Lords Sitting of 14 May 1975

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR On the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Portsmouth.
The Lord Forester—Took the Oath.

POST OFFICE: CHARITY STAMPS
Baroness PHILLIPS: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether the experimental issue of charity postage stamps has had a successful outcome in raising money for charity.
The MINISTER of STATE, DEPARTMENT of INDUSTRY (Lord Beswick): My Lords, it will be for the Post Office and the National Council of Social Service to assess its results. I understand that the Post Office expects to make an announcement next month about the progress of the charity stamp experiment which was introduced for one year last January.
Baroness PHILLIPS: My Lords, I should like to thank the Minister for that reply. Is it possible for him to tell me whether there is a likelihood that this experiment will be repeated; and, if so, whether it could be for a longer period than four weeks?
Lord BESWICK: My Lords, I am not quite sure what my noble friend means by a period of four weeks. This is a scheme for one year. I should think that the possibility of its continuation or repetition would be one for consideration later in the year.
Lord MAELOR: My Lords, can the Minister tell me whether the experimental issue of 7p stamps has proved a dead loss so far as the Post Office is concerned?
Lord BESWICK: My Lords, I understand it might have been better.

DIRECT GRANT SCHOOLS: TEACHERS' CAREERS
2.39 p.m.
Lord ELTON: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have yet made a decision on the protection of the careers of teachers who are teaching efficiently in direct grant schools, but who are not otherwise qualified, when the direct grant is withdrawn.
The MINISTER of STATE, DEPARTMENT of EDUCATION and SCIENCE (Lord Crowther-Hunt): My Lords, guidance on this matter has been sent by the Department of Education and Science to direct grant schools and local education authorities. While no guarantee can be given that qualified teacher status will automatically be granted to teachers entering the maintained system who do not already possess it, the Department will be ready to consider an application from a local education authority for such status to be granted to a teacher without it on the basis of a combination of service, experience and qualifications. The Department will also be prepared to agree to any request from a local education authority for the period of probation to be waived in the case of a teacher who transfers to the maintained system after satisfactory service in a direct grant school.
Lord ELTON: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that reply. May I ask what comfort teachers may expect to draw from it, since the assurances of good will which it implies—which are the same as implied in the circular letter issued many weeks ago from which he quoted—apply to local authorities as prospective employers and not to teachers?
Lord CROWTHER-HUNT: My Lords, the teachers concerned could draw every comfort from that. While no blanket award of qualified teacher status can be given in advance, each case will be looked at on its merits as sympathetically as is consonant with the maintenance of the standards of the profession.
Lord ELTON: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for that further reply, may I ask whether this will be extended to the question of salaries? Does the aspiration contained in the letter extend to the sentence:
"The Burnham salary document does not apply to staff hitherto employed in direct grant schools."
Is he able to give an assurance that their urging of the maintenance of salary and seniority standards obtained by the staff in the past will be maintained in the future?
Lord CROWTHER-HUNT: My Lords, that, in a sense, is a different question; but I am prepared to answer it in part. No guarantee can be given about salaries of individual teachers who are teaching in direct grant schools which become maintained, because the provisions of the Burnham salary document do not apply to direct grant or other independent schools. But my right honourable friend would expect the employing authorities to do what they could, within the terms of the Burnham salary document, to safeguard such salaries.
Baroness BACON: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the statement he has made shows that the Government are being more generous to the unqualified teachers in direct grant schools than we were in 1968 to the unqualified teachers in the maintained system?
Lord CROWTHER-HUNT: My Lords, we are on this occasion trying to be as generous as we can without any lowering of the standards of the profession.
Lord ELTON: My Lords, while welcoming this intention of generosity, may I finally ask whether this extends to teachers who as a result of Government policy in this matter lose their jobs and become redundant? What will be the arrangements for payment of compensation and loss of employment for teachers who, as a result of this, cannot obtain employment?
Lord CROWTHER-HUNT: My Lords, that is a different question. If the noble Lord cares to put it down I will attempt to answer it.
Lord SLATER: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether, in view of this
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Question and Answer, it has become Government policy to waive the teachers' diploma to qualify to be a teacher? Is my noble friend aware that I have a direct interest in this issue, because my daughter is a teacher; and she had to spend two years at college in order to qualify, for which she received a teaching diploma?
Lord CROWTHER-HUNT: My Lords, there is no intention on the Government's part of waiving any of the present qualifications which are required to become a qualified teacher.
Lord DRUMALBYN: My Lords, would it not be reasonable, if the experience and qualifications of a teacher commend themselves to the Department, to take into account for salary purposes the years of experience?
Lord CROWTHER-HUNT: Again, my Lords, that is a rather different question. I have no doubt that it could be wrapped up in the Question which the noble Lord, Lord Elton, is to put to me on another occasion.

THE ECONOMY: PARTY DISCUSSIONS
2.43 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 whether, in view of increasing inflation, any discussion has taken place with leaders of the Opposition in order to ascertain their views.
Lord BESWICK: My Lords, members of the Opposition have many opportunities to make known their views on this subject.
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that that is a most unsatisfactory Answer and, indeed, quite irrelevant in the present situation? May I ask my noble friend whether it would not be more satisfactory—rather than allowing public confrontation, of which the public are becoming a little bored because of the bickering and the lack of any satisfactory result, to continue—if there were private discussions and a subsequent Communiqué if necessary, so

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that the views of the Opposition could be submitted to the Government confidentially with some hope of fruitful results? Further, is my noble friend aware that, when Mr. Heath was Prime Minister in 1970, I made a proposition in this House that he should meet Mr. Wilson, Mr. Thorpe, the CBI and the TUC for discussions in order to diagnose the complaint and in the hope of achieving some satisfactory results? Is my noble friend aware that that proposal was ignored and that when Mr. Wilson became Prime Minister last year I repeated the submission, which was again ignored? Does my noble friend not agree that, if it had been considered and something useful had occurred, we might have avoided much of the trouble which has accrued?
Lord BESWICK: My Lords, I share my noble friend's wish to see public discussion devoid of bickering and an atmosphere of confrontation. That was a view which I expressed in this House last Wednesday, but it still remains a fact that in proper public discussion it would be feasible to discover what views are held by Her Majesty's Opposition on this most important subject. So far as the TUC and the CBI are concerned, again, as was said last week, there are opportunities, and those opportunities are being used to find out, and to consult with them about, what may be possible in the present situation.
Lord CARRINGTON: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that, if the Government make proposals to remedy the serious economic situation, which they can do as they have an overall majority in another place, they will be supported by those of us on these Benches who will accept them as being—if indeed they are—in the national interest? But is he also aware that, at the same time, we shall expect an acknowledgement of the seriousness of the economic situation and a constructive lead to be given rather than the complacency to which we had to listen last Sunday?
Lord BESWICK: My Lords, I believe I said something about excluding bickering. I thought that that would help the atmosphere. However, so far as the first part of the noble Lord's question is concerned, I wholly welcome what he said.
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, does my noble friend realise that what has just happened is a demonstration of what I am seeking to avoid? Does he further realise that I am not asking for a Coalition, which I believe would be disastrous in the existing circumstances, but that I am suggesting that, apart from the discussions with the CBI, the TUC, the Neddies, and so on, there is a political element in all this and that it would be worth while making a proposition such as I have suggested? Would my noble friend be kind enough to convey my submission to my right honourable friend the Prime Minister or shall I make representations to him myself?
Lord BESWICK: My Lords, it had been my intention to put before my right honourable friend the Prime Minister what my noble friend has said. I shall certainly do that, but that does not mean to say that my noble friend—who has a very close connection with my right honourable friend the Prime Minister—should not in turn make his own representations.
Lord BRUCE of DONINGTON: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that many of us on this side of the House at any rate are quite confident of the competence of the Government to govern the country properly?
Lord ORR-EWING: When?
Lord CLITHEROE: My Lords, as the word "inflation" means "blowing up", would it not be more useful, in general, to refer either to the depreciation or the debasement of the currency?
Lord BESWICK: My Lords, I am not disposed to deny what the noble Lord says. The fact of the matter is that in this last week, unhappily in part stemming from a debate in this House last Wednesday, there has been a public disposition to blow up our problems. Such magnification and exaggeration of our difficulties will not do anyone any good.
Lord DAVIES of LEEK: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the greatest debasement of our currency since the days of King John took place under a Tory Chancellor of the Exchequer—Mr. Robert Carr—is that not an economic fact?
Viscount AMORY: My Lords, whether or not the present circumstances are favourable, will the noble Lord accept that until we can achieve some measure of agreement on economic policies, our fortunes are likely to remain in a grim state?
Lord BESWICK: My Lords, what I do say readily is that it is unlikely that any policy will be successful unless it carries with it the full support of the British people.
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, as there appears to be still a little time left before three o'clock, may I ask a further question? Would my noble friend consider ascertaining the views of your Lordships' House on the proposition I venture to make and, on the Government's initiative, arrange a debate accordingly? Would it not be desirable to find out what Members on both sides of your Lordships' House think of this proposition in order to secure—I do not suggest a solution; that may be very difficult to achieve—an approach to a solution? Would it not, at any rate, have the effect of instilling some confidence in the people of the country that some united effort was being made—apart from a Coalition—in order to find a solution to our financial problems?
Lord BESWICK: My Lords, as to the question of a debate, there was a debate in this House last Wednesday. I am sorry that my noble friend did not take part in that debate and that he was not present during the course of it. With regard to the possibility of private discussions between the leaders of the two sides, I know that my noble friend in his earlier days had some industrial experience, and so have I, and I think he would agree with me that timing in these matters is very important. There may well come a time when such discussions would be fruitful, but I suggest that it is not immediately so.
Lord LEE of NEWTON: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that today the TUC General Council is discussing a Paper which seeks to redefine the terms of the Social Contract? Keeping that in mind, as well as the speech this morning by Mr. Campbell Adamson for the CBI, would it not be a good initiative if the Government, following these two meeting, brought together the TUC and the CBI
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to see whether progress can be made on those terms?
Lord BESWICK: My Lords, as my noble friend says there are at present some very interesting and useful discussions taking place, which should be encouraged. If it should prove possible, and if it should appear desirable for the two sides to come together, as my noble friend suggests, I am sure that the opportunity will be taken.
Lord AVEBURY: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that while consultations on the lines proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, may be highly desirable, that time is not on our side? Does the noble Lord agree that if, as is suggested in some quarters, the economic measures that should be taken by the Chancellor of the Exchequer are delayed until after the referendum is held, it will by then be too late?
Lord BESWICK: My Lords, the noble Lord said time is not on our side; of course it is not, but that does not mean we should rush into things which would not be constructive.

FERRANTI LIMITED
Baroness LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOE: My Lords, with the leave of the House, at a convenient moment after 3.30 p.m. my noble friend Lord Beswick will be repeating a Statement on Ferranti Limited.

ABUSES OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS ACT
2.53 p.m.
Lord HOUGHTON of SOWERBY Lord HOUGHTON of SOWERBY rose to call attention to abuses of the Cruelty to Animals Act 1876; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, a great deal of research and study has gone into my speech this afternoon and I wish to acknowledge with appreciation the help I have received from the RSPCA, of whose Committee on Animal Experiments I am a member. Cruelty to animals is an offence against the law of this country. Acts of Parliament going back many years were largely consolidated in the Protection of Animals Act 1911 and the corresponding Act for

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Scotland of 1912. The definition of "cruelty", as set out in that Act, is wide and comprehensive. For example, to administer a poisonous or injurious drug or substance without any reasonable cause or excuse, or to torture, infuriate, or terrify an animal could be an offence under that Act. But some actions involving cruelty, or the infliction of pain, may be lawfully committed if they are done far the purposes and within the conditions of the Cruelty to Animals Act 1876. What are they, my Lords? I shall first deal with the purpose.
The Act of 1876 says that it is not permissible to perform on a living animal; that is, a vertebrate,
"an experiment calculated to give pain"
unless the experiment is performed with a view to the advancement by new discovery of
"physiological knowledge or knowledge which will be useful … for saving or prolonging life or alleviating suffering …"
Those words, my Lords, govern the purpose of all experiments conducted under the protection of the 1876 Act. So far as I can ascertain, those words have remained unchanged for the hundred years of the Act of 1876. So far as I know, they have not been interpreted by any court at any time. I suggest that one reason for that is that experimenters who hold licences under the provisions of that Act may not be prosecuted, except with the assent of the Secretary of State, and I have no knowledge of anyone ever having been prosecuted. Infringements brought to light by inspectors have been reported and those concerned have been admonished, warned or have even had their licences withdrawn. But, so far as I am aware, not one has ever been prosecuted.
The Act contains no definition of "experiment" or "pain". The Home Secretary has exercised wide powers of interpretation himself. For example, "pain" is regarded as including,
"discomfort or interference with an animal's normal state of health or well-being."
Your Lordships will recognise that that goes very wide indeed. Again, the word "experiment" is taken to cover any procedure designed to find the answer to a problem. There are other questions of interpretation in the Act, to which I shall
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refer later. But the point I want to make at this stage is that the Act of 1876 is a suspending Act in so far as it relieves persons, licensed under its provisions to conduct experiments on living animals, from penalties to which they would otherwise be liable under the Protection of Animals Act 1911. It grants them immunity from prosecution under the 1911 Act. Licences may be granted by the Home Secretary to qualified persons to carry out experiments, on condition that during the whole of an experiment the animal must be fully anæsthetised and, if the pain is likely to continue after the effect of the anæsthetic has ceased, or if any serious injury has been inflicted on the animal, it must be killed before it recovers from the anaesthetic.
Those are the conditions of the granting of a licence under the 1876 Act. Those standard conditions for carrying out an experiment under the Act give quite a misplaced feeling of comfort to many troubled people. They think that pain is at least taken care of by anæsthetics, or by euthanasia while still under the influence of an anæsthetic. But the fact is that only a fraction of 1 per cent of experiments took place under those conditions in 1973. Only 180,000 out of over 5 million experiments were conducted under the simple licensed conditions that I have read out. All the others were carried out under special certificates which excused the licensee from strict compliance with the requirements as to anæsthesia and euthanasia.
Those certificates excuse the licence-holder from observing the conditions of the licence, but he must observe the conditions of the certificate. For example, 500,000 experiments were conducted under Certificate B. Certificate B waives the requirement of the licence to kill the animal while still anæsthetised if pain or injury still continue afterwards. Those half a million animals were returned to full consciousness to suffer any pain or injury resulting from the experiment. But by far the greatest number of experiments—that is, 85 per cent. of them, representing 4½ million—were in 1973 carried out under Certificate A. Experiments under Certificate A are generally non-surgical cases where anæsthesia is dispensed with, and it is in this very large field that most of the abuses of the Act in my opinion take place.
Certificate A covers the testing of drugs, poisons, sera and vaccines. It also covers trying out for safety, quality and efficiency such preparations as face powder, shampoos, weed killers, insecticides and substances which are supposed to wash whiter than white. You name it, my Lords, and some animals will have been forced to eat it, have it injected or put into their eyes, or they may have been shaved of hair or fur so that substances may be tried out upon their skins. Many of these experiments are described in a recently published book by Mr. Richard Ryder, entitled Victims of Science, which I reviewed in the Spectator on 1st March this year and which has received a good deal of notice. I have obtained confirmation of the facts of many examples quoted in that book, as may be seen from the Official Report of proceedings in your Lordships' House for 1st May this year.
This vast field of experiments under Certificate A is extremely complex and full of difficulties. Within it are 1¼ million mandatory tests for the standardisation of sera, vaccines, medicines or materials required under the Therapeutic Substances Act 1956 and the Diseases of Animals Act 1950. But even in this so-called mandatory field of testing of substances, there seems to be a legislative problem. In 1968, Parliament passed the Medicines Act which, in Sections 31 to 39, provides for clinical tests on animals. There is a list of exemptions which is both long and complicated and which is not material to my point, but the Home Office say that the Therapeutic Substances Act 1956 and the Diseases of Animals Act 1950 will be superseded by the relevant provisions of the Medicines Act 1968—though at present the Department of Health and Social Security cannot say when that will be done. So we have two existing Acts of Parliament which are to be superseded by another Act passed seven years ago, but when that will happen is not known. Presumably this means that in this respect the Medicines Act 1968 is not yet in full operation. But as the law stands at present, if I understand it aright, there is mandatory testing for substances, medicines and so forth, for which some therapeutic value is claimed; otherwise testing is not required by law.
Assuming that 1¼ million experiments are required by law under the Acts I have quoted, what about the remaining 3¼ million experiments referred to in the Home Office Annual Report? What are they? Where no mandatory tests are required, all the rest of them, if they involve pain or cruelty, are protected from the liability to prosecution under the 1911 Act only if they are covered by the necessary licence and certificate granted by the Home Secretary, or on his behalf, under the 1876 Act.
For this purpose, I believe the Home Office have widened the interpretation of the 1876 Act beyond the bounds which are justified. I repeat that no court has been asked to construe the words of the Act, for instance, to protect the testing of women's make-up, or soap or shampoo on living animals. The Home Office have confirmed that oral toxicity tests have been licensed to feed animals on cosmetics. It would be a great mistake to think that the test of a face powder is to powder the face of a rabbit as if it were the face of a woman. It would be equally mistaken to think that soap is tested simply by getting a monkey to wash its hands. These toxicity tests are always made by grossly exaggerated treatments and they in no way compare with normal usage. A shampoo is tested by instilling it into the eyes of a rabbit, not by washing its fur. Strong soap solutions may be rubbed into the backs of shaved rats and left for seven minutes and then the treatment can be repeated up to 12 times. I am quoting from one of the experiments conducted in the Unilever Research Laboratories at Bedford. After repeated treatments, scaling and fissuring of the whole epidermis was common. Over 100 animals were used for this experiment.
To give another example, 10 different commercially obtainable shampoos were instilled into the eyes of 180 New Zealand white rabbits. Particulars of that experiment may be found in the reply to a Question in the Official Report of your Lordships' House on 8th May. To test face cream, one tenth of a millimetre of cream is instilled into the conjunctival sac of the eye of a rabbit. The animal is restrained on a bench and the eyelids held apart. The rabbit is then released.

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Nine rabbits are used for the testing of each substance. Six of them have their eyes washed shortly after the application, but the remaining three rabbits are not so fortunate. In their case the substance is left in the eyes and damage to the eye is then assessed at intervals of 24, 48 and 72 hours and at intervals of four and seven days afterwards for as long as the injury persists. This is not an isolated test: it is the standard test. It is the universal method of assessing potential eye irritancy of cosmetic products. So they go on, and on, and on.
Can these tests really be called experiments to find an answer to a problem, which the Act requires? Are they lawful under the 1876 Act? Is what is called "quality testing" or "efficiency testing" within the meaning of any reasonable construction of the words of the Act? I quote the Act. Is this—
"the advancement by new discovery of physiological knowledge, or of knowledge which will be useful for saving or prolonging life or alleviating suffering"?
Must men have their deodorants tested upon animals in a painful way to alleviate the human suffering of body odour? I could quote chapter and verse for dozens more really painful ways of making animals suffer for the vanity of women and the fastidiousness of men. They are, in my humble submission, an abuse of the law.
I believe that some phasing out of this type of experiment on live animals should now be seriously considered. Already a movement in the cosmetic industry for "Beauty without cruelty" is gaining ground. Two large cosmetic manufacturers, household names, to whom I spoke this morning no longer merchandise for the home market cosmetic preparations which have needed testing on live animals. One of them writes to say that the basic materials from which cosmetics are made have been available for a good many years now, and one can say that, having stood the test of time, they can be considered safe. The letter continues:
"On the rare occasion we use a new formulation we test it in our research laboratories on staff who are willing volunteers".
Unfortunately there is a growing insistence by overseas buyers, particularly in the United States, upon the application of what is known as the Draise test on
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living animals. This is a problem. Something is safe for home consumption, but buyers from overseas, or some of them, want a certificate of tests on living animals. Our export trade is involved. Our morality is involved. All I will say is that I believe that here is a matter for serious consideration. If manufacturers feel that they can abandon with confidence testing on living animals for the home market, could we not try to persuade overseas buyers that they can safely take these substances on the same terms? At least I hope that this side of the matter will not escape the Government's attention.
Now I come to nicotine. The tobacco interests can of course pour money into trying to discover more about the effects of smoking and to find some less harmful alternatives. We had a short and interesting debate on the general problem last Monday. We know that smoking tobacco is the great national drug addiction. Let us look at only some of the things now being done under the protection of the 1876 Act to discover—and I quote again:
"new physiological knowledge or to prolong life or alleviate suffering".
The simple act of stopping smoking is not included in the ways of avoiding its harmful effects. This is very sad, but it is true.
One way of finding more information about this subject is to refer to the list of experiments I asked about and which was published in the Official Report of 1st May. I quote
"squirrel monkeys"—
are—
"implanted with brain electrodes; cannulae implanted in the jugular vein; connected to a ball-valve cemented to skull; monkeys restrained in chairs, and injected intravenously with nicotine to give a blood concentration similar to that obtained by smoking". (Col. 87.)
That is an experiment. That does not sound very pleasant. It was done under licence and Certificates A and B. It was done at the Huntingdon Research Centre where they have dogs undergoing tests for tobacco smoking and 91 monkeys as well. We imported 11,500 monkeys into Britain in 1973 solely for scientific research. The devastation of the wildlife of the world is continuing at an alarming rate to satisfy the desire for new physiological knowledge by an affluent Western people.
Now I come to another range of substances promoted commercially and in respect of which licences and certificates are granted for experiments on living animals. Again, my Lords, see the list in the Official Report of 1st May:
"Building material to replace asbestos finely ground and injected into rats; asbestos also injected".—[Col. 87.]
The purpose was described as evaluation of tumour-producing potential. Another also on the list is an insecticide called Gusathion. Thirty-two pure-bred young cocker spaniels had this preparation put into their food. At high poison concentration they developed tremors and muscular weakness. One dog lost one-third in weight, had discharges from both eyes, laboured breathing, occasional bouts of vomiting and jaundice, and then it gave up and died after a week. That was done under Certificate A and by sanction given in Certificate E to use dogs. All experiments on dogs or cats require the approval of the Home Secretary under an additional certificate, Certificate E. We do, of course, love our pets, and dogs and cats were given this special protection under the 1876 Act. A well-known weed killer is sodium chlorate. Pedigree beagle dogs were poisoned by being force-fed with this substance by stomach tube. This was continued for five days—see Official Report of 8th May.
I come to the next area of doubt and difficulty abundant, in my opinion, with abuses under the Act, and that is painful psychological experiments. I will not stop to discuss whether physiological knowledge in 1876 can be regarded as including psychological knowledge in 1975. In this, as in many other respects, words can mean what one wants them to mean. Nevertheless, this sector of animal experimentation troubled the Littlewood Committee very much indeed. The Littlewood Committee were appointed in 1963 by the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor (who has told me that he regrets not being able to be present in your Lordships' House today), and took two years to go into all these matters thoroughly. I would remind your Lordships that to terrify or infuriate an animal is an offence under the Protection of Animals Act 1911. If undertaken on licence and certificate under the 1876 Act it is not. Experiments to induce stress and to
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observe behaviour under stress are increasing. The Littlewood Committee said that in their view every proposal to perform experiments designed to induce stress should be referred to an advisory committee for consideration before the experiments were undertaken. That, my Lords, has never been done—10 wasted years.
I will not trouble your Lordships' House with many further examples but will refer at any rate to two. At Hull University the effect of fear on exploratory behaviour was assessed by recording the activity of rats in a Y maze. A Y maze is like the letter Y. Half the rats received electric shocks prior to placement in the maze. In their case it was observed that they had reduced exploratory behaviour. An experiment was carried out at the medical research centre at Cambridge to discover the effects of 13 days' maternal separation of infant Rhesus monkeys compared with those of shorter and repeated separations. Two twice-separated infants died before they were a year old and no definite cause of death was found. Infant monkeys separated for 13 days from their mothers gave more distress calls and showed a greater depression of locomotor and play behaviour than did the infants whose mothers had been removed for only six days.
I am making no comment, my Lords. The Home Office were not even sure whether this experiment was calculated to give pain within the meaning of the Act. The experiment went ahead without a certificate of approval and then news of it leaked out and, subsequently, the professor who did the experiment asked for a certificate to be granted retrospectively—and it was. In my submission this was ultra vires. There is no provision in the Act for the granting of a licence or a certificate retrospectively. Sad to relate, there are some horrifying brain operations being conducted in this new field of the study of behaviour. I am not going to say that they are abuses of the Act, though I do say that this new field of behavioural science needs the closest attention. It includes a wide and increasing range of psycho-active drugs and I think it is deeply regrettable that no Government have acted on the cautionary words of the Littlewood Committee, who wanted more to be

