Lords Sitting of 21 November 1974

Preamble
The House met at three of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Saint Albans.
The Earl of Donoughmore—Took the Oath.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR: LEAVE OF ABSENCE
3.7 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD ELWYN-JONES): My Lords, this may be an opportune moment, before the House proceeds to the principal business of the day, for me to acquaint your Lordships with the fact that I have been requested, with the Queen's approval, to attend next Tuesday, November 26, as the representative of Her Majesty's Government, a Conference of Ministers of Justice from the countries of the European Economic Community in Brussels. I hope that your Lordships will agree to grant me leave of absence for that day.

LAW OF THE SEA
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the first Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government to report on the conclusions of the Law of the Sea Conference held at Caracas in August and particularly on the United Kingdom proposals on the functions of the proposed International Seabed Authority.
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE, FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS): My Lords, the second session of the Conference made important progress towards a new convention, and we are hopeful of a successful outcome of the next session in Geneva in March, 1975. No final conclu-
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sions were reached in Caracas on our proposals on the proposed International Seabed Authority and on other issues, and these are being reviewed.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. May I ask him whether he is not a little too optimistic about the outcome of this Conference? Is it not a fact that no tangible results were gained, and that there was a very disturbing conflict between the views of the developed and developing nations? Is there not a great danger that the seabed may now be occupied by competitive multi-national companies, and is there not a great deal to be said from a Socialist point of view for the attitude of the developing nations, who asked that the International Seabed Authority should participate in any exploitation of the minerals under the sea?
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, certainly my noble friend eloquently describes the difficulties and dangers of this and any other international conference. However, at Caracas a definite momentum towards agreement in favour of a new convention was accomplished. Secondly, a good deal of work was done to prepare for the next, and probably vital, session which it has been decided to hold on March 17 in Geneva.
THE EARL OF LAUDERDALE: My Lords, would the noble Lord not agree, without assenting to some of the overtones of the supplementary question asked by the noble Lord on the other side of the House, that this subject is worthy of a more precise Answer than phrases like, "important progress" and, "No final conclusions were reached"? Could not the noble Lord go a little further and indicate the British Government's attitude, particularly in view of the critical problems which are already raising their heads between ourselves and France, Norway, Denmark, Iceland and Ireland?
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: Yes, certainly, my Lords. We have set out our objective as: to ensure that all countries, and perhaps especially developing countries, gain early access to the benefits of the resources of the international seabed area. And since the conclusion of the first phase of this Conference on August 29 we have been very actively engaged in consultations with a wide range of

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countries, including those which the noble Earl has mentioned.
LORD WYNNE-JONES: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that at the meeting of the North Atlantic Assembly which was held in London last week a resolution was passed on the issue of the control and exploitation of the seabed? So will my noble friend agree that the Government should pay particular attention to the request which will come from the North Atlantic Assembly, that really urgent consideration should be given to the authority of the international body to control the seabed?
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, that resolution, in its essence, is entirely in conformity with the views of Her Majesty's Government; and, I should imagine, of their predecessors, too. We are certainly in favour of an effective international authority. However, there are differences about the scope of its powers and the method of its proceeding. These are for negotiation between now and the opening of the second phase of the Conference in March. The resolution to which my noble friend has referred indeed indicates in most of its particulars the policy of Her Majesty's Government.
LORD AVEBURY: My Lords, would the noble Lord agree that in the four years which have elapsed since the United Nations General Assembly first passed a resolution on this subject the technology of exploiting the seabed has advanced considerably; that a number of companies, including that of Mr. Howard Hughes, are at the present time engaged in measures to extract minerals from the seabed, and that it will be extremely hard for an international authority, if one is ultimately set up, to rescind any rights which such companies have acquired de facto?
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: It may be hard, my Lords, but it should not be impossible. This is one of the important matters which the first session of the conference deputed to a special Working Party working on the existing situation, especially as it is developing, and also of course having regard to the 1958 Convention.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend this question? Was
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not the vital question of fishing in territorial waters debated at Caracas; why was the subject deferred, and what prospect is there of British interests being safeguarded?
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, it was indeed discussed in Caracas, and we have every hope that an effective and acceptable agreement upon fishing limits and fishing rights will be achieved. There is forming up an effective consensus on this point.
BARONESS WHITE: My Lords, would my noble friend suggest to the Leader of the House that, as there is widespread interest in this subject, it might be helpful to many of us in this House to have a debate before the Conference resumes in March?
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (LORD SHEPHERD): My Lords, may I respond, so that we may move to another Question? I will take note of what my noble friend has said, and will have a word with the Chief Whip to see whether a debate can be arranged.

ROAD CONDITIONS AND VEHICLE SAFETY
LORD DE CLIFFORD: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are aware of the danger caused in wet weather by the massive sheets of spray and mud thrown up by multi-wheeled vehicles travelling at high speeds both to following and approaching traffic and whether they have any proposals to reduce this danger.
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE OF THE ENVIRONMENT (BARONESS BIRK): My Lords, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Environment has commissioned a programme of research to find ways of reducing the hazard of spray thrown up by vehicles on wet roads.
LORD DE CLIFFORD: My Lords, while thanking the noble Baroness for that Answer, may I ask her whether she

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could convey to her right honourable friend the urgency of this matter? The weather which we are experiencing at the moment is, particularly on three-lane carriageways, quite disastrous at times. One sees clouds of spray and smoke flying around so that it is most important that this matter should be proceeded with. I ask the noble Baroness whether she will convey to her right honourable friend that this matter should be proceeded with at great speed?
BARONESS BIRK: Yes, my Lords, I will most certainly do so.
LORD POPPLEWELL: My Lords, would not my noble friend agree that this is a subject that has been frequently referred to over many years and that nothing has been done about it? Is she aware that we are pleased to hear that a Committee has been established to go into the matter, and could she say when that Committee had its first meeting and when she hopes that a Report will be available for the consideration of noble Lords?
BARONESS BIRK: My Lords, this is a programme of research, not a question of a specific committee. First, there is a programme of practical tests which are aimed at finding a mudguard design that will reduce spray. One must find a design which will allow adequate ventilation to the wheels and brakes. Secondly, experiments are being carried out to test a road surface which is both pervious and hard-wearing and will allow surface water to drain away rapidly, thus reducing the amount of spray. Thirdly, the Transport and Road Research Laboratory has a contract with Southampton University for research into the fundamental factors associated with spray formation. In reply to the second part of my noble friend's question, the research into the mudguard design is at a very early stage, the work on the pervious road surfaces has been going on for some time and we are hopeful that the Southampton University project will be completed in two years.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, while accepting the noble Baroness's assertion that the road surface drainage and construction are of vital importance, may I ask why the Government cannot bring in an Order—which
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would simplify matters for the time being—laying down that mudflaps are to be worn behind all wheels?
BARONESS BIRK: Because, my Lords, the wearing of mudflaps gives rise to many problems. As the noble Lord will be aware, this has been tried in Sweden and we are not satisfied with the results because of the effect on ventilation and also because mudflaps do not prevent the spray and mud being thrown sideways.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, I cannot understand how the question of ventilation comes into this.
BARONESS BIRK: Neither can I, my Lords, but this is what I am told.
BARONESS EMMET OF AMBERLEY: My Lords, is the Minister aware that I have for three years running asked this Question and that I gave up in discouragement? I am greatly encouraged by the Answer to-day, but is it not a fact that far greater progress has already been made on the Continent—where big lorries do not give nearly so much trouble as do ours here—and could not we learn something from them to hurry up our procedures?
BARONESS BIRK: My Lords, this is a very great problem because the roads, the tonnages and the conditions are different, but I am very well aware of the noble Baroness's past Questions. I can assure her that I did ask about this matter in discussing this Question and I pointed out that the House would require to feel that some action was being taken.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that there is one simple improvement which could be made to the multi-axled vehicle? Is she aware that the usual practice with these very large vehicles is to have mudguards on the front axle only and that the rear two or three axles have no mudguards? Is the noble Baroness aware that if all axles were required to have mudguards of any kind it would significantly reduce the spray? While accepting all the complications, may I ask her whether she would ask her advisers to consider introducing a regulation requiring mudguards on every axle?
BARONESS BIRK: I certainly will, my Lords.

EDUCATION OF DYSLEXIC CHILDREN
3.18 p.m.
BARONESS MASHAM OF ILTON: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper, and I should like to declare a personal interest in the matter.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what progress has been made in the provision of special educational treatment for children suffering from acute dyslexia since the passing of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCE (LORD CROWTHER-HUNT): My Lords, over the past four years there has been an increasing awareness of the needs of children suffering from severe reading difficulties. In 1972, the Department published a Report by the Advisory Committee on Handicapped Children which was called Children with Specific Reading Difficulties. That Report took the view that dyslexia was not a very meaningful term for educational purposes. The Committee believed that there was in fact a continuum spanning the whole range of reading abilities and that to focus attention on the dyslexic might be to the disadvantage of children with equally severe difficulties. They recommended an approach based on skilled remedial teaching to the problems of children suffering from reading backwardness of all kinds. In the last few years there have been significant increases in many areas in the numbers of remedial education centres and of remedial teachers in ordinary schools.
BARONESS MASHAM OF ILTON: My Lords, I thank the Minister for his encouraging reply. In view of his Answer to the Question, may I ask him whether he considers that Section 27 of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act ought to be updated? May I also ask him what training is given to students in teacher-training colleges in diagnosing the problems of children who have considerable reading difficulties? Is the noble Lord aware of the very severe frustration and unhappiness sometimes caused to
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bright children when their parents and teachers think they are stupid?
LORD CROWTHER-HUNT: My Lords, on the question of updating the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act, it may be a little early to think of doing that in these terms. My Department believed that it was important to let some time elapse after the publication of the Report of the Tizzard Committee which I have just described. The Report in fact gave specific guidance to local authorities on how the problems are best tackled, and it is the responsibility of local education authorities to do what they consider necessary in the light of this guidance.
My right honourable friend in another place is now considering whether to ask local education authorities for details of the provision that they have made for children who suffer from severe reading disabilities. In this connection, one has to bear in mind that unnecessary burdens should not be placed on local authorities at this particular time. Also, we have to bear in mind that the Bullock Committee on Reading and the Use of English have something to say about this in its forthcoming Report, which is likely to be published in the New Year.
Referring to the other part of the noble Baroness's question of what is done in training colleges, the content of training is a matter for the colleges and the area training organisations to which they belong; but courses of initial training normally include the study of language and reading as part of the curriculum of method studies, and also an introduction to the teaching of children with reading difficulties and the role of expert diagnostic service and advice. More specialised training is offered in some forty in-service courses of substantial length in colleges and universities, and a number of shorter courses are provided by local education authorities and other bodies. I hope that may satisfy the noble Baroness that we are treating this as a matter of urgency and are doing what we can.
LORD MAYBRAY-KING: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that children who suffer from this particular form of word blindness have been described as children who cannot see what other people say and who cannot see what other people write? Often

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they are very intelligent. But is the noble Lord aware that the key to the tackling of their problem and that of other children who suffer from severe reading disabilities is the earliest possible diagnosis, together with an increased number of highly specialised teachers?
LORD CROWTHER-HUNT: Yes, my Lords.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that one of the fundamental problems here is not caused by the stupidity of children but arises from listening with mother to television and seeing multiple images for about 10,000 hours before going to school?—so that you get an image-building mind instead of a word-building mind. Ultimately, reading does come to these children.
LORD CROWTHER-HUNT: My Lords, that is a most interesting observation and I have no doubt that the experts in this subject will take account of it.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, as I seem to see a new face every day on the Front Bench, would the noble Lord be kind enough to tell me who he is?
LORD ELTON: My Lords, arising out of the noble Lord's reply to the Question, is he aware that there appears to be no convention that the ATOs, which are the validating authorities for Certificates of Education, have an accepted standard or indeed any requirement that any teaching of reading of any sort, whether to children with difficulties or not, should be done? Is the noble Lord satisfied with this, and does he not consider that training should be required for all teachers not merely for teaching children who can read normally but also for diagnosing those who cannot and passing them on to those trained to deal with them?
LORD CROWTHER-HUNT: My Lords, with respect, I think that is a slightly different question. However, I will take note of what the noble Lord has said and hope to be in correspondence with him later.
BARONESS MASHAM OF ILTON: My Lords, may I just ask the noble Lord the Minister whether, as reading has been stressed to-day, he is aware that writing and arithmetic also may present problems?
LORD CROWTHER-HUNT: Yes, my Lords, I am aware of that.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, would it not be better to tell the harassed parents of these children, who are in a really depressed condition to-day. that progress in education is very difficult, because there is inadequate knowledge of the condition, which is simply called dyslexia?
LORD CROWTHER-HUNT: My Lords, I would not want to deal with professional and expert matters in this context; but the immediate problem is for local authorities to deal with, with all the experts at their disposal, to advise parents accordingly and to try to carry out whatever remedial methods and advice seem necessary.
LORD NAPIER AND ETTRICK: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that a special film on this problem will be shown at 11 o'clock to-day week at the Columbia Theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue; and would he be interested in attending there?
LORD CROWTHER-HUNT: My Lords, I was not aware of that, and the answer is, yes.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: My Lords, could the Minister explain the objection of his Department to the use of the word "dyslexia"? Is his Department not aware that this word is strictly etymologically synonymous with severe reading disabilities, which is very much more common as a term?
LORD CROWTHER-HUNT: My Lords, my Department has no objection at all to using the word "dyslexia". It was however, advised by an expert committee which included psychologists and neurologists that in educational terms this was not in fact a useful phrase.

WORLD FOOD CONFERENCE
3.27 p.m.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what conclusions were reached by the World Food Conference in Rome and what proposals were made by their representatives.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF INDUSTRY (LORD BESWICK): My Lords, the conference passed a series of resolutions on the best methods of increasing food production in the developing countries. It made plans for improved food aid and for enhancing the system of world food security and the exchange of information on harvest plans and prospects. It passed a resolution on the improvement of trade in agricultural products, particularly from the development countries. Finally, it recommended the setting up of a new agricultural development fund and a World Food Council to co-ordinate work on food matters and to facilitate the implementation of the Conference's decisions. This Council would report through the Economic and Social Committee to the General Assembly of the United Nations. It would meet in Rome and its secretariat would be provided within the framework of FAO.
The United Kingdom delegation played a full part in the Conference and assisted in bringing it to a successful conclusion. All the decisions of the Conference were taken without voting and without dissent.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, while thanking the Minister for that reply and while these conclusions will profit us all in the long term (and no doubt we shall be able to debate them fairly soon), may I ask whether it is not the case that little was done for the immediate needs of millions in Bangladesh, India and elsewhere? Is it not also the case that between 8 million and 12 million tons of grain are needed immediately, together with 1¼ million tons of fertiliser? Is it not also the case that Canada alone made a commitment on this proposal, and would Her Majesty's Government do something, despite our economic difficul-
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ties, to make an immediate contribution towards the cost of food and fertilisers?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I quite agree that the longer-term problems were discussed at the Conference and not the immediate difficulties which confront certain areas of the world. I accept what the noble Lord says about the inadequacy of it from that point of view. As for immediate aid, we agreed to send 5,000 tons of fertiliser immediately and we have promised a further 20,000 tons. We shall consider any further demands. We have accepted the 20 per cent. voluntary limitation in imports of cereal from the United States and we are, of course, considering the matter in other ways.
EARL COWLEY: My Lords, since the Russians must bear a large proportion of the blame for the present world food crisis, because of their wheat purchases in 1972 and 1973, what pressure have the Government put on the Russians to make a contribution to the new Fund, and what success have they had?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I am not sure I would accept the implication of the first part of the noble Earl's question. To my knowledge, no pressure has been brought to bear upon the Russians.
LORD SAINSBURY: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that, so far as the Agricultural Development Fund is concerned, the only country that was committed to pay money to it was Iran?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I cannot say anything about Iran. What I have said is that we are prepared to consider making a contribution in the light of pledges given by others.
BARONESS EMMET OF AMERLEY: My Lords, may I ask whether at this Conference in Rome the question of providing more protein for the starving population of the world by fish farming was considered and discussed?
LORD BESWICK: Not to my knowledge, my Lords. It was discussed adequately in a debate in this House some few months ago.
LORD AVEBURY: My Lords, would the noble Lord agree that most people in this country including many noble Lords in this House, eat far more than

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is good for them, and that one of the contributions that we can make to the solution of this desperate world problem is to consume less in this country so that more is available for other people?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, in this context every man and woman must speak for himself or herself.
LORD INGLEWOOD: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that the conclusions he read out are almost identical with the conclusions of the 1963 World Food Conference held in Washington, when I had the honour of leading the United Kingdom Delegation, and that since then little has happened as a result of those conclusions? Will the noble Lord assure us that something more is likely to happen now?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I am sure that the conclusions to which the noble Lord helped the 1963 Conference to come were sensible ones. This is a matter which should give us cause for hope. As for the possibility of taking firmer or more positive action this time, one merit of the Conference was that it brought home to all of us how great is the need. The chances of the world looking at it as a world problem are greater now than a few years ago.
BARONESS EMMET OF AMBERLEY: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that although we have so far had no debate on fish farming, I hope we shall have one in the New Year?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I refer the noble Baroness to the excellent speech that she made and to the reply that I gave to her.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, will Her Majesty's Government be represented at the conference next week of the exporting grain countries and other countries in consultation with the FAO? If Her Majesty's Government are represented there, will they urge that more generous contributions be made to meet the immediate needs of those who are starving?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, my understanding is that we shall be represen-
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ted. I will see that what my noble friend says is taken into account.
LORD GORE-BOOTH: My Lords, in view of the great public interest in this Question, would the Government consider producing a White Paper on this Conference?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I will certainly bear that in mind. There is a need for a fuller statement than that which I have made. A number of the amendments to the resolutions were not received until late; they were received in manuscript form and they have not been properly assessed. It would be useful to have the Government's reactions set out at greater length. Whether a White Paper or some other way is the better method is a matter for consideration.
LORD ROBBINS: My Lords, would the noble Lord agree that even if all the admirable resolutions of this Conference are carried out, they will in the end be completely frustrated unless more direct action is taken in many parts of the world to arrest the truly frightening increase in world population which threatens us in the next quarter of a century?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, what the noble Lord has said is of course right.

GOVERNMENT STATEMENT
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 Lord Beswick is expected to make a Statement on the outcome of this week's meeting of the EEC Council of Ministers.

CONSOLIDATION BILLS
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That the Lord Wigoder be appointed to the Joint Committee on Consolidation etc. Bills in the place of the Lord Clwyd.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

NATIONAL THEATRE BILL
3.36 p.m.
LORD STRABOLGI: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. The Bill is a short one but nevertheless I think it will help the House if I describe briefly the purpose of each clause. Clause 1 removes the limit on the amount of the contributions that may be made by the Secretary of State under Section 1 of the National Theatre Act 1949, but requires future contributions to be made with the consent of the Treasury.
Your Lordships will no doubt recall that Section 1 of the National Theatre Act 1949 provided for the Treasury to make such contributions to the funds of the trustees of the Shakespeare Memorial Trust as they thought fit (not exceeding the sum of £1 million) in respect of the cost of erecting and equipping the National Theatre. The powers of the Treasury were transferred to the Secretary of State by the Transfer of Functions (Cultural Institutions) Order 1965. The limit of £1 million was raised first to £3,750,000 by the National Theatre Act 1949 and subsequently to £5,700,000 by the National Theatre and Museum of London Act 1973 (which, of course, repealed the 1969 Act). If I may, I shall return to the matter of costs in a minute.
Subsection (1) of Clause 2 provides for the citation of the Bill as the National Theatre Act 1974 and its collective citation with the National Theatre Act 1949 as the National Theatre Acts 1949 and 1974. I now return to costs. Besides the £5·7 million allowed under the 1973 Act as the Government's contribution, the original LCC contribution of £1·3 million has been raised by the GLC to its present authorised level of £4·68 million. A smaller contribution from the Shakespeare Memorial Trust took the total resources available in 1973 to £10,500,000.
It is well known to your Lordships that the task of bringing the project to completion has not been an easy one, and progress—for various reasons—has not been as fast as was hoped. I should, however, like to pay tribute here on behalf of the Government to some of those principally concerned with the project, to past Ministers for the Arts; to my noble friend Lady Lee of Asheridge and the noble
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Viscount, Lord Eccles—both of whom are to take part in this debate—the noble Lord, Lord Cottlesloe, as Chairman of the South Bank Theatre Board, who is also going to speak, Denys Lasdun as Architect, and to Sir Reginald Goodwin and Mr. Horace Cutler for the GLC. Without them, and their willingness to consider and overcome all the problems involved, the project would not have reached its present stage.
It became clear to both the Government and the GLC earlier this year that the figure of £10,500,000 which I have mentioned would be overspent. The Government and the GLC therefore discussed urgently a possible solution to these problems. The result was that the Government and the GLC together agreed, subject of course to approval by Parliament and the Council for their own contribution, to provide additional resources to complete the project. The GLC have agreed to recommend its Council to provide a contribution of up to £1 million or 50 per cent. of the additional expenditure, whichever is the lesser amount, on the understanding that the balance of expenditure would be met by the Government.
My Lords, I should like now to turn to the text of the Explanatory and Financial Memorandum to the Bill. This explains that it is not possible at this stage to make an accurate estimate of the additional contributions that will be required; but it is expected, as the Memorandum says, that additional payments by the Government of not less than £1 million will be made. Precision is not possible because the additional costs that will be incurred in completing the project comprise broadly speaking the extra expenditure needed to complete the various contracts over a longer period than was previously budgeted for, and an assessment by the South Bank Theatre Board of the contractors' claims that have been received or are likely to be received before all settlements have been agreed. Until all the claims have been settled it is simply not possible, I suggest, for the Board to give a more precise figure of the final cost of the project.
It would however be wrong if noble Lords inferred from what I have said that the Government and the Greater London Council together are now abdicating control over the remaining costs

