Lords Sitting of 5 February 1975

Preamble
The House met at a quarter past two of the clock (Prayers having been read earlier at the Judicial Sitting by the Lord Bishop of Ripon):
The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Wool-sack.

LORD WALLACE OF COSLANY
George Douglas Wallace, Esquire, having been created Baron Wallace of Coslany, of Coslany in the City of Norwich, for life—Was, in his robes, introduced between the Lord Popplewell and the Lord Burntwood.

THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF YORK
Stuart Yarworth, Lord Archbishop of York—Was (in the usual manner) introduced between the Lord Bishop of London and the Lord Bishop of Rochester.
The Lord Bolton—Took the Oath.
The Marquess of Aberdeen and Temair—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his brother.

WASTE PAPER
2.32 p.m.
Lord SHINWELL: 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 what pressure is being exercised on local authorities to ensure that waste paper is regularly collected and to what extent if any such collections have caused any reduction in paper imports.
The PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE, DEPARTMENT of ENVIRONMENT (Baroness Birk): My Lords, because there is a temporary glut of waste paper, the Government cannot for the time being encourage
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local authorities. The urgent need is to secure a stable market for paper that can be collected, and the Government's Advisory Group on Waste Paper Recycling are urgently considering ways of doing this. They are also considering how to increase the proportion of waste paper that can be used in paper manufacture. The waste paper salvaged by local authorities would, if imported as waste, cost about £10 million a year. An imported equivalent amount of wood pulp would cost approximately £30 million.
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, following that Answer, may I ask my noble friend whether we are to understand that we continue to import vast quantities of paper at great cost when we have a vast amount of the material on our own doorstep? Is that the situation?
Baroness BIRK: No, my Lords, that is not the situation. The situation is that practically all the paper that is imported is paper of a higher quality; it cannot be made out of waste paper and therefore has to be imported.
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, surely it is an astonishing situation that, because of some technical difficulty, we are allowing this vast amount of material to remain unused. Am I to understand that some of the local authorities are recalcitrant in this matter and are reluctant to do anything in the way of collection? Is that the case? If that is the position, will my noble friend tell her right honourable friend the Minister (if he happens to be a right honourable Minister) that provided the names of these local authorities are conveyed to me I will publish them and expose them?
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, regarding my noble friend's last point, this is not the fault of the local authorities at all, although there may be odd local authorities which are remiss in this matter. As I said in my Answer, due to a temporary glut, a great deal of paper that has been collected cannot for the moment be used. But both Government and industry are confident that there will be an upsurge in demand later this year and the paper will be needed. I can only repeat what I said in answer to a former supplementary question: the paper which is imported

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is paper of a higher quality. In addition, research both by the Government and by industry is taking place to find ways of using waste paper for better quality paper and also for newsprint.
Viscount MONCK: My Lords, in support of the noble Baroness's statement that there is a glut of waste paper, may I say that towards the end of November last I received a letter from the merchants who collect our local waste, to the effect that the demand from paper and board mills had decreased. Four weeks later, I received another letter advising us that the situation had deteriorated further and that we should stop our collection. I think that that supports the noble Baroness's statement.
Baroness BIRK: Yes, that is quite right, my Lords. It was during 1974 that the situation deteriorated, and this was due to a world recession and to a decrease in demand in Europe for waste paper. But now, as I have said, we are hopeful that demand will be on the increase and that people will then be encouraged to start collecting again.
Lord POPPLEWELL: My Lords, will my noble friend please request her Secretary of State to consider the type of application for a rent rebate that I have in my hand? It contains two foolscap sheets of closely-typed questions, simply because somebody is asking for a rent rebate. Does this indicate a total lack of safeguarding our resources of paper? Will my noble friend have a word with her right honourable friend about reaching agreement with the local authorities to reduce considerably the type of document which I have produced in this House?
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, we are aware of what my noble friend said. Every attempt is made to try to reduce the consumption of paper in departments. The piece of paper my noble friend is referring to may be one that many people would in any event, like to see recycled. But I will take the point up.
Lord MERRIVALE: My Lords, will the noble Baroness agree that there is some difficulty for householders in towns and cities to separate waste paper, bottles and tins, with a view to meeting the point of the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell? If
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the noble Baroness does not agree, may I ask whether Her Majesty's Government have any suggestion as to how householders could be assisted in meeting the noble Lord's point?
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, we are very aware of this problem, and this is a difficulty at a time when there is a glut and many householders are trying to do their social duty in this connection. This is one of the points being considered urgently by the new Waste Management Advisory Council that has been set up; and I hope (although this is outside the scope of the Question) that eventually something will be done.
Lord CASTLE: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that, whatever the difficulties of local authorities, private agencies on behalf of charities are still collecting waste paper and giving Green Shield stamps in return?
Baroness BIRK: Yes, my Lords, I am aware that voluntary organisations are collecting paper. Some of them have managed to make contracts with merchants or mills, but others have not and are left with the waste paper. I would be the last one to suppress any voluntary spirit, but I think it would be better for the voluntary organisations to understand that there is a temporary glut and that, perhaps, they should hold their horses and temper the amount of collection until the situation improves.
Lord LEATHERLAND: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that this is a matter in which I have taken a great interest for fifty or sixty years, and I have addressed your Lordships on this question on five or six occasions? Is she further aware that the essence of the problem has not yet been mentioned? Is she aware that the essence of the problem is that the paper mills are now holding huge stocks of material which they are not yet able to use, but which constitute a heavy drag upon their capital? Is my noble friend further aware that they are agitating for Government assistance to tide them over until this surplus stock can be put through the pulp mills? Is the noble Baroness therefore able to tell us whether the Government are giving consideration to this question which is the sole source of the present problem?
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, I am very well aware of my noble friend's interest in this matter. I am also aware of the discussions which are taking place between the Government and industry, although I think it is overplaying it a little to call it "agitating". Discussions are taking place on both sides. Industry realises the Government's financial problem so far as this matter is concerned. It is understood. The matter is well in hand and the Government's Advisory Group on Waste Paper is getting together to work on these very problems.
Lord INGLEWOOD: My Lords, may I inform the noble Baroness that there is nothing new in this answer from a Minister? My memory goes back 25 years and I have heard this said over and over again. Is it a question of a lack of capacity for handling waste paper, or is it a question of a lack of demand for the processed product? There is a demand for the collection of waste paper, but when people have collected it they are told that it is not wanted.
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, with respect, this is the first time that I have had to give this answer. Looking at the other times, I do not believe that the same answer has been given before, because the circumstances and reasons have been different. The answer is that there is a glut of paper, and at the moment there is a lack of demand for it. The purpose of the research which is now being done is to increase the capacity of the mills in order to extend the variety of paper which can be made out of waste paper.
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, will my noble friend be kind enough to advise me about what I am now to do with the vast amount of paper that I receive every morning? Am I to put it in the dustbin, or am I still to put it aside for collection?
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, I should advise my noble friend to get in touch with his local authority in order to receive exact, practical local advice on the spot.
Lord ORR-EWING: My Lords, will the noble Baroness understand that there is tremendous good will all over the nation to try to reduce our import bill. Very large numbers of charitable organisations, as well as local authorities, have been conscientiously collecting waste paper. I had a recent case where the Boy Scouts had to pay somebody to have the waste paper taken away. It seems to be a crazy situation where our imports are so grossly out of balance. Will the Government now give some real sense of priority and urgency to settling this very difficult problem?
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, the Government are giving priority to it. That is what I hoped to convey—although, perhaps, I was not successful—throughout all the answers which I have given to the very interesting questions which have been raised.
Lord SLATER: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that she has done remarkably well in facing up to the many questions which have been asked on this subject? May we take it that the anti-litter campaign has been a failure, even though we have had tremendous advertising in regard to that campaign, and that the anti-litter Act which was passed by both Houses of Parliament has not been successful according to the terms out-lined here today?
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, since my noble friend was so kind in the first part of his supplementary question, I hate to have to tell him that the latter part of it is another matter and that I do not propose to answer it.
The LORD PRIVY SEAL (Lord Shepherd): My Lords, may I politely suggest that we move to another Question? In view of the fact that we had one Question yesterday which lasted 12 minutes and that this Question has lasted 11 minutes, perhaps noble Lords might look at the length of the Questions which are put down for Answer to see whether they could not be shortened.

ROMANIA: BALANCE OF TRADE
2.45 p.m.
Lord AUCKLAND: 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 what is the current balance of trade between the United Kingdom and Romania and what plans they have in mind to increase exports during the current year, particularly in the field of chemicals and mechanical goods.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, the total visible trade between the United Kingdom and Romania in 1974 was £67·8 million, and the crude balance was £767,000 in Romania's favour. During the course of the recent United Kingdom/Romania Joint Governmental Commission, the Romanian delegation made known some of their likely import requirements for 1975 and the period 1976 to 1980, including some in the areas mentioned in the noble Lord's Question, which might be met by exports from the United Kingdom. The Department of Trade will vigorously pursue the opportunities presented.
Lord AUCKLAND: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his Answer to that Question. Is the noble Lord aware that in Romania there are considerable schemes in hand for irrigation and for construction? Can the noble Lord say whether British construction companies, and those companies which are making irrigation plant and so on, will have every opportunity to export goods to this country, in view of the fact that imports from Romania have ostensibly increased over the past months?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, the British construction industry, as I know from personal experience, has made a very substantial contribution to the improvement of facilities for irrigation in Romania. I am certain that the work which has been done in the past will bear fruit in future orders.

ASBESTOSIS
Lord AUCKLAND: 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 how many deaths attributable to asbestosis have been reported to them during the past five years, and what current steps are being taken to eradicate this dreadful disease.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, until last year figures of claims for industrial injuries death benefit for asbestosis were not separately collected, but it is estimated that about 80 deaths a year are accepted as due to or materially accelerated by asbestosis. In about 30 cases a year asbestosis is registered as the primary cause of death. New and more comprehensive regulations were introduced in 1970. These apply to all factory and construction sites where people might be exposed to asbestos dust. These require factory occupiers and contractors to take stringent precautions to safeguard their workpeople. The Employment Medical Advisory Service of the Health and Safety Executive is undertaking a long-term survey to monitor the health of asbestos workers. Details of the survey were given in the reply of my noble friend Lord Hughes to a Question from the noble Lord, Lord Hale, on 26th November 1974.
Lord AUCKLAND: My Lords, may I thank the noble Lord for that Answer? Will he agree that it constitutes a very disturbing situation, and may I ask him whether he saw, or has had his attention drawn to, the recent television programme on this subject which showed some very harrowing and dreadful scenes? May I also ask the noble Lord whether the Factory Inspectorate are doing sufficient to ensure safety precautions? May I ask also whether the compulsory wearing of masks in the more dangerous processes is being followed sufficiently? Finally, may I ask whether the Medical Research Council and the medical profession in general are making sufficient studies of one of the most terrible diseases of our time?
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, I am aware of the television programme to

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which the noble Lord referred. I under-stand that the incidents to which reference was made took place before we had the new regulations, and before we had adequate instruments for measuring dust. I can tell the noble Lord that I am very satisfied with the standards as they are at the moment. May I first direct his attention to an article in The Times on 20th January 1975 by the Editor of the Times Business News, who commented most favourably upon the standards in this country. Furthermore, he com-mended them to the ILO for enforcement by governments throughout the world.
Secondly, may I say that we are following up the work that has been done in recent years with the same sense of urgency as we have had over the last few years. At the present time, the Medical Research Council is reviewing the information on which our present standards have been established. This is in addition to the survey and the monitoring of workers' health which has been undertaken by the Employment Medical Advisory Service, and that service will be publishing interim reports from time to time. I believe that we are doing all we can, and we are observing a very high standard.
Lord DAVIES of LEEK: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that during the period in which I had the honour to serve in the Ministry of Social Security when we raised this issue of asbestos, the trade union movement and other industrial organisations were vigilant about this growing menace of asbestosis, and they particularly asked that there should be an extension of and greater recruitment to the Factory Inspectorate. Has that inspectorate been increased and how do we recruit to it?
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for having asked that question, because I should like to say a word on enforcement. There are 1,200 factories that are affected by the regulations, but in some cases only one or two workers work in an area where there is asbestos dust. The inspectors visit these factories at least once a year, and where there is any difficulty they make repeated visits at short intervals. The inspectors have instruments
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which enable them to take accurate measurements of dust on all their visits. They have instructions that where there is any significant breach of regulations, they should not hesitate to prosecute and since the new regulations have been in force there have been 42 cases success-fully brought to court. There has been one case where production has been prohibited, and in a second case a prohibition order has been served. In addition, the Industrial Hygiene Unit carries out a number of extensive programme visits to take more detailed measurements, and to give specialised advice. Here, again, I believe that the enforcement matches the high standards which we observe.
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord who leads this House, whether, while this is an extremely important and interesting matter, his observations about the shortness of questions apply equally to the brevity of answers?
Lord SHEPHERD: My Lords, in all honesty I believe so.
Lord HALE: My Lords, while this excellent consideration is going on in regard to this extremely important question, can the noble Lord say whether the Government propose, having very properly made more ample special provision for sufferers from coalminers' pneumoconiosis, to make similar additional provision for sufferers from asbestosis and byssinosis?
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, I believe that that is another question, and if it were on the Order Paper I am sure it would be answered.
Lord PEDDIE: My Lords, in view of my noble friend's comment that inspectors make visits at least once a year, can he give any indication as to whether there is any means of continuing the monitoring of dust in the factories?
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, it is the normal practice of the inspector to set up a system in the factory whereby there is continuous monitoring by the management.

CYPRUS
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 Goronwy-Roberts will repeat a Statement being made in another place on Cyprus.

LITERACY
2.56 p.m.
Lord MAYBRAY-KING Lord MAYBRAY-KING rose to call attention to the importance of literary; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg leave to move the Motion which stands in my name on the Order Paper. May I say at the outset that I am grateful to my fellow Cross-Benchers for allocating one of their very rare days to a debate on the subject of literacy. I am delighted that there is to be such a distinguished group of participants in the debate; that I am to be followed by the noble Lord, Lord Blake, the Provost of Queen's College, Oxford; and that among the maiden speakers will be an old friend of mine, the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhill, who has given a lifetime of service to education. There will also be another old friend of mine, the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, who illuminates every debate in which he takes part.
I think it is significant that the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury in a notable sermon at his installation gave as the first two needs of man, food and literacy. The United States Commissioner for Education, James Allen, recently said when launching a literacy campaign:
"Imagine if you can, what your life would be like if you could not read, or if your reading skill were so meagre as to limit you to the simplest of writings and if for you the door to the whole world of knowledge and inspiration through the printed word had never opened."
My Lords, since 1970, in a dynamic campaign, Brazil has taught basic reading skills to 6 million illiterate adults. Four years ago one-third of all Brazilians were illiterate. They reduced the number to one-quarter, and they are hoping that by 1980 the number of illiterates in Brazil will be reduced to one-tenth of the population. As for Iran, the Shahanshah made one of the key aims of his white revolution
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the battle against what he called the "scourge of illiteracy" and to do so, in his own words,
"in order that illiterates who did not know how to defend themselves would understand and become aware of their rights."
So he created a Literacy Corps; an army of young men and women who go up and down the villages of Iran teaching illiterate adults to read. I have had the privilege, as have some of my noble friends here, of seeing that wonderful work going on. It is against a background where newly emerging nations such as the two I have mentioned are placing education and literacy in the forefront of their fight to improve the quality of life that we might look at our own progress in this field.
We had hoped that before this debate we might all have been able to read the Bullock Report. Unfortunately printing difficulties have made that impossible, but I should like to begin by congratulating the then Secretary of State for Education and Science, Mrs. Margaret Thatcher, on setting up the Bullock Committee to investigate the whole question of reading. I believe that her initiative, and the Report itself (when we get it), will make a profound and historic impact on the nation's thinking and actions in the field of literacy.
My Lords, what is the goal? We want every child to leave school not only able to read, to recognise words, but also to read with ease, to read with hunger for more, to read with pleasure, to read for information and knowledge, to come into contact with the masters of thought and beauty whose works have come down to us through the ages, and to share with us our precious cultural heritage. I do not believe that we have done enough in our battle to teach reading. As one who was engaged in education for about 30 years, I know just how remarkable are the advances which we have made in almost every aspect of education, especially since we began to provide secondary education for all our children, instead of for only a quarter of them.
In range and scope, in improved accommodation, apparatus and in other facilities—almost above all, in the introduction of a three-year training course for all teachers—we have done wonders. Some of these wonders are reflected in the ever increasing number of "O" and "A" Levels gained by our children, and the

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ever-increasing number of children who go on from secondary to further education in so many spheres. Anyone who thinks educational standards are declining might himself face the task of tackling one "A" Level in whatever subject he thinks he knows most about. I think he will find the examination paper something of a shock.
My Lords, I read conflicting reports on children's reading ability. I hope that Bullock will give us a scientific assessment of the problem we are talking about this afternoon. I was cheered to read in the Daily Telegraph of 17th January a letter from a secondary school head-master. He wrote:
"A few years ago we did receive those unable to read, but all who joined us in September 1974 were able to do so, and the need for remedial teaching in our school has been removed. This does speak volumes of praise for the middle schools.… I would add also for the infants schools"—
where the key work is done. A letter like this may suggest that the tide is turning.
On the other hand, in the debate on 27th January in the other place, the figure was given of an increase of 7 per cent. per annum in the number of children leaving school unable to read and write. Dr. Morris, the expert in the teaching of reading, told an education conference in January that 30 per cent. of the pupils entering secondary schools needed special reading instruction. I am certain those two figures are far too high, but I am also certain that, while British education is now perhaps the finest in the world for bright pupils and for average pupils, we are still failing to cope with the under-average child and with the underprivileged. Especially is this true of reading and writing. I refer again to Dr. Morris, who said:
"Pupils who have not mastered the basic mechanics of reading by the age of eight have little chance of becoming competent readers. Half of them will have serious reading difficulties to the end of their schooldays and beyond. Unless high priority is again given to the teaching of reading in all classes, there is a danger of the educational system collapsing."
Those are very strong words indeed.
My Lords, I am one who believes that all that needs to be said on this subject was said by the famous Hadow Committee in its Report on Primary Education way back in 1931. It was then forgotten.
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In 1950, the Ministry of Education published a pamphlet called Reading Ability, but it is out of print, a fact which itself is a sign of the way we are neglecting the importance of the teaching of reading. In 1950, this pamphlet emphasised how important was the home in this problem. If possible, that is even more true today. The conversation a child hears in the family, the facilities he has for reading, the encouragement he receives to read from the fact that there are books and newspapers in the home, parental interest in his reading as in every other part of his education; adequate sleep, adequate nourishment—all these are vital factors in a child's progress towards literarcy. Yet, just two weeks ago, I read that, at the present moment, some 900,000 children under school age without nursery school provision are being cared for by child-minders, many of them without training of any kind whatever.
My Lords, I believe that the battle of battles is to win the parents. That is why I welcome the decision of the Government to earmark some £1 million to combat adult illiteracy. If we can win the parents, we can win some of the children that I am worried about. There will always be groups of children who will find reading difficult. Only recently we have learned to recognise the dyslectic child, the child suffering from word-blindness, the child who presents very difficult problems, about whom my noble friend Lady Masham of Ilton will, I hope, be speaking later in this debate. There are the mirror-sighted children, there are the mentally handicapped children, the psychologically disturbed children, all of whom find reading very difficult indeed. I understand that my noble friend Lady Kinloss will be giving us some rather frightening examples in the speech she proposes to make.
My Lords, the expert, Dr. Morris, at her conference, attacked those who think learning to read is a natural process. She is right. It is one of the most sophisticated of all man's achievements, especially in the English language. English is the richest language in the world. This is partly due to its history, but is partly due, also, to its habit of pilfering from the vocabularies of every other language in the world. It has the largest vocabulary, it has a simple, noiseless grammar. It could,