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learned about this subject before further experiments went on.
The Littlewood Committee said, in paragraphs 459 and 460 of their Report, that they were advised that enough was known of the mechanism of stress to justify very critical examination of further proposals to set up analogues to human stress for confirmatory study. I have not burdened your Lordships with even a summary of the 80 or so recommendations of the Littlewood Report. I believe that some have been implemented by administrative action, many others have not;some require legislation. Both Governments have left the legislative side of Littlewood severely alone. They have adopted an attitude of studied indifference. They have no proposals to make and nothing to add to what they have already said. Letters appear to emanate from the most uninspired section of the Home Office. Some of us have tried in another place by Private Members' Bills to make some impression upon the stubbornness of the Home Office. Our Bills are talked out and the Government willingly see them go, frustrate action by others and do nothing themselves. Research establishments go over to the defensive at the first word of critical inquiry.
As the sponsors of the 1876 Act so rightly said nearly 100 years ago:
"This Bill is a revolt against the claim of science to be a sovereign State."
That is the challenge that I am making this afternoon. Researchers and experimenters, public or otherwise, are accountable to the public and to Parliament. What do I propose? I propose, first, that the Government should undertake to prepare legislation on many of the recommendations of the Littlewood Report which are still outstanding; secondly, support my proposals for the setting up of a Select Committee of your Lordships' House to examine the Littlewood Report in the light of current conditions and other relevant matters; thirdly, and meanwhile—and this is the speediest action that could be taken now—follow the welcome reconstitution of the Advisory Committee recently announced by enlarging its functions, giving it a more positive role and some initiative and the right to inspect and advise upon anything relevant to its task. Fancy calling it an Advisory Committee when it has met only twice
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in five years, simply because it cannot say anything about anything unless something is referred to it by the Secretary of State. When he chooses not to refer, the Advisory Committee is so much waste paper. The last time it met was in September of last year. Of all the dogs in this sorry tale the one we need most is a watchdog, and this Advisory Committee would be that.
Fourthly, we want more information. Littlewood said that we ought to have it; there should be less secrecy. What is there to hide? We have the right to know. We are not all over-sentimental extremists. The Home Office return under the Act is quite inadequate; it is the barest summary. It gives a lot of figures but hides the truth. I would say, "Let us have some responsible documentary films so that people know what research is all about". Fifthly, there is the matter of alternatives to living animals. I ask the Government to give practical encouragement and support to the study of alternatives to living animals. There is not enough push behind the effort now being made I think entirely by voluntary bodies, notably the Dowding Fund, the work of the two Heggarty's in FRAME (the Fund for the Replacement of Animals in Medical Experiments) and the Humane Research Trust—from which I see there is a letter in The Times newspaper today. My Lords, in conclusion I make an earnest appeal to my noble friend to make some favourable response to what I believe is a strong, indeed an overwhelming, prima facie case for closer scrutiny and investigation. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
Baroness WHITE: My Lords, before my noble friend sits down, may I ask whether he would not think it proper to explain to the House why over the past few weeks he has tabled a series of Questions mentioning specifically, and by name, one research centre—the Huntingdon Research Centre—when, to the best of my belief, he has never visited it and to my certain knowledge he has never contacted its Director, Mr. Alastair Worden? Has he consulted any member of the scientific committee which supervises the scientific work at the Centre and which includes the President of the Royal Society of Physicians, and the President of the Royal College of Surgeons, and does he not think that it is unfortunate to

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use his position in this House to make insinuations which he has not, today at any rate, sought to justify?
Lord HOUGHTON of SOWERBY: My Lords, I am not aware that I have made insinuations. The answer to my noble friend is that I have quoted from reports and returns rendered by that Research Centre.
3.28 p.m.
Lord SANDYS: My Lords, it is indeed a source of great encouragement to the whole of the animal welfare field that the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, has thought fit to put down this Motion this afternoon and to restrict its terms in a very precise manner to the working of the 1876 Act. My credentials, if you like, for speaking this afternoon are these: I have in the past taken a very great interest in this subject and I spoke in support of the Export of Animals Research Bill introduced into your Lordships' House on 30th January, 1969, by my noble friend Lord Massereene and Ferrard. I further spoke in a debate which I think is the only debate on the Littlewood Report which your Lordships' House has had up to this time. It was on an Unstarred Question on 27th January 1970 regarding experiments on animals. My Lords, those are slim enough credentials, nevertheless I think I may establish before your Lordships an interest over a number of years in this subject.
There is one past Member of your Lordships' House who was held in deep affection by your Lordships, the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, and I wish to quote from a personal letter which I received from him some years ago. In regard to the 1876 Act he said:
"Dear Sandys, Nearly a century ago Frances Power Cobb drew the attention of some prominent members of society to the painful and often pointless experiments that were then being carried out on some hundreds of animals every year."
Her memorandum calling for a halt drew support from the Lord Chancellor, the Lord Chief Justice, Cardinal Manning, Jowett, Ruskin, Tennyson, Browning, and many other distinguished persons.
This led to the enactment of the Cruelty to Animals Act 1876, regarded by Lord Shaftesbury as a first inadequate step.
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Today some 5 million animals, their welfare supervised by 13 inspectors, are used and disposed of annually like paper tissues, and there has been no second step. There are many people who feel that licensed researchers can be trusted to use their powers with discretion and humanity. After reading in The Times of 26th August 1969 that animals at a Government research station had been exposed for five hours at a time for three months on end to the distressing effects of CS gas in concentrations a thousand times greater than that required to disperse a crowd, we cannot share their confidence.
The House owes much to the late Lord Silk in for earlier debates. However, think that the efforts of my noble friend Lord Brooke of Cumnor, who has been referred to this afternoon by the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, and who set up the Littlewood Committee on 23rd May, 1963, deserve our special interest and attention, because it is the Littlewood Committee Report which sets out so many of the recommendations which successive Governments have failed to enact in full. The noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, said quite definitely that some of the recommendations have been carried out. Indeed they have, but no fewer than 83 recommendations were set out in that Report. Therefore, I should like to draw the attention of your Lordships to certain problems.
From the legislative point of view, one should look at paragraph 242 of the Report which asked the very leading question, what should be the scope of the law? Certainly the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, demonstrated to me, although he may not have demonstrated it to those with a professional legal training, that there is a conflict between the 1876 Act and its use and the working of the 1911 Act. Nevertheless, it is true that in our debate this afternoon we are concerned with the earlier Act, namely, the 1876 Act, and I should like to draw your Lordships' attention to certain deficiencies in that Act.
In this particular regard I venture to draw your Lordships' attention to paragraph 453 of the Littlewood Report. This is particularly important in regard to Crown establishments, because the 1876

731
Act does not apply to the Crown. Paragraph 453 of the Littlewood Report says this:
"It will be evident from Chapter 10 that a substantial volume of research is carried out by Crown establishments. This situation was not foreseen when the Act was passed. We have established that Government Departments have fully complied with the requirements of the Act, although they have not been legally subject to it."
Surely this is a matter which requires urgent attention. The reconstituted advisory committee, to which attention has already been drawn, will have a large number of matters to attend to. Nevertheless, it is only right to point out that official research, which is mentioned in some detail in paragraph 170 of the Report, is of special importance. At the end of 1963, which was prior to the Littlewood Report, the total number of Government Departments included the Public Health Laboratory Service Board, the Medical and Agricultural Research Councils, the Regional Hospital Boards, and the boards of governors of teaching hospitals. Those who were responsible numbered 261 out of a general total of 556. Therefore, as an approximation only, one can say that the Crown establishments or official bodies have at least a 50 per cent. interest in the total number of experiments which are conducted.
The noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, referred to the definition of an "experiment". This is of particular significance in conducting our debate. My view is that one can take one of a number of definitions. However, the Little-wood Report quotes this definition, which differs from the definition quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby. Littlewood used the Shorter Oxford Dictionary definition, which says that an "experiment" is:
"A procedure adopted in uncertainty whether it will answer the purpose. … An action or operation undertaken in order to discover something unknown, to test a hypothesis or establish or illustrate some known truth."
If that definition were used in the interpretation of the law, especially in regard to the administration of the 1876 Act, I am perfectly certain that a number of those quite horrifying experiments which were referred to in detail by the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, would be subject to a great deal of censure in the courts.
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The next definition with which we must concern ourselves is the definition of pain, to which attention was drawn in the Littlewood Report. Pain in animals is referred to in many different places in the Report, in particular in paragraph 88. But perhaps three degrees of pain are of special importance. They believed that these could be defined and should be granted particular significance in courts of law. The 1876 Act did not define degrees of pain, and this is the subject of considerable censure by one body which I think we ought to commend; namely, the Universities Federation for Animal Welfare, a body which is very well known in this field. It was the only body which drew attention to the fact that there has been very little definition of pain.
In paragraph 185, the Littlewood Report describes the wording of the 1876 Act as "verbose and confusing" and the Universities Federation for Animal Welfare strongly recommend its rewording. That is part only of the whole story. Nevertheless, it is very well worth while to put on public record the recommendation of the Universities Federation for Animal Welfare. They recommended:
"Pain condition should be reworded as follows:

(1) Each licensee shall take effective precautions to prevent, or reduce to a minimum, any pain or other distress or discomfort in the animals used.

(2) Every animal which is suffering discomfort which is likely to endure shall be painlessly killed as soon as the experiment has been completed.

(3) In no case shall any animal be subjected to severe pain which endures or is likely to endure."

It was also suggested that the condition should be embodied in law as a cardinal feature of the whole pattern of control. This is really at the very centre of the question of certification and I think it is greatly to the credit of that body. As I have stressed earlier it was the only body who provided its own views and supplemented them with drafting Amendments.
I turn now to the question of mandatory tests. Those of us who have worked in the Department of Health and Social Security are well aware of the two Acts which the proposer of this Motion referred to—the Therapeutic Substances Act 1956 and the Medicines Act 1968. I think the noble Lord, Lord Houghton. suggested that the Department had, if not legislation

733
on the stocks, at least something coming forward. So one of my first questions—which I hope I address correctly to the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, because I have no doubt that the Home Office is in touch with the DHS in this matter—is this: is there legislation, in draft or about to be in draft, at the present moment which would give currency to what the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, has said?
With regard to the recommendations of the Littlewood Report, I am sorry to be boring about it but, having listened with close interest and horror to what the noble Lord described in the form of experiments, I do not think we shall spend our time in any way ill if we look at the recommendations. There are many which require legislation and there are others which do not. The two which the Littlewood Committee especially referred to were the reinforcement of the Inspectorate and the reconstitution of the Advisory Committee. I hope the Advisory Committee is now sufficiently reinforced, because a strong Inspectorate and an expert Advisory Committee will have a major part to play in this whole field.
Nevertheless, I should like to draw your Lordships' attention to the reinforcement of the Inspectorate. As your Lordships are aware, only 13 inspectors have been referred to, and my second question to the noble Lord, Lord Harris, is this: Is it correct that the numbers have not been increased, for reasons known to the Home Office, or is there at present a recruiting intention to increase the number of inspectors in this field? It would be helpful to know those two facts and, if they are not at present known, I wonder whether the House would perhaps devote time through the usual channels to a further debate on this subject.
I had not intended to speak at the same length as the proposer of the Motion; nevertheless, I have spent about half that time and I should like to end on a positive note. Reference has been made to alternatives to vivisection and also to the possibility of using these alternatives for the very large number of experiments not specially concerned with medical research; for instance, those concerned with beauty aids, gardening aids, and a hundred and one household,
734
industrial and other products in which animals are used in experiments. For a number of years cell and tissue culture as an alternative to vivisection has been a fact in this field. I cannot stress too strongly my personal view, which is that the researches in this field have been more beneficial possibly than almost any other in reducing the necessity for vivisection.
It was Professor S. T. Aygun, a Turkish professor, who spoke at the World Congress Against Vivisection in August 1967, and his address I have in my hand. It left no doubt in the minds of his audience at that time—and, certainly, his published papers since then have only gone to reinforce it—that cell and tissue culture has a great future and a great part to play in the testing of substances. I think there is only one further comment I should like to make on the 1876 Act before leaving it, and that is in regard to the comment of one of your Lordships on the Act with which I beg to disagree. On 30th January 1969, the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury said this:
"I commend to your Lordships the structure of the 1876 Act. It is a good Act; it is well drafted. The fact that after 92 years it has never been necessary to take it to Court to find out what it means is a point in its favour."—[Official Report, 30/1/69, col. 1346.]
I dispute those words and I believe there is a great opportunity for legislative change.
Lord PLATT: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, as I know it is now the intention to continue with the Statement, I should like to ask him for clarification of one point in his most interesting speech. It may be due to momentary inattention on my part, but I think he said something like 50 per cent. of the experiments were done in Crown Departments rather than university departments. If that is so where do all the commercial experiments come in?
Lord SANDYS: My Lords, it was not a momentary inattention on the part of the noble Lord, Lord Platt; it was in fact a mathematical inaccuracy on my part. I think it only fair to say that the table set out in the Littlewood Report has failed to give a precise representation. Nevertheless, the figures which I gave were of both Crown establishments and official university establishments.

FERRANTI LIMITED
3.48 p.m.
Lord BESWICK: My Lords, with permission, I will now repeat a Statement being made by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Industry, in the other place:
"In August 1974, Ferranti Limited sought the Government's help to overcome the company's financial difficulties. As the House knows, the Government gave a guarantee under Section 7 of the Industry Act 1972 to the company's principal banker of additional overdraft facilities. Adequate finance was thus made available for the continuance of the company's business whilst solutions to its difficulties were considered.
"Ferranti Limited is an important company. It has developed valuable technological capabiliites in a number of areas; it is an important supplier of defence equipment; it has gained valuable exports; and it provides employment, mostly in assisted areas including Scotland. Furthermore, with changes in financial and management structure, there are good prospects for the viability of the company. With the objectives of establishing a viable company, thus preserving employment, and maintaining a British capability in those areas where Ferranti Limited has a high reputation, the Government have agreed to provide financial support. After constructive tripartite discussions with representatives of the workforce and following negotiations by Sir Don Ryder with the major shareholders of Ferranti Limited, arrangements for the Government's financial support have been settled.
"Details of the arrangements will be included in the Official Report but their broad effect is that the Government will subscribe a total of £15 million of new capital, partly in voting equity, partly non-voting, and partly in loan form at a commercial rate of interest. The Government will have 62½, per cent. of the total equity, and 50 per cent. of the votes, which is more than enough to give the Government effective control over the company.
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"There are provisions in certain circumstances for part of the Government's non-voting shares to be made available if the company is able to arrange a public marketing of its shares. At that time, or at the latest on 1st October 1978, all the non-voting shares will acquire voting rights; the Government's voting power could not in any circumstances fall below 50 per cent. and might well increase.
"Some changes will be made in the management of the company. A new Chief Executive will be appointed, as will a Finance Director, both to be approved by the Government, which will also have the right to appoint some other directors.
"The Government believe that these arrangements represent the soundest basis for an agreement between the Government and the shareholders to give Ferranti a viable future and to safeguard the interests of the workforce. The new management would be required to prepare plans for the future of the company, including an assessment of the prospects for the Transformer Division which has been making heavy losses; but no decision to separate the Transformer Division from the company will be made without Government approval.
"I should add that, in accordance with our approach to industrial policy, we shall be arranging for a planning agreement with Ferranti and that the Government will encourage the development of industrial democracy within the firm on an agreed basis.
"These arrangements should provide the opportunity for the company to recover from its present difficulties and make a full contribution to the national economy."
Following are the details referred to.

HEADS OF AGREEMENT BETWEEN FERRANTI LIMITED AND HER MAJESTY'S GOVERNMENT
1. Ferranti Limited (The Company) will take steps to increase its authorised ordinary share capital so as to enable the following transactions to lake place.
2. Her Majesty's Government will subscribe £8⅔ million as ordinary share capital as follows:

£ million.

4 million ordinary shares of 50p each at £1·50 each

6

2,666,666 non-voting ordinary shares of 50p each at £1 each

2⅔

8⅔

This would provide Her Majesty's Government with 50 per cent. of the votes and 62½ per cent. of the total equity.
3. The rights attached to the non-voting ordinary shares would be increased to parity with the voting ordinary shares in the event of a listing being obtained or a marketing being undertaken, or, at the latest, on 1st October 1978.
Her Majesty's Government will subscribe £6 million by way of a Loan Stock 1983–87 carrying an appropriate commercial coupon.
5. [This clause deals with the Company's bank borrowing limits, and contains commercially confidential figures].
6. Guarantees by Her Majesty's Government in respect of hank borrowings and bid and performance bonds will be withdrawn.
7. The management structure will be as agreed in correspondence between the Company and Her Majesty's Government.
8. The future dividend policy of the Company will be one appropriate to a publicly quoted company of similar character.
9. Appropriate warranties will be agreed between the Company and Her Majesty's Government.
10. In the event of the Company's advisers arranging a marketing or listing of Ferranti shares at a price in excess of £1.50 each within the period to 30th September 1978, then Her Majesty's Government will make available:

(a) to the then holders of the 4 million shares in issue at 12th May 1975, 1,333,333 non-voting shares at a price of £1.00 each (plus half any excess of the marketing price over £2.00);

(b) to the public, any other shares from those in issue at 12th May 1975 which have been acquired by Her Majesty's Government in the meantime, at the full marketing price.

11. If at the time of such a proposed marketing, the price at which this could be undertaken is, in the opinion of independent advisers, materially prejudiced by the performance of Transformer Division, then Her Majesty's Government will take appropriate steps in relation to any losses of that Division so as to enable a satisfactory marketing to take place at the price which would otherwise he achievable, and the Company will proceed with the marketing accordingly. In the event of this clause being invoked by the Company, then the offer of shares under clause 10(a) would he at a price of £1.00 plus half the excess of the marketing price over £1.00.
12. The Board intends to recommend shareholders to support the agreement when submitted to an EGM and directors intend to use the votes of their shares and of those of which they are trustees accordingly.
Initialled subject to approval by Ministers on the one hand and by the Board of the Company on the other hand.
3.51 p.m.
Lord ABERDARE: My Lords, the House will be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, for repeating that sad Statement. I think it will be a matter for regret to many of us that so soon after the Statement on the taking over of British Leyland, we now hear of yet another British firm of international repute being taken over by the Government. Even before it has come into being, the National Enterprise Board is about to acquire an enormous portfolio of shares in what was private industry, and one really does wonder how any Board, however talented its members may be, can possibly run such a disparate conglomeration of industries as the National Enterprise Board is gradually acquiring.
My Lords, in all our minds there is the question of the great need for Government economy in their expenditure. One looks very critically at figures of millions of pounds being put into industry. I wonder whether I may ask the noble Lord three specific questions on this point. First, how was this figure of £15 million arrived at? Is this the figure that the company themselves thought was necessary to carry them through, or would a lesser sum have made that possible? Would it in fact not have been possible to do something at far less cost to the taxpayer in giving support to the ailing Transformer Division, and allowing the rest of the company to continue to trade profitably?
The second question I should like to ask the noble Lord is: Why was it necessary for the Government to take 62½ per cent. of the total equity of the company? If I heard him aright, the noble Lord said this was more than enough to give the Government effective control over the company. Why do we need to spend more money than is necessary to acquire effective control? Would it not have been possible to do it more cheaply and to take a lesser share? My third and final question is, how do the Government intend to ensure that there will be fair

739
competition between the Government-controlled Ferranti and those other privately owned firms supplying electronic equipment? Ferranti will have access to Government capital. Inevitably they will be in a position, perhaps more easily than other privately owned firms, to get orders from the Government. Can this be called fair competition?
My Lords, the Statement is complicated, and will need further deep study. My first reaction is to ask basically, is the taxpayer getting a square deal out of these arrangements?
3.54 p.m.
Lord AVEBURY: My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, is aware, we do not object in principle to the investment of public money in this company. Is he aware that we look at it in a quite different manner from the way we see the Government's investment in British Leyland: because the Ferranti enterprise, we believe, can be made viable? We hope that as a result of the solution of its cash flow difficulties the company will make a profit. We accept the reasons given by the Government in the Statement, including particularly that Ferranti has been a leader in the advanced technological potential of this country. These reasons are good enough to warrant an investment by the public. From the information given in the Statement, we are not, however, in a position to judge whether the investment of this money makes commercial sense or not. Can the noble Lord tell me what is the present indebtedness of the company to its bankers, and to any other outside sources of loan capital? What does the noble Lord mean when he says that the new management will prepare plans? This indicates that no plans exist at the moment, and that he is unable to give the House any cash flow projections or profit projections, even for the current year. Is the noble Lord able to tell us what would be the price/earnings ratio attributable to this investment, and what assumptions are made regarding the profits for the current year? What is the commercial rate of interest on the £6 million of loan stock? Finally, would he not agree that if the people of this country are being asked to make a substantial investment in Ferranti, whether they like it or not, they
740
are at least entitled to the same information as they would have been given had they been subscribing voluntarily to a new public issue of shares? Could the noble Lord please provide that information?
3.57 p.m.
Lord BESWICK: My Lords, I am obliged for what has been said by the noble Lords, Lord Aberdare and Lord Avebury. I share the regret expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, that another British company has got into difficulties. But he is quite wrong, and he is trying to inject a quite unnecessary degree of partisanship, when he talks about a takeover. This is not a takeover. This is a negotiated agreement. The alternative was a receivership. The fact is that the present proprietors of the company preferred this method to a receivership. So it really is unwise to talk about another new takeover.
My Lords, so far as the National Enterprise Board is concerned, they did not ask for either British Leyland or Ferranti to get into these troubles. The truth of the matter is that these excessive difficulties are an absolute vindication of the policy of the Labour Government in establishing the Board. The trouble is that it was not established earlier. It could well have helped earlier. I was asked about the sum of £15 million and how it was arrived at. It was the recommendation of Sir Don Ryder to the Government. It was a matter of careful calculation. I do not accept what the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, said, that the price/earnings ratio and the pricing policy is a matter which should be discussed over the Floor of the House on an occasion of this kind.
Lord AVEBURY: My Lords, I do not think I said anything about pricing policy.
Lord BESWICK: My Lords, the noble Lord was talking about cash flow, and I thought he referred to pricing policy. My point was that these matters were gone into carefully. They are matters normally gone into between a banker and a company seeking a loan or finance of one kind or another. I assure the noble Lord that these processes have been gone through.
I was asked what was the figure of outstanding indebtedness of the company. There have been two loan

