Lords Sitting of 16 December 1974

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Rochester.
The Lord Woolley—Took the Oath.

CYPRUS: REFUGEES
Lord AVEBURY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many Cyprus passport holders have been refused admission to the United Kingdom in August, September, October and November, respectively.
The MINISTER of STATE, HOME OFFICE (LORD HARRIS OF GREENWICH): My Lords, the numbers of Cypriots refused leave to enter in August, September and October were 15, 17 and 37. The figure for November is not yet available, but is likely to be about 60.
Lord AVEBURY: My Lords, do these figures indicate some change in the attitude of the immigration service? Have any fresh instructions been given to immigration officers at the ports to be less easy in admitting persons holding Cypriot passports? In view of the desperate situation in which many of these refugees existed before they left the island, would it not be only humanitarian and sensible to admit them on IS.96s pending clarification of the situation in Cyprus?
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, I think the reason for the growth in the numbers in the month of November is that there was an increasing number of family groups who were in that month seeking entry, allegedly for a temporary purpose, but whose admission could not be justified. As regards the general principles underlying immigration control in this area, we are prepared to look very carefully at any exceptional case. But, broadly speaking, we have to
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be convinced that a case is exceptional, and the sole fact that a family is coming from Cyprus is not a reason why they should be given exceptional treatment as compared with other types of Commonwealth immigrants.
Lord MAYBRAY-KING: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that those of us who have many Cypriot friends know what excellent work has been done by Her Majesty's Government and by the Red Cross for Cypriot refugees? But will he ask his noble friend in the Department concerned with foreign affairs to see what he can do to bring to Cyprus understanding between our friends the Turkish Cypriots, and our friends the Greek Cypriots?
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: Yes, my Lords; that is indeed the purpose of the present policy of Her Majesty's Government.
Lord AVEBURY: My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Lord will answer my question about any instructions which may have been given to the immigration officers during the period to which my Question relates. Are the criteria still the same as they were before the emergency? Also, does he not consider that there are exceptional circumstances prevailing, in that many of these people have been driven away from their homes and are living in areas where the climate is, to say the least, hostile, and they may be in danger of their lives if they remain in their own country? Do those not constitute exceptional circumstances?
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, where there are exceptional circumstances we can certainly agree to a family or an individual coming in here for a temporary period. There have been a series of instructions given to immigration officers during the period of the Cyprus emergency, but the fact is that the situation has, to some extent at least, improved recently, and that is perhaps the reason for the change in circumstances now.

HOUSING: HIGH RISE FLATS
2.40 p.m.
Baroness SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will take steps to stop the construction of high rise flats.
The PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE, DEPARTMENT of the ENVIRONMENT (Baroness BIRK): My Lords, the Government recognise that high rise flats are not suitable for families with children, but it would not be right to stop their construction altogether.
Baroness SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, I must confess that I am rather disappointed by that Answer. Is my noble friend aware that there is medical evidence that the unfortunate mothers with very small children who are condemned to live in these high rise flats have been suffering from severe depression, and does she think that that is conducive to marital harmony and to preventing juvenile delinquency?
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, my noble friend is quite right and the Government are well aware of this research. In fact, Government research is strongly against high rise living for families with children, but it shows that it is suitable for single people and small households. I would remind my noble friend that whereas in 1966 18 per cent. of local authority dwellings in blocks of 10 storeys and over were approved, in 1973 only 1 per cent. were approved. So there has been a very considerable drop.
Lord JANNER: My Lords, I wonder whether when high rise flats are being planned there could be some provision of recreational accommodation for children within the flats themselves, so that parents would not have to worry about them playing in the grounds without supervision.
Baroness BIRK: Yes, my Lords. Provision is made and a subsidy of £18 per child is allowed. One of the problems has been the great demand on local government expenditure, so that although the ground is there a great deal of this work has not been carried out.
Lord SUDELEY: My Lords, may I ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are aware that a dirty street in London is a delicate social organism, and it is much better that people should stay there
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than attack one another with knives in a high rise flat?
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, I do not really think that those are the alternatives. The problem is that we are short of land, the density is high and we have to do the best we can. But without any doubt we are decided and generally agreed—and most local authorities certainly accept this—that high rise living is not right for families with children.
Lord AUCKLAND: My Lords, while agreeing that the Government cannot possibly impose a ban on high rise flats, can they give more attention to the safety factors involved? Is the noble Baroness aware that in some cases the barriers and safety rails are quite inadequate? May I further ask what discretion is given to local authorities in limiting the numbers of storeys to which these high rise flats can be built?
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, one of the limiting factors in such buildings is the cost yardstick; the higher the building the more expensive it becomes. The Department have sent out a number of design bulletins, pointing out to local authorities the disadvantages of these buildings. If a local authority came forward with plans for a high rise building for family living of the type referred to by the noble Lord, the Department would stress very strongly what is now known against such buildings and would certainly ask them to think again.
Lord REIGATE: My Lords, how high is "high rise"? Is there any reason why it should not be limited to six or seven storeys?
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, "high rise" is above four storeys, where you need a lift.
Lord SLATER: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that these flats are not an asset to family living? I should like to ask when we will get back to terra firma—say, with three or four-storey flats—rather than having them built as they are at the moment, under planning regulations made by local authorities on behalf of the Ministry.
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, this is what we are trying to do, but it is extremely difficult to do it in heavily populated areas where land is short.

LLANGOLLEN INTERNATIONAL EISTEDDFOD
2.45 p.m.
Lord MAELOR: 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, in the light of the grant made to the Welsh National Eisteddfod, and in view of the tremendous increase in cost, they will consider making a grant to the Llangollen International Eisteddfod.
The LORD CHANCELLOR (Lord ELWYN-JONES): My Lords, while Her Majesty's Government admire the achievements and standing of the Llangollen International Eisteddfod and welcome the financial aid given to it through the Welsh Arts Council, I am sorry that no grant can be given from Government sources additional to this. The assistance given to the Council of the Eisteddfod Cenedlaethol, which translated is the National Eisteddfod, was an exceptional and once-for-all measure to enable it to keep a roof over its head.
Lord MAELOR: My Lords, is my noble and learned friend aware that, although I have the highest regard for him, I cannot thank him for that most disappointing reply? I am aware, of course, that he speaks from a brief and not from his heart, but I must ask him whether he is aware that two days before the Summer Recess the Secretary of State for Wales, John Morris, deceived me and this House by declaring, through my noble friend Lord Goronwy-Roberts, that he was "unable" and "not empowered" to make a grant to any institution of this kind? Two weeks later he appeared on the platform at the National Eisteddfod and amid applause, which he greatly enjoyed, he stated that he was making a grant of £50,000. May I ask my noble and learned friend whether we are to suffer the present Administration in the Welsh Office for the next four years? If so, I say God help Wales or, in Welsh, Dum a helpo Cymru!
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I am sorry to disappoint my noble friend, and even sorrier that he
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has seen fit to accuse our noble friend of deception. What my noble friend Lord Goronwy-Roberts indicated was that, in principle, it is better that cultural and artistic ventures should be helped through the agency of the Arts Council rather than directly by the Government. Indeed, in this coming year the Arts Council will make available £8,500 as a subsidy for the Llangollen Eisteddfod if it is required—as was done last year. The position in regard to the National Eisteddfod Pavilion is that it needed replacement. The Government's contribution was £50,000. The funds of the Eisteddfod itself amounted to well over £130,000. That is the explanation and I hope that it has now satisfied my noble friend—although I doubt it.
Lord LLOYD of KILGERRAN: My Lords, unsatisfactory though the Answer is to this Question, may I presume to congratulate the noble and learned Lord in that it is the first time I have heard him answer a Question concerning Welsh affairs in your Lordships' House? May I ask the noble and learned Lord whether he is aware that the Llangollen Festival, concentrating largely as it does on singing and acting, is admired a great deal more than some aspects of the National Eisteddfod and that many American visitors come over to Llangollen to hear this music? Would not he agree that £8,500 is a pittance, considered in the light of a contribution towards the carrying on of the Festival?
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I should be a very poor spokesman indeed for Wales if I intervened in the matter of deciding the order of priorities or of excellence between the two Eistedd-fodau. I will not be drawn into that. The high quality and delight afforded by this great international festival, which also includes the art of dancing, is well known throughout the world. It will flourish; local authorities are contributing as are other bodies. I should like to appeal to them to continue, if not to increase, their own contributions.
Lord MAYBRAY-KING: My Lords, as one who was a Day President of the Llangollen Musical Festival, some two years ago, may I ask the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor whether he is aware that the fact that this little town stages a truly international cultural music

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festival is one of the wonders of the world, and that any practical help he can give to it is well worth while?
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I entirely agree with the noble Lord that this has been a remarkable achievement for the little town of Llangollen, with its population of only about 3,000 people. The Answer I have given in no way reflects lack of enthusiastic admiration for what is done, but is inspired by the bitter economic circumstances of the day. May, I, however, make one correction to an answer which I gave earlier, which I fear will give no comfort to the noble Lord, Lord Maelor. The sum which the Welsh Arts Council are proposing to make available is £8,250, and not, alas, £8,500 as I earlier indicated.

T & AVR ORGANISATION
2.51 p.m.
Lord ELTON: 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, in the light of their recent Statement on defence, they can confirm that it is their intention to continue the organisation of the T & AVR upon lines which will retain existing units of company and squadron strength within it as identifiable entities capable of rapid expansion in times of emergency.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, there will be some reorganisation and amalgamation of existing individual units as a result of the recommendations of the T & AVR Review Committee. But I can confirm that the organisation of the T & AVR will continue on lines which will retain company and squadron units as identifiable entities capable of rapid expansion as required in time of emergency.
Lord ELTON: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for his reply, may I ask him to be more precise in what he means by "some reorganisation and amalgamation?" In particular, may I ask whether this will mean the elimination
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of either distinctive naming or badging of the companies or squadrons, or of the amalgamation of their call-up lists?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, that is rather a wide question. Tomorrow I want to expand on the future of the T & AVR. The situation is that there are certain units which have not been able to recruit to full strength. Certain units will be amalgamated because they have failed to maintain adequate strength. Some new units will be formed. The general aim of the reorganisation will be to improve recruiting and create a more efficient geographical and operational base. A major recruiting programme is foreseen for early next year.
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, as the matter of the T & AVR is to be mentioned in the course of our defence debate tomorrow, will the noble Lord say how short of its strength is the T & AVR?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, it is 73 per cent. of forecast strength.
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, are we to understand it will remain as such? Is the reorganisation associated with a further reduction or, at any rate, no attempt to increase the number of units in the T & AVR?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, what we are hoping to do is to raise the strength of the T & AVR from its present position of 73 per cent. of establishment to nearer its full establishment of 74,000. That is the object of the present exercise. Her Majesty's Government place great importance upon the T & AVR.
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, I am much obliged for that answer. When my noble friend talks about an "establishment", how does that relate to the actual strength? Establishment is one thing—that is a target—but actual strength is another.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, if the noble Lord wishes precision, at the moment the position is that the latest figures available at the end of October this year show there were 53,827 individuals in the T & AVR, which is 73 per cent. of the total establishment as laid down on a legal basis.
The Earl of SELKIRK: My Lords, can the noble Lord say whether "reorganisation" means a reduction of establishment?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: No, my Lords. The establishment remains the same and unchanged.
Lord ELTON: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for giving further information. Do I deduce from what he said (as I think I do) that units of about 73 per cent. strength, or with satisfactory recruiting records, need fear no terrible future?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, indeed. At the moment I should have thought the future for the T & AVR is better than it has ever been. Her Majesty's Government place great emphasis on the continuation and growth of the T & AVR within its existing establishment, which has not been reached.
Lord ELTON: My Lords, would the noble Lord agree this depends on the maintenance of the continuity of regimental traditions at present concentrated into units of company and squadron size?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, I said that at the beginning of my Answer to the noble Lord.

EEC: HEADS OF GOVERNMENT MEETING
Baroness LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOE: My Lords, with the leave of the House, at a convenenient moment after 3.30 p.m. my noble friend the Leader of the House will be making a Statement on the EEC Heads of Government Meeting in Paris.

SAFETY OF SPORTS GROUNDS BILL [H.L.]
2.58 p.m.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time.
Moved, that the Bill be now read 3a.—(Lord Harris of Greenwich.)
On Question, Bill read 3a.
The LORD PRIVY SEAL (LORD SHEPHERD): My Lords, I have it in command from Her Majesty the Queen
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and His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales that they, having been informed of the purport of the Safety of Sports Grounds Bill, have consented to place their prerogative and interests, so far as as they are concerned on behalf of the Crown, the Duchy of Lancaster and the Duchy of Cornwall, at the disposal of Parliament for the purposes of the Bill.
Lord WIGG Lord WIGG moved the Amendment:
After Clause 5 insert the following new clause:
Grants
"The Secretary of State, after consultation with the Central Council for Physical Recreation and the Sports Council, may out of monies to be provided by Parliament make a sum available to provide for safety at sports stadia and other sports grounds equal to the sum made available annually to the Arts Council out of monies provided by Parliament."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I have put down this Amendment in order to give Her Majesty's Government a further opportunity of reconsidering their policy. I have had to draft the Amendment in such a way as to keep within the terms of the Long Title. I view this Amendment as a peg on which to hang a wider argument. I have also included in my Amendment reference to the Central Council for Physical Recreation and the Sports Council, not because I want to extend a conflict of interest or exacerbate any frictional relations between these bodies, but because I want to leave the question of which body is the best body, or a combination of the two, to wiser minds than my own. I put the words in to recognise that there are two interests, one body an entirely voluntary organisation, the other a body which represents the interests of sport as a whole, but containing members nominated by the Secretary of State for the Environment, and persons of eminence who have shown an interest in the subject.
I am asking the Government now, as I have asked in the previous proceedings on the Bill, for nothing. I am not asking the Government to give me money; I am not even asking them to alter their policy. But I am asking that the Government as a whole should look at the problem. While my remarks are directed to the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, as the spokesman of the Home Office, there are much wider issues than that. It just happens that

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it was the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Saffron Walden, who, when he was Home Secretary, introduced legislation dealing with betting, gaming and lotteries. He subsequently introduced the Bill dealing with the levy as a predecessor had introduced a Bill a generation before dealing with the same subject. He did it not because he was interested in this, but because of a pledge, properly made and redeemed by the Conservative Party at the 1959 Election, that they would deal with two major social evils. They dealt with that in a way which had my support. I am embarrassed when there is any deviation of the policy, particularly when, as I see it, it has been departed from by those who do not really thoroughly understand—and I say this with great respect—what they are up to.
I must remind both sides of the House that the country as a whole has benefited from what I regard as an objective view, taking full account of the interests right across the board. I hope noble Lords will forgive me if I repeat myself for the umpteenth time, but it needs to be recognised that when the Labour Government was formed in 1964 the total amount received was of the order of £33 million. It now amounts to £240 million—plus a levy for racing, which, in my submission, has probably gone as far as it can go, of the order of £8 million, plus a further emolument which is taken by the Racecourse Association of about £1 million-odd, certainly over £1 million in 1975, for the commentary fund. These are very large sums indeed. I just wonder whether noble Lords, the Government or Members of another place understand the real significance of a reply given by Lord Harris's colleague, Dr. Summerskill, when she announced that the total sum wagered was of the order of £441 million—if one deducts tax from that it is a sum of £257 miltion—against a total turnover of £2,700,000.
That means that the situation in which the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Saffron Walden, found himself in in 1959, for quite other reasons, is now being repeated; because it means that those right across the board who make a living or run organisations to profit from betting and gaming are working on a gross
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figure of 8 per cent. That, of course, is not sustainable when one has to take into account that from that figure has to be deducted levies and the like. Therefore of course, human nature being what it is, if form in this field has any meaning at all, then sooner or later organisations will have to cease trade, individuals will go out of business, or—fearful thought!—they will start to act illegally, which must lead to a diminution of the amount which the Government collect by way of taxation, plus the fact that there will be a re-creation of a major social evil.
We have only to look across the Channel to an organisation constantly held up to us as a model of how to conduct affairs. It is now perfectly clear that the Tiercé, which was the source of all goodness, so we were told, is now a source of major corruption: there have been murders, beatings-up, arrests of a number of jockeys and trainers, and the story is not yet finished. Mr. Jean Cahan, who is responsible as a surety for this, produced a report of some 750 pages, and it has been on the go for some time. We do not want that here, and I again hold strong Party political views. But I pay my tribute—I have done so before and I repeat it again—to Lord Butler because his legislation was far-seeing. I do not believe that we have the Mafia or anything like the Mafia here, and, please, we do not want it. This is a major social evil and it comes about because, after all, whether we like it or not, a number of our fellow citizens choose to spend their time perhaps trying to win large sums with small stakes, and it provides a profitable field for some that they choose to bet in the way they do. It is there and no one can do very much about it, except to recognise the fact that if you want to alter it, it is a very slow, long process.
The Government here have introduced the Safety of Sports Grounds Bill. It imposes obligations, some of them which over the years could grow; it is going to be very massive in its consequences here, and they make no provision about finance. The argument put to me is of course that in these hard times we cannot do it, and some very silly things have been said. Just a week ago I picked up the point of those who said that we had not a penny for anything; I pointed out that

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we managed to give the Arts Council I some £28 million—although I repeat I do not begrudge it—for the coming year. That is the figure reported in the Press. Certainly it has grown from £2 million in 1964 to £13½ million the year before last and £17½ million last year; it certainly is £22 million this year, and the only point is dispute is whether the addition of £6 million as reported is right or whether it is £3 million. Anyway, it is a large sum and I do not berudge a single penny of it, but it has been obtained because the Government have recognised the importance of the cultural life of the country and have supported it financially—and I repeat, quite rightly.
I also hold the point of view—and it was made by a noble Lord opposite when I spoke last week—that sport is tied up with character building. It is also tied up with the proper use of leisure. I ask noble Lords to go back some time and read the very able Report prepared by Sir Norman Chesters called Football. It was presented to yet another Minister, the Secretary of State for Education. The Report argues that there should be a levy on football. If I may be forgiven for saying it, having paid a tribute to Sir Norman Chesters' work, I wish he had come along and had a talk with some of us to explain how the levy would work, and then he would not have made the recommendations in quite the form he did. But he looked for a levy of 1 per cent. for football, and there was a Minority Report for 2 per cent. Be it noted, however, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer at that time, the man who could have put it into operation with a flick of his finger, is the present Secretary of State for the Home Department. He could have done it. But six years have gone by and nothing has been done by any Administration and for a very good reason.
I read again the account of the proceedings on the Levy Bill. Then I was somewhat isolated because on that occasion I voted five times against my own Party, for one very simple reason. I had been a member of the small Working Committee of only three who had had conversations with the Home Office and had produced proposals which subsequently were embraced in a Levy Bill, and it was not possible for me—at least I did not think so; I could not face it—
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of doing one thing on the Committee and then, when the Bill came before the House of Commons, voting in the opposite direction. When the Home Secretary was faced with a demand for a levy he set up a Committee under the chairmanship of Sir Leslie Peppiatt. Their Report was debated on 23rd May 1960, and Mr. Enoch Powell, who I thought at the time was quite wrong, advanced with some vigour and with a clarity of thought that one associates with Mr. Powell, the fact that he was opposed hook, line and sinker to anything that savoured of hypothecation. He talked about assignment of duties, and in fact it has been breached only once, as I understand it, and then in a minor degree, over the duties associated with the cinema. In order to get Sunday opening, the cinema industry undertook to make a contribution to charity, and that is the only breach of it. The opposition from the Treasury stemmed from the fact that it would lead to hypothecation. I did not believe him, and that is why I voted as I did in support of the Levy Bill. But I have had an opportunity of seeing it in practice, and it does lead to hypothecation—it is hypothecation—and it leads to all the pressures and errors which worried Mr. Powell.
May I give an example? There was a great discussion, as there is now, about how the Levy Board should be composed. I was a member of the old Racecourse Betting Control Board and was nominated by a Conservative Minister. That Board was composed rather like the Sports Council, right across the board. Every Department in Whitehall nominated somebody. I was nominated by the then Minister of Agriculture. When the new Bill came forward it was decided to have a Board composed of a very limited number of people: one member from the Jockey Club, one member from the National Hunt Committee, three independent members nominated by the Secretary of State, the Chairman of the Bookmakers' Committee, the Chairman of the Totalisator. The Jockey Club objected to having only one member and the National Hunt Committee another. They said: "We ought to have two." A great deal of discussion took place on that and I certainly was a party to giving them two. That gives them three out of the present Board.
I hope noble Lords will refresh their memories on this point. The Home Office spokesman said this: "It is a condition of the Home Office's accepting this proposal, not a requirement but a condition, that they shall represent interests right across the board, and there is no place here for special interests." It was accepted on that basis. It has not been honoured. It was never honoured. The interests have not been represented across the board. Indeed, until 1967 when this fact was pointed out to them with some force, no attempt whatever was made to represent the special interests. Therefore, I do not believe that the levy approach will make any further progress. I say this because the noble Lord, Lord Harris, in the Memorandum that was circulated in July when this Bill was for the second time put forward, suggested that there should be an extension of a football levy.
If one examines the facts. I do not believe that a football levy which was not acceptable in 1968 can possibly be acceptable now. If it is not extended, then there is no more in it than the present figure of £8 million. Also, if any concession is made to the extension of the levy to football, it will at once lead to a queue of other interests—not least, the dogs who would make the same claim. If there is no progress in that field, then there is the second leg which the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, put forward; namely, that there should be lotteries. Here, again, the scoring is complicated. On 21st November, the noble Lord's colleague in another place described the situation as being complicated and controversial and said that it must not be approached piecemeal; it must be looked at right across the board.
The situation which the Government have to face is that five or six years ago there was a decision of this House, acting in its legal capacity, that what is called "Spot the ball" was illegal. They passed a measure, the Pools Competition Act 1971, extending the status quo until 1976. In the meantime, the Home Office were faced with an acute problem, because although the Gaming Board had put a limit on bingo there was no limit on football; and if one puts a limit on football at a low level it will ruin the football pools. Therefore they set up a departmental committee
928
under the chairmanship of a civil servant. His report has never been approved or disapproved; it is in limbo. I do not understand how, in the light of what one Minister of the Department says in the other place, another Minister can come to this House and hold out the hope that lotteries will provide a way out.
I had sent to me an exercise which was carried out by the GLC. As your Lordships know, the GLC is very close to the thinking in the Home Office. Their treasurer circulated a paper which showed that £500,000 was the most that could be collected under the legislation which was being considered in another place—a Private Member's Bill—that £225,000 is set aside every month for prizes and that the largest prize must not be less than £100,000; £6,500 is set aside for reserve and £43,500 for publicity and commission on the sale of tickets. If you have a monthly lottery of £500,000, it means you must sell 2 million tickets a month at 25p each, and if you have only £43,000 to promote it you are being very optimistic. And, joke upon joke, they had completely forgotten that a lottery of that kind is liable to a pool duty of 40 per cent. If, therefore, you take £200,000 from the £500,000 which the Treasury will collect, the figures look rather ridiculous. It is possible to extend the small lotteries which do not meet such a heavy burden of taxation, but I do not believe that there is any profit to be made in that direction.
The social consequences lie with the Home Office. The question of finance and taxation lies with the Treasury. The report on football is in the hands of the Secretary of State for Education. The Secretary of State for the Environment is concerned with the Sports Council's grant, and one has to remember that the Minister for Sport is one of his junior Ministers. All I am asking for is that the Government should take this complicated problem, which has its effect upon taxation, upon a number of sports and upon how our young people, both now and in the future, use their leisure time, and look at the problem right across the board. I would even make so bold as to say that it is a problem for the Prime Minister, because the Home Secretary does not have sufficient political mileage to interfere with the Treasury; nor does the Chancellor of the Exchequer

