Lords Sitting of 21 May 1974

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Saint Edmundsbury and Ipswich.

LORD DUNCAN-SANDYS
The Right Honourable Duncan Edwin Duncan-Sandys, C.H., having been created Baron Duncan-Sandys, of the City of Westminster, for life—Was, in his robes, introduced between the Lord Sandys and the Lord Aldington.
The Viscount Scarsdale—Took the Oath.
The Lord Renwick—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his father.

E.E.C.: FUTURE DEVELOPMENT
2.49 p.m.
LORD GLADWYN: 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 share the hope of so many of their own supporters that the existing European Economic Community will gradually develop into some form of democratic political union; or whether they intend, so far as lies in their power, to transform it into a simple industrial free trade area?
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE, FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS): My Lords, the Government have made it clear that our approach is to negotiate within the terms of the Treaties and to consider proposing amendments to those Treaties only if we find our essential interests cannot be met without them. Our negotiations are not based on an attempt to transform the Community into a simple industrial free trade area. The idea of creating some
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form of political union is at an embryonic stage, and many different views are held. We shall take part in discussions on it in the Community, which are just beginning.
LORD GLADWYN: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for that reply, which is the sort of reply that I confidently expected, may I ask him this question? Seeing that our partners in Europe have already repudiated all ideas of concluding an industrial free trade area, and that they are also opposed to any alteration in the terms of the Treaties, would not the Government at least consider that the best hope of making progress towards changing the terms of our accession would be in the context of political discussions with our partners about the whole political future of the Community?
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, as to the first part of the noble Lord's supplementary question, I really think that it is best for us to proceed with re-negotiation and to observe the outcome of that process. As to the second part of the question, there is a basic difference of view between the noble Lord and the Government on this matter. It is really necessary to negotiate the proper terms before we give any definitive attention to the political arrangements.
LORD BLYTON: My Lords, is the Minister aware that I hope we never accept political union such as would reduce this Parliament to a parish council and off-shore island of Europe? Is he also aware that I agree with the latter part of the noble Lord's Question, and that I believe in liberal, free trade among all the nations, instead of building tariffs against the world?
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I doubt whether there would be any serious disagreement with my noble friend about the first part of his supplementary question, concerning the future survival, and potent survival, of our Parliamentary institutions in this country. I am flattered by the noble Lord's agreement and his attention. As to the second part of my noble friend's supplementary question, as he has said, the question of free trade of course includes various areas other than the area covered by the Nine. I think it is the general intention that there should be the fullest possible expansion of free trade through GATT and other arrangements throughout the world.
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: My Lords, while not wholly disagreeing with the thoughts behind the Question of the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, may I ask the Minister whether he would agree that it might be more advantageous for your Lordships to consider the concrete benefits of belonging to the Community—the advantages of belonging to so large a market, the benefits accruing from the Social Fund, the potential advantages which we may gain from the Regional Development Fund and, indeed, as one noble Baroness said the other day, the advantages of providing our overseas aid through the E.E.C. framework?
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, we are in fact engaged in a fundamental re-appraisal of the advantages and disadvantages of the present terms. There may be concrete advantages. We are aware of there being some very hard terms.
BARONESS GAITSKELL: My Lords, would it not be true to say that to try to develop the European Economic Community into a simple industrial free trade area having the aroma of the rich man's club would be a retrograde step? Is it not also true that it was the Customs Union concept that originally alienated some of us and obscured the ultimate ideal of gradually—and I stress, "gradually"—developing the E.E.C. into some form of democratic political union?
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I think we would all agree that "free trade" is a comparative term. It cannot be applied properly to a tight little zollverein. I would hope that there would be consensus about expanding free trade, as we know it, so far as possible territorially and otherwise.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, has my noble friend observed that the newly-appointed President of France has declared resolutely, repeating what he stated during the election campaign, that he has not the slighest intention of engaging in re-negotiation with this or any other country? What is the reaction of Her Majesty's Government to that?
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, the reaction of Her Majesty's Government is that they will continue with their re-negotiation.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, can the noble Lord give an assurance that, whatever the outcome of the re-negotiation of the terms of entry, it is the intention of Her Majesty's Government that we as a European country should play a full part in the development of Europe?
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, indeed I can give that assurance. We have been giving considerable attention to the question of political arrangements in Europe, whatever form they may take as a result of re-negotiation, and in no way are we neglecting this or any aspect of increasingly closer cooperation, in Europe among the Nine and possibly further afield.
LORD SEGAL: My Lords, does not the present disarray of other Common Market countries afford us a unique opportunity to assert British leadership? Could not Britain now give a real lead to Europe and avoid conveying even the slightest impression of hesitation or of dragging its feet?
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I would not wish to comment on the first part of my noble friend's observation. I am tempted to say that each country negotiates in its own way. The British method is to engage in a formal, orderly process of re-negotiation, the first phase of which has already happened and the second phase of which we will hopefully begin on June 4.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (LORD SHEPHERD): My Lords, one of the benefits of your Lordships' House is that we now have a clock. We have been on this Question for seven minutes and if we take the same amount of time on the others we shall very shortly have occupied half an hour on Question Time. I do not think the House would wish that. May I suggest that we move to the next Question and if noble Lords wish to pursue this matter they might do so by putting down an Unstarred Question.

N.A.T.O. AND WARSAW PACT: MILITARY DISBANDMENT
2.58 p.m.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will consider the appropriate means (as, for example, at the discussions on the European Conference for Security and Co-operation and on Mutual Reduction of Armaments) of consideration of the proposal of the Warsaw Pact States that the military functions of the Warsaw Pact and NATO should be simultaneously disbanded.
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, Her Majesty's Government regard the alliance as an instrument of détente no less than of defence. The mutual and concurrent phasing out of NATO and the Warsaw Pact (including the bilateral defence agreements which underly it) should be seen as an ultimate objective of the present movement towards a more satisfactory relationship in Europe.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that Answer. May I ask him whether Her Majesty's Government appreciate that in the present situation there is what is almost a unique opportunity for a breakthrough for peace in Europe and in the world? Do they appreciate that this proposal by the Warsaw Pact Powers, that both NATO and the Warsaw Pact should be simultaneously disbanded in their military forms, gives Her Majesty's Government an opportunity to lead for peace that they have never had before?
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I agree that there are some very hopeful signs emanating from the two main Conferences which are now in progress—the C.S.C.E. and the M.B.F.R. However, we should not exaggerate the hopes that most people in Europe are beginning to feel. As regards my noble friend's suggestion, for which I have great respect, I do not think it would be appropriate or practical to include consideration of the proposal for the simultaneous dismantling of the two Alliances in either the M.B.F.R. or the C.S.C.E. discussions. What I think may happen—and, again, one speaks hopefully—is that a successful outcome of the negotiations in those two substantive Conferences will lead to a situation in which proposals such as his and others may fruitfully be pursued.
LORD ST. HELENS: My Lords, may I ask Her Majesty's Government to reaffirm that disarmament will not precede détente, and will only follow as a result of détente?
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, it is certainly true that the basis of all disarmament must be a feeling of confidence and security.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, is my noble friend able to say whether there has been the slightest indication on the part of the Soviet Union that it is ready to abandon the Warsaw Pact, if simultaneously those associated with NATO abandon the NATO Pact? Has there been the slightest indication or representation to Her Majesty's Government or even to the United States of America to that effect?
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, we can only go on the repeated statements made on behalf of the Warsaw Pact countries that they are prepared for this even-handed dismantling of the two Alliances. But, of course, there are a great many contingent questions of a very important nature that must be asked before this somewhat simplistic proposal can be proceeded with. I have tried to indicate that this country—and, in particular, the non-aligned countries who are very important members of the C.S.C.E.—feel that the building up of confidence and security must precede any consideration such as the one proposed by my noble friend Lord Brockway.
LORD STRATHCONA AND MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, do the Government consider that the Warsaw Pact is of the same order of importance to the Eastern bloc as NATO is to the West?
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lord, I could not answer that, except to say that they apparently seem to think so. Hopefully, we may all look to a time when such a feeling of security and confidence has been created by the two Conferences now in progress that we can talk meaningfully about the dismantling of all Alliances, whether détentive, defensive or both.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, may I ask the Minister this further question? While abhorring the authoritarian nature of the Communist countries, would it not

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be better for Her Majesty's Government to respond to this proposal made in a communiqué for the dismantling of both sides, by indicating that for the sake of peace they would welcome any dismantling of the division of Europe into two military blocs?
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, we have repeatedly made our views perfectly clear to the Warsaw Pact, to the non-aligned countries, and indeed to the international community. I do not think any new statement is necessary. Our views are perfectly well known and, indeed, shared by a great majority of the countries concerned. As to my noble friend's abhorrences and enthusiasms, I am bound to say that I share most of both.
LORD GLADWYN: My Lords, would the noble Lord agree that in the event of either bloc—that is, either NATO or the Warsaw Pact—being abolished, it would be necessary to neutralise Western Europe?
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, that would seem to be a logical outcome of such a situation. Of course, as the noble Lord will know from his great experience in these matters, this has been the subject of quite definite proposals in the past, not least by Poland.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, are the Government aware that if they responded in the way suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, and agreed to the disbandment of NATO in these circumstances, it would meet with a very vigorous reaction from a great many people?
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I have no doubt that that would be so. However, our task is to keep on co-operating with a great many other countries and to continue—I apologise for repeating the phrase once more—this confidence-building operation, which is showing some signs of succeeding, both in Vienna and in the C.S.C.E.

MAPLIN PROJECT REVIEW
3.4 p.m.
BARONESS YOUNG: 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 when they intend to publish their review of the Maplin project.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF INDUSTRY (LORD BESWICK): My Lords, as I announced on March 21, it is intended to make a further Statement on the Maplin airport project before the Summer Recess. It is hoped to make available at that time the revised forecasts and other relevant information on which the Statement will be based.
BARONESS YOUNG: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, for that reply. May I ask him this further question? If, as a result of this further review, the Government decide to abandon the Maplin project, will they then not proceed with the further report to Parliament, as required by the Maplin Development Act?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, if the Government decide that the Maplin project is not required then the provisions of Section 2, to which I understand the noble Baroness is referring, will not apply.
LORD WINDLESHAM: My Lords, is it not right to assert that if the law says that certain action should be taken it is not open to the Government to say that it is no longer necessary?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, if the noble Lord will refer to the Act, he will find that Section 2 makes provision for an Order, so that in the event of an Order being made certain authorities must be consulted. If no Order is required, the law does not require those authorities to be consulted.
LORD WINDLESHAM: Yes, my Lords, but the noble Lord has been very closely associated with this subject for a long period of time and no doubt remembers the debates that took place in this House. Is he telling us now that if as a result of the review made—a different review—the Government decide not to proceed, there will then be no further discussion? The important question of a seaport arises, for example.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, as the noble Lord says, I did take part in these discussions and I pressed for, and reluctantly noble Lords opposite gave way

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and made provision for, certain consultations to take place. That was on the basis of a certain Order being made. If the Order is not made then the provisions of the Act do not apply. But of course if we go on to make alternative arrangements then the necessary consultations with the authorities concerned will take place—though not under the provisions of this Act.
LORD WINDLESHAM: My Lords, I am pleased that we have extracted that statement of policy from the noble Lord. He has now said that the necessary consultations will be held, though he seems to attach some importance to the fact that they will not have to be held under the aegis of the previous legislation.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, what I have done is to answer the Question put to me. If the noble Lord will refer to what I said earlier, I made it quite clear that if alternative arrangements are needed there will be consultations in those areas affected by those alternative arrangements.
BARONESS YOUNG: My Lords, as the review does not cover environmental grounds at all but, as I understood the noble Lord to say, is simply concerned with aircraft traffic and movement, will the decision about Maplin be based exclusively on that and not on any environmental considerations at all?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, the noble Baroness is absolutely right. The review now taking place is concerned with aviation matters; but of course if nothing is done at Maplin the environment will not be affected.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that there are very far-reaching planning implications in this decision? Is he further aware that his right honourable colleagues in another place are indeed consulting planning authorities? Is he also aware that the planning implications of this decision may have a very big effect indeed on the South-East?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, nothing that the noble Lord has said is contrary to what I am saying. If there is no work done at Maplin there will be no planning arrangements; but if no work at Maplin
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means that other things have to be done elsewhere, then when it is decided where those things shall be done the appropriate authorities will of course have to be consulted.
LORD REIGATE: My Lords, would the noble Lord confirm that whatever may be the decision on Maplin, there is no question of a second runway at Gatwick in the foreseeable future?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, if the noble Lord includes, as he has, the phrase, "in the conceivable future" I would agree with him. The fact is that runway capacity is not now a worry at all. This is a point I tried to make during our other discussions.

OIL SUPPLIES: ESTIMATED LIMIT
3.9 p.m.
LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH: 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 estimated thirty-five years' limit of world oil supplies given in July, 1973 (H.L. Debates, Vol. 344, col. 1137) has been reviewed by the present Government, and what is their estimate.
LORD JACQUES: My Lords, we would generally endorse the estimate made in July, 1973. It was derived from dividing known world reserves by an annual rate of consumption. The estimate thus takes no account of probable future discoveries of oil or of new techniques to derive larger supplies from oil reserves. It takes no account of the change in the trend of demand for energy. Equally, it takes no account of the changes in price and their effect on the recovery of oil and the rate of consumption.
LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for his reply, may I ask him whether he read the debates that we had in your Lordships' House on November 7 and December 5, when practically all the speakers were unanimous in suggesting that some form of high-powered committee should be set up as a matter of urgency to examine alternative fuel sources and supplies? Can the noble Lord

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tell us whether something like that has been done? If not, why not?
LORD JACQUES: My Lords, I do not think that question arises from the noble Lord's original Question; but to the best of my knowledge nothing has been done.
LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH: My Lords, if I brought to the House a car driven by home-made methane gas from chicken and pig manure and with a carburettor attachment, as invented by my fellow Devonian, Mr. Harold Bate, would the noble Lord accompany me on a drive and then encourage the sewerage plants in this country to go over to producing methane gas as an alternative fuel?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, the two supplementary questions of the noble Lord hardly arise from the original Question on the Order Paper. If he wishes to pursue the matter may I suggest that he puts down a Question for answer on another day.

GOVERNMENT STATEMENTS
BARONESS LLEWELYN-DAVIES OF HASTOE: My Lords, with the leave of the House, at a convenient moment after 3.30 p.m. my noble friend the Leader of the House will be making a Statement on arms exports. He will then also make a Statement on Peers' allowances.
UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL BILL
Read 2a, and committed to a Committee on Unopposed Bills.

CONTROL OF POLLUTION BILL [H.L.]
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That the Amendments for the Report stage of the Control of Pollution Bill be marshalled and considered in the following order, vizt.:—
Clauses 1 to 56,
Schedule 1,
Clauses 57 to 90,
Schedule 2,
Clauses 91 to 98,
Schedules 3 and 4,
Clause 99.—(Lord Shepherd.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

CONSOLIDATED FUND (No. 2) BILL
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Shepherd.)
On Question, Bill read 2a: Committee negatived.
Then, Standing Order No. 44 having been suspended (pursuant to Resolution), Bill read 3a, and passed.

CONTINGENCIES FUND BILL
3.14 p.m.
LORD JACQUES: My Lords, I beg to move that this Billl be now read a second time. The Bill before the House does three things. First, it provides for an increase in the capital of the Contingencies Fund, which has remained at £200 million since 1970. Under the Bill, the capital in the present financial year would be increased to £386 million. Secondly, the Bill proposes to replace the present arrangement, under which the capital of the Fund is expressed as a fixed sum by an arrangement under which it is expressed as a percentage; namely 2 per cent. of the authorised supply expenditure in the previous year. Thirdly, the Bill repeals certain legislation which is now spent. The provisions in question are those in the Schedule.
It may be for the convenience of the House if I were to explain what the Contingencies Fund is, why it is now proposed to increase the capital, and why it is proposed to introduce a formula for determining the limit on the capital in future. We are concerned here with a technical piece of financial machinery. There is a fundamental principle which has governed relations between Parliament and the Executive for centuries that if Governments wish to spend money they must first come to Parliament for approval. The Contingencies Fund constitutes an exception which Parliament itself has authorised. It is, as its name Implies, an arrangement under which the

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Government are given a certain freedom within a prescribed limit, termed the capital, to anticipate Parliamentary approval of expenditure to deal with contingencies. The contingencies can take different forms; for example, they can be a national emergency, or they may simply be the expenses of a State funeral for a public figure. More frequently, the Fund might be used to cover the period between the time when Parliament has given its approval in principle, and the time the money is voted and provided for in a Consolidation Fund Act or Appropriation Act. I emphasise the Contingencies Fund does not enable the Government to escape from Parliamentary control over expenditure. The Fund can never finally bear any charge, and must always be repaid from some source or other. Normally, it is repaid from a supplementary estimate when this has been presented and passed.
I turn now to the Bill itself. The capital of the Contingencies Fund has been varied from time to time over the years. In 1970 the present limit of £200 million was established. Since then there has been an increase in total supply expenditure of something approaching 50 per cent. There is a rough connection between the level of supply expenditure and the appropriate size of the Contingencies Fund, and the Government might have proposed—and I do not say that anyone would see any difficulty about this—to increase the capital of the Fund perhaps to £300 million or £350 million, or something of that order. The reason for bringing forward now a proposal to increase the capital of the Fund is to avoid the risk that the Fund will run out; and there are at present demands on the Fund which are unusual for this time of the year: the need to finance the payment of food subsidies pending the passage into law of the Prices Bill is one such demand.
But your Lordships may also wonder why the Government are proposing this novel device of a formula—why not just a straightforward increase in the capital of the Fund to £300 million, or some similar figure? The answer is that the Government believe it is sensible, given that an increase in the capital of the
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Fund is necessary, to take the opportunity of introducing the formula method for calculation of the capital. It means that henceforth the capital of the Fund will always bear a fixed relationship to the level of supply expenditure in the previous year, and therefore make it unnecessary for a Government to come to Parliament from time to time, as has happened frequently in the past, to ask for an increase.
In other words, this is a modest reform which will save Parliament a little time and trouble. It is not perhaps strictly necessary, but it is in no way harmful and, so far as it goes, it is useful. I wish to emphasise that this proposal is not intended to, and does not, in fact, in any way weaken Parliamentary control over expenditure. None of the rules governing the use of the Contingencies Fund which I mentioned earlier is affected. Drawings on the Fund will have to be repaid. The normal processes of Parliamentary scrutiny of Government expenditure continue to operate unimpaired. There is nothing sinister about the Government's intention. The change is simply a modest tidying up process. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a. —(Lord Jacques.)
3.20 p.m.
LORD WINDLESHAM: My Lords, we do not normally debate Consolidated Fund Bills in this House. This Contingencies Fund Bill, increasing the maximum capital available to the Contingencies Fund from £200 million to 2 per cent. of authorised supply expenditure for the previous year, is not, however, a regular feature of Government financial business, and I am grateful to the noble Lord for the explanation he has given to the House.
Although it is financial business, I think it is appropriate for the House to have an opportunity to debate the Bill if it wishes to do so but for my part I have nothing to put to the noble Lord.
On Question, Bill read 2a; Committee negatived.
Then, Standing Order No. 44 having been suspended (pursuant to Resolution) Bill read 3a, and passed.