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therefore, be the easiest language to learn, and might even become—as I think it could very well—the world language of the future. But the very history which simplifies the grammar of English, the fusion of Anglo-Saxon and Norman, gave us a mixed orthography as Normans tried to write Anglo-Saxon sounds, and vice versa. Unfortunately, the hardest words from this point of view are the very ordinary, simple words, the very words which a child learns in the infants school when he or she learns to read; words like "once", "one", "two", "eight", simple words with fantastic spelling.
All my life I have paid tribute to the infant teachers for the extraordinary way in which they combat this very difficult orthography of ours in the infants schools of Britain. It is a simple fact that if every sound meant one symbol and every symbol meant one sound, as is true of most languages, and as was the original purpose of language and writing, then the teaching of reading would become very simple indeed. It was with this in mind that a friend of mine, Sir James Pitman, the grandson of the inventor of Pitman's shorthand, invented a new teaching alphabet. It is called the Initial Teaching Alphabet. In it each letter stands for one sound and one sound only. But it is scientifically devised so that wherever possible the original symbols remain and those which have had to be invented are so near other symbols that a transition from the Initial Teaching Alphabet to the ordinary alphabet as the child progresses is quite easy. Indeed, in the words of my wife, who was herself an infant school headmistress and who taught through this alphabet, transition becomes almost automatic.
For the Initial Teaching Alphabet is a teaching instrument, an aid to the child embarking on the important task of learning to read. It can be taught by any of the traditional methods that teachers use. It is an instrument, not a method of teaching. It makes learning easier—though not easy, because no learning is easy—and it helps above all, in my opinion, the underprivileged, the under-average child. For me that is its special importance. It helps the child who faces the complicated hurdles of the English orthography, who finds it so difficult and breaks down, who finds it so difficult that even though he or she
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learns it they avoid reading whenever they have a chance, as did the illiterate Bentley hanged for the murder he did not commit and ashamed to let the world know that he could not read.
I know that the ITA Foundation, of which I am the Honorary President, has given evidence to the Bullock Committee, and I hope we are going to find that the Committee has been impressed, and that the Ministry will give sympathetic encouragement to the very successful work that is being done in over 1,000 primary schools at the present moment, teaching by means of that particular instrument. I believe it can be important in the fight against illiteracy.
But, my Lords, this is only part of the problem. We hear nowadays the cry of, "Back to the three Rs". I am old enough to have had experience of being taught for part of my life under the soulless, repetitive mechanical instruction that went by the name of the three Rs. It was right that a revolt should have taken place against some aspects of elementary education, the cane included. In every way the classroom today is an improvement on the old one. The greatest educator of all, the Czech Comenius, writing 300 years ago, wanted all schools to be "gardens of delight". That has happened in British schools. But I believe that the revolt has gone too far; that it is possible to throw out the baby with the bathwater. And the great Comenius himself believed that discipline and formal instruction was necessary.
While it is well to remember that the generations of average citizens whom we know, the older citizens produced by old elementary education, were no mean citizens of Britain, it is also worth saying that not only was teaching under the three Rs routine drudgery; it also failed to teach the very children I am talking about to read. One of the myths that we have about the three Rs is that in the golden age, when under the old mechanical system we taught the three Rs, everybody could read. This was far from true. Having said that, I think we have to get back to the formal teaching that we associate with the three Rs, without many of its unhappy associations.
My lords, I have mentioned some obstacles. There is a third one. Our training colleges, the colleges of education, do excellent work but they fail, in my opinion, adequately to teach the teaching of reading. As was said in the other place, in a debate on 27th January, by the shadow Minister, an old friend of mine with most of whose speech I disagreed:
"We want in particular new methods of teaching reading and of teaching discipline in the colleges of education, so that teachers will be adequately equipped to go into the schools."—[Official Report, Commons, 27/1/75; col. 51.]
My Lords, learning to read is not easy. We speak rightly of the discipline of studies. All learning is difficult, even if improved techniques can make the approach a little easier. But if reading is difficult, the teaching of reading is much more difficult, especially in an age where the TV is a competitor for the child's interest, in an age when adults are reading picture books without any words. I believe that the colleges of education, and indeed some of our schools, are attempting too much. In the words of the James Report, the work of an old pupil of mine, on the colleges of education:
"In such a hubbub of competing priorities, it may not be surprising, although it is certainly alarming, that such matters as the teaching of reading should sometimes appear to be neglected."
In an article in the Daily Telegraph the educational correspondent, a man called Mr. Izbicki, wrote:
"With only a handful of exceptions, teachers (who wrote to me) agreed that standards in the three Rs had declined, that colleges of education were failing to give student teachers adequate training in how to put these subjects across."
He went on to say that some of his teacher correspondents complained—I find it hard to believe—about the attitude of some of Her Majesty's inspectors. He said that one inspector had told the head teacher that he did not care if more than half the infants went from infant school to junior school unable to read. When the headmaster challenged him to repeat this he added, "provided they've had a meaningful experience in the infant school". My Lords, this reminds me of American gobbledygook in education. I believe that the colleges must devote more time, more skill and more research to the teaching of teaching to read.
In the debate in the other place some days ago, it was suggested that the Government should set up national standards for reading and writing. I am not sure how this could be implemented. In the last century we tried payment by results, one of the most lamentable reforms that ever took place in the history of the growth of British education. But having said that, in one way or another the whole nation must take this problem seriously and set about improving the standards of reading of our children.
My Lords, I have left myself no time to talk about real literacy. It was my experience as a headmaster years ago to try to teach illiterate boys to read in my own study, to teach one boy to read only to find that when he went home with the little books I had asked him to take home his father would not let him look at them. But it was also my joy, as a teacher of English, to teach all boys to read—boys of all ages and abilities—to teach the sixth form to read with judgment, with discrimination, with appreciation in the quest for true literacy. Having said that, my Lords, it is the first step that counts. By the end of the years in infant school, the child ought to be able to read comfortably, always excepting some of the very difficult groups I have mentioned.
We need more specialist teachers in the primary field, small enough remedial classes, early diagnosis of physical, of mental or psychological handicaps, or of speech defects. As I said earlier, I hope that the Bullock Report will usher in a dynamic attack on illiteracy and, if the steps which it recommends will cost money, I believe it is money which Britain ought to be happy to pay. I hope that my speech will not have been regarded as a narrow one. When I concentrate on reading and writing, these are the gates to the whole of the width and breadth of human knowledge. I know that for the least able child learning to read means hard work. It means hard work for the teachers in the colleges of education; it means hard work on the part of education authorities. Most important of all, it means hard work on the part of the most precious figure, apart from the child in the whole educational picture—the classroom teacher in the infant school. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
3.22 p.m.
Lord BLAKE: My Lords, I rise to make a very short and, in many ways, a purely subjective speech. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Maybray-King, and other speakers, will forgive me if I say that owing to a genuinely inescapable engagement it is unlikely that I can be here at the end of the debate. I apologise to the House for this dereliction of duty, and I much regret that I may not be present to hear what is said by all noble Lords who have put their names down to speak this afternoon.
I am sure that we are all most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Maybray-King, for drawing our attention to this extremely important subject. It is not a subject on which I can pretend to be an expert. My contribution to this debate cannot be more than a personal impression from the point of view of the universities. I have had none of the experience which some noble Lords have had in primary and secondary education. I can only speak about the form of education which is nowadays called tertiary—an expression which always reminds me faintly of a geological epoch rather than universities and polytechnics. I was in fairly regular receipt of written work from 1946, when I first became a don at Christ Church, until about six years ago when I moved to Queen's College, where I do not have the same contact with immediate teaching.
For what it is worth, my impression over the 20-odd years following the end of the war is that standards of spelling, grammar, punctuation, not to mention English style and simple intelligibility, were on the decline. I emphasise that this is a personal impression but I am not alone, I think, in believing this. To some extent it has been endorsed in Oxford by examiners' reports in Final Honour Schools. The noble Lord, Lord Crowther-Hunt, will probably confirm that this is so. He has had just as much, if not more, experience than I have. I have seen a good many adverse comments on the general standard of literacy as far as writing is concerned, ranging from indignation and irritation to despairing acceptance of a falling-off which seems almost irreversible. I admit, of course, that there are plenty of exceptions. There are many boys and girls of university age who can write clearly, lucidly, grammatically and
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correctly. My point is that there are relatively—or this is my impression—fewer than there were, and that one now positively notices decent English in examination papers which one corrects, whereas a generation ago one tended to take it for granted.
To take another example, twice in the last few years I and my co-examiner for a Doctor of Philosophy thesis have felt obliged to refer back to the candidate a thesis on an historical subject, not on grounds of inadequate scholarship or getting the facts or the perspective wrong— the sort of grounds on which in the past one would have had occasion to do this— but because in both cases large slices of the thesis were written in a manner so as to produce, in the literal use of the word, non-sense. It was ungrammatical, and if you had any regard to the rules of construction and grammar it did not mean anything at all. The depressing thing was that on pointing this out to the candidate it did not appear to impinge in either case. They were men in both cases. They did not even appear aware of the problem to which one was drawing their attention. I found this rather depressing. One must remember that by the time somebody submits a thesis he has had at least six years of tertiary education behind him. In fact, if we go on with the geological analogy, he would almost have reached the quaternary epoch. I was not conscious of this kind of problem 20 years ago.
My Lords, I am not competent to determine the reasons for this decline, but I suspect that it has at least something to do with the falling off in standards of literacy at school. The decline has nothing to do with the arguments that we have about reorganisation—comprehensive or grammar schools—or anything like that ; it began long before comprehensive education ever came into the picture. I wonder whether it has some connection with the matter to which the noble Lord, Lord Maybray-King, drew our attention; the allegedly more painless methods of teaching which have come in. It would not surprise me if this were the case. Certainly some of those who actually teach are becoming increasingly sceptical about the validity of some of these techniques.
Perhaps I could finish with a quotation from a letter by the senior history master

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of a comprehensive school in Brecon which appears in the current number of The Spectator. Commenting on a remark in an editorial in that same paper to the effect that Dr. Rhodes Boyson and Mr. Stevas need expect little but "approbrium from most of the teaching profession" for their stand against "progressive" methods, the senior history master wrote:
"I have taught for the last nine years in a comprehensive school and, before that, for nineteen years in grammar schools, and in all that time I have only met two or three practising teachers who approve of the new 'progressive' methods. Overwhelmingly the profession is in favour of a return to strong discipline and more formal methods."
That is just the point which the noble Lord, Lord Maybray-King, made towards the end of his speech. The quotation goes on:
"These new ideas come from professors of education and training college lecturers and would soon be abandoned if these people actually had to take classes. Mind you, at council meetings of the various teachers' unions it would be professional suicide to voice our real feelings on this subject. We should be stamped as reactionaries. But in the privacy of our common rooms our real opinions can be voiced, and any journalist who cares to penetrate them would hear the truth."
My Lords, it is much to be hoped that those in the profession who share these misgivings expressed by the school-master will not allow themselves to be browbeaten by the stigma of "reactionary". I hope that they will speak up, and speak firmly. I cannot believe that any harm would come to them if they did so. I strongly suspect that at least some of the trouble about literacy could be cured by a return not to the three Rs (which the noble Lord, Lord Maybray-King, described as "soulless, repetitive, and mechanical") but to discipline and to formal classes. I believe that a close examination of the content and manner of what is being taught in both primary and secondary schools, and of the methods of teaching teachers themselves, is something that is increasingly worrying parents, and is far more important than the endless and now rather sterile debate on educational reorganisation. I, too, hope very much that the Bullock Report (and in many ways it is a pity that we are not debating this subject in the light of that Report) will give a real impetus towards reform in these fields.
3.33 p.m.
Lord BEAUMONT of WHITLEY: My Lords, I know that we all owe a great debt to the noble Lord, Lord Maybray-King, for having initiated this debate today on an extremely important subject which has raised such a distinguished number of speakers and such a good attendance in your Lordships' House. We all look forward to the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhill, who will add so much, particularly on education, to your Lordships' debates in the future. As an ex-member of Christ Church it is my very pleasant duty to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Blake, on what I believe is his first speech from the Dispatch Box —and a very good and able one, if I may say so.
We all hope to get from the Bullock Report a rather more scientific approach to the number and the definitions of illiteracy and literacy than we have had in the past. But I think it would not be unfair to say that the number of people in this country who are functionally illiterate cannot be less than about 2 million. By "functionally illiterate", I do not mean people who cannot read very simple things; I mean people whose literacy is considerably below what is needed for the situation in which they find themselves in the modern world. When one remembers that it is calculated that in order to fill in welfare forms one should have a literacy age of 18, and when one considers the number of people who must fall below that standard and who have to fill in welfare forms, one is aware of an immense human problem, one which goes far beyond the confines of the education problem as such.
Two questions immediately come to mind: Is the position getting better and are we doing anything about it? Broadly speaking, I think the answer to both questions is, "Yes". The literacy standards of schoolchildren went up steadily till 1964. Since then they have certainly reached a plateau. It is possible that they have declined slightly. Again, we must await the Bullock Report to have the full diagnosis on this aspect, but I would say the standards have declined only very slightly if at all. It is difficult to tell what the specific factors may be which have caused this halt in the improvement of the plateau. I think that we must be

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very cautious about producing too simplistic judgments.
As the noble Lord, Lord Blake, has rightly said, it is nothing to do with school reorganisation as such. What evidence there is seems to show that although the reading standards of the brighter pupils in comprehensive schools are below the national average for brighter children (and this is something which those of us who are in favour of reorganisation in comprehensive schools would do well to take to heart) at the lower range the comprehensive schools are better at dealing with people who have reading difficulties than the average of other schools. So almost certainly it has nothing to do with reorganisation. I think there may be some-thing (and I am impressed by the arguments which have been presented by the noble Lord, Lord Blake, and the noble Lord, Lord Maybray-King) to be said about teaching methods in primary schools. But we must not take this position too far; there are dangers in it. In fact, literacy is merely part of a general articulateness. Spelling, although useful, is not everything.
Often one can notice that although the present school system produces much worse spelling and, to a certain extent, worse grammar (and that has its very real dangers which I do not underrate) than more orthodox and old-fashioned methods, nevertheless it produces a spontaneity and an articulateness in expression which is very useful and which can only be a good thing. I do not say that this outweighs any loss in formal literacy: I do not think that it does. I merely say that I think this is a difficult field where we cannot be too dogmatic and where certainly the findings of the Bullock Committee will be of immense help. In the past different methods of teaching reading have been blamed, although not in this debate. They may be muddling for a few, but I do not believe this can be anything but a minor factor, and experiment in this field is, of course, to be welcomed because it may add something really worth while. What seems to me probable is that there is, in fact, a genuine plateau. There is in all human endeavour. There come moments when one cannot go on improving things by using the same methods and within the
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same system. Not everything can go on getting better and better without a change of approach, and it seems to me that it may well be true that we have reached a rather natural plateau in this matter caused by the nature of our society.
I should now like to answer the second question that we ought to ask ourselves: are we doing anything about this? I think here we may be pleased and may congratulate Governments of all complexions on the fact that they are taking this matter seriously. It was a very good thing to set up the Bullock Committee and we are all looking forward to its report. The Government have recently given a grant of £1,000,000 to an Adult Literacy Resources Centre, and they are to be congratulated very much on that action. The BBC is to start a three-year project to combat adult illiteracy later this year, and again that is something extremely worth while and which we can be extremely pleased with.
What more then needs to be done? The most crucial area, of course, is among the very young in the poorer sections of the population. Here I should like firmly to make the point that there is no substitute for the abolition of poverty and the abolition of the slums. The general politicians cannot swing this problem completely on to the educationalists. If real poverty were to be abolished, and certainly if the slums were abolished, a great deal of the problem of illiteracy would be solved straightaway. To a certain extent, all the teachers—the poor, bloody infantry if I may say so of this problem—are trying to do is to heal wounds caused by our social planning.
I come back to the point I made earlier: that I think there may be a very real plateau of achievement in this field which is caused by the kind of society we are. But, of course, there are things which can be done in the purely educational field. Pre-school education in this country is abysmally lacking in quantity and now, in the present climate, is likely to be the first victim of cutback; as in Buckinghamshire which, as we know, proposes to close all the county's 14 nursery classes and five nursery schools catering for 2,000 children.
Obviously to hope for big advances in this area is over-optimistic in the present financial climate, but there are

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imaginative steps which could be taken. I suggest that one step is that whatever the attitude to child-minding services as they at present exist, some kind of support and some kind of establishment to try to help child minders to give a less negative experience to the children under their care might be well worth exploring. In the orthodox school years we need better diagnosis of reading difficulties, more trained teachers and, above all, a better curriculum. Better diagnosis probably involves more reading tests which are useful to find out the causes of illiteracy in specific children—for example, those with specific physical or mental handicaps, and specific diagnosable reading problems.
My Lords, I do not suggest that we come back to having tests every week or every month, with a rat race for marks. Such tests need not be orthodox. There was an account in the Evening Standard two or three days ago about experiments to detect basic reading faults using a machine made of two old cigar boxes and a battery operated light. It may well be asked how many primary schools have two old cigar boxes, but nevertheless substitutes for those can probably be found. A better curriculum is also important, involving much better material for reading. A major cause of illiteracy —probably the major cause—is not wanting to learn to read. As Bruno Bettelheim recently remarked in an article in Encounter, admittedly largely dealing with the American experience:
"I do not need to pose the question of what vistas are opened up to the child as a reward for having become able to read. See Spot Run. See Spot Jump."
The same author points out that in what is probably a misguided attempt to relate reading materials to what the child already likes and what his interests are, a great deal of reading material is related to children's play activities: e.g., I mean i.e., it is consistently reminding them that they really want to get out to play, instead of trying to lead them into a reading experience, and encouraging them into the world of the mind. This is an area which needs a great deal more exploration and probably in which a revolution is overdue.
Another admittedly long-term curriculum reform would be to teach
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today's children a little more about child development so that they can help their children better, which might be slightly more useful than some of the subjects which they learn about in schools. In the field of adult education most of the paths have already been charted. The Russell Report on Adult Education needs to be implemented. One important step which must not be neglected, and on which action can be taken now and in the immediate future, is that the BBC's major effort should be given maximum effectiveness. All the material should be made available on video cassettes, or in other ways, for educational establishments, community centres and libraries, and the money for this must be found.
Another thing which can happen is that the whole attitude of people learning to read can be made much more positive by the greater use of schools as community centres. One of the troubles which has been mentioned is that people are ashamed of illiteracy; they do not want to reveal it. If schools are being used as teaching centres for the whole of the population of a community, it is much easier to get people into adult education classes.
My Lords, these are some of the specific points which I think it is worth our while looking at, and which no doubt the Bullock Committee have been looking at. But I do not think that we will really seriously tackle this problem until we realise that it is important to individual people. It is not just a function of our society—how well people can express themselves, or how illiterate they are. In the end it comes down to individual tragedies which should rouse our compassion just as much as, say, the diseases caused by inhaling asbestos, which we have heard about earlier today.
Every illiterate, no matter how wise or useful he or she may be in his or her life—and so many of them are—is a member of the walking wounded of our society, not able to lead a full life in the modern world in which they find themselves—impoverished and, to that extent, diminished. Each one is the centre of a personal tragedy, almost every one of which could have been, and should have been, avoided, and the responsibility is upon us all

CYPRUS
3.49 p.m.
The PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE, FOREIGN and COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (Lord Goronwy-Roberts): My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat a Statement on Cyprus being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. The Statement is as follows:
"I will with your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, make a Statement on Cyprus.
"During my recent visit to the United States, I had separate discussions on Cyprus with Dr. Kissinger and Dr. Waldheim, the Secretary General of the United Nations.
"It is Her Majesty's Government's view that at present and despite their slow progress, the talks between Mr. Clerides and Mr. Denktash continue to provide the best chances of moving towards a settlement. The Government fully support these talks and hope that they will be pursued with a greater sense of urgency. A lasting settlement is most likely to be achieved if the Cypriots themselves agree upon the nature of a constitutional settlement. The present talks provide the people of Cyprus, of both communities, with an opportunity to do so.
"Our policy remains based on active support for the relevant resolutions of the United Nations Security Council and of the General Assembly. I reaffirm that Her Majesty's Government will be ready to support any solution which is acceptable to both communities, and which maintains the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Cyprus. I also reaffirm that, if it is the wish of the parties that we should assist in wider negotiations to reach a settlement, we remain ready to do this or to help in any other forum.
"The House is aware that the transfer to Turkey of the Turkish Cypriots from the Western Sovereign Base Area is now complete. Winter weather in the camp in the Western SBA had, as I saw for myself when
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I visited Akrotiri briefly on my way out to Africa, brought about a significant worsening in the conditions of these unfortunate refugees. It would have been inhumane to withhold agreement any longer. I was not willing to use these people as political pawns and I refute the suggestion that, by this decision, Her Majesty's Government have shown some change in our policy towards Cyprus. Some have even used it to argue that we support partition. This is untrue.
"I remain very conscious of the plight of the Greek Cypriot refugees. We shall continue to do whatever we can to help them. The British Government have not forgotten that many Greek Cypriots have lost their homes and livelihood. By virtue of their numbers alone, the Greek Cypriots' problems are much greater. Britain has given over £1·5 million in relief aid to Cyprus, but no lasting solution can be found until there has been a political settlement. Nor have we forgotten the many British subjects who have suffered in Cyprus, whether by loss of life or injury, or by damage or loss of property. We are trying to obtain compensation for them and to protect their interests in every way we can.
"Humanitarian considerations equally call for a move by Turkey to help the Greek Cypriot refugees. I understand that a proposal has been made that some 5,000 Greek Cypriots should be allowed to return to their homes in an area round Athienou. It remains to be seen whether the conditions for their return can be accepted by the Greek Cypriots, as the villages concerned are behind the Turkish lines.
"It would be wrong to assume too quickly that these talks between Mr. Clerides and Mr. Denktash are irrevocably deadlocked at any one point. The problems of Cyprus have never been easy to solve and a long-term settlement of the many humanitarian, social and political problems of the Republic as a whole can only be found by some agreement between the two communities themselves.
"I am in continuing contact with Mr. Clerides and Mr. Denktash as well as with the Greek and Turkish Governments,

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and have urged on all of them the need for serious bilateral negotiations to be pursued without delay."
My Lords, that is the end of the Statement.
Earl FERRERS: My Lords, the House will be grateful to the noble Lord for having repeated this Statement which is really a progress report on the situation in Cyprus. I think that the whole House realises and appreciates the delicacy of the situation and the fact that Her Majesty's Government are, and have been, in the difficult position of needing to be seen to be fair all the way around. The difference of opinion over Cyprus has led to concern over the Turkish relationship with NATO. I wonder whether the noble Lord is able to comment on that in any way. Other than that, I think the most helpful thing I could do would be to say virtually nothing; but I would merely add, by way of comment, that we are glad to hear of the proposal for 5,000 Greek Cypriots to return to their homes near Athienou. I hope that this will turn into reality. The noble Lord rightly said that no lasting solution can be obtained until there is a political settlement. We agree whole-heartedly with that view and we are grateful to the noble Lord for his reassurance that the Government will do everything to bring about that solution.
Lord LLOYD of KILGERRAN: My Lords, may I join in thanking the noble Lord for repeating the Statement and say that we endorse the action that has been and is being taken by Her Majesty's Government in the tragic situation in which Cyprus finds itself. May I add a personal note of gratitude to the noble Lord's right honourable friend in another place on the humanitarian approach adopted towards these extremely complex social and military problems. I note that Her Majesty's Government are taking steps to urge that negotiations towards a settlement be carried out. In this connection, I wonder whether the noble Lord is in a position to comment on whether the position has been eased or hindered in any way by the action of the United States Congress which, I understand, is now imposing an embargo on the export of arms from the United States to Turkey.
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My Lords, the Statement makes no mention of the withdrawal of troops. The withdrawal of troops has been sought by the United States Government and by the United Nations, and I wonder whether the noble Lord is in a position to comment on this and on whether, at the present time, there is a build-up of troops and of equipment by the Turkish Government. My last question relates to the reference in the Statement to compensation being sought by Her Majesty's Government for British subjects who have suffered losses in Cyprus. Is the noble Lord able to give any indication of the sources from which compensation is being sought and whether any interim payments are likely to be made to those British subjects who have suffered so much?
3.58 p.m.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, first, I welcome warmly the tone and content of the intervention by the spokesman of the Conservative Opposition. This is most helpful in what is continuing to be a difficult and delicate situation. However, he rightly put to me some important questions, primarily about the Turkish attitude to NATO. We place the highest value on full Turkish membership of the Alliance and hope that the Turkish Government recognise this and recognise, also, that their membership is as much in the interest of Turkey as in that of the Alliance. I am glad to inform the noble Earl and the House that I have just been handed a message saying that the Turkish Prime Minister has told the Press that it is out of the question for Turkey to leave the military side of NATO. This is a hopeful indication that, despite the stresses and strains that are inevitable in this context, wise council, as we should expect, is obtaining primacy in that great country, that great friend and ally of ours.
The noble Earl also referred to the welcome development of the proposed return of some 5,000 Greek Cypriots to the area of Athienou. We very much hope that this will happen, that they will feel confidence in taking advantage of this gesture and of the facilities provided, and that this number will be the precursor of a much greater return. The noble Lord who speaks for the Liberal Party on these matters was at one with all of us, of course, on the humanitarian

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basis of what we have done in returning some 9,390 refugees from the Western Sovereign Base Area, in the first instance, to Turkey. He asked one or two questions, including one relating to the United States and its relations with Turkey on which I know he would not wish me to comment in detail. Perhaps he would take note of what I have said about the Turkish attitude to NATO as it is now, hopefully, developing.
As to the withdrawal of troops, the Turkish authorities have indicated that they will make a fairly substantial withdrawal, in the order of 1,000 troops. This is to be greatly welcomed but, of course, it will need to be followed up by a continuing withdrawal if it is to have a real impact on the psychology and the politics of this very difficult situation. On the question of compensation, I can assure the noble Lord and the House that my right honourable friend has authorised Her Majesty's Ambassador in Ankara to make representations to the Turkish Government, and a similar approach to the Government of Cyprus is under consideration. These representations will be made forcefully and continuously until the right solution, as we greatly hope, will be found. I do not think that I have failed to comment on any question of substance.
Lord LLOYD of KILGERRAN: My Lords, the noble Lord has not mentioned interim payments, but no doubt that is covered by the noble Lord's answer.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I am afraid I can add nothing to the last two sentences of my reply. The noble Lord will understand that what I have said covers the question of interim payments. We hope to have a quicker settlement of that side of it than of the totality of the problem.
Lord LLOYD of KILGERRAN: My Lords, I am very much obliged to the noble Lord.