929
have sufficient political weight to interfere with the affairs of the Home Office. Then, for good measure, there is the Secretary of State for the Environment. There is also the fact that anything which has to do with the horse ought to be a matter for the Minister of Agriculture.
Therefore all that I am asking for is that one should recognise that it is a complicated, confused problem and that it should not be left on one side. I ask today, as I have asked on several previous occasions, that the Minister who replies should say, "I can give you no answer today, and I am sure you would not expect me to do so. However, I promise to take the problem away and have a look at it." If the Minister goes even further and says that there are certain aspects which need to be referred to a Select Committee of both Houses, in order that recommendations could be made to the Government about how the problems should be handled, I should regard it as very much of a bonus and would even be constrained to wish him a very happy Christmas. I beg to move.
3.15 p.m.
Earl COWLEY: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, is once again asking the House to amend this Bill so that public funds can be made available to sports stadia in order to cover the cost of implementing the regulations covering the safety certificates which are provided for under this Bill. I shall not detain the House by repeating the arguments which I used against this principle on Second Reading and at Committee stage. However, on this occasion the noble Lord is arguing that since public moneys are granted to the Arts Council, an equal amount should be made available to sports stadia. For that argument to be valid there must be certain similarities between the Arts Council and sports stadia, and about the needs of each.
I readily agree with the noble Lord that spectator sports are as much entertainment and, in some ways, as much art, in the broadest sense of the word, as theatre and opera. However, the noble Lord is asking for a sum which is equal to the amount that is given to the Arts Council, so that sports stadia need not themselves pay the cost of removing the risk to people that the stadia themselves have created. This presumes that the
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original grant of £17½ million which was given to the Arts Council in the last financial year was for safety purposes. That is certainly not the case. Out of that grant of £17½ million, only £1½ million was spent upon what might be called "Housing the Arts". Of the total grant-in-aid to the professional theatres in England, which amounted to £2½ million in the last financial year, only £40,000 was spent upon capital improvements. In fact, the vast majority of the grant to the Arts Council goes in salaries and in guaranteeing unprofitable productions.
I am presuming that by his Amendment to a Bill on safety the noble Lord does not intend to subsidise the salaries of football players and the officials of football clubs, or to underwrite unprofitable football matches. Also, it should not be forgotten that the private revenue of football clubs is in general much greater than that received by the Arts. Without the subsidy and with only private revenue to rely upon, many people who are involved in the Arts would be faced with even more serious personal financial difficulties than those with which they are faced at the present time.
My Lords, I do not believe that the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, has made out his case, or that the House should accept this Amendment if the noble Lord should decide to press it. Under this Bill, the needs of the Arts Council and the needs of the sports stadia are not similar. I hold to my original belief that it is wrong for the Government to provide public funds, so that private enterprises can remove the risk to the public that they themselves have created in the first place.
3.19 p.m.
Lord SLATER: My Lords, I have listened most attentively to the presentation of his Amendment by my noble friend Lord Wigg. A favourite expression which was used by the noble Lord was "right across the board", and I began to wonder what is meant by that expression. Is his concern due only to professionalism, whereby the individual or the racecourse betting levy is imposed, profits accrue and taxation has to be met because the benefit comes from the betting that takes place during the course of a race meeting, or even from the amount of money that accrues from the people who go through the turnstiles at

931
a professional football match? If it is "right across the board", I wonder why consideration is not given to other sections of society in this country which engage in sport. For example, may I start with the schools? Our children, with their school teams, are looked after by sports teachers who spend a lot of their spare time—if, indeed, they have any—encouraging and moulding these young people so that they will turn out to be real sportsmen, in the true sense of the word, and may even rapidly grow into professional sportsmen.
Then there are the amateur clubs. I wonder whether noble Lords are aware of the number of football clubs in this country which play on Sundays. At one time, Sunday was looked upon as a day of rest. This sport is extending in such a way that it will depend upon the general public going along and contributing to a collection which may be made, even to pay the cost of the referee. I know of local amateur football clubs where the players themselves have to find the fee for the referee out of their own pockets. Therefore, when we speak of its being "right across the board", we surely ought not to stop at professional racing, professional football, professional rugby, or any other type of professional sport in this country.
The Arts Council was mentioned earlier. I have not been very interested in the Arts in the general sense, because it seems to me that the Arts are not heard of very much in the provinces where I come from. As I understand it, the greater part of the Arts is centred here in the metropolis, and in areas such as mine it does not reach that apex of understanding and operation that it reaches in London, where so many public bodies are interested in its continuation and where it receives benefit by way of taxation.
3.22 p.m.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, I will begin by reminding the House of the circumstances in which we are having this debate today. During the Report stage of the Bill on 10th December the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, made the following observation:
"I read with some amazement reports in the Press this morning, and again this afternoon. There have been murmurings over the last few days as to what is happening to the Arts Council. The Arts Council is to get
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£6 million more."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10/12/74; c. 569.]
First, I hope I can set the noble Lord's mind at rest: the sum of £6 million referred to did indeed appear but this was in the Arts Council's recently published Report for 1973–74 as the sum which the Council needed from the Government. No figure has been agreed by the Government for the Council's grant for next year. I think that will to some extent meet the anxieties expressed by the noble Lord last week. The only increased Government grant which has been made available to the Arts Council, which appeared in the Supplementary Estimate in December, was not for £3 million which the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, referred to earlier this afternoon, but for £1·75 million, and this was simply to take account of the effects of inflation. I say this because the noble Lord may not have been aware that my honourable friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Department of Education and Science in fact referred to some of this Press speculation in another place on Friday last. I hope that meets to some extent the anxieties which the noble Lord expressed on the 10th December.
I fear that the position of the Government—and my noble friend will not be altogether surprised to hear this—is not any different from what it was on Report stage, when the noble Lord raised this question, nor on the Committee stage nor on Second Reading. The position is that in the present economic state of the country, quite apart from the principles involved, the present situation is such that it is impossible to make monies available on the scale referred to in the noble Lord's Amendment. The noble Lord pointed out very fairly that he was to some extent in difficulty because of the Long Title of the Bill. However, the position is that if this Amendment were to be passed we should in fact be committing ourselves to expenditure of up to £19 million for safeguards which would be incorporated in sports stadia and foodball grounds, and I should think most Members of the House would take the view that in the present economic situation this is not an urgent priority matter so far as public expenditure is concerned.
With regard to the general question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, as I have endeavoured to point out to the

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House on previous occasions when this Bill has been discussed, the financial problems of the football clubs are recognised by the Government and that is why the Bill is drafted as it is. In the first place, it can be implemented and will indeed be implemented by stages. Local authorities may require only what is reasonable and one of the elements of what is reasonable will be the cost of such precautions as may be necessary, and requirements can be adjusted to take account of factors such as average attendances rather than maximum capacity. Again as I have pointed out to the House on previous occasions, it will be possible for the necessary work to be carried out by stages and there will be ample opportunity to appeal to the Secretary of State against requirements of the certification procedure which are regarded as unreasonable by the club.
I fear that that is the only decision which the Government can take, given the present financial problems facing this country. I recognise that it is not anything like so far as the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, would like us to go but I am afraid it is as far as we can go. I fear that the only point on which I can in any way respond to him is to agree with him in his concluding remarks as he sat down and warmly to wish him a very merry Christmas as well.
Lord WIGG: My Lords, I am much obliged for the noble Lord's good wishes for Christmas, but I would have been much happier if he could have responded a little further. He has moved a little but not very much. I should like to detain the House for a moment or two, just to deal with one or two of the points that have been made. It seems to me that the noble Earl, Lord Cowley, could not have heard me aright. I did not want to take anything off the Arts Council. I support the Arts Council, and that enables me to say to the noble Lord, Lord Slater, that perhaps the most remarkable part of its work is the extent to which it has stimulated an interest in the Arts in the Provinces. It is true that there are grants of just over £4 million to just four theatres. I am not surprised that the noble Earl, Lord Cowley, can accept that.
Earl COWLEY: My Lords, if I gave the impression that I thought the noble
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Lord, Lord Wigg, wanted to take money away from the Arts Council I apologise to him. I did not understand that at all.
Lord WIGG: My Lords, I am sorry; it is my complete inability to make myself plain. I have said it at least half a dozen times and I will say it again: I do not want to take a penny away from the Arts Council. I welcome all that they get and I wish they could get more. All I am pointing out is that they have got it, and they have got it as a result of enlightened pressures on both Labour and Conservative Administrations. They had not had to meet the fundamental point raised by the noble Earl, Lord Cowley, the charge of doing it on the basis of profitabilily. Covent Garden, the National Theatre, the Opera House and Sadlers Wells get £4¼ million.
Earl COWLEY: It is not £4 million to implement safety regulations. This is what the Bill is about.
Lord WIGG: My Lords, I will try again. Does not the noble Earl see that if you apply the principle which he worships with the test of profitability then you must not subsidise clubs which cannot pay their way. If you are to do it on the basis of profitability you would say, "Of course, not a penny because you put on your shows and they do not pay so you will not get any money". They stand or fall by their ability to meet their costs. In that case they would die. Although the noble Lord, Lord Slater, does not recognise it, the help that has been given to the North-East by the Arts Council would not be there. It is recognised that you cannot do what the Arts Council sets out to do on the basis of the test of expenditure balancing income. It is just not on; it has to come from somewhere else.
Let us not quarrel with the figures. I was very careful to say £6 million. I said that I did not believe the Press; I do not believe the Press on any subject; I do not even agree when they tip winners. I am always careful never to back well-tipped horses. I do not believe in that kind of form. I have no respect for political correspondents, defence correspondents or even racing correspondents. I prefer to do my own homework. So I went to the Arts Council. I had doubts about the £6 million, and I said so. When we come to the £22 million

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this is how it is made up. As I understand it, the Report just published was for the year before last. It shows £17½ million. The present figure, I understand, is £19½ million and they got £1,700,000 by way of a supplementary estimate, plus £750,000 to make up the VAT. I did not mention that fact in connection with racing or football. Football pays, in addition, £85 million by way of taxation; a vast sum is taken by VAT. I am informed by those who run the game that they pay more for the police than it costs them for the players. They have to meet this tremendous burden across the board stemming from a social problem.
The noble Earl, Lord Cowley, made comparison between what happens on a football ground and the football club which cannot afford to pay. I tried to take up this point on a previous occasion. At this game there are only about half a dozen who can pay their way. There must be all the other losers otherwise there would not be a game. If there is a team like Portsmouth making a loss last year of nearly £500,000, how much longer can it go on? As long as both sides of the House recognise what they are doing—I do not think they do—but it is a fact that a number of clubs will go out of existence. So far as the Home Office is concerned they are digging a pit for themselves. There is bound to grow in this country—I would not put it higher than that—the dangers of illegal betting, because you cannot sustain this edifice of £240 million taken out by taxation for ever and ever without at least recognising the problem you are creating. As I said on a previous occasion, "You cannot go on milking the cow unless you feed it". This is inevitable.
I have tried to put it all together. I am used to being in a minority of one here. I was in a minority of one so far as my own Party was concerned in relation to taxing betting in the first instance, and I rely on my own figures against the Press. We shall see on this as we shall see about defence tomorrow. If this problem is neglected then a vast social problem will be created. Racing, which is in a parlous condition, will receive no more money; football will not be able to meet its current obligations—never mind the obligations imposed here.
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Those noble Lords who introduce other sports and who think that what I am saying is over their heads need to think again, because the reserve powers in this Bill are very great. It only needs a senior police officer at Epsom to apprehend that Langland stand is unsafe and to have a look at it. He makes an application to the Bench, the stand is closed and there is nothing the Home Secretary or anybody else can do about it. The reserve powers in this Bill are enormous. The Bill has been drafted by various officials to provide an alibi for Ministers. This is safety by phases. The situation may be as grave as was revealed at Ibrox. Please remember that the police officials were saying on the eve of Ibrox, "Absolutely safe: a perfect ground". It was, until a goal was scored at the last minute and 60-odd people died.
I said on Second Reading, I said when the Bill was first introduced in this House, "It is going to happen again". It is going to happen on a racecourse because paragraph 13 of the original legislation has never been implemented. So we shall have another accident in the line of Bolton, leading down to Ibrox. All that this Bill does—all it is intended to do—is to take it out of the hands of the Home Office and down to the local authorities. The responsibility rests with the police. Superimposed upon that is the problem of social wellbeing and the problem of taxation. My Lords, I have wearied the House too long. I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
An Amendment (privilege) made; Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.

EEC: HEADS OF GOVERNMENT MEETING
Lord SHEPHERD: My Lords, with permission, I will now repeat a Statement which is now being made by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister in another place. I will use his own words:
"With permission, Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a Statement about last week's meeting in Paris, which I regret I was not able to make last Thursday as I had hoped.

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"On the invitation of the President of France the Heads of Government of the European Community met together on Monday and Tuesday, 9th and 10th December.
"Our conclusions are recorded in a Communiqué which has been published as a White Paper, Cmnd. 5830.
"The House will see from the White Paper that a considerable part of the discussions related to worldwide issues, in particular the economic situation, trade, employment and inflation.
"A high priority was given by all of us to the problems posed by the world threat of general recession, and in this connection we discussed the policies to be followed by individual countries, the Community, and the wider world. The Federal German Chancellor dealt with the problems facing his own country on which announcements were subsequently made by his Government in the German Parliament. Since they involve a substantial measure of reflation by a surplus country, I am sure all of us in this House will warmly welcome them.
"On energy we sought to get an improved consensus of views between the European Governments and the United States, and in particular the possibility of closer co-operation between oil-exporting and oil-importing countries. This meant that the French President in his discussions this weekend with the President of the United States would have a clearer view of the ideas and hopes of all of us on these matters.
"Co-operation in the field of energy is to be pursued further at a meeting of energy Ministers in Brussels tomorrow.
"On the renegotiation of the terms on which Britain entered the Community in 1971, I have informed the other Heads of Government of the position of Her Majesty's Government, and the particular issues to which we attach high priority; the issues set out in our Election Manifesto in February and endorsed again by the people in October. I informed them of the terms of the speech I made on 7th December, of which a copy has been placed in the Library of the House.
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"Substantial progress has been made on the question of Britain's budgetary contribution to the Community and appropriate instructions given to the Community institutions, so that they can now get to work to set up as soon as possible the 'correcting mechanism' referred to in the Communiqué. We intend to have a firm proposal and decision on this by the early spring.
"Since the Communiqué was published, anxiety has been expressed by honourable Members and others about two matters. The one relates to the principle of majority voting, and the Luxembourg Compromise. I can assure the House that there is no question at all—and that this was clear in the minds of all the Heads of Government—of any Member State, when important national interests are at stake, being required to set these interests aside as a result of a majority voting procedure. The Communiqué makes it plain that each country will continue to be free to maintain our respective positions regarding the Luxembourg Compromise of 1966. What the meeting had in mind was the undesirability of having too frequent a recourse to the veto, where for example relatively minor matters were involved.
"The other issue related to the desire of most Heads of Government to make progress towards the election of the European Assembly by universal suffrage. I made it clear that the British Government could not take up any position on this question until after the renegotiations are complete and the results submitted to the British people for decision. This was specifically reserved in the Communiqué as a Statement by the British Prime Minister.
"On institutional matters generally, the House will have seen that the Prime Minister of Belgium, Mr. Tindemans, has been invited to prepare a report on the institutional development of the Community, so that this can be considered by a meeting of Heads of Government a year or more from now.
"The Heads of Government also reached decisions on the Regional Development Fund. The Fund will be endowed with 1,300 million units of account (that is about £540 million)

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over the three years 1975 to 1977. Twenty-eight per cent. of the Fund will be allocated to this country. Our net share of the Fund could turn out to be about £60 million in all. Compared with the Government's own regional expenditure of about £500 million a year the results will naturally be modest.
"I was particularly concerned to press upon our colleagues the importance of national Governments, such as our own, particularly at a time of anxiety about employment, being able to act speedily with existing, and where necessary, novel means of providing national aids for regional employment and regional development. On this I found full understanding among the other Heads of Government. I emphasised, of course, that such action should not offend against the Community rules of fair competition, nor amount to competitive bidding, one country against another, in order to attract some new development for example by an American-owned company.
"I have referred to institutional aspects of the Community. There is a general wish, which I share, to have important decisions taken quickly and effectively at the political level, both by Foreign and other Ministers and by Heads of Government themselves. The meeting in Paris was in effect the first European Council. In future there will be three of these meetings a year, and more if they are required to deal with particular problems. They will be concerned both with Community matters and with important questions of policy, for example on world energy and related world finance problems, outside the Community area.
"Our partners in the Conference, Mr. Speaker, were left in no doubt that while we were not dissatisfied with the progress made on the budgetary question, there was a substantial number of other matters on which we should expect satisfaction. There is still a long way to go if Britain's essential requirements are to be met, and it is in the best interests both of this country and of Europe that speedy progress be made and the issues decided.
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"These questions will be taken up in meetings, early in the New Year, of the Council of Ministers, and, as appropriate, at the next Heads of Government meeting to be held in the New Year in Dublin under the Presidency of the Irish Republic."
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
3.45 p.m.
Lord CARRINGTON: My Lords, all noble Lords will be grateful to the noble Lord the Leader of the House for having repeated that Statement. I must say that for those of us who are anxious to see Britain remain as a member of the EEC, this is by no means a discouraging statement. There is a change of atmosphere in the Statement; indeed, I think there was a change of atmosphere in the speech made by the Prime Minister to the Labour Lord Mayors before he went to Paris. I would only point out, and do so without any ill will, that all this could have been done, all these negotiations could have been going on (and would have been) without all the drama of renegotiation. But if noble Lords opposite want to call it "renegotiation", and it helps them, I have no particular objection.
My Lords, I want to raise with the noble Lord the Leader of the House the question of the European Parliament. Is it the intention of the Government before the referendum to make known their views on how the European Parliament should be elected? The noble Lord will know there is a certain amount of Parliamentary difficulty about the European Parliament. It is a great pity—and the noble Lord knows it—that the Labour Party are not represented there, but there are difficulties which we all ought to try to solve. I commend to the noble Lord the Leader of the House a document produced by the European Parliament, with some amendments made by Conservative members of that Parliament as possible proposals for its election. I hope the noble Lord will look at that.
3.47 p.m.
Lord GLADWYN: My Lords, although I have not been able to consult them, as I have just returned from Luxembourg, I think all my colleagues on these Benches feel that in spite of the unfortunate, if necessary, stance of the Government, the Summit Conference on

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the whole was a success. We would number the Regional Fund among the successes. As I understand it from the Paper, we are to receive gross £47 million a year for three years, but the Government, who seem intent on playing it down, say that it "could" be only £20 million net. May I ask the noble Lord the Leader of the House what is the difference? To what is this enormous difference apparently due?
My Lords, with regard to rectifying our contribution to the Community budget, we think this is an advance and hope there is no longer any question of putting it as a major obstacle to our continuing to be a member of the Community. However, the main achievement at the conference seems to us to lie in the direction of political co-operation. We think the general scheme now put forward is probably a good one. We think that in spite of what the Government say—and perhaps the noble Lord the Leader of the House will say something about this—the Luxembourg Compromise seems in practice to have been modified by the phrase used in the Communiqué. It looks as if the intention now is at least to modify the operation of the Compromise. Perhaps the noble Lord will say whether this is so or not?
Finally, we note what the Government say about direct elections. Equally, however, is it not a fact that the great consensus of opinion in favour of those direct elections will influence the Government when they come to take their final decision? Will the noble Lord also admit that the phrases used about the European Parliament are significant? The Government seem actually to have agreed that the Parliament should now have more powers and that it should be more closely associated with the work of the Presidency. Have they in fact agreed with both the proposals? It is most significant if they have.
My Lords, we are disappointed at the continuing failure on energy and inflation. This was perhaps inevitable, but there is still failure. We are also disappointed at the continuing lack of progress on the whole question of harmonising foreign policy; but, generally speaking, we congratulate the Government on a qualified success.
3.50 p.m.
Lord SHEPHERD: My Lords, I have listened with great interest to the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Carrington. There may be a change of atmosphere, but the position of the Government is what it has been ever since the long debate. The position of the Government and the Labour Party was, and is, that provided we get satisfactory terms—in our view the terms negotiated by the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, and his friends were not satisfactory, and I think are now generally admitted not to have been satisfactory—and provided we consulted the British people, then we desire that we should continue and should co-operate within the European Economic Community. So while the atmosphere may have changed, the position of the Government has not.
In regard to the European Parliament—and this is directed to the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn—the Government do not intend, nor should we be expected, to take any firm position in this respect until the referendum has taken place. Certainly any question of direct elections to the European Parliament, which are bound to have some consequences upon the Parliament in Westminster is clearly something on which the British Parliament would have to be consulted. Therefore, the situation is that we do not take any firm position, although we recognise the difficulties to which the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, referred.
In regard to political co-operation, the Luxembourg Compromise and the veto, I think the Summit recognised that it was undesirable that the veto should be used frequently, but that where matters of great interest to a State arose, then it should be in a position to exercise its veto. But we would hope that in the course of time the need for such a course would diminish.
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether he recalls that the other day the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, made some observations about all Members of your Lordships' House having equal privileges, which was acceptable. Do I understand, therefore, that I can make as long a speech as the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, did, in the course of which I would expose the bag of tricks, refer to the vast sums of money spent

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on propaganda, the apparent change in the climate, and refer to the pyrotechnic—I am not quite sure that this is the right word—attitude of some notabilities in the Labour Government? Would I be permitted to do that, or would my noble friend prefer that I defer the pleasure until some other occasion?
Lord SHEPHERD: My Lords, since my noble friend has put the question to me, and recognising that he has as much right in your Lordships' House as has the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, I would say a matter at which we may have to take a closer look is as to how we conduct ourselves in connection with Statements. But if my noble friend does put that question to me, I would ask him to refrain and perhaps set others an example.
Lord SLATER: My Lords, could my noble friend say who is in control of the European Parliament? Who sits in the chair or who sits in the Speaker's seat? Who conducts the business? The noble Lord, Lord Carrington, was directing a question to my noble friend on representation of the present Government in the European Parliament. That is what I gathered from his observations.
The second point I want to raise with my noble friend is that I think a direct insult has been directed against the Prime Minister of this country, as it was at the time when Mr. Heath was Prime Minister and carrying out negotiations on behalf of this country for entrance into Europe; they have to conduct their business with a Head of State, who is a political figure according to their set-up, the President of France, and not the Prime Minister of that country who is the opposite number of the Prime Minister of this country, who has to negotiate on behalf of the Government of the country and not Her Majesty the Queen.
Lord SHEPHERD: My Lords, in regard to the first supplementary question, I understand that the President and committees of members of the European Assembly—I think that is perhaps a better phrase, because it is basically a nominated assembly—conduct the affairs of the Assembly. The answer to the second part of my noble friend's supplementary question is that this is a matter of opinion. At the end of the day, I do not think it
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really matters a row of beans whether it is a President or a Prime Minister. What matters is the argument of the case that one puts forward. I think it is fair to say that the Heads of State meeting in Paris was perhaps the most successful of the meetings of Heads of Government. Therefore, to that extent credit ought to be given to the President of France. I would agree with the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, that we have made some advance. It was a fairly successful conference.
The Earl of DUDLEY: My Lords, would the Lord Privy Seal confirm that only 43·6 per cent., or about £54 million, of the Regional Development Fund in the first year actually changes hands, and that the largest recipient is Italy? Would he also confirm that in the first year the share of the United Kingdom would be approximately £16 million, and in the following two years a little over £20 million?
Lord SHEPHERD: My Lords, figures are difficult to assess. Clearly, what is important is the way in which the countries approach the Commission and set out their proposals. I would not deny or accept the figures the noble Earl has given. I think it is up to the Government and all those who will have a claim upon this Fund to see that their proposals are brought together and presented as quickly as possible. Then, of course, there is a better chance of getting a large sum in the first year.
The Earl of DUDLEY: My Lords, would the noble Lord be prepared to confirm this if I put a Question to him in writing?
Lord SHEPHERD: My Lords, I am always prepared to do my best in response to the noble Earl. If he puts down a Question, I will certainly answer it. I only hope that the answer I have just given is the right one.
The Earl of LAUDERDALE: My Lords, could the noble Lord tell us whether there was any discussion at the Summit about the proposals made public by Simonet in Oxford ten days ago, and now repeated in the hand-outs from the European Community Commission office in London, to the effect that the Commission might be able to make proposals

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to help finance the exploration for oil in the North Sea and, to quote their words:
"… thus give the United Kingdom Government more room for manoeuvre in its relationship with the multi-national oil companies."?
Was that discussed at the Summit?
Lord SHEPHERD: My Lords, it does not appear in the Communiqué, but, as the noble Earl is aware, the Ministers responsible for energy are meeting tomorrow, and clearly they will have in mind ways and means by which we can exploit our own natural European resources as soon as possible.
The Earl of LAUDERDALE: My Lords, could the noble Lord go a little further and say "yes" or "no", to the question whether or not this Government have received proposals originating in the Commission to help them deal with the multinational oil companies in the proposal to take a stake in existing licences?
Lord SHEPHERD: My Lords, I very much regret that without notice I am not in a position to answer that question, but I will look into the matter and will communicate with the noble Earl.