CONSUMER CREDIT BILL [H.L.]
3.21 p.m.
LORD JACQUES: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be read a third time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a.—(Lord Jacques.)
On Question, Bill read 3a.
LORD AIREDALE LORD AIREDALE moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 87, line 11, leave out ("commission of the offence") and insert ("act or omission").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I need not detain the House long. This Amendment is consequential upon two similar Amendments to Clause 169 which the House agreed to on Report. I beg to move.
LORD JACQUES: My Lords, we accept this Amendment, first because it is strictly correct and, secondly, because it will make the Bill consistent within itself. There are, however, two minor difficulties. The first is that it makes the Bill in this respect a little inconsistent with the Fair Trading Act and the Trade Descriptions Act. Consultations will take place as to whether this inconsistency would result in any confusion and the final decision will be based upon the result of those consultations. Secondly, I must also say that we believe that there is a slight defect in the three Amendments moved by the noble Lord and if that be so they would in any case have to be put right. I believe they are very minor indeed.
LORD LEATHERLAND: My Lords, before the Third Reading is put to the House—though I do not propose to halt or delay the progress of this very useful Bill—may I say that this is a comprehensive and very complicated Bill. It is capable of being readily understood by lawyers, and perhaps by experts belonging to trade associations. But it is one which will have to be administered through millions of small traders and many more millions of ordinary members of the public, and I am wondering whether the Government could give us a promise that at the time the Bill becomes operative they will issue something in the nature of a "child's guide" for the benefit of all those traders and members of the public who will be bound by its provisions in the future.
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, I think the noble Lord is out of order. He is speaking to the Third Reading. The Question has not been put yet.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, adverting to the Amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, the Question is, That this Amendment be agreed to? As many as are of that opinion will say Content. To the contrary, Not-Content. The Contents have it.
Amendment agreed to.
LORD JACQUES: My Lords, I beg to move the privilege amendment.
Moved, That the privilege Amendment be agreed to.—(Lord Jacques.)
On Question, an Amendment (privilege) made.
LORD JACQUES: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill do now pass. At this stage, after our long deliberations, I think I should make some comment.
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, ought not the noble Lord to have a Third Reading?
LORD JACQUES: My Lords, the Third Reading was put before the Amendment.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, the Third Reading was moved and agreed to. I do not know what power I have to intervene in these matters.
LORD JACQUES: My Lords, it is my understanding that a Third Reading was moved and agreed to.
LORD JACQUES: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill do now pass.
We have spent a lot of time on this complicated and highly technical Bill and before we part with it I think it would be appropriate if I were to say a few words about it. First, in regard to the drafting of the Bill, we knew from reading the Crowther Report that this was going to be a highly complicated and technical Bill. We knew that there were such variations in the forms which consumer credit could take that they appeared to be almost infinite. We knew that in a measure of this kind it would be necessary to make provisions which would at least minimise the evasions. We knew, too, that the Bill was so wide in its

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scope that it would be necessary in the interests of both debtors and creditors to ensure that certain forms of credit were excused from parts of the Bill.
Some criticism of the drafting appeared recently in The Times. We consider this to be completely unwarranted. This is a highly complex subject and we think the draftsman has done a good job in making the Bill as readable as it is. It would not be difficult to imagine the same subject dealt with in a much more complicated and less readily understood way. Our deliberations have improved the Bill. The close attention which this House has paid to it ensures that it leaves us in a much better state than when it arrived. We have made clearer some of the basic definitions used in Part II; we have radically revised Part IX and made the important extortionate agreements provisions more workable. We have catered for some difficulties that the Bill might have caused to the banks and other similar institutions. Even where the Government have been unable to accept Amendments or suggestions put forward these Amendments and suggestions have none the less caused us to re-examine the Bill in the areas concerned to see whether it really does what we want it to do.
The Bill is leaving this House in a very workable condition. All this improvement has been due to a large amount of hard work that has been put into the Bill by many of your Lordships. To name all of them would take too long, but I should like to thank the noble Earl, Lord Limerick, and the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, for their constant constructive criticism; also the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, and the noble Lord, Lord Elton, for their help in the difficult judicial control and more legal parts of the Bill, and the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, for constantly keeping us on our toes in endeavouring to remove excess words and make meanings crystal clear. The noble Viscount, Lord Amory, and the noble Lords, Lord Seebohm, Lord Mais and Lord Helsby, have given us some education in the ways of the banks, and we are grateful for their constructive comments. Other noble Lords both in and out of this Chamber have helped. The House can congratulate itself on a job that has been well done.
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Among the substantial repeals that this Bill effects is that of the Pawnbrokers Act 1872. This has stood the test of time and has existed with very little amendment for over one hundred years. I hope that the amount of work that your Lordships have put into this Bill will mean that we are launching this infant upon the world where it will do service for an equal number of years. My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill do now pass.
Moved, That the Bill do now pass.—(Lord Jacques.)
LORD LEATHERLAND: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, may I ask whether he will give some attention to the suggestion I have just made, that a sort of "child's guide" shall be issued for the benefit of the public?
LORD JACQUES: My Lords, with the permission of the House, I will give the assurance that the question of a guide will receive careful consideration—but I hope not a child's guide.
LORD LEATHERLAND: Then a very simple one, my Lords.
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, for what he said about some of us on this side of the House. We have already thanked him warmly in the course of the Report stage for his help and for that of his noble friend Lord Shepherd, and we are indeed grateful. May I particularly say that we were most grateful for the assistance we were given in the provision of notes on clauses and on Amendments. As he said, this is an extremely complicated Bill, and he knows from his recent experience how difficult it is for Oppositions to deal with such Bills. We are therefore all the more grateful to him, and I should be happy if he would pass on our thanks to his advisers for the kindness they have shown us. We have dealt with the Bill expeditiously. We have improved it, and my only advice to the Government is that if they continue to produce Bills which were in the mind of the previous Government, we shall continue to work with harmony and speed in getting the legislation through this House.
LORD AIREDALE: My Lords, in non-Party measures of this kind we in this House enjoy, from the Opposition point

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of view, the co-operation of the Government on numerous occasions in our effort to improve Bills and to carry out the function of this House as a revising Chamber. We are very grateful for the cooperation that we have received from both Ministers in charge of this Bill and we feel that our efforts to improve it have been well worth while.
On Question, Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.

ARMS TO CHILE AND SOUTH AFRICA
3.33 p.m.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, with your Lordships' permission I will now repeat a Statement that has just been made in another place by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister. The Statement is as follows:
"With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to inform the House of further decisions regarding the supply of arms to Chile and South Africa.
"The Government have now completed their review of the contracts covering the overhaul of aero-engines and the supply of engine spares by Rolls-Royce (1971) Limited to the Chilean Air Force and have been in touch with Rolls-Royce. So far as overhaul is concerned, the contract between the company and the Chileans provides for termination on three months' notice. Rolls-Royce will exercise this contractual right at the Government's request. The policy on spares for these aircraft and their engines should obviously be consistent with the policy on overhaul, and contractual obligations to supply spares will also therefore have to come to an end.
"In the case of South Africa the Government have decided that the export licence for one Westland Wasp helicopter, delivery of which was outstanding when we came to office, is to be revoked."
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
LORD STRATHCONA AND MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, I can thank the noble Lord the Leader of the House for repeating that Statement. I think that is
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about the only good thing I can say about it. This side cannot but regret the Statement, and I must ask the noble Lord a rather large number of questions which seem to me to arise out of it. First of all, can the Government say why this request to Rolls-Royce was made? Secondly, in this context what is the difference between a request and an instruction? Would I be right in inferring from the Statement that Rolls-Royce did not themselves wish to terminate the contract? What will be the direct effect on the revenue and employment in the Derby area as a result of this particular decision? What effects do the Government imagine this will have on future contracts?
On the Westland point, does this mean that the Government are no longer willing to supply arms to South Africa for the defence of the Cape trade routes? Does it further mean that Westland's have been compelled by the Government to break a contract, and will Westland's be indemnified by the Government as a result of breaking a contract? Finally, in more general terms, does the Statement mean that the Government have now changed from the traditional policy, followed in the past by both political Parties, of selling arms to any nation which does not pose a threat to the security of this country?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, the noble Lord said that the only good thing that he could say in regard to this Statement was in gratitude to me for repeating it. But one good thing that arises from this Statement is that we are going to honour our obligations to the United Nations Security Council resolution. With regard to Westland's and the question of being indemnified, of course under the contract Westland's would be indemnified if an export licence had been revoked. Therefore, Westland's will not bear the cost of this decision. As to arms policy generally towards South Africa, this is still subject to review. The statement regarding the Wasp helicopter has been made to-day because this particular aircraft was for delivery in the middle of next month.
As to Chile, here I think we were fulfilling what would be the general wish in most quarters of this country—showing a repugnance to the political régime in Chile. The noble Lord asked me what

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would be the employment consequences of this decision. My understanding is that there are some 16 men employed, not at Derby but at East Kilbride, and that the financial consequences are relatively small to Rolls-Royce. In regard to whether it was "request or instruction", clearly Rolls-Royce were under a contractual arrangement, one that they could break by giving three months' notice, and at the request of Her Majesty's Government they have informed the Chileans that they do not intend to continue the contract after that period of notice; that is, three months.
LORD STRATHCONA AND MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, the noble Lord is really only repeating his previous Statement by saying they were requested. The question I asked him was: Did they refuse to accede to that request, or were their arms twisted?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, they have not refused to accede. They have received a request from Her Majesty's Government and are complying with it. In regard to future contracts with Chile, of course this is not possible unless there is a change of régime in Chile, which I am sure, again, most quarters of this House, and I believe throughout the country, would wish to see.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, in the matter of the statement that Her Majesty's Government are honouring their obligations to the United Nations, can my noble friend say whether this applies to every other member of the United Nations?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, there are some countries which, as we know—and not only on this issue—do not comply with United Nations resolutions. This Government feel that they have a duty towards the United Nations, and they will seek to comply with the decisions of the Security Council.
LORD FRASER OF LONSDALE: My Lords, am I right in thinking that I heard the noble Lord say that the question of the supply of arms to South Africa is still under consideration? I think I heard those words. If so, may I ask the noble Lord to bear in mind the fact that Her Majesty's Government wish to reduce Defence expenditure? Would there not be some advantage to Her Majesty's Government
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in getting the supervision and reconnaissance of the Cape route and the Indian Ocean done free of charge by another friendly nation, without the burden having to fall on the British taxpayer? That would be of some advantage to Her Majesty's Government. Moreover, is it not essential that we have some representation for Defence purposes in the Southern oceans, and is it not true that this can be provided only if we are friendly with South Africa and encourage her to co-operate with us?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, the contracts which exist for the supply of arms to South Africa are being reviewed, and it is a question of understanding the circumstances of them. In regard to the importance of Simonstown, we have always recognised that it is useful but not essential. We also believe—and I think the noble Lord, who has long experience in business in Africa as a whole, will recognise the truth of this—that to-day our trade with Africa as a whole has as much importance as our trade with South Africa.
LORD GRIMSTON OF WESTBURY: My Lords, has any estimate been made of the consequential loss of jobs and export orders which will follow from these decisions? Many countries will begin to think that it is better to order elsewhere, in case the same sort of thing should happen to their contracts.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, clearly this is a matter which must be taken into account. But I believe that nearly every country would support Her Majesty's Government in its attitude towards the régime in Chile and the Government in South Africa.
LORD WIGG: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that the Government's decision to cancel the supply of Wasps is clearly a gesture which all right-minded persons ought to back up, because these helicopters are much more useful for internal security purposes than for any connection they might have with the security of the Cape route, in even the wildest stretches of the imagination?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, this is one of the considerations which were in the mind of Her Majesty's Government.
LORD GORE-BOOTH: My Lords, may I ask the Minister whether the Government realise the political implications of what they are doing? While all of us disapprove of any kind of dictatorship, does the Minister realise—for instance, from that admirably objective B.B.C. "Panorama" film of Chile—that the previous Government had bent the Constitution, had incited people to steal each other's property, had imported arms for use in civil war and came to an end which we equally regret? Is not the implication of what they are doing that they prefer one dictatorship to another, and is that really the policy of the Government?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, we took into account all the political implications. We were conscious that the previous régime, with all its failings, had been a duly elected Government. The present régime overthrew the democratically elected régime by military force, and we all know of the terrible atrocities which have been committed since that régime took office.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord the Leader of the House if, as I understood him to say, repugnance at the internal régime of a country is to be the yardstick by which we measure our relations, whether he is aware that he has opened this debate very much wider than Chile only? May I ask him, as Leader of the House, whether there can be an opportunity for us to debate this whole question which is of increasing importance to industry and to our political life?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, it is for the noble Lord to consult with his noble friend the Opposition Chief Whip, who, no doubt through the usual channels, will see whether a debate can be arranged. However, let us be frank. This is an issue which, as we all know, divides noble Lords on both sides of the House, and we have had debates on previous occasions. But, certainly, if noble Lords wish to have a debate on this decision I shall be very happy for that to be done.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: My Lords, is my noble friend aware, since the Government are being asked whether they are aware of what they are doing politically,
1338
that there was a time at a dark moment in the history of Britain when Winston Churchill had to choose between one dictatorship and another? He then chose to fight side by side with Russia, and the 25 million dead at that period helped to save the democracy which we are now trying to build up in Britain and elsewhere?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, that is a factor, but I suggest that it belongs to the past. We are now dealing with present realities and present issues.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: That was a great reality then.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, while we may all, Governments and individuals, have our own views of either approval or disapproval of other Governments, will the noble Lord agree that if we are to have a home armaments industry it depends upon exports, and that, in the long term, the summary cancellation of orders for exports can only affect that industry to our detriment? Will he further agree that we shall be the losers, because our competitors will fill the space which we have given them?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, of course this is a matter which we should all take into consideration. But trade is not solely of arms and when considering our relations with South Africa one has to take into account the importance of our trade with Africa generally. We know of all the strains which are at present being imposed.
LORD STRATHCLYDE: My Lords, has the noble Lord considered the importance of our trade with other countries in the East, such as India and Malaysia? This trade has to pass around the Cape.
LORD SHEPHERD: Certainly, my Lords. As one who lived out there for quite a number of years, I have done so.
LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH: My Lords, can the noble Lord tell us what arrangements have been made to safeguard our supplies of copper?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, the noble Lord is clearly referring to Chile. I see no difficulty at this stage.
LORD WIGG: My Lords, will my noble friend consider making arrangements for a visit by Members of this House to

1339
Simonstown, so that they can realise on the spot just what utter nonsense is being talked about Simonstown having any military importance? It is just about the equal of Southsea, except of course for the boarding houses along the front which are marked "Rhodesia-by-the-Sea".
BARONESS EMMET OF AMBERLEY: My Lords, can the Minister explain why it is repugnant to sell something to Chile, while he is perfectly willing to buy copper from Chile?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, we conduct trade with many countries with which we disagree. But there are a number of countries with which we do not agree and which conduct their affairs internally in such a way as to make us feel that it would be wrong to supply arms which could be used for internal security. We have been discussing this point for sixteen minutes. This is one of the problems of a Leader of the House who must try to get things going, but who is also involved in questions. However, since the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, has suggested the possibility of a debate, we might move to the next Statement and then have an opportunity of debate if noble Lords so wish.

PEERS' ALLOWANCES
3.50 p.m.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I wish to make a Statement on Peers' allowances. The Lord President of the Council is making a Statement to-day in another place announcing that the Government are making a reference to the Top Salaries Review Body asking them to review the level of the allowances paid to Members of Parliament. The Peers' expense allowance has never been referred to the Review Body and it is not the intention of the Government to refer it on this occasion. I am well aware, however, that there are many in your Lordships' House who consider that it is time that the expense allowance was also reviewed. I am glad to be able to tell the House that it is the Government's intention to review this allowance in the light of the recommendations of the Review Body with regard to Members' allowances, and to make an announcement on both at the same time.
LORD WINDLESHAM: My Lords, this is a difficult issue. It is one that I
1340
have been concerned with, as well as the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd. Peers are not exempt from the effects of inflation in their duties in attending your Lordships' House, but at the same time Parliament has to try to set an example in restraint. I know that the noble Lord the Leader of the House will do his best for the House as, I hope he will agree, his predecessors tried to do in this very difficult area. However, it is a little hard to see the logic of what he has just said in the Statement about reviewing the expense allowance of Peers when it is known what the Boyle Top Salaries Review Body has to say about the allowances for M.P.s, because the allowances for M.P.s are quite separate and distinct in nature from the expense allowance of Peers. If, however, the Leader of the House thinks that this is the best course of action, I am content to accept his judgment.
LORD GLADWYN: My Lords, I associate myself with what the noble Lord has just said in a general way, but might I suggest that there is a case for making a distinction between the ordinary expenses of the Members of this House and the petrol allowance which, presumably, should vary in accordance with the price of petrol?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, may I deal with those two references to my Statement. I share with the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, the view that this is, in a real sense, a difficult issue. It is difficult not only in that we have to take into account the effects of inflation and the example that we need to set to the country as a whole; but there are a number of problems which arise as a consequence of our membership and the system that has been adopted to meet our expenses. I think that the noble Lord will be aware of the logic of bringing these two together. One thing I can say is that as a consequence of this Statement I cannot avoid making a Statement in the not too distant future.
BARONESS BACON: My Lords, will my noble friend see that those who take a decision about the expenses of Members of this House bear in mind the very special problems of those who live so far away from London that they have to stay overnight in London in order to attend your Lordships' House? Is he aware

1341
that overnight accommodation in London, whether in hotels or in flats, is extremely expensive and that the daily allowance has to suffice as an overnight allowance as well? Will he also bear in mind that when the Boyle Committee last reported on the expenses of those in another place they recognised this difference so far as Members of another place were concerned and recommended, which they have been receiving for four years, a London allowance of £750 a year for those who live in the Provinces? Will he therefore bear all these points in mind when this review is taking place?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I will certainly bear it in mind. I can only say to my noble friend, who not so long ago was in the House of Commons, that I wish that we could have had a rule in your Lordships' House similar to the rule that pertained in the House of Commons when the noble Baroness was there. However, I take the point and will certainly bear all this very much in mind.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, pending the review, may I ask my noble friend to take into consideration what my noble friend Baroness Bacon has just urged upon him? Ought there not to be a distinction between those Members of your Lordships' House who, like myself, live in London or on the perimeter and, therefore, are not charged with hotel expenses during their stay in London, and those who come from the Provinces—from Scotland, from the North-East, and elsewhere—and have to stay at hotels? In point of fact, the total amount of expenses that are allowable to Members of your Lordships' House would hardly pay for one night's stay at any London hotel. Pending the review, therefore, is it not possible to make the distinction almost immediately—although it is a matter for the Government to decide—so that those who come from the Provinces may be allowed expenses to enable them to meet the hotel expenses that are necessary when they come to London?
BARONESS WHITE: My Lords, would my noble friend also bear in mind that those of us who live in London normally pay much more for our accommodation than those who live in the Provinces?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, all these are matters of which I am very well aware and I have given a good deal of consideration to a system of differential allowances to meet particular needs. But even then I have found that there are always anomalies. It was one of my noble friends who referred to a Peer who comes down and spends the night in a hotel. There are other noble Lords, I know, who travel down from Edinburgh and who use the night-sleeper both ways and, of course, get their night's accommodation provided through their traveling expenses. This, and many other anomalies, have arisen.
My Lords, I am not unsympathetic to the differential scheme, but I know that it would be very difficult to work and I am not sure that it would be entirely popular with the House as a whole. I would, however, give an assurance to my noble friends that this is an area to which I will give further consideration. In regard to my noble friend Lord Shinwell's plea for immediate action, of course a Resolution of the House would be necessary, but in the light of what I have said—that a Statement will be made in the not too distant future; and I mean that not in any long term sense—I hope that he will feel that the Government are well aware of the situation and will seek to make a Statement as soon as possible.
LORD INGLEWOOD: My Lords, could my noble friend indicate to whom representations should be made should any noble Lord wish to make any representations for this Review Body to consider? Secondly, for the benefit of the general public who have never understood Peers' allowances, will he make it clear here and now that the present system of allowances is in no sense income—that it is a recovery of expenses already incurred. They are quite different from the new system of allowances which certain Members of newly-elected local authorities will be receiving.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, the noble Lord is quite right in his description of what this expense allowance system is. In regard to where he can make representations, he knows as well as other noble Lords that there is a corridor not far away in which the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, has a room, where I have a room and where the noble

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Lord, Lord Byers, has a room, and if they cannot find either of us they can always find either the noble Earl, Lord St. Aldwyn, or my noble friend Lady Llewelyn-Davies. Clearly representations can be made there.
LORD POPPLEWELL: My Lords, would not my noble friend agree that it might be better if the question of allowances for Peers were considered by an independent body like the Boyle Committee instead of it being in the hands of the Government? We understand from my noble friend that a decision will be announced at the same time, but in view of the trouble that was involved in the other place before this independent Review Committee, the Boyle Committee, considered their case, would it not be better if this House had a Review Committee, preferably like the Boyle Committee, who could take into consideration all the different circumstances that arise consequent upon people living in London, particularly those who have no job, and the expenses of the men and women coming from the Provinces? It would be much better than the Government themselves having to come to a decision.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I think those who have had experience either in another place or in your Lordships' House would feel that in many of these matters concerning Members' salaries, Members' allowances, and in our case expense allowances, politically it would be much more advantageous if it were dealt with other than by Government decision. I can only say that I will take note of what my noble friend has said and will see whether any progress can be made in that direction.

