure, as we see it. There are, of course, innumerable lesser but important points, which I am sure other speakers will bring to light. These include the disquiet which has been expressed concerning financial provisions and the problems arising from the provisions for recreation and amenity—and particularly the relationship between the proposed Water Space Amenity Commission, the Sports Council, the local authorities, the Countryside Commission, the Tourist Board and the innumerable sports associations concerned. Cross-membership on the Water Space Amenity Commission will not of itself prevent clashes of interest and overlapping. I am not entirely convinced that this additional entity is needed either. In Wales we shall be spared this, as our Welsh Authority will be responsible for planning these matters in the Principality, though there is a sharp bone of contention in relation to the execution of such plans by the Severn-Trent Authority, to which we shall no doubt be returning later.
I have not touched on sewerage or land drainage, but in conclusion I should perhaps refer to one other contentious matter which was entirely omitted by the noble Earl. He did not mention meters: yet this was a point of considerable dispute in the other place. I speak, of course, of the provisions in the Bill which would empower the authorities to install meters in domestic premises. I am not speaking of industrial premises, where
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quite different conditions prevail. We on this side object, quite frankly, to charging by meter because we believe that it would be to the disadvantage of poorer families with a large number of children, or invalids, while it might well benefit small well-to-do families now living in highly rated dwellings. I do not consider myself particularly well-to-do, but as a single person living in a Westminster flat I should probably benefit. I do not think I ought to. If one were to believe that really substantial savings in water consumption would ensue, there would be a case; but I am advised that in the United States, where metering has been tried in a number of places, experience has shown that after an initial decline in consumption it creeps up again to what it was before.
The cost of installation and accounting would be exhorbitant, and the most conclusive arguments against any such scheme were, I understand, put forward most convincingly a few years ago by the right honourable gentleman the present Secretary of State for Health and Social Security, Sir Keith Joseph. I do not know how many of your Lordships have seen the current issue of Municipal and Public Services Journal. In an editorial they say this:
"… it is hard to see why Clause 28 has to be included in the Water Bill at all. If an R.W.A. decided at some future date, after full investigation and consideration, that the metering of domestic supplies in its area was desirable, why should it not seek the powers it needs through a Private Bill at that time? Then the Parliamentary debate would at least be in terms of firm proposals, and presumably hard evidence, and not in terms of assumptions, suspicions and fears."
I should be very much interested to know why the noble Earl made no reference to this matter.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I can tell the noble Baroness now: in the interests of brevity.
BARONESS WHITE: My Lords, I am afraid that is well below the noble Earl's standards. However, I was glad that he mentioned staff, where he has a direct interest. We also wish to express our sympathy with the staff of these various organisations, who will have to adjust themselves to new conditions. We have a long list of speakers, and I will leave other matters to the many other noble Lords who have signified their wish to

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speak; but I trust that I have said enough to convince the Government Front Bench that while we hope, as always, to be constructive, we have no intention of giving this Bill an unduly easy passage through the House.

PUBLIC EXPENDITURE IN 1974–75
3.49 p.m.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, with your Lordships' permission I should like to repeat a Statement which is being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. His Statement is as follows:
"A primary objective of this Government has always been to set our nation on a course of faster economic growth. In the 1972 Budget our aim was a rate of 5 per cent. That we achieved.
"Having lifted the economy on to this path of higher growth, the aim of this year's Budget was to continue on that path over the next year or so. All the indicators confirm that the economy is continuing to expand at an annual rate of at least 5 per cent., as we intended. Production, industrial productivity and retail sales have all been rising well. Industrial investment is now beginning to forge ahead, and exports are growing strongly—indeed, more strongly than I expected. Unemployment has continued to fall. These are the welcome signs of success.
"Despite some of the problems associated with that success—pressure on the construction industry in some areas and a shortage of skilled labour in certain sectors of industry—we shall still have for some time ahead the spare resources necessary to continue that faster rate of growth which is a primary objective of our economic strategy. Furthermore, the nation is firmly behind the Government's counter-inflation policy, which is a key part of the strategy for expansion.
"But if we are to secure a lasting improvement in our economic performance, and so in our prosperity, we must at this stage look beyond the present financial year, and take whatever action is necessary now to secure the opportunity for steady and sustained economic growth during the next financial year, 1974–75, and beyond.
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"This sustained growth will depend crucially on the continued strong expansion of industrial investment and exports which we can now expect. It is therefore essential that we now seize this opportunity to get industrial investment and exports on to a higher level and a faster growth path. At the same time we must allow for a reasonable rate of increase in personal consumption. Looking ahead beyond this financial year, in order to make sure that we have sufficient reseources for these three vital elements of demand—industrial investment, exports and personal consumption—it is necessary to moderate the growth of the remaining principal element of demand: public expenditure.
"This was deliberately expanded at the end of 1971 as a temporary measure to reduce unemployment. Now, with unemployment falling at a good rate, and—what we have always wanted—with exports and industrial investment rising fast, is the time to look beyond this year. To permit the changes in the pattern of output required to meet these expanding demands we must take decisions now to ensure that public expenditure, while continuing to grow to meet essential needs, does not preempt too much of the nation's output and so jeopardise the continued expansion of the economy in 1974–75 and beyond.
"In my Budget Statement I announced that certain work on public expenditure had been put in hand last year. That work is now complete and my colleagues and I have decided on certain changes in public expenditure next year, 1974–75.
"We have throughout adopted a selective approach, and the result is that a net saving will be achieved without any reduction in the building programmes for hospitals; for schools, including nursery schools and the replacement of the older schools; without any reduction in the building programmes for colleges and universities; for old people's homes, and other buildings for the local health and personal social services; and without any change in the rates of regional development grants. Expenditure programmes on all these items as well as,

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of course, Social Security, will continue as planned. The changes include no increases in charges.
"Furthermore, because the changes are being announced well in advance, there should be no question of cancelling existing contracts.
"In deciding upon the geographical spread of savings in individual programmes, the Ministers responsible will take account of the varying circumstances, including the load on the construction industries, the level of unemployment and the particular needs of the various parts of the country.
"So that the specific changes can be strictly compared with the most recent Public Expenditure White Paper (Cmnd. 5178), they are expressed at 1972 Survey prices.
"The savings are as follows:
"Roads:
"Deferments for the time being of new schemes and a reduction in maintenance affecting both central and local government. The roads necessary to support Scottish oil developments will not be affected. The saving will be £100 million.
"Miscellaneous Local Services:
"This will involve deferment of approvals; a substantial part of the saving will come in the non-key sector, where the selection will be made by the local authorities themselves. Here again the total saving will be £100 million.
"Local Authorities' Current Expenditure:
"Out of a total estimated local authority current expenditure of nearly £5,000 million there will be a saving of £80 million. The largest part of this—£50 million—is already included in the totals which I have mentioned, particularly road maintenance. The rate support grant negotiations this autumn will proceed on the basis that these economies are being made. It is important that the new local authorities as well as the existing ones should be given this early notice of the changes.
"Various Public Building Projects or Improvements:
"In this area also the Government and the local authorities will both make contributions, amounting to £15 million in all.
"I should add here that there could be no question of incurring any expenditure on the proposed new Parliamentary Building during either this or the next financial year.
"The Civil Service:
"Figures are being published to-day which show that the total number of civil servants is now less than when we took office. By continuing to contain the growth of Civil Service manpower there will be a saving of £20 million on previous plans.
"Selective Government Assistance to Industries:
"As a result of the expansion of the economy, and the increasing ability of industry to finance its own requirements, the amounts which were at one stage envisaged are not now expected to be required in full, and there will be a saving of £35 million.
"Defence:
"We expect to maintain the Defence budget in 1974–75 at broadly the same level as in the current financial year. A saving of £50 million will be found, by economies and postponements of expenditure, including works projects. Our contribution to NATO will not be prejudiced.
"The Nationalised Industries:
"Those industries for which the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry is responsible, a saving of £100 million; the Post Office £30 million; the surface transport industries £10 million. Investment in the nationalised industries will still be on a rising trend, and fully adequate to sustain a faster rate of national growth.
"Agriculture:
"As our agriculture becomes more integrated with the Common Agricultural Policy, the need for Exchequer

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aid will become less and so there will be a reduction of £25 million in expenditure in 1974–75 on current production grants.
"Industrial Training:
"It is important not only that the momentum of this programme should be maintained but that it should be increased. A further £6 million will therefore be added to the existing programme. The plans for meeting expenditure by the Industrial Training Boards out of Government funds instead of out of levies will be deferred for 8 months. The increased programme and this deferment will result in a net saving of £20 million.
"My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Environment has already announced a major switch of resources to housing. I can now inform the House that this priority for housing will involve additional expenditure in 1974–75 of £35 million—again, for convenience, expressed at 1972 prices. Taking this into account, and also the additional expenditure on industrial training to which I have referred, the total net saving in public expenditure for the next financial year, 1974–75, as a result of all these changes will be, at 1972 prices, some £500 million. These decisions will be reflected with estimating and other changes in the course of the year in the next annual White Paper.
"As shown in the last White Paper on public expenditure, we start with the advantage that we had already deliberately planned for the rate of increase to begin to slow down during this financial year, by the end of which the special counter cyclical expenditure which we put in hand in 1971 will have largely run its course.
"I have explained why the various savings I have announced relate to the year 1974–75. I should also take this opportunity to give the House an assessment of how they will affect the present financial year, 1973–74.
"The changes which I have announced for 1974–75 will build up gradually, and will result in a saving in public expenditure in this year approaching £100 million.
"This saving will be in addition to the reduced provision which I fore-
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shadowed in my Budget Statement, and which on present estimates now amounts to a net reduction of about £225 million. Public expenditure this year is therefore likely to be over £300 million less than the figure in the last White Paper (Cmnd. 5178).
"We have before us the greatest opportunity our country has had for very many years—an opportunity to achieve a faster and lasting improvement in our national prosperity. The changes which I have announced will ensure just that."
My Lords, that concludes the Chancellor's Statement.
4.0 p.m.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, may I thank the noble Earl for repeating that Statement. May I also congratulate him on the superbly disarming way in which he now tells us that everything in the garden is not quite so rosy as has been made out. We shall of course want to study this Statement. May I take it that the Government will make time in this House for a debate on the implications of the Statement? When the noble Earl says there are problems associated with what he euphemistically terms success, why is it that the Government can list those problems—a list of two: pressure on the construction industry in some areas and a shortage of skilled labour in certain other areas—without putting in the list the record balance-of-payments deficit? Are we to take it that this is not considered a problem by Her Majesty's Government? When he says that industrial investment has to be put on to a higher level, can he say how he reconciles this with the proposed cuts in the nationalised industries? Or is it a fact that these monies in nationalised industries are expenditure and in private industries are investments? How could it possibly be that we have allowed calculations previously to be accepted in the public industries if they were not essential investments?
The noble Earl referred to the cuts in the Civil Service. May I ask whether it is a fact that in the other place earlier to-day the noble Earl's right honourable friend agreed that the Civil Service, far from going down, had, so far as the non-industrial sector was concerned, gone up

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by 14,000? In so far as there have been reductions in the industrial Civil Service particularly, to what extent is this reduction a transfer from a Government Department to another agency? To what extent has there been a hiving off here? Will he give a figure to that? The noble Earl also referred to the fact that the reduction in expenditure will now be—one has to get these double negatives correctly because the Statement is difficult to follow—£300 million less than it was going to be. Will the noble Earl tell me the background against which it is going to be £300 million less? Is it a fact that the Budget provided for a deficit of £4,000 million? Can it possibly be that we are budgeting for these huge deficits if we are really concerned about public expenditure? If we are to get these deficits down, will it be in the autumn that we shall, after all, get another Budget? Will it be that Budget which will deal with the taxation that will be required?
4.4 p.m.
LORD BYERS: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Earl for repeating the Statement. Where there are to be changes of this magnitude early notice is very welcome indeed. I cannot help being slightly sceptical about the degree of accuracy which the Government have brought into their prophesies. Is it really possible to forecast the savings as accurately as the Government are hoping to do? When are we to be given the details of these cuts? It is the details—not the global sums—that really matter when one comes down to long-term planning. What are the cuts going to be in the nationalised industries? The nationalised industries are largely the service industries of the other industries upon which our export performance depends. Regarding the saving of £30 million on the Post Office, I think the time has come to increase the investment and expenditure on the Post Office if we are to get the efficiency that we need. I welcome the increased industrial training grants—that is excellent—but I cannot help asking the noble Earl whether the Government know what they are doing.
LORD WIGG: My Lords—
EARL JELLICOE: Perhaps I may now answer the two noble Lords who have
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spoken from the Front Benches. My Lords, first may I deal with the question of debating this important Statement in your Lordships' House. I recognise that if there is a general demand—and I take it that there is—for us to debate this matter, this is something we should clearly acquiesce in. I suggest that as usual the usual channels should consult on this. One possibility might be to debate this at the time when we debate the Budget, but that might be thought by noble Lords to be rather late in the day. Until then we have a very crowded programme. But I am sure that by agreement through the usual channels we could adjust that programme. In that event I should like to express the hope that we take our debate on the Budget rather more formally.
A NOBLE LORD: On the Finance Bill.
EARL JELLICOE: On the Finance Bill. My Lords, in everything I have said, for "Budget statement" please read "Finance Bill".
The noble Lord, Lord Beswick, referred to the balance of payments. All I would do is inform the noble Lord, Lord Beswick (this is something of which I am sure he must be aware), that exports are now rising by something like 12 per cent. in volume over the level reached at the end of last year. The expectations are extremely favourable, and although one swallow does not make a summer and it would be very foolish of anyone to read too much into one month's figures—either the month before last or last month—last month's figures showed the most favourable balance-of-payments figures that we have had for a considerable time.
So far as the nationalised industries are concerned, to which the noble Lords, Lord Beswick and Lord Byers, both understandably directed our attention, the cuts here—and I think "cuts" is probably the wrong term: the deferment of certain expenditures, because expenditure on investment in the nationalised industries is still on a rising curve—are designed to leave room in the economy in 1974–75, given the fact that exports are now rising fast, that the economy is now showing every sign of rapid expansion and there are many signs at the present time that industrial investment is now beginning to come through. I can assure noble Lords that it is my right honourable friend's estimate that these

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deferments will in no way impair the ability of the nationalised industries concerned to supply the needs which underlie and will underpin our increased industrial production.
I am not aware of what may have been said in another place—I happen to be dealing with water—about the Civil Service matter to which the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, referred. I am aware of what my colleague, the Parliamentary Secretary, was saying. He was announcing a reduction, taking the industrial and non-industrial Civil Service together, which is the way we have been issuing the figures for a considerable time. We can play an almost endless "numbers game" in this particular area, and perhaps we may defer that for the time being.
So far as the accuracy is concerned, the point that the noble Lord, Lord Byers, asked me about, these are the best estimates available. So far as the detailed breakdown is concerned, there will be—indeed, there is already—consultation with those responsible for the nationalised industries concerned. Until those consultations are finished it would not be right for me to try to give a detailed breakdown of the global figure, which I repeated from the Chancellor's Statement.
LORD BYERS: My Lords, if the details are not known how do we get the total?
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, the details are known, but I am afraid I am not being drawn on them at the present time pending that consultation which is now going on.
4.10 p.m.
LORD WIGG: My Lords, may I pay the noble Earl the Leader of the House the compliment of saying that I am quite sure he believes all that he put to us this afternoon, and I am quite sure that the Government as a whole believe it, but is it not a fact that this Statement is a warning to the country that we have moved from "go" to "stop"? This is the traditional sign of the economy becoming overheated, and the spokesman for the Government draws attention to all the favourable dummies in the shop window but completely ignores the inside. May I question the noble Earl in
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specific terms. First, presumably the economies announced this afternoon are in diminution of the £4,400 million that the Chancellor announced in his Budget Statement he was going to finance by deficit borrowing. Second, in his Statement has the noble Earl taken account of the change in prices? The House will no doubt know that Cmnd. 5178, which was introduced only last December, was based upon the 1972 figures, and as there has been a constant and unremitting rise in prices since that time these figures are in fact invalidated. Therefore it may well be that the £300 million net announced this afternoon is no more than an adjustment of the rising prices. Third, in the favourable factors taken into account of the rise in exports, have the Government taken into account the fact that the pound is gaining (so it is said) in terms of the dollar, which of course must put a brake, long term, on our export prices and therefore our exports must inevitably move against us? There is also of course the possibility that the Prime Minister may have his arm twisted while he is in Paris and may in fact agree to a change in the parity of the exchange.
Finally, I am completely at a loss to know how a responsible Government can come to this House and to another place and announce the cuts that are being announced in regard to roads—and, God knows! our roads need to be improved and our Post Office services need to be improved and not cut—and at the same time announce a piffling decrease in Defence costs. In the Defence Statement the Government announced the possibility of spending £200 million on a through-deck cruiser. Anyone who knows anything about it at all knows that its purpose is completely unproven; indeed, if one wanted to find a name for that particular class of ship one would call it the "white elephant class". Is it not a fact that if the Government are really seriously concerned about pruning the Budget the place for them to start is on the Defence Budget, by applying a strict cost effective principle to all Defence expenditure?
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Wing, suggested that this was a replica of cuts in public expenditure announced by a previous Administration in 1966 and 1968, and