741
guarantees, each of £3 million, by the Government to Ferranti Limited, one in September last year and one in January of this year. I am not in a position to say from the Floor of the House what is the total overdraft of the company with the bankers. I should have thought that this was a matter better kept as between the banker and his client. Then I was asked whether it would have been possible to reduce the cost if the Transformer Division had been thrown overboard. On reflection, the disposition of that Division, which was a loss-making Division over a period of time, ought to be a matter of careful consideration before we put people out of work and close down the enterprise.
Of course, it will be looked at very critically. There are certain provisions in the financial agreement which will have the effect of reducing the cost of this loan in the event of a disposal of the Transformer Division. I was asked if it would not be possible to achieve control for less than 62½ per cent. Of course it is not the 62½ per cent. of the equity which is the factor here, but the 50 per cent. share of the equity with voting rights; there is, in fact, only a 50 per cent. share of control.
My Lords, I was asked a question about the interest on the loan. I cannot give a figure. It will be the appropriate rate reigning at the time. I cannot say exactly what rate will be fixed, but it will be the market rate. I think that answers all the questions.
Lord ABERDARE: My Lords, I asked the question about competition.
Lord BESWICK: Yes, my Lords, of course, there will be fair competition. It is intended that there shall be full competition as between this company and others in the same field.
Lord ORR-EWING: My Lords, is the noble Lord strictly accurate in saying that there was no alternative other than this immense expenditure of public money, £15 million, or the receivership? Why was it that when certain engineering firms made inquiries at Mr. Benn's Ministry asking whether they could either merge with, purchase, or help Ferranti, they were "choked off" by the civil servants and told that the Ministry was not interested? Is the noble Lord aware that the
742
Industry Act 1972, which is being used for this purpose, is not allowed to be used unless there is no other alternative available? In this instance there was an alternative, or there could have been an alternative, but the firms making inquiries were discouraged. Is not this strictly ultra vires, and will the Government give a detailed explanation, if not at this moment perhaps in a Written Answer, so that both Houses can study it?
Could the noble Lord be a little more forthcoming about competition? There must be a suspicion among the majority of private firms which remain in the private sector that priority will be given by the Government to this public company for research and development and defence orders, handicapping the performance of the other companies. Is it not true that in raising new finance a public company can have guarantees behind it from the Treasury which are not available to a private company. How can this competition be strictly fair?
Lord BESWICK: My Lords, as to the noble Lord's charges that other companies were "choked off", unless he can give me some evidence of that he should not make a statement like that. It is certainly true that other companies have made inquiries, but making inquiries is a very different matter from putting forward a satisfactory scheme for taking over this company or getting it out of its difficulties. I have no doubt some of them would have liked to take over the more profitable parts of the Ferranti company. That is a possibility. But if the noble Lord can give me any evidence that there has been any "choking off", as he calls it, I shall be interested to go into it.
As for the question of competition, I cannot go further than to say that it is the Government's policy to ensure that the finance made available to this company, when once we get over the initial trouble, will be by commercial loan and on an equal footing with the rest of the companies in this field.
Lord ORR-EWING: My Lords, I should like to make it clear that I said that when firms made inquiries they were "choked off". Of course, you do not come forward with a hard and fast proposition if you are discouraged by the Ministry from making any inquiries and getting information to allow you to put

743
forward an alternative. One cannot help feeling that the Government of the day, or this particular Minister, were determined to spend public money, at a time when public money is under tremendous pressure, to get control and not to allow other solutions to be put forward.
Lord BESWICK: My Lords, if I may say so, kindly, to the noble Lord, when he says he cannot help feeling this way I suspect he is speaking the truth. I do not know of the cases. I happen to know the officials in the Department, and I know the courteous way in which they listen to the various proposals made to them from time to time on a range of matters. I cannot believe that they "choked" anyone off. In the first place, this would not have been a matter for the Secretary of State, anyhow; it would have been a matter which was in the field of the officials for some time before the urgency or the seriousness of it caused it to go to the Minister for decision.
Lord ROBBINS: My Lords, could the noble Lord tell us what further information will be available to the public as regards the antecedents of this Statement? Shall we eventually have access to at least an abbreviated form of the analysis made by the body which investigated the case? I ask in no frivolous spirit. It seems to me that we have to learn from past mistakes, and speaking for myself, knowing nothing about the minutiae of this episode, at this moment I simply do not know where the blame lies and why the misfortune occurred. It seems to me that it would be in the public interest for us to know more about it.
Lord BESWICK: My Lords, I appreciate what the noble Lord, Lord Robbins, says, and I will see whether anything more can be given. As for the blame, as he puts it, wherever the blame may have lain one thing can be absolutely certain, it did not lie with the Government. This company was in difficulties and had to come to the Government for finance. Whatever had happened was a matter for the company concerned. It just so happens, as the noble Lord well knows, that this is a company closely controlled by one family, and probably not open to the sort of inquiry that might have been the case in a company whose ownership was more widely shared.
Lord ROBBINS: My Lords, with deep respect, the Minister misunderstood my use of the word "blame". It was not in my mind to seek to assign blame to anybody. I simply wish, as one who is interested in industrial structure, to discover whether these misfortunes were perhaps the by-product of an international situation, whether they were the by-product of poor management, whether they were the by-product of taxation—all impersonal causes. I assure the noble Lord that I have no arriere pensée at all.
Lord BESWICK: My Lords, I was not criticising what was in the noble Lord's mind; I was listening to what he said. I have agreed that I will see whether it is possible to put forward more information. I went on to say, since he used the word "blame", that the area of blame was outside Government control. I am not certain to what extent the difficulties of this company, which, as I say, was very closely controlled by one family, could properly be the subject of a Government Statement.
Lord HALE: My Lords—
Several noble Lords: Order!
Lord HALE: My Lords, would noble Lords accept my apologies for speaking from the Bishops' Bench; I had not observed the complete absence of the Prelates from a debate on cruelty to animals. May I also say that I did not hear every word of the noble Lord's Statement. It was listened to by others, most of whom have copies of the Statement. Would the noble Lord bear in mind that this very great firm—which has been established in Oldham for 84 years since the arrival of the founder from Italy—has made immense contributions through its technical knowledge, its lead in electronics, its earliest experiments in this country in computers, telephone service, and so forth? In time of war its resources have been wholly at the disposal of the Government of the day. It was the first to establish decent labour relations in Oldham. It would be a very real tragedy if it had to be lost.
When he says that this is a negotiated settlement, does he mean that on the whole it has received general approval? To what extent have the workers been apprised of the contents and expressed approval of them? I know that there

745
have been discussions and I congratulate the Government on the early help that they gave, but I rather hope that we shall have another opportunity of reading the Statement with more care and ascertaining more fully whether there is need and a desire for a debate.
Lord BESWICK: My Lords, there will of course be an opportunity for reading the Statement again—it will appear in Hansard together with the heads of agreement. If the noble Lord reads the Statement he will see that I paid tribute to the technological contribution of this company. But, not for the first time, a company which has developed highly technologically has had inadequate financial control. As for the point about the discussions with the workers, again I have made it clear that there have been full discussions with the workers concerned.
Lord DRUMALBYN: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord a point of principle on this Statement? Had this been an issue of equity capital on the market there would no doubt have been a full prospectus from which we should all have known what was to be the future, what was to be the plan, the organisation and the prospects. For example, one thing that might have been known was to what extent the possibility of dividing the company into portions was considered and was practicable. It seems to me that where the Government make a Statement of this kind they are really under a public obligation to give the same kind of information, the same sort of prospectus, as would be given if the equity capital was being launched on the market. Secondly, is it not a fact that there are parts of this company which are viable, in fact profit making, and that many of those parts are in Scotland? In view of the debate that we are to have in this House tomorrow, was any consideration given to the setting up of a Scottish company entirely out of Ferranti, and disposing of those parts which may well be surplus to the national needs?
Lord BESWICK: My Lords, I quite agree that had the company been able to go to the market and acquire capital there would have been more information in a prospectus. My understanding is that they endeavoured to raise money in other ways and they failed. That is the
746
truth of the matter. As to whether it is possible to make more information available, the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, raises the same point that I have already answered to the noble Lord, Lord Robbins. I will see whether it is possible in this kind of circumstance to give rather more information. On the question of an independent company in Scotland, it is perfectly true, as he says, that there were those who claimed that if the one division up in Scotland were hived off it could have been profitable. It was fairly obvious that the Transformer Division was highly unprofitable. All these possibilities were considered, and the eventual decision was that it would be better to make this arrangement on the basis of keeping the company in one whole, and then with a closer analysis of the prospects of the divisions to make other decisions later on.
Baroness LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOE: My Lords, I think that this is a Statement of the greatest importance, which has obviously given rise to interest in all parts of the House. However, may I remind your Lordships that we have heard only two speakers in our first debate, that we have another debate and business after that, and that we have had nearly half an hour on this Statement. It might on the whole be in the interests of noble Lords if we now passed on to our next business.

ABUSES OF THE CRUELTY TO ANIMALS ACT
4.15 p.m.
Debate resumed.
Lord PLATT: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, has left us in no doubt of his own sincerity, concern and devotion to the cause of animal welfare. There were times in his long and rhetorical speech when I wondered whether he was not becoming a little counter-productive in your Lordships' House, but he has supplied us with a lot of extremely important and useful information and I know that he has taken great trouble to see that the somewhat alarming facts that he has put before us are based on documentary evidence. Therefore, I am sure that we must all be most grateful to him for raising this subject. Now that that is done, I shall be

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able to give a perhaps more objective account of the state of affairs as I see it at the present time from a large number of facets of my personal experience and thought on the subject. I will try particularly to make it clear why I think that urgent action on the part of the Government is now necessary. Nevertheless, while I shall try to be objective and factual, it is not a subject that can be treated in any way coldly, as it does involve important moral issues.
First of all, as to my own credentials, I feel almost apologetic in having been so many different people. I have been a licence holder myself and done animal experiments, though always reluctantly. Nevertheless, I thought that they were necessary. I have been a member of the Research Defence Society, which exists to defeat the propaganda of the extremist abolitionist anti-vivisectionist who, if he got his way, would almost abolish a great deal of medical research in this country and only succeed in sending the medical scientists abroad, where the rules about animal experiments are not usually as strict as they are here. I have been a professor of medicine and, as such, have had the duty of signing the applications of members of my department and neighbouring departments for licences and certificates under the Act of 1876, and as the President of a Royal College I have also countersigned a large number of those applications for certificates. Last, but not least, I was from 1961 to 1972 a member of the Home Office Advisory Committee on the Cruelty to Animals Act. I shall shortly say something more about my experiences in those various roles.
To come back to the extremists for a moment, I do not think that they are nearly as important now as they were some time ago. To be frank, I think that the Research Defence Society sometimes goes too far on the other side. After all, extremists are useful people in many walks of life. They shake us up and we say, "Is this really true?", and make us look into it with perhaps a rather more balanced judgment than they would use themselves. If you take the extreme view, that no animal experiments should be carried out at all, I have already said it would have the effect of sending many medical scientists abroad. Of course
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people who really believe that should deny themselves, and their children, the benefits of modern medical science—for instance, the giving of antibiotics to a child who has pneumonia—because no doubt in a stage in its progress, the antibiotic was developed with the essential help of animals used in experiments.
Leaving aside then the absolute extremists, the many societies which are concerned in animal welfare who expressed extreme views some years ago now agree—at least all those with whom I speak agree—and realise that animal experiments cannot be abolished altogether at the present time. In my profession we believe that in this country our legislation, based as it is on an Act nearly 100 years old, is probably the best in the world at the present time. But we must ask ourselves whether it needs altering now, and whether it is up to date. I am not entirely impressed by the figures. It seems to me as a matter of principle that if it is all right to carry out experiments on 20 rats, it is all right to do so on 2,000 rats.
While on the subject of figures, I do not extrapolate figures like that to deal with the question of the Inspectorate, although the Inspectorate should be increased and strengthened, a point the noble Lord, Lord Sandys, made, among many others. You cannot apply it as a mathematical sum. If it takes an inspector in a small medical department an hour to discuss the views and intentions of medical scientists using 20 rats, it does not take the inspector 100 hours to discuss the views and intentions of an enormous pharmaceutical firm which is conducting experiments on 2.000 rats. You do not need 100 times the number of inspectors or 100 times the amount of time they put into their work. Nevertheless, the figures show an enormous increase in animal experiments since 1876. We are almost in the position we should be in if our motoring laws and regulations were still those of 1900, or some such time when nobody could possibly have foreseen that in 70 years' time the whole country would be completely littered with motor cars, as it is.
Nor do I follow the rather worrying argument that is always made about a large number of these experiments being done without anaesthetics, unless this is qualified by a clear statement that the experiments carried out under Certificate

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A are those which do not need an anaesthetic of any kind—that is, a subcutaneous injection, or something of that kind, a change in diet, the giving of certain substances, poisonous though they may be. Nobody, even if they were going to carry out a dastardly experiment with a horrible poison, would be giving an anaesthetic in order to give the animal his dangerous drink. To say that a large number of experiments are carried out without anaesthetics is a useless statement unless it is highly qualified. But we cannot go to the other extreme and say that all the experiments carried out under Certificate A—that is, no anaesthetic required—are trivial, harmless and not pain-provoking. I agree with both speakers who have said that it is in that area that perhaps some of the most questionable experiments of the present day are being undertaken.
But, apart from the figures, it is important to consider whether the nature of animal experiments has changed in the past 100 years, and to that I give an unequivocal, "Yes". Not only are many new techniques now being employed, and many new chemical substances and drugs being used, but there has been the development of behavioural science with its psychological tests which many of us think are particularly in need of careful control. There has been this enormous change-over towards mandatory tests which I suppose were hardly considered at all when the Act of 1876 was originally drafted, the testing of drugs and food additives and, more lately, cosmetics; in other words, official and commercial research rather than academic research, to which the Act was really meant to apply.
I must remind your Lordships that a very large number of the drugs which are so efficient today, and which have so revolutionised the outlook of people with many diseases, including tuberculosis, have been largely developed by the pharmaceutical companies, and it is the greatest mistake to think that because an experiment is carried out under the auspices of a commercial firm it is therefore in some way undesirable. I might, if pressed, be tempted to go to the opposite extreme and question whether some of the curiosity of the academics is more questionable than the realities of commerce. In that context we must also
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realise that these large pharmaceutical firms are mostly, if not all, multinational, and that what we do about bringing in regulations in this country about animal research with reference to drug testing, and so on, will have repercussions all over Europe, if not all over the world, and that we must try to keep in line with what is happening in other countries. I am convinced there is an important change in the whole situation, not only in numbers but in kind.
To those who say: "Everything is all right, the old Act was wonderfully drawn up; it served us well and there is no need to change it", I ask: Are you not really going back into your own past and thinking of your own department which was always faultless in its care in animal experimentation, and thinking, because of that, that everybody else is just as faultless?"
Let me now say how I feel the Act works and I will go back to my own experiences. As a Professor of Medicine I had to sign many of these applications. I soon found out that if I did not sign them they were sent to the Professor of Surgery and he signed them. That seems to be a kind of loophole somebody should be trying to close in some way. Either I was wrong or he was wrong, and there should be some neutral way of deciding. As a President of a Royal College, I soon found out that if I refused to sign an application for a certificate the President of another Royal College would sign the application. I was told by a President of a Royal College that when I became a President myself I would have a large number of these applications to sign. He said: "I suppose you will do them blind, as we all do." Those were the words he used. But I did not. I do not say that I scrutinised every one with the greatest of care, because a large number of them were just routine which we always passed. However, there were certainly others which I would not pass, but which later got a certificate.
Then—and this is the most important point of all—I was on the Advisory Committee of the Home Office for 11 years, and we met only five times and advised on 19 cases, five of them by correspondence. Out of the milions of experiments—I am now coming back to figures which I have just said do not convince me—only 24 in that time ever came before

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the Committee at all. We never met at all to discuss questions of principle; questions of how big the cages should be; the size of the smallest cage in which it it justifiable to keep dogs or cats; whether the regulations about the procurement of animals were adequate, and so on. We did not discuss questions of that type. We discussed whether a Committee of Inquiry should be set up and, as your Lordships know, we have heard today that the Littlewood Committee was set up in 1963 and reported in 1965.
Since my resignation from the Advisory Committee in July 1972—because there, again. I did not find myself in full agreement with most of my colleagues a lot of the time—it has met only once and has considered two cases. I think that the case is overwhelming for a reconstitution of this Committee, of its functions and duties and of the duties of inspectors to refer certain types of experiment to the Advisory Committee. To my great pleasure and, I am sorry to say, surprise, the Government have at last added four lay members to the present Advisory Committee and have themselves referred a matter to them. That is a start; but in my view it is not nearly enough by itself.
My Lords, with help which I freely acknowledge, I have been trying to draft a Bill to replace the Act of 1876. It may be that this is more an academic exercise than a practicality, because it is extremely difficult to do this; but it has taught me a lot. The kind of matters which I think should go into such a Bill are: methods of getting the licence, which I will not go into in any detail; questions of registration of premises and of inspection by members of the Advisory Committee; questions of publicity; what kind of reports they should give; to what extent the public should have access to papers and applications for licences; details of experiments and so on; types of experiment which should be compulsorily referred to that Committee; how often it should meet and the fact that it should have a duty not only to consider cases, but also to discuss these other questions of standards; and the difficult questions of special consideration being given to the use of animal experiments in the testing of cosmetics.
A very important point, too, is whether the mandatory tests which are so commonly
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being asked for at the present time are really appropriate to their purpose—especially the so-called LD50 case, where a drug or some other substance is given in very big doses, sufficient to kill off 50 per cent. of the animals on which it is tested. It is most extravagant in the use of animals; it is very questionable as to whether it is morally and ethically sound in most cases, and questionable as to whether it will give the results which we want to answer the questions we need to put.
My Lords, I must draw to a close. I have been speaking long enough in a short debate. I must come to my questions to Her Majesty's Government and they are these. Why has there been such a reluctance to implement the important recommendations of the Littlewood Report? Is it because they are frightened —I know that the research defence societies are frightened—of the wild men, of the extremists, getting to the Bill in the Committee stage and putting in all kinds of clauses which will make it impossible for medical scientists to do their work in this country? Would the Minister of State say whether the Government are now prepared to draft a Bill themselves?—which would be much better than I or any other private Member doing so. Would they feel that a new look by a Select Committee, as suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, should take place first? My only objection to that is that it puts off the day before we get any innovations and improvements. And, lastly, would they look kindly—if they do not want to take the initiative themselves—on a reasonable and rational Bill, largely on the lines of the Littlewood Report, introduced by a private Member? If their response to this is, unfortunately, No, would they please make it clear why they fail to take action?
Baroness EMMET of AMBERLEY: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, may I ask whether, if he is considering continuing with the preparation of a Bill—and with his extraordinary knowledge I hope that he does so—he will consider putting in the point of caring for the animals in between the experiments on them; because from my own experience I found there was very often some deficiency there. The other matter is procurement of animals for this purpose.
Lord PLATT: Yes, my Lords. I think that those are two very important matters.
4.49 p.m.
Lord de CLIFFORD: My Lords, I rise to addres your Lordships briefly. I think that we are all grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, for raising this subject. I feel that the 1876 Act was really quite a good Act, considering that it lasted 96 years before we had the first major explosions about it. But until we decide certain questions, I do not think there is very much future in amending it. The Littlewood Committee asked three questions to which it was not within their powers to reply, and they thought that for the public to give acceptance to any Act those questions should be answered. The first was: who can say whether, if certain biological tests were forbidden, satisfactory chemical or other methods of testing would not be developed? The second was: who is responsible for establishing whether modern medical techniques, with their emphasis on immunology and drug therapy, both inseparable front animal experimentation, are developing medical practice in the right direction? The third was: who is to take responsibility for moral or ethical judgment in the use of animals for experimental purposes as such?
As we have seen over the past few years, no Act of Parliament can be effective without the support of the public. The public must be satisfied that any Act in this line will give protection so far as possible to the animals which are used. The public conscience is always aroused when cases are brought up which appear to be totally unnecessary. The beagles and the testing of material for smoking appears to be such a case. I must confess that I am with the public in this. I do not see how testing a new quality of smoking material can be said to be prolonging life or alleviating suffering. There is nothing in the Act which asks for experiments on dogs to stop a person maiming or killing himself, which is what this activity is solely designed for. In any event, who can say whether such an exercise as this, when completed, will have been justified or whether the public will accept the product? The experiment in question appeared to me to be a most wasteful one in the animal world.
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Unfortunately, I have very little knowledge of the experiments which take place on animals but when we hear the figures which are quoted for the number of experiments which take place and an experiment such as that with the smoking beagles is thrown up, it brings all the rest of the experiments, however justified—and I have no doubt that a number of them are justified—into doubt. If the public is to support any form of experimentation on animals to advance the cause of science, that doubt must be allayed. I join with the noble Lords, Lord Platt and Lord Houghton of Sowerby, in feeling that the quicker we can get the Advisory Committee operating efficiently and effectively, the better. The Advisory Committee may ultimately be the sole instrument with which to convince the public that certain experiments are necessary. If it has public confidence, it will allow those who do experiments to carry on their work without always having to look over their shoulder to see whether they are to be chased.
Further, the noble Lord, Lord Platt, mentioned one of the reasons why the public cannot believe that the Act is working. He described how the certificates which were given in response to applications were signed. He said that he considered them, but that if he did not do it, somebody else down the road would. He told the House that somebody had said to him that he no doubt did it in a routine manner. Very properly, he replied that he did not. However, the whole point is that at the moment the public considers that these certificates, which are issued in such vast numbers, are issued merely as a routine exercise. Therefore, I feel that the Advisory Committee when it is working properly, must dispel this view. Until then, no Act will be trusted by any member of the public.
I should like to make two more points. I refer first to the Inspectorate. The number of inspectors is, to my mind, paltry, when one considers the number of experiments. If the number of experiments which can be supervised by one inspector is considered as a percentage, it looks absolutely ridiculous. I believe that we should drop this consideration of numbers of experiments and should consider groups of experiments. It would be interesting to know, if one took groups