CONTROL OF POLLUTION BILL [H.L.]
4.1 p.m.
Report of Amendments received.
Clause 3 [Prohibition of unlicensed disposal of waste]:
LORD GARNSWORTHY LORD GARNSWORTHY moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 5, line 5, leave out ("the following section") and insert ("section 4 of this Act").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend the Leader of
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the House I beg to move Amendment No. 1, and with permission I seek to speak also to Amendments Nos. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 13, 27, 28, 31 and 32. These are the Amendments necessary to give effect to the Government's undertaking to carry into this Bill the substance of Sections 1 and 2 of the Deposit of Poisonous Waste Act 1972. Because of the interest that the House has shown in this matter, perhaps I might explain briefly how the task has been effected. The 1972 Act penalised severely anyone who deposited poisonous waste on land so as to give rise to an environmental hazard. The ingredients of the defence were carefully defined; statutory defences were provided; and there was a let-out for anything done pursuant to an enactment. Part I of the present Bill creates an entirely new background. It distinguishes between controlled waste, farm waste, mine and quarry waste, and other waste.
Clauses 1 to 16 deal with controlled waste—and Clause 3 makes it an offence to deposit controlled waste on land except in accordance with a disposal licence. So far as farm waste and mining waste are concerned, the Secretary of State can apply to them provisions applicable to controlled waste. This is to be found in Clause 17. To avoid cutting across this structure, the draftsman has had to deal separately with controlled waste which is poisonous waste and other waste which also is poisonous waste. The Amendments to Clause 3 inject into the offence created by that clause what I might call an aggravated offence. If the controlled waste which is deposited on land contrary to any disposal licence has the characteristics of poisonous waste, then tile person concerned is liable to severe penalties, as under the 1972 Act. So Clause 3 will contain two offences—one being tile plain offence now in the Bill, and the other the aggravated offence taken from the 1972 Act.
So far as all other wastes are concerned, including farm waste and mining waste, we rely on the provision to be added to Clause 17. It becomes an offence to deposit any other waste on land so that if it were controlled waste, and the deposit were not covered by a disposal licence, tile person would be guilty of the aggravated offence. There is an exclusion for acts done in accordance with any enactment, and this would

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of course, cover such substances as toxic farming pesticides properly deposited on a licensed site. The only other special kind of waste I need mention is radioactive waste. This is now taken out of Part I by virtue of Clause 24(5), whereas under the 1972 Act it had to rely on the exemption for acts licensed by enactment.
I must say a word about Section 2 of the 1972 Act, which created a civil remedy for breach of the duty created by Section 1. We could have been in some doubt as to the proper treatment for this, bearing in mind that Clause 95(2) of the Bill excludes any civil remedy for breach of any duty created under the Bill. If we are to have a civil remedy in respect of the aggravated offence then clearly we ought to have a civil remedy in respect of the plain offence, especially when these lie side by side in the same clause. However, the noble Lords who pressed for this consolidation exercise to be taken have given us the key. In consolidation one seeks to repeat the substance of the former law. So we have done just that. Accordingly, the presence in the Bill of the new clause after Clause 79 should be regarded as entirely neutral and not as involving any Government commitment in this matter of civil liability. I beg to move.
LORD MOLSON: My Lords, I should like to express my deep gratitude to the Government for the way in which they have responded to the criticisms that were made in all parts of the House on the failure, when the Bill was originally introduced in its first form by the late Administration and in its present form by the present Administration, to consolidate the provisions of the 1972 Act in the new Bill. Anyone who has listened to the carefully drafted brief from which the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, has just read, which clearly states the complicated differences between an offence and an aggravated offence and the exact difference in the nature of these offences, will surely feel convinced, if he had not been convinced before, about how essential it is for the understanding of the law that the whole matter should be stated in one Bill, and that this should not merely be an addition to, and in some respects an amendment of, the Act of 1972. At the time that Act was described as an interim
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measure and I am quite sure that this House has served a most useful purpose in pressing the Government, as it sought to press the previous Government, to consolidate all the provisions dealing with this extremely important and complicated subject. I repeat my gratitude to the Government for having responded to the general appeal that has been made.
BARONESS YOUNG: My Lords, I should also like to add my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, and also my congratulations because he and his colleagues must have worked very hard to have achieved this measure of consolidation. I appreciate that the noble Lord gave an undertaking in Committee stage that this would be done. We are therefore glad to see the Amendment coming forward on Report. I know that it will be welcomed by local authorities who will have to interpret the Act, and also I have no doubt by private industry. In view of some of the criticisms made about the drafting of Acts, and the complications which people get into in trying to understand these Acts, this will be of enormous benefit to vast numbers of people. We welcome it, and we thank you.
LORD LLOYD OF KILGERRAN: My Lords, on behalf of those of us who sit on these Benches, I support what the noble Baroness, Lady Young, has said in this matter. I congratulate the noble Lord on the way he has presented it.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Molson, the noble Baroness, Lady Young, and the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran. Members of your Lordships House gave us a clue as to how we might deal with the matter. For our part, we are grateful to them for the constructive role they played on Committee stage.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
4.11 p.m.
LORD GARNSWORTHY LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 2.
Amendment moved—
Page 5, line 10, leave out ("Subject to") and insert ("Except in a case falling within")—(Lord Garnsworthy.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD GARNSWORTHY LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 3.
Amendment moved—
Page 5, line 11, at end insert (", subject to subsection (3) of this section,").—(Lord Garnsworthy.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD GARNSWORTHY LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 4.
Amendment moved—
Page 5, line 15, at end insert—
("(2A) A person who contravenes paragraph (a) of subsection (1) of this section in a case where—

(a) the waste in question is of a kind which is poisonous, noxious or polluting; and

(b) its presence on the land is likely to give rise to an environmental hazard; and

(c) it is deposited on the land in such circumstances or for such a period that whoever deposited it there may reasonably be assumed to have abandoned it there or to have brought it there for the purpose of its being disposed of (whether by himself or others) as waste,

shall, subject to the following subsection, be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or a fine not exceeding £400 or both or, on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years or a fine or both.")—(Lord Garnsworthy.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD GARNSWORTHY LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords I beg to move Amendment No. 5:
Amendment moved—
Page 6, line 32, at end insert—
("(8) For the purposes of subsection (2A) of this section—

(a) the presence of waste on land gives rise to an environmental hazard if the waste has been deposited in such a manner or in such a quantity (whether that quantity by itself or cumulatively with other deposits of the same or different substances) as to subject persons or animals to a material risk of death, injury or impairment of health or as to threaten the pollution (whether on the surface or underground) of any water supply; and

(b) the fact that waste is deposited in containers shall not of itself be taken to exclude any risk which might be expected to arise if the waste were not in containers.

(9) In the case of any deposit of waste, the degree of risk relevant for the purposes of the preceding subsection shall be assessed with particular regard—

(a) to the measures, if any, taken by the person depositing the waste, or by the owner or occupier of the land, or by others, for minimising the risk; and

(b) to the likelihood of the waste, or any container in which it is deposited, being tampered with by children or others.").—(Lord Garnsworthy.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD GARNSWORTHY LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 6.
Amendment moved—
That clause 3 be divided into two clauses, the first to consist of subsections (1) to (3) inclusive (Prohibition of unlicensed disposal of waste); and the second to consist of subsections (4) to (9) inclusive (Provisions supplementary to s. 3).—(Lord Garnsworthy.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 5 [Provisions supplementary to s.4]:
LORD MERRIVALE LORD MERRIVALE moved Amendment No. 7:
Page 9, line 36, after ("applicant") insert ("may at any time").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 7. This Amendment is designed simply to make it clear that the authority and the applicant may reach agreement at any time as to the period in which an application for a licence has to be considered. On the one hand, the authority may wish to extend the application period beyond the two months period rather than its being rejected through default. On the other hand, the applicant might wish to agree upon an application period before the application is formally submitted. The purpose of this Amendment is, therefore, to make it clear that these are possibilities. I beg to move.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Merrivale, has explained the purpose of his Amendment. I do not want to waste the time of the House by repeating the argument. I am very pleased to say I am able to accept his Amendment on behalf of the Government.
LORD MERRIVALE: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord and to Her Majesty's Government.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 9 [Appeals to Secretary of State from decisions with respect to licences]:
4.16 p.m.
LORD MERRIVALE LORD MERRIVALE moved Amendment No. 8:
Page 13, line 7, after ("health") insert ("or serious detriment to the amenities of the locality").
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 8, and in so doing, with your Lordships' permission, I should like to add the following words to the Amendment: "affected by the activities", so that the Amendment would now read:
"or serious detriment to the amenities of the locality affected by the activities".
I do this because I have a feeling that this form of wording may be more agreeable to Her Majesty's Government. Under Clause 6(4) a disposal authority can by notice revoke a licence if the continuation of activities to which the licence relates is seriously detrimental to the amenities of the locality. I feel it is only right that in the notice the authority should include a statement to this effect, and that if the authority acted unreasonably in including such a statement, the holder of a licence should be entitled to recover compensation in respect of any loss suffered by him in consequence of that statement. I believe this to be consistent with the other requirements of subsection (3) of this clause. I beg to move.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, subsection (2) of Clause 9 says that when a licence is revoked or varied, and an appeal is made, then the revocation or variation shall not take effect until the appeal is settled. In this way the result of the appeal is not, as it were, anticipated. Subsection (3), however, makes an exception to this. If the authority consider that there is such a risk of danger to public health or water pollution that their decision to revoke or vary the licence should be carried out immediately even before the appeal is settled, then they can require that their decision takes immediate effect. But in this case they are liable to pay compensation if the Secretary of State considers that they have acted unreasonably in compelling an immediate cessation or alteration of the disposal operations before the appeal is settled. It will be seen, therefore, that subsection (3) is intended only for use in what are, in effect, emergency or near emergency situations where the disposal authority consider that immediate action must be taken, and are prepared to take the risk of having to pay compensation for the effects of their urgent action if it is subsequently shown that they have acted unreasonably or precipitately.
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The effect of the proposed Amendment would be to broaden the scope of subsection (3) considerably. It would add the words "serious detriment to the amenities of the locality", to which the noble Lord, Lord Merrivale has added the words "affected by the activity", as a possible ground for immediate revocation or variation of a licence before an appeal had been settled. The subsection would thus reflect the words of Clauses 6(1)(b)(i) and 8(1)(a). This Amendment does not seem likely to be often necessary in practice, which is why we did not include these points in the original clause. Unlike public health risks, serious detriment to the amenities is unlikely to arise overnight and require instant action in the same way. Nor is any detriment to the amenities likely to be so serious that immediate action must be taken even before an appeal is determined. However, I am prepared to accept that such circumstances might arise, for example where a tip becomes very smelly in hot weather without actually causing a public health hazard, and it could then be desirable for the authority to be able to secure immediate improvements even before any appeal on the changes required is settled. We will therefore be happy to reconsider the point to see whether something on the lines of this Amendment should be brought in at a later stage.
I should like to re-emphasise, however, that this kind of urgent action should be regarded as the exception rather than the rule. Normally the authority should be ready to wait for the appeal to be settled before requiring changes to be made on a site. The Secretary of State will be able to ensure that authorities do proceed with due deliberation in this way through his power to award compensation against unreasonably hasty authorities. We shall want to underline this point in issuing guidance to local authorities, so as to avoid rash use of the subsection. It is for this reason that we ought to be cautious about accepting the broadening of the clause on the lines of the Amendment before the House. I hope that that explanation, which I thought it desirable to provide at some length, will be sufficient to persuade the noble Lord that he can withdraw his Amendment on the undertaking I have given.
LORD MERRIVALE: My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister for the

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detailed explanation he has given as to why he cannot accept the Amendment at this stage, and for saying that Her Majesty's Government are willing to reconsider the point and, if need be, to propose a suitable Amendment in another place. I take the noble Lord's point that subsection (3) is meant to deal mainly with situations of emergency, or near emergency, and may not be used to a great extent in practice, and that may be so. But as the noble Lord has said that the whole question will be reconsidered, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 12 [Dustbins, etc.]:
4.22 p.m.
LORD GARNSWORTHY LORD GARNSWORTHY moved Amendment No. 9:
Page 19, line 10, after ("number") insert ("reasonably").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Shepherd, I beg to move Amendment No. 9 and to speak at the same time to Amendments Nos. 10 and 11. During the passage of the Bill to date, several noble Lords have expressed themselves very forcibly about the Government's proposed Amendment to Clause 12 dealing with the supply of domestic dustbins. In particular, concern has been expressed about the abandonment of the appeal procedure for householders aggrieved by a local authority decision to serve notice on them requiring the use of a particular receptacle. A number of noble Lords thought that this was unfair, particularly in view of the liability of the householder to a fine of £100 for refusal to comply with the notice. I think my noble friends Lord Slater and Lord Hale, and the noble Lords, Lord Merrivale and Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, as well as the noble Baroness, spoke on this matter.
In view of the strength of feeling in the House, the Government have reconsidered this matter, and this Amendment and the next recast the clause in a way which includes an appeal provision which I hope will provide a clear indication of the policy proposed here. The clause, taken with the Amendments now offered, will give the collection authority three possible courses to follow in relation to each householder. First, it can provide
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receptacles free of charge; secondly it can provide receptacles for a charge if the householder agrees; thirdly it can require the householder to provide his own receptacle. This third course is open if the householder refuses, or is not offered, the option of taking the authority's receptacles with charge. Although regulations under Clause 12(4) will cover maintenance of receptacles, they will not cover cases where the authority feels that replacement is desirable, and the authority's notice will therefore be able to require the householder to put his waste in receptacles of a kind and number so specified. This, of course, was the substance of the Government's previous Amendment on Clause 12.
In view of the comments of a number of your Lordships, however, we now propose to introduce a right of appeal for the householder who is required by the notice to provide any receptacles, on the grounds, first, that the kind and number of receptacles so required is unreasonable; or, secondly, that the receptacles in which the household waste on his premises is placed for collection are quite adequate. It comes to this: so long as a person provides adequate receptacles he cannot be compelled to accept and pay for receptacles provided by the authority. If the authority wants to introduce universal standard receptacles, it must pay for them and the householder must then use them. I hope noble Lords will feel that the structure of this clause now achieves a fair balance between the desires of an authority seeking to ensure a safe and efficient household collection service, and the rights of the individual who may not feel that there is justification in his having to buy new, different or more dustbins. My Lords, I beg to move.
BARONESS YOUNG: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, for introducing this Amendment and for giving us this very full explanation. I am very glad to see it, as I am sure the whole House will be, and to note that he has met the point about appeal procedure and has indicated that if the local authority requires a certain type of dustbin it will not necessarily be obligatory for the householder to have to pay for it. I am sure that this Amendment meets the criticism that was made, and we are all very grateful for it. I should like to ask one question about

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the maximum penalty of £100. It seems to me extremely difficult to imagine circumstances in which this could be imposed. It may well be that this is really a legal formality. I am not a magistrate myself and I am not familiar with this point. But I wonder whether it is worth having another look at it.
LORD LLOYD OF KILGERRAN: My Lords, may I support what the noble Baroness has said about our gratitude for this Amendment? Also, may I say this, as a magistrate sitting in an area where most of the magistrates are Conservatives? I can understand how such a bench of magistrates may in certain circumstances impose a very heavy fine. The House will no doubt remember that I made a speech on this matter earlier this week, when I suggested that there should be an appeal. But I should like to support generally the proposition put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Young.
LORD MERRIVALE: My Lords, I should also like to add a word of thanks to the Minister for having moved this Amendment covering appeal procedure to a magistrates' court. On the other hand I still feel, as I did at the Committee stage, that in dealing with household waste a maximum of £100 seems rather high; it is the same maximum as for industrial or commercial waste. It seems to me that the offence in those two cases could be of greater significance, and might therefore warrant a higher maximum penalty than for purely household waste. I am not suggesting that lone should raise the maximum for commercial and industrial waste offences, but one might consider lowering the maximum for the householder.
VISCOUNT SIMON: My Lords, before the noble Lord replies, it may be convenient to reply to all questions together. Now that there is this very welcome provision covering free receptacles of the approved kind, may it be necessary, when the Bill goes to another place, to consider some provision under which, if the freely provided receptacle is lost or damaged, the second receptacle has to be paid for?
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I am grateful to those who have expressed appreciation of the Government's intention in submitting these Amendments for
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approval. First of all, may I say with regard to the maximum penalty of £100 that I have no doubt the matter will be pursued in another place. I should like at the same time to touch on what the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, said. I, too, have been for years a member of the Bench, and I cannot conceive of any Bench lightly or easily imposing a penalty that is anywhere approaching the maximum.
LORD LLOYD OF KILGERRAN: My Lords, may I say that the noble Lord is really unrealistic about the attitudes of some magistrates in certain circumstances—at any rate on the Benches with which I have been associated?
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I must say that I would have thought that the noble Lord would have had a more liberalising effect.
LORD LLOYD OF KILGERRAN: My Lords, may I say that I have a very liberalising effect on my Bench, but I cannot manage many of these landed gentry who seem to dominate the Benches with which I am associated.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I do not want to pursue this matter unduly, except to say that I am not unfamiliar with working with members of Benches.
LORD LLOYD OF KILGERRAN: My Lords, perhaps the noble Lord is not familiar with landed gentry on these Benches.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I think that the noble Lord might let me say what I want to say, because I think that we have to keep this in perspective.
LORD LLOYD OF KILGERRAN: Yes.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I repeat what I said, that in any case where a local authority is behaving unreasonably I think that the householder is now going to enjoy recourse to a local government Ombudsman. We have put back into the Bill the right of appeal, and I have indicated that I should not be surprised—indeed, I would expect—if there were some further attention given to this matter as it proceeds through the other place.

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The question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Merrivale, can be looked at. If we are satisfied that there is something in the point it can be dealt with in the other place. I am grateful to the noble Viscount, Lord Simon, for putting his question. I am not at all sure that anybody has thought of that one, and off the cuff I should not like to give any kind of reply. We have to avoid giving the impression that people can afford to be careless in the manner in which they look after the receptacles with which they are provided.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD GARNSWORTHY LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 10.
Amendment moved—
Page 19, line 11, leave out from beginning to end of line 22 and insert ("a person who fails to comply with such a requirement shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine of an amount not exceeding £100.
(1A) A notice served by an authority in pursuance of the preceding subsection may provide for the receptacles in question to be provided by the authority free of charge or—

(a) if the recipient of the notice agrees, by the authority on payment by the recipient of the notice of such a single payment or such periodical payments as he agrees with the authority; or

(b) by the recipient of the notice if he does not enter into an agreement in pursuance of the preceding paragraph within a period specified in the notice or the notice does not propose such an agreement.

(1B) Where by virtue of such notice the recipient of it is required to provide any receptacles he may within the period of twenty-one days beginning with the last day of the period specified in the notice in pursuance of paragraph (b) of the preceding subsection or, where no period is so specified, beginning with the day on which the notice is served on him, appeal to a magistrates' court against the notice on the ground that the kind or number of the receptacles required by the notice is unreasonable or on the ground that the receptacles in which household waste in the premises in question is placed for collection are adequate; and where an appeal against a notice is brought in pursuance of this subsection—

(a) the notice shall be of no effect pending the determination of the appeal; and

(b) the courts shall either quash or modify the notice or dismiss the appeal; and

(c) no question as to whether the kind or number of receptacles specified in the notice is unreasonable shall be entertained in any proceedings for an offence under this section in respect of the notice.").—(Lord Garnsworthy.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD GARNSWORTHY LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 11.
Amendment moved—
Page 20, leave out lines 5 to 12 and insert (", paragraphs (a) to (c) of subsection (1B) of this section shall apply in relation to the notice as they apply in relation to such a notice as is mentioned in that subsection.").—(Lord Garnsworthy.]
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 15 [Removal of waste deposited in breach of licensing provisions]:
4.33 p.m.
BARONESS YOUNG BARONESS YOUNG moved Amendment No. 12:
Page 26, line 9, leave out from ("land") to ("permitted") in line 10 and insert ("if it can be shown that he made or").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I move this Amendment on behalf of the noble Duke, the Duke of Atholl, who unfortunately is unable to be present this afternoon. I read carefully what the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, said when the noble Duke moved a similar Amendment at Committee stage. I think it would be helpful to the he House if the noble Lord could give a further explanation of the kind of defence open to a landowner in these particular circumstances. The point that my noble friend wished to make was that it appears to be unjust that a landowner is held responsible if something like an old car, or other bulky or untidy waste, is left on his land unless he can show that he had no knowledge of it and was not responsible for its being left there. We all recognise that this is a real problem. Indeed, at Second Reading of the Protection of the Environment Bill, and at various stages during the Committee stage, noble Lords made reference to this great problem, manifestations of which we see all around us, particularly of people dumping old cars in the country and other bulky waste which they do not seem to be able to get rid of, despite the provisions of the Civic Amenities Act which make it possible for local authorities to have tips where people can leave such waste.
It appears that there could be an injustice in that a landowner could be assumed to be guilty because he is responsible for this waste until he has been proved innocent. He might not always find it easy to prove that he knew

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nothing about it, because it would be a question of trying to explain how he could have had nothing to do with the particular offence. This appears to reverse what is the normal position in English justice, that someone is innocent until proved guilty. I appreciate that the clause is precisely as drafted in the Protection of the Environment Bill, but I think that it would be helpful to the House if the noble Lord could offer a further explanation on it.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, may I come right away to the point of the old motor car. Clause 15 is not concerned with old cars because they are not controlled waste. Old cars dumped on land will continue to be regulated in the way that they have been hitherto. Turning to the Amendment, may I draw attention to the fact that it is similar to the one moved by the noble Duke in Committee and, as your Lordships will recall, I promised to reconsider this matter. I have since written to the noble Duke explaining at some length why the Government still take the view that this Amendment is not acceptable.
Clause 15(6) deals exclusively with the recovery of costs by an authority for work that it does under Clause 15(5) in order to remove or reduce the consequences of waste deposited on unlicensed sites in certain circumstances. Clause 15(6)(a), to which this Amendment specifically relates, deals with the recovery of costs in those cases falling within Clause 15(5)(a); that is to say, where the authority acts in order to remove or prevent pollution of water or danger to public health. So we are talking here about the more difficult wastes which, if deposited on unlicensed sites, are likely to cause public health dangers. In these circumstances, we stand by the view that when you turn to considering the allocation of the costs, the right person to look to first is the occupier. We are, after all, concerned about an event which occurred on his land; and ordinarily he should be in a much better position than the local authority to explain what happened, or might have happened.
We anticipate that in practice the local authority will first act in the interests of public health, and then come round to making some inquiries about the exact circumstances. If they conclude that the
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occupier genuinely knew nothing about it, they will doubtless leave him in peace. The noble Duke expressed concern at Committee stage about the occupier whose land is visited by a fly tipper. The question is whether the local authority or, if it comes to that, the court, accept the occupier's testimony that he knows nothing whatever about it. By contrast, if the local authority have to prove what happened in the middle of the night on private land, they would surely find the burden of proof impossible to discharge—perhaps even if they can mobilise the resources of the police. This could all tend to make authorities reluctant to use the powers at all; and this would scarcely be in the best public interest.
I hope that the noble Baroness will feel that she need not press this Amendment this afternoon. If she has not been able to follow me too well, I hope that when she reads what I have said she will appreciate that we have given careful consideration to it. We feel that we are justified in indicating that the Amendment is one that we ought not to accept.
BARONESS YOUNG: My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 17 [Application of preceding provisions to other waste]:
4.40 p.m.
LORD GARNSWORTHY LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 13.
Amendment moved—
Page 28, line 15, at end insert—
("(1A) A person who—

