Lords Sitting of 18 July 1974

Preamble
The House met at three of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Bishop of Southwell.
The Earl of Beauchamp—Took the Oath.

BARON DAVIES OF PENRHYS
Gwilym Elfed Davies, Esquire, having been created Baron Davies of Penrhys, of Rhondda in the County of Mid-Glamorgan, for life—Was, in his robes, introduced between the Lord Blyton and the Lord Taylor of Mansfield.

APPEAL COSTS AND PUBLIC FUNDS
3.17 p.m.
LORD BEAUMONT OF WHITLEY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether the Lord Chancellor will direct that the cost of appeals against the Inland Revenue arising from decisions by the Charity Commissioners should be paid out of public funds where those appeals raise significant points of law.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD ELWYN-JONES): My Lords, I am afraid it would not be proper for public funds to be used to guarantee the costs, win or lose, of litigants in the circumstances envisaged by the noble Lord.
LORD BEAUMONT OF WHITLEY: My Lords, while thanking the noble and learned Lord for that rather disappointing Answer, may I ask him whether he is aware that potential charities are rightly chary of using the money they raise in this matter, which means that there is an effective block to any appeal against the Inland Revenue. Is that not against the
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public interest? Would it not be in the public interest for there to be a little more clarity in what, I think, everyone agrees is a rather murky and indistinct part of the English law?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I am afraid I cannot agree with the description of the State of the law in relation to charities as "murky", but if there are any aspects of it which the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, would care to bring to my notice, I will certainly see that they are investigated. In so far as there are problems in this field, I am very happy, arising out of the Question of the noble Lord, to communicate directly with the Charity Commissioners to see whether I can be of assistance. The difficulty about granting so to speak unlimited legal aid freely out of public funds is that there are a very large number of competitors for help from that source.
LORD BEAUMONT OF WHITLEY: My Lords, while thanking the noble and learned Lord for that much more helpful answer to my supplementary question, may I ask him whether he is aware that my original Question was only for assistance to be given where it can be certified that the matter did, in fact, raise an important point of law? Surely these are the areas which need to be further investigated.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I took note of the purport of the Question of the noble Lord, if I may say so. The difficulty is that every potential litigant thinks his case an unanswerable point of law.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: Is my noble and learned and charitable friend aware that some of us may even think that the benevolent profession known as the legal profession may be able to give a little charitable service free to the Charity Commissioners' when they find themselves in this position? Can the noble and learned Lord now sitting on the Woolsack explore that possibility, because his profession is loaded with benevolent people?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, tributes to my former profession are rare, and it is very welcome to receive them. I think I am right in saying that the legal profession makes a significant

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contribution in this field by accepting a reduction of a percentage of its funds, and the gates of charity are always open.

DIVIDEND RESTRAINT
LORD HEWLETT: 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, taking cognisance of the present serious state of the capital market which so inhibits investment and growth, they will give a firm undertaking to cease dividend restraint in the immediate future.
LORD JACQUES: My Lords, the Government are now considering the future of dividend controls, not only in relation to our intention to review the Price Code and to end the statutory controls on pay, but also in the context of the Government's general policy towards industrial investment. We shall take fully into account the points made by the noble Lord and also the views that have been put to us by the C.B.I. and other interested bodies, but we are not yet in a position to make a statement.
LORD HEWLETT: My Lords, I thank the Minister for his helpful reply. May I ask whether the Government are aware of the general feeling of unfairness at the present time? We are to-day to abolish the Pay Board, and there is a feeling that those dependent upon savings income, charitable bodies, trade union benevolent funds and so forth, which depend upon earnings made by industry, should receive early and positive hope in this regard. This does not, I believe, call for a statement in budgetary conditions, for it is a separate matter from a Budget, so on grounds of common fairness could there be a very early announcement in this regard? The 5 per cent. limitation which has applied for so long has really damaged a great number of people who are highly dependent on the earnings of industry, and has inhibited investment, too.
LORD JACQUES: My Lords, I would remind the noble Lord that the net dividends received by shareholders paying
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income tax at the standard rate increased by 20 per cent. in 1973, while the pay of the workers increased by 12 per cent.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: My Lords, will my noble friend agree that most investment is now undertaken by corporate bodies of one sort or another, and that therefore the prospects of promoting growth and investment are greater if the money is left in the hands of corporations and not distributed by way of dividends to spendthrift persons like some of us?
LORD JACQUES: My Lords, I think that is a useful contribution to this Question Time.

MEDICINES AND CHILD SAFETY
3.22 p.m.
LORD CROOK: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether the Report of the Working Party on the Presentation of Medicines in relation to Child Safety will be published so as to permit consultations by interested parties; and, if so, when.
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, the Medicines Commission Working Group on the Presentation of Medicines in relation to Child Safety has reported. It is intended to make the contents of this Report widely known shortly; and to initiate appropriate consultations with regard to its several recommendations.
LORD CROOK: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that helpful reply. May I ask if it is possible for him to add whether the related theme of those noxious substances dealt with by the Home Office will be considered at the same time?
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, all matters coming under this particular heading will be considered. Part of the delay is due to the fact that there are printing difficulties. But, furthermore, it is important that all the Departments concerned should get together to discuss the recommendations, so that when those recommendations go out they can be fully aired in the various journals.
LORD CROOK: My Lords, may I assure my noble friend that the difficulty of printing is very well understood by the questioner, and I thank him for that further reply.
LORD TREFGARNE: My Lords, can the noble Lord say whether the Working Party has considered the question of packaging of medicines, as well as labelling of medicines?
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I understand that the whole of this matter and others have been considered.

COUNTY COUNCILLORS' ALLOWANCES
LORD INGLEWOOD: 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 are aware of the unfairness which can arise between elected members of county councils and co-opted members serving on the same committee, where the former will receive an attendance allowance and the latter nothing in respect of the same duty.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I accept that this can happen. It may arise from the fact that the new attendance allowance is payable only to elected councillors. A co-opted or appointed member may be entitled to the financial loss allowance instead, but only where there has been actual loss of earnings or extra expenditure necessarily incurred in order to enable him or her to perform the duty in question.
LORD INGLEWOOD: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for that clear reply, may I ask him whether he is aware that it is very few of these co-opted members, very few housewives, very few of those men and women who, having just reached retiring age, can give their services, time and experience on these committees, who in fact will be covered by the financial loss allowance; and since the noble Lord no doubt still believes in the rate for the job, will he consult with his colleagues and introduce some amending legislation so that this unfairness, which is admitted, can be put right in the public interest?
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I have to say that these payments were determined when we considered the provisions of the Local Government Act, 1972, and it is perhaps rather a pity that the matter was not pursued by the noble Lord at that time with a view to getting what from his point of view would be a more satisfactory solution.
LORD INGLEWOOD: I have only just discovered it!
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether he detects a similarity between this Question, the matter of unfairness, and the position of Members of your Lordships' House, some of whom live in London and incur no excessive hotel expenditure while other noble Lords live outside the metropolis and incur substantial accommodation expenditure? Would he whisper into the ear of my noble friend the Leader of the House, who some time ago, in reply to a question I addressed to him, committed himself to making a definitive Statement, and I hope a satisfactory one, before the Recess.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (LORD SHEPHERD): My Lords, I would not wish to reprove my noble friend this afternoon for using the Question of the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, on local authorities to deal with matters in regard to your Lordships' House. He always uses great ingenuity and charm. I wish to be consistent. I said that it is my intention to make a statement before the Summer Recess, and that is still my intention.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: My Lords, if I may revert to' the question of local authorities, is my noble friend really suggesting that because a mistake was made in 1972 it ought not to be put right now?
LORD GARNSWORTHY: No, my Lords, indeed I would not suggest that. But I thought it right to draw attention to the fact that we so very recently had an opportunity of dealing with the matter in a different way.
LORD REDCLIFFE-MAUD: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that what is good for the county council is surely good for the district council? Further may I ask whether he is aware that the recent Report of the Prime Minister's

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Committee on local government rules of conduct unanimously recommended that the statutory register should be filled out by co-opted members as much as by elected members? Will he perhaps include this matter in the questions that are under consultation between the Government and the local authority associations, "in order that the law may be changed in due course? Then this clear unfairness, on which I think both sides of the House failed to comment when the Bill was before the House, can be put right so that there are equal rights for equal work among all local governors, whether elected or co-opted?
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I shall be pleased to draw the attention of my right honourable friend to what the noble Lord has said.
LADY RUTHVEN OF FREELAND: My Lords, arising out of the Minister's reply to the Question of my noble friend Lord Inglewood, may I ask whether members of local authorities who are appointed to sit on community health councils are entitled to ask for an attendance allowance, whereas the other members, appointed by the region or by voluntary organisations, are not?
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, that is a rather different field, and I should be pleased to consider it if the noble Baroness would table a Question.

MAPLIN
BARONESS LLEWELYN-DAVIES OF HASTOE: My Lords, with the leave of the House, my noble friend the Leader of the House will be making a Statement on Maplin at a convenient moment after 3.30 p.m.
THE SUMMER RECESS
BARONESS LLEWELYN-DAVIES OF HASTOE: My Lords, it may be helpful to the House if I announce that, subject to the progress of Business, it is hoped that the House will rise for the Summer Recess not later than Thursday, August 1. I hope to be able to let the House have a more exact forecast next week.

SAFETY OF SPORTS GROUNDS BILL [H.L.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (LORD HARRIS OF GREENWICH): My Lords, I beg leave to introduce a Bill to make provision for safety at sports stadia and other sports grounds. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a.—(Lord Harris of Greenwich.)
On Question, Bill read 1a, and to be printed.

BRITISH WATERWAYS BILL
Read 3a, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.

PAKISTAN BILL
LORD HARRIS OF GREENWICH: My Lords, I understand that no Amendments have been set down to this Bill and that no noble Lord has indicated a wish to move a manuscript Amendment or to speak in Committee. Therefore, unless any noble Lord objects, I beg to move, pursuant to Standing Order No. 45(2), that the Order of Commitment be discharged.
Moved, That the Order of Commitment be discharged.—(Lord Harris of Greenwich.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Then, Standing Order No. 44 having been suspended (pursuant to Resolution), Bill read 3a, and passed.

CARRIAGE OF PASSENGERS BY ROAD BILL
3.34 p.m.
LORD POPPLEWELL: My Lords, I understand that no Amendments have been set down to this Bill and that no noble Lord has indicated a wish to move a manuscript Amendment or to speak in Committee. Therefore, unless any noble Lord objects, I beg to move, pursuant to Standing Order No. 45(2), that the Order of Commitment be discharged.
Moved, That the Order of Commitment be discharged.—(Lord Popplewell.)
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I have it in command from Her Majesty the Queen to acquaint the House that Her Majesty, having been informed of the purport of the Carriage of Passengers by Road Bill, has consented to place her prerogative and interest, so far as they are affected by the Bill, at the disposal of Parliament for the purposes of the Bill.
Then, Standing Order No. 44 having been suspended (pursuant to Resolution):
LORD POPPLEWELL: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time. I should like to add my thanks to all those people who have worked so intelligently and diligently with a view to giving effect to the Convention which means such a lot to our people travelling by road, bringing them into line with the objective of the Railway Act 1972. It is a very worthy object indeed. I extend my deep and sincere thanks to Mr. Wainwright in the other House for promoting the Bill, and to all those who have let it go through so speedily.
BARONESS BIRK: My Lords, I should like to congratulate my noble friend Lord Popplewell for presenting this useful Bill to the House. I should also like to thank noble Lords for the understanding with which they have received it. It obviously has the support of all noble Lords, and I am sure that you will give it a Third Reading.
Bill read 3a, and passed.

MINES (WORKING FACILITIES AND SUPPORT) BILL
House in Committee: Clauses agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported without amendment; Report received.
Then, Standing Order No. 44 having been suspended (pursuant to Resolution), Bill read 3a and passed.

COUNTER-INFLATION (ABOLITION OF PAY BOARD) ORDER 1974
3.38 p.m.
LORD SHEPHERD LORD SHEPHERD rose to move, That the Draft Counter-Inflation (Abolition of Pay Board) Order 1974, laid before the House on July 9, be approved. The noble Lord said: I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
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When the Government took Office the system of pay controls was already on the point of collapse. Its rigid and detailed rules had led not only to the miners' strike and the three-day week, but also to an accumulation of anomalies and inefficiencies; and were helping to spread ill-will and disputes throughout industry. The system was not even succeeding in its original purpose of curbing inflation. A clear lesson emerged from this experience. It is that the complexity and variety of the problems that arise in pay determination are such that solutions cannot be imposed against the wishes of working people through central regulation, except perhaps for a relatively short period of time. For this reason the Government have repeatedly stated their intention of abolishing the statutory pay controls at the earliest opportunity. The Prices Bill provided a power to abolish the Pay Board and the associated pay controls.
The Bill received the Royal Assent on July 9 and the draft Order which we are debating was laid before Parliament on the same day. Subject to its approval in this House and in another place, the Order will be made without delay and brought into operation seven days later. On that day, the Pay Board will cease to exist and we shall at last be free from statutory controls on pay.
In the interests of securing an orderly transition to a voluntary system, the Government have tried to mitigate the worst of the anomalies which the pay controls have caused. Over the past few months consents have been issued in a number of cases and special treatment is envisaged for certain public sector workers, particularly those working in London. With arrangements made for these particularly hard cases, the Government look to other people not to re-open settlements, but to abide by the guidance given by the General Council of the T.U.C. that the 12-month interval between major increases should be generally maintained. Unless it is, all our policies within the social contract on rents, food subsidies, pensions and the rest, will be in jeopardy and we would lose any chance of bringing the intolerable rate of inflation under control.
It is imperative that we avoid a general wage explosion. Resumption of voluntary collective bargaining will enable

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employers and unions to make settlements suited to their circumstances and conducive to the increase of output and efficiency. To help it work more effectively we propose to establish two new institutions: the Conciliation and Arbitration Service and the Royal Commission on the Distribution of Income and Wealth.
The Conciliation and Arbitration Service will be managed and developed by an independent council, which will include representatives of the T.U.C. and the C.B.I. It will provide conciliation and arbitration services, freely and readily available both nationally and locally, and will seek to develop and improve collective bargaining machinery. Both the T.U.C. and the C.B.I. have welcomed the creation of such a service and have agreed to give it their full support. Arrangements for its establishment are well advanced and the Government aim to have it in full operation by September 2 under the chairmanship of Mr. Jim Mortimer.
The Royal Commission has a different role. The Government are determined to create a fairer society. As the first step, we need to establish, in a much more thorough and comprehensive way than has previously been attempted, the facts about the distribution of all kinds of incomes and wealth—earned and unearned. On the basis of references made to it by the Government, the Royal Commission will range over the whole field, producing reports of a factual nature which will assist policy-makers and those who are active in collective bargaining. The Government intend to set it up under the chairmanship of my noble friend Lord Diamond at about the same time as the pay controls are abolished.
I am sure the House will want to join me in welcoming the choice of my noble friend Lord Diamond as Chairman of this important Commission. He has an undoubted ability for such demanding tasks, as he has proved many times in his capacity as Deputy Chairman of Committees and also in organising the Committee on E.E.C. Legislation. Unfortunately, the Commission's gain is our loss, and consideration must now be given to his replacement as Deputy Chairman.
With the restoration of voluntary collective bargaining in sight, the General
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Council of the T.U.C. issued on June 26 their report Collective Bargaining and the Social Contract, which gives guidance for union negotiators after the abolition of statutory controls. We warmly welcome this constructive response by the T.U.C. to the measures already taken by the Government.
In this report, the T.U.C. recognise, and I quote:
"although the groundwork is being laid for increasing consumption and living standards in the future, the scope for real increases in consumption at present is limited, and a central negotiating objective in the coming period will therefore be to ensure that real incomes are maintained."
They suggest this will entail claiming compensation for the rise in the cost of living since the last settlement, taking into account that some workers will have obtained agreements and that these should be taken into account in their negotiations. Alternatively, they suggest negotiating arrangements to keep up with the cost of living during the period of the new agreement. However, the T.U.C. also say, and again I quote:
"the 12 month interval between major increases should in general continue to apply".
The General Council will expect unions who have difficulty in conforming to the spirit of this policy to inform them of the circumstances and to seek their advice, or to respond to an invitation to discuss the situation.
The C.B.I. have as yet issued no statement but I have seen in The Times this morning that they have given support to the social contract. They have welcomed much of what the T.U.C. have said, and, in general, the abolition of pay controls. According to The Times their regional councils will soon be advised by circular that the social contract is acceptable. They have, I know, pressed for the retention of the 12-month rule on a statutory basis. But I have to say to them that in regard to statutory requirement, while everyone is agreed that the 12-month rule should in general continue to apply, and as I said the T.U.C. have given it particular emphasis in their recommendations, it would be quite out of the question to retain the Pay Board and the whole apparatus of pay control, simply on this one point.
As I have said, the Government endorse the approach to negotiations put