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that it was the prelude to "stop" as part of the "go/stop" syndrome. I would tell the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, that the situation is precisely the contrary. All the signs at the present time are of expansion in the economy. They are both implicit and explicit in the Chancellor's Statement which I have repeated: the growth in production, the growth in the important area of productivity, the significant growth in exports and, above all, the significant and mounting growth in industrial investment. What we are doing is to ensure the conditions for that continuing sustained growth, and in the field of public expenditure we are making room for that sustained growth, and in plenty of time. The great difference between these measures and those undertaken by the Administration which the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, supported is that we are acting in the fullness of time.
LORD WIGG: My Lords, on the contrary the noble Earl is not correct. This is a repeat of what happened in 1964. When we became a Government in 1964 we found a deficit waiting for us, running at the rate of £1,000 million a year because the Conservative Government, then as now, had gone for what they were pleased to call "growth at all costs". It is a growth essentially in the consumer durable fields, supported by hire-purchase, extended credit and all the paraphernalia that goes with that, plus deficit financing—a deficit of £4,400 million which the Chancellor is going to meet by borrowing. This is not growth; this is a "con" operation, and like all successful confidence tricksters the Government have started by "conning" themselves.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I think it would be wrong for me to allow myself to "hog" too much of this discussion in order to reply to the noble Lord, Lord Wigg. However, I would point out that his statement that this is a consumer growth is controverted both by the rise in investment and the very significant rise in our exports.
VISCOUNT AMORY: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that this Statement is an extremely important one and, in my view, highly relevant to our economic problems? In the past Governments of both Parties have on several occasions
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over-estimated our potential resources available, and it must be right at this moment to look ahead so as to avoid this happening again and so as to make the best use of our expanding but still limited resources. It seems to me that the Statement in principle must be greatly welcomed.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, since it is quite obvious that we shall need to debate this extremely important Statement it may be desirable, in view of the length of the business before us, if the noble Earl can agree in principle to arrange a debate, in Government time, at the earliest possible opportunity. This is a major Statement which we shall need to examine very closely indeed. I can understand that the Government have a certain feeling of optimism, but as my noble friend Lord Wigg made clear, there are all the signs of this being a dangerous prelude to problems which will catch us fairly soon, and certainly later this year. Of course I hope that will not be so. Therefore I think it will be necessary for us to probe very deeply indeed.
There is one point which the noble Earl dealt with which caused me some anxiety, and that was the way in which he replied to my noble friend Lord Beswick on the subject of Civil Service numbers. He said, "We can all play the numbers game"; but I do not myself recollect—although he may be able to correct me on this—that when I held the office which he now holds I "played the numbers game". I gave the figures of non-industrial civil servants, and although there were occasions when one gave the total figures I do not recall making the sort of bland statement that "the numbers have gone down" when we know effectively they had gone up. If I am wrong in that I will apologise, but the noble Earl is the Minister responsible and I think it would be very much better if he would give the numbers.
It is this sort of over-sanguine, rather smooth, "rubbing over the issues" remark in his Statement that causes us the anxiety we feel in regard to the Government because we think it may be applied in other areas. Therefore I think we should have a debate very soon. It will not be possible next week, but I think as soon as we return from the Recess we should have such a debate.
4.20 p.m.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I share the view expressed by the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition, that in view of the importance of this Statement, of the fact that it is to be followed by another Statement and that we have a great many speakers who wish to speak on the not-unimportant Water Bill, it might be wise if we were to curtail, as much as is reasonably possible, our discussion on my right honourable friend's Statement. If it is helpful in that respect I shall or course give noble Lords opposite an assurance that I, for my part, shall be very ready to respond to their suggestion that we should debate this at an early stage and that the arrangements should be discussed through the usual channels.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, without taking up an undue amount of time, would the noble Earl give me two figures? First, how many civil servants have been transferred to other authorities; and, second, is it or is it not a fact that there are 14,000 more non-industrial civil servants now than there were one year ago? Would the noble Earl also answer the point made by my noble friend Lord Wigg about the consumer boom? How can the Government hope to deal with the balance of payments unless they deal with the question of the boom in consumer durables?
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, so far as Civil Service numbers are concerned, the Parliamentary Secretary answered a Question to-day in another place. A very full Statement indeed will be found in the Commons Hansard and I shall be very glad to have that Statement inserted in our own Hansard, in answer to a Written Question, if that would be helpful to noble Lords opposite. That Statement sets out the whole picture. It would be better if we were to discuss this matter on the basis of the detailed breakdown which is given in the reply to a Question to-day.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, it is quite outrageous that the noble Earl does not tell us whether the numbers of non-industrial civil servants have gone up or down. When the present Government Party were in Opposition they always attached enormous importance to this matter. We have not pursued the Government in the same way. The noble
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Earl is always very courteous, but we have had one very discourteous reply from his noble friend Lord Carrington to my noble friend Lord Shinwell earlier in the day and I think that he might give this figure. Failing that, perhaps he could arrange to make a Statement to the House to-morrow.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I do not know why the noble Lord, Lord Shackle-ton, is making such a fuss about this. He knows the numbers perfectly well. They have been announced in another place. If he had wished to know them he could have asked me a question at any time in the last year on the subject. There has been no disguising this whatsoever.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, it was the noble Earl who made the statement to-day—and a most misleading statement. I hesitate to use strong words, but it was a most misleading statement which I think ought not to have come from the Minister responsible.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, may I ask the noble Earl a simple question? What bearing has the Statement he has just made, repeating the Statement made by his right honourable friend in the other place, on the report which has just been published on the shipbuilding industry? Is he aware that in that report it is explicitly stated that unless £250 million of additional expenditure is injected into the shipbuilding industry, many of the shipbuilding yards will have to close? What bearing has the Statement on that report?
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, so far as I know, and here I speak subject to correction, that implies no reduction in the support available to the shipbuilding industry.
LORD BYERS: My Lords, in view of the fact that we have another Statement to come, we have already spent 34 minutes on this particular matter, and we have a long debate before us, would it not be possible to move on?
LORD WIGG: My Lords, it may be possible to move on, but may I ask another question? The Leader of the House has told us—and he is repeating what the Chancellor and the Prime Minister have said on every possible occasion—that investment is rising. Will

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he produce, before the next debate, a White Paper, or give us some proof of it?—because I, for one, am not convinced, particularly in view of the question asked by my noble friend Lord Shinwell, that there is an industry which wants at least £250 million. Are they going to get it or not? What is the good of the Minister saying that investment is rising when there is absolutely no proof at all that such is the case?
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: My Lords, is the noble Earl going to give an answer to my noble friend? In view of the fact that we have had this Statement—and I am not gloating about it, as it is a very difficult Statement—may I say that technology also brings with it side effects. At the present moment no figures have been given of the massive consumer boom, or of the amount of existing credit and hire-purchase. Will the Minister, when we have this debate, see that we get a full Statement on this question? Finally, in my supplementary questions, would the Minister not think that in view of the fact that we have gone into the Common Market some Committee with the necessary ability should look into our overseas spending, particularly military spending? That is one of the bugbears we have had to bear over the last 20 years or so, and consequently I think that, as the position is to-day, we should reassess our military commitments. That would be a duty for the Commission to look into.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I think there is a general desire in your Lordships' House that we should move on. I find myself in this respect in a rather difficult position because I do not wish to speak, as it were, as Leader of your Lordships' House when I am answering questions on a particular point.
LORD SHACKLETON: Saved by the bell!
EARL JELLICOE: The noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, has made a remark which I thought to be grossly unfair, if I may say so, at this particular juncture. What I should like to say is that I shall be glad to pass on to my right honourable friend the suggestion made by the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, that further information about investment prospects should, if possible, be made available. I suggest to the noble Lord, Lord Davies
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of Leek, and to the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, that the other points might be covered in any debate which we have arising from this Statement.

ICELANDIC FISHERIES DISPUTE
4.27 p.m.
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, perhaps it will be for the convenience of the House if I may, by leave of the House, repeat a Statement being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. The Statement is as follows:
"Since September the 5th, 1972, British trawlers fishing on the high seas have been systematically harassed by Icelandic Coastguard vessels. During all that time in order to assist negotiations British naval vessels have been kept outside the area.
"Lately despite repeated warnings and although negotiations were in progress, the Icelandic Government continued and intensified their harassment and it became clear that they were making a determined effort to drive British vessels from the area by force. A critical situation was reached on the 14th of May when there was an unsuccessful attempt to board a trawler and live ammunition was used by a coastguard vessel. After consultation with the industry, the Government concluded that it was no longer possible for British vessels to fish in safety without protection. Naval vessels were therefore ordered into the area on the 19th of May. They will take only such defensive action as is necessary to protect British trawlers exercising their lawful rights to fish on the high seas.
"British naval vessels are of course fully entitled in international law to operate freely in this area of the high seas. They will however be withdrawn at any time if the Government of Iceland will cease harassment of British trawlers.
"It is still the Government's desire to settle this dispute by negotiation. Pending such a settlement, we shall however authorise trawlers to catch up to the limit of 170,000 tons indicated by the International Court. We shall

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also pursue substantive proceedings before the Court and shall continue to seek longer term solutions in the Law of the Sea Conference."
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
LORD HOY: My Lords, we are grateful to the noble Baroness for repeating the Statement made in another place and also express our regret that the present position has been reached between Iceland and ourselves. Arising from the Statement, I should like to know what has happened since May 16. The Statement says:
"A critical situation was reached on the 14th of May when there was an unsuccessful attempt to board a trawler and live ammunition was used by a coastguard vessel."
Indeed, when I raised this matter with the noble Baroness on May 16, she said that this was not critical and that one would have to look for some other reason for taking action. I am a little surprised to find that she should specify that same action to-day. I should like to know what action has taken place since then which now makes it critical. May I ask her what steps we are taking to consult our partners in this dispute, because it is not only the concern of Great Britain but of many other countries in Europe, and West Germany in particular. I am sure that the House would be grateful to know what steps are being taken.
May I also ask the noble Baroness whether she has any information with regard to the statement made at the weekend on British television by the Icelandic Ambassador, who said that he regretted what we had done because it had prevented us from reaching a compromise? Can the noble Baroness say what compromise was offered to us by His Excellency on behalf of the Government of Iceland? If he has not offered one, perhaps the Foreign Office could find out what it is. There is another question which flows from this decision; that is, the question of British planes in Iceland. Iceland has now taken steps to prevent them landing. I have no doubt that this will cause us some little trouble—not that we could not get over it, but it is bound to create some trouble. On all these questions, I should be grateful if the noble Baroness would tell us what we should like to do.
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Finally, the noble Baroness repeated the figure of 170,000 tons. This, of course, is a change over from the negotiating position. This was the figure which was laid down by the International Court; and I think in negotiation we agreed to reduce it to 150,000 tons or 145,000 tons. Would it be right to assume that, provided we can get a suitable compromise, we should be willing to go back to the figure we offered to Iceland when the negotiations were taking place?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, on the first point, about what has happened since May 16 which has made matters critical, there was always the question as to whether or not one should take preventive action. Consultations took place with the industry who at that time were divided and felt that perhaps it was possible to soldier on. In the end they agreed that, in order that there should be no further harassment or no further critical action, and as a protective measure, they supported the Government in putting in the Navy to act as a protective force to our trawlers. On the second question, we have been closely in touch with West Germany all through the negotiations and ever since putting in the Navy. We also to-day raised this question at NATO, where a meeting was taking place.
If when the Icelandic Ambassador made a statement on television, which I am afraid I did not hear myself, he referred to a compromise, no compromise solution has been put forward or is in the offing from the Icelandic Government. The British proposals, and the Icelandic position, as it is put down in their Paper, are in the Library, and it will be seen that there was no movement at all from the figure of 117,000 tons. So far as British planes are concerned, I understand that this so far affects only flights by Royal Air Force aircraft, and they need clearance through the normal air traffic control channels to land at Keflavik. This does not of course involve civil planes.
On the last question, as the noble Lord rightly said, 170,000 tons was the tonnage awarded by the International Court that we could fish; and, of course, we are greatly reducing our catch from the

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207,000 tons of the peak period. In the proposals that we put forward, on which the Iceland Government said that they would give us a reply, we suggested that there should be negotiation within a bracket of 155,000 tons at the top and 117,000 tons at the bottom, which was the Icelandic figure. In order to try to get some movement in this position we suggested 145,000 tons, but no move at all was made.
LORD BLYTON: My Lords, may I ask the noble Baroness this question? She said that the crucial position that caused the Navy to go in—about which I am delighted and for which I have been pressing for some time—was the fact that the trawlermen themselves said: "We have had enough; we are coming out and we are going to fish no more until we get the Navy". Two days later the Navy was put in. I am pleased about it all, and I hope that we shall not get terrified to death that we are taken before the United Nations and termed aggressors.
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Blyton, very much for his support in our having to send in naval vessels. I think the House will realise that we delayed as long as we possibly could because we were trying to reach an interim agreement. The Navy will, of course, do their very best, and I am sure successfully, to protect our trawlers.
LORD HOY: My Lords, I do not wish to delay the proceedings, in view of the length of business still before the House, but I am a little surprised that the noble Baroness said that she was not aware of the broadcast made by His Excellency the Ambassador of Iceland on British television. I can assure her that I both saw and heard His Excellency make the statement. May I suggest to the noble Baroness that she makes inquiries to find out from the Ambassador what he meant by his offer of compromise, so that not only ourselves but the British public will be able to understand what the compromise in fact meant.
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, I do not think it is surprising that one does not see
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every programme on television. There is sometimes a certain amount of homework to do. The fact remains that the Icelandic Ambassador came to see my right honourable friend this morning, and there was no suggestion of a compromise then.
LORD HOY: My Lords, with all due respect to the noble Baroness—I do not want to be petty about these points—I am not expecting her to sit in and look at television programmes, but I am suggesting that it is a little difficult to understand why the Foreign Office does not do so to find out what is going on.
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, I am sure that the Foreign Office does indeed monitor all things of this kind and had there been anything of substance I would certainly have been told. The noble Lord asked me whether any compromise proposal had been put forward by the Icelanders, and my answer is "No".
LORD WYNNE-JONES: My Lords, as I am a Parliamentary delegate from your Lordships' House to the North Atlantic Assembly, I have been extremely disturbed, naturally, with this problem. I should like to ask the noble Baroness to what extent NATO is really being brought into this. She made reference to NATO. It seems to me an extremely serious matter that two countries within the North Atlantic Alliance should be involved in this kind of dispute. One cannot help feeling that there is a difference in the attitude that we are adopting towards Iceland and the attitude that we adopted towards Malta, which also was seriously involved with a problem of NATO defence. It seemed to me that we were prepared to do things with regard to Malta that we are not prepared to do with regard to Iceland. I do not for one moment think that what the Icelanders are doing is necessarily right, but nevertheless it is to them an extremely important matter; it is, after all, the major part of their economy. Would it not be right that we should deal with this matter not unilaterally but rather through he North Atlantic Alliance?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, there is no direct connection between the NATO alliance and this particular dispute on

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fishing, but we raised it in the NATO meeting to-day because, as the noble Lord rightly says, it involves two allies. As I think I said on the last occasion we discussed this matter, it seems to us ridiculous that two NATO allies cannot reach an accommodation together. I do not know whether the noble Lord has had an opportunity to read the Icelandic position, and the British proposals, which are in the Library of the House. I think he will realise, looking back over the history of this question, that we have gone very far indeed. We have recognised Iceland's right and the preference of a coastal State, and we have offered very greatly to reduce our catch in her waters. We have also tried to meet many of the points to which she attached importance.

DENTISTS (AMENDMENT) BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a;, and to be printed.
EMPLOYMENT AGENCIES BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a;, and to be printed.
FAIR TRADING BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a;, and to be printed.
SEA FISHERIES (SHELLFISH) BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a;, and to be printed.

