Lords Sitting of 18 February 1976

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock: The Lord Chancellor on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Chelmsford.

THE LORD BISHOP OF PETERBOROUGH
Douglas Russell, Lord Bishop of Peterborough—Was (in the usual manner) introduced between the Lord Bishop of Saint Albans and the Lord Bishop of Chelmsford.

EAST-WEST CONFERENCE PROPOSAL
2.42 p.m.
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will take the initiative to arrange a conference of Western and Communist representatives under the auspices of the United Nations Commission for European Economic Co-operation to implement co-operation in agriculture, energy, transport, telecommunications, marketing, mining, tourism and anti-pollution as a sequence to the Helsinki Agreement in view of the precedents set by the Conference of Balkan States of both Western and Communist alignment.
The MINISTER of STATE, FOREIGN and COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (Lord Goronwy-Roberts): My Lords, we are already working closely with our partners and the other Member-Governments of the Economic Commission for Europe to formulate proposals for the future work of this organisation, in implementation of the Helsinki Agreement. The 31st plenary session of the Commission will be held from 30th March to 9th April, and will provide all Member-Governments with the opportunity to
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examine the work programmes proposed by the Executive Secretary, Mr. Stanovnik. We intend to play a constructive role in this.
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, I greatly appreciate the welcome news in that Answer. May I ask whether there has been a specific response to the proposal by Mr. Brezhnev that there should be discussions between the two sides on the environment, energy and transport?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: Yes, indeed, my Lords; we warmly welcome the suggestion by Mr. Brezhnev that there should be substantial discussions in the fields of inquiry which my noble friend has indicated. In terms of page 51 of the Helsinki Agreement, we think that the Economic Commission for Europe as the normal conferential locale for such discussions would commend itself equally to Mr. Brezhnev and the Soviet Union, as it does to us.

ABORTION: ITALIAN PATIENTS
2.45 p.m.
Lord SEGAL: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are aware of any agencies which have led to an increase of 207 per cent, in the number of abortions performed in this country last year on women resident in Italy; whether they have any information about the clinics where these abortions took place; what was the average cost; and what steps they propose to take in the matter.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, my noble friend has raised a number of points in the Question and therefore I crave your Lordships' indulgence for a slightly longer reply than normal. The only agencies of which the Government are aware are various Italian women's organisations. These organisations have recently become increasingly active in disseminating material about abortions as part of the movement in Italy for new abortion laws, and this has included information on the availability of treatment in this country. The Abortion Act requires the notification of every operation, and in addition details are obtained

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from all approved nursing homes as to the number of non-resident women treated and their normal country of residence.
My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Social Services has information about the total cost charged to patients at nursing homes that concentrate on abortion, and these charges may not be increased without her knowledge. It is not possible to indicate an average cost; the cost varies between nursing homes and from case to case, depending upon the duration of the pregnancy and other medical factors. It would be considered unreasonable if the total cost to a patient in a straightforward case, where the pregnancy was of less than 13 weeks duration, was in excess of £100. Many patients are treated for a total cost of between £60 and £70.
Women from Italy receive treatment under the Abortion Act privately in nursing homes that also provide treatment to British people for various conditions including abortion. My right honourable friend is satisfied from inspections made and checks enforced as to the standard of care and facilities they provide.
Lord SEGAL: My Lords, I thank my noble friend very much for that lengthy and very informative reply. Can he say to what extent the facilities of the National Health Service were used for these cases? Can he also say what is the attitude of Her Majesty's Government towards this problem? If they view it favourably, then the number of these cases is likely to increase in the future, at a time when facilities are inadequate for treatment of our own English mothers under the National Health Service. If the Government view it unfavourably, can my noble friend state whether any representations have been made to the doctors concerned? Furthermore, does not the existence of this traffic tend to undermine the rule of law in a friendly country, and also a fellow-member of the EEC?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, medical treatment in this country is available privately to all who seek it, irrespective of place of residence. The medical profession has not hitherto had to take account of nationality or residence before giving treatment to a patient. It is the
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view of the Government that very strong reasons would be required before any departure from this practice could be contemplated. With regard to the major point which my noble friend has just raised, I think that the 207 per cent. increase in Italian patients should be seen in perspective. The increase represents a rise of 3,601, from 1,703 in 1974 to 5,304 in 1975. Much more important is the dramatic fall in this period of the total number of foreign women having aboritions here; it fell by 19,812. The largest factor in this decline was the change in the abortion law in France in 1974. As your Lordships will know, a Bill is being considered currently by the Italian Parliament to ease the existing law under which abortion is a crime. We assume that if that Bill goes through there will be a fall in numbers so far as the Italian women are concerned, as there was so far as the French women were concerned.
Lord PANNELL: My Lords, will the Minister bear in mind the position in Italy that drives Italian women here? Figures from the best available sources—the Italian Ministry of Health—indicate that there were something like 800,000 illegal abortions in Italy last year; and the World Health Organisation estimates that there were 1½ million abortions there in 1974 and that 2,000 women died from abortions. Does this not show what a benefit the 1968 Abortion Act is to the people in this country; and do we think that any woman coming here, in desperation and with enough money to pay for an abortion, should be turned away?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I do not think I can add anything that would be useful, other than to say that the position may well change if the draft Bill which is currently being considered in Italy in fact becomes law.
Baroness VICKERS: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord, in view of what he has said about legislation appearing in other countries and the numbers dropping, whether he agrees that it is essential that, in the meanwhile, we should help these women, and that if women are willing to pay as much as £600 to come and have an abortion in this country they must be rather desperate? May I say to the noble Lord—
Several Noble Lords: No!
Baroness VICKERS: May I ask the noble Lord whether or not he feels that the medical profession has been rather lax in producing a contraceptive that is really safe? No contraceptive is safe at the moment except, as I said in a debate in the other place, the word, "No ".
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I subscribe to the first part of the noble Baronesses's remarks. With regard to the second part, this is not an opportune time for somebody in my Department to criticise the medical profession.
Baroness GAITSKELL: My Lords, does not this Question illustrate the continuing, punishing, primitive attitude of some men towards women—
Several Noble Lords: Hear, hear!
Baroness GAITSKELL:—and the triple punishing attitude to the mother, to the child and to society, insisting that a woman must have an unwanted child? Is it not also rather nauseating that when people put this view forward they smother it with Victorian piety?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, it is quite clear that my noble friend has your Lordships' support.
Lord SEGAL:My Lords, with all due deference to the views of the noble Baroness, which we all realise are very strongly held, may I ask my noble friend perhaps to give additional information and say that none of the nursing homes which have been called in question will be in any way prejudiced as regards registration when that time arrives?
Lord WELL-PESTELL: My Lords, I think your Lordships will remember that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State has power to see that there are frequent visits to these nursing homes, and in fact frequent visits are made. From time to time it has been necessary for her to close some of them: one in 1969, six in 1970, two in 1971, five in 1972, three in 1973 and one in 1974. This, I think, is an indication of how carefully their activities are being observed.
Viscount BARRINGTON: My Lords, in view of what the noble Lord said about this being the only occasion on which a
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differentiation has been made between foreign and English patients, and that the strongest reasons would be needed to make one, would it not be a strong reason that this is the only operation the specific purpose of which is to take human life?

DEFENCE
2.54 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 they will consider the appointment of an all-Party joint committee of both Houses of Parliament to discuss with the Secretary of State for Defence the provision of adequate defence measures to ensure the security of the United Kingdom against possible aggression.
The LORD PRIVY SEAL (Lord Shepherd): My Lords, I take it that my noble friend has in mind a Standing Committee. The Commons Committee on Expenditure, through its Sub-Committee on Defence and External Affairs, pay particular attention to the resources devoted to defence, and the publication of reports and evidence is of help to both Houses in considering defence matters. I would be reluctant to propose any additional demands on the Ministry of Defence or Parliament when we are seeking major reductions in establishment. However, I am prepared, through the usual channels, to see whether there is sufficient interest to establish an informal all-Party group from Members of this House.
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the term "United Kingdom "contained in the Question does not exclude Europe or any other country against which there could be an act of aggression? Would he not agree with me that, in view of the international tension which appears to be accelerating through various incidents that are now taking place in different parts of the world, the time has come to obtain a consensus of opinion on matters relating to defence and to the possibility

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of aggression, which would be of substantial advantage, at least in furnishing information to Members of your Lordships' House and, indeed, Members of another place on matters concerning defence preparations?
Lord SHEPHERD: My Lords, so far as another place is concerned, they are well served by their own Sub-Committee on Defence and External Affairs. I said in my original Answer that, so far as your Lordships' House is concerned, I was quite willing to consult through the usual channels to see whether there was sufficient interest to set up an informal all-Party group within this House. Of course a consensus of opinion in this matter is of great importance, but my noble friend will be aware of a number of organisations which have an interest in this matter, and there are a number of your Lorships who have served, and continue to serve, as delegates to the NATO Parliamentary Conference, which provides a great opportunity to consider not only the defence of Europe but also the many other factors which go side by side with military defence.
Lord ABERDARE: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that we on these Benches have a great deal of sympathy with the feeling which underlies the Question of the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, and that we would very much welcome what the noble Lord the Leader of the House said—that is, discussions on the setting up of an informal all-Party committee through the usual channels?
Lord GLADWYN: My Lords, if there is any suggestion that would be agreeable to experts in this House, then we too would very much welcome it. It could not do any harm, and it might do some good. Certainly it is a good thing to interest the public so far as we can in this vital matter.
Lord CLIFFORD of CHUDLEIGH: My Lords, is it not a fact that an all-Party delegation from this House went to NATO in January? Could the noble Lord tell us whether we arc going to get a report?
Lord SHEPHERD: My Lords, as regards that, my understanding is that it was an informal group that went. It is not usual for them to issue a report to the
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House, although, of course, when we consider matters of defence under the White Paper, then one would hope that those who had the opportunity to go to the NATO headquarters would give us the benefit of their impressions and information.
Lord WIGG: My Lords, is the noble Lord the Leader of the House aware that a Conservative Foreign Secretary on, I think, the 30th September 1954 committed this country to the maintenance of four divisions and the Second Tactical Air Force on the European land mass until the end of this century? If that was his conception of an "adequate defence "and an adequate discharge of our obligations to NATO, could the noble Lord tell us at what point of time it is anticipated that the "adequate defence "which is referred to in the Question will be fulfilled?
Lord SHEPHERD: My Lords, my noble friend is not going to lead me astray and away from the advice that I have given to this House on a number of occasions, that we ought to keep to the Question on the Order Paper. The Question here is about setting up a Joint Select Committee of both Houses, and I have sought to answer it to the best of my ability.
Lord WIGG: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that the Question itself contains the words I used? It says:
"to discuss with the Secretary of State for Defence the provision of adequate defence measures".
As the formula for "adequate defence" was this specific commitment—as I say, from the most respectable quarters: Lord Avon, the then Foreign Secretary—can we know whether that content has been completely abandoned and, if not, when it is to be fulfilled and, perhaps, in addition, at what cost?
Lord SHEPHERD: My Lords, again I must say to my noble friend that he will not lead me astray in this matter.
Lord BOURNE: My Lords, is the noble Lord the Leader of the House aware that I have been asking this very question for the last seven or eight years; and would it not be better to have a defence committee of both Houses? While he is satisfied with the arrangements for the House of Commons, he