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forward by the T.U.C. in their statement of June 26. As regards negotiations for which we are directly responsible, we propose to base our own approach on the T.U.C. guidelines and no doubt other public sector employers will do the same. We commend the guidelines equally to employers and employees in the private sector as the basis on which they should proceed in their own negotiations. This applies whether or not the employees concerned are in unions in membership of the T.U.C., and whether or not the employers are in companies in membership of the C.B.I.
Because of some recent cases I should like to place special emphasis on the importance of private sector settlements keeping within the T.U.C. guidelines. I have already said that it is imperative that we avoid any general wages explosion. This can be done only if all those concerned with pay determination recognise that, as the T.U.C. have said, the scope for real increases in consumption is limited in present economic circumstances and the main objective should be the maintenance of real incomes. I can only repeat that the T.U.C. guidelines represent to the Government the right approach in current circumstances, and it is our hope that they will be accepted. On the question of equal pay, it is necessary to remember that the Equal Pay Act, introduced by an earlier Labour administration, will come into force in December, 1975. So all concerned with pay determination should bear in mind the need to make steady and orderly progress towards full implementation of equal pay by the end of next year.
I have spoken so far about the pay situation generally. However, I should like to describe in more detail the Order which is before the House, and for which the Government are seeking approval. Unavoidably, in the circumstances, it is a long and detailed document, and I am sure the House would not wish me to go through it paragraph by paragraph. But I should like to refer to some of the more important points contained in it, and then to deal with any further points which need clarification when I wind up.
In addition to abolishing the Pay Board, the draft Order does three things: it provides for Amendments and repeals of the Counter-Inflation Act 1973; it
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provides for consequential Amendments to the Price and Pay Code; and it provides for the revocation of statutory instruments, first relating to the functions of the Pay Board and, secondly, which modify statutory provisions regarding pay. The Price Code will, of course, remain substantially in its present form, but it will perhaps be of interest to the House to note that the Secretary of State—in practice the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection—will be responsible for the Code, instead of the Treasury, who were responsible under the Counter-Inflation Act.
In conclusion, I should like to say that for months, even years, past the rate of inflation facing us has presented grave dangers and growing tensions. In the presence of these perils, coupled with the huge gap in the balance of payments and the urgent demand for more exports and investment, there can be no room in the year ahead for a general improvement in the standard of life. Even with the measures for the fairer distribution of the national wealth which this Government are determined to pursue, it will take great exertion and intelligent co-operation throughout the community as a whole to prevent the standard of life from falling, and to ensure that the poorest are not hit hardest by inflation.
However, the removal of the pay controls and a return to a system of consent is not a negative measure. This is something progressive employers, no less than the unions, have wanted, and it can play a major part in enabling us to increase production, avoid industrial disputes, restore genuine collective bargaining and generally unleash anew the democratic vigour of our society. I therefore commend this Order to your Lordships' House.
LORD ROBBINS: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down I wonder whether he could give an illustration. He has enunciated an extremely important proposition; namely, that the objective of wage negotiations in the next 12 months should be to maintain the standard of life. Could he give an indication of the degree of change in money rates which will achieve that objective?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, again I was going to say that that is a question from a noble Lord who ceases to be one

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of my noble friends because of it. It is clearly a matter of great difficulty to define what he has asked in any specific terms. Clearly the unions and employers will have a shrewd idea of what is possible in their negotiations together; and I would hope, too, that guidance will be given by the Government, by the C.B.I. and by the T.U.C. through the media—not direction, but guidance—as to the course of events. The point that I sought to stress in my speech is that the T.U.C. and the Government, and I think management itself, accept that in the immediate foreseeable future negotiations should be on the basis of seeking to maintain the present standards of living; that there is no room at the moment for improvement, and that that should be the limit, the aim and the objective of negotiations.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Lord could answer one short factual question at this stage? The Pay Board is abolished and the Counter-Inflation Act is not repealed. Is it still true that there remains a residual power in the hands of the Secretary of State, should he so desire, to reimpose compulsory controls?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, if my memory serves me aright, the existing controls come to an automatic end in October. If they were to be continued beyond that date, fresh legislation would be required. That is my understanding. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Draft Counter-Inflation (Abolition of Pay Board) Order 1974, laid before the House on July 9 be approved.—(Lord Shepherd.)
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, we are very grateful to the noble Lord, LORD SHEPHERD, for explaining so clearly the purport of this Order.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I have just received information that, if it were your Lordships' wish, I could now make a Statement on Maplin. It may be that some noble Lords would prefer to hear that than, (shall we say?) the continuation of this debate.

MAPLIN PROJECT: CANCELLATION
3.57 p.m.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, with the permission of the House I will repeat a Statement now being made by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Trade in another place. The Statement is as follows:
"On assuming office, the Government undertook to re-examine certain major transport projects and on March 21 I announced that I had set in hand a reappraisal of the Maplin project for a third London airport. This has now been completed and the report of the reappraisal has been published to-day.
"Seven main conclusions emerge from the reappraisal. First, the forecasts of air passenger demand are significantly lower than was envisaged previously. Secondly, up to 1990, no further main runways will be required at any of the four London area airports at Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted and Luton. Thirdly, the passenger handling capacity required to accommodate the forecast traffic up to 1990 is not now dependent on a new airport at Maplin. Fourthly, the noise nuisance is expected to be much lower than was forecast by the Roskill Commission. Fifthly, whether or not Maplin were built, capacity at Heathrow would need to be expanded from its present 20 million passengers a year to 38 million and Gatwick from 6 million to 16 million. Sixthly, beyond that, further capacity would be required from the mid-1980s which could be provided through a new airport at Maplin or by some combination of developments at existing London area airports with the possibility of some diversion of London traffic to regional airports. Finally, the cost of accommodating the forecast traffic at Maplin is now estimated at about £650 million. This is nearly twice as much as the next most expensive alternative considered in the reappraisal.
"In the light of this, the Government consider that the case for a new airport at Maplin has not been established. and it has decided to abandon it.
"The review has particularly examined the question of aircraft noise.

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I am deeply conscious of the distress suffered by those who live near airports. However, the review shows that Maplin would not have a great effect on total noise disturbance. First, if Maplin were built it could not affect the level of noise at existing airports before 1985. Secondly, by 1990 at London area airports, nearly all air transport movements are expected to be by new quieter types of aircraft. This means that, with or without Maplin, there will be marked improvements in current noise levels at these airports. But there can be no relaxation in our efforts, and I am determined to achieve a further and progressive improvement in noise by tackling it at the source on the aircraft, by intensifying night jet curfews, by revised operational techniques and improved facilities for noise insulation.
"I asked for special consideration to be given to the role of regional airports. Consultations were commissioned to undertake a separate examination of the scope for diverting traffic to the regions. Three main conclusions emerged from that work. First, to achieve any significant diversion would involve transferring large numbers of passengers with origins and destinations in the South-East. Secondly, passenger demand suggests diversion to Bournemouth, Birmingham and East Midlands rather than to airports farther afield. Thirdly, major diversions to the regional airports could involve noise and other environmental problems in the areas concerned. Nevertheless, I have asked my officials to consider the regional possibilities in greater depth, both to relieve the pressure on the South-East and to help in the development of other regions. I should like to see as much traffic transferred as possible.
"The review was conducted in co-operation with the British Airports Authority and the Civil Aviation Authority but it was not possible in the time available to engaged in consultation with the local authorities and other organisations affected. A number of submissions have been received from local authorities and we shall now be consulting them and other bodies concerned about the way future traffic will be handled.
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"I am sure that the House will wish to debate the matter of London air passenger traffic as soon as it has had a reasonable time to consider the review."
That is the end of the Statement. If it is the wish of noble Lords opposite, I should be very willing, through the usual channels, to consider a possible opportunity for a debate.
4.3 p.m.
BARONESS YOUNG: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for repeating this Statement. It is of course a very important Statement and contains a great deal of information in which I think it is impossible to comment in detail in view of the short time we have had to look at it. Nor have we had an opportunity of studying the Report that has been published to-day. I think, however, that it is fair to say that the Government, in a reappraisal lasting only three months, have reversed the conclusions of the Roskill Commission which decided that a third London airport was needed and felt that Maplin was a possibility.
I should like to ask the noble Lord, Lord shepherd, several general questions about the Statement. First, although he says that there will be no further runways at Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted or Luton, there will clearly be enormously increased traffic. Will this mean increased hours of flying and how will this affect the residents living round the airports? What further developments does the noble Lord envisage, and has there been any consideration of the environmental factors and infrastructure such as housing, roads, terminal buildings and passenger handling facilities which will be necessary at all four airports to take the increased traffic? This point becomes all the more important when we realise that there has been no consultation at all with local authorities which are the planning authorities which will have to say where these facilities will have to go. Would the noble Lord also comment on the question of safety which was, I know, a major consideration at Maplin and which is very relevant to the increased use of existing airports?
The Statement makes no mention at all of the seaport. Has that been abandoned? Or when can we expect to hear

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what is the situation with regard to the seaport, which is as important as the airport? Also, can the noble Lord comment at all on whether or not the Government feel it worth while to reclaim land in the South-East where it is in such very short supply?
EARL AMHERST: My Lords, I should also like to thank the Leader of the House for reading this Statement, which is a very important one and which we on these Benches entirely support. We are also very much encouraged to hear that there will be a review and that we may have a debate on the whole subject. So far as I understand the Statement, the review is based on regional aspects, and I suggest that the time may have come to have a national airports policy placing an emphasis on the word "national".
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Young, and the noble Earl, Lord Amherst, for their comments on the Statement and for the support which came from the Liberal Benches. I wish that they would have a word with their colleagues in another place. In reply to the noble Baroness, the question of the seaport is now receiving the urgent attention of the Secretary of State for the Environment and he hopes to make a Statement shortly. On the question of reclaiming land in the South-East of England, during the last three years, before coming back into Government, I had some connection in this field and I strongly believe that, depending on the area, this makes a great deal of sense and it is undoubtedly economic.
My Lords, this Statement goes against the Roskill Commission's findings, but Roskill were looking at the situation in a totally different environment. We now have the consequences of the high price of oil and an undoubted cut—certainly in the short term—in living standards, which it is estimated will have quite a serious effect on the growth in the number of passengers using air terminals. However, the most significant factor since Roskill is the new breed of aircraft. One has only to go to the United States to see the very new, wide-hull aircraft to appreciate the great difference compared with the type of aircraft we now
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see in London. It comes out very clearly in the Report that the number of traffic movements will decrease quite dramatically, and of course these new aircraft are a great deal more silent. If the noble Baroness will refer to the charts in the Report, she will be quite surprised, as I was, to see what a significant difference these new aircraft—and some 90 per cent. of our air transport movements will be made by these new engines by 1990—will make to the noise pattern in London. It is indeed surprising.
My Lords, undoubtedly the terminal question will be the most important, because it seems to me and the Government from reading this appraisal, that it is a question not of runways but of handling people and baggage. I would hope that when the new terminals are built we will take a much longer view in our design of terminal buildings to ensure that they have many years of progress ahead of them instead of being out of date, as most of them are, by the time they are opened.
My Lords, the environmental matter was very carefully considered, and we think that as a consequence of our reappraisal the effect here will not be so serious. In regard to consulting with the planning authorities, clearly this is a matter which will now have to commence immediately. In regard to safety, with or without Maplin, London would still be the major airport of the United Kingdom. The risks inherent would be there, but—and I feel like touching wood here—I think that the remarkable safety standards at London Airport are due not only to the design of the airport but also to the devoted work of the staff.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, may I ask one question on the subject of the construction of a new seaport which follows the interrogation by the noble Baroness, Lady Young? My noble friend will recall that when we previously discussed this matter reference was made to the construction of the new seaport. I cannot debate the matter now, but is he aware that there is less need for a new seaport in the area than for a new airport? All the facilities for expansion in matters concerning sea transport—the land facilities, the docking facilities, the manpower facilities, the technical facilities—are available at Southampton. May

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I ask whether he will convey to his right honourable friend that he should proceed with the utmost prudence with any proposition for the construction of a new seaport? Before doing do he should consult those associated with Southampton in particular and probably other seaports on the Southern coast.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, the seaport is of course not dependent on whether or not we go ahead with the Maplin airport, but the points which my noble friend has put will certainly need the closest consideration by my right honourable friend. On the other hand, there is a question of the London docks on which the new port has some bearing. It is a very complex matter which will need a good deal of study, and while I hope to make an early Statement I would agree with my noble friend that we need the widest possible consultation and thought in what will be an important and major development.
LORD ORR-EWING: My Lords, is the Minister aware that many of us in all parts of the House had some doubts about Maplin? I think it will be welcome that technical development has made it unnecessary to start a third airport. Is he aware also that for a very long time people living around the other main London airports will have to put up with a large number of older aircraft which are extremely noisy, and would he therefore, now that Maplin has been abandoned, consider the fitting of hush kits which for a small amount can make these older aircraft much more acceptable to the many residents around the airports?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, this is a point which my right honourable friend has in mind and I think he makes allusion to it in his Statement. Also, I believe a good deal could be done by way of insulating homes, and particularly schools. These are matters which clearly have to be dealt with, and would have had to be dealt with; because even if we had gone ahead with Maplin, London would still have remained the major airport and there would not have been any dramatic drop in air traffic movements.
LORD LEATHERLAND: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend—and he will guess that I do so with a note of sadness
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in my heart—whether this decision means that a substantial amount of air traffic will be diverted to Stansted? And if that be so, will he take special care to see that the very peaceful and delightful environmental peace of that neighbourhood is preserved in some way? My next question is: what do the Government now intend to do about the South-East Study which reported a few years ago and which suggested that a community of about 300,000 people should be built up in the Rochford peninsula, a community which would have fitted in delightfully with the Maplin airport plan? Next, will my noble friend recall that a few weeks ago I suggested that the land reclamation originally intended for Maplin should continue, and that the reclaimed site should be used to build the most beautiful maritime garden city in the world?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, in regard to the plan to which my noble friend has referred, perhaps I could get in touch with him. I have not been able to keep all these matters in my mind. In regard to the garden city, that may come, but I do not think it will be as a consequence of the Statement I have just made. The consequences to Stansted will depend very much upon how future policy develops. If we are successful in developing the regional airfields the effect will not be quite so substantial. I feel I must be frank with my noble friend. Without Maplin, and without being successful in regional development, there will be quite a significant increase in air traffic movements in Stansted, but certainly not as great as at present exists at Gatwick.
LORD MERRIVALE: My Lords, does not the noble Lord the Leader of the House feel that the implication of the abandonment of the Maplin airport project is a matter which will have to be discussed to-morrow between the Prime Minister and President Giscard d'Estaing? As recognised by the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, on a previous occasion, this would entail increased traffic at the airport at Boissy, and the question of the continuation of the Channel Tunnel project is extremely relevant to all this.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I have no idea what my right honourable friend is going to say to the French President to-morrow, and therefore I do not think