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of the project. Far from it, my Lords. The Government have taken the view that a no less severe but more flexible method of control is needed. The Government are satisfied that the South Bank Board can exercise this control, and, as I have said, Treasury consent will be required. The Government are confident with the new arrangements that the Theatre can be completed at reasonable cost given the general rise in building costs over this whole period. For a comparison with other projects of equal artistic significance, I need only remind noble Lords of the cost of the Sydney Opera House which was over £50 million.
What facilities will this country be getting for the money it spends on the National Theatre? The National Theatre will have three auditoria providing between them seating for nearly 2,500 people. The largest, with seating capacity of over 1,000, is the Olivier, being in the form of an amphitheatre with an arena stage and having stalls and a circle each with separate foyer. The Lyttleton has seating capacity for about 900 and is a conventional threatre having a straight-edged proscenium arch stage facing a straight-edged stalls and circle. There are separate foyer for stalls and circle. The Cottesloe is a small experimental theatre seating 400 people and consisting simply of a rectangular empty space that can accommodate any kind of stage. This theatre will be of particular interest to the repertory companies in the regions, many of which are doing important experimental work. As Peter Hall has said, the National Theatre is meant to be national and to involve companies outside London to a greater extent than was possible before, and we look forward to much fruitful cross-fertilisation. The Theatre complex will also include 136 air-conditioned dressing-rooms—this is a modern departure, so that nobody will have to share—and two large and some small rehearsal rooms, which will serve all three auditoria. Last but not least there will be seven bars, two buffets and a restaurant while of course parking space will be provided. The country therefore, I suggest, is getting a most impressive and well-planned theatre complex which will be unique and second to none in the world.
The Government want to see the theatre building brought to a successful
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conclusion. Its completion and operation is crucial to the maintenance of the theatre as such in this country as an important part of the Arts and one in which I think we particularly excel. The progress of work on the National Theatre project has proceeded parallel with an increasing proportion of the Arts Council's funds being allocated outside London, and this proportion is now about 65 per cent. of the total compared with about 46 per cent. 10 years ago: this, of course, spans the period when my noble friend Lady Lee of Asheridge and the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, were both Ministers. I think we all agree that this policy was the right one. How essential it is, therefore, that this current development and the interdependence of the London and regional theatre should continue!
Some fears have been expressed by some of those concerned with the management of other theatre companies subsidised by the public that available resources will to their detriment be directed to meet the future needs of the National Theatre. The Government understand these fears, and also the justification for ventilating them in good time to ensure that the case does not go by default. The Arts Council are of course responsible for the allocation of the resources that the Government make available to support the Arts. They have long been aware of the future needs of the National Theatre and are in regular consultation with them, and of course with all the other theatres concerned. The Government have confidence in the judgment of the Arts Council. They believe the Council will reach a sensible arrangement for the development of the Theatre in its new home on the South Bank, not far from the old Globe Theatre where our modern drama began. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Strabolgi.)
3.47 p.m.
VISCOUNT ECCLES: My Lords, we welcome this Bill if only for the practical reason that it would be folly to leave uncompleted a building which is now so far advanced. But I must say it is a sad story. The estimates of cost and of the date of opening have proved wrong over and over again, and for this we cannot

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blame any external cause such as the price of oil. All these troubles were homemade, and I had something to do with them. I do not propose to go into them to-day, but I can say that we are grateful to hear from the noble Lord that a better system of control of the contract—Sir Max Rayne was most anxious to secure this control two years ago—is now at hand.
It is interesting to remember that when the first and second National Theatre Bills were introduced wages and prices seemed stable enough to write in maximum figures of expenditure. I am not sure that I remember anybody objecting. To-day, with hindsight, it is very easy to say that that was wrong and to forget that the original figures were part of a bargain with the London County Council, who provided the site and stipulated a fixed contribution towards the cost of building. The LCC co-operated with great generosity in those days and we should acknowledge this; to-day the Greater London Council are putting up an extra £1 million for a contract over which they have had no control, and we owe them thanks for that. On the other hand, the GLC, so far as my recollection goes (and if I am wrong the noble Baroness, Lady Lee of Asheridge, can correct me), never offered to contribute a penny towards the cost of running the Theatre. I shall have to return to this very heavy obligation in a moment, because it really would not be sense to pass this Bill unless we were confident that the money will be available to operate the Theatre to the full.
However, first of all, what should one think about the building as a building? I think that most of your Lordships will agree that the South Bank of the Thames—from County Hall up to and including the Hayward Gallery—does very little credit to London, but Mr. Lasdun's design for the National Theatre is in quite another class. Compare it with the Hayward Gallery. One is comparing a work of Art with those random castles which children build with their bricks. The National Theatre must put up with its neighbours. There they are. But providing that the skyline behind the theatre is not disfigured by tall structures, I am sure that Mr. Lasdun's building will give
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great satisfaction to succeeding generations.
My Lords, turning to the interior of the theatre, it was our view—and the Conservative Government provided money for this purpose—that we ought not to skimp either the finishes or the equipment. We reinstated certain items which had been removed from the schedule. May I have an assurance from the noble Lord that nothing has been dropped from the schedule as we left it; and if anything has been cut out, will he tell us exactly what it is? I ask this because national institutions should be built to a standard worthy of a great nation and not pared down in the interests of unlovely economy. Since the Bill before us states no maximum figure, the responsibility for providing enough money for good finishes and equipment rests squarely with the Government.
When the theatre is at last open, what about the annual subsidy which will be necessary to run three auditoria? This prospect, as the noble Lord has said, has quite naturally aroused the fears of other clients of the Arts Council that they will be squeezed in order to keep this new giant in business, and this afternoon we must try to allay those fears. I am not so much thinking of the commercial theatre, which is greatly advantaged by the attraction of all forms of subsidised Art to tourists who come to London. I do not think that they have much ground for complaint.
My Lords, I do not propose to repeat the entirely convincing argument for providing a proper house for our National Theatre. Drama is our country's greatest contribution to the Arts. We must live up to our inheritance and it cannot be done on the cheap. I, too, have confidence in Mr. Peter Hall, although I cannot resist telling your Lordships that when the question of who might succeed Lord Olivier was first broached I received a splendid letter from the late Lord Chandos, who did so much for the National Theatre, in which Lord Chandos described Mr. Hall as "a very talented, naughty and expensive boy". Talented, Mr. Hall certainly is. Naughty, he may be, like the rest of us. But expensive, my Lords, he must be. He cannot be otherwise, with three productions to be mounted at once.

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When this Bill was being read a second time in another place the subsidy needed to run the National Theatre was linked by several speakers with the escalating cost of Covent Garden and of the other national companies. The figures are very daunting and compel us to look at the Arts budget as a whole but not, I think, to propose, as several honourable Members did in another place, to take the national companies out of the Arts Council's budget and finance them on a separate Vote. The hope behind this proposal is that if the "Nationals" were separately financed then the Arts Council's other clients—particularly those which are based in the provinces—would be less likely to resent the egregious amount given to the "Nationals".
During the debate in another place Mr. George Strauss, who has great experience in the Arts, gave the right answer when he said that the device of separate financing would soon be seen through as a trick to avoid politically awkward comparisons. I agree with Mr. Strauss, and I believe that Mr. Hugh Jenkins does also; and I suggest a further reason why the Arts Council should continue to support both the "Nationals" and all the others. Your Lordships know that the 18 national museums are financed as a separate group direct from Central Government funds. What has been the result? There has been almost complete neglect by Government after Government of the other 800 museums and galleries which do not qualify for national status. Despite the striking evidence produced in the Wright Report, quite recently the Treasury refused to establish even a modest Housing the Museums Fund which would have helped the provinces.
We do not want to see the same thing happen with the Arts. I am convinced it would happen if they were divided into two classes, one national and the other provincial or non-national. The provinces would then receive the dirty end of the stick, as they have done all along in the museum world. We must not allow one kind of Art to be sacrificed to another. We must face the cost of adequate finance for both the "Nationals" and the rest of the Arts Council's clients and we must do this within a single budget, since that is the easiest way in which the public can satisfy themselves that the total grant
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from central funds is being fairly allocated.
Therefore I believe that this Bill ought not to be passed unless we are willing to provide the money not only to complete but to run the National Theatre. This in turn implies that the other "Nationals" and non-national clients of the Arts Council should receive a fair share of an expanding cake. The inescapable fact is that the national companies alone to-day will have to be given an extra two or three, or even more, million pounds a year to sustain their present rhythm and standards.
For example, if your Lordships will look at Covent Garden, they are faced with enormous rises in the cost of all the services which they must have; they require at least another £1 million a year, or, failing a miraculous series of private benefactors (and we ought to thank the noble Lord, Lord Kissin, because he is trying to secure these benefactors) the standards and the number of performances at the Garden will take a nosedive from which it will require many years to recover. That is why the National Theatre's operating subsidy, which is put at £2½ million a year for full working—coming on top of what the other "Nationals" need so badly—causes great alarm among the smaller companies, many of whom are financially embarrassed. As a matter of fact, all the companies are in trouble because the Arts is a labour-intensive industry. If one reduces the number of actors, singers, dancers and musicians beyond a certain point, one cannot produce grand opera, or full-scale ballet, or Shakespeare's plays, or symphonies and choral works. Furthermore, until very recently the artists concerned were badly paid, partly because the supply has always exceeded the demand and partly because they were assumed to be so dedicated to their work that low pay did not put them off.
It was only a very short time ago that the position was significantly improved. The result is that now, with the sharp rise in minimum pay, which was long overdue, plus the general effects of inflation, theatre costs have risen in this calendar year by more than 40 per cent. and are still rising. No wonder that the chairman of the Arts Council says that he needs £6 million more than the present £19 million on his

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budget in the year 1975–76. Personally, I do not know how the Arts Council can get through the rest of this financial year without a large supplementary estimate—I should say not less than £2 million. And then, next year, in that £6 million nothing like £2½ million is reckoned for the National" Theatre. What should one say about the £2½ million which the National Theatre estimates it will require?
I hope that every noble Lord in the House sincerely wishes the subsidy to be adequate to make full use of the building, but would it be fair to give all this to the National Theatre if the other "Nationals" were left where they are—that is to say, if they are not financed on the basis of to-day's costs as the National Theatre will have to be financed when it opens its doors? Equally pertinent, would it be fair if the Regional Arts Associations and all the other companies on the books of the Arts Council did not have their grants increased on the same scale? I want to ask whether the Government accept that they must provide on this scale for all of them. This is what Mr. Hugh Jenkins implied. Speaking in another place on November 7, he said:
"All those seeking public support for the arts should perhaps recognise more clearly than they do that they sink or swim together."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, 7/11/74, col. 1326.]
This is absolutely true of the "Nationals" and the non-nationals, if I may use that term. I would ask the noble Lord opposite whether, when he comes to wind up, he can give a more definite assurance on this vital point.
I know that the Government must be thinking of the reactions in other fields to providing the Arts with so large an increase at this time. Many other claimants for money, especially in the Social Services, will speak up and ask for the same treatment. Not everybody thinks the Arts are in a class by themselves. It is sometimes rather difficult to persuade those who care most for the Arts that this is a fact of life. In particular, it is going to be more difficult than ever to justify larger and larger expenditure on performances in Central London which can be seen by comparatively few people. Of course there is the prestige argument. Our national
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reputation as a leader in the Arts is something that is very well worth preserving, but this argument needs to be fortified by others as the total of the subsidies increases so fast. It did not matter very much when the subsidies were quite low.
How do we put the subsidies for the national companies, in particular this great new theatre, on to a broader basis? Is it possible that their productions could reach much larger audiences at home? My Lords, I think there ought to be a special inquiry into this matter. We have never looked at it as carefully as we should. In particular, we ought to inquire into the possibilities of televising much more than at present productions by the national companies. I know that this is technically difficult because the transfer from the stage to the screen raises a great many troublesome artistic problems. However, those problems could be solved if there were not other obstacles of a quite different nature. The national companies themselves are willing to be televised; the television companies are willing to screen them, but the unions, who dictate the fees paid for television performances, have demanded such high rates that many negotiations for producing the nationals on television have fallen through. At times it has been cheaper to buy a picture of a ballet made in Paris than to make one here where our dancers are obviously better.
The unions' extravagant demands ought to be exposed as Lord Harewood is at this moment exposing them at the Coliseum, and I ask the noble Lord opposite: are the Government giving Lord Harewood full support or are they staying neutral and looking helplessly on? After all, we have the best actors, the best musicians, the best dancers, the best producers and the British public should have the benefit of their talents. But there is a price in hard cash which neither the nationals nor the television companies can pay. So always to give into the unions who make these extravagant demands simply means that in time there will be no subsidised theatre, and what good would that be to anyone employed either on the stage or behind it?
So, in giving full support to this Bill and to the subsidy which the National

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Theatre will require, I hope that the Government will look into the problem of extending their audiences and in particular to televising their productions, and will tell the unions that either they act reasonably or there will not be any national companies. The National Theatre is a marvellous project. We must complete it; we must finance its operations and show them to the widest possible audiences. Television could do a lot here. It could perhaps do for drama what sound radio has so successfully done for music. No one I think understands this problem better than Mr. Peter Hall himself. Parliament is going to give him a great deal of taxpayers' money. With that money he can, and I am sure he will, continue the tradition of British drama which is the best in the world. I hope the Bill will have an unopposed Second Reading.
4.8 p.m.
THE EARL OF DENBIGH: My Lords, I am indeed fortunate to have the opportunity to make my maiden speech on a project that is in the final stages of completion after over 100 years of discussion. I speak as a lover of the theatre, although I do not attend as much as I, and certainly as much as my wife, would like. As with many great projects nearing completion, signs of nerves and doubt can be seen to emanate from various quarters, though not, I hasten to add, from the National Theatre. Whether these are based on jealousy, theatrical bitchiness or genuine fears is hard to ascertain. There has been criticism of the architecture; there has been criticism of the wage structure for stage hands; and there has been criticism of having three stages within the National Theatre complex. Not least important are the fears that the National Theatre will require such Government subsidy that other branches of the Arts, and theatre in particular, will suffer such severe financial cutbacks from the Arts Council that they will be forced to close.
My Lords, the main problem so far has been the problems encountered in the actual construction of the National Theatre. Most of your Lordships are probably familiar with the maladies facing the building industry at the moment—shortage of materials, increasing costs of finance, the sharp rise in the cost of
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many building materials and the threat of severe wage demands, are all conspiring to escalate the cost of this project way beyond any figure envisaged a few years ago. Even allowing for extra inflation that may yet be to come, the National Theatre should not cost more than £13 million, but hopefully, £12 million. A current estimate if the building was started now, I am told, would be in excess of £30 million. Surely in view of our enormous legacy of English plays down through the ages it is not too high a price to pay for their exhibition. We have museums and art galleries to display our static heritage. It is right, then, that we should have a National Theatre to show off the plays that are our living heritage. The English theatre is the envy of the world, and a valuable help to tourist income, although, unfortunately, no exact figure can be attributed to it.
My Lords, the National Theatre will be not just a library of classic productions, but a centre of innovation and invention. There will be a touring company going to theatres across the nation, and other theatres of the country will have the opportunity of playing to London audiences. Some extremely good plays never get to the London stage for a variety of reasons, from non-availability of theatres to not being thought to be big enough profit-makers. The National Theatre will enable some of these plays to be staged in London for the benefit and enjoyment of many who otherwise would not have seen them. It will be a showplace for new ideas and new talent in all branches of the theatre, as well as producing the classics which already have worldwide recognition.
My Lords, because of the modern behind-stage facilities at the National Theatre, the cost of changing productions will not be as high as in other more conventional and in some cases, dare I say, old-fashioned theatres. It has been said in some quarters that the London theatre cannot support three more stages. The National Theatre has refuted this. At a time when, for the moment, the excessive profitability has been taken out of the property development market, we must still show concern for the future of some of our West End theatres. Pressure is still on for development land, and over the next 10 years or so I should be most

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surprised if a few theatres did not come under pressure for development.
My Lords, because of the careful and special design of the theatres within the building, with no spectator more than 65 ft. from the stage, it is hoped to be able to price tickets in a way that will enable many more people, who might previously have thought the theatre too expensive, to attend. It will be interesting to hear whether the Government have any proposals to encourage people to go to the theatre. I am thinking particularly of the young and the elderly. I know that this usually means a price reduction which will probably have to be met by increased subsidy from the Arts Council. But it would give a wider meaning to the word "National" if the scope of the audience could be widened beyond a small percentage of the population and foreign visitors.
The queries about wages for those employed by the National Theatre, and other internal criticisms, have been ably dealt with by Mr. Peter Hall, Director of the National Theatre. Although the subject has already been mentioned, I should like to hear an assurance concerning the grants to the theatre and other branches of the Arts. There is real concern, which I hope will prove to be unwarranted, that the extra money required to run the National Theatre will be at the expense of those already receiving grants. I am not aware that any assurance has been given that this will not be the case. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, could enlighten me in his summing-up as to the proposals of the Government, or correct me if I am wrong.
My Lords, while realising the economic difficulties at present prevailing in the country, I feel it would be most regrettable if the extra subsidy required for the National Theatre were to come from existing grants. Equally, I feel that not to allow the National Theatre to open at full strength and with a full programme would be a tragedy such as the critics of the National Theatre are only too eagerly awaiting. It has been suggested that economies could be made by merging the National Theatre Company and the Royal Shakespeare Company. I am not aware of any figures available for this premise, but I cannot help feeling that the competition between these two companies which
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will exist when the National Theatre is operating will lead to some very exciting productions, and a heightening of the quality of plays to be seen. I believe that competition is good for the customer and I, for one, look forward to such competition.
The National Theatre is a monument to the excellence of the English language, and as such we should be proud of it and give it our full blessing. Under the able directorship of Mr. Peter Hall, the National Theatre will, in the years ahead, quickly become world famous and attract people from all walks of life and from all over the world. Let us not in the final stages halt or stunt a 100 year-old dream that is just about to become reality.

EEC: AGRICULTURE MINISTERS' MEETING
4.15 p.m.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, with permission I now repeat a Statement made in the other place by the Minister of Agriculture. The Statement is as follows:
"The Council of Ministers (Agriculture) met in Brussels on November 18–19. The main decisions were to increase the New Zealand butter and cheese prices under Protocol 18; to provide for a guaranteed return to our beef producers; and to settle the duration and price elements in the mandate for sugar negotiations under Protocol 22.
"The Council decided on an increase of 18 per cent. in the c.i.f. prices for New Zealand butter and cheese imported under Protocol 18, with effect from January 1, 1975. I consulted Mr. Walding, New Zealand's Minister of Trade, throughout the negotiations. He has warmly welcomed the outcome and has been generous in his recognition of the help given by this country. The increase will not affect retail prices.
"On beef, the Council accepted the need to provide an assurance of firm returns to beef producers in the United Kingdom. As from the beginning of this week we shall provide from our own funds supplementary premium payments as necessary to provide an assured return of £18 per cwt. live-weight, for the week beginning

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November 18, increasing week by week to a level of £21·81 at the end of January. I am arranging for a Supplementary Estimate to be submitted, but in the meantime I will have recourse to the Contingencies Fund. Certain limits are set to the maximum subsidies payable under this scheme, but with the degree of flexibility that will be available I am satisfied that we shall be able to ensure that producers actually receive on average the full target prices.
"Similar supplementary premiums will be paid on cattle and beef imported from the Irish Republic; and there will be equivalent export levies on beef exports to other Member States.
"The beef market will also be supported by a limited form of support buying at relatively low price levels, beginning at £14·18 per cwt. at the end of November, and rising gradually to £18·54 at the end of January. The basic beef premium will not be paid on any beef sold into intervention.
"We shall not, therefore, be applying intervention either at the full level or as a permanent and continuous method of support; but rather as a way of protecting the market (and incidentally the Exchequer) against the sort of price falls seen in some recent weeks. The guarantee to producers will come essentially from their variable premium payments. There is no question of a ' beef mountain ' being accumulated in the United Kingdom. Any beef taken into intervention will be canned as cuts or kept in frozen carcase form, with the intention of phasing it back later on to our own market through normal commercial outlets.
"This combination of measures gives beef producers the firm guarantee of returns for which they have asked, coupled with modest support buying which should have no significant effect on retail prices.
"The arrangements will last until January. Those operating from February will be decided in the context of next year's CAP prices. I intend to ensure that they give equivalent support to our beef industry.
"On Protocol 22 sugar, the two outstanding questions were duration and price.
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"On duration, the Council agreed that the principle of the guarantee to buy sugar from the developing countries will be valid for an indefinite period. The procedures for implementing it will be open to review if necessary and will in any event be reviewed before the end of the seventh year of the agreement. No amendments, other than quota adjustments in the event of shortfalls, will be made with less than five years' notice. These provisions are very satisfactory and give firm long-term assurances to the developing Commonwealth.
"On price, the Council drew a distinction between the price guaranteed on a long-term basis, and the price actually paid while world prices remain high. The guaranteed price will be negotiated within the prices applicable in the Community. But the Council recognised that in the exceptional circumstances of high world prices the price actually paid may exceed the guaranteed basic price by amounts to be negotiated between the sellers and the buyers. It also agreed that if necessary State guarantees may be given to the buyers in accordance with the opinion of the Commission. This should make it possible for prices to be paid which will bring the sugar to this country.
"The combination of these measures, together with the Statement of the Council secured last week by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, is sufficient to give our refineries the assurances they are seeking about supplies of cane raws to our factories. Clearly in 1975 (and in 1976 if still necessary) the supplementary payments would automatically bring such sugar to the paying countries. There is thus no need to insist on quotas at this stage. Should the situation change later we have the Council Declaration to the effect that the bulk of the cane raws will come in here in accordance with the traditional flows of trade.
"I made my agreement to these arrangements for beef and sugar ad referendum, so as to enable my colleagues to consider them thoroughly. This has been done and the Government have decided to accept the agreement. If the Dutch Government,