GENERAL RATE BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and to be printed.

EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES
4.0 p.m.
The PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE, FOREIGN and COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS) rose The PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE, FOREIGN and COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS) rose to move, That this House takes note of the White Paper Developments in the European Communities March-October 1974 (Cmnd. 5790). The noble Lord said: My Lords, today this House has an opportunity to debate the first of the regular six-monthly reports on developments in the Community that the Government undertook last Session to provide to Parliament. It remains a major aim of our European policy to ensure not only that British interests are fully reflected in all decisions reached in Brussels, but also that the views of Parliament can be brought to bear before Ministers subscribe to those decisions. The production of the six-monthly reports and the provision
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of time for their debate are intended by the Government to complement the valuable work being done by the European Communities Committee in another place to ensure that when Parliament formulates its views on European developments it does so in possession of all the relevant information.
Turning to the report itself, noble Lords will appreciate that since it was published a number of important developments have taken place, some of particular relevance to our renegotiation objectives, and I will with the permission of the House, return to these later. The report deals primarily with decisions reached by the Community in the period from March to October this year. In general, it does not cover matters which were still under discussion at the end of that period. Naturally, in a report of this kind it is impossible to cover effectively every Community decision affecting this country, however short-lived or trivial. But I think it is fair to say that all major developments in the three Communities are described in the report with particular reference to the position of the United Kingdom and the views of the Government.
Inevitably, the report has had to deal in some detail with the major preoccupation for the United Kingdom during the period in question; namely, the renegotiation. But it also shows that pending the outcome of renegotiation—and without prejudice to that outcome—the United Kingdom has been playing a full part in the current work of the Community, including the attendance by United Kingdom Ministers at meetings of the Council of Ministers, and participation by United Kingdom representatives at all levels of the Community's subsidiary bodies.
A list of both types of meeting is included in the report. The report also deals with major developments in the process of political co-operation between the Governments of the nine member States, as this is coming to represent an increasingly important element in the relations of the member Governments. Section IX deals with the arrangements which have been adopted both here and in another place for the handling of Community affairs; and, in particular, for the scrutiny of draft Community legislation. Your Lordships' House has recently had an opportunity for an extensive review of these arrangements, but if

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any noble Lord or noble Baroness wishes to revert to this topic in today's debate, I shall listen with interest to what he or she has to say.
I should like now to talk in rather more detail about some of the more important subjects covered by the White Paper; in particular, about those areas in which events have moved on since the report was published. These are renegotiation, agriculture, the Protocol 22 negotiations, development aid, the regional development fund and energy policy. And then, of course, there is the Summit meeting i held in Paris on 9th and 10th December which has significant implications, as we have just heard, for many of the areas mentioned above, not least for our renegotiation objectives.
First, on the renegotiation, as the Prime Minister said following the recent Summit in Paris, useful progress has been made in renegotiation and things are moving along on schedule. Nevertheless, there is still some way to go and it will by no means be all plain sailing. It is the Government's intention that renegotiation should be concluded as soon as possible. We aim to dispose of outstanding matters by about early March. Our partners in the Community share our desire to expedite matters. At the Summit, the Prime Minister explained to his colleagues how he saw things going. He confirmed that the Foreign Secretary's statements of 1st April and 4th June set out the limits of renegotiation and that we were not seeking to add new items. Neither were we pressing for amendments to the Treaties, but seeking our objectives within the Community's normal programme of negotiations and discussions.
The position we have reached is that on certain items, and I am thinking of the Protocol 22 negotiations and access for 1·4 million tons of Commonwealth sugar, good progress has already been made. On others, such as the CAP, we are looking to further progress in the context of the price review which is imminent, and of stocktaking of the whole policy for which the German Government has pressed. We hope to see progress on that front by the spring. In the trade field, we shall be seeking continued access for New Zealand butter in the latter half of this decade and beyond, as well as
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further liberalisation of the Community's GSP.
On the important question of the level of our contribution to the Community budget, the decision of principle taken by the heads of Government in Paris marked a very definite step forward. We have firmly established the existence of a serious potential difficulty and the institutions—the Council, the Commission—have been asked to devise a correcting mechanism as soon as possible. We look for early progress by the Council and Commission towards the establishment of that mechanism. All of this gives grounds for cautious optimism. There is still a lot left to do, but we are continuing to make progress according to plan.
I turn now to the question of agriculture. The White Paper deals at some length with the situation in the CAP as it obtained at the end of October. Things have moved on since then. Our objectives for renegotiation remain as set out in the White Paper. But there are some achievements to be chalked up. As the White Paper makes clear, the CAP is now operating in a situation of world prices which are in certain cases substantially higher than those within the EEC. The net effect has been that food prices to consumers have of late been slightly lower than they would have been had we remained outside the EEC. In the case of cereals and sugar, the difference between Community and world prices is substantial. This is a remarkable change. The Ministers of Agriculture are now launched on the annual price review for 1975, and have to complete their work by the end of January. We shall be pursuing our renegotiation objective in that price review and in the CAP stocktaking.
On beef production, the Minister of Agriculture had to take, with the approval of the EEC, appropriate measures to safeguard the position of British livestock farmers. In negotiating a new permanent Community régime of beef, the Minister of Agriculture will be looking for appropriate and flexible support arrangements which will ensure for producers—and they vary, as your Lordships know—a good return, while taking proper account of the needs of the consumer.
On sugar, we have won assured access for 1·4 million tons of Commonwealth sugar each year for an indefinite period.

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A negotiating mandate has been agreed for discussions with the producers, and talks started last week.
Another area in which important progress has been made since the publication of the White Paper was the negotiations for the Association of forty-five developing countries in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific—the ACP countries as they are known—with the EEC. These renegotiations are now approaching their conclusion. The final decisions leading to signature will be taken at a joint Ministerial meeting between the ACP and the EEC countries either immediately before Christmas or early in the New Year.
It is of course for the Commonwealth countries concerned to decide for themselves whether to associate under the conditions negotiated, but it is the view of Her Majesty's Government that this is likely to be the best way for them to safeguard their trade interests. The arrangements for developing Commonwealth sugar producers form part of the Protocol 22 negotiations. As I have said, the Community has now accepted the principle of access for 1·4 million tons on a continuing basis. Negotiations are taking place with the supplying countries concerned.
We believe that there should be a more balanced distribution of Community aid; aid for associates through the EDF being supplemented by aid for the highly populated and very poor developing countries lying outside the circle of association. Many of these peculiarly disadvantaged countries lie outside the circle of association, as noble Lords know. Thanks to the efforts of my right honourable friend the Minister for Overseas Aid, progress has been made in bringing about this more balanced policy over the last eight months, In fact. agreement was reached recently that the countries to benefit from the first slice of the Cheysson Fund should be those developing countries most affected by the rise in oil and other raw material prices. The bulk will go to needy Commonwealth countries in South Asia which come into the category of peculiarly disadvantaged countries, to which I referred in an earlier section of my speech.
It will be our aim now to obtain the agreement of our Community partners
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to the implementation in the near future of a programme of continuing financial aid for non-associates on the basis of the agreement reached between member States in July on the principle of such aid and the recently issued Commission study of future developments in the Community's aid policy.
On the Regional Development Fund the position is as follows. After the Commission's consultations with member Governments mentioned in paragraph 40 of the White Paper, it was decided at the Heads of Government meeting in Paris last week that the European Regional Development Fund be put into operation with effect from 1st January next. The Statement to which we have just listened gave some of the financial details involved. The Fund will be endowed with 1,300 million units of account (£54 million) for the three years from 1975 to 1977. It is envisaged that the United Kingdom will receive 28 per cent. of the Fund. How it is paid out net in each year will, I hope, be further clarified, if that is possible, when the Answer to the proposed Written Question is considered. As the Prime Minister said in his Statement in another place, this contribution will be welcome. The detailed implementation of the Heads of Government's decision—that is, on the RDF—will be settled by the Council.
Turning to energy, good progress has been made in Brussels on the examination of the details of the Community's energy strategy. I will not—at least in this opening statement on this point—go into detail as your Lordships debated this matter as recently as the 9th of this month. However, if any point is raised in the debate I will do my best to address myself to it when I briefly wind up at the end. Also, the meeting of the Council of Ministers on energy will be taking place in Brussels tomorrow, and we should await the results of that meeting.
Many of the strands of Community work, including those on which I have touched today, were drawn together by the Heads of Government when they met in Paris last week. The House will have seen the White Paper (Cmnd. 5830) published on 11th December, to which today's Statement referred. The House will have regard for the Statement by my right honourable friend the Prime

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Minister, which was repeated this afternoon by my noble friend. I do not think that at this stage I should seek to add substantially to this Statement. I will, however, repeat that the Government regard this as having been a useful meeting, not only from the point of view of our renegotiation of the entry terms, but from the point of view of the Community as a whole. The Heads of Government were able to have a useful discussion of the grave economic problems which face all our countries—a point to which the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, referred in his question to my noble friend.
They are agreed that although we cannot adopt the same policies because our situations are different, we must all do our best to act in a helpful way towards each other. In particular they agreed that it was essential for all of us to avoid protectionist policies. There was also a discussion of the energy situation and the consequent major financial problems created for the Community and the world at large. I have already mentioned the agreement on the setting up of a Regional Development Fund, and on the guidlelines for a solution to the budget problem which we have raised in the renegotiations. As the Prime Minister said, this was, in a sense, the first meeting of the European Council, and we think it has set a more realistic pattern for the future than perhaps earlier Summits have done.
The White Paper states that—and I quote:
"in the view of the Government political co-operation among the Nine has proved valuable".
We have indeed, as a country, played a full and active part in this. The Nine are increasingly aligning their positions on a large number of foreign policy questions. For example, we have worked together closely and effectively at the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE); over Cyprus, including practical aspects such as our contributions to the UN peace-keeping force there; and in the dialogue which the Nine are conducting with the Arab World. In response to a proposal by the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, the Nine are co-operating more closely on Rhodesia sanctions. Our delegations to the larger international organisations—that is, the
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delegations of the Nine—have developed the habit of regular and fruitful consultation.
Naturally, it is not yet possible for us to agree on every issue. It never will be possible for that to happen. Some of the Nine countries have traditional links and policies which lead them, on occasion, to adopt a different position from that of their partners. But the important thing is that co-operation has become a habit, and the Nine consider the views of their partners even when they cannot agree with them. Political co-operation is, of course, voluntary co-operation. Its procedures are spelt out in various documents adopted by the countries belonging to the Community. But these documents are not binding international treaties, and political co-operation is separate from the EEC institutions as such. It is therefore the more remarkable that the Nine have been able to work together as closely as they have on so many diverse questions.
It is also important that relations between the Community and the United States of America have been much improved over the past months. The public quarrels of 1973 are now a thing of the past, and something which approached a crisis earlier this year has thankfully been laid to rest. The British Government played an active part in the agreement reached among the Nine and accepted by the United States on an informal procedure for consultation between the Nine and the United States. This is now being put into regular practice.
In conclusion, my Lords, looking back over this period—the period which began with the assumption of Office by the present Government; the period covered by the White Paper—and the subsequent developments which culminated in the Summit meeting in Paris last week, I think that we can all take a certain satisfaction in the balance sheet. The Community has in a number of ways developed in the directions which Her Majesty's Government have advocated. In our negotiations to achieve the objectives we have set ourselves to renegotiate, we are, as the Foreign Secretary has said, "on target". But I repeat that we have still some way to go, and I would warn noble Lords against any assumption that it is all "in the bag". Difficult negotiations in many

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fields lie ahead in the next few months. Our debate today provides this House with an opportunity to express views on the many different facets of the Community's work, which Her Majesty's Government will take completely into account. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That this House takes note of the White Paper Developments in the European Communities March-October 1974 (Cmnd. 5790).—(Lord Goronwy-Roberts.)
4.25 p.m.
Lord SAINT OSWALD: My Lords, in thanking the Minister for opening this debate in a way for which I think many of us, and certainly I myself, are grateful, I think I might say that a matter of weeks ago, still less of months, I could scarcely have foreseen myself making a speech in this Parliament in a mood so pacific and benevolent towards those whom I suspected of seeking to disrupt the European aspiration. As it is, contemplating the Benches opposite and the smiling faces upon them with my habitual and compulsive amiability, at closer quarters than I have enjoyed for some time, the content of my speech may be almost soporifically anodyne. We are formally debating, as the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, has reminded us in detail, the White Paper (Cmnd. 5790) entitled Developments in the European Communities March-October 1974, printed and published only last month—and already well out of date. It is to the credit of Her Majesty's Government that this should be the case. This is only one of the compliments that I shall be joyfully paying to Ministers in the course of my words this afternoon. A Summit meeting of Prime Ministers of the European Community took place in Paris, a communiqué was issued and the consequent Statement by the Prime Minister was made this afternoon in another place and has been repeated here. There has not been much time to study the Statement, but at first sight it does not seem to depart in any important degree from what we had come to expect from the communiqué and from the Press except in one limited respect, to which I may be alluding later.
Continuing in my mood of total benignity, I can offer the personal observation, unsolicited, that the Summit in
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Paris this month, with Britain represented by a Labour Government, produced more apparent results than the Summit in Copenhagen in December of last year, with Britain represented by a Conservative Government—and I can hardly say fairer than that. Having said so, and in expressing the hope that these putative results will be realised and implemented, I feel justified in calling for a return to candour, which Her Majesty's present Government, if they are sincere, can well afford and from which they can win greater esteem. Let them drop or set on one side, or quietly discontinue, the enjoyable, identifiable but not very dignified pretence that we and our partners have solemnly entered upon a process of "renegotiation"—and I hope that my inverted commas around the word it-self were as audible as those of Herr Helmut Schmidt when he used the term in his teasing but constructive speech at the Labour Party Conference.
What is taking place, as was said earlier by my noble friend and Leader Lord Carrington, is a continuing discussion between the partner nations of the Community as to how the system can best be maintained, adjusted and expanded to the maximum benefit of all. This process takes account of the fact, and was always intended to take account of the fact, that from time to time one or more of the partners might fall on hard times. It is then and thus, in the spirit of the whole Community, within the philosophy of the whole Community, that the currently healthier, stronger or perhaps just luckier members rally to assist. They rally with a view to putting that temporarily discomfited partner back on his feet. To fail to perceive that among the axioms of the European endeavour would be blind—and the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts. is far from blind and Mr. Harold Wilson's political eyesight is very acute. He knew, and it would be insulting to suppose otherwise, before he himself approached the negotiations, the first and second time, that a helping hand to a friend in need was part of the deal.
What he and Mr. Healey and Mr. Callaghan lately have been able to do is to persuade the other partners that we, as a nation, are well and truly up a weedy creek with one broken paddle. They have succeeded in their persuasiveness to

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such an extent that Herr Willy Brandt, a friend indeed and a man whose international worth is beyond question, proposed a formula which would have placed Britain and Italy in a special category within the Community, a category where less demands would be made upon our performance while being sustained by the rest of the Community, of which both of us would remain Members. The rationale of his theory, as noble Lords doubtless remember who read The Times of the 22nd of last month, was quoted as follows:
"In view of the considerable divergence between the economic situation of the various member States of the Community, the automatic equal treatment of all members as regards their rights and obligations would at present seriously compromise the cohesion of the Nine."
What he did not visualise, as The Times observed, was how the weaker brethren, Britain and Italy, once assisted, would be able to catch up and rejoin the others who had been pressing ahead at a faster rate in their integration. Perhaps because I am no economist I feel scant enthusiasm for this plan. More positively my misgivings stem from the sense, instilled during two years of working within the Community, that what our partners wish us to claim is an appropriate share of the leadership rather than an element of public assistance. But if the hard-luck story is repeated with sufficient pathos and pertinacity, the opinion of all may be one of pity, converted from admiration.
It has not reached this point and I am personally not predicting that it ever will reach this point; but I think that we can hardly leave out of account the measured words of that former Chancellor of West Germany, a Socialist Chancellor, who made emphatically plain his hope that Britain would remain a Member of the Community but who expressed equally plainly that the Community would not hold its momentum much longer, waiting upon us. He said, referring to the Community:
"Our survival is now at stake. That means that we must try to maintain the substance of the Treaty of Rome, even if some aspects of it temporarily cannot be applied."
This means, as I read it, that Britain and Italy under this scheme would be allowed to tag along as passengers, pedestrians, or camp followers. The proposal and the prospect must have wounded
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Ministers of this country—they wounded me in a more particular way which I will try to describe without emotion or dramatisation.
On 16th January 1973, nearly two years ago, the British delegation together with those of Ireland and Denmark joined the European Parliament. We, the British delegation, were incomplete. We missed, and have missed ever since, the presence of the British Labour Party's delegates. I speak for myself, but also I think for all my companions, when I say that there has never been a day when we did not regret their absence. There have been times beyond counting when I think we should in all probability have voted together, Labour, Conservative, Liberal and my noble friend Lord O'Hagan—voted together not for narrow, selfish, national reasons but because our view on the world, our instincts drawn from Parliamentary experience and history might have harmonised. Sometimes, together, we should have been enough to have won a Division that in the event was lost; and looking back through my files I have found cases of that. On other occasions we should have voted on opposite sides and 18 British Labour members would have made, and still would make, the Socialist group the largest single political group in the European Parliament. Our whole tradition and reasoning persuade us that noble Lords and their right honourable and honourable friends from the Party opposite should be there.
Notwithstanding this fact, the impact made by the British delegation in this Parliament from the first moment was galvanising. Remembering for the moment, looking back on it now, it somewhat amazes me to think how brash we were in our onset. We said, overtly often enough and sometimes between the lines, that this was not functioning as a Parliament in our terms; it was not using its powers. Instead of being offended, affronted by these newcomers, the old stagers said in paraphrase: "That's what we needed to hear. With your impetus we can set it to rights!"
My Lords, it would be wrong to exaggerate what has been achieved. But if noble Lords opposite and their honourable friends in another place believe that change is only now being promoted by a Labour Government, they must, I think,

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disabuse themselves of this illusion. I am not, at least consciously, overweening when I say that the current of change induced in the previous 14 months was there for incoming Labour Ministers to launch themselves into in March of this year—if they so wished. Unfortunately, the immediate effect has been to stop the current, to damn the flow for the time being—I hope not for long.
My Lords, it seems to me now that I have spoken too much about the immediate past when we are concerned with the immediate and consequent future. I will dwell only for a moment or two more on the past. I speak as if the change, the new momentum, was created only in the European Parliament. That is not so. It was created by the two British Commissioners, Sir Christopher Soames and Mr. George Thomson, by the British civil servants joining the Commission, by some of the British Ministers who attended the Council of Ministers and by those from the other two newly-joined Members. We are apt I suppose—and I have Parliamentary colleagues in the House today, including the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, and my noble friend Lord Reay—to become obsessed with our work in that Parliament, and perhaps a degree of obsession is necessary to bear the load.
If I seek to typify the kind of impact which the British delegation made in 1973, I can, for convenience and for pungency, hardly do better than quote a passage or two from the opening speech of Mr. Peter Kirk, the Leader of this delegation. That speech was based on two principal themes: first, the importance of Parliament; and, secondly, the need for change. He said:
"We shall have much to say, particularly on such matters as the Common Agricultural Policy—which still, rightly or wrongly, causes much concern in my country—the proposed regional policy from which so many of our people have great expectations, and the monetary and economic policy which, if it is successful, cannot fail to transform our own economic position in the world even more drastically than the Community in its present form.
We shall have much to say, too, about the workings of the Parliament, for the health of this Parliament is essential to the health of the Community as a whole. The Community cannot function unless it has a base in the hearts and minds of the peoples, and Parliament is the only body which can provide that base."
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I should have thought that noble Lords opposite, however critical of the Community, would be ready to consider that these words were laying the ground for the changes that they themselves demand to see and now wish to effect.
In fact I would wish to take as my text, as the Epistle for the day, Mr. Wilson's own speech to the Labour mayors two days before he departed for Paris. It is a speech which has often been quoted, and which has been quoted more than once today. It set out the seven conditions, as I think he called them, that he would be laying on the table in Paris. I am bound to say that, set against some knowledge of the way the Community works and regards its future, and against the communiqué issued after the Summit, the seven points do not appear to me to create particularly grave or new problems.
Your Lordships will perhaps permit me to take them very briefly one by one. The first referred to major changes in the Common Agricultural Policy. These are being effected. The noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, said that things had changed a good deal since October. They have never stopped changing since we arrived, and that is something in which all of us, in this Parliament and in the other Parliament, may take pleasure and satisfaction. The second point was a demand for new and fairer methods of financing the Community budget, so that our contribution to Community finances is fair. I shall have more to say about this at a later stage and therefore would prefer to leave this for the present.
The third point concerned the rejection of any kind of international agreement which compelled us to accept unemployment for the sake of maintaining a fixed parity. It is true that a monetary policy was always planned and always Mr. Wilson himself spoke highly of the idea. It was, and is still, thought of as part of the normal business of the Community as it develops and evolves. There is nothing to do with renegotiation involved in this. Although it has been there as an idea, nothing has been spelled out and the important point is that if we wish to discuss it as regards the way it will affect us, we are inside and can discuss it on equal terms. If we were outside we should not be there to discuss it, however it