(a) deposits on any land any waste other than controlled waste; or

(b) causes or knowingly permits the deposit on any land of any waste other than controlled waste,

in a case where, if the waste were controlled waste and any disposal licence relating to the land were not in force, he would be guilty of an offence under section 3(2A) of this Act shall be guilty of such an offence and punishable accordingly unless the act charged was done in pursuance of and in accordance with the terms of any consent, licence, approval or authority granted under any enactment (excluding any planning permission under the enactments relating to town and country planning); and in this subsection "land" includes such water as is mentioned in section 3(7) of this Act.").—(Lord Garnsworthy.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 24 [Interpretation etc. of Part 1]:
LORD INGLEWOOD LORD INGLEWOOD moved Amendment No. 14:
Page 34, line 4, after ("home") insert ("or a hotel, a boarding house, a guest house or restaurant").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Amendment is similar to an Amendment I moved to a similar Bill introduced by the late Government into this House in the last Parliament. I had intended to move this Amendment during this Bill's Committee stage, but business moved much faster than I expected and I must apologise for not being here. Your Lordships need not be anxious; I will not repeat all the arguments I deployed when the Amendment was first moved. I thought the arguments were clear and more convincing than the reply of the then Government, and I have put down the Amendment again because I feel sure that it is at least worth having another look at it.
Hotel waste was traditionally treated as residential waste because it is of the same nature as the latter, but in the last Bill this emphasis was changed. When I read the Memorandum on the Bill from the noble Baroness, Lady Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, I found that she underlined that only residential premises shall benefit from the free collection services. It seemed to me that I was justified in tabling the Amendment again because, as the Bill is now drawn, only some residential premises will benefit in the way the noble Baroness said. Why some, my Lords, and not others? Why should a residential home be given the benefit but not a guest house? Again, as I read the Bill, why should a restaurant, which is hardly residential premises, but which may happen to form part of a university, be given preferential treatment but not, apparently, any other form of restaurant? I would suggest, therefore, that it is worth the Government's while to look at this point again. There are later stages before the Bill reaches the Statute Book and if the noble Lord feels that he cannot accept every word of my Amendment I hope he will examine it carefully to see whether he can, at a later stage in another place, introduce an Amendment which will at least make the present unsatisfactory position a good deal fairer. My Lords, I beg to move.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, I wonder whether there is another anomaly which this Amendment might put right? It may have been raised at an early stage, and if so, I apologise. It concerns the office or factory canteen. If school canteen waste is regarded as household waste, I do not see why an office or a factory canteen's waste should not also be regarded as household waste.
LORD LLOYD OF KILGERRAN: My Lords, may I presume to support what the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, said? Perhaps it is a subject which may be considered again by the Government if the wording is not as precise as it should be. In making this submission to the Minister, may I say how grateful I am to have an opportunity of saying what great public duties are performed by the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, in the North-West—in the Lake District particularly—in regard to his activities there.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: My Lords, may I also support the Amendment? I will not repeat all the arguments made during the Committee stage, because I supported my noble friend on the Amendment at that time, but I should also emphasise that I fail to understand how the Government can draw a line—if they do, it must be a very thin one—between a residential house and a boarding or guest house. So many boarding houses, guest houses and small hotels actually have residents who may live there for a year or for several years. How the Government can differentiate between the small hotels, boarding houses and residential homes I find difficult to understand. As I commented on Committee stage, the courts have always decided that the classification of waste should not be through its origin but rather its nature. In this case the Government appear to be classifying waste through its origin. I should like to know why. They presumably say that because hotels presumably make profits, therefore they should pay for collection of their waste; but as we argued on the Committee stage there are other places like art galleries, nursing homes and hospitals, some of which make profits but which will have their waste collected free.
I find it difficult to understand how the Government make this distinction. I am concerned—as I indicated when I

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intervened on Second Reading—about the effect on landladies and Small Hoteliers around the South-East coast of England, many of whom have a very hard time to make ends meet, especially with the fire precautions applicable to hotels. Small hotels simply cannot afford the cost of meeting the new requirements. If at the same time they now have to pay for the collection of hotel or boarding house refuse, it will bear hard on them, and I therefore support my noble friend's Amendment.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I should like to point out to the House that under Clause 24(4) it will always be possible to make some adjustment to categories of waste by regulations if at any time that seems necessary. It would not be possible to make an exhaustive classification of all types of waste and all types of premises in the Bill itself without making the clause inordinately long and inflexible. We envisage, however, that we shall in due course need to make more detailed regulations under Clause 24(4) when it will be possible to go into much more detail about which types of premises and which types of waste should fall into the different categories. We can give this assurance and we shall consult widely on those regulations.
I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, and other noble Lords who have spoken, that the British Hotel and Restaurant Association will be among those consulted, so that there will be further opportunity to consider this matter. I hope that these assurances may help the noble Lord so that he may feel able to withdraw his Amendment.
LORD INGLEWOOD: My Lords, in the light of those words of the noble Lord, I would be ungracious not to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment. The noble Lord has gone a little way towards meeting our point, but he has not gone as far as I should like, and I cannot say what may or may not be put on the paper in another place. I feel it would be reasonable to have another look at this problem because the present situation is almost beyond working out fairly through regulations. But in the light of what the noble Lord has said—and I would also thank the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of
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Kilgerran, for his unsolicited testimonial—I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 26 [Control of discharges of trade and sewage effluent etc. into rivers and coastal waters etc.]:
4.50 p.m.
LORD SHEPHERD LORD SHEPHERD moved Amendment No. 15:
Page 39, line 7, at end insert—
"(1A) Where any sewage effluent is discharged as mentioned in paragraph (a) of the preceding subsection from any works or sewer vested in a water authority and the authority did not cause or knowingly permit the discharge but was bound to receive into the works or sewer, either unconditionally or subject to conditions which were observed, matter included in the discharge, the authority shall be deemed for the purposes of that subsection to have caused the discharge."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, in moving Amendment No. 15 I should also like to speak to Amendment No. 16, which is consequential. Ministers are fortunate in that they have a brief which is prepared to meet any eventuality. My brief starts as follows:
"If the noble Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, has moved the Amendment, the Government spokesman probably needs to do no more than say that he takes this opportunity to pay tribute to Lord Dilhorne for the way in which he has pursued this particular hare through two Bills and two Committee stages; and while, with respect, we still think that the Bill as drafted would have dealt adequately with the matter, there are possibly a few rather unusual cases and we are grateful to him for having helped (to mix the metaphor) to stop up a potential bolt-hole."
Unfortunately, the noble Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, is not present, and it therefore falls to me to explain this Amendment.
At the Committee stage of the Protection of the Environment Bill, and also on this one, the noble Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, pressed the need to import into the Bill a provision on the lines of the latter part of subsection (1) of Section 2 of the Rivers (Prevention of Pollution) Act 1951; and the proposal was then resisted, as I also resisted it on the Committee stage of this Bill. Our further studies have confirmed our original view that it is unnecessary to deal in Clause 25 with the question of who commits an offence when a discharge from a sewer or sewage disposal works carries polluting matter into a stream in conflict with

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a requirement of a consent to discharge or in the absence of a consent. This is because Clause 25(2)(f) provides a defence in that case against the offence under Clause 25(1). Paragraph (f), together with the introductory two lines of the subsection, reads as follows:
"A person shall not be guilty of an offence by virtue of the preceding subsection "—
that is, subsection (1) of Clause 25—
"if … (f) the matter in question is trade or sewage effluent discharged as mentioned in paragraph (a) of subsection (1) of the following section",
that is, Clause 26, and so on. This defence is provided by the Bill because there is a separate offence under Clause 26 of causing or knowingly permitting a discharge of trade or sewerage effluent without consent or in breach of conditions of consent.
Where an offending discharge is made from sewers or works vested in the water authority, we had previously taken the view that the water authority, being in control of the works, must prima facie cause any discharge from them or from sewers direct to the river. We read the judgments in Alphacell, including that of the noble Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, as tending to support that view; but on the strength of an earlier line of cases we concluded that it was possible to take the view that the water authority does not cause or knowingly permit the discharge when it is bound to receive matter into sewers but has not actually agreed to do so, perhaps under a prescriptive right of the discharger, and when the effluent is discharged from the sewers by gravity. If that is the correct view, it is perhaps right to make provision in Clause 26 positively deeming the authority to cause the discharge in such circumstances, and that is the purpose of this Amendment.
My Lords, I must say that I was never more involved or more bewildered as when listening to three lawyers discuss the law connected with water and sewage, and I am hopeful that this is the last of this type of Bill in which I shall get involved. But I have been in communication with the noble Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, and have spelt out the purposes and the intentions of this Amendment. I have not yet heard from the noble Viscount whether I have been able to meet him on this point, but I hope I have. My Lords, I beg to move.
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, as the first of the spokesmen on this side to find myself entangled with the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, on the whole problem of Alphacell, I can certainly express my sympathy with the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd; but in the absence of the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, I think my role now is to say that I hope—a hope I share with the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd—that the Government have got it right and that the noble Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, is content.
LORD LLOYD OF KILGERRAN: My Lords, may I presume to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, on his history of this Amendment in relation to Lord Dilhorne's suggestion? May I also congratulate the noble Lord on putting forward so lucidly and in such clear terms what he proposed to do?
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD SHEPHERD LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 16.
Amendment moved—
Page 40, line 10, after ("of") insert ("subsection (1A) of this section and")—(Lord Shepherd.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 35 [Registers]:
4.56 p.m.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD moved Amendment No. 17:
Page 54, line 14, at end insert—
("(f) consents under section 1, notices under section 2 and agreements under section 7 of the Public Health (Drainage of Trade Premises) Act 1937.")
The noble Viscount said: My Lords, this Amendment perhaps looks slightly complicated, but in fact it is not really at all complicated. In the Library I have been looking up the Public Health (Drainage of Trade Premises) Act 1937, which is rather an obscure provision really outside the main stream of this Bill, but it has a certain bearing on it. The Public Health (Drainage of Trade Premises) Act 1937 relates to trade discharges into public sewers. This Act is applied and amended in Clauses 37 to 39 of this Bill, but it is not fully integrated. By Section 1 of the Act as amended, trade premises have to have a consent to discharge trade effluent into public sewers. They apply by means of

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a notice under Section 2 of that Act as amended. Under Section 7 as amended, the water authority may make agreements with occupiers as to discharges, and for some reason these agreements, though not the Section 1 consents, are to be kept in a public register. I find this rather illogical. I cannot see why they cannot both be kept in one and the same register.
The amendments to the Act in this Bill transfer the Section 7 agreements—that is to say, the agreements made by the water authority with occupiers as to discharges—to the new, comprehensive register under Clause 35 of this Bill. That seems sensible; but, though the amendments also make the Section 1 consents registrable, as I say, they do not make them registrable in the same register as the agreements made between the water authority and the occupiers as to discharges. I am sorry, my Lords; I am explaining this very badly, but it is slightly complicated. The point I am trying to make is this. Why can we not have one register under one Act to show exactly what is going on in relation to discharges of water within an area? I often feel, as I study some of these Bills, that we should really try to make them a bit simpler, and in this case I feel it is quite unnecessary to have several registers to register what appears to amount to one and the same thing. My Lords, I beg to move.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, the noble Viscount, Lord Massereene and Ferrard, has spoken of the complexity of the matter with which this Part of the Bill deals, and perhaps I ought to try to set out the position as we see it. As the noble Viscount said, the Amendment seeks to ensure that certain information about discharges of trade effluent to the sewers is placed on the registers and thus made public. Consents issued under Section 1 of the Public Health (Drainage of Trade Premises) Act 1937, to which he referred, are given after the intending discharger has served a notice on the water authority. The notice—which is tantamount to an application for consent—contains details of the composition, daily volume and maximum rate of discharge of the effluent, and the water authority may give consent either unconditionally or with conditions. If the water authority
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and discharger wish, they may enter into an agreement—this is in Section 7 of the Act of 1937, as the noble Viscount said. The agreements generally concern matters outside the scope of the notice and consent system. They commonly cover the construction and maintenance of works for the reception and treatment of an effluent by the authority at the whole or part expense of the discharger. An agreement may also contain provision for the payment of charges by the discharger for the treatment of the effluent at the disposal works.
The purpose of the Amendment, as indicated by the noble Viscount, is to bring trade effluent discharges to the public sewers under the same arrangements (so far as records are concerned) as other discharges. But the other discharges are made direct to the environment; to rivers, lakes, underground strata and the sea. Discharges made to the sewers only become of interest to the public once they have passed through the treatment works and are then liberated to the environment. But by that stage many effluents have been mixed together and often have been treated at the sewage works. It is the nature of discharge from the works which is important, rather than what goes into the works.
If it was thought that a register of consents and notices relating to discharges to the sewers would make a significant contribution to the further control of pollution, the Government would have been happy to include the appropriate provision in the Bill. But that is not the case. Knowledge of what is going into the sewers adds very little, if anything at all, when it comes to monitoring the state of discharges to rivers or the sea, to the knowledge the public will already be able to obtain from the registers. The imposition of additional registers would add to the already fairly elaborate administrative arrangements which the keeping of these registers will entail. I may say that there are approximately 5,000 sewage works, so that registers of consents and agreements relating to discharges to the sewers will be very sizeable. Because I anticipate very little return in public usefulness from including these extra details in the registers, I cannot advise your Lordships to accept the Amendment. But I hope the noble Viscount will appreciate that

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very full consideration has been given to what he had in mind when be tabled it.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that reply and explanation. Not being an expert on the registration of the various discharges, whether into sewers or rivers or wherever they are made, I am happy to accept the noble Lord's explanation, and would thank him and his Department for the trouble to which they have gone to answer my Amendment. My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
5.5 p.m.
BARONESS WHITE BARONESS WHITE moved Amendment No. 18:
After Clause 42 insert the following new clause:
Deposits and vegetation in rivers, etc.
".—(1) If without the consent of the relevant water authority, which shall not be unreasonably withheld,—

(a) a person removes from any part of the channel or bed of a stream a deposit accumulated by reason of any dam, weir or sluice holding back the water of the stream and does so by causing the deposit to be carried away in suspension in the water of the stream; or

(b) any substantial amount of vegetation cut or uprooted in a stream, or so near to the stream that it falls into it, is allowed to remain in the stream by the wilful default of any person,

then, subject to the following subsection, that person shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding £200.
(2) Nothing in paragraph (a) of the preceding subsection applies to anything done in the exercise of statutory powers conferred by or under any enactment relating to land drainage, flood prevention or navigation.
(3) Regulations may provide that any reference to a stream in subsection (1) of this section shall be construed as including a reference to such controlled waters as are prescribed for the purposes of that subsection.
(4) Any question as to whether the consent of a water authority in pursuance of subsection (1) of this section is unreasonably withheld shall be determined by the Secretary of State; and any consent given in pursuance of section 4 of the Rivers (Prevention of Pollution) Act 1951 (which is superseded by this section) shall be treated for the purposes of this section as given in pursuance of this section.
(5) This section does not apply to Scotland.
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 18, and I should like to consider with it Amendments Nos. 29 and 30. Many Parliamentarians have an ambition to place an enactment on the Statute Book. I have a more modest one, which is to remove an Act from the Statute Book and I am happy that with the assistance of the Government I have now succeeded.
The new clause which comprises this Amendment has the effect of including within this Bill the only provisions that were of the slightest significance still remaining in the Rivers (Prevention of Pollution) Act 1951. The only matters of substance which would have remained in that Act are in subsection (1)(a) and (b) of the proposed new clause. The other subsections are all consequential, and Amendments Nos. 29 and 30 simply tidy up the two Schedules concerned; namely, Schedules 2 and 4. It is a most satisfactory outcome that we have, at any rate, subsumed two former Acts of Parliament into this one. Although I have not yet succeeded in persuading the Government to do something about the Rivers (Prevention of Pollution) Act 1961, I am living in hopes. It is most gratifying, however, that we can hereby celebrate the demise of the Rivers (Prevention of Pollution) Act 1951. My Lords, I beg to move.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, may I say very briefly that I am very pleased indeed to be able to indicate that the Government are pleased to accept the Amendment. I should like to take this opportunity of saying how much everybody in this House feels that we owe to the noble Baroness, Lady White, for her work and her influence on the Bill. I say this now, because she has been particularly keen to see some consolidation of the Rivers Acts. The House will appreciate her regret that the Government did not feel able to go further, but at least she has been much more successful than many of your Lordships who may feel equally keenly on other matters.
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, I should like to congratulate the noble Baroness on her success.
On Question. Amendment agreed to.
Clause 52 [Summary proceedings by occupier of premises]:
5.9 p.m.
LORD GARNSWORTHY LORD GARNSWORTHY moved Amendment No. 19:
Page 70, line 15, leave out subsection (6) and insert—
("(6) If a person is convicted of an offence under subsection (4) of this section, a magistrates' court may, after giving the local authority in whose area the nuisance has occurred an opportunity of being heard, direct the authority to do anything which the person convicted was required to do by the order to which the conviction relates.")
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the Amendment standing in the name of my noble friend Lord Shepherd. Your Lordships will recall that during the Committee stage he accepted in principle the two Amendments Nos. 61 and 62 proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Merrivale. It was indicated from these Benches that we were prepared to accept that it would be reasonable to give a person against whom a court order had been made an opportunity to undertake any necessary noise abatement measures himself, before the court could require the local authority to do the job. The Amendment achieves that result and I hope it will commend itself to your Lordships and, in particular, to the noble Lord, Lord Merrivale. My Lords, I beg to move.
LORD MERRIVALE: My Lords, I should like to take this opportunity to thank the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, and also his noble friend the Lord Privy Seal, for acting so promptly and kindly on an assurance that he gave to the House on Committee stage of the Bill. I am most grateful.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 55 [Noise in streets]:
5.10 p.m.
LORD SOMERS LORD SOMERS moved Amendment No. 20:
Page 73, line 17, after ("in") insert ("(a)").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, it may be thought that I have drawn these two Amendments a little wide. That may be so, but if I could get some words of comfort from the Government I should be very grateful. I should like to speak to the two Amendments together, with your Lordships' permission, because each hangs upon the other. It is a well-
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known physical fact that sounds produced by an electric loudspeaker carry for miles further than any natural sounds and it is possible to hear them at a very considerable distance. That is why I have introduced these Amendments—to try to preserve a little of the peace and quiet that are very lacking in our lives to-day.
First of all, paragraph (b) of Amendment No. 21 refers to—
"(b) a garden or other open space".
When one has returned home after a hard day's work and wishes to have a quiet rest in the garden, it is not very pleasant to have a loudspeaker—even if it is not immediately next door, but some little way off—blaring out "pop" music. I know the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, always thinks I say that because I do not like "pop" music, but that has nothing whatsoever to do with it: I should find it equally irritating if what was being played was Brahms' Fourth or Beethoven's Ninth. Therefore, I feel that the only way of preventing this nuisance is to prevent altogether the use of loudspeakers in open spaces. That, of course, would include not only radios but also gramophones giving electrical reproduction.
Paragraph (c) of Amendment No. 21 refers to—
"Commercial premises in such a manner that the noise is audible in a street outside."
In Epsom, where I live, a shop has appeared in the High Street, and it is called a "music centre". Its door is permanently wide open and even above the roar of the traffic (which is quite considerable) one can hear this dreadful "pop" music blaring forth as one goes by. As I said, I am not talking only about the fact that it is "pop" music which is being played, because the sound is really rather disturbing. I had a word with the manager of the shop. I thought that a personal approach, if made tactfully, might have some effect, but not a bit of it. He was immediately on the defensive and said, "Nobody here has complained about it"—and, as things are at the moment, unless residents in the immediate neighbourhood complain, such a person is perfectly all right. But of course there are no residents to speak of in the High Street, and even if there were I do not suppose they would complain. However, it is not only the residents within hearing of the shop about whom I

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am concerned; it is also those who pass by and who live in the place. Of course, in this case I had absolutely no answer from the manager.
Paragraph (d) refers to noise from—
"a car when it is not occupied".
On many occasions I have been past a car which was parked outside in the road with a window open and the radio blaring forth—again, "pop" music—and it has been most uncomfortable. Surely some rule could be made so that one's radio must be connected with one's ignition, and when one switches off one's ignition this will automatically switch off the radio as well. That might not be very convenient, because one might want to listen while the engine was not running, and that is why I have made reference to a car when not occupied. What is the sense of producing a lot of noise when you are not listening to it? These are slightly extreme Amendments, but I sincerely hope that I shall get some comfort from the Government and some assurance that they will do something. My Lords, I beg to move.
VISCOUNT HANWORTH: My Lords, I should like to support the spirit of these Amendments. I believe there is a real problem here and that wirelesses can be a very great nuisance. It may well be said by the Government that when it is a question of noise from the house next door one always has the remedy of nuisance. But let us be realistic: it is quite a job to get together with neighbours to make a complaint, and, in any case, it is not the sort of thing one likes doing. I suggest, therefore that if we could get some very general provisions put into this Bill—though it might be difficult to enforce them—it would then be quite clear that this was the sort of thing which, if carried to extreme, was undesirable. I think it would have the effect that one could then go up to people and say. "Your wireless is a bit noisy and is disturbing the peace. It is not in accordance with the Anti-Pollution Act", or what have you. Therefore if we could get the right provision put in it would be valuable.
I do not believe that either of these Amendments do what is needed. There is no reason why there should be noise coming out of commercial premises in such a manner as to be annoying, but that
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some noise might well come out is undeniable. Therefore, perhaps one again has to use a much wider form of words. I agree with the suggestion about cars not being occupied, but many people take their transistors out of the car and carry them and this can be even more annoying. I think we need some general provision, possibly keeping paragraph (c) and saying something like this:
"Radios should not be played out of doors when they may reasonably be supposed to interfere with the enjoyment of the environment by other people".
I hope that the Government will seriously consider what might be done to meet, at least in part, what the noble Lord has suggested.
LORD PLATT: My Lords, I should like to speak, as the noble Viscount has just spoken, in general favour of something being done about this nuisance, which can be a tremendous menace to sensitive people and to those who occasionally spend some of their time thinking. Like the noble Lord, Lord Somers, I do not restrict my remarks to "pop" music—I think some "pop" music is quite good. But I absolutely detest sitting in my garden if some neighbour is listening on the radio to a horse race or a football match or something of that kind, and some commentator is shouting for the whole afternoon. I think this is far worse than "pop" music. The only point of my saying that is to emphasise that it is not purely personal prejudice against "pop" music—not at all. It is a matter of the general noise coming from these eternal portable radio sets, and so on.
I know it will be very difficult for the Government to take any definite action. I was a member of a Committee of your Lordships' House which had to consider matters concerning some Bill appertaining, I believe, to Chelsea and Kensington. We had to consider the question of radios in shops which could be heard outside, and we came down against agreeing to any regulation to prohibit it. There is a limit to what you can go on prohibiting. We felt it was not audible very far away from the shops, and that you did not need to go to those shops, and so on. There should be some action taken against the general use of radios in open spaces, and, as the noble Viscount has said, although it would be difficult to enforce—or even completely impossible—the mere fact