LITERACY
3.54 p.m.
Debate resumed.
Lord ALEXANDER of POTTERHILL: My Lords, I rise in the confidence that your Lordships show special sympathy and tolerance to those who speak for the first time in this House. I hope your tolerance will allow me to say a little on the immediate subject of the debate, and perhaps rather more on another problem concerning the education service, which to me is fundamental and is at the moment in danger.
The noble Lord, Lord Maybray-King, adequately set out the symptoms of the disease. It is unusual for those of us engaged in the administration of education to discuss matters of curriculum at all. I first became a chief education officer 40 years ago, and at that time it was quite improper for us to presume to know anything about the curriculum and methods, even though we had all been teachers before we became administrators. At that time, we administered the Act of 1921 and under that Act the duty of a local education authority, and the duty of a parent, was to cause the child to receive efficient instruction in reading, writing and arithmetic. It was also the duty of the teacher. The training colleges, as they then were—now colleges of education—were completely conscious of that duty. They therefore devoted a very substantial portion of their time to training teachers to teach the three Rs, and in my judgment this was done very effectively.
What I believe has happened is that there has been a misinterpretation of the Education Act of 1944. It was manifestly right and proper, with the expected extension of the period of schooling and the intention of providing secondary education for all children, that the duty on a local education authority and on a parent should become wider than merely the three Rs. So we had the three As. The duty of an authority was to cause children to be educated according to their age, ability and aptitude—a very right and proper aim for secondary education—but it was not the intention that the three As should replace the three Rs and I fear there has been misinterpretation.

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In the colleges, as the noble Lord, Lord Maybray-King, said, there has perhaps been a decreasing emphasis on training teachers to teach the three Rs. Indeed, I have heard the view expressed that it is old-fashioned, out of date, no longer the done thing. If you go to an infants' school now, you will see the most excellent examples of creative activity, but it is almost improper to ask if the children can read. There has been a change of attitude in the teaching profession and in the educational world. I think it was Annie Oakley who expressed the view that,
"You don't have to know how to read and write if you're out with a feller in the pale moonlight".
And I have no doubt that that is true. My Lords, there are many things we can do naturally. But learning to read is not one of them and the opinion frequently expressed, that if children are left to get personal experience, to which the noble Lord referred, they will somehow come to learn to read, is manifest nonsense. It is simply untrue.
The need is for a change of attitude. I am profoundly grateful that the subject has been raised in this House, because it will draw it to attention. The need is for structured teaching in the infant schools of reading and subsequently. The noble Lord was very right in stressing that it is not enough to be able to read. I think that no student should go to a university without an intensive course in speed reading, and then he would probably more readily get through the work he has to do there. But, my Lords, education is not merely a means of instruction: it is a most important factor in social control. Those of us who watched the schools in Germany between 1933 and 1938 can be in no doubt of the validity of that statement.
I have spent 40 years in administration in the education service and I have come to have a deep faith in a basic principle, the principle of distribution of power in the administration of the education service, and I feel that there are dangers. If we look to the East, we see systems of education with a high degree of central control and direction, which I think must be accepted as effective instruments of instruction but in which freedom is
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minimal, if present at all. If we look to the West, we see systems of education with the minimum influence of Central Government and a great devolution of power, which undoubtedly provide a very high degree of freedom but in which educational opportunity is dependent on place of birth. It is one thing to be born in Alabama: it is a very different thing to be born in California.
My Lords, in this country for 70 years or more we have remained poised between these two extremes. We accept functions relating to education which are properly the responsibility of Central Government. I suggest that there are essentially three, apart from general legislation relating to the service. The first is to prescribe those things which must be common in all areas—the age at which children must go to school, the age at which they may leave and so on. The second is to prescribe minimum standards with which all authorities must comply, which is done in regulations relating to school buildings, frequency of schools being open and so on. The third is to provide financial support which corrects the impact of the relative wealth and poverty of different authorities, in order to make educational opportunity independent of place of birth.
These are the essential functions of Central Government. The local authorities are the necessary instrument for providing and administrating the service, providing buildings, equipment and employing the necessary personnel. The teaching profession has the responsibility of deciding what should be taught, how it should be taught and—perhaps most important—of seeking to ascertain the abilities and aptitudes of children in order to secure that these are developed as fully as possible after they have acquired the necessary tools to that end of the three Rs.
I fear there is a danger in the present situation. Let me make it clear that this is not because I think there is any question of deliberate policy on anybody's part to change the structure of the education which is the envy of the world. But there is a financial problem. The rate system is simply unable to cope with a highly inflationary situation. This is well known; the Layfield Committee has been set up to find an answer. We await

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that answer and it would be improper for me to make any detailed comment on that. My concern is simple. Whatever solution is found to the financial prob-lem—and the solution must be found— we must make certain that it does not impact fundamentally on the distribution of power in the education service of this country, which I believe is an essential factor in maintaining freedom. I am not posing a dilemma. I want our children to be literate, but I want them to be free. My Lords, I am most grateful for the sympathy of your attention.
4.12 p.m.
Lord GORDON-WALKER: My Lords, I can with absolute sincerity and, I am sure, with the agreement of your Lordships, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhill, on the ability, authority and fluency with which he has spoken. I greatly envied him when I thought of my own first maiden speech, which was in this House many years ago in 1945 when another place was sitting in your Lordships' Chamber. I also greatly admired the way he made such a cogent and logical speech to the House without using notes—something I have always wanted to do but have never trusted myself to try. Few people can speak with richer experience, knowledge and authority on any educational subject than the noble Lord, because of his lifelong devotion to the educational service. From time to time, he had difficult, intricate and controversial problems to solve, in regard to which anything he did was bound to create some controversy somewhere. I have always admired him for steering his way through, sticking to principle and being realistic, and also for the way he did so without forfeiting the friendship of the many people with whom he had to deal. Your Lordships listened with such great attention to the noble Lord that I know I am expressing your views when I say that we hope to hear him again often and before very long.
I must declare a rather remote interest in the subject that I am going to talk about. A good many years ago, I was concerned in an attempt to extend the use of the Initial Teaching Alphabet in our schools. This gave me some firsthand experience of the subject about which I want mainly to talk today. Two things especially impressed me as a result of my experience: first, the schools were
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and are still—as the noble Lord, Lord Maybray-King, pointed out—turning out an unacceptably high proportion of illiterates and near-illiterates and, subject to what the Bullock Report may say, the figure is probably round about 20 per cent., or more if you interpret literacy as a reasonable standard. The second thing I discovered is what a terrible thing illiteracy is in a literate society. It does not matter much about being illiterate in a society that cannot write, but it is a terrible thing to be illiterate in a society which is, in the main, literate.
This leads to many of the grave problems facing us today. Pupils who cannot keep up with or even understand what is going on in the classrooms in their schools, increasingly accept themselves as failures; they revolt in various ways and withdraw themselves in various ways from participation in the schools. I have no doubt that illiteracy is one of the main causes—not the only one, of course—of bad behaviour in school and truancy and violence both inside and outside school. The sense of resentment and failure that results from inability to read and, all the more, to write, continues after school as is shown, for example, by the appalling standard of illiteracy in our borstals. It is therefore extremely important to reduce the rate of illiteracy by all means possible.
One basic cause among the many with which your Lordships have dealt with great authority—and they must all be taken into account—which the noble Lord, Lord Maybray-King, also mentioned, is our orthodox alphabet which has the misfortune of having only 26 letters to represent the 44 sounds of the English language. In addition, for historical reasons, very many sounds are written in quite different and inconsistent ways. Altogether there are some 2,000 different characterisations of this kind in the English language. These factors put a formidable obstacle in the way of young children learning to read and write.
As the noble Lord, Lord Maybray-King, said, the Initial Teaching Alphabet was invented by Sir James Pitman to bring simplicity and consistency into English spelling for children who are first learning to read. I should like to elaborate a little on the remarks made on this subject by the noble Lord, Lord

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Maybray-King, with which I thoroughly agree. The basic principle of the Initial Teaching Alphabet is that it contains 44 letters to represent specifically and clearly the 44 sounds of our speech. The effort of learning 44 letters rather than 26—which is an effort, of course—is nothing like so great as learning the 2,000 different spellings involved if one uses the orthodox alphabet and spelling.
There is much evidence, on balance, that the use of the Initial Teaching Alphabet greatly improves the ability of young children to learn to read and write. Perhaps the most important evidence was the independent study carried out in 1969 for the Schools Council. One fact brought out in this Report—which I can confirm from my own experience— is how quickly children who used the Initial Teaching Alphabet learned to write creatively. After all, one teaches pupils to read in order to teach them to write. These children could instantly spell any word they could speak and which they knew.
One main argument advanced against the Initial Teaching Alphabet concerns what is called the "transition" from the Initial Teaching Alphabet to the ordinary orthodox alphabet. It is said that children must learn and then "unlearn" the Initial Teaching Alphabet, and then learn the ordinary alphabet. But considerable experience shows that it does not work that way. The transition is easy and natural. The main reason for that is that the letters in the Initial Teaching Alphabet are very closely similar to those in the orthodox alphabet. Children, it seems, regard the Initial Teaching Alphabet and the ordinary alphabet as similar forms of grown-up writing. As they become proficient, they scarcely notice the difference between the two alphabets. The Initial Teaching Alphabet can greatly aid in remedying illiteracy in adults, and I am very glad indeed about the grant which Her Majesty's Government are giving to help this cause.
One of the examples which illustrate the efficiency of the Initial Teaching Alphabet for adults is the school run by the Army, which teaches that Alphabet to soldiers who cannot read or write. I visited the school myself and can confirm the report that those running this school
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have had no failures in teaching men to read and write—men who went through our school system without being able to do either of these things. As a consequence, there was also a very great improvement in the self-confidence and morale of the men. Similar reports of success in the use of the Initial Teaching Alphabet have come from certain borstals.
My final point is that the system has had beneficial effects in teaching English to foreigners. I think there is perhaps a certain danger of English, as a world language, becoming something like Chinese; that is, a language which is written everywhere in the same manner, but pronounced so differently that people from different parts of China can communicate only in writing and not in speech. The same thing applies in India. I have seen people in Madras, for instance, finding it extremely difficult to communicate with people from Bengal. The same thing has also been observed in many parts of Africa. Experiments have been made in parts of Nigeria, and tests have established that the use of the Initial Teaching Alphabet improves pronunciation and helps to promote literacy in the English language. I think that the wider use of the Initial Teaching Alphabet in other countries could help to maintain and spread the use of English as a world language. For all these reasons, there seems to me to be a very strong case, if I may say so to my noble friend, for greater official support for the use of the Initial Teaching Alphabet in our own infant and junior schools, and in similar schools in other countries.
4.23 p.m.
Lord RENWICK: My Lords, I crave the indulgence of your Lordships in addressing the House for the first time. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Maybray-King, for giving me this opportunity to speak today. I should like to approach this subject of the importance of literacy from the point of view of dyslexics. My justification is that literacy, like food, assumes a far greater importance to those who have not got it. The interest which I should like to declare is that one of my sons is a dyslexic. It is a fact of life that causes are pleaded more often by those who have a personal involvement; but dyslexia, or degrees of

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it, appear to be so widespread that I suggest we are all becoming involved. In no way do I want to be controversial in my maiden speech and I shall therefore confine my remarks to observations on the difficulties that afflict my son and others like him.
The ability to read and absorb information, and then to convey it, is the basis of civilised behaviour. It has long been fashionable to gauge intelligence by literacy. How very unfair that judgment is to a dyslexic. It seems that the inability to read causes emotional disturbances. These start, if I may take your Lordships back to your early schooldays, when one child out of a class of, say, 20 is unable to read aloud a sentence from a book, and everyone laughs at him. Soon that child will have been segregated from the class and made to read a simple childish book, while the others go on to more exciting and interesting stuff.
That lone child feels a sense of failure that I am sure has to be experienced to be understood. Children hate to be laughed at; they become aggressive or introvert. Children hate to be bored; they become disruptive in class. Having difficulty in reading, they become frustrated because their minds are crying out for new knowledge and new interest. In our society today the skill of literacy is required to provide these for them. They also fear to go to school, because sympathy, understanding and encouragement are so often sadly lacking. Please do not think, my Lords, that I am blaming teachers. Often a dyslexic is inattentive, finds it difficult to concentrate, holds back the more literate members of the class and is generally disruptive. Therefore there is probably even a sense of relief in the class when he plays truant.
Even in adulthood, a dyslexic has no easy time. It is not easy to find a worthwhile job which matches his or her intelligence, for a dyslexic can be very articulate and can come from any range of intelligence or background. Dyslexia is an invisible infirmity, and the stigma which society attaches to illiteracy is in no way alleviated by the sympathy and compassion so rightly shown to those who are more obviously handicapped. However, many dyslexics have overcome their difficulties, though they may never become
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wholly literate or find reading and writing to be the pleasure it is for so many. They have struggled to overcome the lack of this vital basic skill only, I am sure, through a determination and strength of character that is not given to us all. Some children have the benefit of remedial tuition, and so are able to take their place with confidence in a normal school among other children of their own age, knowing that their teacher will make small allowances for them and encourage them with praise when it is appreciated that an enormous effort has been made to complete written work, however untidy, which would have been simple to others.
Among those who seem to be overcoming this disability I am happy to include my son. He has suffered most of the early frustrations and the sense of failure that I have described, and has shown many of the emotional disturbances. But at the age of six he was fortunate in having a concerned mother and an understanding doctor, who together—not without some difficulty, because of his young age—worked to have his condition assessed and provided remedial tuition in addition to his normal schooling. Now, two and a half years later, with remedial tuition provided only once a week, he is far better adjusted. He is happier at school among boys of his own age, and though of course there will be difficulties ahead he understands his disability and, I am sure, will overcome it. He will have his mother and his doctor to thank for the perseverance they showed in those early months to obtain the best advice and help. He will also thank his first headmistress for spotting his problem so early, and his remedial teachers for many painstaking hours.
My Lords, this House, too, would be thanked in the same way by many thousands of children throughout the country if in some way it could encourage teachers, education authorities, psychologists, neurologists, doctors, remedial teachers and parents all to work together to identify the problem in young children, to find ways of giving remedial tuition, to change slightly the traditional teaching techniques and to give the understanding and encouragement necessary so that they too can enjoy at least some of the advantages of literacy.
4.31 p.m.
Lady KINLOSS: My Lords, it is my pleasure to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Renwick, on his informative and very interesting maiden speech, and to hope that the House will hear him again many times. I should also like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhill, on his speech. We hope also to hear him again soon. I join with other Lords in congratulating my noble friend Lord Maybray-King for having initiated the debate. The noble Lord is, I believe, the only Doctor of Philosophy to have graced the Speaker's Chair in the other place and he is also among the very small number of former headmasters to sit in your Lordships' House. He has brought to this debate special qualifications, knowledge and experience. I have listened with fascination and the deepest interest to what was a very persuasive speech and I have tried hard to think how or by whom he could be opposed. I have been able to think of only two examples. The first—and I imagine that he could have been found a place among the official Opposition had he not lived before Parliament existed— was the Caliph Haroun Al Rashchid, who observed that,
"Writing is an occupation only for slaves."
I think my noble friend Lord Maybray-King would soon make mincemeat of that thesis.
My other candidate as an opposition speaker—and this time he comes from the Whig Benches—is the late noble Lord, the sixth Lord Byron, the poet. He wrote of the forebears of some of us:
"And 'tis some praise in peers to write at all."
I know that the noble Lord's descendent, the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, is to speak later in the debate and I hope that he may be able to join with me in acquitting the present Members of your Lordships' House of any inadequacy in that respect. I venture to think that that thesis likewise could easily be demolished.
My Lords, I do not wish to weary your Lordships by discussing further any of the matters that noble Lords have already raised. Rather, what I have to say is by way of a postscript and. as noble Lords will recollect, it was Sir Richard Steele who said:
"A Woman seldom Writes her Mind but in her Postscript."
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I believe that illiteracy presents a grave problem for a few, and we are often concerned with minorities. Not so long ago, a schoolteacher who taught all three of my children gave up ordinary teaching to devote herself to remedial teaching. After qualifying, her first assignment was to a hospital to teach the rudiments of reading to a woman who was on a kidney machine, so that she could use the machine in her own home. Some weeks passed, but little or no progress was made by the patient, despite all the efforts of the instructress. The instructress then tactfully asked the patient whether it would be possible for her husband to read the instructions on the machine to her. The patient replied: "I'm afraid he can't do that because, although he became a sergeant in the Army, he can't read either." I was distressed and shocked by this incident, for here was a case where the patient could have been in her own home surroundings and have her family around her, but was prevented from this by her inability to acquire the skill of reading. However, it must be said that the Government provided her with every facility to learn the skill of reading and, likewise, that in the Army her husband would have had the opportunity to learn also.
My Lords, I was told recently by a retired Army officer, with considerable experience in these matters, that he was once faced with an illiterate recruit to whom he offered, as tactfully as he could, a course which could help him overcome his difficulty. The young man replied: "Thank you, Sir, but I am sorry, it would be no good." The officer asked him why and the young man replied: "You see, my father can't read either." In short, the young man was firmly convinced that illiteracy is hereditary. On this occasion, there again was every facility for remedial treatment and, indeed, also for the services of an Army psychiatrist.
My Lords, I read with care the Report of the Department of Education and Science, Children with Special Reading Difficulties, 1972. It is perhaps somewhat wider in scope than its title implies: it also considers illiterate and semiliterate adults, including children who have left school without having learnt the skill of reading. The recommendations of the Report, so far as they went

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seem wise and sensible. It is surely best, from the point of view of the children affected, if their problems can be dealt with in an ordinary school to which the other children in the neighbourhood will in most cases be going and send to remedial education centres only those children who are not amenable to the special treatment that the school itself is able to provide.
However, reflecting on the Report, it occurs to me that it contains one extraordinary omission, so remarkable that I wonder how it came about. The Report discusses the difficulties of the children and the functions of teachers, educational psychologists, school medical officers and even psychiatrists in relation to the children affected. It recommends additional remedial education centres where these do not exist. But nowhere does it make any mention of parents of the children. I am not a teacher or a psychologist, still less a doctor or a psychiatrist, but wherever a child is in any difficulty I should have thought that the first thing to do was to inquire into the home circumstances and to enlist the active co-operation of the parents. It seems to me quite idle to expend public money on additional remedial education centres if what would cost absolutely nothing—the interest and active co-operation of the parents—is not secured. It may be that some schools and some remedial education centres do co-operate with parents, and, of course, I should be glad to be told by the noble Lord, Lord Crowther-Hunt, who will reply to the debate, that they do do so. Nevertheless, the matter is not mentioned in the Report, as I feel it should have been. I hope very much that, if necessary, the noble Lord will draw the Minister's attention to this.
My Lords, more than 20 years ago, when I first went to what is now Tanzania, the greatest proportion of the population was wholly illiterate. Of course, the problem there was wholly different from our present one here, but, even so, I think that we may be able to learn something from it, for today the population of Tanzania is very much more literate than it then was. I regret that I cannot give the precise figures What I recollect from the early 1950s was the enthusiasm of the late Lord Twining, who was then Governor, and
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the vigour with which the literacy courses were conducted in quite difficult surroundings, in villages and small towns—a movement which was taken up with the greatest enthusiasm when Tanzania became independent. There was a problem of illiterate voters when elections were introduced in the late 1950s—a problem which I imagine has now largely been overcome, from all I have heard. The problem of an illiterate voter is a very real one indeed: an illiterate, whether he be on a kidney machine, in an army or at the ballot box is a disadvantaged citizen. He is also disadvantaged because, as I have suggested, it is due to his own psychological difficulties that he is precluded from sharing in all we derive from the skill of reading and writing.
My Lords, writing is, of course, far less important than reading, but it is needed, none the less, for full enjoyment of what the late Pope John XXIII spoke of as the "banquet of life". What the late Lord Twining did was to generate enthusiasm, and it is truly this that it can be said my noble friend Lord Maybray-King has done in this debate. As we have heard, there is much that is already being done in the matter: it can be only to the good if this debate can assist the Government to fresh enthusiasm. I am sure this is what the noble Lord who is to reply would wish.
4.40 p.m.
The Earl of RADNOR: My Lords, I, too, must ask your Lordships' indulgence since this is the first time that I have spoken before you. I, too, am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Maybray-King, for bringing up the whole subject of literacy. With its connotations of enthusiasm, to talk of literacy is better than illiteracy, which might have been rather depressing and perhaps would not have led towards solutions to the slightly illiterate situation in our population.
In the sophisticated society that exists today, it is hard to over-emphasise the importance of being literate. Children who have a language difficulty at school and who fail to read and write properly are at an obvious disadvantage when they come to seek employment. They are a disappointment to themselves, to their parents and probably to their teachers as well, and they are not truly able to pull