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I should follow the noble Lord in any respect in the question he has just put.
LORD POLWARTH: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that what he has just said will bring a great measure of reassurance to those of us who believe that the continued build-up of air traffic in the South-East of England is not in the best interests of the country as a whole? Will he equally bear in mind that the Government will need to be very firm if they are to overcome the reluctance of airlines to decentralise their services, a tendency exemplified by the resistance to the removal of Government Departments and their civil servants from the same area?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his support. This is a very difficult matter and, as the Statement which I have repeated said, we are going to have a further look at the matter of regional development. It seems quite ridiculous that a large number of people from quite distant parts of the country go to Luton in order to go for a holiday in Spain. This, of course, is a management matter for the airlines, and is something on which we will wish to consult with them.
LORD THOMAS: My Lords, would the noble Lord the Leader of the House accept from one who was a practical operator of airlines how welcome is what he has told us this afternoon? The decentralisation away from the South-East is a really worth while plan, and with the improved silence that can be achieved. certainly from new aircraft and also from old aircraft, as the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, has said, I think that this new pattern makes very much more sense than did the original Roskill Report.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: My Lords, is the Minister aware that his Statement will give very considerable satisfaction in its broad terms. Of course, it needs debating in full later on, but it will give great satisfaction in broad terms, in that the Government have accepted the new technical developments which have made the old considerations of Maplin and the Roskill Commission days completely obsolete. Furthermore, is he aware that he will find a large measure of support for the Government's broad policy in all quarters of the House,
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including many noble Lords on this side, who have regretted for several long years the persistence of the last Government in saying that Maplin was necessary and essential?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, circumstances have changed. There is a new Government who have tended to look at things with (shall we say?) a fresh eye. Things have changed quite dramatically since the Roskill Report and, while I welcome all support in regard to regional development, one must be conscious of the numbers who still will have to live within the flight paths of Heathrow. I hope that now, perhaps from some of the savings we have made by this decision, we may be able to do a little more for those who now live and suffer under the flight paths, particularly those into Heathrow?
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, may I pursue that point a little further. The noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, set great store on three factors which he said were not in the minds of the Roskill Commission; namely, the price of petrol (which certainly was not) having a dampening effect on the volume of air traffic; the advent of the Jumbo-jet having a dampening effect on the number of air movements—and this was something the Roskill Commission were aware of; and the availability of hush kits which has a dampening effect on the noise of individual older aircraft. Do those three factors taken together mean that Her Majesty's Government have now formed the view that because all those factors are already operating—the hush kits are available, the Jumbo-jets are coming into service, and the price of petrol has already gone up—the position of those people whom we had in mind, and the Roskill Commission had in mind, those people who now live around Heathrow, Luton, Gatwick and Stansted, will henceforward all improve? I think that is the implication of his Statement and I should like to be clear about it.
The second point I should like to make is this. This review has been a short-term internal Whitehall exercise and I have not so far had time to study it, but could the noble Lord confirm that the traffic handling capacity of these four airports—and that is now the critical factor and not the runway capacity—depends upon planning permissions

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which have not yet been given, and that the planning authorities who will have to give them have as yet not been consulted?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I acknowledge that we have not had the opportunity to consult the planning authorities in regard to the terminal buildings, in reply to the noble Baroness. In regard to this being a Whitehall reappraisal, I thought that that was rather a snide comment, which I am sure was not intended. This was a reappraisal made by the Department of Trade, the Department of the Environment, the British Airports Authority and the Civil Aviation Authority. I should have thought that the latter two authorities particularly now have a great deal of expertise on which we can base our judgments.
In regard to the consequences of this decision for people living around Heathrow, I ask the noble Lord to look at the Tables that are in the Report, but I shall just give the House this indication: 35 n.n.i. I am told is the lowest of the sound measurements and with Maplin, London Airport would drop in 1990 from what it is now; namely, 2,092,000 people being affected, reduced to 307,000. That is a very significant drop. However, as a consequence of no Maplin the figure will increase from 307,000 to 322,000—a marginal increase but not of any great significance. The air transport movements which in 1973 were running at 267,000 per annum, with Maplin will drop to 205,000 movements per annum. Without Maplin, (hough with an enlarged contribution from Stansted and Luton, it will rise to 230,000 movements—not a major or significant increase if one bears in mind the difference in cost between the two possibilities.
LORD TREFGARNE: My Lords, can the noble Lord say what technical developments are now anticipated at Stansted, particularly in the way of air traffic equipment there which has been somewhat deficient for a number of years? Secondly, can the noble Lord say what is the future now of Southend Airport which was, I believe, scheduled for closure under the Maplin proposals?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, if the noble Lord would like to put down those questions or write to me, I shall give him an answer, but I am sorry I have not come here so prepared to-day.
LORD BOOTHBY: My Lords, in the light of the Government's important and wise decision, in the absence of any airport in central Scotland, would the noble Lord direct the Government's attention to the extension and improvement of the airports at Edinburgh and Aberdeen?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I thought that Edinburgh was in the course of being improved. I am not sure about Aberdeen, but I will look into the matter and write to the noble Lord. My Lords, I see that we have been at this Statement for 30 minutes, and I wonder whether we should now move on and listen to the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, whom I so rudely interrupted.

COUNTER-INFLATION (ABOLITION OF PAY BOARD) ORDER 1974
4.28 p.m
Debate resumed.
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, I am sure that the noble Lord had his priorities absolutely right when he interrupted me. He has ensured that I should thank him for a second time and indeed I do so willingly because he is doing a great deal of work this afternoon. We are grateful to him for introducing the Order, which he put very lucidly and clearly, though I cannot say that it is an Order that we welcome—in fact he will not expect me to do so. The fact is that we have on various occasions in the past debated the whole subject of the pay and incomes policy of the Government, and the noble Lord will know as well as I do that our views differ on this matter. Here we are with an Order which effectively brings an end to Stage 3 of our previous counter-inflation policy and introduces a new Government policy based on the so-called social compact.
Certainly one must recognise that the Government have done all that they can be expected to do to fulfil that compact. Every action that they have taken since they have been in power has been very largely guided by a desire to meet the wishes of the trade unions. They certainly cannot be accused of not having fulfilled their part of the compact. Indeed, if a voluntary policy of this sort would work then we would be the first to welcome it, but I must say that in present

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circumstances I should be very surprised if it did.
The T.U.C., as the noble Lord also said, are certainly doing their best to help the Government in implementing the social compact with their eight-point guidelines. I too had read a report in The Times and saw that the C.B.I. was equally in favour of accepting the guidelines put forward by the T.U.C. But the question really is: will the individual unions be able to stick to the compact and to the guidelines given by the T.U.C? Here is where one sees already ominous signs of what may happen in the future. The noble Lord mentioned the importance of private sector settlements, and one has only to look at the tape this afternoon to see that the Shell refinery dispute continues. Very large offers have been made but, as I understand the situation, one refinery having refused to agree, others are now going back on their agreements and the whole situation looks as if once more it will be a free-for-all.
If there is one bit of news on the industrial front which I should like to welcome, it is that there seems to be a good prospect that the hospital technicians may be willing to accept the offer which has been made to them. I am sure we all agree this is good and we all welcome it. But it is still at the price of a 20 per cent. increase, and I imagine that that is an increase on top of the Stage 3 increase and the threshold agreement increases which they will have had already. They are a deserving lot of people and we certainly need them very badly in the Health Service, but I am merely pointing out that these are high rates of increase.
In the background, there have been even more militant noises from the miners and many of the other large unions, particularly those working in the public sector, which wield tremendous power. Sad to say, the general impression is getting about that political action brings economic results. This is most unfortunate. There is a feeling that militancy pays and we have seen people working in occupations which normally do not engage in any form of industrial action taking such action, merely because they have seen it pay in other cases and so they feel that this is the way forward. I
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fear that the Government must accept some, if not the major part, of the blame for this situation. They have not shown sufficient firmness in the face of militancy, and this has weakened the position of the more responsible and less militant unions.
The noble Lord spoke, quite rightly, of having to avoid a wages explosion. But the situation is pretty grim at the moment. Figures published yesterday by the Department of Employment show that wages rates rose between April and May by 2·9 per cent. and between May and June by 30 per cent. If this continues at the same rate, wages will be 42·6 per cent. higher by June 1975—and that I would describe as a wages explosion.
LORD WALSTON: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord for one moment, if he will allow me? Can he tell us how much of that increase is due to the effect of the threshold agreements, and how much is due to other causes?
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, I think it is two-thirds of that amount which is due to threshold agreements; but those threshold agreements are only keeping pace with the rise in the cost of living. Meantime, prices are continuing to rise and it is people who are living on fixed incomes who are suffering so badly. The ship seems to be sinking beneath the waves of inflation, and yet here are the Government pulling out the bung and abolishing the Pay Board. Can this really be sensible at this time? The problem of inflation is so very difficult and so very important that we surely need every weapon in our armoury to fight it. I should have thought that even within the ambit of a voluntary wages policy there was a place for a Pay Board, and there could be a place for a pay code. But to do away with everything and put nothing in its place does not seem to me to be the right way of handling the matter at this moment.
We all want to see an end to inflation and it may well be—as the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, put to me very strongly the other day—that it is right to attempt to return to a voluntary policy of determining wages. What I am arguing is that even if this is so it is a pity to destroy a Pay Board and a pay code, both of which could have continued

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under a voluntary policy. There is a great deal to be said for the continuity of institutions. It is valuable to continue with what one has, even if it has to be modified, and it would have been possible to keep a Pay Board which would continue to act in the way it has very usefully acted on the matters referred to it—matters such as relativities, London weighting and so forth—and to give advice. Equally, the code could have been adopted and could have comprised the T.U.C.'s eight points. I see a glint in the noble Lord's eye. He is probably going to say to me: "It was you who abolished the Prices and Incomes Board."
LORD SHEPHERD: That is correct, my Lords.
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, I acknowledge that and I think, looking back, that it was a mistake. I do not know whether or not my personal view is shared by my noble friends. Noble Lords opposite certainly thought it was a mistake, but I regret they are now compounding that mistake by acting in the same way.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, will the noble Lord agree that the Prices and Incomes Board was a Board to which matters could be referred, but upon which, at the end of the day, any decision had to be taken by Parliament, and therefore Parliament took responsibility? But the Pay Board, as such, acted as a sort of High Court, imposing its rigid decision on a work force without Parliament having any control whatever. Will the noble Lord agree that that is the difference between the two?
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, the noble Lord is no doubt a greater expert on the legislation than I am, but, as I understand it, the Pay Board was set up to give advice and to help in any way it could. It would have been possible to retain the Pay Board as an advisory body under a voluntary policy. But what worries me is this. If the social compact does not work—let us hope that it does and that we get back to a voluntary system—the Government will have restricted themselves as regards alternatives. They will either have to allow inflation to run away or they will have to impose a very severe deflation or freeze. There will be
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no middle way through such a dilemma. All the complicated and delicate mechanism which existed within the Pay Board, which could have been used to find a middle way, will be destroyed by this Order and it will be impossible to bring it back quickly into action again. I think this represents a difficulty and a danger, and this is why it is unfortunate that the Pay Board is to go.
I was hoping that the noble Lord might tell us what the Government's policy on wage settlements after Stage 3 was to be. I read in the Financial Times this morning:
"The very least the Government must do is to spell out clearly that there is no scope for increases in real incomes over the next year."
I therefore welcomed what the noble Lord said on this matter. I thought he made a very firm statement, and he was certainly right to say that, so far from there being no scope for increases in real incomes next year, we shall be very fortunate if we can avoid a fall in real incomes.
If there was one matter which the noble Lord mentioned which I also welcomed warmly, it was that the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, is to undertake the chairmanship of the Royal Commission on the Distribution of Income and Wealth. The noble Lord has a great deal of respect in this House. One regrets very much that he has to give up his post as Deputy Chairman of Committees, but I am sure there could be no better Chairman for the Royal Commission. I should like to pay tribute to the Pay Board and its Chairman, Sir Frank Figgures. It is never easy to administer a statutory wage policy and yet the Pay Board managed remarkably well through Stage 2, and even through much of Stage 3. Moreover, they tackled other problems referred to them, such as the Relativities Report and the London Weighting Report for which we should be grateful to them.
Although we will not oppose this Order, because it is clearly one of the main planks of the Government's policy, we deplore it. We think that it is a mistake. We all have one object in view; that is, to curb inflation. We all agree that the growth of incomes must be limited by our national productivity. We all prefer a voluntary policy for wage settlements but, unfortunately, we have all been forced to try different expedients.

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All we say now is, by all means let us try to see whether a voluntary system would work, but we think it unfortunate and unnecessary to destroy an institution which is capable of helping towards that end.
BARONESS SEEAR: My Lords, I will be brief, for much that needs to be said will be better said in the economic debate next week. First, I should like to apologise to the noble Lord the Leader of the House for not bringing in my seat when he began his speech, as I was detained elsewhere. Before turning to the Order, we are extremely interested to hear of the appointment of the Conciliation and Arbitration Service and are delighted to hear of the establishment of the Royal Commission under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Diamond. I can only echo what has already been said; there can be no doubt that a more knowledgeable and suitable person could not have been found for this job. It is a job which badly needs doing, for there is a great deal of mythology about wealth and income in this country which needs to be enlightened; and facts may make discussions about these problems a great deal more satisfactory than such discussions have been in the past. Not least, they will explode the idea that a redistribution of wealth or income, however desirable in other ways this may be, will do very much to help in the problem of dealing with levels of pay lower down the line.
We on these Benches have been highly critical of the Pay Board as an institution, and of the procedures under Stage 3. We believe that it was excessively centralised and excessively detailed. It led to a great deal of bureaucratic activity which we are better without. By instinct, we should like to see a free system of collective bargaining. One appreciates the difficulties in which the noble Lord the Leader of the House finds himself, but the problem of inflation is so stark and so serious that to expose ourselves at the moment, without any system of adequate controls, to be put on our trust in a voluntary system, however much we may want to see it work in the face of all experience to the contrary, seems an improvident act of the first order.
To continue price controls while having no effective controls over incomes is
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creating a position which is practically impossible for large sectors of industry. At the moment, as your Lordships know, there are two extremely difficult problems facing many parts of industry: lack of investment and a very serious cash flow problem. If prices are held down and pay goes up and up, both those problems must inevitably become more serious. The Trades Union Congress, I am sure in good faith, have said they want to restrict pay increases to keep pace with the rising cost of living, and have told their members—not a moment to soon, and, indeed, many moments too late—that an increase in pay above that level is unreasonable. Even to keep up with the present standard of living, threshold agreements are in themselves extremely inflationary. This has to be said again and again. For the really low paid, provision must be made; but this country is now faced with economic problems of an extent which were not anticipated when these regulations were brought in.
To say that everybody can expect to maintain their standard of living is to encourage people to live in cloud cuckoo land, which is an extremely irresponsible thing to do. As if that were not enough, we are relying on totally voluntary machinery to see that even that inadequate objective is maintained. There is a social compact; the T.U.C. have said they will attempt to keep pay increases down to the level of cost of living increase rises. But supposing they do not? We in this House must put that question. I have already said that threshold payments are far too inflationary; and a Government really determined to govern and to look after the interests of the country and tackle the major problem of inflation must, sooner or later, face the issue of the threshold payments. Accepting that we are working within that framework, inadequate though I believe it to be, what will the Government do when those pay increases are exceeded when increases are given above the levels of the threshold agreements?
We in the Liberal Party have been urging that there should be an inflation tax. Will the Government explore the possibility of this operating in circumstances when the advice of the T.U.C. is ignored and in which concerns, pressured by the unions or for whatever other reason, give way to pay increases which are above the

