Lords Sitting of 2 April 1974

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.
Several Lords—Took the Oath.

MESSAGE FROM THE QUEEN
LORD MACLEAN: My Lords, I have the honour to present to your Lordships a Message from Her Majesty the Queen signed by her own hand. The Message is as follows:
"I have received with great satisfaction the loyal and dutiful expression of your thanks for the Speech with which I opened the present Session of Parliament."

GREECE: CANCELLATION OF BRITISH NAVAL VISIT
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what are the grounds for cancellation of a reported proposed courtesy visit of British naval units to Greece, our ally in NATO.
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY of STATE, FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS): My Lords, as was made clear in another place on March 19, this particular visit was cancelled because of our concern at the continuing failure of the Greek Government to restore democracy. To have allowed it to continue would have cast doubt on our well-known and frequently expressed views.
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, may I ask the Parliamentary Under-Secretary whether he will urge revision of an ideological policy holding disregard or dislike for the Governments of other
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countries, especially when it may involve loss of employment here, and particularly at a moment when we are seeking massive overseas borrowings? Secondly, is Soviet Russia included in this category—a country where oppression is much greater than in others that we may dislike, and where the balance of payments is £100 million in her favour?
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I suggest that Greece and Soviet Russia are in somewhat different positions in that Greece is a member of NATO, one of the objectives of which is to preserve and maintain democracy. Further, I suggest that we should undertake, as we are doing, a full review of our attitude in cases of this sort against the background of our concern to maintain the efficacy of NATO in every respect, ideological and practical.
THE EARL OF LAUDERDALE: My Lords, would the noble Lord agree there is a contradiction between the line taken by the Foreign Secretary yesterday in the Council of Ministers, when he supported NATO, and this action, which is destructive of NATO?
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I cannot agree that this action is destructive of NATO. We maintain a working relationship with the Greek Government; we are partners and allies with them in NATO. We have, however, the right and duty to make clear to them in appropriate ways our deep concern about the way in which internal policies are proceeding in Greece, particularly the intensified suppression of human rights in that country. Secondly, regarding what my right honourable friend said yesterday, if the noble Earl will study my right honourable friend's words further he will find that there is absolutely no contradiction between what I have said and what he said yesterday.
THE EARL OF LAUDERDALE: My Lords, would not the noble Lord agree that an appropriate way to deal with Greece is not the same as an insulting way?
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, this is not a question of an insult, nor is it a question of behaving in an insulting way. It is a question of a democratic country endeavouring to uphold the principles for which NATO was

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established, and conveying to another member of that Alliance its feelings about the way in which that country is proceeding within its own borders.
LORD WYNNE-JONES: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the North Atlantic Assembly, which is the Parliamentary branch of NATO, has not had a representative from Greece since the present Government was formed in Greece; and, furthermore, that other members, practically every member-nation of the North Atlantic Assembly, has been opposed to the presence of Greece?
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, my noble friend answers his own question. I have no desire in the least to intensify the differences between this country and Greece. The fact remains that we are not alone in condemning the Greek régime's policy of the suppression of human rights in that country. The attitude implied in the Assembly, by what my noble friend has said, bears out, and testifies to, the correctness of this country's attitude.
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, can the Minister say, since we are in diplomatic relations with Greece, what are the criteria for cancelling courtesy visits anywhere?
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, this was to be, as the noble Baroness has said, an informal national visit. We are now engaged in a review of the general position relating to these and other such visits against the background to which I have referred, and taking into account other factors, including our responsibilities as a Member of the North Atlantic Alliance. I hope that the results of that review will be conveyed to both Houses of Parliament.
LORD MAYBRAY-KING: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that the gesture of Her Majesty's Government has been received with happiness by the freedom-loving citizens of Greece; and that they resent bitterly the Greek Government's imprisonment of a distinguished former Greek Minister, Mr. Mavros, merely because he has said that he approves of what this Government have done?
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, what my noble friend says is absolutely true. We are aware of these facts. But my noble friend, and other noble Lords, will not expect me to engage in any detail about individual cases. I would simply repeat that we view with very great concern indeed the policy followed by a partner and ally of ours in NATO in relation to the kind of incident and individual to which my noble friend has referred.
THE EARL OF ONSLOW: My Lords, could the noble Lord tell us—
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (LORD SHEPHERD): My Lords, I think that the noble Baroness. Lady Emmet of Amberley, was on her feet before the noble Earl. Perhaps he would give way to the noble Baroness.
BARONESS EMMET OF AMBERLEY: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord the Leader of the House for giving me the opportunity of asking the Minister in charge whether he realises that if he counts on his fingers the number of countries that have a "Westminster Government", he will find that he has very few friends left in the world.
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, it is a question of upholding the principles of democracy and, in that way, of being true to our obligations to NATO, which has, I repeat, if one so likes to call it, an ideological as well as a practical objective.
THE EARL OF ONSLOW: My Lords, could the noble Lord tell us, first, whether joint exercises of troops, which may or may not have been planned, will take place in future? Secondly, is he aware that several noble Lords on this side of the House hold the barbarity of the present Greek régime as dirty as he does?
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I appreciate what the noble Earl has just said. On the question of future visits, I cannot go further than what I just said about the Government's reviewing the whole position against the background of, among other factors, NATO and NATO policy.
LORD MERRIVALE: My Lords, may I ask the Minister to what extent he feels that the Government's action will influence the present Greek Government towards

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the restoration of democracy? Does the Minister not feel that if the Government continue along this line the only effect will be that France, Italy, Germany and the United States will be supplying to such countries as Greece, Portugal, South Africa, Chile, and so forth, much more than we shall be in the future?
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, on the second part of the noble Lord's observations, I would say that I very much doubt it. On the first part, I would hope that the influence which this country can bring to bear on the Greek régime, through this Administration and their predecessor, might prove helpful to people who are suffering from oppression in Greece.
LORD GARDINER: My Lords, after the mutiny of units of the Greek Fleet and the subsequent wholesale retirement of officers and men opposed to the régime, can it any longer be considered that the Greek Fleet is a reliable or efficient component in any NATO Force?
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, that is an interesting and technical question into which at the moment I would not wish to enter.
LORD STRATHCLYDE: My Lords—
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, may I suggest that after the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, has put his question we should move to the next Question.
LORD STRATHCLYDE: My Lords, can the noble Lord say whether, before coming to the decision to cancel this visit, Her Majesty's Government took fully into consideration its possible effect on the Greek Government's placing further orders with British shipyards for naval vessels; and, in particular, its effect on the negotiations, now in their final and most delicate stage, on the Greek Government's orders for two frigates, to a value of £50 million?
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, to both questions the answer is, Yes.
LORD STRATHCLYDE: That is daft.

SOUTH AFRICA: PRACTICES OF BRITISH FIRMS
2.54 p.m.
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 what decisions they have made on the recommendations of the all-Party Commons Committee on the practices of British firms in South Africa.
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, my noble friend the Chief Whip indicated in reply to our debate on March 14 that we welcome this Report. My right honourable friend the Prime Minister said in another place on March 21 that he had asked the Ministers concerned to study it as a matter of urgency and that he expected that the Government would soon be in a position to announce action to give effect to its recommendations.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, in thanking the Minister for that reply, may I ask whether this consideration will include the recommendation that the Departments of Trade and Industry should prepare a code of advice to British companies in South Africa, first to obtain a living standard for the African workers, and second, for encouragement of their trade unions?
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I have said that Her Majesty's Government have given a general and warm welcome to the Report and its recommendations. The code to which my noble friend refers is indeed an admirably comprehensive statement of the matters to which any conscientious employer should have regard. I am quite certain that the question of the most effective way of commending its adoption to British firms is uppermost in the minds of Ministers.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, may I put to the Minister what I recognise is a rather unusual question? Are the Government appreciative of the fact that exposure of the conditions in South Africa was largely due to Adam Raphael of the Guardian, who has probably done more to lift standards of life in South

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Africa than all the campaigners and all the campaign organisations? And will the Government make some recognition of that by a tribute to him?
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I cannot of course respond to the invitation at the end of my noble friend's observations; namely, to make some recognition, or say anything on that point. But I join with him, as I am sure the House would generally, in paying tribute to the efforts of this very conscientious journalist in exposing these facts.
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, as the Minister's first reply appears to give indication that the Government themselves are taking part in this connection, as against what was not Governmental but Parliamentary' investigation, is it to be understood now that the Government themselves intend to instigate inquiries of this kind in other countries, particularly African countries, regarding rates of pay which are the internal business of those countries?
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: Not necessarily, my Lords. It has not been our direct practice in the past. The position is that as the Trade and Industry Sub-Committee have reported to the House, the Government take due note of what they have recommended and, as I have said, give a general and warm welcome to their recommendations.
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, it is intended to confine such activities in the internal affairs of other countries to South Africa, or is it to be extended to other countries, in Africa or elsewhere?
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I think that that question is somewhat hypothetical, but it might be helpful if I said that the Sub-Committee recommended certain codes which the Government will seek ways of commending to employers.

CONCORDE PROJECT
2.58 p.m.
THE EARL OF KINNOULL: 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 how far the Secretary of State is relying on the views of the public in reaching a decision on Concorde; and how soon he intends to make his decision.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF INDUSTRY (LORD BESWICK): My Lords, the decision on the future of the project lies with the Government in consultation with our French partners. My right honourable friend held his first meeting with his French colleagues last Friday. But, as my right honourable friend has emphasised, by proceeding as the Government have, in making known the information available to them before a decision is taken, all those interested have the opportunity to put forward their views, and of course these views will be taken into account. I cannot say when a decision will be taken, but the Government recognise the need to allow time for consultations and representations while not wishing to prolong the period of uncertainty any more than is strictly necessary.
THE EARL OF KINNOULL: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for that reply. May I ask him whether, in view of the intense public interest and of the apparent contradiction of both opinion and fact between his Departmental review, published I think a week ago, and the subsequent reply of B.A.C. contractors, he will consider requesting his Department to issue a further Statement for clarification, particularly on their estimate of cancellation costs, and particularly on their gloomy forecast of sales and the cautious time of entry into service, to keep public opinion better informed?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, B.A.C. sent an interim reply, and I understand that they are now considering the matter further and will send a more considered and detailed reply to the Statement which my right honourable friend originally made. I cannot say in what form any comments we have to make upon those observations will be made, but certainly whatever decision is taken will be supported by further facts.
THE EARL OF KINNOULL: My Lords, if B.A.C. can persuade the Department

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that some of the Department's figures are incorrect, will the noble Lord undertake that the Department will issue a further Statement?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I certainly give an undertaking that if my Department (and it is not simply my Department that is involved) is proved to be inaccurate that fact will be taken into account.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, can my noble friend say what is likely to be the position if France decides to proceed with the Concorde and we in this country decide to cancel the Concorde? Further, can my noble friend say what is likely to be the cost in unemployment benefit and social security benefit and the loss of trade and the like, as a result of the cancellation of Concorde in Great Britain as compared with the further cost of building Concorde?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, as to the first part of my noble friend's question, what he is putting before us is a hypothesis—it is interesting but still a hypothesis, and therefore I cannot answer it. As to the second part of the question, in the figure of £80 million which was published as being the losses involved in cancellation there was an element of £20 million for redundancy pay and some unemployment benefit. It is suggested, however, that this figure was possibly over-optimistic and it is being looked at again.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, can the noble Lord say what figure in compensation we should have to pay the French Government if we decided to cancel Concorde?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I thought I said that the whole question of cancellation and any liability to the French is hypothetical.
LORD THOMAS: My Lords, will not the noble Lord agree that in view of the fact that most of the components for the 16 Concordes have been machined and the only question is one of assembly, this is the wrong time to speak about cancellation? Also that, whatever arithmetic may be available to date, until the Concorde has been offered to the public and the load factor it attracts has settled down, it is not practicable at this stage to make a forecast of its profitability or otherwise?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, the noble Lord, out of very considerable experience, puts forward a point of view which I think should be taken into account.
LORD GRIMSTON OF WESTBURY: My Lords, will the Government bear in mind that, taking the long view, supersonic travel will be the thing of the future, and that if we do not go on with manufacturing the Concorde somebody else will produce a similar aircraft—probably Russia?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I think that what the noble Lord has said is absolutely incontrovertible, and this ought to be looked at within a time-scale of no less than 30 years.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, so many figures have been published about the Concorde by the noble Lord's right honourable friend, in order that the public might know the facts, that surely the cost to this country of cancellation, if cancellation is to come about, must be known. I ask the noble Lord whether or not he has those figures, and if he has them whether it is possible for us to know them?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, what my right honourable friend has said—and he has received a good deal of support in the attitude he has adopted—is that the public at large should be given all the facts that are known; what the noble Earl is asking for is something which is not known. It is quite impossible to say what, if any, attitude the French Government would adopt in the event of that hypothetical situation arising.
LORD SLATER: My Lords, will not my noble friend agree that the supplementary question asked by the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, suggests that he is trying to impress upon this House that as a member of the previous Government he—and they—did not know what was the situation in regard to the Concorde before the present Government took over?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I am much obliged to my noble friend. I think what he has said is in fact the case. If the figure were known it would be known to the previous Administration, as would all the other figures.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, may I ask this further question which is not related to hypotheses? Is it within the

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compass of Her Majesty's Government to say how many people will actually remain unemployed as a result of the cancellation of Concorde?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, the figure of 21,000 has been mentioned as being directly involved, but of course there would be some indirect consequences as well.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, may I suggest that we should now proceed to the next Question: we have spent twenty minutes, a long time, on the first three Questions.

AGENCY NURSES AND N.H.S. HOSPITALS
3.6 p.m.
BARONESS MASHAM OF ILTON: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what proportion of National Health Service hospitals employ nurses obtained through private agencies; and whether they consider that the payment of agency fees is a good use of public money.
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, at September 30 last year agency nurses and midwives were employed in 14 per cent. of the National Health Service hospitals in England and Wales and formed 3 per cent. of the total employed. Agency nurses are brought in only when this is necessary to avoid serious adverse effects on services to patients in the National Health Service hospitals. A comparison of the total cost to the National Health Service of agency nurses with the cost that would have been incurred if nurses had been directly employed is not possible because agency charges vary and directly employed nurses are paid on a scale and not on a flat rate. But in some cases your Lordships will be interested to know that there is little difference when account is taken of paid sick leave, holiday and superannuation provisions for the directly employed nurses.
BARONESS MASHAM OF ILTON: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for his Answer may I ask him now how
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many private agencies there are, and whether someone with nursing qualifications is always involved in the licensing and inspecting of the existing agencies? Also because the number of agencies is increasing, does he consider that it might be beneficial if the National Health Service ran their own?
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I am sorry that I cannot give your Lordships the actual number of agencies, but I will undertake to ascertain that number and, if the noble Baroness wishes me to do so, I will of course let her have it.
The nursing agencies are required by the Nurses Agency Act 1957 to be licensed, and all I can say in reply to that part of the question is that from April 1 1974, yesterday, the licensing authorities are the councils of the non-metropolitan counties, the London boroughs and metropolitan districts and the Common Council of the City of London. They have power to control the rate of commission that agencies take and from which they meet their overhead expenses and derive their profits. It is normal practice for licensing authorities to use that power.
LORD REIGATE: My Lords, would not the noble Lord agree that agency nursing is a very useful channel for the employment of those who may be temporarily in this country, particularly nurses from Australia, and so on; and that it is of the greatest help in the maintenance of hospitals in the centre of big cities, where living conditions are so difficult and so expensive? Arising out of the last supplementary question, is the noble Lord aware that certain hospitals in London are endeavouring to start their own co-operative agency for this purpose?
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Lord. It is perfectly true that we are dependent upon these agencies and that the teaching hospitals have set up a form of agency from which they hope to recruit qualified nurses.
LORD CROOK: My Lords, can the noble Lord confirm that if nurses were better paid, and therefore more were recruited, we should not need agencies at all?
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I am sorry to disillusion my noble friend, but this just is not so. It has been found by the Department that whenever the salaries of nurses have gone up, so have the payments to nurses by agencies. Consequently, if we judge from past experience, an increase in the wages to the directly employed nurses would not affect the situation.
BARONESS BROOKE OF YSTRADFELLTE: My Lords, can the noble Lord give us any idea of how many hospitals or wards have had to be closed as a result of the shortage of both agency nurses and National Health Service nurses?
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I have no information in that regard, but I will find out and let the noble Baroness know.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, is my noble friend satisfied that the Royal College of Nurses agree with him when he says that the fact that nurses are under-paid is not the reason for the demand for agency nurses?
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I am not aware that the Royal College of Nurses think otherwise. I would refer my noble friend Lady Summerskill to a comment I made a short time ago, that, taking into account superannuation, paid holidays and sick leave, the real income of the directly employed nurse does not vary a great deal from that of the agency nurse.
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, would it not be more appropriate if the agencies were licensed by the Area Health Authority rather than by the local authority? If licensing is the responsibility of the local authority, will the local authorities be instructed to have the closest possible liaison with the Area Health Authorities on the matter?
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, this is a matter we could look into, but I would remind the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, that the regulations which came into force yesterday, April 1, 1974, concern matters that could have been dealt with by the last Government.
LORD CAMOYS: My Lords, I should like to emphasise what was said by the noble Lord—
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Question!
LORD CAMOYS: My Lords, can the Minister tell us what are the basic pay and conditions of the younger nurses as compared with similar persons who come through an agency? I have an idea that we do not pay our young nurses a sufficient amount.
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I cannot give the actual figures to the noble Lord, Lord Camoys, but if he is interested perhaps he will put down a Question to this effect, which I shall be very ready to answer.
LORD SEGAL: My Lords, can my noble friend say what percentage of these private agency nurses are employed exclusively on night duty, when their responsibilities are likely to be less onerous?
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, my understanding is that a high percentage of the agency nurses are in fact employed on night duty. I believe I am right in saying that comparatively few are employed in the ordinary day-to-day routine.
BARONESS STOCKS: My Lords, would the noble Lord agree that one disadvantage of this large proportion of agency nurses as compared with the regular hospital staffs is that one loses personal contact with the patient and in the ward?
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, this is perfectly true. I think one has to bear in mind that with the nursing shortage there are coming back into the sphere of nursing a good many trained nurses who want to work for one or two days a week, and then not regularly every week. In that respect, agency nurses are fulfilling a very real need.
LORD ARDWICK: My Lords, can the noble Lord say what proportion of agency nurses are engaged in the London teaching hospitals?
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, in reply to the noble Baroness, Lady Masham of Ilton, a moment ago, I said 14 per cent. of the National Health Service hospitals in England and Wales are served by agency nurses. I cannot give the actual percentage within the London area other than to say there are more employed in the London and metropolitan areas than in the rest of the country.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, may I again suggest that we now proceed to the next business?

INSURANCE COMPANIES BILL [H.L.]
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD ELWYN-JONES): My Lords, I beg leave to introduce a Bill to consolidate, with certain exception, the provisions of the Insurance Companies Acts 1958 to 1973. I beg to move that the Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Bill read 1a, and to be printed.