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of experiments by type, for how many experiments each inspector is responsible. It does not give much confidence to read in the Littlewood Report that, under the Act, the inspectors spend 50 per cent. of their time in administration and only 50 per cent. on inspection of experiments. I trust that in future we can be assured that the visits of inspectors to persons and places can be far more frequent and that their administrative duties can be cut down.
My Lords, I am also rather perturbed about the method of producing animals for experimentation. Once again, public disquiet shows itself repeatedly in this matter. It is particularly so with pets which are in common ownership by the public. There is an idea that if a pet is lost, it will instantly land up in an experiment. The Littlewood Report gives some credence to this view, for it says that the dealers who provide animals for experiments can very easily cover up where they get them from. I believe that the future of experimenting on animals must be provided for by animals bred and specifically supplied from known sources for this purpose. I do not believe that any other provision of animals can really be acceptable or, ultimately, will be accepted by the general public.
My Lords, animals, particularly dogs, have been in the public eye just lately. I was horrified the other day to see in a magazine or paper a picture of beagles which were being bred for experimental purposes. They were being bred in containers in which one would normally expect to find turkeys kept for intensive feeding. Could the noble Lord who is to answer the debate possibly tell us whether these kennels which produce dogs for experimental purposes are subject to the Act dealing with the breeding of dogs, and whether they are inspected by local authorities as such? It would be most interesting to know this, because a greater control could be exercised over these people and the public might be able to obtain greater knowledge of the actual conditions under which the animals are kept for breeding.
I should also like the Government to consider dividing their Inspectorate, with perhaps part of the Inspectorate being used for the supervision of the experiments which are taking place and the
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other part being used for the care and husbandry of the animals which are being used. One hears reports from time to time that the care of these animals, during, between, and after experiments is not to the standard which one would wish. It would be most helpful if this Inspectorate could ultimately be divided as I have suggested.
My Lords, I do not intend to speak any further on this matter. I end by hoping that the 10 years since the Littlewood Committee reported cannot be said to be too long a period before we get some action.
4.52 p.m.
Lord BROCK: My Lords, although his words were expressed clearly and forcefully, as is usual for the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, their meaning was neither clear nor convincing, nor did I find his argument acceptable. The noble Lord is saying that things are wrong because tests are being done on animals to observe whether certain substances are harmful to human beings and that the perpetrators should not do these things. The point is that these tests are commanded by Act of Parliament with the object of protecting the public. The legislation to effect this is not contained in the 1876 Act, but in various later Acts, such as the Food and Drugs Act 1955, the Pharmacy and Poisons Act 1933—which deals especially with pesticides, insecticides and weed killers—and the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, which deals with industrial chemicals and the avoidance of toxic effects, including the later development of cancer. A rather slighting remark was made to the observations on asbestos. Many people—some of them women working part-time—were involved for a short time in the last war in the production of various respirators in which asbestos was used, and 15 or 20 years later they died from a form of cancer produced by asbestosis. I do not think that one can brush these things aside.
Requirements under these Acts need animal tests and the tests are strict and precise. Tests are needed on two species of animals; one is a rodent and one not a rodent, for instance a monkey. If firms which make the various substances covered by these Acts do not carry out

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the animal tests laid down by Parliament, they are breaking the law. I do not see how any such action can be advocated. Parliament in its wisdom has framed the laws, and it is not possible to ignore the instructions of Parliament laid down precisely in the various Acts I have mentioned, as well as others.
It appears that the noble Lord and his supporters feel that the law should be changed to suit their own views, even though the statutory requirements are precise and were carefully thought out and accepted by majority opinions in both Houses. I note a glossing over, or non-presentation, of the particular statutory requirements that are unacceptable and which it is intended should be withdrawn. We have a generalisation that the experiments, the tests laid down by Parliament, have very few medical purposes. It is maintained that only one out of three tests have any medical purpose whatsoever and the intention is to amend these Acts to exclude non-medical experiments. This could be a simple way out of the difficulty, if it were feasible; but it is difficult to see how it can be substantiated.
It is difficult to define what is a medical and what is a non-medical preparation. How can the substance contribute to human wellbeing and safety, which is the theme of the 1876 Act, as has already been stressed by noble Lords this afternoon? In general, this can apply to the testing of substances that, if used on man, will cause shortening of life, or cause suffering. Thalidomide has been fully quoted, but that is only one. Although the requirements of overseas firms are brushed aside as being rather pedantic, the experience with thalidomide is one of the best examples for the justification of the action of insisting on proper testing. Recently I was speaking to a doctor who used a particular dusting powder. He found that it was not being made by Boots from whom he used to buy it, and he discovered that it was also used as a dusting powder for babies in France, where it originated. Between 12 and 20 babies died from absorption of poisonous material from the use of this powder. One can quote many other examples of a similar nature, as have already been quoted on the other side. If there were no such protection as a means of determining toxic effects and how they could
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be prevented, there would be a public outcry. It is important to know—
Lord SANDYS: My Lords, may I possibly bring to the attention of the noble Lord one fact, that the Alkali Inspectorate exists to protect the public in regard to asbestos and other substances mentioned? I think that this should be borne in mind.
Lord BROCK: I thank the noble Lord. It is important to know what harm the use of proprietary preparations can do. Each year a large number of calls on the National Poisons Information Service are concerned with various substances being applied or swallowed. In the first year there were 2,000 calls, and in 1974 there were 20,000—two-thirds of these arose from incidents with children, and about 800 of them referred to cosmetics which had been misapplied. Very often a mother uses a cosmetic correctly, but a child makes some abuse of it.
Smoking is an example of a self-inflicted hazard. Certainly we should know the ill-effects of smoking and that 50,000 people die each year, or are disabled. But human nature being what it is, the habit persists. We were informed the other day that it is an example of national drug addiction. The Government recognise this and issue firm warning to the public. But the Government cannot refuse to treat them when they fall ill, and must support—or not place difficulties in the way of—attempts to produce non-toxic cigarettes.
My Lords, I have something to say in connection with research into the effects of smoking cigarettes and the recent severe attacks on the use of beagles and of monkeys for this purpose. I am sure that many of your Lordships saw a horrific picture in the centre page of The Times on Thursday of last week, attached to an article commenting on animal experiments. The picture was of an unfortunate monkey held in a restraining device, wearing a mask which was presumably meant to force it to smoke a small cigar. I repeat that it was a horrific picture. It did exactly what was intended; it caught and drew attention to the article. It had no caption and no source was ascribed to it. The author of the article did not refer to it, but the implication was that it was derived from him and illustrated

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what he was talking about in his article. In fact, it is doubtful whether it was published with the knowledge of the author; and it was in the nature of an undeclared or undisclosed editorial comment.
I have learnt to be suspicious of such pictures and thought that it was odd that the poor beast was smoking a cigar and not a cigarette. Moreover, it was unusual for a scientific worker from England to publish such a photograph. The picture certainly implied that our Cruelty to Animals Act permitted such procedures and was therefore basically derogatory to our Home Office control, even though it appeared as a silent comment. I made it my business to find out whence the picture originated, and certainly whether or not it originated from this country. In fact it was a Russian picture distributed by the Tass News Agency. I think I need make no additional comment, except to say that it reflects on the ethics of certain forms of journalism.
Another avenue of objection is that many of the substances being tested are cosmetics. Here again, we have difficulty in defining what is a cosmetic. It is in fact almost impossible to define it. Many substances used as cosmetics are the basis of some form of medical treatment: for example, many creams for the treatment of skin conditions also serve as the basis of cosmetic substances. Cracked lips may not be a serious lesion, but ointments are supplied for it and used in cosmetics. Is it suggested that these should not be tested for any toxic effect they may have? Even toothpaste could be classed as a cosmetic, and numerous animals are being used to test toothpastes and so exclude harmful preparations. Hair dyes form another example of application for cosmetic purposes, but they can cause great harm. Let us remember that some substances found to be toxic are eventually fatal; some, for example, produce cancer. Is it correct that we should forbid firms to try to seek out such substances, either by flouting the law or by changing the carefully planned Acts made by Parliament with the intention of protecting the public?
Finally, it is suggested that the 1876 Act should be amended. It is a good
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Act and has stood the test of a hundred years. Its age alone suggests there must be some ways in which it could be improved, and common sense would support the setting up of a Select Committee to go into this matter more fully and completely, but not guided or controlled by sentiment and without common sense. Such a Committee should certainly not be composed entirely or predominantly of those opposed to vivisection. One thing that would not be acceptable is the addition to the Act of matters other than the control of animal experiments. There are many other matters related to the care of animals, such as transport, breeding, feeding, medication, and so on. These would involve a whole new series of administrative activities and a whole army of inspectors. Let us keep them separate under the Statutes designed to guide and control them, and allow the experiments on animals to continue as a separate and precise commitment.
5.3 p.m.
The Earl of COURTOWN: My Lords, I must declare an interest, in that I am a member of the board of a contract research organisation. I should add that it is a non-profit-making organisation and that I myself derive no pecuniary remuneration from it at all.
We are discussing today abuses of the 1876 Act. The noble Lord, Lord Houghton, correctly read out the part of the Act which said that an experiment could be performed:
"…for the advancement by new discovery of physiological knowledge, or of knowledge which will be useful for saving or prolonging life or alleviating suffering, …".
He did not, however, add to that the additional types of experiments which are referred to at the top of page 3 of the Act, where it is said:
"Experiments may be performed … for the purpose of testing a particular former discovery alleged to have been made for the advancement of such knowledge as last aforesaid, on such certificate being given …"
and so on. I suspect that much of the testing goes on under that portion of the Act rather than under the former portion.
This Act is the Charter on which all use of animals for research and test purposes is based. It provides considerable powers for the Secretary of State and, through him, for the inspectors. He has to approve the licensee and the place, and

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can at any time revoke the licence or any certificate which has been issued by one of the appointed persons under Section 11. The Act is supported by a booklet running to 90 pages, entitled Guidance Notes on the Law Relaing to Experiments on Animals, which can be brought up to date if necessary, in accordance with changing requirements. To my knowledge, research institutions take their responsibilities very seriously indeed. Apart from the fact that the scientists who are licensed under the Act are humane and conscientious people, compliance with the law is vital, because if they lose their licences they lose their livelihood and the ability to attain their scientific object.
It has been remarked that there have been no prosecutions under the Act. This is not surprising, as all work can be stopped on an inspector's report, without a prosecution. Visits from inspectors are not known beforehand, and it is my information that these inspectors are extremely knowledgeable and thorough. It has been said that there are only 13 or 14 inspectors but millions of animal experiments. These figures are misleading because the number of licensed premises, outside the universities, is not large, and many animals may be, and in fact are, used in one experiment. I know of one experiment which is going on today which involves several thousand mice. Such an experiment is not unusual. There may also be some degree of double counting, as records are kept according to licence-holders, and if one series of experiments involves more than one licence-holder then the number of experiments—and an experiment, for record purposes, refers to one animal, and. as I say, there may be thousands of animals involved in one experiment—are allocated to each licence-holder concerned.
In the organisation with which I am connected the inspectors call without notice every two months or so. They are highly qualified and they are consulted by the management on the design layout of new buildings and on all sorts of other points relating to the humane and hygienic keeping of animals. The recommendations of the Littlewood Committee have been taken into account by most, if not all, reputable laboratories. In any case, the powers of the Secretary of State and, through him, of the inspectors are such
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that any sub-standard operations can be dealt with. This does not mean that no abuse ever takes place. We know how cases of cruelty to children occur, in spite of all the legislation we have to prevent them. But I suggest that the existing legislation provides the means by which any abuses can be taken care of. If the instructions issued to the inspectors are not stringent enough, they can be altered under the existing Act. Also, the fact that an Advisory Committee is available to assist the Secretary of State would seem to provide a situation in which amendment to the existing Act is not really necessary.
The word "vivisection" is often used in an emotional way, as though it applied to all animal experiments—indeed, I think it has been referred to in our debate today. In practice, only a tiny proportion of animal experiments involve vivisection and an even tinier proportion involve any vivisection without anaesthetic. I was speaking on the telephone this morning to the director of a research establishment, and he could not remember any case of vivisection having taken place without the use of an anaesthetic. The great majority of tests, as has been indicated by some of the speeches made this afternoon, are conducted by means of injections or by skin-painting of some sort or another.
A distinction is sometimes made between experiments for medical and those for non-medical purposes. I submit that this distinction is misleading. For example, the testing of toxicity of weed killers or fertilisers, which has been referred to today, is often termed "non-medical"; but the main reason for such testing is to establish whether or not such materials, if sprayed on the land, would be toxic to wild life of various sorts or to animals and birds. Food additives have to be tested for possible side effects. The noble Lord, Lord Brock, gave particulars of some Acts of Parliament which force upon manufacturers the need for proper testing. New skin lotions and creams may bring advantages over previous materials but nevertheless have to be tested for unexpected secondary effects. As the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, has said in quoting letters he has received from cosmetic manufacturers, many materials are now know to be irritants and no reputable cosmetic

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manufacturer would think of using them. No new material can safely be used without testing. Most tests have to be carried out through the use of animals, and indeed involve no harm at all to the animal.
I would emphasise, too, that animal testing is expensive, especially with the larger animals, and no manufacturer is likely to proceed with a course of animal testing unless he is sure that it is necessary to comply with his legal requirements and the responsibilities which he has to the public. If he can be assured that the result will be achieved without animal testing he will probably tackle it in some other way. There are many examples in our history of unexpected results. Thalidomide is the one best known to the public, but there are many others as well.
With regard to smoking, I would say that I myself am a non-smoker and can understand well how one can survive without smoking. However, no Government, to my knowledge, has altogether banned the smoking of tobacco; yet the morbidity and mortality associated with the smoking of tobacco form the main 20th century plague. It places a greater load on the Health Service than any other single cause. There are 50,000 deaths every year from lung cancer, 8,000 to 9,000 cases of chronic bronchitis, and 35 million working days are lost annually from respiratory complaints. I am not suggesting that all of these occur as a result of smoking, but smoking is generally regarded as the main cause, and it places a tremendous load on the Health Service. In view of this I cannot believe that we should allow these effects to continue without research into adequate substitutes for tobacco. The substitutes clearly have to be properly tested on a broad base. This inevitably involves animals, mainly rats and mice but also, to a lesser extent, animals with respiratory organs which are nearest to those of man. In any case, if we do not do this research other countries will, often with much less stringent regulations to protect the animals. At present our research activities in this country are a source of foreign revenue which would disappear if the research could not be done here, apart from the effect on the British industries concerned.
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Finally, I would say that I have the greatest sympathy with those who, on moral grounds, object to the use by man of animals as a means of helping to ensure health and hygiene. However, I find it difficult to extend this sympathy to those who, at the same time, would expect that the medical sciences should produce the various benefits to human life which have been produced over the last generation or so. It is generally accepted that these results would not have been obtained without animal testing. My sympathy for those people who object on moral grounds is also somewhat reduced if they have no objection to exploiting animals by killing them for food.
5.15 p.m.
Lord SOMERS: My Lords, I do not think any of your Lordships who have had the misfortune to be in the Chamber when I have spoken over the last few years will have any doubt that I am very anxious to promote animal welfare. But when it comes to the question of animal experiments, I conduct myself with the greatest care. I cannot deny that I dislike these experiments, but on the other hand there is something which perhaps one must dislike even more, and that is human suffering. It is a curious thing that the suffering of animals raises a wave of indignation throughout the country, whereas the suffering of human beings arouses very little reaction. If we can reduce human suffering by animal experiments then I think they are justified.
None the less, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, for having raised this subject today because I think it needs looking into. It is possible that there are abuses, though I am unable to say what they are because I am not expert enough in that field. I think that many abuses are due to the enormous number of animals used in a single experiment. The noble Earl who has just spoken mentioned that some thousands of mice are used in a single experiment. Is that really necessary? A member of the Research Defence Society to whom I was talking a short time ago said that one cannot establish anything from a single animal. I accept that of course, but there is a difference between a single animal and several thousands. I should have thought that 10 or possibly 20 would be ample to give a sufficient cross-section. That, again, is a subject

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which I leave to those who are more scientifically expert than I. It is forgotten that many experiments today are merely the testing of new supplies of well-known drugs before they go on the market. For example, supposing a new delivery of aspirin comes into the country, it has legally to be tested before it can go on the market. That is the origin, so I am told, of a large proportion of experiments.
There is one great danger that I think I should mention. I have been told from a source which I have every reason to believe is reliable that one well-known pharmaceutical firm—I was not told its name but I believe it is quite a prominent one—has moved its laboratories abroad because of the stringent regulations covering experiments. That will mean that the animals may well he experimented on in circumstances which are far less satisfactory to them than they are here. That is something that we should bear strongly in mind. If more firms do that, they will still have the English market but the experiments will be done abroad. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, was speaking chiefly of what he termed non-medical experiments, cosmetics and so on but several cosmetics are, or can be, very toxic.
Consider, for instance, my Lords, lip-stick. When applied in the ordinary way it is perfectly harmless. But children are unreliable and when their parents are absent they may try tasting it, often with dire results. Weed killers, again, can be extremely toxic. What is more, they can have serious effects on the very creatures we want to protect—animals, our own pets. That is an absolutely undeniable fact. I do not mind saying that I avoid using weed killers on the ground in my own garden for the sake of our cat, which means a lot of extra work. These experiments are necessary and they will have to continue however much one dislikes them. I admit that I dislike experiments; I have done so already. But I realise that this is a subject on which one must not be guided by one's emotions. It is necessary to be guided by certain knowledge and a realisation of all aspects of the problem.
I sincerely hope that if a committee is set up to examine the Littlewood Report it will have the necessary expert
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knowledge. I should like to see on such a committee at least two members who are expert in animal defence, and possibly at least two from the Research Defence Society, who are expert on that side so that there might be really informed argument. Until then, my Lords, I feel that we shall continue to explode with indignation but get nowhere.
5.22 p.m.
Lord AIREDALE: My Lords, I think that this debate does not have to conclude until 5.50 p.m.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, we have until 5.30 p.m. and then the Government speaker must have an opportunity to reply.
Lord AIREDALE: My Lords, I shall not speak for more than two minutes. I wish to raise just one small matter. The noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, referred to the case of a professor who had been proceeding with experiments without being in possession of a licence or a certificate. He then applied for a retrospective licence or certificate, and obtained it. Was that infra vires?—because, if it was, it would seem to me that this might happen. A scientist might be conducting experiments without a licence; a private prosecution might be launched against him, and the jurisdiction of the court could then perhaps be ousted by the granting of a retrospective licence. I cannot believe that that is a consequence which Parliament would ever have considered or entertained when the legislation was passed. I wonder whether the noble Lord who is going to reply to the debate could deal with that point.
5.24 p.m.
The MINISTER of STATE, HOME OFFICE (Lord Harris of Greenwich): My Lords, the Government and, I am sure, the whole House are grateful to my noble friend Lord Houghton of Sowerby for having put down this Motion for debate today. The issues raised by experimentation on live animals never weigh lightly upon the conscience of the community and at certain times they become a matter for public debate. This is, indeed, one of those periods. It is therefore right that this House should have had this occasion to review the areas of concern, and on behalf of the Government

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I much welcome the opportunity to make some points in response to the debate. What I want to do is to try to distil from the present debate, both inside and outside Parliament, what seem to be the central points at issue; to review the various courses of action which are being advocated against the background of what has happened in the recent past; and to sketch out what the Government have done or propose to do.
Anyone who has heard the debate today would be able to identify certain key points of public concern. First, there is the sheer size of the number of experiments which are carried out each year. This, after climbing rapidly in the 1950s and 1960s, had levelled off at about 5½, million for the five years up to 1973. The 1974 figures will be available a little later this summer. Secondly, arising from this increase, there is concern that there is unnecessary use of animals, that experiments are duplicated and research is repetitious. Thirdly, and more fundamental, many people consider that experiments on animals should be confined to what they call "genuine" medical research; experiments should not be permitted unless they are essential to solve some specific problem of human or animal suffering, and the definition of "suffering" should exclude self-inflicted suffering. Thus, the use of animals to test cosmetics, food additives, pesticides or new smoking materials should be banned, so it is argued.
I should say, in passing, that I do not want this afternoon to discuss in detail the question of the use of dogs to test tobacco substitutes, which has been mentioned, inevitably, by a number of noble Lords. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary has referred this matter to the Advisory Committee on the Administration of the Cruelty to Animals Act, whose chairman is the noble Lord, Lord Cross of Chelsea. The Committee have already begun their work and I do not think it would be appropriate for me in any way to prejudice their deliberations.
Fourthly, there is the belief that the controls in the Act upon the infliction of pain are waived in the majority of cases by use of the certification procedure which allows experiments to be carried out without anesthetic. Fifthly, there are
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complaints—indeed, my noble friend referred specifically to this point—about the lack of information on the working of the Act. Lastly, there is a feeling that an Act framed to deal with surgical experiments almost a hundred years ago is inadequate for the proper control of experiments without anæsthetics; and the size and the composition of the Inspectorate appointed under the Act are criticised as being inadequate and unsuitable to supervise so many experiments and licensees.
The solutions that are proposed to remedy the situation—and they have been canvassed by a number of noble Lords this evening, including the noble Lord, Lord Platt—are, first, ad hoc legislation which is aimed at diminishing by different means the number of experiments. Alternatively, a full inquiry into animal experimentation is advocated, presumably in anticipation of legislation. My noble friend Lord Houghton of Sowerby has proposed that a Select Committee of this House (in his words) be appointed to inquire into the law relating to cruelty to animals and the Cruelty to Animals Act 1876. Others press for the implementation of more of the recommendations of the Departmental Committee on Experiments on Living Animals—the Littlewood Committee.
In considering these proposals I want first to focus the attention of the House on the Report of the Littlewood Committee. The matters that were causing concern in the early 1960s, and which led to the appointment of this Committee, were in fact identical, or nearly so, to those I have listed as being the main points of debate at the present time. They were the matters to which the Littlewood Committee addressed themselves—a Committee which comprised an experienced combination of professional and lay elements in their membership and who certainly produced a comprehensive, cohesive, clear and sensitive Report. Their findings are unanimous and unambiguous. They are contained in detail in Part 5 of the Report and are summarised in paragraph 543. I will give just one quotation. Their findings include:

"(6) The risk of unnecessary repetition of experiments is small and the scale of duplication not serious.

(7) There is no evidence that mandatory tests are retained longer than is necessary.

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(8) There is no evidence of serious wastage of animals in recent years.

(9) There is no foundation for any general suspicion of the concern of licensees for their animals".