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threshold agreements? The country have a right to be assured that the Government have some policy as to what they will do when the threshold agreements are exceeded. An inflation tax would be one way of dealing with the problem.
There is another way which might be easier. It is not a policy which has been widely supported but it needs consideration at the moment. The T.U.C. have said that the twelve months' period for pay increases should be the normal period and they would discourage any shorter period—for what that is worth. One way of dealing with excessive claims is to extend the period of time between one pay increase and another. If a particular bargaining group exceeded the threshold limit, would it not be possible to insist that there should not be an additional payment until a longer period than twelve months had passed, so that the extra payment, which was an excessive pay increase, was spread over a longer period of time? At least these are two possible weapons the Government could use.
It is essential that the Government should tell the country what they propose for when the promise to keep within the threshold agreement is breached, let alone what they intend to do when threshold payments are made which are greatly in excess of what the country can afford without a horrifying increase in inflation. We are getting into the habit of living with ever-increasing inflation as if it is something which will go away if we do not do anything about it. This is a crisis of major proportions. To talk as if we can leave the handling of pay to voluntary agreements, which we hope will be honoured—although past experience shows they will not—can only be described as irresponsible.
4.50 p.m.
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, I hope that your Lordships will not think I am being melodramatic when I say that we are standing beside an open grave in which we are about to inter a valuable organism. I am not mourning the demise of the Pay Board so much from the point of view of its function of fixing wages and salaries; I am mourning its departure because of its role—a potential role which has hardly yet been put fully to the test—of acting as arbiter between the conflicting
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interests of various groups within organisations. I myself, as someone involved in industry, believe that free collective bargaining is the best way of arranging wage rates and salary rates. The period of Phases 1, 2 and 3 produced distortions which were very difficult to overcome and created quite unnecessary turbulence within companies when individuals who had to raise their standard of living left for other jobs when they would not have done so if they could have negotiated rises between themselves and existing management.
However, my Lords, freedom means responsibility. One basic law which must never be forgotten is that no one has any rights unless someone else exercises his or her responsibilities. The trade unions have no rights unless they exercise their responsibilities. If the social contract can be made to work, so much the better; we would all welcome it. It is of course the best way of running our affairs. I believe that a majority in the Labour movement and a majority in the trade union movement want it to work. But there is a minority that does not, and within that minority is another minority which would like to smash the whole machine. We must not forget that. But whatever we say about it, even if we could make free collective bargaining work properly, it does not settle those problems that arise when there is conflict between groups within organisations as to their relative position in the organisation. This is why I regret the departure of the Pay Board. It did two useful jobs. It laid down a relativity position for miners; it laid down, I understand, the London allowance. There is a vast area in which an independent arbiter could work if its role was accepted and it had power to enforce its rulings. This is really the only point I wish to put to my noble friend who is winding up to-day. What is going to take the place of the Pay Board as an arbiter of conflicts within industries? We have this new Conciliation and Arbitration Service. Will it be performing this function? Will it have power to enforce its rulings? We have heard that we are about to have a Royal Commission. But God help us all if we wait on the decisions of a Royal Commission! It is a very stately thing, a very splendid thing. But we have to get through the coming winter, we have to

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get through the coming year, and I do not see a Royal Commission reporting within two or three years from now.
As to the kind of areas I am thinking about, first let us take the railway system. Three unions are involved, with ASLEF fighting to maintain its position although there are railway drivers within the National Union of Railwaymen. The position within the railways is totally nonsensical. There should be some organisation—the Pay Board or some other—which, after a study of relativities, work study and the rest (the kind of techniques used to produce the military salary), will lay down a ruling on the actual relative value of the driver, the clerk, the railway cleaner, everybody concerned over the whole gamut of operations within the railway system, all of whom must perform properly if the system is to work, and then make the ruling stick. This is even more important in the National Health Service. Every group that works in the National Health Service is essential. That is the basis of society. Wherever we find ourselves we must do our job, and if we do not do it then society breaks down. It is no good for Mr. Clive Jenkins to say that the consultants are money-grubbing. Let us be honest. We are all money-grubbers. I am money-grubbing at the moment. We are all money-grubbing. We could all live like millionaires, but the hard fact of life is that there must be an impartial referee who can say:"Your job compared with other jobs is worth this. Your job compared with other jobs is worth that. "As I said earlier, if we are to have arbitration we must at the end of the day have power of enforcement. I know that this is a difficult and tricky subject.
One of the main problems in our society to-day is that people do not welcome discipline of any kind. The rule of law becomes less and less important and people are depending more and more on the power of their own right arm in order to get what they want. People should think where, ultimately, the real power in this country lies. The strong right arm lies a long way away from some of the people who are trying to grasp power at the moment. I am afraid that, unless whoever has to take on the terrible responsibility of reconciling the conflicting demands which exist within our society
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at the moment is willing to stand firm in the most difficult circumstances, then individuals such as I myself will start drifting away from the Party and going elsewhere. The departure of Mr. Mayhew and the noble Baroness, Lady Stocks, is not without its significance. They are individuals, but they are the first swallows in a migration which may become a very large one.
Therefore, I should like my noble friend Lord Shepherd to let us know what powers he sees any body which is going to tackle this problem in the future can have to ensure that conflicts within organisations are resolved and do not destroy those organisations. I am afraid that we are not going to enter the age of Aquarius, but we are going to enter the second Iron Age, and only wise policies rigorously enforced under rule of law will, I believe, enable a sytem of democracy to survive.
4.57 p.m.
LORD ORR-EWING: My Lords, it is an honour to follow the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom. I agree with very much that he has said. I should like to add my congratulations on the appointment of the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, to the Royal Commission. I can think of no more clear-minded servant of another place, and now of this House, than Lord Diamond. It has been my privilege over some 20 years to join him in the Lords and Commons ski team. Having seen his very gallant performance on skis, I can only hope that he will recommend that taxes go down just as fast as he himself does when he has skis on his feet. I add my views to those of the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, the noble Baroness, LADY Seear, and my own Front Bench. At this moment the abolition of the Pay Board seems both improvident and foolish. It is one facet of a counter-inflation policy which has performed, and could perform, a useful function.
All Governments, rightly so, are somewhat reluctant to become directly involved with pay negotiations. I do not think they should do this task; they are not set up to do it. This is why the previous Government contrived a Prices Board, a Pay Board and a Code. The Pay Board can do something which the specialist commissions and inquiries which we set up cannot do. It looked intensely at the question of relativities, and that was much

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better done by such a body than by a Royal Commission or by a specialist organisation. We serve from this House. The noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, is looking into the question of nurses' pay. The noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, who has so recently joined us here, is looking into teachers' pay. If we abolish the Pay Board we do not have a body which can take a more general view. The work done by the Pay Board on relativities was useful. To some extent it discouraged leap-frogging. Individual inquiries so often come forward with a recommendation for a generous settlement, but somehow it is not within their terms of reference to take account of the repercussions that that settlement can have thoroughout the whole of our economy. I think that the Pay Board had referred to it in its very early days as,
"the criteria and methods which should determine the pay of the Science Groups in the Civil Service."
This has long been a problem and it is just the kind of problem with which the Pay Board could deal. As noble Lords have reminded us, it looked also into London weighting.
My Lords, nobody, doubts now that wage claims are the single biggest factor in adding to inflation. I am bound to say that this was not said quite so loud and clear during February, and I was pleased when Mr. Healey said at Durham on June 1:
"There are at least some signs that the price of our imported raw materials may level off in the months ahead".
So what happens to wages is the key to controlling inflation in the coming years. In to-day's copy of The Times, Mrs. Shirley Williams made it clear that in four or five months the main stimulus to inflation would come from incomes rather than from commodity prices. And it was repeated by the Government Front Bench to-day. Therefore, on all scores we recognise now that this is where the danger lies, and I am bound to say that the type of wage claims which are now being submitted, pressed or granted underline the dangers.
In the private sector we have seen 55,000 electrical contracting workers being offered, with effect from January 1, 1975, a 41 per cent. increase in their basic pay. The oil tanker drivers have negotiated a deal with Shell-Mex and
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B.P. which is worth nearly a £30 million increase immediately Stage 3 ends. In the public sector ASLEF have claimed a 30 per cent. wage increase and the National Union of Mineworkers Conference has just narrowly rejected a 35 per cent. claim backed up by industrial action. But they want in November—that is, eight months after the last increase—something between 30 and 40 per cent. One has to remember that a similiar increase was given only last March. So much, therefore, for the social contract. In parenthesis may I say that it is a" social contract "although my noble friend kept calling it a "compact"
May I return to page 9 of the Labour Manifesto. At the bottom of that page it says
"This is the essence of the new social contract which the Labour Party has discussed at length and agreed with the T.U.C.".
So do not let us have any flannelling about this. It is a contract; it was thought of as a contract; and it is a contract which we are talking about. Therefore despite the asurance that there were going to be wage claims only once every year, at the moment the National Union of Mine-workers, for reasons which we understand, are claiming that theirs should date from the beginning of November—just before the start of the cold season.
Any Government who peg prices and abolish restraint on wages or rely only upon the contract are taking the gravest possible risks with the future of British industry and British commerce. This action is even more surprising, because not only is it suspending the Pay Board but it is abolishing it and making sure that no future Government, or even the present Government if they are re-elected, can make use of the Pay Board, should an emergency arise. They are throwing out all possibility of flexibility and they will have only one possibility. That is to say, in the face of desperate wage claims they will have only one alternative—a pay freeze. It seems to me that that is an undesirable alternative while the Pay Board is in existence.
The effect of this Order is not only to abolish the Pay Board but to abolish the power in the Counter Inflation Act to re-establish a pay board and to promulgate a code for the guidance of that pay board. Fresh main legislation would thus be required, and everybody knows how long this would take to go through

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two Houses of Parliament, whatever Government introduced it. The Government have thus stripped away their reserve powers to act on wages in an emergency by any other means than one—a wage freeze. If we had achieved at this moment the social contract and if it looked as if it were abided by and respected by all and sundry, then I could understand it; but I cannot help feeling that the Government have given away everything that the T.U.C. wished, although they have not yet got a confirmed social contract in return.
I, like the T.U.C. and the C.B.I., have always wished the social contract well. Ever since 1969, when the Government of the day were forced to abolish In Place of Strife, successive Governments have been struggling with this problem. None of us has yet found a successful conclusion. Therefore I wish the social contract well. However, I wonder whether we can achieve the result that we all desire by giving everything away first and then hoping that we shall obtain an honourable settlement and something which will be binding in exchange. Therefore it is worth reviewing just what this Government have done in their efforts to obtain T.U.C. co-operation.
They have increased taxation by £1,400 million, so that everybody with above average responsibilities and above average initiative or above average energy has to pay more tax. They have increased corporation tax. They have introduced advanced corporation tax. This is surprising, because the whole of British industry will clearly be short of investment funds in the future. In the face of the present inflation, the cash flow problems of almost every firm are really alarming. Therefore it seems to me slightly contradictory to urge British industry to invest more in future capital equipment and at the same time to deprive them of the funds with which they would invest. Fourthly, they have levied higher national insurance upon all firms and upon all industry. They have instituted a temporary rent freeze and they have introduced a limit of £500 million on food subsidies. Then, in accordance with T.U.C. demands, they have tried to refund £10 million of tax to them. They have abolished the Industrial Relations Act. They have amended the law to help picketing, and I hope
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that we have now got something rather better than the original. They have announced in this House "majority public participation", which we call nationalisation of North Sea oil and gas, and last of all they have abolished the Pay Board.
My Lords, it was Lord Kennet, a Labour Minister in the last Labour Government, who unfortunately is not often in our House to-day, who pointed out in the Sunday Times on January 6, 1974, that
"88 per cent. of the votes of the Labour Party Conference are cast by Trade Union Leaders. About 85 per cent. of the money for the Labour Party's Central Organisation comes from the trade unions".
Nobody would have worried unduly about that a decade or two decades ago when the trade unions were dominated by Labour leaders of stature, character and intense loyalty to our country. Now, however, the position is different and one cannot help noticing the emergence of strong, militant, Left-Wing leaders in so many unions which are important to British industry. Therefore I feel that we are doing away to-day with one further breakwater, one further body which could have helped to contain inflation.
It seems to me that in the next few weeks or months that this minority Government will continue to rule, it is a pity not to leave this instrument available to us. It is a pity not to leave it there so that perhaps at some time in the future it may be made use of. May I add that the electorate are intensely bored by the vision of one Party undoing everything that the previous Government did, and in this respect I think that they are undoing it unnecessarily and imprudently.
5.9 p.m.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: My Lords, I apologise for intervening without notice. I overlooked the fact that there was to be a pre-arranged list of speakers on this Motion. As many of my noble friends know, I am slightly less optimistic about the future of the voluntary policy than is the official doctrine of my Party. Nevertheless, I am very happy to take part in the funeral obsequies of the Pay Board. I had thought of buying a wreath to lay upon the coffin, but my noble friend Lord Shinwell advised me that I could find better uses for my money.