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their full weight in the community. What is more so far as I am concerned, at the very beginning they have probably lost one of the major enjoyments of life and are often bound to an existence which to them and to others as well is more than unsatisfactory.
They have, as the noble Lord, Lord Renwick, has already said, an invisible disability, and in my brief experience of reading their letters and talking to them (and I heard the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, say it) are almost invariably ashamed of their predicament, which is sad in itself. Since their predicament is not observable and cannot be seen, they elicit little sympathy, and if it is discovered among the general population they arc probably taken to be just stupid—which, indeed, to be truthful, a proportion of them are, but not that many. It is the ones who are not literate and who are not stupid either who should perhaps particularly concern us today.
I have no particular knowledge of illiteracy in all the various forms it takes —these probably range from stupidity, which I have already mentoned, through a large range of conditions, some very distressing indeed. I should, however, like to follow the noble Lord, Lord Renwick, and speak about dyslexia. At this stage I should, in accordance with your Lordships' practice, declare a dual interest because I am Chairman of the British Dyslexia Association and President of the Dyslexia Institute in Surrey. I feel in speaking about dyslexia that it is an area which perhaps, if it was dealt with, could have a good impact on the future literacy of our population.
Your Lordships know only too well that dyslexia went on the Statute Book in 1972, when local authorities were encouraged (if that is the right word) to deal with this condition or disability in their various geographical areas. Your Lordships will also know that dyslexia is a language disability which leads to faulty reading, writing and spelling. It is, in fact, a kind of under-performance in the person who suffers from the disability. A person suffering from dyslexia is, more often than not, of high intelligence but one whose language capability, with all that this means, lags behind. At the present time many such children are just taken as dull. They may well be sat at
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the back of the class literally to idle their time through their statutory school career, and, almost inevitably, they take one of two courses; they either retire within themselves and opt out of the race altogether or become frustrated and aggressive. If your Lordships will put yourselves in their position—a high intelligence but unable to keep up in reading and writing—you will appreciate that frustration must indeed be there. I am sure you can imagine it. It is worth noting that the link between dyslexia and delinquency is a strong and real one.
The incidence of this disability is a little difficult to quantify. I believe that if anyone ever had quantified it a lot more would have been done about it. But it is variously estimated as affecting between 4 and 11 per cent. of our school population. Some of your Lordships might say that that is a guess. I thought it might be of interest to say that a week ago yester-day a short television programme on dyslexia was shown at a non-peak viewing hour, 2 o'clock in the afternoon. I was unfortunately unable to see it myself. As a result of that programme the British Dyslexia Association has received 903 letters on the subject from people who feel that this area of education is not working for them.
It might be useful to cast our minds back to 1970 when the Bill for the chronically disabled and sick was passing through your Lordships' Chamber. At that time, a number of noble Lords ex-pressed misgivings about certain clauses in the Bill because they felt they were too permissive and were not mandatory. Clause 27, to do with dyslexia, was one of those clauses. It seems that in the event those noble Lords who had these misgivings have turned out to be correct. Your Lordships will know that in the Act local authorities are asked, or have a duty, to inform the Minister of the provisions they are making for the alleviation of dyslexia; and they are asked to pro-vide proper facilities for the dyslexic "so far as is practicable". We are in the year 1975 and to all intents and purposes local education authorities have not found it practicable to conform to this directive. The special teaching that is required for the dyslexic is not available by and large. Nor are the facilities for diagnosis and assessment. As a result, a considerable number of young people will go, or run

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the risk of going, through life illiterate and failing to fulfil their full potential, either to their own satisfaction or to the benefit of the country as a whole.
I feel it important in this debate to try to take a positive rather than a negative line. If we feel that these dyslexic people should be brought into the fold of literacy, action should be taken now because so far as dyslexia is concerned we are still at square one. It would seem important, if not imperative, that consideration should be given to the starting of courses in teacher training colleges so that a nucleus of teachers can be built up with the special skills needed to teach the dyslexic child or, for that matter, adult. I think there would be a need too—and it is worth thinking of—for in-service teacher training because this would be an integral part of teaching teachers who were then going to teach the dyslexics. Important, too, would be to think of the early identification of these children in school, since if they are discovered early enough they can be taught in groups, and if they are discovered too late there are problems with the teacher/pupil ratio. Also, it is important to think a little about research into dyslexia. For my part, I would look at research into teaching techniques to get over this known bottleneck of the bad dyslexic of 1:1 teaching, which is obviously a practical difficulty. Some dyslexics are taught in groups in some places now. As I say, I for my money would want to look into this matter a little more closely.
Our ultimate aim must surely be to have a teacher in every sizeable school who is trained and skilled to teach the dyslexic child. So long as we avoid teaching this disability in the way that it should be taught, we shall have a body of adult illiterates among us. We cannot afford to treat people in that way— so to speak, to throw people of good intelligence on the rubbish heap.
I have spoken for eleven minutes, which slightly amazes me. Sometimes it is customary in a maiden speech to think of an apt quotation. Mine comes only too easily, because in a broad sense it is the crux of the whole matter. It comes from the Children's Charter of the United Nations which states:
"A child who is educationally handicapped shall receive the special education treatment or care required by his particular condition."
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This is just what the dyslexics in this country are not getting at the moment, and until they do they will not be able to add themselves to our literate population.
4.51 p.m.
Baroness MASHAM of ILTON: My Lords, I should first like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Maybray-King, for instigating this most important debate and for his wonderful speech. It is a privilege today for me to speak after the noble Earl, Lord Radnor, and to congratulate him and the noble Lord, Lord Renwick, on their most humane maiden speeches. This is a historic day in your Lordships' House, because two noble Lords have made their maiden speeches on dyslexia. I am sure that their gesture and personal experience will give encouragement to many parents throughout the country who have children who are suffering from this condition. I also look forward to hearing the speech of the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, because he, too, has personal experience of dyslexia.
The importance of literacy is in being able to keep up with education through school, to be able to select the job of one's choice, to read a newspaper, to fill in forms such as income tax and driving licence forms, or to write out a receipt. If a standard is not reached which enables one to do this, then there will be frustration. There seem to be many reasons why people cannot read or write. One of the commonest causes of illiteracy must be the lack of instruction. This accounts for millions of people in underdeveloped countries who cannot read or write. However, it should not apply to a sophisticated community like Britain.
There are some children who have inadequate intellectual calibre, which makes it difficult for them to acquire the art of reading, writing and arithmetic. This inadequacy is often incorrectly dismissed as being due to laziness, inattention or day dreaming. There are others who have "minimal brain damage". Some children fall behind in their learning, due to defects in hearing-loss or visual impairment which are not detected until the child goes to school. Even then they are often missed. There seems to be a need for a follow-up of children who miss the inspection of the school health service. There are children who have a

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severe emotional upset which puts them back. This happened to the eldest son of my husband's cousin who was killed in Northern Ireland. At the age of seven he was making good progress at school, but with the shock of his father's death he could no longer read. Broken homes, unsatisfactory home conditions and incompatibility with a teacher can also play their part.
Perhaps today one of the factors in being behind with learning is truancy in our schools. There is a group of children who have great difficulty in learning to read and to spell. These children have already been mentioned by the noble Earl and the noble Lord who have made their maiden speeches today, and they are the children who are suffering from developmental dyslexia. The neurologists think that the reason may be a delayed maturation of that part of the brain which is concerned with learning the conventional meaning of graphic symbols, and also the correlation of the sound of a word with its visual appearance in print. Boys are involved at least four times as much as girls, but the reasons for developmental dyslexia still seem to be vague. To me it appears vital that more research in this field is done.
I should like to bring to the notice of the Minister and your Lordships today the abysmal lack of diagnosing and understanding this condition in the North of England. The Dyslexic Society has not so far spread North. I speak now with a personal interest, because my husband and I have a son with developmental dyslexia. Since I had heard about dyslexia when I was working on the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Bill in 1970, I suspected this condition in our son when he showed great signs of frustration after being at school for two years, and I took him to our general practitioner who told me that there was no such condition. I insisted upon taking him to a paediatrician, but this I had to do privately. As a supporter of the National Health Service, this was against what I considered should be necessary. The paediatrician diagnosed cross laterality and suspected dyslexia and he arranged for our boy to see an educational psychologist, who found him to have an IQ of 126, but he was behind in learning by two years. But because the
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educational psychologist's report did not mention dyslexia and the high IQ, the school cannot understand the slow progress. Again, privately I arranged for a remedial teacher to give lessons in the summer holidays, but I could not find one who was trained in treating dyslexic children.
In our local education authority there seems to be no organised remedial department. There is no doubt in my mind when I say that there must be a need for some teachers to recognise and understand this problem. As our boy goes up the school, his obvious need to shine in some aspect of school life is paramount. At the moment he excels at fighting in the playground. Is it surprising that parents become worried? To get our son fully assessed, I had to take him to a neurologist in London, again privately. Unless a disability is defined, it is impossible to accept and treat a condition, and this has been adequately stressed today by the two noble Lords.
While visiting a school which is attended by the daughter of a friend, I was told by one of the teachers that the girl was emotionally disturbed and could not read, because her father was a Member of Parliament and her parents were away from home so much. It was not until she was taken to an eye surgeon to have her eyes tested that he diagnosed dyslexia. This was at the age of 11. There is a lady who lives in the Wetherby area of Yorkshire. She went to our local borstal which has an excellent remedial department, and implored them to take her dyslexic daughter for remedial teaching. The borstal is frightened to do this, as it might open a floodgate of children who are in need of remedial teaching. Also, problems might arise from sending such children to borstal for classes. But I hope that that illustrates to your Lordships the real desperation that the parents of these children are in. Dyslexic children need both their confidence and general knowledge to be built up. Does the Minister think there should be research into the use of audio aids?
At the borstal to which I am attached, the excellent remedial work done there has the most beneficial effect on boys. Some boys cannot read, write or tell the time on reception, but in only a few months they make remarkable progress and for this they are very grateful. I hope

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that in the future more will be done to improve basic teacher training courses, and there should be a built-in ability to recognise these problems. This point has already been stressed by several noble Lords. There seems to be a great need to attract the remedial teachers to primary schools. If the prevention of retardation in the early years could be concentrated on, so much expense and frustration could be eliminated in later life.
5.1 p.m.
Earl FERRERS: My Lords, we are all grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Maybray-King, for introducing this debate because it has certainly highlighted many important issues. I hesitated to take part because so many knowledgeable people are speaking in this debate and education is certainly not an issue to which I would normally wish to contribute. But I have always felt that illiteracy stems from one of three causes: the first is if a child is inadequately taught; the second is the unwillingness to learn, and the third is the inability to comprehend. If I were—indeed I may be —illiterate, it would be because of the second reason, the unwillingness to learn. I wish to concentrate on the third reason, the inability to comprehend.
I felt constrained to take part in this debate because of the experience I have had of this matter and because of the complete loneliness and isolation in which a parent or parents can find themselves when they realise that they have a child with a learning problem. I shall be on an entirely narrow point this afternoon, and I hope your Lordships will forgive me for being thoroughly boring and pedantic in merely reciting my own experiences, but there is a reason behind it.
We have a child who has always had difficulty in reasoning; in reading, in writing and in calculating—money, figures, mean almost nothing to her. But in many other respects she is entirely— to use a most objectionable word—integrated. The noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, said that what we need is better diagnosis. My noble friend Lord Radnor, in an excellent maiden speech, said that what we need is earlier diagnosis. Of course both are entirely right, but how do we do it? We realised
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that there was a problem when the child was eight and we did not know what to do. We approached the local authority and a child psychiatrist came to see the child. I am always fearful of so-called "experts". However, he did various tests and then he said that it was necessary to take our daughter to a hospital to have an encephalographic test. She went to a clinically frightening-looking place where she was met by a whole lot of people wearing white coats. She then had something put on her head, which so terrified her that she was immediately sick. At the end of all this we were told that anyhow the results had not come out properly because the operator who normally did the test was on holiday and it had been done by an inexperienced person.
The child psychiatrist then took us on one side and said, "You have got to realise that you have a child who is very backward and the best thing for her is to send her to a school for educationally subnormal children". We considered this. We wished to be open-minded and we decided that if this was the case we should follow the expert's advice. We went to see the school, and the children there were quite clearly physically and mentally retarded. In our view it was a situation which would have been wholly unsuitable for our child and with the best will in the world considered that the advice we were given by the expert was bad advice. We did not take it.
Fortunately, at that school there was a master who was extremely good at dealing with these problems. He always said that it did not interest him why a child wanted to learn, but why a child did not want to learn, and he gave our child private lessons twice a week. Indeed, he has become our guide, philosopher and friend as to what to do about the child's progress. He told us quite clearly that she does not fit into any simple category, such as being a spastic or a dyslectic, or any neat compartment but that she has reasoning problems. He is a sound man and the tragedy was that he was moved to Bedford to teach immigrant children who are coming into this country and who are unable to speak English. He has to teach them to speak English, which is of course a great gain for those who are being taught but a great loss to

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those who have children with remedial problems.
We felt then that the great problem was what kind of a school to send the child to. In fact she went to a convent where the headmistress said, "Let us see if we can help". This has been a great success and has helped her both socially and academically. But, of course, as I think my noble friend Lord Radnor said, it is far too easy for a child to sit at the back of a room and, like a wireless set, switch off. Then idleness and laziness become confused with backwardness, and these children are sufficiently crafty to know when they need to make an effort.
We then took her to a paediatrician who said, "The best thing to do is to go to a psychologist in London". This we did, like my noble friend Lady Masham, at great expense, and he again said that the child fitted into no neat compartment. He said: "What you must do is to send her to a school where she can develop all her other capabilities and progress as she is doing. You are doing the best that you can". It was comforting advice but it was not constructive.
Some five years ago we thought that we must make another effort and we took her to another paediatrician who was a friend of mine. We said, "We have a problem here, can you help us? "He said, "Yes", and he put us in touch with some other experts. More tests were done and they came to the conclusion that we wanted a certain type of school, one that would build on security, bring her on as a child, develop her natural talents, develop her personality and give her something to work for, but also individual help. Academic schools have no place for the backward; those schools that cater for backward children very often cater for the very backward. So we said, "Where do we find these schools?" And the answer was, "We do not know". So again we were up against the difficulty of what to do.
Through all these years the child has grown delightfully and charmingly and socially, and as a proper member of society, yet she still has these learning problems, and as an individual one just
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says, "Where do I turn for guidance?" At last we have found a school which we think may help, although it remains to be seen. It is new; it is only two years old and has all the problems associated with newness and novelty. But the philosophy there is that with some children there are learning blockages in reading, writing, calculating and reasoning. Too often in our educational system the IQ tests and others show a child as either above a line, or below it. If the child is above a line, it can go to a normal school; if below a line it is classified as educationally subnormal and relegated to a school where it will mix with those who are mentally deformed or deranged.
The philosophy at this school is that the child may not be educationally subnormal, but merely may have difficulties in reasoning and writing. They want to try to find out why the child has these difficulties, what they are, and they try to find ways of circumscribing them. One child in this school came to it as an awkward and frustrated child. It was a very difficult child. Eventually, they discovered that this child had no idea about time; it could not tell the time. At the previous school, the child had perpetually been late for everything, and was perpetually castigated for being late, but the poor child literally did not understand what it had done wrong, because it could not understand the clock. When this was found to be the problem, the child relaxed entirely and has now become a very different child indeed. But the difficulty was to find out what was the problem. When that child arrived at the school, they said it was a broken child, but now it has become a fine member of the school.
My Lords, this is the first school that I have found where they try to tackle the problem that children who have IQs below the appropriate level need not be educationally subnormal. It is a new venture, and exceedingly expensive. It is a gamble. I went to my local authority to ask them, as they did not have such facilities in their own area, whether they would be prepared to make a grant towards this. After yet another visit by a psychiatrist, I had a letter which said, "We cannot recommend our authority to make a grant". I am sure that there are excel-lent reasons for this. The noble Lord,

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Lord Alexander of Potterhill, in his most excellent maiden speech, referred to the particular problem of lack of cash.
Much has been said recently about helping children with learning difficulties. We think we are making tremendous progress. I dare say that the noble Lord, Lord Crowther-Hunt, may say that a great deal is being done now, but my experience is that if you have a child with learning difficulties, you are on your own, both financially and from the point of view of seeking help. Where do you go? If you go to a local authority, they will say, "The educationally subnormal school would have been the best school for that child". But it would have been the wrong place. I can understand what the noble Earl, Lord Radnor, meant when he said that after a television programme his Society received 900 letters. It is precisely this point that they are dealing with. People do not know who to go to for help. If one asks, "Who are the experts?", and if you are not careful, you will trail your child from doctor to doctor trying to find someone to help, which in turn gives the child a multiplicity of hangups of a totally different nature from the original problem.
When people talk about private education being wrong, one wonders whether they have ever thought this thing through. Is it wrong to deny the child remedial help of a specialised nature if it is avail-able? If it is wrong, local authorities must share the burden of the responsibility. If local authorities are not prepared to shoulder this responsibility, children with this kind of problem will be subjected to a system wholly wrong and totally unsuited to their needs. My own modest experience in this sphere makes me wonder how many children there are who are being? subjected to a totally wrong kind of treatment and education.
My Lords, I nearly did not take part in this debate, because one has a natural reluctance and hesitation in parading in front of others one's own personal problems and experience, even to such an understanding audience as your Lord-ships. But I decided to do so, for I feel that in this specific area of education one is moving very much in uncharted waters. There must be many who have similar experiences to those of mine, and who have not had the privilege of drawing
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the problems to the attention of those who may be in a position to do some-thing. It is a twilight area of education; twilight because it is difficult to pinpoint the problem—each child is different. It is twilight because once you are in it, you cannot see which way to go; you grope around looking for a light, with the horrible realisation that, in the end, you are on your own.
5.15 p.m.
The Earl of LYTTON: My Lords, I have been sitting as a kind of sandwich between one maiden speaker on my left and two on my right. I have listened with great pleasure to the sonorous brain power of the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhill, on my left, and the expressions from the heart the noble Lord, Lord Renwick, and the noble Earl, Lord Radnor. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Maybray-King, not only for having been the master of ceremonies of this debate, but for having said—if I heard it correctly—that I illuminate the subject whenever I join in a debate. The noble Lord has no idea of the balm that is to my soul, because normally people refer to my calligraphy and say, "Can't you get your letters typed?". So for once to be chosen for a talent which illuminates instead of one which obscures makes me feel very happy.
My Lords, in this debate I may be a voice of darkness instead of illumination, because I propose to put forward a few of the conclusions I have come to during 20 years of teaching all sorts of subjects to a variety of people, most of them between the ages of 18 and 19, a few between the ages of 11 and 14, and all of them males. What observations I put forward may have more of a bearing on adult education than anything else.
I have myself questioned whether literacy in the sense of being able to read should receive such exclusive emphasis. I have been in the forefront of the battle. At one time I taught classes of 54. I have set the papers and corrected them, with the exception of the final examination. I was so determined to teach people well a subject which was unpopular with them that I gave up my prospects of advancement in the Army in order to study the people better. I am very bad at remembering names. The noble Lord, Lord Maybray-King, may

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remember that he met me today in the Princes' Chamber with my guests. I was unable to introduce my guests because for the moment I had forgotten their names.
Having regard to this difficulty, when I started to teach I made a special study of how to learn people's names, and it was successful. This is something which is ignored by most teachers, yet is vital. When I had developed my maximum capacity, I could learn 50 names in 50 minutes. A fortnight after the beginning of the term at Sandhurst, I could address 600 cadets by their names, and after that first fortnight I never made a mistake.
I studied these people. I taught them a variety of things. Economics was what I was supposed to teach them, but sometimes I played three cadets a day at squash and other things of that kind. I found you could control people and interest them if you knew them and they knew you. When I arrived for the first term a cadet said, "What are you teaching, Sir?" "Economics", I said. He said, "We had a bonfire last term and the fuel was the textbook for economics". So it was not popular. But I did get hold of them. I reduced the syllabus. I think that is important; we teach people far too much. I controlled the examiner; I insisted that the examination papers should be submitted to me so that they were not asked questions which were not on the syllabus. Naturally, I did not tell anybody, and in any case I could not have told all 200.
By degrees it worked. People used to flock into my room, particularly towards the end of the term, in the evenings; at 10.30 I used to have to say, "I cannot keep you up all night", and 30 or 40 of them went out of the door, but they came voluntarily. You have to take people as they are. I have trained people to run, to box, to swim, to play squash up to army championship standards. I have reached that standard in some of those activities but not in all; I was quite willing to teach things about which I knew nothing, because I knew something about other things, and they took the rest for granted.
When one is training athletes they become stale. I remember a student who
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slept in the front row, not because I was boring; I can assure your Lordships that for a time I could hold an audience, and I was not boring even on a dull subject. But this fellow slept, and I could see that he had done too much. It was a hot summer afternoon. He had been drilling. He was not of very robust physique. He slept and I did not wake him. At the end of the term he came to me and said, "Sir, your subject disturbs me, it keeps me awake at night". Of course, one would not give the obvious retort, and I did not; one did not want to humiliate the man. I said, "Come round and see us", and we did things together. Then he produced difficulties in other subjects, and most of the difficulties were what Lord Maybray-King is talking about, but I used the word "articulate".
I think men are human beings, they want to express themselves in a variety of ways. Some will not read, but they are very good with their legs, or they can punch like nothing on earth, or they can shoot. I have taught people up to Bisley standards. After all, I belong to a regiment one of the battalions of which won the Army championship every year between the wars. Teaching people to shoot is a marvellous education in articulation and the use of language. Therefore, I am not a specialist on reading. And, of course, I have taught people in Africa; I have taught people who were not only illiterate but who would remain illiterate all their lives; but there are many things one can teach them, and what highly intelligent people some of them are.
I have been boasting about my capacity to learn about people by making the effort, but I started by saying I had no natural talent. I am going on to say that I go to see what others do. For instance, I went to present the prizes at a school in Bermondsey where I used to run a club just before the Second World War. I asked the headmistress, "You have got about 600. Do you know the names of everybody?" "Yes, of course", she said, "a lot more than that. I have to know not only the names of the children. I have to know their fathers and their mothers and I have to know their homes". I said, "Why do you have to know all this?" She said, "The powers that be have prescribed that the 11-plus must go, and, of course, we have to distinguish in some other way. Here is a