The Committee also found that:
"The increase in the number of animals used in research is largely to be explained by the expansion of biological science and the mandatory testing of biological substances."
Since 1965, the safety testing of products has been a feature of a number of Acts, notably the Medicines Act 1968 to which the noble Lord, Lord Sandys, alluded. He asked whether or not it is right that some sections of the Act are not in force. Indeed that is so. The noble Lord asked when they are likely to be implemented. I will go into this point and will write to him if I have anything helpful to report to him.
There are other Acts. There is the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. Noble Lords will know that there is now a Department of State, one of whose responsibilities is consumer protection. All of this points in the direction of a continual growth in Parliamentary concern for the protection of the public from potentially harmful products. Unfortunate though it may be, it is a fact that animals still provide the main way of testing such products.
As regards the general working of the 1876 Act, the Littlewood Committee Report said:
"We conceive the aim of legislation in this field of animal welfare to be threefold—

(1) To prevent objectionable practices;

(2) To encourage humane practices;

(3) To provide for the accountability to the public of all concerned.

By those standards we think the 1876 Act has been generally effective. No licensees appear to regard it as a piece of useless bureaucracy. Many left us in no doubt of their high respect for it. The Act has been effective, partly because it has commanded the ready support of those subject to it, partly because the Home Office has adopted a wide interpretation and insisted on humane standards and administered the law conscientiously."
Despite its finding that there was no evidence of serious wastage of animals in recent years, the Committee gave very serious consideration to measures for reducing the numbers of animals used in experiments. One approach, which was advocated by the RSPCA and which is still being urged, would be to prohibit experiments, except for purposes of
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essential and immediately demonstrable utility. This would involve a fundamental limitation on the freedom of British research workers, which could frustrate work of potentially very great value in the longer term.
The Committee rejected this approach. An alternative approach, which was again proposed by the RSPCA and which is still regularly urged as a solution to the problem, would be to prohibit experiments designed to exclude human beings from suffering some self-imposed risk—for example, smoking tobacco, the use of cosmetics, food additives, unnecessary drugs or, indeed, military weapons. The Committee rejected such discrimination as unrealistic, pointing out that new knowledge did not recognise any classification of purpose, that a discovery in cosmetic science could also benefit medical science and that it would be hard to enforce a prohibition on research into the cure of conditions caused by the use of untested and possibly unsafe products.
The Committee also gave consideration to the possibility of alternatives to animal experimentation gradually diminishing the number of animals used. They found that such methods are actively sought and, when found, are readily adopted and that the discovery of an alternative laboratory test on the isolated organ or tissue which will satisfactorily replace a test on the living animal is always welcomed. They concluded, however, that discoveries of adequate substitutes for animal tests had so far been uncommon and they said they had not been encouraged to think that they were likely to be more frequent in the future.
I have given this brief account of the findings of the Littlewood Committee because, as I have indicated already, the problems that it considered are similar to the ones that are exercising public opinion today. There are still very substantial numbers of animals being used. Broadly the same types of experiments are being conducted, and the same régime of control under the Act, with some modification and improvement as recommended by the Littlewood Committee, is still imposed.
What did the Committee have to say about the solutions which are now being advocated? Noble Lords will have noted from my account of the Committee's

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Report that they found that some of the problems were unreal. They rejected the possibility of legislation arbitrarily to restrict certain types of experiment. They took the view that alternatives are used when these are available. They saw the increase in the use of animals, which has levelled off in recent years, as reflecting the expansion of biological science and of the testing for safety of substances with which the public are brought into contact. Indeed, this is the point which the noble Lord, Lord Brock, made in his speech. In fact, their recommendations did not relate to those matters.
At this stage there are three points which I should make. First, the implementation of Littlewood, for which a number of noble Lords have called in this debate, would have had little effect on most of the major issues which are the object of public concern today. Secondly, the Committee reviewed authoritatively those very issues, and its findings upon them were unequivocal. At present, the Government are not persuaded that the position in respect of the matters which are the focus of attention today has changed in substance since the Littlewood Committee reported. For that reason, we see no grounds for setting up a further Littlewood Committee once again to traverse the same terrain. May I remind noble Lords that short of examining the fundamental issue of whether to prohibit all animal experimentation for any purpose whatsoever, the Committee gave detailed consideration to the major ethical issues which were raised within the framework of the existing Act, and on the fundamental issue they took the view that public opinion has accepted in principle the necessity for, and the value of, animal experimentation.
Thirdly, the attempts which have been made in recent years to amend the Cruelty to Animals Act 1876 do not accord with the findings of Littlewood. Having analysed this matter in some detail, I think it is right to come towards the conclusion of my speech which I recognise will not wholly satisfy my noble friend, but at least I want to indicate the Government's feelings on this matter in the light of today's debate. We fully recognise that the Committee found that in the administration of the 1876 Act
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there were areas which had not kept pace with the times. The Committee made recommendations for improving that situation, and we readily concede that successive Administrations have proceeded only slowly to give effect to them.
There are three areas which we feel merit further and closer attention. The first is the Advisory Committee. Noble Lords will know that, as Littlewood recommended, the Home Secretary has recently appointed, four independent, non-scientific members to the Committee. At present, the Home Secretary does not intend to extend its functions and terms of reference quite in the way that the Committee proposed, because it would duplicate unnecessarily functions which are already competently and efficiently performed by the Inspectorate. However, he believes that its previous function of looking only at experiments which presented novel, or unusual, scientific or technical features was limited and that the Committee's advice should be more readily sought about proposals that raise other difficult issues; for example, the use of dogs to test new smoking materials.
Another issue to which my noble friend Lord Houghton has specifically referred is the question of stress. My right honourable friend is also prepared to look at the possibility of asking the Advisory Committee to consider this. We shall need to examine, with the aid of advice from the Inspectorate, whether it might best be done in general terms or by reference to the Committee of particular cases. In the course of his speech my noble friend then came to the question of information. We acknowledge that the information provided in the Annual Return of Experiments could be fuller and more comprehensible. We shall set in hand a review of the return forthwith. Noble Lords should not, however, underestimate the complexity of what is involved. We shall make progress on this as rapidly as the availability of staff permits.
Lastly I turn to the Inspectorate, on which a great deal has been said in the course of the debate. The Littlewood Report rejected as misconceived the idea that inspectors should be a kind of police force which spends all its time supervising experiments and making spot checks to detect cruelty. They endorsed the view that the inspector's task is to ensure that

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licensees understand and fulfil their responsibilities under the Act. Many of the Committee's detailed recommendations for the Inspectorate have been implemented. In particular, it is now recruited equally from the medical and the veterinary professions it has been regionalised, and its number has been substantially increased. The noble Lord, Lord Sandys, raised this point. I think there were 6 inspectors in 1963 when the Littlewood Committee was set up and the number now is 14. The number of inspectors' visits to licensees has continued to increase annually. But we believe there is potential for yet more effective deployment of the inspectors' time so that they can achieve a still closer and more regular contact with their licensees and an overview of their experimental work. Already a review is in hand which we hope will relieve the inspectors of some of the burdens of desk work, to which also reference was made, and which keeps them at present in the office and away from visiting laboratories.
Perhaps I may now come to a point made by the noble Lord, Lord de Clifford, who asked about places where dogs are bred for experimental purposes. I understand that such places are subject to inspection under the provisions of the Breeding of Dogs Act 1973, which makes them liable to inspection by local authority inspectors. Finally I come to the suggestion made by my noble friend Lord Houghton that a Select Committtee of the House should be established to inquire into the law relating to cruelty to animals and the 1876 Act in particular. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary is quite sympathetic to considering the case for changes in the law or its administration, but he is not presently persuaded that a Select Committee is the right way in which this should be tackled. Nevertheless, if my noble friend Lord Houghton so wishes, my right honourable friend is willing to discuss with him both the question of stress and wider matters relating to the Act.
My Lords, I think we have had a useful discussion this afternoon. In the time available to me, which I see is rapidly drawing to a conclusion, I hope I have said enough to make it clear that although the Government cannot accept the need for some of the action which is currently
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being proposed by the critics of the present law or practice relating to the use of animals for experimentation, we are by no means complacent about the situation, nor do we wish to ignore the implications of the current expression of public concern. We are as concerned as anyone in the community to ensure that those animals which still unfortunately have to be used for experimental purposes should get proper protection from unnecessary suffering and from cruelty, and, as I have explained, we are taking positive steps towards that end.
Lord SANDYS: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, I wonder whether he would refer to one matter in regard to licensing which he dealt with in the course of his remarks. I shall of course read with interest in Hansard tomorrow what he has said, but I gather he suggested that there was no criticism by the licence holders of the present system. I would refer him to paragraph 333, where the Universities' Federation of Animal Welfare said—and I quote their words:
"archaic, inconvenient and wholly unrealistic"
—that was their comment in Chapter 18 on the licensing system—and, further, Recommendation 34 in the Littlewood Report, which was:
"the statutory procedure for signature of applications for licences should be abolished and replaced by a new system of sponsorship".
That was in paragraphs 335 and 339.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, I will look into the point raised by the noble Lord although I think we could probably exchange quotations from the Littlewood Report to prove our respective cases.
5.46 p.m.
Lord HOUGHTON of SOWERBY: My Lords, I have just a few moments before this debate must close, and first I must thank my noble friend for the statement he has just made. I think there is a movement on the part of his right honourable friend the Home Secretary which will be welcomed in the House—in all quarters of the House, I think—and certainly by me. It gives me the opportunity of further consultations with him and to take more advice on how the best use may be made of the Home Secretary's willingness to consider certain matters. I am particularly thankful that he brought within the scope of his review

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psychological experiments and the inducement of stress. I have expressed my gratitude to my noble friend and it would be churlish of me to say that he has not gone far enough or that I hope he will consider going a lot further. I know the difficulties, and for the moment I am content with what he has said. I am grateful to noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. The noble Lord, Lord Platt, asked me to refer to the fact that he had intended to support the idea of further investigations into alternatives, but his agitation to conclude his speech in reasonable time led to its being omitted.
I never mentioned the word "vivisection", from the beginning to the end of my speech. I am particularly anxious to keep emotion and sentiment and even morality out of it. My Lords, this is the last place in Britain I would come to for emotion. This is where the value of seniority and experience is brought to bear on emotional issues. This is the institution which will be swept before the emotion, the indignation and the demand of people. However, it will come.
I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken. I wish I could say to the noble Lord, Lord Brock, that I valued his intervention years ago in support of implementing the recommendations of the Littlewood Committee. I heard the speech of the Establishment on several occasions during the course of the debate, and people who will not recognise that there are strong feelings that need to be satisfied. Why is it that the information is forthcoming only when the matter is raised and then we get involved in these defensive exercises? I plead for more information as we go along, for more public education, and then there will be more public understanding and more public acceptance. However, I am content with the debate and with the progress made. More will come later, but there is time, and I am grateful to my noble friend for his concluding remarks. I beg leave to withdraw my Motion for Papers.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

PROBLEMS OF THE THEATRE AND THE CINEMA
5.49 p.m.
Lord WILLIS Lord WILLIS rose to call attention to the serious problems now facing the theatre and the cinema; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, after what the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, has just said I am beginning to think I am in the wrong place because I tend to generate in myself, if not in other people, a certain amount of emotion. I should like to welcome to the speakers' list so many distinguished speakers, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Gibson, who is to make his maiden speech. I am sure we shall listen to him with interest and delight. I have been asked also through the usual channels to point out, in view of the number of speakers, the limits on this sort of debate. We have 2½ hours and I believe it is customary to leave the Government speaker 20 minutes towards the end of the debate, which roughly means that at eight o'clock the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, should be on his feet.
I must declare an interest, in that I am both a writer for the theatre, and a writer and producer of films, so I clearly have an interest in some of the matters I shall cover. I realise also that I have given myself a rather impossible task this afternoon in trying to link together the theatre and the cinema, each of which would on its own warrant an afternoon's debate in this House. But the problems are so urgent that I felt it was necessary at least to take advantage of this occasion to raise some matters concerning both. I am aware also that this is not the easiest time for special pleading for the theatre, the cinema, or for anything else, because we are told that this is a time when we must tighten our belts. My point is that the theatre has already tightened its belt, and if it has to tighten it much more, it will either cut itself in half or strangle itself. This is why I think some of the problems are so urgent. I hope to show that neither the theatre nor the cinema come before your Lordships' House in the form of beggars rattling the begging bowl. I shall put forward some of the economic arguments on their side which warrant the attention of the Government.
My Lords, both the cinema and the theatre have a case that makes sound economic sense. One could argue that, if there is a case for British Leyland, there most certainly is a good case for the theatre and the cinema. Only two things are required from the Government, Parliament and, indeed, the people. From the Government, in particular, we need a little Parliamentary time, because there are measures in the pipeline, agreed by all Parties, but held up because of lack of Parliamentary time. Secondly, we need a little more money for the theatre—not too much, a sum equal to the cost, for instance, of building 20 miles of motorway, or perhaps half the subsidy we already pay on cheese.
Perhaps I ought to add that the vision and the will are also necessary; the vision to see that our theatre is one of our greatest traditions, and that poverty of the spirit is the worst and the most degrading poverty of all. The vision to see that, if we allow our theatre and its allied art, the cinema, to stumble, falter and weaken, we shall be betraying not only our great cultural past but our future. We are a Great Britain not least because of our culture, which is the envy of many nations and which has earned the admiration of all. To say that our culture is now under attack and is seriously threatened is not to exaggerate.
Let me turn first of all to the theatre. In the last 30 years, there has been a tremendous resurgence in this country of the living theatre, largely due to the pump-priming work done by the Arts Council in association with some enlightened local authorities. Our plays, actors, designers and directors are in demand all over the world. This has helped in turn to fuel the commercial theatre which, until recently, enjoyed a long run of successful production. All this made good economic sense and paid off in economic terms.
Let me give your Lordships a few facts. Out of 21 plays on Broadway in December last year, 11 were of British origin, bringing valuable dollars into this country. In any one week there are about 100 productions of British plays in the United States, and as many in Germany, Scandinavia, and in other countries. In a recent survey, 50 per cent. of all American tourists gave the theatre
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as one of their main reasons for coming here. If any of your Lordships have been to New York recently, you will have seen the advertisements there by British and other airlines, which say quite boldly. "Visit historical London, centre of world theatre", or, "Go to London and see a play". In other words, in the theatre we are clearly a great tourist attraction, which brings in many millions in overseas currency. In 1973, the figure for tourist spending was £680 million, and a substantial proportion of that must be credited to the theatre. It is so cheap. There is no cleaner export sale than the ticket to a British play—just a piece of paper; no valuable imports have to be brought in, and 100 per cent. of the money received remains in this country. All that is the result of 30 years' careful nurturing by the Arts Council.
It is now in serious danger. The theatre is in the middle of a storm, not of its own making, and is reeling from it. I shall give your Lordships some facts on the other side of the balance sheet. First of all, let us take the subsidised theatre. Out of 60 theatres in the regions outside London, 12 are seriously considering closing. Most are cutting back savagely, turning the clock back to safe plays, with small casts and one set. The right to fail, which is the most valuable right in the theatre, has gone. Nobody dares to fail. New plays have fewer chances because they are too risky. Theatre schools, the theatre in education, the valuable groundwork of the theatre for future audiences, are being curtailed on grounds of economy. I will quote a passage from a letter I received from a woman who, many years ago, established a lively theatre in Leatherhead. She has built it up by devoted work and devoted help. She says:
"Here at the Thorndike Theatre, we are so close to constant disaster, that the slightest drop in box office from full to not quite full, and the slightest rise in costs, has got to be balanced by increased subsidy. If it is not, then the doors will close and will certainly not re-open in my lifetime."
My Lords, all this progress has been made on a modest base. Recently actors had a 15 per cent. rise, well within the Social Contract, bringing them up to the magnificent salary of £30 per week basic, a little less than your Lordships get for attending this House for three days. In

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London, the opera, the ballet, the Royal Shakespeare Theatre and the National are all in serious trouble. The Royal Shakespeare Company has pruned its productions and may have to close down at the Aldwych, which would be a terrible blow to the West End theatre. Last year, they took receipts of over £1 million, much of it from tourists, yet they are still in the red. The National Theatre is in similar trouble, made worse by the rising costs of the new building and by construction delays.
If I may add here one rather discordant word in parenthesis while talking about the National Theatre, I was very disturbed to read that Peter Hall, the Director of the National, has accepted a job with a television company. He is being paid a very good salary out of public funds to do a full-time job at the National. But now it is reported that London Weekend are to pay him a five-figure fee to work on their programme "Aquarius". Clearly at this figure, the work will be far from nominal; it will soak up energy and time which ought to be devoted to getting the new National Theatre on the road. I hope that Mr. Hall will think again. He has a tremendous talent, a rare combination of artistic and administrative ability. The Theatre needs all of that now, not just a part of it.
My Lords, to turn to the commercial theatre, we see that its prospects are little better. Almost all the established West End managements are running at a loss at this moment. Some are simply not producing because of the difficulty of raising finance. For example, there is the play at the Haymarket based on a book by the noble Lord, Lord Snow, which received wonderful notices, is playing to crowded houses but, I am told, is actually losing money. Modernisation, and even routine maintenance, of London theatres is becoming an impossibility.
This is a hurried picture. I hope others will fill it in. But I hope I have said enough to indicate that the problems are really serious. What can and should be done? The first and the most important matter on which the Government can help is the abolition of VAT at the box office. We fought for many years to get rid of entertainment tax, enjoyed a short period without it, and now have
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VAT. I know that the right honourable gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer is sympathetic to our case and that he has found it difficult so far, but I believe that he should act now. He should not leave it much longer, otherwise a great tourist attraction and one of the foundations of our culture will be closed down or severely hit.
In the case of the subsidised theatre, to remove VAT would be a book-keeping attraction, since the Exchequer is supposed to increase its grant to the Council to compensate to some degree for VAT. This would, to some extent, restore the situation to what it was before there was entertainment tax in the commercial theatre. It would not solve all the problems, but it would release a flow of funds for production, help to attract new investors and check the rise in seat prices. I would say at this point that we already have evidence that there is resistance to increased seat prices. Although the theatre has put its prices up much less than any other commodity in this country, people are finding it difficult to pay out the increased cost. At least all that would give managers a fighting chance. All we are asking in short, is that the theatre should be given a status similar to publishing. It is really rather extraordinary that you can walk into a shop and buy a magazine like Playboy without paying VAT, you can go into the sleaziest shop and buy the dirtiest book without paying VAT, but you cannot go into the theatre without paying it; we have to pay tax for Shakespeare.
The second priority is to increase the level of grant to the Arts Council. This to some extent has been done, but it has not kept pace with inflation. The result is that the Arts Council, as I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Gibson, will be able to tell us, is in an entrenched position, fighting a desperate action and only just holding on by cutting down, cutting out new work, refusing to take on new clients and making old clients suffer. It really cannot hold that ground much longer; it needs help and it needs it urgently.
I now turn to the cinema, and in particular to British film production. All I have said about the quality of our writers, artists and directors in the theatre may be said also of the cinema. They have a worldwide reputaion. Over the years, except for an occasional spring flowering

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of production, we have shamefully neglected that talent and forced it abroad to find employment. One of the great tragedies of British cinema is that we have always nourished the celluloid illusion that we speak the same language as the Americans. The result is that over the years we have chased the dream of making films which would satisfy both the British and the United States markets, with our eyes on the pot of gold at the end of the Hollywood rainbow. The result has often been the production of mid-Atlantic films, weak imitations of the American product and not really British, and they have sunk, as they deserved to do in many cases, in mid-Atlantic.
The French, on the other hand, have no such illusions, because their language is clearly different. They make films for their own market in their own way. The result is that they have a small but truly national and very viable film industry, which gives a tremendous cultural bonus to France. I believe it must be our aim to establish something like that here. The Americans who, up to a couple of years ago, provided almost 90 per cent. of funds for British films, have now largely pulled out of production in this country, as many of us warned they would some years ago. They have gone home, leaving a vacuum. The result is that film production here is at its lowest ebb for many years. It is a vacuum that has been partly filled by the ponces and pimps and some occasional madams who pedal vice and obscenity, and who make sex dirty for a celluloid dollar.
I am totally opposed to censorship and am not altogether against pornography, but I think you have to believe in what you are making and you do not simply go out to make a dollar, which is what many of them are doing. The racketeers have moved in and that, I think, is a dangerous thing. The irony of the situation is that the habit of watching films has never been so popular. The difference is that people now watch them indoors on television. Films are now a staple and popular diet on the small screen. But in this field the danger is that we are rapidly using up our stocks, living on our capital of old films. Insufficient are being made. These have to be replaced.
There is, I believe, my Lords, a strong case for making a fourth channel on television available to film makers on a pay-as-you-view basis. This is being experimented with in the States, and I think it is something that could come here. I know that the Annan Committee have received submissions along these lines, and I hope they will consider them seriously. But film production cannot wait until the Annan Committee report in 1979; it needs some help now. What is needed is for Parliament and the Government to take steps to stimulate local production now. As I said at the beginning, this calls not so much for money as for a little Parliamentary time.
Specifically what we want is legislation to amend the Act setting up the British Film Production Fund, known as the Eady Levy. This Fund is a kind of tax on every seat sold in the cinema, the money from which is supposed to go back to stimulate British film production. In fact, most of the money has gone back to the distributors; very little of it has been used to finance production. A great deal of it never goes back into films at all. I should like to see some of that Eady Fund, just a small proportion, used specifically as seed-money to encourage writers and independent producers and help finance a British presence at overseas film festivals. The Government have already agreed in principle to much of this. We now need the Bill and the time. I am much reassured by some news that came to me this morning, that Parliamentary time may be found in the autumn. This idea of a script development and pre-production fund put forward by the Writers Guild, and which has the support of all sides of the industry, would at least help to get the wheels turning again but long-term finance is also necessary.
There is a source of finance which is not being used, money that comes from television, money that really ought to be recycled back into the entertainment industry. Every year the television companies pay a levy on their profits, some millions of pounds over and above their normal taxes. This money goes to the Exchequer, where it drops like a stone into the great pool of finance. I believe it should be paid into something like a development board for the film and for the Arts, where it could be recycled back