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might affect us. In passing, perhaps I might observe that the only place where such a monetary system exists today is in the three Benelux countries, and this has been working since well before the formation of the European Community. This is the only case where more than one independent country has a monetary policy—and I concede that many people have some anxiety over monetary policy.
The fourth point concerned the retention of those Parliamentary powers over the British economy which are needed to effect regional and fiscal policies. In so far as regional policies are concerned, we will have a very great advantage—greater than almost any other member of the Community—from the Regional Fund which has been set up, as the noble Lord himself announced. I should like to ask him what may at first sight appear to be a very obvious question, and it is this. Emerging from a reading of the Prime Minister's points, do the Government wish to retain a right to top up and add to Community aid to a given region under the Regional Development Fund at their own will?—because I can see difficulties here, as I am sure he can.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I am obliged to the noble Lord for giving way. Did he say that he could or could not see the difficulties involved?
Lord SAINT OSWALD: My Lords, I can see the difficulties, though they may or may not be those which the noble Lord sees. If a Government—our own or another—were to add on its own account to development funds to a particular region on top of the funds provided by Community sources, this could affect fair competition within the Community. What I think will be required when the Regional Fund is set up is not an absolute ban on national funds being sent to assist regions which are already receiving Community aid or grants, but a condition being insisted upon by the Community—perhaps by the Commission—that such additional aid should be cleared by agreement with the partner nations. I see this not as a very great difficulty, but as something which might be mentioned. I have no doubt that the Government have given thought to it, so the noble Lord may be able to give me some kind of answer today.
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The fifth point concerned an agreement on capital movements which affects our balance of payments and full employment policies. I commend to the noble Lord the Selsdon Report, which spelled out what has happened in the two years since we joined, and which shows that there has not been a great outflow of capital from Britain. I can refer him to paragraphs 2.5, 2.6 and 2.7. The last is particularly interesting, because it refers to the disadvantages of foreign or strange bureaucracies; and this is where we, the Members of Parliament, come in, because it is really up to us to see that these disturbing bureaucratic barriers are removed. This can be done by ordinary legislation and by Community legislation, where such barriers might interfere with natural trade within the Community. My reason for raising this is that the figures so far in the past two years do not show that there has been a great capital outflow as a result of our membership.
The sixth point was that the economic interests of the Commonwealth and of developing countries must be better safeguarded. It really amazes me that this should have been put in. The old Commonwealth has benefited to an extraordinary degree and it is benefiting more and more by our membership of the Community. I hope the noble Lord will be able to meet Mr. Cheysson one day, if he has not done so already. He will find a man who is totally dedicated and who puts the whole of his soul into these matters. Also, as the noble Lord will know, a new agreement bringing in all the Commonwealth countries is about to be signed within a matter of a week or two, so I do not believe that this represents a serious problem, or indeed a serious barrier.
The seventh and last point raises a reference to a demand which was made that there should be no harmonisation of value added tax which would require us to tax necessities. I should like to know exactly what this means, because if it means a resistance on the part of the Government to total uniformity of structure and levels, then really such resistance is part of a general resistance. No country wants it and no Government wants it; nor does the Commission want it. In fact, the Commission produced a document only the other day which has not yet been published, but which has been

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passed to the committees and to member Governments, setting out its reasons against such uniformity.
In what I have said—and I will not say a great deal more—I wonder whether I have seemed somewhat starry-eyed. I have not mentioned the failures, and I am not pretending there have been no failures. The most notable and distressing is the failure to create a European energy policy. I wish the best of fortune to the Ministers who are going tomorrow to the meeting on energy policy. I wish them better fortune than our Ministers had before them. I should like to ask the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, a question which he will probably not be able to answer, but I understand from the Press today there was some kind of agreement between M. Giscard d'Estaing and President Ford on the beginnings of an energy policy. It may or may not be true. I am not seriously asking the Minister to give me an absolutely authoritative, cut and dried answer. I believe that we must have a European energy policy. We must either have that policy or revert to a Gadarene stampede not into a foaming rock-strewn torrent, but into a lagoon of hydro-carbon sludge. If I draw attention to the fact that not all has been monotonous triumph, there have been gains in which it has been wonderful to play a part. I will not continue boring your Lordships by saying how much I wish that others had shared that satisfaction with us. However, there have been gains.
The Summit, from what an outsider can see, ended on a happy and hopeful note. The most helpful opportunity was given to us in the European Parliament when on Wednesday the acting President in office of the Council came to speak to us and to report directly, the day after the Summit itself. Dr. Garret FitzGerald was in fact taking the place of M. Sauvagnargues, who was unable to come. But Dr. FitzGerald had himself come straight from the Summit meeting which he had attended throughout. As Foreign Minister of Ireland, he will take his turn as President of the Council for the first six months of next year, so that he was anticipating his office by only a few days. From what we saw, it will be a very stimulating six months coming next year. I should like to repeat a few phrases in a
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disconnected fashion from his speech and replies to questions:
"There has been a firm commitment to maintain economic growth, a commitment now shared by all countries. And there has been a commitment by the surplus countries to undertake their duties in this respect. The atmosphere of the discussions and the outcome have encouraged all of us who are concerned that this should remain a Community of Nine and that the United Kingdom should find it easy to maintain its membership. There was also the reaffirmation of the determination of Heads of State or Government—gradually to adopt common positions and to co-ordinate the diplomatic activities in all areas of international affairs, which affect the interests of the European Community. There is also the decision, important from the point of view of this Assembly, that the European Parliament must be more closely associated with the work of the Presidency ".
Another observation which won applause was:
"May I say, without any breach in confidence, that in our discussion there was a very clear recognition of the undesirability, even impracticability, of having direct elections from a Parliament which has inadequate power."
That was a recognition by the Council that Parliament's powers are inadequate and must be strengthened, and there is a determination upon this from one wing to the other of the whole Parliament. It has been supported for a long time by the Commission, and now we are ensured of support by the Council.
Noble Lords opposite might have been touched to hear M. Radoux express joy over the paragraph relative to Great Britain's adherence to the Community, the impression that a rapprochement had been achieved. He ended:
"We socialists have never wished for a Community without Great Britain."
From my Strasbourg Hansard I see that this won applause from the extreme Left, but in fact there was no section which did not provide such applause.
There was another piece of illumination from Dr. FitzGerald referring to Paragraphs 34 to 37 of the Communiqué, seeking to meet the British case. He confirmed, when requested, that this reassurance was entirely within the framework of the Treaty of Rome. He said it was set out to guide the Community, if unacceptable situations arise.
The paragraphs are in fact concerned with Articles 108 and 109 of the Treaty of Rome and are easily discovered by anybody who seeks a copy of the Treaty

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in the Library or Printed Paper Office. They deal with the possibilities of Member States helping each other. Article 108 begins:
"Where a Member State is in difficulties or is seriously threatened with difficulties as regards its balance of payments as a result either of the overall disequilibrium of its balance of payments or of the type of currency at its disposal"—
then action will be taken. This is the source of the co-operation which the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, described in part of his speech. What Dr. FitzGerald said was:
"What is proposed now is that the question will be studied to see what mechanism might best be adopted should such situations arise, and this is being done in what one might describe as very good time, before they do arise".
On these occasions of challenge and difficulty my mind goes back to a declaration made five years ago which gives encouragement:
"The economic and political integration of Europe are both essential as experience has shown, neither can go forward without the other. The European Communities remain the basis of European unity. … Europe must increasingly develop a common foreign policy so that she can act with growing effectiveness in internal affairs … In order to enhance its functions of guaranteeing security and stability, and within the other organisations to which we belong, the development of an European identity is a positive step in the process which is intended to lead to the creation of a united Europe".
I have to admit—and the House is always generous to admissions of honest misjudgment—that of late a teasing suspicion had entered my mind that the co-author of those fortifying words was beginning to lose his own conviction. They were issued on the 28th April 1969 as a joint declaration by Mr. Harold Wilson, the Prime Minister for Britain, and the President of Italy during the State visit of the latter to this country.
Because I feel that Mr. Wilson, and some close colleagues, have now reaffirmed in a somewhat lower key those earlier and most admirable sentiments, despite the understandably cautious words that we heard today from the noble Lord the Leader of the House, and the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, my heart warms even more spontaneously towards the noble Lord opposite than it might have done a week or even a month ago.
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I welcome this debate and thank the noble Lord for his speech.
5.0 p.m.
Lord GLADWYN: My Lords, we have now been members of the European Economic Community for nearly two years. For the last seven months we have had a Government who say that they cannot make up their mind whether we should stay in the Community until they have consulted the British people by referendum or by some other means. So the Government's view, as we understand it, is that it is now the people and not Parliament which is sovereign; until the people have pronounced we must therefore presumably regard our membership of the Community as in some way sub judice. We are at once members and non-members: in other words we are in a state of limbo. It is in this rather schizophrenic frame of mind, apparently, that the Government have been handling Community matters for no less than seven months. On the whole, as we think on these Benches, the result has been perhaps less unfortunate than might have been supposed. That is perhaps only because the Dr. Jekylls in the Cabinet have usually prevailed over the Mr. Hydes. With this in mind, I should like to deal with the White Paper section by section.
We start off with what for some reason is called renegotiation. Of course, this is a process which would have occurred whatever Government had been in Power since 1972. For instance, it was agreed— this is a point that was mentioned by the noble Lord who has just spoken— that the British contribution to the central budget should be reviewed effectively when any member, and notably, the United Kingdom, encounters any really serious difficulties in regard to its balance of payments. It is certainly now the case that we in this country are in such difficulties; nobody can deny that. Apart from that, the actual net contribution which we shall in theory be obliged to make in 1978 or 1980 is unpredictable. It depends on how much we can, for instance, step up agricultural production in this country, in which case the levies on our agricultural imports, which we have to hand over to the budget, will be diminished and we shall pay less into the central fund, just as the total of

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import duties which have to be handed over to the fund will be less the more we trade with the Community; and the tendency at the moment is for us to trade more and more with the Community.
However, it now looks, happily, as if the Government have at the Summit agreed in principle on a formula which, in addition to all these possibilities, would apparently achieve what I think is known by the experts as, "gross equity". This will certainly be welcome. Taking everything into consideration, it is rather difficult to see what genuine apprehensions the Government can now have in this regard. In other words, what the Government have always declared as the main obstacle in the way of our continuing membership of the Community has now in practice been surmounted or nearly surmounted. Besides, even if we do not achieve complete satisfaction on this point, it is surely impossible to maintain that we should for that reason alone tear up our Treaty obligations and leave the Community. For after all these precautions have been taken it could then only be, at the most, a question of adding a few million pounds to our national trading deficit in 1978, if indeed there is one, whereas if we abandon the Community we are certain to lose far more than that across the exchanges—this resulting no doubt, as has often been pointed out, in a closed economy or in widespread unemployment, or probably in both. Surely we must on this matter still preserve some sense of proportion.
So we come to the Common Agriculture Policy. The White Paper deals with this and we seem, I must admit, to have kept our end up quite well. We think that Mr. Peart is broadly speaking to be praised for his efforts. But it must be admitted that, for instance, as regards beef, if the Government had gone over to the intervention price system as soon as they came into power, instead of repudiating it, as is pointed out in paragraph 13, we might have had many fewer difficulties than we did have with our farming community. With regard to sugar, it has undoubtedly been the Community which has come to our rescue and has also made it possible for us to honour our commitment to the sugar-producing underdeveloped countries of the Commonwealth, although no doubt, I am afraid, at appalling cost. Finally, if we had not
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been members of the Community we should have had to suffer a heavy additional increase in the price of bread and, indeed, of other comestibles, this adding substantially to our cost of living.
As we all know, the Common Agriculture Policy is not an ideal system; nobody would pretend that. Our own policy of deficiency payments would have suited us much better. But it was simply not possible to impose the deficiency payment system on our partners in 1971–72. To have insisted on it would have meant a collapse of the negotiations, and our then Government, very properly, took the decision to swallow the CAP and to try to modify it as time went on, rather than accept the alternative—exclusion from the European Community, probably for ever. This policy was incidentally approved by those members of the Labour Government then in Opposition who had been given responsibility, before the previous Labour Government fell, for initiating the negotiations at the beginning of 1970. It was entirely comprehensible and there is no reason at all why it should be held against the Tories at the present time. In any case, the Commission, as we all know, are re-examining the whole CAP—I think reference was made to that by the last speaker—and when they report early in February we may well be able to agree on some salutary reforms. Let us hope so.
So we come to Chapter IV which is called, "External relations: Trade and Aid". Here we can all approve of the final five of the six objectives set out in paragraph 18. We have all read the Report, my Lords, but the final five deal largely with the developing countries and with the liberal Community attitude to multilateral trade negotiations and so on. We can all agree with those objectives, but I cannot see that they are renegotiation objectives. They are, rather, objectives that were in any case inherent in our membership of the European Economic Community from the start. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Saint Oswald, would agree with that. All of them, happily, seem either to have been achieved or to be well on the way to achievement. If that is not so, perhaps the noble Lord who winds up will tell us that it is not so; but so far as I can see, if one looks through these five objectives carefully and

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objectively one sees that in practice they all seem to have been achieved as it is.
However, why put as objective No. 1 "improved access for agricultural products from developed"—I repeat, developed—"Commonwealth countries"? Why put that as objective No. 1? Why, indeed, put it as an objective at all? It seems to represent a kind of ancestral urge to return to a blissful state of affairs in which the Commonwealth, which now accounts for only about 14 per cent. of our exports, was our chief trading partner and in which it was possible for us to obtain the cheap food which in the old days was so helpful in our trading generally. Today there is no cheap food in Commonwealth countries, developed or underdeveloped; nor is there likely to be, I am afraid, in the future. All the chances are against it. In any event, the developed countries do not even fill their quotas of cheese and butter which we fought so hard to obtain for them in 1971. To a large and increasing degree they now sell their food in other markets. They have no overriding need for the United Kingdom as, of course, they used to have in the days gone by. Besides, why should we take from these countries scarce food that might otherwise go to feed the starving millions of the Fourth World? Would not it be much better to aim at self-sufficiency in food for the European Economic Community—in other words, to step up the proportion of home-grown food from the present 50 per cent. to 65 or 70 per cent. or more, which the experts tell me could easily be done over the years, and ourselves to consume more and more of the agricultural surpluses of that huge and, agriculturally-speaking, largely underdeveloped country, France?
Chapter V, which deals with economic and monetary questions, regional matters and so on, is interesting and I think we all agree that on the whole it is encouraging. It shows what can be done by co-operation within the European Economic Community machine. Although it is not as large as we should have liked, the recently agreed Regional Development Fund has now actually been established, and there is no reason to suppose that if the Community develops satisfactorily—and we must all hope that it will—we shall not be able to benefit from it even
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more fully when the present three-year period is up.
While we are on that point, may I ask the noble Lord to answer the question which I put to the noble Lord the Lord Privy Seal on the Summit Statement but which he did not answer. The question was this: on the face of it, the gross amount of the fund which will come to the United Kingdom is, on average, about £47 million a year—28 per cent. of the total amount. However, we understand from the Summit that the Government think that it could be—I say "could" in inverted commas—as little as £20 million a year. Why is there such a large discrepancy? Of course, I understand that we must contribute something to the Fund, but I think that it is only 9 per cent.? However, if one deducts that 9 per cent., I think one finds that the net amount comes to considerably more than £20 million a year. My suspicion is that, for some reason best known to themselves, the Government want to play down the Regional Fund at this particular moment and do not wish to represent it as a great achievement. I may be wrong and perhaps the noble Lord will be able to reassure me.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, most certainly I shall!
Lord GLADWYN: My Lords, even anti-marketeers must welcome the loans which are referred to in paragraph 42. It is rather depressing to think that this, and, indeed, all the obviously beneficent activity which is referred to in this Chapter, would come to an abrupt end if the Government, at the instigation of perhaps 20 per cent. of the British people, are so extraordinarily ill-advised as to denounce the Treaties. The same naturally applies to the substantial receipts from the Social Fund which are referred to in paragraph 44 and to all prospects of arriving at a common energy policy which are dealt with in paragraph 45. Of course, if we left the Communities there would not be a common energy policy.
Therefore, my Lords, I turn to institutional matters and political co-operation. Here to a considerable extent, the Government have been hoist with their own petard, owing to the extraordinary decision not to be represented in the

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European Parliament, which they seem to think that they can diminish in importance by calling it by its original appellation of "Assembly". The Labour Party has had no part to play in the vital and extremely encouraging debates which went on at Strasbourg regarding the European Parliament's role in the approval of the European budget, which now amounts, as is noted in paragraph 32, to no less than £2,400 million. If it is ratified, I believe that the final arrangement will come into operation in about a year's time from now, and it will give the European Parliament very considerable powers over a considerable part of the budget. If it comes into operation, as I am sure that it will, then the importance of the European Parliament will be increased, and it will be evident that if we are to continue in the Community the European Parliament will have to be directly elected. It seems evident that, if the Government decide to remain in the Community, they will have to go along with that.
I do not know whether noble Lords have yet had time to read the Patijn Report which is likely to be approved by the plenary of the European Parliament in January. If they have not done so, noble Lords may find it well worth doing so. Mr. Patijn is a young Dutch Socialist of great energy and intelligence, and what he says in his report ought, one imagines, to make a strong appeal to social democrats in this contry, in so far as they are not blinded by anti-Market prejudice.
Finally, we must understand from what is said under the heading of "Political Co-operation" in paragraph 50, that the Government are pleased, on the whole, with the efforts which have been made since March to harmonise the foreign policy of the Nine. It has not been as successful as it might have been, owing to the inability of the Ministers to provide themselves with a secretariat which is situated in one place and also with an influential Secretary-General. If NATO have such an institution and such an officer, why should the Community not have them, too? But I admit that there has been some constructive endeavour. The so-called d'Avignon procedure works after a fashion and, very slowly, is being improved.
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As is known, the Conference of Foreign Ministers is a separate institution from the Council of Ministers of the European Economic Community. This is rather absurd, because certain aspects of common foreign policy, notably negotiations for Community treaties, aid to underdeveloped countries and so on, are handled already by the Commission. Theoretically, the Conference of Foreign Ministers of the Nine could continue to function even if the Community collapsed or even if the United Kingdom left the Community. In practice, however, the two machines—that is to say, the foreign policy machine and the Community machine—are interlocking, and one day they will be merged if the Community continues to exist throughout the ages.
My Lords, that brings me to my final point. In Chapter VII the Government say that there is now apparently a pretty general feeling in the Council of Ministers that economic and monetary union cannot be achieved by 1980 and that therefore there is no longer any need to examine this possibility. If that is not what they say, perhaps the Minister will correct me. That may be the mood at the present time, but I suggest that we have only got to wait until the full force of the coming "economic hurricane"—to borrow the vivid phrase of the Leader of the Opposition—hits us to see this attitude change; for either the hurricane will drive us all apart, which is quite possible, and the whole Community will dissolve or we shall all have to take cover in the same dugout.
In the meantime, why cannot British Ministers at least consider such interim measures for a European reserve currency as are proposed in the excellent work of Signor Magnifico which has just been awarded the Bentinck Prize in Paris for the work which has done most in the past year to encourage the European idea? And what is inherent in this idea? What is inherent in it is evidently some kind of democratic European union of a new and modern type, otherwise it makes no sense. On this point the Government say—I think in paragraph 55—that they have absolutely no notion what the Heads of Government meant when they launched this objective in October 1972; they have absolutely

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no idea. But have not they any ideas of their own? They could say, for instance, that in principle they are in favour not so much of a federation in the old-fashioned sense or of a federation based upon the classical model but of the gradual development of the Council of Ministers, now, as we know, happily to be largely superseded by a kind of super-Council which will meet three or four times a year—a kind of supreme Council of Heads of Government, advised by the Commission, which will become the European Government of the future itself controlled by an elected Parliament.
There is no reason why they should not describe the kind of objective to which they are trying to move, even if progress may be slow. If they did, they would surely be only one step away from attempting to convince the British people—and this is what we ought to do, otherwise it is not much good going on—that it really is not a question of diminishing or limiting their sovereignty; that is to say, control over their destinies, but rather of expanding and extending it, so that their future lies in some close democratic association with their immediate neighbours and not in a most unsplendid and provincial isolation uninspired by any coherent political philosophy unless it be that propounded by the latter day disciples of Karl Marx or Trotsky or even conceivably Mao Tse Tung.
I repeat that I am nevertheless encouraged personally by the White Paper, which seems to show that the Government appreciate some of the benefits that flow from membership of the Market even though they cannot apparently emphasise this at the present time. We must hope and pray, however, that it will not be too long before they can do so in the context of what they will no doubt represent as a highly successful "renegotiation". If they do. I have no doubt whatever that, irrespective of Party, the vast majority of this House, which we like to think contains some of the best brains in this country, will give them, on this issue at any rate, what is known as fullhearted support.
5.22 p.m.
Baroness TWEEDSMUIR of BEL-HELVIE: My Lords, I should like to
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add my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, for the way in which he introduced this White Paper and, above all, for the fact that he brought us up to date in consequent negotiations from the end of October, when this Paper ends. This debate has also given an opportunity to my noble friend Lord Saint Oswald to give us a most vivid account of his experiences in the European Parliament, which makes me want to visit it even more than I do already. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, that this White Paper is an encouraging document. I feel I must mention the fact that as a Scot, while I congratulate the Government on at last achieving agreement over a regional fund, I wish the amount involved had been a great deal more.
This is the first speech that I have dared to make since being appointed, on 7th November. Chairman of the Select Committee of the European Communities. As the House knows, noble Lords of all political Parties take part in the work of the sub-committees, and many who are co-opted to the Committee. We have noble Lords who have voted against membership of the Market and those who have voted for it. Therefore, before I go on to other matters, I should like to draw the attention of the Government to some of the problems that I have already found confronting our Committee, because I think they are relevant to some parts of the White Paper.
The White Paper describes the function of the Select Committee, and I should like to thank the Government for the assurance that they have given, which was repeated today, that this House will be given the opportunity to debate matters of interest when a Report is made. Of course the reason why so many noble Lords give of their time and talent to this work is because, whether they are for or against the Market, they feel it is a British interest to try to make Parliamentary scrutiny work. May I take this opportunity of thanking the Government Departments and the Cabinet unit for the very large efforts they have made to try to keep us informed so far. However, I am going to refer to the problems—not to all the things that have gone right.

