Lords Sitting of 4 April 1974

Preamble
The House met at three of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR On the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Wakefield.
Several Lords—Took the Oath.
The Lord Boyle of Handsworth—Affirmed.

COAL BOARD POLICY ON SMALL MINES
LORD KILMANY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether the recent change in National Coal Board policy from refusing licences for small mines to a policy of considering proposals from suitable applicants for new licences to work readily saleable coal has led to any such licences being granted; and, if so, how many and in what part of the country.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY (LORD BALOGH): My Lords, this is a matter which is within the day-to-day responsibility of the National Coal Board, but I understand that a change in policy was made in mid-December, 1973. Since then, 16 applications have been received, as follows:

Scotland

2

Northumberland

1

Durham

3

North West

4

Staffordshire

1

South Wales

5

These applications are still being considered by the National Coal Board.
LORD KILMANY: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for that reply stating how many applications are at present in the pipeline, may I ask whether it may be taken that any have yet been granted, or are they still all in a state of examination?
LORD BALOGH: My Lords, they are all in a state of examination as yet.
LORD BLYTON: My Lords, can the Minister say whether these applications will be subject to the Mines and Quarries Act, under which no licences can be given where the number employed in a private mine is less than 25?
LORD BALOGH: More than 30, my Lords.

B.B.C. EXTERNAL SERVICES
3.9 p.m.
LORD BETHELL: 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 truth there is in recent reports that they intend to make a further substantial reduction in funds available to the external services of the B.B.C.
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE, FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS): My Lords, no such decisions bearing on the B.B.C. External Services have been taken. Her Majesty's Government are very conscious of the importance of these services. They have, of course, to keep their cost under review, like all other items of public expenditure.
LORD BETHELL: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord for that somewhat reassuring reply. Can he further assure me that, before any decision is made which could quite possibly emasculate the External Services of the B.B.C., proper information will be collected and considered about the huge audiences which these broadcasts enjoy abroad, the extent to which they provide reliable information in countries where the media are censored and where information is restricted, and the great contribution they make to knowledge of British industry and, consequently, to British exports?
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I can certainly give that assurance. We are very conscious of the points which the noble Lord has raised.
LORD HILL OF LUTON: My Lords, will the noble Lord and his right honourable friend, in considering any recommendations of officials on this subject, take into account that in the financial year now beginning there are modest but appreciable cuts already determined, resulting in the end of the Caribbean Service and a reduction in the English to Africa Service; secondly, that a cut of 10 per cent., which I understand is being considered, would, because of the difficulty of reducing overheads, result in a 30 to 40 per cent. cut in the output of the Services; and thirdly, that a severe cut in such Services would give pleasure only to those dictatorships of the Right and Left which resent the impartial and thruthful character of the B.B.C.'s Services which is an important element in maintaining this country's prestige overseas?
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I entirely and warmly agree with what the noble Lord, who speaks from a position of considerable experience, has said about the value to this country, and indeed to the Free World and beyond the Free World, of these Services. I can assure him that all the considerations he has advanced will be borne very fully in mind by the Government if and when they consider any proposals for reduction.
LORD MAYBRAY-KING: My Lords, especially after what has come from the mouth of my noble friend, Lord Hill of Luton, may I ask whether the noble Lord is aware that those of us who travel abroad know how deep and precious is the impact of the B.B.C.'s Services on the world to-day, as it was during the Second World War?
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, many noble Lords and noble Baronesses will share with my noble friend the experience of having seen and heard for themselves how this Service has contributed to sanity and decency throughout the world because it has adhered always to a high standard of truth.
LORD FERRIER: My Lords, the noble Lord may not recall but perhaps he would check that in this House over the last year it has been asked several times that expenditure on the Overseas Services should not be cut but should be increased. Further, do the Government
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appreciate that there are many people in this country with old colleagues, old comrades, old friends and old pensioners in India who greatly appreciate news from Bellati on the Urdu and Gujurati broadcasts?
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, however attractive, that is quite another question.
LORD GOODMAN: My Lords, will the noble Lord, viewing the matter from a slightly different aspect, urge upon his colleagues that they should act in splendid contrast to all previous Governments and remember that it is very easy to destroy institutions and very difficult to establish them? Nothing is more damaging to the morale of the staff employed than the notion that they may be employed one day and dismissed the next because something on which they have expended dedication, devotion and endless time is whizzed away because the Government of the day decide on a change of financial policy.
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I certainly take the point raised by the noble Lord.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, can my noble friend say whether the cuts which have been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Hill of Luton, have been initiated in the past four or five weeks, since the present Government came into office, or were they initiated prior to that?
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, the reductions to which I take it the noble Lord is referring were in fact made by the last Administration in consultation with the B.B.C. and amount to something like £730,000. These will be operative after to-morrow; that is to say, in the 1974–75 financial year.
BARONESS EMMET OF AMBERLEY: My Lords, can the Minister clear my mind on one point? I understood from the noble Lord, Lord Hill, that cuts had already been made, whereas I understand from the Minister that cuts are not being made. Which of these points of view represent the actual fact?
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, cuts were agreed by the last Administration, in consultation with the

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B.B.C., and are applicable to the forthcoming financial year, 1974–75. I said that no proposals had yet been decided on by us in regard to any further cuts.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, following the excellent precedent of the Government's action in regard to museum charges, overturning the decision of the previous Administration, will the noble Lord bear in mind and report to his colleagues that this is a matter on which quite clearly the whole of your Lordships' House feels strongly?
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Hear, hear!
LORD SHACKLETON: This is something on which any Government, including the previous Government, would find it necessary to take account of the opinions of your Lordships.
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I am quite sure that the feelings and views expressed on this matter, both here and in another place, will be very carefully considered by Her Majesty's Government.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, has my noble friend observed the silence on the Opposition Front Bench, and can be account for it?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that it is impossible to resist the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, and that one has great sympathy with the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, because when Governments ask for cuts in expenditure it is nearly always information services which people think are not important, and many of us fight quite hard to keep these information services in being? Therefore, may I ask the noble Lord whether in any future consideration he will, in consultation with the B.B.C., consider the possibility of a further streamlining of overheads?
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I reciprocate the expression of sympathy extended by the noble Baroness. I think I know what she went through earlier this year when, in consultation with the B.B.C., she agreed to a reduction of £730,000 for the next fin-
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ancial year. I hope to do at least as well by the B.B.C. as she did.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (LORD SHEPHERD): My Lords, I suspect that the message your Lordships wish to convey to Her Majesty's Government has been well and truly expressed and therefore I suggest we move to another Question.
LORD MERRIVALE: My Lords, I should like to ask a final question—
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Order!
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I am entirely in the hands of the House. I made a suggestion, but if the noble Lord wishes to pursue his question I think he will need again the agreement of your Lordships' House. However, I hope he will accept that we have pursued this matter, the message is now loud and clear and we should proceed to the next Question.
LORD MERRIVALE: My Lords, I just wanted to ask—
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Order!
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I think the noble Lord should bear in mind what I apprehend are the wishes of your Lordships' House. I am very sorry; I am equally embarrassed with the noble Lord, because if I had been on the other side of the House I should have wished to pursue the matter. But I feel I must bear in mind the interests of the House. The other day we spent some 27 minutes on Questions, and I am afraid we are running the risk of doing so again this afternoon.
LORD BYERS: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether he would not agree that, if the House proceeds in this way at Question Time, we are getting closer and closer to what occurs in another place, which has found it necessary to have a Speaker, and therefore it is in the interests of every one of us that we should take the advice of the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I hope it would be over all our dead bodies that we should ever have to proceed to such a position. Therefore I hope that we may now proceed to the next Question.

CONCORDE AIRCRAFT: TESTS AND SERVICES
3.19 p.m.
LORD TREFGARNE: 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 why Concorde cannot enter service in 1975.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF INDUSTRY (LORD BESWICK): My Lords, before Concorde can start airline services, the aircraft must be granted a certificate of airworthiness for carrying passengers, and British Airways and Air France must have enough aircraft to establish a reliable service. The programme of flight and ground safety testing necessary to satisfy the airworthiness authorities to grant a certificate of airworthiness is not likely to be completed before the end of 1975. On the latest delivery dates, British Airways and Air France are not due to have three aircraft each until April, 1976. Urgent examination is being given by the manufacturers to advancing these delivery dates. This assessment has not as yet been completed.
LORD TREFGARNE: My Lords, while I am greatly obliged to the noble Lord, is he aware that it has been reported in the Press, and particularly in Flight, that the certificate of airworthiness is likely to be granted earlier rather than late in 1975, and will it be possible for British Airways and Air France to start even a limited service in that year, bearing in mind the great importance that that may have on the project as a whole?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, as I said, manufacturers are endeavouring to advance the date by which they would get a certificate of airworthiness and it is possible that everyone will be delighted. With regard to the second part of the question, it would be inadvisable to attempt a service before there has been adequate time for crew training. If the aircraft are delivered earlier, it is possible that those preparations also could be advanced.
LORD HARVEY OF PRESTBURY: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that almost daily articles are being written about the future of Concorde? Tens of thousands of jobs in the West country and in subsidiary companies all over Britain are at stake. For the sake of all concerned, will the Government consider having an early debate in either or both Houses to get the matter clarified?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I would not dispute anything the noble Lord, Lord Harvey of Prestbury, has said. Possibly more than anyone in this House I am aware of the truth in what he says. As to a debate, I understand that the noble Lord, Lord Kings Norton, has a Question down that will give rise to something of a debate next Wednesday.
LORD BRAYE: My Lords, can the noble Lord give any indication when British Airways are likely, or should be likely, to receive the first Concorde?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I did say that the first aircraft will be delivered in October, 1975, and the third in April, 1976.
LORD THOMAS: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that no greater disservice can be done to the British aircraft industry than to try and get Concorde into passenger service before intending passengers are satisfied that all possible testing has been done to secure the safe performance of the aircraft?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, is quite right. That is what I have been trying to say, but as I indicated before, if that certificate of airworthiness could be obtained more quickly, the necessary preparations before the scheduled service is begun could, of course, be advanced.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, can the noble Lord explain something he said in his original Answer? Does one understand that an airline would not be given a certificate to operate Concorde unless that airline had three aircraft in service?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, if I may say so, the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, seems always to try to find some sort of flaw in my answer, no matter what I say. What I said was quite straightforward; the aircraft as a type has to have a certificate of airworthiness before

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it can operate in service. The airline, as an operating company, requires three aircraft before it can have an adequate backup service, and operate a sufficiently attractive schedule.
LORD ORR-EWING: My Lords, since we are to have a debate on the subject, can the noble Lord give us some indication of the revised cost of cancellation as compared with the cost of £115 million for completing 16 of these aircraft? This would help the House and those who wish to take part in the debate, when we have it.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, as I said earlier, the figure of £18 million first announced is being reconsidered in the light of representations which have been made. It is impossible as yet to give a revised figure.
LORD TREFGARNE: My Lords, as a further supplementary question arising out of the original reply, may I ask the noble Lord whether he will examine the possibility of crew training being carried out by the British Aircraft Corporation prior to delivery of the first aircraft, possibly under cover of a private category of certificate of airworthiness?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I used the phrase "crew training", but there are a number of other preparations which have to be made. These preparations can only be made, the training of crews can only take place and the general passenger services laid on by the airline and the operating company. As the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, said, it would be inadvisable to try to rush that process.

THE OPEN UNIVERSITY: STUDENT TOTALS
3.23 p.m.
BARONESS LEE OF ASHERIDGE: 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 plans they have to enable the Open University to provide an increased number of places in view of the sharp increase in the number of applicants.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, the grant settlement for the Open University for the years 1974 to 1976 provides for between 36,000 and 42,000 undergraduate students. The University has recently written to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science, asking for an increase in grant for the years 1975 and 1976 so that a greater number of students may be admitted. My right honourable friend is considering this request, but he has made it clear to the University that he must do so in the light of other educational priorities and in the context of Government expenditure generally.
BARONESS LEE OF ASHERIDGE: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his reply. Will he keep in mind that we have reached the ridiculous and wasteful situation whereby only 3,000 of more than 40,000 applicants for courses in 1975 can be accepted unless there is a further Government grant? May I say that I have sufficient faith in the Minister and his colleagues to believe that they will not allow this ridiculous situation to continue.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her expression of confidence. I am sure what she has said will be noted by my right honourable friend.
LORD WYNNE-JONES: My Lords, will Her Majesty's Government bear in mind that the cuts now made in higher education are having a crippling effect on the universities and polytechnics, and that if the Open University (which has the enormous advantage that it takes in mature students who are prepared to work and know what they want to do) does not have the permission and the money to go ahead, then the future for our civilisation will be very grave indeed?
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I am sure my right honourable friend will note what has been said. I am certain that within the context in which he has to operate he will do his best to satisfy all whose claims have priority.
BARONESS GAITSKELL: My Lords, surely this matter should be considered in

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conjunction with that of the money that is to be spent not only on higher education but in other areas of education also? Some of us think too much money is being spent at the moment on university education, while the secondary and primary areas of education do not get enough money.
Loan GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I would draw the attention of the noble Baroness to the last part of my original reply.
LORD GOODMAN: My Lords, supplementary to the question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Gaitskell, would the Minister ask the Government to view this matter against the belief held by many that the Open University is the most exciting and imaginative educational concept of this century?
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I think that is generally accepted. I think my right honourable friend needs little reminder about that.

THE EASTER RECESS
BARONESS LLEWELYN-DAVIES OF HASTOE: My Lords, last week I indicated that the House would rise for the Easter Recess on Wednesday, April 10, or Thursday, April II. I am now happy to inform your Lordships that, subject to the progress of Business, the House will rise on Wednesday, April 10. Perhaps I may remind your Lordships we shall return on Tuesday, April 30.
BARCLAYS BANK INTERNATIONAL BILL [H.L.]
Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

LEAVE OF ABSENCE
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That paragraph (3) of Standing Order 22 (Leave of Absence) be dispensed with for this Session, and that all
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Lords who had leave of Absence at the Dissolution of Parliament may be granted Leave of Absence until the end of this Session, unless they notify the Clerk of the Parliaments to the contrary.—(Lord Shepherd.),
On Question, Motion agreed to.

GLASGOW CORPORATION (CONTROL OF PARKING, ETC.) ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL GLASGOW CORPORATION (MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS) ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL GREENOCK CORPORATION ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and (pursuant to the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act 1936) deemed to have been read 2a and reported from the Committee.

STATUTE LAW REPEALS BILL [H.L.]
3.30 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD ELWYN-JONES): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. Your Lordships will recollect that a similar Bill, based on the Law Commissions' Fifth Report on Statute Law Revision, was given a Second Reading in the House on January 24, but shortly afterwards the Bill fell with the Dissolution of Parliament. I need not, therefore, describe its contents in any detail, though I will, of course, endeavour to answer any questions your Lordships may address to me with regard to it.
The Bill marks a further stage in the continuing process of Statute Law revision resulting from the systematic review of the Statute Book by both Law Commissions. It does not include quite as many exotic Statutes as some of the earlier repeal Bills, but your Lordships will observe that among others it includes an Act of Parliament of Scotland, the Dovecots Act 1617; but I understand that this will not have an adverse effect on the existing dovecotes in Scotland. A

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detailed explanation of the Bill will be found, as before, in the Law Commissions' Report, subject to one change which I will mention.
There is one substantial difference between this Bill and its predecessor, which has the effect of reducing its size by three pages of print, an event which in itself will, I suspect, not meet with any displeasure in the House. The explanation of the fact that the Bill is shorter is that it no longer repeals the financial enactments which made up Part II of the Schedule to the previous Bill. Those enactments related to certain taxes, such as the special contribution of 1948, the excess profits levy and excess profits tax, which have not been in force for many years. It is, however, still possible for assessments to be made for the years when they were in force, if liability has been concealed over the years by fraud or by wilful default, and the Schedule to the previous Bill contained a saving provision to that effect.
When this matter came before the Joint Committee, which held its first meeting on the Bill just before the Dissolution, the Committee doubted whether it was right to include those provisions in a Bill of this kind. In the circumstances I have described, with an abundance of caution, the Committee hesitated to classify those provisions as being "of no practical utility", as the Long Title requires, even with the specific saving I have mentioned. The Law Commission have since reconsidered the matter and their advice, with which I agree, is that those provisions should be omitted from the Bill. There is one exception for Section 45(8) of the Finance (No. 2) Act 1915, which relates to a profits duty of the First War. This is wholly spent and reappears in Part II of the Schedule to this Bill. Otherwise the other taxing provisions remain. It may be possible to deal with the rest on some other appropriate occasion, but not in a Statute Law Repeals Bill.
I know that some of your Lordships will share the interest in the statistical result of this operation which was reflected by my noble and learned friend Lord Gardiner. The effect of this Bill is that it now repeals 54 whole Acts and 310 parts of Acts which were passed into law between 1581 and 1972. It will bring the total of the statute repeals covered by the
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Law Commissions' programme up to 369 whole Acts of Parliament and 692 parts of Acts, so that 1,061 statutes are affected in all. But your Lordships may or may not be gratified to know that the Statute Book is not exactly denuded. There were approximately 3,480 statutes on the Statute Book on January 1, 1974; in 1964 there were 3,680. To have reduced the total number by 200 over a period of ten years which has seen so much new legislation is a commendable achievement, for which our thanks are due to the Law Commissions. The Bill continues the process of pruning the Statute Book which, as my predecessor pointed out, is far from finished yet. Indeed it may well prove to be a perpetual exercise.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, may I just say that, exotic or not, the House should, I think, take this opportunity of saying a word of thanks to the Joint Committee, which has already had one meeting on this Bill and it will have some more. It is a very laborious task in fact to go through the long list of repeals in the Schedule. The substantive part of this Bill is very short; it is all in the Repeals Schedule. Each of them has to be checked to see whether or not it is justified for repeal. I am glad that the teeth of the Joint Committee have been bared in the case of the financial provisions and its judgment has been proved right; it growled correctly in the night, and the noble and learned Lord has now dropped those provisions.
The only other point I should like to make is that I hope the noble and learned Lord would agree with me in this proposition, that although at this stage of the Bill we need not be particularly concerned whether or not the "doocots" in Scotland will be denuded by the repeal of the 1617 Act, it is open to any noble Lord on the recommittal of this Bill to raise that or any other repeal on merits, so that we can discuss it, even if it is passed through the Joint Committee. That is the procedure which applies to these Bills, and a very salutary one it has proved to be in the past. If that is right, it might be of interest to noble Lords to know that they all have a chance to take part in this process, if they wish.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I am sure the House is grateful to the noble Viscount for that guidance and information, and I am grateful to him for the pronunciation of "dovecotes" in a fashion unfamiliar to a Welshman, if I may say so. Our thanks are also due, as the noble Viscount pointed out, to the Joint Committee, and indeed it is a great relief to me, if I may say so, that it will fall to them to consider the minutiae of the various appeals.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and referred to the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills.