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ought not to be satisfied with the arrangements for the House of Lords. Personally I think we ought to do some catching up with the Americans, after a hundred years of their defence committee.
Lord SHEPHERD: My Lords, that is a matter of opinion. So far as another place is concerned, whether their arrangements are adequate is a matter for them to decide. If the joint committee envisaged in the Question is to be set up, we should need the co-operation of another place. I said to my noble friend originally that at this moment, when we are seeking reductions in cost and there are pressures on manpower both in the Ministry of Defence and in Parliament, we should be very careful about setting up further committees to deal with matters that, so far as another place is concerned, are already being dealt with. I have said that so far as this House is concerned I am willing to consider, through the usual channels, the setting up of an informal committee. I do not think that we should go any further in this matter at the present moment.
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, in view of my noble friend's welcome reply—welcome so far as it refers to consultation through the usual channels—will he be kind enough to do so at as early a date as possible, and then to inform the House of the result?
Lord SHEPHERD: My Lords, in the light of the response of the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, I should not have thought that there was any difficulty in having consultations and making an announcement. I should like a few days in which to consider this and may perhaps be able to make a Statement next week. I should like to feel that the interest goes beyond one or two noble Lords. The setting up of this committee ought to be in response to a general feeling throughout the House that such a committee is required.
Lord PANNELL: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the sort of information that would be laid before such a committee would not be worth publishing?
Lord SHEPHERD: My Lords, if that is the case there is no point in setting up
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a committee, but I should not personally take that view.
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords, no doubt the noble Lord will bear in mind the wealth of professional expertise that is at the service of this House, and particularly on the Cross-Benches.
Lord SHEPHERD: My Lords, I am very much aware of that.
Lord MACKIE of BENSHIE: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, expresses the feelings of many Members of this House and of people throughout the country, that the present Government do not take a serious attitude towards defence and that defence should not come in for cuts at this time of Russian success and there being no sign of success of détente? This feeling is held by others apart from the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell.
Lord SHEPHERD: My Lords, I hope that on consideration the noble Lord will think that his intervention is unfair in the light of what I have said to the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, that he wished to take the matter further than the Question on the Order Paper. This is what the noble Lord himself has done and this is not the custom of the House.
Lord SLATER: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend to whom in the other place he will make application for this joint meeting? Is he aware that there are so many specialists—or those who claim to be specialists—on defence matters and on foreign affairs, not only in this Chamber but in another place? Is my noble friend further aware that there are committees set up by each Party —and to my knowledge since I became a Member of this House and of another place it has always been so—who meet on various occasions to debate matters of foreign affairs and defence?
Lord SHEPHERD: Yes, my Lords. Not only are there various international organisations but I know that within my own Parliamentary Party we have our own committees which go into these matters with great care. I have no doubt that there are similar committees within the Conservative Party. In the light of the fact that I have gone some way

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towards my noble friend (and he has recognised it) I wonder whether we might leave the matter where it is. In the not too far distant future there may arise an opportunity when I may be able to satisfy my noble friend.
Lord WIGG: My Lords, is the noble Lord the Leader of the House not aware that to some extent he has missed the point of the Question? It may be that the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, has in mind a committee composed of Members of this House; but is he not aware that for many years—far beyond seven or eight years—there has been a thought among people who think about these matters that there ought to be a committee which would really be an extension of the Esher Committee, the Committee on Imperial Defence, on which the Opposition Parties would be invited to serve so that they could consider strategy and adequate defence in terms which would eventually command a much wider air of approval than at present? Whereas I wholly support something along those lines, I am not terribly interested in a committee composed of Members of this House to twiddle around with the Estimates.
Lord SHEPHERD: My Lords, the other place have had a debate on the procedure of Parliament, and my understanding is that there was a genuine feeling that there ought to be a thorough review of procedure there. I would express the view that if they were to do that, we ought ourselves to have a similar committee to look into our own procedure not only in terms of ourselves as a House, but in our relations with another place. The sort of point that my noble friend has raised is one that could then be considered by that committee. But it will be a matter of days or perhaps weeks before we could have a Motion and a debate on that subject. I would say to the noble Lord that my mind is not closed as to ways and means of improving not only the relations with another place but the way in which we carry out our working in this House.
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords, would not the right course be to get on with the suggestion made by the Leader of the House and see what comes of it?
Lord SHEPHERD: My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord.

INTERNATIONAL CARRIAGE OF PERISHABLE FOODSTUFFS BILL [H.L.]
The PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY of STATE, DEPARTMENT of the ENVIRONMENT (Baroness Birk): My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to enable the United Kingdom to accede to the Agreement on the International Carriage of Perishable Foodstuffs and on the Special Equipment to be Used for such Carriage (ATP); and for purposes connected therewith. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a. —(Baroness Birk.)
On Question, Bill read la; and to be printed.

BILL OF RIGHTS BILL [H.L.]
Lord WADE: My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to declare the inalienable rights and liberties of the subject. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a.—(Lord Wade.)
On Question, Bill read la; and to be printed.

INVERNESS HARBOUR (CITADEL QUAY ETC.) ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
Brought from the Commons, read la; and (pursuant to the Private Legislation (Scotland) Act 1936) deemed to have been read 2a and reported from the Committee.
INVERNESS HARBOUR ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
Brought from the Commons, read 1 a ; and (pursuant to the Private Legislation (Scotland) Act 1936) deemed to have been read 2a and reported from the Committee.

PRIVATE FORESTARY AND TAXATION
3.10 p.m.
Lord LOVAT Lord LOVAT rose to call attention to the threat to private forestry which is posed by present trends in taxation; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, in opening this debate my sole purpose is to persuade your Lordships that we ought now to under-take a larger programme of afforestation, both in the public and private sectors, than we have ever done before. I call for a consistent forestry policy and in support of this I would say that in such a long-term operation sound planning without risk of chop and change must be the first essential.
I would further stress that to achieve success in this direction the Government must reconsider their fiscal policy to enable the private sector to continue to march in step with the Forestry Commission, in order to reduce an import of timber bill that is running presently at the staggering sum of £1,700 million per annum, a figure only exceeded by our imports of fuel and food. I do not wish to draw politics into the debate, but I hope that both sides of the House will agree, without thought of further nationalisation, to make the best use of our natural resources, be they farming or in forestry. I shall leave it to other more expert Peers to voice the various rights and wrongs of what, in privately-owned woodlands, is fast becoming, to use military language, an untenable position. This is occurring on a crumbling front.
My own speech will be mercifully brief and is only intended to serve as an introduction in staccato sentences speaking against the clock. At this point, I have been asked to say that this debate can last only for 2½ hours; there are 15 speakers, and that limits my speech to 15 minutes and everybody else's to 10 minutes. I am claiming the indulgence of an extra minute or two, because I do not propose to speak at the end of the debate, and that is another five minutes on the allowance time. I regret that the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Gryfe, cannot be present this afternoon. He has written to say how interested he will be in the outcome of this debate. That is what this is all about.
I hope that common sense will prevail on both sides of the House. We have a formidable array of foresters, both from North and South of the Border. Some of them are backwoodsmen in the truest sense of the word. However, they speak with authority and require no briefing from me. In fact, that was not possible because I arrived only in time for the debate, having been delayed at the airport as the result of a bomb scare. I venture to suggest that all those who will speak on this matter regard the continuity of a sound forestry policy as a matter of national importance. In the private sector the country has already run into serious tax difficulties. I do not wish to dazzle your Lordships with facts and figures, but the latest statistics of existing wood-lands may serve as a base plate from which to work out and evaluate the situation. These figures are fairly up-to-date, and I shall not quote many more after this. It is important for your Lordships to know the exact extent of woodlands in the nation today. The private sector owns 1,133,000 hectares. My Lords, if you can convert that to acres you know how to multiply! The Forestry Commission owns 792,000 hectares of woodlands. So the private sector is still very much the largest in the industry.
That can be regrouped into the following figures: there are 45,000 private owners of timber; there are 250 State foresters. I do not know what the Government's intentions are, but I think it is only fair to ask, in view of the crippling burden of taxation, whether they propose to nationalise the woodlands of this country. I speak advisedly because I see in the farming world Mr. Wedgwood Benn and the Executive of the Socialist Party have recommended that £15,000 million is to be spent on nationalising farms. If we are to continue to suffer from tax in the forestry business in the private sector, first the capital transfer tax and then the threat of the wealth tax—which, at the moment, is in abeyance but would mean, as I read it, a tax annually on every tree that takes 60 years to grow—private woodland owners will go rapidly out of business. Perhaps, later in the debate, we could have an answer to that.
I would also remind Her Majesty's Government that at present the United Kingdom, with the greatest difficulty, can supply only 9 per cent. of the timber

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requirements from home-grown sources that we need to consume annually for our various activities in trade, although this country enjoys the finest possible climate for growing trees. As Sir Walter Scott once remarked:
"They're aye growing while you're sleeping ".
This is a very important point which is largely overlooked possibly because the tree-growing industry is a purely rural occupation and does not come to the notice of the urban politician. It is a nationally important industry which cannot be allowed suddenly to slump for no good reason. That is indeed what is happening. The capital transfer tax caused a reduction in Scotland of 40 per cent. in tree planting last year. We have not reached the planting season in Scotland yet this year but I foresee that the situation is going to be very much worse.
In Scotland one worker in every six on the land is engaged in forestry, whether as a seedsman, nurseryman, timber merchant, private woodland estate worker, or one of those who work in pulp mills and chipboard factories. It is a large and important industry which will inevitably fail unless we get a policy which gives us a fair crack of the whip to grow trees in the private sector. I mentioned the benign climate; but what is disappointing is that, in spite of the climate, next to Holland we take the least interest in cultivating trees. Every other nation takes its tree production seriously, in both the private and the public sector. I am sure other speakers will make this point. I cannot remember what the proportions are for France but I think that 28 per cent. of timber there is supplied from local sources. Here is something else about which I should like to remind Her Majesty's Government. In France, and in all the other EEC countries—which, after all, are our partners—taxation is very favourable. If there are going to be new forms of crippling taxation in this country, I hardly feel that that is in line with our Common Market policy. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, will bear this in mind when he comes to reply.
My Lords, time is short and I must continue quickly. The private sector is at the moment most unreasonably taxed. I suggest something should be done about it. I do not blame the Government for this. I take a much blacker view of the
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Treasury. The Treasury is on record as saying on more than one occasion that it cannot look farther than five years ahead on any subject. When one is thinking in terms of 60 years hence when cutting trees, that is a nonsensical remark. In a previous debate on forestry—I think, in 1973—the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, drew attention to the fact that the Forestry Commission themselves are among the sufferers. I am proud to say my father was the first chairman of the Forestry Commission way back in 1919 and in the 56 or so years since then the Forestry Commission have been allowed to spend only £300 million, which is an absurdly small sum. It is less than we import in wood pulp annually.
Clearly, forestry has not been taken seriously, and I suggest it is time a much more serious interpretation was made of our vast areas which, to a great extent, are being neglected through lack of confidence. My Lords, I will not say much more because of lack of time; but the Government, after considerable hesitation, may be starting to worry about the need to create the wealth that they spend. I can think of no better way of doing that than in creating it in the way I have just said.
To sum up, I call for a consistent forestry policy; I ask for no exemption from tax in the private sector but that we should find a fair tax system which will allow us to continue to invest in an expansion of forestry and to plant acre for acre with the Forestry Commission, as we were doing until 1974. This will mean a reasonable system of valuation for capital transfer tax, a reasonable rate of tax for woodlands under capital transfer, and an exemption from wealth tax. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
3.21 p.m.
Lord SANDYS: My Lords, the House will be extremely grateful to my noble friend Lord Lovat for introducing this debate this afternoon so economically in time and so trenchantly in argument. It is very noticeable from the list that the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, with whom we sympathise, appears to have no supporters at all from his side of the House: at least, none who are speaking. One can draw only one conclusion: either that the Labour Party prefer not to comment on this particular issue at this time or are not interested in forestry as an industry. I