DEPUTY CHAIRMEN OF COMMITTEES
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF LISTOWEL): My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That the Lord Merthyr, the Lord Airedale the Lord Douglas of Barloch, the Lord Strang, the Lord Grenfell, the Baroness Wootton of Abinger, the Lord Jessel, the Lord Champion, the Lord St. Helens, the Lord Royle, the Baroness Emmet of Amberley, the Earl of Shannon, the Lord Henley, the Lord Derwent, the Lord Alport, the Viscount Hood, the Viscount Goschen, the Lord Ma bray-King, the Earl of Cork and Or ry, the Lord Nugent of Guildford, the Lord Segal and the Lord Popplewell be appointed the panel of Lords to act as Deputy Chairmen of Committees for this Session.—(The Earl of Listowel.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

MINISTRY OF POSTS AND TELE-COMMUNICATION (DISSOLUTION) ORDER 1974
3.16 p.m.
LORD BESWICK LORD BESWICK rose to move, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications (Dissolution) Order 1974, be made in the form of the draft laid before the House on March 20. The noble Lord said: My Lords, may I explain briefly the purpose of this Order? It is o transfer the responsibilities now exercised by the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications to the
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Secretary of State for Industry and the Home Secretary. Such a reorganisation, involving as it does the dissolution of a Government Department, must, under the Ministers of the Crown (Transfer of Functions) Act 1946, be effected by an Order in Council. The humble Address was moved in another place yesterday and was approved, and if your Lordships will approve similarly the Order in Council will come into effect as soon as possible.
As your Lordships know, the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications came into being on October 1, 1969, as a consequence of the Post Office Act 1969, which also changed the status of the Post Office from a Government Department to a public authority. The Ministry deals with radio regulatory and broadcasting matters on the one hand, and Post Office "sponsorship" matters on the other: it is a small Ministry, employing no more than 460 or so people.
The Government came to the conclusion that there was no advantage in retaining a seperate Ministry to deal with these two tasks. They therefore propose to transfer responsibility for the Post Office, with its vast capital investment programme, to the Secretary of State for Industry, and to place the responsibility for radio and broadcasting matters, which is primarily a regulatory function, in the hands of the Home Secretary. As a matter of law, it is necessary only to transfer all the functions of the present Minister to the Secretary of State, but in practice they will be divided between the two Secretaries of State on the basis I have indicated.
I can assure your Lordships that this Order will do no more than transfer the functions of the present Ministry—it will not change them. In other words, the Department of Industry will become the sponsoring Department for the Post Office in the same way as the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications has been hitherto, and the transfer to the Home Office of responsibility for broadcasting matters will in no way affect the licensing procedures or the traditional independence of the broadcasting authorities in this coutry. I hope therefore that, with this assurance, your Lordships will find it convenient to approve this Order today.
Moved, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications (Dissolution) Order 1974, be made in the form of the draft laid before the House on March 20.—(Lord Beswick.)
3.18 p.m.
LORD DENHAM: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, for the way in which he has so concisely and clearly explained this Order to your Lordships. We on this side of the House agree that this is probably a sensible change. The only comment I would make about the way this is being done is that the Government seem to have been in rather a rush to do it so early in their Administration. But perhaps any changes that this Government wish to make while in office had better be done fairly quickly. I am not quite so confident that Her Majesty's Government have chosen the right Departments in which to house the two component parts of the old Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications. I am just wondering whether the Party of noble Lords opposite had any long-term plan to do anything of this nature when they steered through Parliament in 1969 the Post Office Act, and, if so, why perhaps they did not make the change at that particular moment.
As regards the telecommunications side of the Post Office, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, will be able to reassure me that there will not be any conflict of interest owing to the control of the new Department of Industry. The Post Office will naturally want the best possible equipment. The Department of Industry might, with their very much wider interests, prefer them to buy in a particular direction. Can the noble Lord give the assurance that the Post Office will be free to buy competitively as they think best in their long-term interests?
I understand that within the Home Office broadcasting will be under the particular wing of the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, and, if that is so, we shall look forward very much to debating any matters of broadcasting that may arise in this House. In spite of the fact that the new home of broadcasting is to be the Home Office, whose interests are perhaps the subject of more broadcasts than any other Department, we can be confident that there will be no greater
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degree of programme control than in the past. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, touched on that in his opening speech. There is just one other point. I wonder whether the noble Lord could go a little further than he did in his opening remarks on what exactly will be the new responsibilities of the Home Secretary with regard to broadcasting.
LORD SLATER: My Lords, perhaps I may say a few words with regard to the Statutory Instrument which is now being presented to your Lordships' House. My six years in office included taking the Post Office Bill through Committee. It consisted of no fewer than 142 clauses and 38 Schedules, and we had a tremendous task set before us on that particular occasion and I might add, for the benefit of noble Lords, that this takes us back into the past. The idea of taking the Post Office away from Ministerial control, making it as it were a service industry to the nation, goes back to about 1931, when the idea was sponsored by the late Clem Atlee, later Earl Attlee, who sat in this House, and it took a long time before we were able to bring ourselves to believe that the Post Office ought to be taken out of the hands of Ministers and brought into the ambit of a Board.
There is a very important factor in regard to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Denham—and he was interested in Post Office affairs during the period of the last Government—that the Government have been rather hurried in bringing forward the Order for this transference to take place. May I remind Lord Denham and other Members of the House that the previous Government did not carry out the Act as it was passed by both Houses because, although provision was made in the Act for two Ministers to be in control of that Department, the previous Government gave that control to one Minister, and made him the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications. The only objection raised during the course of the Committee stage in regard to the number of Ministers to be appointed to that particular Department was in regard to the Parliamentary Secretary; and it so happened that I was the first Parliamentary Secretary transferred from the old Ministry to the new Ministry when it came into being.

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However, I think it is a very good move that is now taking place. I can say to Lord Denham, in answer to the question he posed to my noble friend, that this idea never entered into our thinking when we sought to bring that Bill into Committee and throughout the long period of time that it took us, working through that Committee, to place it upon the Statute Boo. The only regret I had, so far as this Board was concerned, was that after the appointment of the chairman of the Board the previous Government immediately set about getting rid of our appointee, who was following on the work that we had put into operation when we were Ministers within that Department, and seeking to look after the interests of the post Office and the people of this country.
May I say, in conclusion, that each and every person working within the Post Office, as a result of the Bill as it was passed and carried through both Houses of Parliaments, s in an office of trust. The sooner we remember this the better for the Post Office and what it will be able to do in the future. Let us never forget that the monopoly section within that particular Act gives the Post Office the right to undertake its own manufacture, if it feels so disposed; therefore when the Post Office is transferred to the Department of Industry that right will in no way, if that Act is to be kept in effect, be transgressed upon.
LORD WINDLESHAM: My Lords, I do not want to follow the noble Lord, Lord Slater, in what he said, although on this side of the House we recognise the long interest he has had in matters concerning the Post Office. He was, as he told the House, Assistant Postmaster General for a period of some years when he was in another place.
I should like to make use of this opportunity to pay a tribute to the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, and also to raise one point of principle which I hope the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, will note and will pursue with his right honourable friend the Home Secretary. In the years when I was engaged in Independent Television—and the noble Lord, Lord Hill of Luton, was Chairman of the then Independent Television Authority—I had many dealings with the Post Office in their
820
broadcasting role, and later, in the last year or so, with the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications. I found in the Broadcasting Department of that Ministry an exceptionally conscientious group of people who made considerable efforts on behalf of the broadcasting services. It cannot have been very easy for them (the noble Lord, Lord Hill of Luton, will remember this), when Independent Television came along, to adjust to their new responsibilities, but I think that most of us who worked in Independent Television at the time felt that we, as well as the public at large, had been well served by the group of officials in the Broadcasting Department of the Ministry.
The point of principle is this, and I hope that the noble Lord will take careful note of it. The responsibility for broadcasting is now to be transferred, we are told, to the Home Secretary. On this side of the House we do not dissent from that. But the Home Secretary, and the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, who will be working closely with him, will now be the Minister for broadcasting, the Minister responsible for the health and standards of the broadcasting organisations of this country. They will have to keep that responsibility quite clearly separated in their minds, from something else which from time to time they will be asked by their colleagues to do; that is, to make representations to the B.B.C. and I.T.V. on matters of political balance on behalf of the Government. They will at times be urged to intervene, as all Ministers are (the noble Lord, Lord Hill of Luton, knows this as well as I do), on behalf of their Party. It has always been a principle that the Minister for Posts and Telecommunications, and the Postmaster General before him, is the sponsoring Minister; that he has never been involved with representations as to whether a programme is biased or insufficiently balanced. That has been a matter for the Chief Whips of the Parties; or sometimes the Prime Minister, or maybe his Chief Press Secretary, or whoever he delegates to act in this way. It is not a matter for the Minister who is responsible for the standards and for the independence and, above all, for the finance of the two broadcasting organisations. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, when he replies, will be able to say something on this issue, because it

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is one that all those of us who have worked in broadcasting and thought about the implications know to be of considerable importance.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I am very grateful to those noble Lords who have commented on this Order. I am sure that we were particularly interested in what my noble friend Lord Slater said about his experiences, and he has enabled me to share with him and with the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, in congratulations and thanks to all the servants of the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications. I am sure we all agree that we are indebted to those who have served in that organisation.
The noble Lord, Lord Denham, suggested that there was something of a rush to introduce this Order. I must confess that I cannot agree with him on that, although I am always delighted to agree with him whenever I can. If the thing were to be done, it were best done fairly quickly at the outset of the new Government. The disposition as between the Department of Industry, which has responsibility for certain industrial affairs and experience in investment in industry, is surely the logical choice, so far as the Post Office is concerned; and, on the other hand, these former responsibilities go as they were to my right honourable friend the Home Secretary. The noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, is of course right in saying that in this House we shall have the advantage of having my noble friend Lord Harris of Greenwich as spokesman for that Department. I am sure that my noble friend greatly appreciated the observations made by the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham.
LORD WINDLESHAM: My Lords, the noble Lord says that we shall have the benefit in this House of hearing the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, on these matters. But could he tell me whether the noble Lord, Lord Harris, is to have an overall responsibility, within the Home Office, for the day-to-day supervision of broadcasting policy and not just responsibility in this House?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I take the point. Under the authority of the Secretary of State for the Home Department he will have responsibility for this
822
section of the overall Home Office responsibilities. The point I make is still valid, that we have the advantage of the presence of the noble Lord, Lord Harris, in this House. Although I understand the importance of the point which the noble Lord was making, I do not quite understand his fears. The responsibilities which the Home Secretary will now carry are no greater and no less than were the responsibilities previously held by the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications, so there can be no question of the new dispensation exercising greater control over the broadcasting media. There is no question of that at all. I am very pleased indeed to give the noble Lord the assurance for which he asked.
LORD WINDLESHAM: My Lords, this is not the assurance for which I asked. I was not suggesting that there would be greater control. I was suggesting that, because the Home Secretary is a member of the Cabinet, which the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications has not been, and because he is a very senior Minister and is likely to be involved with chairing Cabinet Committees and will be part of the central policy-making group in this Government, there will be a risk that his independence as the sponsoring Minister for broadcasting may come into conflict with furthering the interests of the Government as against the Opposition. My point is that it is a legitimate function for Government to apply pressure on the media as it is a legitimate function for Opposition Parties. But the two functions must not become blurred. The sponsorship of broadcasting must be kept distinct, as it has been in the past, from the representational functions which lie properly elsewhere.
LORD SLATER: My Lords, is it not true to state that any Members of your Lordships' House, or any Members of the other place, are so privileged that they will be able to direct Questions on to the Order Paper for any relevant information they desire and take the Secretary of State for the Home Office to task if something, as they see it, is not in their favour and not in their interests? As the noble Lord is aware, the devolution of responsibilities to the noble Lord, Lord Harris, is a matter for the Secretary of State for the Home Department, who will be responsible for the designation of

823
the appointments that have been made within that Department.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I think that I remember the distinction which the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, was making. I have many times in this House and in the other place heard the point that a Department was disadvantaged by virtue of the fact that the sponsoring Minister was not a member of the Cabinet. This is the first time I have ever heard it put before Parliament that a sponsoring Minister is somehow placed at a disadvantage because he is privy to the deliberations that go on in the Cabinet. I think I understand what the noble Lord was saying, and I can only repeat that this is a point that has occurred to all those who have discussed this matter, and I am empowered to assure the noble Lord and the House that there is absolutely no question that the Home Secretary's relationships with the B.B.C. Governors and with the Broadcasting Authorities will be the same in the future as they have been in the past. I hope that this will satisfy the noble Lord.
The noble Lord, Lord Denham, seemed to think that there may be some conflict of interest when it comes to re-equipment. Here again I think that the fears are possibly not well founded. However, what has been said will certainly be taken into account. The noble Lord also asked me whether this change was something that was in the minds of the Labour Party, or the Labour Government, when the 1969 Act was put through. I refer him to the authority of my noble friend Lord Slater, who was closely concerned with that Bill, and who said it was not in our mind at all.
The noble Lord, Lord Denham, asked me whether I would spell out a little more the precise range of responsibilities that will now fall on my noble friend and, through him, the Secretary of State for the Home Department. If I read these out it will be seen that there is a great deal to be done without even trying to interfere with the programme content of the broadcasting authorities. Broadly, the Home Office will receive the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications powers under the Wireless Telegraphy Acts (powers to control the use of frequencies), the B.B.C's Charter and Licence Agreement,
824
the Independent Broadcasting Authority Act and Part IV of the Post Office Act 1969. The Minister's other functions will go to the Department of Industry, as I have said. In practice, the Home Office will acquire the Radio Regulatory Division, which licenses the use of frequencies, for example, for aeronautical services, private mobile radios, maritime services, and negotiates international agreements on the use of the frequency spectrum; the Broadcasting Department, which is responsible for advising Ministers on policies relating to the B.B.C. and I.B.A. (which include the authorisation of the B.B.C. and I.B.A. transmitters) and on broadcasting generally, including the use of frequencies for broadcasting and the use of cable to provide broadcasting services; the Directorate of Radio Technology, which provides the engineering support for the Radio Regulatory Division and the Broadcasting Department. I hope that, with these details, noble Lords generally will be satisfied that this is an Order which can be safely approved.
3.39 p.m.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, noble Lords may be somewhat surprised that the submission of this Order for your Lordships' approval has given rise to a debate, but as the dialogue proceeds I am not at all surprised because it appears that this ought not to be a final decision. My noble friend, in replying to a suggestion made from the Opposition Front Bench, said that there was no reason why there should be delay, and said that if this decision has to be taken it ought to be taken quickly. I am not so sure. It seems to me that the matter of broadcasting, which is associated with the media, important as it is now, may become much more important in the future. Without offering an ultimate view, it would appear to me that there might be greater advantage both to the media and to the customers, the clientele, and the country in general, if we had a separate Ministry with an independent Minister.
There have been discussions in the past about the intervention of the Cabinet in the matter of broadcasting—for, instance, whether a programme is suitable or not—and whenever that matter has been raised. I recall from past debates in the other place, the reply has always been that it

825
is entirely a matter for either the B.B.C. or the I.T.N. or any of the companies concerned, and not for a Cabinet decision. But it would appear to me that, if the Home Secretary is to be involved in this matter, with the vast range of subjects that come before him from time to time it might be very difficult for him to take an independent line. It may seem a little farcical to Members of your Lordships' House when I mention it, but I can recall what happened many years ago in the time of the first Labour Government, of which I was a Member. We were faced with the Campbell case, in which somebody who had been accused of taking subversive action, or making a statement of a subversive character, was immediately indicted on the submission and action of the Attorney General of the time, Sir Patrick Hastings, and no doubt with the endorsement of the Director of Public Prosecutions, and the Cabinet was alleged to have intervened. There was a terrific row; indeed, it was one of the contributory factors in the resignation of Mr. Ramsay MacDonald and the downfall of the Government, which affected me personally because I was just getting warmed up.
Without, as I say, offering a final view on this matter—it has only been thrown at us only in the last few minutes—I would beg my noble friend, and I know how responsive he can be, to take note of what the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, has said. It would be very improbable that I should agree with all that the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, has said, but somehow I gained the impression that this ought not to be the final decision. I would prefer, and I offer it as a tentative view, to have something of the nature of an independent Ministry, with an independent Minister who can take an independent view when matters of broadcasting, either television or radio, come up for discussion. There may be a lot more to be said about the matter, but I should like to indulge in further reflection before I proceed.
LORD WILLIS: My Lords, may I come in on the heels of my noble friend Lord Shinwell, to say very briefly that I endorse what he has said, and to suggest to the Government that they might examine carefully the experience in Australia, where a Minister for media was appointed two years ago when the Labour
826
Government took office and it proved remarkably successful. It seems to me that there is a strong case for an independent Department and for an independent Minister.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Shinwell asked whether I would take into account what he has said. If I said that I would not take it into account it would be the first time that my noble friend has spoken over the last thirty or forty years that I have not done so. Of course I am very glad to give the assurance for which he has asked. I was also very interested in what my noble friend Lord Willis, from his great experience, had to say. I am bound to say, however, that the prospect of having a Minister for broadcasting would open up fears which I thought the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, was touching upon. Nevertheless, it is a point of view which has been expressed and it will be taken into account. Possibly, as I am speaking, with the leave of the House, for the third time, I might also say that the Government are considering the wider question of the structure of broadcasting; not, I hasten to add, the question of who shall be the responsible Minister. It is fairly certain that within the next week or two a Statement will be made to the House.
On Question, Motion agreed to: The said Address to be presented to Her Majesty by the Lords with White Staves.

EDUCATION (AMENDMENT) BILL [H.L.]
3.47 p.m.
LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be read a second time, and as your Lordships know, this is the second time of asking. On the first occasion, though I say it myself, we got an enthusiastic unopposed Second Reading, and I am naturally very pleased to have been informed by the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, that he will not oppose the Bill to-day. Therefore I will not make anything like so long a speech to-day as I did on the debate on January 28. I am also informed that it would be discourteous to your Lordships if I presumed on what happened that time and cut things too short, so I will try to reach a compromise.

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There has been an error in the Whips' Office in the list of speakers, and apart from the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, I am at the mercy of two Bishops. The object of the Bill is to enable the Secretary of State to let small communities retain their village school halls or village community centres when they are no longer needed as schools. As the law stands, they have to be sold to the highest bidder, and with to-day's inflated prices this is more than small communities can afford. But that is not all. In most cases these schools were originally given by a local benefactor or group of benefactors. Therefore anyone with the slightest sense of justice would say that these buildings, taken over as a result of the 1944 Act and run since by the local education authorities, should, if no longer used by those authorities, be given back to the original benefactors or their descendants, who are in most cases the local community.
In my own case—and, as I know from my postbag, it applies to hundreds of others—we know who gave the land and who contributed the money; we have the original trust and know that the intention was to benefit the village of Ideford. Therefore as the contribution was 100 per cent. that should be the handback. In other cases, where the local education authorities may have built on an extra room or two, we would expect the Minister to charge the local community that proportion of the hand-back. We are not asking for something for nothing, but as the law stands at the moment it is legalised robbery. And when the hall is the village centre, when there is no other place for the parish council, the women's institute, the youth club and the Sunday school to meet, your Lordships will realise the damage that this sort of legalised robbery can do to a small community.
On January 28, the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, emphasised that this is no Party issue; in fact, he repeated that fact twice. He also underlined the point that the main object of the Bill was that small communities should be able to retain their community centres. I believe he was thinking along the lines of financial assistance from local authorities in order that properties could be bought, as I gather has happened in several cases in
828
his own county of Surrey. I would emphasise that that is not what we are seeking. We are seeking what we consider to be ours by right.
We have the deeds to prove what was the intention of the original donors. For the 1944 Act abruptly to have ridden roughshod over those intentions is, in effect, what we are complaining about. That the Act should give the financial benefit from the disposal of that property to diocesan boards of finance is to do the Established Church a disservice. In my speech on January 28 I gave many examples of that happening. The only defence offered by the authorities who have now been given the benefit of selling the properties has been that, "It is the law." When I asked a Question on this subject last July, that was the Minister's Answer. In a supplementary question, the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, asked, "Why not change the law?" That is what we are now trying to do; but the answer of the Minister then was that it is the law.
So one found it rather odd that in his speech at col. 102 of Hansard for January 28 the Minister stated that his Department and the diocese did not want to find themselves cast in the role of Shylock. Not only did the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, keep saying what the law was, but the solicitor to our diocese, who happens to be a personal friend of mine, also kept saying what it was. I should like to remind them of the Merchant of Venice, Act 1, Scene 4, where Shylock says, "I stand here for the law"; and later "You know the law", and later still, "I charge you by the law". At col. 103 of the Report of that debate, the then Minister said,
"Section 86 was specifically designed to … deploy these endowments, hitherto restricted to one locality … over the whole of each diocese".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 28/1/74.]
The local rector underlined those words in Hansard, and in capital letters, in red ink, while recovering from a near apopleptic fit, wrote, "With what moral right?" And then he wrote it again. He, and I, cannot believe that that is what Parliament really believed, and that is borne out by what the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, said on the occasion of our last Second Reading debate.
As I see it, there are two main points. First, there is the importance of small,

