Lords Sitting of 20 June 1974

Preamble
The House met at three of the clock: THE LORD CHANCELLOR On the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Ely.

E.E.C. AND UNITED KINGDOM FOOD SUPPLIES
LORD O'HAGAN: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how they would ensure that the British people had enough to eat if the United Kingdom left the E.E.C.
LORD STRABOLGI: My Lords, the United Kingdom currently produces something over 50 per cent. of its total foodstuffs and about 70 per cent. of those foods which can be produced reasonably economically in this country. It is the Government's policy to encourage the maximum economic production in the United Kingdom, and discussions are at present being held with the interests concerned on the future of the agricultural industry. Nevertheless, we shall continue to be dependent on imports for a significant proportion of our supplies. Some of these are likely to come from other Members of the Community, whether we are Members or not, but considerable quantities of imports must also come from third countries with climates more suited to produce the foodstuffs concerned.
LORD O'HAGAN: My Lords, does the noble Lord recall that in a Written Answer to me on May 23, he listed as the four most important producers of agricultural products imported into this country the Member States of the Common Market? In order to ensure safe and cheap supplies of agricultural products to the British people would it not be best for us to stay on good relations with these major sources of our food?
LORD STRABOLGI: Certainly, my Lords; we wish to remain on good rela-
1032
tions with all countries. But both the Irish Republic and Denmark, two of the countries the noble Lord had in mind, whether or not they remain in, will I am sure wish to retain the United Kingdom market.
BARONESS EMMET OF AMBERLEY: My Lords, could we not have as an added insurance the encouragement of fish farming in this country?
LORD STRABOLGI: Yes, my Lords; most certainly.
LORD FRASER OF LONSDALE: My Lords, did not the noble Lord say,"Whether or not we are in "? Is it really necessary to be so doubtful and to cause depression in Europe?
LORD STRABOLGI: My Lords, the Government approach has been developed in some detail this week by my right honourable friend the Minister of Agriculture at the meeting of the Council of Ministers and, indeed, a Statement was repeated in this House by my noble friend Lord Goronwy-Roberts yesterday and a copy placed in the Library.
LORD HANKEY: My Lords, is not the conclusion from the noble Lord's Answer that if we were not in the Common Market we should still be dependent to a considerable degree on foodstuffs from the Common Market, among other sources, but we should be without influence in Brussels to make sure of the conditions in which we got them?
LORD STRABOLGI: My Lords, this is a question of what can be negotiated.
LORD MAELOR: My Lords, would not the Minister agree that this question has been answered by Robbie Burns:
" Some hae meat and canna eat, And some wad eat that want it; But we hae meat, and we can eat, And sae the Lord be thankit."?

M.1 AND TREE PLANTING
3.10 p.m.
LORD BRAYE: 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 planting of young trees

1033
close to the verges of the M.1 motorway could be discontinued, as these trees even before reaching maturity could cause a severe accident should they be blown on to the motorway in high winds; and whether Her Majesty's Government will order that those trees which could reach the surface of the motorway be removed before a serious accident occurs.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, no further planting is proposed on the existing lengths of the M.1. Some of the young trees will be removed to give others space to develop, but in any event no trees are planted within 25 feet of the edge of the nearside lane. All trees are regularly inspected and maintained, and where necessary some are removed to avoid the risk of them becoming a hazard to traffic.
LORD BRAYE: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord for his Answer. Also, I am very glad to hear that the trees will be looked at and kept in safe order, because at the moment some of them are extremely near the verge of the motorway.
LORD HAILSHAM OF SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords, will the noble Lord consider this suggestion? Owing to the rather serious decline in the variety of wild flowers in this country, will he consider planting on the verges of motorways some of the seeds of those plants which are available in order to ensure the conservation of the species?
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I shall be delighted to convey that suggestion to my right honourable friend.
LORD HANKEY: My Lords, have the Government considered adopting the system, which is fairly prevalent in parts of the United States, of planting low growing, creeping plants on the verges of motorways? They grow all over the place and never need to be reaped.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, the Department has made many experiments. The suggestion which we have just heard from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, is one that probably deserves the most serious consideration. I am not sure that we have too much to learn from America in this matter.

POPULATION CENSUS
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have decided to hold a population census in 1976.
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, the Government are considering both the need for up-to-date census statistics and the cost of holding a population census in 1976. They expect to reach a decision before the Summer Recess.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for his apparently sympathetic Answer, may I ask him whether he is aware that the planning authorities—that is, the reformed local authorities—are mainly dependent on the data coming from the censuses for their demographic housing and employment data, and that it is impossible for them to draw up their structural, development, and local plans without up-to-date material? It is just like looking up a train in a timetable ten years old and the result is usually wrong. So would the noble Lord be good enough to take into account these substantial arguments for holding an interim census in 1976, which is still under discussion?
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I can assure the noble Lord that the Government agree entirely with everything he has said. We are aware that local authorities and Government Departments are dependent upon accurate information from the census of the population because of housing, economic and transport aspects, et cetera—in fact, all the aspects that the noble Lord has mentioned. The Government will not need any persuasion on that side.
LORD AVEBURY: My Lords, may I ask the Minister whether he is satisfied that errors of the kind which crept into the 1966 sample census could be avoided if a similar sample census were taken in 1976? Furthermore, may I ask whether he considers that part of the effort should go into ensuring that results from these censuses are available more promptly—and, in particular, that the ten-year statistics from the 1971 Census

1035
should be made available to your Lordships for consideration during the proceedings on the Rent Bill?
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, the noble Lord may know that at the present moment certain pilot schemes are in operation, having been undertaken by the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys. These schemes cover something like 100,000 householders in, I believe—and here I am speaking entirely from memory—about five areas of England. The whole purpose is to see whether it is possible to undertake a census of the normal kind in a much simplified way, where the results can be collated much more speedily and where it will be less difficult for the persons involved in the census to complete the forms.
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that it is extremely difficult for any authorities, either in the Department of the Environment or at the local level, to take correct planning decisions in the absence of the up-to-date and accurate raw material that a census provides? May I further ask the noble Lord whether he is aware that in the absence of this basic material it is only too easy to make very costly mistakes, involving a waste of public expenditure, out of all proportion to the cost of conducting a census?
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I have conceded that in my reply to the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, and that is why I say the Government expect to make an announcement upon this matter before the Summer Recess.
LORD ROBBINS: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether he is aware that the improvement in the quality and amplitude of social statistics in this country is the admiration of professional statisticians throughout the world? It is to be hoped that in regard to the matter raised by the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, there will be no falling away in that respect.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: My Lords, if we are to have a census, may I ask whether the Government—if they still are the Government at the time—will take into consideration the events of the last census, when great resentment was expressed at the many personal (and, as it subsequently turned out, unneces-
1036
sary) questions which were asked of citizens, male and female? May I further ask the noble Lord whether he will attempt to ensure that the public have full knowledge in advance of what the census paper proposes to ask, in order that public protests or representations may be made in good time?
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Lord for what he has said. The matter which he has raised is at present being looked at and perhaps he will allow me to say that, for the benefit of the country, I hope a majority of the people will have the good sense to ensure that we do still have the same Government when the census is taken.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: My Lords, if the Minister is telling us that questions will again be asked of the kind to which the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, referred, may I ask my noble friend whether he will take pains to ensure that the real usefulness of the questions which will be asked is fully explained to the public beforehand? This might obviate a number of the protests that were made last time.
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, this Government and, it would be fair to say, the previous Government took very accurate note of the many objections raised after the last census. These are matters which are being looked into, and I can assure my noble friend that I shall certainly convey what she has said to my right honourable friend.

HAM HOUSE AND OSTERLEY PARK HOUSE
3.19 p.m.
LORD REIGATE: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government why they are not abolishing the charges for admission to Ham House and Osterley Park, which accrue to the Victoria and Albert Museum.
LORD STRABOLGI: My Lords, there have been admission charges at Ham House and Osterley Park House ever since they were opened to the public

1037
under the administration of the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1949 and 1953 respectively. The continuation of this policy by successive Governments, including the present one, is based on the recognition that different considerations apply to charging for country houses, such as Ham and Osterley, from those which apply to our great national museums and galleries.
LORD REIGATE: My Lords, while recognising the fact that Ham and Osterley are just definable as"in the country ", will the noble Lord say what would be the undesirable consequences which would flow from the abolition of these charges which were referred to by the Under-Secretary of State on May 14? Furthermore, as the cost of the maintenance of the properties is borne by the Victoria and Albert Museum, will the charges accrue to thefunds of the Victoria and Albert Museum, as was done under the enlightened policy of the last Government?
LORD STRABOLGI: Yes, my Lords. The receipts from charges go to the Victoria and Albert Museum, who bear the main running costs. Ham House and Osterley Park House are leased to the Government by the National Trust. It would be invidious to remove charges at these houses when the National Trust itself depends on a policy of charging for admission to similar houses in its care.
LORD REIGATE: My Lords, is not that rather hair-splitting as regards the difference in Ham, Osterley and Apsley House?
LORD STRABOLGI: No, not at all, my Lords. Different considerations apply to the Wellington Museum at Apsley House. It will be remembered that this magnificent gift to the nation by the seventh Duke is a national museum in the centre of London. There is every reason why it should follow the free entry policy for institutions in that category. It is quite different from the other two.
LORD REIGATE: My Lords, will the noble Lord also bear in mind that Hampton Court Palace, for which the entry charge is 30p, was once considered a country house?
LORD INGLEWOOD: My Lords, just to clear our minds, will the noble Lord tell us what happens at Kellwood, which appears to be on the borders rather than in the town or country?
LORD STRABOLGI: Yes, my Lords, it is of course rus in urbe; but there again it is in the possession of the G.L.C.
LORD HAILSHAM OF SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords, would the noble Lord accept my congratulations in keeping a perfectly straight face when giving those answers?
LORD LEATHERLAND: My Lords, will my noble friend bear in mind that if he were to abolish the charges for these two country houses, he would be accused of"blacklegging"by the many noble Lords, inside and outside this House, who make charges to visitors at their own country houses?

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
3.22 p.m.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (LORD SHEPHERD): My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. It has been agreed through the usual channels that the Second Readings of the Housing Bill and the Housing (Scotland) Bill, which we are expecting from the Commons next week, should be taken together. Originally, it had been planned to take these on Tuesday, July 2, but I understand that noble Lords from North of the Border will he otherwise engaged on that day, and my noble friend Lady White has kindly agreed to move her Motion forward so as to allow the Housing Bills to be taken on Wednesday, July 3. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That leave be given to the Baroness White to advance her Motion from Wednesday, July 3rd, to Tuesday, July 2nd next and that Standing Order No. 38 (Arrangement of the Order Paper) be dispensed with that day for the purpose of giving precedence to the said Motion over Public Bills and Orders.—(Lord Shepherd).
On Question, Motion agreed to.

HOUSE OF LORDS OFFICES
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF LISTOWEL): My Lords, I beg to move that this Report be now agreed to.
Moved, That the Second Report from the Select Committee be agreed to.—(The Earl of Listowel.)
The Commitee's Report was as follows:
1. PARLIAMENT OFFICE
The Committee received reports:—

(a) from the Leader of the House in regard to the resignation of the Clerk of the Parliaments and the appointment of a successor by the Queen, and the resignation also of the Clerk Assistant; and

(b) from the Lord Chancellor in regard to certain consequential appointments which he proposed to make to Clerkships at the Table, and for which he would shortly seek the approval of the House.

The Committee took note with approval that all these appointments had been the subject of wide consultation in accordance with the personal undertakings given by a former Lord Chancellor and the then Leader of the House (Third Report dated 17th July, 1973, item 2).
The Committee sanctioned the payment to Mr. R. W. Perceval, Clerk Assistant, on his resignation, of the appropriate pension and lump sum under the 1972 Pension Scheme, together with compensation for premature retirement, and thanked him for his services to the House.
2. EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES COMMITTEE: LEGAL ADVISER
The Committee sanctioned the creation, for one year in the first instance, of a new post of Second Counsel to the Chairman of Committees for the purpose of providing legal advice to the European Communities Committee.
The Committee were informed of the appointment of Sir Charles Sopwith to the post.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

FIFE COUNTY COUNCIL ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
Brought from the Commons; read la, and (pursuant to the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act 1936) deemed to have been read 2a, and reported from the Committee.
MERCHANT SHIPPING BILL [H.L.]
Read 3a, an Amendment (privilege) made; Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.
JURIES BILL [H.L.]
Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

SOLICITORS BILL [H.L.]
3.25 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD ELWYN-JONES): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. It is a pure Consolidation Bill. It consolidates the outstanding provisions of the Solicitors, Public Notaries, Etc. Act 1949, the Solicitors Act 1957 and various enactments amending that Act, the Solicitors Act 1965, and the Solicitors (Amendment) Bill which is now before Parliament. The Bill will be referred to the Joint Committee in the usual way and I beg to move.
Moved, that the Bill be now read 2a. —(The Lord Chancellor.)
LORD HAILSHAM OF SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords, may I congratulate the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor on a much needed piece of consolidation.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and referred to the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills.

PRICES BILL
3.26 p.m.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (LORD HARRIS OF GREENWICH): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be read a second time. This Bill is an essential part of our strategy against the staggering inflationary pressures which this country was facing when this Government came to power and which still confront the British people. In February, retail prices were already over 13 per cent. higher than a year earlier. With many cost increases still to feed through, it was clear that this rate of increase was going to go still higher. In January, food prices had stood at no less than 20 per cent. higher than a year earlier. Noble Lords will be relieved to hear that I am not making a political point about this. All industrialised countries had high rates of inflation, although, I am bound to say, in most cases not so high as ours. Much—perhaps as much as half—of the rise

1041
in domestic prices in 1973 was due to rapidly growing import prices, which in turn reflected both commodity price increases and the depreciation of sterling that followed the last Government's decision to float the pound in mid-1972.
The Prices Bill is part of our strategy for making a start on the containment of inflation, and that strategy itself has to be seen against the background of our other economic difficulties. One of the most serious is the balance of payments situation. Much of the deficit was of course due to the rise in the price of imported crude oil. We are not trying to eliminate this part of deficit—it will have to be financed, of course. But we must secure a steady improvement in the non-oil deficit. In the circumstances in which we find ourselves, no substantial increase in living standards can be expected this year. This makes it the more necessary to help those in greatest need. We could not get away in the Budget without significant increases in taxation. Nor could we get away without increasing nationalised industry prices. The prospective deficit of these industries left us with no alternative. Our predecessors have conceded that they would have had to do the same if they had been returned to Office at the Election in February.
What the measures announced in the Budget did was to ensure that the unavoidable burden of higher prices was borne, so far as possible, by those best able to bear it. The retail price index for May is being published to-morrow and it would be impossible for me to speculate on its contents. In April, the index was over 15 per cent. up on a year earlier.
As to the longer term, there are a few hopeful signs at this time. Commodity prices have flattened out in the past few months, and in the case of certain commodities have begun to turn down. Wholesale prices of home sales of manufactured products increased rather more slowly in May than in many recent months. If the more moderate trend of commodity prices continues, clearly this will be a useful bonus for us in our battle against rising prices. But commodity prices are notoriously volatile and it would be a rash man who tried to predict their movement this year and next. We shall certainly not be relying on them for our salvation. If they do fall back, it will
1042
not obviate the need for a Prices Bill. For we have not finished with rising prices yet.
Some further cost increases, as a result of higher oil prices are still to move through into retail prices. The National Institute, for example, are forecasting increases in retail prices of 17 per cent. during 1974 and nearly 14 per cent. during 1975 in their recent Economic Review, and they do not believe that changes in commodity prices from now on would have too much impact on these estimates before 1976.
I now turn to the contents of the Bill. In the context I have described Clause 1 is not merely the first, but the most important, of the prices provisions of the Bill. In saying this, I do not seek to minimise the significance of the remaining provisions. They have a great deal to offer the consumer. But with food subsidies the Government are acting to break directly into the spiral of price inflation. It is not this Government's policy to rely solely on exhortation or to sit back and accept unquestioningly the price effects of world price movements.
I have said that I accept that the terrifying rate of price inflation which this country experienced last year was to a large extent the result of escalating prices of imported raw materials. In that sense, it was not the fault of the previous Administration. In fact in this, as in other matters, it is not enough to attempt to apportion blame and to identify responsibility. What matters is not who was at fault but what practical action should be taken to meet the unacceptable situation that had arisen. The Manifesto on which the Government were elected made plain our determination to do something practical and to do something swiftly.
My Lords, I recognise that there is a basic disagreement between the principal two Parties in this House over the the philosophy of food subsidy. The noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, spoke on June 12 about"banging the old drum of food subsidies ". He expressed his reservation about a policy in which"large sums of money"are spent—as he alleged—" so widely and indiscriminately ". I would say to the noble Lord that the disagreement between us is largely one of degree. Between the two Parties the disagreement is by no means so absolute as is sometimes asserted. The previous

1043
Administration, after all, had already, before the Election, committed substantial sums to subsidising both milk and butter. I assume, therefore, that noble Lords opposite will not seek to argue that food subsidies have no place in the armoury of selective economic policies. This Administration firmly believe that, in the kind of situation that we inherited earlier this year, there is a role for the selective and discriminating use of food subsidies, in suitable cases.
Clause 1 of the Bill allows for expenditure of up to £700 million on food subsidies. In his Budget Statement my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer indicated that expenditure of up to £550 million was envisaged in the present financial year, including expenditure on the pre-existing milk and butter subsidies. Your Lordships will be aware that since the Government came to office the existing milk and butter subsidies have been increased and two new subsidy schemes on bread and cheese have been introduced. The Government have also announced their intention of introducing a subsidy on household flour, And there is finally a proposal, which I am sure your Lordships will welcome, to extend the benefits of subsidised milk to consumers who are outside the scope of the existing arrangements administered through the Milk Marketing Boards. We propose to put right the anomaly—of which I must admit, until I came to prepare this speech, I was totally unaware—by which consumers in certain of the Scottish Islands and the Scilly Isles have hitherto been unable to share in the benefits of the subsidy. The detailed arrangements for these further schemes for these additional subsidies will be announced shortly, and it will then be possible to give some kind of estimate of the additional cost.
Leaving these aside, your Lordships may like to know that in the present financial year payments in respect of the milk subsidy are expected to amount to approximately £260 million. The United Kingdom cost of the butter subsidy will be about £43 million; and an additional £10 million will be paid from E.E.C. funds. The estimated cost of the bread subsidy is £47·5 million and the cost of the cheese subsidy is £30 million. So far, therefore, £380£7·5 million has been firmly committed, and some additional
1044
expenditure will be incurred on flour and milk. In total, these subsidies represent about 4 per cent. off the Food Index and about 1 per cent. off the Retail Price Index.
In selecting foodstuffs for subsidy, and in working out the details of subsidy schemes, the Government have looked first at the foodstuffs which are fundamental in the family budget. Subsidies have been directed to necessities rather than luxuries. It is also necessary to exercise a realistic stewardship of public funds. Products selected for subsidy should have a low elasticity of demand. The Government recognise that there are certain foodstuffs—staple as they may be—which simply do not lend themselves to subsidy in a free economy. I refer in particular to fresh meat, fish, fruit and vegetables. The Government have other policies in hand which will operate to assist the purchaser of these fresh foodstuffs—I shall come to these in a moment. But the unavoidable fluctuations in supply, demand and producer prices would make it impossible for practical purposes to devise a subsidy scheme which ensured that the benefit accrued to the final consumer. It will not, therefore, be feasible to subsidise fresh foodstuffs of this kind.
The subsidies I have mentioned all apply, or will apply, to the foodstuffs mentioned in subsection (2)(a) of Clause 1 of the Bill. In subsection (2)(b), the Bill confers on the Secretary of State a power by Order to extend this list. Under subsection (8)(a), such Orders would require the Affirmative Resolution of each House of Parliament. Thus, your Lordships would have full opportunity to debate and pronounce on any proposal to extend the subsidy programme beyond the five basic commodities already specified in the Bill.
I move now to Clause 2, the clause conferring a power on the Secretary of State to regulate the price of food and of certain other goods. My noble friend Lord Jacques had something to say about this power on June 12. when he repeated to your Lordships a Statement made in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection. Included in the Statement were these words:
" The Prices Bill, which is currently before the House, includes powers which would enable me to regulate the prices of food and