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there was a regulation against it would put these people in the wrong whereas, at present they apparently have complete freedom to interfere with anybody's privacy and peace.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: My Lords, would this apply to electioneering, either local or general? If a loudspeaker car was advertising some political fete, or something like that, would that be affected?
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, I believe there may be some confusion here. As I read the Bill, it refers to loudspeakers in roads. I take that to be the van that goes round shouting out political slogans or advertising products, whereas Lord Somers's Amendment and speech obviously take the matter much further and are chiefly concerned with transistor radios. I think that the noble Lord in charge of the Bill should say what the Bill is really intending to deal with, whether it is transistor radios or loudspeakers. The Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Somers, refers to: "a garden or other open space;". Surely one is entitled to sit in the garden with one's transistor radio on. But I think he means a public garden, in which case he should say, "a public garden".
LORD SOMERS: My Lords, may I interrupt? I mean a private garden, where gardens are very close to each other. Possibly the noble Lord is fortunate enough not to have other gardens close to his garden, as I have.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, the noble Lord obviously means gardens which run 16 to the acre or thereabouts. But his Amendment would also stop the well known noise that comes out of the circus, which is partly an advertising noise and partly the general run of the mill, hurdy-gurdy that goes on inside the circus. I agree that we dislike these noises intensely. I cannot see how legislation can be brought in which would operate against them, whereas it would be possible to stop the loudspeaker, the device that broadcasts words in a road.
VISCOUNT SIMON: My Lords, have not nearly all the noble Lords who have spoken to this Amendment omitted to observe paragraph (a)? It states that this only refers to:
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"between the hours of nine in the evening and eight in the following morning."
I do not think the noble Lord, Lord Platt, would sit in his garden at that time, or, if he did, whether he would be likely to hear the commentaries on races.
5.24 p.m.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, Lord Somers, as always, shows a great sensitivity, and I hope that he will feel satisfied in that he has received some strong support regarding the views he has expressed, touching on the matters that cause him so much concern, such as the music centre at Epsom, I think it is, that annoyed him so much. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hawke, and the noble Viscount, Lord Simon, because they have very properly drawn attention to what this clause deals with. The noble Viscount, Lord Massereene and Ferrard, I am sure, will feel that his question has been answered by what they had to say.
While I have some sympathy with the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Somers, I think that it would be right to remind your Lordships that this clause, as the noble Lord, Lord Hawke, pointed out, is primarily concerned with the circumstances in which loudspeakers may, or may not, be used in the streets. The word "streets" is defined widely to include a highway and any other road, footway, square or court which is for the time being open to the public. The proposed Amendment would extend the clause to cover gardens and open spaces, including private gardens. The noble Lord, Lord Somers, made it clear that he had that very much in mind.
I am unable to accept the implications of such an extension. I can appreciate that problems can arise when certain instruments, such as transistor radios, are used in private gardens but I am not convinced that this is the best way to deal with it. Whether we are talking about noise made on private premises or noise made in public places, it is clearly incumbent upon the person responsible to conduct his affairs in such a way as to minimise any annoyance. But there are many circumstances where noise which is objectionable to one person is a source of enjoyment to others. There has to be a certain amount of give and take in these matters, and I find it difficult to justify an Amendment which

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could prevent an individual from enjoying himself in his own property. I may object to my neighbour's transistor radio; he may equally object to my grass mower. It is important to remember that we have to live together.
If this enjoyment causes a nuisance to other people outside the premises from which it emanates, Clause 52 of the Bill makes it possible for an individual to complain to the magistrates about the nuisance. There is no question of there having to be two or three individuals. Compared with the position under the Noise Abatement Act 1969 which requires such complaint to be made by three householders affected by noise, Clause 52 gives the individual a much better remedy than he has had before.
I can well understand that many people might be annoyed by the loud music which emanates from some shops, and I have no doubt that there will be some sympathy with the Amendment in so far as it seeks to deal with this problem. But I do not think that this Amendment is really necessary. Noise from commercial premises is just one of a whole range of noise nuisances which could be dealt with under Clause 51. If this sort of noise was considered to be a nuisance, a local authority could serve a notice on the owner or occupier of the shop requiring them to abate it and that notice would be enforceable in a magistrates' court.
The noise abatement zone provisions of this Bill give a local authority further powers to deal with this problem. If they include commercial premises in a noise abatement zone they could, under Clause 59, require a reduction in noise levels emanating from the premises. This would include noise from amplified music. I consider that the powers already provided in this Bill should be adequate to deal with this particular problem without the proposed Amendment.
I recognise that there are many circumstances in which it is necessary to exercise controls over the use of loudspeakers, but I doubt whether the problem of noise from radios in unoccupied cars is a very great one. But if it is, I think that the point of this Amendment is adequately covered by subsection (2)(d) of this clause which requires, among other things, that the loudspeaker be
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operated solely for the entertainment of the driver or a passenger of the vehicle, and that it be so operated as not to give reasonable cause for annoyance to persons in the vicinity. If these conditions are not met then an offence is being committed. I hope if we have that on the record that the noble Lord, Lord Somers, will feel that he has achieved something of what he was after. I trust, with the explanation I have given, that he will feel he need not press his Amendment.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down may I ask whether he would define "loudspeaker". I cannot find it anywhere in the Bill and although a loudspeaker is colloquially supposed to mean an instrument that makes any kind of noise loud, literally speaking a loudspeaker is an instrument that speaks loud and therefore anything to do with music would not be covered by the Bill.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: The noble Lord has not spoken long enough to enable me to get the definition he has asked for and with his permission I will write and give him a carefully considered definition.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: My Lords, may I with the leave of the House refer to the answer to my query. Paragraph (b) reads: "at any other time"; in other words one could not have loudspeakers working in the daytime in any street or open space. Will this mean that loudspeaker advertising for entertainment or a fete or some other thing will be banned?
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I understood that the noble Lord's earlier question dealt with electioneering and I would draw his attention to the fact that subsection (b) deals with
"… the purpose of advertising any entertainment, trade or business;".
I would not know under which heading electioneering would come.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: My Lords, I would have thought it came under entertainment.
LORD SOMERS: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, has done his best; his answer was, I confess, very much what I expected. I realise that there are difficulties. The great problem to-day is that people are not given to being considerate to others. The noble

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Lord says that one person may enjoy the noise of his radio, and that while I dislike it others may enjoy it. I think the only person who enjoys it is the person who is actually using it. If you are some distance away you cannot hear it properly in any case. However, I see that there are difficulties and therefore I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 59 [Reduction of noise levels]:
5.35 p.m.
LORD MERRIVALE LORD MERRIVALE moved Amendment No. 22:
Page 77, line 33, leave out ("magistrates' court") and insert ("local appeal tribunal").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 22. During the course of earlier replies to my previous Amendments to this clause dealing with appeals against a noise reduction notice both my noble friend Lady Young and the Lord Privy Seal, Lord Shepherd, when speaking for the Government drew attention to the fact that magistrates had been dealing with cases under the Noise Abatement Act 1960 for the past 14 years. I would agree too, by and large, that the magistrates have been dealing satisfactorily with such cases. Evidence of my feelings on this issue may be gained from the fact that I have neither sought to amend Clauses 51 and 52 where there are references to magistrates courts, nor expressed any criticism of these provisions or of magistrates' past records on this subject.
My Lords, my contention is solely that, when one considers noise nuisance situations, the circumstances to which Clause 59 relates are rather different from those with which the magistrates have been concerned to date, that is since 1960. In the past the existence of a noise nuisance established a clear objective for the magistrates, namely, the abatement of the nuisance, and this in turn afforded the magistrates a considerable measure of guidance when reaching their decisions. That is not to say that all cases were or are simple and in those cases technical considerations could or can be brought to bear. Be that as it may, the objective and guidance remained in the past, and remain now the same. Under Clause 59
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the appeal must be determined in the absence of this objective, and herein lies the difference. In such cases it will be necessary to decide what noise level is appropriate for a given circumstance in relation to the expenditure involved. It will also be necessary to assess the technical merits of one approach against another and to compare the related benefits and expenditure involved. Surely there should be a large measure of consistency in decisions made in different parts of the country concerning similar circumstances. Here I feel that a local tribunal may achieve a greater measure of simplicity than the magistrates' courts. These decisions should be based on the technical and financial considerations involved.
My Lords, again to mention the point, in the absence of the objectives of nuisance abatement the considerations to be taken into account in determining an appeal are surely similar where, on the one hand, a person wishes to increase a noise level whether or not new premises are involved or, on the other hand, where a local authority wishes to reduce a noise level. In the former cases (increasing a noise level), appeals are determined by the Secretary of State, and magistrates courts in this instance are not regarded as appropriate, while in the latter cases (reduction of noise level), it is industry's contention that magistrates' courts are not appropriate appellant bodies either. I might add that industry still believes that the best method of handling these appeals would be by reference to the Secretary of State. That explains my past efforts to get the Government to agree on that point. From industry's point of view the Amendment which I have moved is an acceptable and desirable alternative and a much more satisfactory arrangement than is provided for in the Bill as it stands.
Let me sum up; (a) a local tribunal would be established with the relevant technical expertise; (b) the Secretary of State could give general guidance to tribunals in a manner not open to him if magistrates' courts determine these appeals; (c) the decisions would be more consistent and more expeditiously made; (d) there should be no need for the cost of legal representation to be excessive. The 1957 Franks Committee Report on

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Administrative Tribunals and Inquiries, paragraph 84 reads—
"… where legal representation is permitted before a tribunal the citizen may well be in a better position than before the ordinary courts …"
My Lords, I beg to move.
5.40 p.m.
LORI GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, the need for an appeal is undisputed, but on a number of occasions the suitability of the magistrates has been queried mainly on the grounds that they lack the technical ability to deal with the issues which might be raised in cases of this kind. It has been suggested that appeals should be heard by the Secretary of State or by a local appeal tribunal instead of by the magistrates. Before looking at the advantages and disadvantages of using one appeal forum or another, it would perhaps be instructive to mention the issues which the appeal forum would be asked to adjudicate upon. These are essentially simple and non-technical and they are set out in subsection (1). The first point on which a decision must be made is whether there is an acceptable level of noise emanating from the premises in respect of which the notice has been served. This is very akin to the sort of judgment that a magistrate is already called upon to make in the case of a noise nuisance. There is relatively little technical content here. If there is a dispute about whether the noise level is unacceptable, an adjudicator can go along and listen for himself and in this context a layman's judgment is as good as that of an expert. Some technical issues could arise if there was a dispute about the source of the noise, but similar disputes can arise in the case of noise nuisance and there is no evidence that magistrates have failed to deal satisfactorily with such matters.
The second thing that the adjudicator would have to decide is whether a reduction in the noise level would be practicable at reasonable cost and whether it would afford a public benefit. To take the last point first, there is obviously no point in requiring a reduction where the existing level is satisfactory or where nobody would benefit from a reduction. These are decisions which an intelligent layman could reasonably be expected to make. Probably the most technical as-
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pect is to make a decision about whether a reduction in the noise level "is practicable at reasonable cost". While I would not deny that there is some technical content in deciding upon the practicability of a reduction in noise levels, I am hound to say that I cannot see any radical difference of approach as between this judgment and the one which magistrates are required to make in the case of noise nuisance, where the best practicable means test has to be applied. They have been carrying out this duty efficiently since 1960. I can perhaps summarise what I have said by saying that the decision required of the adjudicator is whether the local authority has properly done its job as defined in subsection (1).
I have tended to stress the basic similarities between noise nuisance cases and appeals under Clause 59. This is because I believe that magistrates are the right people to hear these cases. Compared with the alternatives of the Secretary of State or tribunals, there are a number of advantages for the industrialist in using the magistrates. Foremost among these is the fact that justice is available locally and can be dispensed quickly. Another advantage when dealing with noise is that magistrates will have an intimate local knowledge of the situation.
It has been remarked that it is strange that appeals under Clauses 58 and 60 will go to the Secretary of State but that appeals under Clause 59 will not. On the face of it, the issues appear to be similar, but a closer examination shows that this is not the case. The reason why appeals under Clauses 58 and 60 go to the Secretary of State is that in those cases an unreasonable decision by the local authority could have widespread implications for investment in the area, for job opportunities, for regional development and matters of that kind. These are important matters of policy and politics. The ramifications of a noise reduction notice under Clause 59 are nothing like as wide. Management will be asked to do no more than reduce existing noise levels. The reduction will be subject to the limitations of the practicability test. If the noise reduction required by the local authority would otherwise leave a company with no alternative but to reduce their activity and lay off employees, that company would

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have no difficulty in showing that the local authority's demands were going well beyond those limits.
The other suggestion is that these cases might be heard by tribunals. It is true that tribunals could call upon greater technical expertise than magistrates, but I have endeavoured to show that there is not such a high technical content in these cases as might be thought. But there would be other disadvantages in setting up a system of tribunals. They would tend to be less expeditious in giving decisions and more expensive. They would also tend to be less accessible and lack the local knowledge of magistrates, unless a large number of local tribunals were set up to deal with the relatively few appeal cases which were likely to arise in each area. If there were a great enough degree of technicality in these cases that might be a reason for taking a different view, but I have sought to show that there is no significant difference between what magistrates are already doing and what they will be called upon to do in the future by this Bill. The general preference of the Franks Committee was that tribunals should not normally be used as convenient alternatives to the courts of law, and this is a view that successive Governments have accepted.
I would emphasise that the clause has been carefully drafted in order to throw up justiciable issues which the ordinary courts are quite capable of pronouncing upon. The technical element has been kept to the absolute minimum so that the issues are appropriate to magistrates. I trust that the noble Lord, Lord Merrivale, will appreciate that the fact that I have spoken at some length indicates the very full consideration that has been given to his Amendment. Finally, I would say that, as I am advised, the Amendment that he submitted as it stands would be incomplete to achieve his purpose; the Bill would have to say a great deal more.
5.48 p.m.
LORD MERRIVALE: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, for his detailed explanation of what exactly is entailed when appealing to a magistrates' court and, as he sees it, the possible disadvantages of appealing to a tribunal. Towards the end of his remarks he said that the
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Amendment was badly drafted. Of course, the reason for this is the lack of time between the Committee stage and the Report stage. What I should have liked Her Majesty's Government to consider, and still would like them to consider, is whether or not at a later stage, in another place, the Secretary of State should be given powers to make regulations if he feels it necessary to establish tribunals, but after consultation with the appropriate bodies concerned.
Lord Garnsworthy referred to some remarks in the Franks Report. In relation to these matters, under the heading of "The choice between tribunals and courts of law", in paragraph 38, the Report says:
"We agree with the Donoughmore Committee that tribunals have certain characteristics which often give them advantages over the courts. These are cheapness, accessibility, freedom from technicality, expedition and expert knowledge of their particular subject."
I think those final words are particularly relevant. Also, I know that there has not been very much time, but I have a feeling that Her Majesty's Government have consulted the Council on Tribunals between last Thursday and now, and I should be very interested, if possible and with the permission of the House, to know whether such consultation has taken place and what were the Council's feelings on the matter.
The noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, also said that it would mean the setting up of a large number of tribunals if they were to be local in the service they provided. As I said earlier, if the Secretary of State had the power, after consultation, to make regulations with a view to setting up such tribunals, it might be useful, after the Act reached the Statute Book, should it be felt that there was a need to set up a large number of tribunals in the event of the magistrates' courts which were bearing this extra work not proving totally satisfactory.
My Lords, I have gone as far as I can on past occasions and to-day with a view to trying to persuade Her Majesty's Government to allow for appeals to go to the Secretary of State or, failing that, to a local tribunal and I shall accordingly seek to withdraw the Amendment.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, before the noble Lord withdraws the Amendment, I should like to say that the Council on Tribunals has been consulted, as he indicated, and that, as a consequence, Her Majesty's Government see no reason at all to change their approach to this matter. In our view, the Bill ought to be as specific as possible in regard to the forum to which appeals should go. It would be difficult to provide a really effective alternative to achieve the objects about which I spoke in some detail as effectively as is done in the Bill as it stands.
LORD MERRIVALE: I thank the Minister and I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 61 [Noise from plant or machinery]:
5.54 p.m.
LORD MERRIVALE LORD MERRIVALE moved Amendment No. 23:
Page 79, line 10, leave out ("in making") and insert ("before he makes").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, with this Amendment I shall also be speaking to Amendment No. 24, for they both cover the same point. One object of these two Amendments is to maintain consistency throughout the Bill. Your Lordships will see that under Part IV of the Bill, appertaining to pollution of the atmosphere, Clauses 68(2) and 69(2) state:
"It shall be the duty of the Secretary of State, before he makes any regulations in pursuance of this section, to consult such persons appearing to him to represent producers and users"
of fuel for motor vehicles, which represent also manufacturers and users of motor vehicles and manufacturers and users or plant and equipment in which oil fuel is used.
It therefore seems completely logical that under Part III of the Bill, which deals with noise, and particularly under Clause 61, which deals with noise from plant and machinery, it shall be the duty of the Secretary of State before he makes regulations,
"to consult such persons appearing to him to represent producers … and users of plant and equipment".
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to which this clause relates. The provisions of subsection (2) are designed to ensure that the regulations do not, in the opinion of the Secretary of State, contain requirements which would be impracticable or which would involve unreasonable expense. To achieve these ends, would not the Secretary of State therefore be greatly assisted by consultation with representatives of producers and users of plant and machinery?
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I am glad to have this opportunity to make it clear that the Secretary of State has every intention of undertaking full consultations before exercising the powers which will be given to him by this clause. The Government fully recognise that many important interests could be affected by the use of these powers, and they have no wish to use them in ways which would cause unnecessary difficulties to industry or employees. In practical terms, the need for consultation is already implicit in subsection (2). This lays on the Secretary of State the duty to ensure that regulations do not contain requirements which would be impracticable or which would involve unreasonable expense. This duty could not be discharged properly without adequate consultation. It is envisaged that consultations will have to take place with producers and users of plant and machinery affected by the proposals in question, but other interests, such as the local authorities and other Government Departments, will also have to be consulted.
My Lords, I have said that subsection (2) as drafted already contains an implicit requirement to consult, and I have made explicit the Government's intention in this respect. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Merrivale, will find this assurance satisfactory and will not wish to press an Amendment which, if I may respectfully say so, casts the consultation net rather too wide, in that it does not stop at producers and users of the plant and machinery affected by the proposals. As regards what the noble Lord had to say about Clauses 68 and 69, I will give an undertaking without commitment to look at what he has had to say.
LORD MERRIVALE: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord for saying at the end of his remarks that

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he will look at what I have said regarding Clauses 68 and 69. If he does, he will see that what I have been saying is totally logical. In Clauses 68(2) and 69(2), the producers and users are listed. What I am trying to achieve by these Amendments with regard to noise is that so far as plant and machinery are concerned, it should be specified in the Bill that the producers and users of equipment which give out noise are to be consulted. I cannot see why it should be stated in the Bill that the Secretary of State has this obligation when it is a question of manufacturers and users of motor vehicles and producers and users of fuel oil, as well as manufacturers of plant and equipment, and not in the case of producers and users.
I am delighted that the noble Lord has confirmed that there will be full and adequate consultation, but he may want to put in this obligation regarding producers and users of plant and machinery after consideration. Perhaps it could be incorporated in the Bill in another place. I am grateful to the noble Lord for saying that he will have another look at the provisions of Clauses 68(2) and 69(2), and I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 74 [Regulations about research and publicity]:
6.0 p.m.
BARONESS WHITE BARONESS WHITE moved Amendment No. 25:
Page 90, line 32, leave out ("other than") and insert ("not including").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 25 and to speak to Amendment No. 26 as well. The purpose of these two Amendments is to ensure that in dealing with emissions to the atmosphere one will obtain the same kind of information on the proposed registers as one will be able to obtain in relation to water effluent under Clause 35(1)(d). The effect of the Clause 35(1)(d) provision where water is concerned is that where the Secretary of State has issued a certificate it would be unreasonable or contrary to the public interest if certain information was disclosed. We are, nevertheless, given the information that the Secretary of State has issued such a certificate, the date on
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which it was issued and the personal enterprise receiving the certificate.
The conditions of emissions to the atmosphere are not quite the same, but they are set out, in effect, in Clause 73. There are conditions comparable with water in subsection (1)(a), but in subsection (1)(b) there is a further ground which would exclude information being given to the local authority in this case; that is that the information is not immediately available and could not readily be collected or obtained by the recipient of the notice without incurring und expenditure for the purpose.
My Lords, it is important that the public should be informed of the occasions upon which and the persons or enterprises to whom the Secretary of State issues directions or, rather, the occasions upon which he may direct the authorities in relation to which he issues directions. The way in which I have attempted to do this may not be satisfactory and I shall be perfectly prepared for my noble friend to indicate that it is not satisfactory. However, I am anxious that we should not allow the Bill to leave this House without making it plain that this is a desirable provision in itself, and, in particular, that it should be made clear in any notification in the register under which part of Clause 73, whether it is paragraph (a) or paragraph (b) of subsection (1), the direction was issued. My Lords, I beg to move.
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, I wonder whether I can say a word or two generally to support the approach of the noble Baroness, Lady White, in this matter and other matters related to it. I shall be interested to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, about what he can do to meet her point if he does not feel able to accept the Amendment. May I also take this opportunity to thank the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, for the letter which he wrote to me concerning this clause and other clauses in this part relating to emissions to the air. In particular, in replying to my point, he said, "You question whether the Bill struck the right balance between satisfying public concern"—which is what the Amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady White, is about—"and protecting legitimate private interests". That was one of my concerns, and I am content to leave that point for the Government

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to consider in the context of the Amendment by my noble friend Lord Courtown, that he would see whether it is possible to draw a distinction between consultants called in by local authorities and employees employed directly by them.
My main concern, however, which, if I may say so, is not really met by the letter he has written to me, is that councils should have a positive duty to publish information on their progress in dealing with air pollution rather than simply a power. That they should so publish was firmly recommended by the Working Party that met under the chairmanship of Admiral Sharp who went on to prescribe in detail how it should be done. Her Majesty's Government, both this one and the one before, rightly, in my view, restrained themselves from following up the Working Party's suggestion that they should tell local authorities, local councils, precisely how they were to do their job and go on to make provision for that in the Bill. The Government have, however, taken powers to do that by regulation, and these powers are what Clause 74 and this particular register are all about.
The Secretary of State will, therefore, have power under the Bill to make regulations which will prescribe exactly how the local authorities are to discharge their functions under Clauses 71, 72, 73 and 74, and we are concerned on a particular detail about that. I am still not satisfied, however, that the Secretary of State will have a power to tell a council that in his view it should be publishing details about its progress in controlling air pollution if a council decides not to do so, although in the opinion of the Secretary of State it should be publishing such details because they have particular problems with which they should be dealing and the public should have the right to know what they are doing about them.
It seems to me that this is one of their basic functions under Clauses 71 and 72 and that there is no power in Clause 74(3)(a) to (f) for the Secretary of State to require them to carry it out, whereas there are many detailed powers as to how they are to carry out other functions under Clauses 71 to 73. I suspect that the power is not there. If it is there I shall be glad to be shown how it operates.
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Otherwise I think that my right honourable friends in another place will have to pursue this matter further.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I wonder whether it would meet the position if I referred to the fact that my noble friend the Leader of the House has written to my noble friend Baroness White accepting her Amendment in principle and promising that it will be taken into account at a later stage. As a matter of drafting we want more time to consider how it should be done. We shall take note of all that the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, has said and the points which he has raised. I wonder whether he would allow us to write to him, because I think that that might be the most useful way of proceeding. Clearly the matter will have to be dealt with in the other place because of the undertaking that has been given to my noble friend. Perhaps, however, on this occasion my noble friend would accept that position and not press the Amendment this evening.
BARONESS WHITE: In view of the assurance which I have received both in writing and now from my noble friend, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 79 [Miscellaneous provisions relating to legal proceedings]:
LORD GARNSWORTHY LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 27.
Amendment moved—
Page 93, line 22, after ("or") insert ("(2A) of this Act or by virtue of section 17(1A) of this Act or under".)—(Lord Garnsworthy.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
6.10 p.m.
LORD GARNSWORTHY LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 28.
Amendment moved—
After Clause 79 insert the following new clause:
Civil liability for contravention of s. 3(2A)
".—(1) Where any damage is caused by poisonous, noxious or polluting waste which has been deposited on land, any person who deposited it or caused or knowingly permitted it to be deposited, in either case so as to commit an offence under section 3(2A) or by virtue of section 17(1A) of this Act, is liable for the damage except where the damage—

(a) was due wholly to the fault of the person who suffered it; or

(b) was suffered by a person who voluntarily accepted the risk thereof.