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My Lords, I welcome the demise of the Pay Board because it was uniquely designed to get the worst of both worlds. In most of its functions it had a strictly legalistic function in which it had no discretion whatever. It had to look at agreements and see that they conformed to the letter with a code which was not of its own making. It performed that function with great energy and covered an enormous number of agreements and certainly it cannot be faulted in the way in which it discharges that function. Suddenly, at the end of the year, it was moved from no discretion to total discretion. Its advice was asked on one or two subjects and then it was given the duty of finding a solution to the miners' dispute, a problem which had defeated everybody and which had caused the dissolution of Parliament. Such was the confidence placed in the discretion of the Pay Board—which had never previously exercised any discretion—that the then Prime Minister expressed his willingness in advance to accept whatever decision the Board might arrive at. That seems to me to be a combination of the worst of both worlds.
The noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, referred in passing to the Prices and Incomes Board and I should like to point out a fundamental distinction between the Prices and Incomes Board and the Pay Board. The Prices and Incomes Board had a discretion, but it was a discretion that was controlled by certain rules laid down in advance. No such rules governed the discretion of the Pay Board once it was given its head; mind you, it used its head very well and arrived at the only decision that would have been politically possible, but that is another story.
The Pay Board was allowed to go up to a prescribed figure, but to make four exceptions. To put it briefly, there were exceptions where workers made special contributions to productivity; exceptions in cases where the wages did not provide a reasonable standard of living; exceptions in cases where they were not being paid as much as people doing similar work and, fourthly, exceptions in cases where it was necessary to redirect manpower in the national interest. These may or may not have been the right criteria, but they were criteria. In my view, there would be no future for any
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kind of wages policy unless we had some criteria, whether the policy was voluntary or whether it was statutory. My Lords, I hope we shall never resurrect the Pay Board but we might one day find ourselves resurrecting something very like the Prices and Incomes Board.
5.13 p.m.
LORD ROBBINS: My Lords, I apologise for not having put my name down to speak. I came to this debate not meaning to speak, but the weighty pronouncement of the noble Lord the Leader of the House leads me to beg for two or three minutes in which to indulge some further reflection.
I am bound to confess that in the abstract the prospect of the operations of the Pay Board in the past have never filled me with great enthusiasm. I used to listen to a great many of my friends—and I have many of them in the Labour Movement—assuring me that the policy of full employment would not work if there were not some statutory control of prices and incomes. How often have I sat in this Chamber and heard the noble Lord, Lord Balogh, expatiating in terms to that effect. I myself have always been sceptical. I have looked at the verdict of history—and after all there is a good deal of history in the background of attempts of this sort in different countries, and so far as I can see they have always in the end broken down. Our own experience in that respect simply confirms that impression.
But I ask myself still: what purpose ought one to have in mind in considering the operations of this body; and if that purpose is not being fulfilled, what are the alternatives? So far as I can see, it would be perfectly futile to expect that an inflation of the order of magnitude that we are undergoing at the present time could possibly be cured by the operation of a prices and incomes policy—to use a slightly broader term—just like that. It is an extremely feeble instrument with which to cope with the powerful forces which are disrupting economic society here and in many other parts of the world at the present time.
However, I think that given good will and general acceptance, a pay policy at any rate might have the function of arresting the increase of unemployment. If a Government are

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determined to tackle high inflation (if not hyper-inflation) by the only means by which it can be fundamentally eventually controlled—namely, by a tighter control on aggregate expenditure, either through the monetary or the fiscal weapon—then the existence of a pay policy, the existence of a policy which will prevent associations of producers putting up their demands at a time at which the rate of increase of aggregate expenditure is being reduced, would mean that there was less of a depression than otherwise would be the case.
For that reason when the last Government introduced their policies regarding pay, although I was always gloomily sceptical I was prepared to pay lip service to the desirability of making the attempt. I do not know of any case in history where an inflation of the order of magnitude that we are suffering at the moment has been eventually arrested without causing a certain amount of depression. It seems to me that if the brakes were put on, as it was desirable that they should be put on, then the existence of such a policy might mitigate the difficulties.
The last Government certainly did not do that. The last Government pursued utterly contradictory policies. They attempted to control prices and incomes directly, but at the same time they let the volume of aggregate expenditure go rip. While it was ridiculous to hope that the gross national product should increase by more than 6 per cent., let us say, in the last twelve months of the Conservative Government, the credit base, the famous "M3", was increasing by something of the order of magniture of 25 per cent. No prices and incomes policy in the world will arrest disaster if the volume of purchasing power released by such an increase in the credit base meets a diminutive increase in the value of production of that order of magnitude. So we got, and are getting and will get for the next few months at any rate, a continuation of a most disturbing rate of inflation.
I have no particular love for the policies pursued by the present Chancellor of the Exchequer but, credit where credit is due, either the Chancellor of the Exchequer or the Bank of England have succeeded in reducing the rate of interest of the
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credit base. Whereas under the last Government the credit base was increasing by a rate of something like 25 per cent. per annum, it has now been reduced to something more like 16 per cent. per annum. A very sharp reduction, a very sharp application of the brakes, if I may say so; an application which I should expect to find in the months to come if he persists in it (which I suspect he will not) accompanied by some diminution of economic activity and eventually perhaps by some diminution of the increase in prices.
LORD ORR-EWING: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord for a moment? He is always so fair, but surely it would be right to say that some of the marked reduction in M3 is as a result of the actions taken by the Chancellor of the Exchequer at the end of last year. These things always take much longer to react than successive Chancellors hope and believe.
LORD ROBBINS: My Lords, sitting as I do absolutely firmly fixed to this particular Bench, I am not in the least unwilling to give some credit to Mr. Barber for his belated reversal of policy in that respect. I certainly concede the policy of Mr. Healey has been eased by what was done by his predecessor then. However, that does not relieve his predecessor of all condemnation for what had happened before that.
My Lords, what is going to happen in the future? This is the important point, and the point which, after all, is raised acutely in the Statement by the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd. The rate of increase of aggregate expenditure has been substantially reduced. Now, supposing that this gives rise, as it certainly will give rise, to some diminution of industrial activity, to the emergence of some unemployment; and supposing at the same time, the Pay Board having been dissolved, there are claims here and there for rates of increase incompatible with the norm laid down by the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd. In that case, I submit that if the present policy of monetary and fiscal restraint is adhered to, there will be more unemployment than there would have been otherwise.
What are our defences against that? Noble Lords on all sides have talked about a social contract, or a social compact. As I sat here, I must say I was

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mystified. I have been away in different parts of the world from time to time during this Session, and I wondered whether I had missed the issue of some important White Paper. Then I recalled an article which I read in Private Eye the other day, about the discovery of the social contract in a bookshop in Reading by an old lady turning over a parcel of secondhand books. I wondered whether there does in fact exist a contract in any intelligible sense of the world, if it is used in a constitutional or other stricter meaning. So far as I can see, "social compact" (which in all good faith and with convincing rhetoric is referred to by the noble Lords, Lord Shepherd and Lord Aberdare, on the other side) is simply a pious hope that everyone will behave nicely, and that somehow or other a more decent form of society will be evolved. This is a hope which I share.
Meanwhile, and I ask the foregiveness or noble Lords for speaking longer than I had intended, what are you going to do if the austerity in aggregate expenditure continues and there is a slackening in the volume of employment? What are you going to do if at the same time some trade unions infringe the norm which has been laid down by the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd? Are you going to see more unemployment, or are you going to reverse the fiscal engines again, and land us still further in the international mess which overhangs the Western world at the present time to a degree few of us in this Chamber, I fear, fully realise?
5.25 p.m.
VISCOUNT ECCLES: My Lords, I do not wish to keep the House for more than a few moments, but I should like to give a rather different reason why I hope the Government will think again about abolishing the Pay Board. As inflation has continued in this country, what has happened in many industries and certainly in large parts of the nationalised industries, in Government agencies and no doubt in the Civil Service is that relativities between skilled men and the lower grades have got so out of balance that we are now losing our skilled men to jobs which have very much higher rates of pay, but rates which we simply cannot pay. I will give your Lordships a number of instances.
In the British library world, there are men of the highest skill. We are not
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allowed to pay them more than £36 a week. At the same time, we are allowed to pay, and do pay, £32 and £33 a week for totally unskilled young persons coming in to serve as warders. It may be all very well to say that the lower paid worker ought to have more than he had in the past, but if one squeezes the differential to that extent, men who have given twenty to thirty years to learning a skill will go off into the building trade. I have very much in mind two men who are getting £60 a week on demolition sites although they have no training whatsoever for demolition, and these are two men who are in key positions in their skill, and in bodies of several hundred. This sort of thing is going on all over the country.
I ask the Government, what sort of machinery have we got, if the Pay Board disappears, where some of these relativities can be examined and put right? It is a hopeless doctrine that we simply allow leap-frogging to take place over and over again, so that every time the lower paid grades get £30 plus, we then have to give £15 to £20 a week more to the skilled men in order just to keep them where they are. In the last six months, inflation has gone on so fast that we are faced now with what some people say is revolution; but it is not revolution, it is disintegration. Disintegration is occurring in many of the key industries and firms in this country, because the balance between their skilled workers and semi-skilled workers, let us say, is now collapsing and men cannot be replaced. I do not see how they can be replaced. There are no training places. There are not enough means by which we can get, for instance, skilled book-binders. We cannot create skilled book-binders. But if they get double in money by going on to a construction site, who are we to blame them? We must have some form of machinery. I do not think this is a political question—whereby we can keep the balance between skilled and unskilled men something like it used to be. Otherwise, disintegration will take place at an ever-faster rate.
5.30 p.m.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, the noble Baroness, LADY Seear, who was in her place a few moments ago, referred to the debate that we shall have on

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Tuesday week on the economic situation, a debate that we customarily take at this time of the year when the Finance Bill comes from another place. That is a Bill of which, on occasions, we take a particular view, but on which, over many years now, we have adopted the custom of merely passing it. But that is an opportunity when we can debate the situation, and we shall also be able to debate in the light of a Statement which I hope my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will be making in another place on one day next week. I have to be careful as to which day it is. I am not sure what Statement has been made in another place earlier this afternoon. But we shall then be able to deal with some of the matters, particularly those about which the noble Lord, Lord Robbins, spoke this afternoon. Since I will have the misfortune of having to wind up that debate, and I have been warned it is more likely to be the July blood-letting for Oppositions of either Party, I shall read with very great care what he has said this afternoon in order to be in a better position to reply to him in that debate.
We can all have one understanding, that this country is facing perhaps its gravest of economic problems and difficulties for very many years. On the other hand, I would not take the view that the position is as critical as some, particularly writers in the Press, tend to make it. But inflation running at its present level, and what it may be running at at the end of the year—and here I would agree with the noble Lord, Lord Robbins, in a speech he made here many months ago—will place intolerable strains on the whole fabric of our society.
When this Government came into Office we were confronted with one of the consequences of a statutory pay policy. We took Office with the miners on strike and this country coming to a complete dead halt. If it had not been for the previous Prime Minister deciding to give full discretion to the Pay Board and making it an obligation to accept in full whatever it decided, even this Government, bound by the legislation that was ruling at the time, would not have been able to negotiate out of that difficulty and get the miners back to work and get industry
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back into full swing. If there was any lesson to be learned of the rigidity and the inefficiency and the danger of a statutory policy such as the one that had been adopted by the previous Administration, I suggest that the coal industry dispute was a classic example.
My Lords, I would agree to some extent with the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, and my noble friend Lord Winterbottom, that there are some union leaders who are more militant than the traditional leaders of the trade union movement immediately after the war. The noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, mentioned the great patriots of Deakin and Bevin and many others. But I think it is very unfair, in the way in which the noble Lord Lord Orr-Ewing, spoke, to suggest that the present leaders of our great trade union movement are less patriotic, have less interest in the welfare of this nation than the men whom we have been acclaiming as the great trade union leaders immediately after the war. I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, that the workmen of this country, the trade unionists of this country, have got more at risk in the economic future of this country than the capitalist, the owner of capital. The workman cannot take his one asset out of this country and find a safe haven in Jersey or Zurich; he has to stay here, for good or bad; whereas the man with capital, an asset, can take it, as he has taken it. I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, that when I see the amount of capital to-day invested in property in Brussels and Paris and New York and Montreal, I feel that if only part of that had remained in this country the investment that the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, has talked about so many times as being required for industry would well have been made.
I do not want to get into an argumentative stance to-night; I suspect that I will be there on Tuesday week, and I do not want to fire the shots that I have in my locker. But at least can we accept that we are in a difficult situation, that the pay policy of the previous Administration had collapsed and something had to be done. What could be done? The continuation was not possible, and so we followed the policy that we had preached and preached when we sat on the other side of the House for three and a half years, and which hardly ever was really

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listened to. We said we would go for a policy of conciliation and not confrontation.
When we took office, or even prior to that, we sat down with our friends at the T.U.C., and with my noble friend Lord Feather who was then leading for the trade union movement, and we sought to work out an economic policy, a social contract: not a contract which was written out in any legalistic terms, but a contract that was an understanding between two sides of one movement, seeking for something that could at the end bring us out of our difficulties. What was it? On the trade union side they said: "If you are the Government, will you do this and this and this?", and they spelled it out, and it was in our Manifesto. True, we may not have got most of the votes, but I believe most people in this country would accept that side of the contract that the T.U.C. asked of us. We then said to the T.U.C.: "If we do this, will you deliver?" They have undertaken to do all that is within their power to deliver. I have no doubt at all that they will do their best.
I have no doubt at all that in the first few months after the removal of the Pay Board we shall go through a difficult time, we shall see some rather unpleasant wage settlements. We have seen one or two in recent weeks, but when one examines them one finds that most of those are as a consequence of anomalies. I think particularly of the medical hospital technicians, whose wage claim, I believe, was accepted but was caught by the pay policy. Nobody will deny that that section of the community is entitled to a major increase.
There will be difficult times ahead, and I accept that the Government are undertaking a degree of risk here. But I have to say to the House that I do not believe a statutory wage policy is possible in today's political and economic climate. We have got to find another way, and that is what we are seeking to do, in co-operation with the T.U.C., and, I hope, with the C.B.I. I have to be frank. The noble Baroness, LADY Seear, asked what happens if we fail. I hope we shall not have to anticipate failure, because I must admit that I would not know how to answer the question put to me by the noble Baroness, LADY Seear. I think we have got to pursue the policy that the
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Government have adopted and hope that we shall get the co-operation of both sides in private and public industry, whether it is employer or workpeople, so that within the next 12 months we can certainly keep the increase in wage limits to no more than compensating for cost of living rises. If we can retain that situation for 12 or 18 months, or two years—the longer the better, if people's patience will hold—then I believe we shall create the framework to use as a springboard for far better achievements than we have had in the past.
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, before my noble friend sits down, could he say anything about relativities?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I think that my noble friend will find that this can be dealt with within the Conciliation and Arbitration Service. I am fairly sure of that, but I will write and confirm it for the noble Lord.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES (DEFINITION OF TREATIES) ORDER 1974
5.41 p.m.
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE, FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS)THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE, FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS) rose to move, That the Draft European Communities (Definition of Treaties) Order 1974 laid before the House on July 8, be approved. The noble Lord said: My Lords, there are five Treaties included in the Schedule to this draft Order, and the texts of all are available to the House either as a Command Paper or in the Official Journal of the European Community. The first Treaty listed—a decision of the member States of the E.C.S.C.—provides for the opening of tariff preferences for products covered by the E.C.S.C. and originating in Finland. Of course, in practice, since Britain has already removed tariffs on Finnish goods under E.F.T.A. rules, our obligation under this Treaty is limited to refraining from introducing new duties.
The second and third Treaties listed in the Schedule are both E.C.S.C. decisions which provide for tariff preferences and tariff quotas for certain steel products originating in developing countries. They