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colossal form I have to fill in which requires an immense amount of know-ledge that no married teacher could possibly acquire. I have to say which are suitable for the 'A' stream and the 'B' stream". That was the language used; I do not know whether it still is used.
The headmistress said, "I have to go to see them at home. If the television is never turned off, I cannot put them into the 'A' stream, whatever their talents, because they will never do any homework. If they are banished to a bedroom or provided with a bedroom without heating, then I cannot put them in the 'A' stream. I have to know everything. "She was controlling a school of 600. She said, "I do not think an ordinary married teacher with the ties of life, the shopping and everything else, could do this. I can, but I can only just do it. If the numbers go up to 1,000, 2,000, 3,000, how on earth can anybody do it, no matter what efforts they make". I want to emphasise knowing the children; I hear of teachers who do not know a single name. I can find out by asking the children, "Does he know you?" When the teacher knows them they say, "Yes, he knows everybody". If you do not know people, how can you teach your sheep, how can you control?
There is one other remark I want to make. As a farmer, as a teacher, I notice the inherent flaw in nature. We read about the balance of nature, natural selection, the struggle for existence, the survival of the fittest. Almost all that is true except the last conclusion. If nature has its way the survival of the un-fittest is what happens, in agriculture, docks, nettles, thistles, brambles, every other kind of thing. No garden ever prospered or produced a crop unless there was a gardener. Natural selection is a recipe for world starvation. The same tendencies exist in human nature, and this is a deeply ingrained flaw; the propensity to retrogress is very deep and it has to be controlled. When the creature is young it requires discipline. I think it is a mistake to have the discipline by itself. One must have it in everything that is done, in the subjects, whether it is rifle-shooting, squash racquets, rugby football, soccer, hockey, gymnastics, drill: in teaching anything there is a discipline. In all that, the man who has the command of language—whether it is
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English, Scots or pigeon-Swahili, which I used to use—conveys ideas; they learn and grow with you. My Lords, I have spoken too much.
5.28 p.m.
Viscount BARRINGTON: My Lords, the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, said that he has spoken too much. I do not think I shall be accused of speaking too little if I try to confine the few remarks I want to make to a very few minutes. I had intended, when I put my name down, to make a few remarks about the three Rs in case nobody else did. So many of those remarks have been made so much better that I will confine what I say to the three Ms, which to me are at the moment more interesting. I have not often been at a debate when one has had the privilege of congratulating three maiden speakers who have made three maiden speeches, each of which would have made a debate in itself, and with every word of each one I never disa-greed, though I tried hard. It is a truism to say that in your Lordships' House there is always somebody who can intro-duce a subject probably better than could be done anywhere else.
I thought before coming here tonight, and I still thought after hearing his admirable opening speech, that there was nobody so well suited to speak on this subject than the noble Lord, Lord Maybray-King. But having heard these three maiden speeches I am not quite so sure. I do not want to say much about the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhill; it would be impertinent of me. He was a chief education officer. I have never been anything in education except a very amateur private. I have occasionally been asked to teach children who were backward in reading, and I can quote the case of two very intelligent boys who could not read at the age of eight. As has emerged from this debate, one has to use quite different methods with different people. I was asked to take one of the boys, who happened to be my sister's son, for reading for five minutes every day in the summer holidays. The first day I took him for five minutes with a book which I thought he would enjoy. He got me into conversation for four minutes and had only one minute of reading. The second day I produced a stop watch and pointed out that it would

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be five minutes of reading. By the end of a quarter of an hour he was rather bored but had done his five minutes' reading. By the third day he was sufficiently interested in the book to spend the rest of the holidays reading comics and various other things practically without stopping. That was a very easy case of trying a little elementary discipline. Clearly, if one did not have the privilege of having one boy alone one would have had to go much further than that.
The other boy probably suffered from what has been referred to as the "mirror image". He could not distinguish clearly which way "p" was written. There again it was much easier, being alone with somebody to find some method, with or without the use of mirrors, by moving things to different parts of the room. It may have been by accident, but by the end of the holidays he could read easily and has not suffered since. I am not suggesting that these were methods which could be used in a school of 1,000 people or even in a class of 20, but it demonstrated what the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, was saying, that this is un-charted territory and each child has to be treated differently.
I know of a school in Hampshire which is run privately by somebody who has no paper qualifications. She started it after the war entirely on her own and had a number of pupils who had been given up in reading anywhere else. They were children of all classes and all ranges of intelligence. A well known girls' school, the Godolphin School in Salisbury, said that no children had been better taught. I do not know the secret except that she could teach remarkably well and above all was devoted to children and took a great interest in them.
Coming to the second maiden speech, I hope that nobody in this House will be offended if I say that I have never heard a maiden speech which moved me quite so much as that of the noble Lord, Lord Renwick, who was talking about his son. He mentioned the matter of illiteracy in the modern world as opposed to illiteracy in the days of Homer (who I suppose was illiterate) or in the Middle Ages when one had to be a clerk in a very special class to be literate. As he said, illiteracy nowadays is regarded as a stigma of
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shame. A child who cannot read feels that he is despised and rejected. The noble Lord made that very clear in his speech. Without wanting to be sentimental, I do not know whether he is a musician and whether he knows the aria in "The Messiah" about another Son who "was despised and rejected", and the fact that Handel, who knew what he was doing, put that sentence into a major key. The noble Lord in his speech made the same point, also in a major key— he made this sound a subject of hope. But although it can be done and will be done do not let us fool ourselves into thinking that it can be done easily. The third maiden speech was so authoritative on the subject of dyslectics, which is clearly going to be a growing problem to which we do not yet know the answer, that I will not say anything except that I shall read it with immense care. I hope that all three maiden speakers today will speak as often as I come to this House.
My Lords, at this stage of the evening I cannot say anything very useful about the subject of literacy except that I agree that it is important. I believe that, like everything else that is important, it is also dangerous—like electricity or fire or any-thing to which we are all accustomed and cannot do without. It is something that we have to be very careful about. Several noble Lords have hinted that possibly the importance that we attach to literacy as opposed to intelligence and some other things is slightly exaggerated. Literature and literacy mean looking at a thing and hearing a thing. Homer, as I said, was probably illiterate, but people had wonderful memories in those days, just as children who cannot read may remember sounds better than children who can. Equally, children who cannot read may remember sights. But the difficulty with literacy is that "words" have to be looked at and also heard, and there is the triple problem of putting all three together.
I know very little about the initial spelling method which was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Maybray-King, but I agree that spelling in England is a very difficult problem. If you have to explain to a foreigner, "We shall plough through the trough of despond however tough the going" and explain that "through" and "trough" and "plough" all look the same but sound different, he will end by

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saying, "Enough said", and no more on that matter. I think it would be a great pity if, as Bernard Shaw wanted, the whole of English spelling were reformed simply on scientific grounds; because there is something in looking at words which helps one to see the history in them. If one takes the word "encourage", one can see the word "cour" for "heart" in the middle of it. If it was spelt "inkurrij" it would become a different word whether one likes it or not. However, I think this half-way house of introducing an alphabet which is partly phonetic, leading one on to the old spelling, is probably an excellent one. There is this danger in literature of people believing that because they can read and write they can understand; because of course, much the most important thing is to be able to under-stand words as well as hearing and seeing them.
I have spoken much longer than I meant to. I do not want to be discouraging. I remember a Bishop in former years who was asked by his wife at breakfast on a rather busy day what he thought about sin, and his answer was, "I'm against it". If I were asked by the noble Lord, Lord Maybray-King, what I think about literacy, I would say, "I am for it."
5.39 p.m.
Lord SUDELEY: My Lords, the subject of this debate is the importance of literacy, and I have anticipated that much would be said about its benefits. Be these as they may, I should like to concentrate on the dangers of literacy in the shape of its inevitable consequence of higher and further education, which the noble Lord, Lord Maybray-King, who introduced the debate, termed "higher literacy". The point here, which was slightly touched upon a moment ago by the noble Viscount, Lord Barrington, who so wisely hinted that education could be slightly different from understanding, seems to me to be: once further educated do we think any better or any worse than if we scarcely read at all? For my own part, being not so much a reader of books as an observer of life, it seems to me that much further education can anaesthetise many of our better minds and destroy much of our capacity to think at all.
I am not facetious when I declare that it is my sincere opinion that the kind of people who best keep their wits about
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them are often those of little literacy or further education. A man in the pub put the matter to me very well the other day, when he said:
"When a miner reads a book he does not believe what it says. Any ass can see that the miner is right and the book is wrong."
Among other such wise people on whom books or further education have had little effect, I remember the Irish lady who cooks my breakfast, a devout Catholic who scarcely reads the newspapers or, if she does, does not believe what they say. Other women with whom I have chatted behind shop counters, members of the regiment with whom I played polo in India—all excellent people—have a better idea of how to think than many of the dons at our redbrick universities.
As to the other kinds of thinking derived from books and too much education, much of this springs from the French philosophes who created the French Revolution and much of the Left-Wing thinking that has existed since then; a style of thinking which, given the chance, would subvert the basis of heredity within the House itself. A notable exponent of this kind of thinking was Voltaire who, in his novel Candide—a poor attempt to show that the omnipotent Deity is not kind—had to resort to the dishonest technique of packing his cards. Voltaire filled his novel with a series of events which succeeded one another with a rapidity which no sensible person could suppose would ever happen in the ordinary course of life. All sensible people also know perfectly well that such a presentation of events simply will not do.
I have noted in Who's Who that the noble Lord who introduced the debate has published some selections from Macaulay, much of whose thinking was derived from the French philosophes and projected by the same dishonest technique as Voltaire used of packing in his cards. It is in this way that we get so much wrong information in Macaulay's, History of England. For instance, there is the implication that the squire in the reign of Charles II, because he was a Tory in his politics and therefore averse to progress, was an ignorant being; or that as England became richer it became a better place in which to live. As to the purely political lies of Macaulay, I should like to refer to Leopold von Ranke's, History of England principally in the 17th Century, written especially to rebut

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Macaulay's point of view. As for the dishonesty of the whole of Macaulay's approach in every way, I should like to refer to the controversy in the Edinburgh Review in about 1830 between Macaulay and Michael Thomas Sadler, then a Member in another place, who had more honesty and certainly more sense than Macaulay ever had.
The Liberals of the last century promoted this fraudulent style of thinking of Macaulay and Voltaire, giving to it the name "education", which they said was necessary for all citizens who would have the responsibility of the vote and all citizens should have votes. In consequence, we have had more false thinking —that is to say, education—promoted in the London School of Economics by poisonous influences abroad, until many people are saying, "We have had too much education and the time has come when we ought to go back to the fundamentals"; and the most fundamental aspect of our lives is our social relation-ships with which politics should be principally concerned.
I should like to demonstrate how, in the twin areas of our social relationships and politics—which should depend on them—we have been led astray by so much false thinking in books and newspapers which a literate electorate has been trained to read. At the risk, I am afraid a grave one, of being too tedious and of going on too long, I should like to draw up a random list of fourteen different words and phrases which seem to me to indicate the chief areas of deceptive thinking in books and newspapers which I might criticise.
No. 1, "controversial" or "provocative" are used as adjectives to condemn an idea or suggestion without sufficient reason. If I drive a Minister too hard on some point over which in advance he has made up his mind not to give way, he dives under cover by saying that my suggestion is too controversial. No. 2, "democracy", indicates a dynastic conviction of the virtue of majority rule. What then can be wrong with Royal dynasties? I can speak so of democracy, because as an hereditary Peer I owe my position to the fact that we are blessed still with a mixed Constitution which combines hereditary just as much as elected elements.
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No. 3, "equality", may exist in the sight of God but down here on earth it cannot do so, even between spouses, the truth being that in physique and intelligence we are not equal, nor can we be so in terms of our social relationships, determined as these are by mutual dependence in which one Party exercises authority over the other, and yet in the exercise of that authority serves the other party, as Kings used to be the servants of their own people.
Related to the fallacy of equality is the fallacy of meritocracy, which I have been told is an organisation of society which comes into being through neighbours existing in a state of equality, so that rather than co-operate in the spirit of mutual dependence which I have already defined they can compete with one another. If for a moment I can leave aside the economic consideration that efficiency may be promoted by such com-petition, I should like to put forward the human equation that once one English-man competes against his neighbour, which Englishman knows who is his neighbour whom he can trust and with whom he can co-operate?
The fallacy of equality may be linked to another Liberal fraud, that of fraternity. I should like to consider the conjunction in connection with charity defined by my kinsman, Sir Robert Atkyns, author in the reign of Queen Anne of the definitive history of my ancestral county of Gloucester, as the life of religion, the true visible Church, the duty of mankind, the essential quality of a minister without which all his other qualities are dross. Charity among neighbours is something about which Liberals are quite blind, given as they are to Calvin's notion that a man who cannot work shall not eat, and on that account put into its place the fraudulent substitute of fraternity among neighbours —fraudulent, I say, because in the same breath Liberals declare that any two neighbours are not dependent upon one another as any man must be who under-takes to be his own brother's keeper. Liberals adjudicate instead that as equals neighbours must compete with one another.
No. 4 "everyone is entitled to his own opinion". The derivation of this remark, which has become jargon at cocktail

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parties, from Rousseau's "Social Contract" is clear. It is a formula produced to avoid a row. Between spouses who enjoy the most essential of social ties, because they are wholly committed to one another, but rows cannot be avoided and it may be said of such rows that their very existence denotes commitment, but it is not appreciated by the competitive middle-class now going under that we are all committed to one another. Therefore, it is emphatically not true to say that everyone is entitled to his own opinion.
In connection with the fallacy that everyone is entitled to his own opinion, I should like to mention the myth of impartiality, notably implied in the BBC Charter and more aptly conveyed in the letter columns of The Times than in those of the Daily Telegraph. If I asked any man to define "impartiality", it would be impossible for him to do so. Like the authors of the letters to the Daily Telegraph, we are all partis pris and so depend not upon ourselves— because, as I have just said, we are not entitled to our own opinion; we depend instead on our relationships to other people. In connection with the fallacy that everyone is entitled to his own opinion, I should also like to mention another fallacy, occasionally invoked by the Left-Wing intelligentsia in aid of its own cause, that of world opinion, for the phrase "world opinion" begs the question: who has his own personal opinion which he has the arrogance and, I suspect, the dishonesty to presume is that of the entire world?
No. 5, "Facts". Facts are merely the cards which Voltaire and Macaulay used to pack their books with. Both authors knew that the point of facts is merely the attitude which one chooses to take towards them, and that everything depends on how they are arranged. Politicians can pull the wool over our eyes by quoting facts as if they possess some inherent value. Over a glass of sherry the other day in the St. James's Club, a Member of the other place told me that the economic fact of the matter is that men will not work unless the threat of unemployment is exercised over them. The better truth of the matter is that we are all concerned to look after our own families and, if this is impossible, we are entitled to ask, what is the point of the economy?
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No. 6, "Intelligent". This is used as an adjective to sanctify an idea: it does not imply that the idea is sensible. Many intellectuals are people of no common sense. They are often very stupid.
No. 7, "Liberal". This is usually taken to mean "with good intent", whereas it more often means" with false or insufficient intent". The good intent may be false because of the traditional alliance of liberal philosophy with the selfish motivation of moneymaking; or insufficient, because the liberal values denote a code of morality unsupported by religion and no morality can survive or flourish unless it is supported by religion.
No. 8, "Liberty". This is taken to mean that we can dispense with some of the rules, whereas we all know that freedom can exist only within them. No. 9, "Making your way". This is a current phrase implying that, in one's determination to get on, one is entitled to damage society as a taker, compared with a hereditary Peer who gives service in its most traditional form. If a woman made her own way as a married woman or a prostitute, Hollywood would say she was a flyer.
No. 10, "Power". The word is used in books and newspapers to denote something evil. It led Lord Acton to declare, "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely." However, if that dictum were true, where could the power of good lie? It may be objected that Lord Acton was thinking only in terms of politics. But De Tocqueville declared in the Ancien Régime that no State can hold together without religion. Therefore, no politician can talk about power without considering its religious connotations. Once religion is brought in, power ceases to be a dirty word and becomes a clean one.
No. 11, "Progress". This means that if we change the laws and institutions under which we live we shall get a better society. This ignores the teaching of the Church, flatly denied by Locke, that we are all creatures of original sin, and that therefore the sin which we have all inherited is something which no legislator can eradicate. For the sake of the fallacy of progress, anything like a House

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of Lords of hereditary Peers, evolved, historically speaking, on a prescriptive basis, is written off as an anachronism. The reversal of such a prescriptive basis of things—which is the only way, as the best answers are reached by practice— is called in aid for the sake of change. Change is something which, for entirely doctrinaire reasons best known to themselves—and certainly unknown to others —the Socialist intelligentsia likes to look upon as good in itself. Such change is carried out in the name of improvement, but the word "improvement" is merely a label stamped on political change to give it political justification. Harold Macmillan once said with some flippancy: "It is surprising how the most progressive countries are the most retrogressive."
No. 12, "Racial prejudice". This is a beautiful twister, prejudice merely being a pejorative term for strong feelings. If it is wrong to mix two races together because they are incompatible, then the feeling against carrying out any such experiment is entirely justified. No. 13, "Rational". This implies a sense of responsibility to reason. Why, like the French Revolutionaries, should we make a deity out of reason when it is the Almighty we should believe in?
Lastly, No. 14, "Rights". These are regarded by everyone as something to cherish and take care of, not only in relation to property—noble Lords opposite would have enough to say about absolute rights in property—but also in such quite elusive abstractions as happiness. The noble Earl, Lord Arran, once wanted to introduce a debate in your Lordships' House on this subject but was told, "Happiness is not a Government responsibility". Though happiness may be an elusive bird, many people like to think of it as a private right which they claim for themselves, but we were not born always to be happy. We should forget about rights appertaining just to ourselves, and concern ourselves with the duties and obligations out of which the whole of society is constructed.
My Lords, the list that I have drawn up is spasmodic and, I know, far too long, but I should like to close simply with the following observation. Literacy has created the existence of many students
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who have further education at their red-brick universities, and it is sad that the youth of England should in this way have become brainwashed by so much twisted thinking. Of the students, many of the men should be sent into the Army and the women ought to get married.
Viscount BARRINGTON: My Lords, the noble Lord remarked that charity was a quality that Liberals were blind to. May I say how heartily I agree with his use of a preposition at the end of a sentence—a practice I was always told was illiterate? He is entirely right to use it. There are excellent examples, such as
"The heartaches, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to",
and,
"Can ye drink of the cup that I drink of?"
and there are many others. I agree with the noble Lord's grammar, but not always with his sentiments.
5.58 p.m.
Lord DOUGLAS of BARLOCH: My Lords, I shall not follow the example of the noble Lord, Lord Sudeley, in introducing matters which are quite apart from the subject we are discussing All I would say about the noble Lord is that he appears to think that the evils which he complains of in this world are due to literacy, but, if people were unable to read, would they be any wiser if their only sources of information were the television and the radio? It might be a worse predicament.
My Lords, we have been discussing literacy and it is very important, because this is the accumulation of knowledge from all the centuries which is put at our disposal by the written and printed word. Learning to read and write—and to speak grammatically and logically—are arts which have to be acquired by diligence and application, and I venture to think that in recent times this has not been observed. Many years ago, I was familiar with education in Scotland and at that time (in the early years of this century) there was no child who came from the infant school into the elementary school who was not able to read and write—apart, of course, from the children who were mentally defective and who required to be in special schools.
At that time, the ordinary child in Scotland came into the elementary school

929
from the infant school with a command of reading and writing that accorded with the ability that one would possess at that age. This was accomplished under a system in which the classes were two or three times as large as they are at the present time. It no doubt involved a great deal of effort on the part of the teachers, but it was done then and it ought to be done at the present time. We have been getting into the habit of assuming that learning to read and write is something which can be picked up almost accidentally without application on the part either of the teacher or the pupil. We have also been adopting a system, strange to say, of teaching the art of reading by means of what is called the "look and say" method in which the child is asked to look at a word and pronounce it without being taught how it is composed and what are the sounds of the various letters. In other words, we have been teaching the art of reading English. English is, after all, a phonetic language despite its eccentricities; we have been teaching it as if it was Chinese, in which people learn to recognise symbols.
It is no wonder that there have been a great many children who have not been able to read and to write properly. A teacher whom I know went into a school some years ago, examined the books of the children, and found that they had never been corrected. One child had 50 mistakes upon a page, which no doubt he went on repeating time after time. It is an abuse of the art of teaching, and more discipline and more application is required if reading is to be taught; it must be taught in conjunction with writing and speaking because the three things go together, and one reinforces the other.
6.1 p.m.
Lord ELTON: My Lords, we are very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Maybray-King, for introducing a subject of such great importance and so fundamental to the progress of this country. He apologised at the outset if his remarks were too narrow, but in fact he covered Asia and South America, and he also brought his remarks home. Like him, I regret the fact that the Bullock Report is not available. Certainly the printers' strike has had something to do with it but, as an ex-pupil of the Chairman of that Committee, I can say that the
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immense reading list which he will have given to his fellow members will also have been a contributory factor.
Before I turn to the body of what I have to say, I should like to give my most sincere, and not merely my formal, congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhill, the noble Lord, Lord Renwick, and the noble Earl, Lord Radnor, on their constructive, lucid and most elegantly and soundly presented maiden speeches. The noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhill, reminded us that the three As are no substitute for the three Rs, and I endorse this. He said that the need for structured teaching persists, and this I shall dilate upon, and he wisely advised us to avoid the dangers of the centralisation of power of direction in our educational system.
The noble Lord, Lord Renwick, and the noble Earl, Lord Radnor, in moving speeches, joined what developed throughout the debate into what I might almost call the dyslexia lobby. It is a notable development that so many of your Lordships should have such close connection with people who have recently been diagnosed as suffering from what until recently was not a recognised disease or condition at all. I should like to emphasise what they have said later on in what I have to say.
May I now return to the beginning of our theme, which is the theme of literacy, and its opposite, illiteracy. It is accepted, and I will not now produce the statistics which I had prepared in case this was in question, that two to three million adult illiterates exist in Britain at this moment, and this was acknowledged by the Minister in another place in Hansard on 27th January. The implications of this are alarming for a number of reasons. Let us look at it from the personal point of view first of all. I do not think that even I, who practised as a teacher for some time, had realised the shock or the difference between literacy and illiteracy until I found myself in the Northern Province of Thailand, totally unable to read anything in view—unable to distinguish a bus stop from a public house, as it were, with the additional difficulty of not speaking the local language.
This is not quite so extreme for those who have the beginnings of reading and