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which also agreed ad referendum, takes the same course, the agreement reached will become definitive on Friday. I hope that this will be done, for I regard the agreements on sugar and beef as satisfactory both for the developing Commonwealth and for this country."
My Lords, that is the end of the Statement.
4.21 p.m.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, the House will be very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, for repeating this Statement, which is fairly long, is extremely complicated but nevertheless extremely important. The eyes of many have been on the Minister of Agriculture while he has been in Brussels these last few days, and with some sympathy, because the problems of beef and of sugar were both difficult. I would start by congratulating the Minister of Agriculture on having put a floor into the beef market. This is what has been required; it is what has been urged, and the Minister has achieved this. This, I think, is right and it can only benefit beef farmers and also housewives.
The Statement says that the Minister is in fact going to use as one of the methods the intervention system. I am bound to say to the noble Lord that if the Minister of Agriculture is going back to intervention now, albeit on a small scale, I wonder why he ever did away with it in March of this year. We warned him at the time that it was wrong; we warned him that it was removing a floor from a commodity which has had a floor for 25 years, and since then the market has gone down and down. I believe the Minister was right to retrieve the situation and to put back the floor, but I believe he was quite wrong in March to have removed it. He must, therefore, accept the major responsibility for a disastrous error of judgment then, and for the disastrous beef market which has resulted from that action.
The Statement which he has made to-day on beef is welcome, but it has, of course, come too late to stop calf slaughterings running at five times their normal rate, and it has come too late to stop the shortage of beef in 1976 which must result from these calf slaughterings. However, I am glad that
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the right honourable gentleman has, as they say, made a meal of his own words, I think it was Winston Churchill who said, "What an unwholesome diet that is sometimes".
Can the noble Lord say what will be the cost to the Exchequer of the supplementary premium payments referred to in the Statement, first as regards the beef production by United Kingdom producers, and also the beef produced by the Irish Republic? If I may ask the noble Lord one item of detail, page 2 of the Statement says that we shall provide
"from our own funds supplementary premium payments as necessary to provide an assured return of £18."
At the last line on that page, the Minister says:
"I am satisfied that we shall be able to ensure that producers actually receive on average the full target prices".
I assume that means that although the £18 is guaranteed the full target price may not be guaranteed.
With regard to sugar, the Statement is silent on the fact of the 1·4 million tons which is produced from the developing countries, and it says that quotas are not necessary because sugar will come to the paying countries. As I understand it, the Community will fix a price; any member country may thereafter negotiate its own arrangements and its own price with the suppliers, and the Government may pay a subsidy on the difference between the EEC price and that made by the suppliers. If that is so, who actually negotiates the price with the suppliers? Is that the British Government or is it the traders? Are the Government prepared to give a subsidy for the whole of the difference between the EEC price and that negotiated by the traders?
Can the noble Lord give an assurance that the sugar will be available in refineries by February 1, when the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement shipments end, and can he give an assurance that under these arrangements there will be sufficient supplies of sugar in 1975? I hope he will be able to give these assurances. If the outcome of these negotiations has been satisfactory for this country, I would hope we can take it that that is because the European Community, although not necessarily anxious to retain

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Britain as a member, is prepared to accept the difficulties which obtain in this country and is prepared to adapt its own rules and guidelines to meet these difficulties.
LORD WIGG: My Lords, before the Minister replies, would he be good enough to take a question of procedure? As I understand it, following a Statement questions should be put in interrogatory form. So long as the rules which are open to me are the same rules that apply to the noble Earl who has just spoken, I do not mind. As he has made a short speech, I assume I can do the same?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, there are some words in the guidance which would counsel my noble friend not to make a speech.
LORD WIGG: My Lords, if the noble Earl can do it, I can do it.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, my noble friend can certainly couch his questions in a way which matches those put by the noble Earl opposite.
4.28 p.m.
LORD MACKIE OF BENSHIE: My Lords, if it is now convenient, I should like to add some remarks from these Benches on the Statement the Minister has made. We also welcome the floor which the Minister has put in the price of beef. I should like, first of all, to ask a simple question about the rather involved sugar arrangements which have already been mentioned. Does it simply mean that for the next two years, 1975 and 1976, this country from its own funds will be allowed to pay the world price in order to ensure sugar supplies for our refineries? This is what it appears to me to mean, and I should like to know whether this is so.
On the question of the guarantee for beef, this is, of course, long overdue. The Minister, and indeed the last Government, were warned on all sides that if we were to have a reasonable supply of long-term beef in this country then we had to have a bottom in the market. The bottom of £18 to-day and £21·81 in January is not at all generous. In fact, the costings produced by the colleges in Scotland and by the Meat and Livestock Commission show that at present-day prices, and with costs still rising, farmers will actually be
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losing money at this figure. As until now they have been losing a great deal of money, of course they are grateful for small mercies. We have always said that, although the Goverment insisted that intervention was a bad method and we agreed with this point, the fact is that now and over the past year the European farmer has had the proper bottom in the market; whereas this Government and this Minister have until now entirely rejected intervention buying, at the expense of the farmers in this country. I would agree that this will make a terrific difference to the plans for farmers and for the supply of beef to the consumer, but, as the noble Lord mentioned in his first reply, it is now certain that we shall suffer in 1976 from a shortage of beef.
One question I should like to ask the Minister is whether the Minister of Agriculture realises that further measures are needed for direct support to the hill farmers and breeders of cattle in the uplands of this country? All they have had until now—in a disastrous year—is a promise of an advance of subsidy. It is absolutely vital, if these men are not to go out of cattle in large numbers and, indeed, to go bankrupt, that this subsidy is made an emergency payment and not only an advance. Will the Minister be considering further measures to help the hill farmers of the country? This is absolutely vital to the future supply of beef to the consumer in this country.
With regard to the Statement, is the Minister sure that he will be able to pay, I presume, a supplementary allowance on the beef, to bring the price up to £18·54 now and £21 in January? What kind of beef will he buy at £14 and £18 through intervention buying? Will he buy inferior beef, unfinished beef, at this rate, or does he envisage that the Supplementary Estimates will be insufficient to cover the fall in price? Furthermore, does the noble Lord think that the cold stores in this country will be able to take the surplus he envisages buying?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I thank the two noble Lords for the qualified congratulations which they offered, and I shall do my best to answer the questions which they posed. The first question, or assertion, of the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, related to intervention, and he made a

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great issue about going back to the intervention policy. I do not think that it is true to say that we are going back to the intervention policy. If the noble Earl reads the small print, as I hope he will eventually, he will see what I mean. Further, I am satisfied that when we obtain a new régime for beef in February it will be a better régime because we did not accept the intervention policy in the beginning.
The noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, asked where we were going to buy the cattle at £14 or £15 a live cwt. The fact is that the Government are not going to buy any cattle at those prices. The cattle will be bought at the auctions at the market price which, as noble Lords know, is now rising. There will be on that price the basic headage payment to the producer; on top of that there will now be the supplementary payment. That animal—later beef in the hands of the trader or the butcher—can then be offered back to the Government at the intervention price, which, as the noble Lord said, is very low. If any butcher or wholesaler offers the beef at that price, he will be unlikely to make much of a profit; he will, in fact, be making a loss, which is one reason why the intervention price is somewhat different from that which was suggested at the beginning. Moreover, it will be on the basis of 85 per cent. instead of 93 per cent. which is payable on the continent. Therefore, there is a difference, and I think that it is a difference which will be to our advantage so far as the later scheme is concerned.
EARL FERRERS: But it is intervention?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, it is a more sophisticated form of intervention which will be for a temporary period until February. I repeat again that I think the new régime which we hope to negotiate will be all the better because we have held out on this up to now. Although I do not wish to make a speech on this point, the fact of the matter is that had we adopted the intervention price at the beginning we should not have had the storage space to hold all the animals that would have been offered. The answer to the noble Lord, Lord Mackie, on whether we have the storage
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space now is that it is expected that we shall have, but that it will be on the basis of there being a very limited amount of beef offered on intervention.
I was asked the estimated cost. The answer is that it would be of the order of £20 million. On the sugar price, I was asked whether I could give a copper-bottomed guarantee that we should have all the sugar that was needed. I should be foolish if I tried to give that guarantee, but quite clearly the situation now is much better than it was before we secured this arrangement. I was asked about fodder. I am afraid that I can add nothing more about fodder to what I said in the debate a week ago. Certainly, I accept what the noble Lord said. It is an important matter, and it is one that the Government are now considering.
I was asked about the difference between the target price and the average price. Of course the fact is that there are different prices for different grades at the same market on the same day. The average will, in fact, be the average as between the various grades. Some will get a little more and some a little less. I was asked whether I could split the separate costs for Irish cattle, and the answer is that I cannot.
LORD WIGG: My Lords, would the noble Lord be good enough to consider the possibility, once a Statement has been made in another place, of having copies available in the Printed Paper Office, so that when he invites the noble Earl opposite speaking for the Opposition to read the small print, it will give that marked advantage to those who at the moment are faced with the choice of reading no print? If Statements can quite properly be made available to the Leader of the Opposition and the Leader of the Liberal rump below the gangway, I think that other Members of the House are entitled to be put in a position to ask questions which have some relevance to the matter before the House.
The noble Earl who spoke from the Conservative Benches said that this is a very complicated Statement, as it obviously is. He then commenced to dance what amounted to a fandango on the political grave of the Minister of Agriculture. That is what it is if in fact he has sold the interests of the country down the river to the extent of accepting

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the policies of the previous Administration. If we had copies of the Statement we should then all be in a position to realise what nonsense the noble Earl was speaking, as has been made palpably clear in the light of what my noble friend has said.
Turning to sugar, would not my noble friend agree that on a Statement of this kind the normal rules of the House are that you should not indulge in a speech? We have now had four speeches, but they were put in interrogative form. Would not my noble friend agree that the situation that has risen about sugar, both as to price and shortage, is wholly due to the fact that the Conservative Administration sold the interests of this country and of the Commonwealth down the river? Three years ago the price of sugar was of the order of £100 a ton, and it has now gone to £600 a ton, with the price still rising and the prospect of there being no sugar. As I understand it, under the "deal" that the Minister of Agriculture has "negotiated", if again that is the right word, what we are now committed to is to get what sugar we can at what price we can pay, and that any purchase we make over and beyond the EEC price of approximately £130 a ton will come out of the taxpayers' pocket, or out of the pocket of the consumer. In addition, the Government are in no position to give any guarantee about the quantities of sugar which will be required to keep going the cane refining industry. I should like specifically to ask the noble Lord whether the offer of the Australian Government to supply this country with all the sugar that Australia can supply on a long-term basis has or has not been turned down? Or is it the case that under French pressure we have once again sold out the interests of the British taxpayer, the British nation and the British consumer and members of our Commonwealth family as well?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I am sure my noble friend Lord Wigg has sufficient experience in Parliamentary affairs to know that it would not be feasible to distribute Statements of this kind to every Member of the House. I had my copy only a few minutes before I entered the Chamber, and even then some of the script is in handwriting, having been changed in the course of the last few minutes. What he suggests is not feasible,
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of course. When I referred to the small print, I was using the expression figuratively. There are in fact no small printed words on that piece of paper from which the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, was speaking.
On the question of the sugar situation, if my noble friend is saying that all the present complications stem from the fact that this House did not accept the advice which he and I offered when discussing the Treaty of Accession, I absolutely agree with him. It is, however, now a fact that as a result of quite a struggle we, as a country, are in a position to make a contract with the Commonwealth producer for an indefinite period. I am hoping that because we can offer some security of contract over a period of years that the price will be suitably lower than it would be if we had to buy in the manner which existed before this agreement was reached. I was asked about the Australian supply. The fact is that Australia did not offer us any sugar. Very sensibly, the Australians said that if they were to make a contract it must be with the Community as a whole, and the Community were not prepared to make the sort of contract which the Australians required.
LORD BURTON: My Lords, I am sure that we all welcome the Statement about the floor being put into the beef market, even if a low-level, creaking floor. However, is the Minister aware that there will be further problems with the meat trade in the early spring when the EEC countries introduce health regulations which will stop us exporting to them? Is he further aware that some of these problems could be overcome should we be able to export on the hoof?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I have no doubt that there will be other problems, but they do not arise out of the Statement which I have just made.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, are Her Majesty's Government aware that, even if we succeed in buying cane sugar at half the world cost, it will still be a vastly bigger sum in foreign exchange than we can possibly afford? Even then sugar will be very expensive—about 30p per kilo for raws; I am not sure what that will amount to in the shops. Will the price be averaged with our own beet crop, which is a considerable failure? How

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is that going to work? I wish that the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, would have a chat with a sugar broker who would put him wise to some of the facts of life about sugar.
LORD WIGG: My Lords, as my name has been mentioned, may I say that two years ago I was in Jamaica, which is a prime sugar producer, and the result of the policies then put forward by Her Majesty's Government had the effect there of making sugar vanish completely. I do not go to a sugar broker for my information; I go to the spot.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I am not sure which question the noble Lord, Lord Hawke, posed, but if he is saying that sugar will be very expensive, of course I agree with him. I also add, again not provocatively, that I wish some of the doubts which noble Lords now express about this situation had been taken more into account when we were discussing the question of the whole Treaty of Accession.

NATIONAL THEATRE BILL
4.45 p.m.
Second Reading debate resumed.
BARONESS LEE OF ASHERIDGE: My Lords, we have been listening to a most important Statement on agricultural matters, and now we resume our earlier debate on another subject which many of us in this House—I should like to think all of us—also consider of immense importance. My first privilege and pleasure is to congratulate the noble Earl, Lord Denbigh, on his maiden speech. I congratulate him both on his wisdom and on his good taste in the subject which he has selected to speak about. I can assure him that in all parts of the House we are only too anxious to have new recruits among those who are going to help us to ensure that the Arts have their proper priorities in any civilised Government decisions. Before this splendid maiden speech, the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, said many things, with most of which I agreed, and I will come to one or two of his points later. Alas! I have to agree with his opening sentence in which he said that
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the story of the National Theatre was a sorry story. That is true.
It is just about time that some of our so-called businessmen came to their senses, the people who could put great endeavours in jeopardy by being penny-wise and pound foolish. What I refer to is a black day for the National Theatre, which was February 28, 1968. Until then matters were going extremely well. We had the Greater London Council which had agreed to go 50:50 on the capital costs with the Government; each had agreed to provide £3¾ million on the point of tender. The Greater London Council was both good and generous about the sites of value that we considered. The Greater London Council were also very good and gracious, because the original concept was that there should be an opera house as well as a National Theatre on the South Bank, and the noble Lord, Lord Fiske—who was then Chairman—and others agreed that Manchester, Edinburgh and other parts of the country had a higher priority when it came to an opera house. But we contemplated with enormous enthusiasm the thought that we would have a National Theatre—not a London theatre—that would be really worthwhile.
The black day for this project, as I have said, was February 28, 1968, because that was the date on which the new leaders of the Greater London Council came to see me (as I was then the Minister responsible) and made it quite clear that they were ready to give £3¾ million at point of completion, but not at point of tender. I am not a business woman, but it seemed to me a pretty daft proposition that they were putting, because being tied rigidly to a figure at point of completion at a time when prices were rising meant that all the preparatory work that had been done—the plans of Mr. Denys Lasdun, the architect, and the builders—had to be looked at again and scaled down. Of course, this caused considerable delay, so that at the end of the day instead of saving money this project has cost us more, and instead of looking forward to having the project open by the spring at the latest we now find that we have to wait rather longer.
Later on the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, came to this House and we all

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supported him when he asked for a supplementary grant of £1·95 million. Changes in the value of money and the rest made it necessary. But, again, I think it would have been more gracious if the Greater London Council had kept to the original bargain, which was honourably made, that it would pay its 50 per cent. Again, spanners were put in the works, and this is one reason why there has been confusion and delay. We had Lord Cottesloe, we had the chairman of a very able board, we had members who were no fools. For the Arts Council, I myself suggested, not two long-haired poets but Lord Goodman, who was then chairman of the Arts Council, and Sir Joseph Lockwood, who was chairman of EMI—both hard-headed businessmen. We were not lacking people of good sense and knowledge. There was also very strict Treasury scrutiny. I think we must say this, because we do not want any more nonsense of this kind. There were delays, there was confusion and at the end of the day there was loss of time, and the project is costing us more than it would have cost if we had gone ahead with our original plans.
Now let us look to the future. We must get on with it now, and we must get it finished as soon as possible. But I agree with the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, that we must not get it finished at the cost of standards. If we are going to have a National Theatre, let us have a National Theatre. A Statement was made in the other place that the additional money required will not be for new additions, but we certainly do not want to go along like a dog with its tail between its legs. If we are going to have a National Theatre, let us look forward to having it opened with the flags flying and as an occasion for celebration. I know that I am talking on a subject which is not easy for some people to accept—and I have had my difficulties with my own Party. But I happen to think it is important that a democracy, a democratic Government, should have a sense of dignity and vision, because the idea that you are going to get more votes by small, petty-minded cheeseparing is just not true. Our people have minds as well as stomachs.
Again and again we hear references made to what happened in the Second
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World War. Of course, when you are fighting a war, when people are putting up with every kind of material hardship, you have got to sustain their minds and spirits. But if your Lordships will forgive me—because this debate has gone on a little longer than intended, for reasons outside our control—I want to draw a parallel which I think is more relevant and more important, even, than the parallel with what happened at the time of war. We came out of the war in 1945 with our cities blitzed. I cannot remember the exact words of Mr. Winston Churchill, but he made a statement at the time about us being ruined, about our overseas investments having gone and about our cities and factories having to be reconditioned and all the rest of it. But what did we do? We decided that we were going to have a Festival of Britain; and the first Treasury estimate for that was £14 million. There was a fight in the Cabinet. There is no such thing in any Government as a united Cabinet; you will always get the people with no vision. There was an argument but there was one who said, "Let us go ahead with flags flying and have a Festival of Britain".
In these circumstances—and your Lordships know how much more the money I am about to quote would mean to-day—the first estimate was £14 million. Then the estimate was pared down. Your Lordships will remember that there was the devaluation crisis in the autumn of 1949. When I say that the estimate was £14 million, I have got it slightly wrong because there was an estimated revenue of £2 million. The gross expenditure would have been £12 million with a saving of £2 million. But at the end of the day, even remembering the devaluation crisis and all that went with it in the autumn of 1949, we had a Cabinet which allowed the Chancellor of the Exchequer to provide £9 million from the Treasury for the Festival of Britain.
We had on the other side of the river what was then the London County Council. We had Lord Fiske, we had my friend Sir Isaac Hayward and we had others there. It may be that I disagreed with Mr. Herbert Morrison more than did any Member on the Tory Benches. I can hardly remember a political issue on which I did not disagree with him. But

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he was a Londoner, a proud Londoner; and poor old London, with its factories, its shops and its houses down, nevertheless gave us the Festival Hall, which I consider the kindest building on the other side of the river. It may be that there was more kindness in the air then. It was built from beginning to end in less than two years. It was the London County Council that not only gave us the Festival Hall but was also responsible for all the expenditure incurred in preparing the site of the Embankment.
But, my Lords, that is only the beginning. I hope your Lordships will bear with me if I remind the House (because too many people have forgotten it) that this was not a London occasion. The Festival of Britain was a British occasion; and I have here a document which it is worth looking up. It is the document of the Festival of Britain, and I have been refreshing my own memory about some of the things that we were ready to do then—because it was not only London that was concerned; Coventry was blitzed, as were Birmingham and Glasgow. Which city did not have its problems? Nevertheless—and I am quoting now from this official report:
"In over 2,000 places in the United Kingdom some festival event was organised by local authorities and voluntary bodies, and many of the projects carried out have remained and are of permanent value."
Over 2,000 places, my Lords! Now the Arts Council alone had a London season in May and June. It had 22 official centres in England, Scotland and Wales. It held many minor festivals, concerts, operas, exhibitions and plays up and down the country. The Council commissioned music, opera and ballet; it arranged a competition among the best known British painters; and it arranged competitions for new operas, for music and for poetry.
So there we were, just after the Second World War, with our cities blitzed. We were not saying, "Poor local authorities", "Poor ratepayers". They had their problems then, just as serious, and in some ways more serious, than we have to-day. Of course we had the people who said: "You must not build a Festival Hall, you must not re-open Covent Garden or Drury Lane, or anywhere else, until every problem in housing, health
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and education is solved". No country works that way. Of the available resources at any time there has got to be a sharing out. We had that sense of the future in those years, with all the difficulties. We were prepared to do all these things. That is why I say, my Lords, that we have got to get off our knees. We have got to remember that it is a National Theatre, not just a London theatre. If we could have 2,000 different projects going on in 1951, if we could have a Chancellor who from the Exchequer alone was providing £9 million—and there was a great deal of local government money spent, private money and the rest of it—should we not start thinking in terms of a national celebration to mark the opening of the National Theatre? Should we not be giving encouragement to all those marvellously talented people in the theatre world, not all young but many of them young, who at the moment are having their hearts broken? Because here again I agree with Lord Eccles when he said that we must not make this a comparison between what is being spent on the great spenders at the centre and what is being spent on the provincial theatres. I agree with him entirely that it would be wrong to have a separate estimate for the four great London spenders. But what is absolutely essential unless we are simply going to haul down the flag, unless we are going to lose so much of the ground we have won, is that we have really got to do this with a bit of panache. We have really got to have the flags flying. We have really got to have every local repertory theatre and every concert hall all over Scotland, England, Ireland and Wales feeling that this is their National Theatre and that they are part of the celebrations.
Finally, my Lords, there is one little item I want to add. We have promised the Government, who have asked for the assurance, that nothing will be added, that the additional money will be just to complete the work which has begun. But I have already talked to the leaders of the Greater London Council and others about a project which I think is absolutely essential if the South Bank is going to really come alive and really belong to London and not just to a small number of Londoners. It is that, instead of having a sleezy walking bridge, Hungerford Bridge, which is used as a public lavatory

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by tramps and dogs, it is high time we had a travelator over the river and an enclosed bridge so that those of us who are counting our pennies—as we all do—could be out of the wind and rain and could have a glamorous view of the river on one side and have a beautiful board on the other side to show advertisements. I do not think that this is day-dreaming or being impossible.
The difficulty of getting across to the South Bank is bad enough, but getting away from it, even when one has a car—and most people still do not have a car—is awful, especially in bad weather. The Greater London Council did not come up with its fair share when we had the last Supplementary Estimate in the House of Lords, but it made a great parade of the fact that it was going to spend almost half a million pounds on extra car parking. However, it would be very much better if fewer cars were taken on to that side. One could go by bus or taxi or underground, leaving the car at home. One could come right to Charing Cross, cross over and be in the world of the theatre, the concert halls, the National Cinema and the rest with the greatest of ease, and having brought the cost of getting there down to the level which the young and almost everybody else can afford.
I apologise once more, my Lords, for talking at some length, but I feel strongly on this matter. I feel that we must get our priorities right. I think, when we talk about £19 million or about the Arts Council needing another £6 million, that the Arts Council needs to have its money doubled. I am very serious about this. This is not something which is just one side of a balance sheet. There are many things that we spend money on—the sick, people who are criminals, from whom we are getting nothing in return—whereas, when we spend money on the Arts in maintaining and improving our high standards, in sharing them as widely as we can through television and radio and in every possible way, we are earning a very considerable income, not only by adding to the reputation of this country, but—and no other argument is so effective as that of hard cash—by bringing in the tourists who will be attracted by this country so long as we ourselves do not lose our self-confidence.
5.3 p.m.
LORD COTTESLOE: My Lords, I, too, should like to congratulate the noble Earl, Lord Denbigh, on his maiden speech. He has evidently devoted a lot of thought and study to the subject and we must be very grateful for his contribution to the debate. This Bill, which we have to thank Mr. Hugh Jenkins for introducing in another place and the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, for introducing here so fully and clearly, is certainly an all-Party measure and, though it may raise some questions, it is in essence entirely non-controversial. However, as Chairman of the Board which was appointed to build the theatre, with the advantage of the monies provided under earlier Acts and the additional monies which this Bill seeks to make available, perhaps I may be allowed to welcome it most warmly and gratefully.
My Lords, the great building that is nearing completion on the South Bank opposite Somerset House is the culmination of a long struggle from 1848, when the project for a national theatre was first conceived by Effingham Wilson, to the present time. The noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, gave an account of its history in introducing the National Theatre Act 1969 and, fascinating though it is, I do not feel that your Lordships would thank me for reciting that history at any very great length to-day. In that long struggle Harley Granville Barker and Sir Carl Meyer played notable parts in the early years of the century and various sites for the theatre were envisaged. A site in Gower Street was bought in 1922 and subsequently sold, and the smaller triangular South Kensington site was bought by the Shakespeare Memorial Trust in 1937 and Sir Edwin Lutyens prepared a design for it. But it was not until 1946 that the LCC offered to provide in exchange for that site a larger and better site on the South Bank—the Shot Tower site—on which in 1951 a foundation stone was laid by Her Majesty the Queen, now Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother.
Even then, there was no finality, for, in the following year, a better site was agreed on near the County Hall, and at long last, in 1962, Mr. Selwyn Lloyd, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, appointed a National Theatre Board to create and manage a National Theatre Company, and—as the noble Baroness. Lady Lee,