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The Maybray-King Report rather forecast a problem which might arise. In paragraph 120 it said:
"There is the problem that some important Commission proposals are substantially modified by the Council".
In paragraph 49 of the White Paper we are discussing today it is said:
"Improvements have been introduced in the working procedures in the Council of Ministers."
May I ask the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, whether he will define these improvements in the working procedures? For example, our sub-committees often find that they are considering EEC proposals on the basis of Papers and explanatory memoranda from Government Departments which, by the time the Scrutiny Committee considers them, are long out of date. This is not due to a backlog of proposals. Because of the great work done by my predecessor, the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, during the Parliamentary Recess, I think we shall have achieved the end of the backlog by the end of the Christmas Recess. I am speaking of up-to-date documents as they should be. Indeed, only last week I received a letter from the noble Lord, Lord Walston, who is chairman of Sub-Committee D which considers agriculture and consumers affairs. It said this:
"Two draft Instruments have been examined by the sub-committee and on each occasion the proposal was discovered to have been replaced—for all practical purposes—by a Ministry re-draft. The comments submitted at our invitation by various trade and consumer associations have all referred to the redrafted Instrument, which is of course a Council working document and, as such, not available for scrutiny. Indeed, in the evidence received from the Consumers' Association it was suggested that—and I quote—'to put it bluntly, we would be wasting their Lordships' time and ours if we were to consider what is now an historical document'."
The House will appreciate that, as Chairman, I find myself embarrassed at having invited so many noble Lords who have much else to do, to come and give of their time, unless the documents before us really are up to date. I would therefore suggest to the Government that there should be a regular procedure whereby Parliament is informed of any important modifications made in the Council's working parties or in the Commission's proposals.
Then of course it is well known that procedures in the Council are unsatis-
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factory so far as fast-moving proposals are concerned, when agendas are altered at the last moment. I again suggest that the Government should press with their colleagues for changes in the working procedures, which they appear to have done but without expanding on them in the document before us today.
I feel also that I must refer to certain proposals on improving the working procedures of the Council as described in the Communiqué from the Heads of Government on which a Statement was made today. It is relevant to refer to it since the noble Lord who opened the debate referred to it himself and it makes one's own remarks more relevant. In the first paragraph on page 4 we have the statement about limiting the use of the veto. This is very important and it carries further the procedures which were envisaged in the Treaty of Rome. But I would ask how the Government, represented in the Council, are going to make sure that debates will take place in this House and in another House on proposals before the Council if they have to take a decision by majority vote. It is very important that the assurance given on debates should be undertaken in this new procedure.
Then on the same page the second paragraph says:
"Greater latitude will be given to the permanent representatives so that only the most important political problems need be discussed in the Council".
It goes on to say that it will be
"necessary to strengthen the role of the permanent representatives and involve them in preparing national positions on European affairs".
Documents will go from the Commission to COREPER, which is really an intergovernmental negotiating body. If amendments are made there (and decisions are likely to be made by the permanent representatives) will these amendments be available to the Scrutiny Committee before decisions are taken on them? If mandates are to be prepared for negotiating positions I would suggest to the House that mandates are not in fact confidential. I remember that when I was on the Bench opposite and was speaking as a Minister for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, was on this Bench, he waved a negotiating mandate before me. Trade negotiations are within the

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terms of reference of the Scrutiny Committee.
In paragraph 3, again on page 4 of the Communiqué the Heads of Government—
"agree on the advantage of making use of the provisions of the Treaty of Rome whereby the powers of implementation and management arising out of Community rules may be conferred on the Commission".
We do not, of course, study the administrative Acts of the Commission. But I suggest that we should be informed of politically sensitive matters which come before the Commission's Management Committee, and I give an example which is well-known, the "butter mountain". That is the kind of thing on which I believe the House should have had an opportunity to express its views before decisions were taken. I am really asking the Government to give us more information, to give it early and at the right time.
But if the Select Committee itself finds it difficult to keep up to date with information coming from the Community, how much more difficult it must be for members of the public. I suggest that it is the responsibility of the Government to inform the public how the Community works. Information is very badly needed, not least because there is a division of opinion on the merits of membership. I think instant information about the Council is an absolute necessity. I regret to say that this has not been done for the public either by the present Government or by their Conservative predecessors. The House knows that a great deal of work was done to inform the public about the Community, notably by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, at the time of negotiation and of British entry. But after entry—and then the Government was a Conservative Government—it was thought more suitable to have a Cabinet unit responsible for this information, in order to draw together the domestic departments. Personally I think we made a mistake. The task is so huge, and in a swift-moving situation I believe that information is better dealt with by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office which, at the time of entry, had a very experienced team.
I submit to the House that it is essential that the Government should follow through their work now by informing
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public opinion on all these matters, particularly as the noble Lord said from that Bench this afternoon that it was hoped to finish negotiations by the end of March. That means that some form of consultation with the public will be essential before October of next year. I would agree with my noble friend Lord Saint Oswald that the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary seem to have found how flexible and constructive the Community can be, not least in the paragraph quoted by the noble Lord that
"… prices of a number of important products, notably cereals and sugar, are now substantially below those on the word market."
If the Government decide in the end that they wish to recommend that Britain should stay in the Community, they will surely need a long period for providing information for the public, before the people decide through the ballot box, either by a referendum or a General Election.
It is constructive to recall the Danish experience before their referendum on the advantages of membership. In 1971 the Danish Government produced concise pamphlets for the Danish public on the European Community's activities and on the most important questions connected with Denmark's accession to an extended Community. There were 12 large and altogether separate subjects. In each pamphlet existing legislation within the Community was commented upon, as well as plans for the years ahead. A popular version of the Rome Treaty was issued (I think that it was quite good to be able to do it) and distributed to all Danish households—I hasten to say free of charge—and the Danish Parliament granted the equivalent of £1½ million for information alone. Of course they had an information office for the benefit of the public.
So far as consultation with the British public is concerned, it would be interesting to know at this stage whether the Government will give more information about how they propose to consult the people on EEC membership. For example, if it is decided to produce legislation enabling a referendum to be held, will the Government first issue a Green Paper on the mechanics of the question to encourage public discussion? Has consideration been given to the form of the question? It is surely important that it

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should be easily understood. Your Lord-ships will recall the Italian divorce referendum, where confusion was caused by the voters being asked to vote "Yes" if they were against divorce, and "No" if they were in favour. I should like to ask whether the result of a referendum would be announced on a national, regional or constituency basis? In view of the extreme importance of the issue, have the Government given consideration to insisting on a certain minimum percentage of votes recorded, and a certain minimum majority in favour, for example, of leaving the EEC?
My Lords, whatever happens the time has come for us to hear the Government's views on the alternative to membership of the Community, because their thinking has never been defined. Is it thought, for example, that we could conclude free trade agreements with the Community, counting on the generosity of the Eight just after we have left it and with our own economy and circumstances so different from those of Norway? Is it thought that Denmark and Ireland would leave with us when by all accounts they are well satisfied with their own membership? Is it thought that we could develop trading links with the Commonwealth when so many members are trying to do just that with the Community? Is it thought that we could have greater influence on our own? The world has moved on a great deal since 1971. I suggest that it is now a prime British interest that as much information as possible is given to Parliament and the public, so that they can know how the Community works, and we can do our best to make it work.
5.39 p.m.
Lord REAY: My Lords, I should like to follow the example of the previous speakers in not confining my remarks to events which occurred before the end of October this year, but in referring to events which have occurred since and, equally, in looking to the future. I doubt whether there is anyone, whatever the horrors which he imagines would flow from the conclusion being the conclusion that he does not want, who will not be relieved when the Government's protest of renegotiation is officially announced to have come to an end. Despite the fascination of watching some of the skills, and
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even more some of the complexities, which are at times demonstrated in the process, the prevailing impression is one of waiting. I would not deny that during the period of renegotiation there may be—there will be—an accrual of advantages within the Community in Britain's favour. But the magnitude of those advantages, earned in honest negotiation, do not compare with the magnitude of the opportunities and dangers which are presented to us by events in the world at large. The protraction of renegotiation distracts the attention, diverts the energies, postpones the concentration of effort which Europe as a whole, in unity, needs to devote to the defence of its civilisation.
I do not intend today to enter into details of the Government's process of renegotiation. For one thing, we have discussed some of them recently. I have particularly in mind the very full debate we had on the Community's relations with developing countries. Incidentally, it has given me satisfaction to see it reported that the Prime Minister currently agrees with my conclusion on that matter; namely, that in that quarter Community and British policies are converging satisfactorily. Another reason why I do not wish to enter into detail is the perplexing matter of how many points of renegotiation are actually at issue at any one moment, and the equally perplexing problem of knowing on how many of these points the Government at any one time consider they have got satisfaction.
In a normal world, particularly since most members of the Government do not disguise their belief that events are unrolling favourably, one would expect the number of points at issue to decline progressively in number. On the other hand, when he spoke at the annual dinner of the Labour Lord Mayors, the Prime Minister appears to have contrived to increase them in number. The fact is that we proceed not by ticking-off items on an agenda, but by subtle variations in emphasis, in the reservations and qualifications which fill the official announcements. For those outside the Labour Party, this is more a spectacle than an opportunity for debate. I doubt if my noble friend Lord Saint Oswald is right when he supposes that Her Majesty's Government could afford to respond to

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his appeal for more candour in the way he requested.
My Lords, after renegotiation, God willing, comes the referendum. Of course, God may not be willing. So filled is the future with the possibilities of crisis that, whether or not such a crisis precipitated a General Election, events might so turn out that to hold a referendum would be an unthinkable irresponsibility. But let us suppose, as we must, that there is a referendum. In such a case, if the Government, in recommending the new terms to the British people, exaggerate the advantages, the great concessions they will claim to have won on the Continent, if the Prime Minister presents himself like Nelson to the British people I, for one, will not cavil too much. For the referendum was always bound to be a test, not of the terms, provided they were not exceptionally harsh—and they never were, contrary to what the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, implied today—but of the willingness of the British people to volunteer to remain members of the Community as such. The anti-Marketeers have seen it as that. It was they who demanded it, and for them, in conflict with their protestations of faith in the doctrine of the sovereignty of Parliament, the referendum is just the last possibility of securing Britain's withdrawal.
There are two obstacles to the certainty that those who wish the United Kingdom to remain in the Community will win the referendum—the official position of the majority of the trade unions, and the pessimism of the British people. The unions have the problem of the continuity of their positions on this matter. The first opportunity for a change in attitude would be the moment of conclusion of renegotiation, supposing this to have been done to the publicly expressed satisfaction of the Government. The preponderant antagonism of the Labour movement to the EEC is based—and I believe the noble Lord, Lord George-Brown, was right when he talked of xenophobia—on the compensation which the working-class found in the past for their deprivations, in the reflection that, after all, they were British. But attitudes outlast the situations for which they were suitable. It is now obvious that for 20 years, British class attitudes have prevented the economic regeneration which
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would have rendered such compensation unnecessary. Therefore, it is a vicious circle. As for the solution to this problem, I am not qualied to offer an answer. Any remark I made which was addressed directly to the unions would be brushed off as impudence. I will limit myself to this basis for an argument.
The trade union movement is not exclusively a national movement. There are international and regional groupings. British trade union leaders have shown themselves to be both wanted and willing to occupy senior functions in these confederations, as the example of the noble Lord, Lord Feather, demonstrates. He was the first President of the now rapidly expanding Trade Union Confederation, which itself grew from the coming together of the EFTA and the ECFTU unions in the early 'seventies, partly in anticipation of the enlargement of the Community. The importance of these confederations, of an integration of trade union movements across national frontiers, must increase in response to the ever expanding phenomenon of the multinational company, and in recognition of other developments, such as the increasing internationalisation of the approach of the unions in various matters—for example, worker participation—and as a method of organising the growing links between unions in different member States, which is now undertaken on an individual basis. The British Government should support the ambitions of such movements, and the claims which the United Kingdom trade union movement makes upon such movements.
As for the pessimism of the British people, I would say this—which is much that I would have said, and did say, three years ago, although I say it now more urgently. The British people need and deserve a situation in which they can have the sensation of being free to create. Despite economic expansion, the last 20 years—to speak only of the last 20 years—have been years of decline for Britain, because the fate of nations is more a comparative than an absolute matter. Every society would survive if none were to challenge it from outside. A society would change its character, but it would survive. The economic experience of Britain over the last quarter of a century has been a failure, not in absolute terms but because others with resources which were not superior—indeed, with resources which

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were for historical reasons initially inferior—have used them better. However much the people give the impression of ignoring the outside world, they are conscious of failure. The experience is frustrating.
But frustration has become pessimism because, while internal attitudes have not changed decisively, new and formidable external dangers have arisen. Therefore, it is not simply sterile to retain attitudes that have lingered on from the time when Britain could control, command and summon to her service the reserves of an empire; it is also dangerous. This longing for the isolation which was possible in the past is expressed by various arguments, of which the argument about the sovereignty of Parliament is most certainly one. But the past does not exist. Subjected continents have risen to dispute the predominance of Western power. Relationships of dependence have been equalised, if not reversed. We are now a vulnerable and dependent island. Europe must unite to defend its civilisation. And we will serve the people's aspiration to create, and the fundamental consideration of its safety, if we unite with Europe in that vital task.
5.50 p.m.
Lord RHODES: My Lords, on this subject we have had a lot of high sounding phrases and speeches in the past, probably a lot too many. If it was a question of remaining in or not I reflect that the wool trade could probably give a better reason in five minutes for remaining in the Common Market than any speech I have heard, either in this House or out of it. May I say at the outset that I support and congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Tweedsmuir, on her speech and on having put so clearly the feelings of many of us on the Scrutiny Committee of the House of Lords. It is the first time many of us have really come to grips with any of the practical mechanisms of the Common Market institutions. I heartily endorse her point that if you need two Select Committees, one here and one in the Commons, to alert Members as to what is going on, how on earth do we expect people in the country to know enough about it to vote in a referendum? I drew attention to this last July, and I do not retract one word of what I said then.
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My contribution this afternoon is one which stems from practicalities. I am jealous that our Scrutiny Committees shall work; it is important that they be seen to work and seen to work well. Again, I support the noble Baroness, Lady Tweedsmuir, in the plea for more information. It was good to see from this report that our Ministers have been fully committed, as is said in paragraph 6, in the deliberations and decision making of the Community. United Kingdom Ministers have attended 28 times. This is good, and being able to identify Ministers who were present when EEC decisions were made will be very useful to the Scrutiny Committee of both Houses. I will try to explain why. We shall be able to get more information and be able to apportion responsibility to a particular Minister who was present when decisions were reached in the Council of Ministers. This matter of responsibility for decisions taken cannot be regarded too highly.
We may be able to look forward to the Council of Ministers having a proper agenda to work on at some time, because we have never had one up to date. I have rarely seen so much slapdash business coming from the Council of Ministers and the Commission. If they have a proper agenda to work on it will help the Scrutiny Committee, and it will help them enormously. This need for a realistic agenda is highlighted in the Special Reports which were submitted to our Government by the two Scrutiny Committees during the course of the summer.
I want to refer to what the Commons said, because it is very important that we up here should know what the Commons are thinking about this. I am not going to paraphrase. I quote from paragraph 16 of their Second Special Report which is applicable:
"… the agenda of each meeting of the Council of Ministers is finalised only days (or even hours) before the meeting takes place".
I go on:
"Scrutiny of the backlog has necessarily involved the taking at every meeting of items due to be considered by the Council later the same month, or in some cases the same week. In particular, problems have been caused by the inability of the Government departments primarily involved …. "—
these are our Government departments—
"to advise with certainty exactly what was on the agenda for the next meeting and (at least

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for several days afterwards) what had been agreed at the last."
I quote again:
"In some cases also the summary procedure by which matters are agreed at the level of the Permanent Representatives (or equivalent) … (commonly called the 'A' point procedure) has caused comparable problems. The Committee is aware of the difficulties of the Government in these matters, which sometimes results from current Community practice."
That is what the Commons have said.
Let me draw attention to some of the dangers of this summary type of instant legislation. Members will remember that we debated on 7th November certain items that needed scrutiny by this Committee. They had to do with the packaging of liquids and of other types of goods. This came under the category of shotgun legislation. We had to act on these, and act quickly. We did our best with them, but I believe they were decided on before they were discussed in this House. It so happens that there was no harm done by the shotgun practice in that instance, but I am going to draw attention to something that might have more serious consequences.
Let us suppose that similiar measures were applied to other industries. Most of our export industries of any size have committed themselves to freight containers. There is a huge investment in containers and ships constructed to International Standards Organisation dimensions. I am delighted to see the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, in her place, as she is the Chairman of the British Standards Institute, because I am going to refer to the British Standards Institute in a moment. It so happens that the EEC, the Commission, is proposing dimensions for certain packaged goods based on the continental module which fits the European railway pallet, but does not fit the International Standards Organisation. As the noble Baroness knows, the organisation which dealt with standards are the International Standards Organisation, the CEN—which is the European Standards Organisation—and our own British Standards Institute. I understand that the EEC Commission intends to adopt the CEN standards.
If legislation of a shotgun nature is brought to us with the same speed as
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the packaging legislation was brought to us on 7th November, large sections of industry will be seriously damaged, to say the least. What I suggest—and the Government should take notice of it—is that strong representations must be made on both the CEN (the European organisation) and the ISO (the International Standards Oraganisation). If the British Standards Institute is starved of the funds so that they cannot do it well on our behalf, we shall be the losers. I make a plea that the Government should see to it that the British Standards Institute is backed to the hilt.
My next example of the inadequacy of the general control is a document that we discussed last week on the Scrutiny Committee. It was called the Regulation of the Council on Control of Concentrations between Undertakings; in other words, it meant mergers. We know that as a country we were 50 years behind the Americans in legislation covering monopolies (the Sherman Act of 1896; ours was in 1947) and that covering mergers (the Clayton Act in 1940, and ours was in 1965). This is a document setting out the pros and cons of the possibility of legislating on mergers. I do not want to refer to its merits, because it would take too long and I am not qualified to do it although I put the Bill covering mergers through Parliament in 1965, but I should think that it has precious little chance of ever seeing the light of day in its present state. That is by the way.
What I want to relate is how the document came into existence. This is fundamentally important, because we must know the antecedents of a document that comes to be examined by us. During the course of questioning, this sort of information came out. The Council of Ministers requested the appropriate member of the Commission to prepare a draft, which he did, but we do not know at this juncture who was the person who prepared it, or whether it was a junior who thought out a kind of White Paper for discussion.
A working party of civil servants was formed. We sent our quota over to Brussels, I presume, at regular intervals. We found that there was a difference of opinion on the working party as to the validity of a lot of the things in the paper, and no wonder, because of the nine countries in Europe only two have any merger

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legislation whatever. Are the other seven countries asking the EEC to legislate for them? What philosophy lies behind the activities of the working parties that are set up to consider these proposals? Do the United Kingdom representatives have instructions from the home Government? These are the questions I should like answered. Who regulates the speed of the progress in these committees, and are they left to do as they like?
Lord GEORGE-BROWN: My Lords, before my noble friend goes on—and he, like me, takes time—in the countries of the EEC we have, maybe, two who are complementary and seven competitors. We have to face real competition from the Far East, and some of it from areas for whom we still have responsibility. Is my noble friend really arguing that we could do it better alone, or that we could do it better as a member of the Nine?
Lord RHODES: No, my Lords, I am not. What I am doing, if the noble Lord will listen, is setting out some of the practicalities. I say without any fear of contradiction that by stopping in the Common Market we could do better in the way of having a defence against cheap imports of textiles than by going out. I will give the noble Lord that, if that is the answer that he wants.
Before the document comes to the Scrutiny Committee its origins should be stated—who was responsible for starting it, who wrote it, what working parties have considered it, and how far towards finality has the document reached—so that we do not need to waste time. It should also be stated which of our Ministers is accountable, so that we can question him. Personally, I do not think that any logical decision-making is practicable at the Council of Ministers, until they adopt a system of introducing a programme of legislation on the lines or the Queen's Speech. If from where we sit in our committees we knew what we could expect in the next twelve months in the way of proposed legislation from the EEC it would help everybody. Let us be able to identify which are White Papers, and which are Directives. Much of the argument that I heard last week on energy was fruitless, because of the nature of the documents from the EEC, which are not in the
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nature of White Papers to discuss. I would make a plea on these lines, which may not be entirely workable. We must have an agenda for what we are doing. Otherwise, we shall be wasting time through not being able to get down to real business which is what many of us desire. We must be seen to be making these institutions work, and soon.
6.11 p.m.
The Earl of DUDLEY: My Lords, it is a pleasure and a challenge to follow the noble Lord, Lord Rhodes, especially as we are both colleagues on the European Communities Committee. I gladly join him in his warm tribute to our Chairman, the noble Baroness, Lady Tweedsmuir of Belhelvie, for her excellent work as Chairman and for her constructive, informative and thoughtful speech. That will be the last of my compliments. I must tell noble Lords that my remarks are likely to be less anodyne than the remarks of the noble Lord who replied to the Motion and those of other noble Lords. I hope that as the holiday season draws near my colleagues on the sub-committee will be indulgent if I find it necessary to depart from the strict standards of neutrality, which I set myself on that sub-committee, in order to make a few points which will be unpopular with noble Lords opposite.
As the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, said, the White Paper is the first of the Reports which the Government undertook to submit periodically on developments in the Community. They did not go along with another suggestion that they should furnish European agendas. A comparison between the White Paper and the Communiqué shows that this decision is in line with the Government's normal European posture of looking forward in Brussels and looking back at Westminster. Perhaps that will indicate that I felt less complimentary about the White Paper than do other noble Lords.
The White Paper may have some encouraging features, but it also has some very bad ones, not least that it contradicts itself on a number of important points. For instance, in paragraph 9 it is stated:
"The Report deals with decisions reached by the Community. In general it does not deal with matters which are still under discussion on which in many cases substantial progress has been made since March."