1045
other items which are of particular significance in the household budgets of those with low incomes. It will be necessary to use these powers in some areas—in particular setting maximum retail selling prices for subsidised foods. Beyond this obvious purpose, however, I have made it clear that I would prefer not to have to make widespread use of these statutory powers, provided that my objectives could be achieved by voluntary means."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, 12th June, 1974, col. 502.]
Having dealt with the important agreement reached with the Retail Consortium about the concentration of price cuts on particular items, the Statement continued:
" I would like to pay tribute to the retail trade for their co-operation at a particularly difficult time. It does mean the sacrifice of some flexibility in their operations, and they understandably feel this to be commercially disadvantageous. Their response to my initiative is thus a measure of their concern to play a part in the battle against inflation. I have informed the retail trade that, as long as this agreement is working satisfactorily, it will not be my intention to operate the powers of Clause 2 of the Prices Bill, except in relation to subsidised foodstuffs, since the objectives to this clause will have been met by the agreement instead."—[Cols. 503 and 504.]
It follows from this Statement from which I have just repeated extracts that the initial programme of Orders under Clause 2 of this Bill will be confined to the subsidised goods I have already mentioned; namely, bread, butter, cheese and flour. A general Order on milk will not be required, since an Order setting maximum retail prices for milk is already in force under the powers contained in the Emergency Laws (Re-enactments and Appeals) Act 1964.
My Lords, whatever disagreement there may be as to the merits of a policy of food subsidy, I do not think it will be disputed that, once such a consumer subsidy has been introduced, it is the Government's duty to take the necessary action to ensure that the benefits are reflected in the final prices. So far as subsidised food is concerned, this is precisely the objective of Clause 2(1)(a).
The form of particular price-regulation Orders will depend on the circumstances of each trade. However, I should say that it is intended that each should contain appropriate measures to ensure that any prescribed maximum price operates indeed as a maximum, and that retailers able to sell at lower prices do not automatically adjust their prices to the maximum. Before Orders are made,
1046
consultations will take place under the terms of subsection (6) of the clause with representative organisations, trade associations, enforcement authorities and consumer bodies generally.
The voluntary agreement announced on June 12 is intimately connected with the provisions of the Bill. The items which retailers have agreed to place"on continuous offer"include a number of subsidised foodstuffs. In addition, the basic goods subject to the agreement include a number of the fresh foodstuffs for which, as I have explained, direct subsidy is impracticable. Finally, if the Government determination to act firmly and directly on prices had not been evidenced in the terms of the Bill, I am bound to say I doubt very much whether my right honourable friend would have been more successful than the previous Administration in getting a scheme on these lines off the ground. Accordingly, the powers in Clause 2 are essential to back up the successful operation of the scheme.
May I conclude my remarks on this clause with a word about timing. Your Lordships will observe that the price regulation powers in Clause 2 are limited in duration. They will expire on March 31 next year unless extended by Order under subsection (5) for a period not exceeding a further twelve months. Within these timing parameters, the price regulation of subsidised foodstuffs must, of course, continue for as long as the subsidy schemes themselves. It is envisaged that the voluntary agreement will similarly continue in broadly its present form until March 31, 1975. Clearly, however, there must be an opportunity for earlier review if circumstances so require. My right honourable friend and her Department will remain continuously in touch with the trade on progress and problems.
My Lords, at this point it may be convenient if I move directly to Clauses 4 and 5. These clauses also contain powers to make Orders binding on retailers and relating to the information available to the consumer about prices. I will then return to Clause 3, which touches on a rather different matter in a moment. The powers contained in Clause 4 will. I believe, be generally welcomed. They correct what many of your Lordships may feel to be a long-standing omission in the commercial legislation of this country. It is somewhat surprising to learn that

1047
as the law stands now there is no general requirement for shops to mark the price of the goods that they sell. If competition is to operate effectively, full information is a prerequisite. The trend towards self-service makes price marking more than ever a necessity.
The powers in Clause 4 will make it possible by Order to impose obligations about the marking of specified goods. It will be possible to indicate how the price marking is to take account of V.A.T. It will also be possible where appropriate to require goods to be marked with a unit price. My right honourable friends' Department is already in touch with the main retail trade organisations about the most urgent candidates for price marking and unit price Orders. It is likely that Orders will be made in the first instance on fish, fresh meat, fruit and vegetables. My right honourable friend hopes that the first batch of Orders can be made very promptly after Parliament has conferred the necessary powers. It will, however, obviously be necessary first to discuss the proposals in detail with the trades concerned.
Clause 5 deals with information of a rather different nature. I implied a moment ago that the Government did not intend to make price regulation the pretext for the re-introduction of retail price maintenance by the back door. When price regulation Orders have been made there will remain, quite properly, a range of prices at which products are being sold. This range will demonstrate that there are legitimate variations in distribution and selling costs in different parts of the country and in different types of outlet, and in consequence different prices.
Emphasis on a single price or price maximum can, as I think we would all recognise, be misleading. The Government accordingly believe that in certain circumstances the right thing to publicise is not a single price but the range of prices within which goods are on offer. There are various means by which information of this sort can be made available to consumers. My right honourable friend's Department has recently extended the publicity given to current information about fresh food price movements. There may also be a role for local authorities, in the context of their
1048
general consumer protection advisory services. In addition, however, there may be circumstances in which such information could most usefully be displayed by the retailers concerned.
This is the purpose of the provision in Clause 5, which would permit the Secretary of State by Order to require retailers to display information about the range of prices at which goods are commonly sold.
The powers in the clause will be used, at least initially, in respect of subsidised foods, where maximum prices will be displayed by law and where the range will indicate that consumers need not always expect to pay the maximum price. Since the Government controls the price of milk at all stages, price ranges will not be required for liquid milk. It is expected, however, that a price range Order will be made covering bread, butter and cheese, which will be extended at the appropriate time to include parallel provisions for household flour. The Secretary of State has explained that the powers in the clause will not be used outside the subsidised field without prior discussion with the trade.
My Lords, I come finally to the provisions in the Bill relating to the Agencies established under the Counter-Inflation Act 1973. Clause 3 extends the powers of the Price Commission. Briefly, it lays down a procedure for the exceptional case, for which the general rules of the Price Code may not be appropriate. In such cases, the Commission are empowered to bring the case to the attention of the Secretary of State and seek to satisfy him that there are"exceptional circumstances justifying intervention ". If the Secretary of State is so satisfied. then after the requisite consultation required under subsection (2) a direction may be given, the effect of which is to authorise the Commission to exercise their normal powers under the Counter-Inflation Act.
My Lords, all I need say about this provision at this stage is that it is a procedure to be invoked exceptionally for the truly exceptional case. The previous Administration recognised the need for a provision for exceptional situations in the terms of the Counter-Inflation Act. Under paragraph 6 of Schedule 2 to that Act there is power for the Minister to give consent in exceptional circumstances

1049
to a price increase which would otherwise be restricted by the Price Commission as inconsistent with the Price Code.
But there is the problem. The existing power does no more than permit the Minister to authorise a price increase in excess of the amount permitted by the Order. No matter how peculiar the circumstances or how anomalous the results, there is no power for the Minister to intervene the other way.
Clause 3 does no more than introduce the necessary two-way stretch. I do not wish to exaggerate the significance of the procedure contained in this clause. It is likely to be invoked rarely, if at all. If invoked, it will be to buttress the general principles of our price control policy and not so as to impair the general status of the Code as authoritative guidance for commerce and industry. The exercise of the power is under Parliament's control, since under subsection (3) any direction would be laid as a Statutory Instrument and subject to the Negative Resolution procedure. Such as it is, however, I suggest that this new provision is a reasonable reinforcement of the existing provisions of the Counter-Inflation Act.
Clause 6 confers power for the abolition by Order of the Pay Board. This is not the occasion for a lengthy dissertation on what we on this side of the House consider to be the defects of the previous Administration's counter-inflation policy, and the difficulty of any policy for controlling incomes which does not depend ultimately on consent. But there must be no misunderstanding about this. The Government recognise that any solution to the inflationary pressures confronting us at the moment implies moderation in the level of wage settlements. Your Lordships will have observed that the General Secretary of the T.U.C. has himself recently stated his acceptance of the fact that there cannot, in general, be significant improvements in living standards over the next year. I indicated earlier that such is also the view of the Government. The policy of the social contract is based on a positive response to the measures which the Government have already taken and will continue to take under the powers in this Bill and elsewhere.
1050
All I need say about Clause 6 at this stage is that it empowers the Secretary of State, by Order, to abolish the Pay Board and the machinery of the Counter-Inflation Act as it relates to the Board and to the Pay Code. Such an Order would be required to be laid in draft and would require the Affirmative Resolution of both Houses of Parliament. When this draft Order is laid before your Lordships' House—and it is the Government's intention to lay it immediately on this Bill's receiving the Royal Assent—there will be full opportunity to debate the merits of the policy.
My Lords, this has necessarily been a somewhat hasty canter through the provisions of the Bill, and I have sought to concentrate on the more important points. What I have said will demonstrate why the Government regard this measure as a practical and realistic contribution to our general economic strategy. I commend the Bill to your Lordships, and beg to move that it be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a, —(Lord Harris of Greenwich.)
3.55 p.m.
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, the House will be very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, for explaining this Bill so lucidly. It is a very complicated Bill, but it is perhaps a little less complicated now that he has explained it to us. It is true that in the provisions of this Bill lie the essential differences between those of us on this side of the House and the Government on counter-inflation policy. The Bill gives power to the Secretary of State to abolish the Pay Board, as the noble Lord has told us, and sets out to influence prices by subsidy and control. We are highly critical of both sets of proposals.
There can be no doubt in anybody's mind, I feel sure, that our first priority must be to reduce the rate of inflation which at present is threatening to double prices every four years. The consequences for this country of the present rate of inflation will be very grave indeed, especially for those who are among our most worthy citizens—the self-employed, the professional man, the small trader and the retired. They have no powerful union to stand up for increases in their earnings, and no"threshold"clause to be

1051
triggered by the rise in the retail price index. It is our belief that to tackle this problem effectively requires co-ordinated Government action by every means in their power—fiscal, economic and political. It was in this sense that we sought to act when we were in Government.
We established the Price Commission to act as a watchdog over price increases. It has been effective in many respects, as its periodic reports amply demonstrate. For example, during the first four months of Stage 3, price increases notified to the Commission by firms in Categories I and II were reduced by a total of £600 million. But the other leg of our policy was equally important—the Pay Board. now to be abolished. It is ironic at the present moment to watch the scramble for settlement under the generous—perhaps too generous—terms of Stage 3 in order to benefit from the"threshold"provision. In place of the Pay Board we are to rely for pay restraint on what the noble Lord has called a social"contract ", or what is sometimes called a social"compact ". The word"contract"seems to me to be a little too legal in its implications, and certainly there is nothing legal about this"compact ". In my opinion, it is nothing but a pious hope.
Certainly, no one can accuse the Government of being slow to honour their side of the bargain. Indeed, hardly a day passes without news of some further concession to the unions; and certainly the Economic Committee of the T.U.C. has responded. But no sooner had they issued their advice than individual unions were making it quite clear that they would have nothing to do with a social compact. The Scottish delegates of the National Union of Mineworkers voted unanimously to pursue a claim for rises of up to £20 a week, payable in November, and to use industrial action if necessary. How does this square with the T.U.C. Economic Committee's guide lines? Is this claim just to keep pace with the cost of living? Is this claim designed to help the lower paid? It certainly demands a settlement in a period less than twelve months after the previous one. But the threat to the social compact is not confined to the miners. NALGO, too, have expressed their rejection of it and there are a number of other
1052
unions who are by no means anxious to commit themselves to this compact.
We have no confidence in the Government's wages policy. Nor do we believe that their policy on prices is wise or effective. They began with a Budget which of itself added 1·75 per cent. to the retail price index as a result of increased indirect taxes, and 2 per cent. as a result of increases in the prices of nationalised industries—a total increase of 3·75 per cent. in the retail price index as a result of the Budget. This takes no account of the effect on prices caused by increases in corporation tax and in employers' contributions to the national insurance scheme. No wonder that in the Morning Star of May 25 it was written:
" It was not acts of God. but acts of Mr. Healey in his Budget, which put up all the prices."
The intention now is to spend up to £700 million in food subsidies to mitigate some of that rise in the retail price index. But even given that at a time of grave economic difficulty it is right to devote such a huge sum of public money to the needs of the worst-off members of our society, indiscriminate food subsidies are certainly not the most efficient way to do so. Of the £700 million, more than three-quarters will go to people with an income of over £30 a week and about one-third will go to people with an income of over £50 a week. Some will go to overseas visitors and those who feed in hotels and restaurants. Surely this is a profligate use of public money. Looking at it another way, it has been estimated that the pensioner will benefit from these subsidies by about 33p a week. To increase pensions by 33p a week would cost £35 million, that is about one-tenth of the figure—I think it was £380 million the noble Lord told us—that has already been committed to food subsidies.
If these subsidies are not a bit of short-term window dressing, as some people suspect, what is the Government's longterm strategy? Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, when he comes to reply, will be able to tell us. All the experts predict a continuation of inflation, and the noble Lord. Lord Harris of Greenwich, agreed that there were further rises in food prices to come. Will the Government then raise food subsidies to keep pace with these increases at a cost

1053
perhaps of £1,000 million or £1,500 million in the future? Where will their commitment end in a continuing inflationary situation? Or do they expect at least a slowing down in the rate of inflation? And will they then start to reduce food subsidies so that prices will thereby rise again despite an improvement in the economic climate?
My Lords, food subsidies do nothing to cure inflation. They may dull its impact, but at enormous cost, with indiscriminate effect and at the price of distorting the market. This is happening already. Butter is now often cheaper than margarine and there are signs of shortages of sugar, of milk and of cheese. I am told that in Cornwall there are already some shops which are having to ration cheese. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, could confirm whether or not that is so. In the case of cheese, the Government are spending more than £2 million on subsidising foreign imported cheeses while many of our own best native cheeses, Stilton for example, receive no subsidy.
My Lords, at least I am glad to be able to welcome the provision for unit pricing in Clause 4. We had introduced a Bill in the last Parliament for unit pricing in order to assist the consumer and it is satisfactory that the present Government have continued this policy. I am much less happy about Clause 5 in its effect on the small shopkeeper. It is all very well for the multiple store to display a notice giving price ranges for various products. In the nature of their business those prices are likely to be at the lower end of the scale. But in the case of the local shops, the price is more likely to he at the higher end and it would be impossible to explain that the small shopkeeper gives a much more local and more personal service to the customer while at the same time, being a small shop, he is not able to compete in price with the multiple store. We should like to see the small trader excluded from the provisions of this clause.
Indeed, we are very worried at the effect of the Government's prices policy on the small trader and on the village shop. I know that the Government have excluded traders with a turnover of less than £250,000 per annum from the requirement to cut their profit margins by 10
1054
per cent., but in fact, my Lords, if the village shop is to compete with the large multiple store he too has to cut his margin, and we are fearful that many small bakers, for example, may be forced out of business. This would be a tragedy for the whole community, especially the old people who enjoy the convenience of the local shop. These are points which we hope to probe into more deeply at the Committee stage.
I have not mentioned Clause 2. As the noble Lord told us, it has mercifully been overtaken by the voluntary agreement and, like him, I hope that it will never have to be activated except in the case of subsidised food. Not that we see much benefit to the consumer from this voluntary agreement which has no effect whatever on the retail price index.
My Lords, I hope that the noble Lord's reputation as a Minister will not be judged on the introduction of this Bill. It is a Bill that squanders the taxpayers' money in a most wasteful way; that interferes in the marketplace and lays a heavy burden on the small trader; that heralds the end of the Pay Board and of pay restraint, and that gambles the economic future of this country on an unenforceable contract.
4.7 p.m.
VISCOUNT SIMON: My Lords, I should like to start by offering humble congratulations to the Government on having recognised what I regret the last Government did not fully recognise, that no prices and incomes policy—whether statutory, voluntary or hybrid—can hope to achieve its object unless prices are tackled first, and tackled vigorously. Of course, all aspects of any anti-inflationary strategy must be linked, and I am bound to say that the long-term value of legislation such as we have before us cannot be assessed until we know more clearly how the Government propose, among other things, to regulate, control, or call it what you will, wages and salaries and other forms of income. So far the Government have not unfolded in sufficient detail that side of their policy and in consequence I find it difficult to discuss intelligently the provision in Clause 6 of the Bill which enables the Secretary of State. at some future date, to lay before Parliament an Order bringing the Pay Board to an end. The noble Lord has told us that they expect to introduce this