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has said—a South Bank Theatre and Opera House Board to build and equip a National Theatre and a new opera house for Sadler's Wells on the South Bank. That is the date that I think we must really regard as the effective beginning of the enterprise. The London County Council, guided by Sir Isaac Hayward's wonderful vision of a comprehensive centre for the Arts, contemplated making available the broad area between County Hall and Hungerford Bridge in front of the Shell Building for the double requirement, and your Lordships may remember Mr. Denys Lasdun's splendid design for that great theatrical and operatic complex which was embodied in a very beautiful model which was on view in the Royal Gallery in 1965. However, when the Government saw the first estimate of cost for the double building of theatre and opera house of about £16 million, they decided to jettison the opera house and my Board had to change its name and to confine itself to building a National Theatre on yet another site—the superb site of more than four acres (the old South Kensington site was, I think, only about two-thirds of an acre) alongside Waterloo Bridge and opposite Somerset House, the site on which the theatre is now nearing completion.
Meanwhile, the National Theatre Company under the inspired direction of Sir Laurence Olivier—who is now a Member of your Lordships' House—playing in the much-loved but physically quite inadequate building of the Old Vic, was going from strength to strength, the equal, if not indeed the superior, of any dramatic company in the world. The dropping of the opera house—and, on a long view, what a sad misfortune that was—in 1965 and the change to the final site of course involved a complete redesign of the building. Mr. Lasdun had to begin again, even though some elements of the specification for the auditoriums had been clarified, and it was not until 1969 that the Board was in a position to go to tender on an estimated figure of £7½ million, of which the Government and the GLC were to provide equal shares.
Your Lordships may think that progress had been slow, but I suppose that in no other country in the world would a board be set up to design and build a great National Theatre without any
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funds of its own—not a penny—and subject to two paymasters, the Government and the Greater London Council, who quite properly required to see and approve everything at every stage. Inevitably there were frustrations and delays, such as the requirement to which the noble Baroness, Lady Lee, referred, which was suddenly placed on the Board when the designs were completed, to provide a reserve of £600,000 to cover the normal increase in building costs during the period of construction. This requirement involved omitting the studio theatre, the restaurant and much special stage equipment. What is remarkable is not that under these handicaps the building took some time to get under way, but that it ever got under way at all. I am reminded of Samuel Johnson's remark about,
"a dog's walking on his hinder legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all".
This building, on the contrary, is done well, but we may indeed be surprised to find it done at all. For that, we are particularly indebted to a number of Ministers and Leaders of the GLC and the LCC. There is the noble Baroness, Lady Lee, herself, Sir Isaac Hayward, the noble Lord, Lord Fiske, and the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles—names that spring at once to mind.
My Lords, to come now to the period since, on November 3, 1969, Lord Chandos and I, with Miss Jennie Lee and Sir Desmond Plummer started the work on the South Bank by shovelling cement into some shuttering—there was no sod to cut, only a waste of rubble. Work has gone on steadily but too slowly, in spite of the most strenuous efforts of the architects, the quantity surveyor, the contractors and sub-contractors, and the members of my Board and of the National Theatre Board. I may say that there has at all times been the happiest harmony between my Board and the National Theatre Board, with Sir Max Rayne as its Chairman and Mr. Peter Hall as Director of the National Theatre Company. It became evident two years ago, however, that the increasing rate of inflation—and this has greatly accelerated since—would carry final costs over the ceiling set by the monies authorised. My noble friend Lord Eccles, the then Minister for the Arts, introduced in 1973 the National Theatre and Museum

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of London Bill, which authorised some additional monies. £1·95 million came from the Government, and, the GLC having agreed to find a further sum, the sum available was brought up to £10·55 million, including—for which we were very grateful—£600,000 for the reinstatement of some of the items we had had to cut out to keep within the ceiling figure in 1969, notably the completion of the studio theatre, some important stage equipment and the fitting-out of the restaurant.
These most welcome reinstatements of course entailed some redesigning and amendment of the specification, and these inevitably caused further delays. The recent violently increased rate of inflation in building costs has made it all the more necessary to complete the theatre as quickly as possible and has had a severe impact particularly on some of the subcontractors. They are in difficulty in obtaining some of the specialised supplies that are needed and in some cases are suffering from a lack of liquidity, like many other firms. The Board is making the most strenuous efforts to resolve these difficulties and to clear the bottlenecks, and it has a sub-committee—to which it is greatly indebted—which has devoted and is devoting a great deal of time and energy to this matter.
The sub-committee that we have set up consists of Sir Max Rayne, the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, and Sir Joseph Lockwood—who could be better than that for this purpose? If they cannot move these matters forward, I do not think anybody in this country can. Even so, in the last four months it has become evident that, although the main structure will be completed in the next few weeks, some of the highly complex structure of stage equipment and controls—never before made, some of them—cannot be installed and completed to allow for the "running-in" period that Mr. Peter Hall very properly requires (upwards of 3 months) and still be ready for an opening ceremony and performance on St. George's Day and Shakespeare's birthday, that is, April 23 next year, which is the date on which we have set our sights. It will not now be possible to fix a definitive date for opening for another two or three months, but as soon as it is possible the date will, of course, be
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made public and there will be no avoidable delay whatever.
When that day finally comes, the public will see within this great building—with its terraces commanding unrivalled views of the river in its course through London from Westminster to St. Paul's—two theatres that incorporate the most up-to-date ideas and equipment, including revolving drums, electronic lighting controls and all the rest of it. Within them, every member of each audience will have a perfect view of the acting on the stage from a distance at which he will be able to see and hear every inflection of expression, movement and voice.
The Olivier Theatre will hold an audience of nearly 1,200 in an arena with an open stage; the Lyttleton Theatre will hold 900 in an auditorium with an adjustable proscenium opening. There will be foyers and bars, restaurants and canteens, dressing rooms and offices, with car parking under the building. There will be work shops and scenery-painting facilities and all the rest, all concentrated under one roof. There will be a flexible studio theatre seating up to 400, in which experimental work can be developed and publicly performed.
There will, of course, be criticisms, both of the detailed design and the arrangements. The noble Earl, Lord Denbigh, made a reference to this. I recollect saying to my Board at their first meeting that: "We must make up our minds from the start that whatever we do will be wrong and that will leave us free to do what we. in the exercise of our judgment, believe to be best." But I am sure that Mr. Denys Lasdun's grand design will meet with the acclaim it deserves. I am sure the Theatre will be felt to be a worthy setting for the finest dramatic company in this country (which is to say in the world) and I do not doubt that the great British public will feel satisfied that, in this building, they have got their money's worth.
5.18 p.m.
LORD BIRKETT: My Lords, it is a privilege to follow so many distinguished speakers on a subject which I regard as being of immense importance even though it is non-controversial. Many of the speakers to-day bear names which are already enshrined in the history of the National Theatre and, indeed, in the case

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of the noble Lord, Lord Cottesloe, his name is enshrined in the very fabric of it. It is also a privilege to be able to congratulate the noble Earl, Lord Denbigh, on a very crisp and articulate maiden speech. I hope that the conventional hope which is always expressed, that he will be heard often in this House, turns out to be true in his case.
This is a money Bill, and money is of the essence. I cannot help feeling that the money concerned is now as much a matter of time as anything else. I had hoped the noble Lord, Lord Cottesloe, would have even better news than he was able to give your Lordships' House, because it is a fact that until this Theatre is completed, with costs escalating as they are, the Treasury must of necessity be asked to bear a heavier share of the burden. It has never been entirely clear to me—and probably the same is true of many of your Lordships—exactly what has caused the delay among all the contracting parties concerned. Perhaps the matter is—both technically and financially—too complex for an explanation in what has become a somewhat lengthy debate; but at the same time the fact that those delays exist has given rise to an enormous amount of disquiet in the country.
The disquiet bears very little relation to the facts of the matter. The disquiet about the completion of the building is understandable enough. In this direction rumours fly. I heard the other day that now delay had become an accepted fact in the country, workmen from various contracting firms were disappearing. Happily, I was reassured to discover that, on the contrary, the workforce is being increased and a great drive is being made to finish the Theatre. I almost hesitate to mention the fact that I had one thought and discovered it to be false, because nowadays it is the glum news which carries. No sooner had the delay in the opening of this building been announced and made public, than a swarm of crows settled upon the future of the National Theatre with great cries of dismay and alarm and, indeed, almost ill-will towards it.
Many of your Lordships have referred to the disquiet expressed by many of the smaller theatres in the country lest the large sums needed for the National Theatre should overwhelm them, lest
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they should be starved by the feeding of this new and clamorous cuckoo. That is an understandable worry. It was first voiced in a letter to The Times. It was adequately answered the next day by Mr. Hall on behalf of the National Theatre. In this connection, perhaps I should declare a tenuous interest because I have many friends and some connections with the National Theatre. But what alarmed me was that the letter contained assertions about the numbers of technicians being sought by the National Theatre and the sums being offered to them, assertions which were false. Indeed, these facts were known to be false by the writer of the letter, but since he had obtained the signatures of so many others and could not presumably alter the letter, it was published. The letter, as I have said, was refuted carefully and crisply the next day. One would have thought that would be enough to scotch it; but no, the assertion about the huge and inflated number of people the Theatre was seeking and the inflated salaries it was offering has been perpetuated in weekly magazines, in other correspondence columns, and one hears it in other quarters. "No smoke without fire" used to be a phrase, but in a century long ago the technique was perfected of making smoke without any fire at all.
Other gloomy voices have arisen; even actors and actresses engaged in playing parts within the subsidised companies have started to complain that at a time of financial crisis we should cut back on sets because they say that for years the expense of the sets, the richness of the costumes, have not merely been ruining the subsidised companies, but ruining the psyche of the actors concerned. It passes my comprehension how a yard or two of taffeta can dismay an actor or actress so much that their art suffers from it. It seems an ill-chosen moment to think of these matters. There could be economies, but a wholesale condemnation of everything that the subsidised theatre stands for is not for to-day.
It is a cry immediately taken up. One newspaper pointed out that just at the moment when we are inventing the most expensive, if exciting, theatre complex in Europe, one of our greatest directors temporarily, and through his own volition, has been exiled in Paris where he has produced, with enormous excitement, one of the plays of Shakespeare

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Timon of Athens, in French, and he is doing it for nothing. The critic said:
"What a contrast to see this man of genius, producing such a remarkable production with almost no facilities. He has taken an empty and derelict theatre and converted it at no cost whatever and, almost without costumes, has thrilled the theatre world of Paris."
I took the opportunity of going to Paris and seeing the production and talked to Mr. Brook about it. It is as magical as everybody says. The "ruined" theatre which he has reclaimed has been carefully and exquisitely "extra-ruined" by one of the greatest art directors in Europe at a cost of £80,000. So the idea that this is an economic set for Timon of Athens by comparison with our National Theatre and Royal Shakespeare Company, for example, will not hold water. This is not to denigrate the work of Mr. Brook because it is as exciting as it is possible to be. One hopes he will come back to this country, perhaps to the Royal Shakespeare Company or the National Theatre. But it shows the danger of assuming something which the world now knows to be wrong, that something can be achieved for nothing, especially in the subsidised world of Europe where the subsidies paid are—and have been for years—enormous by comparison with our own. The extremes are obvious when one hears that in the next season the Paris Opera is offering as much as £4,000 a performance to opera singers going there from this country. One wonders how our own subsidised theatre can possibly survive. That applies to the perhaps even more exaggerated cost of opera; and the National Theatre, obviously confined as it is by its language, does not have the same problems.
We must be aware that we are now in competition with the world even in the theatre. A National Theatre it may be, and I hope it will enshrine everything that is best in our nation so far as theatre is concerned, but it is looked upon by the rest of the world as part of the world Arts complex. The jet aeroplane, newspapers, television, the film and the cassette have made the Arts, above all, an international commodity. There is no going back upon it. Our finances must somehow keep us in the forefront of the Arts, not merely within our own budgetary schemes but within those of Europe and, indeed, the world.
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To pass from the gloom that has been spread because of the delay to this Theatre to more cheerful matters, I wish that some of those who wrote to the newspaper could have heard the noble Baroness, Lady Lee of Asheridge, this afternoon because it is her spirit and sense of excitement which has lasted from 1951, and those exciting days right through until to-day, which is needed to-day. Unless we realise that that sense of excitement in the Arts is as necessary in times of crisis as it is in times of easy going, we shall be lost. Unless the Arts can maintain their level through thick and thin, every form of national life and every form of popular art, will be impoverished.
I hope that the words of the noble Baroness will permeate not only your Lordships' House but will also strike home to the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, who has introduced this debate. I hope that he will pass them on to his right honourable friend the Minister for the Arts, and that the nation will realise the importance of the measure. Make no mistake, what is happening to-day to the National Theatre is not a disaster, it is merely a delay. When it opens, as it surely will, it will be the most exciting event of the century, in theatre terms, not merely for this country, but for the whole world. My Lords, I urge the House most strongly to give this Bill a Second Reading.
5.28 p.m.
LORD STRABOLGI: My Lords, we have had a very good debate and I should like to thank noble Lords for their support and for the welcome that they have given to this Bill. I should like also to congratulate the noble Earl, Lord Denbigh, for his excellent maiden speech, and add my congratulations to those of my noble friend Lady Lee. The noble Earl showed great interest and considerable knowledge of the subject, and I hope that we shall have the pleasure of hearing from the noble Earl in our Arts debates, and perhaps on other matters, too, on many other occasions. I am particularly grateful to the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, for the welcome that he gave to the Bill. I entirely agree with him about Denys Lasdun's building; it is most beautiful and a well-designed theatre. The noble Lord, Lord Cottesloe, and I stood in the rain yesterday looking across the

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river and back at this splendid theatre. We were told how there were going to be trees and lawns in front of it. It will be a beautiful setting as well as an admirable theatre. I am afraid I cannot agree with the noble Viscount about the Hay-ward Gallery. I find that impressive also. The whole great complex on the South Bank, as well as the Festival of Britain, about which my noble friend Lady Lee reminded us, was a concept of the late Lord Morrison of Lambeth. He was always very proud of this and I wish he could see what has happened now.
The noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, asked for an assurance that nothing has been dropped from the schedule. I believe that the noble Viscount, when he was Minister, allowed the Board £600,000 for the restoration of items to be chosen by them from among items previously cut in order to keep the cost down. The Board decided that some of this should go to restore the third auditorium to a reduced scale. This is still being done and in addition the Government have made a special allowance from the Arts Vote to allow permanent galleries to be installed, and thus increase the seating and therefore also increase revenue-earning capacity.
The noble Viscount also asked the Government about running costs, and asked for an assurance that these would be adequate, and whether the Government accepted that there must be proper forward budgeting. I am sure we can give this assurance. It is of course difficult in this House where we have no control over finance, but I may say that my honourable friend the Minister for the Arts is very clearly aware of the needs of the Arts Council taking into account the needs of the new National Theatre and the claims of the other clients of the Council. I must therefore ask the noble Viscount to await the presentation of Estimates to the other place, the discussions on which are now proceeding in accordance with the usual procedures. But, about the running costs, it would probably be proper for me to quote from the speech that my honourable friend the Minister, Mr. Jenkins, made in the other place on the Second Reading of the Bill. At col. 1377 of Hansard (Commons) of November 7, he said:
"I have indicated to the House that the Government are fully aware of the problem
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of running costs and that we have no intention of allowing this great new project to run down for lack of ability to maintain itself."
VISCOUNT ECCLES: My Lords, I am grateful for that assurance, but of course it will not be enough just to see that the National Theatre has adequate funds to work to the full unless the other national companies are also treated in the same manner. This is the point on which we need an assurance. I know the noble Lord cannot give it, but would he be kind enough to convey the point to his honourable friend, because there will be very great trouble if this is not achieved.
LORD STRABOLGI: My Lords, I will certainly convey what the noble Viscount has said to my honourable friend, who is very well aware of these matters, as are the whole Government.
Then, the noble Viscount asked about the Coliseum dispute, which of course is exercising us very much. He asked what Lord Harewood, the manager, was doing about this. This of course is a very difficult situation. There has recently been a proposal for the NATTKE employees concerned to be paid until November 29 and for a panel of two, one from the management and one from the union, to consider the case of each employee concerned by then. This is not accepted by the technicians concerned, and I understand that the NATTKE executive is meeting this weekend to consider the situation. The Department of Employment say that the new independent conciliation and arbitration service is aware of the dispute and is willing to help if requested to do so by the parties concerned.
The noble Viscount mentioned, as did the noble Earl, Lord Denbigh, the proposal to bring the theatre before a wider audience. The Arts Council had a small Working Party looking into this matter some time ago but, as I think the noble Viscount said, nothing came of it because of high labour costs. However, I would suggest that here is another opportunity to air this problem now that the Committee on Broadcasting, under the noble Lord, Lord Annan, are sitting and receiving evidence. I suggest this is an appropriate body to consider this matter. This was a point made also by the noble Lord, Lord Birkett. We are aware that Mr. Peter Hall, the Director, is concerned

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to bring the different arts closer together, particularly the arts of the theatre and cinema and television. Indeed, on Monday evening I had the good fortune to see a film which Mr. Hall has made, called Akenfield—the noble Viscount was there and we had a very pleasant evening—not only for cinema but also for television. It is his first venture and he told me afterwards that he is concerned and anxious that the three media should be brought together in this way. We also take note of the valuable suggestion of the noble Earl, Lord Denbigh, for encouraging people to go to the theatre. This point will certainly be reviewed and investigated.
I should like to welcome the support given by my noble friend Lady Lee of Asheridge. We certainly note her suggestion for a national opening. As the noble Lord, Lord Cottesloe, reminded us, the Theatre was to have been opened on April 23, 1975, and Her Majesty the Queen had graciously consented to perform the ceremony. This was to be very appropriately on St. George's Day which is also Shakespeare's birthday. It had to be postponed, but the National Theatre is considering the matter of an opening later on at the appropriate time, and it is very much hoped that Her Majesty will be gracious enough to perform the ceremony. My noble friend Lady Lee made the point about better communications. This is one that has been very much in my mind, too. One of the problems of the South Bank is that it is difficult of access. I have already taken this matter up with my honourable friend and with the Department, and we shall certainly take note of what the noble Baroness has said particularly about the travelator. I am not sure whether this would be practical. The trouble is the Thames is rather wide and we probably want something—
BARONESS LEE OF ASHERIDGE: My Lords, may I say that I have had the question looked at by very distinguished engineers—quite off the record, not costing the Government one single penny. It is quite practical.
LORD STRABOLGI: My Lords, I cannot wait to hear more from the noble Baroness. We probably want something also like the Pont des Arts, if the Thames
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were not so wide, or indeed like that rather convenient tunnel which leads from the Gare d'Orsay and brings one right up in the middle of the Tuileries, and one walks through the gardens to the Louvre; but of course there are problems with our wider river. This is something which is very much in my mind.
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Cottesloe, for telling us about some of the history of this project. I fully agree with what he said about the beauty of the building. I am very grateful to him for the trouble he took to show me round it yesterday. I was very interested in what the noble Lord, Lord Birkett, said, and I was glad to have his support for Mr. Peter Hall's letter about the question of the technicians. My Lords, I hope I have answered all the points that noble Lords have raised and I commend this Bill to your Lordships for a Second Reading.
On Question, Bill read 2a: Committee negatived.