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noticed that there were no fewer than 36 noble friends of the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, who were present at Question Time, and perhaps some of them might have views. Nevertheless, they have refrained from expressing them.
I should like to put to the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, four questions. First, do the Government wish to see a thriving forestry industry, composed of very nearly equal parts of private and public sector? When I say "very nearly equal parts "I mean as regards the amount of planting done by the private and public sectors. My second question, which flows immediately from that, is this: if the Government wish to see a thriving forestry industry, do they appreciate that the forestry industry really does need encouragement and freedom to flourish, in the form of grants related to current costs and much reduced rates of the present penal taxation? Thirdly, do the Government realise that it is home-grown timber which can provide the feedstock for other industries which were referred to by my noble friend Lord Lovat, especially those connected with the pulp industry, chipboard, construction and furniture? Saving expensive imports is a very important task facing any Government today, and we believe that at present prices, which are now totally different from what they were two or three years ago, the Government could well save some very expensive imports. Fourthly, do the Government realise that this industry must he placed on a similar tax footing to that of our partners in the EEC if the industry is to be able to compete and that, therefore, in drafting legislation much greater regard should be paid to harmonisation?
I should like to say a word on drafting of legislation, because I believe that in such drafting a very great responsibility is placed upon the Government of the day, and especially upon the Treasury. We have before us Cmnd. Paper No. 6053, Preparation for Legislation. I should like to draw attention to Chapter 6, which deals with criticism. There is no doubt that much fiscal legislation is extremely ill-prepared. I shall quote only one example, referring to the first Finance Act 1975—not the No. 2 Act. In that Act we had Schedule 9, which was thrown in at the very last minute. I do not
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criticise that fact, but I do criticise the fact that it was hastily and unsatisfactorily drafted. This applies to all finance Acts, but may I suggest that we look back over the last ten or eleven years—the period, say, between 1965 and 1975. There we have a really prodigious variety of fiscal legislation, most of which has been introduced by Labour Governments, past and present. We have the corporation tax, which affects woodlands, the capital gains tax, selective employment tax, value added tax, capital transfer tax; and shortly there are to be the development land tax and a prospective wealth tax. Is it any wonder that foresters, at the present moment, are not considering planting? Owners and trustees sit tight, knowing that the trees may outlive the follies of the present Government.
One of the central issues in taxation is the problem of valuation, and because this is so important I should like to devote some time to it. In valuing timber, whether for CTT or for any other purpose, the problem is how to assess the value of immature trees. Clearly, a standing crop of timber can have no market value. The noble Lord, Lord Jacques, may say, "Oh, yes, it has; I can refer your Lordships to the yield tables. Of course it has a value." To that, I would reply immediately, "Yield tables are very complicated and they necessarily do not provide information which is the currency of the timber trade." Perhaps I may quote some factors which most emphatically are not built into the yield tables. For instance, did we know ten years ago that we should have to face the problem of elm disease, which has been catastrophic in its effect upon a very large number of counties in England? Did we know that oaks were going to suffer from oak wilt ten years ago? Of course we did not. We knew of the existence of those diseases but we did not know their effects on the industry or the growers. Did we know that grey squirrels were going to acquire a distinctly sharper appetite for beech after the sixth or seventh year following planting? We may have perhaps expected it, but there is no doubt that the grey squirrel problem is particularly germane to the forest industry.
Valuing is at the centre of much of this problem. I have no doubt that other

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speakers will also have trenchant comments to make upon this, but I should like to go on now to refer to capital transfer tax. I have referred to Schedule 9 already, and this provides for election to defer the tax. We believe that the election is really of very little value, because the tax should be charged on the value of the timber as at the date of death and not on the proceeds of the sale or the deemed proceeds of sale which have been duly discounted. In this connection, I should like to refer to the evidence given before the Select Committee on a wealth tax, to be found in Volume III of the very weighty Report. This evidence was given by Mr. John Christie of the Royal Scottish Forestry Society. I would refer your Lordships to pages 842 and 843 of the Report. This is what was said:
"Forest taxation has, quite properly, been a tool of Government in achieving the objects of foreign policy. The imposition of capital transfer tax in its present form will cause the destruction of the private sector of the forest industry, and wealth tax will considerably hasten this."
There is no question about the fact that this new impost which we have been looking at over a period of months rather than years is a very significant factor indeed in the whole woodland field. It is not a question of whether or not the timber has a growth-life of four or five years. As referred to by my noble friend Lord Lovat in his view of the timescale, the timescale of the growth of an oak tree is about 200 years, or between 150 and 200 years; so the long-term aspect is surely at the centre of the matter. I should declare an interest in hardwoods, as being the owner of approximately 300 acres of dedicated hardwood, but there is no question that the Treasury really must look at the long-distance approach if we are to see any broad-leafed timber in the future.
I have only a minute left, but I should like to refer to one other matter; that is, the question of the small owner. The small owner with small areas of amenity woods—copses, spinneys and the like—is most unlikely to find that his woodland is under a dedication scheme. He is probably taxed under Schedule B on an annual value basis, and he is unable to elect for tax under Schedule D because he is not under a dedication scheme and is not subject to management. So what happens, my Lords? There
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is neglect, leading to the felling of trees not subject to a preservation order. My final point is this. Is it equitable that an owner who has an area of land with trees on it, subject to preservation or planning orders, should be taxed upon the trees, when he knows perfectly well that for an unlimited period he is obliged to look after and maintain those trees for amenity reasons? We believe that it is not equitable.
3.31 p.m.
Lord MACKIE of BENSHIE: My Lords, I am the third speaker in this debate and I must apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Lovat, for the fact that our experts have been stricken down not by elm disease but by 'flu. I will confine my remarks briefly to the benefits to agriculture of a respectable forestry programme. In Scotland, particularly, this is a subject which has been greatly neglected by many Governments since the war. It is a fact that we can use the resources of the Highlands and the marginal lands of Scotland infinitely better by a combination of forestry and hill farming than by the single use of either, and no policy has really been produced by the Government to enable integration to take place.
There is a splendid example at Tomintoul in Banffshire, on Crown land, where the foresters negotiated with the farmers, the tenants. The negotiations took place mostly in the pub, because they did not get on very well, but when they got together they planted up a lot of land in economic blocks to the great benefit of agriculture in the area, in producing shelter, in changing the climate, in the laying down of roads and so on. So that, without doubt, forestry has an agricultural implication in the Highlands which has been neglected but which should not be neglected. The noble Lord's staggering figure of £1,700,000 a year should make the Government think, instead of using the excuses which I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, has in his brief.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, will the noble Lord give way? I think he might not anticipate my brief. He might wait until he hears what I have to say.
Lord MACKIE of BENSHIE: My Lords, I stand corrected. I did not intend

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any discourtesy but, all the same, I am sure I am right. The Government should really look again at these questions. There is nothing better that the Government can do than to persuade rich men to put their money into trees. They cannot spend it, it goes down as an asset, and the Government have the alternative of taking it away from their heirs later on. To depart from this policy, which has been reasonably successful, although we are miles behind Europe, appears to be madness in our present situation. If one looks at the flight of capital and the number of extraordinary things that rich men do to preserve their money from the Government—which is a noble objective—such as putting it in the Cayman Islands and everywhere else, it seems sensible to persuade people to put it into a great asset for this country, by planting trees here in Britain.
The noble Lord, Lord Jacques, should seriously consider the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Lovat, which will be made by others in this debate, that planting is being severely cut down, and the latest fairly authoritative figure which I have is that this year it will be about half of what it has been. If the Government are not prepared to spend money through the Forestry Commission, then they must encourage other people to do it. If they are not going to nationalise it, it is no good doing what they are doing now, which is sterilising the industry. So I hope that the Government will take note of this question.
3.35 p.m.
The Earl of DUNDEE: My Lords, I am very glad that this short debate on forest taxation should have been opened by my noble friend Lord Lovat, whose distinguished father was the first chairman of the Forestry Commission and was one of the greatest authorities on forestry in his day. I was also very glad that my noble friend, in moving this Motion on the taxation of forestry, opened right away on the note not of taxation, but of the need of this country for a greatly increased area of woodlands for far more timber production than it is producing now, because that is the important point. I do not think my noble friend's father, the late Lord Lovat, was a member of the Royal Commission which reported to the Government on our future timber policy
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in 1909, but the late Lord Lovat gave to that Royal Commission a great deal of very interesting evidence which is still available upstairs and is well worth reading by anybody who is interested in the subject.
In a short debate, we have no time to go into any of these matters in detail, but between the wars, owing to Government policy being chopped and changed almost every three years by both Parties, the Forestry Commission made very little progress. After the war, when the need for timber was even more acutely realised than it had been before, the Forestry Act 1947 gave a target to the Forestry Commission and also set up, according to the recommendations of the wartime White Paper, the dedication scheme which was to be administered by the Forestry Commission. A definitive target was set of 5 million acres to be afforested in 50 years from 1947 to the end of the century. That was very slow in starting off and for the first 20 years it did not look as it' we were going to get more than 2 million or 3 million acres, but by the end of the 1960s the position began to improve.
I should like to say a word of commendation here for the present Prime Minister. In his last period of office, Harold Wilson made a speech in Scotland in which he said that he wanted the Forestry Commission to adopt a target of 50,000 acres a year in Scotland, accompanied by a proportionately appropriate increase in private planting. The 1947 Act and the dedication scheme very wisely did not try to make a fixed ratio between private and public planting, but it was usually assumed that the public sector, the Forestry Commission, would do a little more than half and the private sector a little less than half. Nearly everybody said in 1968, "This is one of Harold Wilson's ' try-ons '. He just wants to look as if he is helping unemployment. "But it was not. By 1971, the Forestry Commission had reached the target of 50,000 acres in one year, which they performed twice, and private planting got to just under 40.000 acres; and in 1972 it just reached it.
We should now talk of hectares and not acres, and I must congratulate my noble friend Lord Lovat on the facility with which he has performed the transformation. I always try to do it but I am either too old or too old fashioned