931
speak our language; but none the less those who are "functionally illiterate" —to use a UNESCO term, which has changed its definition, I think, over the last few years, but is broadly said to mean having a reading age below that of an average 13 year old; and in the case of the British Association of Settlements Survey actually a nine-year old base was used—have closed to them all clerical careers and virtually every sedentary occupation. Those on the lower range find a promotion bar within their careers even in not very ambitious channels of employment. For some, invoices, labels, delivery notes, envelopes, street names, maps, timetables, instruction manuals—one could go on forever— are inscrutable, or can only be translated, rather than read, with infinite pains.
This affects of course national productivity as well as the careers of the individuals concerned. But there are effects also of another nature, and in the British Association of Settlements' publication A Right to Read, which one or two noble Lords have referred to already, the FORCAST system of judging age range, which is a test, I understand, used in the United States Army—though I have been unable to validate its accuracy, it is widely accepted—was applied to a number of documents and publications. The first was the label on a potentially dangerous bottle of household cleanser and it was discovered that the instructions for use, the caution about its dangers to children, and the instructions on what to do if children drank it, needed a reading age of over 16 years to be understood. That means that the instructions would have been unintelligible, presumably, to an admitted two or three million of our adult, and presumably in some cases, parent population. This is a matter for some alarm.
My Lords, a more extreme example, referred to briefly by the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, who exhibited such an extreme literacy himself as to be able to say, "e.g.—I mean i.e."— which, I think, must be an all-time high— was the Department of Health and Social Security leaflet Family Income Supplement No. 1, on claiming the supplement. The bit of that which told you how to claim the money, as he rightly observed, required you to be 17 years old, whereas
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to read an article on the front page of The Times requires only an age of 14 years. I submit in all seriousness, although this may be an amusing example, that the first positive action to result from this debate ought to be a a careful scrutiny by every Department— and especially the Department of Health and Social Security, which is in closest contact with the disadvantaged and therefore usually, by inference, the least literate in many cases—of every document, pamphlet and publication addressed to the general public. When they have been scrutinised and assessed for comprehensibility they should, where necessary, be rewritten. That instructions to those in need on how to obtain help should be much more difficult to understand—three years more difficult to understand—than material published on the front page of The Times is, in my view, utterly absurd.
It is a symptom of the degradation of the English language about which I should like to dilate at length, but upon which I shall dilate only briefly. We have creeping into our systems, administrative and educative, a degradation of the English language which started with jargon (jargon which was rightly assaulted by Quiller-Couch in manuals which our civil servants seem, most regrettably, to have abandoned); a species of specialist language bred by ignorance out of conceit. Jargon is the series of platforms upon which those with modest specialist skills seek to elevate themselves above those without them, and is fabricated out of unnecessarily long words into unnecessarily long sentences. Jargon says, "The vehicular circulation has been severely restricted throughout the metropolis during the past 12 hours", where English says; "London is one big traffic jam today". Both sentences mean the same thing. The function of both sentences is to communicate, but only one of those does it to the fullest extent.
My Lords, reading backwardness in schools, which is what in fact prevents many people reading the forms about which I complain, has been the subject of much interesting research—particularly the National Child Development Study Report. There are in fact two of them— the first and second reports on the 1958

933
Cohort. This endorses the method used by Dr. Morris—to whom the noble Lord, Lord Maybray-King, referred—in another work relating the stage of progress in a child's reading to the volume of the reading primer in use. It is a simple rule of thumb, but not to be cast lightly aside. It is endorsed by those with great authority. The general rule is that if the child is on Book 2 or Book 3, it still needs a considerable amount of expert help and individual supervision and encouragement. From Book 4 onwards, the child is, to some extent, if given sufficient encouragement and suitable material, self-advancing—but, obviously, not entirely so.
Of a sample of 10,596 boys and girls, apparently without statistical bias, 471 per cent. were on Book 3 or below on the eve of their transfer from infant to junior school. In addition, the Report states, 10 per cent. of seven year olds in the final term of infant school had barely made a start with reading; that is, one in 10. The Report continues:
"It follows, given the present age of transfer, that teachers in charge of first-year junior classes should have a thorough knowledge of methods of teaching reading."
The noble Lord, Lord Maybray-King, gave us the figure for those in secondary schools who needed further teaching and reading as well.
If I may quote also from the Report on the 1968 Literacy Survey, Summary Interim Results of the Study of Pupils' Reading Standards; Proposals for Further Action, of the Inner London Education Authority, it says, in part, that
"… it emerges that in 68 per cent. (that is three out of five) of all junior schools and sections there are neither full-time nor part-time teachers who have been specifically trained to teach reading."
This is in talking about the primary sector. I will not plunge the House into a sea of statistics; but it must be accepted that, if there is a 10 per cent. rate of infants hardly making a start on reading when they join their infant schools, if we have the figures that the noble Lord, Lord Maybray-King, has given at the entry to the secondary sector, if we have 2 million to 3 million adult illiterates in our population after that, there must be a considerable if dwindling proportion of backward readers throughout the educational system, infant, junior, middle and secondary and even, perhaps, into the
934
sixth form colleges in a rather more specialist band.
It follows, therefore, that we must do something about remedying the situation. On the 21st November last year, I had occasion to ask the Government in a question supplementary to a Question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Masham of Ilton, whether they were satisfied with the apparent total lack of an accepted standard of training (or, apparently, of any requirement by ATOs) that students receiving teacher training certificates should be adequately trained to teach reading. I suggested— and I repeat this suggestion in the strongest possible terms—that all teachers should be trained to identify pupils with specific reading difficulties. The importance of this has been underscored again and again in this debate by speakers with personal experience of the difficulties, of the isolation, the loneliness and the bafflement which surround first the child and then the parent who cannot go for diagnosis and advice. I hope that the noble Lord, when he comes to reply, will take this as a message from the whole House that this is something that must be done.
I submit with equal emphasis that students who are training—for the whole and not simply the infant departments of primary sectors—should not be certificated as proficient if not both trained and competent to teach children to read and write, not by a couple of lectures in minority time but, effectively, thoroughly and with proven success. This will resolve the problem of the supply of properly-trained new teachers in time; but it will not resolve the problem of teachers who are now practising, but not adequately trained. I would endorse appeals to Her Majesty's Government to do their utmost to implement the existing recommendations for increasing in-service training as quickly as possible, and to give priority to this sphere in precedence before others. To reinforce what I have said, the ILEA Report, while saying that it cannot precisely state the number, concludes that:
"… the proportion of full-time teachers trained to teach reading [in their area] is less than 1:8."
That starkly surprising statement must speak for itself.
Of other contributory factors, a major one is the lack of teaching continuity.

935
The value of knowing a child has been most eloquently and amusingly put forward by the noble Earl, Lord Lytton. I can emphasise it only in a more pedestrian way. In the ILEA—and this is not a problem peculiar to them and I do not wish to be thought to be shooting at a particular area; there are other examples—of schools with one to four classes in 1967-68, over half had one to two teachers leaving. If one relates the two figures, that is a very large pro-portion of the staff. In fact, 14·8 per cent. (about one-seventh) had three or more leaving. In schools with one to four classes that means three-quarters of, or possibly all, the staff in some unfortunate schools. In schools of nine or more classes, 62·5 per cent. had three or more teachers leaving. I do not doubt that there are later figures; and I hope that we may be reassured by them.
This is not just a London problem; it is one associated with the great conurbations. I quote:
"One-half of the West Riding teachers had been there for five years or longer [in the schools in which they are teaching] but only one-quarter of those in Deptford or Birming-ham."
This is shown in EPA Problems and Policies Report published by Her Majesty's Stationery Office in 1972. Why is it that the teachers are leaving? And why, as they leave by the door are the truants leaving over the wall? Or simply staying away? An ILEA survey carried out in 1971 estimated that about 6,000 secondary pupils (or 3 per cent. of the secondary school population) were away for "unauthorised or unknown reasons" at any one time.
My Lords, something is very wrong when both the teachers and the children are so unhappy to be in the schools that they get out of them in such numbers so fast without learning to read. This is not just a London problem. The Secretary of the National Association of Chief Welfare Officers, quoted in a recent publication, estimated that early in 1973, 420,000 children might be truant at any one time throughout the country. The Kingston-upon-Hull Head Teachers' Association Survey in 1971–72, "revealed a 13·6 per cent. absentee rate for children aged 13–16"—
and concluded—
"that well over half the absences were avoidable."
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The contributory factors to truancy have been pointed out correctly as boredom, and disruption springing from indiscipline. Size in a school, beyond a certain point, militates against efficiency. It may produce admirable resources for a sixth form and inexhaustible combinations of subjects in CSE, "O" and "A" level courses; but it also produces anonymity. Most teachers do not have the enormous capacity for identification that the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, has revealed. I intend after this debate to go to him for tuition in the manner of memorising names and places.
These schools may produce this variety of choices but they are also of a size to produce anonymity. Some 60 per cent. of school children do not take the CSE or "O" or "A" level courses at all. They do not get the sixth form advantages. They do not get the advantages of a wide choice of subjects. What they do get very often is anonymity. I have taught in a large school, not one of these great "crowd factories", as I call them, but a very big school. I had 302 children to deal with every seven days. I found that I recognised those who were very clever and very naughty or very stupid. Of the rest, all I could cope with administratively were the exercise books at night. I could meet them in the corridor and recognise the outstanding ones; the others I would not recognise. If they were going off to the "gym" or behind the lavatories for a smoke or down to the town to look at the shops, I would not know. I did not know them as individuals. Those who are anonymous are difficult to control, and difficult to account for—and what is more, it is impossible to accord to them the fundamental ingredient of a happy childhood and a secure adolescence (and this is terribly important): affectionate concern. What we want are schools for individuals, not factories for crowds.
My Lords, I will not go on about truancy. It is a major factor. I will say simply that it is made much easier not only because of the size of the institutions but also because of split sites and large catchment areas, where the individual truant will not be recognised by the local population. Incidentally, with the abandonment of school uniforms—which

937
is a red herring I do not want to raise— identification of the truant is more difficult as well.
This is the last thing I want to say. It is a cruel fact which must not be over-looked. Where the discipline situation is critical, or has broken down or is thought to be about to break down, there are some absences of trouble-makers that are actually welcomed, and teachers do not bother to find out if there is laryngitis or measles in the family because they get the others taught better. I will pass briefly over that and revert to staff departures, because this is the other half of lack of continuity. The Report, Educational Priority, E.P.A. Problems and Policies, to which I have earlier referred, revealed in a survey that of the teachers questioned a majority, in some cases a large majority, (teachers in the E.P.A., of course) thought that their friends of the same age, with the same qualifications, in other occupations had more social prestige, more social stimulation, worked in a better neighbourhood under better physical conditions and under less pressure of work, for better pay throughout their careers. Significantly, 59 per cent. reckoned that teaching gave them more job satisfaction than the people they were comparing themselves with. In those circumstances, 59 per cent. when they see other people working in preferable conditions is a very small percentage for, in other words, 41 per cent. of the people who felt themselves to be occupationally disadvantaged also felt that they were not getting any satisfaction out of their job. It therefore gives me great pleasure to welcome the implications of the Houghton Report, which will put right at least one of the crudest dissatisfactions.
I must now congratulate, from the depths of my being, those who remain in the schools, in the difficult areas; who have stuck to their guns year by year. These are heroes, allowing themselves to be worn away in a vast expenditure of spirit on behalf of and in the service of thousands of children who perhaps only later in life, but more probably never, will recognise that it was on their shoulders that they stepped out into the world.
I think I have said enough to show that I do not single the ILEA out as a special target, and I will therefore pass over further statistics. I would, however, refer
938
to one which is revealed in the ILEA 203 Literacy Survey 1971 follow-up, which I imagine the noble Lord is familiar with. I shall refer to an abridged extract from it. In 1968 the poor readers were "at least two years behind" the mean and in 1971, much later, they were "at least two years six months behind" the national mean. So we are not looking at a static situation but at a deteriorating situation. That there is considerable weakness in the teaching of reading in schools is I think now proven. It is a part, and a measurable part, of the shortcomings of our present educational system. Since it is measureable, let it be measured. We ought to know, year by year, whether we are giving our rising generation more literacy or less.
The fashionable fear of examinations and tests is, I believe, on the wane. I am not speaking of selection; I am speaking of assessment. We test the weight of our children's bodies to guard against malnutrition. Why should we not test their classroom attainments to guard against maleducation not for selection, but to monitor the progress and the service they are receiving? Literarcy is the principal learning tool of the modern child. Numeracy is another. If we deny them to children at the outset we starve them as surely as we starve their bodies if we do not give them food. It is increasingly hard to make up ground lost as the years roll by. Progress must be assessed and it must be set against a standard from which both the school and the individual teacher can see whether they are doing the job right. It is perverse, just because we do not accept payment by results, to ignore results altogether.
So, my Lords, if we are to stop producing more and more adult illiterates we must take certain steps now and certain steps as soon as possible. These are: First, to see that students training to teach in all sectors of the maintained system are taught to identify those in need of specialist help in reading and writing, and in other areas of education as well. Secondly, to specify that no student is qualified to teach in primary or lower middle schools who has not been successfully trained to teach reading and writing. Thirdly, to provide, from the earliest possible date, in-service training in teaching of reading for those now

939
teaching in primary and lower middle schools who have not already received such training.
The only acceptable delay in these three provisions will be any that may prove necessary in order to implement the recommendations of the Bullock Committee as they relate to the content of courses. Fourthly, in the educational priority areas the local education authorities must aim much of their effort at making the job of teaching in them an agreeable, fulfilling and respected career. This must eventually mean reduced class sizes, better pupil-teacher ratios and more support from general educational welfare officers. Ideally, this means an end to split site and over-large schools, certainly an end to creating them, as well. When teachers again enjoy teaching then we shall not be far from the day when children enjoy being taught by them. Fifthly, we should introduce assessable standards of attainment in reading, as in other skills, not as a means of selection but as a means of diagnosis of our own success or failure in giving literacy to children, the basic means of furthering both their education and their future careers. If we take those steps we will slow down the production of adult illiterates, but what about those who already exist? I shall refer to this very briefly, but I expect the noble Lord who replies will cover this ground.
May I welcome the allocation of £1 million, referred to by both the noble Lord, Lord Maybray-King, and the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley. Incidentally, for non-recurring charges I understand that all expenditure for the coming year will be administered by the National Institute of Adult Education. I would say that if this is, as I suspect it will be, a successful scheme, then in the light of the experience gained thereby a ten-year scheme should be built on the basis of the lesson learnt. The tapering of demand at the end, if it is successful, will be largely, I hope, absorbed by the needs of the existing immigrant community and recruits thereto. They, in their need for help with literacy in a foreign language will take up much of the time.
The adult illiterate is in an acutely embarrassing condition—it is analogous to that of alcoholics anonymous. Some
940
of them carry about a pair of broken spectacles as an excuse for asking somebody to read a signpost or a timetable because of this predicament. This large number is as yet unmeasured and un-measurable. I give a very warm welcome to the three-year series of programmes being launched on radio and TV by the BBC next October. This will reach the adult illiterates, without their having the embarrassment of coming forward, and convince them that help is available. Lord Beaumont of Whitley's interesting idea of the availability of video-cassettes in local centres deserves to be pursued, although it would have to come out of the existing £1 million because the Governments are not empowered to pay money direct to the BBC.
So let us have a conclusion to this over-long speech. I ask Her Majesty's Government to look favourably on the five recommendations I have made on the teaching of reading in schools, to overhaul, up-date and strengthen the training of remedial teachers, especially for dyslexia and also in the guidance of parents of dyslectics. I would ask them to institute a campaign in all Government Departments for the use of simpler— which usually means better—English and, if their experimental disbursement of the £1 million to which I have referred is successful, to make that an important permanent feature of the remedial education scene in this country.
6.30 p.m.
The MINISTER of STATE, DEPARTMENT of EDUCATION and SCIENCE (Lord Crowther-Hunt): My Lords, first of all let me say how grateful we are on this side of the House to the noble Lord, Lord Maybray-King, for initiating this extremely important debate. In a characteristic speech of great power and restraint he led us over all the problems and difficulties that we face in this fundamental question of literacy, and throughout it was illuminated with the practical idealism borne of his great experience in educational questions. The same wise characteristics marked the most distinguished maiden speech from the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhill. It would be presumptuous of me to congratulate the noble Lord, but I want to say how much I admired what he said and the way he said it. I am sure we have all learned a great deal, too, from

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the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Renwick, concentrating as he did on the distressing and difficult problems of dyslexia. This of course was the theme of the noble Earl, Lord Radnor, in yet another formidable and expert maiden speech.
There is no denying the importance of literacy. At the basic functional level we need to be able to operate efficiently and effectively. We need to be able to read the label on the medicine bottle, and the forms which plague us all, including the noble Lord, Lord Elton—and he criticised the forms particularly from the Department of Health and Social Security. We need to be able to follow safety instructions at work and to communicate with one another in an increasingly complex society. At a rather different level, we need access to literature for personal enjoyment and to enrich our lives.
But whether it is literacy for work or pleasure and entertainment, certainly we need it. Here I completely disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Sudeley, in his controversial theme—I use the word "controversial" advisedly because it is one of the disallowed words —about the dangers of literacy. Perhaps I am not entitled to my own opinion on this because apparently none of us is entitled to our own opinion on this or, indeed, on anything. I do not accept anything that the noble Lord said on the subject and I feel sure that noble friends on both sides of the House would also repudiate and would not accept what he said.
I come next to the question that has been raised in the debate about the falling standards, or whether standards are falling so far as literacy is concerned. Measurement here is notoriously difficult. In 1972 the National Foundation for Educational Research published the most recent in a series of national surveys on this subject which was conducted at the request of the Department of Education. Broadly speaking, so far as 1970-71 is concerned, it showed that the progressive improvement in reading standards which had been observed in previous surveys between 1948 and 1961 had not been maintained. One might deduce from the surveys that at the 15-year-old level there was an increase in scores between 1948 and 1971, though the increase in the
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1960s was marginal. For the 11-year-old groups there were steadily rising scores until the early 1960s. That was then followed by a slight decline by 1970–71. But we hope that the Bullock Report will throw further light on the assessment of the present situation.
This is where I should like to disagree as tentatively as I can with the noble Lord, Lord Blake, in his reference to the literacy standards at Oxford and of our university undergraduates and graduates in general, because he even included the D.Phil, in this context. He asked me to endorse what he had said about the decline which he has found in literacy standards in Oxford since 1946 or 1948. But I cannot endorse that. I have not been at Oxford for so long as the noble Lord; I was an import from the other place. However, I have been there for over twenty years and, during this period, I have not detected the decline to which the noble Lord, Lord Blake, referred. I say that in the context of the fact that though he admitted he gave up teaching six years' ago, because he was called to other and higher duties, I have not yet given up teaching at Oxford. I still continue teaching on. Saturday mornings to make sure that I am in close touch with the literacy standards of the pupils at least in my own college and those who attend my university lectures. My experience does not tally with that of the noble Lord in that respect. Whatever the precise figures are, this is an area in which we must express concern.
What we must be particularly concerned about is what is being done and what should be done about literacy standards. It is in this context that it is a great pity the Bullock Report could not be published before this debate. We have moved heaven and earth within the Department to try to achieve its publication before the date of this debate but in the end it has turned out, most unfortunately, not to be possible. The Report should be available later this month or in the very near future. The setting up of the Bullock Committee by the previous Government was an indication of the concern on all sides that we must take further action, and the most effective action possible, in this field. When the Report is published no doubt we shall all find it is a most valuable contribution to our understanding of the extent of the

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problems that we have been discussing this afternoon and what we should do about them.
A number of suggestions have been made in speeches by noble Lords: the noble Lord, Lord Maybray-King, at one point was placing emphasis on the Initial Teaching Alphabet. This was taken up by the noble Lord, Lord Gordon-Walker. The noble Lord, Lord Maybray-King, pressed the importance of the Initial Teaching Alphabet, as did the noble Lord, Lord Gordon-Walker. But we all recognise, as both of them did, that so far as this system is concerned there is the difficulty of the need for the child to change over to the standard alphabet at a later stage.
An independent assessment of the value of the Initial Teaching Alphabet was carried out between 1965 and 1968 on behalf of the Schools Council by the late Professor Warburton and Vera Southgate. Their report was published in 1969. They found that while children initially learned to read faster by the Initial Teaching Alphabet, after about three years of schooling their reading attainment was roughly equal to those of children taught by the orthodox alphabet. Their conclusion points however to the ITA system as being a valuable method of learning which has undoubtedly produced very good results; but they do not make the case for its adoption in place of other methods. Let us hope, with the noble Lord, Lord Maybray-King, that no doubt the Bullock Report will throw further light on this. In any event, we need to remember that it is for the schools them-selves, not for the Department, to make decisions on these matters.
The noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhill, warned us of the dangers of getting the balance wrong between the responsibilities and duties of the Department on the one hand, and not interfering too much, or at all, in precisely what hap-pens in the schools, on the other hand. There is something here that we can do and we are in fact doing—and the noble Lord, Lord Elton, will be particularly pleased with this point. The Department announced last year its intention to set up an Assessment of Performance Unit. The noble Lord was perhaps particularly concerned that we were not doing enough to monitor what was happening. The
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aims of the unit are to encourage the development of better and more varied methods of assessing the performance of pupils in schools. It is expected that the procedures developed will go beyond the field of literacy alone, and will help teachers to monitor the progress of individual pupils more effectively and so pro-vide more surely for their progress. The assessments should also make it possible to identify differences of achievement, related to the circumstances in which children learn, so that all who are concerned with the problem of under-achievement, whatever the cause, can be supplied with information that will enable them to deploy available resources in the most effective way.
Lord ELTON: My Lords, may I ask for illumination on this: is this an internal operation of the Department, as it were, or is a method being developed and standards being produced which can be used by the schools themselves?
Lord CROWTHER-HUNT: My Lords, the unit is internal to the Department, but it is seeking to develop standards in consultation with all outside bodies so that they may be used within the schools themselves. It is in this general context that I welcomed the most helpful contribution made by the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley. He will no doubt be pleased to learn about the Educational Disadvantage Unit, which has been set up by the Government inside the Department. It will be particularly concerned with children who seem likely, among other things, to find difficulty in learning to read. It will not include within its interest children who are ascertained as handicapped: it will be looking at the normal child. Of course, the Warnock Committee is concerned with the education of handicapped children, and that will be reporting in due course.
There is, as we all know, a small group whose reading abilities are significantly below the standards which their abilities in other spheres would lead one to expect Here, of course, I am talking about the problem of dyslexia. The noble Lord, Lord Renwick, has particularly drawn your Lordships' attention to this problem in telling us of his personal experience. The noble Lady, Lady Kinloss, and the noble Earl, Lord Radnor, have

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anticipated much of what I should have said about this distressing and baffling condition. As the noble Lord said, this term of dyslexia is applied to the condition of a comparatively small group of people who find it very difficult to acquire the skills of reading and writing, but who show no obvious reason for this. Their general ability is very often above aver-age, and their home backgrounds contain none of the symptoms of disadvantage with which educationists are now only too familiar. But they cannot learn to read as other children do.
It was because of growing concern that the then Secretary of State asked the Advisory Committee to report on this subject. Their Report, Children with Specific Reading Difficulties, set out the problems and suggested ways of dealing with them, but did not produce complete or simple solutions. Indeed there cannot be simple solutions in this area. I shall certainly bring to the notice of my right honourable friend the remarks that have been made today about the need for more research and for many more facilities in this area.
I should like at this point to pay tribute to the work of the British Dyslexia Association, to which many speakers have referred, and which is of course well known in the Department. It was perhaps because of the natural concern which parents displayed in the work of the Association that the Tizard Report of 1972 did not mention this specifically but talked about "people with reading difficulties". I agree wholeheartedly that it is an essential part of helping these children to take parents completely into the process of helping them and to draw on all the help that they will give, as the personal accounts we have heard this afternoon have shown.
I turn now to suggestions about colleges of education and the teaching of reading. It has been suggested that the colleges of education are failing to teach the teaching of reading. This is a point which is of as much concern to the colleges themselves as it is to the rest of us. They are conscious of their duty to equip teachers to teach the skills of reading and the use of language, and they have themselves been examining and re-examining their aims and methods here. It is only fair to say that the colleges, like the teachers,
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are beset by a number of theories about the right way of learning to read, and they cannot hope to please everyone all the time. However, I accept the point made by the noble Lord that this is an area where we need to give all possible advice, without interfering with what is being done. I am sure that the sentiments of your Lordships in this context will have been noted by the educational world in general, and by colleges of education in particular.
Lord ELTON: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord to go a little further? He will remember the figure I quoted of one teacher in eight in the primary sector having had no training in the teaching of reading. If my memory serves me correctly, I believe that a quarter of those teachers received that in their first two years, and therefore have come through the training machinery very recently indeed. So what we have here are not different methods taught by different people but the fact that no training at all is being given. Is it altogether out of order for the Government to advise colleges? After all, the Government instruct schools to teach religion, so why should they not advise colleges on the teaching of reading?
Lord CROWTHER-HUNT: My Lords, I take note of what the noble Lord has said and will take advice on this subject with a view, I hope, to taking appropriate action, because my concern about this is as great as that of the noble Lord and of others who have spoken this afternoon.
Turning now to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, about social disadvantage, his great emphasis was laid on the fact that one way of making a major contribution in this area would be to "get rid of poverty". I may be summarising the noble Lord unduly, but that was part of the burden of what he was saying. Research has confirmed that in all developed countries there is a firm relationship between reading ability and social circumstances. The National Child Development Study has shown that the gap in reading ability between children from different social backgrounds widens as the children grow older. It is part of the Government's general policies, and also of their educational policies, to give special help to deprived families and