BIOLOGICAL STANDARDS BILL [H.L.]
5.40 p.m.
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. This Bill is identical with the Bill which I introduced on July 25, and which was expected to have its Second Reading after the Recess; but its progress was interrupted by the prorogation of Parliament and the General Election. Apart from some minor changes it is, in fact, the same as the one to which the House gave a Second Reading, with all-Party approval, on February 5 during the time of the Conservative Government, but which fell when that Parliament was also prorogued. I hope, therefore, that your Lordships will be willing to give it your approval to-day so that it can be examined in Committee and, I hope, pass through its remaining stages by the end of the year, or early in January.
The object of the Bill is to set up a board, to be called the National Biological Standards Board, to manage, under the direction of the Ministers named in the Bill, the activities of the National Institute for Biological Standards and Control. The Institute is at present administered by the Medical Research Council, and its laboratories

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are housed at Mount Vernon in Hampstead. It is concerned with the preparation, characterisation and issue of international and national standard reference materials for a number of important therapeutic, prophylactic and diagnostic biological substances which are widely used in medical treatment. They include blood products, hormones, enzymes, antibiotics and vaccines. The scientific staff of the Institute undertake and advise on the quality control of these substances as produced by commercial manufacturers, thus helping to ensure their efficiency and safety. They also engage in research into problems arising out of these two main functions.
The Bill reflects a decision to transfer the responsibility for the administration of the work of this Institute from the Medical Research Council, a decision arising from the nature of its present functions. There has been a system of licensing of the manufacture for sale, and the importation, of a number of biological substances since 1927 under the Therapeutic Substances Act 1925. At that lime the Medical Research Council agreed to undertake the scientific work concerning the standardisation and control of these substances, which involved the evolution of new standards and tests, and to assist the Health Departments, who have always been responsible for the actual licensing of the manufacturers and importers, in the inspection of manufacturing premises. Since those days the enormous increase in the use of immunological agents, antibiotics and other biological substances has greatly enlarged the scope of the testing and advisory aspects of the work of the Institute. As many of your Lordships will know, the Institute has earned itself a very high standing in the international field. The World Health Organisation has made it responsible for establishing, holding and distributing international standards for worldwide use for non-immunological biological substances.
These developments have changed the emphasis of the work of the Institute. The development of new standards and methods of control testing still involves research, but a very large part of the day-to-day work now involves the maintenance of standards and control testing of the extensive range of biological sub-
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stances that are now on the market and which, like all other medicinal products, are controlled under the Medicines Act 1968, for the administration of which my right honourable friends the Health Ministers are responsible. In view of the change of emphasis, it is no longer appropriate for the work of the Institute to be under the control of a research council. It has seemed appropriate to the Government that administration should be made the responsibility of a board, on the same lines as the Public Health Laboratory Service Board and the Radiological Protection Board, under the direction of Ministers, rather than that it should be placed directly under the Ministers. On this basis, the transfer of responsibility to a separate board has the approval—and I want to emphasise this—of the Medical Research Council, and my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science. The staff of the board to which I have referred will not be civil servants.
The provisions of the Bill are quite straightforward, and with your Lordships' permission I will give only a brief summary of its contents. Clause 1(2) provides that the functions of the board shall be specified in an order by the Ministers and that they shall relate to the establishment of standards for the provision of standard preparations of, and the testing of, biological substances. Any future changes in the board's functions will also have to be specified in an order. The Medical Research Council have already been consulted on the content of the initial order setting out the functions of the board, and in view of their longstanding interest in the work of the Institute we should wish to consult them if any future changes of function are required, and also any other body (such as the Public Health Laboratory Service Board) that would be concerned with any proposed change.
Clause 2 enables the Ministers to appoint the chairman and members of the board. Naturally there will be consultation with the Medical Research Council, the Medicines Commission and the Public Health Laboratory Service Board as to the membership of the new board. At the moment we envisage that there would be about ten members in addition to the chairman, of whom at

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least two members would be "independent". That is to say, they would not be employees of the Health Departments, the Medical Research Council or the Public Health Laboratory Board. Such a board would broadly resemble the non-statutory joint advisory committee which for the last few years has acted as a kind of steering committee, advising the Medical Research Council and the Health Departments on the policy and priorities of the Institute. The Schedule to the Bill sets out further provisions concerning the board, and the terms of office of the members who will be specified in the letters of appointment. Clause 2 also exempts the board from certain income tax and corporation tax requirements.
Clause 3 gives power to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Social Services to make an order transferring from the Medical Research Council property, rights, liabilities and obligations to herself. The Medical Research Council will be consulted on the order. Clause 4 deals with financial matters and the remaining clauses are largely self-explanatory.
My Lords, there are two assurances that I should like to give to the staff of the Institute. They repeat assurances that were given in February in reply to my noble friend Lord Kennet and the noble Lord, Lord Platt. The transfer of responsibility from the Medical Research Council to the new board means that the staff concerned with the work of the National Institute of Biological Standards and Control will be invited to become employees of the new board. Naturally, the staff are anxious about their future position. I should like on behalf of my colleagues to assure each existing member of the staff of the Institute that he—and in this respect "he" includes "she"—will be offered employment by the new board on terms not less favourable to him, taken as a whole, than his present terms of employment under the Medical Research Council. The actual terms and conditions of the staff have not yet been worked out. They will be the subject of discussion between the board and the staff organisations before any offer is made. It is the intention of my right honourable friend the Secretary of State to approach the staff organisations informally as soon as it appears that the
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passage of the Bill is assured, to discuss how these matters should be handled so that the maximum progress can be made in anticipation of the appointment of the new board.
The second assurance relates to the personal research work in which certain members of the existing scientific staff have the right as employees of the Medical Research Council to engage. Research in connection with the development and maintenance of standards is one of the normal functions of the Institute. It is intended that, quite apart from this, personal research on matters not directly related to the Institute's work can be undertaken, provided that the board is satisfied that it will not encroach on the primary work that the board has to carry out. It is recognised by the Health Departments that personal research work can be a stimulus to the scientific staff and of benefit to the general standard of the work of the Institute.
The Government are sure that the establishment of the new board will give to the work of the Institute a new identity and enable the high standard of this work both here and abroad to be maintained. My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Wells-Pestell.)
5.53 p.m.
LORD SANDYS: My Lords, the House will be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, for explaining in great detail the purposes of this Bill which has been before your Lordships' House twice already in the last nine months. I feel it would be excessive if I dwelt too long upon it because your Lordships will already be familiar with its general purpose, but there are still certain matters which it would be right, in our view, and with your Lordships' permission, to investigate a little further. In the first instance, I think it has been recognised that this is a Bill which concerns public health in a very wide field, covering not only the national but the international immunological sphere, and therefore it has, of course, very wide public regard. In so far as this House is concerned, the specific points which I should like to raise concern especially matters related to the techniques which are to be applied in the Bill.

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I should like to take up with the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, two or three matters in respect of which the present Bill differs from the one which was placed before your Lordships' House earlier this year. It is a matter of some interest to us, first of all, that this is the first time—certainly it is the first time I have seen it—that an Explanatory and Financial Memorandum, which contains important information, is not bound with the Bill. I hope that the new loose-leaf, do-it-yourself version, will not become a permanent feature of Parliamentary Bills to be presented. This is of some concern, and some of us have had difficulty is associating the one with the other. Secondly, there is some very important information on the back, and I think we ought to congratulate the Government on making a saving of £15,000 a year on the present staff ratio in establishing this Board. Without saying more on that, I would pass to the principal provision and the principal differences which I feel should be brought before your Lordships.
One difference is that under subsections (3), (4) and (5) of Clause 2 there are certain financial provisions which are new in the Bill. It will be of some interest that the Board is entitled to exemption from income tax and corporation tax. These are matters which one would have thought would be automatic anyway, and I merely mention them. Schedule B concerns woodlands, and no doubt in the leafy glade of Hampstead where the Board is to acquire certain properties this is perhaps of almost academic interest. Nevertheless, the exemption is allowed and this is something which has been given to provide total coverage. The Finance Act 1895 is referred to in regard to the transfer of property on conveyances. This, once again, is a belt and braces measure and I am sure we find it entirely acceptable. Those are the only two points which differ from the original Bill.
The main concern, my Lords, should be in regard to the staff and this is where I should like to make my principal remarks. It will be obvious to your Lordships that some disturbance of the lives of those concerned in this important activity will take place. Naturally, it will be your Lordships' wish to see that the transfer from the Medical Research
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Council to the new body should be as smooth and easy as possible for all concerned. Therefore, it was of great interest that the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, was able to give us an assurance that not only would the staff not be (and I stress the words "not be") civil servants under the new body, but that, and I quote his exact words—
"each member of staff will be offered"
I think he said—
"employment by the new Board on terms not less favourable to him taken as a whole than his present terms".
However, this causes us some concern, because the phrase, "taken as a whole" might give rise to a suspicion that the pension terms or the terms of present employment in the staff structure might he varied. I should like to ask the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, whether he can give us some more information in this regard. It is quite clear that in the new Board, established as it will be in two places—Hampstead and Mill Hill—there will be some variation in the staffing structure.
My Lords, in welcoming the Bill as a whole, which is a measure which comprises only five pages, I feel that we should not dwell too long on what appears to be a small matter. Nevertheless, it is of great national and international concern and we should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, for bringing it before your Lordships at an early stage, and for the third and perhaps last time it will reach the Statute Book successfully.
6.1 p.m.
LORD DOUGLAS OF BARLOCH: My Lords, my noble friend, in proposing the Second Reading of this Bill, has given an explanation of its purposes which I think I follow perfectly well, but, in fact, the Bill is drawn in very much wider terms than the noble Lord covered. He said that it was to deal with therapeutic substances, but I cannot find anything in the Bill which confines it to therapeutic substances. It may conceivably be good if it extends to other than therapeutic substances. I believe, for example, that large quantities of washing powders which contain enzymes are now sold, which obviously are biological substances within the scope of the Bill.

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Not only is the Bill drawn in extremely wide terms in so far as it purports to relate to biological substances of all kinds for whatever purpose they might be used but also the operative part, subsection (2) of Clause 1, is drawn in very wide terms. It provides for the Board to have three functions: one is in relation to the establishment of standards of biological substances; the second is the provision of standard preparations of biological substances and the third is the testing of biological substances. The second of these functions appears to indicate that the Board could have powers to manufacture and to sell biological substances to any extent whatever that the Minister directed. I do not know whether or not that is the intention that lies behind it, but it appears to tie up with the provisions exempting the Board from income tax and corporation tax. In relation to this exemption from taxation it is interesting to see that it extends to an exemption in respect of distributions received by the Board, and this seems to indicate that the Board will be the holder of shares in various companies. That also deserves some explanation because these powers are not limited in any way whatsoever in the Bill, and apparently the Minister can direct whatever he pleases.
6.3 p.m.
LORD REDESDALE: My Lords, I hope you will forgive me for intervening in this debate without prior notice, but I should be grateful if the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, would be kind enough to clarify one point which worries me. In Clause 3(1) there is mention of liabilities under the MRC, but now that this passes over to the Government body I wonder whether these liabilities become more extensive? I sincerely hope that no substances which are tested under this new organisation could go wrong, but it is always possible that something could go amiss and should we have another thalidomide situation I wondered what the situation would be regarding liabilities and whether, in fact, the liabilities of the State would be greater than those which exist under the Medical Research Council, which I believe do not really have very much effect.
In other words, I do not think that any individual could claim on the MRC whereas they might claim against an ethical drug company which was supply-
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ing a drug. I wondered whether, now that the State will be taking over the testing, the relationship between a claimant and a company distributing a drug would be different, or whether, because the State had tested the drug, the claimant would have a claim against the State. I welcome this Bill and hope that it will go through, at least on the basis of "third time lucky".
6.6 p.m.
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I will try to answer the questions that have been put to me, and I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Sandys, who mentioned to me the question of the new addition, Clause 2. My information is that this is the normal provision to be included for Boards of this kind. I believe on the last occasion it was an omission, and as well as being the right thing to do I think it is a cautious measure because it is possible that some money could accrue to the Board. For example, it could be paid for some of the testing that it does. It works in conjunction with the World Health Organisation and it could be paid certain fees, but those fees would be negligible. Nevertheless, there could be a little income. Turning to the remarks made by my noble friend Lord Douglas of Barloch, there will never be in the hands of the Board anything like the amount of money that would be required to invest in other concerns, so that question does not arise at all.
The noble Lord, Lord Sandys, mentioned the question of just a change in wording from "Health Ministers" to "Ministers". He quite rightly pointed out that this is defined in Clause 8 and I do not think there is any necessity to say anything more at this stage. I should like to make it clear that this was not a matter which the noble Lord mentioned to me, but I, too, was very concerned about the phrase "taken as a whole" because I felt that it could give rise to some misunderstanding, and I have gone into this very carefully. I understand the position to be that there may be certain differences in conditions of employment. A person may be asked to do something more in a different sphere, but what it boils down to at the end of the day is that his position, status and income will not be affected. He might have a little

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more holiday; he may have a little less holiday, I do not know. There may be minor adjustments, and I am not putting it any higher than that. So if one may use the phrase "taken as a whole" then the position, the status and pay of the individual will remain unaffected. Certainly he will not be at a disadvantage.
Returning to my noble friend Lord Douglas of Barloch, I should like to tell him that we are dealing with this matter of biological substances as they affect the individual from a health point of view. So far as I know it will not be the function of the Board to concern itself with, for example, washing powder—at least I do not think so. We are concerned with biological substances and the control of such substances which will be used in the interests of the health of the individual. The noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, has raised (let me be quite frank about it) a very difficult problem. I am not a lawyer and I should not like to say something that your Lordships would take as being authoritative, but from the inquiries I have made I understand that, of course, it is open to anybody to bring an action against an individual or a company or a Board provided it is felt that there is justification for doing so.
It is a well-known fact that there are on the market vaccines which have been very carefully tested, and, indeed, could not have been more carefully tested, and yet in one case in perhaps half a million one will have an unfortunate effect. I do not think anybody could give an undertaking that this is not likely to happen, but here we have a situation where manufacturers themselves, as I understand the situation, will be doing the test, and then submitting to the Board the substance for their testing or not—since there will be a check on some coming from the manufacturers. If it were to have an adverse effect on anybody who has that particular substance administered, then presumably they would be entitled to bring an action. But if I may venture to suggest this, they would have to prove that there had been negligence of a very real kind. The answer to the noble Lord is that certainly the Board would be subject to the same laws as any other concern, but it would be the Board and not the Government.
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I hope I have answered, so far as I am able, those noble Lords who have spoken.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

WILD PLANTS PROTECTION BILL [H.L.]
6.11 p.m.
LORD BEAUMONT OF WHITLEY: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. This, too, is a repeat performance. In January your Lordships gave the Bill an unopposed Second Reading and it, too, was "killed off" by the February Election. I did not introduce it again in the intervening Parliament because we have spent the intervening time very usefully improving the Bill. I owe a debt of gratitude to the noble Baroness, Lady Young, for her initiative in this matter. I am delighted that she is to speak to-day, I owe gratitude also to a large number of people in the relevant Ministries who have improved the Bill. I hope that in the course of this evening I shall be able also to add my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Melchett. I am sorry that the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, who has taken such an enormous interest in the Bill, is not able to be here, or indeed, to move the Bill following this Bill, the Conservation of Wild Creatures Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Wynne-Jones, will be moving that Bill for him.
Some noble Lords may know that it is quite possible that these two Bills, perhaps in composite form, may be introduced into another place. If this should be so we and the whole conservation world would be most grateful to any Member of Parliament who would undertake that task. But meantime, what may happen in another place is not necessarily to be forecast in advance, and I think it is right to go ahead with the Second Reading of this Bill.
My Lords, the main pressure on the plant life of this country is the pressure of land use. Since the 18th century, when there was such enormous richness in our land, improvement of agriculture, urbanisation and all sorts of things have put a lot of pressure on land use, and have destroyed a large number of our plants. To take one small

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example, every year since the last war, 1 per cent. of the hedges of this country have been destroyed. In those hedges were many plants, and some were very rare. Of course, in itself much of this is very healthy. We all want to see a healthy and economically viable agricultural industry. The turning of meadows into leas, the cultivation of more and more land, the planting of more forests and the increasing use of herbicides and their effect on increasing efficiency of farming have, at one and the same time, increased our food supply while taking their toll of our wild life.
On top of this, comes the thoughtless digging up of plants seen to be pretty and, inevitably thereafter, the depradations which stem from the knowledge of the rarity of the plants. It is not all that long ago since every university botanical department thought itself deprived if it did not have a specimen of every indigenous wild plant. While the behaviour of the scientific professional community is now a great deal more responsible, a small number of botanists still cause a problem. The classic case history of the extinction of a species of wild flower is diminution through land use, a fault which results in its becoming rare, the rarity is then written up and becomes known, and draws collectors, who exterminate the plant. The only specimens then left are those in museums.
The decline of Britain's flora and fauna, evidenced since the early 19th century, has accelerated sharply since the Second World War. Frank Perring and Max Walters, writing in Nature in 1971, discussed the question of conserving rare plants, and opened their remarks with the following statistics. Since botanical recording began in the middle of the 17th century, about 20 native plant species are believed to have become extinct in Great Britain. Frank Perring also produced evidence that many more species are in danger of extinction if not protected immediately. When the field work for the preparation of the Atlas of British Flora was being carried out by the Botanical Society of the British Isles between 1954 and 1960, a thorough survey was made of the past and present distribution of rare species.
In the late 1960s, a re-survey of the rarest 300 species was made through the County Recorders of the BSBI. A com-
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bination of these two surveys showed that before 1900, 44 plants, 17 per cent. of the rarest 300, occurred in only one or two 10-kilometre squares of the national grid. By 1930, the number occurring in so few areas was 59 species, 23 per cent., and by 1970, 97 species, or 38 per cent. of the rarest 300. Thus, about 7 per cent. of the native British flora, or about 1,500 species, may be in danger of extinction. Other species are declining so rapidly that they may shortly be in the same dangerous position. This is particularly true of the species growing in marshes and wet meadows which are subject to drainage. The fritillary, Fritillaria Meliagris, once known in more than 100 localities, is now known in only 13. The Fen orchid, Liparis Lowesli, was once widespread in the Fens of East Anglia, but now occurs in only very few localities in that region. The 12 species which are known to have died out since 1900 include the attractive Summer Ladies Tresses Orchid, once locally common in the New Forest and killed by drainage and clearance in the 1940s.
My Lords, much effort has been put into halting this trend, largely through the efforts of the Botanical Society of the British Isles, by spreading awareness of the problem, creating of nature reserves by organisations and individuals, and by the great work of the Nature Conservancy. But the BSBI, the Council for Nature and the Society for the Promotion of Nature Reserves have felt for some time that the time is overdue for legislation. This is the legislation.
My Lords, I now come briefly to the clauses of the Bill, since I think they are fairly simple. Clause 1 of the Bill protects all plants growing wild from wilful uprooting or destruction by anyone other than the owner of the land, or people acting on his behalf. Since the last time I had the honour to introduce this Bill in your Lordships' House, the definition has been extended from "wild plants" to "plants growing wild". This is a much more inclusive, and I believe a more satisfactory concept, and one which would now include certain plants which are not technically indigenous to this country. For instance, there is a particular wild tulip, I think imported by those dangerous immigrant innovators, the Romans, which might not have been

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covered by the previous Bill, but now, without doubt, is.
Clause 2 forbids the wilful picking, uprooting and destruction of the 20 rarest plants. I have deposited an illustrated guide to these plants in the Library of both Houses. They are to be protected as much as possible. Unfortunately, we have not felt able to go to the ultimate extreme. The landowner can still destroy these plants in the normal agricultural processes, as your Lordships will see in Clause 2, the only exception being that on a designated site of scientific interest where the landowner has been informed by the Nature Conservancy Council that he has a certain plant on his land he is under an obligation to give notice of any work which could destroy it. It does not, unfortunately, in my view, remove the landowner's right to conduct the necessary agricultural operations at the end of the day, even at the risk of destroying the plant, but it does give time for the case to be put to him, for some compensation to be offered to him, if necessary, and in the last resort, at least, the chance of trying to move the plant to a new habitat, unsatisfactory though that is as a rule.
The number of plants on which we wish to put this extreme protection, or not so extreme protection, has been kept to a bare minimum. We think that the right principle is not to spread the protection too far. Of course, we will look sympathetically at any addition proposed by any noble Lord. Nevertheless, the Botanical Society of the British Isles and other sponsoring bodies have very carefully looked at the qualifications of the plants which appear in the Schedule to this Bill, and are satisfied that the really important cases are covered. And, of course, the list can be altered afterwards under Clause 3, which gives the Secretary of State power to add to or subtract from it, either nationally or by area.
Clause 4 allows the necessary exceptions to the Bill for scientific purposes, and puts control of this in the able hands of the Nature Conservancy Council. Clauses 5 and 6 deal with enforcement and penalties and are modelled very closely on similar provisions in the Badgers Act and other wild life protection Acts which have already passed scrutiny in both House of Parliament. Clause 7 makes it
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the duty of the Nature Conservancy Council to provide the Secretary of State with advice on these matters. Clause 8 is one of the most important clauses in the Bill, with its intention to encourage local authorities to educate the public, particularly children, in these matters of conservation. Clause 9 makes orders under this Bill subject to the Negative Resolution procedure. Clause 10 deals with definitions. I must apologise once again to the Corporation of the City of London for omitting them, and assure them that I will put down an Amendment in Committee. Clause 11 deals with the short Title, extent and commencement.
These are measures which many of us believe, and which a great many botanists believe, are essential for the greater protection of wild plants, and they are very mild. No-one is prevented from picking any save the 20 very rarest wild plants occurring in very few places in this country. Everybody is protected by the word "wilfully" from an offence committed by mistake. No-one is prevented from doing what he likes with the wild flowers on his own land, except the 20 rarest species, and even then he can, alas, destroy them if he needs to do so in the course of agriculture.
We are in the middle of a long process of trying to preserve our environment. We have passed Bills through your Lordships' House and through another place protecting birds, seals, deer and badgers. Now is the time for plants. In an hour or so it will be the time, we hope, for more mammals. It may be that the time is coming when we shall need a general conservation Bill, and I know that there are many people who feel that this would be the time for that. But I feel that it will probably have to be a Government Bill and, if I may use what is probably an unconservation-like simile, I would rather have a bird in the hand than two in the bush, particularly since this afternoon we have already seen another Bill about the National Theatre.
I have just been reading some diaries which I am editing, in which James Agate was asking in 1935 whether or not it would be better in the end to settle for something rather than wait for a National Theatre, which may take a very long time. Well, my Lords, sooner or later it all happens, but I think it is right to go

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ahead now with these Bills for the preservation of these specific plants and animals. I do not think it will put back the progress of a bigger, more consolidating Bill. Indeed I feel that the more individual Bills we have, the easier it will be for a Government sponsored Bill to enclose them and bring them all up to date. I commend this very small but useful measure for the conservation of the wild life of our country to your Lordships' House. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Beaumont of Whitley.)
6.27 p.m.
LORD MELCHETT: My Lords, I thought it might be helpful if I intervened at this stage of the debate in order to give an indication of the Government's attitude to this Bill. I am sure we are all grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, for introducing this Bill for a second time and for again explaining its aims so clearly. This afternoon we are taking the Second Readings of two Bills dealing with different aspects of the preservation of our countryside. The Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, would make it possible for our endangered plants to be protected and, next on the Order Paper, the Conservation of Wild Creatures Bill seeks to give protection to our endangered animals.
At the risk of being out of order at the start of my first speech from this position in your Lordships' House, I should like to preface my remarks on Lord Beaumont's Bill with a few words about the conservation of British wild life in general, with which both Bills are concerned. I am not so out of order as I might be, because, as the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, has said, these two Bills are to be amalgamated. I understand that the Member in another place who has drawn first place in the ballot for Private Members' Bills is planning to introduce the amalgamated version. There are no strong legal or technical objections to amalgamation. This could improve the presentation and reduce the number of subsidiary clauses. But plants and animals give rise to different legal problems and would have to be kept separate in the main clauses. The Government would be quite happy if the Bills were to be amalgamated, subject, of course, to the various points which I will be raising on the two separate Bills to-day.
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My Lords, I am not an enthusiast for preservation merely for the sake of keeping things as they are now. Indeed, I do not believe that this is either possible or desirable. As a farmer I am conscious of how much the animal and plant life of our small island is being continuously changed by the changing patterns of agricultural production. Of course, human beings have been changing our "natural" countryside since we arrived on the scene, and I think many changes have been for the better. The planting of all our hedges and hedgerow trees at the time of enclosure, and before and since, created an "artificial" countryside that we are now grateful for and are anxious to preserve. Some of the species that man has introduced here artificially—for example, the pheasant which was introduced by the Romans—would be sorely missed for many reasons if they disappeared.
However, I think everyone is agreed that the rate of change, and so, unfortunately, often the rate of destruction of native plants and animals has increased over recent years, as the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, has said. Nowadays we do things on a far larger scale than we did in the past. This is as true of farming as it is of the building of roads, homes, offices or factories; as true of new agricultural drainage schemes or the removal of hedges as it is of oil drilling or the creation of new reservoirs.
I must say that, for me, one of the least attractive aspects of the economics of size and mass production is that it tends to lead to uniformity, whether it is prairie farming, vast blocks of high-rise flats, vast blocks of conifers, or merely a farmer tidying up an odd piece of scrub or draining an odd wet patch. And it seems to me that it is this increasing uniformity of the world in which we live that these two Bills could do a great deal to counteract.
Blocks of flats and blocks of conifers will come down in time, but once we lose a wild plant it has, of course, gone forever. My Lords, I am quite sure that I have talked in general terms for far too long. I would only add that the Government warmly support the aims of conservation in general, and are prepared to support the general aims of these two Bills.