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This said, the Paper then goes on to deal with no less than 16 paragraphs, with some 21 matters still under discussion where no decision has been reached by the Community. How much of this backlog was caused by the active participation of Her Majesty's Government in Community affairs or by renegotiation the Paper does not say. But as there are important policy areas affected by renegotiation—namely, the Budget, CAP, Community policies towards the Commonwealth, trade and aid with developing countries, and, finally regional and industrial policy—it is fair to assume that progress in these areas has been delayed by the decision to renegotiate.
Turning to another piece of careless phraseology in paragraph 6 of the White Paper, noble Lords may read that the
"United Kingdom has played a full part in the deliberations and discussions of the Community in the period under review."
Your Lordships and Members of another place who are in favour of Britain's membership, would say that this was her right and obligation under the Treaties and that the Government have no freedom of choice. They would, I think, regard the statement as superfluous; but the claim to have
"played a full part"
is something else. What about the Labour Parliamentary delegation, as the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, said? Where were they? We have not heard of them. But perhaps the White Paper is right and they do exist and are stranded looking for Maplin, or the entrance to the Channel Tunnel, or in a HS 146! "Full part" will be still less true of the current period. The communiqué reveals that the Government have withdrawn from discussions about the election to the European Assembly, but the noble Lord the Lord Privy Seal confirmed this in his Statement to the House. I would have thought that many noble Lords would be dismayed by that decision and would expect that the Mother of Parliaments would bring her wisdom and experience to bear upon the developments of the Assembly, as it is her right to do. The Government have already shown their disregard for Parliament by their decision to appeal direct to the people over the heads of their elected representatives in
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order to settle their own Party dispute over membership; and now they show their further disfavour by this high-handed and authoritarian decision taken without any regard for the will of Parliament.
The Report also claims that Ministers attended 28 meetings of the Council of Ministers up to the end of October. There must also have been innumerable meetings at official level, meetings of COREPER and the various committees of council, although the Paper does not mention this. I said that despite the Paper's disclaimer there are many matters in it other than Council decisions. That period of intense activity (and I do not dispute the activity, although I doubt the progress) has been followed by the Summit. Noble Lords would not, I think, argue with the proposition that at the Summit there were considered matters of major importance to the Community; nor would they dispute that there must have been many weeks, if not months, of official preparation for it. the communiqué sets out what these matters are and I shall list them in the order in which they appear.
First, there is the important decision that the President of the Council in Office will be spokesman for the Nine and will set out their views in international diplomacy. Secondly, there is the agreement that the European Assembly must be more closely associated with the work of political co-operation in the construction of Europe. Thirdly, there is the intention to renounce the practice whereby agreement to a proposal is conditional upon a unanimous vote in Council. That proposal is there despite the qualifications put upon it by the noble Lord the Lord Privy Seal. Fourthly, there is the agreement to confer powers of implementation and management upon the Commission. Fifthly, there is the decision to provide for harmonisation of legislation affecting aliens and the abolition of passport control within the Community. Sixth, there is the instruction to a Working Party to study conditions and timing for citizens of the Nine member States to be given special rights as members of the Community. Seventh, there is the intention to achieve election of the European Assembly by universal suffrage as soon as possible and at any

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time in or after 1978. Eighth, there is the extension of the Assembly's powers in the Community's legislative process.
My Lords, there are others, but first I should like to deal with those eight subjects. It is beyond the bounds of reason that these weighty matters did not form part of the pre-arranged agenda of the Summit meeting and that much previous study and consideration was not given to them. Yet what does the White Paper have to say about them? What do we find? Nothing! Silence! Omerta! as is said by the Mafiosi, using a word from that part of Europe which is to receive the largest part of the Regional Development Fund. Of course, my Lords, these matters are all strong meat for the anti-Marketeers. They are not the string of tasty sausages brandished by the White Paper—uncontroversial subjects such as GATT, Convention of Association, policies towards Mediterranean and State trading countries and the like. I am not disparaging the importance of these: I am merely mentioning their controversiality.
However, there are three other policy areas which the Government evidently considered of such moment as to be unavoidable for mention—European union, Economic and Monetary union and the Regional Development Fund. So they floated them gently in the air like coloured balloons, no doubt hoping that they would drift there for some time; but unfortunately they immediately exploded on the sharp points of the communiqué. On European union, I quote from the White Paper:
"The Minister of Foreign Affairs of the nine member Governments discussed this question at an informal meeting at Schloss Gymnich"—
no doubt pronounced "gimmick" by some members of the Cabinet—
"on 20th-21st April. Widely differing views were expressed at that meeting on meaning and content of European union, and it was clear that there was no common understanding of what was envisaged by the October 1972 communiqué".
Now the communiqué:
"The Heads of Government note that the process of transforming the whole complex of relations between the Member States in accordance with the decision taken in Paris in October 1972 has already started. They are determined to make further progress in that direction. In this connection they consider that the time has come for the Nine to
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agree as far as possible an overall concept of European Union".
On Economic and Monetary co-operation, the White Paper says:
"There has in recent months been a major change of attitude on the part of other Member States on the practicability of an early move to permanently fixed parities between EEC countries, and the concept of attaining economic and monetary union by 1980. The Council of Ministers has discontinued the discussion of a draft resolution on the implementation of a second stage in the move towards EMU".
Now the communiqué:
"The Heads of Government having noted that internal and international difficulties have prevented in 1973 and 1974 the accomplishment of expected progress on the road to EMU affirm that in this field their will has not weakened and that their objective has not changed since the Paris conference".
On the Regional Development Fund the White Paper says:
"The Community has made no further progress in agreeing to the establishment of a Community Regional Development".
The communiqué:
"The Heads of Government decide that the European Regional Development Fund will be put into operation by the institutions of the Community with effect from 1st January 1975".
I think the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, will be disappointed by the replies to his and my question. I had in fact worked out on the information available that, due to the contribution and also our share of the payment to Ireland, which Italy does not share, I am sure we do not receive in the first year much more than £16 million.
My Lords, where have been the thoughts of Ministers and officials during these past months? Were they listening? Were they deliberating? Were they discussing? Were they playing a full part? Did they realise that the elections in Germany and then France brought to power men of vision concerned to make progress in the development of a new Europe and in the securing of a fuller and better life for their peoples? I listened, my Lords, to the BBC's interview with the Prime Minister last Wednesday, on his return from Paris, when he said in reply to questions about the commitment to economic and monetary union—and his words were very little different from what I am going to say:
"There is absolutely no commitment; but I did not want to take away their vision".

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My Lords, it is past time for Britain to make up her mind about Europe, about the Europe from which we all sprang or emigrated—Celts, Romans, Jutes, Angles, Saxons, Danes, Normans, Jews and even the Ancient Britons, who must have come here from the Continent with the retreat of the ice. Their descendants have finally established, after centuries of struggle and war, here and in other Western European countries, a society which is democratic, radical and free. I urge that we stay in it, apply our minds to it, grow with it and unite it. We must decide soon, because we have it in our power and competence to take away the vision and to destroy Europe's future. What do those so minded intend to put in its place? A socialist Utopia? I do not need to point out to noble Lords opposite the distinction between international and national socialism; and a narrow isolationist socialist society would bring back the Ice Age quicker than any climatic change. Nor do I need to remind my noble friends of the difference between conservatism and jingoism. When "Land of Hope and Glory" is sung and if tears flow, they are shed not only for Britain but for lost hopes and past glories. But hope can be revived and glory shared with the other peoples of Europe, if their leaders will give them faith in the Community's future and not take the vision away.
6.26 p.m.
Lord AUCKLAND: My Lords, not being a member of the European Parliament, and not having been to any of the EEC countries except for having been to Brussels, I do not take part in this debate as an acknowledged expert on this matter. But like most of your Lordships, I am in business as well as in politics, and there is a great deal of anxiety in the commercial and industrial field about Britain's future role in the EEC and any impending decision on it. The White Paper is an interesting document, but I for one find it extremely difficult to follow. How any member of the public who tried to follow it managed, I do not know; but it seemed to me to have many inconclusive adjuncts to it as well as any which may have been conclusive. However, my Lords, the one vital aspect of what we are discussing today seems to me to be whether or not
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there is to be a referendum and what the result of such a referendum will be. As my noble friend Lady Tweedsmuir, who has great experience of these matters, rightly said, what of the future of this country if the people, through a referendum, give a negative vote?
My Lords, I speak primarily because I was recently in the Eastern Caribbean on business, and there is a good deal of anxiety in that part of the world, particularly in the dependent territories. They are particularly worried, for example, if Britain comes out of the EEC—and this may well be a hypothetical question at this stage—what will be the position of their produce. I am thinking particularly of bananas, for example, from St. Lucia, where I spent one week on business. That is a territory which has been very loyal to this country and where bananas represent 80 per cent. of their exports. There are also the other dependent territories which have special reasons for concern about their produce, which they are particularly keen to export to this country. Whereas France has made arrangements with the Cameroons and so on for much of their produce, what have we done in this particular connection? Denmark was mentioned by my noble friend Lady Tweedsmuir. Denmark is a country which has been one of our greatest allies and she is, of course, one of the newest members of the EEC. I have paid only one visit to that country, but I have met a number of Danish businessmen and they too are particularly concerned about our situation here.
In the Financial Times on 2nd December last there was a supplement on Europe in which there was an article from their Copenhagen correspondent from which I quote the final words:
"If Britain leaves the EEC there will be a new referendum in Denmark and recent polls suggest that there will be a substantial majority against continued membership."
This is, of course, from the electorate, although in both Houses of Parliament there continues to be a large majority for membership. It would be a very great pity if this country and Denmark became separated on this particular issue. I think that what is really needed is for the public to be taken fully into the con" fidence of Her Majesty's Government. One noble Lord suggested that a Green Paper might be published before any

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final decision was taken. I think that this is very necessary; because I think that any referendum which is taken ought to be preceded, chapter and verse, by some very much more convincing reasons than we have had from this or any other Government up till now as to why this tremendous departure from our Constitution should be made.
6.33 p.m.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I rise briefly to reply to as many points as I can which have been raised in this debate. Though linked to the White Paper on Developments in the European Communities from March to October this year, the debate has covered very much more and, some may feel, more diffuse fields, and perhaps this is right. In agreeing to provide six-monthly reports it was part of the Government's intention to provide the opportunity for wide-ranging debate on European questions, which would add to Parliament's being more in-informed on the considerations involved, and help it to bring its influence to bear on the Government on EEC matters generally. I think that this kind of debate will yield perhaps more on reading and studying it in that respect rather than in simply listening to it. It is important that the debates in this House, if I may say so without disrespect to any other place, should be fully studied after the debate itself. Our reports, I would say, invariably are rewarding in that sense.
The debate has come at rather a good time. In the few weeks since the publication of the White Paper much has happened in the Community of high importance to this country in particular, and in introducing this debate I tried to bring the House up to date with the majority of developments which have taken place. Neither my noble friend Lord Shepherd nor I were able to produce immediate answers on specific financial and statistical questions, which I recognise that noble Lords wish to have, so far as we can provide them. I will later address myself to the RDF point made by more than one noble Lord, but I am not sure whether I have been able wholly to satisfy the quite proper questions on this score which have been addressed to me during the debate.
My Lords, I do not want to go over the same ground again, but perhaps the
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House will bear with me if I address myself to one or two of the major questions which have been raised. First, I would refer to the political question. I think that there was fair agreement that political co-operation between the countries of the Nine has proceeded satisfactorily and encouragingly so This at least is part of the report that was not damned with faint praise by noble Lords speaking opposite. There has indeed been rather a striking development in co-operation politically among the Nine and I think that the present Government are entitled to some credit for that advance in that very important field. On the question of European union, the aim to which the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, and others would wish this country to move more briskly, since the present Government came to power last March we have been asking our partners in Europe the meaning of the commitment to European union taken on by the Community Heads of Government at their meeting in Paris in October 1972. We have never had an answer.
I think it was the noble Earl, Lord Dudley, who referred to the seminar at Schloss Gymnich, and quite rightly so. It was partly our initiative; and it is no secret that it was disturbingly unproductive of any practical suggestions. For that reason, I think it is less appropriate to upbraid the present Government, who have been in power since March, for not having done more on this important aspect of European co-operation and union, than it is to praise the Nine for having placed the examination of this massive and complex question in the very capable hands of M. Tindemans, the Belgian Prime Minister.
Lord GLADWYN: My Lords, the noble Lord has said that there was an interchange of views at Schloss Gymnich, but there was apparently no common view. Nobody knew what was meant; but everybody expressed some view. Could the noble Lord not tell us the view that the British Government expressed at this meeting?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, it was a British initiative to seek to discover whether there was any European view about this often advocated and, I am sure, most important objective, and we took part in the discussion. It was not

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a discussion which showed that much thinking had been going on in Europe about the practicalities of the matter. I am sure the House will forgive me if I refer it to a speech I made in reply to a debate initiated by the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, on this matter. Now there has been a movement forward by the delegation to the Belgium Prime Minister of this study of the whole question in consultation with the institutions.
We may now hope to have something placed not only before this country but before the other countries concerned describing what is feasible, the alternatives; and until we get something of that sort I do not think it is up to anybody to demand that the United Kingdom alone should make the running and produce proposals. These are extremely important proposals which must be produced in relation to the alternatives. The noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, rightly pointed to the need to be a little untraditional in these matters. There are proposals for federalism, confederalism and so on. There are other possibilities of union in a political sense which may match better the concept of three Communities operating together in three economic and social fields. So the British contribution to examining the question of political union has been substantial and genuine.
The noble Lord, Lord Saint Oswald, as well as the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, once more raised the question of the non-inclusion or non-attendance of Labour Party members in the European Parliament. I recognise the strong feelings of noble Lords and of others in this country on the point, but very many people, not all of them members of my own Party, feel equally strongly that we should await the outcome of renegotiation before deciding whether or not to send members to this body. We cannot get away from this. The reservations, not only in the Labour Party but in the country as a whole, are deep-seated and substantial. Therefore it is no good going on and demanding that the Labour Party should fill this gap. A substantial majority of the Labour Party, in Parliament and in the country, have genuine reservations about this. Those of us who want to see a coherent Europe want also to carry with us this numerically
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important section, together with other equally important sections, of British public opinion.
This brings me to the quite excellent speech given by the noble Baroness—my noble friend, perhaps I might be permitted to call her—who enabled us to take a new and searching look at our arrangements in Parliament to examine what it is proposed that our Government should agree to in Brussels. This is an extremely difficult technical arrangement to perfect and I do not need to explain to the noble Baroness, of all people, who has such distinguished Ministerial experience, how difficult this is going to be. It is perhaps early days yet to decide whether what has so far been achieved is satisfactory. Clearly it is not satisfactory in some respects. We had detailed examples of how it does not work—not to put too fine a point on it—and I refer in this connection to the speech made by my noble friend Lord Rhodes, to whom we listened with interest because of his industrial as well as Parliamentary experience of how these mechanics do and do not work.
What I would say to the House today is this: we have in this country—and I appeal to the experience of the noble Baroness, which is similar and perhaps superior to my own—a system of placing before Parliament policies in one form or another, and the Government of the day give mandates to Ministers, it may be in discussing with our friends the Icelanders, to give an acceptable example. In my own case, in my previous incarnation at the Foreign Office, we discussed fascinating subjects such as science and technology, but when we were mandated as Ministers—and going to councils is not very much different—we were mandated within certain parameters which the Government of the day framed for us, having regard to what the Government thought was public opinion or Parliamentary opinion. I do not recall, from my experience of three or four Departments, ever proceeding to any such meeting as a blissful plenipotentiary. One was always very heavily briefed, both horizontally and vertically, with a vast diversity of alternatives and things called "fallback situations". I will not detain the House, particularly as a former Permanent Secretary of that outstanding Department is present, with more jargon of the same depressing

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character. Nevertheless, the nub is that in this country we have evolved a system of sending Ministers into international councils, not bound hand and foot but with a keen sense of the possibilities within which they must take decisions.
Perhaps we can add to the EEC system—I am thinking aloud for the moment and hope I shall not be trounced depart-mentally for joining the noble Baroness in thinking about these things—some system of referendum. It may or may not be possible. These are matters for continuing thought. I know they are constantly being studied with a view to improving the system, so that a document does not come before the Committee over which the noble Baroness presides so ably, or before one of its Sub-Committees, and is then suddenly overtaken by a change which happens in Brussels without their knowledge, so that by the time they have done their work a completely new document is extant. The point is taken: whether the solution is as easily assessed, I do not know; but I do know we need to work hard at this and get closer to the effectiveness which the noble Baroness so eloquently described as being necessary.
The noble Baroness also referred to the methods of consultation, and was joined in some of her suggestions by the noble Lord, Lord Auckland. We shall take very careful note of all that the noble Baroness said on how consultation might be conducted. The method will be announced in January. My right honourable friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary has recently said that we hope to come to a decision as to the form of consultation. It certainly will be by ballot but the precise form will be announced in January. It is therefore important that full information should be available to the people. The noble Baroness made a number of valuable suggestions, not least the one which suggested that her Department and my own should take the lead in this matter. I find this a very gratifying suggestion and I hasten to agree with her. Whether everybody else will agree with us that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office should take this on, I do not know; but I am sure that there is much force in what she says about the experience of these matters which is available in the FCO. The noble Baroness and other speakers also raised the question of
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Denmark, Norway and Ireland in more than one connection. No doubt a study is proceeding as to how those countries conducted their consultations.
As to the very interesting question of alternatives, I want to say this. The Government hope and expect that the terms which they will finally be enabled to place before the people of this country will be acceptable. It is a genuine renegotiation—if the word "renegotiation" does not give offence—which has been conducted since 1st April. It has yielded results. Whether those are entirely due to the virtues of a Labour Government does not really matter; it is the end result that matters. Tangible results have flowed during this past period of six months or so. We believe that the way that we have gone about it has at least helped. However, whatever the outcome we must, in precise but understandable terms, put the position fully to the people, and must also put the question precisely and clearly. A great deal of hard thinking and hard work is going ahead on these questions. I am sure the noble Baroness is glad to have that assurance from me.
I do not wish to detain the House unduly, but there are one or two more points that were raised; in particular, about the Regional Development Fund—the RDF. I have in the course of the debate endeavoured to get the precise figures. The noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, and the noble Earl, Lord Dudley, asked for them. I do not think I have the complete figures. The position is that we should get about £150 million on a gross basis, but we have to contribute to the Fund through the budget, and the net gain to us over three years looks like being £60 million, which is about £20 million a year, although I take the point that in the first year it will not be £20 million and, therefore, in the second and third years it will be so much the more. The difference—and I should like to look into this further—of £90 million would seem to me to be represented by our contribution. But I hasten to say that our contributions and receipts may not be as large. It is fair to say that I will seek to set this out a little more fully, if the noble Lords wish to have further information.
The figures I have given are as follows: £150 million, minus £90

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million, equals £60 million which, divided by three, is £20 million per annum. I should like to look at the figure of £47 million which I know the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, will raise now, and see how this squares with the calculation.
Lord GLADWYN: My Lords, is the difference entirely composed of what we pay in and what we get out, and is there nothing else at all in the calculation?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, the only answer I can give is "probably". But I want to look at that £90 million more closely. The noble Lord has a point about the difference between £47 million and £20 million, which I have not yet been able to track down.
My Lords, this debate has been useful. I could, of course, wish that certain noble Lords had spoken in a way which ascribed to the unworthy Government which I represent at this Box some of the credit for the undoubted success that has flown from the renegotiations of the past few months. As I said on one of the first occasions on which I spoke from this Box, the renegotiation was meant to be geninue, and was set in motion in the hope of being able to stay in—not as an excuse to come out. The trend of events and, above all, the results, however we qualify them, which have so far been secured justify what I then said.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

ELECTIONS (WELSH FORMS) REGULATIONS 1974
6.55 p.m.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH rose to move, That the Elections (Welsh Forms) Regulations 1974, laid before the House on 28th November, be approved. The noble Lord said: My Lords, in commending these Regulations to your Lordships' House, I think I can safely say that they are uncontroversial. They bring up to date the Welsh versions of a number of forms for use in connection with elec-
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toral registration and Parliamentary elections. These versions have all been previously prescribed. The only reason for the new Regulations is to take account of minor amendments introduced into the English originals by the Representation of the People Regulations 1974, which your Lordships approved on 28th March this year. The versions are of two kinds. One category is of bilingual forms which are to be used in Wales in all circumstances in place of the English version. The second category is of simple translations the use of which in Wales is optional.
Schedule 1 to the Regulations sets out the four bilingual forms. These are the annual canvass form for electoral registration (Form A); the proxy paper (Form D); the elector's official poll card (Form E); and the proxy's official poll card (Form F). These are bilingual forms, because they are issued in circumstances in which the electoral registration officer cannot be certain whether the recipient is Welsh-speaking. Schedule 2 sets out the Welsh translations of seven other forms. These comprise two forms (O and P), for making claims and objections in respect of the electors' lists, three forms (Q, R and S) for applying for absent voting facilities on various grounds, and two forms (U and V) relating to proxy voting. If these Regulations are approved by your Lordships and in another place they will come into operation in the New Year for use in connection with the preparation of the 1975 and subsequent registers of electors and any future Parliamentary elections. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Elections (Welsh Forms) Regulations 1974, laid before the House on 28th November, be approved.—(Lord Harris of Greenwich.)
Lord ABERDARE: My Lords, I should like to welcome the noble Lord into the fraternity of those of us who discuss Welsh affairs. There are few noble Lords present. I do not know whether my noble friend Lord Amory will join us on this occasion—he often "chips in" on Welsh matters. All I ought to say in bilingual form is, diolch yn fawr, thank you very much.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

PATENTS (FEES AMENDMENT) ORDER 1974
6.57 p.m.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM rose to move, That the Draft Patents (Fees Amendment) Order 1974, laid before the House on 26th November, be approved. The noble Lord said: My Lords, the purpose of this Order in Council is to make it possible to raise the fees charged for the grant and maintenance of patents. The main revenue producing patent fees are governed by an Order in Council of 1970 which lays down the maxima which may be charged. These maxima can be changed only by means of an Affirmative Resolution of each House of Parliament. Perhaps it would be convenient if I were to outline at this stage the procedure for obtaining the increased fees which the Patent Office seeks to obtain.
As I have already indicated, the first stage in the process is to seek the approval of Parliament to change the maxima prescribed in the 1970 Order in Council. If Parliament confers its approval, the Patent Office, having already devised the scale of fees which it deems appropriate to meet the criteria imposed upon it, will refer to the Price Commission to obtain its agreement to recommend the specific fees within the limits prescribed by the new maxima. In the event that the Price Commission approves the application, a Statutory Instrument would be tabled, prescribing the new fees, which would be subject to the Negative Resolution procedure.
It has been settled Government policy for many years that the fees payable to the Patent Office—those payable in respect of the grant and maintenance of patents and the registration and maintenance of trade marks and designs—should meet the costs of the respective branches of the Office administering the systems. However, during the period of price restraint the Patent Office has been limited as to the extent to which it could raise fees. Thus notwithstanding an increase under stage 2 of the Price Code, there was a deficit in respect of patents over the financial year of 1973–74 of about £1¼ million.
Despite the fact that every effort is made to keep costs down the deficit has continued to increase, largely as a result
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of labour costs which account for over 60 per cent. of total office expenditure. Present estimates are that if fees are not raised the deficit over the present financial year will reach £2½ million. It follows, therefore, that immediate increases in fees are imperative and, as I have said, specific proposals will shortly be put to the Price Commission. However, the present maximum fees Order allows for increases in the current fees level by only about 20 per cent. and so as a preliminary to increasing the actual fees charged it is necessary to raise the maxima.
I wish to emphasise that the fees now being considered are, of course, only maxima, governing the discretion which the Department of Trade has as to the actual fees to be charged. As I have stated previously, when it comes to prescribing the actual level of fees to be charged in the near future this will be done by Rules which will be laid before Parliament and will be subject to the Negative Resolution procedure. It is our belief that we should not have to present the House with a maximum fees order requiring an Affirmative Resolution at too frequent intervals, and since if the Office is to get back on an even keel a substantial increase is inevitable we propose increasing all but one of the maxima by 100 per cent. to accommodate the immediate increase and to allow for further increases. The exception is the £1 fee charged on application for a patent, which is unchanged. This £1 fee is a unique feature which enables the impecunious inventor to protect his invention at minimum cost for a year while looking for a backer. My Lords, I therefore move the approval of the draft Order.
Moved, That the Draft Patents (Fees Amendment) Order 1974, laid before the House on 26th November, be approved.—(Lord Winterbottom.)
7.2 p.m.
Lord SANDYS: My Lords, the House will be most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, for laying before your Lordships the full details of this Order. The particular points to which I would draw your Lordships' attention in this case are certain specific points relating to the question of what a patentee expects. Any patentee on application wishes to acquire, first, registration, and secondly, security. I would ask the noble