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areas. This should do something to help in the longer term to make some contribution to the solution of the problem. I think it will also do something to ameliorate the situation referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Elton, when he spoke about the turnover of teachers. This is particularly acute in certain special areas, and our policies are designed to do something about that.
The Government are also committed to the expansion of nursery education. As my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education said in another place last April, the aim of the Government is to make provision as soon as possible for nursery education for children of three and four years of age, mainly on a part-time basis. The necessary building programme has already begun and local education authorities in England have allocations which total £21·5 million for projects to start during the current building year. It is inevitable that the whole programme will take time to complete, and for the present some young children cannot enjoy the benefits of nursery education. Local education authorities have been asked to give priority to meeting the needs of disadvantaged children here.
Now illiteracy and semi-illiteracy are not confined to the present school population. Many adults, as has been mentioned by several speakers, have to wrestle with these problems. Their school days are behind them but their lack of reading and writing skills creates for them many of the difficulties experienced by their younger counterparts. Their numbers have been variously estimated. Figures of 2 million have been mentioned by noble Lords this afternoon. One noble Lord went as far as to say 3 million. Whatever the true number may be, there is no doubt that in this country, with all its educational advantages, the problem is much larger than it should be.
It needs no special perception to recognise the poignancy of the illiterate adult's situation. Many conceal their difficulties, even from their wives and families. In some instances, so great is the embarrassment caused to them by illiteracy, adults have been known not only to carry round a pair of broken spectacles, as was noted by a noble Lord, but to bandage their writing hands or pretend they have forgotten
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their reading glasses if they think they will be expected to read or write. Others refuse promotion at their work, although well able otherwise to take on more responsibility, because by promotion they fear their lack of reading and writing skills will be exposed.
That is why last July the Government announced their readiness to make additional resources available to help institutions working to combat adult illiteracy. The Government's action does not mean that a great deal is not already, and was not already, being done. Local education authorities and voluntary associations, such as the Settlement movement, were and are making increasing provision; and much has been and is being done by the British Association of Settlements, and, more recently, the National Committee for Adult Literacy, to encourage those already engaged in this field, and to focus attention on what more needs to be accomplished.
Mention should be made here, of course, as noble Lords have emphasised, of the role played by the BBC and the independent television companies as well as by the Press. Their programmes and articles have helped to spotlight the needs of illiterate adults and have held out hope to them by demonstrating that it is still possible for adults to learn to read and write, even late in life. Indeed, the BBC, as noble Lords have noted, has taken an imaginative initiative, which will surely have an important influence on all provision in this field, by its three-year project to teach adults reading and writing skills, which will begin on television in the autumn of this year.
The Government believed that further action was necessary to help local education authorities and other institutions working to combat adult illiteracy. To take such action is in keeping with our belief that, in times of economic stringency, nevertheless resources should go to those who need them most, and it is fully in harmony with the important emphasis of the Russell Report on the role of adult education with the disadvantaged. The Government were also concerned that, at a time when local authorities and voluntary bodies are under very considerable financial constraints because of our present economic difficulties, the BBC's television and radio literacy

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project was likely to stimulate an increasing—and probably very considerable—number of requests for further teaching. We wanted therefore to be able to help local authorities and other bodies to respond to these demands. So the National Institute of Adult Education was invited to establish an agency to administer the sum of about £1 million, as noble Lords have mentioned this afternoon, to be provided by the Department of Education and Science and the Scottish Education Department during this and the next financial year.
The Institute has accepted this invitation. The agency will provide local education authorities and other bodies with audio-visual and other technological aids (initially for use in connection with the BBC's project), arrange crash programmes for the training of tutors and for the trainers of tutors, provide teaching materials, help voluntary agencies with some minor capital expenditure, and provide some short-term action in the area of research and experimental programmes. The agency expects to be fully operational by April of this year. The National Institute has just appointed Mr. H. D. Hughes, Principal of Ruskin College, Oxford, and President of the Workers' Educational Association, as the chairman of its management committee; and the Inner London Education Authority have kindly agreed to second Mr. William Devereux, the Authority's education officer in charge of community education and careers, to be its director.
So, my Lords, an impressive amount is being done and is in the pipeline—not enough, of course. Many noble Lords have made many suggestions this afternoon which I have not taken up and which I have not had time to reply to— I see I have now already been on my feet for 25 minutes and so I do not want to weary your Lordships longer. But I hope I have said enough to show that the Government are doing a lot and want to do more in this area. I have taken note of the five points of the noble Lord, Lord Elton. I prefer them very much to the 14 points of the noble Lord, Lord Sudeley. The five seemed to me to move in the right direction, just as the other 14 moved in the wrong direction, although I have no doubt that Lord Sudeley would take comfort from some of the statistics which Lord Elton put forward on the
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extent of illiteracy today. It must have been very pleasing news indeed to Lord Sudeley, although I must say it was not very pleasing news to me and to my noble friends on this side of the House.
My Lords, a lot is being done—but not enough. This is true of so much we should like to do in so many other aspects of our national life if funds were unlimited. But I think I have said enough to indicate that the Government have a real concern for all the questions that have been raised today. If your Lordships feel that we are not doing enough or moving fast enough—and no Governments ever do enough in the pursuit of good causes; we should all like to do more—then I have no doubt that this debate, followed soon by the publication of the Bullock Report, will give a new urgency to our efforts and will generate still more pressures in this right cause. All this I very much welcome, and we will do our best to continue and develop our policies accordingly.
6.57 p.m.
Lord MAYBRAY-KING: My Lords, it would be discourteous if I did not say a word at the winding-up of this debate. It would be even more discourteous if I said many words at the winding-up of a debate. May I first express my thanks to the three noble Lords on the Front Bench, the noble Lords, Lord Blake, Lord Elton and Lord Crowther-Hunt, for their notable contributions to this debate. I take very much to heart the peroration with which Lord Crowther-Hunt ended his speech. One small detail is that I have been asked by the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, who sat throughout the debate until just before the end, if I would read one little note from him. We have been talking about dyslexia. Lord Halsbury devotes much of his time to the problems of nurses, doctors and medical auxiliaries in hospitals, and he writes:
"In the course of visiting 70 hospitals to study the working conditions of nurses, midwives, para-medicals, et cetera, I paid particular attention to the work of speech therapists. Although they are in short supply for their own work, they do their best to occupy the vacuum that is at present represented by lack of dyslexic therapy."
At least, there is a positive note, even if it is only a detail.
I am grateful to two very old friends of mine: the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhill, for the kind of able speech

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I would have expected him to make as his maiden speech; and the noble Lord, Lord Gordon-Walker, who has been working with me in a voluntary capacity in the field of ITA for a very long time. At a certain moment this debate took a very dramatic turn. We heard the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Renwick, who spoke about his own child—and I would echo the tribute that Lord Renwick paid to his wife for all that she has done for the dyslexic child. It was followed by a speech by the noble Earl, Lord Radnor, who has now made dyslexia his life's interest, and is President of the Dyslexia Institute. It was followed by the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, who spoke about the problems of his own child's reading disabilities and learning disabilities. That was followed by my close friend the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, whose life fighting her own disability has the admiration of us all, and who now has to cope with the disability of having a dyslexic son—a son whom I met a week ago when she was taking him for treatment.
The debate suddenly became very warm and very human. There was a moment when the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, said that when you are faced with this problem you find that you stand alone. I had been talking about the lack of a good home life as one of the great causes of illiteracy. The examples that we have had this afternoon show that these reading disabilities can enter the homes of good families, and that dyslexic children, or children with speech difficulties and the rest, with loving parents, with parents who are better off, at any rate have a little more chance than children who have the same disabilities but come from homes where nobody cares for them. One hopes that the story which the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, told us of his own efforts on behalf of his own child—all the problems involved—and the story which the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, told us of all the interviews and problems she had to face in looking after her son, will stimu-late the appropriate Department to increase the provision that we make for those who suffer from reading disabilities of any kind.
I think that this has been a useful debate. I began by expressing my thanks
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to those on the Cross-Benches for allowing me to initiate it. I am grateful to all who have taken part in it. In a way, it is a forerunner to the appearance of the Bullock Report. I hope that from what has been said today, and, above all, from the appearance of the Bullock Report, there will be a real drive towards the ending of illiteracy. I deliberately have not referred to the noble Lord, Lord Sudeley. I have tried to remember one point upon which I find myself in agreement with him. I know from the Who's Who list that his hobby is ancestor worship. However, I agreed with him when he told us that Macaulay was a bigoted Whig. I would ask him to agree that Dr. Johnson was an equally bigoted Tory. Both were distinguished literary figures. What was wrong with them was not that they were literate, but that they were bigoted. The noble Lord seemed to equate the two. My Lords, I am grateful to everybody. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

CRIMINAL JURISDICTION BILL [H.L.]
7.3 p.m.
The LORD CHANCELLOR (Lord Elwyn-Jones): My Lords, I rise to move the Second Reading of the Criminal Jurisdiction Bill. It is the product of the resolve of both Her Majesty's Government of the Republic of Ireland to find a solution to the problem of the fugitive terrorist in Ireland and of bringing the bomb and bullet men to justice. Complementary legislation—the Criminal Law (Jurisdiction) Bill—was introduced in the Dail last November.
Both Governments have shared the widespread concern about the difficulty of obtaining the return to Northern Ire-land from the Republic of persons accused of terrorist crimes in Northern Ireland. In December 1973, as your Lordships will know, the Sunningdale Conference, which included elected representatives of political Parties of Northern Ireland as well as the British and Irish Governments, agreed that persons committing crimes of violence, however motivated, in any part of Ireland should be brought to trial, irrespective of the part of Ireland in which they are located. As a result, a joint Law

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Enforcement Commission was appointed to study the problem. The present proposals in the Bill flow directly from the conclusions of that Commission.
There is no formal extradition treaty between the Republic and the United Kingdom. The return of offenders between the two countries is normally achieved by the police of one country executing a warrant issued in the other and bringing the accused before a court which decides whether to surrender him. The court must be satisfied that the offence corresponds with an offence under the law of its own country and that it is not one of a political character. In addition, in the Republic, but not in the United Kingdom, a court must be satisfied that it is not an offence connected with a political offence. This procedure is confined to the police and the courts, and in neither country can the Executive intervene. These arrangements represent an earlier example of complementary legislation worked out in consultation between the two Governments, and it has functioned effectively in non-political cases and will continue to apply.
However, since the troubles in Northern Ireland started no person accused of what could be termed a terrorist offence has been returned to Northern Ireland to face trial. The startling void this has created Will be evident to your Lordships when I quote the example of a man, who admitted that he was a member of the IRA, who, last year, appealed in the Republic against his extradition to Northern Ireland on a charge of murder. In the High Court in Dublin he is reported as having given an account of his part in the placing of a bomb outside a police station which killed two innocent passers-by when it exploded. The judge ruled that he must hold that it was a political offence, and he is reported as having said:
"I am not entitled to have any regard to the fact that the admitted activities of the present applicant seemed to breach any concept of humanity or any civilised form of conduct."
This illustrates the grim difficulties that the existing state of the law in the Republic presents to members of the Judiciary there and, indeed, to ourselves. I might add that the conviction of an accomplice for murder involving this same incident has been secured in Northern Ireland.
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As I have said, in the Republic a court needs to be satisfied that an offence is not connected with a political offence before extradition can be ordered. This provision, which is incorporated in the Republic's extradition law, is derived from the European Convention on Extradition to which the Republic is a party, but we in the United Kingdom are not. As a result, the circumstances in which an appeal can be mounted against extradition are wider in the Republic than in the United Kingdom. But apart from this, judgments in courts in the Republic such as the one that I have cited—and there are others—have indicated that if a person appeals against extradition on the grounds that he committed his offence as a member of the IRA that offence is likely to be regarded as political and non-extraditable.
It was recognised at the Sunningdale Conference that the problem itself and the possible solutions were complex, and so the Enforcement Commission was set up to advise on the most effective legal means of bringing to justice fugitive terrorists in Ireland. The United Kingdom members of the Commission included the Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland and Lord Justice Scarman, and their Report, produced jointly with their Irish colleagues, was presented to Parliament in May of last year when both Governments agreed on the action to be taken on the proposals in the Report. The method upon which all the members of the Com-mission were able to agree, and which was accepted by both Governments, was the so-called "extra-territorial" method; namely, that the courts in each part of Ireland should have jurisdiction to try under their own domestic law, certain offences wherever they happened to be committed in Ireland. It is a general principle that our criminal law is limited to offences committed on our own territory of the United Kingdom. But there are already precedents both in the Republic and in Northern Ireland for the assumption of extra-territorial jurisdiction.
The Commission agreed the range of offences to which the scheme should apply and that the only way in which a court could exercise extra-territorial jurisdiction would be by trying a person arrested within its own jurisdiction for scheduled offences committed in the other jurisdiction—in other words, he must clearly be a fugitive; secondly, that the

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accused should be given the option to return to his own jurisdiction for trial; third, that the Attorney General in each jurisdiction should decide whether to institute proceedings; and fourth, that witnesses should not be compelled to cross the Border to give evidence. This last point in the Commission's proposals, which is an important feature of the Bill, involves a new procedure, namely, the taking of evidence on Commission whereby evidence can be taken in the other jurisdiction in the presence of the accused and the trial court.
The offences to which the scheme will apply are called "extra-territorial offences" and, as your Lordships will see, they are defined in Clause 1. The offences are those listed in Schedule 1 together with the offences in Clauses 2 and 3 and the inchoate offences in Clause 6(2). Clause 1 of the Bill provides that an act or omission taking place in the Republic of Ireland which, if committed in Northern Ireland, would be an offence under Schedule 1, shall constitute an offence in Northern Ireland. They are all serious offences where, in view of the circumstances that I indicated a few moments ago, political motivation might be pleaded as a defence against extradi-tion. Clause 2 and Clause 3 create new offences. Clause 2 deals with the offence of hijacking and the use of vehicles for planting bombs by proxy. Those offences have of late become common features of terrorist activity.
Clause 3 makes it an offence for a person to escape in the Republic when in legal custody in connection with an offence which is an extra-territorial offence under the law either of the Republic or of Northern Ireland. Extra-territorial offences under the law of the Republic are defined; these are, basically, the analogous offences under the corresponding legislation introduced by the Republic to extra-territorial offences under the Bill. The legislation therefore has been substantially complementary. Clause 4 read with Schedule 2 makes amendments to the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act which have the effect of enabling trials of extra-territorial offences to be heard without a jury and restrict the granting of bail and the place of trial. The Bill makes these provisions permanent for the trial of extra-territorial
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offences. That is for a practical reason. Just as some witnesses will not be prepared to cross the Border to give evidence and cannot reasonably be expected to do so, neither would many jurors be willing to cross the Border in the opposite direction to be present at the taking of evidence on commission. Even if they were willing the problem of the transport of jurors and their security would make the arrangement impracticable. The equivalent trials in the Republic will be before the special criminal court of three judges which sits without a jury. There-fore, until trial by jury is restored in Northern Ireland there will be three judges trying these cases in the Republic and a judge alone trying them in Northern Ireland. This country and the Republic have mutual confidence in their judicial systems. Indeed the backing of warrants legislation could not have worked in ordinary criminal cases as it has done were this not so. Nevertheless, the Bill provides a safeguard for the accused, in that he may opt to return for trial to the jurisdiction where the alleged crime was committed. Protection is also provided against double jeopardy. Proceedings cannot be taken in Northern Ireland where there has been a conviction or acquittal of the alleged offence in the Republic.
My Lords, I now turn to the key issue of witnesses. While some police officers have given evidence in the Republic, it is understandable that many witnesses have a real fear of crossing the border to give evidence. The Law Enforcement Commission recognised this and recommended administrative measures designed to win the confidence of witnesses and to encourage them to make the journey to the place of trial, such as special arrangements for travel and for accommodation if overnight stay is necessary. I hope it will reassure all potential witnesses when I say that the Government have agreed with the Irish Government that full security measures will be taken to protect witnesses who travel to the other jurisdiction. In addition, Clause 5 empowers a court trying an extra-territorial offence to withhold the names and addresses of witnesses and, together with Schedule 4, applies a suggestion by the Commission which will help if witnesses are not prepared to travel. If the court of trial so decides,

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on the request of the prosecution or the accused, it will request the other jurisdiction to nominate a Commissioner, who will be a High Court Judge, to hear the evidence of certain witnesses who are not prepared to travel to the place of trial. The Commissioner will hear the evidence in private in the presence of the trial judges, and of the accused if he wishes to be present. Counsel for the prosecution and the defence will also be present and normal cross-examination of the witness will take place. The trial judges will be able to request the Commissioner to put particular questions to the witness if they so wish. The Commissioner will be empowered to withhold names and addresses of witnesses when evidence on commission is being taken. The taking of such evidence in the presence of trial judges does not interfere with the normal inherent power of a court to determine when evidence is admissible and what weight should be given to it.
My Lords, the Republic Bill and this Bill have been drafted in close consultation with the Irish authorities, and so far as the Law Enforcement Commission's proposals are concerned, are for the most part reciprocal and complementary. In one important respect both Bills go beyond the scope of the Commission's terms of reference. Clause 7, which ex-tends to the whole of the United Kingdom, amends the Explosive Substances Act 1883 so that courts anywhere in the United Kingdom will have jurisdiction to try two kinds of explosive offence aimed at targets in the Republic. First, there is the offence under Section 3 of the 1883 Act, which is concerned with various preparatory acts. For practical purposes the core of the offence is the act of conspiring to cause an explosion, whether or not an explosion does in fact actually happen.
It is already an offence triable in United Kingdom courts for anyone in Her Majesty's Dominions, or a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies anywhere, to conspire to cause an explosion in the Republic. In respect of this offence all that Clause 7 does is to re-enact the provisions of existing United Kingdom law in a clearer form.
There are two reasons for doing this. The Irish Bill goes further than is required by the Law Enforcement Commistion's
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proposals, in extending to preparatory acts aimed at explosions outside Ireland and it would thus enable a trial to take place in the Republic of anyone who conspired there, or of an Irish citizen who conspired anywhere else, to cause an explosion anywhere in the United Kingdom. The Irish provision would therefore be valuable to Britain as well as to Northern Ireland and we think it right to give the Irish Government the clearest indication that reciprocity is available in United Kingdom law. The second and associated reason behind the proposed new Section 3 of the 1883 Act is that, although our law already covers conspiracy to cause an explosion in the Republic, the relevant provision is to be found in an extremely obscure and practically unobtainable Instrument—The Irish Free State (Consequential Adaptation of Enactments) Order 1923—which is certainly not readily accessible to the practitioner in Great Britain. It is un-satisfactory that the law on such an important issue should be so hard to find and it is in any case desirable to restate the law in a clearer and modern form.
The second offence for which Clause 7 provides for extended jurisdiction is the substantive one of causing an explosion. Under present United Kingdom law, someone who committed this offence in the Republic and was found in the United Kingdom could not at present be tried here for the substantive offence—though it might be possible in a particular case to prefer a charge under Section 3 for a preparatory act. Implementation of the Law Enforcement Commission's proposals in respect of the substantive offence of causing an explosion would require an extension of extra-territorial jurisdiction, but for Northern Ireland only. However, for reasons of consistency it is desirable that the extension of jurisdiction to cover explosions actually caused in the Republic should apply throughout the United Kingdom, particularly as there is already such jurisdiction for acts preparatory to causing an explosion. The position that we have now, whereby a person could be convicted in a British court of conspiring to commit an act which was not itself punishable here is clearly not satisfactory, and Clause 7 will correct this. I should make it celar that the Irish Bill as it stands does not contain a reciprocal provision. The Irish Government

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has been invited to reciprocate. We shall await the result of the discussions which have been taking place.
Clauses 9 and 10 of the Bill concern technical matters relating to evidence and provide for the offence of perjury for the making of false statements. Prosecutions will be made only with the consent of the Attorney General and this is provided for in Clause 11. Clause 12 amends the law concerning the prosecution of offences. It is a law reform not directly connected with the extra-territorial jurisdiction aspect of the Bill, but is introduced here as a matter of convenience because some doubts have been expressed about the clarity of the existing law.
Finally, I should make clear that the new arrangements proposed in the Bill do not preclude the police from making applications under the Backing of Warrants Act where the accused does not appear to be politically motivated or where it seems reasonable that the courts will return them. If an extradition application fails, it will still be possible to proceed under the new scheme as pro-posed in the Bill.
My Lords, in the last four years some 38 warrants for persons wanted for terrorist offences have been sent from Northern Ireland to the Republic and your Lordships may think that this number is not large and does not justify a Bill of this nature. But the 38 terrorist crimes concerned were serious offences indeed, and the number of warrants would have been greater if witnesses had been forthcoming and if it were possible for the police to question suspects across the Border. Co-operation between the Royal Ulster Constabulary and the Garda is not a matter that can be legislated for, but the success of the Bill will largely depend on it and noble Lords will be pleased to hear that the Irish Government have agreed that they will provide all assistance and facilities needed by the RUC in the investigation of crime. Similarly the mounting of prosecutions will depend on the closest possible co-operation between the authorities on both sides of the border, and here again I can assure your Lordships that Her Majesty's Government and the Irish Government have agreed that this will be forthcoming from both sides.
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This Bill and the equivalent Bill in the Republic demonstrate that both Governments are as one in their determination to conquer violence. This Bill aims a double blow at the terrorist. It should remove a refuge and enable evidence to be obtained more easily to bring them to book. Yet at the same time it does not prejudice the right to a fair trial which is cherished on each side of the Border. My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a. —(The Lord Chancellor.)
7.28 p.m.
Viscount BROOKEBOROUGH: My Lords, after such a lucid and brilliant exposition of this Bill by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, I am slightly intimidated, like the witnesses appearing before him. However, as this Bill affects so very much the whole morale of Northern Ireland and the future of relations between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, it is right that I should make some comments on it.
The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor has quite rightly pointed out that the extradition process simply cannot work, because without any further ado, except to claim that he was connected with a political body, an accused person can prevent the extradition process from taking place. I can assure your Lordships that the population of Northern Ireland has been outraged frequently by such instances as have been described by the noble and learned Lord, of people admitting that they have committed murder and saying, "But of course, this is connected with a political crime." Indeed, the people of the United Kingdom as a whole have been outraged at the failure to extradite Father Burns from Scotland.
The solution which the Law Commission went for had to do two things. The Commission wanted to establish that these people should be fairly tried. But the Commission had another aim, which was to establish trust between the people of the North and South of Ireland, so that they could jointly form institutions which would work as a permanent method. It is by that criterion of whether this Bill provides a fair trial, and by the second criterion of providing confidence between the people of the North and South of