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Legislation cannot prevent continuing change, but to the extent that some species are endangered by human activities it has a role to play. As I see it, the Bills before us should primarily fill an educative function, pointing out and emphasising to the public the need to treasure our natural inheritance and the consequences of careless or thoughtless actions. I have no doubt that the supporters of these Bills are planning to supplement them with suitable publicity drives; indeed, considerable work along these lines is already being done. But, my Lords, the Government accept that publicity drives on their own are unlikely to halt the present decline, or to save certain species from extinction.
It is the Government's view that while only a small number of prosecutions are likely to result from these measures, the educative value of legislation, and to a lesser extent of any resulting prosecutions, would have the effect, in the short term, of conserving our most endangered species, and, in the longer term, of changing people's attitudes. At the same time, enforcement is bound to be a problem and it is not easy to strike a balance between the aim of effective enforcement and the need to avoid unduly infringing the civil liberties of the individual. In concluding my general remarks, I am happy to be able to say that these two Bills appear to plug the main gaps in existing legislation protecting our native endangered species.
I turn now to the Wild Plants Protection Bill in particular. Before briefly going through the various clauses of the Bill, I should like to deal with the one area of political controversy. Noble Lords will know that the Bill as drafted would prevent the uprooting of that highly endangered species, the Blue Heath, which is listed in the Schedule to the Bill. It may be thought that this is an attempt to interfere with the democratic rights that may, I understand, shortly be exercised by noble Lords opposite. I am happy to be able to tell your Lordships that this is not so. According to the reference book that I have consulted, the Blue Heath is more commonly known as the Scottish Menziesia, and it occurs only on a moor in Perthshire. So, if anything, it is another ex-Conservative
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Prime Minister that this Bill seeks to preserve.
I am happy to say that since the Bill was last debated in this House fruitful discussions have continued between the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, and his advisers and Government officials. As a result, many of the very real obstacles pointed out by the noble Baroness, Lady Young, at the last Second Reading, have been dealt with in as satisfactory a way as the nature of the exercise allows. I note that the clause aiming to prevent the sale of wild plants, which threw up so many complications, has gone; I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, will be well advised to rely on the provision against picking for sale in the Theft Act 1968.
The earlier omission of adequate exemptions for farmers and for statutory undertakers such as water authorities has now been largely made good. The main drawback that remains is that some of the definitions, notably those of "uproot" and "plant", are still very wide. It is of course notoriously difficult to draw hard and fast lines where nature is concerned. I know that many hours have been spent in trying to improve on the text that we have before us. It may be that it cannot be improved. The problems that arise may be theoretical rather than practical, but we must recognise that much will be left to the discretion of the courts.
One thing we must ensure is that ramblers and other members of the general public are free to enjoy wild flowers, and are circumscribed by the law as little as possible. Under this Bill anyone may pick any wild flowers unless they belong to one of the rare protected species—and there are only 140 or so localities in Britain where the 20 protected wild flowers in the Schedule to the Bill could be found. And even then anyone picking a protected plant by mistake should have a defence if he had genuinely confused the species with another. Here I should like to suggest to the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, that the phrase, "without reasonable excuse" might be considered, in Clauses 1 and 2, instead of "wilfully". I am advised that the courts have, on occasion, held that "wilfully" meant only that an action had to be undertaken voluntarily, and, with that in mind, "without reasonable excuse" might be preferable.

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The use of this phrase in Clause 2(2) might make the inclusion of the words, "knowing it to be a protected plant", unnecessary. The uprooting, as opposed to picking, of wild plants would not be allowed under the Bill. It is unfortunate that the definition of "plant" is still so wide that it includes many plants, and even weeds, where uprooting would do no harm at all. But this is not the major infringement of liberty that it might at first sight appear to be. Uprooting is already an offence under both the Theft Act 1968 and the Criminal Damage Act 1971, even though prosecutions under these measures would be unlikely except in extreme cases. And, on a more down to earth note, uprooting is hard work! Unless the soil has been cultivated most plants break off when pulled, so for uprooting one would usually need an implement like a spade or trowel. So I, at least, am prepared to accept that these provisions will not curtail ordinary enjoyment more than the very minimum necessary to protect our wild plants.
I assume that the purpose of Clause 2(2)(a) is to protect farmers while undertaking their normal operations, but to avoid giving blanket exemption for unnecessary damage. But in the absence of a definition of the term "good husbandry" which is used in the clause, the courts would probably look to the Agriculture Act 1947, where the phrase "good husbandry" is used to denote efficiency and a standard of management, concepts which are not really applicable in this Bill. I should have thought the phrase already in Clause 2(2), "which could not reasonably have been avoided", would provide sufficient cover against reckless or unnecessary damage by farmers. The noble Lord might like to consider deleting the reference to "good husbandry", and the remaining part of Clause 2(2)(a) could then with advantage be redrafted along the lines of "any operation in connection with agriculture, horticulture or forestry".
The provision in the latter part of Clause 2(2) requiring owners and occupiers to give 28 days' notice before destroying protected plants on sites of special scientific interest is a new concept that goes well beyond the existing voluntary arrangements and raises considerable implications for the Nature Conservancy Council. As your Lordships will know,
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these sites of special scientific interest are declared under the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949, but the only legal effect of this at present is that the local planning authority must then consult the Council before giving permission for development. I fully appreciate the reasons for wanting this provision included. But I know that the Council are engaged in a fundamental review of their policies on these sites and I must reserve the Government's position on this until we have had an opportunity for further discussions. I hope, however, that the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, will be prepared to discuss this idea with us to see whether something satisfactory to the Council and the noble Lord can be worked out.
The noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, might care to consider three more points. I appreciate that the powers of the police to stop and search suspects and vehicles in Clause 6 are based on those conferred by the Protection of Birds Act 1967 and the Badgers Act, but I think we shall want to examine this a little more closely at a later stage. As drafted, Clause 6 goes further than those two Acts, and it might be more acceptable if, for example, the provision that "a police officer has reasonable grounds for suspecting that evidence of the commission of the offence is to be found on the person or in the vehicle" were added. Secondly, the Nature Conservancy Council are already required by their Act of 1973 to advise the Secretary of State on all matters affecting nature conservation, so Clause 7 appears to be an unnecessary duplication. And, lastly, the consultations with local authorities and others before making an Order may not need to be as complicated as the arrangements proposed in Clause 9.
My Lords, I am afraid that Government speeches on the Second Readings of non-Government Bills often tend to sound like a long catalogue of "ifs", "buts", and other reservations. So in conclusion it is my pleasure to confirm that the Government are prepared to support this Bill in principle. There is a long history of attempts to legislate adequately for the protection of plants, and in my opinion this is much the best effort to date. I have raised a number of matters which appear to need attention, but if your Lordships decide to give the Bill a Second Reading I am sure we

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can work together to find satisfactory solutions. May I say that I am particularly pleased to have been able to make my first speech from this Bench on this subject, not only because I have been allowed to start off gently on a politically uncontroversial Bill—Blue Heath aside—but also because I have been able to give the Government's support in principle to a Bill that I feel sure is supported by everybody in your Lordships' House.
6.41 p.m.
BARONESS YOUNG: My Lords, I should like to begin by congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, on his first speech from the Dispatch Box and to wish him well in the new responsibilities that he has taken up. I am sure we all agree that he spoke with great clarity and I, too, am delighted to be speaking to him now on a politically non-controversial subject, as in the past we have usually exchanged our remarks in the more heated atmosphere of a politically controversial Housing Bill.
I begin by giving the Bill a warm welcome and to thank the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, for reintroducing it. I well remember the Second Reading of his Bill with similar aims last January when I think everybody who spoke in your Lordships' House supported it. This was not surprising then, nor should it surprise anyone to-day. The noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, has made out his case well, if I may say so, and I do not think there is anyone to-day who is interested in conservation or in the environment who would not welcome such a piece of legislation as this. There is an urgency about it because with each year that passes there is the ever-increasing danger of the further disappearance of some species of wild plants; and, of course, if the wild plants go then so much of the enjoyment of walkers and ramblers will go, too.
I am particularly glad to see the form in which the Bill reappears, because the last time I looked at it was on the occasion when I discussed it with the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, and his colleagues in the Department of the Environment. As I remember the discussions that took place on that occasion, it seemed to me that this Bill incorporates many of the suggestions that
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were then made by the experts to make it acceptable to the Government of the time. It was a Bill which had the support in principle of the last Conservative Administration, and I was very glad to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, that now it has been reintroduced it has the support of the present Government. As I understand it, when the Bill goes to another place, it may take the form of an amalgamated Bill, which I must say is something that is new to me. But I have no doubt that if it has Government support it will find its way on to the Statute Book.
One point that I noted about the form of this Bill was of course that the clause which made illegal the picking of wild plants for sale has been deleted. This, I think, was one of its more controversial features. I was glad, too, to see that under Clause 2(2) agricultural and other legitimate operations are exempted from the provisions of the Bill. Again, I was glad to see that the Nature Conservancy Council is to be the statutory adviser to the Secretary of State. When this Bill was last introduced, the Nature Conservancy Council had only just been established and I am delighted to see it in its rightful place and that the proposal to set up special advisory committees, as in the original Bill, has been dropped.
There are, however, three particular points that I wish to raise. The first is a general point on the Schedule to the Bill at the end. When the Bill was last debated on Second Reading, many of your Lordships said that the list of protected rare plants was too short, that it was already out of date and should be added to. I would leave to others far more expert than myself to say whether or not this is true at the present time. But what I am certain will be true is that in the course of time the list will need to be added to. Am I right in thinking that the Bill does not make clear the procedure for adding to the list? Does it in fact require another Bill? This may be simply the fact that I am not a lawyer and that I have missed it somewhere, but it would be helpful to know the position.
My second point is on the question of the drafting of Clause 1. I wonder whether this is yet right and whether I am right in saying that it has already been amended since the first draft of

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the Bill? Nevertheless, as I read it, I must say once again that I am not a lawyer. To say that it is an offence to uproot any plant, unless with the permission of or by an authorised person, seems a very wide provision indeed, particularly when one looks at the definition of the words "a plant". There surely must be a difference between wild flowers, which we all recognise as such, and what could only be described as common weeds by a great many people. It seems to me that this is a matter we should look at again on the Committee stage.
My third point is in relation to the local authorities. I see that they are to be the authorities who will be responsible for providing publicity about the Bill. Obviously, professional bodies will do so as well. I have no doubt that there will be discussion with the local authority associations about this. But it seems to me that it will be very necessary for the general public to have some means of identifying specified rare plants. Most members of the public will not be able to do this. On looking at the list, I could say without doubt that I could not recognise any of them. I think that unless one is an expert and has taken a great interest in these matters one will not be able to do so. It is clearly in areas like country parks, National Parks, places where people may walk, the kind of places where the Ramblers Association will take parties of people, where it will be necessary to have some way of identifying these specified rare plants. It will be particularly necessary since the penalties for picking any one of them are severe, and although I quite understand it would be possible to say one had picked a plant by mistake, clearly this is to be avoided at all costs.
I very much welcome the proposal that local authorities should take whatever steps they think best to educate children about the need to protect wild plants. In many instances, I suspect that it may be that the teachers themselves will need to be educated as well. Education is nearly always a very long process, but I am certain that there are many schools to-day which still encourage children to go out to pick wild flowers for the nature table. Although it is not an offence to pick any wild flower, clearly the whole of the spirit behind the Bill is that people
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should be encouraged simply to look at them growing in their natural state and not to pick them. I believe it will take a long process of education to get this lesson across to everybody. Of course, teachers will have to know what are the specified rare plants so that the children can be taught how to identify them. Although it is probably unlikely that they will come across them—the fact that they are rare will protect them—nevertheless they should know what they are. I therefore welcome this debate as being part of the educational process, and I hope that the Bill has a speedy passage through your Lordships' House and through another place.
6.50 p.m.
LORD SOMERS: My Lords, I will not keep your Lordships more than a few moments. This Bill has my wholehearted support, and I sincerely hope it has a smooth passage through your Lordships' House. I hope the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, will forgive me if at Committee stage, if he intends to have one, I try to introduce one flower on to the protected list. I am ashamed to say that I cannot even remember its name now except that it is an orchid, not remarkable for its appearance but very remarkable indeed for scientific reasons, as it is the only one which has that particular root system.
My Lords, there is one difficulty in regard to this Bill, and that is: how on earth is one going to enforce it? Most of the rare plants in the Schedule grow not in places which are likely to be developed agriculturally or which are likely to be built on, but in wild places where practically nobody ever goes and which cannot possibly be supervised. So I wonder how on earth one is ever going to prove that somebody has taken a plant if, by some extraordinary chance, it happens to disappear. That is the only difficulty I see at the moment, apart from the one that the noble Baroness, Lady Young, has just mentioned, of recognising whether a plant is a specified rare plant. I am wondering whether, at the entrance to National Parks and protected places, it will be possible, provided the Schedule does not get much longer, to have a board showing pictures of them all, so that one may recognise what one is intending to pick. While perhaps not being a very practical way, it may be one way of

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showing people what they must not pick. I see no other difficulties at all, and I sincerely hope that the Bill has a very successful passage.
6.53 p.m.
THE EARL OF CORK ARD ORRERY:My Lords, it is pleasant to turn aside for a moment from the sturn and drang of what passes now for normal life to matters which may seem trivial, possibly, to some but are none the less concerned with matters that are rather more real than many of the other things that we talk about. At least, I assume that all the things mentioned in this Bill are real, although I confess to a momentary measure of suspicion concerning the Oblong Woodsia, which seems to me to smack somewhat of Edward Lear's just as celebrated Manipeoplia Upsidedownia. Blue Heath of course I recognise as my right honourable friend; and Cheddar Pink is no doubt a fellow traveller from the county of my childhood. Saxifraga cespitosa, I see with that inward eye which is the bliss of solitude, growing tuftily beside the septic tank.
I see no need, nor have I the necessary botannical knowledge, further to analyse or criticise the list of protected plants that appears in this rather charmingly drafted Schedule. It is right, I am quite certain, to protect plants that are of value—and plants are of value to me, especially if they are rare. What, however, is a plant? Every speaker so far has referred to this matter of definition, including the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley. I observe from the interpretation clause, Clause 10, that
" 'plant' means any plant (excluding any fungus and alga) growing wild on any land".
"A plant means a plant growing wild" seems to me to lack precision as a definition. That may be a Committee point, but perhaps the noble Lord could help us a little by saying whether it is intended to distinguish some kind of plant from, say, a moss, a bush, a shrub or even, for all I know, a sapling oak. In the earlier Bill this definition was much clearer, though not altogether clear if one looks at it now, because it made it plain that "plant" included trees. It also mentioned, I think, although I do not know whether it is necessary to mention it again now without being confusing, that it
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included lichens, whereas lichens are now; excluded.
I am sure your Lordships will be favourably disposed towards this Bill, its aim and its intentions, as I am myself, but I trust that noble Lords will not be so carried away by their enthusiasm for it that by the time they have read to the end they will have forgotten what was said in Clause 1. This is not the first time that reference has been made to this. The noble Lord, Lord Melchett, seemed to find no great risk attending the future of persons who might be caught by this clause. I think he was a little optimistic; and my noble friend Lady Young has certainly drawn attention to some difficulties. May I go a little further than this, my Lords, and invite your Lordships to look at Clause 1, that I may warn noble Lords of their peril. It may happen one day that you will visit a friend in the country. You may be walking alone in his field, his park, his garden or his potato patch, and your eye will chance to fall upon a weed or two. Seeking to do your friend a good turn, with no thought of criminal intent and without pausing to consider the enormity of your deed, you will pluck from the ground, say, a sprig of groundsel, a stinging nettle and a dock, all of which are quite easy to pull out, as a matter of fact—when they are small, anyway. It may also befall that a police constable will observe this action and request you to furnish him with your name and address. Should you decline to do so, possibly supposing the constable to be either drunk or an imposter, he will then be entitled, under Clause 6, to arrest you and drag you off to the "cooler", from which it will cost you to get out, apart from bail money, which is recoverable, anything up to a total of £400; that is, £100 for each of the three weeds, as they are all of different species, plus £100 for refusing to oblige the constable.
Now I dare say I shall be told that this Bill is not intended to legislate for such ridiculous nonsense as this, and that nobody in his senses would interpret it in this way. But, my Lords, the truth is that I am not interpreting it: I am telling your Lordships what it says. It says:
"If any person other than an authorised person wilfully uproots any plant he shall be guilty of an offence."
My Lords, "any plant"—daisy, dandelion, yellow ragwort, ground elder,

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Colorado thorn apple, deadly nightshade. These are, whether we like it or not, weeds; and it may not be the intention, and it may never happen, that anybody should prosecute anybody for pulling up any of these things. But that is not an excuse for putting them in the Bill, because it is not the task of Parliament to pass laws which it does not intend to operate, and something must be done about this, I suggest.
Having said all this, the Bill then goes on to say what happens if you molest a protected plant. Now it turns out that the only difference is that you may not, under pain of the full rigour of the law, pick a protected plant. You do not have to pull it up to fall foul of the law, as you do with the unprotected plant. But what happens if in fact you do pull it up? You will find that the penalty for doing that is no higher than for pulling up a stinging nettle; that is to say, the maximum penalty is no higher, and I dare say (in fact, I am quite sure) you could successfully throw yourself upon the mercy of the court.
My Lords, the point I am making is indeed a perfectly serious one. In my submission we do not want or need draconian laws against the uprooting of all wild plants. On the other hand, I most heartily agreee that some protection is needed for some plants. The question is, which? Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, has some particular plants in mind; and, if so, I wonder whether he would consider the possibility of making some kind of a list of semi-protected plants. This may not be easy, but it might be done. There again, let us not be too specific about what "semi-protected" means, although it would obviously protect plants within two different categories. Alternatively, if it should be felt that certain plants are in special peril in a particular neighbourhood, perhaps it would be possible to give special protection to them in the same way that the Conservation of Wild Creatures Bill seeks to extend protection to bufo calamita in Norfolk and Suffolk only. I should perhaps point out that bufo calamita has nothing to do with the noble Earl, Lord Arran, who lives in Hertfordshire. On the contrary it is the Natterjack Toad—a species which surely nobody could confuse with any Member of your Lordships' House.
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My Lords, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, will be able to give an assurance that this dreaded Section 1, as I regard it, will undergo some modification before it reappears in the amalgamated Bill. If he cannot, I think that I shall feel obliged to ask your Lordships to agree with me that this Section should be plucked, uprooted and destroyed.
7.4 p.m.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I intervene rather briefly on this Bill, as I had intended to speak on the Conservation of Wild Creatures Bill, but it is quite clear that we are discussing both Bills together. I have to leave early and, since I am opposed to noble Lords who make speeches and then disappear before the end of the debate and it is now just before the end of this debate, I feel safe in abiding by the Rules of the House. I have, however, been stimulated by a number of the remarks which have been made.
First of all, I should like to congratulate my noble friend Lord Melchett on a truly excellent speech. If I may say so, he is a very valuable member of the Government and it was a very well-delivered speech in a most technical area. I am all the more stimulated to speak in full support of the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, because of the criticism. I am bound to say to the noble Earl, Lord Cork and Orrery—who is more skilful at making what might be called witty heavy weather of any situation than practically any noble Lord I know and whose wit and ingenuity, not to mention his research, are sometimes so very thorough that it is dangerous to debate with him—that although I do not normally go around picking dandelions in my friends' fields, I frequently pull up ragwort, which is a much more dangerous plant. I should regard myself as an authorised person under the Bill if I was on my friends' land and from reading the definition—I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, will be able to put us right on this matter—it seems to me that I shall be perfectly safe. I urge the noble Earl to continue his practice and to attack those plants which are more dangerous than dandelions.
My Lords, there has been some suggestion that these Bills should be amalgamated. In my experience in the matter