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sometimes very isolated, communities being able to retain their community centres when there are often no possible alternatives. Secondly, there is the moral question of what right has anyone, even Parliament, to tamper with wills and charitable trusts? I believe that no one has, or should have, that right, and in my case it is as plain as a pikestaff what my ancestor and his fellow local inhabitants intended. It is in the deed of trust, as I demonstrated to your Lordships on January 28. With our money we built a school hall for the parish of Ideford for the use of adults as well as for infant education, for Sunday school as well as for day school, and it is there in black and white. This became, and still is, our only centre. Our intentions were obvious.
The euphemistic language of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St. Albans on January 28 cut no ice. His suggestion, at col. 88 of the OFFICIAL REPORT, that we might use the vestry for community affairs is interesting, because the vestry of our church is 8 ft. by 6 ft. As I understand it, one of the main arguments used against imposing museum charges was that some of the donors had willed their pictures or antiques, or whatever it was, free to the people of the country or of the locality. If that is the case, then the pinching of the only local centre for the benefit of the diocesan board of finance has even fewer moral grounds to stand on.
Since our last Second Reading debate we—that is, myself and the people of the village—have been on B.B.C. Television's "Nationwide". In our last debate, I gave examples of a large number of places and parishes throughout the country which are being affected by the iniquities of the 1944 Act, and of subsequent Education Acts. Since the television performance I have received many more examples in addition to those which I quoted to your Lordships earlier. I shall quote only three of these, but I am willing to allow anyone who is interested to go through my file to see the hundreds of cases that I have there.
One letter I received is from the chairman of Seal Parish Council, a Mr. Jonathan M. Balcon. In asking whether this Bill would cover his case, he stated that his wife's family—the then Lord Hillingdon—gave the land and buildings
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of the infants' school to certain trustees, with the proviso that they be used for all time for the educational, spiritual, moral or other welfare of the people of the village of Seal. After going through the now familiar history of these cases, he concluded by saying:
"It is a totally academic question, but it seems wrong to myself and to a great number of people that the Church should now dispose of something over which they had trusteeship (however that trusteeship was acquired), when the original intention was that the parish as a whole should benefit".
He went on:
"The land should, in all reasonableness, now be available to the parish for the purposes as defined in the original deed in their broadest sense".
I mention that case, in addition to those which I gave your Lordships on January 28, to demonstrate that the problem applies to gifts in this century as well as to gifts in the last century, which is what I was mainly referring to last time.
Another example worth looking into is the case of the Streatham Sea Scouts hall here in London. The scoutmaster told me that they own the building and have a lease on that part of the land till 1985, but the local church council propose to sell it to the Wandsworth Corporation. He wrote:
"In negotiating the sale of the premises the Church authorities have unbelievably not referred to the owners and trustees of the 1964 building who are also the leaseholders."
I mention that case because it is in London and all of my earlier examples were from rural areas.
An even more apposite case is from, to quote his own words:
"A Churchwarden of Christ Church, Loft-house, near Wakefield (Diocese of Ripon), a working-class parish between Leeds and Ripon"
He said:
"Fifteen years ago our 'national' school suffered the fate they have in store for you leaving our parish, like yours, no place to have a Sunday school or meeting".
He, a Mr. Morris, goes on to say that the result has been a diminishing and ageing congregation. He thinks that if the donor's descendants had still been around they might have saved their hall.
When I first started this ball rolling, I hoped that there was some little Order that the Minister could slip in, or promulgate, to put the matter right. But

831
time and time again I had the Shylock-like, "tis the law" shoved down my throat, so much so that I saw no other course than this one, which was suggested as long ago as July by the noble Earl, Lord Onslow. There was criticism of the drafting of the original Bill; it has now been redrafted by my noble and learned friend Lord Wilberforce, to whom many small communities all over the country are grateful, not least myself. Therefore, my Lords, I hope that the Government will not only accept the Second Reading but will assist us as speedily as possible to get something on the Statute Book to save our remaining community centres, especially in the poorer, more remote areas, from what we consider legalised theft. Stealing the heart of a small community is, to my mind, a great social evil.
My Lords, I have stuck my neck out on several subjects in the past 18 years since I have been back in this country. This is the first occasion when my postbag has been 100 per cent. unanimous. This is the file and these are all the letters from people all over the country who are suffering the same threats. Just look at them! People are angry at this state of affairs. I am reminded of Kipling's Norman and Saxon":
"The Saxon is not like us Normans.
His manners are not so polite.
But he never means anything serious till he talks about justice and right.
When he stands like an ox in the furrow, with his sullen set eyes on your own.
And grumbles, 'This ain't fair dealing,' my son leave the Saxon alone".
I think there is a lot of that here. My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a. —(Lord Clifford of Chudleigh.)
4.3 p.m.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I think it may be for the convenience of the House if I intervene at this early stage in the debate to indicate the Government's attitude to the Bill, but may I at the outset say I am sure that the whole House looks forward with great interest to the maiden speech which we are to have from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Wakefield. We shall listen very carefully to what he has to say. To know whether the noble Lord, Lord
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Clifford of Chudleigh, will be pleased with what I have to say we shall have to wait until I have finished; and I shall ask for the indulgence of the House because what I have to say will take a little time. When I spoke from the Benches opposite on Second Reading of the Bill with the same Title introduced by the same noble Lord in the last Parliament, I expressed my sympathy with what appeared to be its principal aim. At the same time I expressed my doubts about the efficacy of its provisions and I expressed reservations about his approach to the problem with which he had to deal. I shall again have to give some time to the expression of my doubts and reservations. But that is not to be taken as detracting in any way from the expression of the Government's sympathy for the noble Lord's aims. On the contrary, I want to emphasise as strongly as I can that the Government fully recognise the importance of the part played in community life by village halls and community centres; and they recognise in particular that the buildings of the village school often serve this purpose out of school hours.
It is in one aspect of this recognition that the Department of Education and Science makes grants towards the capital cost of voluntary provision of halls and centres. But I must remind the House that the provision of these halls and centres is basically a function of local, not central, government, so that the Department's grants, when they are made, are made through local authorities who must decide for themselves on the priority which they give to the various claims on their assistance; and the help which the Department can give us is, of course, always subject, particularly so at present, to financial constraints. I want also to emphasise that the Government feel no lack of sympathy for the village of Ideford, whose case has led directly to the introduction of the Bill. We all recognise what a doughty champion they have in the noble Lord, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh. In a sense, they have been the victims of the defects of a procedure long since abandoned. I am assured that those defects will not recur in the administration of the provision of the Education Act 1973, which has replaced Section 86 of the Education Act 1944, under which the scheme dealing with the village school was made in 1950.

833
There are three aspects of this and I shall, if I may, take a little of your Lordships' time to explain how the Department's practice has changed. First, there is the matter of the site on which the school was built. This was presented, free, under the School Sites Act on terms which provided for the site to revert to the heir of the original grantor when the school was closed. The 1944 Education Act contained a provision, reproduced in Section 2 of the Education Act 1973, which enabled the Minister to exclude the operation of that provision for a reverter provided the heir either could not be found or was willing to relinquish his rights. In the early years of the administration of that provision the Ministry's efforts to find such heirs were, and I put it frankly, a trifle perfunctory. That is no longer true. To-day no Order preventing the operation of the provisions for reverter is made unless the Department is fully satisfied that it is proper to make the Order. Secondly, as events have shown, the Ideford School was included in the scheme under Section 86 of the 1944 Act nearly a quarter of a century before it closed. The modern practice is to include in a scheme only the premises of schools which have closed, or are expected to close, in the near future. That practice is of course reflected in the terms of Section 2(1) of the 1973 Act.
Thirdly, the Department's practice now is to provide for the division of the proceeds of sale of a foundation where there is a strong local interest and it can be shown, as it can certainly be shown in the case of Ideford, that the original trusts covered other matters besides the provision of education in a school. This change of practice too is reflected in the terms of Section 2(4) of the 1973 Act.
Finally, may I say that the Government feel some sympathy if there is a desire to keep the commercial developer out of the village of Ideford—and I have had the feeling throughout that that is one of his aims additional to those of which the noble Lord has spoken this afternoon. Whether this Bill indicates the right way to set about this laudable object is, however, another matter. I am informed that there has been a planning application with regard to the site. I understand that there has been a decision with regard to that application and that an appeal is
834
being made. In the circumstances it would be highly undesirable that I should say more than that it may well be that somewhere along the line the answer may—and I only say "may"—be found here. Certainly there ought not to be read into what am saying that I am trying in any way to prejudice the situation.
I have mentioned these aspects of the Ideford School case specifically, not only because I want to make it abundantly clear that the Government are not unsympathetic to the purposes of this Bill, but also because they are relevant to the way in which my right honourable friend proposes to exercise his functions under Section 2 of the Education Act 1973, with which this Bill is concerned. In passing, I must observe that because it is so limited, I am advised that this Bill does not apply to the proposed sale of the endowment of the village school of Ideford on which the noble Lord's proposals are founded. But having expressed my sympathy for the noble Lord's objects, I must, as I indicated I would, go on to express my doubts and reservations about his Bill. Some of these doubts and reservations relate to matters of principle and others to practical considerations of the administration of the provision which he proposes should be added to the 1973 Act.
I shall deal with the questions of principle first. I begin by reminding your Lordships that this Bill, as your Lordships will see from the terms of Section 2 of the Education Act, 1973, is concerned exclusively with the endowments which are held on trust for the provision of denominational education in voluntary schools. That section and this Bill are therefore—and this is a point of some importance—concerned with trusts which are regarded by the law as charitable. The principle underlying Section 2 of the Act is that on the closure of the particular school its endowments shall be applied for the purposes of denominational education in another voluntary school, or other voluntary schools, of the same denomination. This serves two purposes. First, it preserves the investment of the particular denomination concerned in the public sector of education; secondly, it recognises the very substantial contribution made out of public funds towards the preservation of that endowment in the way of the maintenance

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of the school concerned by the local education authority.
The section is also in general accord with the ordinary law of charitable trusts under which, when a particular object of the trust fails—as happens in this context on the closure of the school—the endowment must be applied for purposes as near as may be to the original objects. I mention that point specifically because it may be that the noble Lord, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, thinks that Section 2 involves a fundamental derogation from rights that would otherwise be enjoyed by the local community. As I am advised, that is not the case. If the diocesan board did not apply for a scheme under Section 2 of the 1973 Act—and no order making a claim under that section can be made except on the application of the appropriate diocesan authority—it would be the duty of the trustees to apply to the Charity Commissioners for a scheme under the Charities Act 1960. It is not possible to say in general terms how the Commissioners would deal with such an application, since in the very nature of things every application must be considered on the particular facts of the case. But it seems unlikely that circumstances could ever exist which would justify the Commissioners in making a scheme which would divert the endowment of a trust for purposes of denominational education to purposes which are neither denominational nor educational.
It is simply not the case, therefore, that endowment, which escapes the Department's jurisdiction under the 1973 Act, necessarily becomes available to the local community on the sort of terms envisaged by the noble Lord. It is a perfectly fair point that a scheme made by my right honourable friend under Section 2 of the 1973 Act can apply an endowment in a way which is not permissible to the Charity Commissioners under the Charities Act. But whichever of those two Acts is invoked, the endowment must be applied for purposes which are denominational, educational or charitable. The point—and I shall come to this in a moment—is that this Bill would enable an endowment held for these purposes to be applied, at least in part, for purposes which are neither denominational nor educational, nor even charitable.
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But I must return to the point of principle I was making that all these endowments are held on trusts for denominational education. It does not, of course, follow from this that the school premises forming part of such an endowment must themselves be used in perpetuity for the purposes of a school—indeed it would be physically impossible for that to happen. But it follows that when the school premises are sold the proceeds of sale must be used for those purposes for which the original endowment was created.
The whole purpose of this Bill is to enable the representatives of the local community to buy property, which is, as I have said, trust property, at less than its full value. To the extent that the price they pay is less than the price which the trustees could obtain for it if they were free to sell to anyone willing to pay, there is therefore a diversion of the assets of the trust to purposes not covered by the trust—and indeed, as the Bill is now drawn, there could be a diversion to purposes which are not in law charitable at all. I suggest that the House will wish to take a long and hard look at a proposal to divert trust property from—in some cases far from—its original purposes before giving it legislative effect. I wonder whether the noble Lord is himself a little guilty of putting forward a proposal which would in effect enable local government to engross property which was originally the result of private charity. It may be unintentional, but it is a point to which he might give some consideration.
I have referred to the purpose of Section 2 of the 1973 Act in enabling the denomination to preserve its investment in the public sector of education. This, I suggest to your Lordships, is an aspect of the matter that ought not to be forgotten. The provision of the 1944 Act which was reproduced in the 1973 Act was part of the general arrangements made by that great Act for the provision of education in the public sector by religious denominations, and I suggest that it should be looked at in the light of those arrangements. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State will shortly be inviting representatives of the denominations to meet him to discuss the possibility of some further financial assistance to the voluntary aided schools. I do not need to emphasise that in the

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course of those discussions he will have to have regard to the funds available to the denominations from their own sources, which of course include the proceeds of the sale of sites of discontinued schools provided by the denominations.
I need not detain your Lordships very long on the practical aspects of the Bill since these are fairly apparent from its terms. There is, first, a substantial practical question to be answered about how the Secretary of State is to "take into account" the amount of the contributions made by the members of the local community. Are they, for example, simply to be deducted pound for pound from the present open market value? Or is some allowance to be made for inflation? And how, if at all, is the value of the contributions made by the local education authority in maintaining the school to be set off against the contributions made by the members of the local community to building it?
Next—and this is more substantial—I must point out that the Bill envisages two quite separate and not easily reconcilable tests for determining the price at which the land is to be sold. The first, to which I have already referred, is the requirement that the Secretary of State must take into account the amount of the contributions for the endowment made by the members of the local community the second requires the Secretary of State to fix a price which appears to him to be
"reasonable having regard to the resources of the said community".
My Lords, it is not at all clear how this would work in practice.
Let us take the case of an endowment to which the local community made a fairly substantial contribution and which is now valued at a price well beyond their reach. Let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that their contribution could reasonably lead the Secretary of State to fix a price of half the market value of the endowment, but that even this is well beyond their means. Is that price one that is,
"reasonable having regard to the resources of the said community"?
If it is not, is the Bill saying that the local community is to be entitled to purchase at whatever price it can afford to pay? That would be a rather novel principle, surely, in what is in effect part of
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the field of compulsory purchase. If it is not, what, then, is the effect of the concluding words about a "reasonable" price? My Lords, these are not mere matters of drafting: they are questions of substance which will have to be answered if the Bill is to proceed further. At the moment, it is not clear to me what answers could easily or even sensibly, if I may say so with respect, be given to them.
My Lords, I have repeated my expressions of sympathy for the noble Lord's purposes in introducing this Bill; I have amplified the reasons for the doubts and reservations which I expressed from the Benches opposite to its predecessor, since they apply equally to this measure; and I have, further, given assurances as to the future administration of the statute, which I trust will allay at least some of the anxieties of the House about the way the law has been applied in the past. I emphasise once again the Government's sympathy; but it is my duty this afternoon to set out the difficulties. Your Lordships will decide how the Bill is to proceed, and how far it is to proceed in this House. Meanwhile, I have to advise that, for the reasons I have tried to give, I am unable to commit the Government to its support. I hope the House will excuse me for the length at which I have set out those reasons, but I have tried to set them out as fairly, as frankly and as clearly as I can. They are, my Lords, matters of real concern, and I would suggest that the noble Lord, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, if he obtains a Second Reading for his Bill to-day, gives very serious consideration to the points I have laid before the House.
4.25 p.m.
THE LORD BISHOP OF WAKEFIELD: My Lords, it is a traditional courtesy of your Lordships' House to grant to those who make maiden speeches a rather higher place in the order of speakers than would otherwise be the case. This means that I shall precede my right reverend friend the Bishop of Gloucester, which is rather bad luck on him because I know that he has a major speech to make on this subject. It also means that I am, as it were, seconding the resolution before it has been proposed. However, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, very much for his encouraging words a few moments ago.

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I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, will not feel that this Apostolic succession in this corner of the House is putting him at any disadvantage, because I am hound to say that I find myself very much in sympathy with many of the points which the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, has made. I recall that when I was chairman of our diocesan schools executive I came in for a great deal of unpopularity when parishes, finding that their schools were closed, assumed that, since they were their Church schools, they would have the obvious right to take them over and use them as parish halls. But I had to go along and point out that under Section 86 they could have them only provided they were prepared to buy them back—and I think your Lordships will realise how difficult it was to persuade them as to the justice of that, because we needed the money for educational work in other parts of the diocese. Nevertheless, I have the greatest sympathy with the reasons given by the noble Lord, Lord Clifford, for introducing this Bill. It is true that in the country, I think especially in the hamlets and villages, there is a great need for premises in which the community may meet for social purposes; indeed, schools, both State and Church, are already in great use in this way as a result of amicable arrangements between those who own the schools and the community. In my part of the West Riding, which died two days ago, alas!, schools and the community joined in amicable arrangements to make this possible. I must, however, take issue with the noble Lord, Lord Clifford, on this matter of "legalised robbery". I am sad to think that many of the exercises in this connection in which I have taken part could be "legalised robbery".
My Lords, the situation at the moment is that if the Churches—and I speak for the Roman Catholic Church and the Free Church as well as for my own—are to play their part in the reorganisation of education, in many cases adapting themselves to comprehensive plans, we shall need a great deal of money to meet our share of the cost of providing new buildings and extending and improving old buildings, bearing in mind the
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fact that the cost of building, as your Lordships will know, is now greatly increased. Where are we to get the money? I would have said that the chief source of that money would be from the disposal of disused Church schools at the highest and best prices we can obtain in order that we can meet our obligations if we are to play our part in the educational programme of the nation.
I should also like to make the point that again and again it is a matter of what the educational trust says. There are many parishes in which the trusts are so worded that there is no question of the diocesan authority laying claim to the money deriving from the sale of such buildings. Other trusts are so worded that we have no alternative than to expect to receive it. But I would ask the noble Lord, Lord Clifford, to moderate his description of it as "legalised robbery", although I repeat that I understand the feeling in villages and small towns when the people find that the school they have always felt to be their own community school is suddenly put up for sale at the best possible price. And it has to be the best possible price—we have no alternative—in order to make it possible for us to extend and improve our stake in the educational programme of the nation. I do not think that there is any question of a sinister scheme on the part of the noble Lord to propose an amendment which would amount to confiscation of Church funds: I am sure that is not the case. I accept that he is fired by a real sense of social justice and social need. I respect very much the reasons he has given for moving his amendment, but I must say that I shall feel bound to vote against it.
4.31 p.m.
THE LORD BISHOP OF GLOUCESTER: My Lords, I am sure your Lordships will all wish to join me in congratulating the right reverend Prelate on his maiden speech, distinguished at once for its clarity and its brevity. He was diffident, he said, about making his speech because, as he told your Lordships, he thought that I had prepared a major speech on this occasion. That is not quite so, your Lordships will perhaps be relieved to hear, and a great deal of what I thought needed to be said has been said by the right reverend Prelate, and indeed also by the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy.