1055
Order very shortly and that will be the time to discuss this matter, by which time I hope we shall know more clearly what machinery the Government intend to create—because I cannot believe that they are to have no machinery at all—to regulate these matters. Although the inclusion of Clause 6 in the Bill might justify widening this debate, I, for one, do not propose to do so and I will confine my further remarks to the clauses dealing with prices.
First, my Lords, with regard to Clause 1 and the subsidies, we on these Benches feel strongly that these large indiscriminate subsidies involve a massive misdirection of resources, and I agree entirely with what the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, said in this respect. Many figures have been quoted, but I am always cautious of statistics which are notoriously difficult to interpret. I wonder, however, whether the correct conclusion has been drawn. The noble Lord did not make very much of it to-day, but his right honourable friend in another place certainly argued that the items that have been chosen for subsidy were chosen in order that the benefits should fall mainly upon the low paid and the pensioners. It is no doubt true—I have no means of checking it but I accept it—that these basic items represent a higher proportion of the expenditure on food by lower paid families and pensioners. But that does not mean that these lower paid families and pensioners eat more, mouth for mouth, than their more fortunate neighbours. On the contrary, they eat less.
During the Committee stage in another place, some figures were quoted—which I must say I found quite impossible to understand—suggesting that these people actually eat more of these commodities. I should be very surprised if that were correct. It certainly does not agree with the figures quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, and I have no doubt that he obtained those figures from a reliable source. We must also remember that the lower paid and the pensioners are a small minority of the population. So is it not clear—and the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, also made this point—that the greater part of the £700 million, or whatever it may be, goes to people who do not need it?
1056
Incidentally, by directly increasing the purchasing power of the majority of the population, the Government make no contribution whatever to the control of inflation; in fact, what they have done operates in the other direction. Of course, in all parts of the House we want to help the lower paid, but this is difficult to do unless we can identify them. I do not think anyone has yet produced a method for identifying the lower paid, except by something like a means test, and we know this to be unacceptable. We can see that it does not work by looking, for instance, at the poor take-up of the butter coupons. But if the same amount as it is proposed to distribute in the form of food subsidies were distributed directly by increasing family allowances and pensions, the proportion going to the better-off people would be clawed back by taxation. Thus, in effect, the amount available would be increased so that it could be re-cycled—to adopt a popular expression these days—and the lower-paid and the pensioners would get the full benefit.
I suppose it may be said that this would take too long to organise, but if the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, tells us in replying that this is just a temporary arrangement, and that if the Government remain in office they propose at the end of that time to adopt some scheme such as I have very roughly outlined, I shall certainly feel much happier. But we have to remember that once we have established subsidies for basic foods, when we try to bring them to an end we immediately have a hump, especially if inflationary pressure is still going on, because the prices have to be increased by that much more when people have become used to receiving a subsidised article. The noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, touched on this point.
Leaving the question of subsidies for a moment, I come to Clause 2. I think we all agree that subsidised food must be price controlled or regulated as the Bill provides, in this more flexible way. The Minister has told us that as a result of his right honourable friend's voluntary agreement with the trade, reported to your Lordships' House on June 12, it is not intended—provided this agreement is acceptable—to apply Clause 2 to other than subsidised foods. We all hope that the agreement will

1057
succeed but, quite properly, provision has been made for the possible eventuality of the voluntary agreement failing. My own feeling is that the safeguards written into Clause 2, with consultation and, ultimately, an Order laid before your Lordships' House, are adequate. Should the worst occur, if this clause involves—as I think it does—a tightening up of the price control mechanism over some essential foodstuffs and other articles, then I feel that there will be no objection at all. As I have already said, any Order made is subject to Parliamentary scrutiny.
Clause 3 is a different matter. Since under the existing law special circumstances could be held to justify price increases above the level authorised under the Code, it may seem reasonable that it should equally be possible in special circumstances to justify price reductions below the level of the Code. I think that is the argument which the noble Lord put forward. But are these two situations really comparable? May I invite your Lordships to consider the effect of such action in these two situations? In the former situation, the consumer may elect not to buy the item in question—because these are not essential items; otherwise, they would be dealt with under Clause 2. In the second situation where the price is forcibly depressed below the Code level—to use that shorthand expression—the person selling the goods can equally stop selling them, but will presumably have a substantial stock and the loss of that stock which he has acquired in good faith will fall on him and may bring him to disaster. This is particularly so in the case of the small businesses, to whose position the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, drew attention.
There has also been some discussion—this has not been mentioned this afternoon—as to whether this clause is retrospective in its effect. The noble Lord's right honourable friend in another place gave an assurance that it is not retrospective, but I am bound to say I cannot understand it. Clause 3(4), at the top of page 6, states:
"This section does not apply to any increase implemented before the passing of this Act but, subject to that, applies both to a proposed increase and to an increase that has already been implemented ".
1058
I am bound to say I do not understand how it can be said that that does not apply retrospectively.
We can all join in the general congratulations to the Government on Clause 4, dealing with price marking. This is an excellent clause, although there are some difficulties of detail which we may want to look into at Committee stage. On the other hand, I have found Clause 5 very difficult to understand and appreciate. I understand, from statements made during the passage of this Bill through another place that these price ranges—which it is suggested ought to be publicised, and made available to the consumer—are being obtained from the same sources as those on which the Government draw to produce the retail price index. I assume that those sources are all over the country and that an average is struck. But what is the use of putting up a range of prices from, say, 20p to 12p, in a shop in Devonshire, when the 12p price is obtainable only in East Anglia or Scotland? I do not understand how this will work, unless we have some local inquiry available into the range of prices.
Nor do I understand—and this is a point already made by the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare—how one can expect a small shop to put up a notice saying,"The range of prices for this article is from 20p to 12p. My price is 19p ". In a friendly shop, the customer will no doubt ask the shopkeeper,"Where can I get it for less than 19p?" I am quite sure that he will not tell him. Furthermore, it is a little unfair, because we all know that prices are lower in the supermarkets. But the supermarkets are probably a 20p bus fare away, and I do not think many shoppers are sufficiently skilled in accountancy to balance the reduced cost of the supermarket against the cost of going there and back. I would make one suggestion to the noble Lord. Would it not be better if these price ranges are to be posted up and to be, as I hope, regionally relevant, to put them up in post offices, social security offices and perhaps local authority offices, rather than in shops. which could lead to a good deal of unpleasantness and ill-feeling? There are also difficulties about the application of this clause, which we may want to discuss in Committee.

1059
My Lords. I shall not say any more about Clause 6, or indeed about the rest of the Bill. In another place my right honourable and honourable friends, with some help from a few members of the Conservative Party, voted against the Third Reading of this Bill, mainly because of our strong objection to the wasteful use of a large sum of money for indiscriminate subsidies. Naturally, we have no intention in this House of seeking to divide against the Second Reading, but I believe we have a right, and indeed a duty, to call to your Lordships' attention the criticisms which I am sure would have been more cogently expressed if some of my noble friends had spoken instead of myself.
4.22 p.m.
LORD REDMAYNE: My Lords, I had not put my name down to speak in your Lordships' House this afternoon because I did not know whether I could be here, but I should like to make one comment about the voluntary package, as it is called, with which I have had a certain amount to do.
The noble Viscount, Lord Simon said that in an anti-inflationary policy, one must tackle prices first. I should like to say here what I have said since the beginning of the Chequers talks: that it is an illusion to think that you can tackle prices in an anti-inflationary situation at the retail end alone. You must start at the grass roots. It is no good sitting on the safety valve; you must draw the fire. I was happy to see that the present Minister appreciated that point and it is for that reason, in pursuing this voluntary package, that she saw fit to tackle the manufacturing trade also. The voluntary package was entered into in order to avoid the use of compulsory powers. I think that perhaps the Government are heartily relieved that there is a voluntary package, because it is extremely difficult to use the statutory powers. Nevertheless, for good or ill, it was entered into.
I want, however, to give a very real warning that the rise in retail expenses today is such that many retailers are already looking very fearfully over their shoulders at the safety net for net profit which we arranged with the Government. Wages, of course, are rising very fast. To that is added the threshold payments, and whether or not one has contracted
1060
for threshold payments, there is no question that under present conditions one pays them. This has been done almost throughout the retail trade. The addition to the employers' contribution to National Insurance has been a very heavy burden. Rates are up by some 45 to 55 per cent. in many parts of the country. Transport costs have risen most alarmingly, packaging costs, and all the rest.
The effect is that, however enticing it may have seemed to the previous Government or to this Government to take a swipe at the retail trade because in a consumer boom they had made considerable profits, there is very little room left for that type of manoeuvre now. Therefore I give fair warning that although we entered into the voluntary package with good will—as the Minister said, in a spirit of co-operation in an anti-inflationary policy—the House must remember that it was done with the proviso, a proviso admitted by the Minister, that if a retailer's profit fell to the safety net then he was not compelled to cut his gross margin by the full 10 per cent. Therefore, it is fair to say that the impact of it may not be very great. What matters is the effort made by the retail trade, and the effort made by the Government. But the noble Lord, Lord Simon, said that if the voluntary package proved not to succeed there would be room to use the statutory powers. If the voluntary package fails because there is not the profit to provide it, there is no room for the use of the statutory powers unless in fact the retailer is compelled to sell at a loss. I think all of us. if we are fair-minded men, should take that into account.
My Lords, I hope this will work. It took a good deal of achieving. If it does not work, it will not be for lack of effort but simply because costs are rising so fast that it has become an impossibility; and if it is an impossibility then statutory control is an impossibility also.
4.25 p.m.
LORD JACQUES: My Lords, we have had a short but very interesting debate on a Bill which will bring some benefits to every man, woman and child in the country. With very long experience in the retail trade I have very good reason not only to believe but to know that in

1061
the retail shop, where the shopkeeper faces the customer, we have one of the front lines in the fight against inflation, but it is quite unfair to pin the whole responsibility for rising prices on the shopkeeper. It certainly is not the Government's intention to impose an unreasonable burden on this or any other sector of the community. That is demonstrated by the precise changes which have recently been made in the Price Code rules for distribution, which were debated in your Lordships' House on May 16.
After a full consultation it was concluded that retailers generally should reduce their gross margins by 10 per cent. The action the trade is taking to implement the voluntary agreement, about which my noble friend spoke in opening the debate, will not involve any further cut in margins. The power for cutting margins and prices is really in the Price Code. The voluntary agreement merely concentrated those cuts on the necessities of life. As to the Price Code itself, the cut in margins does not apply to enterprises with a turnover of less than £250,000 per annum. It is confined, in other words, to the larger undertakings.
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, may I raise just one point? Of course it sounds very fine to say that only the large undertaking with a turnover of over a quarter of a million pounds will have to make the cuts, but equally shops with a lower turnover would have to make cuts in order to compete with their bigger neighbours.
LORD JACQUES: My Lords, they have always had to do that. That is why they have formed their voluntary groups, such as Spar and Wavy Line. That is their response to the national chain supermarkets. The vital service which the small traders—and, if I may add a personal note, the small branches of the co-operative societies—provide in many communities all over the country is fully recognised by the Government.
The Government have already held extensive consultations about the contents of the Bill with the organisations representing distributors and manufacturers. I would particularly direct your Lordships attention to Clause 2(6), Clause 4(3) and
1062
Clause 5(4). All these subsections ensure that further consultations will take place with appropriate bodies representing the trades concerned before Orders are made to regulate prices, require price-marking or prescribe the display of price range notices. There is very full provision in this Bill for consultations. Indeed, consultations have already begun on the Government's initial proposals for unit pricing Orders, and in these consultations special attention is being given to any problems which may arise for the smaller shop. In our view, however, a blanket exemption from the scope of the powers for small shops would not be appropriate or consistent with our duty to the consumer. I would add, as a practising retailer for many years, that in my view it is more help to the consumer to have prescribed quantities rather than unit prices, and I believe that if the trade would get together and have reasonable agreements on prescribed quantities, then unit pricing, certainly on pre-packed goods, would be unnecessary.
My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection has already made it clear that retail traders, while bound, of course, by any price regulation Orders that may be made under the Bill, would remain entitled over their business as a whole to have to have recourse to the safeguards already written into the Price Code to deal with losses or low profit situations. Cross-subsidisation will, however, be necessary in many shops. But this is not inconsistent with the Government's economic and social policies, that the prices of luxury goods should, if necessary, support the policy of restraint on the more basic items. In addition, your Lordships will have observed that it is specifically provided in Clause 2(7) of the Bill that in making price regulation Orders the Secretary of State will have regard to the circumstances of the trades concerned and to the effect of the Orders on the general level of profitability in the trades. There is, therefore, that additional safeguard.
My Lords, the Prices Bill is a major step forward in the Government's fight against inflation. We recognised from the very beginning that it would not be easy to halt or reverse the unprecedented rate of inflation which we inherited. We

1063
were determined, however, to do something positive to give the maximum possible protection from price inflation to those who need it most. It would be foolish to expect dramatic results overnight; yet progress is being made.
To make this point, I need do no more than let the facts speak for themselves. Without food subsidies the consumer would be paying 2p more for every pint of milk, 2p more for every large loaf of bread, 5½ more for every pound of butter and 7p more for every pound of eligible cheese. I think the figures would be appreciated better if I converted them into the old money. It means that 4½d. on a pint of milk, 4½d. on a loaf of bread; in the case of butter is. id., and in the case of cheese just under 1s. 6d. in the pound, is the reduction in the price caused by the subsidies. These savings are on key items in the household budget and are equivalent to more than 5p in the pound, or in old money ls., off the weekly food bill. It is estimated that the saving in the average household would be 60p per week, and in the case of families with four children or more the saving would be 80p per week, upwards; and even in the case of old-age pensioners it is 33p per week for the couple. Clearly the savings arising from food subsidies will mean proportionately more to pensioners and other households on low incomes than to the better off households. While the average weekly food bill of a family with an income of £60 a week is 15½, per cent., the figure for an old-age pensioner couple is 39 per cent.
Food subsidies are criticised, but quite apart from being a quite important element in the Government's strategy for dealing with inflation they have some merit of their own. First of all, there is no means test, and therefore no detailed complex administration for applying a means test. There is no incomplete take-up on the part of those who are poor but too proud to claim. There is no poverty trap. So you have to take the merits of subsidies into account as well as some of the disadvantages.
I am asked whether the subsidies are intended to be temporary. The limit so far as the Bill is concerned is only on the amount; it is not a period of dura-
1064
tion. What happens will depend upon the Budget year by year; and whether or not the Chancellor will find it necessary to continue, to increase or decrease subsidies will depend upon the economic situation and especially the trend of prices.
VISCOUNT SIMON: My Lords, if I may intervene, is the noble Lord telling us that the provision that the operation comes to an end at the end of March next year applies only to the amount of the subsidy and not to the existence of the subsidy?
LORD JACQUES: My Lords, there is nothing in the Bill which limits food subsidies, except the amount. All the other clauses either have no limit at all or are limited by duration. In the case of food subsidies the limit is the amount of the subsidy.
I was asked about the long term policy. I would say that it is the intention of the Government to continue the food subsidies for as long as it is, in their opinion, necessary to do so. We hope that there will come a time when we do not need subsidies to contain inflation. In that case there will be several choices: to end the subsidies abruptly—and I doubt whether any Government would do that; or to continue them indefinitely—I doubt whether any Government would do that; or to reduce the subsidies slowly and gradually, which would mean that the effect on inflation would be spread over a longer period as a result of the subsidies than it would otherwise have been. That, I think, would be the sensible long term policy in relation to food subsidies.
It is, of course, true that the rich get the benefit of the food subsidies, and it has been stated that they get the benefit whether they need it or not, and without paying for it. I think that food subsidies must be taken in the context of the Government's Budget as a whole. The Government's Budget as a whole was to reduce direct taxation to the lower paid. For example, those who received less than £60 a week paid less direct taxation than before; those who received more than £60 a week in total pay a good deal more tax—several hundred millions more. Consequently, we have the food subsidies, and in so far as the rich are receiving those food subsidies they are making their contribution to the cost by the increase in direct taxation.
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, before the noble Lord leaves that point, if he wants to take the entire context of the Government's Budget into account, will he also mention the severe increases in indirect taxation which have caused much extra cost to the less well-off by raising the price of tobacco, sweets, drinks, et cetera?
LORD JACQUES: My Lords, I should have thought that there would be little disagreement as to the desirability of charging a little more for cigarettes, tobacco, and beer, and a little less for bread and butter, and the things that have been subsidised. I would be prepared to rest upon that. Food subsidies, of course, form only a part of the Bill. There are other powers in the Bill to regulate prices, to give additional power to the Price Commission and to require better price information to be made available to the consumer.
So far as Clause 5 is concerned, and the range of prices, the Secretary of State has made it clear that she intends to apply that only for the subsidised foods so long as she has a satisfactory agreement on a voluntary basis with the retail trades. That power to draw attention to the range of prices is necessary unless we are to bring back some form of retail price maintenance. Once you publish only a maximum price, everybody comes up to the maximum price. We want there to be a maximum and a range up to the maximum, and this power taken in Clause 5 is simply a tool for that purpose, and for no other purpose.
Even before the Bill has become law, the Government have been able to fulfil a major part of the objectives of Clause 2 through the voluntary agreement under which margin reductions will be concentrated on a list of basic items of particular significance in the household budget of those with lower incomes. In all these ways the Government are equipping themselves—and the consumer—better than ever before to tackle some of the most damaging aspects of inflation. The Government would have found it exceedingly difficult to have obtained a voluntary agreement had they not shown that they were paying more than lip service in their efforts to prevent inflation, and it was by their food sub-
1066
sidy policy that they were able to show that they were paying more than lip service. I doubt whether the Government would have obtained the voluntary agreement had they not the reserve powers which are in the Bill. It is because they have these reserve powers that they were able to get the satisfactory voluntary agreement with the trade.
It is only by acting directly on prices of essential household goods that we can expect wage earners to respond by moderating wage claims. Trade unionists are fully aware that they gain more from stable prices and moderate wage increases than from higher wage increases chasing higher price increases. Our prices policy is geared to demonstrate that the ordinary wage earners of this country can have confidence in the Government's efforts to control prices. When the wage earner regains this confidence we can expect him to commit himself to the united endeavour. The Prices Bill has a leading part to play in the restoration of this confidence. We believe that if we are to have industrial peace, we will not achieve it by statutory control of wages. In coming to that conclusion, we have taken into account not only our own experience but the experience of the previous Administration, and the experience of almost every western country that has tried it. We believe that there is only one way, and that is conciliation and arbitration. We have to concentrate on that and tolerate some of the difficulties and try and overcome them. The greatest difficulty is to regenerate confidence in the conciliation and arbitration machinery, and that is what we are endeavouring to do.
The biggest factor in keeping a high rate of interest in this country is anticipated inflation. The people who have money to lend anticipate inflation and consequently want a higher rate of interest. It is not until we can get greater confidence in the future stability of prices that we shall be able to get lower rates of interest. I hope that the Bill will reach the Statute Book without delay. It is an important element in the Government's policy, and to this end I invite your Lordships, with confidence, to give it a Second Reading. There are a number of matters that have arisen, but I believe that most of them could best be dealt with at the Committee stage.
LORD ROBBINS: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, can he enlighten me on something that I regard as an extremely important matter of general policy. Do the Government propose to take powers, in addition to the powers of controlling prices, to institute rationing where demand continues to exceed supply? The policy of indirectly restraining the increase of incomes by acting on prices by subsidies and price-fixing orders was well tried out and had a great measure of success during the war. But experience during the war here and in every country where price fixing has been tried has shown that it breaks down unless it is accompanied by powers to ration where demand continues to exceed supply. Otherwise you get scarcity and queues. and all the social disorder which arise from that.
LORD JACQUES: My Lords, in reply I should say that there is no intention to seek powers for rationing. I should imagine that the noble Lord would readily agree that the likelihood for the need for rationing would depend upon the elasticity in demand for the products which are chosen. The products which have been chosen for the subsidy have a very inelastic demand. Consequently, from the information available to us we do not expect any shortages which would give rise to the need for rationing.
LORD REDMAYNE: My Lords, the noble Lord must know that there is already a shortage of cheese.
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, arising from that, the noble Lord has not yet answered my question as to whether cheese is, in fact, being rationed in Cornwall.
LORD JACQUES: My Lords, we have no knowledge of cheese being rationed in Cornwall. You might have a very isolated case of cheese being rationed. I have known of goods being rationed in retail shops because a retailer failed to put his order in in time and had not received his supplies immediately. I have known rationing in shops because of a breakdown in transport. Such factors could have given rise to the temporary rationing of cheese in Cornwall, if that
1068
exists, although we have no knowledge of it.
I should like to make a statement concerning the availability of supplies. In considering which items might be appropriate for subsidy, count has to be taken of the supply situation. The products which have been subsidised so far have a low elasticity of demand. According to the National Food Survey analysis covering the period 1968 to 1973, the fall in demand for each 1 per cent. increase in price is as follows: cheese, 0·11; milk, 0·09; bread, 0·32; and butter, 0·4.
There has been some understandable concern that subsidies on the three dairy items might upset the balance of supply and demand. It is known that milk supplies from farms during the rest of this year are likely to be somewhat less than last year, although at this stage it is not possible to give a precise forecast of the level. It is also true that the subsidy on milk will cause some increase in the consumption of milk in liquid form. However, these factors do not mean that we are heading for an overall shortage or that we are likely to find ourselves with insufficient supplies of dairy products towards the end of the year. For butter we are already dependent upon imports to the extent of 80 per cent. of our supplies. All indications are that any decline in United Kingdom production would be made good by imports from Europe.
Domestic production of cheese, which accounts for well over half of our total requirements, is expected to show an increase this year. Although supplies of New Zealand butter will be below the level of previous years, we are expecting increases in supplies from other Member States of the E.E.C. I think that we should firmly discount the alarmist stories which have been circulated about rationing of dairy products before the end of 1974. There is close consultation between the Department of Prices and Consumer Protection and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food on the availability of all these supplies.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