WATER BILL
4.40 p.m.
Debate on Second Reading resumed.
LORD BYERS: My Lords, I am sure the House will be glad to get back into the smoother waters of the Water Bill, after the interruption of nearly an hour. I welcome this Bill, which I think is an important measure. Certainly it is not perfect, and there are many amendments which could be made to it even at this stage, but I do not propose in this speech to cover any other aspects than the use of water for recreation. I do not do this because the other aspects—pollution con-
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trol, consumption and conservation—are unimportant, but because I am a member of the Select Committee on Sport and Leisure, to which the noble Earl the Leader of the House referred, and, in any event, my noble friend Lord de Ramsey will be dealing with the rest of the subject matter when he comes to speak.
I was delighted that the noble Earl the Leader of the House recognised what we put in the Interim Report of our Select Committee, and some of the points which I make to-day may not, in the light of what he said in his speech, be as relevant as they might have been. But I could not quite follow the details of what he was proposing in the way of recreation, and the way in which the Government propose to deal with it, although the tone in which he made his remarks was certainly sympathetic to what we put in our Interim Report. In fact, in the Interim Report we dealt with the demand for recreational facilities in this country, and in particular we emphasised the place of the local authorities in meeting this demand. There is no doubt that there is a very substantial demand for recreational facilities in this country and it is a demand which, through medium and long-term planning, should, in my view, be met. I was slightly worried at the statement which the noble Earl made earlier to-day, about the economies which will take place in the non-key sectors of local government, because I suspect that one of those on which economies will be made may be recreation.
The Select Committee welcomed the provisions of Clause 20 of the Bill which place on water authorities and statutory water undertakers a duty,
"to take such steps as are reasonably practicable for putting their rights to the use of water and of any land associated with water to the best use"
for recreational purposes. It is a fine thing to have that embodied in the Bill and I congratulate the Government on doing it. I believe it is time for recreation to be upgraded, instead of being left as the Cinderella in matters of planning and finance. The duty to provide for recreation has been placed on the water authorities at a very opportune moment, because demand for water recreation is rising fast and more and more problems are arising over it. There are plenty of problems

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of joint user and matters of that sort which have still to be settled, and urgent action will have to be taken if this new demand is to be satisfied. On the Select Committee we have had evidence of a huge rise in all forms of water recreation, such as boating, angling, sailing, canoeing, water-skiing and so on. Furthermore, I believe that we must pay attention in this country to the millions of people who just like to sit beside the water and to gaze across it. In the United States, I am told, it is considered very unusual nowadays to provide a public park which does not have water as its focus. And in Japan, as your Lordships will know, the tranquillising effect of water is well recognised everywhere. There is undoubtedly an absorbing attraction in water and the banks along it.
As I said, the Select Committee welcomed the duty placed upon water authorities to provide for recreation and considered this to be an essential part of water policy. I must, however, enter one reservation. We are doubtful whether it will be possible for water authorities to carry out this duty effectively when they are required
"so to discharge their functions as to secure that, taking one year with another, their revenue is not less"
than that required
"to meet their total outgoings properly chargeable to revenue account."
I am referring, in particular, to Clause 26(1) of the Bill. We have been told in evidence that very few forms of water recreation can hope to pay their way with realistic charges, and that many forms of water use simply cannot he paid for. One can think, in particular, of picnickers and riverside walkers—people who make up a large part of those who want waterside recreation. I believe that boatmen, anglers and some other water users should be encouraged to pay—of course they should—but, in my view, the amount to be gained is unlikely to be sufficient to cover actual costs in every case. We consider that allowance must be made for these factors in the water authorities' budgets and, since there are national elements of amenity and of public recreation and conservation, we believe that a national contribution of grant aid should he available to help finance the water undertakings in providing recreational facilities.
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I am not at all happy about the statement of the Minister in another place in Standing Committee on the Bill [Col. 985 of Hansard], when he said that the purpose of the Bill is to make recreational and navigational facilities on water authority waterways self-financing. I am fairly well convinced that this simply will not be achieved, if the planning of recreation which people require is to be established on proper standards. The Minister went on to say that the water authorities will feel that they can treat the recreational facilities partly as a social service, but that the Government did not intend to write that sentiment into the Bill. That statement was made shortly after the publication of the Select Committee's Report, in which we said, in paragraph 5, that the provision of opportunities for the enjoyment of leisure is part of the general fabric of the social services. I would suggest, again, that not only should the water authorities feel inclined to treat recreation as a social service, but that Her Majesty's Government should demonstrate in a tangible way that they feel the same. In my view, an element of grant aid must be made available to ensure that the recreational use of water is properly developed; and that is the view, at the moment, of the Select Committee.
I should now like to come to my second and last point, which concerns the Water Space Amenity Commission. I did not quite understand what the noble Earl the Leader of the House was getting at in this respect, but I shall read the report of it in Hansard to-morrow. For reasons which will already be apparent, the Select Committee believe that a national policy to develop water recreation is needed, and a coherent effort must be made to ensure that all waters, whether under the control of a water authority or not, will be available for the purposes of this policy. The Bill which we are considering this afternoon does not deal with canals, or with the numerous flooded gravel pits and other lakes outside the water authorities' control. We quite appreciate that, for reasons of Parliamentary time, the Government did not feel able to make this Water Bill as comprehensive as perhaps it might have been. We think it is a pity, but we understand. The canal system, which at one time was, I gather, to be included in the Bill, has now been left out of it. We

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are therefore considering only some of the country's water resources, and to get the maximum benefit for water recreation we believe that we must look further than the water authorities.
It is true that these authorities are in certain circumstances empowered by the Bill to use for recreation water which they do not own. But there is no provision in the Bill for a unified policy of water recreation as such and it is the creation of such a policy which seems to me to be the most worth while function of the Water Space Amenity Commission. The Select Committee have recommended that the Water Space Amenity Commission should be given a realistic purpose, and should assume a genuinely national role. They believe, first, that it should be concerned with both England and Wales, and not with England alone as it appears in the Bill as at present drafted; and, secondly, that its terms of reference should include all waters, whether under the control of a water authority or not. The many waters outside the water authorities' control, including canals and gravel pits, which I have mentioned, have a place of first importance in any scheme of recreational provision, and I believe it would be wrong to confine the Water Space Amenity Commission to only part of the country's water resources.
There is scope for the Commission to foster a unified and coherent policy among the water authorities, the British Waterways Board, who manage the canals, and the private owners of water, too. If the Government were prepared to accept the desirability of central grant aid to supplement the recreational budgets of water authorities, then the Commission would be a suitable body to recommend the amount of grant aid and how it should be distributed—again, in collaboration, I hope, with such authorities as the Sports Council and the regional sports councils, who know so much about these things. But with this financial strength the Commission would be better able to exhort the private owners of water to open up their own facilities to public use.
My Lords, to sum up, the Sports and Leisure Committee welcome this Bill because it sets out for the first time a duty to provide water recreation. But they are concerned lest the financial weakness of the water authorities should prevent them from carrying out this duty
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properly; and they believe that recreation would also be better provided for if the Water Space Amenity Commission is given the task of drawing up a national policy for water recreation, not only among the water authorities but among the owners of water elsewhere.
4.51 p.m.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: My Lords, I should begin by declaring my interest in this water world, first as chairman of the Thames Conservancy and, secondly, as president of the Association of River Authorities. I shall not follow the noble Lord, Lord Byers, in his very interesting speech on water recreation, except to say that I agree with the general trend of his remarks, including his observation that, generally speaking, water recreation is not financially self-supporting.
My Lords, this Bill is the logical conclusion of a very long, piecemeal process of legislation; and it could be said to have started with the Thames Conservancy Act 116 years ago, which brought the greater part of the River Thames under one management. In this country at that time waterborne sewage was really developing, and the waste from that and other solid waste material was being discharged straight into our rivers. Indeed, at that time, in the middle of the last century, the accumulations of solid waste in the River Thames were so large in some places that they actually impeded nagivation through the locks. Of course, London suffered not only by the smell but by the pollution of the water, and waterborne disease, such as cholera and typhoid, was prevalent. Every kind of evil flowed from the river. I am told that the final incentive to Parliament to legislate was the appalling smell in summer from the river. It was that which finally persuaded noble Lords in this House and honourable Members in another place to legislate on the matter. Then followed a succession of measures, some private legislation and later a good deal of public legislation, covering the whole field of public health, rivers, water distribution and so on, with which we are all familiar.
I say this Bill is the logical conclusion because it brings together into ten comprehensive regional water authorities all these powers which have been gradually built up over the years, and it adds a

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great deal to them in order to make the regional water authorities completely comprehensive, multi-purpose authorities covering, as the noble Baroness said, the whole hydrological cycle of conservation, distribution and reclamation through the sewage works. The technological arguments for legislating in this radical fashion are in my judgment compelling. This will increase water supply; and I dare say, my Lords, that the general public will be painfully aware before the summer is out that there is an urgent need to increase the water supply. I was interested to hear my noble friend on the Front Bench say last week that the ten months preceding April 30 of this year were the driest ten months for over a hundred years. This means, of course, that the ground flow of water is very low, and unless we get a very wet summer, which on the whole we would sooner not have, we are undoubtedly going to be seriously short of water in many parts of the country before the summer is out—and there will be a good deal of rationing, I fear. Secondly, this kind of multi-purpose authority is the quickest means to get cleaner rivers. Thirdly, meeting the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Byers, this is the quickest and most certain way of making better and more comprehensive provision for water sport, recreation and amenity. All these things, of course, will have universal approbation, although there may be differences of opinion, which the noble Baroness, Lady White, so interestingly developed, about the precise structure.
But in my judgment the main area for controversy—and a great deal has gone on outside—is the constitutional argument. Her Majesty's Government have of course drawn substantially on the Report of the Central Advisory Water Committee in constructing this Bill. I had the honour to be a member of that Committee, which in its Report was unanimous in advising on the need for immediate action to strengthen the administrative structure for water. We recognised how urgent this was. While we were unanimous on that score, my Lords, we were diverse in advising what the new structure should be; in fact, we put up almost every possibility. But, broadly, the Report explained that the
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choice lay between a brand-new structure of multi-purpose regional authorities, similar to that in the Bill (which implies, of course, the abolition of all the existing authorities: river authorities, water undertakings, sewage authorities, some 1,500 of them) or an evolution from the existing structure of single-purpose authorities— river management, water undertakings, sewage authorities—based on local government, river authorities and water undertakings. This could have been achieved—and the Report described two or three ways in which it could have been done—by reducing drastically the number of these authorities and substantially strengthening the powers of a reduced number of river authorities, which would then co-ordinate and plan the whole hydrological cycle in their enlarged areas; but the water undertakings and the sewage authorities would have remained independent under local authorities.
This, my Lords, is an attractive solution which certainly appealed to me, as a member of the oldest river authority, which is based, of course, on local authorities; it is very attractive in every way from the point of view of local government, and I believe that it would have worked in some areas. I am sure that it would have worked in the Thames catchment. The River Thames and the River Lea both have ancient conservancies. The Lee Conservancy came into existence about ten years after the Thames Conservancy; and in both these areas, of course, there have been over a hundred years in which to build up strong organisations that have been able gradually to clean up the polluted condition of their rivers and achieve a high standard of quality—high enough to provide the potentially potable water for London. And despite the ever-increasing amount of effluent which pours into both these rivers, the Conservancy authorities have managed to do their job very satisfactorily. Perhaps I may mention, as a sort of dying honour to the Thames Conservancy, that before the year is out they will have contrived to complete the first phase of this large conservation scheme, the groundwater scheme, which, when it is completed, will increase the potable supply of water for London by some 100 million gallons a year. This scheme takes no agricultural land; it is a scheme of

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very interesting technological features; and it is a pioneering scheme—the first of its kind in the world.
In a way, my Lords, when I record what I regard as the splendid record of the Thames Conservancy and the Lea Conservancy I make the point of the Bill. These authorities have had over a century in which to do the job, and it took them a pretty long time before they got on top of it. It was about the turn of the century before they got the river into a reasonable condition; in other words, they had taken some 40 years to do it. The other 27 river authorities have had only eight years in which to try to catch up with the massive arrears of work necessary, especially in respect of pollution. This applies particularly to rivers in the industrial areas, in the Midlands, the North-East and the North-West.
Let me say, however, that in my judgment they have done a wonderful job and achieved a very great deal towards increasing the quantity of water available and in cleaning up their rivers. But with their present indirect powers it would need many more years to persuade the hundreds of local authorities to engage in the massive expenditure necessary to improve sewage works and to get the rivers clean. If the kind of evolutionary structure which I indicated were used, the individual authorities would still have a degree of independence; and all experience shows that inevitably there are conflicts of view when large expenditure is involved. These conflicts take months or even years to resolve and finally go to the Minister to be resolved. The inevitable delay causes pollution to increase and it would certainly prevent the cleaning up that we want to see carried out.
The fact is that we do not have many years to spare. We need the extra supplies of water and the cleaner rivers now. I reckon that for at least the next ten years we must literally go at a gallop if we are to overtake the arrears and keep pace with the growing water consumption and at the same time meet the growing demand for more water sport recreation and amenities. The Government estimate of the expenditure needed on conservation and reclamation over the next five years is £1,500 million, which is a massive amount—£300 million
1018
a year. That sort of figure will not be achieved unless there is a structure comprising a small number of really powerful authorities with the money at their command.
In the light of this picture of the national need I have no doubt that the Government's case for the Bill is made out, however much at any rate some of us, including myself, might like to see a policy evolve from the present local government structure. We have to recognise that we could not move fast enough with such a policy of evolution, and in those circumstances I hope that your Lordships will accept the logic of the Government's argument (from what has been said it looks as if that will be so) and will agree to pay the price—and it is a price—of moving more power from local government to the new authorities.
In any event, my Lords, these new regional authorities will have a most formidable task. Each Regional Water Authority will have to absorb literally hundreds of existing authorities; river authorities, water undertakings and sewerage authorities. Then they will have the job of welding those authorities into a broad, new, fully integrated organisation, which will take several years; and at the same time they have not only to maintain the general impetus of development but also to accelerate it. So this new organisation will need all the support and good will that it can get. From my knowledge of them, I can say that those concerned with rivers and water supply are accustomed to giving of their best in the public interest and I am sure they will combine in these new organisations to do just that. I hope that noble Lords will give this Bill their support and these people the encouragement that they need.
5.5 p.m.
LORD MOLSON: My Lords, I shall speak briefly this afternoon because I want to give this Bill a nearly wholehearted welcome. It is based on the recommendations of the Central Advisory Water Committee which accepted very largely the recommendations put to it by the Committee for Environmental Conservation of which I was at that time the Chairman. This Bill will set up large and comprehensive authorities capable of dealing with the problem from

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one end to the other. The hydrological cycle, as it has been called, provides the only way in which it is possible for the water resources of this country to be used effectively, and for water to be purified and made available. I am sure, also, that the Government are right to have large areas under each regional water authority. I am not sure that the one which is to include the whole of the basin of the Trent and of the Severn is not too large, but generally speaking I believe that the other boundaries that have been laid down in this Bill are right.
Nor do I regret that legislation dealing with pollution is not included in the Bill. It is important that the problems referred to in the Report of the Royal Commission on Pollution should be effectively dealt with and that the recommendations of the Jeger Report, Taken for Granted, also should be applied. I think there is a great deal to be said for dealing with the whole of this problem, and also with solid toxic materials, in another Bill which I hope it will be possible to pass during the present Parliament. Generally speaking, therefore, I welcome this Bill and its general principles and I congratulate the Government on having introduced it. However, there are two matters of criticism which I should like to refer to briefly.
I should like to associate myself with everything said by the noble Baroness, Lady White, about the Water Resources Board. I was only partly reassured by what my noble friend the Lord Privy Seal said about the large and fairly comprehensive organisation which it is proposed to set up: the Water Planning Unit, the Water Research Centre and the Data Collection Unit. I cannot see why all these subjects should not be retained under the general administration of the Water Resources Board. I cannot think it wise or right that planning should be divorced from research. Anyone who has looked at the remarkable Report recently produced by the Water Resources Board will see that a very large proportion of the research deals closely and intimately with planning. It is plans for obtaining additional water which have made it necessary for research to be undertaken to see how that is to be done. It has been a success story, and
1020
as a Member of the Conservative Party in another place said, it is usually wise to build on success that has already been achieved. The lack of co-ordination, from which we have suffered in the past, would have been infinitely worse had it not been for the creation of the Water Resources Board in 1963. The work they have done in securing co-ordination between the different river authorities has been an outstanding administrative and, let me say, diplomatic task.
I hope that the Government may even now have second thoughts about this. There was a wide measure of agreement in both political Parties in the other place urging that the Water Resources Board should be maintained in existence. I know that at the end of the time the Government moved some way and gave assurances that the various tasks which are at present being carried out by the Water Resources Board would be carried on, and that something would he done to provide machinery to ensure that that would be the case. I hope that it will be possible for us to put down an Amendment (I think the Association of Water Authorities has one in mind) that will give effect to the assurances given by the Government in another place, and I confidently expect that that will be the least which the Government will accept in this House. I hope, even now, however, that they will be prepared to look at this matter again and will decide not to sweep away an organisation which has such a remarkable record of success.
My Lords, my second criticism is one where I fear I take diametrically the opposite view to that expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady White. I believe that these Regional Water Authorities should be administrative and technical bodies. I do not believe that in the matter of water it is necessary or desirable that there should be what is called democratic representation. It is not the kind of matter where the views of populations are likely greatly to vary. Everybody wants an adequate supply of pure water as cheaply as possible. I suggest that that is a technological problem, and I wish that the Regional Water Authorities consisted of a much smaller number of people with technical and administrative qualifications. I do not like the idea of the local authorities having even a majority of one.
BARONESS WHITE: My Lords, I am afraid I did not make myself clear in my criticism of this Part of the Bill, because I was in fact advocating something not so very different from what the noble Lord is now saying. I said that this notion of numerical superiority of elected members was a gimmick.
LORD MOLSON: I have never known quite what the word "gimmick" means. It is a new-fangled phrase with which I am not wholly familiar, and I notice that people use it in very different senses. I would remind the Government of this fact: despite the fact that for a very long time local authorities and sewerage authorities have had to obtain the consent of a river board for the standard of effluent they pour into the river, it was admitted, I think it was by the Institute of Local Authority Treasurers, that more than half the effluent poured into our rivers was below the minimum standard laid down by the river authorities. The reason for that was that the river authorities were unduly influenced by the local authorities. It is natural enough that this should be so, because the local authorities represent the natural unwillingness of people to pay increased rates. It is clearly a matter of the utmost importance that no unwise economy of that kind should be allowed to interfere with what it is generally agreed, and especially emphasised by my noble friend Lord Nugent of Guildford, as a very urgent task that has to be undertaken in the next few years in increasing the supply of pure water.
I have only one thing to say about recreation. I welcome the provisions of the Bill dealing with water recreation. I hope to put down on behalf of the Commons and Open Spaces and Footpaths Preservation Society a small Amendment, which I hope may be acceptable to the House, to impose on the Regional Water Authorities the duty to maintain towpaths. As they are no longer required for the purpose for which they were originally made, they have become places of recreation and enjoyment to large numbers of people who walk or fish. In the case of a number of rivers they are gradually being eroded. At the present time no authority is under an obligation to maintain them. I welcome again the general character of the Bill which the Govern-
1022
ment have introduced, and I hope that in the matter of the Water Resources Board they will even now be prepared to reconsider their attitude.
5.16 p.m.
LORD FISKE: My Lords, I think that having heard the clear exposition given by the noble Earl the Leader of the House, we should all, if we did not understand before, understand the need for this Bill, even if we could not go all the way with him on the methods to be employed. Clearly it is not possible in this year to have a great multiplicity of water and sewage authorities, but I had always thought at the back of my mind that one of the reasons for the reform of local government was that there should be authorities which would be large enough and skilful enough to undertake the larger responsibilities of local government such as are now proposed in this Bill. But that is not to be the case, because we see yet another service being removed from local to ad hoc national bodies. The Government are in this field building quite a reputation for themselves. In a Bill which we had last year we saw the really effective control of housing policies removed from the local authority. We have seen only in the last few weeks the elimination of the local authorities from any part in the National Health Service. Now we see the removal of the water and drainage part of the authority to national or regional undertakings. Where does this policy go next, and what will be left for local government? It seems to me—and I do not know whether the noble Earl the Leader of the House can answer this question—that it is now only the major service of education in which the local authorities have a very large stake, and it would be interesting to know whether the Government have their eyes on that service as well.
We have heard a good deal in this debate about the ad hoc and the elected body. Nobody will ever persuade me that the ad hoc body is a substitution for the elected body. I know that in the case of my local council there are men and women living in close proximity to where I live to whom I can go and talk on any matter of local government, anything within their knowledge, that I want, but I should not even know the names of the people, who are appointed to the