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form part of the Community's Generalised Scheme of Preference. As your Lordships know, Her Majesty's Government are seeking to secure substantial improvements in this field in the context of renegotiation, and these two Treaties are clearly desirable in themselves.
The last two Treaties listed in the Schedule are both protocols extending earlier agreements; one, the Wheat Trade Convention of 1971, and the other, the Food Aid Convention, 1971. Both the latter are incorporated in the International Wheat Agreement of that year. Both are, in fact, Community Treaties because they were signed by the Community as such as well by the Member States. Of course, both were negotiated in a much wider international framework than that of the Nine. Both of them are that kind of Treaty.
The draft Order follows the precedents set in December 1972 and July and December 1973. This Order is, as they were, wholly in conformity with the terms of Section 1(3) of the European Communities Act, 1972, and there is no doubt at all that all five items listed in the Schedule are new Treaties within the scope of that Section, nor any doubt that it is in the interests of this country that the necessary steps should be taken to enable effect to be given to them in the United Kingdom as Community Treaties within the meaning of the 1972 Act. None in any way conflicts with the Government's wider policy towards European Communities.
The form of the Order differs slightly from that used in the three previous Orders which were discussed at the appropriate times by your Lordships. The revised wording of Article 1 of the Order—and the resultant provision of two Parts to the Schedule—is designed merely to avoid unnecessary practical complications in relation to the date of designation for these Treaties, which are already in force for the United Kingdom on the date when the Order is made.
I think that Article 1 is, in fact, unwontedly clear on this point, and I sometimes think rather more clear than the paragraph that I drafted for myself in explanation. In a sense, a minor variation of wording, but a necessary one. However, I thought that I should mention
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that there is this necessary divergence between the wording of Article 1 in this Order and the wording in the appropriate Article in the three Orders which we have already discussed and approved. Therefore, I commend this draft Order in Council for the consideration of your Lordships' House, and I beg to move.
Moved, That the Draft European Communities (Definition of Treaties) Order 1974 laid before the House on July 8, be approved.—(Lord Goronwy-Roberts.)
5.46 p.m.
EARL COWLEY: My Lords, I do not wish to detain the House by discussing this Order for more than a few moments. As the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, has already explained, this Order itself appears to be quite straightforward. However, it involves the important subject of the Food Aid Convention of 1971. The Command Paper 5624 and the protocol for the extension of the Convention do not state either in Article 3 or in Article 5 the precise roles of the enlarged European Community, and of this country, under the Convention. I understand that the amount of grain that was supplied during 1973 to 1974 by the Community following enlargement was increased by a quarter of a million metric tons to 1·29 million tons. Of this, 45 per cent. was paid for by the Community itself, and the remainder by the Member States. I gather that Britain's contribution was set at 120,500 metric tons of grain. I gather that the amounts to be supplied for 1974 to 1975 are still under discussion and, as I have already forewarned the noble Lord, I have some questions on this point.
Perhaps the noble Lord could tell the House how these talks are progressing, and what the Government hope the outcome will be. With the current fluctuations in world commodity prices it is important—and I think that the noble Lord will agree—to know the precise basis on which the grain is to be purchased. In future will the amount of grain to be contributed under the Convention be fixed with the cost fluctuating according to the price of grain on the open market, or will the financial commitment itself be fixed, with the amount of grain purchased varying according to world prices? In short, will the financial contribution be pegged or will the tonnage of grain

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to be donated to developing countries be settled beforehand?
According to yesterday's Press reports, the noble Lord's right honourable friend the Minister for Overseas Development is reported to have advocated to the Council of Ministers that food aid should be kept either at its present level or, so far as the non-associated developing countries are concerned, it should even be reduced. On the other hand, the Minister seems to be pressing for an increase in the technical and financial aid to be given under the Community's aid programme, on the basis that food aid is "charity" and financial and technical assistance is "developed." What firm commitment have the Government that the rest of our European partners will agree to such an increase or will even be in a position to implement it? How will the Government's desire to cut food aid affect the current round of negotiations under the Food Aid Convention? Lastly, will the noble Lord please explain to the House the thinking and the reasons behind the Government's apparent change of emphasis in their policy on the question of food aid?
5.50 p.m.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, of course no one would wish to raise a debate on these Treaties at this late hour, particularly as most Members of your Lordships' House have vanished from the scene, presumably on the assumption that these Treaties appear very innocent, innocuous and hardly worth debating. But I am not so sure about that. I suspect that the content of these Treaties is very subtle, that, gradually, what we are asked to accept is penetrating—I could use a harsher term but that will suffice—into our sovereignty; that, gradually, with the acceptance of these Orders, these innumerable Treaties, Regulations and the like, we are being denuded of our rights and privileges which are associated with our Parliamentary system. I will not pursue the matter now. I am certain that noble Lords are now weary after the protracted debates we have had since we began operations this afternoon. At this stage I merely want to ask a few questions. First, do any of these treaties, particularly those referring to steel operations, imply that there are to be restrictions in our production? The injection of tariffs
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and the like, which will gradually curtail our operations, will probably lead to some unemployment in order to benefit the other countries producing commodities of that kind. That is my first question. Secondly, I want to know whether the content and substance of these Treaties is definitive? In particular, I wish to know whether they are outside the prospect of renegotiation? The latter question is perhaps the most important, because the Labour Government have decided to engage in renegotiation.
I confess that when I read the reports in newspapers of the speeches and deliberations of some of my right honourable friends in another place, who make frequent visits to Brussels and to the Continent and engage in deliberations and discussions with their opposite numbers, and returning to the United Kingdom full of euphoria, it seems that at last they are coming to terms with their opposite numbers. Nothing creates more suspicion in my mind than that. I would wish it to be otherwise. I should be more content if they failed to display the usual enthusiasm after their return from Brussels. However, I do not propose to pursue the matter or to labour the point, but I suspect all this talk about renegotiation.
I hope that my noble friend Lord Goronwy-Roberts, for whom I have the highest regard because he is an old colleague of mine of much affection, will not regard what I am about to say as an offence. In any event, if it is regarded as such it is not an offence against him personally, but simply because there is a deep-rooted suspicion in my mind that all this talk about renegotiation is a charade. That is my opinion. However, time will tell. Meanwhile, my noble friend will content me—at least, I hope he will endeavour to do so—with his interpretation of these Treaties. Are they definitive? Is this the final word, or are they all subject to renegotiation.
5.56 p.m.
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, may I address myself to at least some of the points which the noble Earl, Lord Cowley, made. I think I can deal with at least two or three of the major eight points he made in fairly brief fashion, by saying that there has not yet been discussion or negotiation of the terms of any successor arrangement to the Food

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Aid Convention which might come into force in July, 1975.
We are giving effect in this country to the Protocol which extended for a further 12 months the arrangement which had to end in July, 1974. Discussions have not yet started in any meaningful way on a successor arrangement beyond that latter term. The second point is covered by a fairly general remark. We would wish to examine proposals for any such successor arrangement very carefully indeed, in the light of what are estimated to be the needs of the developing world—not only in terms of food aid at a particular time arising from possible emergency, and a lack of availability resulting from climatic or harvest conditons, but also in the light of what would be the most efficacious aid in terms of development rather than purely charitable intervention. Charity there must be. But, at the same time, donor countries, of which Britain is proud to be one, must work very hard to enable, recipient countries over a longer term to develop their own indigenous capacities, particularly in agriculture.
The whole point of the statements made by my right honourable friend the Minister for Overseas Development in the last few weeks has been that we are certainly ready to join with others in making provision for a continuation over a period of the arrangements under the Convention, and then of the Protocol. But that we look forward—and I think this is a consensus view in both Houses—to creating a system of effective aid which will enable recipient countries to fend for themselves more and more successfully, and in that way perhaps not become unduly dependent upon adventitious donations. I know that the noble Earl is concerned about this, and that his questions were directed to make clear the policy which is shared pretty generally by all Parties in both Houses.
The third and fourth points which he made concerned the question of the future size of our aid commitment. I would not wish to be tied down to specific sums. I find it very difficult indeed to do more than give certain estimates, which I know will not be brought back to me by way of recrimination if, in this world of changing costs and shifting values (but mainly of changing costs), some of the estimates
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prove to be inaccurate. I do not think they will, but I will put it in this way: it is estimated that in the financial year 1974–75 our participation in the Convention in both forms, which the noble Lord very lucidly described, relating to decisions taken under the Convention before its due date of expiry—that is June, 1974—will cost about £13·5 million.
The noble Lord was understandably concerned about 1974–75, and he quoted a total obligation of 1,287,000 metric tons. I think he made it 1,290,000 metric tons. Let us hope that the extra 3,000 is, in fact, available. I have no quarrel with that figure, but I am sorry to say that I cannot give an exact figure of the tonnage for which Britain will have financial responsibility. However, I think it is perfectly fair to estimate for the House that the total cost to Britain of Community and national action arising from the proposal before this House—this projects forward over the period which the noble Lord had in mind—will not exceed £14 million. These are estimates, although not as the two Houses are accustomed to having before them in the Parliamentary sense. They are assessments of what can be done.
This leads me to the final and very proper point which the noble Lord made as to our commitment. Our sense of commitment is very strong, of course—perhaps it is easy to say that—but it is necessary to say that the resources to be made available by the Government by way of aid are set at the level which they think right and possible in the circumstances of the country. That must be a maximum figure, and aid which the United Kingdom wishes to undertake has to be fitted in according to their priorities. I am very glad the noble Lord did not fall for the temptation of urging that there should be a separate provision for food aid. I know how emotive this may be, but one does not increase the capability of a donor country to make the maximum possible donation to developing countries by separating the donation into two categories, one of which may be at the time more emotive than the rest. Obviously, food has a compelling appeal to everybody; it conjures up visions of hunger and deprivation of children. But one does not increase the effectiveness, still less the size, of the contribution in that way. The size of the contribution

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must be subject to the capacity, the capability, of the donor country. On this point one can only say that we shall continue to do our very best.
My noble friend Lord Shinwell said that he did not want to detain the House, and for once, unusually, he sounded somewhat apologetic. I confess that, after a very long period of having the honour of knowing him as a friend, this is the first time I have heard him strike anything like an apologetic note. I think it was really a note of courtesy; and I appreciate what he said very much indeed. He is wholly entitled to his suspicions: I would prefer my noble friend's suspicions to many enthusiasms from other quarters. From his point of view, he is wholly entitled to regard with great suspicion whatever is done under the Act of 1972 to place Community Treaties in a United Kingdom context.
I can only repeat what I said in my opening remarks—and I mean this—that the Government are seeking to secure substantial improvements in this field in the context of renegotiation (that is, particularly in the field of aid to developing countries), and these two Treaties relating to developing countries are clearly desirable in themselves. I repeat that in regard to the Order which relates to the position of Finland.
The first Treaty is one of liberalisation of trade. In fact, it continues to assert the position which obtained among us, Finland and EFTA, to which I and my noble friend subscribed wholeheartedly, as indeed did the Party opposite when they were in power at that time. There is much to be said for the achievements of EFTA in the field of liberalising trade over a wide area. I will say this much to my noble friend. There is nothing in these five Treaties which will prejudice the renegotiating policy of Her Majesty's Government—nothing.
The second question was whether, in fact, these Treaties, and treaties like them, are themselves capable of renegotiation in the future. I would venture to say that they should be. Personally (and I do not think anybody in the Government would dispute this), I do not think that anything to which we agree now, even within the Treaty of Rome, is for ever and a day not amendable by due process, by agreement. Beyond that, nobody could go. I hope that those who
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regard with great distrust and dislike any movement, economic or political, into Europe will not assume that even the European Communities cannot be changed by courteous and effective argument among friends and partners.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

TOWN AND COUNTRY AMENITIES BILL
6.8 p.m.
BARONESS YOUNG: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, that the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Baroness Young.)
On Question, Motion agreed to. House in Committee accordingly.
[The Earl of Shannon in the Chair.]
Clauses 1 to 4 agreed to.
Clause 5 [Cost of urgent repair of unoccupied listed buildings]:
THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF SHANNON): I must advise the Committee that if Amendment No. 1 is agreed to I shall not be able to call Amendment No. 2.
LORD LYELL LORD LYELL moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 14, leave out from beginning of line 10 to the end of subsection (9) and insert—
("subsection (7) of this section.
(7) The provisions of subsections (6) and (7) of section 104 of this Act (which make provision for appeals against compulsory acquisition of listed buildings) shall with any necessary modifications apply to notices given under this section as if references therein to compulsory purchase orders were references to notices given under this section.")
The noble Lord said: In the unfortunate absence of my noble friend Lord Dundee, I have been asked to put this Amendment to the noble Baroness on behalf of several of us in Scotland who are concerned about particular aspects of Clause 5 of the Bill. In particular, we are worried by an aspect of the clause which gives rise to difficulties so far as the listing of buildings is concerned. There are several of us in Scotland, particularly among the members of the Scottish Landowners' Confederation, who are

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somewhat perturbed by the very large local authorities which came into force on May 1, 1974. It is for this reason that we want to insert the safeguard which seeks to prevent the unnecessary listing of historical monuments and buildings by employees of a local authority, or various other bodies which the landowners feel does not have sufficient historical or architectural interest in the community in general.
BARONESS YOUNG: I am sorry to interrupt my noble friend, but I think he is speaking to Amendment No. 2 and not to Amendment No. 1. Is it in order to continue with Amendment No. 2 although it has not been called?
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: I beg to move Amendment No. 1. This is a Bill which has received a very warm welcome, and quite rightly so. It is a very big step forward and is a great contribution from this country towards European Architectural Heritage Year, which is due to take place next year under the dynamic leadership of Lady Dartmouth. This Bill is a very valuable contribution, but I must say that I think it is marred by Clause 5, which I feel gives powers which are extensive and unlimited to a degree which is not really necessary for the main purposes with which the Bill is concerned.
There are, of course, safeguards in the Bill. I am afraid that I was not able to be here for the Second Reading, but I read with care the explanation of the noble Baroness, Lady
Young. I think that she was aware that this is a matter of concern but, I am worried lest this should arouse in certain people's minds a measure of anxiety as to the way in which the Bill might be operated, though many people would otherwise wholly welcome the general purposes which the Bill is intended to attain. In her explanation, the noble Baroness said that there were certain things "that are envisaged", and she said, "what is likely to happen". One of the catcalls which we frequently hear in this House is, "If this is so, put it in the Bill".
As the Bill stands, a local authority or the Secretary of State can do repairs to a listed house or, in certain cases, to an unlisted house, to an unlimited extent and thereafter recover the whole cost from the proprietor. This Amendment suggests
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that there should be some reference to the sheriff as an independent person, to see whether this is a fair and proper way of meeting this expenditure. The limitations are that it should be necessary, which should not be too difficult; that it should be a reasonable cost—which is difficult, because it is very hard to know what is a reasonable cost nowadays—and that it should not involve hardship. I do not know what is the latest definition in law of "hardship", but, at all events, I suppose it means that one cannot be ruined.
Another curious point is that the Secretary of State himself can order repairs to a property. I can see that there are certain advantages in getting a property repaired by somebody else. There is an advantage in not having to do it oneself. But the real safeguard here rests in an appeal to the Secretary of State. So that one would have the very curious situation arising in some cases of the Secretary of State acting in an administrative capacity on one side, and thereafter acting in a quasi-judicial capacity in relation to an appeal from a decision which he had himself reached. It is a rather thin form of protection.
What has been said—and this is a matter which I must ask the Government to tell us about—is that there will be a circular describing the manner in which the powers under the Bill will be operated. I wonder whether the noble Lord who will speak for the Government will tell us what is intended? Could we have a sight of the circular? Is it intended to take into consultation those who might be interested in seeing the circular? I am moving the Amendment because I think that some amendment will be required in due course.
We are told that if an Amendment is moved the Bill will be lost. I do not think the House wants to lose the Bill, but I feel that there is too wide a gap here in the Bill as drafted, and that in the future we shall need a rather more precise definition of how these powers are to be carried out. However, at the moment, what I am asking for is that we should know pretty fully how the Government will deal with this matter by circular. This is important and if something of the sort is not done the Bill may receive a measure of opposition from people who would otherwise warmly