CALF SUBSIDIES (UNITED KINGDOM) (VARIATION) SCHEME 1974
4.53 p.m.
LORD STRABOLGI LORD STRABOLGI rose to move, That the Draft Calf Subsidies (United Kingdom) (Variation) Scheme 1974, laid before the House on June 10, be approved. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. When my noble friend Lord Wells-Pestell sought the approval of this House on March 28 to the main Calf Subsidies (United Kingdom) Scheme, he mentioned that since the draft of that Scheme was laid before your Lordships on March 13 the Government had reached agreement in the E.E.C. Council of Ministers on measures to be taken to support the United Kingdom beef industry.
Perhaps I should remind the House briefly of the context in which the increase was determined. The agreement of our E.E.C. colleagues had been obtained to our exercising the option of not taking beef into intervention in view of the need to stimulate consumption rather than taking beef off the market at prices which housewives cannot afford. The Government also informed the Commission in Brussels that, subject to the approval of Parliament, there would be an increase of £10 in the calf subsidy rates in Great Britain. Therefore my noble friend told your Lordships that the variation scheme providing for new increased rates in Great Britain would be laid before your Lordships later. It is this variation Scheme for which I ask your Lordships approval to-day.
The increase agreed to of £10 per head in the calf subsidy, for which the draft Scheme makes provision, applies only to calves born in Great Britain. Northern Ireland farmers are at present being paid under separate legislation, a beef marketing subsidy broadly equivalent to the calf subsidy. This special arrangement was made to prevent distortion in trade with the Irish Republic due to the differences in guide prices on each side of the Border. The situation will be changed as from July 1 when the guide price in the United Kingdom and the Irish Republic are to be made the same, following agreement reached in the Council in Ministers earlier this week, as announced to your Lord-
1070
ships yesterday by my noble friend Lord Goronwy-Roberts. The Northern Ireland headage payments will need to be replaced by an increase in the calf subsidy so that all United Kingdom producers are put on the same footing. A further Calf Subsidy (Variation) Order will therefore be brought before your Lordships as soon as possible.
The draft Scheme falls into two parts, providing respectively for increased rates on live calves—stage A, and on carcases—stage B. Under stage A the increased rates will be £18·50 for male calves and £16·50 for heifer calves. They will be paid on calves born in Great Britain on or after October 30, 1973, until further notice. The increased rates under stage B will be the same as for stage A and will be paid on carcases of animals born in Great Britain and certified on or after December 16, 1974, until further notice. The cost of the increases in calf subsidy rates is estimated at £30 million in a full year.
My Lords, I apologise for speaking at some length but hope your Lordships will agree that the Order is somewhat complicated and that it merits some explanation. My Lords, I beg leave to move.
Moved, That the Draft Calf Subsidies (United Kingdom) (Variation) Scheme 1974, laid before the House on June 10, be approved.—(Lord Strabolgi.)
LORD SANDYS: My Lords, the House will be grateful to the noble Lord for giving us details of the Calf Subsidies (United Kingdom) (Variation) Scheme 1974. I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, for dealing with it at some length because it is somewhat complicated. I speak with restraint for obvious reasons this afternoon because at present negotiations are in progress between the Common Market authorities. The Meat and Livestock Commission are being informed of all these developments and therefore it is in the wider context that I wish to speak about these subsidies.
In the debate on prices to which we have just been listening dairy products were mentioned but not the beef market. Currently, this especially is in a state of great uncertainty. In fact the noble Lord's right honourable friend Mr. Peart, the Minister of Agriculture, stressed in his negotiations and in his statement in Luxembourg that he considered it to be

1071
the most difficult problem within the Common Market at the moment. But in this country the situation of the industry is one of acute financial embarrassment, giving rise to an extreme shortage of liquidity and very high prices of feed. The feeding of animals during the last six months has been a matter of great concern and, as the noble Lord has already told us this afternoon, the steps being taken are to be regarded as interim measures. We look forward to further measures to support them.
One can say only this, my Lords, that the high slaughter rates to-day are caused by a whole group of circumstances, and those high rates to-day will inevitably mean fewer Sunday joints at a later stage. Future shortages may conceivably mean higher prices; higher prices will inevitably lead to increased subsidies and, in their turn, to higher taxes. It is this extremely difficult pattern of circumstances of which we wish to rid the industry, and indeed the housewife and the consumer in this country. The measures proposed this afternoon are but one small step. From this side of the House we can say only that, if they are interim measures, they are inevitably part of a package which must be supported by a great deal more activity in order to support the industry as a whole.
5.1 p.m.
LORD LLOYD OF KILGERRAN: My Lords. may I welcome the explanation of this important and interim Scheme given by the noble Lord the Minister, and also the increase in the amount of subsidies which this Scheme shows over and above the figures introduced by the last Conservative Government after the last Price Review? This subsidy is one which Her Majesty's Government were expected to phase out after a few years, if we were to comply with some of the monstrous and unrealistic terms of the E.E.C.'s Common Agricultural Policy. I join in congratulating the Minister of Agriculture in the other place, Mr. Peart, on the stand that he is beginning to take against these aspects of the E.E.C.'s Agricultural Policy. In particular, may I refer to his speech on June 18 at the Council of Agricultural Ministers in Luxembourg, when he referred to the urgent problems of beef production? He said—and I quote from his speech—
1072
" There is a real urgency about this. We must all recognise that we face the most acute short-term problems in beef production. It could well be that further Community action will be required on an interim basis during the coming weeks. If so, we must be ready to act quickly and effectively ".
My information, my Lords, is that in many rural areas, and particularly on the small farms in parts of Wales, where confidence in relation to beef production is waning, calves are being slaughtered at an ever-increasing rate. This could lead to a shortage of beef in the next year and a subsequent increase in price and, in the long-term, a fall in production can lead only to further higher prices to consumers. There is still considerable scope for expansion in calf production, and I hope that the noble Lord the Minister will give urgent consideration to the requests and appeals which are now being made to him to increase the subsidies in the next measure, which we understand will shortly be forthcoming.
5.4 p.m.
LORD STRABOLGI: My Lords, I should like to thank the two noble Lords for their support, and particularly the noble Lord, Lord Sandys, for his qualified support. The noble Lord said that he would speak with restraint, and I am of course grateful to him for doing so. He mentioned particularly the question of the beef market; and referred to it as being in an uncertain state. I must admit that we are going through a difficult period at present, but I suggest that any alarmist talk can serve only to damage confidence and prospects, and should in my view be avoided. The Government are confident about the industry's continuing future prospects. As I said, action has already been taken to overcome the short-term difficulties. We will safeguard future production, and the first need has been to assist breeders and rearers. This is the reason why we are proposing that the calf subsidy should be more than doubled, as was said by the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, bringing the total direct support for beef production to about £100 million a year. This is equivalent to about £2·50 per live hundredweight. This help should work, in our view, throughout the industry.
The noble Lord, Lord Lloyd, mentioned slaughtering. The slaughtering of cows and calves has increased from the unusually low level of the last two years.

1073
But the national herd is much larger, more calves are being produced, and there are many older cows in the herd which were retained for breeding last year instead of being culled. On the other hand, I think the present level of slaughter is not unduly high: it is about the same as three years ago when the herd was much smaller. I was very glad to hear the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, about the intervention support, and the agreement that he gave to the Government's policy of removing this by stages. Of course, putting beef into intervention cold stores cannot be in the industry's long-term interests. It is much more important to produce a bigger market by stimulating consumption at prices which housewives can afford. The difficulties in other E.E.C. countries have been largely created by consumer resistance to artificially high prices supported by intervention.
The noble Lord, Lord Lloyd, asked us about renegotiation. Beef is one of our main concerns in renegotiation of the C.A.P., and we have put forward changes in the marketing régime whereby intervention buying would play a much less important part. I am sure that we can agree a solution which results in a fair return to cattle farmers, without raising beef prices to a level which deters consumption. I was asked about calf slaughtering. The value of the calf subsidy is in its effect on calf producers, and this is the best point at which to introduce it and to encourage the production of calves, which are our future beef supplies. I hope that I have answered all the questions which have been raised.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

HOUSE OF LORDS REFORM
5.7 p.m.
LORD WILLIS LORD WILLIS rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have, if any, for the reform of the House of Lords. The noble Lord said: My Lords, in one respect this Question is simply a straightforward request for information. Quite simply, I should like to know whether the Government have any plans at this particular time. On another level, it is an expression of my concern and I happen to know, because of the conversations I have had in your Lordships' House and outside of it since
1074
this Motion was put down that that concern is shared by a great many noble Lords; and I am encouraged by the number of Lords who have put down their names to speak. I am unhappy about the present position. I find it unsatisfactory, and I should like something done about it. I am well aware that the Government have some much more urgent problems than the future of your Lordships' House on their agenda at the moment. Nevertheless, I hope that in the midst of the work that they have to do they will not overlook the fact that reform of your Lordships' House has been under discussion since 1911, and that apart from the Life Peerages Act 1958 we still have not moved forward one single inch.
As your Lordships all know, it is difficult to describe the constitution of the House of Lords. It is like trying to describe cricket to an Abyssinian through a Greek interpreter. We explain that some Peers inherit their present title; that some Peers are appointed, but not elected, and that they are here for life; and that, irrespective of any Election results, there is a built-in Conservative majority. By that time you have lost them. But when all this has been admitted, we usually turn around and say,"Never mind—it works." That is the main thing about it. It may be an anachronism, but it works. My Lords, I would be the last to deny this. I know that it works, and there is a great deal of evidence to support this. There is the work on Government Bills which leads to useful Amendments; the idea that we are a Chamber of second thoughts; and the fact that we are very often a test bench for new ideas and new legislation. The classic example, of course, was the reform of the abortion law, where we began here the great public debate and, in essence, initiated the eventual reform. There are other areas, obviously, in which our work is useful—not all of it done in this Chamber.
My Lords, that is not the question. If we are honest we have to ask ourselves, can we work better? Can we make a greater contribution to the Parliamentary process? To go further, we ought to ask ourselves more fundamental questions: whether, for example, the work we do could not be done better by some other kind of Chamber or Committee, or, even, whether we are strictly necessary? We

1075
ought to ask ourselves whether the world would stop for one second in its cosmic flight if this place were abolished tomorrow and some other second Chamber put in its place, or nothing at all?
My Lords, it is difficult for anybody who has sat here, as I have for ten years, to answer such questions objectively. If one has the privilege of being a Member of this House one is a Member of what has been described as the best club in the world. It is true that one would have to look hard to find a place with a more congenial, pleasant and seductive atmosphere. I remember a Labour Minister way back in 1964, flushed with victory at the Election, meeting me in our guest room for a drink. He looked around the guest room and said:"We could do with this space. You don't really need it. We will take it over ". That Labour Minister is now a respected Member of this House and I am sure that he would be the first one on the barricades if there were to be any attempt by the other place to take over our accommodation. That is what happens in this House. In some ways it is a kind of lotus land, where even the most rebellious heart becomes softened. In fact, when I first came here I remember listening to a noble Lord who unhappily has now gone to that bourne from which no traveller returns. He was carrying on at some length and I was reminded of the phrase from Tennyson's poem:
" In the afternoon they came unto a land in which it seemed always afternoon."
Here the rough edges are smoothed, all is sweetness, courtesy and light. Here the rebel lies down with the reactionary, the pleb. with the professor and the Bishop with the business man—all in perfect harmony. As the noble and gallant Viscount, Lord Montgomery, said once:
" We are all decent chaps here."
It is in this atmosphere that the danger lies. It can and does create complacency, a resistance to change and even illusions of grandeur, the greatest danger of all. Why alter something that is so good, so comfortable and that works in its creaking kind of way. Why stir things up? Why not let sleeping Peers lie? I believe that we have to resist these feelings and that we must be on our guard against self-delusion. If we do
1076
this, we shall see that there is a great deal in our present situation which is wrong and which ought to be changed. Because we are not talking about a club, we are talking about an arm of the Parliamentary process, a second Chamber which is paid for by taxpayers' money.
Since 1968 there has been a deadly silence on this issue of reform. A curtain has descended on it. I do not intend to go into all the details of the reform proposals put forward that year. They are all available to your Lordships. But two things happened that year: first, proposals for reform were agreed between all parties in your Lordships' House after a great deal of discussion; and secondly, when the Government were defeated here—I think on an issue about Rhodesia—they threw out our proposals and introduced their own Bill to reform this House. That Bill was killed off by a strange alliance; a political pincer-movement with Enoch Powell at one arm and Michael Foot at the other—two eminent Parliamentarians. Both opposed the Bill for different reasons: Enoch Powell did not want to see any fundamental change here, preferring to leave matters as they were. That is a simplification of his argument, but basically that was it. Michael Foot opposed change because he is fundamentally an abolitionist. He felt that the Bill might lead to a stronger and more viable House of Lords, and he was against that, he just wanted to get rid of us. Since the withdrawal of that Bill we have heard nothing. Reform has become a dead issue and our situation seems, in some respects, to have worsened.
I am concerned, for example, at the present Government's attitude to your Lordships' House. I want to stress that there is nothing personal in the remarks I am about to make. I respect and admire the job being done by the Leader of the House and by my noble friends on the Front Bench. But Government policy seems to me to be to treat this House as a rather unimportant junior school to be run by rather junior masters. Let us consider the facts: when the Prime Minister was creating this Government after the last election, he showed scant concern or respect or gave little time to your Lordships' House. When the Government-making was finished we emerged with the meagre total of nine

1077
Ministers out of a total of almost 90. If one excludes the Leader of the House and the Lord Chancellor, because they are obligatory and you cannot get rid of them, we are left with seven Ministers of middle and junior rank. Together with six Whips they have to cover the whole range of Government policy.
We had an example this afternoon when the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, who occupies a busy desk at the Home Office, had to cross the road and take on the heavy assignment of the Prices Bill. That, to me, is quite unworkable and wrong. He did a brilliant job, but it is not fair to load a man down in that way. The incredible fact is that our Ministers do so well. But is it fair or reasonable to place them in this position? Is it fair or reasonable to place this House in the position when we are, to some extent, at the mercy of the briefs that are given out by the Civil Service? Is it right that this House should have no direct Ministerial contact with many key Departments, such as Prices, Environment, Housing, and so forth. I think it is shameful, it is a snub to your Lordships' House and something should be said about it if only from the Back-Benches. The Prime Minister can hardly argue that the talent is not available to take up additional Ministerial posts because after all he has been responsible since 1964 for sending about 150 people here and he must have thought, presumably, that they had some quality, otherwise he would not have nominated them.
I believe that the Government's attitude to the House of Lords is symptomatic of a fairly general feeling in the House of Commons. We ought to face the fact that there is no doubt—and this applies particularly to the Labour Benches there—that there is a legacy of suspicion and distrust of a non-elected House which has a permanent Conservative majority and powers of delay. I do not think that we shall make any progress at all until that distrust has been removed and it can only be removed by reform.
We could work better and could carry a greater share of the Parliamentary load, provided the problems that appear to divide us from the other place were resolved. It is important in a wider context. We all know that there is among
1078
ordinary people, a certain cynicism about Parliamentary institutions and that cynicism is not relieved by a situation in which obvious and civilised reforms to Parliament are simply put on one side. I do not want this place to go on as it is. I do not want the privilege of being a member of an exclusive club. I do not want to be a Peer in a gilded cage. I want the talents of this House to play as great a part as possible in Parliament and in the Parliamentary process. On a personal note, may I say that like many other noble Lords I was asked to come here in 1963 to help strengthen the Benches on this side of the House when we were down to about thirty Labour Peers. I have done my best to make a contribution in those ten years—not as great as I should have liked perhaps, because like many other noble Lords I still have to earn a living. I do not want to make too much of this, but it ought to be remembered sometimes, that I, together with a number of other noble Lords gave up my vote, gave up my opportunity to stand for the other place. Every time a number of noble Lords attend here they make a considerable financial sacrifice and in doing so indirectly subsidise the business of Government. We are entitled to be treated with respect and we are entitled to ask that reasonable reforms shall be put in motion.
There was talk, as I said, of reform back in 1911 and apart from the Life Peers Act, we have scarcely moved forward since that time. I believe that the House of Lords should seize the initiative in this matter. I believe that our Front Bench, which I regret to see is so sparsely represented by senior Ministers to-day, should not allow the situation to drift on. We simply cannot allow ourselves to stand still. Few institutions can have been so constantly and convincingly criticised than your Lordships House; few can be more self-evidently undemocratic; yet few have lasted for so long. This suggests to me that there must be something which is basically good and useful at the heart of this place, and it is because I want that to be preserved and made more effective that I beg leave to ask this Question.
5.21 p.m.
LORD DENHAM: My Lords, many years ago I was asked by a friend to

1079
attempt one of those mathematical problems which appeals to a certain type of childish mentality such as mine. By the time I was ready to give up and ask for the answer, I had forgotten who had asked me the original question. The problem was this: On one side of the road you have three houses and on the other side you have a gasworks, a waterworks and a power station. Each of the three houses must be connected to each of the three services, and none of the nine lines thus drawn must cross one another. Often when I have a spare moment with pencil and paper I go quietly mad trying to work out the answer. The first eight lines are easy but the ninth always has to cross somewhere. I believe the solution to be impossible, but I still go on trying to find it. The problem posed by the Question of the noble Lord, Lord Willis, falls into much the same category. We are told that we ought not to have the present composition of the House (which we know works) because it is undemocratic. We must not have an elected Second Chamber (which works in other countries) because another place would not like it. Any other solution is acceptable, provided it does not involve patronage. Obviously, here, too, the lines must cross somewhere.
I do not propose to say very much about the present composition of your Lordships' House. In principle it is hard to defend and in practice it does not need defending. However, there are two widely believed myths that ought to be dispelled. The first is that there is a large body of"backwoodsmen"who never normally come to the House, but who are ready to drop everything and stream into the Palace of Westminster to"chivvy"the Labour Party at the crack of a Tory Whip. My Lords, these people simply do not exist. As a Whip, I sometimes wish that they did but as an ardent upholder of your Lordships' House, I am more often very glad that they do not! Some noble Lords come to this House once or twice a week; others, owing to the distance from their homes and their involvement with local commitments, come less frequently, varying from twice a month to possibly as little as twice a year. When a subject of particular interest or irritation comes before your Lordships, the attendances of the rarer
1080
Members of this House are inclined to coincide. On the days when just the odd unfamiliar face is seen, nobody notices; but when a number appear together the myth of the"backwoodsmen"gains strength. These less frequent attenders, by the very fact that they do spend so much time engaged in their particular occupation, are among the most valuable Members of the House when they do attend. They are also no more likely sheepishly to follow the Conservative Front Bench into the Division Lobbies than are your Lordships who come every day.
The second myth is that if only the House of Lords could get rid of its hereditary Peers, the Press, the public and another place would pay very much more respect to what it said and did. I do not believe that the country at large, apart from a vociferous minority, objects to hereditary titles, even if they carry with them an hereditary seat in Parliament. It is true that the"undemocratic hereditary content"is used as one of the slurs for discrediting the Second Chamber by its detractors. But it is only one of many. The House of Lords is also accused of being an eventide home for superannuated politicians; a place where unpopular or intractable Members of Parliament can be kicked upstairs; where aspiring politicians, consistently unsuccessful in elections, are found an easy political berth; and a repository for patronage.
And, my Lords, if you are talking about democracy, what could be more undemocratic than for a candidate who has offered himself for a Parliamentary seat for a period of five years and been accepted by his constituents in good faith, to hand over both it and them to a senior colleague who has already been rejected by the electors of another constituency, in exchange for a Peerage? If you deny critics the opportunity to object to the Lords on hereditary grounds, these other grounds for complaint will still remain and, indeed, come to the fore; and they are not all without some foundation in fact. The noble Lord, Lord Willis, has suggested that perhaps a Second Chamber is not necessary at all. All I can say is that if he would like to see all the major Bills go on to the Statute Book in the state in which they reach us from another place, I would not!