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Ireland, that I judge it. In case I for-get, because I shall certainly speak about one or two matters I find rather worrying, I should like to say that I welcome the Bill, because any step in this direction, no matter how small, must be right.
When I read the Report of the Law Commission, I must admit to being rather worried about the attitude of the lawyers who came from the Irish Republic. The Law Commission were commanded as a matter of extremely urgency to deal with this problem. It was obvious from the objections which they put up to extradition, which the British lawyers unitedly agreed was the best method, that there was some other problem behind the procedure. The truth is that extradition is politically impossible for the Irish Government to carry out. I feel very strongly that a lot more confidence might have built up between ourselves and Dublin had this been admitted at the very beginning and four months of legal argument avoided, because the Executive which existed immediately after Sunningdale was dependent on rapid action and a rapid solution to this problem. As the weeks dragged by, it became more and more difficult to sustain any belief that there was an urgency on the part of the lawyers from Dublin. The solution which we now have, and this is agreed by the British lawyers, is very much a second-best. An extradition treaty properly enacted and properly amended would be the answer.
My Lords, I find a certain lack of logic in this, because, as I understand it—and I almost asked the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor to clarify my mind on it—the question of witnesses being heard in, for instance, the United Kingdom in the case of somebody who is arraigned in Dublin does not apply; that is to say, the method of examining witnesses extra-territorially applies only to Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic. I feel that that is not a very logical situation, and I should like to paint the picture as I see it. Let us imagine that the Birmingham bombers had got away to Dublin. I wonder whether we would have got extradition for that crime. Would they have been returned to us by the Dublin Government?
Let us assume that they pleaded that
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it was a political offence. You then get to the question: would the witnesses go from Birmingham to Dublin to make sure that those murderers were convicted. If you read the list of the people who were hurt in that terrible explosion, their names are quite clearly either lately out of Ireland or one generation away from Ireland. Do you think that those people, with names like McGahey and so on, would go to Dublin with full publicity, knowing that the IRA would know where their relatives were? I believe it would be tantamount to subjecting their whole families to the most appalling intimidation. Therefore, I feel that it would be right to move an Amendment that this whole Bill applies throughout the United Kingdom. But as well as that, on a pure matter of pride, I feel that this is making Northern Ireland different in legal terms from the rest of the United Kingdom.
I should like to know this. The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor said that there is trust between the courts of both countries, but it seems to me to come out of this Bill and out of the Law Commission, that the Irish Republic trust our courts to examine and assess witnesses, but they do not trust us to try them. It seems to me that half the battle of a court in trying someone is in the assessment of witnesses. There are at least seventy cases of extradition at the moment awaiting service. If this Bill becomes an Act and there comes a flow of these cases through to our courts, the strain on our already overworked and very gallant, brave judges will be enormous, because the method of examining witnesses, the consultation between judges, will be extremely cumbersome and we are very short of people at the Bar and on the Bench.
I would now turn to the question of witnesses. According to the Report by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, there are already just under 500 witnesses who have failed to come forward in cases of serious crime. It would be impossible for the courts to prosecute these people, because there are cases where it is more just that they should escape being murdered, than that they should be forced to come and give witness. But how much more difficult will this be if this Bill becomes law, when somebody in the North of Ireland who

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is witness to a serious crime of murder is examined in court by the counsel for the defence who is a member of the Southern Irish Bar? This is nowhere near as safe as the method which we have in Northern Ireland. I asked whether a key witness to a murder—and the murderer I am talking about has committed more than one murder—was presented with an order to come forward and give witness under those conditions, and I regret to say that the answer was, No. The person I am referring to is a person of great substance and great courage. I feel very hesitant in saying this, but I am afraid that people will not come forward and give witness under this Bill and without witnesses it will never work.
The PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE, NORTHERN IRELAND OFFICE (Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge): My Lords, would the noble Viscount allow me to make a comment here? Nobody has ever thought that this Bill will do away with intimidation. This is the great problem in Northern Ireland. It will not be altered, and nobody ever thought it would be. I really think the noble Viscount is setting up an Aunt Sally to knock down. The object of this Bill is specific, coming out of the Sunningdale Agreement agreed by both sides, that fugitives from justice can be apprehended and tried. It is as simple as that.
Viscount BROOKEBOROUGH: My Lords, I accept the noble Lord's castigation, but I feel that the exercise of this Bill will be much more subject to intimidation than the exercise of the law as it exists at present. I hope that the Director of Prosecutions in Dublin will not be slow to act on this Bill when it becomes law, because in the past, when we have had the Offences Against the State Act, it has not been until physical attacks in the Irish Republic have occurred that we have had very much movement on the part of the authorities. I am also worried about the inflammatory effect of bringing up somebody from Dublin on trial, having to be protected by the police; for instance, the lady who had a hand in murdering the three soldiers. It will not be a very easy matter, unless it is handled with great care and confidence, to bring these people up to be examined. I hope that the examination of the witnesses at
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that point will be given as little publicity as possible.
At the present moment, my Lords, the Dublin Government is showing a tremendous determination to win, and it is a great satisfaction to everybody in the North of Ireland. But people are very worried about the return to the Front Bench of the great architect of the present IRA, Mr. Haughey. While this may not be relevant to the Bill now, it is reported that the Opposition are freely saying that they are quite happy with it, because under Article 3 of their Constitution this will be declared ultra vires. If I may, I shall read to your Lordships this article, which would seem to bear out what they say:
"Pending the reintegration of the national territory and without prejudice to the right of the Parliament and Government established by this Constitution to exercise jurisdiction over the whole of that territory, the laws enacted by that Parliament shall have the like area and extent of application as the laws of Seanad Eireann and the like extra-territorial effect".
That appears to me to say that they cannot legislate for anything outside the 26 counties. If this is so, and the Fianna Fail is quite happy that this Act can go through and that all the cases referred to it can be challenged in the courts and called ultra vires, then the damage that could be done to the relationship between the North and the South of Ireland would be very great indeed.
My Lords, the intention of the Law Commission was to give confidence to the people of Ulster and to ensure that criminals should be brought to justice and given a fair trial. I hope that this may go a little way to achieve it. I am afraid that I am not optimistic as to its operation because, in the end, extradition is the only way to provide proper justice.
7.42 p.m.
Lord CHORLEY: My Lords, this is a Bill which I am sure your Lordships will welcome. It is an ingenious attempt to deal with a very difficult situation. The noble Viscount who has just spoken rather doubted whether it will go very far, and it may well be that he is right, but I feel that we ought to make every effort that is open to us. This certainly is an ingenious attempt to cover part, at any rate, of this difficult ground. It is a complicated Bill, and in spite of the lucid way in which the noble and learned

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Lord on the Woolsack explained it to us I could not help feeling, particularly in connection with Clause 7, that it might well come back to your Lordships sitting in a different status as Lords of Appeal in Ordinary, because the possibility of raising ingenious points under it is obviously a very clear one.
My main object in intervening this evening is not to point out these difficulties but to ask a simple question also asked by the noble Viscount; that is, why the Bill is confined to Northern Ireland. The noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack has pointed out to us that a similar reciprocal measure now going through the Dail in Southern Ireland applies generally to the United Kingdom. I cannot see why this particular Bill also should not apply generally to the United Kingdom. Noble Lords opposite have referred to Birmingham—which is not the only place in England where dastardly crimes of the same kind as those perpetrated in Northern Ireland have been committed—and also to Scotland. Therefore, I should have thought that there was a strong case for covering the British Isles as well as Ulster. What is going to happen to that type of case is not clear.
I have heard it said that this Bill is being criticised in Northern Ireland in that it establishes a sort of Sudetenland in Northern Ireland. I am sure that this is not the case, and that this is far from the Government's mind, yet it is the kind of criticism which can be, and is in fact being made. I think it requires a strong answer on the part of Her Majesty's Government to remove it. The best way of removing it would be to extend the provisions of this Bill to the United Kingdom.
Looking through some of the Schedules of the Bill, I could not make out whether the criminal law of England as it appears in the Statutes was being modified by the repeal of Statutes, or sections of Statutes, or whether these sections of Statutes are repealed only in respect of Northern Ireland. I can see that this might give rise to considerable legal difficulty when cases come before the courts. This, of course, could all be got over by making the Bill applicable to the whole of the United Kingdom instead of just to Northern Ireland. I cannot see why it should be limited in this way, and I hope
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that the noble and learned Lord will be able to give us a good reason as to why it should be so.
7.46 p.m.
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, in the context of events in recent years in Northern Ireland, surely there is very little room for jobbing back. Indeed, it is one of the mercies of the tangled story of the last six years that events have changed, sometimes imperceptibly, sometimes dramatically. From the politicians I think this requires foresight rather than regret, planning not recrimination. Yet it would be a delusion not to recognise that this Bill, a constructive consequence of the Sunningdale Agreement, is desired to satisfy a need which has remained constant throughout the cross-current of recent events in Ireland—the need for both North and South to work together to banish the scourge of terrorism from each of their jurisdictions. My Lords, I realise that naturally to the hard-pressed people of Northern Ireland it seems clear that terrorist acts stem from the opportunity for the terrorist to be able to melt away into the background, usually provided by a safe house, and from the facility to be able to slip across the Border, there to shelter behind the restriction placed upon the extradition of fugitive offenders.
To deal with this problem the Report of the Law Enforcement Commission clearly showed that legal opinion from the United Kingdom favours extradition of offenders at present excluded because of their political character. I agree with my noble friend Lord Brookeborough that this would be the best method for bringing fugitive offenders to justice. But, of course, as a whole, as the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor has recorded, the Commission could not agree on this point so we had this Bill which gives effect to the Commission's agreed alternative—a system of extra-territorial jurisdiction.
My Lords, I am grateful, and other noble Lords including the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, who is versed in the law, have also thanked the noble and learned Lord for his explanation of the main provisions of the Bill. Although the Law Enforcement Commission affirmed that the situation required not far-reaching law reform but immediate practical

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measures, nevertheless inevitably this Bill is legal in character. It is also complicated—at least I find it so—because although the Bill's effect is to confer on courts in Northern Ireland jurisdiction to try fugitive offenders accused of serious crimes of violence in the Republic, it also refers, for instance, in the Schedules, to reciprocal procedures which together make up the total agreement which is now being put into effect by this legislation and by legislation being presented to the Dial in Dublin.
May I echo what my noble friend Lord Brookeborough said, that it is regrettable that it has not been possible to present these Bills more swiftly. More than once the Law Enforcement Commission refer-red to the need for speed, and in Chapter 1 of their Report indicated the scale of the problem as they say it by reference to the 33 warrants outstanding since 1st April 1971 which have been forwarded to the Republic for crimes now set out in Schedule 1 to the Bill. In the ten months which have subsequently elapsed, further warrants have followed and, as the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor said in his speech, none has succeeded in extracting an offender. Having said that, I think the delay has had this advantage: the recent Christmas ceasefire has shown that this Bill is being introduced at a time when people increasingly long for peace.
So it is to be hoped that to the provisions of this Bill there will be added the strength of public opinion which will reject the terrorist who is on the run and will determine to assist the courts in both jurisdictions to make this legislation really work. For let us not deceive ourselves about the prospects of success to which my noble friend Lord Brookeborough referred. The solution of extra-territorial courts will require a fund of good will and co-operation and the most effective security on both sides of the Border. If I may give just one example of the former requirement, good will and co-operation, it is rather well illustrated in the somewhat complicated provisions of Schedule 3 (3). These protect, as I understand it, a person who has been extradited for a non-extra-territorial offence. if he is subsequently accused of an extra-territorial offence in the South, and, of course, there is the reciprocal provision
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in the Dail's Bill. I appreciate the reasons for the safeguard and, indeed, it could be most important for us reciprocally; but obviously it is not the intention that such a person will simply be allowed to go scot free after seven days. Presumably in such cases the Republic will issue a warrant which will require the accused not to go free, but either to opt to return for trial under Schedule 3(2), or to stand trial where he, in fact, is in Northern Ireland.
However, the will to make this legislation work effectively will need the support of the Security Force. After all, judges will be required to cross the Border to participate in the taking of evidence on Commission. The accused is to have the right to attend the examination of witnesses, as well as being entitled to be legally represented. Some danger must attach to both those processes and, although Clause 5 and Schedule 4 faithfully implement the recommendations of the Law Enforcement Commission for the taking of evidence outside the jurisdiction, as the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor explained, the Bill also makes every possible provision—compatible with a fair trial—for the protection of witnesses. None the less, effective counter-measures against intimidation will still be essential if justice in these courts is to be done. So while recognising the untiring work of the Royal Ulster Constabulary and its high level of crime detection, the passing of this Bill does, once again, concentrate attention on the need for the police in Northern Ireland to have the manpower to be able to protect the individual wherever he may live and to investigate crime wherever it may be committed.
If I may say so, these requirements apply even more forcefully to the Republic where, after all, the numbers of fugutive offenders under this system who are going to be found will probably be the greater and where the Security Forces are rather less thickly disposed on the ground. But so far as Northern Ireland is concerned, we know from Government Statements that the Royal Ulster Constublary numbers remain below target figures. The recent Report of the Com-mission under the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, has drawn attention to the need to strengthen the criminal investigation department of the RUC, and it may be appropriate for these

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and related matters to be probed rather further during the next stage of the Bill.
My noble friend Lord Brookeborough has expressed his extreme reservations. He lives in Northern Ireland and these measures affect him and countless others personally. He has expressed his extreme reservations that extradition is not possible. I agree with him that this solution is a second best, but although my noble friend has given notice that he might put down an Amendment, and although I listened with interest to the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, in asking why the Bill could not extend to the whole United Kingdom, as I understand the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor the difficulty is that it is virtually impossible for it so to extend, because it would be so difficult to import jury trial, to give one example, into this system. But let us be clear that once this extra-territorial jurisdiction is operating between Northern Ireland and the Republic, if someone commits an offence in Great Britain, as contained in Schedule 1, and makes his escape to the Republic and it is clear he cannot be touched, there will then be very justifiable anger throughout Great Britain. I make no political point on this matter, because I also am supporting the Bill. But it is a point that needs further thought before the next stage.
As it seemed to me that Clause 7 dealt to some extent with this problem, so far as explosions were concerned, I attempted to follow the noble and learned Lord as carefully as possible when he gave us a most thorough explanation of the clause. If I followed his explanation correctly, the clause will enable those not only conspiring but also causing an explosion in the Republic, to be tried in United Kingdom courts. But if bombers in Great Britain escape to the Republic then they cannot, as I understood the noble and learned Lord (as the Bail's Bill is at present drafted) be charged with actually causing an explosion. The noble and learned Lord assured the House that this omission had been drawn to the attention of the Irish Government. It is a matter of the first importance to the people of Great Britain and I will revert to it again on the next stage of the Bill.
From this side of the House, therefore, we support the intention of the Bill and the determination of both jurisdictions
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to bring to trial terrorists wherever they are found in Ireland. I know my noble friend Lord Brookeborough and the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, are worried about the extent of the Bill. But may I point out in closing that to bring terrorists to book it has been necessary, in drafting this legislation, to include all extra-territorial offences in Northern Ireland as Scheduled offences under the Emergency Provisions Act, so that they will be subject to the wide powers of arrest and search in that Act, to be tried by a single judge, with these offences, as the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor explained, specifically excluded from the expiry provisions of that Act.
It says much for the combined determination behind this legislation that there has been agreement on this point. Although the Gardiner Commission recorded that the single judge courts in Northern Ireland have worked fairly and well, and it still accepted they must continue on practical grounds, the Commission recorded its belief that trial by jury is the best form of trial for serious cases, and that it should be restored in Northern Ireland as soon as this becomes possible. Few noble Lords would dissent from that view. It is one of the reasons why the Emergency Provisions Act is renewable. But about this Bill let there be no misunderstanding. Subject to improvement, this system of extra-territorial jurisdiction is being set up until people's lives are no longer threatened by terrorism on either side of the Border.
8.0 p.m.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I am most grateful for the welcome, with certain criticisms which have been raised, which the Bill has received. In view of the lateness of the hour, I will not traverse every point that has been made. Obviously, we will have to go into detailed examination of the Bill in Committee. But there are certain matters which I apprehend your Lordships would expect me to deal with at this stage. The noble Viscount, Lord Brookeborough, was somewhat pessimistic about the extent to which this new machinery would work. With good will and real co-operation on both sides across the Border, there is every hope that it will work effectively. Certainly, it is the case that we pressed the machinery of

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extradition as the most effective way of dealing with the problem, but the representatives of the Republic would not have that. Therefore, although this machinery of extra-territorial trials is not so good in our opinion as the extradition process, we think it marks a serious effort to deal with the problem of the fugitive offender.
The noble Viscount raised the constitutional question which has been put in the Republic that the complementary Irish Bill is bound to be challenged in the Republican courts on the grounds that it is unconstitutional and that a convicted person would succeed in an appeal to the Supreme Court. It is the case that, where there is a written Constitution, a Statute can always be challenged in the courts and it is not for me to speculate whether there will be such a challenge or what the result might be. But we are fulfilling our part with the present Bill. I venture to say that careful attention was paid by the Law Enforcement Commission to this constitutional question. For instance, in another field the Republic's representatives took great care in advising against the adoption of extradition, on the grounds that—as they saw it—it would be unconstitutional; but they accepted the validity of the extra-territorial method and, after all, the Irish representatives on the Commission included judges of the Supreme Court of the Republic, who ought, I hope, to have a pretty good idea of what is constitutional and what is not. Indeed, I understand that the Attorney General of the Republic is re-ported as having said that such a body of learned legal men would hardly pro-pose something unconstitutional, which is an attractive, but perhaps not necessarily self-evident, proposition.
However, my Lords, in speaking with a little confidence about this point, it is the case that the Foyle Fisheries Act 1952 provides complementary legislation. It provides that a person who commits a fishery offence in the Foyle area in Northern Ireland may be handed over for trial in the Republic and, conversely, that a resident of Northern Ire-land who commits a fishery offence in the Republic may be tried there or sent for trial in Northern Ireland. So far as I know, the principle involved in the
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fisheries field has not been challenged in the Irish courts. What is appropriate for the fish may well be even more appropriate for terrorists, or at least so I hope.
My Lords, questions were raised more than once in the course of the discussion that as the Bill relates, with the exception of Clause 7, in all its provisions to Northern Ireland and applies to Northern Ireland, there may be a feeling that this might be offensive to Northern Ireland sentiment. The basis of the Bill and, indeed, of the complementary Irish Bill, is the need, which is recognised, I think, by both Governments, to find a way of ensuring that a person committing crimes of violence in one part of Ireland should not be permitted to escape justice by taking refuge in another part of the country. This is the problem with which we are faced. The existence of the land boundary clearly contributes to the problem. The fact that fugitives are not being returned to Northern Ireland very bitterly offends sentiment in Northern Ireland, as the noble Viscount has indicated, and the Bill is an attempt to deal with that, which is the main immediate problem. The figure that I gave of the number of cases of extradition awaiting service was 38. I have no evidence of the figure being as high as the 70 cases to which the noble Lord referred. However, that is a point of detail.
My noble friend Lord Chorley—rightly in my opinion—indicated the technicality of some of the provisions. I hope that he is being unduly pessimistic in contemplating a field day for my learned friends in this House sitting judicially. Perhaps I may mention one or two other matters which my noble friend raised. It is not true that the Irish Republic's Bill relates to the United Kingdom as a whole. The extra-territorial jurisdiction, other than the provision in Clause 7, is only reciprocal as between Northern Ireland and the Republic. My noble friend also asked me about the repeals in Schedule 6 and whether they applied to the whole of the United Kingdom or only to Northern Ireland. I think that question is answered in Clause 14(5). Parts II and III of Schedule 6 extend only to Northern Ireland and the rest of the repeals in Schedule 6 extend to the whole of the United Kingdom.

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My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, for indicating the support of the Opposition for the proposals in the Bill. He raised some questions about the effect of the Bill as a whole and in particular of Clauses 4 and 7 so far as offences committed by terrorists in this country are concerned. It may be useful if I again endeavour to answer the question whether the Irish provisions allow bombers who escape from Great Britain to be tried in the Republic for extra-territorial offences, if they get there. I think the answer is, up to a point, yes. If they were Irish citizens, they could be tried under the Irish Bill for a preparatory act done anywhere with intent to cause a serious explosion. That would include such a preparatory act with intent to cause a serious explosion in Great Britain. If the bombers were not Irish citizens, they could be tried only in the Republic for such an offence if it could be shown that the preparatory act, the conspiracy or the planning took place in the Republic.
Clause 4 of the Irish Bill does not, as the noble Lord pointed out—and this is a weakness at present which I readily concede—enable anyone, whether an Irish citizen or not, to be tried in the Republic under Section 28 of the Explosive Substances Act 1883 for the substantive offence of actually causing an explosion. So one has the curious situation of the conspiracy to cause an explosion being dealt with but not the substantive offence. I hope that the Irish authorities will give further thought to this matter and that we shall be able to obtain a satisfactory solution to the problem in the mood that has now developed of mutual determination to put an end to violence.
My Lords, I will not burden your Lordships further. The Government are grateful for the support that the Bill has received and we must now look to the future—that the machinery can be effectively implemented to deal with what has become a pernicious scandal.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

SOCIAL SECURITY (CONSEQUENTIAL PROVISIONS) BILL [H.L.]
8.10 p.m.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That the Order of Commitment of Monday last be discharged and the Bill be referred to the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.