1023
Metropolitan Water Board, the Court of the University, or the hospital boards that serve the London area. Those appointed persons are just not available for public consultation in the same way as are the elected members, for whom you can vote, or can reject if you are not satisfied with their conduct. Nobody will persuade me that an appointed member is virtually the same thing as an elected member; they just are not the same.
My Lords, I started by saying that one thought that this was a service that would be handed over to the new local authorities, now enlarged. Well, I suppose the Government could reasonably have thought: "They are all in a mess creating themselves and are not yet in a fit condition to take over any great new responsibilities that might be thrust upon them". But there is one authority which was made a regional authority ten years ago; namely, the Greater London Council. We therefore have had ten years of seeing how a regional authority with a large population, covering a large area and having a large rateable value, can perform. I am told that the sewage service of Greater London, which is roughly coterminous with the area of the Greater London authority, is the finest in the world. The Greater London Council are about to embark, jointly with the Government, on one of the greatest projects of flood protection by building a barrier across the Thames. This is an exciting project which again is being closely watched by the whole of the interested world; and we shall see what the world thinks of it in due course. This is something that the Government propose to leave with the Greater London Council. They also leave land drainage and recreation, which I am sure the Greater London Council will have been glad to hear from the noble Earl the Leader of the House this afternoon.
I want to say a further word in a moment about recreation, but the point I want to deal with now is that it is really only the sewage services and the services of the Metropolitan Water Board which will, so to speak, go to form the new authority for the area of the Thames which is tidal. And there is a great distinction between the Thames as an inland river and the Thames from Teddington,
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which is tidal. I am going back ten years to the passage of the Greater London Bill (now an Act) through Parliament. Those of your Lordships who took part in that struggle will remember that a proposal was put forward by the then Minister of Housing and Local Government, the noble Lord, Lord Hill of Luton, to put the Metropolitan Water Board into the Greater London Council. Such was the Government's thinking at that time. I think the scheme was defeated only because there was something of an outcry, and the time for getting the Bill through Parliament in order that it should operate as an Act was getting short; so that proposal was dropped, and it has never been revived. But the point I want to make is that in ten years there has been a reversal of Government thinking—and it is a Government of the same Party. It would be interesting if the noble Lord who is to wind up the debate could tell us what is behind the change in thinking that has occurred in ten years over the provision of water for the area of Greater London.
Lastly, my Lords, I should like to say a word or two about recreation. I was delighted to hear what the noble Earl the Leader of the House said in his opening speech about his passion to see that recreation was looked after: because, let us make no mistake about it, when you are dealing with a body of engineers—and I suppose they will be the people mostly concerned—who are passionate to see that we get pure water and good sewerage (worthy enough objects), the casualty, unless we are extremely careful, will be recreation. Recreation is, anyway, a somewhat delicate plant. When we in the Greater London Council had to face this problem ten years ago we found that to deal adequately with the recreational uses of a river valley, namely, the River Lea, it was necessary to put through Parliament a special Bill which set up an authority in its own right, with its own chairman and officers, under the ægis of the Council. We felt that it was only in that way that it would get the treatment it deserved, and that it would never get it as an ordinary committee of the Greater London Council. Before I sit down, therefore, I want to emphasise that recreation must not be made a casualty of this change in Government policy.

1025
Having said that, I want to ask one or two questions of the Government. Do they really regard these proposals as final, or are they putting this Bill through Parliament because they see the problem as very urgent? Are they doing this in anticipation of whatever reports may come on regional government for England and Wales? Are they contemplating that, if regional government were set up throughout the land this would be the proper function of regional Government, or would they still want to cling to this separate ad hoc statutory body?
5.28 p.m.
VISCOUNT INGLEBY: My Lords, I find myself very much in agreement with the comments expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Fiske. I am sure that these regional water authorities are very necessary, but I feel that they will be extremely remote from the individual consumer. In Yorkshire we shall have one local authority representative representing some 400,000 consumers. At the present time on our local water board we have one local authority representative for every 2,500 consumers. So there will be something like 100 times less local representation and less local control than we have now, and that much less opportunity for the voicing of local complaints. I should like to ask what likelihood there is of our 400,000 people knowing who is their one representative on the new regional water authority. At the present time each of our rural district councils and urban district councils has two representatives on our local water board, and there is quite a chance that people may know who their local representative is.
I realise that there may well be a case for amalgamating some of the water boards. Our local rural district and urban district councils have been amalgamated to form a new district council under the county council and there may be a case for amalgamating some of the water boards. If this were so, could they not form a second-tier authority under the regional water authority? I should like to ask whether such a second-tier authority would not be much better able to maintain democratic control and to keep in touch with local needs.
5.31 p.m.
VISCOUNT RIDLEY: My Lords, as I am sure you are aware, your Lordships
1026
are always at your best when it comes to discussing subject matters like water and sewage; and the long list of speakers to-day bears me out. It is a somewhat emotive subject to some of your Lordships, but it is a very interesting debate in which to take part. Like other speakers, I would give a warm general welcome to this Bill. If subsequently I find some holes to pick in it I am sure that my noble friends on the Front Bench will regard them as constructive criticism, even if they do not appear to be so at first glance. But I feel that this Bill is necessary, and that this is the right moment for us to have it. Let us face it—it is a "cradle to the grave" form of nationalisation of water. Perhaps I may described it this way: it is from the raindrop at the top of the mountain to the drip on the end of the fisherman's nose at the estuary. It is nationalisation, whatever the Government say; and it is none the worse for that. The Secretary of State called it a "unitary structure" —a word that we hoped we had destroyed in the Local Government Act—and of course that is just what it is, too. My own view is that water should have been nationalised in 1945; and it would have been nationalised had there been any votes to be gained in doing so. The fact that the water companies are to be excluded—presumably for Mr. Wedgwood Benn to take over later—does not alter the point I am trying to make.
I have some doubts regarding the Bill and I should like very briefly to touch on them. First of all, I wonder whether this upheaval, which is a very serious one, can in fact be made to work by so early a date as April 1, 1974. Those of us who have been involved in the reorganisation of local government feel that this is perhaps not long enough to get all these things organised. I wonder whether there is a chance of this date being regarded more flexibly as we go ahead. Secondly, like other noble Lords, I have doubts about the size and number of the new river authorities. As has been said, there is to be a reduction from 29 to the proposed 10, and I believe that this figure of 10 is too small a number. I certainly feel that the Severn-Trent monstrosity, which stretches from the shores of the Humber to the Bristol Channel is something that is made not to work. I realise that the arguments against splitting these areas hinge

1027
on the fact that nobody knows which side of the line Birmingham should go, but I should have thought that the current boundaries between the Severn-Trent River Authorities would have given a boundary which has at least proved fairly effective during the last few years, although not knowing the area personally I should not like to say more than that. I just think it is much too big. So also are the Anglia Authority and the Welsh Authority. It is never for an Englishman to interfere in Welsh affairs, but I should have thought that in Wales, from what I know of the geography of that country, two would have been more appropriate.
The reason we want smaller authorities is not so much that they would be more efficient (though I think they would be), but because the members of this authority must have much more local knowledge of the problems they will be dealing with than they are likely to get under the present arrangements. One cannot imagine a person who lives at the mouth of the Humber being able to adjudicate on the siting of reservoirs in Monmouth-shire. This does not seem to make sense. These local members must be subjected at some stage or other to pressures which water users will put upon them for democratic decisions to be made. I believe —and here I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady White—that we have wrongly taken the whole thing out of local democratic control.
The noble Lord, Lord Fiske, spoke eloquently on that, and I will not reiterate what he said. There is a danger that by making these authorities so big, and at the same time so remote, we are going to find ourselves setting up for the future something akin to the transport users' consultative committees so that local consumers have a chance to make their views known at local level; and this, I think, would be creating a new form of local government behind the back of existing local government. I believe it would have been better to use the new local government, as has been said—although this weakness has been greatly changed in another place by the majority of the local authority representation on the regional water authorities. This I welcome as a most workable compromise.
1028
My noble friend Lord Molson did not agree that the local authorities should be so well represented, and said that water supply was more of a technical matter than any other. Of course, he is largely right. I would only say that there are very hot political issues which can evolve, such as the siting of reservoirs, which I think should be subjected to democratic processes, and an appointed member is less likely to be subject to those pressures to make the wrong decision.
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF THE ENVIRONMENT (LORD SANDFORD): My Lords, may I just interrupt my noble friend. There is no question at all, during the course of this reorganization, of getting round what he has called the ordinary process of public local inquiry.
VISCOUNT RIDLEY: My Lords, I accept that at once, and I am grateful to my noble friend. I was only saying that reservoirs can become political; that my noble friend knows only too well. There is also some doubt in my mind as to whether the present arrangements for the appointment of chairmen (mentioned by my noble friend the Lord Privy Seal and discussed at length in another place) are really adequate. Exchanges took place in another place, and I have no doubt that the matter will be raised here in Committee. If the rumours that we hear are true, that the chairmen of these R.W.A.s are going to be paid a fairly large sum for what Mr. Eldon Griffiths referred to as two or three days' work a week, well, that is all right as far as it goes; but I think we must not forget that most local authority members work much more than two or three days a week (and often evenings as well) for practically nothing. If the Government wish to pay such salaries, of course they have every right to do so, and to nominate the people for the posts of chairmen. That rather reinforces my own argument that this is in fact nationalisation of water.
Of course what is even worse is that more political patronage is created, and of that I think there is quite enough already. Perhaps even worse than that, there is the feeling that the chairmen will be the appointees and therefore the

1029
creatures of Whitehall: they will therefore appear less acceptable in the areas in which they operate. I should have preferred, and so I think would all the local authority associations, to have seen that the chairmen were elected from among the members of the authority, when it meets in due course. This is in fact another removal of power to the centre, which I think is always wrong: nor do I think that the chairman needs to have a very large salary, though of course he should receive payment of expenses and all the other things which the local authority world has, too. But the chairman should have local authority experience and thus be subjected to local pressures which would arise.
Finally, if I may move quickly to the rather unromantic subject of sewerage, I believe this Bill creates a potential source of friction in the control of sewerage functions under Clause 15. The Government, rightly, wants housing areas to be opened up and progress made in building more houses in the country. Very often the main objection to the granting of planning permission and to the speeding up of the housing programme is the fact that the sewerage systems are not able to cope with the additional housing proposed, even if everybody agrees that houses should be built. I can see great frustration arising when the local authorities wish to carry out the Government's policy and free more land for housing, only to discover that a regional water authority—perhaps housed miles and miles away—is not ready to provide the sewerage facilities in time. Local democratic control here seems to me to be absolutely vital. I do not believe that provision of housing can be divorced from the provision of sewerage.
I should like to know a lot more about the inter-relationships between the statutory water undertakings and the local authority water undertakings. This is an area that in the past has been bedevilled by the rather peculiar sets of boundaries between the various companies, with the mains criss-crossing, and water being borrowed by one from another. I would hope that this Bill will sort all that out.
Then there is recreation, which has been discussed already this afternoon at considerable length. I will not go into
1030
the matter in detail, but there is a point which arises; namely, whether grants under the Countryside Act would be obtainable by the new river water authorities for providing facilities for recreation, such as picnic parks, and so on. At the moment it appears that private companies and local authorities would be able to obtain such grants, but I think I am right in saying that the new river water authorities would not be able to obtain such grants. It seems that there is a source of friction and confusion, to which I hope the Government will be able to give thought in due course.
Having said that, I welcome this Bill. It is just right. I hope that with amendments it will be on the Statute Book very soon. It will stand or fall in a very short time on its ability to provide water at the right place, in the right quantity and at the right cost. If the Bill does that it will not have been wasted.
5.40 p.m.
LORD DE RAMSEY: My Lords, I must begin by declaring an interest. I am Chairman of the Water Committee of the Country Landowners Association. Farmers need both to get water and to get rid of water. Nevertheless, your Lordships may agree that this is a very general and respectable interest. It used to be said up to the last war that legislation on water was necessary only once in a generation. The only important Act in this connection to be passed between the wars was the 1930 Land Drainage Act. Since then there has been the Water Act 1945, the River Boards Act 1948, the Rivers (Prevention of Pollution) Acts 1951 and 1961, and the Water Resources Act of 1963 which set up the river authorities, and which placed the responsibility for water conservation and supply on them. This is a measure of Parliament's increasing concern about water.
The golden age of surpluses in the Western world, as the 'sixties may be called in retrospection, seems nearly over. But, contrary to a widely held view—and fortunately for us—in this country there is believed to be enough water so long as there is enough money to conserve and supply it. Water is a wide subject—and I fear here I am repeating what has already been said about a long and impressive list—covering flood prevention, coast protection, land drainage,

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navigation, recreations, sewerage, and water conservation and supply. Since the time of Canute—who had a spot of bother with water—with one vital exception, each one of these has dominated or will dominate the scene in turn. They are best run in a decentralised way, using the local knowledge essential to the good administration of these matters. The vital exception, and now the overriding function, is water conservation in its broadest terms. In the blue book, A Background to Water Reorganisation in England and Wales, 31 out of 35 pages are wholly concerned with water conservation and its allied problems. Hitherto this has had to fit into a decentralised system and river authorities have succeeded far better than some critics acknowledge—witness the Ely-Ouse-Essex Scheme.
It is because of the fact that the huge demands for water in the future will not fit into the present system that the problem has become urgent and the present legislation necessary to meet them—at any rate, this is as I see it. I believe that the arrangements in the Bill resolve the conflict between centralisation and decentralisation and will create harmony between water conservation on the one hand and all the other interests on the other hand. This is precisely what the Central Advisory Water Committee, upon whose report part of this Bill is founded, were unable to do. I should like to pay a personal tribute to Sir Alan Wilson for his efforts to try to get the Committee to do just that. On that Committee the inherent problem exposed the conflict between various functional interests. At times the Committee were like a pack of hounds, each hound chasing his own fox. Thus you have in the Report a single-purpose approach and a multi-purpose one. I was one of the single-purpose men, as was also the noble Lord, Lord Nugent; he could have been called the leader of the single-purpose men. We have both come round, for I believe that where we failed the Government have succeeded in resolving the fundamental conflict of interest.
I am not suggesting that the Bill is perfect in every detail; I shall have points to raise which are more suited to debate in Committee. It may be useful for noble Lords if I state shortly the nature of these suggestions. The first suggestion relates
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to central planning. However large the new areas may be, there is bound to be transference of water from one area to another. Central planning is vital, but I am surprised that the Department wants to arrogate to itself the planning function I feel that they may regret that. The one certain thing about water plans is that they are bound to be controversial. Can the Department make the plans and, without embarrassment, judge the objections to such plans? Surely it would be in the interests of the public and the Department to devolve the planning function, presumably to the National Water Council. I have read carefully what the Minister said in another place, but would it not be better to write into the Bill exactly how the functions at present performed by the Water Resources Board, are going to be performed in the future?
Next comes the Water Space Amenity Commission. I am not sure what this Commission will do; I hope that there will be no confusion between it, the Countryside Commission and the Sports Council. This point has already been made. At the moment I am concerned with the members to be nominated. I have a suspicion that Ministers are thinking only of fishermen, canoeists, water skiers and the like. They may forget that the first essential of enjoying water recreation is to get to the water, and that means going on to the land which gives access to it. Nobody objects to there being more water recreation—very much to the contrary. But one must not overlook the fact that land has other purposes. It seems to me essential that there should be a commissioner who has experience of reconciling these interests. I have no hesitation in saying that he will be found among land owners. I hope that the noble Lord will be able to give me an assurance on this point.
Lastly, there is the representation of agriculture on the new authority. Some authorities have become much larger since they were first mooted, but the representation of agriculture and fisheries has not. At present the maximum number is three. I am not seeking any increase on land drainage grounds, because we have the statutory land drainage committees; but when the maximum of three was fixed we were thinking of R.W.A.s of 15 members. Although most of them may be of that