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(2) The matters which under paragraphs (a) to (c) of subsection (3) of section 3 of this Act may be proved by way of defence to a charge of committing an offence under subsection (2A) of that section may be proved also by way of defence to an action brought by virtue of the preceding subsection (the reference in the said paragraph (a) to the charge being construed as a reference to the act alleged to give rise to the liability).
(3) In this section—
"damage" includes the death of, or injury to, any person (including any disease and and any impairment of physical or mental condition);
"fault" has the same meaning as in the Law Reform (Contributory Negligence) Acts 1945; and
"land" includes such water as is mentioned in section 3(7) of this Act.
(4) For the purposes of the following enactments, namely—

(a) the Fatal Accidents Acts 1846 to 1959;

(b) the Law Reform (Contributory Negligence) Act 1945; and

(c) the Limitation Acts 1939 and 1963 and the Law Reform (Limitation of Actions, &c.) Act 1954,

and for the purposes of any action of damages in Scotland arising out of the death of, or personal injury, to any person, any damage for which a person is liable under subsection (1) of this section shall be treated as due to his fault.
(5) Subsection (1) of this section is without prejudice to any liability which arises apart from the provisions of this section."—(Lord Garnsworthy.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Schedule 2 [Alteration of penalties]:
BARONESS WHITE BARONESS WHITE My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 29.
Amendment moved—
Page 111, leave out lines 33 to 40.—(Baroness White.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Schedule 4 [Repeals]:
BARONESS WHITE BARONESS WHITE: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 30.
Page 119, line 10, column 3, leave out from ("Act") to end of line 13.—(Baroness White.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD GARNSWORTHY LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 31.
Amendment moved—
Page 121, column 3, leave out lines 2 to 6 and insert ("The whole Act.")—(Lord Garnsworthy.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD GARNSWORTHY LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 32.
Amendment moved—
Page 121, line 11, column 3, at end insert ("and 49.").—(Lord Garnsworthy.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I have it in command from Her Majesty the Queen to acquaint the House that Her Majesty, having been informed of the purport of the Control of Pollution Bill, has consented to place Her prerogative and interest, so far as they are affected by the Bill at the disposal of Parliament, for the purpose of the Bill.
My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time. In moving the Third Reading of this Bill I should first like to say a few words about one or two particular topics in the Bill which my noble friend Lord Shepherd and I promised to come back to on Third Reading. Then I will go on to the more general issues of finance, staffing and implementation of the measures in the Bill on which several noble Lords have raised questions.
First then, on Part I, I should like to say a little more about the control of toxic wastes. Several noble Lords expressed their concern in Committee about the operation of Clause 16 which provides the Secretary of State with regulatory powers over the disposal of dangerous or intractable wastes, defined in Clause 16 as "special wastes". In particular, the noble Viscounts, Lord Amory and Lord Simon were concerned about the Government Amendment, which the Committee agreed, which is designed to impose a duty rather than a power on the Secretary of State to make regulations to control toxic wastes; they feared that this might prove to be an onerous and inappropriate obligation.
Perhaps I can explain the background to Clause 16 in a little more detail. First, I should like to emphasise that it is indeed the Government's intention to introduce a special authorisation procedure for dealing with toxic wastes, and preparatory work for this is in fact well in hand. The new procedure will replace the notification procedure introduced by the Deposit of Poisonous Waste Act. That Act made a useful start towards producing a comprehensive and reliable system of recording where toxic wastes arise and how they are disposed of. What Clause 16 now seeks

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to do is to build upon the experience obtained from the working of that temporary procedure and to ensure that fuller and better information is provided, and any gaps or loopholes are eliminated.
The noble Viscount, Lord Simon, was concerned that our Amendment would mean that the Secretary of State would have to examine every possible toxic substance he can think of and make regulations to deal with it. Of course it would be an enormous task to list every single toxic chemical that might become waste. But it is our intention to define most of the main groups or classes of toxic waste that arise from industrial and other processes in this country. The Department's Working Group on Toxic Wastes is producing a list of the substances that will need to be defined by regulations for control, and have already produced an interim list. Initially the list may be similar to the wastes which are required to be notified under Section 3 of the Deposit of Poisonous Waste Act; but the list will inevitably need to be extended or altered from time to time. In addition, the Group are producing codes of practice giving advice on the best disposal methods for the different types of special wastes.
In addition to these steps we need adequate control over toxic wastes to ensure that the wastes are disposed of safely and efficiently in accordance with the codes of practice. Under Clause 16 toxic waste producers will be required to be registered; to keep their wastes in specified ways; to dispose of them to sites licensed for the purpose and to keep records so that the disposal of such waste can be checked as necessary. The Department's Working Group is examining the proposed system in detail, and considering in particular the form of records that should be kept. The noble Viscount, Lord Simon, was concerned that the duty now written into Clause 16(1) would mean that regulations would have to be produced immediately. Clearly we shall need to be sure that the lists, codes and control procedure are all sorted out before we introduce the provisions of Clause 16 so that the changeover from the Deposit of Poisonous Waste Act notification procedure to the new one is conducted smoothly and effectively. But when the procedures are complete the new pro-
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cedure will be considerably fuller and more reliable than the present one.
Turning now to Part II of the Bill, my noble friend Lord Shepherd promised to say a little more about the circumstances in which consents to discharge might have to be revoked or varied. The noble Lord, Lord Sandford, pointed out the uncertainties that might arise for industry, and asked for some assurance on this point. He suggested that it might be desirable for an industrial firm and the water authority to agree in advance on what steps should be taken to monitor the condition of the water into which the discharges are made, and in what circumstances conditions of consent might need to be varied.
I can at once welcome this suggestion. It is always open to the authority and the discharger to agree before the discharge starts what the present condition of the river is, and on the state of the flora and fauna in it, so as to provide a baseline for any subsequent questions about liability. This sort of informal discussion and agreement before a consent is issued is obviously useful, and we shall be glad to recommend water authorities to adopt this kind of approach. At the end of the day, however, we must recognise that there cannot be complete certainty in advance about the likely effect of a discharge, and the water authority must have the power to vary or revoke consent where necessary, as the Bill provides.
I turn now to the point raised by the noble Earl, Lord Courtown, on Clause 83 on powers of entry. The noble Lord was concerned that local authorities might in some cases use consultants to carry out some of the inspection and control functions under this Bill, and that such consultants might then acquire valuable information about trade secrets which they could make use of in their other work. The Committee recognised that consultants would be subject to the same constraints as any other person preventing them from disclosing trade secrets, and making it an offence to do so. Nevertheless, I think it was generally felt that there might be more legitimate concern about the use of consultants in this way, and that something should be done to deal with this point.
My Lords, the Government are reluctant to draw rigid distinctions between

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different classes of person on the face of the Bill, and we therefore advised the Committee to resist the Amendment of the noble Earl, Lord Courtown. But I can assure the House that we are alive to the point, and we will certainly advise local authorities to be careful and selective if they wish to use consultants for pollution purposes, and to keep industry informed where it is proposed to use them for inspection of industrial premises, so that objections can be made if necessary.
Coming now to more general matters, I have been asked on several occasions to say more about the financial and economic aspects of the Bill—
THE EARL OF COURTOWN: My Lords, before the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, leaves that point, could he just clarify it? Did I understand from what he said that the local authority will inform the works which is going to be inspected as to who the person is or who is going to be informed?
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, if I repeat what I said, the noble Earl, Lord Courtown, will appreciate that it has been carefully worded. We will certainly advise local authorities to be careful and selective if they wish to use consultants for pollution purposes, and to keep industry informed where it is proposed to use them for inspection of industrial premises. I think that is quite clear. Local authorities will be advised to keep industry informed where consultants are being employed.
My Lords, if I may now come to more general matters, I have been asked on several occasions to say more about the financial and economic aspects of the Bill and I should like to take this opportunity to do so. I think we should recognise first that this is not an area capable of precise financial quantification. The costs and the benefits of pollution control are hard to measure, and it is difficult to be certain where they fall. My noble friend Lord Walston drew attention on Second Reading to the possible effects on the Third World of higher costs of British products because of tighter pollution controls. Such remote effects should be comparatively limited, but his remarks were an important reminder that the effects both of pollution and of its control are very widespread, and are felt in distant parts.
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My Lords, the Financial Memorandum to the Bill could scarcely stray into consideration of these remote effects. According to custom it sticks to the direct effects of the Bill on public expenditure. I should like first to say a word about these direct effects, before going on to some of the wider issues on the economy to which several noble Lords have drawn attention.
First then, my Lords, so far as public expenditure is concerned, the two main effects will be to require local authorities and water authorities to employ more specialised staff on the various controlling functions, and to require them over a period to improve the standard and range of their waste collection services. On the first of these aspects we have estimated that some 500 to 800 additional staff may eventually be needed, at a cost of about £2 million to £3 million per annum. On the second aspect, it has been estimated that the cost of improving the waste collection services, to the extent implicit in the Bill, might eventually be about £6 million per annum on current costs. I should say, however, that these are very provisional estimates, and too much weight ought not to be attached to them.
I know that some of the local authority associations believe that more money and staff may be needed for the purposes described in the Bill, particularly if more attention is to be given to recycling and recovery of wastes. In any event we must realise that there can be only a gradual build-up to these new levels of staff and expenditure. Overall public expenditure must be contained within the approved allocations, and I have to say very relucantly there can be at this point in time no question of putting large new injections of funds into this area. It will be a question of making the best use of resources, and building up the necessary establishments gradually as and when resources become available. There may, of course, be some redeployment that can be made from other parts of local authority and water authority establishments following reorganisation, and this may enable more rapid progress to be made.
My Lords, because of the difficult economic situation the previous Government decided that implementation of the Bill should not take place until after April 1, 1975. We consider that that was

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sensible, and we shall not seek to advance that date. Between now and then we shall hold further discussions with the local authority associations and the water authorities about priorities in this field, and how best limited resources can be utilised to carry out these new functions.
My Lords, turning now to the wider implications for consumers, industry, agriculture and the economy at large we are on ground that is even less firm. In broad terms the Government subscribe to the principle of "the polluter pays". In the terms of this Bill that means that controls are imposed on those who produce pollution, who will therefore have to invest resources in disposing of their wastes more satisfactorily, bringing their discharges to water up to standard, quietening noisy plant or machinery, and improving the quality of emissions to air. It is impossible to make precise estimates of how much this will cost. Certainly, we recognise that for individual firms the new or extended controls may impose tough standards which will be hard to meet. But the controlling authorities will be able to consider alternative ways of meeting those standards, and the phasing of them. What is needed is a continuing dialogue, and a determination on the part of all concerned to bring about the necessary improvements over a period. This is the essence of the "best practicable means" approach which we have always adopted with such success in this country. Her Majesty's Government intend that this approach should continue to be our practice.
My Lords, summing up on finance, we must recognise that the public rightly demands a steady improvement in the quality of the environment, and over the years this will certainly require increased expenditure and investment to control pollution. But this will of course be a gradual process, and we shall have to suit the pace of advance to the economic climate of the time.
My Lords, I should like finally to say a word about staffing, a matter raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Young, and the noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman. I said previously that this was a matter of legitimate concern to your Lordships and that it would be dealt with at some time during the Third Reading debate. Let me say immediately that the staffing implications are particularly difficult to
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predict in the case of this Bill. The figures in the Explanatory Memorandum represent only the best guess that can be made at this stage, and it would be foolish to deny that these guesses could be proved wrong. So much depends on the extent to which, and the speed with which, local authorities exercise their new powers, particularly their discretionary powers with regard to noise. Much will depend on the scope for rearranging the workload of existing personnel following the re-organisation of local government. As I said before, we have estimated that some 500 to 800 additional staff may be required by local authorities and water authorities, together with 25 additional Central Government staff, and that is still the best estimate we can give at this stage.
My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Young, was quite right when she pointed out in Committee that the new noise provisions carried significant staffing implications. It is reasonable to assume, however, that the build-up will be gradual as more and more authorities begin to exercise their discretionary powers. I should like, however, to take this opportunity to correct the misapprehension that local authorities do not already have a substantial body of public health inspectors skilled in dealing with noise. Since the passing of the Noise Abatement Act 1960, many local authorities have acquired a considerable amount of technical expertise in noise control, and we are aiming to build on this foundation.
I have concentrated on the noise implications, because this is the context in which the staffing issue was originally raised, but much of what I have said applies to the waste disposal, water and clean air aspects of the Bill also. It is partly in recognition of the difficulties facing local authorities on staffing and finance, that the Government intend to delay the implementation of the Bill, as I have said, until after April 1, 1975. This ought to enable the local authorities to plan properly for these new powers.
The noble Baroness, Lady Young, also raised the question of training, and the career structure of those who will be concerned with the implementation of this Bill. The Government recognise that the Bill creates a new demand for skilled personnel and that people with the necessary expertise will not be immediately

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available. Existing skills will have to be developed and extended and new skills acquired. The need for new professional training and skills has been recognised by local authorities and the professional and representative bodies, and action is already being taken. The Association of County Councils is studying the management and staffing requirements of the new waste disposal authorities. The Institute of Solid Waste Management is broadening its base of membership and the range of its professional requirements to meet the new demands in this field.
So far as noise is concerned, there are already a number of training courses run under the auspices of technical colleges and such bodies as the Institution of Sound and Vibration Research at Southampton University. Where necessary, the content of these courses is being reviewed, and the Association of Public Health Inspectors are reviewing training needs in the context of the proposed legislation.
The task of creating a satisfactory career structure for officers in this field is also basically a matter for local government, again with the support and assistance of the various professional bodies in the field. New specialisms and skills may be needed as the task of pollution control becomes more complex. But it will also be important to continue to have professional officers with a wide range of experience running across the environmental health field, and a career structure that has room for specialists and generalists.
The role of central Government is to give assistance or advice wherever it is required. There might, for example, be scope for centrally assisted training courses or seminars on the Bill's provisions. Central advice and guidance on technical or professional problems may also be needed. The Department of the Environment proposes to keep in close touch with the Associations and professional bodies concerned and to give such assistance as it can in helping them to respond to the new needs.
I have dwelt on these topics of finance and staffing at some length, because, of course, it is vital as the noble Baroness emphasised, that we make sure that the means are available to carry the legislation into effect. I hope I have made it clear how the Government see this developing when the Bill comes into force.
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My Lords, in what I have said I have endeavoured to meet the points that have been raised on Second Reading and in Committee, except when we have written to noble Lords, because it was obviously the desire of your Lordships that more information should be supplied. If there is any matter that we have not covered by way of correspondence or by replies in debates, perhaps noble Lords will write and we will do our best to deal with their points expeditiously. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a. —(Lord Garnsworthy.)
6.35 p.m.
BARONESS YOUNG: My Lords, I am sure we are all grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, for the very long and detailed speech he has given us on Third Reading. He has raised six major points, and I am sure he will understand if I do not reply to all of them. But I should like to say, in general, how grateful we are for the help we have received throughout the passage of this Bill. I should like to thank the noble Lord for the letter he sent to me on the various points I raised, and for the letters he sent to a number of my colleagues on points which they raised. We are grateful for the assistance of his advisers and for the spirit of helpfulness throughout this Bill. We shall wish to study very carefully what the noble Lord has said in his very helpful explanation. In particular, I think my noble friend Lord Courtown will wish to look very closely at what he has said about the employment of consultants by local authorities.
We recognise, as does the noble Lord, that the success of this Bill will depend very largely on the amount of money and the quality of the staff that can be attracted to do the work involved. We are, therefore, glad to know of the training proposals and the career structure for people entering the field of the environment. I am sure that it is to the advantage of everyone that the Bill will not come into force until after April 1, 1975, so that local authorities will have time to study the Bill and consider its implications. We are also glad to note that there will be further extensive discussions both with local authorities and water authorities. We are very glad that

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the noble Lord was able to say that the Government fully support the principle of the best practical means, because we believe very much that this is a principle which has secured very high environmental standards in this country. We believe that it will give us even higher standards, and is preferable to setting an absolute limit which could easily be used as a minimum standard with no improvement at all. We are glad to have the noble Lord's assurance on this point.
My Lords, it only remains for me to thank the noble Lord again for his help in seeing us through this immensely complex piece of legislation. As I say, we shall study carefully what he has said, and I have no doubt that my colleagues in another place will be very glad to pursue points on the basis of the explanation which he has offered.
6.38 p.m.
BARONESS WHITE: My Lords, perhaps I may be allowed to say a word or two about this Bill, being among those who have paid the closest attention to it since it started under its other guise. I, too, should like to thank my noble friends the Leader of the House and Lord Garnsworthy, and the officials in the Department for being extremely helpful in every way concerning this Bill. The only thing which rather concerns me is the fact that while I do not think I have ever had such generous correspondence, it is not of course on public record. This is one disadvantage of having to take a Bill at such speed that one has to rely on letters, delightful as it may be to receive them. One feels that there are many people interested in these matters who would also like to know what is contained in some of these letters, and possibly my noble friend could see, in some appropriate manner, that some of the principal points are at least published in some of the local authority or trade journals concerned, so that people may know the explanations which have been generously given to us, which may affect them. I propose to read a few passages from some of the letters I have received, but clearly it would be inappropriate to go into them at great length to-night.
One of the matters on which I felt most strongly when the Bill in its first form was put before your Lordships'
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House was that we had to make a strenuous effort to carry out the principles of the Second Report of the Royal Commission on Pollution; namely, that the public should be told as much as possible concerning pollution in which, after all, they have the greatest interest. The principle of confidentiality, as the Second Report of the Royal Commission made plain, can be carried much too far for the public good.
In the Bill as it now stands we are still left with references to trade secrets, which I suppose we have to accept. I was delighted that we were able to drop references to "any manufacturing process". I am grateful to my noble friends for having supported the noble Lord, Lord Ashby, and myself in our efforts to improve the scope of the registers, both for water and air, and for making it possible for those who are interested in these matters to get much more information than they have ever been able to obtain in the past.
I am somewhat concerned about those parts of our economic life which are to some extent outwith the Bill, although under Clause 17 they may at some later stage be brought within it. I am referring to mines and quarries and agriculture. Both aspects of the Bill have been discussed at some length, but I think that the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, who has referred to these matters, and other noble Lords as well as myself, would concede that we have not, as yet, found a really satisfactory basis of dealing with either of these spheres.
So far as agriculture is concerned, there are doubts about the equity of some of the proivsions in reference to farmers. Some of us also have doubts as to the full efficacy of some of the arrangements that may be made for dealing with farm effluent. So far as mines and quarries are concerned, noble Lords will have recognised my close interest in this matter. I could hardly fail to be interested in mines coming, as I do, from South Wales. Here, as my noble friend is well aware, I am still not entirely content with the Bill as it now is, but I hope that there may yet be opportunities in another place to make more adequate provision.
My noble friend Lord Garnsworthy referred to these matters in reply to the

1401
noble Lord, Lord Sandford, in column 948–9 of the debate on May 14, and I would not wish to go over all that ground again. My noble friend Lord Shepherd also wrote to me. I am particularly concerned about the problems which can arise from abandoned mines. I do not think that we have sorted this out adequately. Effluent from abandoned mines is specifically excluded in Clause 25, and I think that a good deal more thought should be given to this, and I hope very much that it may be, so that a somewhat more satisfatcory provision can be made. I must, however, recognise that it is not only a question of powers; it is largely a question of finance. My noble friend put forward the usual cautionary words that further money is not likely to be forthcoming in any great quantity, but you cannot deal with mine and quarry waste except by spending money. We have already discovered this in the Derelict Land Unit, which has done a great deal of work in South Wales. What I am concerned about is that we should try to avoid creating more derelict land if we can, and more poisonous or polluting effluent from mines.
One of the matters that we have not yet tidied up in this Bill is the definition of "specfied waters" which occurs in Clause 25 and in the definition clause. I hope that in another place something more satisfactory can be done, because otherwise we can have a very unsatisfactory situation where a water authority will not necessarily be able to stop noxious matter leaching into underground waters because they have not been specified under the procedures suggested in the Bill as it now stands. This is a technical matter, but I hope that my noble friend can encourage his Department to look at this further to see whether they cannot find something more satisfactory. I should like to go on talking about mines but I shall not do so because I recognise that other noble Lords may wish to comment. I wanted to make that particular point.
I was concerned about one or two matters relating to Part IV of the Bill, emissions to the atmosphere. I recognise that there is to be a special study of this whole field at the request of my right honourable friend, and that this will be undertaken by the Royal Commission on
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Pollution. Meanwhile, it might be helpful if I mention two matters about which I have received a letter from the Leader of the House. One was my concern about the possible difficulty with which a local authority might be faced under Clause 71(3) if the occupier of premises decided to request a notice under Clause 72. This was mentioned on a previous occasion, but it may be of wider interest to have it confirmed here that this particular provision has no effect upon the powers of entry in Clause 82 which, in particular, allow a local authority to enter premises to check that the provisions of the Bill are being complied with and to make measurements and tests for that purpose. This, I think, meets the point that I raised on this clause, but it is useful to have this confirmation on the Record, because the Bill, as drafted, is not easy to understand, and unless we have a specific reference to it in Hansard there might be a good deal of dubiety about it.
I also raised the question of how far county councils and the Greater London Council would have powers under Part IV to undertake research and monitoring on air pollution, because there is a good deal of concern in so far as it is the district councils who have the main powers under the Bill. I was happy to receive from my noble friend assurances that there are ways in which counties and the G.L.C. can carry out these functions. They can do so, I am advised, by the use of Section 101 of the Local Government Act 1972. This would work very well provided that they are all happily in agreement. In the event of local authorities not agreeing to use the counties or the G.L.C. as agents, then there are other powers in Section 141 of the Local Government Act, or Section 71 of the London Government Act 1963 which would also allow counties or the G.L.C. to,
"conduct, or assist in the conducting of, investigations into, and the collection of information relating to, any matters concerning"
all or part of their area. I have read this extract because it is helpful to have the actual references in Hansard so that those who are interested in these matters will know that the assurances that have been given me can, of course, be relied on if they wish to encourage certain authorities to carry out functions which would, or could, fall to them under the Bill.