1081
When the all-Party Committee met some years ago to discuss methods of reform, they did not even consider the possibility of an elected Second Chamber. It is generally accepted that this would be a non-starter in the eyes of Members of another place. It would mean that they would always be looking nervously over their shoulders in the fear that an elected Upper House might gain as much power and even more influence than themselves. And I think that fear might be justified. Nevertheless, I believe that an elected Second Chamber is the only workable alternative to your Lordships' present House. If and when financial circumstances make it no longer possible for your Lordships to continue to work long hours on an expenses-only basis, or if and when the continual sniping by uninformed detractors, the ignoring by the Press and the treatment meted out to this House by successive Governments cause your Lordships to wonder why you should bother, it is an elected Second Chamber that will be the only answer.
Although the noble Lord, Lord Willis, regrets the still-birth of the most recent reform proposals, I believe that had the Parliament (No. 2) Bill been enacted, it would have been an unmitigated disaster. I had the strongest possible doubts about it at the time but since then, as a Whip in Government and in Opposition, I have been considering, as they occurred, how the reformed House would have weathered the stresses of the last few years. I think that it would have ground to a halt before now and that already a new and more drastic reform would have become essential.
Your Lordships' present House is, and any reformed House, if it is to be of any use at all, must be complementary to, and not a pale imitation of, another place. Another place, by its very nature is overwhelmingly concerned with the Party-politically contentious _ parts of Bills, and the guillotine procedure leaves vast tracts of less controversial clauses unexamined for your Lordships to deal with. And this your Lordships' House is admirably suited to do. We are, broadly speaking, not over-concerned with Party issues, for the very reason of the extreme imbalance between the two sides. For the Labour Party. there is no point in playing a game which they can never win
1082
and, for the Conservative Party, one which they are unlikely to lose.
But you really could not reform this House without making the numbers on each side more fairly balanced. That of itself would bring back the emphasis to Party politics. Members would be chosen by virtue of the fact that they belonged to a particular political Party or to none. The Whips on each side would have a strong moral control over their Back-Benchers in that they could reasonably argue that it would be unfair to use one of the strictly rationed Party votes to vote against their Front Bench, or even to abstain. And whereas Members of another place owe their seats (and therefore their ultimate allegiance) to their constituents, Members of your Lordships' reformed House would owe their seats (and therefore, it is to be feared, their ultimate allegiance) to their Party leaders. Instead of, and at the expense of, examining and improving the less controversial parts of legislation that need it, your Lordships would tend to re-fight the Party battles already decided in another place. I would ask your Lordships to consider what chances the Party managers would have of getting a really controversial programme of legislation through such a House and what improvements would be achieved to Bills in the process.
The second way in which your Lordships' House is complementary to another place is in its"amateur"status. Members of another place are, or should be, politicians first, although they may have secondary occupations as well. Members of your Lordships' House may have their main interests outside, and therefore can bring a different viewpoint to Parliament. With a more equally balanced and Party-conscious House, this. too, must end. Both Government and Opposition Parties would expect their voting Members to be present and available to vote whenever and for however long they were needed. Who, then, would be these full voting Members of a reformed house such as the noble Lord. Lord Willis, has suggested? Not the distinguished men who are active in many fields and whose practical and up-to-date knowledge is made available to Parliament through your Lordships' present House. The very occupations that make them so valuable to your Lordships would

1083
make it impossible for them to come here often enough to vote. Not the retired Members of another place who bring political wisdom and experience to your Lordships' House, and who, after 15 or 20 years down the corridor, are prepared to serve on, in an easier political life, free from being at the beck and call of their Party Whips. An easier political life is what they would not get; free from the Whips they would not be. I doubt whether these noble Lords would either want, or would indeed be able, to put in the long and late hours that an active part in a reformed Second Chamber would involve.
My Lords, it is true that both these categories of noble Lords could be included in some form of amateur, nonvoting, second tier, so that they could still take part in what are known as the general interest debates on Wednesday afternoons. Although there is a school of thought which maintains that these debates are the most important contribution your Lordships' House makes to politics, I sometimes wonder to whom in fact they are of general interest. They certainly do not seem to interest the noble Lords who take part in them, as many of them are out of the Chamber much of the time when they themselves are not actually speaking. They do not interest the newspapers, nor through them the general public, because they have usually gone to press long before the debates are finished. As for the Government Departments concerned, the speeches are too detailed, too wide-ranging, and, in most cases, too long for the Minister and the officials in the Box to be able to do more than pick out a couple of points from each to answer at the, winding-up. The bulk of each debate, first-class though it may be, goes into mothballs to be preserved for posterity in the bound volumes of Hansard.
The voting Members of your Lordships' reformed House would have to be a new type of Peer, young enough and uncommitted enough to work the same hours and to give the same priority in their lives to Parliament, as do Members of another place. I cannot help feeling that a man who wants to live that sort of political life would be a pretty moderate chap if he were prepared to opt for a safe and easy berth in your Lordships' House, rather than taking his chance of
1084
getting into another place where the political action will still be. But perhaps the worst aspect of this Party-politically-orientated semi-professional second class Second Chamber, is that its Members would have to be paid, and paid fairly well. An unexacting job, which must be given to a relatively young man, salaried, with Parliamentary holidays, with security for life, or at least for the rest of his working life, and a title, too. What an unprecedented opportunity for patronage to put into the hands of future Party leaders.
5.33 p.m.
THE LORD BISHOP OF ROCHESTER: My Lords, in previous debates on this subject in recent years my colleague the right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of London has voiced from these Benches the desire of the Bishops to support the kind of reform of the House of Lords embodied in the 1968 White Paper which was seen, I believe, as a contribution to the evolution of a modern Parliament for Britain. In his absence to-day, I rise to reiterate our continuing interest in this matter, and our readiness to co-operate, if and when the time comes. in the prepartion of any new proposals for forwarding the reform of this House, which is something that I would venture to suggest is in fact going on all the time in a manner very typical of this country.
I was not a Member of your Lordships' House at the time of the 1968 discussions when the major proposals under consideration were the reduction in the size of the voting House and the existence of non-voting Peers alongside those entrusted with a vote. It was perhaps inevitable that proposals that were intended to reduce the total number of each category of Peers should not have included any suggestion for adding to the House representatives of some of those important groupings in society hitherto without adequate representation. But I confess that I was surprised at the time, and I have continued to be so since sitting on these Benches, that the 1968 White Paper made no reference whatever to the representation in your Lordships' House of the Leaders of the other religious bodies besides those of the Church of England.
It may well be that it was thought best not to raise this matter until the Report of the Chadwick Commission on the Church and State had been published and their proposals debated. But this was the

1085
fifth Commission on this subject in this century, and there is no certainty whatever that their findings will prove any more acceptable to either of the parties concerned than previous efforts of this kind. But one of the unanimous recommendations of the Chadwick Commission on the Church and State was that others beside Bishops of the Church of England should be chosen for membership of the House of Lords. In developing this argument, the Commission state that while being content with an ex officio system, they would not be averse to the choice of the particular persons rather than of particular office holders. There would have to be a retiring age, such as now effectively operates for Bishops, if religious leaders in this House were to be those still actively involved in the leadership of the Churches.
As one who was associated for over twenty years with the British Council of Churches, I know from first-hand experience what a distinguished pair of leaders were elected every two years from the Churches of the British Isles to serve that Council as Vice-Presidents. Several of them would have added great distinction to this House. I am thinking of such men as Principal John Baillie, a former Moderator in the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, and another Moderator of that Church, Professor James Pitt-Watson whom your Lordships will remember presented the Bible to the Queen at her Coronation. And in the English Free Churches, men like Dr. Hugh Marten and Dr. Leslie Cooke—to mention only names of those no longer with us—would both have been forceful and gracious Members of this House, as would leading dignitaries of the Roman Catholic Church, past and present.
I have seen it suggested in an article in the journal Parliamentary Affairs on"Prelates in Parliament"that it is possible to calculate a grand total of no less than 58 spiritual representatives from all the regions and traditions of the British Isles, but this is unrealistic and perhaps only serves to show the over-representation of one Church at the present time, and to lose sight of the fact that the Churches are not only represented by their ordained members, but also by many active lay members as well.
The Chadwick Report on the Church and the State has of course raised again
1086
the question of the manner in which Church of England Bishops are appointed. They were not agreed on their recommendations, and two sets of proposals are at present under discussion. If either of these were to be enacted with the agreement of all the three political Parties, the delicate system of checks and balances that goes to make up the present Church and State relationship in England would inevitably come under review, including the representation of the English Diocesan Bishops in this House. That might well provide the moment for widening rather than reducing the representation of religious leaders in this House.
Some of us who sit on these Benches are immensely proud to be the present holders of Bishoprics that have provided this House with Lords Spiritual for several centuries. Nothing that I have said is intended to suggest that we are not ready and willing to continue to play our part in the Government of this country, to lead your Lordships in prayer each day and to continue to enjoy the friendship and companionship of the Lords Temporal.
It is of course easier for some of us than others to attend, and there may well be a case for allowing a Bishop to opt out in favour of a colleague. I was appointed a Bishop at the age of 46 and waited nine years before becoming a Member of your Lordships' House. A Bishop appointed at the age of 60 sometimes has only a very short tenure of office here. Perhaps this is another argument for some system of selection, rather than for representation ex officio. But whether or not the manner of our appointment is changed, whether or not our numbers here continue as at present or are reduced, many of us hope that at some time when the opportunity occurs some of those of other traditions with whom we are now working so closely up and down the country may be summoned to sit here with some of us who are privileged at present, not to be Peers but to be Lords Spiritual in your Lordships' House.
5.41 p.m.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, with the utmost respect to the right reverend Prelate, I cannot imagine how the addition of those associated with denominations other than the Church of England

1087
could in any form resemble what is meant by"reform of the House of Lords ". Nevertheless, I make no complaint because, strange as it may seem this is in one sense a democratic Assembly. By that I mean that every Member of your Lordships' House has a right to express his opinions. Therefore I make no complaint.
I must congratulate my noble friend Lord Willis on the Question he has posed—a very important one. Perhaps I may remind your Lordships what that Question is. He desires to ascertain from the Government what their plans are about the future of this Assembly. The answer is simple: they have no plans, and for a very good reason. They are concerned at the present time, indeed they have been concerned for quite a long time, and will be concerned for some time ahead, about future General Elections. That lust for power. That is what it is all about. The idea that the present Government—I add not simply because they happen to be in a minority—should concern themselves with the future of the House of Lords; have we not enough trouble?—a mere matter of inflation; concern about a deficit in the balance of payments; uncertainty as to our future in the E.E.C! May I in a digression direct the attention of Members of your Lordships' House to a leading article in the Financial Times where, strangely enough, they have put (if I may use a somewhat vulgar expression) a kibosh on the whole of this conception of a European Community. Yes, the Government have quite enough to handle, quite enough on their plate.
This controversy about reform of the House of Lords is by no means original. It was debated at the time of the Reform Movement, a long time ago, and even before that. The Chartists were very much concerned about it. They made no mistake about what they wanted: they wanted abolition the idea of reform never occurred to them. They wanted the vote, but not the House of Lords. What is to be done about it? Never has there been a piece of proposed legislation concerning what is called the reform of the House of Lords which has contained definite ideas as to how reform was to be achieved. If by reform we mean vesting your Lordships' House with authority, even to the extent of defying the Mem-
1088
bers of another place, of turning down their proposals when they emerge, never has such a scheme been proposed. What is the position at present? Let us take a cool, hard look at ourselves. We are just a convenience for the other place. It is true they permit your Lordships' House to initiate legislation. But what do we do with it? We debate it; we seek to amend it, well knowing that, unless what we do is agreeable to the Members of another place, it will be rejected with contempt. That is the situation. Let us face the realities.
What about the position of the Labour Party? It is quite clear. It has been clear for a long time. Occasionally they pass a resolution at their annual conference. At one time there were many resolutions on the subject; in recent years, only one. It comes from some remote constituency, demanding the abolition of the House of Lords. Nobody pays any attention to it. It is not even remitted to the National Executive, as are some other resolutions. It is dismissed with contempt. There is complete silence on that subject, and for a very good reason. There are many members of the Labour Party who do not want any reform of the House of Lords. They are not going to give up a grievance of this kind as readily as some people imagine. If anything goes wrong, blame the House of Lords! Do we want to make it even worse than that by transforming Members of your Lordships' House, after an election, into senators vested with authority, defying the other place? They will never accept that. They prefer that the grievance should remain. That was the fundamental reason why when the relevant Bill came before the other place some years ago, largely the product of the fertile brain of the late Mr. Crossman, they rejected it almost with contempt, although there had been some understanding between the two Front Benches.The usual channels were operating, but to no effect.
So what is to be done about it? There are some modifications that could be acceptable to Members of your Lordships' House. The noble Lord, Lord Denham, made what I consider to be an excellent speech, except that I have one criticism to make. It is a criticism I make of many speeches. I do not complain about the content of the speeches, not at all. Who am I to object to the

1089
content of other people's speeches? They have much more expertise than I possess. What I object to is the reading of speeches. Too many briefs are available. Too many speech writers are available. I have never been able to employ one myself. It would be some modification of our present situation if Members of your Lordships' House just rose in their places and addressed the House with words that flowed. If they do not flow it is just too bad as long as they have ideas to express. It is the ventilation of ideas that matters. Indeed, that is the charm and value of this Assembly.
When we talk about reform, what do we really mean? Does"reform"mean an elected Assembly? Is that what it means, because if that is what it means it is out. We can dismiss it at once. It would never be accepted by the other place. Even if the two Front Benches came to an agreement on that topic, it would not be acceptable. I doubt whether it would be acceptable to the general public.
LORD WILLIS: My Lords, will the noble Lord give way? In answer to the noble Lord's question, I think"reform"means two things: first, it means the proposal which was set out in the 1968 Agreement between the two Front Benches and the three Parties; secondly, it means giving this House adequate representation in the Ministries so that our work can be more directive.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, if it means representation in the Ministries, that is a horse of another colour and there I would agree with my noble friend. But the 1968 proposals were quite different. Let me mention one of them. I am bound to recall it, because it affected me personally. One of the proposals was that nobody over the age of 72 should be permitted to vote. If the reform had been accepted, all those under 72 would have been allowed to vote. There was some suggestion also that those under 72—not a vast number—nominated for the most part, should receive a salary. Those over the age of 72 should receive nothing at all. That was one reason for my objection! I could have managed without the salary. I could have managed very well without coming to your Lordships' House. In fact, I had to manage in the other place for well over 40 years. Probably I could have remained there longer.
1090
Indeed, if I had known that the Members in another place were going to receive these high salaries, with secretaries, all the amenities, and trips abroad, I doubt whether I would have resigned.
Let us come down to brass tacks about this matter. The noble Lord, Lord Denham, made one very useful proposal. It was that our numbers are phenomenal, almost 800 or 900, including the backwoodsmen who never come here and who have no intention of coming here. The first thing we ought to do is ask them whether they ever intend to come here. If not, rule them out. There is no reason why they should take the Oath of Allegiance if they do not intend to come. There are many who ask for absence without leave. All right, they can come if they wish. I would reduce the numbers. Naturally, it would have to be the hereditary Peers because, as the noble Lord. Lord Denham, rightly said, they have the power at any time to turn the Labour Opposition down. It happened in the past over the Industrial Relations Bill, over the E.E.C., over a number of other items of legislation and Motions, and so on. It is all wrong. If we had an electoral system and it was understood that anybody could allow himself to be nominated no matter what his age, that would be another matter. Again, we come hard up against the fact that neither the electors nor the other place would ever find it agreeable that your Lordships' House should be vested with authority.
I shall tell Members of your Lordships' House what I have thought about this matter. My noble friend Lord Willis suggested that we were inclined to conform—even mavericks like myself—after a long period of turbulence in the other place. When they come to this Assembly it gets them down, somehow. Everyone was certain that I would conform, but I have done nothing of the sort. Perhaps I intervene too often, but what am I to do? Why do I come here? I have nowhere else to go. Only yesterday I was at a function and somebody asked me whether I was enjoying the House of Lords. I said that the term"enjoyment"was hardly appropriate, but I found it intensely interesting so long as I was allowed to express myself. That is the crux of the whole matter. It is a forum where Members can express themselves. One thing can be said about it, with