CLAY CROSS COUNCILLORS AND HOUSING FINANCE ACTS
3.40 p.m.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, with the permission of the House, I will now repeat a Statement that has been made in another place by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister in reference to Clay Cross. I will use his own words:
"The situation there and elsewhere has arisen from the entirely unprecedented situation created over the past two years by the fact that the measures in the Housing Finance Acts were forced upon local government with unreasonable speed—indeed under the guillotine—and considerable lack of understanding.
"The House will be aware that this matter has greatly exercised those concerned with democracy in local government, particularly the national Conference and the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party.
"Because of our deep concern with the problem forced upon local authorities by the former Government's policies, decisions were taken by the Labour Party Conference when we were in Opposition about the question of the penalties involved for certain local councillors—financial liabilities, and penalties in terms of civic disqualification.
"It was the view of the National Executive Committee, and of the Labour Party Conference that efforts should be made to secure a reimbursement to the councillors concerned, in the case of Clay Cross only, for the financial liabilities that they have
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suffered. At no time was any commitment given that this would involve a charge upon public funds and we do not propose to do so. Indeed this proviso was made clear when we were in Opposition.
"It will be a matter for those associated with the decisions taken at the relevant conferences to consider how funds, not involving a charge on the revenue, can be raised for this purpose.
"We are committed to removing the civic disqualification which the Conservative Housing Finance Acts have involved. On this question we have to consider Clay Cross in a wider context.
"Clay Cross and one or two other councils decided on the policy of total non-implementation. A number of other local authorities, who finally implemented, did so only after a considerable delay. Their accounts are, I understand, now being examined by the district auditors in the course of their annual audits. The result of this examination may lead, though possibly on a limited scale, to further problems in different parts of the country which might involve the question of disqualification. Only when we see the full extent and magnitude of the problem will it be possible to make recommendations to the House. This we shall do.
"I and my right honourable friends have always made it clear that the law of the land, however unfair, however divisive, must be obeyed until it is repealed. My right honourable friend, who is now Lord President, made it absolutely clear at the Labour Party Conference last year. He said that,
'… the N.E.C. could not possibly advise councillors to act unlawfully. We cannot …'
And he went on to spell out the reasons why this could not be accepted.
"The matter was taken further by my right honourable friend who is now the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary, when, as Chairman of the Party, he opened the Labour Party Local Government Conference at Birmingham in January. He said then:
'The Labour Party has always taken the view, and I still hold it, that the way to get a bad law changed is to change the Government.'
"The Government believe that the divisive effect on local democracy

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caused by the Housing Finance Acts should be resolved with fairness to all concerned, including those who reluctantly implemented the Act, and in a spirit which will diminish for the future the bitterness engendered by legislation whose repeal we shall shortly recommend to the House."
My Lords, that concludes the Prime Minister's Statement.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, I am sure that we are very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, for repeating that Statement. I wonder whether I may make one comment and then ask a few questions. The noble Lord has repeated a Statement which seems to be almost entirely concerned with internal disputes among the Labour Party, and which says at an early stage:
"The House will be aware that this matter has greatly exercised those concerned with democracy in local government, particularly the national Conference and the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party."
Does the noble Lord realise that this has probably exercised other Parties and other people in the country as much as, if not more than, those in the Labour Party, and particularly those who are concerned with the rule of law and the requirement that people should obey Acts of Parliament until they are properly repealed?
I would go on to ask a few questions. First, does the noble Lord's promise later in the Statement about the commitment to remove the civic disqualification mean that there will be legislation? Or is this a promise to act administratively under either the 1933 or 1972 Local Government Acts; and, if so, which? Will the Government make a further Statement, when they have decided whether they are going to act administratively, on what they have decided? If they are going to act administratively, will they bear in mind that where a surcharge bringing disqualification is to be, as it were, set aside by the Secretary of State, it can be done only if the Secretary of State thinks that the surcharge was incurred by somebody acting reasonably, or in the belief that his actions were authorised by law? We hope that there will be full reasons given if any disqualification is removed on that account.
Finally, if there is to be any reimbursement by individual members of the Labour Party, or by the Labour Party as
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a whole, would the noble Lord care to remind those who are minded to contribute of what the noble and learned Lord the Master of the Rolls said about Clay Cross? So far, his remarks have been reported only in The Times of February 1 of this year. He is reported to have said that each councillor had deliberately broken the solemn declaration that he had made on taking office to fulfil his duties faithfully as a councillor; each councillor had persisted in defying the law; they told officials to take no steps to put the Act into operation. He said that the result of this was to benefit the well-to-do tenants whose rents were not increased and injure the poor tenants who therefore did not get rebates, that their disqualification was automatic and that they were not fit to be councillors, and the sooner they were disqualified the better.
LORD WADE: My Lords, I should like to join in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, for repeating this Statement. It would seem to me that there are two general principles underlying the Statement, and, as I understand it, the two principles are being observed. The first is that the law, however much certain persons may object to it, must be obeyed until it is altered. The second principle relates to penalties. There are many cases from the past where individuals, as a matter of conscience, have objected to particular laws and have become liable to penalties, but they have recognised that they must meet those penalties. On the second principle, that where penalties are payable because certain individuals as a matter of conscience object to certain laws, it has always been understood that those penalties would not be recoverable from public funds. The only question I wish to ask is whether anything that the noble Lord has said in the latter part of his Statement departs in any way from, or erodes, the two principles that I have just stated.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I acknowledge what the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, and the noble Lord, Lord Wade, have said. In regard to the noble Lord's specific question, what is in the latter part of the Statement in no way erodes the former part that there is no intention at all to recompense these councillors out of public funds. The

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noble Viscount referred to what was said at the Labour Party Conference and to what my honourable friends have said on a number of occasions. It was considered right to include these words as a consequence of the attacks that have been made, particularly on the Lord President and on his role in winding up a very emotional debate at the Labour Party Conference of last year—an emotional debate arising out of the sense of grievance of the Housing Finance Acts.
My Lords, in regard to civic disqualification, my understanding is that it could not be done under Section 2(30) of the 1933 Act. I took part in the Housing Finance Act of 1972. I cannot recall any provision by which this could be done administratively, but this has still to be considered. As I said in the Statement, we need to see what the general position is before a decision is made, and when it is made clearly we shall have to come to Parliament.
My Lords, in regard to the final remarks of the noble Viscount, warning, or seeking to warn, members of the Labour Party or any other organisation or individual who might wish to make a contribution, I would not defend any man for breaking the law; but there are many men and women of this country who break the law every day of the week and who receive a very small fraction of the penalty which these men will incur as a consequence of what they consider a conscientious act in Clay Cross. One needs also to consider that around that area there is high unemployment, low pay and deep poverty, and one needs to consider, without in any way approving or condoning the act of these councillors, the general circumstances under which they acted.

RACE RELATIONS BILL [H.L.]
3.52 p.m.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. My Lords, last night I was reading a book, Race and the Law, written by Anthony Lester and Geoffrey Bindman—I suppose the authoritative work on this subject. I was surprised to learn that the British Parliament carried
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its first legislation against race discrimination as far back as 1833, in the course of a discussion on the Government of India Act, when Section 87 prohibited racial and religious discrimination in the public service in India. This was at a time of resurgence in the Liberal Party and Lord Bentinck was able to carry that first legislative step against discrimination in that Parliament.
My Lords, I have referred to this because it causes some disarray to the first argument which I was going to put to the House. I was going to say that legislation against racial discrimination had been comparatively recent, that it was a new venture, that it was inevitably experimental and exploratory. In recent times, the first Act was in 1965 and it prohibited discrimination in public places. When that Act was applied it was found that it did not deal with discrimination in two major spheres, housing and employment. As a result of that experience a second measure was introduced in 1968 to extend unlawful discrimination to housing and to employment. My Lords, we are still passing through the period where we are feeling our way in regard to legislation which deals with racial discrimination and I think I shall be able to show that the experience of the second Act and of the Race Relations Board show now the need for further adjustment.
The Bill which I am submitting to the House for Second Reading is based on recommendations of the Race Relations Board and of the Street Committee. That Committee was presided over by Professor Harry Street, and among its members who endorsed these particular recommendations was Sir Geoffrey Howe who was Attorney General in the late Government. The recommendations of the Race Relations Board and the Street Committee have been reinforced by experience of legislation in this sphere in many parts of the world, and especially in the United States of America.
I think the most disturbing factor at the present time is the scepticism and disillusionment which exist in the immigrant community about the effectiveness of our legislation concerning racial discrimination. This has been expressed by Sir Geoffrey Wilson, Chairman of the Race Relations Board, particularly after certain

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decisions by the Law Lords of this House. If, after our experience, there is to be confidence among the immigrant community in our legislation, changes must be introduced. The Board recognises that its functions must be extended if it is to fulfil its purpose effectively. In saying that I do not underestimate the work it has done. It has changed the climate of conduct in this country regarding racial discrimination and it has achieved conciliation and co-operation where previously there was a sense of grievance and confrontation. But the powers of the Race Relations Board to-day are limited in a way which makes it incapable of dealing with our present problems. It acts only in individual cases—I emphasise that. Its main procedure is to consider personal complaints reaching it through the ten regional committees. It has had great success in conciliation in those cases. When they arise in industry they are considered by a joint committee of the C.B.I. and the T.U.C., but no one with knowledge suggests that this is a measure of the discrimination which exists in the country. Fewer than 1,000 individual complaints are made and considered each year—913 in 1972, 901 in 1971. The present procedure leaves untouched the great field of racial discrimination.
My Lords, there is another channel of action by the Race Relations Board than that of individual complaints received through its regional committees. Under Section 17 of the Act the Board can investigate individual cases when it suspects unlawful discrimination. Although this has been a secondary feature of the Board's work—there were only 68 occurrences in 1972—it has proved the most promising. The Board stated in its 1972 Report:
"In our experience, Section 17 investigations are generally more fruitful in serving the purposes of the Act than the investigation of complaints."
I have no doubt that that practical experience has contributed to the conclusion which is the basic change in the Bill that I am now presenting to the House.
Experience has shown the necessity for two changes: first, to remedy the limited effectiveness of dealing with individual cases only; and, secondly, to remove the restrictive effects of the limitations on investigation, which is of value. We thus come to the essence of the Bill which
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I am presenting to the House, which is that the powers of the Board should be extended to enable it to investigate situations liable to discrimination, without the need to suspect that any individual unlawful act has been committed; and that it should be able to call the attention of those concerned to circumstances in which discrimination is likely to occur and to make recommendations for a change. In other words, the Board would become positive, constructive and preventive. Its sphere would be enlarged from action in individual cases to action in a social context. It would be able to look at situations where there was a danger of discrimination, to discuss the position with those concerned and to advise changes which might avoid discrimination.
In its 1971–72 Report the Board stated:
"We consider that the granting of such powers would increase considerably the ability of the Board to engage in work of a preventive character. The Factory Acts are an example of legislation where the agency responsible for securing compliance does so more by prevention than by dealing with individual breaches. The mere existence of such powers would stimulate steps to promote equal opportunity."
That is the fundamental change proposed in this Bill. Perhaps second in importance is the provision that would give the Board the right to call for evidence and to summon witnesses. This is necessary to make both conciliation and investigation effective. I am encouraged by the fact that so many members of the present Government, including members of the Cabinet, urged this view when the 1968 Act was under consideration. This provision is recommended by both the Board and the Street Committee, and is the key to the whole working of the Race Relations Act.
The third proposal in the Bill is that the scope of discrimination should be extended to nationality. This was clearly the intention of the then Home Secretary, Sir Frank Soskice, who is now my noble and learned friend Lord Stow Hill. He then observed (OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, 16/7/65, col. 972) that the word "national" in "national origin",
"… would bring to the mind of the ordinary person the idea of a particular country; a person, for example, who is a German is one regarded as having German as his nationality and, if he lived here, he and his grouping would have the protection of the Bill."

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The Law Lords of this House ruled in the case of the London Borough of Ealing v. Race Relations Board that Section 1 of the Act had not been intended to cover alien nationality. We thus have this illogical position. While a person cannot discriminate lawfully against anyone because he is brown or black, he can discriminate against him because he is an Indian or a Jamaican. The illogicality is emphasised in view of the fact that under the provisions of the Treaty of Rome, incorporated in British law by the European Communities Act 1972, one cannot discriminate against a national of a country belonging to the European Economic Community.
On previous occasions when we have discussed this subject there has been some controversy about the application of the Act to clubs and voluntary associations. I think your Lordships will find that the clauses in this Bill which refer to this matter deal with it satisfactorily. There would be a general exemption for private social clubs and associations of persons of particular ethnic or national origins, such as Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Jewish or Commonwealth associations, though in these, too, discrimination would not be permitted on grounds of colour. A Jew could not be excluded because he was brown. An Indian could not be excluded because he was white. As I am a white who was born in India, perhaps I have an interest in that aspect. The need for this amendment again arose from a ruling made by the Law Lords of this House who were concerned with the exclusion of a coloured person from a Conservative Club in East London. The Bill accepts the right of such a club to exclusive Conservative membership, but not to exclude a Conservative on the grounds of his racial origin or colour.
Time does not allow me to deal in greater detail with the whole of the Bill, but there are three provisions which I should mention briefly. The Bill would amend the Act in relation to the accommodation of crews on ships. Strangely, the present Act against discrimination actually legalises discrimination in this sphere. Since the Act was passed there has been a considerable growth of integration among the crews of ships.
An important change is the permission given to individuals to take proceedings in
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a court of law if a complaint has been turned down by the Board or if a decision has been delayed unreasonably. At present, only the Board has the right to take proceedings. I believe it is unique that a person who feels aggrieved in consequence of what he holds to be a breach of the civil law should not have the right to take a case to court. This proposal represents a personal civil right against the privileges of bureaucracy. Damages would be limited to £500.
This clause also extends the remedies which may be granted in legal proceedings by the courts. These include the important provision which empowers the courts to grant positive orders, either to take steps to establish to the Boards satisfaction that the defendant will comply in future with the Race Relations Act, or to provide any benefit to the victim which he might reasonably have been expected to have but for the unlawful discrimination. At present the Act does not require any affirmative action to provide equal opportunity following the ending of a case of discrimination.
My Lords, one more amendment should be mentioned because of the attention aroused by a particular case. The Bill would give the Board the right to decline to act when a complaint appears to be frivolous or trivial. At present, the Board must investigate against its better judgment. The case of the advertisement for a Scottish cook to prepare Scotch porrridge was an example of this. The amendment would save the Board from ridicule.
Those, then, are the main provisions of the Bill, which I regret is so largely an instance of legislation by reference, probably inevitable in an amending Bill. I hope that the Explanatory Memorandum made available through the Printed Paper Office was useful to your Lordships. I should like to pay a public tribute to the barrister who drafted the Bill, but legal etiquette does not allow me to mention his name. I will only say that he has served me in his private capacity, but he is also a counsel of the Race Relations Board.
My Lords, I hope that the House will give the Bill a Second Reading. While certain clauses may not be acceptable, they will be open to consideration in Committee. The crucial change involved is the power which the Bill would give to the Race Relations Board to prevent

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and not merely to correct. It is for that principle that I ask the support of your Lordships. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a. —(Lord Brockway.)
4.13 p.m.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, I am sure that it is valuable that we should have our annual debate on race relations. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, will long be spared to make this a hardy annual event. I remember that in a short debate just over a year ago I set out the then Government's position, and perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, will be doing the same for the present Government at the end of to-day's debate.
I venture to think that the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, must be a little premature in expecting final decisions from the new Government within a month of their taking office. I am sure that they are very rapid but some of these matters are difficult. The noble Lord himself said, "We are feeling our way", and I agree with him. I would, if I may dare do so, counsel a little caution to the noble Lord, Lord Harris, before he pledges himself wholeheartedly to some of these reforms. I need hardly remind the House that this subject is the other side of the coin of the immigration control issues that we were discussing last week, and equally important; and a balance on this, as on immigration, is an important thing to aim at and to achieve.
My Lords, examining the Bill (I do not propose to go through all the measures in it on Second Reading) it seems to me that there are two main objectives: first, to reverse what appears to have been thought was the decision in the club case, Charter v. The Race Relations Board; and, secondly, the extension of authority providing the preventive powers which were asked for, as the noble Lord reminded us, in the 1971–72 Report of the Race Relations Board and again, I think, in the most recent Report. I am not saying that the 1965 and 1968 Acts together are a perfect code and need no amendment. But I would say that many changes, including I think a number of those set out in the present Bill, are likely to be controversial, not only in Parliament but in the country, and we therefore need to be sure that the changes
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proposed in a fairly important extension of the sort which the Bill contains would actively assist in improving race relations. Part of the judgment on that question must be the net effect of actually trying at this particular moment to legislate on controversial points in Parliament, and in discussing them opening up possible disagreements and discrepancies.
Further, I am a little dubious about the Bill because, first, I believe that at least the active and considered support of the Government, of whichever Party, should accompany a Bill on this subject. I will go further and suggest that it should in any event be a Government Bill. Secondly, I say that because the type of issues to which I have been referring require a fine judgment which I believe a Government alone can form, after full advice from their own advisers and full consultation with all those who are equipped to give sound views on the subject.
Going on from there, I doubt whether at this particular moment counsel and advice can be fully given to the Government because there are still a number of important reports, inquiries and investigations into the fairly fundamental aspects of the workings of the Race Relations Code which are nearly ready, or possibly even available to Government, and which will have to be studied—and I think published and considered—before action is taken. If the noble Lord, Lord Harris, can give us any news about some of these matters it will be of interest to us all. Perhaps he can tell us what progress is being made.
I will pick up some of those points as I look at a number of details of the Bill. I shall not take up the point about the nationality that the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, mentioned. That was, of course, the case of a Pole who could not get on to the housing list. Although I have not studied that case, I have looked at the questions raised by Clause 2, which attempts to deal with the clubs that were the subject of Opinions and speeches in this House, sitting judicially, in the Charter case. I am afraid that, looking at the new section which Clause 2 seeks to insert into the 1968 Act, it seems to me to go miles too far.
The principles on the question of clubs that were enunciated by this House in

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the Charter case were concerned first with the definition of the words in Section 2(1) of the 1968 Act, "the public or a section of the public", which were held to be words of limitation. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Reid, said—and I would have thought that it would have been pleasing to the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, and those who agree with him:
"I would infer from the Act as a whole that the legislature thought all discrimination on racial grounds to be deplorable but thought it unwise or impracticable to apply legal sanctions in situations of a purely private character."
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, said:
"Some clubs may be sections of the public. The dividing line lies in the personal selection of members with a view to their common acceptability."
There were a number of references to bogus clubs which were plainly not private and would fall within the provisions of the Race Relations Act as they stand.
I should like to know from the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, whether, if Clause 2 of his Bill were on the Statute Book, there could be any form of club or organisation, however small or informal, that would escape the strictures of this law. Is it possible to have any regular darts team or bridge four which could not be impugned under the provisions of this clause as it stands? If it is as I think, and this is a very wide and sweeping provision, I believe that it would be widely resented and would do great harm to the cause of race relations. I am not saying that there should not be a dividing line of the type the noble and learned Law Lords were talking about, but I think this clause would prevent there being any line at all and that it goes much too far.
The noble Lord referred to the excellent work of his draftsmen, and I am sure that that tribute is fully justified; but for the life of me I cannot understand what is the meaning of the word "association" as used in this clause. It has no ordinary legal meaning whatever and I considered—perhaps idly, but I did consider—how this drafting could possibly fit in with the express exemptions in Section 9 of the 1968 Act in relation to charities: because it seems to me that every charity must, under the definition in Clause 2, be an association. Therefore we have in
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this draft an absolutely direct conflict whereby one thing is made legal and illegal in the same Bill. The noble Lord cannot possibly wish that to happen. It is the result, I am afraid, of dubious drafting and the use of this word "association if I am right. That points the finger to another very good reason why I believe that legislation of this sort should be Government legislation—or that we should not have it at all—because only the Parliamentary draftsman can get these things right and only Government can provide a parliamentary draftsman, or at any rate lend his services to a private Member of either House who wishes to introduce legislation.
Then I am a little dubious about the provisions of Clause 5 which according to the rubric deals with, "Retaliation and obstruction". Can the noble Lord tell me why this is to occur only in the annals of the law in the race relations field? There is always the risk of this sort of thing happening whenever civil or criminal action is taken in the courts. The person who loses is liable to be a little sore and is liable to seek retaliation. But there is no protection in any other branch of the law for this sort of thing, and I cannot understand why the race relations field should be picked out and a special right as suggested in Clause 5 given. Indeed, this is just the sort of thing that brings race relations into ill-repute because it gives people greater rights under this particular code than under any other one known to the law.
My Lords, I come then to Part II of the Bill which contains what the noble Lord has described as the "essence". There are a number of practical matters of administration and procedure here where changes are suggested. Here, above all, I believe we need to be convinced that these changes in detail are required. I suggest that the Government should at least be sure that the existing law creates mischiefs or contains hiatuses, lacunae, which need a remedy, and the Government need to have actual examples of cases that have gone wrong for the lack of legal powers. Why, for instance, does the noble Lord suggest there is the need for an extension of time for investigation in Clause 7(i)? Are there cases which have been shown to be out of time? On the contrary, is it not the criticism that investigation takes far too long already with the rather short time