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There are many other matters which one would like to see even further improved in the Bill, but on the whole I think that we in this House can congratulate ourselves on having done a good job of work. There are one or two things that may arise under the Safety and Health at Work Bill which impinge on certain matters concerning, for example, noise, so I give fair warning to my noble friend that some of us will be on the look-out when that Bill comes before us for certain improvements, if they have not already been made in another place. But on the whole I think we can say that the Bill, which is shortly to be leaving us, is a much better one than when we first received it.
VISCOUNT SIMON: My Lords, I intend to detain the House for only a few minutes in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, for the very full explanation which he gave to your Lordships about the way the Government see the operation of Clause 16. As far as I am concerned I am perfectly satisfied with what he said. There is only one other point I wish to take up from his interesting speech and that is his reference to local authority staffing problems. He implied that he did not think this would build up very quickly and he described the discretionary powers given to local authorities, but, of course, in this matter of noise—I think he was referring particularly to the duties of local authorities—Clauses 50 and 51 lay statutory duties on the local authorities, not discretionary powers. So I would have thought it would be necessary for them at a fairly early stage to engage additional staff and that, I am afraid, means that ratepayers throughout the country, who have had some pretty nasty shocks in the last few weeks, may have to face further shocks in 1975, because this is an aspect of the control of pollution the cost of which cannot, in the nature of things, be recovered from the polluters. Having said that, my Lords, I should like to join the noble Baroness, Lady White, in saying that the Bill is better than it was when it came here and is one which we all look forward to seeing implemented for the benefit of the country.
On Question, Bill read 3a an Amendment (privilege) made.
6.52 p.m.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill do now pass. First, may I thank your Lordships for the great toleration shown to my noble friend and myself. We have had to ask the House, as a House and in Committee, to really get a move on and the response has been magnificent. I should especially like to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Young, and the noble Lord, Lord Sandford. I mentioned the work that my noble friend Lady White has done on this Bill, as she did on its predecessor. We have much appreciated her looking over our shoulder all the time and we are glad that she will go on so doing.
The noble Baroness has suggested that the letters which have been written might be published. I am not at all sure in which form they could be published because, as she rightly said, we have written quite a number. I have no reason to think that any letter that we have written in response to a matter raised in debate is of a confidential nature, and therefore any noble Lord who wishes to make use of what has been written in order to make public the assurances that have been given, is so far as I know at liberty to do so.
I should particularly thank the staff at the Department of the Environment. Your Lordships do not need me to say that without their help I should have been almost speechless at this Box and quite incapable of rendering any really worthwhile service. I cannot think of an occasion when they have failed to give us good and ready advice. If there has been any failure to convey that advice in understandable form to your Lordships, the fault will have been mine. But I think your Lordships have very good reason to appreciate, as indeed I do, the very great value in having my noble friend the Leader of the House with an office in the Department of the Environment. To have had his tremendous interest, his great support, his dynamic personality helping to get this Bill through has been an experience that has been heartwarming and, to me, very encouraging. I wish to thank all the individual Members of your Lordships' House who have played any part in the deliberations, but I would be bound to leave somebody out and should not wish

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to make what might appear to be invidious comparisons.
We have been able to accept a number of Amendments which have improved the Bill. As has already been indicated, the Bill leaves this House in better shape than when it arrived. We are still conscious of the fact that our task was made easier by the consideration that was given to its predecessor. Finally, may I declare that we have here a piece of legislation which, when on the Statute Book, should do much to improve the face of this country and the lives of its people. I believe that over a period of time we shall get from local authorities the co-operation and good will to make it an Act that will be regarded as a charter of the first importance in the history of this country.
Moved, That the Bill do now pass.—(Lord Garnsworthy.)
LORD CRAIGTON: My Lords, I rise for just two minutes to thank noble Lords on both Front Benches for the help they have given me over this Bill and to ask the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, to convey those thanks to the officials whom he knows have given me so much help. I speak not only on behalf of myself but on behalf of COENCO, the Committee for Environmental Conservation, which is the umbrella organisation for the majority of voluntary conservation organisations. One of these organisations is represented by the noble Baroness, Lady White, who sits with great distinction on our Committee. COENCO welcomed the original Bill. Under my noble friend it was improved, not as much as some of us would have liked, but as the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, said, it was improved a great deal more by the Government Front Bench. This is just the sort of measure that conservationists hoped for. It is not a spectacular gain; it is just workable improvements to the law, improvements that give expression to the growing realisation of the public that we must protect by every possible means the environment in which we live. We do not expect, in conservation, to win every battle. The battle is nearly always the same; it is a battle between meeting to-day's urgent needs and whether that justifies to-morrow's consequential results. For us this has been a Bill of highly successful skirmishes. We are very grateful and we hope that we may win a few more in another place.
LORD MERRIVALE: My Lords, I wish briefly to pay tribute to the co-operative attitude of the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, and the Lord Privy Seal, and pay tribute also to the equally co-operative attitude of those who advised them. I also thank the two Ministers for their courtesy and tolerance and for their acceptance of a number of Amendments, either in principle or in fact. During the course of the passage of the Bill I was speaking as my noble friend Lord Courtown in endeavouring to represent the point of view of industry and I am grateful that Her Majesty's Government had numerous consultations with the C.B.I. in this period of time. Due to those consultations, I think a number of assurances were given by the Ministers which were gratefully received by industry and, in particular, the C.B.I. With those few words I wish this Bill a speedy passage.
On Question, Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.

CEREAL HARVESTS
7.0 p.m.
THE EARL OF ONSLOW THE EARL OF ONSLOW rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have any information on the prospects of the next North American, Russian, Indian, Chinese and Australian cereal harvests. The noble Earl said: My Lords, I make no apology for rising yet again to talk upon food, a subject which is more important than any other. The present circumstances appear to me, and I believe to all interested observers, to be perilously close to catastrophic. According to the Economist of April 20 last, this year's harvest will be the most important in modern times. If there is not a bumper harvest, not just in Europe and not just in the United States of America and Canada but all over the world, there is near certainty of famine in the poorer countries, and the hopes that we in the rest of the world all have of reducing inflation will be reduced to near mirages. When he comes to reply, perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, will give us an estimate of the increase in world demand over last year.
The plains of North America produce, I believe, 60 per cent. of the world's grain. Have Her Majesty's Government detailed forecasts of the prospects

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there? The Americans, oddly enough I believe, have a lack of fertiliser manufacturing capacity to provide the fertiliser required for the extra 40 million acres which are being re-sown, and which are known as "the land bank". Have they the storage and drying capacity? A few years ago there was crisis, to a certain extent, in the Kansas wheatfields; they could not dry the wheat because the oil was not available. Has this problem been resolved? If Russia has to import American grain on the scale that she did a few years ago, is it certain that the Russians will have to pay the proper price for it and not, as I believe and according to the Sunday Times last week, that the Americans will be subsidising the Russian Government to the tune of 120 million dollars (I think that is the right figure), when all that will happen is that England, Europe, Japan and other places have to pay even higher prices than would have been necessary in the first place? What are the prospects for the spring wheat harvests in Siberia? It has been reported that they are a month behind in their sowing, and that town-dwellers are being urged and are drafted to help in these agricultural communities. Have the prospects for winter wheat areas of Western Russia, European Russia, been good? Did the snows come at the right time and leave at the right time? All these pieces of information go to make up the general picture of next year's grain harvest. Has the Russian capacity to harvest, to store and to move the grain advanced in the last two years from its state of total mujik incompetence, as I believe was the case?
What has been the effect on the Indian grain prospects of the astronomical rise in fertiliser prices and oil prices? The miracle new wheats require massive doses of fertiliser, and they require the proper watering. Has the increase in fertiliser prices denied them that fertiliser? Has the increase in oil prices meant that the irrigation pumps have not been working to full capacity because the poor peasants have not been able to afford to buy the oil? Is it true, as is reputed, that India's wheat harvest will be down by 7 million tons? And that, my Lords, I venture to compare with the total United Kingdom wheat harvest of 4,100,000 tons. If
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these, questions can honestly be answered in an optimistic way, then possibly the future does not hold so much gloom. If not, then Mr. Peart's words to the Financial Times Conference on World Food, expressing concern about the future, saying that over the next few years he feared there would not be enough food to go round—and, of course, that means that cheap food has gone for ever—will become only too true.
My Lords, grain is the foundation of all food, bread or meat. The Common Agricultural Policy last year—and I think this has been insufficiently realised—reduced the cost of grain in this country because millers and compounders could obtain E.E.C. grain, mostly from France, at about £70 a ton, as opposed to having to buy U.S. grain at £110 a ton. This helped make the losses now being suffered by the pig, beef and poultry producers disastrous but not catastrophic. In view of these factors, I hope we can stop any further drift towards acrimonious Party politics whenever the subject of agriculture is discussed. Let us remind ourselves that we in the agriculture industry remember the 1947 Act as a very good Act; but now, I regret to say, Her Majesty's Ministers in the present Administration are not living up to that high standard. Will the Minister realise the crisis which is upon the producers of meat, and that, with this crisis, it is in the consumers' interest as well as in the producers' interest that we should have a good product at a realistic and steady price?
Will the Minister urge upon his Cabinet and Government colleagues the need to introduce either a deficiency payments scheme or intervention, because if we do not have one or the other—and I do not think it really matters particularly which, except that the Treasury will probably be a little tight on a deficiency payments scheme—then, with the prospective rise in the cost of grain, if any of the gloomy forecasts which I have outlined to your Lordships come about, the meat industry in this country will come to a halt. There is already a very grave danger of a great deal too much beef going on to the market in the autumn, and of store cattle and prices going rock bottom. As night follows day, meat will be unobtainable soon after that, and it will be purchasable only by the very rich because of that acute

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shortage. I am sure that it is not the intention of an egalitarianly-minded Government to allow only the rich that privilege, and in the process to bankrupt several useful, worthy, upright and hard-working citizens. My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
7.8 p.m.
LORD HALE: My Lords, the noble Earl has spoken with very great knowledge and brevity. Indeed, he rather disappointed me in that, to try to emulate his example, I shall have to cut out all my best bits and concentrate on a series of figures. But I appreciate what he says. I can assure him that I happen to know the present Prime Minister, and I recall the part he took in these matters. When he was President of the Board of Trade he was very largely responsible, on this side, for the International Wheat Agreement. Then, people who ask what he was doing after his resignation in 1951 do not know (because he is not really given to personal boasting) that he was engaged with us in working on War on Want and for years in contributing by far the most gifted brain to the labours of a committee that sat downstairs. I admit that we were then working almost in a state of euphoria.
I admit that there were rosier visions that did not mature. I admit that in some of the early experiments money was lost—though not on the Concorde scale—and experience was gained. But the noble Earl will recall that when the First World War started (I am sure that his vast knowledge of history will include a little of recent history) the State of Montana was growing virtually no wheat at all. The price of wheat went up in America to 2·75 dollars a bushel and Montana became, in the almost lyrical words of John Gunther who threw over it, "a massive coloured palette of every form of the brighter colours, flowing with wheat". Two years later the price fell to 1·05 dollars per bushel and the first step had been taken to world recession, world deflation and world disaster.
Things were very different immediately after the last war and we owe that to Harry Truman who showed an astonishing vision. I think wheat then varied from 1·35 to 1·85 dollars. It was generally accepted that 1·65 dollars was the kind of
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price per bushel that would make almost a wheat bonanza. The Labour Government negotiated the International Wheat Agreement. The headquarters were to be in London, but it was not a mighty effort when it started; very few of these things are. It was a very unfortunate decision for the world when the next Government decided that Britain would not sign the agreement under the new Government. That was one of the turning points. There was another turning point when one of the most distinguished Members who sat in this House in our day, Sir John Boyd-Orr (as he then was), President of the World Food Organisation, propounded his scheme for a World Food Board and in that case the Labour Government entered the situation. It was to be financed in dollars and we did not have the dollars. I feel that an opportunity was missed and I am quite sure that we are all to blame.
It is a strange matter that in those euphoric years when food development plans were going on all over the world, many with great success (and the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie-Calder, has written about many of them); when even religious inhibitions—the toughest of all—were being overcome, there suddenly grew up an argument which was important and seriotts—the population argument. It was said, "You will never overtake. People are breeding like rabbits all over the place. In China the population is increasing almost beyond belief and no world food organisation will ever be able to cope with that". I shall skip a great deal because I want to come to the Western States of America, and perhaps I may add a little reassuring note to the noble Earl's justified apprehensions about the world position generally and the E.E.C. in particular.
On July 5, 1972, according to the Sunday Times, the United States received a private communication about the almost disastrous failure of the Russian wheat crop. That communication was classified highly secret. It may seem surprising that the Reds did not want the Reds to know what was happening to the Reds. But the Sunday Times gives the more plausible explanation that, had the facts been revealed, world food prices would have risen astronomically and disastrously. As an innocent, that was something of a surprise to me, but it

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appears to be an accepted fact of capitalist economy that if there is a shortage you exploit it; that if people need food you demand money they do not possess; and that if in London people need housing, you buy them up and float them as a company and then invest the money in the Cayman Islands. Apparently this theory—which has been accepted so far as I know in private enterprise countries as one of the laws of the Medes and Persians, or as one of the economic laws handed down by some economic god from Mount Sinai and which is called the law of supply and demand—must operate.
It was interesting, therefore, that the Russians should have an exercise in private enterprise methods in America. The Russians arrived in the United States on the same day. They began to negotiate the purchase of wheat almost immediately. Each private enterprise company in America with which they were dealing checked that the Government support price would be preserved without disclosing the nature of their contracts or the nature of their sales and the fact that they were in increasingly astronomical proportions. I think the Russians were in America on that visit for a matter of less than three weeks. They negotiated a loan of 700 million dollars with the United States Administration on terms. They negotiated that after they had already placed some contracts and they then collected contracts for something like 10 million tons of wheat grain, partly to be financed out of the money lent to them by the United States Treasury, partly by their own reserves of gold and, of course, as the noble Earl has said, by the amount—my figure I think was 130 million dollars—which was actually contributed by the United States Treasury in support prices over the price of 1·63 dollars a bushel. It actually rose 47 cents a bushel in support prices before the United States Treasury called a halt and said, "We are not prepared to go bust over this". A still more remarkable fact was that the Russians were back again in a fortnight and buying more, and when the private enterprise competitive salesmen in America realised they had oversold the American supplies, and telephoned Canada, they found that the Russians had quietly been there first and got at least a million tons from Canada also.
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It was an interesting but very expensive and costly experiment to the world.
But much more important than the diseases of anchovies and matters like that, to which the present Leader of the Opposition referred in talking about his difficulties, they bought a million tons of soya beans, too. The present Leader of the Opposition forgot to mention that quite independently of that, on one occasion on a single commodity ex- change, soya beans doubled their price within 36 hours on rumours of a shortage. But we still voted at UNCTAD against measures for the control of commodity exchanges. I did not know about these matters and that people sold or bought cocoa they had not got, not because they might want cocoa in the future—they had plenty—but because they anticipated a profit out of a world shortage and a world tragedy.
The effect of this in the Western States of America has been quite remarkable. At the time the Russians were there, there were 61 million acres of good American agricultural land—good quality land—lying fallow. Within a very few months they were being replanted. In the States of Washington and Oregon, near Seattle and so on, there were vast areas of scrub and of pure sand, but since the Russian visit they have also begun to irrigate under new systems at least 110 million acres so far, with up to another 50 million acres to follow. These are being irrigated by vast revolving irrigators which draw their water from the Columbia River—irrigating machines running on rubber tyres a quarter of a mile in length and 10 feet high, continually revolving by means of electric motors. They provide a "rainfall of 60 inches per year, including fertilisers—because this is virtually desert sand. It has no nutriment in it—all the nutriment is being applied—and they are showing at the moment immense new production of wheat, which is increasing the estimate of next year's first crop by about 27 per cent. over what was a record crop last year. In addition, there is anticipation of substantial improvements in the later crops and in other forms of food production.
Therefore, something has taken place and it may be that now, in the face of this example, we can re-think our policy towards competitive enterprise, towards gambling in food and on the commodity

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markets. Perhaps we can come back to our old euphoric dreams of making the Kalahari Desert flower—though I remember Shekede Khama saying that there were some difficulties in ranching in Bechuanaland and that one should really think of the climate before starting things like that. Certainly, no expert now denies that world food production could be very rapidly increased.
I made what may have seemed to be a rather discourteous quotation about China and I should like to just go back and mop that up. I went to Peking after this. I did not actually get to the Yangtse Valley, which was a development so extensive that the figures dwarf the imagination. But again I go back to the Sunday Times—it was about the same issue—when they talked about the Chinese economy and how they dealt with their vast population. They are feeding themselves very comfortably and are producing about 88 per cent. of their total consumption. They are not at the moment greatly worried about the export trade: Britain is much more anxious for Chinese trade. They have oil reserves which are said by experts to be almost comparable to the whole reserves of the Middle East. During my brief visit to Peking, one could see a prosperous-looking town with happy people and with little girls, whose feet in earlier times would have been hound throughout their lives, cycling happily round the town and some signs of hope and prosperity.
It may be that we have to reconsider our system and learn a great deal about China. I believe that we can help to establish some striking changes there. All this does not deal, I know, with the noble Earl's perfectly justified warnings and apprehensions. Some of them are very much here. But I believe that when the present Government get over their teething troubles and perhaps move into full legislative power and authority, they will be the first to wish to make what contribution is possible for this comparatively small country to achieve the sort of conception we have been talking about this evening.
7.25 p.m.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, there may not be many of your Lordships here this evening, but those of us who are here must have been quite fascinated by the speech which the noble Lord, Lord
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Hale, has just made. I found it immensely impressive, if I may say so with respect. Not the least impressive thing about it was that he carried all the facts and figures in his head, whether they were in dollars and cents or bushels. I understood him to say at one point, "I did not know these things." All I can say to the noble Lord is that he certainly knows them now, and a very impressive array of knowledge it was.
I believe that the Unstarred Question of my noble friend is a very important and pertinent one. I should declare an interest, because I am a farmer and also a consumer. But the Question raised by my noble friend goes far deeper than agricultural home consumption, although we are bound to regard that as a very important part. Cereal products, as my noble friend said, are the basis of all feed and of all food, and part of the huge inflation with which we have recently been inundated—not only in this country, but in the rest of the world—has been due to a world shortage of cereals and the poor harvests, to which the noble Lord, Lord Hale, referred, both in China and Russia. As a result of this, bullock fatteners and pig fatteners in this country are losing money in a big way, because of the high cost of feeding. If they lose money, as my noble friend said, they will then stop producing. Once that happens, you have a shortage of food; and all this depends upon the availability and price of world food.
Anyone who indulges in prediction is really indulging in speculation, because one cannot predict with any degree of accuracy what a harvest will be. There are too many unknown factors, such as the weather and pesticides; too many things can happen to crops until they are actually in the garner. But I have tried to do a little ferreting around to find out some facts, and I shall be interested to know what the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, says when he comes to reply. I do not profess to be an expert on the world supply of feeding stuffs, but the information I have gathered certainly gives me cause for concern. As I understand it, there is only about three weeks' supply of grain around the world in total—and that is pretty slender. In America, the figure is about ten days' supply. What they call "the carry-over stock" is the lowest for 22 years. It is