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I fear that anyone dressed as a Bishop is at a great disadvantage in this kind of debate because I am well aware that to many of your Lordships any Bishop who speaks against this Bill must immediately appear as an ecclesiastical bureaucrat, representing those sinister forces known as diocesan authorities and opposing the legitimate interests of good Christian men who are bravely battling to maintain the life and vitality of their villages against the faceless and heartless "townees" who live in the See City. This is a very popular platform and, if the noble Lord, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, will allow me to say so, I am not at all impressed by his envelope of replies. It is very easy to get replies and support from people who think that you are fighting against an authority for something which is local, old and desirable.
As I think everyone would agree, the ends which the noble Lord, Lord Clifford, seeks to gain by means of this Bill are admirable. No one could be Bishop of a rural diocese such as Gloucester without knowing perfectly well the value of a community to the life of a village. Of course one can understand how anxious small communities are to retain this kind of amenity. But the difficulty—and it has been expressed very well by the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy—is to equate the excellence of the ends which this Bill seeks to promote with the injustice of the means—because it is proposing something which is in fact fundamentally unjust.
These village schools were built by public subscription, often with great help from some generous benefactor, and often, again, help was given from outside the village by such bodies as the National Society. They were built by people who thought it important that children should be given a Christian education. Most of them date from the middle of the last century, when this was the great issue in front of the Church. Compulsory education was becoming law and it was a matter of great moment for Church people all over the land as to whether or not this compulsory education was to be Christian or secular. Christians were urged by the National Society all over England to put their hands in their pockets and build schools. And of course they were local schools because that was the way in those days in which ecclesiastical affairs were
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conducted—local parish churches, local village schools and local vicarages.
I am interested in the way in which people who long nostalgically for the days in which everything was in fact local do not seem to realise the plight the local community would be in if it had been allowed to remain local. No village, or very few of them, could possibly afford to have their own parson, for instance, if he were not helped by diocesan funds. Villages are often given great diocesan assistance in the maintenance of their parish churches. The schools about which we are talking, built no doubt by public subscription, have been largely maintained by diocesan help.
I think that if we are going to wish for complete local autonomy we have to remember the changes that have come over the face of England and over the Church of England during these last 80 or 90 years. The fact is that these buildings were put up as schools by people who believed it was important that children should be taught in accordance with Christian principles. When it is no longer possible in a particular village for a particular trust to be fulfilled then of course the assets are transferred to some other place where the purpose of the trust can still be fulfilled.
With the right reverend Prelate, I was amazed to hear the noble Lord, Lord Clifford, talk of this situation as "legalised robbery". I should not call it robbery at all; I should call it the fair and honest discharge of the responsibility which belonged to the trustees of charitable funds—the responsibility of using them for the purpose for which they were given. If this Bill were to become law it would make this almost impossible, or at the very least it would greatly hamper the Church in the discharge of that responsibility. The Bill seeks, it seems to me, to bring about a situation in which a charitable trust which was founded for one purpose may be diverted to another purpose. I do not believe that this is just.
The Church, as your Lordships have been reminded, is faced with great financial problems in maintaining its limited place in the whole field of education. Of course, there are many people who do not see the necessity for the Church having any such place in our system, but

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there are still many of us who think that it is to the advantage of our people that the Church should be a partner, albeit a junior partner, in educational endeavour. This does involve the Church in enormous expense, which we meet largely from the sale of redundant schools in order to build other modernised Church schools. To cut it down drastically would be a very great inconvenience; it would greatly hamper the work of the Church. We shall still have to buy and build at the going rate. It is only when we come to sell something that we would be subjected to this kind of restriction, and that again is not fair.
The noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, has already spoken about the difficulty of administration; it is not necessary for me to say anything more about that. How the wretched Secretary of State determines what is the fair price or rent is very difficult to understand: it would be necessary to take account of the original gift, deduct presumably from it what outside help has been received in maintenance and try to trace the donors. The noble Lord, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, says he has a list of the donors of Ideford School. That is fine; but most schools do not have such a list. In my own diocese I doubt whether anyone is alive who was an original contributor to the kind of schools that we are talking about. Most of the people who now live in the village did not have relatives there 100 years ago. There are great changes in village life. It seems to me quite extraordinary to say that because generous people lived in our village 100 years ago therefore I should be, in some sense, a recipient of an arrangement which most of us are bound to think to be unfair.
That is why I shall have to vote against the Bill. Of course one wants village halls; of course one sympathises enormously with the village when the school is taken away. Over and over again people in my diocese tell me in some sense they feel as if the heart has been taken out of a village when the school is closed. One understands this feeling and has great sympathy with it. We are not going to cure this sorrow by inflicting an injustice, and to take money which is given for Christian education and to use it for social amenity is simply improper.
4.42 p.m.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, I congratulate the right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of Wakefield very much on his maiden speech. He may not know it, but although I am of a different faith from him I have a small parcel of land within his diocese, in the parish of Rothwell-Haigh. I keep in very close contact with it and visit it fairly often, and I know with what respect the right reverend Prelate is held in that parish. I hope that we shall hear the right reverend Prelate more often on this subject as well as on other subjects in this House. The Bench of the Bishops is always greatly respected. Whether the land is getting more Christian or less Christian, I notice that the respect in which the Bishops are held is certainly going up all the time.
I should like to support my noble kinsman, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, in the intention behind this Bill. The eighth Lord Clifford (my great grandfather's first cousin) was largely responsible for this donation; he was the main benefactor of this school at Ideford. The intention was crystal clear: it was for education to be given in this village for the good of the locality. I am not making a Party point, but in the last Government, for reasons which some of us thought good and others did not think good, we suggested that for the betterment of the Arts there should be a small charge for entrance to the museums. I see noble Lords on the Front Bench opposite who took great interest in this subject. It was found that one or two benefactors had given collections of pictures to various museums, and it was put to us with enormous force that the intentions of these benefactors should be overriding: why should anyone give anything to anybody if their intentions were to be overturned one, two, or as in this case, four generations later?
I suggest that there is a parallel in what my noble kinsman, Lord Clifford, is asking your Lordships to consider and what the Government were telling us when they were in Opposition; that is that the intentions of benefactors ought to be considered. This case is an example. As we have heard from the two right reverend Prelates and the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, villages in Devonshire are very much in need of

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community centres. Why should something which had a clear charitable intent be sold for the largest amount of money possible? The sale will not necessarily be for the good of the village; it will be sold to a speculator of sorts for the highest price available, and it will not necessarily be in the interests of the village. My noble kinsman Lord Clifford has said that he knows the original benefactors of the school. Although the principle may be wide—and I respect what the right reverend Prelate, the Lord Bishop of Gloucester, has said, that the principle may go too wide in this Bill—I am sure that there are ways and means whereby this could be dealt with in Committee. The intention in this case is crystal clear and the moral is also clear. It would take a very severe, unthinking person, just for the sake of extra money, whether for the Church or local school, to wish to deprive a village of this natural right which it has had for four generations. My Lords, my speech has been short, but I merely wished to express my benevolent help to my noble kinsman in his very good intention.
4.45 p.m.
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, when we discussed a Bill on this subject during the last Parliament, I spoke in support of it. I do not intend to go into the arguments now because they have been adequately put on both sides. But I make this suggestion. On the last occasion your Lordships gave what was virtually the same Bill as this a Second Reading because you were sympathetic to its purposes, whether or not they were approved of. The point was made very strongly by the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, who was extremely critical about details of the Bill, that if it was given a Second Reading now then it would provide an opportunity for the noble Lord, Lord Clifford, to see whether he could meet the criticisms that were made; and doubtless they could have discussions together. I suggest that, as your Lordships have already given an almost identical Bill a Second Reading in the last Parliament, you should do the same again. What happens in the future depends on the criticisms that the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, has raised. It would be only fair, considering that we all like the objects of the Bill, to give it a Second Reading to-day.
4.47 p.m.
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, I must confess to feeling envious of the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy. When, a little while ago, I was speaking on this Bill from the place he now occupies I had the support of only one Bishop; I notice that he gets two Bishops and an Archbishop. But perhaps I should be flattered that the Bishops thought that I could, because of my clerical background, fend for myself. All I want to say is that I know that the noble Lord, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, is pursuing this popular cause—and it is, as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester said, a popular one—with a different version of the same Bill. Yet still I must confess that I regard it as of doubtful practicality, inadequate scope and very limited effect. I remain, nevertheless, sure that there is no need for any major or radical review or change in the Church/State relationship in this field.
When the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St. Albans was making his maiden speech (and may I say, incidentally, how much I enjoyed the maiden speech of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Wakefield this afternoon) he had some fears that if this matter was pressed too hard it would call into question the whole of the Church/State relationship, which we all know is so difficult and delicate.
I am glad to hear, particularly from the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, that there is still hope of a more flexible approach in this whole matter. I agree with him, both on personal grounds and in the light of my own ministerial experience, that there is need for more sympathy than has been shown in the past towards the fostering and the building up of the health of local communities and local parishes, as compared with the imparting of religious knowledge in diocesan schools. I continue to share the noble Lord's doubts whether this Bill is the right vehicle for such a change and such a more sympathetic approach. Therefore I hope that the right reverend Prelates, the Charity Commissioners and the Secretary of State, together with the noble Lord, Lord Clifford, will find a better way forward.
4.52 p.m.
LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH: My Lords, first of all I would join with

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the other speakers in welcoming the right reverend Prelate and congratulating him on his maiden speech. As I said on the occasion of another right reverend Prelate's maiden speech, "I hope we shall hear from him often, and from now on, on subjects on which we can agree."
I should like, in winding up, to pick up one or two points where some speakers may have missed the point. The question of the heir was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy. I read (he will perhaps recall it) a letter from the great-grandson of the person who gave the land. So it cannot be said that that heir cannot be found. The noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, brought up the question of the appeal and planning permission. Well, my Lords, we—the people who are going to sell—have held up the sale so far because of the planners; and I can assure your Lordships that, no matter what the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester says, the people who have written to me are not just a lot of hoodlums who write for the sake of sending letters. A large number of them are churchwardens; some are vicars. He is welcome to read the letters if he does not believe me. To go back to the appeal, the sale by the diocesan board of finance has been held up because we—that is, the local councillors—have opposed the change of user from a hall to a residence. The diocesan board want permission to make a residence so they can sell it outright, in which case we lose our assets and everything. That is the situation.
The question of maintenance has also been brought up. Since these school halls were taken over as a result of the 1944 Act, the maintenance has been paid by the local education authorities, who have been financed out of the rates; and the villagers have paid their rates for it. So I do not see how that can be used as an argument that they should not retain the use of their local centres.
A great point seems to be made that these schools in these isolated country areas were given for Christian education and therefore the Church of England should now reap the benefit by selling them off. This again in our case—and I know that it applies also to many others—is not particularly so. Those who know my part of the world will realise
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what occurred after the Western rebellion. In the previous reign they had "whipped" abbey land. Somerset, the Protector, "whipped" church land and he created such a vacuum that our part of the world became very Nonconformist, and the vacuum was filled to a large extent by Wesleyans. I am mentioning this only because when, 150 years ago, we gave this village, the donor, my ancestor to whom the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, referred, was not the Church of England. Half the people who contributed to this local school were, as it happens, tenants on the estate. I have the addresses; I know which farms they came from; I know that half of them were Nonconformists. This applies all over the country. Now we say, "What right has the Church of England—which until the 1944 Act never had any right in these local village affairs—to sell the schools?" The easiest thing to do when a village school was created, when a local centre was set up to which the people had contributed, was to get the local parson and the churchwardens as the trustees. Most of the first governors, as in our case, were the main contributors. I really think that that point could be and is being overdone.
Another thing is that originally the building was made for a Sunday school. All right. Is that not continuing Christian education? We have no other place in the village for the Sunday school. Or would the right reverend Prelate like us not to have a Sunday school, so that the money can be used for some brand new school on the outskirts of some large conurbation? My Lords, I do not think that that is the point. I see no difficulty when it comes to deciding what should be done for the local community. If there is a list of contributors, and of how much they gave, surely you know whether it is 100 per cent., or 50 per cent. That should be a very easy matter for the Minister to ascertain.
The other point the diocesan board of finance should remember is that when the 1944 Act was passed those concerned said, "Right! we will make a deal with the Church. When we close down these schools, you must capitalise on your schools for further education." But then the Church's representative said, "But we do not own these; these are all small trusts." So the 1944 Act included a section saying that, "the other Acts, wills and

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so on, are hereby wiped out; and it is in the actual Order so far as we are concerned, which was issued in 1950." The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Wakefield asked, "Where are we to get our money?" The local reaction is, "Where are we to get our centre, for which, after all, we paid in the first place?" This is supposed to be unjust, according to the right reverend Prelate, the Bishop of Gloucester. I do not see that it is at all unjust that the local community should have handed back to it, when the State no longer needs it as a school, a building that it gave and built in the first place. What would the right reverend Prelate do in this case? Would he say: "Right! No centre. No place for the youth clubs. No place for Sunday School. No place for the women's institute to meet. No place for the keep fit class."? What does he expect the young to do? We have only two bus services a week to Newton Abbot, and they run in the afternoon, not the evening.
No, my Lords. I do not in any way pretend that this Bill is perfect. I only hope that by introducing it we can get together somehow or other and make something of this kind work. I am quite convinced there is a terrific feeling throughout the country when people see these things happening: their only centres taken away or else offered at a price they cannot meet. We have only 150 to 200 inhabitants, 60 families; how can we find £15,000? We have collected £4,500 already. Is not that an earnest of our good intentions? As has been suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, I hope that if your Lordships will give this Bill a Second Reading we can save all the trouble of going through any other procedure and get some sort of administrative order. Perhaps the experts and backroom boys can tell me through the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, what should be done so that we can at least save many of these centres before the smaller, poorer rural communities are left homeless.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

LEAD CONTENT (PETROL) BILL [H.L.]
5.3 p.m.
LORD O'HAGAN: My Lords, I beg leave to move that this Bill be now read a second time. I hope that in a few hours' time I shall be feeling as my noble friend Lord Clifford of Chudleigh is feeling now. The Bill I am now introducing is short and precise and I hope almost wholly self-explanatory. I would make an apology at this stage because some of your Lordships may have an incorrect, early copy of the Bill which contains a misprint: it occurred in Clause 1, line 6. where the very important word "shall" was somehow mistyped as "may". I acquit the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, of having anything to do with that typing error.
This Bill provides the Government with the opportunity of choosing their own machinery and their own way of carrying out what it lays on them to do; namely, to phase out and eventually eliminate the lead content of petrol. That is all it does. It provides for Parliamentary scrutiny in Clause 1(2), so this is something in which Parliament will have a voice, in contrast to what goes on at present whereby Ministers can alter the lead content of petrol, as I understand it, as they feel like it. Your Lordships may have had enough of me on this subject. I have asked Questions, Written and Oral; initiated debates; moved Amendments, and I apologise for raising the matter again. But the real apology should not, I feel, come from me. The apology really ought to come from the Department of the Environment and successive Governments, who, by their complacent acquiescence in the dangers of lead in petrol, have forced me to waste your Lordships' time, as you may think, by persistently bringing the matter up.
I want to assure your Lordships, without giving a lecture or preaching a sermon, that I am not pursuing a will-o'-the-wisp and I am not a lone ecological crank crying in the wilderness. The lead content of our petrol is a small but serious matter that needs urgent attention. Many of us may not be aware of the extent of the problem. We do not see lead in the petrol that goes into our cars; we do

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not hear it; we do not smell it. But I must get on the Record the scale of the problem, and I take first some figures which were not given to me by the Government. We must remember that in 1965 nearly 8,500 tons of lead—I repeat, tons of lead—went into petrol. In 1970 the figure was over 8,000 tons. In 1972 (and these are Government figures given me to-day by the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, for which I am grateful) 11,800 tons of lead went into petrol. In 1973 the figure was 12,100 tons. "All right", your Lordships may say, "so that is lead in petrol. What is so worrying about that?" My Lords, when we measure the toxic amounts of lead in blood we measure them in thousandths of grammes. I would ask your Lordships to balance, on one side, the hundreds of tons of lead and, on the other, the thousandths of grammes used to measure toxic levels in blood. By picking some figures at random from the list that the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, has himself supplied me with, I hope I can show your Lordships that this is not a problem which is diminishing. There is a continuing rise in the amount of lead we put in our petrol.
I would at this point return to something which I am sure some of your Lordships may feel is wrong in my Bill. I have asked for the elimination of lead by December 31, 1980. I have asked for that elimination for the reason I have just given, that the problem is accelerating in its importance. Some correspondents have taken me to task and I have been told by the Conservation Society that my Bill is grossly inadequate and that the elimination should take place by the end of next year. In the debate to-day some noble Lords may feel that I have grossly exaggerated the ease and speed with which this could be done, and feel that it could not be achieved by 1980. This is a matter about which we could have much detailed argument, and I hope it can be explored in full, in Committee, if the Bill reaches that stage. If any noble Lord feels that the date prevents him from supporting my Bill, then I hope I can be flexible.
I should like to put this point to the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, and to the House. I am not libelling the character of lead when I say that it is a poison. I am not saying something we
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think is innocent is guilty. We all know that lead is an evil if we imbibe it. What Lord Garnsworthy must do to-day is explain to us what are the good reasons for keeping lead in petrol. There are some economic reasons. I am not an economist; I am not an executive of an oil company; I am not involved in motor manufacture; I am not an exporter. Of course, there would be various difficulties if one were gradually to phase out lead. I accept that. But what I should like anyone who is going to mention these difficulties to do, and what I should like Lord Garnsworthy to do, is this. In mentioning the figures they think phasing out would cost—the costs to refinery plant the cost to engine manufacturers—will they say where they got them? Can they break those figures down, and can they measure them against the possible advantages derived from removing lead? Lead increases engine wear, as we all know. At the same time as they say that these things would be difficult to do, could they bear in mind that the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration Agency is already taking seriously a simple device invented by a British designer which, by using steam or water vapour injection, can remove lead from petrol.
Lead itself is a rare substance. The supply could run out, and it is certainly becoming more and more expensive. We have to justify its continued use on economic grounds; we have to justify its existing use on health grounds. I shall not attempt to anticipate the economic arguments at this stage; I hope I can deal with them when I wind up the debate. But if the present Government—and also the noble Baroness, Lady Young, if she uses the figure that she mentioned in the last debate—mention the global figures for refinery costs for the removal of lead from petrol by 1980. I hope they will also give the source of those figures. I hope they will break them down, and explain them to your Lordships in such a way that we can be sure that the fears of some of our larger companies are unfounded.
I am aware that the oil companies have been reducing the lead content—the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, mentioned it previously—and I am also aware that the motor manufacturers know the dangers of lead. All I am

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trying to do is to eliminate the health hazards. I am not trying to tell motor manufacturers how to conduct their business, and if I am interfering with them I look to them to explain how they can overcome those problems while at the same time overcoming the health hazards.
There have been limits on the quantity of lead in petrol for a long time past. Can the Government explain whether they are going to continue the previous Government's suspension of the limits so far achieved, which the last Government imposed because of the oil crisis? What immediate proposals have they? Are they going to continue them or are they going to stop them?
There is another argument which I will not mention in detail now; I will try to answer it if anybody makes it. That argument says: "Oh yes, you have taken out lead. That's marvellous. But, of course, you are making things much worse. If you take out lead you then create a whole lot of other nasty things and fill the air with all sorts of other wicked substances". I think that argument is over-stated and I hope any noble Lord who brings it up will have good evidence for it.
I should like to put to the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy—and to the noble Baroness, Lady Young, if she is going to continue with the line that she took in Government—whether the Government and the Opposition Front Bench are satisfied that lead in petrol is not increasing to such an extent that we are endangering the health of the community. Is it not the job of the Government to stand up for the individual citizen and his health and well-being against the legitimate economic interests of big companies and big corporations? If we are getting to the critical stage where the interests of the two are on the balance, will the Government take heart, in the knowledge that they will be rewarded for stepping forward and taking action when so many fears are growing in so many communities around the country. For example, can the noble Lord, Lord Gamsworthy, say to-day that we are not reaching a stage where there are dangerous lead levels in the community? I feel that lead is in the dock and we have to prove that it is safe. It is not the other way about, and I am worried by the increasing
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evidence that I hear from the scientific community that there is too much complacency in this country.
Your Lordships may have read about spaghetti junction. I do not like quoting figures in debates in your Lordships' House because I personally always find it difficult to absorb them, and I have not repeated the arguments about the dangerous level of lead in petrol in this country in too technical terms today. But I would ask your Lordships to accept that when lead comes out of the exhausts of cars it does not just settle: it spreads, it blows about, it goes into the country-side, it goes into the reservoirs and into the school playgrounds. It goes into the dust which goes into the houses and from there into the mouths of children via their sticky fingers, and it may go to their brains. There has been a lot of emotional talk about Gravelly Hill, spaghetti junction, but if your Lordships will bear with me for a moment I think there is good reason to believe that it is worth examining Gravelly Hill in detail. Gravelly Hill was not in the middle of a conurbation before spaghetti junction was built; it was open parkland. It was not near a factory which produced lead, so if we examine the results of lead levels taken round Gravelly Hill over recent years since the construction of spaghetti junction there is a fairly good chance that we are measuring lead that has come from car exhausts.
I believe that like me, the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, has been sent some figures concerning the lead levels in blood round the Gravelly Hill interchange, and I know that the Department of the Environment has up to now been very sceptical indeed about the various tests in that area to measure the lead levels in blood They said that the tests had been measured in different ways or that there were important differences in technique. This test was carried out by someone who I understand is a well-known expert. It is an analysis rather than a test, made by a Dr. Waldron, the author of a forthcoming book on sub-clinical lead poisoning.
It is always easy to dismiss lead levels in the blood of children because people say, "Oh, they have been chewing toys or licking paint that has lead in it", or that they have been eating all sorts of extraordinary things that children have