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limit that exists? Despite the remarks made by the Board in their 1971–72 Report, how much time is really wasted on frivolous complaints which would justify the formal provisions of Clause 7(ii)? I know about the Scottish porridge case, but is this a major issue which wastes hours and hours or days and days of the time of the Board and the courts? If not, why do we have to clutter up the Statute Book with legislation on it?
The noble Lord is quite right in drawing attention to Clauses 8 and 9 as being of major importance. The power to carry out independent investigations, and to subpoena persons and documents for the purpose, must be controversial. I know that the Board has asked for them and I know that a comparison has been made in the most recent Report with a suggested anti-discrimination machinery in Northern Ireland. I think that is to deal with discrimination between Catholics and Protestants in that Province. We have had the Factories Act analogy quoted earlier, in the debate last year. If there is one thing I know about enforcement machinery for this sort of thing it is that it needs careful tailoring to the needs and susceptibilities which are involved in the activities under review. One thing may be necessary for discrimination in Northern Ireland; another form of machinery for discrimination on grounds of sex; yet another for race relations; and for all I know one has a different sort again for the Factories Acts. Merely because you can find a parallel in terms of words does not mean that it is apt in terms of operation. Surely—and again the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, will know more about this than I do—the P.E.P. Report, the work of the C.P.R.S. and the Community Relations Committee's own work on homelessness and joblessness, will all have to be studied before any decision can be taken that these preventive powers of investigation are desirable and necessary. We shall also have to see whether this will do more good than harm, bearing in mind the inevitable suspicions about poking, prying and spying that are likely to be aroused by boards having these powers of vague investigation into suspected complaints or areas of abuse. I am not saying that this is necessarily wrong, but we must bear in mind that these dangers
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exist to counter the enthusiasm of those who put forward such a reform.
While we are on this subject, since the Board says—and the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, quoted this remark—that Section 17, covering investigations, is perhaps the most useful activity with which they occupy themselves, what actual cases have occurred where their existing powers have been found to be inadequate? I should have thought, and I seem to remember that I said this last year, that the powers under Section 17 are themselves fairly wide and I looked with some care at the drafting of Clause 8 to see how much wider that clause would make the powers of the Board. It is very much a matter of argument, and the noble Lord is right, I am certain, in being very careful about the drafting. But I should have suspected that if you read the existing Section 17 and the proposed new Section 17A, the latter does not add a great deal to what is already available under the former. Therefore, again one wants to look carefully at this to see whether we are doing anything which is worth while, because we shall certainly be involved in controversy on the grounds that I have just suggested, and if we are going to be involved in controversy let us at least get the wording right so that if something is to be done we do it with adequate drafting in the Bill.
The noble Lord, in a few words, referred to the repeals in Clause 19, which are wide and extensive in the employment field. He referred to the shipping provisions, and I think my noble friend Lord Runciman of Doxford may have a word to say on that matter. But there are a number of others, and the noble Lord has done nothing to justify the repeal of those copious provisions which were specifically set out in the 1968 Act. I really have no idea why he says that these are now wrong and should never have been incorporated in the original Act or passed by Parliament. This is again an area of great delicacy, and one where we should tread gently.
Finally, I should think that punitive damages, to which the noble Lord referred as something which could be obtained by the private citizen—this appears, I think, in Clause 14—is a very dubious legal innovation. In what other civil actions does one have punitive

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damages? There has been a great deal of controversy recently about this matter in the field of defamation. There was a book about a convoy which went to Russia around the North of Norway. This was the subject of bitter legal dispute; and the noble Lord should realise that he is dealing with an issue with wide legal implications when he specifically brings into the race relations field punitive damages, which do not apply, so far as I know, in many other areas of tort, where perhaps a case could be made out on the same sort of grounds as those which the noble Lord has used in this case. So certainly this is not something which should be slipped into a Private Member's Bill, I would suggest to the House, without a good deal more justification.
My Lords, I am sorry to be rather critical about this, but I think one has to be careful on this subject. I hope that in his reply the noble Lord, Lord Harris, will be able to deal with some of these points; and the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, will perhaps do me the credit of considering them as well. They are not intended to be carping: I am trying to pick out things which I see as genuinely doubtful. Certainly when the noble Lord, Lord Harris, rises to speak I hope that he will say things which are as generously quoted in the 1973 Report of the Race Relations Board as was my last speech on the 1972 Report. I am sorry I did not altogether please the Board in everything I said, but at least my speech was like the curate's egg—they liked some of it. I do not wish to suggest that there is no room for improvement or advance in this, but I am bound to look with a critical eye at some of the specific suggestions in this Bill, to see if the case for a change has been made, and whether the changes will actually help race relations; because if there is one thing that I am sure we are all determined to do it is to legislate, if we legislate at all, in a way which will be positively helpful and constructive to those who are carrying out this important duty.
4.34 p.m.
VISCOUNT SIMON: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, introduced this Bill with his usual clarity and persuasiveness. After his opening sentence he will not, I hope, be surprised that
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from these Benches we are very glad to support the Bill which he has brought to us. As he rightly says, anything that can be done to extend the confidence of the immigrant population in the basic justice of our laws and the effectiveness with which they can be administered is to the good. And not only, if I may suggest it, do we want to extend the confidence of the immigrant population, but also that of their descendants. We must not forget that there is an increasing number of people in this country who are descendants of immigrants. That is why, with the very greatest respect, I differed a little from what the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, said when he implied that the Race Relations Act is, I think he said, the other side of the coin of the Immigration Act. It seems to me that the handling of race relations is not necessarily anything at all to do with immigration. It is dealing with people who are already here, and it is trying, as we all wish to try, to make them feel at home.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, may I just say this to the noble Viscount? I did not say that it was the reverse of the coin of the Immigration Act: I said it was the reverse of the coin of immigration control.
VISCOUNT SIMON: My Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Viscount. I think I see the point, though I thought that Immigration Acts were mainly concerned with immigration control. The question which the noble Viscount put to us, I think not quite directly but by implication, is the very important one: is this a suitable field for legislation? I confess to your Lordships that when the 1968 Bill was being discussed in your Lordships' House before it became an Act, I was myself rather doubtful and I think occasionally critical on these very grounds: because social attitudes cannot really be governed by legislation. At the same time, Parliament agreed to pass the last two Race Relations Acts, and they agreed because they thought that there ought to be some sort of framework within which public opinion and public attitudes could be encouraged to grow in the right direction. Now, after about six years, I do not feel myself that it is too early to consider, in the light of our experience, whether some amendments to the existing Race Relations Act ought not to be introduced.

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I take the point made by the noble Viscount that it might be much better for this to be a Government Bill, just as the last Acts were; and if at the end of the day the noble Lord, Lord Harris, is going to tell us that the Government accept the principles that lie behind the Bill and will at the earliest opportunity be introducing something of the same kind, then I for one would feel very happy and I suspect that the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, would feel happy, too. But in the meantime there is no harm, I suggest, in giving Parliament a nudge, and that is what this Bill is designed to do.
I shall not attempt to discuss the legal matters which the noble Viscount, with his legal knowledge, has brought up, because I am sure that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, will have plenty to say about them. I would rather refer to one or two of the broad ideas which the noble Lord has included in the Bill. First, Clause 2 and the clubs. I myself felt some of the difficulties about the clubs which I think have affected the noble Viscount. It is difficult to see just where the line is to be drawn, though if I may say so I thought he quoted a rather curious case in support of his view. He referred to a darts team. My Lords, if the "Red Cow" is putting a darts team into a local public house competition and one of the most skilful dart throwers is a coloured man, surely it would be right that he should be included in the team and not excluded merely because the others would rather have someone of their own colour in the team. I think that is a perfectly good example of a case where it would be wrong to discriminate against the coloured darts player even if he has not got a full command of the King's English.
I feel myself that this is a very important issue and I should have thought the intention from the start was that discrimination in this field should be made unlawful. I am sure that many of your Lordships can think of clubs to which they belong where they meet people who are perhaps more familiar to them and I should not think that that point arises on this clause. There are clubs which require a large number of names to be put in a candidate's book in order to secure his election. If that applies equally to people of all races and nationality—
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and as nationality is being introduced here we need not introduce colour into the argument at all—that would seem to me perfectly all right. Nobody can explore the reasons why people do or do not put their names down in support of a particular candidate. They put them down because they know them and think that they would be suitable club members. In that case I do not think the terms of the Bill, if it became an Act, would apply. I was intending to say a word about Clause 5 and the subject of victimisation; but the noble Viscount has pointed out that this raises important legal issues and I would rather leave that point to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner.
Clause 8 is absolutely fundamental to the Bill. I recognise that it might look as though it opened the door to possible "snooping", but it need not do so it the law is sensibly administered. It merely gives the Race Relations Board the power to inquire into circumstances where it has no direct evidence of discrimination but where practices are enforced which might lead to discrimination. I thought that the analogy of the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, with the Factories Act was a very good one. What we want to do is to prevent offences arising rather than to pursue them after they have arisen, and the only way to prevent them arising is to investigate cases where there may appear to be a tendency which, unless checked, could lead to offences.
I was going to say something about Clause 14 and damages; but I realise that this again raises important issues of law. It is a new development in this field, and I confess that it would appear to be very difficult for any court to assess the value (if that is the word) of damage by discrimination. But at the same time the fact that there should be in the background some ability to award damages of this nature would be psychologically a great uplift for people who feel themselves in a position to be discriminated against. I hope that when we come to examine the Bill in detail the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, will be able to satisfy us all about that.
As the noble Lord particularly referred to the position on ships, I was going to say something about that—largely because in my youth I had something to

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do with operating ships which carried a very large number of people of all kinds of races, religions and colours. I know from my experience then the real difficulty that exists in mixing people up in places where they have to share sleeping quarters, eating-messes and sanitary appliances. Different races have different ideas, and the practices of some are definitely unpleasant to others. So I think there is a great deal to be said, if we are to preserve harmony in a ship which has on board people who are rather closely confined for long periods of time, for doing something to keep apart people who are perhaps mutually not very attractive. However, I am sure the noble Viscount, Lord Runciman of Doxford, will be saying something more to us about that when he speaks.
In conclusion, I should like to say, in support of the Bill, that in my view it is time we took further steps to improve the present law in the light of criticisms that have been made by the Race Relations Board, because after all the members of the Board have been closer to this problem than any of us. They have put out some excellent reports. I agree with the noble Viscount that one wishes to know something of the actual cases that have come to light, but there must have been specific cases to cause the Board to put forward its comments. I believe that the time has come for Parliament to take further steps to improve the law, and I sincerely hope that, in doing so, it will do what the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, has said—that is, to extend and enlarge the confidence of the immigrant population in the rightness of our laws.
4.46 p.m.
LORD GARDINER: My Lords, I rise to support the Second Reading of this Bill, on two grounds. First, I want to pay my tribute to the Race Relations Board. Some of its members are very familiar to us in the field of law. They have, I think, done an extremely good job, which is not necessarily any the worse for the fact that there have not been clouds of sensational cases and that so much of their work has been done on the footing of conciliation. When a public-spirited body of that kind, after some years' experience of this work, makes a report saying that experience has shown
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that some amendments ought to be made to the Act, I think—and this is the first ground on which I support the Second Reading of this Bill—that the least Parliament can do is to consider what the Board says. It is now nearly two years since the Board reported. The last Government showed no interest in this, and never made any move towards implementing any one of the respects in which the Board suggested that the Act ought to be amended. So I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Brockway, because now at last we have an opportunity of considering what the Board has said.
The second reason why I wanted to say something is because the list of speakers on this Bill does not include the names of any other members of the Select Committee of this House that dealt with the Sex Discrimination Bill. A number of amendments proposed by the Race Relations Board received our careful consideration, and we adopted quite a number of them. Although, when that Bill was recommitted to this House, the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, said everything against it that he could, I do not think that he objected to a number of these points. For example, Clause 7 says that the Board should not be bound to hear frivolous complaints. The noble Viscount asked whether that had led to a lot of wasted time. In a memorandum to the Select Committee, Sir Roy Wilson, who was then acting Chairman of the Board and also chairman of their employment committee (and many of us know him also as a lawyer of great distinction and as President of the Industrial Court to which, in the old days, employers and employees alike were very happy to go), said this:
"We have always found that the absence of any discretion in the Board allowing us not to investigate complaints which are frivolous or vexatious, or complaints the investigation of which would in our opinion serve no useful purpose in the public interest, has been very regrettable indeed. In the result we have been compelled to spend a lot of time on quite hopeless complaints (to the detriment of our work on complaints which well merited investigation); and we have also been compelled to take up and pronounce upon complaints which may have been technically well founded but which served no good purpose at all and were for the most part put forward by ill-wishers who wished to bring the Act and the Board into discredit."

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Sir Roy Wilson was also good enough to give oral evidence before us on July 4, 1972, and he said then:
"… in the Race Relations Board we have been plagued with complaints which may fall into one or other of two categories…"
and he spelt out the categories. Later he said they had some complainants who had put in 30 or 40 separate complaints. Most people in public life know that since the policy of the Mental Health Act was adopted—I have no doubt quite rightly—anybody who is not dangerous to the public should if possible be released from institutions, however hard that may be on the family. There are an awful lot of crackpots about.
We considered all that and, accordingly, in the Sex Discrimination Bill, after explaining our reasons, we set out in Clause 9(2) the following:
"The Board shall not be required to receive any such complaint made after the expiration of six months from the date of the act complained of unless it appears to them that special circumstances warrant its exception, nor any complaint which appears to them to be trivial, frivolous or vexatious."
I do not think any complaint was made, even by the noble Viscount, when the Bill was recommitted to the House, that your Lordships' Select Committee had come to that conclusion.
Then there is the question of whether the Board should be able to investigate although there is no individual complaint which is dealt with in Clause 6, and more particularly Clause 8, of this Bill. Sir Roy Wilson, in his memorandum, said:
"I observe that the Bill"—
he was referring to the Bill the Select Committee were considering—
"contains no provision corresponding to Section 17 of the Act. There are undoubtedly cases where the Board have had knowledge that discrimination is going on, but nobody wants to come forward."
In our Report to this House, at paragraph 119, we said:
"The Committee were convinced by the experience of the Race Relations Board and by American experience that discrimination could not be eradicated if all actions depended on the initiative of the individual complainant, even if a case could be brought on his or her behalf by a third party. The Committee therefore decided that if the Board had reason to suspect than an act of discrimination had taken place in contravention of the Act, it could initiate an investigation without any individual complaint."
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With regard to damages, we discussed this with Sir Roy Wilson. This is now covered by Clause 14 of the present Bill. The Race Relations Board, in their Annual Report, referred to it at some length in paragraph 89. We dealt with it in our Report to this House, and provided accordingly in Clause 12(4) of our Bill.
It is not my intention to detain the House while going through all the clauses of the Bill now before us. The question is: has a prima facie case been made out for saying that there ought to be a Bill making at least some amendments to the Race Relations Act of the various kinds which the Race Relations Board have put forward in their Report? Non constat that there may be objection to this clause or that clause, that surely is a matter for the Committee stage of the House. Nobody has suggested that none of the amendments proposed by the Race Relations Board ought to be made, and if some of them ought to be made then the rest is a matter for the consideration of this House.
There is one further matter to which I should like to refer, if only so that the powers that be can bear it in mind. In the Report of the Select Committee on the Sex Discrimination Bill we pointed out that we had considered whether it might be a good idea for us to suggest that there should be a joint Act dealing with both race relations and sex discrimination. We said in paragraph 101:
"A number of witnesses suggested that the most appropriate way to legislate against discrimination on grounds of sex would be to amend the Race Relations Act 1968 by adding sex to the characteristics already listed in that Act for protection against discrimination. It was pointed out that in the United States one general anti-discrimination Act had been introduced and that this appeared to work well."
Then we said in paragraph 102:
"The Committee were initially attracted by these arguments, but eventually decided to reject them for a number of reasons. They considered that the nature of discrimination on grounds of sex was in many ways different from discrimination on grounds of race; that the scale and location of the two problems were different since immigrants are a very small proportion of the total population and are concentrated in a few areas only, while women are the majority of the population and are spread over the whole country. The Committee also thought that the Race Relations Act, despite its many undoubted achievements, failed to provide fully effective machinery for enforcement. While impressed

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by the success claimed for the United States legislation the Committee held that the differences in the origins and extent of the American problem in comparison with the British meant that United States experience provided a useful source of ideas rather than a model for imitation. The Committee, therefore, decided that amendment of the Race Relations Act would not be the most suitable means at the present time to deal with sex discrimination and that a separate Act was required. It will, however, be noticed that several of the new Clauses inserted into the Bill are modelled on sections of the Act of 1968;"
When we asked Sir Roy Wilson whether he thought it would be a good idea to amalgamate the two, he said he thought not and his main reason—which partly also influenced us—was that we had seen, as he had, reports from America of the extent to which the two halves of their Equal Opportunities Commission constantly quarrelled with each other. He said:
"I have read last week a report on the working of the Equal Opportunity Commission in the United States, and the squabbles which have taken place between those who are mainly concerned with sex discrimination. Each faction has accused the other of nobbling, and of stealing all the limelight, and the result I would have thought was not a happy one.… From page 50 onwards in this book it deals with the working of the Equal Opportunity Commission in the United States and devotes quite an amount of space to this dissension that broke out as to which of the forms of discrimination was getting a better deal".
If anybody thinks of having one Act to deal with both, I hope that he will take those observations into account.
I support the Second Reading; it is clear that at least in some of these matters the Board were right. If one looks at damages, for example, as they point out in their Report, most of the people who were concerned to complain to them are not financially interested. There have been many cases where people have not come forward to be complainants because they say: "I may put myself at some risk. If everything is found in my favour, I can never recover any of the financial loss that I have suffered." Therefore, there is a case for a clause providing for the very moderate amount of damages for which this Bill provides.
5.0 p.m.
VISCOUNT RUNCIMAN OF DOXFORD: My Lords, this Bill raises an area in which I think it behoves any-
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one to tread very warily, and perhaps the more so since it has been the subject of a great deal of discussion in your Lordships' House, in the other place and in the public at large. I would, however, risk one general observation, which is that in this, perhaps even more than in a good many other facets of life, there is always the danger of the better being the enemy of the good. When one talks about the "better", it is well to remember also that what is better in theory is not necessarily better in practice. It is that which moves me to speak on a matter which your Lordships know, from what you have heard, that I might be likely to address you; that is, the subject of the treatment of crews of varying races and nationalities in British ships. There is a significant number of varying nationalities, races, religions and general backgrounds employed in these ships.
The relevant provisions of the 1968 Act, which are contained in Section 8, were devised with some care to meet this difficult situation. I will try to explain why it is difficult in a moment or two. We are now faced with a clause in the noble Lord's Bill, to which he himself has referred, which simply repeals these provisions without, so far as I can see, attempting to put anything whatever in their place. The only comment which, if I heard him correctly, he made about this was that under the present procedure considerable progress has been made. This seems to me, if I may say so with respect, a rather odd reason for wishing to change it. I believe that to throw away (because that is what it amounts to) not only the provisions in the 1968 Act, but the good that has resulted from them, is not only wrong in principle but is likely in practice to hinder racial harmony rather than promote it, not only on shipboard, but also, because since seamen are apt to have families ashore and are apt to recount their grievances and difficulties to those families, trouble on shipboard can also extend to trouble ashore.
Seafarers tend to live in a rather different atmosphere in some ways from those who work ashore. For the seaman, his ship at sea is not only his place of work, it is also his place of recreation; and is also, for the time being, his home. There is no escape from it or