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welcome the whole concept underlying it. It is with that in mind that I beg to move.
BARONESS YOUNG: May I say how much I welcome the spirit in which my noble friend Lord Selkirk has moved the Amendment. I am very glad that he supports the principles of the Bill, which I think received the support of everyone who spoke on Second Reading. I hope that on Second Reading I recognised the concern that had been expressed. When I went on to explain how I saw Clause 5 operating in practice, it was to indicate something of the reality of the situation in which a local authority might decide to move in to do vital repairs to a building and then charge the owner. Of course, as this power has not existed before, one can only act on a hypothesis. But I said that to allay the fears of those who had expressed anxiety about the clause.
I think that a specific fear which people have is that the Secretary of State has the power to list a building and is also the person to whom an owner of a listed building would appeal against a charge which was being made to him for repairs to a building. I have considered this point but, as I understand the position, this is not a new matter in law. When a building is listed, it is of course listed by the Secretary of State on the advice of either the Historic Buildings Council in England or the Historic Buildings Council in Scotland, and certainly if an owner or someone else wished to demolish a listed building there could well be an inquiry which, at the end of the day, would be settled by the Secretary of State. Although it may seem so, I do not believe that this clause in itself would be a new departure in law.
On the point about the circular, in answer to the fears raised by the Churches, the Government gave an undertaking in another place that there would be a circular to local authorities setting out the circumstances in which they see this power being used. Before such a circular was issued there would, as always, be extensive consultations with local authorities and with other interested parties. I hope that that will give some measure of satisfaction to my noble friend and that with that explanation he will feel able to withdraw his Amendment.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: The noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, directed a particular question to the Government. I am not at all sure that his remarks would not have been better directed to leaving out Clause 5. However, I will answer the point he raised. Yes, it is the intention to issue a circular letter. That letter will stress that it is only emergency repairs to make a building wind and weather proof that are intended. I should have thought that there would be little doubt as to the desirability of ensuring that repairs of this nature would be undertaken.
6.22 p.m.
THE LORD BISHOP OF LONDON: Before the noble Lord sits down, can he say what authority a circular has? One of the fears of those whom I as Chairman of the Churches Main Committee am representing is that however many circulars you may have, those who have to take action have to act in accordance with the provisions of the Act. If, indeed, a circular has such authority that those to whom it is addressed must observe what is required of them, that will ease our anxieties considerably. It has been suggested to us—and therefore I put this question to the noble Lord—that however many circulars you may have a district valuer, for instance, may feel it necessary to go to the Act and use the powers provided for him there, however much he may be persuaded to do one thing or the other by a circular. Could the noble Lord explain exactly the authority of a circular?
LORD GARNSWORTHY: I should have thought that the circular depended entirely on the provisions of the Act, and that the provisions of Clause 5 were reassuring. A circular, of itself, cannot have any legal authority. I think a quick glance at Clause 5 will show that there is a right of appeal to the Secretary of State and I would say that the position was very well protected within the Act. The circular is for guidance, and if local authorities act in a way contrary to the Act then, clearly, as I said, there is a right of appeal and I have no doubt that the Secretary of State can be relied upon to act within the provisions of the legislation.
THE LORD BISHOP OF LONDON: The noble Baroness has said that this

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will be for immediate repairs only, but as I observed in the debate on Second Reading, immediate repairs for a church may be exceedingly expensive. They may necessitate putting up a great deal of scaffolding and considerable repairs may be needed, although they may be superficial. I am wondering, for instance, how the Minister would interpret,
"that recovery of it would cause him hardship".
I suppose anybody could say that it was a hardship to him to have to spend a lot of money on a building on which he did not particularly want to spend it. It seems to me to be very wide, and we would greatly welcome some assurance that the Church, for example, will not be placed in a position where it has to spend a large sum of money on a building which it may not even want and which may be very expensive to repair, even superficially.
BARONESS YOUNG: May I make two comments on the fears which have been expressed by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London? In the case of a church requiring an enormous amount of scaffolding to repair the roof, as he quite rightly said this would obviously be an enormous expense. I think the reality of the situation would be that a local authority would be extremely hesitant to embark on such an undertaking. As he will appreciate, in the first instance the expense will fall directly on the local authority; it will have to pay the bill and then will have to try to get the money out of the owner of the building.
The right reverend Prelate will be aware of the letter that was written by the Minister to a Member in another place, in answer to queries he raised in the Committee stage of this Bill. I think I am right in saying that it is not the intention of this clause that an owner should be put to great expense, and I think we should both agree that major repairs to a large church roof would be a great expense. So I think on both those grounds the reality of the situation is that local authorities will not rush to undertake major repairs of this nature.
LORD DUNCAN-SANDYS: It seems to me that this clause is really a reasonable one. Also, I think it is reasonable to assume that the Government, in issuing this circular, will take into account the
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anxieties which have been expressed in this debate. Many years ago, as Minister of Housing and Local Government, I issued many circulars of this kind. These are, in essence, guidance to local authorities and, on the whole, local authorities are glad to have that guidance. It is not always easy to interpret not only the letter but also the spirit of a law passed by Parliament. If it were found that there was a general or extensive disregard for the guidance given in a circular by the Government, then I have no doubt that the matter would have to come before Parliament again and some qualifying clause might have to be inserted. I think we must assume from the start that local authorities are reasonable people. They have no wish to impose hardship upon those for whose welfare they are responsible.
I should also like to remind your Lordships that one of the main purposes of the series of clauses in the Town and Country Planning Act, and in other related Acts which refer to this matter, is to prevent a practice which I do not say is general, but which has been widespread in some cases, where people who possessed listed buildings of interest and importance have deliberately allowed them to fall into disrepair and allowed them to reach the point where it was not reasonable to ask for them to be brought back into good repair, in order that they might apply for permission to demolish. One of the main clauses in this Bill is designed to try to restrict and control the power of an owner to demolish a building in a conservation area. Therefore, I think it is essential to the whole intention of the Bill that this clause should remain, while at the same time recognising and expressing the hope in which I join with my noble friend Lord Selkirk and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London, that in their circular the Government will take account of these anxieties while not frustrating the purpose of the Bill and of this clause.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: I suggested that the examination of the clause would indicate that the position is safeguarded. If I may, I should like to read very briefly from the clause. It begins:
"For section 101 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1971 (which gives a local authority power to execute urgent works for the preservation of unoccupied listed buildings) there shall be substituted the following section"—

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and then I turn to Section 101(7):
"Within 28 days of the date of a notice under subsection (6) above, the owner may represent to the Secretary of State—

(a) that the amount specified in the notice is unreasonable; or

(b) that recovery of it would cause him hardship; or"

and it goes on. I should have thought that there was ample indication there that in an instance such as the right reverend Prelate has touched upon there is the safeguard he seeks.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: I should like to say one thing. As most of my noble friends who have put down their names to these Amendments seem to be from North of the Border, I see no reason to suspect that the Ministers of the Government in the Scottish Office are not going to be any more co-operative with their circular of advice. I see no reason to suspect, when similar advice is given to the Scottish authorities, that they should be any more reluctant to accept such advice as local councils South of the Border. I have considered this matter very deeply and I see no reason for these fears. The advice of my noble friend Lord Duncan-Sandys is good. One should assume good intentions. The Government are going to issue a circular to the local authorities and until they are proved guilty they should be assumed to be innocent. If, as the noble Lord, Lord Duncan-Sandys, said, amending legislation should prove necessary, it can be done. But I very much doubt that this will be necessary.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: What the noble Lord has said is quite sensible, but I am bound to say that I do not think that legislation should always depend on everyone being reasonable, because human nature is not always reasonable. As my noble friend Lady Young has said, the local authorities will not want, of course, to expend a large amount of money. I accept that. This is quite a good safeguard. But the safeguards in the Bill are very narrow. I feel a great deal of sympathy for the right reverend Prelate, although I think it was on a different clause. But so far as an ecclesiastical body is concerned, I do not know to what point hardship can be said to extend. I do not know if it has ever been tried in law. I
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have very grave doubts as to what is the precise definition of "hardship".
I am a little disappointed that the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, cannot go further than he has. I am not trying to remove Clause 5. What I was trying to do was to give impartial arbitration to the sheriff in Scotland as to what would be a fair charge to the owner. The noble Lord talks about wind and weatherproofing. But to put a roof on some houses is a major operation. I have been concerned as a trustee with one very interesting old house whose walls were almost falling down. A quarter of a million pounds has been spent on that house—and it would have been a great tragedy if it had not been spent. This is unlimited power and unless it is used with great discretion great difficulty could be caused unnecessarily. That is the point I have been trying to make and I do not think that that has been contradicted. There may have to be future amendment on this.
I was grateful for what the noble Lord, Lord Duncan-Sandys, said. I do not propose to press this Amendment. I am grateful for what the noble Lord has said, but I hope that he will take it back to his right honourable friend and that there will be considerable importance attached to the terms of the circular. I do not know how this will come out in Parliament. Perhaps we may want to look at it and discuss it to see whether it is properly appreciated that these very extensive and unlimited powers could be charged to a proprietor—it could be at any amount, running into millions possible in some cases. This is in the Bill. As a House we have to be careful what powers we give, even to local authorities; some are more reasonable than others. Does the noble Lord wish to say something?
LORD GARNSWORTHY: I rather regret that I did not say what I might have said if the Amendment had been moved in the way that I had expected that it would be. I indicated that I thought there was some confusion and the longer our discussion goes on the more I feel that we have indeed not been considering the Amendment as it is before the Committee. I want to stress that this is not a Government Bill, but, as we are anxious to be as helpful as we can, it may be helpful if I say what

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the view of the Government is with regard to the Amendment as it has been tabled.
Under Clause 5 as it now stands, the owner of a building has a right to make representations to the Secretary of State against the recovery of costs incurred in carrying out emergency repairs on the grounds that the repairs were unnecessary, that the cost is unreasonable, and that recovery would cause hardship—the points that I was making in reply to the right reverend Prelate. As I am advised, the effect of the Amendment would be to remove the right to make representations to the Secretary of State and to provide instead a right of appeal to the Courts by applying the appeal provisions relating to the compulsory acquisition of listed buildings. The Amendment provides that these provisions would apply with modifications, but it does not provide any means of modifying them. Nor does it make clear what grounds of appeal could be used.
I am advised that the drafting of the Amendment as it has been tabled is faulty. It would apply provisions of another Act, the Town and Country (Scotland) Act 1972, with modifications, but it does not specify the modifications or provide means whereby they may later be made. Finally, it would amend only that part of Clause 5 which applies to Scotland and leave unamended the parallel provisions for England and Wales.
If I may now turn to the substance of the Amendment, this would substantially alter the position of an owner who wishes to appeal against the recovery by the local authority of costs incurred by them in the carrying out of emergency repairs. Under Clause 5 as it now stands an owner may make representations against recovery of costs on three grounds—and I have already mentioned them—that the repairs carried out were unnecessary; that the cost was unreasonable; and that the receovery would cause hardship. I emphasise that it appears to me that this provides adequate safeguards for an owner. The Amendment, however, would remove the specific grounds upon which representations or appeal might be made.
I am not at all certain what, if anything, would take their place. Further-
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more, I am advised that there would be little, if any, advantage in substituting the courts for the Secretary of State but that there would certainly be substantial disadvantages. In the first place there is the question of expense. As your Lordships will know, the procedure of appeal through the courts can, and often does, prove very costly. Representations to the Secretary of State on the other hand need involve no extra expenditure on the part of the owner. Secondly, the Amendment would enable the courts to intervene only where they were satisfied that reasonable steps had been taken for properly preserving the building. This appears to mean that the works were unnecessary because the building was already being properly preserved. If it does mean that, it limits severely the safeguards given to the owners by the Bill. Certainly the Amendment would remove the right of an owner to appeal on grounds of hardship.
I can see little, if any, merit at all in this Amendment. I hope that what I have said, being placed on the Record, may be of some help to your Lordships. It is the view of the Government that this Amendment would do nothing to improve the Bill and would do nothing to add to the safeguards of the owners of the properties concerned.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: I am grateful to the noble Lord for making that statement. It is a valuable statement. I regret if the Amendment is faultily worded, but in our present state of Papers it is a wonder that it is anywhere near the right thing at all. I take the point that the noble Lord made. I have made my point and am expecting a circular which is useful and which, substantially, will meet the points which we have in mind. With those words, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Clause 5 agreed to.
Clause 6 [Compulsory acquisition of listed buildings]:
6.40 p.m.
On Question, Whether Clause 6 shall stand part of the Bill?
THE EARL OF KINNOULL: On behalf of my noble friend Lord Lyell and myself, I should like to propose that Clause 6 be omitted from the Bill. I

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must apologise to the Committee and to my noble friend for proposing this at a rather late stage which does not give a great deal of time for discussion. I am doing so in order to express the fears that have been put to me. I am sure that the right reverend Prelates will also agree, because I believe the Church fears that compensation under the 1971 Act will be severely limited by this clause.
The Committee will appreciate that this clause serves one purpose, which is to repeal Section 116 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1971. This section sets out the basis of compensation where a building which had been listed was to be compulsorily purchased by a local authority. The nub of the difference between this clause and the old Act is that under the old Act compensation was very wide. Any aggrieved party who was negotiating with the local authority about property which was the subject of a compulsory purchase order could request that the compensation be based on alternative user. This could mean the use of offices, shops, residential accommodation and so on. Under this clause, as I understand it, and as the professional bodies have explained it to me, compensation would be restricted to existing use only. I am not sure what the reason for this change is. I am sure that the noble Baroness will have a good answer, and indeed I hope she will be able to allay the fears of those who feel themselves worried by this new basis of compensation.
I should also like to ask the Government a specific question. If I am right in saying that this clause restricts the compensation to existing use only, would the Government consider, where a compulsory purchase order is made in respect of a listed building in future, introducing a procedure to allow the owner to appeal against the basis before compensation is assessed? This would in fact allay the fears of outside bodies in respect of such cases. Perhaps I might give one simple example to the Committee: a case where the clause would be effective would perhaps be one that concerned an old disused church or an old corn market in the centre of some old city. On the old basis of the 1971 Act, very fair and full compensation would be granted. Under this clause, as I understand it, the compensation will be restricted to the existing use of that building. It does not take very
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much imagination to understand the difference in the basis of the compensation.
THE LORD BISHOP OF SOUTHWELL: This is the first time that I have had the honour of addressing your Lordships, and I do so on a matter of some complexity on which I must ask for your Lordships' indulgence. Nevertheless, it is a matter of great importance to many people, and not least to the Churches.
In his speech last Monday, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London drew attention to the serious discrimination which owners of listed buildings—and the Churches among them—will suffer if Clause 6 stands part of this Bill. We have felt it right not to propose any Amendments, but merely to ask certain questions in the hope that the replies we receive will stand part of the Record of the proceedings and give some assurance as to the intentions of those who have framed the Bill in this particular way.
I apologise for asking seven questions and also for the fact that they are really rather technical questions, but I hope your Lordships will bear with me. I ask, first, this question. Where two adjoining residential properties are of similar size and one is listed, if both properties are acquired by compulsory purchase for office or shop development in an area zoned for office use, will the owner of a listed building be entitled to compensation on the same basis as the owner of the unlisted building? Taking the matter one stage further, will it make any difference if the acquisition is in an area not zoned for office use?
Again, if the listed building happens to be a church (and assuming that Rule 5 compensation is not appropriate), can it be assumed that the compensation which will be payable will be not less than the existing use value (including any of the planning assumptions in the Land Compensation Act 1961) of an adjoining building of similar size?—and in speaking of existing use value, I include any of the planning assumptions in the Land Compensation Act 1961. I am sure that your Lordships will agree that this is no more than equitable.
There are, moreover, certain other contingencies which may arise. The listed building might be adjacent to a vacant site. Where this is so, and both the listed building and the vacant site are