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a craving for. The children go to school and they come home again and one does not quite know where they picked up the lead. The same difficulty occurs in regard to men: has the lead in their blood come from their work, while travelling to and from work, or at home? Therefore I think we can attach a great deal of importance to the lead levels in the blood of women, who are more likely to stay in one place than their children or their husbands. Dr. Waldron's figures show that in May, 1972, the average mean for women in this test was 13·89 milligrammes per 100 millilitres of blood. In March, 1973, the figure was 16·69. So it had risen from 13 to 16. In January, 1974, the figure was 19·21. So the figures were 13, 16, 19 in 1972, 1973 and 1974.
Dr. Waldron's analysis concludes:
"Whilst there can be no doubt that the design of these experiments could have been improved"—
that is the point of the Department of the Environment—
"the analysis reported in this document demonstrated a significant upward trend in the blood-lead level of the Gravelly Hill residents".
My Lords, I could speak for a couple of hours on this matter. I am introducing a modest measure (I am sure it is full of imperfections) to deal with an increasingly serious hazard to the health of the people in this country and their children. I would emphasise "their children", because we know that the small amounts of lead which are found in these women are not far from the dangerous levels causing permanent brain damage in children, especially when we consider the figures that I have quoted were only averages. That they are only averages means there will be some which are considerably higher.
My Lords, I do not want to beat my breast and claim a monopoly of wisdom or concern, but I am sure the Government and the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy (my friend at least until to-day) share the concern with me. I do think that this Government have a special reason for supporting this Bill, which is that the last time we debated this subject, which was on an Amendment in almost identical words, 31 Members of your Lordships' House on the Labour Benches voted for the Bill, including three Members from the present Government
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Bench, including the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy.
I do not want to exaggerate the importance of complete logical activity in public life; that would make prisoners of us all. I am not exaggerating when I say that on a subject of this importance, the country will be looking to the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy (particularly from Birmingham, from which I have had many letters and where I know there is much concern about this matter), for a statement of the intentions of the Government on this matter. They will expect him to keep faith and to ban lead. If the noble Lord feels my Bill would be better incorporated in the Government's own Environment Bill which is on the way, I should be perfectly happy to withdraw my Bill (if necessary, to-day) provided the Government can guarantee my provisions will be included in their Bill. If the Government cannot come to this House to-day to say they will now support what they supported only a few weeks ago in Opposition, I hope they will not be in the position of turning their back on it. I hope that they will give this Bill a favourable passage in this House and a good wind in another place. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord O'Hagan.)
5.25 p.m.
BARONESS YOUNG: My Lords, I am sure that all noble Lords have listened to-day with great interest to what the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, has said in introducing his Bill. We all recognise his sincerity and the great interest he takes in this subject. Indeed, in preparation for this debate I read (as I have no doubt other noble Lords have done) the debate on a somewhat similar Amendment during the Committee stage of the Protection of the Environment Bill when the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, carried the Committee with him and his Amendment was agreed to.
I should like to begin by echoing, his concluding words, because I shall also listen with great interest to what the Government have to say on this Bill. I know the advice that I received only two months ago! But at that time, when the noble Lord carried his Amendment in Committee, he did so with the support of the Labour Party. In the

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course of my remarks there are a number of questions that I should like to put to the Government, but I shall quite understand if it is not possible to reply to all of them to-day.
My Lords, the subject matter of this Bill seems to me to cover three wide areas. There is first the question of the environment, that is, lead emissions into the atmosphere with, secondly, the consequent problems of a possible health hazard. Then there is the problem of energy supplies. It is a question of weighing the balance of the arguments. Conclusive evidence in the course of the last debate indicated that lead is a poison. The effects of it in paint and toys have been measured and are well known. The matter on which I believe there is as yet no conclusive medical evidence is the effect of lead in petrol as emitted into the atmosphere. I hope the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, will be able to tell the House whether any further evidence has come to light since we last debated the matter. Indeed, I shall listen with great interest to what the noble Lords, Lord Amulree and Lord Platt, have to say on this matter.
LORD O'HAGAN: My Lords, if the noble Baroness will forgive me, I did not quite catch what she said. Did she speak of the effect of lead on the environment?
BARONESS YOUNG: My Lords, I said the effect of the emissions of lead into the atmosphere from petrol. As I understand it, that is at the centre of this Bill, and I am looking for conclusive medical evidence on the matter. I listened to what the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, said and I understand (and I hope the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, will correct me if I am wrong) that the right honourable gentleman, Mr. Denis Howell, has set up a committee to investigate the effects of lead emissions into the atmosphere at sphaghetti junction. I understand this is an area where a number of children play beneath the motorway, and that there is a report from the Birmingham health authorities which suggests the level of lead in the blood of these children has risen quite considerably. I think it would be very helpful to the House if the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, could give us not only the terms of reference of this committee, but also explain further the reasons for setting it up, other than have been given in the Press. Perhaps he can
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also say something about the evidence of the sampling methods used by the Birmingham health authorities because this is the point that I think the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, was making. It is a point on which it would be useful to have further information.
The only other recent piece of research I have come across is that which I believe has been quoted extensively in to-day's Guardian. I understand that this was a survey carried out with the support of the Department of Health and Social Security. I quote from the article, which says:
"Although it does not say so this report appears to embrace a large part of the child population of the Isle of Dogs, and in very broad terms seemingly exonerates lead as a cause of behavioural abnormality at blood lead levels."
If this is true it does not give us the evidence for which we are looking. I am again referring to the newspaper report, but I should be glad to know whether there is other evidence that has not yet been reported. I believe there is a real measure of agreement on the fact that there could be a real danger to health from lead in petrol. I am sure that the value of a debate such as the one we are having to-day is that it allows the subject to be fully discussed, and enables us to hear any evidence there may be on health or, indeed, on the economic consequences of this Bill.
My Lords, I now turn to the other side of the question, which is that of energy supplies. My understanding is that an agreement was reached between the Government, the oil industry and the motor industry, in July 1972, progressively to reduce the level of lead in petrol. This was reduced to 0·64 grammes per litre by the end of 1972 and to 0·55 grammes per litre by the end of 1973. I understand that this standard is not, during the present fuel crisis, being improved upon, but that it is intended that the improvement that was expected by 1975 will be maintained and the level will be reduced to 0–45 grammes per litre. These standards have been agreed and are being implemented. Besides this, I understand that the European Economic Community proposals are that by January 1, 1976, the level should be reduced to 0·4 grammes per litre in premium and regular quality petrol, and

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by 1978 to 0·4 grammes per litre in premium quality and to 0·15 grammes in regular quality. The noble Lord's Bill would reduce the levels in both fuels to zero by 1980.
I believe, therefore, that the House should consider some of the consequences that would inevitably follow from this Bill. In the first place, it would increase the cost of petrol by as much as 5p per gallon; not perhaps a great deal, noble Lords may think, but an amount which could bear hardly on some individuals. Then, of course, it would inevitably have its effect on the cost of living index which, as we all know, is such an important factor in our economic life to-day. Secondly, in order to meet the volumes of gasolene that would be required—because, as I understand it, removal of lead from petrol requires greater refining and therefore a larger volume of crude oil—we should need to import approximately 12 per cent. more crude oil. This is at a time when there are already great difficulties with our balance of payments. It may well be argued that with North Sea oil available all this need not be too much of a worry. I do not intend in any way to embark on a discussion on North Sea oil. What I think is indisputable is that oil is a finite resource and we should consider carefully how we use it.
Then there is the question of capital investment, which has been estimated by the oil companies to be some £300 million in E.E.C. The noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, asked me about these figures, but I would return the question to him and ask him whether he has discussed his Bill with the oil industry. Perhaps he will tell us whether he has or not, and whether they consider that, if it were agreed to, it would be possible for them to meet the timetable he has asked for in five and a half years from now. Furthermore, to meet the standards set in this Bill I understand would mean that inevitably there would be some lowering in the quality of oil, which would have the effect that the average car would have a lower mileage per gallon of petrol. The figure that I have been given is that it would reduce the average from 30 miles to 27 miles per gallon of petrol. By 1980, given the average length of life of a car, estimated at 10 years, approximately 40 per
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cent. of the cars left on the roads would not tolerate the new oils and would fail mechanically. These cars would, therefore, need extensive modification or a new engine, the cost of which would presumably fall upon the car owner. Even if it is possible, and it may well be, that the motor industry will re-design all their cars, inevitably there would be a number of old cars on the roads, as there always will be at any given period of time.
I have stated these problems because I think they are real ones, and must be weighed in the balance of discussion on the Bill to-day. I think they are complex problems. As I said at the beginning, I shall be very interested to hear the Government view of this Bill. As well as hearing of the investigations into the health problems, I should also like to ask the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, whether he has any further information about the research that is being done into the use of lead filters in exhaust systems. I understand that the lead filter would take the place of a silencer, and that it is said that it should be capable of removing 90 per cent. of lead from the exhaust fumes. It would be most helpful to know whether this is accurate, and when the results are to be known and published, so that we may have some idea of the timetable for it; also, if it proved to be workable, what would be the cost of such a device, so that we can compare it with any other costs that might be thought to be necessary to reduce the lead content in petrol.
I would echo what the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, has said. I understand we shall be having another opportunity to look at the Protection of the Environment Bill; I would ask whether or not the Government intend to include within their Bill a clause on this subject. I have tried to set out to the House what seem to me to be the principal arguments in this Bill. I think we have to weigh up what could be a possible health hazard—although, as I say, as yet we have no conclusive evidence upon it—against the economic costs. I think we are all agreed that while there is any doubt on this subject at all we should work towards a lowering of the lead content in petrol, and, as I understand it, that is what is being carried out, with the full agreement of everybody, at this present moment.

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My Lords, this is a Private Member's Bill, and it is, I believe, the usual practice of the House to give such a Bill a Second Reading. In this particular case we on this side will look upon this as an opportunity to hear the discussion and to listen to all the views expressed. We shall not vote against the Bill, but we should be very glad to know the answers to some of the big issues I have raised, which I think are very relevant to any future discussion of the matter of this Bill.
5.37 p.m.
LORD AMULREE: My Lords, I am very pleased that the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, has seen fit to introduce this Bill to your Lordships to-day, and I should like to say a few words from the purely medical point of view in support of the thesis he has put forward. I quite agree with what the noble Baroness, Lady Young, said about the need to obtain real evidence of the danger of lead in petrol.
On that point I should like to go back a little way and take a quick look at the tale of lead poisoning in this country. This, I think, was first described by Dr. Baker, when there was a well known disease prevalent in Devonshire called Devonshire Cholic; this was in 1767, a long time ago. Dr. Baker found that the cider makers in Devonshire lined their presses with lead whereas cider makers in the rest of the country did not. He managed to bring pressure to bear on the manufacturers in Devonshire; they removed the lead and the incidence of Devonshire Cholic vanished. That was really the first time that lead was implicated.
Then there was a great deal of plumbism, as one called it, in Newcastle-on-Tyne and Tyneside generally, due to the manufacture of white lead. That was investigated by a well-known physician called Sir Thomas Oliver towards the end of the 19th century, and because he introduced, or made the authorities introduce, certain protective measures he found that whereas in 1892, 44 people were admitted to the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle with lead poisoning, in 1900 the figure dropped to 14 and from 1900 onwards lead poisoning was a comparative rarity. At the same time one found an almost complete disappearance of plumbism, or lead poisoning,
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from water, because Oliver (I think it was again) found that if you got water which was soft and acid coming from moorland gathering grounds it was extremely solvent to lead, which a great many of the water-pipes were made of.
From that time onwards it was agreed that soft, acid water, should be treated with lime so that it would be hardened and therefore not absorbent and not give people lead poisoning. But cases do still occur. There was a fatal case as recently as 1940, when water was piped by a lead pipe three-quarters of a mile long from an upland spring, and one of the consumers died from lead poisoning. The amount of lead drawn from the tap was found to be considerably above the quantity which would be allowed now. It was said at the time in a report on this case:
"Small habitual intake of lead in drinking water may cause symptoms in certain hypersensitive individuals, who form a small minority of the community: its complete absence would seem desirable."
I think that that sums up a great deal of what people think about lead now. I was interested to read in the paper the other day that they think that the water going to Balmoral Castle is lead solvent and contains a certain amount of lead, and at the same time some water in Caernarvonshire contains more lead than the World Health Organisation considers to be a safe amount.
To proceed a little further, in 1926 a Bill was brought in to prohibit or control the amount of lead used in paint. The Committee on which I think that that Bill was founded was presided over by my father, which is why I have a certain interest in it. The Act which followed the Bill provided that there should be certain medical examinations of people working with paint, there should be facilities for washing, protective clothing should be worn, and there were certain compounds to be prohibited. It was said at the time that women and young persons were particularly susceptible to plumbism, which I think was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan. That was doubted in the debates in your Lordships' House by the noble Lord, Lord Haldane, who said that this was one of those medical fads for which there was no real proof. Whether your Lordships agree with that or not I do not know.
Further legislation and prohibitions came in, and among them the Industrial

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Injuries Act, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, referred. Several times there were cases where fumes from a factory contained excessive lead, and a certain number of children had to be taken away from schools in the neighbourhood because there was more lead in their blood than there should be. I read in a medical report the other day that they had been moved in time because it now appears that they suffered no ill effect from it; but that is merely a bit of good luck and not good management.
It seems that lead in dust can be a cumulative systemic poison. So far as one can gather children seem to absorb lead in a quicker way and in a greater quantity than grown-ups do, and they retain it in their bodies for a longer time than adults. It was found in the United States not very long ago that there was a large quantity of lead in some of the artificial milks which were given to young people. That point was taken up by the Drug Authority in the United States, and the amount of lead in these milks was reduced from a figure of 104 in 1971—I am not sure what the 104 is, but it was used as a kind of general index at the time—to 6 in 1972/73. This shows that much can be done, and if it can be done for milk why not for petrol?
It is generally accepted that lead is a cumulative poison, that it accumulates in bodies and does not all get discharged. I was interested to find a Report by the Ministry of Health which came out in 1938. It was written by an old friend and colleague of mine, who really sums up the point. I should like to quote one sentence from his summing up. He says:
"What we want to know is not so much the toxic limit as the safe limit, if indeed any limit, however small, before a cumulative poison can be regarded as safe."
5.46 p.m.
LORD TREFGARNE: My Lords, I must start by apologising to the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, but I fear greatly that I shall not be in my place when he comes to wind up. I have a long-standing engagement which I cannot possibly break, and I shall have to go before he rises to speak again. I hope that, when that time comes, the noble Lord will not insist on asking for a Second Reading for his Bill. I have one or two points that
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I should like to make, and I will do it as shortly as possible.
The first point is a constitutional one if you like. I am reluctant to agree to a measure which confers even more power upon Ministers than they have at present. I am not relating that particularly to this Bill, but in all sorts of matters Ministers take wider and wider powers, and one of the devices they use to do that, no doubt with the best of motives, is to take power to make regulations. This Bill is not alone in conferring that power on Ministers. Some of your Lordships may have read the memoirs of Mr. Harold Macmillan, and on that point he bears out what I say: that the Governmental or Parliamentary process is not best served by giving Ministers powers of this sort indefinitely. I accept that the noble Lord proposes in his Bill that the regulations which the Minister should make shall be subject to annulment by either House of Parliament, but that is not necessarily the answer. Although it is true that we might have the power to annul the regulations, we should not have the power to amend them; and I think that is the most important point. All we could do would be to reject the Order or let it pass. Your Lordships will recall better than I those occasions when this House has seen fit to reject an Order of one form or another and almost precipitated a constitutional crisis. I cannot see that your Lordships would want to precipitate a constitutional crisis on the lead content of petrol, which I submit somewhat detracts from the power that the noble Lord has sought to write into his Bill.
LORD WYNNE-JONES: My Lords, is it not the case that this Bill would merely allow a Minister to proceed on a certain number of steps at a defined moment, which is a very different thing from the sort of Order to which the noble Lord referred?
LORD TREFGARNE: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Wynne-Jones, is indeed right: the Bill simply gives the Minister power to state the date by which a certain lead content must be achieved. But that does not detract from the main point I am making, that if your Lordships sought to disagre with the proposed date by which a certain lead content must be reached, for perhaps very good reasons, you would be unable to do so except by

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annulling the Order. It would not be possible to amend the Order. I believe that this is a defect in the Bill. As I said before, it is not a defect confined to this Bill, but the fact that it is a defect that exists in other Bills does not mean that we should therefore permit it in this Bill.
My Lords, the second point I would make is only echoing what was said by the noble Baroness, Lady Young, when she pointed out that if we reduce or eliminate the lead content in petrol we shall have to obtain the supplies of high octane gasolene by increasing the intake of crude oil at a time when supplies of crude oil are not always predictable and when the cost is rising all the time. I need not go into any more detail on that point, I am sure, but it is a matter that we should consider.
Thirdly, I should like to raise the question of aircraft, on which I often raise points in your Lordships' House. I find that there is no provision in the noble Lord's Bill for any exemption for aircraft. It is inconceivable, I must tell the noble Lord, that sufficient quantities of aviation gasolene can be obtained without using lead to some extent. I am advised that the environmental hazard of the lead content of the exhaust fumes from aircraft is not the same as it is for surface vehicles, and I hope therefore that if the noble Lord, despite my pleas, presses his Bill and secures a Second Reading for it, he will listen sympathetically to an Amendment which I shall seek to move at the Committee stage to exempt aviation fuel from the controls he seeks to impose.
The final point I would make is again, I am afraid, an echo from the noble Baroness, Lady Young, when she asked the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, who is to reply, what is the position on the question of the lead filters which we gather are being looked into by, I think, the Department of Industry. I, too, shall listen with interest to that reply, because I believe that is a better solution to this problem than to impose upon the motor industry the serious economic and mechanical difficulties involved in restricting the quantity of lead that can be injected into fuel.
LORD O'HAGAN: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, as he is going away perhaps I could say something about one or two points that he mentioned? Would he accept that, as I consider,
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the noble Lord, Lord Wynne-Jones, has answered his constitutional point? On the question of the environmental effects of airfields, will he accept that his advice that this is not a real hazard would not be shared in many quarters? I am sure he will accept that other people do not take his views. Is he aware that civil aviation authorities issue airworthiness notices saying that people should try to get petrol for aircraft engines which does not contain lead, because lead has the effect of clogging up the works of engines? And I do not see how this squares in with his remarks. Perhaps I should not have tried to answer in midcourse.
LORD TREFGARNE: My Lords, if I can take the last point raised by the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, I will, if the House will permit me, answer the point raised.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: Is this in order or out of order?
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I should have thought that both noble Lords were going a little far. I think the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, was probably tempted unduly and succumbed a little too easily.
5.55 p.m.
VISCOUNT HANWORTH: My Lords, I am afraid that I too have to apologise that if this debate goes on at all long I shall, for the first time since I have spoken in the House, have to leave before the end. We are subjected to many poisons in our life, and small quantities of some of them are not harmful, and may even be beneficial, but I would not for one moment say that under present knowledge that is so with lead and the other metallic poisons. We may later, of course, find out that even radiation in small quantities has some benefit, though all the signs at the moment seem to indicate that it has not. I think we can reasonably conclude that the same may well apply to lead.
However this may be, I think that the human body does tend to develop tolerances against a number of so-called poisons to which it is exposed. For centuries there has been a considerable quantity of lead in people's blood. Having said that, however, I am sure it is right that we should regard this at the

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moment as a possible problem and should keep a very careful watch out and, if possible, prevent the levels of lead increasing in people's blood to any significant extent. I therefore go some distance with the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan. But from there onwards I part company with him, because, as always, one has to balance the possible advantages, say, of eliminating as much lead as one can, for example, in petrol against the very considerable disadvantages of doing so. I feel it is a matter which we should keep under constant review, but on present knowledge there is no need to panic over it. It may be that in the next few years we shall find that any fears we have are less than they are at the moment; or they may be more. Certainly there is not a case for taking drastic action, and I should not like at the moment to prescribe any firm date for the complete abolition of lead. If I had to put a date on it, as I shall explain later, it would be 1984, at the earliest.
As I was saying, the balanced view, based on existing information, would seem to be that although lead is not a desirable element in our environment the present levels, except in extreme cases, are unlikely to be harmful. I am not, however, suggesting that it might not be desirable to reduce the amount of lead in the atmosphere, and that includes in petrol, on a "play safe" basis, were it not for the considerable economic and other disadvantages that any drastic reduction would be likely to have at the present time. Do not let us forget, my Lords, that life is never completely safe, and that is never more true than when we consider road casualties. It is in our hands to reduce these by any amount we wish. The cost, if we go to the extremes, is quite unacceptable to the community. So it is as well to remember that one can play completely safe only when there is not very much cost in doing so.
What are the disadvantages in abolishing lead? First, it would be impracticable to produce very high octane fuels and there would have to be a substantial lowering of compression ratios in cars, with a consequent reduction of engine efficiency and far greater fuel consumption. There is an equation here between how much extra it costs to refine high octane fuel and how far down
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you reduce the compression ratio. It is very easy to look up in any textbook the loss of efficiency caused by reducing the compression ratios on cars, but it is much harder to estimate the cost of refining to a higher octane value. So one cannot really look at the one without looking at the other. My own guess is that we could reasonably assume that the loss of efficiency through reducing the compression ratio to a reasonable level would probably be of the order of 10 per cent.
Secondly, the continuance of, say, 4-star fuel, which is required by a large proportion of the cars at present in use, would mean that a much greater quantity of crude oil was needed. Here again, one can take only the rough estimates that have been made, and one figure which has been given is that at present it would be at the rate of £425 million a year. But all these figures are of course highly debatable. Anyway, it is quite certain that there would be a considerable increase in the requirement of crude oil at a time when it was still in short supply. Furthermore, the refineries would have to make considerable alterations and additions to their equipment in order to produce high octane fuel without lead. Again, I throw out the figure which has been quoted of something like £300 million.
Thirdly—and this is a point which impresses me very much indeed—existing engine design depends on lead for reducing wear on the valves. Lead does not increase the wear on engines, and in fact in existing designs it is essenial in small quantities for increasing valve life. Engines cannot be easily modified to take a much lower octane fuel, and to modify them satisfactorily would require new low compression pistons which in some cars would be an impossibility. Do not forget, my Lords, that there are still on the market and being sold cars requiring 4-star fuel, and though the manufacturers are no longer making any that require 5-star there is to be no immediate stop on those needing 4-star fuel. So if you assume that the life of a car is at least ten years, you will be in real trouble if the lead is cut off completely by 1980. It may be just possible to refine a 4-star fuel at very considerable cost, but it will be getting very near the limit of technology to do so. Therefore, if this Bill