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from the company which it contains. In close quarters tensions can build up very rapidly and often for reasons which in a more spacious atmosphere they would have been dissipated before they came to anything that mattererd. To attempt, therefore, to compel seafarers, who wish to remain separate, to share living, eating and sanitary accommodation is in practice to ask for trouble, and every time this sort of trouble occurs, the cause of good race relations suffers.
For this reason, during 1968, at the instance of the seafarers' organisations, no less than the organisations of the ship-owners, provisions were made in the 1968 Act under which, inter alia, it is:
"… not … unlawful … to discriminate against any person in respect of employment on a ship, if …"—
otherwise the result would be to compel—
"… persons of different colour, race or ethnic or national origins … to share sleeping rooms, mess rooms or sanitary accommodation."
Since that time these provisions have worked well, and have helped progress in the direction which I am sure all your Lordships desire. Because that progress has been voluntary, it is, I submit, more effective and more durable than if an attempt had been made to force it with unnatural speed by Act of Parliament. At home, for instance, coloured boys bred and educated in this country are, and have for some time, been taken into the National Sea Training School at Gravesend where they are readily accepted on an equality with those of British descent, and who share their accommodation and the like so that no question of this sort arises. Similarly, gradually, one can see a happy acceptance of this kind of mixture developing on shipboard.
But it cannot be hurried. Seamen are perhaps slower to change their habits (or if you will, overcome their prejudices) than those who live in wider communities ashore. Many of them are drawn from communities whose history, religion and tradition, of which they are often justly proud, differ widely. You may, for example, find Christians, Mohammedans and Hindus serving on the same ship. To put one aspect of it a bit crudely, you really cannot expect successfully to compel Mohammedans to eat pork or Hindus to eat beef in a common mess room.
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It is for that kind of reason that if this Bill in its present form were to become law, I fear that the results, at least so far as the seafarer is concerned, would not promote racial harmony, but would tend, in this respect, to retard it. If the Bill should reach the Committee stage, I hope that this part will be subject to the most rigorous examination.
5.7 p.m.
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, we have just listened with great interest to the remarks of my noble friend Lord Runciman of Doxford who speaks with such exceptional authority on maritime matters. My noble friend Lord Colville of Culross, in his powerful examination of the Bill pointed out, among other things, that it was difficult to sub-divide the racial questions from the whole question of immigration. He also expressed his expectation and hope that it would be a matter for a Government Bill. Here may I interject my felicitations to the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, on joining our House and on replying to the debate on this Bill this afternoon. I took the trouble to read the Bill with care, though I must admit that I did not do enough homework to embrace the documentation connecting it with the main Act of 1968.
I come to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Brockway. In the persuasive eloquence that we are habituated in this House to expect, the noble Lord put forward this Bill, I imagine, more with the purpose of drawing the attention of the Government to it than expecting much further progress. I want to record at once my hope that it will not progress. However, it gives one the opportunity for the first time with the new Government (apart from the day before yesterday when the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, had a good go at aspects of immigration) to deal with the main points or varied points of reflection with regard to immigration as a whole.
The House perhaps will know that I have been a consistent advocate of very drastically restricted immigration of nonwhites into this country. So I will speak for these reasons, rather than go into the particular clauses of the Bill. While the Bill, as Lord Brockway said, will achieve changes which have become necessary since the Act was passed, it also

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inevitably embraces aspects of immigration as a whole. I repeat that I have consistently held the view that we have been too generous in our acceptance of non-white immigration, up to, in recent years, 60,000 in one year—which is far too many, whatever may be the estimate of those who are already in this country; and we know that there are estimates which put the figure very high. I watch carefully the size of immigration because I am not ashamed of being British and I am proud to be among those who feel they want the purity of the British race. It is not an extreme thing to emphasise this, even though there is ridicule from some quarters for the suggestion that the non-white population in this country will within a relatively small number of years be a very high figure.
The points which I am going to make may be disconnected, but they are made because this is the first time this subject has been discussed in the early days of the new Government, and it is not improper or out of place to put before the Minister certain thoughts of those who take the same view as I do. There are undoubtedly a very large number of people in the country who feel that we should be a happier country with fewer non-whites in it. Those who urge the inflow of this non-white immigration say: "We must have complete integration". But of course a large number of the immigrants do not want integration; they want to be left alone to be with their own kind, with their own social habits, religions and customs. But if you are going to have complete integration, as I understand the language of it, it means physical integration too, sexual integration, and that develops mulattoes. Those countries such as the United States or South Africa, the Caribbean or Brazil, which have a large proportion of mulattoes, are no better for it; and certainly, from the examples we see, the happiness of the mulattoes themselves is not greater.
Indeed, we have a lot of bad whites, and there are a great many very brilliant negroes—Washington in the States is always quoted as a case. But a proportion of people who urge that we should have large-scale non-white immigration say: "We need them. We need them for our public transport. We
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need them for our hospitals." Maybe. But for a great number of years those jobs were always filled by whites. Why should not they be filled now by whites? The reason is they are the jobs that are least attractive and least well paid. But, my Lords, the second generation of immigrants, who have received the benefit of our education, hygiene and habitual outlook on life, are not going to be the ones to accept those jobs. They will be competing with the natives for employment; for housing; for education, and all the privileges associated with those who come into our country. One of the reasons why they come into this country must be that there are advantages here which they receive from our wonderful social welfare services—much greater than they get anywhere else. They are a great attraction to people to come here. The reason for the Bill the noble Lord has introduced is surely to make better the conditions under which they live here. I do not deny it would be a good thing to do it, but it is still aimed to make this country a haven of greater attraction than anywhere else and to encourage the inflow of immigrants
I am always puzzled as to why there is objection to the word "Negro", or "nigger" for that matter. Surely it is no more offensive than to use the word "Jap" against a Japanese; or, in the States, the use of the word "Wop" against an Italian, or "Polack" against a Pole, or "Greaser" against an American. Why all this sensitiveness? After all, do we not read in the financial Press every day of the Kaffir Market? Is "Kaffir" not more derogatory than the word "Bantu" or "coloured" in South Africa? I am puzzled about the sensitiveness that exists. But I emphasise that this question of competition with our native population in employment and in housing, and the complications in education, should be considered.
I see one noble Lord who may speak after me and who would be able to say much more about education than I could attempt to do. However, the health services are strained, and I often wonder what is the extent or the situation. What if we had—pray God we never shall have!—massive unemployment in this country again, or the situation that existed between the two World

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Wars when every mouth we had to feed was a strain on our maritime resources? Surely that reflection emphasises that we should be very parsimonious; and I hope that the new Government will be in the way in which they permit licences of entry. And how silly to call them licences for one, when each licence gives a permit for four! Why not be honest and say, instead of 3,500, four times 3,500?—I cannot do the arithmetic in my head.
Lastly, I have a paper here which says: "75,000 migrants in Britain illegally". The numbers one does not know, but one is shocked weekly, almost, by the Press reporting discoveries of the most intricate methods pursued to enable people to get into this country. The fact that people are prepared to pay so much money and to go to such lengths to enter this country shows what a haven it must be in terms of attraction to many other parts of the world. It is for this reason, my Lords, that I hope that the new Government will be far more successful than even the Conservative Government were in clamping down on these illegal immigrants.
5.20 p.m.
LORD BOYLE OF HANDSWORTH: My Lords, I apologise to your Lordships for the fact that I did not put my name down to speak this afternoon, but I was not sure whether I should be able to arrive in time to hand in my Writ of Summons. But I should like to speak for a few minutes because I am at present chairman of one of the regional conciliation committees to whom the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, referred when moving the Second Reading of this Bill. I can say to your Lordships that there would be a very considerable measure of sympathy for the proposals contained in this Bill, not only among the members of my committee, but also among chief conciliation officers in Yorkshire and the North-East.
I should like to join with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, in the tribute which he paid to the Race Relations Board, and in particular to its present chairman, Sir Geoffrey Wilson. It is my belief that since the setting up of the Race Relations Board the Board and its advisers have done even more valuable work than is generally realised in this
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country. I think much of the credit should go to successive Chairmen of the Board, and I personally would very much agree with the noble and learned Lord's estimate of the annual reports that we have had from the Board during recent years. The only point on which I would slightly differ from him was his suggestion that the previous Government had been inactive in this field. I recall what I thought was a really splendid Party Conference speech by an old friend of mine, Mr. Robert Carr, repelling attacks over the decision to admit our obligations to the Uganda Asians, and I am bound to say that he is not somebody—and I try these days to take an impartial view of these matters—against whom I would care to make the accusation of having been an inactive Minister or one lacking in courage.
May I secondly say that of course I accept the view expressed by the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, that it is a big decision to bring in fresh legislation. We have to remember that as soon as we bring in new legislation on this subject there is always the possibility, not only of Amendments being tabled by those who are, as it were, well affected in this field, but also some rather more damaging Amendments being tabled. I personally have always felt that it would be a big decision to bring in a new Bill, and I certainly agree with the view that this must be Government legislation.
None the less, as I shall report again at the end of the few remarks I wish to make, I believe that the time is soon coming when we should have some amending legislation in this field. And if I may say so with great respect, I thought that in just two respects the noble Viscount was a little slighting in his comments on the Bill before us. First, while I take his point that immigration policy and race relations policy must be thought of as a whole, surely in all conscience we do have a tough immigration policy at the present time. With regard to the notion, as it were, that we could "sell" new race relations legislation only on condition that we had a further turn of the screw on immigration policy, I would say merely that I hope those days have now gone for good.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, I did not say that.
LORD BOYLE OF HANDSWORTH: My Lords, perhaps the noble Viscount did not mean that, but it seems to me we can say to the British public to-day that we have an extremely tough immigration policy. Indeed, Mr. Carr himself suggested that, in his view, what happened with regard to the Uganda Asians could not easily be repeated again. Secondly, in regard to the Scotch porridge case, I can see the objection to appearing to load the Statute Book with what may seem to be secondary or unimportant matters, but even so there is still a section of opinion in this country which never misses any opportunity to deride the Act and the Board, and I personally believe that if we are to have new legislation this is one matter that ought to be included in the Bill.
However, I entirely agree with those noble Lords who have said that it is of course Clause 8 of this Bill—the extension of the provisions of Section 17 of the 1968 Act—that is the really important clause, and for my part I should like to see legislation on these lines. I believe that this alone is something which Parliament ought to tackle, very much for the reasons—although I would go slightly beyond them—given by the noble Viscount, Lord Simon. I believe this is an area where prevention is important, and I also believe that legislation on the lines of Clause 8 would be a great encouragement to that considerable element in younger management which wants to encourage the best existing practice in industry. As we all know, industrial management is not an easy subject in all kinds of ways. Undoubtedly there are younger people in industry who want to modernise management, and who want to be as fair as possible in the conduct of industry over such matters as promotion and ensuring fairness between all workers. I have little doubt that legislation on these lines would encourage fairness and would be a great help to those younger managers—and I do not speak here just in an academic sense, because I have discussed this issue with some of them at conferences in Harrogate.
The noble Lord, Lord Barnby, whose vigour as a speaker, as he knows, I greatly admire, even when he and I cannot completely agree, spoke about those who do not want to integrate. I would
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ask the noble Lord to believe me when I say that there are large numbers in the minority communities today who are concerned about such matters as fairness in promotion; and this is something which is becoming more and more a real issue in industry. What we should have in mind is trying to raise the general standard of industrial practice—of course, if the noble Lord wishes to intervene I will willingly allow him to do so.
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, will the noble Lord permit me to ask, on the question of integration, whether he overlooks the fact that in religious matters it is very difficult to get integration? I have in mind the island of Hawaii, in the centre of the Pacific; there are five different denominations there. Can they all agree?
LORD BOYLE OF HANDSWORTH: My Lords, I would say to the noble Lord that of course there may be religious difficulties here, but I am speaking about promotion, and about ensuring fairness, not indeed just in private industry but in public industry as well. One matter which happens to have concerned me recently concerns promotions to the rank of inspector where public transport is concerned. There are large numbers of cases where I believe we cannot be satisfied with the present position.
I should also like to make a further point to the noble Lord. We should surely remember that, despite all difficulties of religion, culture and everything else, a very large number of members of minority communities have settled into our society remarkably well. Let us think for instance of the number of Sikh women who now go out to work. Let us remember, particularly where women are concerned, just how many have in fact adapted themselves to our English customs.
I am sure we all want to take great note of what the noble Viscount, Lord Runciman of Doxford, said about particular areas of industry of which he has special knowledge. But when he speaks as he did at the commencement of his speech, about "not making the better the enemy of the good," I hope we realise that while the Board have real achievements to their credit, and while the 1968 Act has proved itself worth while, none the less not all

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is as good as we could wish where employment is concerned; nor indeed, where housing and services are concerned. Discrimination still goes on. I believe in fact, if Yorkshire is anything to go by, that the case-load is a little on the increase at the present time, and we simply cannot afford to underrate the importance of giving encouragement to those employers who wish their practice to be as good as possible. For those reasons I agree with those who say that this is an important area of legislative decision for any Government. I do not think this can be just a matter for any private Members of your Lordships' House, although I am sure we all admire the vigour and persistence with which the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, has championed this cause over many years. I hope very much that we shall hear from the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, that there is the prospect of new legislation very soon, because I believe, six years after the 1968 Act, that we have been able pretty clearly to identify specific areas where some amendment of the 1968 Act is needed. If this Bill has done no more than draw the attention of your Lordships to the very important issue raised in Clause 8, then for that reason alone this debate, and the initiative of the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, will have proved well worth while.
5.30 p.m.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (LORD HARRIS OF GREENWICH): My Lords, the first thing I have to say is to express my thanks, and I am sure those of all Members of your Lordships' House, to my noble friend, Lord Brockway, for having given us the opportunity to debate this vital subject of racial discrimination this afternoon. I know that I speak for the whole House in saying that his deep concern for justice and equal rights is something we all respect and admire. As we all know, he was in the vanguard of those who have worked towards race relations legislation in the past.
As I have said, the subject of racial discrimination is vital. I should like to expand on that for a few moments before turning to the more detailed propositions we have been discussing this afternoon. The basic fact from which policy in this country must flow is that our immigrant communities are still of fairly recent
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arrival. Of course, over the centuries we have received and absorbed many groups of people from overseas. Our readiness to give them a new home has always been something of which we as a nation have been justifiably proud. In the present circumstances it is particularly important not to play with words. When we speak of "immigrant communities" now, we primarily think of immigrants from the new Commonwealth. These new groups present significantly different characteristics from the earlier incoming communities in that they are of a different colour from the indigenous population. In the case of many of these groups, they bring with them a culture that is different from the traditions of Western Europe.
My Lords, we are this afternoon talking primarily about the simple issue of colour. Like my noble friend Lord Brockway, I believe that a man is entitled to fair and equal treatment in all respects in our public life, regardless of whatever colour his skin may happen to be. Equally, it is quite clear that our society is still a very considerable way from achieving this objective. Yet this question of racial equality is absolutely vital. There is probably nothing at all in the social life of this country that will have a greater influence on the sort of society in which our children are going to live. In a number of ways this country has responded well indeed to this new test of our traditional tolerance, but we must be quite clear that in other respects our record has not been quite so good. Because of this, I want to make it clear from the outset that the Government are not satisfied that enough is being done to promote equal opportunity, and that we are determined to introduce new proposals for further action.
The difficulties which face these new immigrant communities are attributable to what one might call "settler disadvantage". To some extent, this problem inevitably faces any newly incoming group to a new environment, but the present difficulties are intensified for these newcomers by the particular effect of the whole range of disadvantages that we now call "urban deprivation". I trust that I shall have some other opportunity to tell your Lordships' House about the work of analysing the problems of urban deprivation which was begun under the

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previous Administration, and which my right honourable friend the Home Secretary is now vigorously pursuing. But that would go beyond the scope of to-day's debate. The only point I want to make in this context is that progress on measures to combat discrimination is only one part, albeit an extremely important one, of the progress needed on a much wider front if we are to pursue our objective of equal opportunity in a meaningful way. I should now like to turn to the proposals of my noble friend Lord Brockway.
My Lords, the substance of the Bill is concentrated on Clauses 8 and 9. I agree very much with what the noble Lord, Lord Boyle, said about this. These clauses would, in effect, establish a Race Relations Board of a rather different nature from the present one. It would be equipped with much stronger investigatory powers than at present, not only to pursue investigations when, as under the present legislation, the Board has reason to suspect, whether by reason of a complaint or otherwise, that an unlawful act has taken place, but also to investigate a much more general type of situation in which the Board considered that practices or courses of conduct were contrary to the spirit of the legislation.
As my noble friend Lord Brockway said in moving the Second Reading of this Bill, these particular proposals have their root in the recommendations of the Race Relations Board. They were put forward (the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, alluded to this) in their Annual Report for 1971–72, to which I believe the noble Viscount also referred in a speech which took place in your Lordships' House last year. In particular, there is a key passage of the Annual Report, which occurs in paragraph 74. It says:
"It appears to us increasingly that the question of racial discrimination in employment needs to be seen primarily not in terms of active discrimination against individuals, but in terms of an exceptance or tolerance by everybody, including coloured workers, of employment situations in which equality of opportunity is consciously or unconsciously denied."
The Annual Report then goes on to ask next for greater investigatory powers and concludes, in paragraph 82, that
"… the granting of such powers would increase considerably the ability of the Board to engage in work of a preventive character".
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In other words, the Board considers that it needs further investigatory powers, partly to increase its efficiency in its present role, but also to enable it to make an impact in the wider area of actively encouraging the adoption of positive policies of equal opportunity, going wider than the essentially negative requirements of the 1968 Act. I have indicated that in making these proposals, the Board has particularly in mind the field of employment. This is the essence of the proposals of the Board, and it is this that is embodied in Clauses 8 and 9 of the Bill before us to-day.
No one who studies the situation, either in this country or the United States, will deny that employment lies at the heart of this particular problem. The most vivid single example I can give is the much publicised dispute at Mansfield Hosiery Mills, which I believe was discussed when this matter was last debated in this House. This was a case in which the employer recruited coloured workers. The issue at stake was their promotion prospects, the precise point referred to a moment or two ago by the noble Lord, Lord Boyle. This sort of case is only the overt expression of much more diffuse patterns which, by their nature, are hard to exemplify in detail. What of those firms who employ no coloured workers because the word has gone round that they are not welcome at all and, therefore, coloured workers do not even bother to apply? We must accept—and this is the essence of what the Board are telling us—that there is an immense problem in this more loose and vague sort of passive discrimination which is not so blatant and immediately offensive as the notice which says, "No coloured workers need apply here." It is not a problem that will simply go away of its own accord. The Government have no doubt that the development of positive policies for equal opportunity, particularly in employment, must be at the core of our strategy on race relations. The work by Political and Economic Planning, which the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, announced on February 21 last year, and which he referred to this afternoon, will be published fairly shortly. The noble Viscount asked about this. I hope that before the summer we shall have a report