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size there will be some that will have many more members. What was a reasonable proportion originally will no longer be so in the agriculturally important areas such as the Anglia Regional Water Authority. The maximum appointed by the Minister of Agriculture should be raised to five. There is a case for this increase. Subject to the few criticisms that I have made, I welcome this Bill.
5.49 p.m.
BARONESS STOCKS: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, referred to this Bill as a logical conclusion of a process which has been going on for a good time; and so indeed in one respect it is. If your Lordships read the first paragraph of the Explanatory and Financial Memorandum of the Bill you will find these words:
"This Bill provides for the establishment of new authorities to carry out functions relating to water, namely, water conservation, water supply, sewerage and sewage disposal …"
In relating those services the Bill represents a logical conclusion. But it also, calling again on the Financial and Explanatory Memorandum, provides for the establishment of new authorities to carry out functions relating to these matters.
In this respect, I fear that this Bill conforms to a pattern of reform to which we are becoming accustomed. If a service is in some respects inadequate, and one wishes to improve it, what does one do? One alters the top administration; one creates new bodies and calls them all by different names, and when one has done that one does the same for the Ministry which is responsible for the social service. We have seen that happening in our National Health Service Reorganisation Bill; that is exactly what has happened. It has happened in our local government reform; it has happened to some extent in our education service. And I shudder to think what is going to happen to our adult education service. I am sure we shall have a number of new authorities with different names.
Although I sit on this side of the House, I am a conservative provided that the word is spelt with a small "c", which means that I would wish to preserve anything that is working well or any
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function that appears to be fulfilling its purpose. I am a conservative regarding the Water Resources Board. Several speakers have said kind words about the Water Resources Board. It has done magnificent work. It has gained great experience; it has co-ordinated a number of separate lines of experiment. Why not leave it be? Why not let it alone? Why not let it lead, as it will lead, to what is really, and what I hope to show, is the logical conclusion in regard to water and sewage?
My own interest in sewage goes back a long way. In fact, I have lived with the problem of sewage disposal since the year 1899, for in that year as a child of eight I was told not to bathe or paddle at low tide in the immediate vicinity of the sewage pipe which ran into the sea and carrying the sewage of West Bay and Bridport in the County of Dorset. Since that time the population of Bridport and West Bay has greatly increased. The sewage pipe has not lengthened in any way commensurate with that increase. Further and further does one have to go along the beach to find unpolluted water. It is true that about a decade ago something was done about it and we managed to create, after considerable agitation, both local and national, a joint water authority comprising one borough, one urban district council and one rural district council. Our sewage pipe is now carried a long way out to sea. We can bathe and paddle in unpolluted water. Whether our sewage is deposited on the beaches of Beer Regis or Seaton, I would not know. I should hope not. However, we are getting on as regards the treatment of sewage.
What about water? When I lived in Manchester—indeed, when I lived in Dorset or stayed in Dorset during the summer—I became conscious of the problem of water resources because our Bridport reservoir was at times insufficient for our growing needs and from time to time we were told that the water was going to be turned off and that we must not use it at all. Unfortunately, the hour chosen for this was between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m., and I am too delicate-minded to explain to your Lordships why we regarded that as a rather unpropitious hour. But there it was, and more and more did one become conscious of water conservation in addition to the problem

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of sewage disposal. When I lived in Manchester, the City of Manchester had made absolutely adequate provision for its own needs, as had the City of Liverpool and the City of Birmingham. They were busily and efficiently exploiting the Lakes of Cumberland and North Wales. They were all right. But at the same time Stockport, a neighbouring borough, was not all right. I remember in one year we were washing our cars and watering our gardens just as we liked, and in Stockport housewives were queue-ing with buckets at stand pipes. So it soon became obvious to me and to others that water conservation and sewage disposal should be treated altogether on a much larger scale.
That was realised at a very early stage in 1962 by the late Lord Birkett, when in this House he opposed a Manchester Corporation Private Bill to allow Manchester to take in for its own purposes another Cumberland Lake. What he said in the year 1962 was:
"The defeat of the Bill will urge upon the Government the immediate necessity of producing that national scheme which will give natural justice to every interest ".
Observe that he used the words, "national scheme"; not merely "national consideration". That was in 1962, and in 1963 of course the Water Resources Act was passed. In 1964 (I was not at the time a Member of the House) I was given a chance of airing my views on the B.B.C. Third Programme and I took the opportunity to advocate the treatment of water conservation and sewage disposal as closely allied problems, urging that they be nationalised under a single Ministry. I had some trouble with the Third Programme producer, Mr. Crichton-Miller, for using the word, "nationalisation". He said it was an emotive word; a provocative word. I was able to convince him that in this particular case it was used in such a way that so far as sewage was concerned no private interest would be at risk, and in the case of water only very few private interests would be at risk. So he let it pass and I used the word, "nationalisation". But two years later I found myself a Member of this House and I had a better opportunity than was given me by the B.B.C. for
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advocating the cause of nationalised sewage disposal and water conservation, which I did in the course of a debate which was introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Hawke. I remember that the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, spoke in it and I spoke in it; it was about the third time I lifted up my voice in this House. I put forward the case for nationalisation. What is interesting is that in that debate my noble friend Lord Kennet, who was speaking for the Government, said that he opposed my suggestion. He said:
"The point is that sewage is, and I think must remain, essentially a local business."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 19/10/66; col. 106.]
My Lords, he actually said that. It is perhaps ill-natured of me to remind him of it. Fortunately, he is not here, but I am sure he knows better now and will not, I assume, oppose this Bill on the ground that sewage is not treated as a purely local matter.
Well, so it goes on. Meanwhile, the Water Resources Board has got well under way and has reached in its own mind what I regard as the logical conclusion; namely, the nationalisation of water and sewage. If we look at the Seventh Report, published in 1970, we see that the case for nationalisation is made out. In its latest Report, in 1972, the case for nationalisation is again made out, with some force. Here is the extract from the Ninth Report which puts that case. They welcome the suggestion of the Central Advisory Water Committee that new regional water authorities should be established, but they have serious reservations about the Government's proposals. They regarded them as not enough and they stood strongly for nationalisation. To my mind that was the logical conclusion of this Bill, to which the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, referred, and until we reach that logical conclusion we shall not solve this problem. I do not think that to abolish the Water Resources Board will bring us any nearer to it.
Sometimes in this world one gets one's deserts. The reward of my long and active interest in sewage disposal has been my appointment as an honorary Vice-President of the National Association of Joint Sewerage Boards, and if ever I am asked to re-write the paragraph in Who's Who which records my various honours I shall omit those which I do not deserve

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and I shall record that I am a Vice-President of the National Association of Joint Sewerage Boards.
6.2 p.m.
VISCOUNT AMORY: My Lords, may I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Stocks, that I am sure we can agree on a compromise about the size of the "C" in Conservative if she will come across and join us on these Benches. I think my most soul-searing experience in regard to sewage was once when I attended the opening of a sewage works and the mayor and I were handed two wine glasses full of colourless liquid and were asked to drink a toast to the sewage works, and then were told by the sanitary inspector that what we were about to drink, six hours before had been sewage entering the new works. I had the presence of mind to pour my glassful on a plant nearby but his worship went through the full treatment.
The Bill which we are discussing to-day is clearly a very important one indeed, as my noble friend Lord Jellicoe has said. I think we all are inclined to take water supply for granted and we do well to remind ourselves that our huge cities, and indeed our modern civilisation itself, could not exist without efficient water supply, drainage and sewage disposal. I suppose the Romans were the first to realise this lesson and they applied it well. The Greeks did not bother because their towns were smaller, but when Athens was under siege with a greatly expanded population, the plague set in and the Greeks then learnt their lesson. One of the very few phrases that I can recall as a result of an intensive study of the Classics for ten years at school was which I believe means "Water is best"—whether for consumption or application was not explained. To-day the use a water per capita, as my noble friend told us in his opening speech, is increasing prodigiously and will continue to do so.
I am going to speak only briefly because I cannot claim first-hand experience in water administration, although when I was at the Ministry of Agriculture I had responsibility for land drainage, and if the noble Lord, Lord de Ramsey, had still been in his seat I should have liked to remind him that at that time he was one of my valued advisers. I should like now to say something which I am
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sure your Lordships will agree with, and that is to pay a tribute to my noble friend Lord Nugent of Guildford for his great services in this field in several capacities. When the time comes for him to give up those posts I hope he will have his portrait painted—in water colours—and at any moment I should be prepared to drink his health in a copious draught of H2O.
I want to express only one or two dissatisfactions with the Bill as it stands which are felt by the elected local authorities. Some of the points were touched on by the noble Baroness, Lady White. I understand that most of these dissatisfactions are shared by all four local government bodies, so I hope the Government will attach some weight to them. I found myself strongly in agreement with the points made by my noble friend Lord Ridley. In this Bill, as in the National Health Service Bill and indeed in the Local Government Act itself, I believe the Government have shown some implied lack of confidence in locally elected authorities. That seems to me to be very strange, because the Government have often emphasised their basic belief in local government (which I know they have) and their philosophy that the new authorities should be given larger responsibilities and more power decentralised from central Government. Government spokesmen have repeatedly said that Ministers in central Government should retain in their own hands only those powers which cannot be effectively exercised locally and which must therefore, for those reasons, be exercised centrally. But in practice in this series of Bills we have found Ministers strangely reluctant to release powers to decision from their own hands.
It was a disappointing feature of the Local Government Act that in the result local authorities did not seem to be entrusted with expanding powers and responsibilities, and indeed lost both their water and health responsibilities. In this Bill in two respects Ministers have displayed the same attitude: first, in the rather grudging majority that has been provided for elected members in the regional water authorities—in most cases a bare minimum rather than a working majority—and secondly in the proposal to keep in their own hands the appointment of chairmen of these new authorities as well as the chairmanship of the

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National Water Council. I feel that when we come to the Committee stage Ministers really must produce some very strong reasons indeed to justify those proposals.
As my noble friend Lord Ridley has said, will not some of the regional water authorities prove to be too large and too remote for day-to-day administration? I think my noble friend mentioned two or three. These are multi-purpose authorities, deliberately; they will carry out wide and varied responsibilities and I confess to some doubt as to whether in all cases they will do so (because of their size) with the efficiency we all want. As has been mentioned already, many will regret the departure of the river authorities and the Water Resources Board. The National Water Council, with its purely advisory functions, may or may not prove an effective body, but I share the doubts expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady White. Something really effective is clearly needed at the national level and I think there is some ground to fear that as at present constituted it will be either not a very strong or powerful body or perhaps too much under the direct influence of Ministers. Must all members, here again, be ministerially appointed? That is a matter we shall want to discuss in Committee. With regard to sewerage and sewage disposal, is the degree of direct involvement by the new district councils as much as ought to be the case? As regards land drainage (and here I am glad to say there seems to be decentralisation) surely committees might be allowed to appoint their own chairmen. It is rather discouraging to a committee to have its chairman appointed from outside and I feel that the case must be very strong indeed for that to be done. As regards the Water Space Amenity Council, the number of representatives from local authorities and the agricultural representation clearly must be strong. We must remember the general responsibility for amenity that has been placed on the local authorities and I think that that principle should be reflected in the Bill. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Byers, in welcoming the recreational aspect. I have some personal experience of what can be done in this field and what an immense advantage it is to young people who may be a very long way from the sea coast but who have water close to them, if that
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water can be made available for canoeing, sailing, and other activities. Then again there is the great fishing interest. I believe that is the biggest single hobby and recreation in the country.
In conclusion, may I say that there is no dispute whatever that new comprehensive legislation is required. The Government have decided in favour of the ad hoc (what I think was called the "hybrid") multi-purpose authority. They may be right, although, like my noble friend Lord Nugent of Guildford, I should have liked to see a more evolutionary development of the bodies which have rendered good service in these fields. However, that decision has been taken and it is probably too late to reopen that matter now. But, my Lords, I think I have said enough to indicate that in my personal view this Bill will call for a good deal of careful consideration in Committee, and I hope that the Government will be prepared to listen carefully to criticisms—in particular (remembering what I might call their besetting sin), to believe, to coin a phrase, that the gentleman in Whitehall does not always know best—and may be prepared to relax somewhat the firm grip of Ministers in favour of local powers of decision based on local knowledge and experience.
6.12 p.m.
LORD ZUCKERMAN: My Lords, I must first apologise to your Lordships for not having been able to be present from the start of this debate and it may therefore be that I shall be making some points which have already been ventilated by others. Like my noble friend Lord Amory, who has just spoken, I have never had anything to do with the management of water supplies. On the other hand, I have had a considerable interest in the subject from the technical point of view. From the early 'fifties, when I was chairman of a now defunct Government committee, called the Natural Resources Committee, I became conscious of the fact that water was being used as a commodity which had no particular value. Charges were totally inadequate; and, furthermore, I also knew that discharging waste water into rivers was not only bringing about widespread pollution but in some cases wasting precious materials. In those days I was concerned particularly with non-ferrous metals.

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The basic idea behind this Bill, that of bringing together the whole water cycle under unitary control has, therefore, my wholehearted support. I cannot think of any measure which could be introduced by the Government which would have a better effect over the years. I hope that whatever is done in the Committee stage does not erode further that basic principle —which I understand was much more clear-cut in the earlier stages of the preparation of the Bill than it may be to-day.
I propose to confine my remarks now to a few specific points only. The first is, as the noble Baroness, Lady Stocks, has said, that the Water Resources Board has done a splendid job. The particular part of that job which is our concern is the fact that it has provided us with the best estimates we now have of the water demand in the country for the years ahead. We have figures which take us almost to the year 2000. Admittedly, the estimates are based on a number of assumptions, but none the less the errors to which they are subject have to be taken into account now, and we have to recognise that we cannot do better than the Water Resources Board has done in defining the problem which is before us, and why it is essential that the water cycle be treated as a single process and not in separate compartments. We know that population estimates can be proved very wrong. They of course have to be, and are, a special part of the calculations that have been made. We know, too, that the future distribution of population cannot be assessed accurately. We also know that there will be a greater demand for domestic use, but as to exactly how much greater—that again cannot be stated accurately at this stage. So, too, for industrial use.
Furthermore, what we know is that if one takes figures for a decade there may be a 5 to 10 per cent. error in one's estimate of rainfall. So our estimates for supply can be very much at sea. We also know about the many constraints that there are on the Government and on local authorities, and about the constraints which will be on the new water boards. We know already that one ought to do with as little surface storage as possible and that it is preferable to
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recharge underground aquifers. Reference has already been made to the very important issues of amenity and to the conflicts that have to be dealt with in that field. Reference was made by a previous speaker to the conflict between canoeists and anglers and to the other interests which have to be taken into account. But above all we know that there will be constraints on finance, and for that reason it is absolutely essential in my view that the new authorities proposed in this Bill should make the greatest possible use of science and technology in seeing that what is done is done in the most economic way possible for the ends that have to be subserved.
The difficulties are mainly administrative and political. That is apparent from what I have heard in the part of the debate to which I have listened. In general, I am assured that the scientific and technical problems are known and that they can be solved. That is, in general. But each case may well be special. What we therefore have to assure is that our scientific and technical resources devoted to the water cycle are used to the best possible extent. The regional water authorities must operate backed by proper inter-disciplinary teams consisting of engineers specially trained for the purpose: civil engineers, chemists, biologists, medical people, ecologists, conservation experts. I believe that the Bill does not spell all this out—and I hope that when the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, replies we shall hear something about how the research functions of the regional boards will be implemented.
Clause 23(10) of the Bill says that:
"The appropriate Minister or Ministers may give directions to a water authority with respect to the making of arrangements under subsection (9) above."
Subsection (9) says:
"Each water authority shall make arrangements for the carrying out of research and related activities …"
and so on. But exactly how is this going to be done by the Minister or Ministers? To whom will they address themselves and from whom will Ministers obtain their advice?
I am quite certain, too. that the central water planning unit which is referred to in the Bill, in achieving the best that will come out of this Bill, should work with whatever central research facilities

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are provided under the Act when it becomes law, and that the National Water Council will be properly served in this respect. One cannot dissociate planning and research. Here it is very important —and I raise this general issue now—to be quite clear what we mean by standards, because water standards in this country, as we all know, are extremely good. The record is excellent in comparison with that of almost any other country. The World Health Organisation set out certain parameters, certain criteria for pure water. We have our own; they are not the same. We abide by more criteria, I believe, than have been specified by the World Health Organisation. But we have not got anything near as many as the U.S.S.R.
The important thing is to be quite sure we know what wholesome water is. We have declared the Trent to be a river from which we will not draw water for domestic consumption. On the other hand, Rotterdam, I am told, is quite happy to draw its water from the even more polluted Rhine. We must not be led astray, therefore, and make standards which are too exacting. There have recently been references in the Press and elsewhere that there is a relationship between cardiovascular disease, coronory thrombosis, for example, and the hardness of water. There may be a statistical correlation there, but nobody has yet proved that the one is the cause of the other. Many things other than hardness have not been measured in water. For all people know, it may be copper or some other element, something else in the water, which has a closer correlation with those particular diseases. Here I do echo the sentiment about the excellent work done by the Water Resources Board in the field of research management; I hope that the functions of the Water Resources Board, as they have been discharged up to now, in managing research over the whole field will be transferred intact to the Central Water Council, and that the Central Water Council will be strong enough and sufficiently well advised to do the job as well as the Water Resources Board.
BARONESS WHITE: My Lords, I hate to interrupt the noble Lord. He was not here at the beginning of the debate. Would he agree that for the National Water Council to have no more than
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free access to the central planning authority and to the Water Research Centre is not enough?
LORD ZUCKERMAN: My Lords, I will come to that point a little later. I do not know what is enough in the way of technical representation on the Central Water Council. But I do agree that there are two kinds of job that the Central Water Council has got to do. One is very largely a technical job, a job with a very big scientific and technical content. The other is a major job of human administration, settling the various points that have been raised about the attitudes of existing authorities to the new legislation.
If I may continue, I should like to say that I do not find sufficient in Clause 4(5)(b) of the Bill at the present moment. It says:
"It shall be the duty of the Council to promote and assist the efficient performance by water authorities of their functions, and in particular, their functions relating to research."
At this stage I do not know what those functions are.
Another point that I think must be taken care of, so that we do not again waste resources, is water quality, which is one of the things which will be added under this new legislation, as implemented, to the question of providing wholesome water and removing the waste water. We do not need the same quality for domestic supply, industrial use, for rivers and for aquifers, and, furthermore, different kinds of technology are required to deal with different kinds of effluent. This is why I regret very much—reference has been made in the debate to this point already, but I will make one further observation—that the question of sewage and sewerage is to be dealt with in a divided fashion, with the new district councils and the R.W.A.s having separate responsibilities for different parts of the process of getting rid of waste. I hope this is something which lasts for only a relatively short time. Not only is the expertise interconnected and should not be torn asunder, but rationally one cannot possibly separate the two. You cannot control a sewage disposal works without controlling what comes into it, and you cannot control a sewerage network without controlling the reception end. I therefore hope that the divorce