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of legislation there are always better ways of carrying it out, but the important point is—as one cannot put everything into one monster Bill—to take one's opportunities and to go ahead with them. It has been the practice in your Lordships' House—and nobody knows this better than the noble Earl, Lord Arran—to press on and to put through one's Bills somehow or other. One's Bills do not necessarily pass into law in that particular Session, but ultimately they will and therefore I strongly encourage the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, not to be too bothered by some of the objections which have been made, to most of which I believe there are satisfactory answers. I am not worried about what might be called the particularly draconian nature of the penalties. It seems to me that the penalties have to be adequate. The Bill appears to me to provide nearly every protection that is necessary and, in so far as it does not, with the help of the Government—we always have to look to the Government for some help on Private Bills—I am sure that this can be taken care of.
My Lords, we always make heavy weather over definitions. One of the difficulties is with regard to the titles: in many ways it would have been better if this had been called the Vegetable Kingdom Bill (Wild Plants Protection). The Wild Creatures Bill could have been called the Animal Bill, because there seems to be some ignorance among noble Lords as to what is an animal and what is a vegetable. The wild creatures protected under the latter Bill—including the Natterjack Toad, the Large Blue and the Smooth snake—are all technically animals, but because I was slightly uncertain I rang up the Director of the Zoo and he confirmed this point to me.
The same difficulties arise over the present Bill. I should have liked to question the noble Lord, because I am a little concerned about the exclusion, if not of algae, then of fungae and, particularly, of lichens. It may be that the Nature Conservancy Council, which is such a marvellous institution and which has happily survived its dissection—largely helped by your Lordships' House, which amended the previous Bill to make it more workable—could advise. I assume that for some of those plants which are
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not covered in the Schedule—and I have in mind some rare lichens—some protection will be provided in SSIs (Sites of Special Scientific Interest), but, of course, the protection there is still very limited. This is an aspect which we shall need to pursue further and I should like to ask the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, whether, when he comes to a later stage, the definition of "plant" is perhaps a little too restricted.
THE EARL OF CORK AND ORRERY: My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Lord would forgive me if I tried to be helpful here. I have looked up the definition of the word "lichen": it is said by the Oxford dictionary to be a compound of a fungus and an alga. That is why I said that it is apparently excluded from the provisions of this Bill under the definition.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, the noble Earl is being very helpful. I was aware of it, and it is because it is a kind of hybrid and a very interesting form of life (which seems to me a safe description) that I hope we shall not forget the importance of preserving certain forms of lichen. I happen to have collected some rare lichens on the tops of mountains in Borneo, so I have a particular emotional link with that form of life.
We shall need—and here, again, I am sure the Nature Conservancy Council will help—to study and to protect. In this connection, I wonder whether SSIs provide enough protection, particularly for those areas of swamp or bogland where there is available something which I have heard described as a form of paleonto-logical record—something which in about forty years' time may be the subject of valuable analysis, tracing through the plant life some of the history of development on earth. I have no doubt that as we advance through these Bills we shall move to more comprehensive and sophisticated studies.
It is here that we come up against the conflict between agriculture and wild plants and wild life. I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, who knows a great deal about farming, that it is extremely difficult to establish a clear dividing line, or to lay down principles. We know that so much of our beautiful countryside is man-made and not natural,

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but the purpose of this kind of Bill is the protection of certain species which might be in danger. I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Somers, who expressed concern that some of these species would be in places where nobody went, and thereby they would be endangered because no one would see them being taken. But if nobody goes there, they are probably fairly safe anyway. None the less, we have to take into account this extraordinary phenomenon of the immorality of certain collectors. One has seen this in the art world and one has certainly seen it in what may be called the natural history world. We shall need to watch this further in the future.
I wish this Bill well, as indeed I do the Conservation of Wild Creatures Bill, which will be coming forward. I would only counsel against adding too many species to these lists too early, which could destroy their purpose. I have heard of a number of species of plants, and indeed of animals, which people would like to have. I think we need to study this carefully and, above all, to take the advice of the Nature Conservancy Council who are certainly better qualified than I am in such matters. My Lords, I strongly support this Bill.
7.11 p.m.
LORD BEAUMONT OF WHITLEY: My Lords, I am extremely grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken, for their support in greater or lesser degree. I should like to add my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, on his first and extremely able speech from the Dispatch Box. If I may, I will try to answer just a few of the main points which have been made. There are a number of minor points on which I am sure we can reach agreement, either at a later stage or perhaps even in the intervening period. The point was made that perhaps the Schedule is out of date. My advice—and I flatter myself that I have the greatest experts on my side at this moment advising me—is that it is the right Schedule in this context. However, I can assure the noble Baroness, Lady Young, that the Secretary of State has power to add to it at any time under Clause 3 of the Bill. Also, in reply to a point raised by the noble Earl, Lord Cork and Orrery, there is power to add to it by area, if necessary.
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I should like to make certain that one misapprehension does not arise from this debate. The noble Lord, Lord Melchett, put the point accurately, but what the noble Baroness, Lady Young, said, may have been misunderstood. It is true that we have taken out of this Bill the clauses dealing with the picking for sale, and the exposing of flowers which have been picked for sale. We have taken out prohibitions against this, but picking for sale is still a criminal act under the Theft Act, and whatever is said about that it will still remain so. All that has been removed from that clause is the rather difficult business of prosecuting people for exposing for sale flowers which have been picked. There is obviously a problem, as the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, said, but the Nature Conservancy Council is looking at its obligations and its whole area of work.
I was delighted that the noble Baroness, Lady Young, reinforced the importance of the Council taking on work in connection with this Bill. There is very little in the Bill—not, for instance, the business of letting landowners know of SSIs—that is obligatory on the Nature Conservancy Council. I hope, together with a number of my friends, that the Council are not running away from some very useful jobs that they could be doing, without any great additional obligation. I hope they will look at that carefully. Obviously, nobody would dream of trying to make them do something that they do not wish to do, but I hope they will look at this carefully to see whether there is something they might usefully do.
I very much sympathise with what the noble Earl, Lord Cork and Orrery, said about penalties. We have simplified these very much in this Bill to the sort of overall level that they are at the moment. I understand that the Home Office is rather keen on uniformity of penalties in Bills of this nature. But this is certainly something we should be happy to look at again if noble Lords wished this to be done. As noble Lords may remember, we looked at a much earlier stage at the question of having a secondary Schedule for semi-protected plants, but this caused such difficulty that we are convinced that the principle of an overall prohibition and a small Schedule of fully protected plants is the right way of tackling the problem.

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Turning to the question of picking by mistake, of course this is an educational Bill and we shall try to accompany it with an educational programme in many different ways. There is already a poster of the 20 plants; but this vision that school-children, and even school-teachers, may take the plants by mistake is very unlikely. We have already heard that there are only 140 sites in the whole of Britain where these plants can be found. The great majority of them are in boggy places or in screes. They are not attractive plants, not normally to be found in National Parks, and so on. There is really very little danger here; and of course the whole question of picking inadvertently is covered by the present wording.
If that wording does not happen to be quite right, we shall make sure that it is covered in the future. On the other hand, as the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, pointed out in reply to the noble Lord, Lord Somers—and he was absolutely right—the distant places are where you will occasionally get the real villain, who is the only person at whom the penal clauses of this Bill are aimed. The main villain is the collector and he is going to some places that he knows about and will take a plant for his collection. It is those people whom we are trying to get at.
Perhaps I may just finally put to rest the fears of the noble Earl, Lord Cork and Orrery, but I feel I shall awaken them even more. Before this Bill is passed, as I hope it will be, he is still liable at this moment for all those penalties, because if he uproots a plant—and is presumably disowned by the friends who invited him on to that land, so he is not an authorised person—in order to destroy it, he can be had up under the Criminal Damage Act, even if it is groundsel. If he steals it, he can be had up under the Theft Act. These Acts have been in operation for some time without anyone having arrested the noble Earl on these grounds, and no one else has been arrested either. There is a serious point which I should like to stick to in defending Clause 1. I do not see any reason why anybody should go around rooting up plants on other peoples' land without permission, or the implied permission of knowing that you are picking up ragwort on a friend's land and that it will be
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approved of. It is a very good principle and we should have it in this Bill. There is nothing wrong with the principles that we have put down. I have put that slightly strongly.
We can certainly find agreement on a great many details. If there is a real point of substance, and your Lordships feel that I have not met it, I am sure we can do so because this Bill is, as several noble Lords have said, not meant to make heavy weather of the criminal law. It is meant to be an educational Bill to help us in the best possible way to preserve our wild life. As with the Preservation of Birds Act, where the number of prosecutions has been minimal, they will be absolutely minimal under this Bill; there may not even be any at all. It would be a great triumph for the Bill if there were not any prosecutions. The principles which we have worked out over a long time with Government Departments and professional advisers are the right ones, and I therefore look forward to your Lordships giving this Bill a Second Reading and allowing us to thresh out some of the smaller details on the Committee stage.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

THE GREEN, ABERDEEN (BOOTS THE CHEMISTS LIMITED) ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL.
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and (pursuant to the Private Legistlation Procedure (Scotland) Act 1936) deemed to have been read 2a and reported from the Committee.

CONSERVATION OF WILD CREATURES BILL [H.L.]
7.22 p.m.
LORD WYNNE-JONES: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Cranbrook, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. It is unfortunate that my noble friend has not been able to be with us to-night. I spoke to him on the telephone this morning and he is back at his home. Your Lordships will be glad to know that he is in reasonably good health and, although he has been told to take things easy for a while, he hopes to be back with us soon.

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I cannot possibly present this Bill as my noble friend would have presented it. He has a knowledge of these matters which I cannot claim to have. I am happy and proud to be able to present it to your Lordships and to ask that your Lordships give it a Second Reading. This Bill, as has been made clear (because it is evident that the debate on this has already started and has been going on for some time), is concerned with the preservation of certain animals within this country. This is a matter with which most of us are rightly concerned because none of us wish to see the Wild Life of this country depleted. We are all proud of our heritage and wish to ensure that this is preserved. That is what these two Bills—the Bill we have just dealt with and this one—are all about.
Animal life is at risk all the time from three different causes: there are accidents which take place—people refer, for instance, to what happens when an unfortunate hedgehog is run over in the road. That is not a deliberate attempt at exterminating a species although it may have a disastrous effect. But there is the deliberate extermination of animals, and also the deliberate capturing of wild animals for the pet trade. There is extermination of animals as a result of their habitats being destroyed. We have a number of different things which affect wild animals.
This is a modest Bill and is concerned with one particular aspect, and that is the deliberate destruction of animals and the capturing of wild animals. Because of this reference is made only to certain species because these are the ones which, after careful consideration, my noble friend Lord Cranbrook considers are the species most at risk. He has taken much advice on the matter, as your Lordships will realise, because he is a thorough and careful man. I have with me notes which he sent me and, as I only received them on Monday, it has taken me some time to have a good look at them and I cannot pretend to know them in detail. If one were to look at the notes one would find a large number of animals which are described and which are on sale. He has gone through all these and—after consultation with others—has decided which are the ones most at risk and which therefore should be included initially in any Bill for preserving and conserving wild
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life. One notices if one looks at the clauses in the Bill that there is a provision for extending this later, if necessary. But at the moment these are the ones to which he refers.
One is always a little surprised, if one is not familiar with all the details of the countryside, at the great variety of animals and living matter which are at risk in one way or another. When living in Scotland about 30 years ago, I remember some friends wrote a charming little book on Scottish nursery rhymes. There was one about the Capercailzie. I tried to find the book when preparing for this debate, but unfortunately I have lost my copy of it as a result of changing house several times. There was a footnote to this charming nursery rhyme about the Capercailzie in which it was said that it was extinct and had disappeared from Scotland by the end of the last century. They received a note from a friend who lived in Angus. He said that they were wrong and he proved that they were wrong by sending them a Capercailzie for New Year's Day. My wife and I were asked to dinner to try this Capercailzie. I had no idea what type of bird a Capercailzie was.
In fact the bird is an enormous creature about four times the size of an ordinary turkey. I inquired as to how you dealt with it. I was told that it was a very troublesome matter. I believe the bird does not fly very well—it just about succeeds in dropping down from a tree, but not much more than that. A gamekeeper describing the Capercalizie, said, "If you shoot one you should always bury it." You bury it for at least a week because it feeds on pine needles, and the result is that it has a strong aromatic odour. And he said that at the end of the week you dig it up—and if you are a wise man you bury it again. No doubt many of your Lordships have consumed Capercailzie. I enjoyed it. It was like a fairly tasteless turkey, but otherwise quite good. These are the various things one finds about the variety of life in this country. The purpose of this Bill is to ensure that we and our descendants will continue to enjoy the wild life of these islands.
The Bill sets out, as your Lordships will have observed, a number of clauses. May I briefly go through them? Clause 1

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makes it an offence to kill, injure or capture any rare wild animal on the Schedule, except in the protection of one's own property. Clause 2 makes it an offence to trade in scheduled animals. Clause 3 prohibits ringing or marking except as allowed under Clause 5. Clause 4 allows possession of scheduled animals to tend injuries, mercy killing, and incidental killing or injury when doing other lawful acts. Clause 5 allows the Nature Conservancy Council to give licences to kill or capture scheduled animals for scientific or educational purposes, for zoological gardens, or for ringing or marking; and allows the relevant agricultural authorities to license killing in order to prevent the spread of disease.
Clause 6 allows a person found, or suspected of, committing an offence to be required to give his name and address (I am sorry that the noble Earl, Lord Cork and Orrery, has departed, because I have no doubt this is the kind of clause he would not like) and to be compelled to leave the land. Clause 7 provides the police with powers to stop and search suspects, confiscate equipment and to arrest a suspect if necessary. Clause 8 allows the Schedule to be varied if the Nature Conservancy Council thinks it necessary. Clause 9 provides penalties for breach of the Act. Clause 10 imposes a duty on the Nature Conservancy Council to review the Schedule regularly and to report on the advice given. Clause 11 gives educational and enforcement powers to local authorities. Clause 12 provides procedure for orders amending the Schedule. Clause 13 defines some of the terms used. And Clause 14 limits the extent of the Act to England, Wales and Scotland, and provides for a delayed start. Those are the essential clauses of the Bill.
Then we have the actual Schedule at the end of the Bill. Your Lordships will notice that at the moment the Schedule is restricted to seven animals: the Greater Horse-shoe Bat, Mouse-eared Bat, Dormouse, Sand Lizard, Smooth snake, Natterjack Toad and the Large Blue butterfly. These are creatures which are apparently under very grave risk indeed. In some cases the communities are now so small that there is grave danger they will disappear altogether. I believe that in the case of the Natterjack Toad, for
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instance, there are only a few parts where it can be found. There only has to be a collector going along with a bucket and scooping up a number of them and he practically wipes out the population. Many of these animals fetch quite a good price on the market and therefore there is a great temptation for an unscrupulous person to get them.
Only two bats are included. I believe I am correct in saying that the most common bat, the Pipistrelle, is under no risk at the present time at all and there are many about. I was looking in Country Life for last week, and I saw there quite an interesting article by John Hooper. He had an ultrasonic detector and had been going round tracing where bats are in the South-West London area, and I think he found there were 170 different places where the Pipistrelle could be found. I also learnt what I had not known before, that the Long-eared Bat (I think it is) can be heard at a distance of only six feet by means of the ultrasonic detector, whereas the Noctule can be heard at a distance of 50 yards. There is this enormous variation between them. This is what makes the whole subject so fascinating. My Lords, the Bill is a simple and clear one; I commend it to your Lordships and ask that it be given a Second Reading.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a—(Lord Wynne-Jones.)
THE EARL OF ARRAN: My Lords, may I point out something in regard to Capercailzie. I am sure the House knows that they are now heavily protected. They flourish on the Isle of Loch Lomond. They fly very simply. They taste foully of turpentine, and I would not recommend your Lordships to eat them unless really pushed.
LORD BURTON: My Lords, may I say that I totally disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Wynne-Jones? It depends entirely what they have been feeding on. They weigh about 9 lb., which is not particularly heavy for a turkey; and I would not agree with the noble Lord on his culinary recommendation to your Lordships that one eats them the same as any other bird.
7.37 p.m.
LORD MELCHETT: My Lords, if I may I would intervene at this stage in

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the debate to give your Lordships an indication of the Government's attitude to this Bill. First, may I congratulate my noble friend Lord Wynne-Jones on his clear presentation of the subject matter in the Bill before us, particularly in view of the short time he has had to prepare himself for to-day's debate. I am sure that we would all wish to be associated with his regrets that the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, who has taken the initiative with this Bill and done so much to develop it, cannot be with us to-day. We all send him our best wishes for a speedy recovery, and I am sure that the whole House is delighted to learn that he is now out of hospital.
I have already this afternoon, in the context of the Wild Plants Protection Bill, spoken for some time in a general way about conservation, and those general remarks also apply to this Bill. I accept the evidence of the decline and need for protection of rare species, and am pleased to see the way in which the noble Lord's provisions fit in with previous enactments. Now I hope I can save your Lordships' time by going straight into a discussion of some specific points in this Bill. May I apologise in advance to any noble Lords who were not in the Chamber earlier, and who therefore did not hear points I made about similar clauses in the Wild Plants Protection Bill. If I appear to be skipping or skimping any point in which any noble Lord is interested, I will be happy to expand on it further, if I can, before I sit down.
Your Lordships will have noted that the Schedule to this Bill provides a flexible means of adding or deleting species. But the protection measures are inflexible and allow only for what approximates to complete protection. I take it, therefore, that only truly endangered species can logically be included in the Schedule, and indeed the Bill is clear on this point. Except for the fact that the Bill provides protection for a species that is endangered in one locality but not endangered elsewhere, there is no scope for partial protection to be afforded to species which are uncommon but not endangered. I trust your Lordships will bear this in mind in discussing changes to the Schedule, and also bear in mind that any later changes to the Schedule will be subject to annulment by your Lordships' House.
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Some of your Lordships may wonder whether, with such a limited list of species, the Bill has sufficient substance to justify it. Indeed, I am advised that the Nature Conservancy Council have doubts as to whether one or two of the species included are so endangered at the present time as to warrant this degree of protection. However, the Council strongly support the Bill and I am prepared to accept that it is a very worthwhile measure, with flexible machinery for protecting further species as soon as it becomes clear that they are threatened.
I am, I am sure, the person who knows least about wild animals and plants who has taken or will take part in these two debates to-day. However, I was interested to see in the Schedule to the Bill that the Natterjack Toad is thought to be endangered only in Norfolk and Suffolk. It is not called Bufo calamita in Norfolk and Suffolk only, as might appear to be the case from a legalistic reading of the Schedule to the Bill, but presumably it is to be protected only in those two counties. My noble friend Lord Wynne-Jones has already talked about the Natterjack Toad, but as I live in Norfolk I took the opportunity to ask local naturalists about the Natterjack and I have been told by everybody to whom I spoke in Norfolk that it is very rare in that county. I understand that it exists only in a very small number of locations and is easily caught and readily available, should one want to buy one. In fact, it appears that it might be suffering especially because it is rare. Rarity leads to increased interest; people find out where the rarity exists and catch it up to study or sell it without realising in many cases the harm that they are doing. That is what makes this kind of legislation so urgently needed. Indeed, this process has already been mentioned with reference to wild plants in a previous debate by noble Lords.
The list of species in the Schedule poses serious problems of recognition—more serious, perhaps, than those in the Wild Plants Schedule—and thus of enforcement. Who, for instance, among the general public can tell the difference between a Greater Horse-shoe bat and a Lesser Horse-shoe bat? I confess to your Lordships that I, for one, certainly could not, but it will be even more difficult. I imagine, to distinguish between

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the eggs or larvae of the Large Blue and some other butterfly. But if the effect of these difficulties in the Bill is to make all those as ignorant as myself extremely careful not to destroy any butterfly eggs or larvae, so much the better. However, I think that there may be a case in this Bill, as in the Wild Plants Protection Bill, for replacing "wilfully" in Clause 1 with the concept of "without reasonable excuse" because of the difficulties of the various legal interpretations of "wilfully".
What, my Lords, of somebody who strikes at a snake thinking it to be a poisonous adder, only to find out too late that it is the harmless but protected Smooth snake? I hope that the noble Lord will give some further thought to this matter. I know that I should not, to-day, be offering detailed advice, but I would again commend to my noble friend Lord Wynne-Jones that the "without reasonable excuse" formula is something which might well answer these problems.
Most of the meat of the Bill is concerned with a short list of protected wild creatures only, but in Clause 3 it is made an offence to ring or mark any wild mammal. I understand that the object of this clause is to curtail marking by keen but inexperienced naturalists who may injure the creature during the marking process. While sympathising with this aim, I am not sure that it is wise to widen the scope of what is otherwise a fairly simple and specific Bill by including all mammals in this way, and the Government would like to consider further the difficulties involved.
Under Clause 4 a person will not be guilty of an offence by taking into care any protected wild creature that has been disabled, solely for the purpose of tending it. I am advised that in order to make satisfactory provisions to ensure that any such creature is ultimately released, a clause similar to Section 8(2)(d) of the Badgers Act would need to be introduced into the Bill, and I put this forward as something which the noble Lord might like to consider.
Clause 6 provides for offenders to be required to quit land. I am advised that as it stands the clause is defective as it would allow landlords to remove tenants,
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and vice versa. However, an amendment to bring it into line with the equivalent clause in the Wild Plants Bill would cover the point.
Clause 7 deals with the powers of arrest and a constable's powers to stop and search any person whom he reasonably suspects of committing or having committed an offence under the Bill and to search vehicles, boats and animals. It follows Clause 6 in the Wild Plants Protection Bill, and I must register similar reservations about it. Again I suggest that it might be more acceptable if, for example, the right to search existed only where a constable has reasonable grounds for suspecting that evidence of the commission of the offeence is to be found on the person, or in or about the vehicle, boat or animal.
Clause 8 is clearly intended to allow orders to be made for the whole country or in respect of a particular area. It may be necessary to provide for two distinct types of order to make the noble Lord's provision workable. Moreover, anomalies could arise where an animal is, for example, taken in one area where it is not protected and sold in another area where it is. However, these are technical points which we can doubtless consider at a later stage.
Lastly, in respect of Clause 10 I would repeat my comment on Clause 7 of the Wild Plants Protection Bill, that the powers are already provided by the Nature Conservancy Council Act 1973. In addition, the reviews and reports called for are well within the competence of the Council and should be left to their discretion.
Much of the text of the noble Lord's Bill is based upon earlier enactments. This being so, it ought to be a relatively simple matter to reconsider the questions which I have raised and to deal with a number of details which are not sufficiently important to be debated to-day. Such questions apart, Her Majesty's Government are once again happy to give general support to this Bill as a worthwhile conservation measure.
7.47 p.m.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON:My Lords, we are all grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Wynne-Jones, for having introduced this Bill in such a succinct

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way. Equally, without denigrating from Lord Wynne-Jones' effort, we are sad that he has had to introduce the Bill because of the illness of the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, which we are delighted to hear from the noble Lord is not too serious. Some five years ago I was associated "three times running" with the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook. in respect of his Conservation of Seals Bill. It was only after the third attempt that it became an Act of Parliament. The noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, was heavily involved—he, in those days, from the Government Front Bench and I from the Opposition Front Bench—with this Bill. It was a rather nice trinity which I am happy to partake in again. I admire, as we all do, the knowledge of the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, because no other Peer in this House is his equal in this matter.
May I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Melchett. It is the first time that I have spoken opposite him since he moved to the Department of the Environment, and knowing that he is occupying my old room there I wish him well. I hope I am not embarrassing him by saying that I knew his father, mother, uncle and grandfather very well and liked them all. That will not help the noble Lord in this light, but I am delighted to see him standing there and doing so well.
At the same time, may I say (as this is the first time that I have had the opportunity to do so) how sad I am that the late Lord Garnsworthy, is not able to be in his place during this debate. He and I were opposite each other for many years. I grew to know, like and respect him, and to admire his enormous sincerity of purpose. I think few of us appreciate this until we think of what he achieved. One found him outside the Chamber discussing the points which he had put across so sincerely inside the Chamber and explaining why he had done so. May I pay that brief tribute to the late Lord Garnsworthy—because I have not had the opportunity to do so in public—and say, both to the Government Party and, of course, to his widow and his small son, how deeply sorry I am at his loss.
To return to this particular Bill, I was very curious about it when I first looked at it, because it appeared to be such an enormous hammer which was being used to crack such a small nut. I even got
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to the stage of ringing up that very clever research body, the Conservative Research Office, to ask what they thought about it. We all turned to the Schedule and we scratched our "nuts" as to what was behind it all and I still am, I must confess, puzzled as to what was in the noble Earl's mind. Obviously, this is a peg on which he is planning to hang some hats later on. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Wynne-Jones, may be able to tell us what particular hats may be wanted to be put on this particular peg. I find it impossible to believe that this list of six animals and one insect are worthy of a full-blooded Act of Parliament.
LORD WYNNE-JONES: My Lords, if the noble Lord will permit me, there are seven animals on the list. I should point out to him that this is the first Bill dealing with animals as opposed to what are, strangely, separated from them as birds. Birds, and of course the badger, have been separately dealt with, but this, I think I am right in saying, is the first Bill dealing with animals, in the sense that the word is commonly used.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, I appreciate that, but I must confess I did not realise that a butterfly was an animal—I have learned it from the noble Lord, and I accept it. Nevertheless, I still find this a curious list. I find various things odd about this Bill. in particular Clause 3, dealing with restriction on marking and ringing. Let us be honest, my Lords: are there really in this life many people wishing to do this sort of thing, except for the good of the species? I find it hard to believe that there are people going about to mark or tag or ring animals to the animals' detriment. Normally, these things are done by people interested in the welfare of the breed, to see how far they go from the habitat in which they were found, or ringed or marked or tagged. No one, I imagine, could possibly be able to mark our bat friends; the dormouse, I suppose, could be marked, but I imagine he would never do any harm. I suppose you could mark toads. Here is an enormously important Bill of Parliament, my Lords, but dealing with such tiny things. I am still puzzled.
Clause 5 gives a let-out to people who need to do these things for scientific purposes or who wish to improve the breed.