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from P.E.P. on this particularly crucial matter.
I also understand that the Community Relations Commission's Report on Homelessness and Unemployment Amongst Adolescents from Ethnic Minority Groups will be submitted within a relatively few weeks. But even in advance of these particular reports, and particularly the one on employment, it is clear already that swifter progress is vital. I hope, however, that the House will understand if I say that while the Government accept this objective without reservation, we should like a little more time in which to consider the best way of working towards it. The essential question is, perhaps, the relationship between the investigation of complaints—what one would loosely call "enforcement"—and wider promotional work. This kind of work is, of course, concerned not so much with legalistic matters as with giving advice and encouragement for the adoption of enlightened practices involving, in the field of employment, both sides of industry. The proposals put forward by the Board, which would aggregate the two functions, are, I know, based on experience in the United States. But the Government would like rather more time than the relatively few weeks they have had since the last General Election to consider whether this is the most appropriate way of now proceeding. And in considering the right pattern of institutions for our problems, we need to bear in mind that the Race Relations Act established a body, the Community Relations Commission, which stands charged with promotional activity.
As I have tried to indicate, all concerned in this field have come to see clearly that the next step forward must be in the area of positively encouraging good practices, in doing all we can to ensure that grievances do not arise, rather than in remedying those that hive arisen. The question is quite simply how this objective is best pursued. The Board's proposals certainly represent one method of proceeding, and it may well be that they are wholly right. I would however, offer the single tentative suggestion, that if one is to think in terms of the sort of model embodied in my noble friend's Bill, then we should perhaps take our thinking rather further
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and consider whether this sort of approach should not be accompanied by a clearer indication of the sort of positive steps that we want to be taken, and indeed the sort of recommendations that the investigating body might consequently be expected to make. In the Government's view, these points are of such importance that they need the most detailed examination before it would be right to legislate. They are not points of detail that could be put straight in committee: they are fundamental to the structure of the legislation.
There is one further point that I must bring to the attention of the House (this was referred to by my noble and learned friend Lord Gardiner), that is, that the Government are under a commitment to introduce proposals on the equal status of women before the end of the year and are currently giving close attention to the formulation of policy in this area. I would prefer to-day to avoid discussing—particularly after what my noble and learned friend said—the differences or similarities between discrimination on grounds of sex and of race.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: Hear, hear!
LORD HARRIS OF GREENWICH: I am even more delighted to carry the noble Viscount with me. In particular, I am not at the moment in a position to discuss whether the institutions to deal with the two types of discrimination should themselves be similar in all respects or whether they should differ. I put it to the House, however, that it is highly desirable that the formulation of policy on the two issues should be kept in step.
To conclude, I can give the House a firm assurance that the Government intend to carry out a thorough review of the effectiveness of the Race Relations Act and will introduce proposals for action. As my noble friend is aware, my right honourable friend the Home Secretary was responsible, when he last held his present office, for announcing the then Government's decision to put before Parliament the series of proposals that became the Race Relations Act of 1968. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary is determined to bring forward new proposals for early action as

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soon as the present review is concluded. In this review, which will proceed in step with our formulation of proposals on the equal status of women, we will most certainly take full account of the proposals that have been put forward by the Race Relations Board, and indeed by noble Lords who have spoken to-day. In view of the fact that the Government entirely share my noble friend's basic position on this crucial area of policy, I very much hope that he will feel it appropriate not to proceed further with his Bill at this particular moment.
5.45 p.m.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, may I first express my appreciation to all those who have taken part in this debate, and that extends to those who are critical of the Bill as well as to those who have supported it. The value of discussions, perhaps particularly in this House, is that we seek from all sides of the House to express our views, and ultimately out of that kind of discussion I think probably the truth emerges. I will refer to the contribution of the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, a little later, as it raised very definite points, but I should just like to say a word or two in recognition of other contributions.
I was delighted to hear the noble Viscount. Lord Simon. He indicated that this Bill and its objectives would have the support of the Liberal Party, and that I greatly appreciated. May I make this personal observation. I was so happy that he spoke in this debate. His distinguished father, before the First World War and during the war itself, gave me personal help which I shall always remember, and it is a delight that his son should be speaking in support of this Bill to-day. We had from my noble and learned friend Lord Gardiner the support which one expected; he has always stood for these things throughout a long life, and the evidence which he gave on what had been stated to the Select Committee on Sex Discrimination was extraordinarily relevant. Before I conclude I shall be saying a word or two about the relationship in legislation between sex discrimination and racial discrimination.
The noble Viscount, Lord Runciman, also bears a very distinguished name which brings back to me memories from the past. He raised particularly the case
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of crews on ships and whether they should be segregated. I would say only this to him, that I think in 1968, when the last Bill was introduced, the difficulties of bringing about common accommodation and other facilities for the crews of ships were considerable, and I understood at that time the need for the particular clause in the Bill by which the Act did not extend to them. I think he himself indicated that since that date very great progress has been made, and without being dogmatic about this I think it might possibly be that we have now reached a stage where the existing segregation might be discontinued. I was just delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Boyle, was able to speak. I was aware of his support of the Bill, but I did not expect him to be here in time to contribute towards the debate; all of us appreciated it. The debate would have been unreal if we had not had the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Barnby. He and I are rivals as to whom is the youngest Member of this House and we are also rivals in nearly every attitude which we express. Nevertheless, the contribution which he made was characteristic and effectively put his point of view.
I turn to the speech of the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, which immediately followed my presentation of the Bill. First, I should like to express my appreciation of the tone in which he spoke. I recognise that his contribution was towards seeking to find the best method of ending racial discrimination. He had one advantage over me in that he has had legal training whilst I have not, and therefore I am not able to meet all the legal points that he raised. Perhaps the most important point was the question of clubs and associations. I recognise at once that that is extraordinarily difficult. I should have hoped that the clause in this Bill which gives exemption to private social clubs and to ethnic clubs would largely have dealt with the problems. However, I have an open mind on this, and I dare-say that further discussion is necessary. He also raised the need for some definition of associations new in legal terms. I imagine that it means broad, voluntary associations, generally open to the public. He raised the question of retaliation and of extra time, and of punitive damages. I am not going to respond to his criticisms on those points as I think it possible that by the time I conclude my

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speech it will be unnecessary to do so on this occasion.
I turn now to the speech of my noble friend Lord Harris of Greenwich. May I say to him, and indeed to the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, as well, that I recognise that a Government Bill is necessary. I say only that I have the personal precedent that I introduced in nine successive years a Bill to end racial discrimination in public places, and it was only after I had persisted and converted a growing number of people that the Government introduced a Bill. Therefore, I think that some action by a Private Member may be beneficial. Then, when that Act was proving ineffective, I introduced in this House an amending Bill to extend the powers of the Race Relations Board to housing and unemployment. Again the Government subsequently introduced a Bill covering the areas that I had in mind.
I am happy tonight, having introduced this Bill and raised this debate on Second Reading, that we now have a fairly definite promise from the Government that they will introduce a Bill which has the same objectives and the same aims as the Bill that I have introduced and which is now before the House. The noble Lord said that the Government accept the objectives of my Bill without reservation. He has said that they will review the whole situation and themselves introduce a Bill. I think that my only question would be as to the time they have in mind for the introduction of that Bill.
The last point that I want to make—and again this arose not only in the speech of my noble and learned friend Lord Gardiner but from the speech of my noble friend Lord Harris—concerns whether we want something even more imaginative and more constructive than the proposals in this Bill and the recommendations which the Race Relations Board has so far made. I want that; I was being a little modest in the proposals that I made in the Bill. I should like to see a Human Equality Bill applying equal rights to all human beings of whatever sex, race, or colour, whatever it may be, and giving recognition to the principle that the important service we have to give is to personality, not the colour of the skin or the sex of the individual. I recognise that there would be difficulties in having that much bigger
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Bill for broad human equality. There might be some conflict (which I have experienced) from those who are most concerned about sex discrimination and those who are most concerned about racial discrimination; but I should have thought that it would be possible to bring all discrimination together within one measure as something of which we must rid our society, and that it might be possible, within that one measure, to have separate associations, and yet co-ordinated with the two forms of discrimination.
I believe that the Government have an open mind about these things and they are going to make a review. I hope that that review will not be too long delayed and that they will, at an early date, be able to introduce their Bill. My Lords, in view of that promise, I ask the leave of the House to withdraw the Motion and the Bill.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
Bill, by leave, withdrawn.

CONTROL OF ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS BILL [H.L.]
5.57 p.m.
LORD JANNER: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Janner.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD MAYBRAY-KING in the Chair.]
Clauses 1 to 4 agreed to.
Clause 5 [Inspection of zoological gardens]:
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 2, line 42, at end insert ("and the Council shall, within fourteen days of the receipt by them of such report, send a copy thereof to the owner of the zoological garden").
The noble Viscount said: For the convenience of the Committee I will take the first two Amendments together because the second Amendment is consequential on the first. I think that Amendment No. 1 contains a most reasonable request, because all I am asking is that when the inspection team to be set up by the Council to inspect a zoological garden makes

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its report, the zoological garden concerned should receive a copy of the report within 14 days.
If the owner of the zoological garden does not receive a copy of the report in which he is criticised, how can he possibly make the improvements to his zoological garden that the report may suggest? Supposing the report is very unfavourable and even, for instance, recommends his removal from the register, it is surely in the interests of natural justice that he should be acquainted with the sins he is supposed to have committed. How otherwise can he defend himself and answer the accusations? I quite agree that under Clause 6(3) it is true enough that if the council tells him his name is to be removed from the register he will then be told the reasons why. But that will be too late for him. It would be much fairer if he could have a copy of the report. He would then have an opportunity to pull his socks up and put things right. This smacks rather of the Star Chamber procedure.
I have never associated the noble Lord, Lord Janner, with the Star Chamber or the Kremlin. I should hope that the accused would know of what he is accused. I quite agree that if you are dealing with hardened criminals, for example, in espionage—not that I have any knowledge of espionage—it would be wise to withhold the reasons because you have to protect witnesses and do not want everything that has been reported to go back to the criminal. But you are not dealing with criminals here; you are dealing with perfectly innocent owners of zoological gardens, so I cannot see the reason for this secrecy. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Janner, will see my point and will be agreeable to accept this Amendment. I beg to move.
LORD JANNER: The Amendment sounds innocent enough, but unfortunately in practice it would not be as innocent as its sounds. I would ask the noble Viscount who is moving these Amendments to take into consideration the fact that he is advocating a course for a section of people who are running zoological gardens and who are making profits out of them. There is nothing in the Bill which prevents a person who is accused of an offence from having that
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offence brought to his notice and being given the reasons for the decision for which the council has decided to call upon him to put matters right.
There is a legal difficulty here, and perhaps the noble Viscount does not understand this. A report by a body, no matter how conscientious it may be, can be subject to actions for libel by people who want to take those actions and consequently it would not be fair to a council to have to give a report in the way that the noble Viscount is suggesting. Secondly, fancy speaking about innocent charming people and all the rest of it. While I admit that, in the main, those who run zoological gardens for profit are gentlemen and ladies who can be respected, there are exceptions, and the exceptions can use a report, if it is a favourable one, for advertising purposes. These are matters which have to be taken into consideration. We have given careful consideration to this Amendment and I am sorry that in the circumstances I cannot accept it.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: I do not know whether it would be helpful at this stage if I attempted to indicate something of the view of the Government on this. Although this is a Private Member's Bill, if we are to have legislation the Government are naturally anxious that it should be workable. I should like to say at the outset that any contribution I shall be making to our discussion on the various Amendments is intended to be helpful to that end.
Clause 5 provides for the inspection of zoological gardens which are registered, and subsection (2) obliges the council to require the inspecting team to make a report on the adequacy, at any zoo so inspected, of the provisions made to comply with the requirements specified in Clause 4. The effect of this Amendment would be to impose an obligation on the council to send a copy of the report to the owner of the zoo to which the report relates. My noble friend Lord Janner has suggested that it would be very unfair to expect the council to do this with the risk of libel and other difficulties that may be involved. In other words it could be claimed that if a copy of the report was to be seen by the owner of the zoo reported on, the inspector may be less candid in his remarks. On the other

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hand, since the report would be a major factor in determining whether or not the zoo remains on the register, it does not seem to be unreasonable to provide for the owner to see the report on his zoo. I can say that the attitude of the Government is one of complete neutrality. I do not altogether follow the suggestion of the noble Viscount, Lord Massereene and Ferrard, that Amendment 2 is consequential on this one. It would appear to me that if this Amendment is carried his second Amendment would not be necessary.
THE EARL OF CRANBROOK: I do not believe that the noble Viscount has quite comprehended what is intended by the provisions of this Bill. He will remember his own Bill (if I may call it his own), the Riding Establishments Act, which provided for exactly similar inspection before the local authority considered whether or not to grant a licence. There was no provision whatsoever in that Bill for any person owning a riding establishment to have any reason given to him in writing if the local authority, on receipt of the report, refused him a licence. That has been the position hitherto in practically every Act dealing with places at which animals are kept. It is the position in the Act dealing with pet stores and the Act dealing with boarding establishments for animals.
This is a vast improvement on those previous Acts and in fact follows the sort of advice which the Council on Tribunals has been given so far as the machinery of tribunals is concerned in making quite certain that any person who is aggrieved, in a way that undoubtedly the owner of a zoo would be aggrieved if the Council refused him a licence, gets the reasons given to him at the same time as the proposal is made not to grant a licence. What is more, if the noble Viscount will turn to Clause 12 he will see that it is stronger than any of these other Acts, and stronger than a great many others due to the fact that giving a notice means giving a notice in writing. If that provision were not in the Bill, I think we should all agree with the noble Viscount that it would be iniquitous that a man's livelihood could possibly be taken away, without his being given the whole reasons
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in writing which led the judging body to take that decision. I think, too, that the noble Viscount was wrong when he said that by the time a person received the reasons under Clause 6(3) it would be too late, because of course it would not be too late. Subsection (2) of that clause states:
"… after affording to the owner a reasonable opportunity to comply with those requirements"
The position is that an owner will get in writing the full reasons which led the Council to reach a certain conclusion, and he is bound by law to be given sufficient time to correct any deficiencies found. I cannot believe that natural justice demands anything more.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: In view of what noble Lords have said, I shall make no further comment. But if the noble Lord, Lord Janner, could do anything to assuage the fears of the owners of zoological gardens that they will be dealt with summarily and that a report will simply state "You are out", it would be a great help. I do not know whether "arrogant" is the right word to use here, but I know that owners are frightened that they will not be dealt with completely fairly. Having said that, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 6 [Removal of registration in certain cases]:
6.13 p.m.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD moved Amendment No. 3:
Page 3, line 19, at end insert—
("Provided that the Council shall not remove the name of any zoological garden from the register by reason of any failure by the owner to comply with paragraphs (a), (b) or (f) of section 4 of this Act unless the veterinary surgeon referred to in section 5(1) of this Act has stated in his report referred to in section 5(2) of this Act that in his opinion the provisions of any of the said respective paragraphs have not been complied with.")
The noble Viscount said: Although this Amendment seems rather complicated, it is really very simple. Its purpose is to ensure that an owner will not have to run the risk of his zoo being removed from the register for veterinary reasons, unless a vet—or vets—issues a report stating that the care and welfare

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of the animals leaves much to be desired. A veterinary surgeon may be the only member of the Council inspection team who has any qualifications relating to the keeping of exotic animals in captivity, and we want to be sure that a zoological garden cannot be removed from the register unless he states categorically that the health and welfare of the animals is not up to standard. Paragraphs (a), (b) and (f) should be completely under the jurisdiction of a veterinary surgeon, and if the noble Lord, Lord Janner, can inform me that they will be I shall be quite satisfied. I beg to move.
LORD ZUCKERMAN: May I first declare an interest in that I am the honorary secretary of the Zoological Society of London, which looks after the national collection of animals both in London and in Whipsnade. I do not quite understand the purpose of the noble Viscount's Amendment. The purpose of this Bill, and the reason why I have got up on several occasions to support the noble Lord, Lord Janner, is to protect first the animals and then the public—not the proprietors of zoos. I do not want to find the Council of the Zoological Society protected by an Act of Parliament. I do not want our various committees to be protected.
It seems to me that the purpose of the Bill is to see that zoological gardens where exotic animals are kept will not incur the criticism of people who are knowledgeable about animals, and about what constitutes the security of the public. The Amendment states, in effect, that responsibility should be given to a veterinary officer alone. We have a Gardens and Parks Committee of distinguished people who know something about the amenities which the public require, and which the nation demands, and we have several veterinary committees. But to give to one veterinary officer the responsibility for looking after all the items referred to in the Amendment seems to me to be imposing upon him a duty which he could never discharge. For that reason I am afraid, although I have the same interest as the noble Viscount, I should not be prepared to support this Amendment.
LORD JANNER: I naturally accept the opinion of my noble friend Lord Zuckerman, although I am not relying
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entirely upon that. In view of the nature of this Amendment, I thought it necessary to consult the veterinary surgeons and I was informed by the Secretary of the British Veterinary Zoological Society, which is composed of veterinary surgeons who work in, or with, the zoological world, that they do not want this responsibility in view of the fact that there are other aspects to be considered, as my noble friend Lord Zuckerman has pointed out. I am afraid that in the circumstances, and as the professional world of the veterinary surgeons is against a proposal of this sort for reasons similar to those put forward by my noble friend—and I cannot go against their decision as I do not consider myself so great an authority as they are—I cannot accept the Amendment.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: I do not think either the noble Lord, Lord Janner, or the noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman, have understood what I said, which I am sure was my fault. What I tried to say was that the opinion of a veterinary surgeon should be paramount in regard to paragraph (a) which deals with the health and welfare of animals, to paragraph (b) which covers the provision of adequate veterinary care, and to paragraph (f) which covers proper records of births, acquisitions, deaths and disposals.
We only wanted to be sure that the veterinary surgeon's advice was borne in mind in that respect. The question is not that an adequate number of keepers are available, but about the health and welfare of the animals.
LORD JANNER: If the noble Viscount will forgive me, what he is alleging is that the people who will be called upon to conduct the examination would not be responsible people. Obviously, if a veterinary surgeon is one of their number they will take the opinion of that veterinary surgeon in respect of matters which lie within his particular province; but others, too, have experience which is, even in those respects and in those matters, of importance, and as the veterinary surgeons themselves do not want it I cannot see why the noble Viscount should persist in his Amendment. I hope that he will see fit to withdraw it.
THE EARL OF CRANBROOK: Perhaps I may contribute a little more here