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acquired for development, can it be assumed that the assumptions as to planning which will apply in assessing compensation for the vacant site will be taken into account in assessing compensation for the listed building?
Another contingency which may arise is when two adjoining buildings of similar size and use, one of which is listed, are acquired for a purpose which produces a lower value than the existing use value of the unlisted building—for instance, where an open space is contemplated. Can it be assumed that compensation for the listed building will be of an amount not less than that of the unlisted building? And if, in this instance, the unlisted building is a church, can the same assumption be made?
In short, in all the various circumstances I have outlined, will a listed building be given the same treatment, so far as compensation is concerned, as an unlisted building? Surely it is only just that those who are owners of listed buildings and anxious to do what is right for the public good and not just for private advantage, should not be penalised simply because the building they own is one of consequence and an amenity. No one is seeking to defend the speculator who acquires listed buildings in order to make a financial gain at some future time, but the law should protect those who are the guardians of such buildings and who are having these buildings compulsorily removed from their guardianship.
There is one final question I should like to ask. Where a compulsory purchase order is made in respect of a listed building, does the Minister contemplate introducing any procedure to allow the owner to appeal against the listing before compensation is assessed?
I believe that this Bill, quite rightly, is capable of doing a great deal of good, but it will mean that an increasing number of buildings will come into the category of protected buildings. Often it will be not by choice but by sheer accident that a person will find himself owning a property which, under this Bill, because of the implications of Clause 6, will decrease in value. Surely such a person deserves protection and proper compensation.
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My Lords, as I said earlier we have not thought it right to move an Amendment, in order to allow the passage of this Bill through all its stages before the Summer Recess. This self-denying ordinance on the part of the Churches requires that owners of listed buildings should at least have the assurance that they will not be unjustly treated.
6.50 p.m.
BARONESS YOUNG: I should like to intervene at this point to congratulate the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwell on his maiden speech. I think he has given notice to the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, of the questions that he wished to ask, and he will be replying to them. But may I say what a great honour it is for us all that he is the second maiden speaker on this Bill. We hope that, like so many Members of your Lordships' House, the right reverend Prelate will take a great interest in environmental matters because it is such an important subject, and I hope that we shall hear from him on many occasions. Having said that, may I apologise because I was unable to get in touch with him the other morning when he wrote to me and indicated that he would be in the House. I regret to say I was not here myself and received the letter too late.
I should like to try to answer two points raised by my noble friend Lord Kinnoull. The first question he asked was: What is the reason for the change in the basis of compensation? This is the essential point of Clause 6. As I understand it, under the previous Town and Country Planning Acts, as my noble friend has said, the basis of compensation when a local authority acquired an unoccupied listed building had to be the market value, even if the local authority knew that the listed building was not to be demolished.
The result of this was that an anomaly was created, in that the property would not have fetched market value had it been on the open market, because any other prospective buyer would have known that it was listed and therefore unlikely to be demolished, and would not have paid the same price that the local authority was obliged to pay in acquiring it in order to preserve it. It is because of this anomaly that Clause 6

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was put into the Bill. I hope that the Committee will recognise that this was a very real difficulty in which local authorities found themselves.
Having said that, I appreciate that under this Bill the Churches will not have some compensation that they have previously had in the past. So this is a difficulty for them. On the other hand, there is nothing to prevent the owner of a listed building from applying for demolition, and he may have the application granted. In that case, the basis of compensation would be that it was a cleared site and it would therefore be more valuable in the centre of a town than if the building was still standing. I hope that that explains the reason for the change in the basis of compensation.
The changing of the basis of listing would be an enormous change in conservation procedures. I see that there is a relationship between listing and compensation, and I hope that the Department of the Environment will be prepared to look at this question. I do not think one could give a guarantee of more than that, but it is a matter that ought to be looked at in relation to everything else connected with this Bill.
6.55 p.m.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: I join the noble Baroness, Lady Young, in congratulating the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwell on his maiden speech. I particularly congratulate him on his technical grasp of the situation, and I envy the facility with which he has drawn up and put his questions to the Government. I am extremely grateful that we had some prior notice of the kind of questions that he proposed to address to us, and I will do my best to answer what are really hypothetical points.
I must stress that valuation is a very complex field, and although there are general principles laid down in the Statutes which form the basis of the present compensation code the extent to which they apply in any particular compulsory acquisition will depend upon the individual circumstances relevant to the property which is to be acquired. The basic principle of the present code, however, is that the compensation payable should be the market value of the property and it is this principle which Clause 6 seeks to apply to listed buildings.
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With these reservations, if Clause 6 is enacted in its present form the answers to the questions which the right reverend Prelate has put ought to be as follows. Whether I ought to repeat each individual question, I am not sure. I think that may be unnecessary because the right reverend Prelate numbered them from 1 to 7 and indicated that it would be valuable to have the replies on the Record so that they may be studied.
LORD SOMERS: May I interrupt? The noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, referred to the market value of the property, but who decides the market value? In these days that varies from week to week.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: It would be a pity if I allowed myself to be taken off the track just as I am about to begin to answer the questions. The answer to question No. 1 is as follows: Yes, the same basis applies because the valuation in both cases will be based on market value on which the present compensation code is founded. The answer to question No. 2 is as follows: No, the owners will still have the benefit of the planning assumption that office or shop development would be permitted. The answer to question No. 3 is as follows: No. The compensation payable in the two cases will depend entirely on the market value of the individual properties based on the planning assumptions set out in the 1961 Act.
The answer to question No. 4 is as follows: No. Each property must be valued individually, having regard to the planning assumptions which are relevant to the assessment of its market value. The answer to question No. 5 is as follows: The compensation will be the market value of each individual property which cannot be less than the existing use value of that property and could well be more. The actual amount will vary, but it will never be less than what the market would pay. The answer to question 6 is as follows: If Rule 5 of Section 5 of the Land Compensation Act 1961 does not apply to give compensation based on the cost of equivalent reinstatement, the compensation will be based on market value assessed in accordance with the statutory planning assumptions. It cannot be assumed that the market value of the two adjoining properties which were referred to in the right reverend Prelate's Question No. 5 would be

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identical, whether one of them is a church or not. The answer to question No. 7 is: No. A building is listed on its merits because it is in the interest of the community that it should be preserved. Consent can, however, be given in appropriate circumstances for demolition of a listed building.
If I may attempt to reply to the question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Somers, market value is assessed by the district valuer or by the local authority valuer in accordance with the statutory compensation code. If the value cannot be agreed, compensation can be determined by referring the matter to the Lands Tribunal. If the noble Lord wants further information, I should be glad to write to him afterwards. Although I have put the replies as succinctly as I can, I hope that they will be intelligible when they are read. Great care has been taken in briefing me on this matter. I would not for one moment seek to stand before your Lordships as an expert in this field, but I have done my best to understand the situation, and I think the answers which I have given ought to be helpful in providing, at least, an understanding of the legal position, having regard to the hypothetical nature of the questions as we see them.
The noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, put one specific question to me. I think the noble Baroness gave him a fair reply, but, since he addressed a question to me, perhaps I ought to say simply that what is set out here does not mean that all acquisitions will be at existing use value. Development value can still be included in the compensation by applying the planning assumptions in the 1961 Land Compensation Act. The clause will ensure that compensation for a listed building, when compulsorily acquired, is based on its real market value. Possibly the Church may be interested in that statement as well. I hope the Committee will feel that the Government have been reasonably forthcoming and helpful on this matter.
7.3 p.m.
THE LORD BISHOP OF LONDON: I too would like to add my voice of congratulation to my right reverend Brother on his maiden speech. I do so with a special enthusiasm since I am in a way responsible for his making his
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maiden speech on a Committee point rather than on an occasion which might have been of broader interest, but I feared that I might not have been able to be present. I am afraid my right reverend Brother has a long process of education to embark upon in this House, and so may I begin it, I hope without any offence to anybody, by reminding your Lordships that the pronunciation of his See city is "Suth' all".
We are extremely grateful to the noble Lord who sits on the Government Bench for having dealt with this matter, which we all agree is exceedingly technical. I do not therefore want in any way to bowl difficult balls at him, but I am rather concerned about this point he raises about the market value of the building. Supposing there are two listed buildings; one which is, say, an ancient and beautiful house, and next door to it a church which some people may think beautiful, others not—say, a Victorian edifice. Will the compensation be different in the two cases, since obviously the house has some commercial value whereas a redundant Victorian church has practically no value? Supposing the owners of that church cannot obtain permission to demolish and therefore, as the noble Baroness says, are unable to sell the site as a vacant site. Is it the case that two buildings which may occupy identical areas receive very different compensation simply because one of the buildings can be used and therefore has a commercial value, while the other cannot be because it has no commercial value? This is the kind of problem about which we are concerned.
I was rather disappointed by the noble Lord's reply about the process of listing buildings because, as I understand it, the owner of a building may not be aware that the building has been listed at all. Application may be made by a private person and the listing may be made simply because it may be an interesting building, without the owner's being given any opportunity of expressing his feelings about this. It may be many months afterwards that he wakes up to the information that his building is a listed one. In my speech on Second Reading I outlined to your Lordships a case where I think the Methodist Church was going to sell a building for a large sum of money, until it was suddenly discovered that the building was a listed building and therefore

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the person who was going to purchase it withdrew and the Church authorities were left with a practically useless building on their hands. One would have hoped—and one will still hope—that the Government would look at this matter so that the owner might have an opportunity of being able to make representations as to whether or not his building should be listed.
I do not want to introduce a tart note into this debate, but I must express some of the feelings which the noble Lord, Lord Foot, expressed on Second Reading. It is really very unsatisfactory indeed that a Bill which is approved of by the great majority of us, but which has just one or two elements which cause a great deal of concern, cannot be amended without the fear of the Bill's lapsing and coming to nothing. We do not want that to happen. We feel strongly, however, that this Bill ought to have been introduced in such a way that we had the opportunity of introducing what we believe to be perfectly reasonable and proper Amendments, without being told that if they were pressed the Bill will be destroyed. I dislike having to say that, but it is a point that should be borne in mind because this clause may have very far-reaching effects on the Churches generally which have not a great deal of money and have to capitalise their resources as best they can in order to be able to carry on their work perhaps somewhere else. They have been put in a position, of great difficulty because they have been confronted with this threat that the Bill would come to nothing if it were amended.
7.9 p.m.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: May I first of all deal with the regret that the right reverend Prelate has expressed in regard to the position if an Amendment had been carried. It is no wish of the Government that there should be no opportunity for amendment of this Bill. There is no question of a pistol being held to anybody's head. Clearly, if anybody thought that a grave injustice would follow this Bill he would say: "Well, something must be done about it." I want to make that quite clear. A great deal of work has gone into the preparation of this Bill and a considerable amount of Parliamentary time has been
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spent on it. I think that everybody agrees that, by and large, it is a desirable Bill. It is a Bill that I think will be welcomed by all those who are in any way involved in planning matters and in the issues with which it is generally concerned. My own personal view is that it would be a tragedy if we lost what we have here, but I am making the point because I think it is one which has to be made. I have no wish to introduce a tart note, either, but if anybody sees an injustice being done that is of such a nature that this Bill ought not to be placed upon the Statute Book, then clearly he has a duty to say so. I should regret anything that prevented this Bill from reaching the Statute Book.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: Is the noble Lord saying on behalf of the Government that he is prepared to give Parliamentary time in the other place for Amendments?
LORD GARNSWORTHY: The noble Earl knows very well that I cannot do so in the present situation. Everybody understands that the timetable being what it is, it is impossible for me to give such an undertaking. If I may introduce a personal note, what I can say is that I have done everything I can to ensure that this Bill has had time in this House. May I say that I have appreciated the tenacity with which the noble Baroness, Lady Young, has pursued this Bill. It is a very worthy cause, which has been supported both on Second Reading and tonight by the noble Lord, Lord Duncan-Sandys. He has put a good deal of time into preparing the way for the Bill before it was presented to this House.
In reply to the points which have been raised by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London, an owner always knows that his building is listed. It is the duty of the local authority to inform the owner that it is listed, so there can be no question of an owner not knowing that his building is listed. With regard to the examples, although the right reverend Prelate drew attention to some instances at Second Reading—and they were impressive ones—he knows that cases are seldom if ever alike, and that each must be valued individually on the basis of what the market will pay. If a building is still being used as a church, a Church can obtain compensation on

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the basis of the cost of equivalent reinstatement under Rule 5 of Section 5 of the Land Compensation Act 1961.
If I have not fully answered the right reverend Prelate—and I will look to see whether I have missed anything—I will write to him urgently; and if he wishes any further point to be clarified, we shall be delighted to attempt to clarify it. If I may say so, the same remark applies to his right reverend friend the Bishop of Southwell. This gives me an opportunity to put the matter right. I hope that the noble Baroness will feel that I have not disadvantaged her cause in the explanation which I have tried to give.
BARONESS YOUNG: Before my noble friend replies, may I take the opportunity to apologise to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwell for mispronouncing his name. I shall not make the same mistake again. On the point about the timetable of the Bill, I think that all of us who are concerned with it regret the timetable. However, this is simply a fact of Parliamentary life, and I understand that, in the case of Private Members' Bills coming at this time of the year, there can never be a guarantee that another place will have time for Amendments that may be made in this House. This is a matter for regret, but it is something which no Government can guarantee.
I should like to take the opportunity of thanking the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, for his help and for the help of officials from the Department of the Environment. I hope—and here may I echo a point which has been made on Clause 5 by the noble Lord, Lord Duncan-Sandys—that if in the future there appears to be an injustice arising from this, then we shall look at it again; but that we must wait to see. I think we all accept that if something arises in the future which we do not at present foresee, then we ought to look at it. I hope that in that spirit the right reverend Prelates the Bishop of Southwell and the Bishop of London will accept our good faith in this matter.
THE EARL OF KINNOULL: I also should like to congratulate the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwell on his maiden speech, for mastering, if I may say so, "at a stroke" a highly technical subject (I am sure at very short notice) and
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for addressing the Committee with extreme clarity upon this subject.
I was very grateful to my noble friend for her sympathetic consideration and understanding of the purpose of raising this Amendment. She said that the reason—which I am grateful to her for giving to this Committee—for the Amendment to the 1971 Act was to stop an anomaly. However, the worry of those outside the House is how this new clause will be interpreted by the district valuer and the professional bodies which will be involved in deciding what is the market value. As I understand it, the real fear is that although the building may not be demolished it may be; and supposing that it is demolished a year later, then it would seem that the owner had had a very bad and unfair deal. This is the area which I believe that outside bodies would like to look at and discuss.
This is a very difficult and technical subject to discuss at Committee stage. I am wondering whether the Government could give an undertaking to hold a meeting with those Members who have expressed an interest (particularly the Church and other Members) and, perhaps, their professional advisers to discuss the whole issue in order to see if their fears are groundless—or, indeed, to consider their points.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: I should be very happy to arrange such a meeting. If the noble EARL or the representatives of those who speak for the Church wish to get in touch with the Department, I shall be delighted. I felt that it was one of my obligations to this House to see to it that Members had contact with officials at the Department as well as with those of us who have political responsibilities. If it will be helpful (this is without any commitment, of course) to discuss the difficulties—and I think it can be no more than a discussion, because I have to stress that this is not a Government Bill but a Private Bill—we shall certainly be as helpful as we possibly can within the limitations which I have indicated.
THE EARL OF KINNOULL: I am grateful to the noble Lord. Whether it is a Private Bill or a Public Bill it will still be the basis for compensation. I hope that the Committee will feel that this Amendment has been useful. As the Committee knows, we are dealing with compulsory

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purchase and compensation under compulsory purchase which is always a very sensitive issue. I know that Parliament and this House feels that those who suffer or who are engaged under compulsory purchase should be treated wholly fairly.
I do not wish that this Bill should lose one inch of time due to my efforts and I should be happy to withdraw this Amendment, subject to the approval of the right reverend Prelate.
THE LORD BISHOP OF LONDON: We shall be glad to give our approval.
Clause 6 agreed to.
Remaining clauses and Schedule agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported without Amendment: Report received.

WORKINGTON HARBOUR BOARD
The Queen's consent signified, and Bill reported with Amendments.

EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES
Fifth Report from the Select Committee made on Energy Policy Strategy (R/1472/ 74); the said Report to be printed.
House adjourned at twenty-one minutes past seven o'clock.