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into entertainment. It would be some kind of recompense to the industry for the extensive use of films on television, films that are badly paid for and which help to keep technicians and writers and other people out of work. A development board of this sort, financed from this profits levy, would mean that no money need come out of the Government's purse directly, and it would help to set the British film industry on the road again.
There are two further points that I should like to make in conclusion. I believe it is time we ended the rather absurd situation in which responsibility for film is divided between the Department of Trade and the Arts Ministry. It should be brought together under a Ministry of the Arts and the Media, which in turn ought to be given an enhanced status. I think that is something that makes common sense. The second point is this. For years British film production has staggered along from crisis to crisis with no real coherent strategy. It has gone up and down like Tower Bridge, but for reasons which are less convincing. I believe it is time we took a long look at the scene and planned for the future. I should therefore like to ask the Government to consider setting up a committee, similar to the Annan Committee, to investigate the industry in depth and to make long-term recommendations. I should like to see that committee charged to make a report within one year. I think if we surveyed the area properly we might at least make some sense out of this rather chaotic jungle that we now call the film industry. I often think it would be better if we could wipe out the film industry tonight and start again tomorrow on a really logical basis, knowing what we are looking for. But since that is not possible, I think it would be useful if a committee did sit down, almost for the first time, and examine this very important area.
My Lords, I have rushed through my speech. I am sorry to have taken so long, but the subject is important and we give too little time to it. I hope that the Government will listen. We have a good record in these matters from Labour Governments, from Harold Wilson who gave very great help to the film industry in 1949, through to the
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noble Baroness, Lady Lee, and the present Minister; and the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, for the other side, also contributed a great deal at a critical time. Nobody is asking for much, just a little time and a little money to save the art of the threatre and film in Britain from stagnation, and perhaps even worse. As a nation we are at present rich in culture but poor in material resources perhaps, by Western standards at least. But there is an old Chinese proverb that we might hold in mind. It goes as follows:
"If you are poor and hungry and have only two pennies, spend one penny on bread and the other on a bunch of hyacinths."
My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
Lord ANNAN: My Lords, may I reassure the noble Lord before he sits down that, modest as I am in my expectations of the speed at which committees work, I sincerely hope that the Committee on the Future of Broadcasting will have finished its labours considerably before 1979.
6.10 p.m.
Lord AUCKLAND: My Lords, the House will be very grateful—and I mean that literally—to the noble Lord, Lord Willis, for having initiated this debate this afternoon. Seldom has there been a more opportune time than now for two of our most precious assets to be discussed. It is a time when many people feel gloomy about the economic situation of this country, and it is for this reason that any Government are in a difficulty about providing money for the Arts. At the same time, these are days when the people of this country need to be cheered up. They need relaxation, they need escapism; and by what better vehicle than the theatre or the cinema can they be given to the people of this country. The noble Lord has, of course, vast experience of the Arts in general; in writing, in the cinema, and in the theatre. I cannot claim any of these attributes except as a consumer, and as a former trustee of the theatre which the noble Lord mentioned, the Thorndike Theatre at Leatherhead. I shall return to that in a moment.
Turning first to the cinema, the British film is still a hallmark of quality. As the noble Lord rightly said, problems are such that more British films of the calibre that we have known cannot be turned

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out. I have had the privilege of visiting Pinewood Studios on two or three occasions, and to have seen several very fine British films being made. I should like to pay a tribute to all concerned with these and other British film studios who are at the present time working under the most difficult conditions—largely financial—which have been discussed in considerable detail by the noble Lord, Lord Willis. Therefore it does not need me to dwell on them very much, except to say that of course high taxation is the bugbear of so many aspiring British artistes in the cinema and the theatre.
It is difficult to calculate, for example, how many millions of pounds the Carry On films have made overseas. There is an enormous export potential. These are films which may not be to every taste but, at a time when we are striving to increase our exports, it is important to realise the enormous potential of these films. At the other end of the scale, historical films such as Cromwell and Nicholas and Alexandra, to mention just two, have brought enormous amounts of currency to this country. They have been shown in many countries, and have been extremely well received. But I should like to put to the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, who I know has done so much himself for the Arts, one point which may not be a Government matter. It is really disturbing to see, particularly at what might be called "tripartite" cinemas where one has three films showing at the same time, that all too often not one of the films is suitable for family showing. I wonder whether any sort of market research has been done into how many people really go to see these often very obscene and badly made films. Surely at least one of these three films could be of the calibre of some of the historical films or recent quality films from British studios. I know that this is not necessarily a Government responsibility, but I sincerely believe that if this were done it would bring people back into the cinema, and particularly those with families. After all, often the family unit makes the cinema what it is, or what it ought to be.
I turn now to the theatre. I declare an interest, although not a financial one, as a former trustee of the Thorndike Theatre at Leatherhead. I make no apology for spending a moment or two in talking about this particular theatre.
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It is, as the noble Lord, Lord Willis, has mentioned, a theatre of quality. The director, Hazel Vincent Wallace, whom I have known for some years, has turned this theatre into a place where plays of the highest quality can be seen. Every season there is at least one Shakespearian play, or a play by a great dramatist, such as Henrik Ibsen. I do not know the present average figures of attendance at this theatre for the season which is about to finish because I have not consulted the theatre management before this debate, but, on average, the attendance per season ranges between 85 per cent. and 90 per cent. of capacity. I believe that that is on the low side now; it may well be above that. For many of their productions it is 100 per cent.
In the year 1973–74 the Arts Council grant to this theatre was £46,400 and for that, of course, the theatre is very grateful, but it in no way compares with what is needed at the present time. The theatre started as a slummy little building—the Leatherhead Theatre Guild—in 1948, and the Thorndike Theatre moved to its present site about 10 years ago. Recently, on the occasion of the anniversary of the repertory theatre, we had a visit from Princess Alexandra and her husband. It was a most memorable evening, which of course did the theatre a great deal of good.
When compared with the West End theatre the prices are still extremely reasonable; but they will have to rise for reasons which the noble Lord has already put forward, and which will be quite apparent to your Lordships. Of course this goes for all repertory theatres. The important point about this particular theatre is the great loyalty of the actors, the designers, the producers and the stage hands to their theatre. This applies throughout to repertory. Certainly we at Leatherhead have the same actors and actresses coming back year after year, and they are subsidising the theatre. This is a point which has been made before in your Lordships' House in debates of this kind, and it is not unreasonable to make it again.
I now turn to Scotland. Another theatre I have had the pleasure of visiting is in the lovely Scottish town of Pitlochry. Here the Arts Council grant is somewhat lower. The productions there too are of

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a particularly high standard. Many tourists from all parts of the world are now going to Pitlochry and one of the first places they visit is the theatre. The invisible earning in dollars and other currency are enormous. I hope that the Government will give thought to this factor, even in a time of financial stringency such as we must all recognise.
The Theatre Royal at Stratford brings in an enormous amount of foreign currency. Americans and people from all parts of the world visit this theatre, a pleasure which I enjoy normally at least once every year. The standard of production in the British theatre today is as high as ever it was. Certainly in the repertory theatre it is, if anything, increasing in quality, despite the enormous difficulties which are placed on it.
In a debate of this kind, one cannot possibly explore everything. I hope that what I have said will get home to the Government that the theatre and the cinema provide an enormous source of income into this country from foreign visitors in spite of the fact that, for obvious reasons, they will find things more and more expensive this year, and possibly in the years to come, which is something common to most countries. My Lords, the House will be very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Willis, for I believe that this debate could scarcely have come at a more opportune time.
6.23 p.m.
Lord BEAUMONT of WHITLEY: My Lords, I, too, welcome the debate, and I particularly look forward to the speech, as the noble Lord, Lord Willis, said, of the noble Lord, Lord Gibson. I had the pleasure of listening to him the other day at the Academy dinner. Although I did not entirely agree with all he said I was most interested and impressed with it, and I know that in this House we have a notable addition to the spokesmen on the Arts and on other matters. My gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Willis, is somewhat tempered by the fact that if he had not been successful at this moment, I should be watching the new Pinter play at the National Theatre. However, I know my duties, and in fact it is against that background that I want to make my remarks. I find very frustrating the
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few nights I am able to go to the theatre, because it seems to me that this is the most brilliant theatre season we have had for a very long time.
We have gone through a slightly sticky patch in the recent past. There is hardly a bad play in the list, whether in the subsidised or the commercial theatre. The National Theatre is having a big comeback at the moment with Pinter, Shaw and Ibsen plays this season. The Royal Court seems to be having a terrific comeback; so many people are grateful for the season of Orton revivals, particularly those, like me, who were abroad when Orton was first writing and his work was being produced. There is the Aldwych with the magical production of Love's Labour's Lost. There is the commercial theatre, with plays like "A Family and its Fortune", and the fringe theatre now producing really good plays like Kennedy's Children. There are productions of real quality, and this is what we should keep our eyes on. This is something tremendously worth while; it is a flowering of British culture.
There are financial problems which are common to the whole nation, and no one pretends that the theatre must not take its own share of the burden. Nevertheless, I agreed with the noble Lords, Lord Willis and Lord Auckland, when they referred to exports and dollar earnings. The ways of the Treasury, not only in this area but in many others, have always seemed most peculiar to me. Not nearly enough attention seems to be paid, particularly at a time when we have run into considerable trouble with the balance of payments, to the industries which are earning money. If they were given a little help this could bring on a flow of dollars and keep it going. There is a tremendous case for the support of both the theatre and, to a lesser extent in this context, the film industries. I want to say something about VAT later, but I suggest that we really must make this a top priority.
In the short time at my disposal I should like to raise some minor points where I think we must plug away, because they are points where one can see that something can be done immediately. First, the provincial theatres must not be allowed to close. This is almost the first priority. Of course, the stars and the limelight are all in the West End,

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but it is based on this great new network of good provincial theatres which, 20 or 30 years ago, were not there. They are there now, although, as has been said, if one or two have to close their doors they may not open again. We must not allow this to happen. We all pay lip service to decentralisation and to encouraging the Arts in the Provinces. This is one way in which we can see it can happen.
Secondly, I should like to raise the point about the new National Theatre building. At last Parliament has recently passed, with support from all sides, a Motion willing the means to bring this almost unending saga to an end. I have just finished editing the diaries of James Agate for a new edition. Back in the 'thirties the same arguments were going on. Now we have nearly reached the end. Somehow matters seem to have become bogged down again. I do not know at whose door the blame is to be laid. The building is nearly finished; we must find some way of getting the National Theatre into its own premises. The shortage of finance must not be allowed to stand in the way.
I should also like to enter a plea for the Theatre Museum which has been the Cinderella for a long time, looking if not for a palace at least for a roof over its head. Now that Covent Garden has space available, backing should be given to the Theatre Museum people who have a desire to move into the flower Market in Covent Garden. It would be a much more suitable site than Somerset House, which is better than nothing; but the flower market would be much better and more suitable for the kind of exhibit which the Theatre Museum, by its nature, ought to have.
My Lords, I now turn to the film industry. I have the honour to be the President of the British Federation of Film Societies, a body which at this moment is celebrating its 50th anniversary. We discovered the other day that the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, was a member of the original Film Society in Regent Street which then became the London Film Society and which had Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells as founder members. We now have over 600 societies all over the country, really interested in the film, keen on the film as
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an art. I have one or two remarks to make on behalf of that body. First, the problem of censorship which is bound to arise on the occasion of a debate like this although it is not the centre of it. I should like to make the point that the Federation is totally opposed to censorship of films for adults and bitterly regrets the GLC's decison not to abandon censorship in London. I make this point because I think it significant that a body of people who are not trendy, not "way out", who are very much educated in the difference between good and bad films, are themselves involved in the only real form of censorship which is self-censorship by self-education. They know there are plenty of bad films about and that there are plenty of films which are wrong; but who can you trust to make a decision like this? This is the point against censorship and it is a point on which the Federation feels strongly.
We feel also that a certain amount more help might be given by local authorities to film as an art. I think there is a feeling among local authorities that, because there are commercial cinemas, they need not do anything about film as an art. It would help if they could do so; because film is an art and needs help for those people who want to study it carefully. I remember a play some time ago in which there was the immortal line—at least, immortal to me; it has lived with me ever since—"We do not see many Hungarian films in Bury St. Edmunds." With the cutting clown of cinemas all over the place, one still does not see many Hungarian films in Bury St. Edmunds. I apologise to Bury St. Edmunds if I have selected a bad example. But it is true and I think that, if we are to have mature and responsible audiences for films—the kind of audiences which will choose in the market context to go to see the kind of films the noble Lord, Lord Auckland, wants without being forced to do so—if we can educate such an audience we shall be doing something worth while. The money produced by local authorities to help local art in the film world is as important as in any other world.
I should like to make one or two other points about films; first, the Film Archive. I still think—and no doubt the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Hampstead,

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will say something about this—that we must do more to improve the quantity and quality of the film we have in the National Film Archive. There is still considerable need for action. On 12th March, 1970 (in column 941) the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, said in this House.
"I am disappointed that the Films Bill does nothing to help the National Film Archive …"
There still is not enough being done to help the National Film Archive. I think there is still a need for action. We ought to have a situation where the National Film Archive can have a copy, a print, of every film just as the British Museum has a print of every book. I know that we are told that the expense for the print of a film is £300 or £400, as opposed to that of a book, but there are far fewer films produced. I do not think this is an overriding argument. Somewhere there appears to be a lack of willpower in dealing with this.
I welcome what the noble Lord, Lord Willis, said about applying money to writers and scripts and the seed-bed of the creative cinema. This is tremendously important because, as he said in another context about the theatre, when you get financial stringency then the thing which goes out of the window is experiment and people go for what is safe. There is a risk, I think, of this happening in the film industry at the moment. I am delighted to hear the hints that the noble Lord, Lord Willis, has dropped about what may be happening about this at the moment.
In closing, I come back, as I suppose we must all come back, to the financial position. I think that there is a very strong case for exemption from VAT. I myself—I do not speak for my Party—have always believed that VAT made sense only if it were applied without exemptions of any kind. I think that it rather destroys the nature of the tax by having any exemption. But we have exemptions; and if we have exemptions for books then there is no reason why we should not have them for the theatre. I would make the point, at the risk of undermining the plea for the theatre by widening the scope, that there is a very strong case for taking it away from films as well. After all, the old entertainment tax, which the noble Lord, Lord Willis,
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spoke of, was for both and it was removed from both. It is the better end of the film industry; it is the voluntary side where people are really interested in film as an art which finds it difficult to struggle on under the financial burdens. It is the people producing the easy and possibly not very good films who can shrug off the extra money. I hope that this will be sympathetically looked at. I am delighted to learn that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is personally sympathetic on this point.
Lord HARMAR-NICHOLLS: My Lords, my name is not on the list; but there is a point on which I should like to support what has been said by the noble Lord and by the noble Lord, Lord Willis. In another place I moved an Amendment to the Finance Bill to have the theatre excluded from VAT. For one fleeting moment we thought we had won, except that at the last minute in a Statement we were told that in terms of administering that tax it was vital that it should be all-embracing, with no, or hardly any, exemptions. But the promise was given—and I am raising the matter in the hope that it might reach the ears of the Treasury Bench at some time—and a very clear indication was given that, while it would not be included when VAT was inaugurated, if it could be seen that the fears that we expressed came into being, in future Finance Bills it would be looked at in the knowledge that the point had been proved by its operation. I felt that the speech by the noble Lord, Lord Willis, and now the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, makes the point which should be taken heed of by the Treasury Bench.
Lord BEAUMONT of WHITLEY: My Lords, we are grateful for the information that the noble Lord has given the House. I hope that the Ministers responsible will bear in mind this assurance that they have given, because the need is present. I am not pessimistic at all about the theatre or films, despite the problems that people on the ground must meet every day. There is this tremendous vitality at the moment, a vitality which comes from real quality going right throughout the theatre and the film world. It is right that all these worlds will have to play their part in the burdens we are facing now and which, unfortunately, I

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fear are going to be greater over the next year or two. But they must not be asked to bear more of their share of the burden and particularly so in view of their ability to earn foreign currency of every kind, visible and invisible, and the currency of prestige for this country. They must not be allowed to suffer in any irrevocable way.
6.40 p.m.
Lord GIBSON: My Lords, I am very glad that the theatre should be the subject on which I have the honour to address your Lordships' House for the first time, and I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Willis, for making it possible. I am glad not because I am any authority on the theatre or, indeed, on any other art form. A few years as chairman of the Arts Council does not make a man an authority on anything. But it gives me a particular opportunity to appreciate the vitality in the Arts in this country to which the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, referred, and to note the development and spread of the Arts which has been made possible since the war by the injection of public funds.
This is especially true of the theatre. Your Lordships may recall that before the war Bernard Shaw always argued for a national theatre and wrote compellingly about the need for it. On one occasion he wrote that in England we had municipal morgues and national racecourses, but no municipal theatres and no national ones. He went on:
"In England you can get money for sport, for religion, for politics and for charity, but never for art, least of all the art of the theatre."
He wound up:
"We are barbarians, which means not that we are indifferent to art, but that we actively dislike it."
All that has now changed and is no longer a charge which could conceivably be levelled at this country and its people.
There are now some 60 repertory companies throughout this country. I should like to say how much I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, about their key importance as the core on which the whole thing rests. They have been built up with Arts Council and local authority support—not always in the proportions we should have wished,
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but I think it can be called a great success story. The quality is not even, but in many places it is extremely high, and in very few does it fall below a level which can be regarded as acceptable. In London the National Theatre has been created. There is the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Aldwych and at Strat ford, the English Stage Company, and a number of fine touring companies as well. All this, allied with much that has been done in the commercial theatre, is a great success story of which this country can be, and I believe is, very proud.
My Lords, there is only one main point I wish to make this afternoon—the only point I have time for in what are the right conventions of your Lordships' House for a maiden speech; obviously I must be short. I want to say, on the one hand, that I acknowledge absolutely the need for the utmost economy in public expenditure at this time. But there is a parallel need to invest, and it is very important in this country that we invest in the things we are good at, in the successes, and not in the failures. The theatre is a roaring success in this country, and it is renowned for its success all over the world. As has already been said in this debate, it brings in countless visitors, together with the foreign exchange they bring with them.
Therefore it is worth investing in the theatre. But if we are to invest successfully in the future of drama, the Arts Council, for its part, needs two things. It needs enough money to see its supported companies through difficult times, and it needs enough planning time—by which I mean enough advance notice of the amount of our grant in aid—to be able to give adequate warning where a grant to a particular company (perhaps because of higher priorities elsewhere) ought to be reduced or, in some cases, stopped. While often we need to provide funds to tide over a period while something which has gone wrong can be put right, the essential aim is to back success. By that I mean not only backing the successes of today, but to back the experiments which one thinks will be the successes of tomorrow. Otherwise we have a frustratingly static situation.
There are many new groups, often talented, which deserve help and feel keenly the injustices of too static a situation, whereby if you are not already on

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board it is extremely difficult to get on board. We have to avoid this, and to help new enterprises to come into being; and it is quite an explosive situation. It is possible to put this right only if the grant is increased in real terms and notified well ahead. We need, like the universities need, to get back toa—in our case triennial; in their case, I think, quinquennial—planning period, which broke down when this crisis broke upon us.
I am glad to say that I see signs that we are beginning to get back. Unfortunately, in the domain of the theatre our situation is complicated by the enormous cost of running the building on the South Bank which is to be occupied by the National Theatre. I regard it—I want to emphasise this—as a magnificent building and a huge national asset. But it is very costly to run, even before you get a company into it and performing plays. Our situation this year will be further complicated by the deficits which I fear many of our supported theatre companies will face, especially if audiences react un-unfavourably to higher seat prices, coupled, I am afraid, in some cases with less service.
If, my Lords, I say very little about the commercial theatre it is partly due to lack of time, but partly because my main responsibility is with the subsidised Arts; and certainly not because I disregard it. I want to make the point that the commercial and subsidised theatre are fully interdependent. Actors cross from one to the other. Shows which begin in the subsidised theatre often end un in the West End, and so on. Their interests are in no way opposed, and in that connection perhaps I can refer to the fact that the Arts Council has pledged its support to the Theatre Investment Fund—originally an idea of the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, who is the chairman. After endless delays, occasioned by technical matters, it is due to get off the ground towards the end of this summer. The purpose of it is to back commercial managements in taking risks with interesting plays; in other words, trying to safeguard the right to fail, which is in such jeopardy, and any profits will be ploughed back into the fund to enable further risks to be taken.
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Meanwhile, all of this is in peril from inflation, which threatens the theatre as it threatens everything else, all our other national achievements. I give as one example of this problem perhaps the best example, the Royal Shakespeare Company. To keep it going this year at the same level of operation of last year would cost just over £1 million. This we cannot let it have. The company is therefore working to reduce the scale and level of operation, and it has got it down to a level which would cost about £880,000. But we cannot let it have that either. The most we can let it have is £680,000. The company tells me that if the extra money cannot be found somewhere, then at the end of the year it will have to close the Aldwych. While it will still operate at Stratford, it would be a great tragedy for it not to operate in London; and, if we are talking in purely material terms, a great deal of foreign exchange would be lost in consequence.
I do not want everything I say in this debate to be a moan, because I think that a great deal which is very encouraging is going on, and what we are saying this afternoon should be seen in proper perspective. Nevertheless, it is important to tell your Lordships that reports come to me from all over the country which indicate cuts in programmes and reductions in staff. I assure your Lordships that actors are not among those who price themselves out of jobs. In fact I very often ask myself whether they are not subsidising the theatre almost as much as the Government are. There are smaller casts, and tours to towns which are not provided with theatres are being reduced. There are fewer performances in schools, and so on—above all, playing safe by eschewing new plays.
But if we do not do new plays now there will be no theatre tomorrow. I need hardly labour that point to your Lordships. There are people who say that in times when you are up against it the theatre must take its share of the cuts with everybody else, and the immediate reaction might be to favour that point of view. But the fact is that whereas a siege economy helped us to win the war, the peace-time objective requires different weapons. I am all for austerity where it will help. But what we need now is to invest in those things

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which make this country a civilised place in which to live and an attractive place to come to. I think that the theatre is a powerful weapon in that fight and we should not neglect it. I should like to add my support to the plea for zero rating for VAT. I believe that the Chancellor will do it. It will cost the country very little when it is done, and it will relieve the theatre of an intolerable burden.
In short, my Lords, we must not let our theatre wilt. Our theatre is an asset which we have created and it will repay nourishment. We must make sure that that great building on the South Bank is not what actors call "dark". Frankly, the problem is to find enough money to enable the company to go there without depriving other theatres up and down the land of their fair share of public funds. So it all comes back to the need to ensure adequate finance and enough advance notice to enable the Arts Council to plan selectively.
Before I sit down, I should like to make a brief reference to what was said in another place last week by the Minister for the Arts. In answer to a Question, he stated that the Arts Council had got what it asked for in the way of grants in aid for the current year. He added, encouragingly for me, that if it was not enough no doubt we should be letting him know. As regards the first part of his reply, I have absolutely no wish to contradict the Minister, but I should add a little something from the Arts Council's point of view.
We did of course discuss with the Department of Education and Science last summer and autumn our likely needs based on the figures received from our supported enterprises. At that time, it seemed as though£25 million as a revenue grant might just see us through. We made it absolutely plain that we should have needed a great deal more to do what we wanted, but we were assured that £25 million would be extremely hard to get and that there was really no hope of going for any more. Your Lordships will not be surprised to learn that by the time £25 million was granted in March this year, it no longer looked enough. However, I am very much encouraged by the Minister's having said that we must let him know if it is not
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enough. I need hardly assure your Lordships that we are letting him know and, as he understands the theatre very well from his own experience, I have no doubt at all that he is doing all he can to help us. We must hope that he will succeed.
6.54 p.m.
Viscount ECCLES: My Lords, I count it one of the happiest occasions since I have been a Member of your Lordships' House to be the first to congratulate my noble friend Lord Gibson on his maiden speech. I remember that, when the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, expressed his desire to retire from a distinguished tenure of the chair of the Arts Council, I had many sleepless nights wondering whom we could invite to follow him. How fortunate we were that the noble Lord, Lord Gibson, came forward and has done three years of most remarkable service. Having heard his speech today, your Lordships will realise what a grasp he has of the whole business of the Arts Council. I know that he is an expert on other subjects as well and I hope we shall hear him on many occasions, both on the Arts and on other topics.
The noble Lord, Lord Willis, certainly deserves thanks for opening a debate in which the critical position of many theatres and cinemas is being exposed. I must say straight away that I think the financial position is perhaps worse than has been suggested to your Lordships. We all know that businesses like the theatre and the cinema are bound to be among the very first and worst victims of inflation. Of course they are not the only victims. One has only to put a stamp on a letter, to pay the rates or to order a ton of coal to know what is happening to everybody and every business in the country, and to realise that these are the kind of costs which not only have already afflicted the live Arts and the cinema but which are going to afflict them much more before long.
They are bound to be peculiarly vulnerable, because they so soon find that it is self-defeating to go on raising the prices of their seats in step with rising prices. Resistance sets in very much faster than it does with the consumption of the products of nationalised industries. The state of the finances of the theatre and cinema shows what wounds we give ourselves by surrendering week after week to wage demands far beyond the levels that