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estimated that on July 1—because that is the day from which the Americans take their figures—it will be about 170 million bushels. That does not take account of the wheat which is at present being harvested. They reckon that by July 1 there will be about 600 million bushels in all, which includes the carryover stock.
Of course, there have been two big developments. First, there is the shortage of oil, to which my noble friend referred, which has resulted throughout the world not only in a lack of diesel fuel physically to fuel the tractors (and the expense of that), but also in a lack of nitrogenous fertilisers which come from petroleum products. Therefore the cost of both diesel fuel and fertilisers has gone up. This has particularly hit the developing countries. I understand that the Indian High Commission expects this year a crop of only 21 million tons, as opposed to 30 million tons. I apologise if I confuse "tons" and "bushels", but I suppose if anyone were keen on mathematics they could transpose the two figures. I thought it would be more suitable to use the figures that the countries themselves deal in.
Many of the developing countries use semi-dwarf varieties of crops, both cereals and rice. The advantage of these varieties is that they produce about twice as much yield as the conventional variety. I remember being told in Indonesia that a new variety of rice was a very prolific producer. The only trouble was the inhabitants did not like it, because it had no taste. That is a familiar argument that we hear about food in this country to-day. The fact is that these new varieties produce about twice as much, but they require a lot of fertiliser and water. If they do not get these, they do less well than the conventional varieties. Because of the oil shortage, there is a real shortage of fertiliser to put on these varieties.
The market in Russia really determines the market in the world. As I understand it, there are three cereal growing areas in Russia; the European area, the area in West Siberia, and the area in Kazakhstan. My understanding is the cereals grown in the European area, which are the Winter wheat varieties, have done quite well and are looking well
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Those in the other two areas, West Siberia and Kazakhstan, are areas where spring wheat is grown. This is giving cause for concern, because it has been a very late spring and the crops have not been put in. As my noble friend rightly said, people have been drafted from the towns to try to put in these crops. Because it is so late, it is necessary to put in drought-resisting varieties in case there is a drought. One of the troubles with the drought-resisting varieties is that they produce less than the conventional variety. On the face of it, wheat prospects from those two areas of Russia do not look too good and I understand that the next two months are critical. Russia aims at about 185 million tons of grain, whereas last year it was about 212 million tons, so that is a considerable drop. We do not know what they have in store, but one assumes it is not too much.
In America the signs appear to be more hopeful. As at May 1, the winter wheat crop is, by volume, estimated to be about 27 per cent. greater than last year. They have brought more land from the land bank into production. Two years ago there were 60 million acres in the land bank out of production. This is staggering when one thinks that that is the whole of the size of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland put together. Of those 60 million acres a year ago, they have brought 27 million back into production. This year they have brought back a further 18 to 20 million acres, so in all they have brought back about 47 million acres in two years. It is sometimes assumed that this is bad scrub land; this is not so. This is land on which lucerne has been grown, and it is reasonable and suitable land. It may be asked whether this increase of wheat acreage has been at the expense of maize or soya, and whether the high price of wheat has encouraged farmers to grow wheat instead. I am assured that this is not so and only about 3 million acres less of soya were planted this year than last year. The Americans expect a record maize crop of 6,600 million bushels, compared with 5,700 million bushels of maize last year.
But how much of this will go on to the market? How much will go into store to replace that which it has been necessary to take out over the past few

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years? How much of that crop will it be prudent to keep as reserves? The situation in Canada is one that may give cause for concern. As I understand it, they have had a long winter there with a lot of snow, and there has recently been a lot of water as a result of the snow melting. This has meant that they have not been able to plant the wheat crop. This is a very serious situation. If the weather gets right in the course of the next week or ten days, it is possible for a large amount of wheat to be put in. But, again, it is late and it is anyone's guess whether this will produce as good a harvest as it should have done.
The Argentine used to export wheat; now it is a net importer. If we in this country are to plan, and if the Government are to plan, we must have some idea of the world situation. It will be interesting to hear what the noble Lo Lord Strabolgi, says. We have had unprecedented increases in the price of wheat in this country over the past three or four years. Last year the price of wheat went up to about £69 a ton; now it is down to £55 a ton. But Canadian hard wheat went up to £115 a ton. We have to import all our hard wheat. In the olden days we used to have a mix of 70 per cent. hard wheat with 30 per cent. soft wheat. Now this has been reduced to approximately 50 per cent. of each. We import all our hard wheat, and we also have to import a lot of soft wheat. At least one of the advantages of being Members of the European Community is that we have been able to import soft wheat from France in the course of the past 12 months, which if we had not been members we should not have been able to do because, to start with, it would have carried a tariff of £20 a ton, so we should have been paying about £80 as opposed to £60 a ton for imports. The Community later decided to ban all exports, and had we not been in the Community we should have been denied the supply of wheat from France.
I understand that this year India will have to pay the going rate for wheat, and any wheat it has will not be supplied in the form of aid. How much will this affect the supply and demand? I find these facts frightening. The noble Lord, Lord Hale, was optimistic. I feel that things do not usually turn out so badly as one expects. But so far as this country is concerned, the only conclusion I can
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draw is that no longer is there any cheap food; no longer will there be cheap food in the world. There used to be, and we could take advantage of it, but this will not happen in the future. The food is not there. The demand is greater for human consumption and for animal feed.
I cannot help feeling—and I do not want to be partisan over this—that the Government are making a mistake when they try to subsidise food in order to make it cheap, because that is not the answer. It is rather like King Canute trying to prevent the waves from coming in. I believe that it would have been far better to try to help those who are unable to fend for themselves, and those who are poorly-off, rather than give an overall blanket subsidy of £52 million as has been done in the case of bread. What any Government must do is to increase the production of both wheat and meat. This is the vital task, and the frightening fact is that if we see a substantial lowering in the price of wheat the arable farmers in this country will be in a mess. If, on the other hand, the price of wheat goes up, as it well may, then the bad state in which the pig and beef producers in this country are now finding themselves will continue and will get worse.
This is the real dilemma, and I beg the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, to take back this message to his right honourable friend. Let us increase our output from agriculture. Let us encourage the production of both cereals and meat, for by doing that not only will we help the world situation but we will also help our own situation. I do not think that the two are incompatible. I hope that that will be the message which the noble Lord will give to his right honourable friend.
7.41 p.m.
EARL BATHURST: My Lords, I suppose I should declare an interest in these times being a cereal farmer and with dairy and beef cattle. I very much regret that I was not able to notify the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, on the technical point that I should like to put before your Lordships. I believe, and I hope your Lordships will agree, that it may be even more relevant now than I thought it was when, perchance, yesterday morning I noticed that my noble friend Lord Onslow had down this interesting Question; and it was only last night that I

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knew I should be able to attend your Lordships' House this afternoon.
My Lords, it sounds awful to say so, but some 17 years ago when the noble Lord, the late Lord Boyd-Orr, was in his heyday at F.A.O., I had the pleasure of being taken round the F.A.O. buildings in New York and meeting the most charming and delightful Italian lady. The noble Lord is nodding his head; perhaps he knows this Italian lady even better than I do after my very short acquaintance with her. She was, I understand, the Director General of all the Cereal Departments of F.A.O. Admittedly, she spoke with a slightly different accent and in different tones, but in almost the same words as my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Hale, opposite used in suggesting that there would be a famine in the world. That was indeed the theme of the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Orr, in all his dealings. I could not understand this and I begged this lady to put me right. Why, if there was to be a famine at that time, was the price of barley sliding down and down in this country, and I think in Europe and elsewhere, while with modern advances the yields were going up and up? I am afraid I had no answer from her on that; but it was certainly a most interesting and delightful visit.
My Lords, the time has come, the clock has moved on, and the prognostications of the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Orr, look, for the time being at any rate, as though they are coming right. We have heard of these questions to which an answer is being sought from the noble Lord who will be replying, but I wonder whether most of those answers could not be found from agricultural attaches. I wonder what their orders are when they are going about their business in various countries. Are they not supposed to find out exactly this type of information that the noble Earl is seeking? I believe that they probably do find it and can find it, but that it is difficult to collate it. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, will be able to give us some of that information.
I suppose we ought to have known that the Russian harvest had failed. The Americans were informed apparently, according to the book that is being serialised in the Sunday Times. What
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they did with that information is their business. But did we know that the Russian crop had failed? Did we know that the Chinese crop recently had failed? I understand the Chinese were buying from Canada, and that that started the shortage the year before the Russian failure. But the noble Lord is a great expert and knows a great deal more than I do. I understand they had a very considerable failure.
The Green Revolution has been referred to. My understanding of that—and the noble Lord will know far more than I about it—is that new breeds of rice are a flop, and they are possibly of more consequence than the wheat harvest that we are talking about. Canada, we understood, suffered last year the depredations of a rust disease—true or false? I have a friend who lives in the backwoods, somewhere out in Calgary, and this is what he told another friend of mine—true or false? I understand that the American soya bean crop suffered because of a flood. Have they been able to correct the depredations of their flood? What has been the effect of the hurricanes in the soya bean area immediately after the crippling floods of last year? What of Australia, where there are hundreds of thousands, possibly even millions, of acres of corn growing land and grassland? What are all the effects of this? I should have thought that agricultural attaches and trade attaches could find out considerably more information than is able to be collated and put forward to the ordinary farmer in this country and the rest of the world.
My point is that it is not so much these particular questions to which I believe there may be a solution but what is happening when the crop is growing. My understanding is that there is now a process of infra-red photography which can be worked from satellites. There was a fascinating article about it in, I think, the Daily Telegraph Supplement showing pictures taken by infra-red of this country. The caption said, though I must admit I could not recognise it, that one could see the source of the Thames, which is only two or three miles from my own home. I have no doubt that with proper interpretation and a magnifying glass that would have been perfectly clear. I understand that the purpose of this infra-red photography is to take photographs by heat given off by green crops

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and it is possible to tell first of all whether that green crop is down or not. We have heard of the shortage of diesel oil. How many acres short will we be of growing crops because of the shortage of diesel oil for crop spraying and so forth? Once the crop is there one can tell from photography whether it is growing, and one can also tell whether that crop is diseased. I believe this can be done on a nation-wide basis, or, if one wishes, locally over one's own field.
I have already told the noble Lord who is to reply that I do not expect an answer, but I should like to ask whether Her Majesty's Government are taking every advantage of the processes that are now available. If the answer is, "Yes", my next question is, "How can this information be put out?" I think the noble Lord, Lord Hale, would perhaps share my doubts about this device. We have "barley barons" here in the House. But I do not think the "jet set in grain merchants in the United States would be the right people to put out such information. Should it be the United Nations, F.A.O.? Should it come through the Ministry of Agriculture in Her Majesty's Government, whose statistics and figures are not only universally trusted in this country but are probably the most accurate in the world? Who will provide satellite pictures? Are they already being provided in America? Where do they go? Can we buy them? Can any noble Lord here buy one of these photographs or take out a subscription? Possibly the Russians are already doing it and I suspect they are probably doing it (if they are) very much better than either ourselves or the Americans, knowing the advanced state of their photography. But if this can be done, as I believe it can be, unless the noble Lord tells me otherwise, how can it be done? And if a method can be devised whereby the information can be got, and it is accurate, how can it be disseminated and put forward in a way that all will trust and, above all, in time to enable one to make marketing arrangements?
I was most interested in what the noble Lord, Lord Hale, said about these irrigation projects. Perhaps he also saw the fascinating film on television concerning the Colorado River. There, as I understand it, salt is being put on to the land and as much land is being put out of
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production as is coming into production with new irrigation projects. True or false? I should think that if infra-red photography can be used it would be of immense assistance to the local people in such a scheme and also to the worldwide market in this vital staple diet of wheat and of rice. We must be grateful to my noble friend Lord Onslow for bringing up this subject at this late hour this evening.
7.52 p.m.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: My Lords, as I have not put my name down to speak I am going to delay the House for only about two minutes. It would be grossly unfair to do otherwise, in spite of the fact that I have prepared quite a lot of information which has come from the Food and Agriculture Organisation. There will be another time to use that information. But there are a couple of facts I should like to spike down in the two minutes. First, I want to thank the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, and the other noble Lords on the other side of the House who have spoken, because they speak from experience. I listened fascinated, too, to my noble friend Lord Hale, to whom I have listened for many years—and he always is fascinating.
As the Food and Agriculture Organisation say in their bulletin of this month, the great Powers of the future are not going to be those who have nuclear power; they will be those who have the food production to feed the people. This mighty problem of the parts of the world living within the revolution of awakening expectation is, in the next 10 years, going to grow because of an increase in population of 226 million people. This alone in the next 10 years relates to just one part of the world: Latin America, Asia and South-East Asia. Just to have an increase of that number, excluding the mass of China, is a mighty problem. Mankind is forgetting. Like Antaeus, human beings' strength comes when they keep their feet on the ground. Our tendency in the technological age is somehow or other to drive people more and more away from the natural sources of their strength and their vitality; namely, the soil. This is a sad fact that is happening. As most noble Lords who have visited South-East Asia and the Far East will know, we see this drift to the towns. We are no

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longer sailing in a ship of abundance. No longer is the world a cornucopia. We must learn the art of producing.
Before I sit down (I see from the clock that my two minutes is up), I want to pay a tribute to Lord Boyd-Orr, with whom I travelled a number of times, because this man had vision. I hope that the British Government, whatever their complexion, will more and more support the Food and Agriculture Organisation. As Earl Butz, the Minister of Agriculture for the United States, said only the week before last, both Russia and China demanded cereals. Russia had the greatest dry period she had had for a hundred years. But he gave balance to this. He said: We exported to Russia a thousand million dollars' worth of grain, but that was only a fifth of the increased grain that we had sent to other parts of the world, including Russia.
My Lords, the lesson from the short but valuable debate we have had to-day is that this House needs another debate, or two or three debates, to discuss in depth the problem confronting mankind: how to feed the people of the future at prices that mankind can afford.
7.55 p.m.
LORD STRABOLGI: My Lords, as my noble friend Lord Davies of Leek has said, this has been a short but most valuable debate. I am sure we are grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, for putting down his Question. The Question asks Her Majesty's Government whether they have any information on the prospects of the next North American, Russian, Indian, Chinese and Australian cereal harvests. Of course, arising out of that, the debate, as debates in your Lordships' House are wont to do, has ranged far and wide, but it is none the worse for that. We are grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Onslow. He asked me a great many questions. In fact, at one time there was a question in almost every sentence. I will do my best to answer them and also to answer questions asked by other noble Lords.
As noble Lords know, many of the recent difficulties have come about through the crop failure in the U.S.S.R. in 1972 through drought and the fact that the U.S.S.R. had to buy from the
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United States of America. My noble friend Lord Hale—I am sure we all listened to his speech with the greatest interest—will not expect me to comment on the details of the negotiations by which the Soviet Union purchased very large quantities of wheat and feedgrains from North America following the failure of this crop. But it is certainly an instructive story, and I think we can all draw from this the lesson of how important it is to achieve greater stability in world cereal supplies.
The noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, also raised a number of points. He was absolutely right to point to the need for caution in predicting the outcome of harvests, since so much can intervene in the way of weather, disease problems, et cetera, between the forecast and the date the crop is gathered in. But when we know how much grain has been sown we have some indication of the likely outcome given average climatic conditions and yields. With this cautionary comment, therefore, I will offer the information available to me and I hope will answer a good many of the points raised by the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, and other noble Lords.
While Her Majesty's Government have no direct access to information about the harvests in the countries mentioned by the noble Earl, we co-operate closely with the International Wheat Council and with the F.A.O., O.E.C.D. and other international bodies. From these sources, and also from the agricultural attaches accredited to our various embassies overseas mentioned by the noble Earl, Lord Bathurst, we obtain information and forecasts that are of great value in evaluating grain prospects. The latest report published by the International Wheat Council indicates that prospects generally for the coming harvest in the Northern Hemisphere are fairly good. In the Southern Hemisphere good crops were harvested at the turn of the year and conditions for sowing the next crop are reported to be generally favourable. As for coarse grains, F.A.O. sources report that early production prospects are reasonably promising in the Northern Hemisphere, taking into account the areas sown, or intended to be sown, and the generally good weather conditions in developed countries. The outlook in a number of developing countries is less favourable

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because of drought. The fertiliser shortages are clouding production prospects in some countries, both developed and developing.
Reports indicate that in the United States adverse weather earlier caused some damage to the hard winter wheat crop, but this has been offset by improved moisture conditions in most of the early harvesting regions. But ideal moisture and grain conditions have given excellent prospects for soft wheats. Based on planting intentions, and given normal weather, feed grain production in the United States is expected to be 14 per cent. more than in 1973.
The noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, mentioned the question of carry-over stocks and referred to the low level of the stocks in North America at the end of this season. While it is true that stocks are lower than before, grain from the new crop in the Southern States will soon be coming forward and the expectations are that in the course of the next season it will be possible to achieve some significant rebuilding of stocks.
My Lords, turning to Canada, which was mentioned by the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, spring is late this year in the prairie provinces as your Lordships will know, and heavy winter snows have thawed very quickly, causing floods and saturating the soil. As a result, the land is too wet to work and seeding operations will in general be late. Estimates of planting intentions show that the wheat acreage should be 10 per cent. up compared with last year. It is expected that the feed grain area will not be expanded.
The noble Earl also asked about the U.S.S.R. and 'this was also mentioned by the noble Earl, Earl Ferrers. The latest reports indicate that the condition of winter crops in most parts of European Russia, which was one of the areas mentioned by the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, is reasonably good. Spring sowings have been delayed by cold weather in April but now seem to be on the way to completion. In the two important areas of Kazakhstan and Western Siberia—the other two areas mentioned by the noble Earl—in which spring-sown crops predominate, planting began in mid-May, as is quite usual. It is too early yet to prediot how the crop will develop. Much
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will depend on rainfall between now and harvest time.
Next, my Lords, we must look to India, which was referred to specifically by the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, with understandable concern. Here, the monsoon rains were abundant, but there was less winter rainfall than usual and the spring harvested crops were affected. At present, wheat production is forecast at some 7 to 9 million tons below the 'target of 30 million tons.
My noble friend Lord Hale gave us a very interesting account of his visit to China, of which he speaks from first-hand knowledge. He asked me about the situation there. I regret that we have little information about the crop situation, but there are reports that prospects for the 1974 harvest look reasonably good at the moment. The wheat harvest recently taken in Australia, although late, was a bumper one. Ground preparation for the next one has been made difficult in the South-East by lack of rain, but in other areas excellent rains have fallen, giving rise to hopes of another good harvest. Overall, my Lords, there are signs of a significant improvement in the world supplies of wheat in the 1974–75 season and it should therefore be possible to replenish some of the stocks that have been seriously depleted over the last few seasons. The most likely prospect for coarse grains appears to be one of a close balance between world supply and demand, although some easing and replenishment of stocks may be achieved.
My Lords, that is the general picture. The noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, asked me particularly about French wheat and whether it is true that the United Kingdom can buy this at about £20 a ton cheaper than from elsewhere. Earlier this year, when world prices for cereals were above the Community's threshold prices, a levy was imposed on exports of cereals from the Community. By virtue of membership of the Community, the United Kingdom was not liable to pay these levies on imports from other Member States. Now that world prices have fallen below the E.E.C. threshold prices, export levies are no longer being applied, however.
The noble Earl also mentioned the question of subsidies. This is really outside the scope of the Question but the noble Earl was kind enough to tell me

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in advance that he proposed to raise this matter. I think he also made the point that the Government should be encouraging the production of cereals and livestock rather than subsidising the end product—that is, food. I think the noble Lord may underestimate the importance of consumer subsidies in the Government's economic strategy. There is no point in producing food at prices which people cannot afford, and farmers have just as strong an interest as the rest of us in moderating the pace of inflation. But there is a vital need to help and encourage the agriculture industry to expand food production. The measures which the Government have introduced since taking Office have demonstrated our determination to do just this. However, my right honourable friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has now started discussions with the interests concerned on the industry's long-term prospects.
My Lords, I was also asked about price trends. We have seen wheat prices fall substantially from their peak at the beginning of the year, but the benefit will take some time to work through to the final product because of forward buying at the higher rates. The noble Earl, Lord Onslow, asked about animal feeding stuffs. We are aware of the difficulties currently facing livestock producers be-because of the high cost of feeding stuffs and the Government are keeping the needs of the industry under careful review, Recently, we have seen appreciable falls in protein prices, and cereal prices are also lower than earlier this year. I hope that this is a sign that better things are to come. The compounders have already announced price reductions of £2 to £3 a ton and have expressed optimism that there will be substantial falls before the end of the year.
With regard to proteins, about which I was also asked, I understand that the prospects for the 1973–74 soya harvest are very favourable, and that Peru has now started fishing so that world supplies of fish meal should increase. There is also the question of wheat prices. Over recent weeks, wheat prices both imported and home-grown have fallen, I am glad to say, from their peak in last January and February. For example, home-grown soft milling wheat, which in January and
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February was £73 a ton, is now £62 a ton and Canadian Western Red Spring wheat, which was £118 a ton in the same period is now only £91 a ton. The 14 per cent. Dark Northern Springs which was £117 a ton is now only £80 a ton. These falls can be expected to result in reduced flour and bread production costs, but the effect will be delayed because users had to cover their forward requirements by buying when higher prices prevailed.
My Lords, I hope I have answered all the various questions which I was asked. The noble Earl, Lord Bathurst, asked me about infra-red photography. He was kind enough to let me know in advance that he was going to raise this matter and I thought it a very interesting point which he raised in his speech. I am sorry that I cannot answer the question of the noble Earl beyond saying that I think he did not expect me to do so. All I can say to him at the moment is that we think that this is an interesting suggestion, although we cannot give any very precise information about it. It is possible that because of the advances in technology such developments cannot be excluded, but we will certainly bear very much in mind what the noble Earl has said.
My Lords, I hope that I have answered most of the questions asked by noble Lords. As I say, I think we have had a most interesting and useful debate. If I have not covered anything that noble Lords have asked me, then I undertake to write to them about it in more detail.