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to do it very quickly. I try to talk in hectares but I always have to think first in terms of acres; then rapidly in my mind I have to multiply the acres by two and divide them by five, which does not give a completely correct answer but it is near enough. The only trouble is that it does not expedite the communication of your ideas to other people.
Just at the time when we attained these very satisfactory planting figures, particularly in Scotland, it so happened that the Conservative Government did what I think was the most supremely idiotic thing any Government have done in history. Suddenly, without notice and without consulting anybody in public, although they informed a few people privately, on 28th June 1972 they abolished the dedication scheme from that day, so it all had to stop without notice on one day. It was one of the most crippling blows which could have been struck by anybody at the development of an industry which had taken years and years to get going and which the country needed so badly. The foresters were successful in making the late Government understand how incredibly removed from extreme wisdom their action had been and, again after long consultations, a new dedication scheme, with slight improvements on the old one, was set up.
I have just been looking at the latest report of the Forestry Commission, for the year ending March 1975. This was a little too soon to show any effects of the late changes in taxation, but it shows what has happened since 1972. In England there has been a reduction from a total of 14 million to about 8 million hectares. Both sections, private and public, have been reduced, but that may be inevitable because the English have a much higher proportion of private planting than have the Forestry Commission. In practice, the Forestry Commission planted almost as much, or more, in the first half of this century in England as in Scotland, although the original recommendation had been about three to one in favour of Scotland. Now that proportion has altered, and I am glad to say that in Scotland the acreage has remained at something like 20,000 hectares for the public sector—I began with 50,000 acres so the conversion was not really difficult!—and about 15,000 hectares for private forestry. I hope very much that that
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acreage will not be diminished but, rather, will be increased.
Since then, of course, we have had the tax changes of the present Chancellor of the Exchequer. All I am going to say about these changes—the removal of the death duty's favourable treatment for agricultural land, which applied to forestry, too, and the imposition of the capital transfer tax—is that many people thought that they would have a very bad effect upon forestry. The forestry societies—the Scottish Woodland Owners' Association in Scotland and the Timber Growers' Association in England—made representations to the present Chancellor, and I think we ought to express our appreciation of the fact that he made various concessions to meet their point of view in the Budget of March, 1975, which were embodied, I think, in Schedule 9. It is always good to try to remember the difficulties which Ministers and civil servants have to face, especially at the Treasury where very few of them know anything at all about forestry. They are very ready to learn, but as soon as they have been taught what you want to teach them those concerned are promoted and are replaced by new men who know nothing whatever about the subject; so you have to begin all over again. But that goes on in all matters of public life in this country, and it cannot be helped.
I have listened to almost every forestry debate in both Houses of Parliament since 1931 when I became a Member of another place, and it is extraordinary how exactly the same mistakes are made over and over again, although they can always be corrected with patience and perseverance. In my last correspondence with the Treasury I took the liberty of writing a little parody, which I hope they did not resent, and I hope that none of your Lordships who went to Harrow will resent it, either, on the verse of the Harrow School Song which says:
" Forty years on,
Getting older and older,
Shorter in wind, though in memory long,
Feeble of foot and rheumatic of shoulder,
What can it help
That we've always been wrong? "
I think that expresses very much one's feelings after dealing for 40 years with the Treasury on any subject.
The point that I want to put to the House is this. The present Chancellor,

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or any future Chancellor, or any future Government ought not to concentrate attention upon the amount of tax they will get, for this is absolutely trivial and inconsiderable in comparison with the enormous difference that it may make to the timber production of this country. It is likely that in the year 2050, when perhaps a great many other sources of energy have been exhausted, the people of this country, our grandchildren, will need more timber very badly indeed. We are importing still over 90 per cent. of our softwoods and 70 per cent. of our hardwoods. Our grandchildren will need this timber very badly indeed. It is no use waiting until then before something is done about it. Something has to be done about it now.
3.48 p.m.
Viscount YOUNGER of LECKIE: My Lords, I wish to support very strongly the words with which the noble Lord, Lord Lovat, introduced this debate. I speak entirely about Scotland because it is the only place of which I have any knowledge, and perhaps I speak from a slightly different angle from that of the noble Lord, Lord Lovat, whose family has been engaged in forestry for generations. I am the opposite case. When I succeeded to the property in 1946 I must have been almost the first man to sign the dedication agreement under the arrangements made by the Attlee Government. I can say quite frankly to the House that if it had not been for that agreement I do not think I should have had the courage to embark on a major reafforestation programme for a property which had been shorn of its timber in two world wars and not replanted.
What both noble Lords from Scotland have already said is perfectly true: that unless successive Governments get it into their heads that the objective we are all trying to achieve is a permanent and viable forestry and timber producing industry in this country, we shall always be in trouble. I do not think any of us who spoke in the forestry debate in June 1973 thought that we should be talking about it again as soon as this. That was under the previous Government. The reasons for the debate were different but the effects of what was proposed were almost exactly the same and resulted—and have resulted now—in a great lack of confidence.
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I am afraid it may be stale news to some of your Lordships but I should like to go over the dedication side of it because that is what I am particularly interested in. I think the House should remember that this has been a combined operation, starting with the Attlee Government scheme in 1947. It has gone on now for over 25 years—a combined operation between successive Governments, the Forestry Commission and the private owners, and each has made a contribution towards this objective. As the noble Lord, Lord Lovat, said, it has taken a long time, but on the other hand I think we are entitled to claim that it has made some progress and that if we have a revival, as we hope there may be, in the construction and furniture industries in the near future we shall perhaps reach what I believe is described as the "take-off point "towards becoming truly viable as an industry.
During this period successive Governments have not only helped with grants, with tax concessions and with technical advice, but have also helped with the formation of the pulp mill at Fort William and with other timber using industries, such as chipboard, in other parts of Scotland. These are all slightly delicate infants at the moment, mostly running a long way below capacity, and they are entirely dependent on a steady policy without setbacks, and on expansion of the timber which can be produced by both the Forestry Commission and the private owners, to keep them busy. No half measures are any good. It is no good having a series of timber industries all running at half strength all over the country, and all requiring a subsidy and making a loss. One has to get on to a plateau where the output of our forests is sufficient to maintain a really efficient timber using industry, and that is what we hope to do.
We must comeback to the old point that is mentioned in every forestry debate, that we are only half way to maturity for the very first trees that were planted after the war. My first plantings were in 1948, and covered a very small area at that, so they are only just over 25 years. They have another 25 years to go, which will see me out. So it is really not reasonable to expect that we should be fully viable yet. But if we can avoid these periodical setbacks and

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get our message across to the Treasury and others I believe that perhaps before another 25 years we shall be able to establish a fully viable industry.
The other point I should mention is that when one was considering starting an afforestation policy back in 1947 one had to look carefully at both sides of the bargain—and there were two sides to the bargain. On the one hand the Government asked private owners to sign a dedication agreement. That is a pretty big mouthful for anyone to swallow. You are committing yourself to first-class forestry practice and to the maintenance of the forest in production, not for one generation of 50 years but ad infinitum. No owner is so stupid, and no Government would be so greedy, as to expect people to sign such an undertaking without some assurance in return; and that main assurance is that Governments will persist in trying to build up a viable timber industry in this country to compete with foreign imports, or to take their place. In that connection it is of interest to remember that there is in fact a shortage of timber in Europe now and I understand that the Food and Agriculture Organisation have forecast that that shortage will be doubled by the end of the century, which is about the time our own scheme should be in full operation and the first post-war plantings will be ready for final felling.
So, if we are to continue doing our part, I think the moral is that we must ask that Governments must try to be careful not to introduce measures—whether concerning taxation as on this occasion, or the dedication scheme on the previous occasion—without due consultation and due consideration of the effect of the dedication scheme; otherwise it is only too probable that it will be stopped in its tracks, and if it is stopped in its tracks our timber Industry will also be stopped in its tracks.
3.56 p.m.
Lord DULVERTON: My Lords, in expressing gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Lovat, for initiating this debate, I think I should declare my interest; I am responsible for looking after woodlands for my family, both in England and in Scotland, and I am chairman of the Timber Growers Organisation and vice-chairman of the Forestry Committee of
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Great Britain. Having got that off my chest, I shall proceed to say how much I agree with so many remarks that have been made this afternoon. I can "up "the figure given by the noble Lord, Lord Lovat, a little, because the rate of imports of timber and timber products is now running at £2,000 million per annum. I was glad to hear the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, refer to the necessity for getting down more thoroughly to the integration of forestry with agriculture, a subject on which I am extremely keen and have tried to practise.
I shall try to skip as quickly as I can through the lead-up to my story, which must be brief, but I think I shall be somewhat more directly critical than noble Lords who have already spoken of the impact of the CTT provisions on forestry, as they now stand, as we have seen them to be so intimately working for the Timber Growers Organisation. It was just over 30 years ago, when the war had come to an end and our tiny stocks of woodland timber were much depleted, when, as has already been referred to, the Labour Government started up the dedication scheme, enjoining the private sector to replace the wartime fellings which had fallen almost entirely on the private sector, because the Forestry Commission then was too young to have anything to contribute. We were enjoined to replace what had been felled and then to expand. I think we were justifiably chided for not expanding our efforts enough, but as the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, has said, confidence began to arise during the 1960s. Bigger pulp mills arrived and people saw that there really was an outlet for timber, which many people had doubted. During the 1960s there was a great upsurge in activity in the private sector and dedicated foresters up and down the country really got down to work.
The dedication scheme and its concomitant fiscal provisions fitted to the peculiar needs and nature of forestry were beginning to succeed. Long years of work were at last bearing fruit, and with energy and growing expertise private enterprise was joining the national effort to build a national forest of worthwhile proportions. One might have thought that Whitehall would have rejoiced, but no. Somebody must be profiteering, thought Whitehall, and the Left Wing took up the cry, aided and abetted by the senti-

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mental but not all that well-informed element of the conservation lobby.
A new element had come into the scene and a new kind of investor had taken up forestry. This attracted adverse comment. People had no previous connections with the land; they came in and started planting up, taking grants from the Forestry Commission. This caused a great deal of adverse comment. But would your Lordships rather that such people had put their money into building gin palaces in Bermuda, or skiing hotels in Switzerland, or taking the money out to Hong Kong?
A Noble Lord: Slag heaps.
Lord DULVERTON: My Lords, they were doing just the job they were being asked to do. In that climate, the dedication rules were called into question. We had two years of negotiations with the previous Government, and then with this Government, which in the end resulted in a new form of dedication, Basis Three Dedication, being brought in. The Labour Government ratified the Basis Three Dedication Scheme with protestations that they still wished to see an active and flourishing private sector. Hardly was the ink dry on the new dedication scheme when capital transfer tax was introduced. The combined effect of these measures has been to bring forestry up short. I cannot blame it all on capital transfer tax, but largely so, and I shall hope to explain why. But I think the shaken confidence as a result of the dedication scheme being first called into question had a lot to do with it as well.
My Lords, the latest figures that I have available through a survey recently carried out by the Timber Growers Organisation in Scotland is that since 1972 planting in England and Wales has dropped by 48 per cent. over three years. In Scotland it has dropped 46 per cent. in two years, and it will certainly fall much more because many people have work in the pipeline, dedication schemes are in being, there are five-year plans in being where people have committed themselves, and there will be a much bigger tail-off over the next two or three years. There being no demand for them, tens of millions of tree plants have been destroyed by the nurserymen in the trade over the last 18 months.
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What the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Treasury call a concession to forestry in the rules of capital transfer tax is less of a concession than an acknowledgement that one cannot raise a tax on something that is unrealisable, and young plantations are unrealizable. In the end, your successors will pay in full this confiscatory tax as well as other taxes on the timber sold. Thus, in the very nature of forestry, you remove all the incentive for a man to plant, for a man cannot plant trees for his own gain. In order to make themselves a living or possibly even a fortune, men will farm, or manufacture, or engage in many activities necessary to mankind, where the returns come in year-by-year. But one thing man will have no incentive to do is to spend time, trouble, thought and energy on planting trees for the future of his family, and for his country. A man cannot plant trees for himself as he can farm or trade for his own benefit.
My Lords, our fair but tiny island is all we have now. We must make all the use we can of those acres that remain beyond the ever-growing tentacles of the concrete jungles. Forestry provides a chance for investing in the least productive areas of land to harness the rain-fall and the sunlight to convert their natural energy into one of the few renewable resources available to service the needs of man; I mean, of course, the tree. Some political thinkers might say, "Well, let the Forestry Commission do it all ". But I do not think that the Forestry Commissioners themselves, if you consulted them, would encourage you to feel that the Forestry Commission can do it all. This is a case for all willing hands to the pump. There are more willing and knowledgeable hands in the private sector now than there have ever been in our history. Do not now say to them, "Hands off ".
My Lords, I conclude my speech with a quotation:
" The Government have committed themselves to a mixed economy in which the private sector is vigorous, alert and profitable ".
As I am running against the clock, I shall skip part of the speech.
"Any adjustments to the system which the Government have to make for this purpose cannot rightly be regarded as State aid."