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Clause 7 and the Schedule again revert to the ludicrous. I am very glad to hear the Minister say that he found some of these things slightly heavy-handed. I think I am not exaggerating in saying that. I do not wish to be against the Bill as such. I think there are animals which might be covered by it but they are not yet in the Schedule. We have heard that certain animals are rare, but, quite honestly, which of the people in the country who are supposed to be doing this damage to the species will alter their way of life one iota because of this Bill which may become an Act? I find it fantastic.
The name, the Natterjack Toad, is too tempting for words to resist; I cannot resist it. I know our friend the common toad, but all I could find out about the Natterjack Toad was that it much resembles the common toad but it is of a yellowish brown colour clouded with dull olive, having a bright yellow line passing along the middle of its back. The one big difference is that it has a disgusting smell. But which of us, before we tread on the animal by mistake, is going to find that out?
One other point of difference is that it never hops, and its motion is more like walking or running than the crawling of a common toad. The common toad is an animal which you can collect or buy or sell or tread on, or do whatever you want to if you have that mentality. I found out that in the 1860s there was a sale price for the common toad of four old pence, and the people who bought it were gardeners because it was a useful keeper-down of insects. My Lords, when you have a breed of people like gardeners wanting animals like toads for this purpose they are not going to destroy it; they are going to try to encourage lots of toads so that they can get hold of them when they want them. It does not necessarily follow that because something is offered for sale it will do harm to the breed. I am not talking about nasty little boys who may tear legs off or something like that; I am talking about the principle. I accept that in this Bill there are definitions covering things that can be done for proper purposes. I am just looking at the thing in common sense.
Our friend the Sand Lizard is an inhabitant of sandy heath. The only
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thing I was able to find out about him as opposed to the common lizard, is that he is oviparous as opposed to the poor old common lizard who is viviparous. I do not know whether Great Britain will be a lesser or greater country if our friend the Sand Lizard dies out. I do not think many of us are going to miss him. He has another odd habit. If by any chance you should drop something on his tail, which is very fragile, it drops off easily, but within a short time he has grown it again. This is something which I gather that our friend the common lizard cannot do.
I have not met many people who collect or are wanting to sell or buy or harm such animals. The Greater Horse-shoe Bat is a very unusual gentleman. I personally do not think I have ever seen him, though I know what he looks like. He has this extraordinary snout which goes up against his head. I am delighted to see these two bats being protected. My wife's name was Bateson, which means "son of a bat" and my uncle-in-law, or wife's uncle, Lord Deramore (I must be careful what I say), has the arms of three black bats' wings on his shield and his motto is Nocte Volamus. So my wife's family has an hereditary interest in bats. But I have yet to meet people who are in any way wishing to injure or do damage to bats. I think our modern civilised life is in itself anti-bat; they thrive on an old-fashioned type of countryside. I do not think they like electric and telephone wires and modern concrete. There is no place where they can reside. Our ambiance, our environment, does more harm to these animals than do human beings.
My Lords, having said all this, and poked a little bit of fun at this Bill, I accept that in principle, if applied to animals which are considered by the Nature Conservancy Council to be in danger, this Bill is the peg to hang that hat on. At this moment, I do not see the necessity for this Bill although I must confess that I see no reason why its passage should not be allowed. Equally, with great respect to the noble Lord, Lord Wynne-J ones, I do not think we have heard the reasons for it really proved. It is a perfectly reasonable Bill if there is a necessity for it and. assuming that somewhere in the mind of my noble

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friend Lord Cranbrook there are some animals which may need to be protected in the future, I wish this Bill well and, again, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Wynne-Jones, for having introduced it.
LORD MELCHETT: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord a question? Is he saying that he does not accept the word of the Nature Conservancy Council that these seven animals are in danger, or that if they are endangered and the Nature Conservancy Council is right it does not matter?
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, I cannot believe that the Schedule as listed is of great import to this country or to the normal animal life of this country. They are such small species. When you are spraying your cabbages or other plants against disease and pests, you might easily kill the larva of the Large Blue; when you are putting down rat poison to kill rats you may inadvertently destroy the dormouse. I suggest that nobody intentionally, in their wildest moments, could possibly wish to injure these species as listed. If it is thought that this Bill will do good, then I am delighted. I accept the advice of the Nature Conservancy Council; they are expert and I am not.
8.2 p.m.
THE EARL OF ARRAN: My Lords, I rise to offer my qualified support for this Bill, because I feel that even at a time when we are faced with solemn and burdensome difficulties we should make time to debate ways to protect and conserve the smaller and rarer species. But in welcoming this Bill, would I be thought to cavil if I suggested that if it was proposed to limit protection to the species named in the Schedule then, in the eyes of many, it would be a somewhat restricted list? The Bill is good so far as it goes, but might it not go further? There are other, better known species which call for protection. The noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, lists certain rare species but would it not be desirable to deal at the same time with others more common, and which are also, according to my information, at risk?
First, there is the grass snake, natrix natrix natrix which is well known to your Lordships, though perhaps not under
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its Latin name. This creature is entirely harmless but the species is under pressure, not least from sale in pet shops. I do not know your Lordships' views on wriggly things, but it seems a pity wilfully to allow any species to disappear or to diminish for lack of protection. Next there is the slow worm, anguis fragilis, which is threatened by loss of habitat. Again, it is utterly harmless and I have personal experience of it from the island on which we live in Scotland. Then there are the newts and the toads. Seemingly, there are many types of newt, but one of our commoner newts is the palmate newt, triturus helveticus, which seems to have a Swiss origin, and in the toad tribe (here is the common toad, bufo bufo. I mention them together because both are suffering from the disappearance of ponds, either through urbanisation or through drainage. The toad breeds in water and the newt, of course, lives in it.
As early as 1968, in an article in Habitat, the publication of what was then called the Council of Nature, these species were said to be in particular danger, more especially because of the 1967 Agriculture Act, whereby farmers could apply for a grant to drain their land. In short, my Lords, I do not subscribe to the view of St. Patrick, who gave the snakes and toads a twist and bothered them for ever. The species I have mentioned make a formidable addition to the list now submitted and not all of them, by any means, may stand in need of conservation. But I believe that at this time, when we are given a golden opportunity to conserve we should occupy ourselves not only with the rarities but with the common or garden species. I am not proposing heedlessly to throw these other species, as it were, into the pot, but after investigation and inquiry I may at Committee stage include the names of one or others on the grounds that they are in danger for one reason or another of disappearing, or at least of becoming scarce.
8.6 p.m.
LORD SOMERS: My Lords, I should like to join with other noble Lords in expressing regret that the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, is not able to be here to-night; I hope that he will very soon be here again in his usual good form. I

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congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Wynne-Jones, on the way in which he presented this Bill, which I wholly support.
The noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, said at the end of his speech that he was no expert. May I say that throughout his speech he amply demonstrated that point. He does not realise that because an animal or a creature is not very striking to look at it may none the less be exceedingly rare and of great scientific interest. Such also is the case with flowers, but I did not hear the noble Lord object to some of the orchids included in the Wild Plants Protection Bill. Some of them are really nothing at all to look at but are exceedingly interesting to the botanist. In any case, this Bill makes ample provision for the Schedule to be added to from time to time. I have a certain amount of sympathy for the noble Earl, Lord Arran, in his wish to see it extended. I think at the moment the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, has limited it to the absolutely necessary ones which are so endangered that they might at any time become extinct.
I should now like to come to ringing, a matter that was attacked by the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, with great respect, I did not attack ringing and I did not attack the species concerned. I merely said that I did not think people would intentionally do these things to these species, and therefore I was merely querying, in a very humble way, whether in fact this Bill would achieve its object. I accept that it might be educational; I was merely lightly casting doubts on whether it would be effective.
LORD SOMERS: I quite understand that, my Lords. However, there are a great many people whose knowledge is not very extensive and who may do something which they think is perfectly harmless but which in fact is not. As an instance of this, I will quote from some notes on the Bill which the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, has sent me. He said:
"Clause 3, controlling the ringing of mammals, is the only one which has little effect on the conservation of endangered species, although there is evidence that waking hibernating bats to ring them can waste so much of
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their reserves of fat as to prevent them from surviving the winter."
Of course, the average person would not know that. He would not be aware of the highly technical points. Therefore I think it is a very good thing to prevent people from doing things which are harmful, although they do not realise it—things which may, quite accidentally and unintentionally, cause the extinction of an entire species.
My Lords, Clause 8 is very important, I think, because it allows for protection in certain areas where animals are rare. That is very necessary. It makes this a very flexible Bill, one which can be enforced in certain places and not in others. Altogether, I think the Bill has been designed in an extremely efficient way. As I said with reference to the previous Bill, I only hope that it can be enforced. It will be slightly easier to do this with animals than with plants, because a plant is so easily hidden in the pocket, with no evidence that one has picked it. But in the case of an animal, you probably need to have with you either a gun or a trap, or something of that nature, and therefore possible detection will be easier. In any case, I wholeheartelly support the Bill.
8.12 p.m.
LORD BURTON: My Lords, I wish to add my regrets that the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, is not present. As has been said before, we know what a past-master he is at putting this type of Bill through Parliament. I hope he may be here for the Committee stage. In the absence of the noble Earl, I hesitate to raise some rather critical questions. I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Wynne-Jones, will be able to answer them, but if he cannot, I shall quite understand. I would query the need for the Bill, as did my noble friend Lord Mowbray and Stourton. The noble Lord, Lord Somers, has just said that people might not know that waking a bat would kill it. I would submit that a person is not likely to be ringing bats unless he is an expert. I do not know how to do it myself, not being an expert on that in any way.
LORD SOMERS: My Lords, there are people who are expert enough to know how to ring, but not quite expert enough, perhaps, to know that the ringing they do might cause damage.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, has the noble Lord, Lord Somers, ever met such people who have done this? Does he really know that they exist? Or is the noble Lord imagining their existence?
LORD SOMERS: My Lords, I am not imagining anything. I have not met these people personally, but it is well-known.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, does the noble Lord really say that it is well-known that people who know nothing about it go about ringing bats?
LORD SOMERS: My Lords, I should have thought it was sufficiently obvious. Anybody who is interested in wild life, and who discovers what he thinks is an unusual bat, may want to identify it. Possibly that person is a little more interested in unusual animals than is the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, I am very interested, but I do not know people who do these things without knowing anything about them.
THE EARL OF ARRAN: My Lords, it will soon be said that we all have bats in our belfries.
LORD BURTON: My Lords, the only attacks on bats known to me have been when panic-stricken old ladies, under the misguided intentions that bats will get in their hair, have fled from their bedrooms and something like a rolled-up copy of the Field magazine has been used to remove the intruder. Occasionally, when one is fishing late at night a bat will try to take the fly. Usually the bat gets hooked in the wing rather than in the mouth, and is generally capable of being released. However, I believe the noble Lord, Lord Wynne-Jones, said that bats getting into this sort of trouble are not the rare ones; it is only the common species, and we need not trouble unduly about them.
My Lords, if this Bill becomes law I wonder whether there will be any more of these protected creatures, or any less of them, in 10 years' time. I very much doubt it. As my noble friend Lord Mowbray and Stourton said, there is not likely to be any wilful attack from human beings on these creatures. I cannot see that the Bill will do anything to educate
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the public in this matter. If there were something in the Bill to educate the public and tell them how rare these animals were, that would be a different matter. But it is wrong to make one liable to a criminal offence if one accidentally does these things.
My Lords, I suspect that the Schedule is only a start, a ploy to get the Bill on to the Statute Book. Thereafter, substantial additions may slip through by order. According to the Bill, the Minister has only to consult the Nature Conservancy Council and in certain circumstances the local authority. If we are to pass this Bill, it is vital that there should be additional consultation with other bodies interested in the rural areas. I am thinking particularly of the Country Landowners' Association, the Scottish Landowners' Association and the National Farmers' Union, which must be taken into consultation if there are to be additions to the Schedule.
LORD MELCHETT: My Lords, I mentioned this point earlier. I am not sure whether or not the noble Lord misunderstood, but no animal can be added to the Schedule or slip through in any way. It would be subject to a Negative Resolution of either House of Parliament. All that is quite clear in the Bill as drafted.
LORD BURTON: Yes, my Lords, but I think we know how comparatively easy it is for these matters to slip through. It is not nearly so easy for a Bill which has to go through various Readings. The Minister has only to rise and move orders. I am not enthusiastic about placing nature conservation in the hands of public bodies. This may not be correct, but I heard the other day that in Russia for instance, where presumably public bodies deal with the matter, they have almost exterminated the European wolf by dropping poisoned bait from aeroplanes. This is not the sort of thing ever to have taken place in this country. I am not suggesting that the Nature Conservancy would do such a thing. But it is better that a private individual should be educated to protect the animals, rather than the matter being left in the hands of public bodies.
The Bill provides that the implementation of its proposals should be by the local authorities. I am not at all happy

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about this. I have been a county councillor for some time and we have the greatest difficulty in keeping the rates down. We get more and more administration pushed on to us, and unless this administration is really necessary we should not have it. This will not be an easy Bill to administer. The onus will be put on the local authority to publicise what animals are or are not on the Schedule. They can be added to at any time. Indeed, every five years the Nature Conservancy Council are instructed to revise their Schedules. So the enforcement by the local authority will be difficult. The noble Lord, Lord Somers, mentioned the matter of enforcement to protect wild plants, and enforcement is difficult. On the previous Bill, the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, said how few prosecutions there had been. This is because it is so difficult to enforce in this field. If we have a Bill which is difficult to enforce, and which is not considered very highly by the public, it is liable to come into contempt, and it is wrong to introduce legislation which is liable to come into contempt.
I am particularly worried about the creatures which may be added to the Schedule. I have heard mentioned outside this Chamber the possibility of including the pine marten. This creature has had an enormous population explosion in recent years, and I am quite confident that it will continue to expand in population so long as we have increasing afforestation. It is now very widespread throughout the Highlands, but what concerns me more is that it is probably the biggest enemy of the red squirrel. I do not think anyone here would argue against protection of the red squirrel, although foresters might, with a different species in the North of Scotland. The red squirrel is under severe attack from the grey squirrel and to try to protect one of its biggest predators, which I believe was largely responsible for wiping it out in the North of Scotland some years ago, would be a great mistake.
We are already protecting quite a number of predators, such as buzzards, owls, kestrels and so on. I suspect that they are probably destroying more dormice than would ever be destroyed by human beings. I may be wrong, but I suspect
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that this is the case. Indeed, though I might incur the ire of the noble Earl, Lord Arran, by making this remark, I suggest that possibly a far greater danger to the dormouse than human beings is the badger, and we have already protected the badger. This is where we have to be extremely careful.
I should not have thought that this Bill was necessary. Several noble Lords have mentioned adding to the Schedule, but I have not heard it said that there should be additional protection for the creatures that we have in Loch Ness and in Loch Morar. They are probably rarer than any other animal or creature in this country. I understand that we have already instituted some protection in Loch Ness by local byelaws. If it is necessary to have protection for these creatures, then it can equally well be done under present legislation. I suggest this Bill is really quite unnecessary.
LORD MELCHETT: My Lords, may I. by leave of the House, make a couple of observations. I feel rather responsible for starting off the debate we have had on ringing, as the Government have some reservations about this clause. It is the Government's view that the clause is not fundamental to the Bill in any way. Indeed, the reservations we have stem in part from the fact that it is not an apt extension of the Bill. So I should not like anybody to assume that this is a fundamental or really important point so far as the Bill itself is concerned.
The other thing I want to say is to repeat what I said on the Protection of Wild Plants Bill, but some noble Lords were not in the Chamber at the time and did not hear me. It is the Government's view that while only a small number of prosecutions are likely to result from this measure, the educative value of legislation, and to a lesser extent the educative value of any resulting prosecutions, would have the effect in the short term of conserving this small number of our most endangered animal species, and in the longer term of changing people's attitudes towards them.
8.24 p.m.
LORD WYNNE-JONES: My Lords, I must thank all your Lordships for having taken part in this debate. I would particularly thank my noble friend Lord

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Melchett for his appearance for the first time—not, it is true, in the debate on this Bill but on the previous Bill—and thank him for the way in which he has expressed the Government's point of view. From what he has said, I have no doubt that the Government will treat the matter favourably but critically, which is all that one would ever ask should be done.
I would always hope, of course, that the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, would continue to entertain us with his knockabout farce. It was very good fun. The mere fact that he occasionally got mixed up in what the Bill was about, whether it was dealing with plants or animals or some other form of life which he suddenly introduced, merely added to the enjoyment of the scene, and I would tell him that it was thoroughly entertaining.
It was the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, I think, who said that he would never be able to recognise the Greater Horseshoe Bat. I think I am right in saying that apart from the interesting facial description given by the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, it is also the largest bat in this country; it has, I think, a wingspread of nearly 18 ins. So it is not unidentifiable, even to people who are not highly expert, like myself.
Reference was made particularly by the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, to ringing. He suggested that this either was not done at all or was always done by experts. The actual fact is that an immense amount of ringing goes on. I was not aware of this, but I am assured it is the case, and that bats are frequently being ringed. The ringing is being done by people who may be described as enthusiastic amateurs (if one wishes to use the expression) and who do this sort of thing, as Lord Somers remarked, without understanding fully the nature of the species that they are dealing with. They may be perfectly expert at the technique of ringing, but they can do considerable damage. I am also informed that marking in various forms is practised on reptiles and toads, and this means slipping away part of the scales and making actual marks on the creature. This is something which, if it is done by people who do not fully understand the biological nature of the animals they are dealing with. may cause considerable damage.
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What this Bill says is that all such practices should be carried out by licensed practitioners. This is exactly what we do when we are dealing with vets and doctors; they are licensed practitioners.
LORD BURTON: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord for a moment. Would it not be much easier just to prohibit this practice? I think there is already some control on birds. It would seem to be unnecessary to have this mammoth Bill for the sake of a few people who are apparently marking or ringing creatures.
LORD WYNNE-JONES: My Lords, this Bill, it must be realised, is essentially a companion Bill to other Bills. Reference is made to it as though there were only one or two things being dealt with here. One has to remember that one has previous Acts giving protection to birds. It might be possible to put them all together, and it might be a sensible thing to do. But the birds have already been dealt with; seals have already been dealt with; and badgers have already been dealt with. This Bill deals with certain other animals, and it proposes a control on those methods of dealing with animals which can cause maltreatment of them and can cause a disappearance of certain species. The noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, said, "Yes, but we have not anything dramatic here". We do not have lions and tigers roaming about the country; we do not have wolves, as Lord Burton said. It is perfectly true that we are not in the tropics and we do not have all this horde of animals. But we have a number of animals in this country, and the point of the Bill is to deal with the protection of such animals as we have and such animals as are at risk.
I do not want to detain your Lordships, but I have, in a letter from the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, a comment which deals with exactly the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton—forgive me if I once more refer to the noble Lord—when he said that one would not know, if one saw the pupae of the Large Blue butterfly what one was dealing with. The noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, wrote to me in that letter:
"The Large Blue's caterpillars are carried into ant's nests, where they live on the larvae and

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exude a substance which the ants like. A friend of mine went to a Large Blue reserve and saw the tops of some ants' nests removed, obviously by someone looking for the pupae".
That is the whole point: the person who wants to obtain of these knows where to look for them, and can go and destroy a whole colony in this way. The purpose of this Bill is to deal with matters like that. Admittedly they are small matters on the scale of great international events, and perhaps one can ignore them, but surely one ignores them at the peril of a decent existence in the kind of society that we hope to expand in this country.
LORD BURTON: My Lords, may I just say again that I was interested to hear this fact about ants' nests. It may be a different kind of ant, but earlier on the noble Lord mentioned Capercailzie, and one of the favourite diets of Capercailzie is ants; therefore they are liable to scrape open the nests and I think that they might have done some damage to the same kind of ants.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, the noble Lord has had much knockabout fun with me, deriding what I was saying. Because I put something lightly it does not mean that it was not serious. I have never decried these species of animal because they were small or insectlike. I did not once mention plant life in my speech, and I have not once said that I thought that any of these species did not deserve to live. I was merely querying lightly whether this Bill was not too heavy an instrument to deal with these problems.
LORD WYNNE-JONES: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord. Of course I return the shuttlecock in the spirit in which he sent it over the net.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.