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would hold inflation at bay. Unemployment in these two arts is being created by those who are, with a nonchalance one cannot understand, deliberately stoking up inflation.
On the other hand, inflation is not the whole difficulty which the theatre and the cinema are facing. The larger theatres, the opera houses and the making of films have for some years provided examples of rocketing payments to the ancillary services on which the artists and performers depend. Comparing the pay of authors, actors, musicians and designers with the pay of the technical grades in the theatre, it is astonishing how far the performers are trailing behind. I must say plainly that it is not the business of any Government to find whatever money scene-shifters, electricians and camera crews choose to demand before they will allow a ballet to be put on or a picture to be made. I think we ought all to support those responsible for the Coliseum in their endeavours to knock sense into their union.
Having made that important point, it is now all too obvious that the present rate of inflation will soon bankrupt many places of entertainment, because their present difficulties are nothing like what will happen in the next six months. One asks: what can be done to help them? More than one noble Lord has suggested the removal of VAT. My noble friend Lord Harmar-Nicholls gave us some interesting information from the other place. I think the Government might make this gesture, but we need to look closely at its results. In the first place, it is very difficult to define what is and what is not Art; what qualifies for exemption and what does not. Secondly, though removal of VAT would bring some financial relief and, I would guess, still more relief from anxiety in the reduction of bureacracy, it would not meet the need.
For example, if one takes Covent Garden, which is the house which draws most money, the removal of VAT would add £170,000 a year to its budget and, provided that its total grants from the Government were not cut, that would be merely 4 per cent. of its expenditure. It may be—though I rather doubt it—that for some of the commercial theatres removal of VAT would represent a full
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8 per cent. of their revenue. Even so, with inflation running at 20 per cent. and very likely to go higher still, a relief of 4 to 8 per cent. will not pay the bill. However, I hope the Government will find a tolerable way to exempt theatres and cinemas from VAT, especially because it would be a notable climb-down on the part of Ministers and would therefore represent a clear discrimination in favour of art.
For a moment or two, I now turn to the reasons why such discrimination is desirable. In spite of the optimistic things which have been said by the noble Lords, Lord Gibson, and Lord Beaumont of Whitley, our society, taken as a whole, still puts a low rating on art. Even the last war, H-bombs and all, did not change the general opinion that science is a necessity and art a luxury. How else can one explain the advice which Mr. Prentice, the Secretary of State for Education and Science, has just given to the universities to sell their treasures in order to keep up with inflation? One cannot doubt that Mr. Prentice thinks the teaching of science and technology and all the millions spent on scientific research much more important than the Arts. I also want the university science departments to be maintained, but not at the expense of the Arts—and that for some new and powerful reasons.
For decades our people have been taught to expect, year after year, a higher material standard of life. Now, with a sudden jolt, the process is coming to a halt. Nature's resources are not sufficient to allow consumption to rise indefinitely. It is not conceivable that the enormous populations of Asia, Africa and Latin America will ever be able to consume per head what the North Americans and Western Europeans consume today. Our old priorities of ever-increasing consumption of material goods will therefore no longer stand up, and we are compelled to reconsider the pattern of growth rather than continue staking everything on the rate of growth. It is this which thrusts into the centre of a policy-making those values and their related activities by which man must live, if he is to find satisfaction beyond the pursuit of money and what money can buy in terms of material goods.
There are many ways in which one can learn more about those values, and

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about ourselves and the world we live in. Art is one of those ways, and the theatre and the cinema are two potent forms of art. Drama, in whatever form it may be expressed, tells a story about the human condition. Quite recently, Mr. Huw Wheldon remarked that we learn much more about ourselves from stories than from statistics. The theatre and the cinema, if the scripts are written and performed by artists of talent, can help us to get inside other people's heads, to look at the situation with their eyes and to think for ourselves whether the story tackles the situation in the right way. We should not now be consenting to the disastrous rate of inflation if we had more concern for each other and a better understanding of how human affairs must be handled.
Very well then, my Lords. What forms of communication are we to choose? On which are we to put more emphasis, now that it is impossible to continue year after year with material growth? I think that rather than try to maintain the financial situation of art in its different forms, we have to discriminate in favour of forms of communication which can bring home to the widest public what we ought to be learning about the world and ourselves. The theatre ranks high among such means of communication. Let us ask the Chancellor to give up the revenue from VAT and add to the grants through the Arts Council, but not unless he cuts some other subsidy somewhere else. We cannot afford it. In the short run, there is really nothing else to be done than give larger subsidies in order to provide cash for companies on the edge of closure; but I submit that that will not do as a permament solution. Government subsidies carry no guarantee that the Arts will be spread across the population. They add one more dose of paternalism, of cash and control from the centre, whereas what we need is more participation by the public everywhere and less dependence on London and on the taxpayers' money.
I can think of a number of ways in which the Provinces and the London suburbs might be drawn into partnership in the spread of adult education and culture of all kinds. But any such suggestions are hardly worth making until inflation is stopped, the unions concerned with theatre technicians act reasonably, and a much higher place is given by Parliament and public to cultural policies
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that cannot be reckoned in material terms. I hope that this debate may do something to alter our priorities in that direction.
7.6 p.m.
The Earl of LONGFORD: My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, and it is particularly agreeable to join in the cordial tributes given to the noble Lord, Lord Willis, who made such an arresting speech. I should also like to join in the congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Gibson, who is such a deeply valued addition to our strength. I must keep within the limits imposed by an availability of 53 minutes for five speakers, and not exceed my ration. If I fail to develop some themes in a way which might have been hoped—or perhaps feared—let it be put down to lack of time.
I should like to submit four propositions, and if I do so a little dogmatically let time also decide that. First of all, I shall speak entirely about films and not the theatre—although when my brother died there was a minute's silence for him at the Dublin Theatre, and if any noble Lords (including myself) are likely to have a minute's silence for them when they die, they will be lucky. Therefore, I am not uninterested in the theatre but must confine myself to films. My first proposition is that a number of revolting films are being shown. Personally, I have no doubt that we are all deeply influenced by what we see, hear and read, and if we are subjected to a flow of filth over a period we are morally and psychologically damaged. The noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, may not altogether agree, but I am afraid I cannot stop to argue with my various friends and adversaries in the House. Leaving aside the effect of unpleasant films, can anyone doubt that a number of the films now being shown are a discredit to the film industry? Even those who are libertarians and therefore do not want to interfere with them call them "trashy". Personally, I would use much harsher words, such as "obscene and pornographic", the first two which come to mind.
Some of these films, though not all of them, certainly introduce an element of sadism or cruelty, which the noble

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Lord, Lord Willis, in a debate here in 1971, selected as a distinguishing mark of pornography. Today the noble Lord appears to be not altogether opposed to pornography, but I think he was using the word today in a slightly different sense from that in which he used it in 1971. He said clearly that the racketeers have moved in, and so he must be as disturbed as most of us are about the effect of these racketeers and the films which are their means of livelihood. I am certainly not denying that a number of excellent films are being shown: they are often high-class films, completely immune from this kind of criticism. I would surmise, after taking some advice, that the clean films are getting cleaner and the dirty films are getting dirtier—though they cannot get much dirtier than they are now. That seems to sum up the situation more or less accurately.
I read with interest a letter in Cinema/TV Today for Saturday 3rd May, in which Mr. Kevin Francis, managing director of Tyburn Film Productions Limited, Pinewood Studios, made a strong protest at the failure of the BBC to distinguish between the British film industry as a whole, and what he called "the gutter end". He referred to the regrettable operations of the "sexploitation film makers". That is the opinion of Mr. Francis who ought to know something about it. However you like to quantify this "gutter end", there is no denying that it exists and is very prominent in the minds of some of these very expert gentlemen.
My second proposition fits in closely with the complaint made by Mr. Francis. I submit that bad money, here as elsewhere, drives out good, and that dirty films are a threat to clean ones. Some members of the industry will rate the threat higher than others, but it can hardly be denied that the threat is there. It can overate in various ways—either directly by cutting into the market, or indirectly by driving out of the profession a number of talented actors and actresses who refuse to participate in this unhealthy kind of fun.
Thirdly, I would point out that the law affecting films and our film censorship arrangements are quite beyond the understanding of the public; in fact, they
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are in a state of palpable confusion. But I must not go into that subject at any length. It is imagined by most of the public that the Board of Film Censors have the last word as to whether or not a film should be shown. We sophisticated people know that that is not so, but that the last word rests with the local authority who, of course, are subject to the law of the land. In practice, the public idea is not far from what occurred until just recently, when the decisions of the Board of Film Censors were generally accepted. Films were exempted wholly, mainly because this issue cannot be said to have been finally settled in the courts. For this reason they were exempted from the application of the Obscene Publications Act 1959. We were already supposed to have effective film censorship.
More recently, the majority of the viewing board of the GLC have set out deliberately, explicitly and sincerely to make nonsense of the existing film censorship with a view to getting it removed altogether. The attempt to induce the GLC as a whole to reject all forms of censorship for adults was narrowly defeated, but I do not live in a fool's paradise and I am aware that the battle continues. What has emerged more recently, which to some of us is more encouraging, is a clearer recognition of the existence of powers under Common Law to prosecute indecent films. These powers were referred to in 1959 by the Solicitor General of the time in supporting the Obscene Publications Act, but pointed out explicitly that the Common Law against indecency would continue to apply. That conception seems to have faded. It was not clear to most of us when we were involved in a prolonged inquiry into pornography between 1971 and 1972.
When I look back to what I said (with a good deal of official assistance) in this House in 1971 I could not be said to have laboured the existence of these powers, though I used words which could cover them. Now, however, this power to prosecute an indecent film at Common Law seems to be generally accepted. A case (the first of its kind) is being brought under the Common Law against a film publicly exhibited. It follows a complaint to the Commissioner of Police made by a friend of mine, Mr. Raymond Gladwell, with my support as long ago as last

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August. I believe the case is to be heard on 4th June. That itself is rather extraordinary. It will have taken from August when the complaint was made, until June for the case to be heard. That delay is more encouraging to the exhibitors of pornographic films than to those who want to bring them to book. But in fairness to the police I would remind the House that the film was, in fact, seized and has not been shown since.
My time is nearly up so I will state my fourth proposition even more dogmatically than the others. We need a clearer and firmer law with regard to obscene and indecent films, and with those, of course, I include those whose appeal is more cruel than sexual, though quite a number of films possess both defects. We need effective arrangements for censorship in which the public interest is represented much more widely than it is now. Those are changes which would require a great deal of discussion and argument to bring them about, but I hope we shall see them effected. I put to the Minister who is to reply to this debate that the immediate necessity is for much more positive recognition than existed until recently of the fact that Common Law does indeed apply to indecent films. We need a much more active policy of making use of those powers. As regards these points, particularly the last one, I hope there will be general agreement not only among the public, but among the vast majority of the British film industry with their high professional standards and their artistic ideals.
7.17 p.m.
Lord COTTESLOE: My Lords, I shall not attempt to follow the noble Earl, Lord Longford, into the field of the pornographic film. I am very glad that the noble Lord, Lord Willis, has raised this matter in your Lordships' House. It is a particular pleasure that we have thus been enabled to listen to the noble Lord, Lord Gibson, making a most admirable maiden speech on which we should all wish to congratulate him. My Lords, if I am not mistaken, the Arts Council, of which he is the chairman, is required by its charter to spread the knowledge of the Fine Arts and to raise the standards of performance. That function, which it has so admirably performed for the last 30 years, makes it especially important that it should just now flourish in the face of
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all our economic difficulties. The world in which we live, balanced as we are on a knife-edge between severe inflation and hyper-inflation—inflation out of control—is for nearly all of us alarming. Inevitably it induces in those who are able to see beyond the end of their nose a mood of severe anxiety and depression. This makes it a matter of especial importance at present that the Arts should be enabled to exert their civilising influence, not indeed as escapism from the critical state of our economic and political affairs, but to buoy up our spirits through a difficult and depressing time.
In my view the wage inflation from which we suffer today gives us a great opportunity to widen the public for the Arts—a public already much enlarged in recent years in the field of the visual Arts. The crowds and the queues that flocked to the Turner exhibition, to the Chinese exhibition, to the Tutankhamen exhibition, for example, bear witness to that. That could hardly have happened 15 or 20 years ago. There is now a great opportunity in the fields of music and of drama. I will exaggerate for the sake of illustration. If the rich who have no money, taxed as they are to 98 per cent. and about to be taxed to over 100 per cent., can no longer afford to go to the theatre or to the opera as often as they once did, and if the middle classes, who were once their greatest support, are now largely being squeezed out of existence, there is nevertheless a vast potential public in the working man—to use that monstrous phrase which implies that manual labour is the only form of work—with his £50, £60 or £80 a week; and no less in what I may call the secretarial classes, too—those young ladies, particularly, many of whom live at home on what a few years ago would have been regarded as princely salaries; and many others. There is the opportunity and it is up to the Arts Council and up to the theatres and concert halls up and down the country to seize that opportunity and attract these new audiences. This is indeed already happening, but the process must be accelerated and reinforced. High-powered salesmanship is the modern idiom, and the Arts must be sold to the new audiences, to the new rich.
May I turn now to a facet of this problem, the National Theatre, in which I have a special interest—not indeed an

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interest of any kind that requires me to declare it to your Lordships but an interest as chairman of the board commissioned to design and build the National Theatre, that superb architectural concept of Denys Lasdun, the realisation of which is now approaching completion on the South Bank alongside Waterloo Bridge. I have heard it said that when the National Theatre Company expands to fill the new building, a building that will house in three auditoriums audiences that total some 2,400, three times as many as can be seated in the Old Vic, that will have a disastrous effect on the audiences for the other London theatres. I do not believe a word of it. The effect of this company playing repertory to standards as high as any in the world, sending their productions on tour, receiving productions from elsewhere, can only be to stimulate and enlarge the audience for the theatre generally. It will, in my belief, be wholly beneficial. This makes me all the more anxious that the move from the Old Vic to the new building, a move that will necessarily be phased over a period, should begin as soon as possible.
Before the end of the year one of the two main theatres in the new building, the Lyttelton Theatre, will be available for use. There will be dressing-rooms, rehearsal rooms and facilities far superior to those at the Old Vic. There are already available offices a great deal more commodious and comfortable than the subhuman hutments in Aquinas Street in which Peter Hall and his National Theatre Company labour, doing marvellous work despite severe physical limitations. Early next year the Olivier Theatre, with its open stage and arena seating and every modern technical device, will be available; and it is, in my view, essential, both to the morale of the company and also to the most rapid and economical completion of the building itself, that the process of moving in should begin as soon as may be and pressed forward to completion as quickly as possible.
Of course, the move from the Old Vic will cost something, indeed a considerable sum. Of course, the larger and more commodious buildings, the more flexible theatres, will cost more to run. They will also draw more money to the box office, though not enough wholly to
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offset the increased costs, and more subsidies in our present financial straits must go much against the grain. But to spend £14 million or more (when it is complete the public will see they have value for their money) on a building to enable the finest dramatic company in this country, that is to say the finest in the world, to be so housed that it can operate to the most modern standards, and then to say that the relatively minor sums to enable it to do so cannot be found—to leave the great new building standing empty, and costing some thousands of pounds a week even standing empty—would be lunacy. I can use no other word.
I hope that the Minister when he comes to reply will be able to tell us that the phased move into the new building may start to go forward this year, for if not I very much fear that the financial stringency next year will be still greater and the cost of the move will certainly be a great deal more. My Lords, I sometimes suffer from an unhappy nightmare in which I see this great and splendid building standing empty for a decade—another Centre Point, a public scandal for all to see and to reflect on the false sense of values that puts the Arts at the end of the queue. But, mercifully, bad dreams do not always come true; and I should like to leave this thought in your Lordships' minds: that the more miserable the state of the nation, the greater is the need for the Arts.
7.26 p.m.
Lord BIRKETT: My Lords, I am pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Willis, should have linked the cinema and the theatre in this debate, because I have come to believe more and more that today the Arts must always be considered as a whole. I am no longer much of a practising film maker, but it depresses me enormously to see the state of the film industry as described so graphically by the noble Lord, Lord Willis, and indeed by the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley. It may be said in the future that an art is not without honour save in its own century. The cinema is indeed the only great new art of the 20th century, the only invention, and yet it is the one that receives probably less support and less attention than any other.

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Of course the Archive is in need of support; the film societies are in need of support; the art of the film—and it is, of course, an art—is in need of support up and down the land. But without a flourishing commercial film industry these things are merely the periphery. It is true that the commercial film industry, which is in a state of near collapse, has in many ways only itself to blame. It has been often unrealistic, often plainly greedy. It has relied for far too long upon the apparently irremovable American dollar, which, when it was removed, left a great, gaping hole in British film finance. Nevertheless, the lack of genuine British film finance is something which is, perhaps, more easily understood than blamed.
Statistics have shown almost throughout the life of film-making that the chances of making a successful film, with the best will in the world—I am excluding all those unpleasant films to which the noble Earl, Lord Longford, referred—are about one in five. It therefore stands to reason that if you are to finance films you must finance five at once if you want to be successful. Yet, of course, it is only human, if somebody offers you a bottle of wine, to say: "Before I order a dozen, let me have just a sip of that one." That has been the way with films. So many potential sources of film finance have been tempted into making one film. They have failed and have shut their doors for ever upon the idea of film-making. So it is natural that any form of scheme which will make a film industry again a viable proposition in Great Britain must be on a nationwide scale. That is why I beg your Lordships to take note of the nationwide schemes to which the noble Lord, Lord Willis, referred as being the only way of looking at the recovery of the British film industry. It must be on a nationwide scale.
So far as the theatre is concerned, I must indeed declare an interest, for I am the Deputy Director of the National Theatre. I wish it were possible without distorting the meaning of words to declare a passionate interest, because it is, as the noble Lord, Lord Cottesloe, has pointed out, a very exciting moment in the history of the National Theatre. I stood yesterday in the Lyttelton Theatre, the one most far advanced, It was carpeted; the seats were in; the theatre
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was warm; the lights were on. It was tempting to whisper a line from the footlights and feel one had already opened the theatre. It is that close. And, indeed, we are surrounded with good will. In another place the Minister for the Arts has repeatedly stated his own excitement with the project, his determination that the building shall be occupied and fully used. Today, the noble Lord, Lord Gibson, expressed his own excitement with the building. It is a great pleasure to be able to join other speakers in congratulating the noble Lord on such an eminently sensible and well-informed maiden speech. I do not wish to terrify the noble Lord, but I think it is only reasonable to say that from this moment forth no debate in your Lordships' House on the Arts will be complete without him.
Support and, indeed, warmth towards the new project comes from all sides—from the Arts Council itself and from all its officers. Yet about the dire question of when and how the National Theatre is to move into the new building there is what can only be described as a deafening silence. We are all more than aware of the financial stringencies. This afternoon we have heard far more authoritatively from the noble Lord, Lord Gibson, and the noble Lord, Lord Cottesloe, about the way things stand. However, it is only fair to point out that in the subsidised world of the Arts in relation to the rest of Europe Britain has a fairly proud record. It is not only the amount of money which is important but what is done with it. I suppose the easiest instance to give is not the world of the theatre or of the cinema but the world of orchestral music. For example, the great orchestras of Paris, Berlin and Amsterdam receive an enormous subsidy which represents 80 per cent. of their annual income. They rely upon the public and upon earnings for only 20 per cent. of their income. In England, it is quite the other way around. It is we who are subsidising the Arts to the tune of 20 per cent. We must look to the public and to other forms of income for the other 80 per cent.
To take three particular orchestras is a slightly extreme example; when one comes to the theatre it is much more down the middle. However, the target

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of the British theatre, from Covent Garden to the National Theatre and all the great subsidised companies of, pound for pound, making the subsidy work for you, is something which would surprise a number of far more highly subsidised Continental theatres belonging to towns which are infinitely smaller than London. I say, therefore, that this country has a proud record in the way that it uses the subsidy which it receives from the public purse. Indeed, so far as the South Bank is concerned, we aim for the same target. Although we shall have three auditoria, we still aim towards a pound for pound subsidy. Although we have three times the playing capacity, we have to cope with 10 times the building space. The noble Lord, Lord Gibson, referred to the alarming prospect of the expense of the building, but that is now beyond alteration. Indeed, it has always been known that the building would be more expensive. We are also urged continually to earn more money, if we canto spin out the public pound as far as it will go—and it is only right that we should be urged to do so.
It is asked why we do not exploit our work more on television and on film. I can probably speak for the other subsidised theatres as well when I say that we are all keen to do so. The BBC and the ITV are very co-operative, but they have their own problems. The BBC has a repertory of its own. It cannot rely simply upon the subsidised theatres of Great Britain to provide it with its drama. ITV has to look to its advertisers, its billings and its ratings, and very often is interested in our work only if it is a guaranteed success or contains a star name. Often, therefore, we find that, however much we desire to exploit our work, the means are not there to do so. Although I should hate to take issue with the noble Lord, Lord Willis, about what to do with the fourth channel—particularly in the absence of the noble Lord, Lord Annan—before the question is decided I think serious consideration ought to be given to whether the fourth channel might not find an enormous reservoir of talent in the subsidised Arts of Great Britain, and, indeed, a reservoir of product which could keep it going for a considerable amount of its time. Nobody should be monopolistic about the
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fourth channel, but it is something to which serious consideration must be given before any decision is made.
Apart from anything else, the cross-fertilisation of the Arts—between television, between film, between theatre—is something which is growing every day. In this connection I am sad and, indeed, slightly alarmed that the noble Lord, Lord Willis, should be so perturbed about the connection of my colleague Peter Hall with the television programme "Aquarius", which I am sure everyone will agree is one of the most distinguished television programmes about the Arts ever to be invented. From the point of view of the National Theatre, I regard this move as beneficial. I can see nothing but good coming from a direct connection with a friendly neighbour whose interest in the Arts is growing all the time. I regard "Aquarius" and similar programmes as a kind of artistic crossroads, and the artistic traffic that passes through that studio, both in the form of pre-recorded film and "live" personalities, is such that I cannot but believe that both London Weekend Television and the National Theatre will be much enriched by this connection.
It is important to point out that the amount of time involved is not as alarming as the noble Lord, Lord Willis, implied. This confusion may arise simply because of the immense distinction of Mr. Hall's predecessor on the programme, Humphrey Burton. Humphrey Burton, who made such a distinguished programme out of "Aquarius", not only introduced it but half invented it, half wrote it, edited it, produced it, acted in an executive capacity and was, indeed, the only begetter of the programme. He had a very good staff with him, but he was the only begetter of the programme. That is not so with Peter Hall. He will not be the producer of it; he will not be the writer of it; indeed, he will not be the maker of the programme. He will merely be the presenter of the programme. That is to say, he will introduce those items which have already been filmed or recorded and will chair those discussions and events which are "live" as the programme goes out once a week or once a fortnight, as the case may be. Therefore, I do not believe that the amount of time involved will be alarming.