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between the two will be only a temporary matter.
Furthermore, of course, there is that issue with which the Government dealt in legislation last year, the disposal of solid toxic waste. There is a connection here because at the present moment—and I hope this matter may be referred to later, either in this debate or on the Committee stage—there is always a possibility that toxic materials tipped into dumps, and licensed dumps, may pollute aquifers. There is a connection here, therefore, between the disposal of solid waste and the liquid waste. The solid waste again, I understand, will be under the new district councils.
If I may return once more to the scientific side, and knowing what is toxic is a scientific matter, while I think it is a safe generalisation that we can formulate the scientific and technical problems, and that we know some of the answers, it is not the case that we know all that we should know about re-using and recycling water. There, too, I believe that something will need to be done by the new Central Water Council.
One last remark about technology here, because I noticed that a Question had recently been put down about desalination, de-salting. That is still, I am afraid, a dream for the future. We are not, to the best of my knowledge, going to be able to satisfy any of the water demand up to the end of, at any rate, the next decade by that method.
VISCOUNT AMORY: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord on that very interesting point? Is that for lack of technical knowledge about how to do it, or on the balance of economics?
LORD ZUCKERMAN: My Lords, essentially I would say the latter. It is the economic argument that would rule it out at the present moment. There are better ways of seeing that we in this country have the supplies of water which will be required than going in for desalination. But I would, at the same time, say that it is essential to encourage work in this field to the best extent possible, and by "to the best extent possible" I mean finding the right men with the right ideas, and not just spending money on desalination.
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There is a reference in Clause 21(3) which rather puzzles me, in the light of the debate on the new Nature Conservancy Council. That subsection states:
"Where the Natural Environment Research Council are of opinion that any area of land, not being land for the time being managed as a nature reserve, is of special interest … it shall be the duty of the Council"—
that is, the Natural Environment Research Council"—
"to notify that fact to the water authority in whose area the land is situated."
I am just wondering why it should be only the NERC. Why not the Nature Conservancy?
In conclusion, may I make two further points and, again, may I refer to the question of planning which was put to me by the noble Baroness, Lady White? I am absolutely certain, from discussions which I have had, that it is essential that the new regional water authorities, whose work will be vital in planning extensions to new towns et cetera, have the closest possible relations with the general planning authorities—which will of course be the new local authorities—and vice versa. I do not believe that the words in the Bill which refer to this matter are strong enough, because co-operation in planning must be done at all levels, at all stages, and day to day. Otherwise, I am tolerably certain that one will find that plans may be laid in relation to the general structure plans of local authorities, but when one comes to specific cases there will be trouble.
These are just some of my thoughts about the Bill at this stage. The Bill refers at the outset to a national policy for water, but it does not specify what that policy is. The new administrative structure which will result from the implementation of the Bill will presumably, over the years, be responsible for formulating that policy, and it is absolutely essential that the policy should be the most economic and the most satisfactory one. If it turns out that we need to have a water grid, then we must find the best and cheapest ways of providing it. If I may repeat what I have already said, the whole job is a very difficult one. The Government are well embarked, the Bill is more than timely, but the job is a difficult one with a very large technological content. There is a difference between managing things—the technical problems

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—and managing relations with people, but I trust that both will be achieved.
6.34 p.m.
LORD SINCLAIR OF CLEEVE: My Lords, I must at the outset declare an interest, in that for a number of years I was a director of a statutory water company and for 12 of those years its chairman. I have, in fact, just resigned from both of those appointments, but I still retain an interest and endeavour to keep in touch with what has been to me a most fascinating industry. In general, I warmly welcome the aims and purposes of the Bill and I recognise that, as the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, said, it was largely circumstances which necessitated at this stage a radical reorganisation, rather than the acceptance of the process of evolution which my noble friend Lord Amory—and I think I would join him in this—would instinctively have liked to see. One by-product of that radical reorganisation, I believe, is that never in history has a Bill been preceded by a larger number of consultative documents than has this Bill. Admittedly, the problems it concerns are very complicated but it has been a very desirable exercise. I am sure that the observations made on those documents have been carefully considered. I am not altogether sure that, in the result, the Government's detailed proposals have undergone a very substantial alteration, but I am sure that it was a very worth while exercise.
There are three points to which I should like to refer: first, the composition and responsibilities of the regional water authorities, in Clause 3 and Clause 6; secondly, the National Water Council, which is in Clause 4; and, thirdly, the metering of domestic supplies, which is in Clause 28. The regional water authorities have great and diverse responsibilities. Since it has been decided that they must be predominantly representational, and since, with the impending reorganisation of local government, the number of bodies entitled to separate representation is large, the number of members of each of these authorities will also be large—and, in some cases, very large indeed. The two smallest authorities, Wessex and the South West, will each have 15 members; Severn-Trent will have 38 members, and Thames, including Greater London, will have 52 Members.
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The average number of members will be 27 on the nine English authorities.
These authorities will, of course, have many sub-committees as provided for in Clause 6, and perhaps the large total of membership from which membership of the sub-committees can be recruited is a good thing. But these will be subcommittees dealing with particular subjects and, as I read the Bill, they will in all cases have to report directly to the full board of the authority. I use the word "board" here for convenience. Particularly, however, in the early days of the reorganisation process, there will be a great many important problems involving points of principle to be dealt with. There is surely a case for the establishment in each authority of an executive committee, consisting of the chairman or his deputy, the chief executive or his deputy, and a small number of members, to consider in some detail the proposals from the sub-committees and to produce recommendations for the full board. Otherwise, there will be a great waste of time. This, I know, is elementary, but I submit that it is a procedure which should be clear at the outset and that authority for something of this nature should be written into the Bill. Incidentally, I would judge that, even although this may be contrary to the practice in most local authorities, it would be a good thing if in this case the chief executives of these boards were also members of the boards.
I now turn to the National Water Council. I believe that the industry as a whole, municipal undertakings and water companies alike, greatly regret that under the Bill as it stands the National Water Council has virtually no coordinating or executive authority and, except for the testing and approval of water fittings, as provided for in subsection (5)(d) of Clause 4—a subject which is already very adequately handled by a committee of the British Water Association—and training and education, as provided for in subsection (5)(e), which is largely dealt with by the industry's training board, the National Water Council's functions are almost purely advisory. As has been referred to by a number of speakers this afternoon, one of review of long-term plans for the best the most important jobs for the industry and for the wellbeing of the country is surely the preparation and the constant

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and most effective development and utilisation of our water resources.
Previously the Water Resources Board was charged with this responsibility. In time it acquired a competent staff of experts in this highly technical field and an expertise widely recognised by the industry, to which tribute has been paid by so many of your Lordships. Being independent, that Board has acquired the confidence and trust of the industry as a whole. I strongly agree with all that was said by the noble Baroness, Lady White, about the Board and the importance of preserving it in some way. Although we recognise that under the Bill the Water Resources Board as such will cease to exist, its staff and records and so on are being maintained at Reading. The organisation will no longer be independent. It will be absorbed into the Central Water Planning Unit which will be a part, as we understand is proposed, of the Department of the Environment, who will take over the functions and responsibilities of the old Water Resources Board.
The chairman of the Water Planning Unit will be the chairman of the National Water Council, but the National Water Council, as a Council, will have no responsibility for planning, including the co-ordination of the planning which will have to be done initially by regional water authorities so far as their own regions are concerned. That does not seem to me to be good administration. Surely it would be simpler and better (and I think it would seem so to the industry) if the responsibility for long-term planning were given to the National Water Council, and the Water Planning Unit made part of the Council. I think it is still possible that the Research Centre might, on the same line of reasoning, fittingly be made part of the National Water Council whose functions then would be co-ordinating and planning and also research which, as was said by the noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman, must go very closely together. I suggest that this might be given consideration. In saying that I do not imply the slightest criticism of the Civil Service or of the Department. I have very good reason to admire the Civil Service, but in the nature of things changes in Government involve to some degree changes in Departmental outlook and policy. This function of
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long-term planning and research should so far as possible be free from political influence and constant in policy.
I recognise that the chairman of the National Water Council will be directly responsible to the Secretary of State. But there is a significant difference between what I have been proposing and the integration of the planning function and the research function within the Department. I believe, my Lords, that the industry as a whole would feel that the advantages obtained from the Water Resources Board and from the Medmenham Research Unit and so forth would be better maintained under the change that I have suggested.
My Lords, my third point concerns the metering of domestic supplies. I regret that the Bill is so framed as to give the Government permissive powers to instal meters for domestic supplies, so varying the basis of the charge. My regret is based on two arguments. The first is what I might call the sociological argument which seems in another place almost to have become a Party political issue. I certainly do not regard it as necessarily being such an issue. I have sympathy with the argument in general. In this day and age I think it rather a good thing that a supply of pure water, vital to health, should be available to every household at a reasonable charge irrespective of quantity, apart from exceptional items such as requirements for watering gardens and for swimming pools, et cetera, which might be the subject of special charges.
My second reason for regretting this is what I would call the cost argument. If it were proven satisfactorily that, of itself, metering would reduce usage greatly and so materially delay the costly development of new sources of supply, we should have to think seriously about it, heavy though the initial capital cost would be. But, human nature being what it is, and the cost of water still, thank goodness! an extremely low item in the ordinary family budget, I do not consider that the reduction in usage would be very great. Nevertheless, in theory it is difficult to argue against an experiment being made in a selected representative area; recognising of course that the data of the cost of installation and maintenance and meter-reading by the latest scientific methods

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could be acquired a good deal sooner than by relying on reliable evidence of essential usage. I do not expect this to affect the judgment of anyone else, but my own hunch is that metering of domestic supplies at present is not worth while. I hope that the experiment which, once instituted, could easily promote pressure for its extension before sound conclusions about its results could be drawn, will not be initiated for a long time, and then not without very careful consideration. The problem, incidentally, has not been authoritatively examined in depth since 1963 when a sub-committee of the Central Water Advisory Committee went into it in a good deal of detail and came to the conclusion that in the circumstances the metering of supplies was not justified. My Lords, these are the three things to which I wished specially to refer. As I said at the beginning, I warmly welcome the general purpose and aims of the Bill and wish it every success.
6.48 p.m.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: My Lords, I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Sinclair of Cleeve, for having gone out of the Chamber when he was speaking and I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman, for the same reason. If I am proposing to speak in a debate it is not my custom to leave the Chamber, but, being the President of the Esperanto Association which was calling a meeting this afternoon, I was confronted by the horns of a dilemma. Should I go for an international language system or a national system of pure water? I do not know which has won because I have not done either properly. My Lords, it was a pleasure to listen to a scientist who wanted to introduce the humanisation factor into planning. It is good to hear a scientist say that we want the human touch in all our planning. This is one of the aspects that worries me. Having burned the midnight oil studying this problem, and read the reports of the Commissee discussions, and having been concerned with the Water Resources Bill and a number of Bills in the 1960's, including legislation concerning radioactive waste substances, I hope that I have taken a constructive interest in this matter. I know of the contribution made by the noble Lord, Lord Sinclair of
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Cleeve, in connection with the provision of clean water, and the broad spectrum of his academic activities, and I was glad to hear him supporting my noble friend, Lady White. I sincerely believe that a meter system in the mass of homes would hardly pay for the increased bureaucracy which would result and the trouble of collecting from those ordinary homes.
Now let me come down to this, I hope, brief speech. In the reorganisation of the water services we have already been told, but I want to set them down again, that the broad aims are a water supply that is adequate, a water supply that is conserved and an improvement in our sewerage system and the disposal of sewage. We want to attack river pollution—and we have not yet done this properly. For years some of us have sat on committees and have been protesting about it. I was once honoured by the anglers of Britain, who have hardly been mentioned to-day. There are more anglers in Britain than there are people who attend football matches at a weekend. At the height of the football season there are fewer people on the football terraces in Britain than there are fishing; and, consequently, the 3½ million fishermen of England who sit on the banks of glorious rivers should be considered. It is not good for a man to live perpetually in a crowd. He occasionally needs solitude, and one of the marvellous places to get it is on the banks of a river, even if he never catches a fish.
As for a maverick like myself, as a child I was brought up in an atmosphere where all the rivers were open to us. The noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, will know that we never knew what trespassing was in Wales. I never bought a sprig of holly in my life; I just cut it out of the hedges or on the mountainside. But we were brought up in the kind of country
"Where the pools are bright and deep,
Where the grey trout lies, asleep,
Up the river and o'er the lea.
That's the way for Billy and me.
"Where the blackbird sings the latest,
Where the hawthorn blooms the sweetest,
Where the nestlings chirp and flee.
That's the way for Billy and me."
Of course, all that crowd has been frightened now by the exhaust of cars and the terrible miasma that is blown out of aeroplanes that are travelling faster than

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sound. In other words, the world of shock and the world of technology in which we live is making man forget some of his basic needs in life. One of his first and foremost basic needs is water. I was delighted to hear the noble Lord who opened the debate, and other noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, saying that we take all these things too much for granted.
I think this is an appropriate moment to say that I hope, when the time comes, that we shall have appropriate Amendments to pay a tribute to the Working Party on Sewage Disposal, of whom my friend Lena Jeger was the chairman. This is one of the most fascinating Reports (or Blue Books, if I may use that phrase) produced by a Committee, and I think everybody should be congratulated on the fascinating way in which they have dealt with this subject of the disposal of sewage. I think the Government are being too hasty. This Bill does not deal in toto with either the problem of sewerage and sewage disposal or, in fact, with pollution. In fact, so far as the 3½ million fishermen are concerned, then position vis-à-vis pollution will be worse when this Bill becomes law than it is now; and I hope to put down on the Order Paper an Amendment about this. Because in certain cases of pollution they have not the opportunity to protest. I must discuss this point with my noble friends on the Front Bench to see whether I am accurate in my surmise, but I think I am; and, if that be true, then I think it is necessary that, before the Bill becomes an Act, we should try to see that the fishermen have the same opportunities that they had before.
This new Bill contains far-reaching proposals, because we expect the demand for water to double before the end of the century and it is now considered that the 1963 Water Act does not meet the needs of to-day. That is the Act in which I was specifically interested. As was pointed out, in our efforts to meet the needs of to-day please do not let us fall for the sense of bigness. In Committee in another place the Minister talked about "Mr. Big"; and "Mr. Big", so far as water is concerned, is the chairman of the National Water Council. Next to the Minister he is king. I do not want to make denigratory remarks
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about a fellow Member of this noble House, but I laughed gently when we appointed a tycoon as the king of the railways to solve the problem of the railways. What did he do? Outside the part of Wales where I lived, all the railways were ripped up. Railways were ripped up all over Britain, and now the railways still do not pay. In parts of my old constituency, Leek, and in Dovedale, and in the famous fishing area there, and in Wales, people are farther away from a market now than they were a hundred years ago, because the railways are closed and there is no village bus as there are no pay-loads. In other words, we I are entering into a system of society where, in the Peak District and elsewhere, the Western Bus Company cannot afford to carry, where the water supply is also short and where planning has not thought of the human being at all, the planners have merely thought of the price. They think of the price of everything and forget the value of everything.
Granted, there is a need for the reorganisation of our water services that will enable Britain's water resources to be collected, stored and transported. There were three different suggestions—I have them all here—in Government Reports. This House is well informed, so I will not bore your Lordships by quoting; but we have accepted from these Government Reports only one of these suggestions. We should have had more time. There is this issue of water space; there is the issue of the full use of rivers and reservoirs; and we are not quite sure of the relationship of canals in this matter. I do not want to see the canals in a worse position. I am grateful to the Government for producing this valuable—I will not call it a Blue Book, but this beautifully-gathered background to water reorganisation in England and Wales, produced by the Department of the Environment. It enables a moderately intelligent Member of the House of Lords, or of the other House, to follow the Bill fairly well.
I find it rather sad, in regard to the diagrams—I used to know how to make diagrams at one time—to see that in 1958 the canals were less polluted than they were in 1972. Turning to page 20, one finds from the diagrams that pollution is increasing. Civilian bodies and Government Departments are a bit frightened