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gets a Second Reading—I am afraid that I shall vote against it—I will certainly table an Amendment to put the date forward to 1984 or 1985.
We are always a little short on facts in any debate about a subject of this sort and we were certainly short of them during the last debate, but for what they are worth I shall give your Lordships a few. The average adult takes into his body and temporarily retains between one-sixth and one-half of a milligramme of lead per day. Of this an absolute maximum of one-tenth of a milligram me comes from the air—not by any means entirely from the lead in car exhausts. One can reasonably take the higher figure for ingested lead, because it is only when the volume is fairly high that one begins to get at all worried. We can therefore assume that the lead which we are getting from the air does not represent more than one-fifth of the total intake. It seems that in normal conditions all this lead is discharged from the body and there is no build-up in older persons, except to some extent in the bones. Of course this may not be true when taking in excessive doses of lead. I am afraid that that is the best information that I could obtain, and it does not entirely agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, said, although I have no doubt that we could reach agreement there.
It is fairly well known that in normal conditions there is an equation between the ingested lead and the lead that is actually disposed of on a daily basis through one means or another. We are very short of information on what proportion of lead in the air is taken into the blood stream, and experts' opinions vary very widely indeed. There have been studies showing that lead levels in the blood have gone up when there has been a high lead content in the air. But, strangely enough, some very responsible surveys which have recently been carried out in the United States do not confirm this belief at all. Taking measurements in various cities and elsewhere, those surveys found no correlation between the average value of lead in the air and that in the blood. In any case, blood levels vary widely and in the case of adults it is said that between 10 and 40 microgrammes per 100 grammes may be considered normal. It is interesting to note that the figure for the primitive
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people in New Guinea is 22, which is almost exactly the same as the average figure for England, although one must admit that in some parts of the world the figure is under 10. It seems that individual blood levels of lead tend to reach the point where fairly massive or continuing doses are needed to raise the figure above a certain plateau.
A good deal has been made of the fact—I think rather emotionally—that the difference between the level of lead in people's blood and the increased level that causes symptoms is smaller than that with any other poison. This, I believe, is almost a complete irrelevancy. What one is concerned with is the amount of extra lead that can be taken in which will cause symptoms over and above what is normal. I conclude, therefore, that there does not seem to be an immediate cause for anxiety and I believe that the Government are pursuing a Sensible course as regards petrol. What they were trying to do before the fuel crisis was gradually to reduce the amount of lead in petrol, so that it did not increase due to the growing number of vehicles on the road. That seems to me a sound and sensible policy. It may be that we can without harm live with a rise in lead; it may be that in the next five years we shall be more worried about it—in which case we can then take further measures. But I would certainly deplore any attempt to pre-empt a decision five years ahead, or for that matter ten years ahead. I am quite sure that the Government, of whatever complexion they are, and the environmentalists will keep us up to scratch if any new developments occur which cause any more alarm. There is one thing that we can do at no cost—and your Lordships will remember that at the beginning of my speech I said that if we could remove lead from petrol at no cost I should be the last person to say that we ought not to do it. There is being developed and working rather satisfactorily an exhaust silencer which removes a considerable amount of the lead content. In fact it reduces it in most conditions to about half. I would think it well worth introducing such a system. I believe the cost would be relatively small and it would have definite advantages. Finally, if it is proved—and it is highly debateable at the moment—that there is trouble at

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"Spaghetti Junction", I think once more we should say, "O.K., if the situation is exceptional there we must move people from it." I am sure they would all be delighted, considering the, noise and the fact that their view has obviously been spoilt, if they were reaccommodated somewhere nicer. The cost of doing it would be minute compared to that of taking more drastic action over lead than we are at present proposing to take.
6.11 p.m.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, I think that some of us would agree we are on rather familiar ground this afternoon. In fact we have talked of this subject so often that the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, begins to quote parts of the speech which he says I always make because he found it so impressive. I propose to quote it again to-day. One thing that gives me great joy is to hear the noble Baroness, Lady Young, say that the Opposition will not vote against the Bill. That indicates tremendous progress in this House. Once we have got to the stage when both Opposition and Government are agreed upon a reform there is great hope that in our lifetime—not in 1985—we will see the Bill on the Statute Book.
This is a short Bill but it embodies tremendous progress in the field of public health. I must confess that I was profoundly disappointed this afternoon by the speech of the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth. I have always thought of him, despite the fact that he sits on that Bench, as a rather progressive man, but he devoted most of his speech to the suggestion that we must keep lead in petrol for the sake of the machine and then, in his concluding remarks, said that of course if it cost nothing he would immediately say, "Take the lead out of petrol", so indicating that he knew in his heart that lead in petrol was a danger to the community. His case for keeping lead in petrol was for the sake of the machine. My Lords, I wish to put the case for taking lead out of petrol for the sake of human beings.
When it comes to the question of costs, may I remind the noble Viscount—and I am familiar with most of the health reforms that have taken place in this century—that I have never known a great reform in the field of public health
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costing nothing to the community, and that when it has been proved, as it often was proved, that it would cost a certain amount, there have always been politicians, either in another place or here, who have condemned the reform on the ground of cost. I am sorry to say that, after his speech, the noble Viscount is now in that category. In all these speeches on the environment it seems to me so shortsighted to discuss the environment in the abstract and to fail to take action in matters of this kind when we know that lead has a toxic effect. On the question of cost I am beginning to think we are confronted with a conspiracy of business interests which are determined to avoid progress in this matter.
May I again remind your Lordships of the South London factory about which, only last year, there was a great outcry, finally, because it had been found for some years that small children living in the vicinity were developing curious symptoms which were difficult to diagnose. At last the progressive medical officer of health of the area got together with the children's doctors and they recognised that there were symptoms associated with the central nervous system, symptoms which might be associated with the kidney. They reached the conclusion that the result was probably due to these children either inhaling or ingesting lead—and there, right on the doorsteps of the houses in which they lived was a factory which was emitting lead. In the debate to-day I have seen noble Lords sneering at the blood lead level, but the blood lead level of these children was taken and it was found to be very high.
The noble Baroness, Lady Young, disappointed me. I have always felt that in these matters women have a greater feeling and human understanding than men, but she said there was no conclusive evidence about these incidents. However, the examinations made in that case by technicians who had conducted similar examinations on many occasions, proved, of course, that those children were suffering from incipient lead poisoning. The noble Lord, Lord Amulree, said he read in the British Medical Journal—I must look up my B.M.J.s again after this—that it was stated that fortunately those children were not showing the final effects of lead poisoning, but that they were

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suffering from incipient lead poisoning. Fortunately, the local authority did not sit back and say, "This will cost money if we take action." They evacuated all the families concerned. The families were well housed; nevertheless, they regarded the risk as of such a serious nature that the families were subsequently evacuated. That is the proof of the seriousness of this matter.
BARONESS YOUNG: My Lords, will the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, forgive me interrupting her, but the point I was making about health hazards was not, as she is suggesting, in regard to the case of the factory in South London which was emitting some lead into the atmosphere, but on the issue in this Bill, which is principally the subject of lead in petrol emitted from the exhausts of cars. It is on that specific issue that we look for the evidence.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, if the noble Baroness, Lady Young, had been a little patient she would have discovered that I never avoid points which need answering. She had already announced that the last Government had decided that the amount of lead in petrol should be reduced. As I understand it, they decided last year that the amount of lead in petrol must be reduced because of these dangers. If it has been decided that lead in petrol is a danger, it does not satisfy me to say, "Well, let us have a little less lead in petrol; perhaps then people would not suffer from these various complaints." Of course the noble Lord is absolutely right: we have to work towards the elimination of lead. That is our objective, and for the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, to talk about "1985" before we can eliminate lead from petrol is a most reactionary statement.
VISCOUNT HANWORTH: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Baroness, but since she constantly refers to me I must ask her whether she takes the point that at the moment in the main there is no evidence that the lead we are breathing from the exhausts of cars is doing us any harm? We are anxious only to play safe and not to increase it.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, I do not think the noble Lord should be so naïve. People said that about these children in South London. I am
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not talking about Timbuctoo; I am talking about a place a few miles from this House. People said that this lead cannot have any effect upon children. But the blood lead content of these children was taken. They had certain symptoms: of that there was no doubt. Therefore the noble Viscount cannot just dismiss this question as a kind of dream that has been had by would-be reformers who come to this House continually to try to influence people.
VISCOUNT HANWORTH: They do.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: The noble Viscount says, "They do". I should like everybody to hear that. Would-be reformers have come to both Houses on many other occasions to discuss diseases to which even he might be vulnerable. I can assure the noble Viscount that they have done a great deal of good work and finally got their desires embodied in a Statute and put on the Statute Book.
I say in relation to this matter that the expectant mother is particularly vulnerable and the foetus which she carries can be damaged. The child can be left with permanent brain, kidney and liver damage. The point which the noble Viscount has not appreciated is that the effect is insidious. In so many other diseases from which children suffer a doctor can say, "There is the symptom". The doctor can see it. Indeed, I am very sorry that lead disease, or plumbism as Lord Amulree said, is not associated with a rash. If it were, everybody would say, "That is what they have got". But it is insidious. It affects the brain, the kidney and the liver, slowly and sometimes fatally. I believe that lead poisoning through petrol is a public health hazard of the most serious nature. I would only say of this and other diseases that have been talked about, in this House and the other place, during this century and the last, that if these diseases were transmissible to other human beings then the powerful business interests would soon change their tune.
6.23 p.m.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, perhaps it would be as well if I reminded your Lordships of the interest which I have in the motor industry, though I would make it quite clear that I have no interest in any oil company. I admire the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan,

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for the artistry with which he continually puts his arguments. He does it so well that it is very difficult to deny him; but in fact that is precisely what I hope to do.
His Bill is so particular as to be virtually impossible for anybody to carry out. If I may say so, it starts, as it were, at the wrong end. It starts with putting lead into petrol, whereas surely what we are talking about is taking lead out of the emission after we have used the product. Surely, my Lords, if we could achieve that—if that is what we want—it would be a far better way of doing it. So far, various people have put forward a variety of views and have quoted a number of authorities on the dangers to human beings that accrue from the emission of lead from the exhausts of motor cars, whereas it is my understanding that in 1972 at the world symposium in Amsterdam, leading medical authorities came to the view that at the then levels—that was in 1972—there was no immediate health hazard to people as a result of lead emission from exhausts.
It is conceded, of course, that as the number of vehicles increases the number of gallons used, so the amount of emission goes up, which could then cause a health hazard. However, nobody seems yet to have measured this, and it is certainly apparent that the projected expansion of fuels envisaged in 1972 was a 5 per cent. per annum increase. It is now widely thought that, because of crude oil availability, the price of the refined product and other factors, for 1973, 1974, 1975 and 1976 there may be a growth in usage—and therefore in total emission—of something approaching only 2½ per cent., diminishing perhaps even to nil. I understand that in Western Germany the projected growth in consumption will be nil. So if one takes into consideration the two factors, the 1972 level of emission (which nobody I have read has suggested is over-harmful to human health) as the base factor, and the two reductions in lead content of fuel—the 1972 reduction and the reduction by 1976 to 0·45 grams per litre—and couples that with the projected lessening of consumption, it will certainly take us up to about 1981 to re-achieve the 1972 levels which, as I say, were not then considered harmful.
LORD PLATT: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord? He used the term not "over-harmful". I wish the noble Lord would define "over-harmful".
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Platt, is always so attentive and if I make a mistake he always picks me up. He did that the other day. I apologise to him for having given him the opportunity to pick me up. I cannot define "harmful" or "over-harmful"; and, quite frankly, I defy your Lordships to define it, purely and simply because there are so many authorities. The noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, produced the authority of a Dr. Waldron.
LORD PLATT: My Lords, as I seem to have started this discussion, may I say that I did not ask the noble Lord to define "harmful"? That is something we can understand. What I asked him to define was "over-harmful", because it seems to me to be more harmful than harmful; that is all.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, I think the noble Lord, Lord Platt, will forgive me if I do not go down that inviting avenue of argument but try to confine myself, at an advancing hour, to lead in petrol and the emission thereof. I think that I was at that time saying that the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, had produced a report which he considered to be authoritative—the Waldron report. I could probably produce another one which I shall call the John Tinker report, and I quote from the New Scientist.
LORD O'HAGAN: I would not accept that.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, the noble Lord may not accept it, but there are a large number of people who would consider that this man's views upon this matter are worthy of attention. So, whether the noble Lord accepts this report or whether I refuse to accept the Waldron report, or whether I accept the Warren Springs Laboratory report or refuse to accept this report or that report, is not really material. I was going to ask the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, whether he could tell us anything about the Holgate Report, which has been sitting around Government Departments for quite a long time and which, again, is supposed to be authoritative.

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My Lords, while we are arguing this point we have no yardstick against which we can make a measurement. We have a number of opinions, but against these various opinions we have to balance a number of factors. I suppose the most important factor is the kind of money and effort that will be expended in improving the health of our people, and where it should be spent. If we accept that the 1972 levels of lead in blood were not a hazard to health, then can one really suggest, as the noble Viscount. Lord Hanworth, suggested, that there should be the expenditure of some £300 million in refinery rebuilding over six years to achieve a petrol product equivalent in quality to that which we now buy but without any lead in it?
The noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, will say that this is big business talking; that they do not want to spent £300 million. Supposing that in fact some fairy godmother produced £300 million to the companies in this country refining petrol, they would probably say, "Thank you very much, but there are other difficulties in getting this job done". Two spring immediately to my mind, and I am not a refinery builder. One is steel and materials, which are now in desperately short supply and desperately needed for other and, in my view, better purposes. The other is that neither is there the specialist labour available to do this refinery work in a span of six years, which is what the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, is calling for in his Bill. Fifteen years, perhaps.
My Lords, I think it was the noble Viscount, again, who mentioned the figure of an extra £450 million to be paid anually for the additional crude oil, assuming it to be available, notwithstanding North Sea oil, to make up the shortfall between that which is required for finer refining in lead-free aspects and what we are using to-day. If we went on doing that, my Lords, we should probably run out of oil by the 21st Century, and we really cannot manage our society without fuel. So it seems to me that, as I said at the beginning, we are going in at the wrong end. First, I think we must accept a yardstick. At the moment we have experts versus experts, and we must first say, "All right; this is the body which will provide the yardstick". Then we need very much more up-to-date information by way of measurements.
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I understand that some of the methods of measuring the lead content of blood have been changed, so one cannot compare like with like. Indeed, nothing that the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, has said, with his tremendous sincerity, has greatly changed since, not the last debate on this subject but the one before that. Perhaps the noble Lord on the Front Bench who is going to reply can bring us up to date.
If we wish to pursue the objects of this Bill, if the noble Lord is going to insist upon asking for a Second Reading, it would seem to me that a far better way would be for the Bill to be committed to a Select Committee. In that way reasonable and probably unbiased people would be able to listen to all these experts and make their judgments in terms of the millions of pounds involved, and the minimal of doubtful benefits the expenditure would bring, as compared with the far greater benefits there would be if the money could be spent in other ways; and could then make a judgment on behalf of the community. This, surely, my Lords, is what the legislators in another place and here should be doing.
6.36 p.m.
LORD WYNNE-JONES: My Lords, I hope your Lordships will permit me to speak at this stage. I had put my name down for this debate, but owing to a clerical error I was put down to speak on a different Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Platt, and the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, have invited me to intervene at this point, with your Lordships' permission. This Bill arises from what was initiated by the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, just over three years ago, I think, when he asked the first Question that he put in your Lordships' House on lead in petrol. He pursued this matter in a very determined way over a number of years, and the Answers given were evasive and entertaining, but rarely informative. I take it that the noble Lord was really forced to introduce a Bill in order to find out what could be done in this matter, and I am sure that that is the sense in which he is pursuing the Bill to-day.
I can recollect the time when lead was first introduced into petrol. It was introduced as a result of combustion studies when there was found the phenomenon of "pinking" in the engine. One got this

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nasty free combustion as a result of explosions taking place, and in consequence of that they tried to find out how to stop it. If one uses the terminology which has now become general, but which was introduced at that time to describe the reaction, it was a chain reaction in combustion, and the function of the lead petrol ethyl was to break the chain. My recollection is that this was first introduced by the Esso Company, which had valuable patents on this process. I think I am right in saying that the Shell Company came along and found an alternative process which they patented, not so that they could use it but merely in order to be able to get the patent rights from Esso at a cheap rate. In consequence, the spread of lead became general. Then we moved over to the high-compression engine. The noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, has explained to us the great advantage of the high-compression engine, and there is no doubt about it but that this is a very valuable engine. It has made a lot of difference, both in the case of the ordinary automobile and also, particularly, in aviation; and there is little doubt that it has been well worth while.
But we have begun to realise over the years that every technological advance is liable to bring with it a consequent disadvantage. I have lived for years up on Tyneside, and on Tyneside they started the alkali industry. The curious thing about the alkali industry was that it poisoned the whole air with hydrochloric acid because all the alkali was made from common salt. So there was instituted the Alkali Inspectorate, whose main function was to stop acid fumes in the air. It has done an extremely good job, and this goes all the way through. In technology there is always some disadvantage which is likely to arise, but we do not sit back and do nothing or say that the disadvantages are inevitable. On the contrary, we say that we have to tackle them and that we must find out how to cure them so as to make them of value instead of being a menace to mankind.
This evening we have heard various arguments about the problems that might arise. The noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, pointed out that if we did not have lead we should need extra supplies of crude oil in order to produce the high octane petrol. The same point was made by the
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noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth. Certainly that is true using one type of technology, but it so happens that there is an entirely different kind of technology—one which without lead can produce a high octane fuel at a lower cost—that of using methanol. You can get 100 octane fuel with methane added at the rate of about 20 per cent. to the petrol. Your Lordships may ask why this has not been done in the past. It was done in the old days when racing cars first made their appearance at Brooklands. They put methanol into petrol in those days in order to get a better effect. Why is it not done now?—because methanol was expensive, whereas adding a very small quantity of lead to petrol was very cheap.
To-day the situation is different. We can make methanol from natural gas at a fraction of the price at which it has been made by conventional methods. In fact, so far from its being what the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, said, and what I think was also said by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas—that is, something which is extremely costly, difficult and far into the future—it is more than likely that because of the high cost of petroleum and because the oil producing countries are charging a great amount for the oil, the oil companies themselves will start to make methanol because they can do so more cheaply now from natural gas.
Consequently, we are faced to-day with a new and expanding technology, a technology which makes lead obsolete. If you did a proper analysis and asked whether you could manage without lead in two or three years' time, the answer would be that you could probably get enough methanol produced. It may be that it will take a little longer than that, but the methanol method is a perfectly well established technology. You can go to I.C.I. and see what is done, so there is no problem in making it. It can be obtained from natural gas very easily. Therefore, many of the arguments on the economic side are utterly irrelevant to this subject. It is extremely dangerous for us to get tied up in this type of semi-technical economic argument because, quite frankly, the whole of technology moves a darn' sight too fast for us to argue about without having the most recent figures at our disposal. I do not pretend I have them, but last summer I was told by an oil company that the methanol process could work. I said