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Thirdly, it should be said that Mr. Hall has had an enormously distinguished career and has worked under enormous pressure in every known media. He flourishes in these conditions and, what is more important for us, his talent flourishes in these conditions. It is unthinkable that he would accept any job which could for a moment prejudice the completion of the task before him of leading the National Theatre into the great building on the South Bank. For him, as for the rest of us, this is surely the most exciting theatrical project with which we shall ever be faced.
7.37 p.m.
Lord LLOYD of HAMPSTEAD: My Lords, I propose to concentrate my brief remarks upon the cinema. Nevertheless, I should like to express my gratification that my noble friend Lord Willis has brought the two subjects of the cinema and the theatre together, because it seems to me that they are very closely connected. Although I have no intention whatsoever of seeking to arbitrate between my noble friend Lord Willis and the noble Lord, Lord Birkett, on the subject of Mr. Peter Hall, I should like to say that this close connection between the film and the drama was very well brought out by the fact that at the London Film Festival we had the great advantage of having Mr. Peter Hall's distinguished film Akenfield as our opening film. And very well received it was—as, indeed, one would expect, coming from so distinguished a director.
My interest in the film comes not exclusively but to a large extent from being chairman of the British Film Institute and also of the National Film School. In those capacities, I am very well aware that the main problem facing the cinema in this country at the moment is the vanishing supply of British films, especially films of quality. This is the fundamental problem. The British Film Institute is not directly concerned with trade matters. Nevertheless, as the noble Lord, Lord Birkett, pointed out, the art of the film and the industry of filmmaking are so closely connected that it is a matter of the deepest concern to the British Film Institute that there should be this tremendous decline of the industry in the last few years, because without a healthy indigenous film production the art
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of the film cannot possibly be adequately fostered in this country.
So far as the National Film School is concerned, that is a body subsidised by the Ministry for the Arts for the purpose of providing a supply of creative talent and skill for the film industry, and naturally it is of the deepest concern to all those who are connected with the film school that it is in the present state of the industry that it should have begun its enterprise—a very imaginative enterprise the origin of which is owed to the previous Labour Government. It was in fact implemented by the subsequent Conservative Government, and the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, gave it the most valuable support in its early years. Clearly, that enterprise is seriously threatened if there are no adequate outlets for the creative talents which are now beginning to emerge from that school.
The cinema has long been recognised as rather the Cinderella of the Arts in this country, very different from most other film-producing countries, such as France, Germany and Italy. But attitudes are changing in this country, and indeed there is an immense demand for quality films at the present day, and particularly among the younger generation. This again makes it particularly tragic that at this time, nevertheless, there is such a manifest decline in the production of British films. When the present Government came into Office in March 1974 a very hopeful note was struck, both by Mr. Deakins on behalf of the Department of Trade and by Mr. Hugh Jenkins, the Minister for the Arts. Mr. Deakins declared that he had been an enthusiastic member of the British Film Institute since 1965 and regarded film as the greatest art of the 20th century. Mr. Jenkins also expressed great concern over the future of the film in this country.
I feel it may be appropriate to remind your Lordships of the existence of some legislation which is still on the Statute Book and which was passed in the last Labour Government's term of Office—the Films Act 1970, one provision of which was to provide for the possibility of advancing a further £5 million to the rolling fund of the National Film Corporation, a body which was initially set up by no less a person than Mr. Harold Wilson in 1949 with the direct object of fostering

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the making of films in this country. Therefore in 1970, at any rate, the Labour Government were clearly strongly in favour of making further funds available, particularly in view of one unhappy factor which had been anticipated by many people in this country, but which somehow seemed no less dramatic when it actually occurred—the sudden departure of American finance from British film-making.
Unfortunately, following the General Election which then occurred the incoming Conservative Government did not see fit to make effective use of that Act, in fact advancing only £1 million to the industry. This sum was totally inadequate. Now we have the virtual collapse of serious film production in this country because of a lack of adequate sources of finance. Every important film-making country in the world realises that filmmaking cannot survive without some form of assistance. In France, for example, in 1974 a sum of £16 million was provided by the Government to a fund to assist the industry. All over the world in filmmaking countries it is realised that assistance must be given. Those who are familiar with the film scene in Canada and Australia, for example, will know that there are active moves afoot at the present time—and I know that my noble friend Ted Willis is closely familiar with the Australian scene—to make available funds to assist film-making and to help to establish the film industry in those countries.
In this country there is a vast fund of creative talent directed towards the film and anxious to participate in it. We have outstanding directors—people like Karel Reisz, John Schlesinger, Joseph Losey, Lindsay Anderson and many others. Unfortunately, one finds that at the present time they either go to other countries to make their films or they abandon filmmaking altogether, though not from choice. British film-making has played an honourable role in the whole history of the cinema and has greatly contributed to our international prestige. I venture to think it would be a tragedy if we were to allow the art of film-making to die in this country.
My Lords, there have been many proposals of varying merit as to the way in which the situation might be met. I have
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not time this evening to discuss these various alternatives. For example, it has been suggested that there might be a levy on television money in order to support film-making, and the use of the Eady levy has been suggested. My noble friend Lord Willis made reference to this. The detailed scheme put forward by Mr. Leon Clore not very long ago excited a great deal of public interest. Again, there is the question of possible recourse to the balance which is still tied up under the Films Act 1970. I cannot evaluate or appraise the matters this evening, but I should like to ask whether we can have some assurance from the Government that these matters are being carefully considered and appraised, and that a plan is to emerge that will afford some important relief to the film industry and get it going again, which is the essential thing.
Some of your Lordships will possibly have been encouraged, as I have been, by the rumours which appeared in the Press and elsewhere a few days ago that some discussions which were alleged to be about to take place at No. 10 Downing Street might possibly produce a solution. I was encouraged because as late as this afternoon I discovered an article in the Evening Standard—I hasten to say that I do not believe everything I read in the newspapers, but this originated from a gentleman who can usually be regarded as a reliable source of information, the Evening Standard film critic, Mr. Alexander Walker. He indicates that this discussion has taken place and that certain concrete proposals (and I have not time to go into the details) have been put forward. It is my hope that this debate will not conclude without some information emanating from our Front Bench by way of confirming or explaining what apparently is under consideration, because this is a matter of the very greatest moment to the survival of the film industry. It is no good a rescue plan being brought along after the patient has already died, and the patient is certainly in the very last stages as things stand at the present moment.
I urge that the House should be given some authoritative revelations as to what the Government foresee as the appropriate policy. Equally, we should like to be told whether the Government have had any further thoughts on these matters which have been much discussed, as to

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whether what is needed is some more comprehensive Ministry to deal with the whole range of the Arts, including matters such as film-making. At present matters are spread among different Ministries. The Minister for the Arts deals with the art of the film as well as the Arts Council; we have the Department of Trade which deals with film as a piece of celluloid in a tin can; we have the Home Office which deals with television, and so on. Would it not be more satisfactory and desirable to have all these different aspects of the Arts brought under one Ministry, which should be upgraded to give due importance to the Arts? If we did this, we should be following a pattern well established in most Continental countries.
The noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, will recall the visit a few years ago of M. Druon, when he was Minister of the Arts in France. I remember his astonishment, and that of his officials, too, that our Minister for the Arts was not concerned with aspects of film production because this was regarded as a trade and not as an Arts matter. To the French, this was quite baffling. I suggest that if all these matters were put together as the function of a single Ministry, it would be of inestimable value. My Lords, I think I have exceeded my time, and I make all due apologies if I have. In conclusion, I would emphasise that much gratification will be given to those who have the future of the cinema in this country at heart if the noble Lord the Minister can this evening give some further assurances that what has emerged in the Press so far is not entirely speculative but is based on some solid plan.
7.52 p.m.
Lord VIVIAN: My Lords, my name appearing at the end of the list of speakers, I have the unenviable task of speaking to beat the clock. I wish first to thank the noble Lord, Lord Willis, for having sponsored this debate today. The noble Lord has the distinction of being a craftsman, not only in the world of theatre but in the world of the cinema and in the sphere of television. We are indeed fortunate to have him as a Member of your Lordships' House. From time to time we are also blessed in this Chamber with the advice of the brilliant playwright and author, the noble Lord, Lord Snow, and occasionally we hear from that superb actor, the noble Lord,
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Lord Olivier. I am smaller fry. I have now retired from the glamorous but nerve-racking world of the theatre.
My Lords, in a few months' time, I shall have reached the age of three score years and ten, and frequently I look back with great pride to the 37 years spent in the world of the theatre. During that time I had the honour to present several large musicals with that grand and greatly revered showman, the late Sir Charles Cochran. Prior to that, I presented intimate revues and musical shows with the gifted impresario André Charlot. My career in the theatre was during a period when we did not suffer the hardships which the theatre has to face today. As things are now, the theatre is finding it very difficult to survive. Your Lordships have heard what other noble Lords have said, but I wish to speak in even stronger terms, for the theatre of today is in dire financial trouble and is proving to be Heartbreak House. It needs a massive blood transfusion from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the right honourable gentleman Mr. Healey, to stem a head-on crash of great magnitude.
If the theatre is to survive, and survive it must, Her Majesty's Government should bend over backwards to relieve as far as possible the restrictions surrounding it. They should lighten to a major extent, or remove altogether, the high rate of VAT by which the theatre is weighed down. The theatre plays a major role in the life of the community, and for the greater part this factor is grossly underrated. The theatre always shines and gives of its best in times of crisis, such as we are experiencing at the moment. I ask your Lordships to think just for a moment of the great part played by the theatre in the last World War. Not only did it help to keep up the morale of our Armed Forces; it also took out of themselves the people who had to remain at home in the big cities. It allayed their fears and cased their tragedies; deed, it had the power of lifting them from their sorrows, even if only for a few hours. It was with a great sense of duty that the theatre achieved this.
Today the theatre is bravely carrying on with the weight loaded against it. I submit that during the past three years or so, we have been going through a

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period of bloodless revolution in this country. This has not helped the theatre and all those who are closely connected with it. Mention of revolution reminds me of how the theatre carried on during the French Revolution. Amid the terror of riots, starvation, the fall of the Bastille, and while Madame la Guillotine lopped off heads to the cries of "A bas, les Aristos!", that great French actor M. Talma played to capacity in his own theatre, the Bouffes Parisiennes. But it is not the same story in the theatre today. In a great number of instances theatres are playing to poor houses, except in the case of a few smash hits. Finance in the theatre is now somewhat difficult to raise owing to the high cost of production and the further heavy overheads in the actual running of the show.
To give the House an illustration of what I mean, I would mention a big musical success that the late Sir Charles Cochran and I presented at the Adelphi Theatre a number of years ago. The show was called Bless the Bride, that masterpiece of theatre by the lovable A. P. Herbert, with music written by the gifted composer Vivian Ellis, and it ran for nearly three years. In those days, the cost of production was some £43,000. Today the production costs would be double, well over £100,000, and the overheads of running it would have quadrupled. May I give another instance of the financial problems facing the theatre today? I mention the fact that a successful show at present running in the West End last week took £7,500 at the box office, but it can show a profit of only £123 on the week.
Lord MELCHETT: My Lords, I apologise for interrupting the noble Lord, Lord Vivian, but time is short. I know that my noble friend Lord Strabolgi would like to be able to reply to everyone who has taken part in the debate, which will have to finish at 18 minutes past eight.
7.59 p.m.
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Vivian, for giving way, and also for giving us such an excellent speech in such a short while. We are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Willis, for proposing this Motion which has given rise to a very
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interesting debate. I must say that I was very interested in the Chinese proverb he quoted. I read it many years ago when I was a boy, and perhaps the noble Lord will not mind if I finish it for him. The proverb says that you should spend the remainder of your money on hyacinths, and here I add "because they are food for the soul". I must also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Gibson, on his maiden speech. I agree with the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles. that it is one of the best we have heard in the House, and I hope that we shall have the pleasure of hearing the noble Lord, who, of course, is chairman of the Arts Council, on many occasions in these Arts debates.
My Lords, this has, as I say, been a very interesting debate and noble Lords have raised many matters. I want to deal first, if I may, with the theatre. It may help the House if I put the difficulties of the theatre—and the Government readily accept that there are difficulties at present, in common, of course, with many other facets of our national life—in a broader context. Commercial or subsidised, all theatres, of course, suffer at present from the difficulties over money that the Arts are experiencing. As has been said, the performing Arts are particularly vulnerable to increased costs at present, because they are labour intensive. They are having to face demands by the performer for a greater financial reward for his efforts, one that is more in keeping with the levels of remuneration elsewhere. In addition, the subsidised theatre accounts for a large share of Arts Council resources, and the Council itself has to act as the main deficit financier of the Arts at a time when existing levels of box office receipts and income from other sources—mainly, of course, local authorities, and some sponsorship—cannot always be taken for granted.
I shall come in a minute to VAT, which has been referred to in almost every speech, and its connection with the theatre. But I must first answer some of the allegations to the effect that the Arts, particularly the performing Arts, are threatening to collapse tomorrow. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, and the noble Lord, Lord Gibson, remarked specifically on the brilliance of the London theatre season. I was particularly struck with what the

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noble Lord, Lord Cottesloe, said about having to attract new audiences. I am rather surprised, in a way, that the noble Lord, Lord Willis, did not include music in his Motion, because as the noble Lord, Lord Cottesloe, said, there are, of course, many opportunities for attracting more audiences to hear music in which I think London is pre-eminent. Indeed, I think that tastes change, and while I regret to say that many cinemas are empty, I went on Sunday to a concert at the Royal Festival Hall, of the LPO playing Mahler's Ninth Symphony, which was absolutely packed with an enthusiastic audience, mostly consisting of young people. It was indeed a most moving occasion. But in spite of this, and new trends and fashions, the Government are aware of many dangers.
My honourable friend the Minister for the Arts has provided a grant for the Arts Council this year of over £26 million, of which £25 million is for recurrent expenditure. The grant, I must say, is 22½ per cent. larger that that for last year, and the Government's intention, which they have made plain to the Council, is that they could and should manage their commitments within this total, although we will take particular note of what the noble Lord, Lord Gibson, has said, and I will certainly pass this on to my honourable friend. But it is generally a question of striving within these resources to the best of our ability to overcome the present problems in the theatre so far as these impinge on the Council. As the noble Lord, Lord Gibson, as chairman, is aware, he has a ready ear in Belgrave Square.
The Council have undoubtedly been helped by the supplementary grants of £2·5 million which Parliament agreed to authorise for the Council last year and this year, and which have enabled their clients, including the theatre, to start the period 1975–76 without significant debts. Over the last two years the proportions of the subsidy and receipts from the box office, based on a representative sample of theatres, have remained fairly constant, with the box office income increasing in some cases. This, I submit, is not a sign of imminent collapse and closure all round, as some people would have us believe.
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My honourable friend and I realise the disappointment felt at the decision by the Chancellor not to zero rate the theatre for the purpose of VAT. My right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer fully understands, and of course he is also sympathetic towards the arguments which have been put to him advocating that the theatre should be zero rated for VAT. It was clearly not possible for him to give any relief from VAT in the context of the stringent Budget that he was obliged to bring in. However, the Government will continue to keep the matter under review, but any further action must, of course, depend on the prevailing economic circumstances. I regret that I cannot say more than this at present, although it might be worth correcting what appears to be one common misconception. The Arts Council for the subsidised theatre already takes account of its clients' VAT liabilities, since these are naturally included as one of the items in the various budgets which they have discussed with the Council before being given a grant or offered financial guarantees.
I turn now to the film industry, but before I deal with the two main points raised by noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Willis, I should first like to deal with one question that was raised by my noble friend Lord Lloyd of Hampstead. I am glad to say that what he read in the Evening Standard is absolutely correct. My right honourable friend the Prime Minister invited representatives from all sides of the industry to a working dinner last night at 10 Downing Street, and there was a useful exchange of views. It was also agreed by those present, on behalf of the industry, that a small Working Party should be set up to develop the ideas advanced in the discussions in consultation with others concerned, and report back with specific proposals within a timetable to be agreed. I think, therefore, that that shows the interest and concern that the Government do have in the problems facing the film industry at the present time. Indeed, this is not surprising when one remembers that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister, when he was President of the Board of Trade after the War, was instrumental in formulating and introducing the Eady levy, which I think has been a great success ever since.

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On the question of money from the Lady levy to create a better flow of film scripts for British films, a point raised by my noble friend Lord Willis, the House will know that the Cinematograph Films Council recommended in a report a year ago to my> right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Trade that £55,000 should be assigned from the British Film Fund for the production of approximately 20 scripts, and £145,000 for approved preproduction expenses costing not more than £7,500 per project, all this by way of grants repayable if and when the project was financed for production. The Films Council hoped that this would help to arrest the serious decline in the production of British films and help to meet one of the criticisms of the Eady levy; that is, that those who benefit from it are not required to reinvest the proceeds in British films. The Government accept this recommendation, but its implementation will require amendment of the Cinematograph Films Acts.
I have certainly noted the various suggestions made in this debate about how the scheme proposed by the Film Council might be worked, and the Government will certainly be taking these into account. I should like to make clear, however, that commercial considerations would have to be paramount in deciding where to place support, as the intention, as I have mentioned, is that the grants should be repayable. I have also noted the concern expressed by noble Lords that, pending the enactment of legislation, some interim arrangements should be found for running the scheme. I am glad to say that the Government are examining alternative ways of setting up the scheme that would not involve legislation, and they will certainly note the suggestions made in this debate.
It is generally known, too, that the Cinematograph Films Council itself have been discussing with the television interests the proposal for a TV levy which might, it is estimated, bring in up to another £3 million to the film industry. As these talks have been very much a matter between the CFC and the BBC and independent companies, it would not be appropriate for me to attempt to go into details; but it is known that the television interests, I regret to say, do not feel able to go along with the idea of a levy. It will be for the Government
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now to consider their position in the light of these talks. One alternative approach, which has been aimed at in film and television circles, is the possibility of a co-production of films for showing both on TV and in the cinema. Akenfield, which has been mentioned by my noble friend Lord Lloyd of Hampstead, is one example. Indeed, I was there as his guest at the first showing of this spendid film.
There is also the question of co-production with other countries. Here the Government are trying to encourage the production of more films jointly by producers in the United Kingdom and producers in other countries. Co-production films now are treated in both countries concerned on the same basis as their own national films, with obvious advantages to both countries. We have had co-production agreements now with France and Italy for some years, and 20 films have already been completed under them; 11 in France, and 9 in Italy. I am glad to say that an agreement with Germany has been concluded this year, and one film has so far been made under it.
I must stress that the Government are well aware of the difficulties being experienced by the Arts generally, including the theatre and, of course, the cinema. But both areas are ones of great complexity. As has been said in this debate, there is no easy panacea to the problems which arise. Although the State is now shouldering a greater burden of the expenses of the subsidised theatre than it was 10 years ago, standards have constantly risen, and the complaints that we are not doing enough are stronger, if anything, than they have ever been. The answer for the health of the theatre itself is surely not more and yet more State subsidy. If theatres are locally based, a significant degree of support comes and should continue to come from the regions as well as the box office. Without this support the "response" doctrine that the Government believe is so essential to the Arts, and which the Secretary General to the Arts Council so usefully annunciated in the Arts Council's last Annual Report, simply will not work. As for the cinema, I hope that I have said sufficient to show noble Lords that here also there is no easy solution. The salvation for the film industry must continue basically to lie in its own hands but, as I have said, the

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Government are ready to consider practicable ways in which they might help, and this is already under way.
Various points have been raised in this debate. My noble friend Lord Longford asked about censorship. The present situation concerning the censorship of films is naturally giving great public concern. I may say that there is far from being any kind of consensus of views on the subject. Some people like the noble Earl believe that there should be much stronger measures brought in; others, like the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, would like to see censorship abolished altogether. If I may give my own view, I think that violence is much more harmful. I am at one with all noble Lords in deploring the misuse of this marvellous medium—which has been aptly described in this debate as probably the most marvellous invention of the 20th century—for this kind of purpose, and for making these really disgusting near-pornographic films.
My noble friend Lord Longford asked about the law. As he said, this is very complicated. Few people would describe the present law as ideal. Nevertheless, in an area where there is little agreement the censorship system has worked to an extent, and the chief responsibility for licensing films for public exhibition devolves on the local democratically elected representatives as well as the British Board of Film Censors, a body which, although with no legal standing, has considerable authority in this field. The system of pre-censorship is the prime control on the content of films, but the criminal law still has a role to play. The law is complex and obscure, and even though films are generally exempted from the Obscene Publications Act, the Common Law offences of keeping a disorderly house and of conspiracy to corrupt public morals have been used in respect of licensed films shown in cinema clubs. There is at the moment a trial currently pending. This part of the Common Law is being reviewed by the Law Commission, and I think that we should leave it to the Commission in the first instance to look into these problems.
I was asked about the Theatre Museum. Certainly, this is being considered. On the question of the National Theatre, which has been raised by several noble Lords, decisions on the opening of
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the new National Theatre and on its running costs lie respectively with the South Bank Theatre Board, the National Theatre Board and the Arts Council. I am not in a position to say more than that at present, but I may say that my honourable friend the Minister for the Arts is hoping to make a Statement in another place as soon as possible.
In conclusion, therefore, it must be our hope that both the Arts and the cinema will be able to sustain themselves through the difficult times which we are experiencing and which may still lie ahead. The Government are anxious to help all they can but their funds, as noble Lords will realise, are not unlimited, and it would be wrong for those who desire the regular injection of greater sums of money to continue to look to the Government as the sole source in this respect. Imagination and resource on the part of all those who care about the performing Arts and cinema are called for, if anything, even more urgently than before.
Lord WILLIS: My Lords, I only have time to thank all the speakers in this debate, and especially the noble Lord, Lord Gibson, and to thank the Government for the reply, including some of the dusty answers. I beg leave to withdraw my Motion for Papers.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

SALMON AND FRESHWATER FISHERIES BILL [H.L.]
Reported from the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills with Amendments, and recommitted to a Committee of the whole House; Bill to be printed as amended.