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about certain types of pollution. Let me be 100 per cent. frank. If people will read the book called Future Shock to which many reviews gave top attention about a month ago, they will see that no (I use this horrible word) technological Government in the world is prepared to look in depth into pollution by radioactive waste. There is nothing in this Bill about pollution by radioactive waste. There is nothing in this Bill about pouring into the rivers from the laboratories of hospitals and the laboratories of chemical research firms, and from other places, radioactive substances. We are finding certain things in parts of Britain—around Windscale, for instance. In Holland they have found tadpoles malformed, the genetic upset of frogs and the genetic upset of aqua-beings because there is a conspiracy of silence about the radioactive waste running into rivers. The full story of Windscale has never been told, like the full story of the atomic power station that exploded in Yugoslavia. When we look at this Bill, let us make it a real Bill. Let us turn it into a real Act, and try to eliminate this pollution.
My noble friend has been kind enough to cut down what would have been a three-hour speech, so I will come to my last point. As the Government point out, whatever we do to the Bill, Clause 2(5) gives absolute, paramount power to the Minister. We shall have a word to say about that at the Committee stage, but this is warning the Front Bench opposite that some of us have noticed that point. There was a real dingdong battle upstairs in the Committee on Clause 2(5) about the power of "Mr. Water" and the power of the council, and I think it is too much power for one human being to possess. While the Labour Party agrees that there must be a river basin approach to the services, it is aware that if regions are too big, remoteness will cause lack of control, and this is a danger.
Noble Lords will be glad to know that I have nearly come to the end of my speech and I must finish with a quote. Clause 4 deals with the National Water Council, and a lovely description of the chairman of the National Water Council was given in the Standing Committee on March 22, 1973, co. 512, by
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the Minister. Listen to what we have got to put up with. He said that the Chairman of the National Water Council is in every respect an important national figure—and we are swamped with them. He continued
"I might loosely say that second only to the Secretary of State he will in fact be 'Mr. Water' within this country. He will have clear functions, be the chief spokesman for the water services as a whole and will speak on behalf of the National Council of Water on which are the chairmen of the regional authorities. He will speak for the industrial unions, he will speak for finance, he will speak for applied science and the rest."
I hope to God we are not going to destroy all that research.
I could give a list of the marvellous research in water and pollution matters which has been set up over a hundred years. Now, if "Mr. Water" comes mucking about with that lot, there is going to be trouble. We cannot tolerate power to that extent. This Government must modify the Bill and have some local representation.
7.3 p.m.
LORD CLIFFORD or CHUDLEIGH: My Lords, now from the sublime to the ridiculous! I have some interest to declare so far as water is concerned, but only on what one might call the receiving end. I have never managed a large water concern but I have my own water supply. It is nearly 500 years old. It comes through stone pipes from a spring. within it and is the best water in the between it and is the best water in the world. I notice that particularly whenever I return home from London, where I have been forced occasionally to take some water, water which I have read somewhere has been through 20 bladders before we get it—what I suppose my noble friend Lord Amory was referring to. Of course, since the 1963 Act I have had to pay for this very old supply of water.
Not only do I have that water supply, I have yet another from a good spring. Ninety years ago my predecessors built a reservoir below it and piped it down to a village or township called Kings-teignton. For 90 years we supplied Kings-organisation progress, eventually a large public concern took it all over but because they did not like a private small supply about four years ago they returned it to me and now that water is running down the brook—and very nice too. There

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is another nteresting point about that. At the same time as they returned this water supply to me, there were all the headlines in the papers about water shortage where we were going to put new reservoirs and so on.
The next interest I have is that I am a riparian owner. I have a mile along the river Teign, pronounced locally, as my noble friend will bear me out as "tin"—hence our crack "You should try our Teign salmon". There again we come to the question of how to control and manage your water supply for other purposes? If I had had any sense I should have sold the fishing rights some ten years ago for about £20,000, but being a "proper Charley" I give it away free to the Lower Teign Fishing Association who manage it. That stretch also provides water for the cattle of my tenant to drink. Now they have built a big by-pass at Chudleigh which runs right alongside it, and it is particularly well known for peel or sea trout fishing. Now, with the flashing lights of the by-pass—all true fishermen of course will know that you fish for peel at night—that will probably be ruined. That is another thing which shows where one's interests lie with regard pollution and fishing rights. As a farmer—and of course all your Lordships who are farmers have received probably an N.F.U. brief on this Bill—I will return later to what I think is the most important aspect from the farming community's point of view.
As chairman of the Devon branch of the C.L.A. and in various capacities over the last ten years, I have had more controversies on the subject of water supply —where to put reservoirs; whose land is going to be affected—than on any other one subject during my tenure, and I think I can safety say that so far as controversies in this world go Devon takes the cake. As an amateur sailor I keep my boat about three miles up the river Dart. I at times tend to come back at night—it needs careful navigation of course—and going ashore in my dinghy by the light of a torch your Lordships have no idea of the amount of concentrated sewage I see that is released into that river at night. However anybody is allowed to swim in it, which I see them doing from time to time, I do not know.
My next interest, as a Devon nationalist, is that I am very conscious
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of the problems or the equity of the proposed county and district representatives on the local South-West board. I have received from the various councils associations their brief. I do not agree with all of them, as I shall indicate in a minute, but I do share their anxieties. Basically I think I can see what the Government have in mind in this Bill, and basically I cannot object, but I have one or two points of criticism. First of all on planning, I do not think the Government are right in having a central planning unit. There are bound to be troubles, especially when water is transferred from one area to another, as is bound to happen. This is a point on which I should like the Government to think again, because the objectors will not believe that they are getting a fair deal. I should like the Minister to bear in mind—and I know he is very conscious of it—the frightful mistakes that we have made in our part of the country and which are still being perpetuated—for example, the Swincombe reservoir. When one considers that by 1975 in our part of the world we shall have an extra population of about two million in the tourist season, this will present problems which are, on the face of them, almost insurmountable from the point of view of water supply, because the tourist season all comes in the summer.
To return to my main criticism, which is the question of agricultural representation, at the present time I think the arrangements are inadequate. My noble friend Lord de Ramsey brought up this point, too. Devon, apart from its tourist season, is over 90 per cent. an agricultural county, and when the water leaves the sky it falls on that land. When the total number of representatives on the area board is 15, perhaps three is an adequate number of agricultural representatives; but where you are going to have boards of a larger number, then I think you must have more agricultural representatives, especially if under agricultural representatives you lump in fishing representatives.
I am not particularly entranced with the Water Space Amenity Commission. Again, unless the fanning and landowning interests are paramount, there will be nothing but friction. If birdwatchers are included, all right. But if rights of way

1059
are established along every river bank, and the leavers-open of gates are allowed to wander all over the place, you will find the fishing and agricultural community will be antagonised. I should like to know whether the Government intend to allow water ski-ing and motor boat racing in the erstwhile haunts of coot and tern. If the Government are to go ahead with this Commission, then they must get somebody with real experience in coping with and reconciling the various aspects of land use. There are parts of the country where one can get a favourable modus vivendi. There are other parts where you have certain parties who are fanatics of one sort or another, and there I can see only trouble.
One cannot help but wonder whether the proposed National Water Council will be independent enough to gain even half the influence that the now to be abolished Water Resources Board had. I personally regret its demise, and I hope that the Government may be able to reverse their decision in this respect.
I think it right for the Government to appoint independent chairmen. Here I know I disagree with my noble friend Lord Amory. My reason is that I am afraid that in most parts of the country from now on the local elections will be fought more and more on a Party political basis. If that is so, I think there will be trouble. I do not see it coming in the South-West, but in the more politically-minded parts of the country, where I should hate to see any long-term water plans become political shuttlecock between the main political Parties, as happens over such questions as whether London is going to have ring roads, or not.
I do not agree with the councils on the question of an elected chairman. I strongly agree with the Devon County Council in wanting a fair and equitable representation. For example, Cornwall, has one-third of the population, is a third of the size, and has not even half the lengths of river; yet they are to have on the South-West Water Board the same number of council representatives as Devon. I have nothing against Cornwall, though I read in the Sunday Telegraph that their "home rulers" are arming to cope with us people over the border. It
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would seem to me to be more equitable if they were given representatives commensurate with their size, lengths of river and so on.
Could the Government explain what is the advantage of removing the sewage disposal functions from the local authorities? We are perhaps influenced by the many examples of what ought not to be done to welcome change, but can we be sure that the new authority will do better? I get rather worried about the remoteness of these future undertakings.
My Lords, the problems associated with water supplies have been the cause, as I said earlier, of our fiercest disagreements within the county from which I come. I trust that under this Bill the Minister will appoint to positions of responsibility only those who are expert and experienced in enabling us to come to speedy conclusions on the problems which have bedevilled us in our part of the world for so long. I hope the Government will not he too dogmatic in their replies to our inquiries this afternoon, otherwise I can foresee some interesting arguments on the Committee stage.
7.18 p.m.
LORD NUNBURNHOLME: My Lords, water is a gift of God, and of that gift we use in this country one-sixth of what falls from above. But we do not want to increase our reservoirs. We are short of agricultural land, and it seems a great pity to take land away from agriculture to form reservoirs.
"Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink."
That might be written about pollution. The pollution of our rivers seems to be the main problem of this Bill. I feel that if we can only clean up our sewage and our industrial waste we might solve the problem.
The next thing I want to talk about is something which my noble friend Lady White referred to in her speech, but did not elaborate on, and that is a national water grid. I have been advocating this in your Lordships' House for over 40 years. Wales is included in this Bill, and Scotland is not, but I think we should have a national water grid for Scotland, Wales and England. There are considerable areas of Scotland where

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water can be conserved cheaply without interference with agriculture; this is also true of Wales. If these areas are interconnected with the reservoirs throughout this country I feel we shall not have any difficulty about shortage of water. Where there is a glut somewhere and a drought somewhere else, you bring them together. So far as I can see, that matter has not been mentioned in the Bill, but it seems to me to be well worth consideration by the Government before the Committee stage.
7.20 p.m.
LORD WOLVERTON: My Lords, first of all I should declare an interest as one of the Vice-Presidents of the Local District Councils Association. I should like to give qualified support to this Bill, because we must find more water for the nation in the years ahead. We must also conserve water, as has recently been done in a most satisfactory scheme in East Anglia (that is, the Ouse-Stour scheme) where they have built a long tunnel pipeline and taken water from the Ouse to the headwaters of the Stour, thus giving a lot more water to the areas of South-East Essex which were very short of water. So on this point I entirely agree with the Bill. If you reduce the numbers of river water boards from 28 or 29 to 9 in England and one in Wales, you will probably have many more such schemes, which are vital because there is a tremendous amount of water still running to waste. The building of new reservoirs, as the noble Lord, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, said, causes a great deal of feeling in the agricultural industry before you have to take up more land. The huge job of cleaning up the rivers is vital, and one properly done by these new river boards. As the noble Lord, Lord Nugent said, much has been done in the last 10 years since these numerous river boards were set up. However, a lot more needs to be done and, as my noble Leader pointed out earlier, a third of the water, that we now consume has to be taken from the lower reaches of rivers, which are the most contaminated.
I have three main worries about the Bill. First, I think that these new rive, boards should be allowed to elect their own chairmen. Local authorities have been given a majority, in some cases only a bare majority. I do not think it is
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democratic in these days that, having formed a board and the Government having got their representatives on it from agriculture, industry and so on, these important local river boards should not be allowed to elect their own chairmen. The new river boards are not going to be very responsible to local authorities. Local authorities will nominate the majority of the members, but will have little financial control. I may say in passing that I served for seven years on a joint board representing West Suffolk—it was a joint fire authority for East Suffolk, West Suffolk and Ipswich Corporation. That will now come to an end because there will be one large new county. Although I was a representative of the fire authority on that board, we were responsible to our respective councils for the amount of money that we had to provide for the board, and if our estimates were too high we got into trouble. As I understand it, these new river boards will levy their own rates for sewerage and water, and other than being ultimately responsible to the Ministry they are not going to be responsible at all to the local authorities.
My second point is that I think it is right that river boards should take over sewerage; but, having taken it over, I think the function should be given back to the local authorities to run on an agency basis. If I am correct in my reading of the Bill, we are asking local authorities to look after and to maintain local sewers on an agency basis but they will not be trusted with the sewage disposal work. What will be the result of that? It will mean the breaking up of staff of the local authority engineers and surveyors, and the local authority will retain some of its staff to look after sewers on an agency basis while the rest of the staff will have to go to the river boards to look after the purification plants. I know there has been a good deal of criticism— my noble friend Lord Nugent referred to this to-day in his interesting speech—of the fact that local authorities have not always come up to scratch in modernising their sewerage plant, and have sometimes nut impure effluent in the rivers; but surely Parliament could tighten up on that situation, especially if the work was done on an agency basis. What worries me is the tact that if we set up dual organisations the price to the consumer is bound

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to go up, because there will be two lots of staff.
The third point which worries me very much is the metering of supplies for domestic consumers. We have long had metering for industrial supplies and for garages, gardens and so on. I know the Government are only asking Parliament for enabling powers, but once those enabling powers are given no doubt the new river boards will use them. I do not myself think it is right to meter domestic supplies. I say that largely on health grounds, because there will be a tendency for families with many children to say, "Little Johnnie can only have a bath once a fortnight because it is going to cost a lot if the water is metered on the domestic rate." Therefore I should like to see metering cut out of the Bill. If it is not, I think we should at any rate go very slowly on it and treat it as an experimental matter, to see whether or not it will save any money. I believe that my noble friend Lord Sinclair of Cleeve, who has had vast experience in these matters, has mentioned the great expense which will be involved in installing these meters. The modern idea regarding electric meters is that they should be put outside dwellings in modern blocks so that they can be read even though the tenant may be out. But in the older blocks of flats where you have a common rising main, surely there must be a meter for each flat. This will be extremely costly. With those few words, I support the Bill. I think it is necessary, but I do have some qualifications.
7.29 p.m.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, the very useful debate we have had this afternoon on this Bill has produced some extremely interesting speeches, and I think that the main lines of criticism have become apparent. I believe it is also clear that they are not confined to this side of the House. We have had one or two quite outstanding speeches. I should like at the outset to join in the tribute which has been paid to the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, for his quite outstanding work in connection with the Thames Conservancy. I thought the noble Lord, Lord Molson, made a speech which was not only very interesting but also extremely constructive. The noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman, speaking with all the authority he enjoys
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as a scientist, made a contribution of the greatest value which Members in all parts of the House will read with the greatest interest, because he has raised a number of matters that we ought to examine thoroughly in Committee. We have had some extremely interesting contributions from my noble friends Lord Davies of Leek and Lord Nunburnholme.
We in the Labour Party are committed to the public ownership of all water resources and supplies. We believe this to be necessary so that these resources can be collected, stored, transported, used and reused, in a way that will have full regard to good environmental management but at the same time permit recreational enjoyment of our rivers, canals, reservoirs and lakes to the fullest extent possible consistent with high standards of conservation. Having said that, I suppose many people may feel that there is probably not much between the two sides of the House when it comes to principles. But however much we may say that we hold those ends in view, that desire to achieve a common purpose, let there be no doubt, as my noble friend Lady White said at the outset in an eloquent speech, that we on this side will not divide the House, because of the tradition that has developed that we do not carry our opposition to the Division Lobbies when a Bill has been through the other place. But let there be no misunderstanding: we are opposed to this Bill and its main proposals; and we are fortified in our opposition by the reaffirmation of the opposition declared by the four local authority associations to the Government's proposals for the reorganisation of water and sewerage services.
The noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, my noble friend Lady Stocks and the noble Viscount, Lord Amory, all touched on the subject of nationalisation. The noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, had quite a bit to say about it. It is a queer type of nationalisation that takes under the umbrella all those services that are already publicly owned and publicly controlled, but leaves alone that section of the service that is privately owned and controlled. To review any proposals to remove water undertakings from local governments, while leaving private water companies to continue in business is anachronistic, to put it mildly. That is

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a matter to which we shall have to give some attention, since private profit has no proper role in this basic public service. Water should be available at the lowest cost possible. As has been emphasised again and again this afternoon, it is a basic necessity and its domestic use is essential in the interests of personal and public health. So, as my noble friend Lady White said, we view with the greatest misgiving the proposal to meter the volume of water supplied to any premises—a matter also referred to at some length by the noble Lord, Lord Sinclair of Cleeve.
Our anxieties on this point could easily be met by amendment, and if the Government do not themselves carry that out we shall seek to provide opportunity for it to be done. The rating system leaves much to be desired, but it is greatly to be preferred to metering as a method of payment, since it does not penalise the domestic user according to the volume of water used. Because of this proposal in the Bill quite a number of people are asking how long it will be, if this Government stay in power for very long, before they will want to meter the intake of air and charge for that as well.
This Bill does nothing to add to the power or to the stature of local authorities; rather, it detracts from the responsibilities in regard to water and sewerage. Concern has been expressed in many quarters in regard to the composition of regional water authorities. The views of the local authority associations on this matter deserve much more consideration than they appear to have had up to the present. I have no doubt that here again we shall have opportunities for dealing with the matter in more detail in Committee. I hope also that we shall be able to get written into the Bill, or placed clearly on the record, that trade union representation at the level of the regional water authority and at other levels will be provided for.
When we come to a matter that has been touched on by many speakers with very few exceptions this afternoon—I think only one exception—the appointment of chairmen of the regional water authorities, the Government are in a very unenviable position. The local authority associations—all four of them—the
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Trades Union Congress and many of the Government's own supporters, inside and oustide this House, object to the proposal that the Secretary of State should appoint the chairmen. The noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, I thought put the point of view of the C.C.A. and the other associations very clearly. The chairman ought to be elected by the members of the regional water authority; to refuse them this right is to make a nonsense of the provision whereby the regional water authorities are to have a majority of members representing local authorities—a provision intended in the circumstances, one imagines, to give a democratic gloss to the constitution of these bodies. As we all know, in practice effective day-to-day control is largely in the hands of chairmen of bodies such as this, and in the hands of chief executives. We shall have to return to this matter again in Committee; that would be the wish of the House, having regard to what has been said this afternoon. Meantime, may I point out that it is these chairmen of water authorities who will serve on the National Water Council. If that is so, all the more reason why they should be elected by the regional water authorities that they are supposed to represent.
When it comes to treatment and land somewhat astonished ernment have failed government in a much more positive way. In particular their failure to recognise and use the experience of the Greater London Council in the Greater London area is almost breathtaking, for the Council's main drainage service has been administered with efficiency and is probably, as my noble friend Lord Fiske said, the best sewage disposal service in the world. The immediate, direct effect of the Bill's proposals on that Council's services will be to transfer to the Thames Water Authority the main drainage service, all main sewers, sewage treament works, pumping stations and the sludge disposal fleet, together with the functions of regulating trade effluent discharges and pollution control powers. As my noble friend Lady White said, together with the intended removal of the Council's health function under the National Health Service Reorganisation Bill, this will result in the loss of nearly 15 per cent. of the Council's staff and almost half of the Council's