1091
truth and in complete honesty. There is high quality so far as speeches are concerned, as high a quality as is to be found in another place. There is expertise, vast knowledge and fundamental understanding on a variety of topics. The speeches are worth listening to. Indeed, it is sometimes more enjoyable to listen than to speak. I am not suggesting anything improper to other Members of your Lordships' House.
Therefore, I regard this as a place to be retained. I do not ask that we should rid ourselves of the hereditary principle, and I shall give a reason why. It is not because I like the hereditary principle; I think it is an anachronism, it is outmoded. But there arc some very able people indeed among the aristocracy, strange as it may seem. I hope that I shall not be expelled from the Labour Party for saying that! But we ought to hear what they have to say. As for Life Peers, I agree that they are a mixed bag. There are some good, some bad and some indifferent. I hope they will not mind my saying that, but it happens to be true.
That is the best illustration I can give of why this forum should be retained, with certain modifications as I have suggested—fewer hereditary Peers, and people who come here should express their opinions but think about them before they express them. I would no more abandon the House of Lords than I would think of abandoning the Changing of the Guard, or abolishing the pigeons in Trafalgar Square, or the Tower of London or Trooping of the Colour. We need a place like this. Of course we have no authority—do not let us deceive ourselves—but we can talk, we can argue, we can meet people, and we can be friendly. This is the most friendly institution that I have ever been in; certainly more friendly than the other place. There is the fact that in the Dining Room you have a long table and you all sit together; whereas in the other place they are not so democratic, they all sit at different tables. They cannot agree with each other. We are much more objective than they are. They are always quarrelling. We do not quarrel very much. Of course, that could be corrected very readily if necessary.
So I beg your Lordships not to trouble unduly about the reform of the House of
1092
Lords. We have so many other topics on our plate. Let us address ourselves to the economic issues which concern us. Let us occasionally have a consensus of opinion, occasionally a little bickering, a little argument, a dialogue, a discussion. That is all very well. But a consensus of opinion in one Assembly in this country of ours, at least a place where we can talk freely and democratically even if we are not democratically elected, where we can talk freely expressing our opinions, unafraid to express ourselves—that is the essence of democracy. It is not merely a Parliamentary institution; it is behaviour in political life that matters, not the mechanism. Let us retain the machinery.
So I venture in those few words—not so few as they ought perhaps to be—to express my opinion. Here we are. Let us make the best of it, let us try to modify our procedure, let us try to improve it, let us try to make it better. All that can be done by a dialogue among ourselves. We do not require the assistance of anybody else to help us in this respect. Let us remain where we are. I see nothing wrong with that. Nobody can come along with a foolproof concept of how to reform this Assembly. My noble friend did his best but, if I may so so with respect, he failed, as indeed the noble Lord, Lord Denham, failed, and as indeed we shall all fail if we seek to reform this House of Lords. It cannot be done. Of course we can be logical and abolish it, but what shall we gain by that? Nothing at all. So let us remain where we are.
6.1 p.m.
LORD PLATT: My Lords, I come next on the list because the noble Lord, Lord Alport, has had to withdraw his name, and after listening to the wonderfully interesting and entertaining speech of the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, I almost feel that I, too, should withdraw. One thing I think we all learned from him—although there were many others—is that if a retiring age is to be proposed for this House it should not be less than 100.
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Willis, for the charming way in which he opened this debate, and I have also listened to the other speakers, with whom I have mostly agreed. I shall have to repeat one or two of the things that have already been said, some of them rather obvious, because I cannot develop a little

1093
argument which I want to put before your Lordships without doing so. Considering first what is said to be wrong with the House of Lords, people who come here are always impressed with the House of Lords. They do not go away and say that it should be abolished; they are usually impressed with our standard of debate, they are very impressed (if they stay long enough) with our expertise and the number of experts we can summon on almost any subject one likes to name, and they are impressed with our manners—and I think that is a matter of some importance in the world at the present time. It is usually acknowledged that our revision of legislation is better and more thorough than in the Commons and our initiation of new legislation in the form of Private Members' Bills is of course easier in this House than in another place. Our powers have (I think rightly) been curtailed from time to time but I still think our influence is considerable, not only within but also outside the House.
What then is the complaint? It is really that we are here either through heredity or through patronage. If there were to be a reform, I certainly would not want it to be all one and not the other. I believe there are now about 220 Life Peers and although of course we do not come every day, very often I suppose up to nearly one half of those attending will be Life Peers. Whether we are Life Peers or not we all stand for whichever Party we please; we are not under the same compulsion to vote as they are in another place and on sensitive issues like abortion, contraception, animal experiment or organ transplantation we can talk without fear of upsetting our constituents. As has so often been said, the hereditary principle brings us young men as well as older men, coming from families with generations of people who have served the country well, both at home and in many cases abroad. It is said that our Constitution is illogical. So, my Lords, is nature. Nature, like the House of Lords, works through evolution and on the whole, as has already been said, it works well. I would far rather be here through patronage or heredity than by the election of a majority of pretty ignorant people such as one finds
1094
in some of the constituencies in this country, despite universal education.
Leaving the House of Lords temporarily on one side, what is wrong with the country at the present time? Surely we must agree that standards have sadly deteriorated: standards of decency, standards of behaviour, standards of honesty. Hooligans from Britain visit countries abroad, terrify the townspeople and wreck their football pitches. Vandals destroy works of art and railway carriages. Students, who used to be proud of their universities, seem only to be interested in demonstrations and are not very sure exactly what they are demonstrating about, and in doing so they deny free speech to others. What would a neutral observer from some imaginary planet say if he landed here and watched us all at work in Britain? Would he say that there was too little democracy or would he say that there was too much democracy? Democracy is fine if it means freedom, but if it does not mean freedom and it merely allows the riff-rail to take over and terrorise the rest, then we have to think twice of what our democratic ideals—and I believe we all have them—really mean to us. Recent events, the virtual failure (as I see it) of the last two Governments and the results of the General Election have shown that this country is divided. In the two-Party system there is no room for real democracy in the sense that the voice of all sections is heard. We must vote black or white and, to put it bluntly, a large number of the voters do not want the Leader of either of the two main Parties. The House which needs reforming, my Lords—and urgently—is the House of Commons. As a start I think we must bring in proportional representation.
I should like to end now with two quotations—from myself. First:
" If democracy is the best safeguard against other and worse forms of Government—despotism, tyranny and dictatorship—then perhaps the House of Lords is the best safeguard against the excesses of democracy."
The other quotation is:
" If everything were put to the vote we should have football, we should have boxing and we should probably have public executions but we should have no chamber music."
Finally, my Lords, whatever you do with our House, for God's sake do not make it another elected Chamber! One has already proved too much.
6.9 p.m.
LORD FERRIER: My Lords, as is obvious from the speeches so far we are all obliged to the noble Lord, Lord Willis, for introducing this Question on a most penetrating and thought-provoking speech. I think the same words could be applied to my noble friend Lord Denham, in his approach to the subject. Obviously both speeches were based on a careful study and long knowledge of the problems. Indeed, in regard to the noble Lord, Lord Willis, I often regret that, as he said, his own affairs press upon him so hard that we hear so little of him in our day-to-day business. I, like everybody else, look forward to the Minister's reply; but like the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, I have a shrewd suspicion that I know what it is going to be. It is going to be:"We are going to do nothing because nothing can be done ". However, as one of the dwindling number of original Life Peers I feel I have a small contribution to make to this most interesting debate. Like others, I greatly enjoyed the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, and I only wish that I had more of his gifts though, of course, if you have not got his gifts and you try to speak without notes you are inclined to be repetitive and to speak for too long.
My Lords, I am not altogether happy about how the Life Peerages Act 1958 has worked out. I feel that perhaps the title has been treated too much as an honour for past services. For instance, I think it is a pity that Life Peerages are included in the Birthday and New Year Honours. Of course it is a great honour and a privilege to be a Life Peer; but to accept it, as I saw it and as I see it, means to undertake an unenforceable obligation to serve Parliament and the State for a number of years. But I think it stands in a different category from the honour pure and simple, to serve, not just as Lobby-fodder, but in the creative, living process of Parliamentary Government. In other words, I am at one with the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, in saying that we can express our feelings here, in fact it is the duty of Life Peers to do so. Admittedly, separate lists of Life Peerages are published but why are any names included in the normal Honours Lists?
When I came here I felt that the hereditary principle was on the way out, but
1096
I did not take long to become converted to a belief in it. I am most interested that not only has the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, said so, but my mind goes back to another eminent Parliamentarian who came to this House and who became converted as well. I refer to the late Lord Morrison of Lambeth. After all, it is an important part of the basis for a Second Chamber which has very limited powers. Also hereditary Peers have a spread which in a measure covers the demand, which is reasonable, that a Second Chamber should have regional connotations amongst its membership.
As other noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Platt, have said, I think that it would be a mistake for membership of a revisory chamber with limited powers to be elective, and as already pointed out by others speakers that would mix ill with the other place. The hereditary system seems the only way of enriching a House such as this with young blood without any overwhelming additive of Party political leanings. I hail the Cross-Benchers; I hail the young hereditary Peer, the Socialist son of a Conservative father and grandson of a Liberal who scooped the driven grouse section of the clay pigeon shoot the other day. Let us have more like that. I cannot understand why the Tory leadership has followed the Socialist lead in ceasing to create the occasional hereditary Peer to make up the number, which must diminish as time goes on. If you allow it to diminish too far you find a quite unwanted, unnecessary and undesirable increasing cachet attached to an hereditary title. My Lords, it also seems curious to me that the Socialist Left, who want to abolish this House altogether, are the very people who most use the words"working class ". To-day, these words seem to be the spring from which class consciousness flows. That class consciousness, I am sure, does not flow from the Tories, nor from your Lordships' House, despite what I think the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, described as"a gilded cage ".
Although I may be a little unhappy about the way the Life Peerage Act has worked, it has undoubtedly been a wise, a major and on the whole a successful reform. The only change that I suggest, therefore, is a resumption of the creation of hereditary Peers should there be any individual who would accept such under

1097
present conditions, remembering, of course, that it is now open to their heirs to renounce the title if they choose. What I am going to say may well help to demolish one of the myths to which my noble friend Lord Denham referred. Scions do not necessarily follow their fathers' political allegiance. We have Conservative Peers whose fathers were Socialist or Liberal. Socialist and Cross-Bench Peers whose fathers were Conservative; but for this proposal in regard to the hereditary system, like the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, I feel we should let things alone; and I imagine that is what the noble Lord. Lord Strabolgi, will say in his reply, and I look forward to it.
LORD STRABOLGI: My Lords, I am not going to say anything of the kind.
LORD FERRIER: My Lords, that is fascinating, and I look foward all the more to the reply though I imagine that Government have a good deal too much on their plate to take a bite at this now.
Listening to this debate one other thing crossed my mind. The noble Lord, Lord Willis, said,"We must do something. What shall we do? Is it possible that, with the ever-increasing influence so many of us have, we can persuade the media, not only in the Press but also in broadcasts, to give more coverage to what goes on in this House. It may go into mothballs, as my noble friend Lord Denham said, but a good deal of it could very well be conveyed to the people. Talking of Scotland, with the newspapers going to Press at seven o'clock, I notice that the Scottish papers did not contain one single word about the debate on Scottish transport, which contained some remarkable material and which took place in this House yesterday.
As for the abolition of the House, of course the full-blooded members of what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone. called the"the wholly-owned subsidiary of the Trade Union Congress" which tinged with red, would like to see any Second Chamber abolished. This the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, said. Alas! before that is even likely, or indeed possible, it may be that this noble House will find itself standing, as it has stood before, between a dictatorship either from the Right or from the Left, and the People.
1098
Before I sit down I should like to refer to the speech of the right reverend Prelate and his thoughts about the representation of other religious bodies in the Second Chamber. I shall certainly see that Hansard reaches the proper quarters in the Church of Scotland. I know that thought had been given to this at the time I was made a Life Peer. The real problem with the Church of Scotland is that only one body can appoint a representative, and that probably from year to year. I will not weary your Lordships in that respect. I would repeat my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Willis. for introducing this debate. I am grateful for the interesting speeches that have been made, and I look forward to the Minister's reply.
6.20 p.m.
LORD HALE: My Lords, if there were an immediate refutation of the case made by the noble Lord, Lord Willis, it would be the conduct of this debate which has produced a number of outstanding speeches, and an extraordinary variety of views. For once, I find myself largely in agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, although it is a fairly rare experience despite my personal admiration for him. But I am grateful to him because I am 72 next month, and I would then have an immediate interest to declare in the proceedings of 1968.
Whatever wild oats I have sown verbally about this House in the past were under the inspiration of the future Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor. For a long time now I have been a consistent advocate of a second Chamber. Those of us who have sat on Committees, even on the Nationalisation of Coal Committee, under the guidance of my noble friend, would know that in those major matters of legislation problems arise from day to day which need a revising Chamber. I recall that it is nearly twenty years since I addressed the Oldham Fabian Society on this subject with so much fervour. I defended so strongly those Members of the Labour Party who accepted a position in this House that they were flattering enough to express apprehension that I was about to depart there myself.
On the following day, as my number is not in the book, a representative of the News of the World came for the

1099
first time to express interest in one of my constituency speeches. I was immensely flattered, until he put his solitary question, which was whether it was true that I had been interrupted by a parrot in the course of my speech. I said I was not aware of the fact, but it appears to have been true, because in the next room there was an exceedingly gifted parrot who was entertaining the back row of my audience without my knowledge. If I may, I want at once to quarrel violently with one statement made by the noble Lord, Lord Willis. If the noble Lord calls this House"the best club in the world ", in the sense of the provision it makes for its Members, I profoundly disagree. If he says it is one of the finest clubs in the world because of the excellence of the Members, because of their courtesy and friendliness, then I would not dissent.
LORD WILLIS: My Lords, to be accurate, I said that it has been called the best club in the world.
LORD HALE: My Lords, and so has the House of Commons. When I was there first it was a particularly lousy place; it was not even clean. We dictated letters in the corridor and we got £600 a year.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: £400!
LORD HALE: That was before my time; £400 was in my noble friend's time, and with virtually no other privileges—no secretarial assistance, nowhere to put a secretary if you paid one yourself. The one facility we had was a locker. I do not really have a locker here, although I ought to confess I have a tin box in the bowels of the earth, with a noisy lock (it does not contain a shelf) full of the dust of ages which I ought to clean if I came in suitable dungarees. I never had a guaranteed chair to sit on anywhere. One noble Lord offered me the use of a drawer in his room in which to pile up papers, but he was tipped out of the room in a few weeks, although not because of my intrusion. The facilities are appalling.
In a curious way, the reform of the House of Lords is really nothing to do with us, if one means the reform of the Legislature in terms of the Act of
1100
1868. My noble friend was probably right in saying that in the end we do what we are told. It does seem to me there is real need for reform in this House. If I may venture to interpret what my noble friend Lord Willis was saying. One of the difficulties of this place is the frustration. Many people come here hoping to do something. We who came from another place have been cured a little of this hope. I can remember my first years in Parliament when we thought we were doing something; possibly we were doing something. We thought we lived under Parliamentary Government, which has not existed now for very many years. The main alteration that has taken place since I came into the House in 1945 is that it is very open to doubt as to whether we are now living under Cabinet Government, and whether power has not passed into the hands of multinational companies. The one residual power of the House of Commons was merely to defeat the Government, and there are almost overwhelming reasons why that would never happen except in the most remarkable and unforeseeable circumstances.
One noble Lord on the other side of the House (I forget who it was) talked about the lack of interest taken by some Hereditary Peers. Far too little interest is shown by Life Peers, too. If I were suggesting practical steps, I would suggest that whoever is responsible for Life Peers should secure an undertaking that they will try to perform some of the duties incumbent on them by the acceptance of the appointment in the circumstances in which a Life Peer is created. and the purpose for which a Life Peer was created. I have not been very good myself, and I am not holding myself up as an example. I am in the happy positon to-day that I can give evidence on my own behalf. I sat up till after midnight last night studying E.E.C. papers: I came here at 10 o'clock this morning. I attended a Committee for a couple of hours, with a Test Match on television next door (a considerable deprivation) and I shall be here in the Chamber till the end of the debate tonight. I shall go home with papers in my pocket.
My Lords, not only are we cheap, but we are cheap almost to the point of demeaning ourselves. From time to time we hear that a noble Lord can claim

1101
expenses up to £8·50 per day, but we do not hear that, if he attended every day he could, in claiming for every day he would receive £800 a year at the most to pay the considerable costs involved in attending this place. With regard to the functions of this House as a revising Chamber, let me remind your Lordships it is not so long since another place declared a State of Emergency, and then hopped off home for a three-month holiday the next day, leaving this House to continue for a fortnight doing the laborious and very boring work of revising many local government Bills, and indeed submitting to defeats.
May I correct one other thing that came from the noble Lord, Lord Denham, when he said something about Whips. If that means that the final decision comes from the Cabinet, as it does in the House of Commons, then I cannot dissent; but I do not think I have ever heard from a Whip since I have been in this House, except to receive each week a little useful information about the business and except to know that there is someone there to give advice when it is needed.
My Lords, there is another thing I should like to say. I think sometimes Members come here and are shown round the House and told to sit down without a little bit of information they need. One of the things they might be told is that the Officers of the House are constantly at their service; that they can go in virtually without an appointment, find an Officer of the House available and talk about the procedure, have explained to them any difficulties, be supplied with the rules and documents and indeed have matters drafted for them. I think there is a great lack of information, a disastrous lack of information.
My noble friend Lord Shinwell referred to the supply of documents. I would not dissent from what he said. But there is another type of documentation, the kind of thing that came to us in the House of Commons in dozens: the informed document from the interested society which provides its views for the Committee stage of Bills. Those are of immense service; one does not have to follow them or to believe in them. It is extremely difficult for an individual Member without a secretary to master the details of a complex Bill and take an effective part in Committee; and it is very hard on the
1102
Members of the Front Bench to conduct a barren series of revisions, to give the same assurances and receive the same undertakings, throughout the long day, without very much support from the rest of the House.
My Lords, this House has at its disposal an astonishing wealth of talent. At this moment we have three ex-Lord Chancellors, all of whom have treated me personally with so much kindness that even if it were presumptuous I could call them friends. They devote themselves consistently to work and the amount of work that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, does on his own subjects of law reform and indeed on other subjects is very considerable.
The noble Lord, Lord Ferrier, referred to reporting in the Press. Nothing has given me greater pleasure than the fact that nobody ever reports a word of what I say; first, probably because I very rarely say anything worth reporting; and, secondly because every time I do I get landed with 15 or 16 very nice letters or very critical letters from very nice people who write on the slightest provocation, each of whom has the right to expect an answer, which I find an intolerable burden.
But there are limits to it, and we see The Times at the moment opening its columns to anxious criticism of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Bill on precisely the same grounds that were put at great length—not excessive length, but with great ability—in this House by experts. There was not anyone who listened to that discussion who did not realise that the Bill contained elements which demanded discussion and criticism and raised doubts in many minds, although we were in favour of it. It seems a little hard that we should get the criticisms when the facts and the debate and the arguments by the experts on either side never receive any publicity.
I should like to say one final word, if it is not impertinent. I think that Peers have a very rough time at the moment. I have the greatest sympathy with many hereditary Peers who take part in the affairs of this House because it is hardly possible now for a Peer to attract any publicity of any kind, if he wants to attract it, without committing a grave offence, or being kidnapped, or by adding a great auk to his private zoo—these