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Lord, Lord Winterbottom, in view of the new scale of fees, covering the deficit he has mentioned to your Lordships of £2½ million, whether he can give the House an undertaking that the security which is so necessary in the case of patents and the problems concerned with retaining all the details under a fully secured system will be maintained. What is so necessary in our view is to encourage initiative in the young inventor, and the young impecunious inventor, which the noble Lord has particularly mentioned. We in this country are dependent on a vast number of inventive people who are particularly anxious to bring their ideas under guarantee. It is therefore important that these fees be maintained at the absolute minimum in order to cover the charges for registration. I should be most grateful if the noble Lord can provide the House with information about security, which in an era when industrial espionage is on the increase is a matter of great public importance.
Viscount AMORY: My Lords, having been invited just now by my noble friend Lord Aberdare to intervene in the debate on the last Order, I have been preparing a speech to make on this Order. But, looking round, I feel rather daunted by the cohorts on the Benches opposite and I think I will hold my hand for another time.
7.4 p.m.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Sandys, for his constructive attitude to the Order. Of course, all Parties at all times have been in full agreement that the young and (what shall I say?) creative but impecunious individual should have a chance to register his ideas and after registration to have a period of security. I am reasonably certain that that security system continues. In my time I have applied for patents—which brought me no money but which cost me something. Therefore, it is a great consolation to me to be able to reassure the noble Lord that security continues once registration has taken place and £1 fee has been paid. I am certain that the genius of this country will not be hampered by this particular Order.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

YOUTH EMPLOYMENT SERVICE (NORTHERN IRELAND) ORDER 1974
7.5 p.m.
The PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE, NORTHERN IRELAND OFFICE (LORD DONALDSON OF KINGSBRIDGE): My Lords, I beg to move that the Youth Employment Service (Northern Ireland) Order 1974, a draft of which was laid before the House on 5th December, be approved. The purpose of this Order is to replace the present Youth Employment Service by new and improved arrangements. The main effect of the Order will be to dissolve the Northern Ireland Youth Employment Service Board, to transfer its staff to the Department of Manpower Services, where they will be employed within a new guidance and placement unit catering for all age groups, and to provide for the establishment of a Youth Careers Guidance Committee.
Until now, the Youth Employment Service has been the responsibility of a statutory Board which operated separately from Government Departments and which was established in 1961. Under the proposed future arrangements, the functions of the Board will be discharged by the Department of Manpower Services by a guidance and placement unit which is being created to cater for all age groups; information about careers, and personal guidance will be provided by specialist teachers employed within the school system, with support services provided by the Departments of Manpower Services and Education; and a Committee known as the Youth Careers Guidance Committee will be established ot review and make recommendations to the Departments of Education and Manpower Services about the services provided. This will be a kind of monitoring committee.
These changes follow from the recommendations of an Inter-Departmental Working Party which was set up at the beginning of 1974 to review the Youth Employment Service and related matters. The Working Party found that the development of the Youth Employment Service had been inhibited by a number of difficulties. Foremost among these difficulties was the fact that the service, provided as it was by a separate statutory

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Board, was divorced from the main stream of employment work, which is the responsibility of the Department of Manpower Services. Moreover, because comparatively little careers teaching was being undertaken by the schools themselves, the Board's officers had been obliged to spend a disproportionate amount of their effort on this most important function at the expense of developing contact with industry and building up a sufficiently detailed knowledge of job opportunities.
Through the absorption of the service within the Department of Manpower Services, young people will have the full benefit of the professional skills and information which are at the Department's disposal. By the development of specialist careers teachers—who will be fully supported by (although not employed by) the Departments of Manpower Services and Education and the Area Education and Library Boards—they will benefit from personal guidance and information services at a level which they have not hitherto enjoyed. I am confident, therefore, that the result of the changes now proposed will be the provision of much improved services for young people.
To look now at the Order itself, Article 3 provides that the Youth Employment Service Board will be dissolved on a date to be appointed. Article 4 provides for the transfer of the Board's officers to the Department of Manpower Services, and, together with Article 5, ensures that the interests of the officers are protected after transfer. Article 7 empowers the Departments of Manpower Services and Education jointly to establish the Youth Careers Guidance Committee to which I have referred. The changes for which provision is being made in no way imply criticism of the Youth Employment Service Board. On the contrary, the Board has done a most valuable job, despite the problems which it faced, not least among which were a number of bomb attacks on its premises and other terrorist activities.
In the belief that by means of a new, integrated employment service within the Department of Manpower Services young people will best be able to realise their full potential, I commend this Order to the House. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Draft Youth Employment Service (Northern Ireland) Order
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1974, laid before the House on 5th December, be approved.—(Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge.)
7.11 p.m.
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, the House is not always able to give Northern Ireland Orders the detailed consideration which they would receive if they were being considered at first hand in Northern Ireland. Thanks, therefore, are especially due to the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, for his detailed explanation of this Order, because it deals with a subject which is absolutely vital to the social and commercial development of Northern Ireland, namely, careers guidance and the placement in employment of young people.
My Lords, as the noble Lord has explained, the Order dissolves the Youth Employment Service Board and creates a new Youth Careers Guidance Committee. The affairs of the Board will be transferred to the Department of Manpower Services. May I make the point that this is a departure from the decision which was taken over a year ago in Great Britain where youth employment has become a duty for each local education authority. However, I understand the explanation of the reasons for this Order and I accept that for Northern Ireland the new structure is very probably right.
May I join with the Government in recognising the excellent work which has been done over the years by the Youth Employment Service under their chairman, Mr. Vivian Simpson. The officers and staff of the Board in Belfast often carried on their work in very difficult circumstances. As the noble Lord has said, on many occasions they suffered terrorist attack, and latterly the Board was faced with some uncertainty about the future, with consequent difficulties over staff recruitment. So for the officers who are to be transferred there will now be a wider and more secure career, and this I accept.
May I ask the noble Lord whether the Government are yet in a position to indicate how soon the Department of Manpower Services will be able to offer the new terms and conditions of employment to the officers who are definitely going to be transferred? This seems to me to be of the greatest importance to

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people who have served loyally in difficult circumstances. I am also thinking of those who serve in the Youth Employment Service area offices who could be hard hit if they were to find themselves redundant and they happen to be living in an area of especially high unemployment. I am particularly heartened to read of the composition of the new Youth Careers Guidance Committee. The matching of industry and commerce with education should provide an effective balance. I am only sorry that the Government are not yet in a position to be able to give information about the new chairman of this important committee.
My Lords, finally may I make two points which are related to paragraph 7(3) of the Order on careers guidance and placement in employment. I hope that the work of careers guidance in schools will continue to be encouraged in every way. The noble Lord referred to more or to new careers teachers. I do not think that this is the moment to question the noble Lord closely on this; however, I was interested in his passing remark. I hope that the new committee will have very close links with the Association of Careers Teachers which has done good work in Northern Ireland and, of course, has links with the association across the water in Great Britain.
Secondly, I trust that the placement of young people within the new unit of the Office of Manpower Services will not be swallowed up and become an indistinguishable part of the adult service, even though it is part of the new unit, To place a school leaver in employment can require very different considerations from adult placement, and those same considerations often continue to apply when a boy or a girl decides to go back again for advice for a second, or a third, or even a subsequent time. I hope that this is a point of which the new YCGC will not lose sight.
My Lords, I think that I am right in saying that Northern Ireland has every reason to be proud of its industrial training service. This is yet another reason for supporting the provisions which the noble Lord has explained, because they will strengthen the links between education and training. I hope that the Order will continue even more effectively the work
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for which the Youth Employment Service has been responsible.
7.16 p.m.
Viscount AMORY: My Lords, I was extremely interested not only in what the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kings-bridge, said but in what was said by my noble friend, who also knows Northern Ireland very well. Clearly this decision is one of those pragmatic decisions which has been reached in the light of experience. To somebody who does not know Northern Ireland it seems that in those circumstances the degree of integration proposed may be a sensible solution. I do not think that we need to worry about the fact that these arrangements are not exactly in line with the arrangements here, provided they suit the circumstances in Northern Ireland at the moment.
Would it be in order for me to ask the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, whether the incidence of unemployment among the young in Northern Ireland is alarming in relation to the general level of unemployment there? That is to say, is the incidence of unemployment falling at the present time with particular severity upon the young?
7.17 p.m.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: My Lords, the loss of the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, was my gain. Also the noble Viscount, Lord Amory, had time to think of something to say. If I may answer the question of the noble Viscount, Lord Amory, I do not have figures with me, but I will write to him to give the exact figures. However, as your Lordships know, the position in Northern Ireland is that unemployment is very patchy; where it is bad, it is bad among the young as well.
I am glad to say that unexpectedly I find that I have the figures. The unemployment figures for school leavers in November were 1,368; the figures for young persons under the age of 18 who were unemployed, which includes school-leavers, were 2,270; and the number of young people entering employment in a normal year is 14,000 to 15,000. Therefore the proportion of unemployment is not unreasonable. However, this gives a more favourable picture than the truth because of the patchiness; there is no

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doubt that in the bad areas youth unemployment is disturbingly high, as is unemployment generally.
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, for the welcome he has given to this Order. He asked me one or two questions, but first may I thank the noble Lord for his praise of the Board. We are very anxious that this perfectly normal and sensible change should not be regarded as a criticism. The point which the noble Lord made that employees of the old organisation wiil now have a wider ladder of promotion is very important and I can absolutely guarantee that there will be no redundancy; there is no question of this at all. We shall take on all those who were being employed. The noble Lord asked me about the chairman; I do not yet have his name. He asked me also about the date; this is still under discussion. It will be announced shortly, but I am afraid that I cannot yet give him the date. The noble Lord asked me, too, whether we would keep closely in touch with the Northern Ireland Schools Careers Association. The answer is, Yes, of course. That is exactly what the Youth Careers Guidance Committee is for, and it will keep in touch with that particular group and with any other relevant groups.
The noble Lord ended by asking me to ensure that the special skills required for dealing with young people would not be lost in the wider approach of the manpower services. There will have to be—and it is essential that there should be—specialists in careers and placement for the under-eighteens; but there should be no hard and fast line, as there has been up to date, performed by members of two different services. The difference will not be in the lack of specialism, but in the lack of a line between the two groups. It will be a specialised part of the overall service and I think that it will be all the stronger for its links outside its own specialties. My Lords, I think that I have answered the questions put by the noble Lord and I am grateful for his support.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

PUBLIC SEARCH ROOM
7.20 p.m.
Lord TEVIOT rose Lord TEVIOT rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether in the light of their recent statement they could consider further the essential need to keep to the Public Search Room of the Registrar General's Department in Central London. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. But before doing so I must apologise for keeping noble Lords away from the party of the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, one of the most distinguished Parliamentarians of this century. The last three noble Lords who have spoken on their Orders have been like the three green bottles, but I am afraid that I shall be a green bottle in a concrete casing and I apologise if I keep any noble Lords waiting. I must declare an interest in this matter, in that I earn part of my living from making searches in the Public Search Room of the Registrar General's office at St. Catherine's House. The reason for asking this Question will now appear extremely obvious to your Lord-ships, but I can qualify this by saying that there will be many others affected by the move of the whole Department if the move from London to Southport takes place.
As your Lordships may know, the Registrar General's Department was founded in 1837 as a result of legislation as early as 17th August 1836, and Section 2 of the Act covering the registration of births, deaths and marriages in England stated:
"And be it enacted that it shall be lawful for His Majesty to provide an office in London or Westminster to be called the General Register Office."
His Majesty was, of course, King William IV. Unfortunately, that part of the Act was repealed in 1953; if it had not been repealed I should have been speaking to an Amendment Bill instead of asking an Unstarred Question—but never mind, my Lords.
Until January of this year, the office was housed at Somerset House and it was by that name that the Department was known throughout the English speaking world. Anyone who visited Somerset House for one reason or another—whether a resident of this country or from

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overseas—was struck dumb by the magnificence of this building, which is undoubtedly one of the finest in London. People instantly became more proud of their English or Welsh heritage——
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: Or Scots.
Lord TEVIOT: My Lords, I must correct my noble friend and tell him that that office is in Edinburgh. But people became more proud when they realised that the personal particulars of either themselves or their forefathers were lodged there. After nearly 137 years, this Department was literally thrown out to a modern building nearby. The art experts felt that the rooms were far too good for a Civil Service Department and would be better used as a museum. The Churchill Exhibition has been there this year and I believe that a theatrical museum will take its place. There was absolutely no credit given to a famous Department which had spent nearly one and a half centuries there: instead there was a victory for the purveyors of culture—here I must say I am not against the patrons of the Arts, but sometimes their self-importance is rather accentuated—who managed to evict some civil servants.
In 1972, I was concerned with the future of the Public Search Room and this prompted me to ask a Question as to where the Department was being moved, in order to dispel a rumour that it was going to the suburbs. The reply given by my noble friend Lord Sandford—who, unfortunately, is not here today but is happily replaced by my noble friend Lady Young, who I am sure will do justice to this Question—was that it was going to St. Catherine's House at the corner of Aldwych and Kingsway and that that place would be its permanent home.
I may mention here that St. Catherine's House is only 300 yards from the original Somerset House. I, and many others, were greatly relieved by this move and were told that the facilities would be very much improved and that there would be more room in which to make searches. I will not speak about that but as a result, willingly or unwillingly—because there were some of us who had more than a sneaking regard for the garret in Somerset
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House—we all made it our business to make ourselves at home at St. Catherine's House.
At this point, I should like to paint a picture of some of the people who use the Public Search Room. I am not placing them in any order of importance and I shall begin by mentioning the Foreign and Commonwealth guests, as it is polite to do so. All the year round, overseas visitors from the United States of America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and many other countries and colonies come to this country in order to find out where they came from and to trace their pedigrees. They consider this very important as they naturally like to have some roots in this country, however long ago their ancestors emigrated. It can be fairly certain that genealogy brings considerable trade to the tourist industry in this country, especially in London. Besides tourists, one sees many familiar faces in the Search Room, who are known as regulars and professionals and who may be connected with either the legal profession or genealogy. Some spend all their working hours there, while some spend time in the record repository as well.
Here I will slightly diverge. Genealogists, in order to pursue their searches from 1837 and onwards, need the Public Record Office in order to find the census returns and also for naval and military searches. That is only five minutes away. Also they need wills, which are to be found in the Principal Probate Registry in the old Somerset House; and lawyers—and I will come to them later—need Companies House which is in City Road, where some records will remain while others will be in Cardiff. Then there are people, including the noble Lord who will kindly answer this Question—and I apologise for the fact that I have not yet mentioned his kindness in waiting—who regard it as a right of people to enter the Public Search Room.
I must now break down those categories. The first is the amateur genealogist, of which there are many of all ages, from the age of about eight to 80 and probably beyond, who is pursuing details of his own family. The second and largest group are men and women who need their birth certificates for such essential purposes as pensions or passports. That group I will come to later. Then there

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is the third and probably the most important group in this context, the people who have never really known who they are or to whom they belong. They may be those who were adopted; they may be those who were foundlings; they may by those who were orphans, and at some point in their lives they go to St. Catherine's House—previously, Somerset House—and perhaps the officials there do not really appreciate how many of these people there are. I have been there regularly for four or five years, and there are also many others. These people come in with extremely sad problems and they want to know these facts. One cannot do very much for them, but they can look into the books and feel that there is something tangible that they can get down to. Some people spend a great number of years, and others just a few months, and they dig out details of a relative which they consider to be extremely important.
I now come to the question of moving to Southport, which is really the main point of this Question. Southport is a famous resort in North-West England, in Lancashire now known as Mersey-side—North of Liverpool. It is also a residential area and an important Merseyside suburb. I do not want to denigrate Southport at all, but it is 210 miles from the capital. The journey by rail, according to the ABC, is extremely inconvenient. If people want to go there for the day, they will have to catch a train at 8 o'clock in the morning from Euston, change at Wigan, North-West, walk down the road to Wigan, Wallgate, and catch a stopping train to Southport, arriving there at 11.32.
My first question to the Minister, which is not the most important, is: how far will the proposed building be from Southport railway station? If the office closes at 4.30, the first available train will be the 6.10 from Southport, which again means 45 minutes in Wigan, reaching London at 10.2. The fare is £11·5. Experts in transport will realise that this journey can be made quicker by catching a train to Liverpool and either walking three-quarters of a mile through Liverpool streets, or going by public transport or taking a taxi and then catching a fast train to London. But our foreign guests will have no idea about this facility.
As I said earlier, as well as doing this most people would have to consult the
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Principal Probate Registry, the Public Record Office, the British Museum and Companies House. The alternative to travelling would be to employ someone locally, or to correspond with the Department direct. Here I would ask the noble Lord two pertinent questions. The first is, how many people use this Department, either daily or weekly? How many people enter St. Catherine's House? I believe it is in terms of thousands. To hazard a guess, I would say the number is in the region of 5,000. The second point is: how many certificates are produced daily or yearly, and what is the revenue of that Department for certificates over the counter? I feel that this is extremely important.
I am now asking whether the Department will be equipped to handle the enormous number of increased postal applications? Formerly one of the cheapest things one could use was the post; but now it is extremely expensive, and trying to organise a postal department is very difficult indeed.
One then comes to the matter of getting people to search for birth, marriage and death certificates. At the moment the Department employs clerical assistants to do that job which I think is accepted in the Civil Service as a junior grade. I am not denigrating them, but I should like to put forward to your Lordships that this is an extremely expert job. If it is for yourself, you have the knowledge. If you want to look up your own birth certificate, you know the year you are born and probably the month and where you were born. You would just reach for the book and look for it. But that is often not the case. People do not really know what happened. It is also a fact that the records run from 1837 onwards.
I come to the question of name. A large proportion of the population were illiterate, some even unable to write their own names. They had to state their names to the best of their ability to the registrar, who may equally have got it wrong, and some names became rather more obscure than might otherwise have been the case. An easy example is those names with an "e" or without an "e". This is not an affectation; names were far more likely to have an "e" in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries than they are now. The name "Humphreys" is a

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very common example. I think there are at least eight different ways of spelling it—"Humphreys", "Humphries", "Hum-fries", "Humfreys" and several more with which I shall not bore your Lord-ships. There is the name "Shepherd". Your Lordships could give other splendid examples. Of the less obscure names, "Cockcroft" is quite often spelt "C-o-c-k-r-o-f-t". A less obscure name is Dytham, which may be spelt "D-i-t-a-m", and there are variants such as "D-i-g-h-t-a-m" and so on. I do not think one can expect a clerical assistant or any person in the Civil Service to be able to seek the information necessary with the complete expertise that is required.
For people searching for information regarding a marriage, the Registrar General's Department agrees for an extremely modest fee to look for five years for a marriage. But quite often the difference between the youngest child and the eldest child is 25 years. A mother may have been married at 16 or 17, have her first child at 18 or 19, and the poor woman is still having children at 43, 44 or 45. So there can be a long period of searching through these books. This I have done myself, with my wife; we have looked over 25 years, and the record has been 31 years.
This is an extremely complex business. One might be searching for the date of somebody's death and might look for the time when that person was last heard of, which might have been when one child was christened. Then you look to "kill" them off. If they live a very long time, as they do now, the period covered might be one of 40 to 50 years. This type of service being dealt with by correspondence is extremely difficult. I was talking to an eminent professor who married a Czech wife four or five years ago, and in the last four years he has had to make two dozen visits to St. Catherine's House, and previously to Somerset House, to go through all the formalities. Is this kind of thing to be dealt with at Southport? This office is part of our heritage, part of our essential life, and it should be kept in London.
I come now to the Hardman Report. I have been speaking for quite a long time, but now I will be much more
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specific. On page 174 of the Hardman Report, Section 4 states:
"If the office is dispersed in order to avoid almost certain loss of many of its trained survey practitioners and of medical statisticians, neither of whom could be replaced quickly if at all, the office woud probaby need to retain a number of such posts in London together with a handful of other senior posts, the Public Search Room, a few registration consultants and some limited support staff. The total number which the office would wish to retain in London would be up to one hundred posts."
I should like to ask another question of the noble Lord. If it had been suggested to Sir Henry Hardman that the Public Search Room could not be kept in London, would he have suggested that the office would be readily dispersable to Southport?
Finally, I would say in winding up that I am not alone in asking this Question. For once we have not got a lawyer present among us to ask questions. I am pleased to see many of my noble friends here who are very concerned; the genealogists and the College of Arms are also very concerned. I would ask, in all fairness and with no malice at all, whether the noble Lord's right honourable friend would think again if the decision has been taken to move the whole of this Department to Southport. With all respect to the Registrar General and his deputy, it might be very awkward to split the Department. If the Department cannot be split, I would ask whether he could keep the whole thing in London. It is essential for the people of this country and people from overseas that this Department remains in Central London.
7.39 p.m.
Lord PLATT: My Lords, the procedure for Unstarred Questions is in many ways unsatisfactory. One of the unfortunate things about it is that one is speaking to a House which is not, perhaps, as full as it is at normal Question Time at 2.30 in the afternoon. Also, one has to make one's speech on the assumption that the noble Lord who is kindly going to reply will give a most unsatisfactory reply, otherwise one is not quite sure why one is asking the question. In fact, one almost assumes that the reply will be unsatisfactory, because otherwise I take it that he would have had a private word with the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, and said, "There is no need to ask this Question, everything is going to be all right,