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direct services to the people of London. I believe that we in this House have a duty to take note of these figures and ask the Government whether real consideration has been given to the implications for regional government in Greater London and elsewhere.
There is deep concern—and this is not a Party matter. I think it is appreciated generally that, whatever the outcome of the Greater London Council elections had been, the concern of the Greater London Council—their request for a new look, for greater trust, for acceptance of the fact that they have been doing a good job and are the best people to carry on doing it —would have been made as forcefully as it will be made now as matters stand. There is deep concern at the paradoxical situation in which, at a time when the whole structure of local government outside Greater London is being reorganised to be more efficient and better able to accept responsibility, major local services —health, ambulances, water, sewerage, motor vehicles and driving licensing—are being taken away from local authorities and handed to central Government or to unelected, and therefore possibly unresponsive, bodies who are not required to submit themselves to the periodic vote of confidence, or no confidence, of the public.
My noble friend Lord Fiske spoke powerfully and persuasively from his great experience during the years when he was Leader of the London County Council and the Greater London Council. I hope that considerable attention will be paid to what he has had to say. The Greater London Council and the London Boroughs Association are at one in wishing to secure democratic control by London of London's water services, and I hope that we in this House shall be able to do something about it—and I stress that this is not a Party issue. I welcome what the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, said at the beginning about the appointment of a Staff Commission. I was tempted to say a great deal more about this matter, but I will leave it at the moment, expressing a welcome to what he has had to say.
If I may sum up, we on this side are extremely critical of the Bill. It fails to use democratic processes and indeed deprives democratic local government of
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control of vital services. We shall seek to improve it and we hope that the Government will be more flexible, more responsive, than they have been on other measures emanating from the same Department as this Bill came from. I hope that that flexibility will be demonstrated in Committee by a willingness to make concessions greater than we have had of late. My noble friend Lady White said that we should not be giving this Bill an easy passage. I hope the Government will show that they can prove that they are sensitive to views that are strongly held in this House, and particularly when those views are expressed on all sides. I say that now because I believe that if the Government will be responsive in that kind of way the Committee proceedings may be a great deal easier and, much more important, they will achieve a very great deal more and be much more constructive than they otherwise would be. My Lords, in Committee we shall do our best to table Amendments to improve the Bill.
7.44 p.m.
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, this has been an extremely useful and thorough debate into what is a complex technical problem. I think the words of my noble friend Lord Nugent of Guildford—and, incidentally, my noble friend asked me to apologise on his behalf to the House for his absence at this stage of the debate; he has a rather nasty sore throat and felt he would be wise to go home and nurse it—summed up what most noble Lords have been saying in this debate: that what we face now is the logical conclusion of a long-drawn-out, piecemeal process resulting from the need progressively to strengthen and unify the administration of the water services. Most of us. on whichever side of the House we sit, are like the noble Baroness, Lady Stocks, the Vice-President of the Association of Joint Sewerage Boards—not like her in that. but life her in being conservative with a small "c" when faced with problems such as this, and beginning with an inclination to move slowly and in an evolutionary way. My noble friend Lord Nugent, who knows as much about this subject as any of us, expressed himself as approaching the matter from that standpoint. But, as he said, the fact is now that the needs are too urgent to be

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tackled by 1,300 sewage authorities, nearly 200 water authorities, and 29 or so river authorities; and we have to find another, stronger structure to tackle the problems that are ahead of us.
I think it was only the noble Baroness, Lady White, and her colleague the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, who pressed their criticisms in any general way to the Bill as a whole. They criticise us for having drawn it up in a way of which they cannot approve. They have not disclosed what particular pattern they would approve of, and have left us guessing, for the time being at any rate—though perhaps they will reveal it at the Committee stage—as to what particular pattern they would prefer. In the absence of any explanation, I am left with the, views of their Front Bench spokesman in another place, which I cannot quote in full, but they are set out in column 59 of the Hansard of that place of February 5, where there is talk of a strong national water board, with responsibilities more or less across the board, executive control, overall responsibility for recreation. I do not see much scope in that formula for local authority control or power or anything. But we shall no doubt hear at a later stage what the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, and the noble Baroness, Lady White, have in mind and we need not pursue it any further now.
While I am speaking of the noble Baroness, Lady White, I would hasten to assure her that I am fully aware of my own limitations not only in respect of Scottish crofters but also in respect of Welsh rivers and reservoirs, and I assure her that my noble friend Lord Aberdare will be here to deal with each and every Welsh issue that arises on the Bill, which is a great relief to me. Lady White (I think I am right in my recollection) expressed herself as broadly in agreement with the pattern of regional water authorities that we have established; and we are reinforced in that by the opinion of the Council of Europe, which also expresses the view (and I am quoting from a fairly full report) that the river authorities in Great Britain would seem to conform most clearly to the ideal situation—that is the position on which we are building—and the report continues:
"Local authorities are too intimately involved in the interests of the users. On election day it is the latter who vote. This
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means that regional organisations would he the best equipped to satisfy the main requirements of water pollution control"—
and other water functions, too, if I may say so. But this is a theme to which we shall undoubtedly return at a later stage.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: My Lords, may we get this correct? Did the Minister say that Europe said this? If so, that is a bit of cheek.
LORD SANDFORD: Well, my Lords, I will not discuss that with the noble Lord; I daresay he is entitled to that view. One of the recurrent themes in the debate has been an anxiety about the central organisations that will be taking the place of the Water Resources Board, and that is certainly a topic to which we shall need to return. The only point I want to make at this stage, in answer to my noble friend Lord Molson, the noble Baroness, Lady White, and to several other speakers in this debate, is that the work now to be done under the organisation which is being established under this Bill is quite different from the very valuable work that has been done in the past by the Water Resources Board. They have done a lot of regional planning on water resources which will now fall, naturally and properly, to the regional water authorities themselves. They have concentrated on research and planning of water measured in quantity—it is the resources of water that they have been dealing with—and what now needs to be dealt with on a national level is the problem of the quantity and the quality of water, which ois a wider function altogether than anything the Water Resources Board have tackled so far.
There is the need to bring together a number of research elements which have not been tackled hitherto by the Water Resources Board at all—none of the work done by the Water Pollution Research Laboratory nor by the Water Research Association was anywhere near the functions discharged by the Water Resources Board. However, rather than going into all this detail now I suggest to the House that I should make available and distribute to noble Lords who have taken part in this Second Reading debate the Consultative Paper on this particular topic by the Central Organisation for Planning Research and Data Collection. It was

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issued in March of this year. Several noble Lords who have spoken have no doubt seen it, but not every noble Lord may have seen it and it will be helpful for us all to have studied it before we return to such a complex topic.
The only other point I should like to make is to the noble Lord, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh. I would point out to him that the regional planning of water resources, which the Water Resources Board have undertaken on behalf of the river authorities up to now, will be carried out by the regional water authorities themselves. I hope other noble Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord de Ramsey, who spoke on these kindred topics, will be satisfied if we leave it there for the time being.
The noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman, who has also asked me to apologise to the House for his absence at this stage, raised a number of other questions which I can, and perhaps should, deal with at this moment. I have already made the point that the research that now needs to be done centrally is much wider in scope than any of the research done into water resources alone by the Water Resources Board. The noble Lord asked me how the individual research work of the regional water authorities will be organised. I think it is to be expected that the R.W.A.s will undertake or commission research of local application—-either undertake it themselves or else commission it—but research of value to the R.W.A.s generally will he carried out by the Water Research Centre and made available to them, and the powers of the Secretary of State under Clause 23 will be available to ensure that the R.W.A.s support the Water Research Centre to an extent which will enable them to do that. The Government will of course expect to contract for research of national importance to be carried out, where appropriate, by the W.R.C. and the contractor. As the noble Lord was suggesting, there must of course be very close links between the Central Water Planning Unit and the W.R.C., but that again is a matter we can go into more readily at the next stage of the Bill.
The noble Lord mentioned that the Trent River Authority, as opposed to Rotterdam, could not take water out of
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the Trent for any of the cities in its lower courses. He really is not correct about that, because in fact Nottingham takes water out into its treatment works at a point only seven miles below the Derwent where the city of Derby puts its sewage effluent in. This is a problem which, to an increasing extent, we have to deal with in that sort of way. Rotterdam, which the noble Lord mentioned, is not happy to take Rhine water, but they have no alternative in the matter.
The noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman, also asked me about the Nature Conservancy. The reason why the Nature Conservancy Council does not yet appear in the Bill is that its existence has yet to be enacted. Both Bills are running through Parliament at the moment and the way in which the Nature Conservancy will be brought into the Bill (and it certainly should be) will depend upon how each Bill makes progress.
There was a good deal of discussion —and I think this was the second main theme running through the debate—about the appointment of the chairmen. I have been interested to hear all the views that have been expressed but, generally speaking, I would prefer to keep my powder dry for the Committee stage on this particular topic. All I would say at this stage to noble Lords who have spoken about it, and to my noble friend Lord Amory in particular, is that the appointment of a chairman by the Secretary of State does not imply any lack of confidence in local government. Mine would be the last Department, and my right honourable friend the Secretary of State the last person, to lack confidence in local government. In fact the whole tenor of the Local Government Act is to put more trust in their capacity and their judgment. But the chairmen of these bodies—the regional water authorities—need to take a view of the areas for which they are responsible which goes geographically far wider than any of the local authority areas which the R.W.A.s serve, and to consider a whole number of topics over and above the function which local authorities have hitherto discharged. That would be the broad tenor of my justification for this particular decision, but once again I think it is probably best left there.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, before the noble Lord leaves the subject

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of the tenor of the Local Government Act, and since he or somebody in his Department may have an open mind on this, may I say that local government is beginning to feel that deeds speak louder than words, and I wish he would bear that in mind when dealing with this matter.
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, I will bear it in mind, and I should like to say to the noble Lord, Lord Fiske, when he says that in the Housing Bill we have removed discretionary powers from housing local authorities, what we have done is to provide them with a system of subsidy which concentrates the assistance that central Government subsidy can give on the areas and on the people who need it most. To that extent we have strengthened the arm of local government and not diminished its effectiveness.
But we must not get too far away from the Water Bill. A number of noble Lords who spoke had anxieties—and it is understandable that they should arise—about the remoteness of these large bodies. Were it not essential, for the reasons which my noble friend Lord Nugent of Guildford deployed, to devise bodies which are equipped by their span and their size and the resources they can command, to correspond with the river basins—and I do not think anybody has denied that this has to be done—then of course they could be much smaller and the problem of remoteness would not be feared. But provision exists in the Bill in Clause 6(8) which empowers the regional water authorities to set up advisory committees in connection with any one of their functions. We intend to draw their attention to this power and to support them in establishing committees of this sort so that all the local interests can be properly consulted and represented and involved, and this sense of remoteness overcome in that way. I hope that that will go some way towards meeting the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, and the noble Viscount, Lord Ingleby, on that same subject. The criticism of the huge size of these authorities was, not surprisingly, levelled particularly at the Severn-Trent Authority. In looking at its size on the map, that is no wonder. The fact of the matter, again as my noble friend Lord Nugent of Guildford says, is that we
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have acute and urgent technical problems to be solved and it is these problems to a very large extent that dictate the pattern. What dictates the pattern in this particular case is that waters for the Trent have to be supplied from the Severn, coupled with the fact that the great West Midlands conurbation lies right across the watershed between the two basins.
The noble Lord, Lord Fiske, raised a number of questions concerning Greater London with which I should like to deal. Broadly speaking, the position that the Government maintain is that the Greater London Council and London as a whole will be better off, and their citizens will be better off, in an arrangement in which the Greater London Council and the London boroughs can bring their influence to bear upon the larger body, the Thames Water Authority, rather than to seek to control certain fragments and functions which fall to that body. We believe that we have now reached the right division in which the G.L.C. and the London boroughs together will have the majority of the local authority seats on the Thames Water Authority and that will influence the entire policy of the whole authority. In addition to that, and exceptionally, as my noble friend the Leader of the House said in his opening speech, we shall insert provisions in the Bill to give the G.L.C. powers with regard to recreation and amenity on the Thames in the Greater London area. That is clearly right, and we are also arranging for special powers for them with regard to land drainage and the Thames Barrier. But again, that is a subject to which we can also return.
The next topic on which most was said was that of water recreation, introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Byers, who concentrated his whole speech on that point, and was followed by a number of other noble Lords. The noble Baroness, Lady White, is undoubtedly quite right in saying that it is very important, in establishing this body, to make clear the boundaries between it and the other water bodies, the role it plays in relation to them, the boundaries between the Water Space Amenity Council, the Countryside Commission, the Sports Council, and so on. Broadly speaking, in answer to the noble Lord, Lord Byers, I would say that the Countryside Commission and the

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Sports Council are grant-aiding bodies, among their other functions, and compared with them the Water Space Advisory Council is an advisory body. My noble friend Lord Ridley raised the question about the Countryside Commission.
LORD BYERS: My Lords, was the noble Lord referring to the Water Space Amenity Commission or the Advisory Council, which is rather different?
LORD SANDFORD: The Water Space Amenity Commission. I apologise to the noble Lord if I used another phrase. That was the one to which I was referring. I can reassure the noble Lord, Lord Byers, that the terms of reference of the Water Space Amenity Commission are wide enough for it to be able to give advice on all inland water; that is to say, including gravel pits and to the B.W.B. although the B.W.B. now does not feature generally in this particular Bill. We intend to move an Amendment to Clause 22, as my noble friend the Lord Privy Seal said, to give the W.S.A.C. a duty to assist the regional water authorities in the preparation of their recreational plans. That is the point about which the noble Lord, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, asked. I confirm the point that my noble friend Lord Amory was making, that it is indeed the local authorities which have the main statutory powers for the provision, or the assistance of others to provide, recreational and amenity facilities. That is another point we have to bear in mind in finding the right niche for this body in relation to local authorities generally.
There are one or two other points to which I would refer. I should be interested to see what my noble friend Lord Molson puts down as an Amendment about towpaths. The noble Lord, Lord de Ramsey, raised a point about access agreements. It is certainly necessary when one is making a recreational provision on a river, lake or reservoir to make proper access arrangements across the land leading to them. That is a field in which the Countryside Commission and the local authorities between them have the necessary experience to do what is necessary.
LORD DE RAMSEY: My Lords, the point I was making was that since this access would be necessary, there should
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be some representative on the advisory body who was used to resolving conflicts that are likely to arise and that at present members are all appointed by the Government. I hope the point was taken.
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, I take the noble Lord's point, but the counterpoint, as it were, which I was making was that the provision of access agreements over land is not properly the job of a Water Space Amenity Commission. Nevertheless, I agree with him that it is a point that has to be taken care of. We shall bear it in mind and if, on reflection, we feel that it is not adequate to his point of view that the interests of which he is thinking are properly represented on the Countryside Commission and on the local authorities and that they are not properly geared to deal with this, we shall see that provision is made in the Water Space Amenity Commission.
The final matter of controversy which was raised several times was that of metering. I note what the noble Baroness, Lady White, says about the regional water authorities all seeking powers by Private Bill if and when they find it necessary to use this technique. And I note what my noble friend Lord Sinclair of Cleeve says about Government having the powers. But the main point is that we are not, as the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, seemed to indicate, proposing to introduce metering: we are putting into the Bill a power which would enable regional water authorities, after due study and perhaps experiments, and so on, to introduce it if and when they think it would be useful and fair. I agree that it will not be done as a matter of course by any means. It would be expensive to do and therefore it will be done only if there will be considerable benefits. The point that bothered a number of people, and notably my noble friend Lord Sinclair of Cleeve, that this would have adverse effects on hygiene, can fairly readily be met by using a standing charge for a certain amount of consumption and not charging by meter until that amount had been exceeded. But there are a number of other variations that can be used. All I would stress is that this is not something on which the R.W.A.s as a whole are going to embark in a universal way; it is a power, there for them to

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use if and when in particular circumstances it seems to be necessary.
I will certainly look into the question of the numbers on the R.W.A.s representing the land drainage interest, which the noble Lord, Lord de Ramsey, raised. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Davies, will not forget what he has just said to us relating to pollution, because he will be able to use all the arguments again when we introduce a Bill dealing with pollution of rivers. I hope I have dealt with the main points raised in the debate and I look forward to the Committee stage.
LORD WOLVERTON: My Lords, will the noble Lord say something about the divided responsibilities of the local authorities in regard to sewage? I did raise that point.
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, that was one of the topics I thought we could return to at a later stage. It is one of the matters which we have carefully looked into, as to where the powers should actually lie in the future. I do not know that there is much more I would want to say to the noble Lord at this stage of the Bill. If he feels that some adjustment and change in the functions as between the existing local authorities and the new regional water authorities is called for, and puts down an Amendment on that topic, I think we might well have a debate at the next stage. I am not sure that I can say anything that would be very helpful at this stage, after a speech which has gone on for nearly half an hour already. I would prefer to leave it there.

CIVIL SERVICE STAFF IN POST 1st April 1973

Ministerial Responsibilities

Central Administration

Public Services

Executive Functions Trading and Repayment Services

General Support Services

CABINET OFFICE

Secretariat and central support staff

430

—

—

—

Central Statistical Office

183

—

—

—

613

—

—

—

AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

Agriculture, Fisheries and Food policy

1,668

—

—

—

Agricultural Development and Advisory Service

—

5,009

—

—

Other technical staff

—

119

—

—

Regional and divisional offices

—

4,892

—

—

On Question, Bill read 2a;, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

SUCCESSION (SCOTLAND) BILL [H.L.]
  FORWARD TRUST BILL [H.L.]
  Returned from the Commons agreed to.
  UPPER MERSEY NAVIGATION BILL [H.L.]
  Returned from the Commons agreed to with Amendments: the said Amendments considered and agreed to.