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Your Lordships may be wondering who said that; it was said by our present Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Healey, on 12th November 1974. As a forester, I can only ask noble Lords opposite: What on earth did he mean?
4.6 p.m.
Lord GISBOROUGH: My Lords, I must first declare an interest as a forester. Two world wars saw to the felling of the bulk of the mature British timber. Since then, the Forestry Commission has planted its 3 million acres of mainly conifers, many now mature, but far more still young and middle-aged. Private forestry has been encouraged to plant by taxation relief, and has been responsible for the planting of the great bulk of the young hardwoods, and probably all the smaller woodlands, as well as many larger acreages, that are scattered over the countryside to give it that magnificent aspect admired by all. Inevitably, as estates break up and farms become owner-occupied, pressure of mortgage repayments forces much woodland back into agriculture. One sees this happening all over the country. Smaller acreages naturally cannot carry trained forestry staff and machinery as the larger estates have been able to do. Private owners have planted mass timber, but they have also had the interest to grow, care for and love many hundreds of exotic varieties of hard and soft wood. Yet not one owner can have seriously imagined that he would reap any great reward for his investment, management and care.
My Lords, forestry essentially is a long-term exercise. It takes 80 years for hardwood, and perhaps 50 years for softwood to mature, and a return of 3 per cent. can hardly be regarded as an investment for profit. Therefore, the motive has been amenity, conservation, and probably a deep, and perhaps illogical, sense of responsibility towards the future, best illustrated by the fact that even in 1975 private forestry used much more hardwood seed than did the Forestry Commission. All this was based essentially on the belief that there was stability of the rules of taxation, and that forestry was not a political plaything subject to the whims of each bright new politician.
That stability over the last 40 years has given confidence. That confidence has resulted in massive planting which will increasingly play its part against the huge
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import bill for timber. That confidence has led to the creation of wealth, not profit, not cash, but wealth for the nation in converting the rays of the sun into timber. Now, timber has been dragged into politics: messing about with the dedication scheme, now with capital transfer tax and next year with the wealth tax, what will happen the year after? Confidence has been given a very severe shaking, and the effect has been immediate.
My Lords, forestry never stops dead. Areas clear-felled under licence have to be replanted. Established young trees have to be weeded, beaten up and given all the work and care that forestry entails, and this keeps many of the estate staffs in work. But with new afforestation it is another matter. This is where there is such evidence of a drop, and if this continues then the effect will be felt in 30 to 40 years' time. As an example, the Scottish Woodlands Association estimate that there is a down turn of 46 per cent. for this year of bare land planting; while in England the estimate is 45 per cent. This has resulted in redundancy figures of 35 per cent. to 40 per cent., representing some 3,000 skilled men, many lost for ever from the industry, mainly from the contractors. Even the management groups and estates have been reduced by 20 per cent. The demand for conifer seed has reached the lowest level ever recorded, and 20 million seedlings have been destroyed this year, representing 20,000 acres of planting, or 40 per cent. of the average annual private sector planting.
CTT will now mean that at each transfer, which could be three or four times in the life of a crop, full value must be paid on the value of the trees; far more will be paid in tax than will ever be recouped by the eventual seller. Considering the timescales involved, what point is there in planning for the next century? Better to have a holiday than invest in forestry. This is sad. Surely this is the one industry where inheritance should actively be made possible and encouraged. On semi-mature timber the heir will either have to sell to pay his tax or opt to defer and pay at a much higher rate—caused by the enhanced size of the timber and value due to inflation—on felling. This is inherently unfair for various reasons,

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not least because he will be paying capital transfer tax at a greater rate on his own investment of locked up capital. In practice the heir will sell, and down will fall all the fine timber stands of the country at the first transfer. We can all think of one or more fine stands which will disappear.
The ravages of CTT will interfere severely with good silviculture and all the valuable timber will be felled in a generation. This is particularly unfortunate because it is plain to all that every year's growth ring on a large tree produces far more timber than the annual growth ring on a small tree. The alteration of CTT to growing crops surely conflicts with the Chancellor's statement on 12th November 1974 when he said that the Government had no right in equity to withdraw fixed incentives without due notice being given and without due regard to the industry affected.
Capital transfer tax has already thrown up many other anomalies that have been brought to the notice of the Treasury. Forestry is a long-term enterprise and the value of the land and trees is unrealisable until felling. It is only fair that the value at transfer should be the valuation for CTT and that duty should be paid only on felling, though perhaps current prices might be applied to what passed at transfer. This would encourage the maturing of large and valuable saw-woods. Timber should be deemed a separate estate, though without the £15,000 threshold, to avoid penal rates. The land should be treated on a going concern basis, as with other productive assets.
The Government must realise that a strong private forestry industry is vital to the country, to help to supply softwood and to provide most of the hardwood, quite apart from the amenity aspect. We were lucky to find oil off our shores. We will not suddenly find new timber on our land, and as world supplies become tighter, so one day will the price of timber shoot through the roof. We must plant now for the year 2030, particularly as the Timber Committee of the EEC discussed last November the prospect by the year 2000 of wood becoming the raw material for feedstock, chemicals, alcohols, yeasts, protein and sugar. Plentiful supplies will then be vital, but it is
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at that time that the FAO foresees a shortage. I am glad to learn that the Government have obtained £80,000 from the EEC for a Forestry Commission education project. I hope the courses at this school will be open fully to private foresters and that the EEC, which favours private forestry, will be encouraged to help private forestry in its request for an education grant. The EEC's Timber Committee also discussed the full utilisation of trees, from needles right through to the roots, and tree-breeding, which is at an early stage compared with plant and animal breeding. All these matters need massive and early study.
My Lords, let us take timber out of politics, try to restore confidence and plant as many trees as possible. To do this perhaps a special review body should be set up to inquire into the whole economic structure of forestry and so determine its priorities in the economic structure of the country. This might lead to an agreed policy acceptable to any Government; and long-term assurances would lead to a return to a vigorous private sector.
4.15 p.m.
The Earl of CAITHNESS: My Lords, we must ask the one question: does this country need a private sector in forestry? In 1974 our timber imports cost £1,850 million, and that figure is now higher. That alone is a good reason for encouraging forestry. But when one appreciates that approximately 57 per cent. of all the timber grown in Great Britain is provided by the private sector, it is then that one realises just how important this sector is. Will our large import bill decrease? I think not. Looking at the world situation as a whole, we find that the supplies are diminishing while the demand per capita is increasing. Not only do we need a privatesector—and no Government could fill the gap if it ceased—but there is every reason to encourage it.
The growing of timber is a long-term business. While most Governments look as far ahead as the next election, the forester looks forward perhaps 150 years. Bearing this in mind, it is imperative that no Government toys with forestry for a short-term gain while destroying the long-term prospects of the industry. To plan for the future one needs confidence. After years of work that confidence has

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now been erased, but the fault does not lie entirely with the present taxation system; the economic situation of the country as a whole has accentuated it.
My Lords, one of the effects of taxation is to channel our actions in certain directions, and as taxes alter so do the directions change in which we head. Moreover, the more stringent and biting the tax system becomes, the fewer become the directions in which we can head. If we relate this to forestry we see the picture emerging. Our inheritance of mixed and often unevenly aged woodlands has given way to a more unnatural system of plantations of a single-age and common species. This more stereotyped system has been forced upon private forestry by the tax system. This in itself is not a threat to private forestry, as there is a market for this type of timber, albeit a poor one at the moment. However, for both the Forestry Commission and the private sector to grow only one type of timber is not as helpful to the country's economy as it might be. The most recent of Government taxes, CTT, only serves to make the position worse. The result of this tax is that the better the quality of the timber the more the tax bites. The answer from the private sector will be to continue to grow single species of an even age and on as short a rotation as possible. Furthermore, one is not encouraged to hand over any mature timber to one's children and grandchildren. Much more careful planning and advice will be needed. The private sector will remain, but only in a more limited capacity. There is now little incentive to replant species which might become a rod with which a future Government could beat our children.
The market for growing quick rotation timber is limited primarily to pulp and, as we have seen, the trend is for all types of timber to be in short supply in the future. If we continue to grow timber for only one market, we will have to pay an exorbitant price for top quality material in the future, and that will not help our balance of payments. The Forestry Commission is well geared to producing pulpwood, so why not encourage the private sector to help fill our requirements in other markets by growing top quality timber? To grow this material, a change is needed in our present system of forestry, and this can
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be achieved, to the good of the country, through the taxation system. Encouragement to plant the right species in the right places is more important than an increased grant for hardwood planting.
The disadvantage of our present system is not only that of limited markets; it is unnatural. Nature, of its own accord, does not produce single-age one species plantations, so why fight nature when one can work with it? Why have something that is scenically poor and depressing'? Although it provides a home for much wildlife, one moment it is there and the next, after clear felling, it is not. There is a greater incidence of disease, requiring chemical spraying to control it, and it is liable to windblow, as we saw at the beginning of January. Many years of hard work can be lost because of this. I would recommend the system, used satisfactorily on the Continent, of uneven-aged mixed woodlands. Although this is much more difficult to manage and suffers from the disadvantages that I have mentioned, the advantages are that the timber grows slowly at an early age and therefore produces a greater volume of better quality timber in the long-term. The amenity of the countryside is improved, as is the habitat for wildlife, because the wood should never be clear felled. Under proper management, the wood becomes self-seeding and only the most suitable seedlings on the site flourish. The finished product is excellent timber, but to produce it requires more skilled management than does the present system. However, if the results are worthwhile, then the locality and the rural economy must benefit.
Landlords in the private sector are concerned not only with plantations but with hedgerow trees and the countryside as a whole. The BBC produced an excellent programme, called "The Death of a Landscape ", on the tragic results of Dutch elm disease, yet we are still awaiting constructive Government action in this field. Do not let our grandchildren say, "They caused the death of the landscape ". Under the present taxation programme the rural environment as we know it will be destroyed, leaving only blocks of quick-growing conifers as their inheritance. Private forestry is essential to this country. The tax system should not destroy it but encourage it to play