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because for some years I was chairman of the Zoo Federation which had exactly this problem of deciding the type of inspection team we were to send round to zoos which had applied to enter the Federation. I found there was more or less unanimity among all the people connected with the zoos in line with the provisions laid down in Clause 4. They represent the objectives which every zoo should aim at and on which there was unanimity. But what I found interesting, and did not expect to find, was that a large number of people responsible for keeping zoological gardens felt that if there was to be an inspection it should be carried out by the layman assisted by the vet or by the layman, who had been trained in a good zoo, without a vet. There were an equal number of people on the other side who felt that the vet should be the one man to make the inspection, with the layman accompanying him but being regarded as unnecessary as, indeed, other people thought that the veterinary surgeon's attendance was unnecessary. The conclusion to which I came was that such a system would satisfy neither, and the effect would be to confine making one's team to both laymen and veterinary surgeons, as indeed does the Bill. The noble Viscount is one who feels that inspections should be the responsibility of the veterinary surgeon; others feel exactly the opposite and, in the circumstances, the best thing is to do what the Bill proposes and have both.
But again I remind the noble Viscount that we are always thinking of making provision to ensure fairness so that a man whose livelihood is taken away has ever) opportunity of meeting the charges against him. We want to ensure that he can appeal to the courts and then subpoena the veterinary surgeon concerned. In cases where the veterinary surgeon has reported any contraventions the Council will have to give reasons in writing which the man concerned will be entitled to refute and argue in the courts. No injustice would be done by this procedure and most people in the zoo world would be satisfied by it. Perhaps when the noble Viscount realises there are others inside the zoo world holding other opinions than the one he has put forward, he may well feel that it is better to meet them in the middle by having
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both the veterinary surgeon and the layman in the inspection team.
One of the more important subjects concerns whether or not existing records are adequate. The noble Viscount knows as well as I that he and I could make up our minds as well as any veterinary surgeon about whether records are adequate.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: In view of what my noble friend has said. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 6 agreed to.
Clause 7 agreed to.
Clause 8 [Supplementary provisions as to the register and fees]:
6.26 p.m.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD moved Amendment No. 4:
Page 4, line 4, after ("fee") insert ("which shall not exceed £15)")
The noble Viscount said: In order to save time I should like to speak to Amendments Nos. 4 and 5 together. I will not say much about them; they are not of great importance, but one of the aspects in the Bill that I find unsatisfactory is that we can get no effective response about the cost of the various proposals which are made. In the two Amendments I have tabled, the scale of fees for registration and for restoration to the register are solely administrative matters and the fees I have suggested in Amendment No. 4 are
"shall not exceed £15"
for registration, and in Amendment No. 5
"shall not exceed £5"
for restoration. These are completely administrative matters and I do not think any more should be charged.
I should like to try to draw the noble Lord, Lord Janner, on the financial implications of the Bill because we are asked to pass the Bill without being told anything about the financial implications.
LORD JANNER: I hope that the noble Viscount will agree that we should speak on Amendments Nos. 6 and 13 together, because they appear to hang on the same tag. The noble Viscount has asked me a direct question and I propose to answer him in a direct manner. I am afraid that

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he has been badly misled. I hope he will forgive me if I speak perfectly plainly. In this country zoological gardens have to be conducted in such a way that the public as a whole, as well as the individuals attending them and the animals in the zoos, shall have complete protection so that there can be no question about whether animals are being properly treated, irrespective of any commercial interests. I wish to underline that fact. It appears from the kind of Amendments now being put forward that the concern of these zoological gardens, which are carried on for profit, is how much profit they can make and how little they are prepared to spend in order that the animals should be properly looked after.
It is a very strange thing and I hope your Lordships will forgive me if I deal with the matter in the way that has been suggested by the noble Viscount. The fact of the matter is that since I introduced the Bill on the first occasion, unhappily it has not managed to get through to the Statute Book—not because your Lordships did not want it, they passed it, and not because the other place were against it, because the Second Reading was passed there on the nod. What in fact happened is that now, at the eleventh hour, when they see that there is a probability of the Bill passing, they want to see to it that as little as possible shall come out of their pockets in order to have the public and the animals in the zoos protected.
I am sure that the noble Viscount has been led up the garden path here by the Association which was formed after we had introduced the first Bill—after, not before. Before it was not their concern. The papers were full of shocking incidents that had happened in some of the zoological gardens which were run for commercial reasons. I did not see any libel action taken against the people who made those allegations against specific commercial enterprises. Far be it from me to make any suggestion that all the zoological gardens which are run for profit are not run properly, but the fact of the matter is that in some cases, even if they attempt to run them properly they are misguided in the manner in which they carry out the supervision of the animals.
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The noble Viscount has raised the question of cost. The Federation of Zoological Societies which was founded years ago and against which there has been no accusation of mismanagement in any way, are behind this Bill because they feel that everybody should be properly supervised, and indeed it should appear that they are properly supervised. There are two million people per annum alone who attend their zoological gardens.
A few days ago we saw on television the life of a very highly respected Member of this House. He spoke about the 1½ or 2 million people visiting his safari park and of people being prepared to pay as much as £10 to have a meal there. Frankly, and when we come to the next Amendments we will see what kind of charges are suggested, I think it is a monstrous idea—and I speak in strong language—that an attempt should be made to bring before this House the kind of charges it is literally impossible to believe. No, the cost of protecting the animals and of protecting the public and ensuring that the animals are so housed and looked after and—though not specifically stated in the Bill—in order to preserve their species in the future, will not be a very heavy one; but it will be sufficient for a Council which is constituted of people of standing, to decide what is reasonable to serve the purpose.
I am sure that the noble Viscount does not want to have inadequate supervision and in my view he can trust the Council. People trust other professional Councils not to exceed a reasonable sum in the amounts that they spend. I can assure him that with the millions of people who attend the zoological gardens and the safari parks, only a very small amount will be required from each person who is admitted. Consequently, we have investigated what it is likely to cost, but much will depend on the staff and accommodation that is necessary. The important point here is the staff and accommodation that is necessary in order to protect the animals and the public. The zoological gardens themselves, if there was no such set-up as a Council, and if they were honest and reasonable people and cared as much for the public as they cared for their profits, would have to spend this money. I want the noble Viscount to realise that he is not dealing with unreasonable people, with thugs; he

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is not dealing with people who want to make a profit out of this venture. He is dealing with a respectable set of people who want to ensure that the public will be satisfied in a reasonable way and that the fears that they have—unhappily, many of them founded on previous experience—will be dispelled. In the circumstances I am very sorry that the noble Viscount has seen fit to move these Amendments.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: I wonder whether I might intervene at this stage, with some advantage. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Janner, that it would be as well if we could deal with Amendments Nos. 4, 5, 6 and 13 at the same time. The noble Lord, Lord Janner, has made it quite clear that he is unwilling to accept these Amendments. He has spoken with a depth of feeling that leaves no doubt at all. I have to say that the Government also find these Amendments undesirable. I should like to think that the noble Viscount, Lord Massereene and Ferrard, having made his point will not press the Amendments. If they were pressed I should have to say that the Government would hope that they would not be accepted by the Committee.
Nevertheless, having said that, these Amendments underline the reservations that have been expressed in some quarters about the anticipated cost of running the Council, and the understandable desire of some zoo proprietors to see an upper limit placed on the fees they may be called upon to pay. But as I have indicated, these Amendments are, in the Government's view, open to criticism on two main fronts. In the first place, the levels at which the maxima have been set seem far too low to produce the money the Council will need to function in the way it is required to do under the provisions of the Bill. Secondly, even if the fees were adequate to meet the Council's present day financial requirements at a time of increasing costs and rising prices, they would soon be out of date and in need of upward revision. That is something for which the Amendment does not provide.
I could give some figures but perhaps it will not be necessary in the light of the way our consideration is going. The figures cover the sums that would be raised if the proposals of the noble Viscount, Lord Massereene and Ferrard,
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were accepted. They would be totally inadequate. I would put it this way: it must be recognised that the cost of operation, the system of registration and inspection required by the Bill would require payments by registered zoos substantially higher than those specified in this series of Amendments. To lay down maximum fees of the sort that are given us here would in the Government's view serve only to frustrate the proper operation of the structure which the Bill seeks to set up. I hope the noble Viscount will appreciate that this matter has been gone into in some depth and that in the advice I am tendering I take into account all the consideration which has been given to it.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: I spoke at length on the Second Reading of this Bill in the last Parliament and I do not want to repeat all that I said then; but with due respect to the noble Lord, Lord Janner, so far as I am aware he has no experience of zoological gardens, whereas I have a certain experience of exotic animals in captivity, and I cannot agree with a great deal of what he has said. But I have not yet spoken on Amendment No. 13. I was speaking only on Amendments 4 and 5—fees for registration and restoration to the register. That is only a question of administrative expense; just a question of a pen and some ink. I was not in fact speaking on Amendment No. 13, but as noble Lords have now brought it up, I am quite prepared to discuss it with Amendments 4 and 5, and with Amendment 6. As I intimated, this first Amendment and Amendment No. 13 are probing Amendments. I am trying to draw from the noble Lord what this Council will cost. I quite agree that the fees I have suggested, which would bring in only about £10,000, are too low, but I was trying to get some figure from the noble Lord as to how much it is going to cost. Is it going to cost £100,000 a year, £50,000 a year, or what? I can get no figure out of him.
Of course, we have the proviso in Clause 8(5):
"All fees prescribed under this section shall be subject to the approval of the Secretary of State".
But that does not necessarily inspire great confidence in those whose pockets are to

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be raided. When the noble Lord spoke about £1½ million gross a year—I presume he was referring to Woburn—I think he was exaggerating. I understand it is just about £1 million, but, anyway, only about a third or a quarter of that is in connection with the game park, so the noble Lord was really exaggerating there. We ought also to remember that the Council can come along to the Secretary of State and say, "Look: we have not got enough money, so we must raise the fees", and the Secretary of State would find it very hard to refuse. I would far prefer to have a set scale of fees which could automatically go up with the rate of inflation each year. I have put down rather wide brackets here but, as I say, this suggestion has the advantage of there being fixed fees calculated on admissions. I do not agree with the Bill where, in Clause 8(1)(b), it says,
"… such sum to be calculated on the number of"—
I agree with it so far; that is all right—
"or the amount of money received from paid admissions …"
I do not agree with that. I think that any scale of fees must be based on the number of admissions, not on the amount of money received, because I doubt very much whether it would be workable otherwise, and it is a private matter. You have to divulge the figure to the Inland Revenue or to the Customs and Excise, but I do not see why you should have to divulge it to the Council. It is a private matter.
I suppose there is no hope of having this Amendment accepted so I will have to withdraw it, but I should just like to say that there is disquiet over this. A large number of us with zoological gardens have not been consulted at all. We are really being rather pressurised into this; and if you do not get co-operation among the owners of zoological gardens then the Council may not be a very effective instrument. Having said that, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 8 agreed to.
Remaining clauses agreed to.
In the Schedule [Constitution of the Council and Supplementary Provisions]:
6.47 p.m.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD moved Amendment No. 7:
Page 7, leave out lines 7 to 16 and insert:

("(a) 5 members appointed by the Secretary of State following nominations made to him by the National Zoological Association of Great Britain;

(b) 4 members appointed by the Secretary of State following nominations made to him by the Federation of Zoological Gardens of Great Britain and Ireland;

(c) 2 members appointed by the Secretary of State.")

The noble Viscount said: This Amendment seeks to revise the constitution of the Council. I mentioned just before I sat down earlier that if this Council is to succeed the co-operation of the industry is essential. In fact, when we had the Second Reading debate on this Bill in the last Parliament my noble friend Lord Colville emphasised this—because, after all, the industry is providing 100 per cent. of the cost of this Council. I would remind the noble Lord, Lord Janner, that the industry has two societies. One is the National Zoological Association of Great Britain, which represents about sixty members. I understand that they have just had to throw out one member because his premises were not up to the required standdards. The National Zoological Association have regular inspections carried out. They have their premises, their universal zoological gardens, inspected by the Universities Federation for Animal Welfare. The other society, as we have heard, is of course the Federation of Zoological Gardens of Great Britain and Ireland, of which the London Zoo are the chief members. As I say, if there is not co-operation between these two bodies, I rather fear for the future of the Council.
In my Amendment I have suggested that the Council should be divided as to five members for the National Zoological Association, because they have more members than the Federation of Zoological Gardens, and four members for the Federation of Zoological Gardens, and that the other two members should be appointed by the Secretary of State from whatever quarter he wishes. Under the Bill, of course, the Secretary of State has to appoint all the members any way,

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even those from the Association and from the Federation. I should like to have two members appointed from outside the zoological associations by the Secretary of State, who would then hold the balance of power, because if that were done neither of the two zoological associations could dominate the other. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Janner, will agree that the Council, as I have suggested, would be fairly constituted, with the Secretary of State holding the balance of power in this way. I beg to move.
LORD JANNER: I am really sorry to have to speak in the way that I do, but I find it absolutely impossible to agree to what I consider to be impertinent Amendments which are brought forward by commercial organisations and which indicate quite clearly that they are more concerned with the commercial aspect of the matter than with what the Bill purports to do. This is a Bill for protecting the animals and there is no question of the Association, the Federation, or anybody else, having a personal interest in this matter. They must drop their personal interest and think of the animals and the public. They must not think about how much profit they are going to make. I do not know whether they consider it an honour to be a member of the Council, but they ought not to think of that. What is needed is to have people who are prepared voluntarily to serve on the Council—people of the highest standard. What a shocking thing to suggest! I hope the noble Viscount will go back to the people who have misled him—because they have misled him and they have no right to do so. The noble Viscount is a reasonable person, and these people have no right to lead him up the garden path, if I may say so.
Just imagine what he is saying. He wants the Association, because it is a commercial association with 60 members, to have a say as to whether the animals should be properly protected or not. Clearly, in both Houses of Parliament we are asked to declare an interest before we venture to give opinions. But here the interest is obvious. The Federation does not ask for it. Fancy casting a slur on—of all people—the Royal Society and the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons! It is really too much for anyone to stomach. Perhaps I should not use that expression, but it is certainly hard
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for anyone to accept. I hope that the noble Viscount will go back to his people and tell them that no sensible, reasonable body could possibly accept proposals such as have been made and that it is an insult to very reputable organisations—organisations which should be the primary organisations to be consulted on these matters. I certainly could not accept this Amendmtnt. I do not know whether any other Member of this Committee could do so.
LORD FISHER: I apologise for having entered this discussion at such a late stage of the Bill's progress; and I have to declare an interest in that during the past two years I have been setting up my own wildlife park. I have taken my seat on a Back-Bench here hoping that I might be in the background, and fortunately I find two very distinguished Members, both on my right and on my left, who are also in the background. My own wildlife park combines open space with gardens and country, a deer park and a zoo. During the past two years I have visited seven wildlife parks, 15 zoos, six bird gardens and five safari parks. In studying this Bill I wondered just how necessary it is, since the great majority of these parks are well run and the public themselves have a very strong control through their attendance figures and indeed through the criticisms they give to the people running the parks.
Your Lordships, however, have given this Bill three Second Readings and are undoubtedly of the opinion that statutory control is necessary. Therefore this Bill must be as good as we can make it. I do not think we should accept this Amendment because we ought not to have the Council loaded on either side. There is no doubt, as has been said this evening—and I have no interest at the moment since I am neither a member of the Association nor of the Federation—that the members of the Association are on the whole zoos or leisure industry zoos, generally managed by companies, whereas the members of the Federation are preponderantly bodies dedicated to the entertainment of the public interested in wild animals, and in many cases are trusts or associations. I feel that neither body should have a preponderance in this Council and I hope that the Council will not only control zoos, as designated in Clause

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4 of the Bill, but also look a little further into the future and promote the wellbeing of this industry. I myself have an axe to grind. There are certain counties in this country which consider that institutions of this kind should be kept secret and that no signs should be allowed to show where they are—in fact my own opening publicity was largely to the effect of "Can you keep a secret?", and it produced quite a crowd of people on the opening day.
Perhaps I should mention a further point: I was unable to attend the earlier Second Reading debate on January 28 because I happened then to be in Peru. I deal largely in Latin American animals, and Peru is one of the Latin American countries which has, as no doubt some of your Lordships from the opposite side of the Chamber will be pleased to hear, nationalised its wild animals. As a result, they will not allow the export of wild animals. Here, Peru is in company with Colombia, Brazil and shortly, I think, Ecuador. Those wild animals which are caught—and obviously some are caught by the Indians in the jungle, because they do not know about the rules—are confiscated when it is sought to export them and the State bodies looking after these animals want to get rid of them abroad. The Council which it is suggested should be set up is just the sort of body with which a State organisation concerned with the exporting of wild animals can deal in this country.
I would support the Bill, rather than this Amendment, because the foreign country in this particular case would know that it was dealing with an independent body and in no way with a commercial body.
LORD ZUCKERMAN: May I intervene a second time in this debate to endorse everything that the noble Lord has just said? This must be a neutral body. I was alarmed when I heard the words "to dominate" and that under the Amendment two members would be appointed by the Secretary of State to achieve a balance of power. Who knows what the balance of power is here? The only power which has been sought by this Bill is to see that we have zoological collections, properly licensed, of which the country need not be ashamed. There
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are some collections in this country which should not exist—and I know less about this matter than some noble Lords who are present.
I am sure that the noble Viscount was not implying that the Presidents of the Royal Society and the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons had an interest one way or the other. But does the noble Viscount know what these bodies are? The Federation—of which I believe the Zoological Society of London is a member—is a Federation of Zoological Gardens. The other Association, of which I know nothing, calls itself the National Zoological Association. Zoology is the science of life. Perhaps the National Zoological Association is a scientific body. The Zoological Society of London is the national zoological society and, in the same way, the Royal Society has sectional committees on zoology. What can I or the noble Viscount know about a fourth or fifth association which might appoint itself? The National Zoological Association has given itself this name without any reference to the science of zoology; but any number of other so-called associations might be formed, in which case this Bill would become meaningless.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: We have listened to some interesting speeches on this Amendment, and particularly interesting was the speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Fisher. I thought he made a very telling point when he said that the Council should not be loaded in the way the Amendment would load it. In the Government's view, the proposals as set out in the Bill are about right. I should like to point out to the noble Viscount, Lord Massereene and Ferrard, that his Amendment has a very considerable weakness. If it were carried, the number of members to be appointed on the nomination of each of the two existing bodies representing zoos would be generally in line with their relative present membership. But the membership of the bodies could change in the future: one or both of the existing organisations could be wound up; or additional bodies representing zoos—particularly specialised collections such as aquaria or bird gardens—could be established in the future. It is unsatisfactory to specify in a Statute precise numbers of persons to be appointed on the nomination of unofficial

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bodies of this nature; the present provision in the Bill is more flexible and much to be preferred. I hope that the noble Viscount will see the force of the argument that I have tried to put regarding his Amendment.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: In view of what the noble Lord has said, and as my noble friend Lord Balfour of Inchrye wants to get on with his Question, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
7.4 p.m.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD moved Amendment No. 8:
Page 7, line 16, at end insert—
("The Council shall elect from among their own number a chairman and such chairman shall hold office for a term of three years.")
The noble Viscount said: We are not told by whom the chairman shall be nominated, and I should have thought that it would be fairer for the members of the Council to elect him. I beg to move.
LORD JANNER: I hope the noble Viscount will not press this Amendment. We want to get on with the Bill and I am sure that this time he will realise that the Committee are not very happy about instructions from the Association to which reference has been made. I hope he will withdraw this Amendment.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Schedule agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported without amendment: Report received.