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nothing about it in the past, because it seemed to me that it might be a delicate matter of diplomacy with the oil-producing countries; but now that does not matter. They have gone their way and we have to go ours.
With regard to the amount of lead, I am never convinced by arguments that a certain amount of something is safe, because such an argument is always based on the fact that you have not actually seen people fall down and die. It does not mean that permanent damage has not been produced. I have worked in chemical laboratories most of my adult life, and during most of that time I have worked with the liquid substance, mercury, as most chemists do. We all tended to use this as though it did no damage at all, but about thirty years ago a German chemist came to the conclusion that a number of people working in his laboratory were suffering from some form of poisoning. He asked physicians to make a careful study, and they found that these people were suffering from mercury poisoning. This seemed incredible, because the vapour pressure of mercury is so low at ordinary temperatures that it should have no effect; but what was happening was that the mercury was falling on the floor and breaking up into small drops. It was then getting up into the air, not in the form of vapour but in the form of small particles, which were ingested and doing serious damage. This happens with almost everything that one tends to use.
We are learning more and more to-day that the heavy metals are dangerous—those metals which for so long have been treated as though they were not dangerous. They are dangerous, and I do not believe that anyone knows exactly how dangerous they are, nor can anyone prescribe a dose that is safe to take. That does not mean that we are not going to subject ourselves to any risk at all, but surely it must mean we ought to cut out every unnecessary risk. I would submit that the evidence to-day is that lead is no longer necessary in petrol.
6.48 p.m.
LORD PLATT: My Lords, so much has already been said to-day and also on previous occasions that your Lordships will no doubt be pleased to hear that I have decided to discard most of what I was going to say, and shall confine myself
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to making some comments on the very interesting debate we have had.
First of all, I am very sorry that the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, is not in his place, because I have to dispute some of his statements or opinions. If I understood him aright, he was trying to prove to us, or at least making the statement, that of the lead which accumulates in people's bodies probably not more than a fifth was absorbed by the lungs while four-fifths was ingested lead. What is "ingested lead"? We do not eat lead pellets as part of our normal diet. Ingested lead means that your hands are dirty with a dust that contains lead. Where does the dust and the lead come from? It could also mean that lead has been ingested in some food; in other words, from an animal which feeds on the land, or from some vegetable which grows on the land. Vegetables do not normally grow in lead or produce lead, and therefore the lead must have reached them from somewhere else. It seems reasonable to assume that a certain amount, which may or may not be very large—though I do not see any good way of finding out the proportion—of the dust which we ingest has in fact come from the many hundreds of tons of lead which is being put into the petrol of our motor cars in the course of a year.
The noble Viscount, and other speakers, have made the very proper point that there is a great deal of discrepancy about the findings, particularly with regard to lead in the blood. This is a very considerable difficulty, for the reason that lead is a poison which is slowly absorbed and slowly excreted. The noble Viscount said if you only take in small quantities it is excreted fast enough to prevent it being accumulated in the system. I am sure he is right; but it is a slow poison, and to make my point clearer one could contrast it with the acute poison of alcohol with which most of us are very familiar. Alcohol is rapidly absorbed, you usually know how much you have taken—at least you may remember the next day—and the blood alcohol level rises rapidly. The symptoms of acute alcoholism are fairly well correlated with the level of the blood alcohol, and therefore we can say that with the blood alcohol over a certain amount the accident rate, by statistical observation, goes up to an unacceptable extent. We can do

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no such thing with lead, which is slowly being absorbed and slowly excreted, passing through the blood and is accumulating in the lungs, kidneys, bones and other organs to an extent which there is no ready medical means of finding out. While I admit that only too readily, a lot of the work done on blood lead sampling has led to equivocal results: you get higher levels where you expect to get lower ones, and vice versa. Nevertheless, this is only a sign that we are measuring the wrong thing or, if not the wrong thing, at least it is not a very satisfactory measurement.
Lead gradually builds up in the system if sufficient of it is ingested. There is such a thing as acute lead poisoning, which occurred notably when tetra-ethyl lead was first introduced. It was soon seen what a dangerous and fatal poison it could be and precautions were taken. But the chronic lead poisoning of medical history, which the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, put before us so interestingly, was something which did not occur when a new painter came to work as an apprentice; he did not get lead poisoning the next day. People who had soft water and lead pipes in their houses did not show lead poisoning the moment they moved into their houses. The people who drank the Devonshire cider did not develop lead poisoning overnight. The effect of a gradual accumulation of lead only slowly becomes apparent, in some cases over many years; but where the lead ingestion level is high, as in the making of lead batteries before they were protected. lead poisoning could come on pretty quickly.
Regarding the idea that there is no strong evidence that at the present time lead in petrol is responsible for causing a major amount of illness—and I agree with that—I do not think we should be content with such a situation as that when we are dealing with a cumulative poison. I am reminded a little of the arguments which were put regarding the stopping of free school milk. I do not want to go back to that very debateable subject: the reasons for stopping school milk for children of certain ages may or may not have been good ones, and I am not going to discuss that question further. The argument to which I objected, and which I rejected at once, was the idea, "We shall watch this situation very carefully
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and if these children show signs of malnutrition we shall think again". When a child shows signs of malnutrition it is too late. I submit that if large numbers of the population begin to show signs of lead poisoning—like the people who began to show signs of mercurial poisoning in a laboratory as described by the noble Lord, Lord Wynne-Jones, then that would be too late. We should do anything we can to reduce and eventually eliminate lead in petrol. If it is any comfort to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth—and I apologise for picking him up on one of his slips—I sincerely grasped his argument that if you can prevent it spreading into the atmosphere, if it can be held up in sonic kind of exhaust pipe which can afterwards be destroyed or made into a church roof, or something, this would be a powerful argument for saying that there is no particular need to reduce the intake of lead in petrol. But I am not a technologist and I could not discuss that.
We all must have been extremely impressed with the noble Lord, Lord Wynne-Jones, when he argued that there was now a method—and he told us of the method—of replacing lead in petrol. But methanol is also a poison—a rather serious one—and its use would have to be looked at very carefully in order to prevent people drinking it in these times of expensive alcoholic drinks. But I expect that matter could be dealt with just as is methylated spirit, which has a noxious colouring matter added to it. My Lords, that is all I have to say on this subject.
6.58 p.m.
LORD LYELL: My Lords, the hour is getting even later and I think it is incumbent upon me, as one of the later speakers, to be as brief as possible. I must begin by declaring an indirect interest in this matter of lead in petrol—not that I manufacture the substance, or put the lead in petrol, but because I happen to own a vehicle which is designed to run on lead-free fuel. I am not speaking simply to publicise these vehicles, but there is a certain amount of research carried out by the manufacturers which I believe will be of interest to your Lordships. It seems from some basic research that I have tried to carry out that most of the petrol sold in the United Kingdom contains lead to a greater or lesser degree. I understand, although I am no

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chemist, that the lead is used as a catalyst in the distillation process, and also as an octane improver, although I understand that there are other forms of this; and we have heard what the noble Lord, Lord Wynn-Jones, has told us about methanol, and other substances.
Whatever the effect of lead on petrol and on automative engines, the effect on humans is harmful; and certainly the noble Lord, Lord Platt, said that it is more than just harmful. Often, I understand, it is even lethal. I believe that arsenic is lethal; it contains great quantities of lead and other things. But at the same time my medical friends tell me that arsenic can be used as a heart stimulant, so we come back to the start. If we assume that lead in the blood of humans is harmful, it must be admitted that motor exhausts containing lead particles are lethal and are pollutants. But motor exhausts containing no traces of lead are, I am told, equally lethal in that they contain carbon monoxide, which attacks the haemoglobin in the bloodstream and causes death through suffocation. We have heard from several noble Lords about the increase of lead content in the blood of children and people living in the vicinity of the Gravelly Hill interchange, where I understand three motorways link up near Birmingham. Clearly, there are some levels of lead which are more dangerous than others. In the Gravelly Hill area there are problems of noise, carbon monoxide, dirt, and vibration. All of these are as injurious to health, I should have thought, as lead.
I made some inquiries as to why oil companies add lead to their petrol products if it is so harmful. It seems that lead is the most efficient, the cheapest and the most plentiful octane improver. Certainly European motor manufacturers have for years been producing relatively small capacity engines which produce a correspondingly great power. In order to produce this increased power, the engine requires a fairly high octane fuel. This has meant in most cases a fairly high lead content. One German motor manufacturer who has for many years engaged in research activities of all kinds—not just into fuel systems and different forms of automotive fuels—managed to produce for 1972, because he deemed it necessary, a series of engines which conformed to Californian regulations. These
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engines were from the outset designed to run on low-lead petrol, or indeed lead-free petrol, as was envisaged by California regulations for 1975.
What a surprise came to everybody when it was found that these engines delivered more power more easily! This all seemed too marvellous for words. But there was one great snag. This was that a great deal more fuel was needed, not to mention the additional oil required in relining, to achieve this low-lead fuel. One particular car manufactured by this company with the normal engine, which we have heard referred to by the noble Baroness, and particularly the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, has a fairly high-compression motor. On being tested over about 1,500 miles by one of the specialist motor journals, this car achieved a fuel consumption of approximately 19 miles to the gallon with a 1971 engine. With the 1972 low-lead petrol engine, the fuel consumption had dropped to 15 miles to the gallon. Both of these figures were taken by the same group of testers, carrying out broadly the same tests, in the same conditions, and doing roughly the same thing. Similar tests were carried out with other cars manufactured by this company, and figures of 20 miles to the gallon were achieved with the normal engines. But with the new 1972 engine the performance dropped to 13 miles to the gallon. This was clearly not what was envisaged after the 1973 fuel shortage.
The same company has now produced a further, "second generation", low-compression engine. This has restored fuel consumption back to 20 miles to the gallon, all on 2-star fuel. I understand that 2-star fuel, both here and on the Continent and elsewhere in the world, contains a proportion of lead, albeit a lower proportion of lead than 5-star fuel or the high-octane fuels. Nevertheless, it shows that a low-compression engine does not necessarily use more fuel than a high-compression engine. I think this has relevance to the actual fuel consumption of motor cars, though possibly not the loss of oil in distilling fuel for those cars. We might ask ourselves why all motor manufacturers cannot produce these engines which meet those criteria in California. The California State Legislature imposes a fairly strict set of rules, so far as emission and pollution are concerned. I think the major problem is

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that of cost. All the vehicles manufactured by the German company to which I have referred cost in the region of £4,000 to £6,000 each. This is very far above what is considered reasonable for many family motorists. Nevertheless, as a result of the researches carried out by this company, all the German family cars are henceforth, from 1974, being designed to run on lower and lower octane fuels. Therefore, it would seem to me that there are very great grounds for encouragement in this type of research.
One further reason why the manufacturers have not yet conformed to any European standard is that there is not so far, I understand, any European standard for permissible pollution and emission. Even when standards can be agreed by the European Parliament, they will have to be ratified by all the national Parliaments. And this, of course, will depend on environmentalists and pressures in each individual country. But as soon as any standard is agreed, manufacturers should be able to build engines capable of giving reasonable power with reasonable fuel consumption.
In conclusion, my Lords, it seems that the need for lead as an octane improver is disappearing. We have heard from the noble Baroness and from the noble Viscount, who I am afraid is no longer with us, that the average life of cars in Britain is approximately ten years. I find this hard to believe, though doubtless they have done much greater research than I have. At the same time, I do not see why rules cannot be laid down to require that motor cars manufactured in 1975 shall run on low-octane fuel—say, nothing more than 3-star. Then gradually, as the supply of existing motor cars with high-compression engines was scrapped, the high-octane fuels would become less and less of use, and the oil consumption of the world, and particularly of Europe, could be cut down; and similarly, the lead content of the fuels used in transport could be reduced to whatever levels were prescribed by the medical profession. My Lords, I would seek to support the Bill. I believe that the year 1980 should provide adequate time.
7.9 p.m.
LORD DOUGLAS OF BARLOCH: My Lords, I want to make two or three very short points. First, do not let it be
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forgotten that what is put into petrol is not simply lead, it is an ethyl compound of lead which is a great deal more poisonous than simple lead. When estimates are made, but without very much foundation, of how much lead is ingested in food and how much is ingested by the lungs, that point ought to be borne in mind, and also the point that much greater a proportion of what is ingested into the lungs goes into the bloodstream than of what goes into the stomach. These are very important factors in considering the problem of lead in petrol.
In the course of a fairly long public life, I have discovered that it is always easy to find a great many plausible reasons for not doing anything at all. We have heard a number of reasons this afternoon why lead should not be taken out of petrol, or why the time when that is done should be long delayed. But we have some practical experience. It has already been mentioned that in California the Legislature has taken steps to reduce, and indeed largely eliminate, lead in petrol. Let me also draw attention to the fact that in Moscow the use of leaded petrol is not allowed; and in addition to that the Russians have made regulations with regard to the maximum lead level in the general environment which they have put at 0·7 microgrammes per cubic metre.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, would the noble Lord be kind enough to tell us, proportionately to this country, just how many motor cars in fact run in Moscow, and what kind of cost saving and cost benefit there therefore is?
LORD DOUGLAS OF BARLOCH: My Lords, it does not make a great deal of difference how many motor vehicles are running, in Moscow. The relative proportion will still be exactly the same. If they have found it necessary and desirable to eliminate leaded petrol in Moscow, it is obvious that the number of motor cars which were running there was sufficient in the opinion of the Russian authorities to constitute a public health danger.
Let me mention this point. The Russians have fixed maximum permissible levels for lead in the general atmosphere at a figure of 0·7 microgrammes per

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cubic metre. A few years ago an investigation was made in the City of London of the amount of lead in the air and it was found that it ranged up to as much as 4·8 microgrammes per cubic metre—that is to say, seven times as high as the Russian standard. These are examples of the fact that steps are already being taken to reduce or to eliminate lead in petrol, and therefore in the atmosphere. And if other people can do it, there is no reason why we should not be able to do it in this country. My noble friend Lord Wynne-Jones has given some illustration of how it can be done without excessive cost, and so has the noble Lord, Lord Lyell; and if sufficient energy is devoted to it there is no doubt that this problem can be solved.
Do not let us forget that it is a serious public health question which hitherto has not been sufficiently investigated because the diagnosis of lead poisoning is difficult; the symptoms are similar to those arising from very many other causes unless special techniques are adopted in order to verify the amount of lead in the blood, or other alternative means of diagnosis. This subject has never been properly explored, my Lords, and it is wrong and misleading for anybody to assume that there is not in existence now a serious health hazard.
7.14 p.m.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, this has been a fairly lengthy debate, perhaps longer than we had anticipated when we started, because we were all aware that we had debated the subject upon a number of occasions before. There have been some extremely interesting speeches, and the one to which we have just listened from my noble friend Lord Douglas of Barloch was as packed with fact, and displayed with as much feeling, as any other in the debate, and contained perhaps even more information than we had any right to expect, although it came from someone who had followed so many experts of one kind and another. I do not suppose I shall answer all the questions that have been asked; indeed, I am sure I shall not be able to answer them all. Some of them have I think been answered during the course of the debate, but I will answer as many as I can, and I hope that in what I have to say I will answer in a general way most of the issues that have been raised by speakers.
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I have been impressed by the sincerity of all the speakers, whatever view they have expressed, and I would give the assurance at the outset that everything that has been said this afternoon will be studied in the Department of the Environment with the closest possible interest. Any contribution made by any noble Lord which is likely to help in the solution of the problem with which we are concerned will be warmly welcome.
I doubt whether those who have been sitting in the Visitors' Galleries will have appreciated what I think is true: that we are all in much closer accord on the basic issue than our debate might indicate. We are all, I think, united in feeling that health considerations are of paramount importance, although of course it has been said—and inevitably it needed to be said—that economic considerations have to be carefully weighed. We are all agreed that all necessary steps must be taken to ensure that the health of the community does not suffer on account of the use of lead by the oil industry in producing petrol. When I say that, I know that there will be those who have spoken who will say: "Well, you just show us that it does no harm at the present time, and tell us what you are going to do to eliminate it altogether so that there can be no possibility of risk at all."
I wish to assure your Lordships that the Government fully share the concern expressed by the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan. In his opening remarks he said that he and I had been friendly unfit to-day. It will be his fault entirely if there is any lessening of that friendship. Friends do not always have to agree, and sometimes when they disagree (I am not sure we shall disagree all that much) they spark off new thinking in the other person and thereby render a service.
The Government are far from complacent about this matter, and I think it is fair to say that the previous Government were concerned about it. I have to say quite frankly that I am impressed by the contacts I have had with experts in the Department. Their concern is so obvious and it is not something that began yesterday; it has been there for some time. The Government fully accept the need for statutory powers to control the lead content of petrol. We intend to include appropriate provision in a Control of Pollution Bill which will be introduced

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as soon as we are able to include it in our legislative programme. I hope that that is, if not a wholly satisfactory answer, since it does not go into all the details the noble Lord may like, one which will at least give some satisfaction to the noble Baroness, Lady Young. The matter is under active consideration. I could wish that I were in a position this evening to say just when, but she will appreciate that when I use the term Control of Pollution Bill, I am speaking about the field that was covered by the Protection of the Environment Bill.
I might add that the oil industry also supports the need for statutory powers in this case. It has recommended that as limits of the lead content become more stringent, it becomes increasingly more difficult to rely upon voluntary compliance. The first point I hope to make, therefore, is that a Private Member's Bill for the purpose of reducing the lead content of petrol is unnecessary because the Government themselves intend to seek powers for this purpose and, in view of the great public importance of the subject, we feel it is infinitely more appropriate to a Government Bill than to a Private Member's Bill.
The Bill presented by the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, would, however, go further than the point I have mentioned. It would provide that lead must be eliminated from petrol by the end of 1980, and that date has been the subject of discussion by a number of your Lordships. The powers which the Government intend to seek would enable the Secretary of State to reduce the lead content of petrol to any level, even to zero. The point at issue, therefore, is simply whether a firm commitment should be made now with a time schedule attached, so that the level will be reduced to zero.
I submit that it is unnecessary to adopt such an approach at the present time, and this being so it is undesirable to take such an inflexible attitude to this problem. I say this mainly because the Chief Medical Officer of Health advises that evidence does not show that at present levels lead emissions from vehicles are a risk to health. That is the view that he has expressed and I think we have to accept his expertise in this particular field. Nearly every other country in the world takes the same view. But the
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subject—and this again indicates no complacency whatever—is under detailed study both here and abroad and, as I understand it, continuously. It is indeed a matter of continuing concern. It is certainly prudent to ensure that lead emissions from vehicles do not rise while these studies are pursued, and until more definite conclusions are reached. This is the objective of the present programme of reductions in the lead content of petrol.
There are good reasons for our weighing the next steps with care. First, there is the possibility that other means now being studied may be available to control lead emissions from vehicles. Reference has been made to those in this debate and the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, dwelt on it at some length. For example, a lead trap could be fitted to vehicle exhausts. Such a trap has been developed and the Department of the Environment is carrying out a programme of evaluations of the device, which I hope will be completed within a few months—and that again answers a point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Young. This could produce very helpful evidence. I think I can say that the Working Party's report is expected in about the autumn and also I can say that a lead filter might cost about twice as much as the silencer on a motor-car and it might need to be replaced as often. It would obviously be several years from the time when a decision is taken to require lead filters before they could be in sufficiently wide production and use as to be effective in reducing the total lead emissions. That is the best advice that I have been able to receive and it is the best information that I can give the House this evening.
It is surely sensible to take full account of this project before taking the extreme view that lead must be removed completely from petrol by 1980. What we seek to do, and what it is surely desirable to do, is to ensure if we can that lead is not emitted into the atmosphere. That is our aim.
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord at that point. If that is so and there are practical prospects of the kind described by the noble Lord, can he tell the House whether it is the Government's present intention to take parallel powers for controlling the content of lead in petrol that would have