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its full part in the potential of the economy. To do this we need confidence and a consistent policy of sensible taxation.
4.22 p.m.
Baroness SHARPLES: My Lords, I should declare my interest, having a farm with woodlands, and I do not wish to separate the two in this debate. We acquired a property which was in a very sorry state. More than a quarter of it was badly neglected woodlands. Over the years we took a very small proportion of woods into farmland and replanted the remainder, and the results of our efforts made us very proud. Some eighteen months ago, because of real and threatened taxation, I was advised that it was essential to make our five woodmen redundant. I did so with the greatest regret. It is a sad comment that none of these experienced men has found a job in forestry. Your Lordships know that contract labour, if available, is not the same as a good team of woodmen who take such great pride in their work. Inevitably, things will deteriorate, and we will all be the losers.
The proportion of woodlands to farmland varies enormously all over the country, and what most concerns me is the possibility that the Government are considering setting an arbitrary limit on the amount of woodland which may be treated as ancillary to a farm. I should like to urge the Minister, if this is in fact the case, to reject any such idea. Surely we cannot afford to lose well kept and beautiful woodlands, large or small, in any part of Britain. As other noble Lords have said, we need confidence, as forestry can only be long-term with long delayed return on investment. Other noble Lords have clarified what the situation will be when the effects of capital transfer tax are really felt. I cannot pretend to understand the complexities of taxation that face those of us who have a responsibility for future generations. We do not want to fail them, but I feel a deep anxiety about the situation, which I hope Her Majesty's Government can alleviate when the Minister replies. Finally, I am extremely grateful to my noble friend Lord Lovat for giving me the opportunity to speak in this debate and to make a very small contribution to a most interesting discussion.
4.25 p.m.
Lord INGLEWOOD: My Lords, I think that it is a tragedy that we have to have this debate at all this afternoon. After the success of post-war forestry policy encouraged by all Governments, it is a pity that the foolish decision over proposed taxation by the present Government should so quickly have set back expansion, endangered good relations between the public and the private sectors, and put good men out of jobs and risked the jobs of many more. When the Government went back on the policy statement of July 1974 and suggested taxation changes, all political Parties in Scotland, I believe, except the Communists, told the Government what would happen, and now it has happened exactly as they said. Then arguments during the Committee stage of the Finance Bill in another place convinced Ministers that they had made a mistake and some Amendments were proposed to that Bill, although nothing like as far-reaching as some Government spokesmen have since tried to represent. But, then, the smallest crust nowadays is better than no bread. Many of us who since then have had correspondence with different Ministers, will have had the same unconvincing standard letter from different Departments, really showing how little the problems of forestry are understood in Whitehall.
It is disturbing, too, after the Minister's statement about his proposed Amendment in another place, that he was visited by a deputation from the TUC urging him to stand firm, and saying that anything that was "given away ", as they put it, would be taken as a breach of the Social Contract. Of course what the TUC says to this Government, however damaging, must not be ignored.
The fact remains, in spite of what the noble Lord, Lord Lovat, said about this not being a political subject, that Socialists do not like privately owned woodlands in other countries or in this country. They have very little knowledge on which to base this view; but I would cite as one notable exception—Mr. Philips Price, a Member for a long time of another place and also a Forestry Commissioner. I am sorry he is not with us still. Over the last year, I have spoken to noble Lords from the Benches on the other side, and to Members of another place, who seem

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to think that if under the proposed taxation system the private owner cannot carry on, then surely the Forestry Commission can take over. That just shows how flimsy their knowledge is. Maybe that could happen with a few big areas, but not with the many small woods containing the bulk of hardwoods, as has just been mentioned, which contribute so much to the amenity of our countryside. Very soon, unless changes are introduced, we shall see a beginning of these woods being cut and left derelict.
I have just said that we cannot overlook politics in this debate, and it is interesting to look back to see what the Socialist Government of this country from 1945 to 1950 tried to do in the British zone of Germany, for which they were then largely responsible. I think that they were surprised to find that more than half of those splendid German forests were in private hands. They thought that it was within their power to change this, and they tried to do it. Of course privately owned woodlands were something which buttressed continuity and stability in the countryside—wicked, terrible, conservatism with a small "c ". Luckily, they failed in Germany to carry this through. We can only hope that they will fail to carry it through in this country, and that they will admit that they have made a mistake and will propose early amendments which will encourage high standards in the industry and will be fair, not just to the forestry industry but to the ancillary industries, too, and to the country as a whole. They must never forget, as has been pointed out time and time again this afternoon, that forestry, different from all other industries, is long-term. It is quite easy to damage the forestry industry. We have seen it happen during two wars. Serious damage can be done in a very short time and it takes much longer to repair.
4.31 p.m.
Lord CLIFFORD of CHUDLEIGH: My Lords, I happen to be a forestry owner of some 500 acres which I manage myself, and of 400 acres which are let to the Forestry Commission at 2s. 6d. an acre for 999 years. In addition, I have a park of 450 acres laid out and planted by Capability Brown in 1760, which, tree-wise, I endeavour to maintain. Added to that, there are innumerable copses and much hedgerow timber, on
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which so much of the beauty of the countryside depends.
One plants trees for posterity—soft-woods for one's sons and grandsons and hardwoods for one's great-grandsons and later. In hilly parts of the country, such as Devon, one plants and maintains woods on ground which is too steep for agriculture to stop soil erosion and to provide firewood and fencing posts, as well as to preserve flora and fauna. The present disastrous floods in Australia are caused by the indiscriminate ring barking of many of the trees, allowing erosion to fill the river beds, so that when heavy rains come the streams are unable to take the rain. There are no trees, therefore there is no sponge effect. Fortunately for us, our ancestors did not behave so irresponsibly. They planted woods and copses with a view to blending forestry and agriculture to achieve a proper balance.
I should like to quote from an article in a country magazine. It is from a column called "Land Agent's Letter "by Agronomos. It says:
"I recently attended a forestry meeting on the estate where I was a pupil. It was fascinating to look at plantations, some of which I had actually helped to plant, 20 years later and to see how they had fared. They had done very well, thanks largely to a keen owner and his agent who had been managing the woodlands now for over a quarter of a century. It seems we have gone out of our minds though, when, after all the care and hard work that has gone into these wood-lands, the owner would have to say that with our present taxation the sensible thing to do would be to fell the lot before he died. Such are the rewards of good husbandry."
It took me ten years to pay off the death duties on my woodlands. For the last 13 years I have planted 14,000 trees a year until this year—or, rather, last year because my planting month is March. I shall not plant this March. If I planted more or maintained, weeded or fertilised the present trees, I should only be building up a bigger tax burden for my successor and a wealth tax for myself. In the last 13 months I have phased out, as the noble Baroness has done, two woodmen. My land is strewn with trees ready to go to the mills. They are windfalls and elms but now no one can buy them, for the sawmills are full. If one has to pay to strip the elm bark, as per the recent order, the cost of getting the timber to the mills will not he covered. Yet we import £2,000 million

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worth of timber a year. We import that timber together with oak wilt from Russia and Romania and chestnut blight and Dutch elm disease from Canada, which caused the last outbreak. I cannot for the life of me see why we cannot treat foreign timber as we do cattle so as to keep out these diseases.
If we do not keep down the grey squirrels and rabbits, all our young trees will go. But if one gets no income and only increases one's tax liability, why bother? Why employ another man? The South-West Timber Growers' Organisation, meeting last Monday at Tavistock, reported that no new planting had been done in the South-West this year by their members. Unless the Government alter their tax proposals soon the countryside, or a large proportion of it, will become a desert. The numbers of those employed in the countryside will drop still more and our balance-of-payments deficit will be further increased. I, for one, shall have spent half my working life cutting off my nose to spite my face.
4.38 p.m.
The Earl of KINTORE: My Lords, I want to draw attention to some of the side effects of the unfair taxation on private woodlands and private forestry and also to the effect it has had on the national economy. I must declare an interest. I am a small shareholder in a large chipboard mill in the East of Scotland—Scottish Timber Products—and I am a forester and have 500 acres of trees, most of which I myself have planted from seed. Owing to the tax position I have stopped planting. I see no point in planting for the benefit of the Treasury, be it for the United Kingdom Government or for the "Scots Nats "if they succeed in getting us into a sort of haggis republic.
There is an immense import saving and job promotion potential in difficult areas if the forestry is exploited as it should be. I believe that we should remember that North Sea oil may last only between 20 and 30 years, and that the probable result of the wealth allegedly to he derived from that may pay about half the national mortgage which we have already incurred.
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The consumption of chipboard in the United Kingdom has doubled over the past five years. Even so, we use only about a quarter as much chipboard as other EEC countries. This year, we expect to make 600,000 cubic metres of chipboard and to import 950,000 cubic metres. The largest chipboard mill in the United Kingdom is Scottish Timber Products. It depends on thinnings and small wood for its raw materials and that means a continuous planting programme and continuous supplies. At the moment, the mill is producing 170,000 cubic metres a year and the industry collectively—there are six big mills—employs 2,000 men and women directly and another 2,000 indirectly on transport, haulage and forestry work. The capital directly employed is something over £50 million. The 1975 output was valued at £30 million, and the estimated value of the 1976 production is £40 STP—Scottish Timber Products—is working three shifts and yesterday went over to a seven-day week. It has increased its labour force by 10 per cent. and is investing another quarter of a million pounds in plant to try to increase output by another 20 per cent.
Recent research and experiment has shown that the home-grown timber is as good as imported timber provided it is properly seasoned and machine stress graded, and is eminently suitable for house building. A large number of timber and timber-framed houses are being built in Scotland today, and a local firm which started from very small beginnings in Stonehaven—it is known as Industrial Joinery—is producing three houses complete a week. It has increased its labour by 50 per cent. and at this moment is planning a large extension.
Turning to a small scale, another friend of mine, Mr. Black, who was a working lad in Stonehaven, started seven years ago with a hand-saw and a claw hammer making pallets out of home-grown timber. He is now employing 18 men, working on 99 per cent. home-grown timber, and the turnover is just £200,000 a year. I believe that that demonstrates that there are people with enterprise and lots of guts who work hard. These are the kind of people and the kind of industries which the present short-sighted policy in taxation is putting at risk, and I think it is crazy.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, first I am asked by my noble friend Lord Taylor of Gryfe, the Chairman of the Forestry Commission, to express his apologies to the House for his absence today. This morning he was presiding at a meeting of the Commission, and this afternoon he is receiving representatives of private forestry to discuss the grant in connection with the dedication scheme. Therefore I believe that most noble Lords here who are interested would agree that my noble friend has a very good reason—I do not say an excuse—for his absence. We are all indebted to the noble Lord. Lord Lovat, for raising this issue, which is of considerable importance. Members of your Lordships' House who have taken part in this debate are all experienced in woodland and it would be right that the Government, and especially my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, should take account of what has been said.
I must give priority to a review of taxation on woodlands, having regard to the terms of the Motion, but before dealing with that I wish to deal with some of the points that have been mentioned. First, there is planting. There has been a tendency for a decline in planting since 1972; that is to say, the decline set in long before we had the present Government and long before there was any discussion of the capital transfer tax. It must be admitted at once that there are other reasons why there has been this decline, and it cannot all be laid at the door of the capital transfer tax. The official year ends on 31st March. In the year ended 31st March 1975 grants were paid to private owners of woodland on 53.700 acres. That was a decline of 4,800 acres. But in the same year (that is the most recent year) planting by the Commission amounted to 57.200 acres—that is to say, an increase of 3.5 or 3,500 acres. Thus in the case of the private woodlands in the last year there was a decrease of 4,800 acres, and so far as the Commission was concerned there was an increase in its acreage of 3,500—
Lord MACKIE of BENSHIE: My Lords, the noble Lord is talking about planting grants to the private owners only.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords. I know that it can be questioned that there is the delay clement, but using that as the basis,
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the Commission substantially made up the decrease in the private sector in the last official year.
So far as imports are concerned, there are two factors which are very important but have not been mentioned in the debate. First, in real terms our imports are declining at a very rapid rate. The best way of measuring our imports in real terms is to calculate them in terms of cubic metres. In 1973 we imported here I use millions— 44 million cubic metres of timber and timber products. In 1944 it was down to 40 millions—
Lord SANDYS: My Lords, surely the noble Lord means 1974.
Lord JACQUES: I am sorry, my Lords, if I stated a wrong date. In 1973 the figure was 44 million cubic metres. In 1974 it was 40 million cubic metres. In 1975 it was 30 million cubic metres. So there has been a rapid decline of our imports in real terms—
Lord MACKIE of BENSHIE: My Lords, I am sorry to keep asking questions, but does that include pulp for paper?
Lord JACQUES: It includes pulp for paper, my Lords.
A Noble Lord: My Lords, does the noble Lord believe that that is due to the recession, or is it a permanent trend?
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, I believe that all these figures are subject to the recession, including many of the figures quoted by noble Lords in the debate.
There is another factor about the imports that ought to be noted; namely, while we import a good deal in terms of value, a large part of what we pay is not for the timber at all but for the processing of the timber that has taken place before we receive it. For example, in 1975 the value of our imports was £1,308 million, but the value of those imports at home roadside prices was £408 million. Therefore it can be assumed that roughly two-thirds of what we paid for the imports was not for the timber content but for the processing that had taken place before we received the timber products. These are important factors which were completely overlooked by those noble Lords who mentioned imports during the course of the debate.