1103
seem to be the only grounds for a reference—while the new nobility, Miss England 1974, or Miss Namibia of 1973 or Miss Middle Wallop, can get ample publicity in most of the Press every time they change their décolleté. Times have changed, my Lords, and they will. There is one further solid point I want to make. If we remain in the Common Market there will be a very great need for the services of this House, and not only as a Revising Chamber, a considering Chamber, a debating Chamber—and I know it may be selfish of those of us who have been in the House of Commons.
Finally, I agree with the speaker who said that perhaps the admirable decorum of this House is a little excessive. The interplay and interchange of debate could at least take place between those who welcome it, and an occasional interruption, even an occasional disagreement, even something rather less than that—one or two of us who have sat in another place in rare moments of anger—might enliven the debate. These things stimulate thought and expression and I think they are valuable.
However, there is scope for Members of the House to take more advantage of the facilities which the noble Lord, Lord Willis, has so well taken advantage of to-day, and which I notice he is making a habit of doing as he is to take advantage of it again, according to the Order Paper, in about a fortnight's time. There is a job for this House to do, so remarkably exemplified in the Report on leisure which we discussed last week and the work that Members of this House do on Select Committees, and in providing expertise in the Departmental and Select Committees which play such a part in the higher echelons of political thought.
6.38 p.m.
LORD DE CLIFFORD: My Lords, I rise with the greatest deference to address your Lordships on this matter. I do so only because I first took my seat in your Lordships' House 46 years ago, and I have seen considerable changes. The first of these changes which I noticed is the microphones, because in those days you really had to speak up or you just did not get heard. When I first joined your Lordships' House, I joined full of confidence and under the impression that I knew it all. It was quite a
1104
surprise to me to discover that many other noble Lords also knew it all, and in fact knew a good deal more about what I thought I knew all about. I also discovered all around me noble Lords who would discuss subjects of which I had not even heard. As a result, my education and my knowledge rapidly expanded.
I discovered something else, which I trust I learned to my betterment; the unfailing courtesy and help which all Members of your Lordships' House, and all the Officers and staff give to you, without which a newcomer would have the most extreme difficulty in getting about. But, even in those days. as the years went by one could see what was going to happen to this noble House. Due to the levelling up of the financial status of people, and also the levelling down of the financial status of people, it was becoming quite obvious that hereditary Peers would ultimately find it extremely hard to conduct the business of this House. In those days there were three things for which a young man had to have money; the first was to be in your Lordships' House, the second was to be in the Brigade of Guards, and the third was to be in a good cavalry regiment. As a result of this, a great impression was created that Members of your Lordships' House had lots of riches and were the most monumental snobs outside this House, and one tends to-day to get the impression from people outside that they still hold that opinion, however wrong it may be.
After various happenings, one of which I am glad none of your Lordships will ever have to undergo, and with the help of Hitler, there was a long gap in my attendance in your Lordships' House, and on my return I found things very different. The main thing which struck one at once was the fact that there was a tremendous revival by the Life Peerages Act. Looking back on those days, I feel that the Life Peerages Act really saved this House as an entity, and for its future. I think it was a splendid thing and, with all due deference to all noble Lords here, it injected considerable new life into the work of this House. When I look back at it, and see the noble Lords who are here. I realise that it injected into your Lordships' House a large number of people who came from completely dif-

1105
ferent strata of life, most strata of life which hereditary Peers were not in a position to attain and could never attain. It was of incredible value. I have had tremendous enjoyment out of your Lordships' House with the Life Peerages Act.
I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, is not in his place, because I have enjoyed very much indeed going into the Lobby and voting on the same side as Manny Shinwell. When I first joined your Lordships' House in my youth, the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, and the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, appeared to us who sat on the Tory side to be well-equipped with horns, hooves and pointed tails. They were the embodiment of the devil coming, with revolution in train. It is most enjoyable to sit here now and hear the noble Lord taking part in debates in your Lordships' House on many matters about which I thoroughly agree with him.
LORD WIGG: My Lords, before the noble Lord leaves that point, may I ask whether he agrees that one of the characteristics of the Tory Party is that in order to retain their power they have, from generation to generation, to find some human beings and give them horns and tails and all the devilish qualities of evil? The noble Lord mentioned Lord Shinwell. It was Mr. Aneurin Bevan, and the current one, of course, is Mr. Wedgwood Benn.
LORD DE CLIFFORD: My Lords, the noble Lord is quite right in a way, but I would not attach that only to the Tory Party. We get equal attitudes with the Labour Party; that the capitalist is consuming the worker on every side. But leaving that on one side for the moment, I feel that most noble Lords will agree that we must have a Second Chamber. The main advantage of this Chamber as it is, as has been pointed out by many speakers, is that all the Members can speak clearly and without hesitation on all the subjects in which they are expert and of which they have great knowledge. There is no looking over the shoulders, wondering what will happen at the next Election. They bring a great wealth of knowledge and talent.
Noble Lords complain of a built-in Tory majority. I can remember, when I first sat in your Lordships' House, a most splendid example of Tory majority.
1106
It was on a little Bill called the Rooks and Rabbits Bill, which proposed to give powers to certain gentlemen to go onto people's land to exterminate rooks and rabbits. In those days, your Lordships' House used to have an average attendance of between 70 and 90. Suddenly, the Rooks and Rabbits Bill came up for Second Reading and, instantaneously, we had something over 330. That was the built-in Tory majority of those days. You could not have it now to that extent.
I do not feel that your Lordships' House has very much chance of reform from outside—it is too touchy a matter politically—and if ever it came to the Second House being elected another place just would not stand it. But I must so agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Willis, said, that while we have this House it has to be recognised that it is here, it has to be recognised that it has to do a job, and it has to be recognised as an integral part of the legislative machine of this country. Although we do not get so much notice as another place, I feel that Governments now and in the future would be most wrong to ignore us. I hope that the appointment of Life Peers will continue. It is most interesting, as a hereditary Peer, to watch them and see what effect they have on our excellent discussions, and whether they will reclaim us or develop us. I hope, too, that as many young hereditary Peers as possible will attend your Lordships' House. The introduction of young ideas is always a good thing. however much we may disagree with them. They are there to be thrown open for discussion, and I do not care what they are—they have a right to be heard. I hope that young hereditary Peers will turn up in greater numbers.
I shall end by saying that I have watched your Lordships' House evolving over the years. I feel that the quickest way to reform it is by evolution, and by discussion and thought about its workings as it evolves. We can probably reform ourselves far better from the knowledge of noble Lords in this House, than from the ideas of a lot of people who do not know how we operate.
6.50 p.m.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, it is a privilege to follow one who, on his own account, must be just about

1107
the Father of the House. At any rate, he has been here 46 years, besides which my mere 29 years is but as yesterday; so I am particularly pleased to follow him.
Like others, I am much indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Willis, for his scintillating and, as the noble Lord, Lord Ferrier, said, very penetrating speech. He said some things about this House, and he said them in the best House of Lords style—in other words constructively, and not offensively. But he implied what is undoubtedly the weakness of this House in outside eyes, this tendency to self-satisfaction, to complacency. I do not think that anybody listening to this debate would deny that complacency was in short supply to-day, but there was tremendous satisfaction with the feeling that we were the best club, and the best assembly of human beings in the best of all possible worlds. That is our danger, along with our many attractions, which, like others, I have always enjoyed.
It is often very hard for any institution to criticise itself; the House of Commons is incapable of it, the B.M.A. is not much better, and I do not know whether the C.B.I., the T.U.C., or the teachers or anybody else are capable of criticising themselves. There seems to be something in human nature which makes is impossible. We are not very good, therefore, at criticising ourselves. But I should like to take the argument from where the noble Lord, Lord Willis, felt he had said enough for the day and sat down. He put the case for reform, but did not indicate the lines of reform.
I disagree totally with the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, and one or two others who have implied that no agreed reform is possible. It is only a few years ago when agreed reform was going forward, and there was this strong consensus in favour of an agreed scheme. The noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, of course had a great deal to do with that, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, and myself on our side of the House, and on the other side the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, and the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe. What it is relevant to remember is that when that scheme was agreed, it was agreed not only here, it was agreed with the Leaders of both sides in the House of Commons.
1108
It happened that at that time in the House of Commons the Leader was a certain Mr. Crossman, now much lamented, who had a passionate desire to see a rational Parliament: not just a rational House of Commons or, in our case, a rational House of Lords, but a rational Parliament. I am sure that if ever this House of Lords is reformed on rational lines—there is no point in reforming it on any other—it would be because there is a desire in both Houses to have a rational Parliament of two Chambers. It happened that there was a conjunction at that moment which may not come again very quickly, but there was that agreement.
The talks started when the matter was raised in the Cabinet on the Labour side, and I think by the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, among his friends at the same time, and they went on for something like three years. They were defeated because of what was called the"unholy alliance"between Michael Foot and Mr. Enoch Powell, and people who felt like they felt in the House of Commons. In this matter alone I would call myself a rationalist, and I was concerned even before I became a Leader of this House to try to find a way to a rational Second Chamber, a rational House of Lords. It had always seemed to me that the greatest difficulty—and here I was in fact proved wrong in the event—would be to bring round the Conservative Peers who had such a vested interest, and still have, in the existing system, because under the existing system, with this tremendous hereditary vote, in the last resort they can prevail. So it was thought that there would be great difficulty in bringing them along and persuading them to adopt any reasonable reform. But in the event, under the leadership of the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, and the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, and others, there was agreement reached, so the difficulty in the end did not lie there.
On the other hand, I had expected rather more enthusiasm than in fact was available in the Labour Party for a basic reform of the structure. There was a good deal of support, and the more people went into it the more support there was. But, as was indicated by one or two speakers earlier—and we may have got a few undertones of it to-day—there are quite a number of Labour people who

1109
do not want to see a rational House of Lords because it would be too respectable and too influential. Incidentally, I would disagree with the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, that if you have a rational House of Lords it is bound to have more authority. I think that the word"authority"is perhaps a little ambiguous. It could mean more power, which was not being suggested, or more influence. What we were concerned with was that the House of Lords should have more influence because its views were respected. If you are to produce a Chamber of that sort, it must be one placed on a rational basis, as the noble Lord, Lord Willis, said.
In the event, what really defeated reform was the attitude of the House of Commons. They did not want a rival; that is what it came to. I am not making any personal allusions of a derogatory kind, but if Mr. Crossman had still been Leader of the House of Commons when the crisis came things might not have turned out in quite that way. That was, and that always will be, a very considerable danger. There I disagree slightly with something that the noble Lord, Lord Willis, seemed to be arguing. He seemed to be saying that we would command the respect of the House of Commons if we were ourselves placed on a more rational or radical basis. Events do not suggest that, because the more reputable our basis the greater appears to be our prospect of influence. If the events of a few years ago are any guide, it is at that point that certain elements in the House of Commons are going to be very nervous.
Be that as it may, that was an agreed scheme. It was something that is not likely to be improved on, at any rate in any large measure. No doubt all sorts of details were arguable and could be altered. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Willis, will draw some encouragement from the fact that it was possible only a few years ago to reach this agreement in favour of reform. What was done then could be done again, but the circumstances were somewhat propitious, and, to say the very least, you would have to make sure that there were people in the House of Commons, leading figures, who wished to see Parliament as a whole reformed.
1110
Before I sit down, I should like to make one suggestion, because I do not expect to see reform come to-morrow by any manner of means. There is one point about our present arrangements which I think must cause a certain amount of anxiety. I do not want to pretend that anything remotely approaching a scandal has occurred but an enormous amount of patronage rests more or less in the hands of one man at any one time. I say"more or less"because various influences are brought to bear, and at any particular moment no doubt the Leader of the Opposition is listened to, as are others. But in fact I would say that when it comes to choosing the Peers—who are now all Life Peers, I am glad to say—this very arbitrary selection, as it is bound to be, depends on what is really the personal attitude towards many individuals of one particular man.
That is the suggestion. I am not criticising the present Prime Minister, the last Prime Minister, or any particular Prime Minister. If you go back a few years and take the Liberals, for a long time none of them was given a Life Peerage. I remember suggesting that Lady Bonham Carter should be made a Peeress long before she was made one. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Henley, may remember that. At any rate, I made that suggestion. Why was she not made one? Because the Prime Minister of the day did not feel like it. It was not that her merits were less when she was not quite so old as when she eventually came here; it was some arbitrary attitude. If you go back to the days of Lord Attlee—whom I admire more than any man I have had dealings with in public life in this country—eminent people (they may not appeal to all noble Lords) like Mr. Victor Gollancz and Mr. Kingsley Martin, to take two eminent Socialists, never got further than knighthoods. The best that could be done for them was to give them a knighthood. No one is going to say that in capacity they were not equal to many who, like myself, have come to this House. I do not know whether they were not regarded as clubbable, or it may be they were thought to be erratic, or that they would cause difficulty in some way, but at any rate they were not chosen.
So without coming to the present day at all, when things become invidious, I am saying that over the years—I have

1111
not been here as long as the noble Lord, Lord de Clifford, but longer than most noble Lords who are now active in this House—I am well aware that there has been a very large arbitrary element of human likes and dislikes, which are the same among Prime Ministers as among ordinary mortals like ourselves.
There is a lot to be said for the way in which this matter was handled in the White Paper issued in November, 1968. May I point out that while I think it had the good will of the Opposition, it was issued by the Government of the day; in other words by the Cabinet presided over by Mr. Wilson. So whatever else one could say, one could not complain that it was criticism of our revered Prime Minister. The Labour Government of that time discussed in paragraph 31 of the White Paper the question of preventing what they called,"The abuse of patronage." I think that the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, will confirm the great deal of work that has been done on this subject. They considered withdrawing from the Prime Minister the power of nominating Peers, and giving it to some form of constitutional committee. But I think, on balance, and rightly, they did not favour that conclusion.
What they suggested was that the Government,
"…does however see attraction in the possibility of a committee which, while possessing no power of nomination, would review periodically the composition of the reformed House and report, either to the Prime Minister or to Parliament, on any deficiencies in the balance and range of the membership of the House ".
They finished that passage by saying:
" Its reports would enable Parliament and the country as a whole to satisfy themselves that the powers of patronage were not being abused."
That was one way of doing it, and it may be that other noble Lords will think of something better.
My Lords, I am sure that even if we cannot achieve some sort of fundamental reform—and I would go along with the noble Lord, Lord Willis, although I am one of Bluebeard's earlier wives and I have seen all this in my time—hope springs eternal and if the noble Lord, Lord Willis, gets anywhere I shall be shuffling behind him. Meanwhile, in considering secondary reforms I commend
1112
to the House the one I have just indicated.
7.3 p.m.
LORD SUDELEY: My Lords, I should like to intervene for no more than five minutes to make three general points in defence of the presence of heredity in the House. My first point concerns the mode of thought in which objections to hereditary spring because this seems to me a mode of thought which is to be accepted automatically in the way many people would accept it. Everybody knows that the House works and so the objections to the hereditary element arise not so much through any practical necessity as on the grounds that the hereditary principle is irrational. Yet what is implied here, that rationality is a necessary guide to truth, does not hold water at all. Much spurious thinking is rational. It is easy enough to argue a spurious case rationally merely by selecting facts and arranging them in such a way as to suit the case you would like to preach. This is exactly what that great rationalist, Voltaire, did in his novel Candide. In his attempt to show that the omnipotent deity is not kind, Voltaire filled his novel with a series of unhappy events which succeeded one another with a rapidity which, in the ordinary course of life, would never happen.
My second point in defence of hereditary Peers is that those who deny the hereditary element in the House deny that the House as an institution can have any validity on a prescriptive basis, when it is so much in order to suppose that laws and institutions should have a prescriptive basis, particularly in England. All of our case law, and many of our institutions, apart from the House, have evolved to suit our practical needs rather than to fit in with any abstract system of thinking. In this way, as the great German legal historian Savigny showed, our laws and institutions suit us because they express the character of our people, whereas if you are like the French revolutionary who tried to reform our institutions with the idea of improving the society in which we live, you must fail, as the point at issue is the character of the men over whom the institutions are intended to govern. As we are all creatures of original sin this is something

1113
which any mere change in the form of Government cannot alter.
My third point concerns the role of heredity in the body politic at large, of which the House is but one part. So what I am about to say will be of an even more general character, although it was on this broad basis that our Garter King of Arms made his excellent defence of hereditary Peers in the current issue of Burke's Peerage. Moreover, the discredit into which hereditary has fallen in the House springs from the discredit into which hereditary has fallen in our society at large. The great rival to the hereditary principle of Government is the elective which, though it may not have obtained for so long since the fall of the Roman Empire, has obtained to an increasing extent since the 18th century.
However, as we are not yet a pure democracy, and there is still some hereditary preserved in our Constitution, it cannot be political heresy to point out one or two faults with the elective system of Government. Elected polititicians coax their voters by promoting economic growth and material progress which weaken all the old sentiments of loyalty and obedience. Elected politicians of the Left—and, it is the way of democracies to always move to the Left—promote equality of opportunity and a certain departure from moral standards. As these developments bring in their train a certain loosening of all the old ties, and introduce into our society so much movement, they put at great risk all the order and cohesion upon which the very existence of our society depends to the extent of suggesting that we have approached the end of our social reserves.
As economic crisis loomed over this country at the turn of the year, the author of The Times leader for December 31 put the problem in a way which was not too far removed from the form in which I stated it. The author said:
" One of the anxieties of the present time is that the cohesion of our society, under the impact of incessant technical change, moral disorientation and the deliberate obliteration of physical and institutional landmarks, is so far weakened, and vulnerable to revolutionary designs, that it may not be able to withstand the economic stresses about to be put on it—although the probable stresses, assessed in the perspective of history, are not all that severe."
1114
The trend is a dangerous one which must be reversed. A religious revival would help. At about the turn of the year, Harold Macmillan said that there is not enough religion around. I do not think it would be too bold to suggest that a renewal of the hereditary principle would also go far towards reversing the trend. It would restore the significance historically, if the hereditary principle performed the role of ensuring all the better that we hold together.
LORD HALE: My Lords, will the noble Lord forgive me for intervening on that point, because it was never a principle? Professor Freeman devoted many years to proving that it was a historical accident. It was Disraeli who said that after the Battle of Tewkesbury,
" the Norman Baron was as rare in Britain as a wolf ".
LORD SUDELEY: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that intervention, and as I spoke about the prescriptive basis what he said was very much in order. I was saying that, historically, the hereditary principle, or the existence of it, and its acknowledgment, has performed exactly this role of ensuring all the better that we hold together. In the article which I mentioned for Burke's Peerage, our Garter King of Arms mooted
"…that the hereditary principle expressed in loyalty to dynasties, lords and kindred "
has done
" almost as much as belief in God and the fealty of the vassal to lord to rebuild European civilisation after the fall of the Roman Empire."
If order and stability are to be re-established in our society to-day, then I think a revival of respect for the hereditary principle would go far to renew the significance of the family which, weakened though it may be by liberal laws on divorce and inheritance, has remained the most important of all the obligations out of which our society has been built. If, on the grounds that I have indicated, the smear and discredit could be removed from the acknowledgment of heredity, then I do not think that the presence of heredity in an Upper Chamber would seem so very incongruous or remote from the conditions of the present time, antiquated, any more than it did to our not too remote ancestors. Moreover, if heredity can be preserved in the House,