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the effect of controlling the emission of lead from exhausts?
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I have done my best and I indicated that I was giving the best information I could. The question raised by the noble Lord is an important one. I cannot reply to it "off the cuff", but I will do my best to see that he gets the information as quickly as it can be obtained.
As I have said, the medical evidence does not show the need for such a step and, of course, it could be very expensive in terms of oil resources and cost. Here, of course, I am speaking about the removal of lead from petrol completely by 1980. It has been estimated that it would increase British requirements of crude oil by 10 million tons a year and would add about £300 million a year to our import bill. It would involve additional refinery investment of some £300 million (presumably at the expense of North Sea exploration) and would mean that the engines of existing vehicles would have to be altered to enable them to run on lead-free petrol. That is the best information I can give by way of figures and I think it answers a number of points raised by the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan. He wanted to know the authority: the authority I have is based on the information provided for me by experts in the Department, and I will come back to that subject presently.
I should now like to touch on the Government's intentions in this matter. In 1972 the oil and motor industries agreed to a programme of reductions in the lead content of petrol from the previous limit of 0·84 grammes of lead per litre of petrol to 0·55 grammes this year and 0·45 grammes by the end of next year. This will ensure that total lead emissions from vehicles are contained, and reduced below 1972 levels for several years ahead. I very much regret that in the current oil crisis it was found necessary to defer the reduction that was due at the beginning of this year. The programme to which I have just referred will provide the time for a closer assessment of medical evidence and, particularly, the relationship between levels of lead in the air and the lead in the blood. It will provide time for alternative technical possibilities to be examined. It will provide time for closer assessment of how to overcome the technical and economic problems associated
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with reducing the lead content of petrol below the limits currently programmed.
I hope this indicates a continuing concern. Some of your Lordships may ask why, if the Government really mean business, they should not provide in their own Bill for a definite limit on the lead content in petrol. There is a very simple reason why it is considered better not to do this. A specific limit contained in main legislation can only be altered by main legislation. I think there is no need for me to spell out to your Lordships the difficulties and uncertainties associated with the promotion of new main legislation. Details of this sort are essentially for subsidiary legislation, and this is what we intend to do.
My Lords, I take this opportunity to repeat my earlier assurance that when statutory powers are given to him the Secretary of State for the Environment intends to place statutory controls on the maximum permitted lead content of petrol. The noble Baroness, Lady Young, asked about Gravelly Hill, as also did the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, and I think it was referred to by him and by others under the title of "Spaghetti Junction". The Working Party which my right honourable friend has set up was in fact set up on March 14 this year, following his visit to the junction earlier that day. Its terms of reference are as follows: to report to the Minister as soon as possible (hopefully in three weeks) on the situation in regard to (1) lead pollution in the environment round the Gravelly Hill interchange and, (2) the implications of the pollution for the health of local people. The Chairman of the Working Party is Mr. J. B. Gilbrow of the Department's Central Unit for Environmental Protection. I think that gives the noble Baroness the information she wanted.
My Lords, we had a very forceful speech and argument from my noble friend Lord O'Hagan in opening the debate. As the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, said, it is difficult to resist the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, when he is as persistent as he has been on this issue. The noble Baroness, Lady Young, was very helpful with the searching questions she put. She ensured that we should have a debate which really covered the issue. From the noble Lord, Lord

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Amulree, we had a great deal of interesting background information about the effects of lead, and about the research that has gone into this subject. I was very interested in what he had to say. My father was a considerable cider drinker. He would have listened with even greater interest than I to what the noble Lord had to say.
My Lords, the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, produced a great deal of very provocative, thoughtful information. Indeed, he provoked my noble friend Baroness Summerskill; he must have known he would do that. I think the House appreciated the knowledge brought by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, when he spoke at some length and particularly, as I have said already, when he referred to the possibility of a filter to prevent the emission of lead into the atmosphere.
As I listened to the noble Lord, Lord Platt, I had the feeling that when he had finished no one could possibly doubt the depth of feeling that exists on this issue in this House. I ought to say that in the Department I have found that the concern expressed here to-day, although it may not be obvious, is shared by those whose business it is daily to deal with this matter. I promised the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, that I would come back to the question of experts in the Department. I would say quite frankly to the noble Lord that they would like him to understand their concern is as great as his, that they want to do all they can. If the noble Lord feels that he could serve any useful purpose by discussing matters with the experts, then I shall be very happy to arrange for him to meet them so they may better understand what he has in mind. I think that probably he reflects the views of others as well as himself. The experts at no point wish to under-estimate the concern expressed by the noble Lord, nor do they wish to under-estimate the contribution he can make. I think I can say that, for their part, they would be very happy if they felt they could help him, perhaps a little better than he intimated, with the problems with which they have to contend. These people are deserving of some sympathy. When I hear someone suggesting, as has been done once or twice, "All you have to do is to make up your minds, go ahead and tackle it", I say the
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problem is being tackled. My right honourable friend would be more pleased than I think is appreciated from listening to the debate, if while he holds his office he could get on to the Statute Book legislation which would effectively control the situation.
My Lords, if I have omitted anything that I should have said, I apologise to the House. If Members wish to pursue any matter with me, I shall be delighted to do my best to help.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, can he say anything at this stage about the Holgate Unit report?
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I have a note to say that I cannot do so this evening. I have made a note that I will write to the noble Lord about that matter.
7.36 p.m.
LORD O'HAGAN: My Lords, I should like to thank everyone who has taken part in the debate on this Bill, and particularly those who have stayed to the end. Even more so, may thank those who are not usually mentioned, the people who have not contributed to the debate yet have still stayed to the end. I am very appreciative since this subject must have been canvassed many times before.
My Lords, I was very impressed by what Lord Garnsworthy has said. I have received quite a bit of correspondence on the matter, as no doubt he has. I was interested to receive one letter of support from Lancashire which was addressed to "Lord O'Hagan, Department of the Environment". With him there I am quite happy to be where I am. I am not one of those who under-estimates the concern of civil servants, even if they are not allowed to make it so obvious as Members of your Lordships' House, and I fully appreciate what the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, said about the concern of people inside his Department.
My Lords, I have been up and down in my moods during the afternoon and evening. At the beginning of the day there were some speeches that made me gloomy, not because they criticised my case or because they were opposed to my point of view about lead in petrol, but because, from the speech of the noble

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Baroness, Lady Young, onwards, I felt there was a chance we were going to be throwing figures back and forth, hurling about estimates of millions of pounds in costs, and so on, without having them substantiated. That would have led to a negative debate. So I fully take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, that we must try to move towards some common ground where we can accept experts and mutually respect the evidence put forward on a topic like this. With great respect to him, while he said that his expert was Jon Tinker, a well known scientific journalist, mine is Dr. Waldron, who works in the Department of Social Medicine at the University of Birmingham. I prefer that sort of person to a journalist, but I was grateful to the noble Lord for his point.
My Lords, as the noble Baroness, Lady Young, has gone, I will not answer her question, except to say: No, I have not consulted the oil industry. I do other things apart from concerning myself with lead in petrol, but if this Bill goes further, of course I will do so. The noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, did not make it obvious to me what he wished me to do at this stage. He spent a lot of time talking about 1980, implying that 1980 was a date that was at the kernel of my Bill, and that I was wedded to this date or nothing. But as I said earlier, this date is something we can usefully discuss. There are various practical points on both sides to be put forward, so that the part of his remarks mainly concerned with the impracticalities of 1980 I felt was prepared for something with which I did not really make a great deal of play in my opening speech. While I fully accept his commitment, which I am sure the Government will honour, about far-reaching proposals in the honestly named Control of Pollution Bill (I like that change), he has not really given me total grounds for withdrawing my Bill. Unless your Lordships feel strongly against it, we should continue to discuss this topic in the context of this Bill, taking into account the various points of view put forward with great expertise, particularly by the noble Lords, Lord Lyell and Lord Wynne-Jones, who added a great deal of practical information. We could continue with this Bill or bear in mind the possibility of continuing
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with it until the Government come forward with their own legislation and we can see what they are actually proposing to do.
My Lords, once again I thank you for staying so long, and whether you have thrown brickbats at the Bill or given it bouquets I am very grateful for the quality of the discussion we have had. I hope we can keep this Bill jogging on as a stimulus to thought by the Government until they come forward with their own proposals.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

WAR PENSIONS AND ALLOWANCES
7.41 p.m.
LORD FRASER OF LONSDALE LORD FRASER OF LONSDALE rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have any further Statement to make about war pensions and allowances, especially for the severely disabled; and in particular whether they will say at what time of the year they propose to make an annual review. The noble Lord said: My Lords, following custom, I declare an interest, indeed two interests: I am myself a beneficiary of the activities of the Ministry of Pensions, because I have been concerned with this matter since 1916, when I was wounded. Nevertheless, I am not moved, and never have been moved, to raise this matter in Parliament on that account. But I have another interest to declare; that is, that I have been, and still am, Chairman of St. Dunstan's for some 50 years; I was at one time President of the British Legion for some 11 years, and I have been 50 years in Parliament. During all that time I have pursued Ministers of Pensions, as they used to be called; they are now called by some other name, which is not important—I mean the name is not important. I have pursued them in all Parties over this very long time, with, I think, some measure of success.
My main purpose is to thank the Ministry concerned, and the Government and the Minister, for the recent Statement about war pensions, and I will be exceedingly brief in view of the late hour. First of all, the Ministry has raised war pensions and the allowances that are

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paid to the severely disabled by some 29 per cent. That is a good and generous adjustment to modern circumstances. Whether it will prove to be enough to take care of an inflation rate of 15 or 20 per cent. in a year I do not know, but I will come to that point later.
Secondly, the Ministry has advanced the time of these awards to July, whereas hitherto we had expected them to be made in October. I should like to thank the Ministry for that, too, because the sooner the money gets into the hands of the people who are entitled to it, the better. The Minister in another place has said that in future war pensions and allowances are to be related to wages: her actual words were "to the average national earnings". I have a question or two to ask about that. What are the average national earnings—and whose earnings? Is it everybody's earnings, including the rich and the poor, the domestic servants and the managing directors, or is it the earnings of certain classes of people? If so, who are they?—because a great deal depends upon this basic figure. I imagine that it will be the so-called average wage which we have all read about in the old Ministry of Labour publications. I do not even know what that Ministry is called now, but that again does not matter. Why must we change all these names? It makes it so difficult for the older people. But instead of the cost of living they are going to relate pensions to wages.
I have a firm question to ask the Minister who is to answer this Question. Have the Ministry changed it to wages from the old cost of living figures for administrative convenience; have they done it because the trade unions asked them to and they want to please them if they can, or have they done it to benefit the pensioners? That is a plain question and I hope I will get a plain answer to it. I can see that if wages go up quicker than the cost of living, it is better to adjust the man's pension to wages. But we have been told that wages have not been going up quicker than the cost of living, so I am not quite sure where we are. Let me repeat my question. Has the change to wages from the cost of living as the basis for this calculation been made for administrative convenience or because it is going to be better for the war
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pensioner? I hope I can get a plain answer to that question.
There must inevitably be a delay between the time when you take a figure—for example, the figure of average national earnings or the cost of living, whatever the figure is—and the time when you are able to put the money into the pensioner's pocket. The delay may be some weeks; it may be some months. It may be less now than it was before because they have advanced it to July. But I want to emphasise that this inevitable delay, especially with inflation rising as fast as it is now, means that by the time the man gets the money the figures upon which it was based may be out of date. I therefore want to know what will be the datum line upon which they take the figures out and how many weeks or months after that the man will get the money in his pocket and, in view of the inevitable delay, whether the money he gets will be augmented above the calculations to take account of the fact that otherwise the war pensioner will always be at a loss compared with the wish of Parliament that he should not be at a loss. He will always be getting paid on last year's figures or the last six months' figures, never on to-day's figures—he cannot be—and until the next review comes along he will be at a disadvantage. Therefore, always the Government, whichever Government it is, must give more than the figures would suggest; otherwise you will not be doing what Parliament wishes you to do and I believe you want to do.
My next Question is: when will this annual review take place? This year it has been done between March and April 1. It was to have been done by the previous Government by next October. Until quite recently they were going to do it every October, and they then said they were going to do it every six months. I do not know whether it is really practicable to do it every six months. If it is done annually and it is done generously and there is this loading or uplift, which I have referred to, I do not think it very much matters if it is done once a year. May I underline this word "loading" for the Minister's ears. It must be loaded up. When, therefore, are they going to do it in each year?
I am glad that last October the Ministry assimilated the pensions for widows, about

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which Lord Shinwell and I asked some Questions in July of last year. I am glad to pay a tribute to my noble friend Lord Aberdare and the previous Government, and to Mrs. Castle, for having confirmed this. Widows are now to get the same—except for their old age—no matter what war their husband was in, whether it was the First World War or the Second World War, or whether their husbands are killed in Ireland to-morrow.
I have no more to say except that this has never been a political question. Along with many other friends, in another place and in this House, I have done everything in my power to pay a tribute to all. Governments because, with my knowledge of 50 years, I can say that the civil servants and the Ministers concerned, of all Parties, have always been approachable, kind, generous and sensible. We have had to push them along a bit; and we have not hesitated to do that. We shall go on doing it. But my main purpose in speaking to-night is to say, "Thank you" to the Government, "Thank you" to Parliament, and "Thank you" to the people.
7.51 p.m.
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, I am not on the list of speakers, but I would beg your Lordships' indulgence, as my noble friend mentioned my name, so that I may pay my tribute to him for his harrying of successive Governments, and for the effective way in which he has always represented the views of the ex-Servicemen. Certainly he has put some extremely penetrating questions to the Government this evening. I have the deepest interest in hearing what the answers are to be, because they will be of interest not only in the context of ex-Servicemen's pensions but also for pensioners in general.
He has asked about the definition of earnings, the dates of implementation, and so forth. May I tell him that we ourselves would never have suggested a review of pensions at six-monthly intervals if we had not thought this practicable. In fact, we believe that it would be in the better interests of pensioners in general, at a time of this very severe inflation, to have reviews at six-monthly intervals, rather than any system of loading, which I believe would be extremely difficult to work out in practice. We shall certainly he pressing the Government to make six-
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monthly reviews of pensions in the future. I am sorry to intervene in this debate without having put my name down, but I felt that after his 50 years of service in Parliament I should like to pay my tribute to my noble friend from these Benches.
7.53 p.m.
Loup WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, it is perhaps typical of the generosity of the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, to say what he has said about his noble friend Lord Fraser of Lonsdale. I have known the noble Lord, Lord Fraser, for something like 40 years. He will forgive me if I remind him of the fact that it was about 40 years ago that he and I debated in Regent's Park one Sunday morning our respective political philosophies, when he was Member of Parliament for St. Pancras, North, and I was doing my best to unseat him. Having said that, I would add that I think that everybody, both in this House and in the other place, would wish to take an opportunity like this to say how very much we admire what he has done for ex-Servicemen over a great many years. If he will not think it impertinent of me, I should like to say how many of us have a tremendous affection for him and for the way that he has overcome his own personal difficulties. Perhaps there is no man alive to-day who has overcome them and done more for the community, and particularly the ex-Serviceman, than the noble Lord, Lord Fraser.
I am delighted that we have been able, as a Government, to do something to mitigate the difficulties which a good many ex-Servicemen have experienced over the years. I am not unmindful of what the past Government also did in this particular matter. It is true that we have decided to gear pensions to wages rather than to prices. I can only say that the latest available figures give the national average earnings of the working population as a whole (and I hope that the noble Lord will not ask me what I mean by "the working population") at the present moment as £40·33 a week. The noble Lord will know that it is possible for a married war pensioner without children to receive £35·05 a week; and if he had title to normal maximum constant attendance allowance he could receive as much as £43·05, which, if I may say so, is slightly above the national average earnings.

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With regard to the assessment, I think your Lordships will know that the various Government Departments are able to assess trends. It has not been a difficult thing, with the knowledge that we have had, to assess the trends in prices. The Department of Employment has not had any real difficulty in assessing the trends in wages. As I understand the situation, the annual review of war pensions will take place some time in March and April with those trends in mind, and the amounts will be fixed and will be payable each year, as the noble Lord says, in July. I do not foresee any difficulty in assessing what should be the right amount, having regard to the competence of the appropriate Departments in making an assessment of trends.
My Lords, I think that I have answered the three major questions put by the noble Lord, but it might be of interest to the House to know exactly what has taken place. I do not propose to go into any great detail—
LORD FRASER OF LONSDALE: My Lords, before the noble Lord continues, will he allow me first to congratulate him on being a Lord in Waiting and on coming here for the first time to help us. Secondly, may I make it clear that this loading, which the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, thought was not possible, has in fact been done all the time. They always have loaded it up a little bit above the real figure; but it is necessary to load it quite a lot to allow for a whole year—especially a year with a 15 or 20 per cent. uplift in inflation. I want him to tell me not merely that the Government will look at the trend for the past year, for the missing months, but that they will look at the trend for the forthcoming year; otherwise the pensioner will always be a year behind.
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I think it can be said that the factors affecting the general cost of living, and the cost of things generally, will be taken into account. I do not foresee any great difficulty, because, as I said a moment or two ago, the rate of inflation, together with the trends in increases in prices and wages, and so on, can be reasonably accurately assessed these days. If a review is carried out in March or April, it ought to be possible to fix a sum which can be
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payable the following July with some certainty that it will be adequate until the next review.
As the noble Lord has pointed out, all rates of war disablement pensions, war widows' pensions and supplementary allowances, have been increased. As he knows, the 100 per cent. rate of disablement pension will go up from £12·80 to £16·40 and the lower rates of supplementary allowances will go up in proportion. The war widow's rate will increase from £10·10 to £13. All these increases will take effect from July 22.
In addition, the Government are doing something about special age allowances. The terms of the new revised Ministry of Defence scheme which was introduced last year, like other occupational pension schemes cannot be applied retrospectively. This, combined with the heavy cost involved, would mean something like £250 million a year, and clearly makes it impossible to apply the new provisions to pensioners of mainly the two world wars. It is in this light that the Government have taken the opportunity to provide special additional help for the elderly and more severely disabled war pensioner and the elderly war widow. This will be achieved by doubling the age allowance to which war pensioners aged 65, with at least 40 per cent. disablement, and war widows aged 65 and over are entitled. The allowance for the 100 per cent. disabled man will go up from £1·80 to £3·60, and for the war widow of 65 from 65p to £1·30 and from £1·30 to £2·60 at 70. This means that over 40,000 disablement pensioners and over 50,000 war widows will benefit, the net cost being in the region of 4½ million.
The noble Lord's Question is directed particularly towards the severely disabled, and I am sure noble Lords will be interested in the following examples which demonstrate how the proposals will affect that category of war pensioner. The single 100 per cent. disablement pensioner will receive a basic pension of £16·40 and, if his injury is such that he is unable to work, he would receive in addition an unemployability supplement of £10·75 plus comforts allowance of £1·40—in all £28·55 a week. He might also require attendance because of his disablement and would qualify for the appropriate rate of constant attendance allowance—the normal maximum will be

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£6·60 a week. If aged 65 or over he would, of course, qualify for age allowance of £3·60 as well.
The married man in the same category without children would receive £35·05 and, if he had title to normal maximum constant attendance allowance, the payment could be £43·05. If aged 65 he again would receive age allowance of £3·60 in addition. With constant attendance allowance the same married man would receive £40·33 if he had a child and £44·70 if he had two children. Perhaps it is not generally known, looking at the figures for 1973, that there were no fewer than 140,000 children who received allowances.
Apart from the allowances I have mentioned in these examples, there are other supplementary allowances for clothing and other things which a disabled pensioner could receive in addition, provided the facts of his case satisfied certain conditions. The effect, of course, would be to provide him with an even higher weekly income. Finally, my Lords, it is important to recognise that none of the war disablement pensions or supplementary allowances is subject to tax.
Speaking on behalf of the Government, we are glad that it has been possible to do this. We recognise the plight of the ex-Serviceman and the widow and the contribution they have made to their country's need, and we are glad to be able to take an early opportunity to recognise it. This means that in 1974–75 the total cost will be in the region of £170 million, and the increases to which I have referred, which come into effect in July of this year, will mean finding another £46 million, bringing the total to some £216 million. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Fraser, for expressing his thanks to the Government for what they had been able to do. We on our part recognise, as I said earlier, the contribution that he himself has made, not least the very wise counsel that he has brought to the Central Advisory Committee of which I believe he is a member. We shall understand if he goes on pressing the Government to discharge their responsibility to the war disabled, a responsibility which I think this Government or any Government would be pleased to meet.

BARCLAYS BANK INTERNATIONAL BILL [H.L.]
Reported without amendment.
UNITED KINGDOM TEMPERANCE AND GENERAL PROVIDENT INSTITUTION BILL [H.L.]
Reported with Amendments.
PORTLAND DEEPWATER QUAYS BILL [H.L.]
Examiners' Certificate that the further Standing Orders applicable have been complied with: Ordered to lie on the Table; Bill committed to a Select Committee.
LEAVE OF ABSENCE
First Report from the Select Committee: made, and to be printed.
STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS
Second Report from the Joint Committee: made, and to be printed.