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On the question of employment, the latest figures produced by the Department of Employment show that for forestry workers unemployment is roughly the same as it is for workers in general. It is 5.7 per cent. compared with 5.1 per cent. for the whole of the labour force.
I come now to the question of taxation—
Lord LOVAT: My Lords, would the noble Lord give way for one moment, because he is rather blinding us with figures? There are always two sides to all these stories—
Lord JACQUES: I thought that I had heard one side, and so I was giving the other.
Lord LOVAT: My Lords, I am correcting some of the facts which the noble Lord read out, with the evidence I have before me. With all respect—because I am answering in a moment—I do not think the noble Lord can reconcile the following. I am talking about the imports of timber and timber products over the period from 1962 to 1974. In 1962 the total imports were 415 million, in 1972 they were 877 million, in 1973 they were 1,360 million and in 1974 they were 1,878 million. So whatever the noble Lord says in isolation may be an impressive argument, but it does not tally with the facts, because the imports have quadrupled in 10 years. There is no way round that.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, if we are to measure in real terms our imports of timber and timber products, I suggest there is no better way to do it than to use cubic metres, and that is the measurement I used. Secondly, so far as the value of processing is concerned, I took the figures for one year to show that the processing was equivalent to two-thirds of the value which we paid. I can take any other of the last three or four years and I will get exactly the same result.
But I come now to taxation, because that is the main idea behind the Motion. Let us deal with taxation. I shall take one tax at a time; first, income tax. The private owner of woodland has a choice; he can be taxed under Schedule B or Schedule D. Under Schedule D he is taxed in the same way as any other trade or industry; that is, his profits and losses
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are assessed in the same way as they are for any other trade or industry. In so far as they are profits, he is taxed upon those profits; in so far as they are losses, he can set off those losses against any other income.
Lord SANDYS: My Lords—
Lord JACQUES: No, my Lords; I am not going to give way again to anyone, but when I am finished I will stand here and noble Lords can ask me as many questions as they like. So the owner of a private woodland has this choice between Schedule B and Schedule D. If he chooses to be taxed under Schedule D, then he has his profits and losses assessed in the same way as any other trade or industry. He is charged tax if he has profits, and if he has losses he can set off those losses against any other income.
Throughout the whole of the lifetime of the woodland, except for the year at the end when the felling comes, there are obviously losses, so the owner of the woodland always goes for Schedule D. He will have no tax to pay; and if he has losses those losses are set off against the income from any other source. That means, of course, that he is passing on the annual cost of his woodland to the Exchequer, and the extent to which he passes on the annual cost of his woodland to the Exchequer depends upon his marginal rate of tax. His marginal rate of tax can be anything from 35 per cent., which is the standard rate, to 98 per cent., which is the highest rate. So in all cases where the owner of the private woodland is a taxpayer, the Exchequer is paying some part of the annual costs of the woodland by tax relief; economists who have made a study of woodlands estimate that, on the average, 60 per cent. of the annual cost of woodlands is passed on to the Exchequer by way of claiming losses against other income. It is clear, therefore, that the expenditure on woodlands gets relief.
Let us look at what happen sat the time when the profit comes; that is, the last year, when the timber is felled. As the law stands at the present time, the option of Schedule B or Schedule D applies whenever there is a change of occupiers. So if the owner of the woodland takes into partnership a near and dear relative of his or her's the year before

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the timber is felled then there is a change of occupation, and because there is a change of occupation there can be a change in the Schedule under which the tax is paid. He can opt to be taxed under Schedule B instead of Schedule D. The basis of the tax under Schedule B is quite different. Under Schedule B, the basis of the tax is one-third of the annual rent of the land in its natural state. I will repeat that: one-third of the annual rent of the land in its natural state; in other words, a nominal figure.
By this slight change in occupation there can be a change of the Schedule under which the tax is paid, and in consequence the tax which the Exchequer receives from the sales of felled timber is insignificant. So the present position, so far as income tax is concerned, that the owner of the woodland gets relief for expenditure during the lifetime of the woodland, and at the end of its life, by this slight change of the basis of taxation, no significant payment is made to the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the profits which are made when the trees are sold. The noble Lord, Lord Lovat, said he was not seeking any tax exemption. So far as income tax is concerned, I suggest he has got it and does not need to seek it.
I come now to capital gains tax. Woodlands are completely exempt from capital gains tax. On that I have nothing more to say. I come now to wealth tax. The Report of the chairman of the Select Committee in the other place, as amended by the Committee itself, and the Report of the Opposition in the Select Committee, both recommended that forestry assets should be completely exempt. My right honourable friend will obviously have to take that into consideration when reaching any decision. So far as wealth tax is concerned I do not think that I need make any further comments.
I come now to capital transfer tax. In the case of capital transfer tax, tax has to be paid, of course, on a transfer which is made at a time other than death. But that, of course, applies to all assets, not just to woodlands. It applies to all assets; it applies to all of us. In general, this was the position under estate duty; that is, that those who were clever did not pay because they transferred seven years or more before the due date, whereas those who were foolish did nothing and
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consequently paid. We now have a capital transfer tax, which puts everybody on the same footing, and we have lower rates. I suggest that that is equitable fiscal policy.
So far as woodlands arc concerned, they are given a considerable exemption. First, on the death of the owner of the woodlands the tax on the woodlands can be deferred, so that there is no need for the heir to have to find the money to pay the tax. It can be deferred until the timber is felled or the woodland is sold, so it is deferred until the money becomes available. It is not a question of making it difficult for the owner of the woodland; it is deferred until he sells. He is then taxed—only once; at the time of sale—and that is at the marginal rate at the death of the last owner; so that if there have been two or three owners, it is only the tax at the death of the last owner that is payable. It is paid at the marginal rate, not the average rate. It is the margin. The heirs have decided to postpone the tax on the margin. It would be unreasonable for them to expect, having had the opportunity of postponing, that they are going to pay only at the average rate on the estate. They have deferred the tax on the marginal slice of the estate and it is fit and proper that they should pay at the marginal rate.
It was mentioned specifically in the debate that they have to pay on the value of the timber as sold, not on the value at the time of death. On this I would say only two things. The present thinking of the Government is that in the context of existing income tax and capital gains relief, the relief which is afforded in the capital transfer tax strikes a reasonable balance between fiscal equity and the need for maintaining an adequate level of planting. That is the present position of the Government. But there have been pre-Budget representations made on this point of valuation which my right honourable friend is presently considering. It is fit and proper that I should not in any way try to anticipate the Budget. I must leave it there.
The EEC has been mentioned, but I should like first to deal with one specific point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Sharples. The special capital transfer tax agricultural relief covers small areas of woodland occupied with agricultural land.

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There is no arbitrary limit on the size of the woodlands which qualify for this relief.
Finally, my Lords, I want to mention the question of EEC. The Government view of the draft Directive is unfavourable for this reason. It would mean that areas of agricultural land would have to he converted to forestry. The Government do not think that that is a good thing for this country. They also believe that it would be a costly Directive, so far as this country is concerned, in that it would be required to pay very much more than it would get back if this Directive were put into operation. I would say that, by and large, woodlands fare very well in the existing tax arrangements. If there is anything wrong, if there is anything preventing planting, it is certainly not taxation.
5.2 p.m.
Lord LOVAT: My Lords, we have listened to some very good speeches. I do not know about the last one; it was not a speech, but a trade union directive. I made the point of saying that I did not wish to drag politics into this debate, that in my opinion it was a debate of national importance. When I saw the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, before the debate, I thought that he agreed with that. I am thoroughly disappointed with his remarks. He has talked for 21 minutes to my 11, so I suppose that I can talk for more than five minutes before summing up this debate and before withdrawing my Motion. I should like to say simply this. From every side of the House there have been constructive remarks to step up woodland production if one is given equal opportunity to do so. If we march in step with the Forestry Commission we can certainly double the figure—a figure which is continuing to dwindle every day. We do not know the results of the present planting season, but I repeat that whatever the arguments from the Front Bench there is no getting away from the fact that the import figure quadrupled between 1962 and 1974.
There was no answer to the point I made very respectfully, that if you do not approve of 2,500 woodland owners, do you wish to turn the country into a State forest where there are only 250 Forestry Commission woods at the present time That point has been ignored. I
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said that I did not want to be political; but if I had been political I should have been speaking from the Liberal Benches because in 1909 there was a Royal Commission under Mr. Asquith which recommended that some 9 million acres of timber should be planted—6 million acres in Scotland and 3 million acres in England. That recommendation was disregarded. We have gone through two world wars which stripped our forests, and a depression in the thirties which rendered planting impossible.
We have mistakes made by every Government whatever their complexion. There was no worse mistake, in my opinion, than the absurd White Paper which I think came out in 1972. There a cross benefit study initiated by the Treasury was complete and abject non-sense, repudiated by all sides, although it came from the Conservative ranks. It was a disaster which undermined confidence in the industry long before capital transfer tax came about. I would agree with the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, that that was the beginning of the trouble; although we put out the Party cry, "Plant a tree in '73 "very soon afterwards. No one has mentioned that war cry of the foresters, and of course there was "Plant some more in '74 ".
Since that date, things have gone from bad to worse and they will continue to go from bad to worse because there is a curious ignorance on both sides of the House—and I say this beating my own breast. I have seen it in every country in the world. When you have got something, you take it for granted. I saw it in Argentina where they thought they had too much meat. They now have meatless days in order to survive. In Russian they thought they had enough grain to support the whole of the Soviet Union. Now, every time they have a grain shortage, they put up the timber prices to this country. I have even seen it in the Humboldt Current off Peru and in Chile, where they thought they had unlimited anchovies. Now they have disappeared. We had herrings around this country in profusion. Now we are running out of herrings. And we are running out of timber so fast you have no idea of the situation.
I heard the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, speaking in answer to a Question about imported wood pulp. He said that a