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the Government have thought again, and they are doing something sensible about it". So I apologise in advance to the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, who is to reply if my remarks seem to be a little hostile, because they are based on the assumption that he will tell us something not very satisfactory.
My Lords, on 28th November, the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, asked a Starred Question and in reply the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, among other things, said:
"… the Government are well aware of the importance of the Research Room and the useful purpose it serves in a number of fields."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 28/11/74; c. 1492.]
The noble Lord went on to speak of discussions with the Genealogical Society and the Law Society and said that the Government proposed to have discussions with other interested bodies. He also said:
"It is recognised there is a very strong case for research taking place in London",
and that he would be in a better position to say later on what was the outcome of the discussions. I then asked him whether, having waited for the outcome of the discussions it would be too late to influence the Government? To this he replied, not very satisfactorily:
"It could be too late, but in point of fact, as the noble Lord knows, it is open to any noble Lord to ask the Government what is happening."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 28/11/74; col. 1493.]
That is all very well, but do we ask once a week, or once a month? Will the decision suddenly be taken behind our backs, while we are not looking, while we are in Recess?
My Lords, assuming an unsatisfactory answer—which again I apologise for in advance because I am hoping it will be something quite different—I propose to ask a number of questions which I have modestly cut down to nine. They are all quite simple questions, and I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, will have the answer to each of them. First of all, can he tell us, in a relatively few words, what is to be gained by this proposed move? Secondly, are all the decisions already taken? Thirdly, what were the views of the Genealogical Society, the Law Society and the other bodies? Which were the other bodies?—historians, perhaps, biographers, the College of Heralds, and possibly the Guild-hall; I do not know.
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My fourth question is as follows: do Her Majesty's Government realise the value of the Public Search Room to the hosts of professional and amateur researchers at home and abroad? This has already been emphasised by the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, and I do not propose to say anything more at length about it except to stress the role of the amateur, of which I am one. I am deeply interested in certain genealogical problems, particularly of my own and of my wife's families.
It would be quite impossible to get professionals to do all the chores which I am prepared to do myself, because I do not think they would do them well enough to tell me the honest truth. I am sure they would give me the best possible answer to a straight question, but the kind of question that the amateur has to deal with is not so straight. The amateur has to ask himself, "When was Aunt Molly born? If we could find this out—it might be anywhere between 1851 and 1857—we might manage to obtain particulars of where her parents were living. If we obtain those, we could go to the Census Office and find out—if it was the Census of 1851 or later—where her father was born. This would help us to know where that branch of the family came from." This is the kind of thing that one has to do either for oneself, or one must put as much money in the pool as is necessary, because one cannot expect professionals to do hours of work and charge nothing at all, even if the whole of their researches turn out to be negative.
My Lords, the fifth question I have dealt with. It was the question of an amateur conducting his own researches and the impossibility of an amateur himself going to Southport, or conducting a lengthy postal research. Question six is partly covered already, so I will not make too much of it. Are Her Majesty's Government aware that the researches may take one from deaths to marriages, to the Guildhall, to Lambeth Palace, and especially the Department of the wills, the more recent of which used to be in Somerset House. The older ones are in the Public Record Office. Wills are often more easily found than certain other records. From there, one's researches could take one to the Census Department. At the moment, we have the enormous

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advantage that all these places are in one city. I am sure that the only city in this country in which those places could be would be London, or, with reference to Scottish genealogy, Edinburgh.
My Lords, with regard to question seven, could the noble Lord tell us how he sees an amateur like myself conducting these researches if half the Departments are moved to Southport? As a matter of practicalities, how would one do it? I have no answer to it. My eighth question is this: if this is to be a partial move, which parts of the Registrar General's Department will be moved? I can see that whenever there is a new decennial census with all the statistics which have to be worked out from it, a great deal of the census work is backroom stuff. So far as I can see, it does not matter very much whether this work is done in Southport, Newcastle, Cardiff, or elsewhere. I have tried to stress the interlocking importance of the Census—the births, marriages and deaths, the wills, the Guildhall records, the Lambeth Palace records, and so on.
My Lords, my question nine is a question about Wigan, which the noble Lord, Lord Tcviot, has already asked for me. Personally, I cannot "fork out" £11 and the time to go to Southport, only to come back and say, "Oh, my goodness!, while I was there I should have looked for so-and-so; I will have to go again tomorrow." Everybody who does genealogical research knows that this is the kind of thing which happens, I will not say every day, but it does happen. The more expert one becomes, the less often it happens. I am not making academic points, but describing without exaggeration some of the researches I have made for my own interest among the records which we are so pleased and proud to find in this City.
7.48 p.m.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, I apologise because I have not put down my name to speak. I told the noble Lord the Minister who is to reply that I might "chip in". Knowing my great interest in the subject, my noble friend Lord Teviot drew my attention to this Unstarred Question only about one hour ago. So I feel slightly guilty because I did not read the Order Paper thoroughly
1020
enough to realise that this Question was coming. However, I know enough about the procedures of this subject to feel moderately strongly about it, as does my noble friend Lord Teviot and the noble Lord, Lord Platt, because I, too, am an amateur genealogist, interested in this subject.
I can totally confirm, for instance, the questions that arise in facing problems of spelling. I have only to look at my own name. Although in the 1400s Henry VI created a peerage of Stourton spelled in one way, in the 1660s we have signatures spelled "Stirton" and "Sturton". Henry VI and the family in the 1400s spelled it "Stourton", which we still do. The noble Lord, Lord Platt, made a very telling point when he mentioned this question of going to one place to look for what you want, then going somewhere else and finding that what you want is not there and having to go back again.
I am all for dispersal of Government Departments throughout the country to give them a fair share of these Ministerial outposts of civilisation, not only because it may be good for the Provinces to feel that they are sharing in Government, but also to disperse them out of London which is overcrowded. But there is all the difference in the world between this proposal and dispersing Ministries and civil servants dealing with transport or agriculture, who can do their job equally well there provided they find houses and so on. This does not apply to an office such as we are talking about now, which is used by the public.
Let me pay homage to Southport; I am in no way denigrating it. I have very happy memories of being given an excellent lunch by the mayor and corporation when I visited them in connection with their home improvement campaign. I might say that Southport has one of the best housing records in Lancashire, and I was very impressed by the fact that they were having a housing improvement campaign. But we already have pensions at Lytham St. Anne's. If one has to be fitted with limbs one also goes there. I went there just after the war when I was trying to fit an eye in my socket. We also have income tax people there, and Lancashire has already had people sent there. No doubt Southport would welcome them.

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As my noble friend Lord Teviot has pointed out, in London everything is centralised for the scholar, for the legal expert needing to find something, for the serious student from abroad. We have the British Museum, the Society of Genealogists with their unparalleled library dealing with these matters, and all the Harleian manuscripts dealing with parish registers and records, and there is the College of Arms with its incomparable records. Scholars need to jump about from one place to another; they are here today and there tomorrow, or here this morning and there in the afternoon. They cannot say, "Let us take a journey to Southport this afternoon and come back"; they will need to be millionaires.
This is an office which is already used by people. As we have heard, the wills are still staying at Somerset House. This office is not to be compared with the part of the National Library which is chiefly for vetting purposes, and which is going to Boston Spa in Yorkshire. That is not visited every day by scholars. I should like the noble Lord to give us the answer to the very important question he has been asked: how many people are using this record office?
My noble friend Lord Teviot twitted me about the fact that the Scots have their place in Edinburgh. I think my noble friend has forgotten that one of the best known exports from Scotland to England and to our Empire, when we had an Empire, was its sons and daughters. Where India and the East India Company would have been without Scotsmen to help them manage their affairs, I do not know. Indeed, ever since the reign of James VI, or James I as he was here, Scots have been regularly supplying manpower, brainpower, energies and skills to London and other parts of the British Empire. These Scotsmen, when they came back from far off overseas posts, very often settled in London. If you look through the London registers, you will find lots of Scots names. That is why I said "and Scots" to my noble friend. Lots of the descendants of these Scots later stayed in Australia and Canada. They came back in one generation and then their children went out in another generation. This applies to Irishmen, too. They quite often did a sojourn in London before going off in the 19th
1022
century to the United States or wherever it was.
I think I have made all the points I want to make. This is a question of being practical, and it is important to students. Many tourists who come to Britain have a secondary object of trying to find out something. If this sort of record office is sent to Southport, a disservice will be done to this country.
7.56 p.m.
Baroness YOUNG: My Lords, I wish to intervene briefly in this debate to support most warmly the remarks of my noble friend Lord Teviot on his Unstarred Question this evening. I am speaking, as he has already said, in the place of my noble friend Lord Sandford who is, unfortunately, unable to be present this evening. I am very glad to support my noble friend Lord Teviot, because it seems to me that he has made out an extraordinarily good case for keeping the Public Search Room of the Registrar General's Department located in Central London. I cannot give anything like the detail which he has put in his argument, nor indeed as was put in the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Platt. I should, therefore, like to concentrate my remarks on two main points.
My noble friend Lord Teviot, has been interested in this matter for some time. As he said, he asked a similar Question on Wednesday, 13th September 1972 about the search facilities of the Registrar General's Office and he was given an assurance—at column 324 of Hansard—by my noble friend Lord Sandford in these terms:
"I imagine that the object of my noble friend's Question was to seek from me an assurance, which I am glad to give, that for the convenience of those who wish to attend on the Registrar General for certificates and research facilities the office should be in central London, and it will be."
That seems to me to be an absolutely clear-cut statement. Although, of course, I will accept it if I am told I am wrong, I have been unable to find any suggestion of any intervening statement to disprove or in any way to cast doubt upon what my noble friend Lord Sandford said on that occasion.
It seems to me a very serious matter if the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, is unable to give a similar assurance, and if

1023
an assurance from a Government Minister—on something which is not a matter of Party political policies and therefore liable to be changed at a General Election or with the swing of political opinion—is changed after only two years of its being made. Everybody understands that in the course of 20 or 25 years views and policies change, but I should have thought one could expect a policy to remain the same for two years. Therefore, it seems to me a very serious matter if its validity is in doubt. This seems to me an important point, because I read with great care what the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, said on Thursday, 28th November. I will not quote it because it has already been quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Platt. Having looked at it carefully, he seems to have cast doubt on this, and I think what we need to be sure about tonight is where we stand on this matter.
The second point that I wish to make is that the real argument about keeping search facilities in London, and keeping that part of the Registrar General's Office in London dealing with birth, death and marriage certificates, is its importance to the people. Everybody who has had any experience in public life talks about the well-known phrase, "people matter". I doubt whether there is one of us who has ever made any kind of political speech who has not used this phrase, and I have no doubt, in using it, has meant every word that he has said. Here, of course, we are being asked to stand up and be counted on a particular issue, because although it matters enormously to the staff of the Registrar General's office whether they are in London or South-port, or in, I believe, two of the other possible places to which they might go, where these offices are is also extremely important to members of the public. It is important for all the reasons that have been so well explained: the fact that because the offices are easily accessible it helps tourists and the amateur and professional geneologists. I would add only one more reason for keeping the offices in London; that is, that it seems to me that in this ever-increasingly complex society in which we live, the demand for keeping copies of vital certificates is likely to increase and not decrease.
It seems to me that the public ought to be helped in this matter. I make this
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as a very real, practical point, because it was often put to me when I was in local government that it was easy enough for some people to write letters to the town hall for the information they wanted, but many people find it much more difficult, and therefore it is often necessary for someone to go in person to collect a certificate. It is often much easier for them to do so, and we have an obligation to make everything as easy as we can for members of the public.
In the short time that I have had to prepare for this Unstarred Question, I regret to say that I have not had the opportunity of studying the Hardman Report in the detail that I should have liked. I of course read the relevant section on the population censuses and surveys, and I came across the quotation that my noble friend Lord Teviot used. But it seems to me that when there is a Government Report on the location of offices which in fact recommends that the public search rooms should remain in Central London, we must pay heed to what it says.
I also looked in the Hardman Report at the table of travelling times, because although everybody has talked about the difficulty of getting from London to Southport—which I have no doubt is very great—one has to remember that not everybody is going to use London as a starting point. When we come to look at the tables in Appendix 11 on how to get from one place to another, it is relatively straightforward if one is starting from London. But if one is starting from Cornwall, Yorkshire, somewhere in the Midlands, or even from Sussex, it is going to be infinitely more difficult. One has to remember, after all, that most people live outside London. I have no idea of the breakdown of the figures of visitors, but it is a serious matter that road, rail and public transport services link direct to London. It is the easiest place for most people to get to from any part of the country. As soon as a vital office is moved somewhere else, automatically it makes it more difficult for people.
I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, who I know will have listened with great care to all the points that have been made, will realise that this is a serious matter. I think that it will cause considerable worry to large numbers of professional people and to

1025
members of the public if they realise exactly what is happening. At a time when we are suffering so many economic difficulties, it would be most regrettable to put any further difficulty in the way of the tourist industry which, after all, is a great invisible export earner and therefore a help to us all.
8.5 p.m.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I want to say at the beginning that this debate makes a very useful contribution to the consideration which is being given to this matter at the present moment. Let me say right at the start that no decisions at all have been made—and I would not make that statement if I believed otherwise. I understand—and I have been at some pains to find out—that no decisions have been made. I shall try to indicate why this matter is being considered at all. The Hardman Report has been mentioned, and the noble Baroness drew attention to the statement made by the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, on 13th September 1972, when he gave a firm assurance that there would not be any move in the future. I should like to point out that that statement was made on 13th September 1972, almost a year before the Hardman Report came out, and I want to remind your Lordships that the whole purpose of the Hardman Report was to consider the dispersal of Government work from London.
So far as this matter is concerned, it has to be seen in the light of the need to disperse some of the Government work in London. May I say—and I say it very sincerely—that the Government are concerned with the views of a number of people and a number of organisations, and are mindful of what the noble Lord and the noble Baroness have already drawn to our attention; that is, the comment and observation of Sir Henry Hardman himself. He did not recommend that the Public Search Room remain. What he said was that the office would probably need to retain—and the word is "probably"—a number of such posts in London, together with a handful of other senior posts, the Public Search Room and so on.
Perhaps the noble Lord may think that I am splitting hairs, but the fact remains that Sir Henry Hardman has produced a
1026
Report in which he indicates that dispersal of the Office of Population and Censuses and Surveys to some other part of the country is necessary. Noble Lords may well ask the reason for this. I want only to indicate what is behind this, again reiterating that no decisions have been made, and again reiterating that the Public Search Room, for all I know, may remain, and to give your Lordships some idea of the thinking behind it.
I think that most of your Lordships will agree that Government offices and employment are concentrated far too much in London. Over a good many years we have pursued a policy of dispersal. There is a great deal of cost in maintaining both buildings and staff in London in terms of overheads. We have to face the fact that there is real difficulty of recruitment for staff in London. The situation is getting even more acute. At the moment we have about 935 members of staff of the OPCS in Southport; in fact the whole of the National Health Service Central Register of Doctors and Patients is kept there, as are the research people who produce information from those records. We have from the OPCS about 891 members of staff at Tichfield which is situated, as your Lordships may know, between Southampton and Portsmouth, who are engaged in processing statistics of births, deaths and marriages and where we have the Census staff. In London we have 988 members of staff and the Government's proposal, which is being considered at the moment, is to move some 500 of them to the Southport area, although the Hardman Report suggests that the entire 900-odd be moved, with the exception of the 100 to which Sir Henry Hardman refers.
Lord TEVIOT: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord very much. But I am not splitting hairs on the differences in the Hardman Report. I am well aware of that aspect. The question I asked was whether it would have created a different complex if the Public Search Room was moved and whether he might have expressed his Report in other terms. But when the noble Lord talks about the Office of Population, Census and Surveys, and about figures in Southport and in Tichfield, I remind him that my Question concerns the old Registrar General's Department. That is the matter about which we are asking. Those

1027
are the posts with which we are concerned—not about the medical survey, statistics or anything else. I ask the noble Lord, with the greatest respect, to keep on the section which was the old Registrar General's Department of Births, Deaths and Marriages.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: But the noble Lord will know that this is all part of the OPCS.
Lord TEVIOT: Yes, my Lords, it is all part, but I am talking about the stalk and not its stems. The kernel of the matter about which we ask concerns the whole trunk of the tree, not all its branches.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: I appreciate that, but what I am trying to point out to the noble Lord is that the Registrar General's Department, to which he refers, is part of the OPCS, and the Hardman Report recommends the remaining 900-odd staff be transferred or dispersed to Southport, with the exception, as he says, of roughly 100 posts which will meet the needs of the Public Search Room, the support staff and so on.
I wanted to give noble Lords the present position because the decision as to which Department and staff go to South-port has in fact yet to be made. But I think that I must be honest and say that in making these decisions one has to take into account a number of factors. One has to take into account the effect such a move may have on the staff. We must face the fact that it will have an adverse effect on some members of staff. We have to take into account the effect on the community. I would not pretend for one moment that if one were to move the Registrar General's office to Southport it would not have an adverse effect on the community. I am sure that it would in a good many respects. We have to take into account the various matters which have been raised tonight, and the effect that the move will have on other bodies. We have to take into account the view of these other bodies. The noble Lord and I certainly know that the other bodies that have been consulted are certainly not in favour of dispersal. They are very much in favour of retaining the status quo.
Lord TEVIOT: My Lords, at this moment will the noble Lord, Lord Wells-
1028
Pestell, please say which bodies have been consulted? I believe that the Society of Genealogists were consulted in the sense that when they went to see the Department about something else they were told about this proposal. But at the present moment I do not think that any other bodies have yet been consulted. Can the noble Lord say which bodies have been consulted? I should be most interested.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, will the noble Lord allow me to come to that matter in a moment, because I believe I can answer all the questions that the noble Lord, Lord Platt, has put to me. I intended to mention them in any case. We also have to take into account the general effect on efficiency and convenience. We would accept that if these proposals were carried out there would be a threat to efficiency, certainly for the time being. The noble Lord, Lord Teviot, and the noble Baroness, Lady Young, asked me a number of questions about the use of the Public Search Room. I think I am right in saying that about 3,700 persons use it every week. This means that roughly a similar number of certificates are issued. But I think noble Lords must bear in mind that while about 3,700 certificates are issued every week, about twice that number a week are issued as a result of postal applications and postal requests. So roughly one-third of the certificates are issued as a result of people calling and twice as many are issued as a result of postal application.
Lord PLATT: My Lords, I am sorry to intervene. If you go there yourself, you are often quite satisfied with what you get and you do not ask for a certificate. I should think that the majority of people do not ask for certificates. I should say that these statistics we are receiving are useless. It is the same in the Wills Department. You can go there and look up for yourself the reference number and wait no longer than three or five minutes for the will to be brought. You read it and then give it back. Only in most exceptional circumstances do you ever ask for a copy.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I think we can only go on the sort of statistics that we have. Perhaps your Lordships will allow me to correct one

1029
Statement which I made because I have misled the House. What I ought to have said was that there are a similar number of certificates issued as a result of postal application as there are from the number who visit. So the number of people——
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, as the point of the noble Lord, Lord Platt, is not being accepted by the noble Lord, with respect may I say that he started off by referring to 3,700 people a week and then went on to qualify that as being certificates and then said half of those were postal. But I would totally support the view of the noble Lord, Lord Platt, that a large number of people go there to look up a particular fact or facts, find things for themselves and go away. I should like the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, to agree that the number of 3,700 is totally irrelevant to the number of people using this office every day.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, let us be frank about this. It is easy to say that a vast army of people use a place and do not ask for certificates. Nobody knows whether a vast army of people go in and ask to see this and that and do not ask for a certificate. All we know is that a number of people use the Public Search Room to look at documents. We know roughly the number of people who go in every week and I have given the figure of 3,700. About 3,700 certificates are issued and in addition a similar number are applied for by post and are issued in that way. I do not think that we can state a figure because nobody knows the number of people who go in and do not ask for a certificate but merely look at a record. It always suits an argument for people to say, "a large number" or "a vast number". We can work only from the figures that we know.
I think we also have to face the fact that the majority of callers' needs could be met as easily by post; and in a large number of instances the information they get from St. Catherine's House could be obtained by applying to the local registrar. I will accept the fact that one cannot get information from a local registrar unless, of course, one knows that the person about whom one needs a certificate or information lived in a certain area and was therefore recorded there. But a large number of people who are making applications
1030
of this kind know where a person originally lived or was born.
Lord TEVIOT: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way, and, with deference to the Deputy Chief Whip, I really must put this point. The noble Lord was saying that people know the registration district. I can tell your Lord-ships that this is not so. There have been such movements in this country that one gets very surprising results. One might expect people to turn up in the East End of London and then be very surprised when they turn up on the Borders of Scotland near to Penrith, or on the coast of Cornwall or somewhere else. It is not a question of knowing where they come from—and there are about 500 registration districts.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I think we are straining, shall I say, the Rules of the House. I do not really object to letting other noble Lords intervene if it seems to me that there is a valid point, but I do not think we can carry on the debate in the way in which we have been carrying it on. I have said that decisions have yet to be made. I have tried to point out to the House that we are very well seized of all the arguments. We know what many people are feeling about this; and, as I said at the beginning, I think that this Unstarred Question asked by the noble Lord can do nothing but help in the decisions which will have to be made. We have some idea of the strength of feeling both in your Lordships' House and outside, but we are under an obligation as a result of the Hardman Report to consider very carefully the duty that was put upon Hardman in the matter of the dispersal of Government offices.
I was asked what is in London now and what might go. I cannot say what might go, for the simple reason that we have not reached the stage of deciding what is going. But as some noble Lords will know, there is a staff dealing with callers in the Public Search Room and in Records, there is a staff which deals with telephone inquiries and another which deals with local registrars. We have top statistical experts whose job it is to investigate statistics for publication, we have the Government Social Survey staff and we have the medical statisticians. Their job is to interpret statistics for the

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Department of Health and Social Security and other Government Departments. We recognise that it would not be easy to shift some of those, particularly the Social Survey staffs and the medical statisticians. We are not unmindful of the difficulties, but I think we are obligated, now that we have the Report—and we have had the Report for something like a year—to make some sort of decision in the matter, and this is what we are engaged in doing at the present moment.
The noble Lord, Lord Teviot, wanted to know whom we are consulting. The Registrar General is still discussing the problems and considering the position from every possible angle. As the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, will know, there have been discussions, which are still continuing, with the Society of Genealogists; my information is that there are discussions with the Law Society; and a good deal of correspondence has been received from quite a number of eminent people who are representing other organisations, some of which the noble Lord mentioned. We have also to discuss the matter with other Government Departments which will be involved. What is perhaps very important is that we have to take into account the staff considerations and the personal problems of those members of staff who would be involved if a move of this kind took place and who are near-ing retirement. That presents quite serious staff problems.
As I have said, no decision has been made but we are grateful to have had this debate tonight, because it has enabled the noble Lord and other noble Lords to put very forcefully what they feel and what has been said will be considered when a decision is made. I do not envisage that a decision will be made hurriedly, within the next two or three weeks. There is a great deal to be considered, and consideration is being given to that at the present moment.