HUMAN RIGHTS IN COMMUNIST COUNTRIES
7.8 p.m.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether Government policy is governed by their desire to see democracy restored and human rights fully respected in Communist dominated countries where anti-Jewish and other racial persecutions are practised; and whether, to this end, Her
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Majesty's Government will take part in any future representations to be made by the United Nations on human rights; and, further, whether the Home Secretary will sympathetically consider applications from refugees from such countries. The noble Lord said: My Lords, the hour is late but I make no apologies for asking the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper because it deals with an important subject. No doubt the Minister who is to reply will note that I used the exact words of the Foreign Secretary in another place when answering a Question about Chile when he regretted the suppression of human rights and the denial of democracy. I thought that I could not do better than quote the authoritative words of the Foreign Secretary. Let me make it clear at once to the House that I have no sympathies with the Fascist régimes; but if the Government are to be consistent in their policy, that policy should apply equally to all who have not restored democracy or who have denied human rights to those within a country's frontiers. My question to Her Majesty's Government is: is this really so?
In Communist dominated countries—Russia for example—Russia's best friend could not but admit that democracy in that country is in short supply; that there are real horrors going on in labour camps of political prisoners; that there is anti-Jewish prejudice and persecution which is racialism. Outside Russia, in a series of one-Party dictatorship Governments in various overseas parts of the world, there are political prisoners and strong anti-racial prejudice, usually against the whites. For Chile the Foreign Secretary promised three things. He said that Her Majesty's Government will stop aid; secondly, that Her Majesty's Government will take part in protests to the United Nations on the suppression of human rights; and thirdly, he said that the Government will aid sympathetically refugees from this country. Those are the three points that the Foreign Secretary made. I want to ask whether the Government will declare now their willingness to do all this for countries of the extreme Left as well as those of the extreme Right? If the Leftists are guilty of doing what the Government condemn in Chile, will the Government extend the same treatment to the Left?
My Lords, in my view, you cannot direct foreign policy, both political and economic, on whether or not you approve of a country's internal policy. That is just what Her Majesty's Government are doing. In doing so, I submit to the House, they are building up avoidable enmities and damaging our economic need for full employment and for a healthy export trade. In fact, my Lords, what this Government are doing is arrogating to themselves the right to divide the countries of the world into what I would term the "goodies" and the "baddies", according to the Government's opinion of the internal policies of each particular country.
Where we disapprove there is no need to praise; but equally there is no purpose in silly gestures like forbidding the Royal yacht to refuel at Simonstown when we depend on Simonstown base for our strategic safety in the South Atlantic. There is no sense in cancelling naval visits to Greece (we talked about that in the House yesterday) when Greece is still an accepted NATO Member. Maybe this pleases the Left here, maybe it pleases the Left in other countries, but it is at a cost to industry and employment. The refusal to supply arms for external protection to South Africa, or to Spain, is in fact what I call political "mugwummpery" at the cost of employment and prospects of our own folks. My Lords, there is a very silly expression going around: "On which side of the barricades are you?" In the world as it is, we do not want barricades: we do not want to erect ideological barricades. But surely Her Majesty's Government should fulfil what should be their first and main interest, the welfare of our people. That is why I ask this Question.
7.13 p.m.
LORD JANNER: My Lords, I anticipated that the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, would ask his Question in a somewhat wider sense because I feel that this opportunity should be taken of asking the Government to consider certain other previous violations that are taking place. I am sure the House will realise that I personally am concerned, and very deeply concerned, with what is happening not only in some Communist countries, but in other countries as well where we ought to be taking action, particularly in respect of Jewish people. I cannot say that I
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agree with the line that was taken by the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, but I hope the House will forgive me if, in debating this Question, I pursue, for as short a time as I possibly can, what is a terribly important subject.
I need hardly say that all sections of communities who have been, and are, persecuted are my concern, as indeed is every human being. But owing to lack of time, I hope your Lordships will understand if I confine myself to referring to those persecutions which were inflicted on Jews whose plight has been brought particularly to my notice, and which I have endeavoured to assist in alleviating during my life—in addition to helping the other sections of communities. I am sure the noble Lord will agree that his accusations and requests do not relate to all Communist countries, nor to Communist countries alone. I instance the violations of human rights by the Syrians (who are being supplied and spurred on by the U.S.S.R. to-day) against their Jewish citizens—and perhaps one might say, and indeed with some justification, that the Syrians are Communist controlled.
Recently, four young Jewesses from Damascus, Eva Saad, and three sisters, Toni, Laura and Farh Zebah, were murdered in mysterious circumstances near the Lebanese border, apparently while attempting to escape from Syria across the border into Lebanon. Their bodies were brought back to Damascus by the Syrian authorities for burial. A statement was made by Aba Eban two days ago which I think one might bring to the notice of your Lordships. It stated:
"With the intensification of the wave of protests throughout the world …"—
I think probably the objection of the Question being put is that the protests should be brought to notice—
"… the Syrian Minister of the Interior, Ali Zaza, was forced to admit in his statement, broadcast by Radio Damascus on 14th March, that the young women were indeed murdered by what he termed as gangs of criminals, who were apprehended, confessed to their crimes and will be charged by a State security tribunal With it, the Syrian Minister added insult to injury in naming two Jews, Yosef Shaluh and Azour Zalta, as members of the band. These Jews are known to many former residents of Syria throughout the world and are renowned for their beneficial work and assistance to the needy of the community. Zalta is" [even] "related to Eva Saad, and the callous attempt to

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brand him with the false accusation of murdering the young woman, or participating in the crime, is a judicial murder and a vile blood libel."
Your Lordships will probably know that the Jewish people in Syria are confined to ghettoes in Damascus, Aleppo and Kamishli. They are subject to arbitrary arrest. Imprisonment and torture is the daily lot of this impoverished community, bereft of all legal rights and protection. They are denied freedom of movement, whether within Syria or in regard to leaving the country. Even the Jews holding non-Syrian passports are not permitted to leave Syria. Within the country, Jews are restricted by law to residence in the ghettoes of the places I have mentioned. Special permission is required for them to travel more than five kilometres (about three miles) from their place of residence. Permission must be requested many weeks in advance. They have been deprived of the Franchise. This is the terrible situation in the country of Syria. Now, we are in diplomatic relations with Syria and I hope, and I believe, that the present Government will make representations with a view to clearing that position.
Let me give another illustration of an incident which should not have happened. Egypt are to send us an Ambassador, who I understand, unfortunately, we have accepted, who not only ordered forces in his command to kill men, women and children, but was actually here at one time acting with anti-semitic forces who were well known for their anti-semiticism and who at that time made no pretence at not being anti-semitic. I do hope that something will be done, and if he does come here, that we shall keep a very close watch on the kind of racialist action that he undertook when he was here before and prevent it.
May I now speak about the U.S.S.R. for a short time? As far back as 1967 (I think it was) a Motion was put on the Order Paper in another place by some colleagues of mine and myself against the attitude of the U.S.S.R. to the Jewish community there. It was sponsored by several Members, including myself, and signed by more than 390 altogether—nearly the highest, if not actually the highest, number signing any of the numerous Motions which appeared on the Order Paper during the thirty years of my exper-
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ience in the other place. The signatories were drawn from all Parties in the House. At that time the Jewish population of the U.S.S.R. were terrorised into remaining silent, but a new generation, of unbelievable, indomitable courage, face the terrible dangers which confronted them when they openly revolted against the heartbreaking and intolerable restrictions which were placed upon them against practising their beliefs, continuing their culture and living as Jews, although they were compelled to describe themselves as such.
It is late, but I hope your Lordships will forgive me for continuing because I think this should be placed on record so that it can be studied by the Government and by others concerned. The situation of the Jewish community in the Soviet Union continues to be grave and alarming, and it also continues to be a special one. A Committee was set up recently by the Council of Europe to investigate the position. It was a high-powered Committee, which issued a report, and the gist of the report was this. The tendency sometimes expressed to group the Jews with "dissidents" in the Soviet Union is erroneous. In a country where the Government spend great effort to develop, or at least to guarantee, the specificity of most minorities, Jews are in a particular situation. Anti-semitism has become State policy. Jewish culture has been destroyed—this is actually from the report of an investigating committee consisting of representatives from every country. Manifestations of it are sanctioned. In a country that prides itself on having developed the obscurest languages, Hebrew and Yiddish are forbidden. The limited but existing minority rights are denied to the Jews, although they are "Hebrew", according to their official nationality identity cards.
Jews remain the only minority without a territory of their own; they number only about 8 per cent. of the population of Birobidjan, their so-called Jewish "autonomous region", and this region has no Jewish facilities whatsoever. While the rest of the Soviet Union has enjoyed a certain measure of liberalisation in the last years, it is sad to note that in 1973 there were fewer synagogues, fewer Jews knowing their own language, fewer Jewish students in universities than in Stalin's time. This has brought many

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Jews to a painful process of soul-searching and to the conclusion that, more than fifty years after the Russian Revolution, they are unwanted in their own birthplace.
The report goes on to say that there are various "dissident groups" in the Soviet Union—"democrats", "believers", et cetera—who hope to change, to humanise, to liberalise the Soviet régime. These people wish to live in a better Soviet Union. Vast numbers of Jews have by now lost hope that they will ever find their place as Jews in that country. While the "democrats" seek to alter their country, the Jews now wish to leave it, and this is the basic difference between the two struggles.
To-day harassment of Jews is going on. A person who asks for an exit permit is deprived of his livelihood and insulted wherever he goes. Scientists of the highest standing are being rushed from pillar to post, sent to prisons. They are sent to so-called mental hospitals, and every type of what I consider to come under the heading of torture is being exercised. I should like to pay tribute to the Prime Minister, who rendered a service openly in trying to get Jews out from the U.S.S.R., but also to those Members and Ministers on both sides of the House who from time to time have been helpful in this way. But I hope that we shall take definite steps to let the U.S.S.R. know that they cannot deal with their Jewish people in that way. And the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe, which is taking place in Geneva at the present time can be used by us so that it may deal with the position there. I am talking, of course, about the Conference which was originally held in Helsingfors and is now being held in Geneva.
I am hoping that the Government will do what the Board of Deputies of British Jews in this country have asked them to do; that is, to intervene in the debates there, and ensure that others intervene in those debates, so that pressure can be brought not only upon the U.S.S.R., in so far as the Jewish problem is concerned, but upon all peoples who are harassing human beings and who are dealing with them as though they were altogether objects of unconcern. It may be, my Lords, that by this kind of pressure we shall be able to answer the point
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which has been raised by the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye. I do not say it will be in the same sense in which he has raised it because, frankly, I do not agree with some of the suggestions he has made. Nevertheless, the core of his complaint is something which is of tremendous importance which we as a democratic country, I am sure, would want to deal with.
7.29 p.m.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, your Lordships will have already noticed that the language in which my noble friend Lord Balfour of Inchrye has framed his Unstarred Question bears a curious similarity to the language in which the Foreign Secretary replied in another place last week to a Parliamentary Question about Chile. I fully agree with my noble friend that if we are trying to keep alive the spark of human freedom in countries where it is now very dim, and if we are trying to help refugees from those countries, whether they be Communist dictatorships which have been the greatest enemies of human freedom for the last generation or more, or whether they be countries which oppress and stifle the freedom of the Jews, which countries are also enemies of liberty, we ought not to be less active in our dealings with them than with a small South American Republic which has lately been saved from a Communist dictatorship by a military coup d'état.
The only point I wish to put to the Minister of State on this Unstarred Question is a point about Chile, and I shall not discuss anything else except this one matter concerning technical aid. I should like to appeal earnestly to Her Majesty's Government not to maintain their suspension of the small amount of aid—although I think it is very valuable in relation to its amount in terms of money—which we have recently been giving to Chile and which I submit we ought to go on giving. I should like to make it clear that I do not expect the Minister of State to reply to this tonight: it would be quite silly if I did. I am only asking him, very respectfully, to submit it to his colleagues.
I should like to take this opportunity of congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, very sincerely upon the great resourcefulness and promptness and skill with which he has replied to

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so many questions, on which he obviously could not be given a detailed reply: he has stonewalled, and sometimes hit a boundary. When I held the same office in your Lordships' House I was sent in 1963 to Peru to represent the Queen at the inauguration of the new régime of President Belaunde, and this new régime had succeeded a military dictatorship. The military dictator who had run Peru for about three years was a General Lindley—an English name; his grandfather was a Yorkshireman who had emigrated to Peru. He himself had not been brought up to speak English, but he looked exactly like a Yorkshireman and he spoke Spanish with a Yorkshire accent. He was a delightful man and he ran this military dictatorship. If your Lordships count the number of military dictatorships which there have been in America over the last 120 years you will find that not one of them has wanted to last very long. They nearly all intended to replace themselves with something else, as General Lindley did when he thought the time had come. He asked Belaunde to become President in a new democratic Parliamentary régime, which Belaunde did, and although that régime lasted only five years I think that was longer than the average régime in Southern America.
When I was there we had been giving, for the previous three years, not a great deal of money but some very valuable technical aid to the people of Peru. The best example I saw of that—and it was wonderful how little it cost—was a fairly large contingent of the British Overseas Youth Organisation who had gone to Lima to help with the housing problem, acquiring a knowledge of house construction. At that time, thousands of peasants were emigrating from the Andes, owing to the increase in population which could not be contained on the rough hill farms there. They emigrated from the Andes to Lima, and the housing situation was appalling: the local authority just could not deal with it. There were not enough builders, or electricians, and so on, and these young British men and women were building and helping the immigrants with their own hands, giving them the know-how to build literally hundreds of prefabricated houses: to put in the electric wiring (because there were no electri-
1106
cians), to put in the water supply, and to provide hundreds of these wretched Peruvian immigrants with quite comfortable modern houses.
The encouraging thing about this event was the gratitude of the Peruvians. They were genuinely grateful, and in an age when there is so little gratitude it made one happy to see their reactions. Whatever the régime—it had been a military dictatorship and it was going to be a Belaunde régime—that help by these volunteers from the Overseas Youth Organisation did an enormous amount of good, creating much good feeling between ourselves and the people of Peru. The young men and women got all the praise in the world from Lima, and I only wished that they had sometimes got a little praise from this country. But perhaps owing to the difficulties of organisation for the mass media, or difficulties of transport, I do not think there was ever one word in any broadcast about what these British boys and girls were doing. That was sad. However, they did a very good job.
Our aid now to Chile is not very great. I think the technical aid we gave last year was worth £360,000 or £400,000. It is not likely to be more than £500,000, and it is mostly technical aid which they particularly need now after three and a half years of Allende's Government. I do not say anything about what his real intentions were because I do not know, but in fact he has pretty well ruined for the time being the economy of Chile. The production of the copper mines has fallen by about half, and copper is their main export. Seventy per cent. of their exports depend upon the production and sale of copper and they are much poorer than they were; there is much more unemployment and there is much less hope of recovery at the moment owing to the unconstitutional action of not only nationalising everything against the will of Congress, whose wishes were vetoed by the President, but by the substitution of political management for skilled industrial management in most of the industries in Chile. The result is that they are now in a state of high unemployment and economic distress.
All I want to put to your Lordships is that if we can continue to give this aid it does so much more good to help a man when he is lying bleeding and helpless at the side of the road than when

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he is healthy and walking briskly to his work. That is why I earnestly put it to the Government that if we can give this small amount of aid now, with high effectiveness in proportion to its value, and not in three or four years' time, it may produce a much better return in international good will and international friendship in the years that are ahead of us.
7.40 p.m.
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, I am attracted to support my noble friend Lord Balfour of Inchrye because of the wording of his Question. We shall listen with interest to the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, who will reply to the general question raised. The question of the prevention of emigration from countries like East Germany and Russia is not something we all applaud. It has always been a matter which has perplexed me, by comparison with other things, that Her Majesty's Government have not more persistently stimulated questions in the United Nations by the Committee on Human Rights, because it would seem that this kind of behaviour against emigration is a perplexity. It is not only confined to a few places; one calls to mind the position of the refugees in Palestine going Eastwards. It can be coupled with the restrictions on immigration which could oppose the wishes of certain individuals.
My Lords, more particularly the point I wanted to take up to-day comes under the heading of human relations. I am glad that my noble friend Lord Balfour of Inchrye raised this point. Earlier this week we had a statement from the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, who said that the Government
"… have the right and duty to make clear to them in appropriate ways our deep concern about the way in which internal policies …"—(OFFICIAL REPORT, 2/4/71, col. 802.)
and then he spoke of the intensified suppression of human rights. I am puzzled as to how that squares with the absence of action of that kind with regard to the oppression in Uganda. There are no repeated assertions of disapproval of those tactics by the Government.
In the same discussion, there was a statement by the noble Lord, Lord Maybray-King, to the effect that the
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freedom-loving citizens of Greece approve of the attitude of the British Government, which I have just quoted in the words of the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts. Those words did not seem to square with the absence of action which might be taken in so many directions, with the disapproval of the ideological line taken regarding the human rights, and the absence of protest with regard to what is happening in Uganda, the Sudan, Burundi, Nigeria or other places. The United Nations Committee, which my noble friend suggests ought to do something in this matter, did not do anything in other matters where human rights were being continually suppressed.
On this question of human rights, there are attitudes arising such as were referred to earlier this week in this House with regard to wages in other countries, which is none of our particular business. But as the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, said, it is the obligation of the Government to do what they can on the grounds of human rights to correct any abuses that might exist. It is on those grounds that I am particularly interested in listening to the reply to my noble friend Lord Balfour of Inchrye because the "desire to see democracy restored and human rights duly respected …" is the purpose of my brief intervention.
7.46 p.m.
LORD COLERAINE: My Lords, may I associate myself with the compliments my noble friend Lord Dundee paid to the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts. I, too, have greatly admired his skill and fortitude while a Member of this House. He has had great experience in another place. I am particularly glad of the opportunity of saying that because what I have to say in other respects may not be quite as bland as what my noble friend said; and it might even seem to the noble Lord to be rather harsh. But if it should be harsh, the harshness is not directed either at him or at his right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary, but to what I greatly fear is the false philosophy which lies behind the foreign policy of Her Majesty's Government now.
My Lords, we must all be most grateful to my noble friend Lord Balfour of Inchrye for raising this Question. I want particularly to concentrate upon the bigger question which lies behind