1115
then the House, like the Monarchy, can remain within the Constitution as a fixed point and an essential counterweight to all the movement and disintegration which has been introduced through the increasing ascendency of the elected element.
Let me conclude, therefore, by deploring the fact that the practice of creating any more hereditary Peers has been allowed surreptitiously to lapse. In seeking in this way to erode the element of heredity in the Legislature, the leaders of both Parties must be convicted of assuming a power over the Constitution such as would never have been taken for granted by any previous Minister of the Crown.
7.11 p.m.
LORD WIGG: My Lords, this is the second Unstarred Question in the course of a few weeks on which I have attended the debate to listen to one speech and have then been provoked to speak. The previous occasion was on Northern Ireland, and when I came in at that time it was as if I was attending a private session of the Conservative Party, and I thought it was necessary, in the interests of democracy, to inject just a little common sense into the proceedings. I came this evening to listen to my noble and very genuine friend—a friend not just in the political sense but in a very real sense—Lord Shinwell; but having heard the debate, I must say I have never listened to such unmitigated nonsense as has been talked to-night. The last speaker, in a most erudite speech, elevated the hereditary principle into something almost descended from God, tied up with the fabric of the State, and so on and so forth. What is the truth? This place has existed down the centuries to preserve the privileges of a very small section of the community. It has existed to preserve the privileges and the rights of, and to give a comfortable way of life to, a very few people, irrespective of their ability.
My views about the hereditary principle were punctured by a member of the aristocracy. I was a young N.C.O. at the time, stationed in York, where there was a by-election. It was at that by-election, although my noble friend will not recollect it, that, at the Co-operative Rooms I met him for the first time. I went along and listened to a lady, I think
1116
now dead, named Lady Maureen Stanley. She was speaking on behalf of her kinsman. This was in the 'thirties, when Britain was moving into the abyss, with 2 million unemployed, great economic crises, destitution and poverty all over the land and the certainty of a European war. What was Lady Maureen Stanley's speech? It was on a Tuesday night. Why do I know it was a Tuesday night? Because the Two Thousand Guineas is run on a Wednesday, and her message was about the Two Thousand Guineas. She said:"Your Conservative candidate has been bred for politics, and, just as to-morrow a gallant three-year-old will storm up the hill to the winning post at Newmarket, bred for the job, so is your Conservative candidate here bred for politics". He got elected, and he rose to a high position in the State.
But I knew not so much about politics, perhaps, as I knew about racing. This is absolute trash. The idea that you can cross a top-class stallion with a top-class mare and that the product is going to win the Derby and the Two Thousand Guineas is rubbish. The great horses are like the great men: they have been sired or mothered on the other side of the blanket. That is what matters: it is the rough blood outside. On the question of examining genealogical tables, I find, as a matter of fact, that way back down the line I have as much claim to the glories of breeding from that angle as anybody else.
LORD SUDELEY: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord? I just mention that if he looks at the Dictionary of National Biography he will find that the only profession in which, as a whole, the distinguished sons do not follow on their distinguished fathers is acting. This is an observation I picked up from a reading of Havelock Ellis's book on Hereditary Genius.
LORD WIGG: My Lords, I am not going to follow the noble Lord—
LORD PLATT: My Lords, may I intervene? Was it not Galton's book on Hereditary Genius?
LORD WIGG: Perhaps I may be allowed to continue. I am not going to get involved in quoting from or discussing books I have not read. Ruff's Guide to the Turf is good enough for me, and

1117
the idea that a Derby winner and an Oaks winner, if crossed, will produce a classic winner I know to be nonsense. It has happened once; and, going back to the 'thirties, the period of which I have been talking, I knew Lady Maureen Stanley was talking rubbish. This is what I think, too, when I listen to speakers from all sides of the House talking about the qualities of this place. I have been here only seven years—seven years too long! If I have to listen, as I have had to listen to-night, to the House of Commons being denigrated and the electorate described as"riff-raff ", I reject it. The one thing in my life of which I am most proud—no honour can excel it; no honour conferred by the Sovereign equals it—is that of being elected to the House of Commons by people you trust, people you get to know and people you try to serve. I am very proud of the fact that on seven occasions, starting by winning a Conservative scat, I held it against all comers.
The idea is that there is some superiority about this place as against the House of Commons, and that the House of Commons has not sought to reform itself. It has—and too much. The Back-Bench Member of the House of Commons has given away power to the Executive. But this place; this contemptible institution! On the Third Reading of the European Communities Bill I made a speech. I said I had read all the spokesmen on behalf of this place, and the arguments which convinced me were that it was a delaying Chamber; it was a revising Chamber; it was a Chamber which, when great decisions were to be taken—decisions which, in the case of the Common Market, may be irrevocable—could hold the matter up so that there could he consultation with the people. I went on to say:"The arguments that are given to us are that we must get into Europe because only by getting into Europe shall we get the investment into Britain that is necessary to revivify and strengthen our industries ". I ventured to say:"This is a marvellous argument. It almost convinces me. The only thing is, I am not sure about it. Suppose that, instead of the investment flowing from the Continent into Britain, it flows from Britain to the Continent. If we have then given away out a secretary to master the details of a complex Bill and take an effective part all the humbug that has been talked from
1118
all Benches about it being a delaying Chamber—what is going to happen? "
Who was right? Was it the experts; the sophisticated, erudite, financial genii who had come down from the City; the chairmen of companies? Or was it the poor, backroom rat? I was right. When that Bill was passed, we were almost in balance with the E.E.C. The next year, our adverse balance was £500 million. Last year, it was £1,000 million. This year it will not be less than £1,600 million. And those who are responsible and are going to be held to account for it are the Members of your Lordships' House. I am in your Lordships' House for one reason and one reason only, and that is to be present on the Third Reading of a Bill which abolishes you. Because you have betrayed your trust. You could have held up that Bill. You could have said to the Government,"Yes£after you have consulted the people ". But, as always, this House, or the majority of this House, served what it thought were its class interests. Those who suffered were the people of this country. That is the truth. The fact is that there are two aspects of your Lordships' affairs. The noble Earl, Lord Longford, talked about the reform that was held up by people whom I think he regards as having a tail and horns.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, that, I thought, was one of the silliest remarks that I have heard for a long time. But I may have misheard that remark. Did the noble Lord say that I regard these people who held it up as having tails?
LORD WIGG: My Lords, I thought his mood was somewhat disapproving. May I put it like that? From their point of view, they did their duty as they saw it, but that was a reform associated with the power of this House. What is within your Lordships' control, next week if you desire, is to turn this place into something that is less like a debating Chamber, and something like a place that is occupied by rational men. One needs to go no further than the first Question on the Order Paper to-day, which was:
" To ask Her Majesty's Government how they would ensure that the British people had enough to eat if the United Kingdom left the E.E.C."

1119
If Questions are asked they should have some semblance of responsibility, some reference to it. Here there is none. Any noble Lord can put on the Order Paper any collection of nonsense he desires. Not so in the other place. They are governed by Rules of Order which here we do not have, though we have a Companion. However, I notice that the application of the Companion varies according to what may be the views of the House about a particular individual. I have constantly drawn attention to the fact that it is laid down fairly strictly that there should be no reading of speeches. Heavens above!—reading of speeches. You even get Members of this House reading their supplementary questions!
Then, again, there is the question of the Business of the House. How is it arranged? It is arranged between the Whips on either side. Neither set of Whips is competent. One of the easiest reforms to institute—and, again, it could be done next week—is that the House can insist that the Business of the House is controlled by the servants of the House. I would go so far as to say that we ought to have the equivalent of Mr. Speaker. We ought to have a Chairman. We ought to have simple Rules. Even a debating society has some sort of rules and makes some attempt to keep in order. There is some degree of responsibility and relevance. Here there is none. These things could be done. I shall not detain your Lordships for a moment longer.
The only reform of the House of Lords that I want is to abolish it. It has served this country ill. It has served an undeserving upper class very well. It has served them for too long. Off with their heads! I think so much of this House that only in the last few weeks I went to the Clerk of the Parliaments to find out whether there was any way by which I could renounce my Peerage. I do not want to be here. I do not like being here. I think it is a load of nonsense. On the issue of the Common Market, this House has behaved as if it were a fifth column. It has surrendered the sovereignty of the British people to those who did not conquer it. The sovereignty of the British people has been given away, and that could not
1120
have been given away without the permission of this House. For that reason, the quicker it ends the better.
LORD SUDELEY: My Lords, does the noble Lord envisage that he has come to the House for the purpose of subverting it?
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, if the noble Lord feels as he does there is no need to renounce his Peerage. He can apply for leave of absence. I think that after the words he has spoken, especially calling this place a"contemptible institution"he should first explain to us why he ever accepted to come here, and secondly, why he bothers to come to this House as often as he does. We like to see him on the other hand, may I assure him, and we value his views, especially on matters of the turf. We find that very entertaining and I hope he will continue to come, but I hope that he will see that we are not quite as black as he tries to paint us.
LORD WIGG: I used the word"contemptible"and I do not withdraw that word in relation to this House and the Common Market. Because it has been said and has been repeated so often by the leadership—particularly of the Conservative Party—that there is a need for a revising Chamber. Above all, in all the arguments about the abrogation of the power of this House it has always been argued that in the interests of freedom and democracy, there must be a delaying power. I accepted that but realised it was humbug,and when men practice humbug their action is contemptible. On the subject of why I came I have already explained. I came because Mr. Wilson asked me, and having agreed to come I do a job, and do it as best I can on the issues on which I have something to say. But my ultimate purpose is to come here only to finish it off.
7.26 p.m.
LORD STRABOLGI: My Lords, we have had a most interesting and lively debate. I expected it to be lively, but I did not think it was going to be quite so lively as the speech of my noble friend—if he calls himself my noble friend—Lord Wigg, which I may say is one of the most extraordinary and offensive speeches I have ever heard in this House.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Hear, hear!
LORD STRABOLGI: My Lords, we must be grateful to my noble friend Lord Willis for putting down this Question. It is probably time that we had a debate on this subject. I have listened to his speech with the greatest of interest. There is one matter, though, that is not really to do with reform, and that is when he complained about the number of Ministers here. It does not mean how this in any Government is a matter for the Prime Minister. The reform of the House of Lords in my judgment, and I think in the judgment of most people, means the composition of your Lordships' House and it means the powers of the House. It does not mean the number of Ministers here. It does not mean how much Press coverage or television coverage we get. Indeed, even the matter of the Speaker, which was put forward by my noble friend Lord Wigg, is a matter for the Procedure Committee and is nothing to do with the reform of the House.
LORD WILLIS: My Lords, before the noble Lord leaves that point may I ask him this question? I specifically linked the number of Ministers on the Front Bench with the lack of reform of the House. I made the point that if the Government intend to do nothing about this place, at least it could do one thing and see that we have adequate Ministerial forces to cover all the subjects and all the work. I suggested that there should be representations made to that effect. I see no inconsistency in that. If the Government intend to do nothing let us have the forces to do our work.
LORD STRABOLGI: My Lords, I take the point, of course, that the noble Lord has made. He also paid a tribute to the work done by the Lords in Waiting and the Whips, but he implied that there was not much rapport between them and the Departments. I should say that my noble friends spend every morning in the relevant Department of the subject for which they are responsible and they have the very closest association with the Departments.
The noble Lord also said that so far as reform is concerned he did not think that we had moved forward one inch. On the other hand, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Rochester said that he thought that reform was going on all the time. Since I have been here I have
1122
considered it a great privilege and pleasure. I am sorry the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, thinks that seven years is too long. I have been here for twenty years and I have enjoyed it enormously. Of course that is not as long as the noble Lord, Lord de Clifford, or indeed the noble Lord, Lord Denham, but during this period I have indeed, as I think has any noble Lord who has been here a good deal of time, seen a great many changes.
I should like, therefore, to pause for a moment and take the opportunity of looking back to see what improvements have been made since the Second World War. During that period, for example, there have been a number of changes in the powers and constitution of your Lordships' House. The Parliament Act 1949 reduced the period of delay which your Lordships could impose on public Bills. Then there was an important change in the constitution of this House made by the Life Peerages Act 1958, which everyone would agree has introduced into our debates a valuable new element of thought and opinion. I was very interested in what was said by the noble Lord, Lord de Clifford. I fully agree with him that the Life Peers have really saved the day. I was also glad to hear the tribute paid by my noble friend Lord Shinwell—I must say I never thought I should hear such a tribute—to the hereditary Peers. I do not think he went quite so far as the noble Lord, Lord Sudeley, who believes in the hereditary Peerage as a kind of mystique; but all the same, it was an unexpected and, I am sure, not an undeserved tribute. A further change has been the opportunity for members of the hereditary Peerage to give up their titles if they preferred to remain commoners or, indeed, to become Members of another place. I think that the element of cross-fertilisation which has resulted from these two measures has significantly improved and smoothed the conduct of our public affairs.
I include in the march of events one episode which at first sight might seem to have little to show in relation to the work put in: I refer to the Government's White Paper of 1968 and the Bill which followed it. That Bill produced little or nothing in the way of immediate results, but a great deal of work lay in the

1123
too when I listen to speakers from all efforts of the inter-Party conference; and I should like to take this opportunity of paying a tribute to the noble Lords, Lord Carrington and Lord Byers, to the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, and to my noble friends on this side of the House, particularly my noble friends Lord Shackle-ton and Lord Longford, who were closely involved. I have no doubt their efforts brought a greater appreciation of the issues involved, not only at the fundamental constitutional levels but also at the more practical levels of procedural reform. The Bill which would have implemented the proposals in the Government's White Paper of course made no progress—and this was referred to in the debate—probably because of the rather unexpected alliance of Michael Foot and Enoch Powell, as was so well described by my noble friend Lord Willis.
However, there have been certain other reforms since then. For example, there has been the experiment of introducing a Special Committee procedure for dealing with public Bills; and a more specific change was the introduction of the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, which removes unnecessary duplication, minimises a possible source of friction and represents a real step forward in the scrutiny of delegated legislation. There was also a suggestion for the greater use of specialist committees. This resulted in the setting up of the Select Committee on Sport and Leisure, which was referred to by my noble friend Lord Hale. We have also introduced the short Wednesday debates, which I think give a further opportunity for many debates of general public interest though perhaps not considered of wide enough interest for a full debate. I suggest to your Lordships that all these developments represent very real progress.
LORD WIGG: My Lords, would the noble Lord give way? Does he not agree that, starting off with the Parliament Act 1949, the Life Peerages Act and so on, all these measures were imposed from outside? This House has never really seriously seized a chance even to bring its own procedures up to date in the light of common sense. The rest of it, since the Parliament Act 1911, has been imposed from outside.
LORD STRABOLGI: My Lords, all I can say is that this House, by a large
1124
majority, voted for the White Paper. The fact that the Bill resulting from that White Paper was not passed by the other place was not the fault of this House.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Hear, hear!
LORD WIGG: My Lords, nobody is suggesting that it is their fault—except that anybody who wants to get a rational House of Lords, responsive to the needs of the country at this present time, will most certainly be very glad that that Bill was not passed.
LORD PLATT: My Lords, may i point out to the noble Lord, who I am glad to see has just resumed his seat, that one of the procedures of this House is that you do not normally speak in a debate unless you have put your name on the list. You do not usually speak otherwise unless there is a very good reason for it.
LORD WIGG: My Lords, on that point, if I may say so, I will adhere to the Rules when everybody else adheres to them. I have added my name and spoken to-night only because I understand that that is the practice. That is exactly what I complain of. I am not popular here and I do not want to be popular here, but because I am not popular here an excuse is made to try to prevent my speaking. That is exactly what I complain about regarding this place.
LORD STRABOLGI: My Lords, whether the noble Lord has complaints or not is a question for the Procedure Committee. It has nothing to do with the reform of your Lordships' House.
LORD WIGG: Of course it has my Lords!
LORD STRABOLGI: Whether the noble Lord appears at the bottom of the paper because he has not come in at the beginning of the debate, or whether he appears where he thinks he should be—rather higher up—has nothing to do with the reform of your Lordships' House.
LORD WIGG: My Lords, of course it has.
LORD STRABOLGI: My Lords, the question of a chairman is also a matter for the Procedure Committee to consider and for the House as a whole to accept. Returning again to the speech of my noble friend Lord Willis, he urged us to

1125
move faster and faster. The Government's answer to that is that whatever the wider issues involved, this is not the time to look at fundamental House of Lords reform in isolation—and I say this particularly to the noble Lord, Lord Ferrier. The fact is that we are going through a period of constitutional change and review, for which no parallel can be found during some considerable time. This is taking place at all levels of our Constitution. We have just completed the most fundamental reorganisation of the country's system of local government for a century. But this is only a beginning. There are two other developments which will very materially affect the Government's judgment about when the time will be right for further Lords reform.
The first of these is the outcome of the current consultations on the Reports of the Commission on the Constitution—the majority Kilbrandon Report and the Memorandum of Dissent. We have, of course, published some alternatives for discussion on devolution within the United Kingdom, and some of these alternatives would involve changes of the greatest constitutional importance—changes in the relationship between different parts of the United Kingdom, the setting up of new regional governments and of new regional assemblies, and, of course, changes in the role of the Legislature itself at Westminster. Indeed, in one case, it may involve changes in the membership of your Lordships' House. The next step will be for the Government to decide, in the light of these consultations, what proposals to put forward. Clearly, the role of your Lordships' House will need to be considered in this context.
The second factor which, among others, will affect our judgment on the timing of reform is the outcome of the renegotiation now in progress in Brussels and, if we are to stay in Europe, the question of those who are chosen to represent the United Kingdom in the European Parliament. At present, of course, certain of your Lordships serve in that Parliament and we shall need to consider to what extent that should be a permanent feature of the arrangements. So let me return to the proposal that interim measures should be introduced to help
1126
those who work in your Lordships' House to fulfil their Parliamentary function. I recall the debate that we had on May 15 on the Motion of the noble Viscount, Lord Massereene and Ferrard. On that occasion my noble friend Lord Harris of Greenwich referred to the consultations that were taking place on the help which might be given to Opposition Parties to assist them in the performance of their Parliamentary duties.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt. Do I understand that my noble friend is saying that this is the concept of what is meant by reform? These are pettyfogging changes which are no doubt desirable; but is this the definition of reform?
LORD STRABOLGI: My Lords, this is one of the reforms to which I referred. The whole question of reform—and I do not know whether my noble friend was listening; probably he was not—I thought should be dealt with not in isolation, but as part of the whole concept of devolution and of our evolving society—
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, when did the Government decide on what my noble friend has just been announcing to your Lordships? Has it been decided since my noble friend Lord Willis put his Question on the Order Paper? Is my noble friend Lord Strabolgi aware that none of us—and some of us are fairly well informed—has heard a single whisper about these matters? The Government have come to no conclusion about this. The matter has never been considered at all, in the Cabinet or elsewhere.
LORD STRABOLGI: My Lords, I do not know whether my noble friend speaks for what goes on in the Cabinet; I certainly do not. But I should like to refer him to the White Paper on devolution within the United Kingdom and my information—and, indeed, my brief—is that this will be considered, and the whole concept of House of Lords reform will be considered alongside this White Paper when some proposals are put before Parliament on these lines. These consultations have embraced the Parties in both Houses, and so when in due course—before very long, I hope—the Government come to frame their proposals in

1127
this connection, they will be fully seized of the needs of Opposition Parties in your Lordships' House as well as in another place.
My Lords, I am sorry to have spoken at some length, but I hope that what I have said may give some indication of the Government's present attitude to this matter.
LORD DENHAM: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, may I ask whether he is aware that every noble Lord who has spoken in this debate is still in his place; and is this not a reform that is well overdue?

EASTBOURNE HARBOUR BILL [H.L.]
The Queen's consent signified and Bill reported with Amendments.