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it, on which several of my noble friends have already touched. The big question is this: how do Her Majesty's Government see the function of foreign policy? Do they see the purpose of foreign policy as being to promote the interests of the people of this country first, last and all the time, and in particular to promote the safety of the people of this country? Do they see the purpose of foreign policy as being to promote the power and influence of the country throughout the world? Or do they, on the other hand, see diplomacy as Clausewitz saw war? As my noble friend will remember Clausewitz saw war simply as a continuation of policy by other means.
From what I have heard from the noble Lord and his right honourable friend since the new Government were formed, I am afraid that Her Majesty's Government see diplomacy rather as the carrying on of a General Election campaign by other means. The noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, looks very startled; I do not think he need. All he has to do is to read the White Paper on renegotiation of the Common Market. He will see that rather more than one page out of a little more than five pages is simply a quotation from the Election Manifesto of the Labour Party, so I think he will agree that there is no cause for raising the eyebrows, and that there is some basis for what I am saying to him.
My Lords, then there is the question which my noble friend, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, raised, that vain and empty phrase which the Foreign Secretary used about showing which side of the barricades we are on. Those barricades which the Foreign Secretary talks about are very curious, because sometimes they are there and sometimes they are not. If on one side of the barricades are generals and admirals with gold braid up to their armpits, then Her Majesty's Government, through the noble Lord's right honourable friend, immediately jump down on the other side, but if on the one side of the barricades are boot-faced men in belted Ulster coats manipulating an instrument of terror and oppression by the side of which the most evil machinations of the wickedest general or admiral are really like parlour games at a children's Christmas party, there is no question of an antithesis between freedom and democracy; that all seems to dis-
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appear and the men in Ulster coats and trilby hats have it all their own way. That I think is really at the heart of the Question which my noble friend Lord Balfour of Inchrye has put on the Order Paper.
Not only do I think this policy of Her Majesty's Government most unwise; I think it is really baseless. Take Greece. A friend of mine who is a distinguished classical scholar and a great lover of Greece said to me a little time ago, "I cannot understand all this fuss about the Greek colonels. After all, this voluble and attractive people have never known stability unless they were ruled either by the Turks or by colonels, and that has applied ever since the days of Colonel Pericles". I think, broadly speaking, that is true. It is a great mistake to judge the Greek people by our standards here. And I think, too, that we have been greatly misled about events in Chile. I do not know whether the noble Lord read—I expect he did—the two very striking articles by Mr. Peregrine Worsthorne in the Sunday Telegraph on the subject of Chile. It seemed to me that here was an honest reporter, not somebody suborned by a dictator Government to write a favourable report but reporting on things as he saw them. Certainly he did not see them as they have been represented. He did not see Allende's Government as a progressive Left-Wing Government overturned by a Fascist dictatorship. He saw it as a Government which had failed Chile utterly, as my noble friend indicated, and which a relatively moderate Opposition had replaced.
On this question of the ideological basis for foreign policy, which I think is the basis of Her Majesty's Government's policy, and I think it is a wrong basis, I would ask the noble Lord a question. It is not only socialist Governments in this country that base their foreign policy on ideology. Sometimes you get a capitalist Government in another country basing its policy on the opposite ideology, and I do not think that has ever been any more successful. I would ask the noble Lord whether he believes that the long delay by the United States in recognising the People's Republic of China—and that was a just as deeply felt ideological concept as anything the Labour Government feel here—really contributed to the peace of

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the world, really contributed in particular to the peace of South-East Asia? Is it not possible that if the United States had followed the normal practice of dealing with peoples and Governments as one finds them and not taking an ideological stand, we might have been spared a great many of the horrors that South-East Asia has had to go through in recent years?
7.55 p.m.
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, I feel moved to say just a few words, because this short debate initiated by my noble friend Lord Balfour of Inchrye has turned out to be a debate of considerable importance. As he said himself, the core of his complaint is really whether the Government's attitude to foreign policy, to countries of different régimes and beliefs, is, if I may use a famous phrase, even handed. This theme was echoed by my noble friend Lord Coleraine, who made a plea that one should deal with peoples and Governments as one finds them. This particular debate is geared to human rights, and I would have thought, and hoped, that between the two major Parties in this country—and I am sure this applies to the Liberal Party, although they have not taken part tonight—there is no dispute, surely, about the need to use our influence to try to extend fundamental human rights overseas. But, of course, there remains the question of how we try to use our influence. It was in the time of a Labour Government that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was signed in 1948. It was in the time of a Conservative Government that the European Convention on Human Rights came into force, and of course we renewed certain provisions of it only recently.
The noble Lord, Lord Janner, who suddenly seems to have left us, although usually he is such an assiduous attender in this House, spoke with immense personal feeling about the problems of the Jewish community, particularly in Communist countries. I should like him to have been here and therefore I will defer what I was about to say for a minute or two in case he has the opportunity to return to the House.
LORD STRABOLGI: My Lords, if I may interrupt the noble Baroness, my noble friend told me that he had to slip out for a moment or two but hoped to
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get back before the noble Baroness spoke, but if that was not possible he asked me to give her his apologies.
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, I am very grateful for that intimation. Perhaps it is as well to refer to what the noble Lord said because we cannot wait at this hour in the uncertainty as to whether he will return. I felt that, as always, he spoke with enormous feeling. He has often asked me Questions in this House in relation to the Jewish community, and particularly those members of the Jewish community who are within the Communist countries. He spoke also about the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe. He will no doubt recall—and I hope he will read this in Hansard—that we have always made it a major part of our policy at this particular Conference to insist on some movement in the increased flow, not only of information and ideas, but also of people between East and West.
We are very well aware, and always were when we had the responsibility of Government, that there are very great and deep feelings in this country about the treatment of non-conformist elements, if one can so call them, in the Soviet Union, especially potential Jewish emigrants. We made this public feeling known to the Soviet Government. But I think it is also right to say that there is a limit to which one can go in conveying these deeply held feelings: because, of course, it is a longstanding principle of international affairs that they should if possible be conducted on the basis of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries. It is for this reason that I should like to refer to the comments made by my noble friends about Chile.
We had a Question in this House on Chile, and unfortunately the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, was not in a position to reply to us because a Statement was going to be made in another place. I entirely agree with my noble friend Lord Dundee about the value of aid to countries, like Chile, in South America. I had the opportunity, a very interesting chance, to attend UNCTAD 3 meeting in Santiago, and I am absolutely certain that our aid, although small, did a great deal. I agree with my noble friend that it seems very unfortunate that we should

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try to cut off what is the equivalent of about half a million pounds in technical aid. One can say that it is not very much, but it means a great deal to a country whose needs are so very great.
In this context, I must question whether the separation of the O.D.A.—the Overseas Development Administration—from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office will in fact achieve what it is said to do; because, as I understand it, the present Government have said that the reason behind this move was that no political considerations would come into the administration of aid, and that the criteria would be only development need. That is all very well, but when we look at Chile it seems to me that the reason for cutting off the development aid, small though it was, which we had been giving was entirely because Her Majesty's Government disapproved of the réegime at present in authority in Chile. That seems to me the most political reason of all for refusing aid.
I have always thought there is a great deal to be said for having the Overseas Development Administration in constant touch with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, because there are considerations which one cannot divorce from one's policy on giving aid. For example, my noble friend Lord Barnby referred to Uganda. It really was impossible to continue the aid in those circumstances, and I suppose it could have been said that it was a political consideration. Then, of course, there are the financial considerations. Only this week we had a reply from the noble Lord about aid to India, about a new interest-free loan to be given on top of the aid presently given, which is very considerable. How are we going to supply this loan? We are going to do so by borrowing money, on which we pay interest, and we are then going to give the loan free of interest. It seems to me that aid is inevitably bound up with the strategy, and of course the resources, of any Government. Therefore I cannot be convinced that an aid programme is better handled by separating the O.D.A. from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
When I give the two examples of Uganda and financial resources. I do not mean to imply that one should cut off aid, or increase aid, according to whether one believes in the political complexion
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of the country concerned. There are a great many repercussions which can come from doing this kind of thing. For example, I would like to ask the noble Lord what action the Government intend to take in view of the possible suspension of copper shipments to this country from Chile following the stopping of technical assistance by this country? Secondly, what are their views on the change in Anglo-Chilean relations, especially in relation to the I.M.F. economic report on Chile and the rescheduling of Chile's foreign debt? It is political considerations of this kind that have to be taken into account, and they have nothing to do with the complexion of the Government concerned. That being so, I would ask the noble Lord to try to satisfy some of those who have spoken, and who have spoken from a very deep conviction.
LORD JANNER: My Lords, before the noble Baroness sits down, may I offer my apologies to her for not being present during her speech? I had left the Chamber for a few minutes. I have been here all the afternoon.
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, it was not quite clear from what the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi said, when he said that the noble Lord had left the Chamber for a few minutes, whether it was possible for him to return or not. As I did not wish to detain the House too long, I am afraid I dealt with some of the important matters he raised. Perhaps he will look at them in Hansard.
8.6 p.m.
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, we are all very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, for making this debate possible. He has raised matters which transcend political partisanship and political expediency. He has reminded us of principles to which we all subscribe and for which we all strive to do our very best. There is unity in this country and this Parliament for the restoration, where possible, of democracy, and certainly for the upholding of human rights and their expansion where-ever possible.
The noble Lord's Question raises, in turn, three points, of which he reminded us in his speech. He asked whether Government policy is governed by a desire to see democracy restored and

1115
human rights fully respected in Communist-dominated countries, as well, presumably, as in other countries. The answer is, "Of course". But the method of upholding and promoting democracy and human rights in all countries must vary according to the relations we have with them, and the opportunities we have of asserting by appropriate means our views and our persuasions. For instance, in this very debate we have heard references to Palestinians as well as Jews. Views and attitudes vary within that comparatively small section of territory in the world. Who is oppressing whom? It is not an easy matter for any Government, of whatever complexion, that subscribes to the central purpose of upholding democracy and human rights, to decide in a generalised way how it should, in the interest of those objectives, respond to developments in various and varying countries. Certainly we are for democracy and human rights in all countries, whatever the complexion of the Government. That is the basic answer to the first point raised in the Question asked by the noble Lord and put forward in his speech.
The second question he put—and it is contained in the Question he put down on the Order Paper—was whether, to this end, we will play our full part in the United Nations. Thirdly, he asked whether the Home Secretary will sympathetically consider applications from refugees from such countries, from Communist-dominated countries, and I am quite sure that he would join me in amending that practically to include other countries as well.
May I briefly, but I hope helpfully, deal with those three points which he has raised and which have been spoken to also by other noble Lords in this debate. First of all, the question of whether Government policy is governed by a desire to see democracy and human rights upheld and expanded. Noble Lords will have read the Queen's Speech and the Labour Party Manifesto and also the Statement by the Foreign Secretary on March 19 in another place when he said:
"We shall make it our business to back and stimulate this multilateral diplomacy by developing relations with the countries of Eastern Europe up to the limit that the situation in each case allows and we shall look
1116
for opportunities to build a safer and more productive relationship with the Soviet Union."
That applies, of course, to our relations and our foreign policy towards all countries. However, the Government believe that they should make full use of such bilateral influence as they possess in addition to the use of these multilateral approaches, and in this we are following the precedent of the Party opposite.
Referring to the position and the policy of the Soviet Union and its satellites, it is a fact that the attention of the Soviet authorities, and of the authorities in control of other countries associated with it, has been drawn on many occasions in the past to the strength of feeling in Britain among people of all Parties about the limitation of the rights of dissidents, including in particular people of the Jewish faith. We have drawn attention to the negative effect of certain Soviet domestic policies on British public opinion which make the improvement of Anglo-Soviet relations that much more difficult to achieve. I have absolutely no doubt that when suitable occasions arise this point will again be made to the Soviet authorities and to other countries which follow policies similar to theirs.
LORD COLERAINE: My Lords, would the noble Lord allow me to intervene? I was glad to hear what he said, that Her Majesty's Government of whatever side dissociate themselves, and have always dissociated themselves, from certain aspects of Soviet policy. But if it is unnecessary in pursuit of getting a more humane Soviet attitude, on, say, the Jewish problem, to levy insults at the Soviet Government why is it necessary to level insults at the Greek Government and the Chilean Government?
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, it is a matter of opinion whether in fact the attitude or any gesture made by the British Government was an insult. I could not agree that it was an insult. I would insist that it was an indication of deep British disapprobation of policy as it has been conducted for some years now in Greece, a country and people for whom we in this country have longstanding affection and respect. The feeling is not confined to my side of the House, as the noble Lord well knows. It was not an insult; it was a protest,

1117
a protest from a longstanding friend carrying with it a deep hope that as soon as possible Greece will be restored to the democratic comity of nations, particularly as it is a member of NATO, an Alliance which was formed to defend and to uphold democracy.
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord what similar act of disapprobation Her Majesty's Government are considering extending to those Communist countries where there is Jewish persecution?
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: Of course, my Lords, we are not in the same relation to them. We have a relationship with Greece which enables us to show in appropriate ways what we feel about the course they are pursuing. In a similar way we have in relation to Chile an appropriate way of making known our disapproval. We are not extending technical assistance or aid to the Soviet Union, so it could not be suspended or withdrawn. We were in that relation with Chile. I am hoping that out of this debate there may come, not a final consensus as to how we face these difficult and complex problems, but the start of an assessment as to how this country should follow a constructive policy of promoting democracy and human rights across the board.
May I make this point?—and it is not a hypothetical point. If indeed we were extending technical assistance or aid to the Soviet Union, would there not be a reasonable demand in more than one quarter of this House or another place for that to be suspended to show our disapproval of the treatment of the Jews in the Soviet Union? I merely mention that, not because I want to engage in anything like an exacerbated exchange on this matter, but because I am very conscious—and I hope the House will come with me on this—of the need for us constantly to think out our attitudes in foreign relations. It is not a simple matter. The world is full of countries—and new countries—where our relations are changing almost from day to day. At the same time there is a specific gravity of conviction in this country that we cannot stand by without saying or doing something, whatever that is in a given case, when we see the kind of dic-
1118
tatorship against which we have fought in two wars superseding what looks like an emerging democracy in a country like Chile.
LORD JANNER: My Lords, would my noble friend let me know whether he will give instructions to those who are at present representing us at the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe to the effect that we deplore the kind of actions being taken by the U.S.S.R. and Syria and that we are in full agreement that proper steps should be taken to ensure fair treatment for all people?
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I am glad to go on to the second point because I think that the noble Lord who initiated this debate quite seriously wanted us to look at this second question as well, which was (and I hope I paraphrase it in a reasonably fair way), whether Her Majesty's Government will support in the United Nations Organisation multilateral attempts to improve matters in those countries where these things are happening. Here I join with the noble Baroness and my noble friend in saying that we made absolutely clear at the very commencement of this Government's period of office our belief that the cause of human rights is best pursued through international and multilateral action. There are difficulties and pitfalls, I agree, in bilateral action, and it is best and safest—not always, but usually—to pursue the policy through international and multilateral action, mainly through the United Nations and its related agencies, but also, as the noble Baroness, Lady Tweedsmuir of Belhelvie, reminded us, and as my noble friend Lord Janner has just repeated, in the very important discussions now proceeding, and initiated by the previous Government, with our full support, in Helsinki, in Vienna—the locale does not matter—and at the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Geneva. We are working together, and certainly not in contradiction of each other, in the United Nations, and I think everybody will agree that our country is second to none in the way it has upheld the Charter of the United Nations, particularly in regard to Articles 55 and 56 which relate to the points raised by my noble friend, and also now, since last year, in the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Geneva.

1119
May I detain the House for a short time on the second point? One of the most important topics under discussion in the Conference on Security and Co-operation is Item III, which some people insist on referring to in the obnoxious jargon of our times as Basket III. This is what the noble Baroness quite rightly directed our attention to. Respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, including freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief, is one of the principles which this country and like-minded countries would wish to see endorsed in the declaration which is to be produced by the Conference. How are we working for this? We are working together with other Western delegations for real progress towards freer movement. This touches very closely the points which my noble friend Lord Janner quite rightly raised, and which the noble Baroness, Lady Tweedsmuir, emphasised—the question of freedom of movement within a country and from one country to another, including the freedom within reason to emigrate and the duty within certain limits to accept immigration—the two things go together—as well as family reunification. One of the most repulsive aspects of the kind of oppression that we see in some countries today, in what is almost the final quarter of the twentieth century, is how husbands and wives can by authoritative decision be parted, and how permission for a husband to emigrate can be given, but not permission to take his family with him.
So far as the Western initiative is concerned—and this country, I entirely agree, is in the van of that initiative—the Conference on Security and Co-operation is working hard through the appropriate sub-committees under Item III to get a statement which will ultimately be accepted within the decisions of the Conference. The sub-committees are those dealing with movement, and there are other sub-committees dealing with education and culture, and they are required by their terms of reference to bear in mind the contributions and rights of national minorities or regional cultures. On all these sub-committee—and they are working committees and not just discussional ones—delegates are working to achieve practical statements which we hope the whole Conference will adopt
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and subsequently implement throughout the countries of Europe. We are represented on all these sub-committees and while we could not divulge what goes on in them, and would not be expected to do so, I can assure the House, as I know the noble Baroness could, that the British contribution in these vital sub-committees, and indeed in the Conference as a whole is very substantial indeed. If the Conference is successful it should offer better prospects for individuals in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, including of course Soviet Jews.
I turn to the third point raised in the Question, which is the position of refugees from Communist and other countries which follow oppressive policies. The noble Lord asked for a clear indication of Government policy on this point and I give it. I want to say quite clearly that the Home Secretary will consider applications from such refugees sympathetically. Applications for asylum normally arise when the people concerned are already in the United Kingdom. Of the Soviet Jews, of whom rather more than 30,000 now appear to be leaving Russia annually, only a comparative few with connections in this country seek to come here. Such persons do not always meet the normal criteria of admission, but the immigration rules provide that a foreign national who does not otherwise qualify for admission should not be refused leave to enter if the only country to which he can be removed is one to which he is unwilling to go, owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality or membership of a particular social group or political opinion. These criteria are fully in accord with Article 1 of the Convention on the status of refugees and these factors would be taken into account. In the event, most applicants for political asylum here are allowed to remain here and to take employment.
I shall not detain the House with certain encouraging figures on this score, except to say that if the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, or some other Member would care to put down a Question to elicit the figures they will find them interesting and encouraging. This country is playing its part in making available to the victims of oppression

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abroad a home and a new opportunity of life.
I have dealt with the three points raised by the noble Lord, and I have given an assurance to this House that Her Majesty's Government are indeed dedicated to doing their utmost to uphold and expand so far as possible democracy and human rights wherever they are in peril, whatever the nature of the Government of those countries. Secondly, we are, as we always have been under successive Administrations, playing our part and from time to time taking an honourable initiative in the multilateral field. I gave two examples of this—the United Nations and the very important Conference whose work is now proceeding in Europe. Thirdly, I am glad to give a renewed assurance that victims of oppression who cannot go to any other country are assured of sympathetic consideration by this country, which has been our practice in the past.
LORD JANNER: My Lords, the Board of Deputies of British Jews stated in the letter that they are acting in co-operation with the World Jewish Congress, and they referred to other features which might be dealt with. I am very much obliged to my noble friend for the assurance he has given that the matters to which he has referred are being attended to. But I would ask him to be good enough to look at the other items which have been mentioned to see whether he can do anything about them.
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, certainly. My noble friend raised a number of specific points about specific people. It is up to him to put those points directly, or in some other way, to my Department. We shall always look at everything he puts to us. May I say that I personally feel greatly advantaged by listening to this debate? I cannot pretend that complete, final answers are possible about the techniques of conducting foreign relations, especially in days when events and conditions change so quickly. I understand the desire that there should be a basic principle on which this country should stand in dealing with countries of varying ideological persuasion. But I hope noble Lords will not think that simply stating it settles the matter.
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I have fairly gently given an example of how, if our relations with the Soviet Union were somewhat different, perhaps the climate and the balance of debate in this House might be different. If the relations we have had with Chile were the relations we had with the Soviet Union it might be different, but this is not so. Therefore, we must proceed from case to case and do our best to fashion our reactions in pursuit of our objectives as genuinely and as best we can in each case. It is certain that the Labour Government, the social democratic Government of this country, yield to no other Party in their devotion to democracy and human rights.
The Government do not pretend that they have all the answers all the time in this difficult and vital field, and certainly from time to time I shall be very grateful for the opportunity of discussing these matters in this House, of listening as well as attempting to answer questions addresed to me.