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lot of wood pulp is to be found in Europe. That is not so. I did not profess my own interest in forestry at the beginning of the debate. I apologise for not doing so. I should have done. But from my own woods I am sending pulp once a month from Inverness to Göthenberg in Sweden. The whole thing is standing on its head unless we take a sensible objective view of the situation.
This debate has been drawn out of the hat. It is now rather a curious and. I think, challenging thought that this week there is an exhibition of great paintings by Constable. Those paintings, as your Lordships will know, are quite outstanding for two features: the cloud effects, sunshine and the towering trees—towering trees which in England are much finer than in Scotland. We have heard in recent months in Question Time of the sad effect of Dutch elm disease on a tree which Constable painted extremely well. It is a hedgerow tree, but, economically, as a forest tree, it is of no great importance. But if the private sector goes out of forestry, as it will, on the arguments not marshalled but pushed forward by the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, there will not be a forest tree, a deciduous tree, or a broad leafed tree in England. All of them will be cut down to meet taxes. I withdraw my Motion with the statement that this will inevitably happen unless you get rid of this doctrinaire nonsense. We arc not selling slag heaps, we are making a very small profit. And we are not doing land deals down in East Sussex either.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

SEA USE PLANNING
5.10 p.m.
Baroness WHITE Baroness WHITE rose to call attention to the need for sea use planning; and to move for Papers. The noble Baroness said: My Lords, it falls to me to open this debate on behalf of the noble Lord, Lord Henley, who was suddenly taken ill. I was asked just before lunch whether I would speak in his place, and I must ask your Lordships' pardon if my speech is not as well co-ordinated as I hope my speeches normally are. This is a subject close indeed to my own interests, and I was much honoured to be asked to take the place of the noble Lord, Lord Henley,
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whose absence we all deplore, as we deplore the absence of the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, who is also on a sick bed, but who otherwise I am sure would have been with us today. I at least have the pleasure of welcoming in advance the maiden speech of my noble friend Lord Parry, of Dyfed. I am delighted that he has chosen the occasion of this debate to address your Lordships' House for the first time.
My Lords, I have been asked, as is the custom in these short debates, to suggest to noble Lords who wish to speak to confine their remarks if possible—and I am told the arithmetical calculation is about eight minutes—in order to allow the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, adequate opportunity to reply. The speakers in the last debate were not well organised; they could have taken another half hour. I am not encouraging longer speeches, but if people have something worth saying I suggest they take the eight minutes and say it.
The Motion which I move on behalf of the noble Lord, Lord Henley, is apparently simple but extraordinarily wide-ranging. After several generations we have reached a stage in which some form of land use planning is acceptable, and we have managed to evolve machinery for land use planning which has, I am afraid, not been entirely satisfactory; it has not avoided some of the worst errors. But, on the other hand, it has brought some measure of order into the use of our resources on land. We have no such machinery for the use of either the surface of the sea, the deeper waters, the seabed or the land under the seabed.
I have in my hand a list kindly provided for me with no fewer than 23 headings on it, every one of which is so substantial that it could be the subject of a debate on its own merits. I will not weary your Lordships reading every one of the 23 points, but they range widely over the possible uses of the sea. There are the more obvious ones, such as fisheries and aquaculture; oil and gas recovery; mineral recovery from dredging such things as sand and gravel and various other minerals which may be obtained by those methods; possible mineral recovery by mining (which we have hardly begun to explore other than in the hydrocarbons); possible mineral extraction from sea water and harnessing the energy

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of the sea. There have been talks of tidal barrages for many years, of course; but the current area of research is with possible energy from the waves. There is the important matter of pollution control and there is the whole question of survey and exploration. We have had debates in both Houses of Parliament—with little success so far—on the future of the hydrographic service. There is the whole field of meteorological services, and a very wide field of other research. There are matters of finance, insurance, the regulation of shipping, shipbuilding and research needed for developments in that direction. There is the wide field of legal matters. The law of the sea has now become so much more important than it has ever been before. There is also the consideration of education and training for all these activities.
I have left out a large portion of the list, but from the topics I have indicated your Lordships will appreciate what an extraordinarily important subject this is and how generally ill-prepared we are to deal with this new range of human activity. I am told—I take it on trust—that at least 21 Government Departments are concerned with some aspect of maritime activity. For those of your Lordships who may wish to know more but who are not professionally engaged in any of these matters, I recommend a Fabian pamphlet which was published last November on this subject, Sea Use Planning, which triggered off this debate in Lord Henley's mind, written by Elizabeth Young (better known as Lady Kennet) and Peter Fricke, who is an extremely able young mariner and lecturer from the University of Wales Institute of Science and Technology in Cardiff. This pamphlet gives in popular and brief form some of the problems which face the United Kingdom and other maritime countries in the present day.
The great difference between land use planning and sea use planning is that in land use planning, by and large, we can determine for ourselves what methods we use; in sea use planning we are in an entirely different situation. We have to conform with international law; we are not free to make our own law, or organise our affairs. We are parties to a number of conventions, and that number
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is increasing yearly. We now have a growing effort on the part of the countries of the world to bring some order into this situation at the Law of the Sea Conference. That Conference has already held two sessions and a third is to be embarked upon in a few weeks' time. There are other conventions and agreements which bind us such as the Oslo convention, the London convention and others, to which we are not directly a party, such as the arrangements for the disposition of the Baltic. Those of us interested in the subject were glad to see reported yesterday that the Mediterranean countries have now reached an agreement for the regimen of the Mediterranean, which may cope with some of the intransigent problems of that semi-enclosed and almost tideless sea. This is an encouraging sign.
In our own Administration we have no Minister whose job it is to try to see that these various activities of ours—some admirable, some less than satisfactory—and the work of the innumerable Departments concerned have any kind of relevance one to the other. The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food have considerable responsibilities in this field. The noble Baroness, Lady Birk, is representing the Department of the Environment, which also has some interest in the matter. The Departments of Trade, Industry and Energy are also concerned, as is the Department of Education and Science. I could go on with an almost endless list, and there are also various institutes and public bodies who are concerned; there are innumerable working parties, groups and inter-Departmental committees and so on. But there is no one centre or body to which one can turn and say, "Have you looked at the inter-relationship between the work being done by one Department and another? "There is no one whose job it is to take a synoptic view.
It was because of this gap in our machinery of government that the noble Lord, Lord Henley, wished to institute this debate. It has been made very much more acute, as many of your Lordships will be aware, by the propositions being discussed at the Law of the Sea Conference. I think most people consider it inevitable that before long we shall have a 200-mile exclusive economic zone for each maritime country in the world. One

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would hope this would be achieved in an orderly way by agreement: if not, then it is plain that the individual countries will adopt such a position for themselves.
We have already seen something of this in the fisheries dispute. I do not want to become embroiled in the arguments about Iceland, but I have been astonished to find that there has been very little mention in the public Press of other countries who are going in this direction. For example, Canada is going on exactly the same sort of tack as Iceland, although they have not yet reached such a position of confrontation as we have. Iceland is by no means the only country which is taking steps of this kind. Norway is another country which has been very much concerned both with mineral exploitation and fisheries, and it is interesting to see that a small country like Norway has appointed a Minister for Sea Policy. As I understand it, this covers the total exploitation of the sea and the resources above, within and below it. I hope very much that when my noble friend Lady Birk replies, she will tell us that the Government are conscious that we in this country should be looking very much in the same direction.
I had intended to speak largely on matters of pollution control and research, but I have tried to take a slightly broader line because of "standing in "for the noble Lord, Lord Henley. I have tried to open this debate in the kind of way I think he would have wished to adopt himself. However, I am very much concerned with the knowledge gained through my interest in pollution control. As some of your Lordships know, I am chairman of the Advisory Committee on Oil Pollution of the Sea, but in other capacities I have also been concerned with such matters as the disposal of hazardous waste, particularly radioactive waste. Here is a whole area of new experiences for us. Countries of the world who are depending more and more on nuclear sources of energy have realised that there is a limit to the relatively safe storage and disposal of either high or low level radioactive waste on land. They are operating disposal systems on the seabed and investigating different methods.
This raises an infinitude of problems and questions, both technical and legal. For example, what happens if we all
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have our 200-mile exclusive economic zones? Who is then to control the area in the middle, so to speak, which is not covered by any national administration? Who is to say what is done with hazardous waste, which may remain hazardous for 25,000 years? Who is to say whether it is left just on the ocean bed or whether you are obliged to bury it and, if you bury it, under what sort of conditions—retrievable or not? These are just a few of the endless problems involved.
We are beginning for the first time to exploit the mineral resources of the sea floor. We have all heard of the nodules which have been brought up, but there are many other possibilities there. If we irresponsibly destroy our stocks of the upper-water fish—and we have more or less destroyed the herring, we are destroying the cod and I expect we shall destroy the mackerel next, particularly with the methods of fishing we have not yet been able to control, for example, the suction method which is used by the Russians and which is utterly destructive of fish stocks—we may then have to go on to the deep-sea fish which we have never thought of eating up to now. We need to know a great deal more about this.
We do not know anything like enough about the deep-water currents of the sea. We have not had any proper seismographic surveys of what is going on. We have an Institute of Oceanographical Studies which, as usual, is under-financed. There are so many areas in which we know so little, and we have given far too little thought to the necessity for different measures of control, according to the activity with which we are concerned. On the educational side, also, we are only just beginning to educate people in all these new spheres of science, of resource planning and control, of law, and so on. We have not nearly enough people who are trained to look after our interests and to deal intelligently and effectively with representatives of other countries in this sphere.
Time is passing, and so I will just say that many of us are deeply concerned by what we feel to be the failure of the Government so far to grasp the true magnitude of the problems facing us. The fact that they have not been able to solve the problem of the Hydro-graphical Service is indicative of this. It

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is a small matter in itself, but if we cannot bring together the disparate interests in a matter of that sort, then we have very little confidence that we shall be able to face much larger and more important problems unless the Government can make up their minds and grasp the nettle which must be grasped. Sea use planning is going to affect the future of this country, very nearly if not quite as much as the planning of our land use resources. For this reason, I have the greatest pleasure in introducing the debate—a task which should have fallen to the noble Lord, Lord Henley. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
5.29 p.m.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY: My Lords, I should like to begin by congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Henley, in his absence, for having raised this subject and for providing the opportunity for debate. I should also like to congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady While, for having stepped in at short notice and sacrificed to some extent what she was going to say on pollution—because she herself, as we know, is an expert on sea pollution. I am sure that your Lordships will join with me in expressing the hope that the noble Lord, Lord Henley, will be very quickly restored to health.
Both the noble Lord and the noble Baroness have, in the past, drawn attention to the rapidly increasing importance of the greater use of the seas, the seabed and the substances below the seabed. Attention has been drawn to the anomalies and to the need for co-ordination and order, both internationally and within our own jurisdiction around our shores. Over a year ago I made my maiden speech on this subject and this was, again, just before the United Nations World Conference was about to hold a session. Sadly, there has not been as much progress since then as we had hoped. We are about to see a new session starting in three weeks' time, and this is therefore a timely moment to take stock. It is a vast subject. I will concentrate on only a few of the most urgent and important points where Britain is concerned, because I hope to take the minimum of time and to be inside ten minutes because the length of the debate is restricted.
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Although we are waiting for agreements at the World Conference, they are bound to come as package deals. The preparations should be in hand now and the British Government should be discussing, bilaterally or in groups with other countries, how agreement can be reached soon, because there is a general consensus for a 200-mile economic zone. There are over 130 countries—virtually all the nations in the world, including the landlocked countries—taking part in this Conference, and with very few exceptions they are all agreed in principle on this 200-mile economic zone, and also on extending the territorial sea limit to 12 miles. The difficulty is in getting formal agreement.
There seem to me to be three parts to the management of Britain's maritime affairs to which the Government should be giving urgent attention. The first and most urgent is the crisis in our fishing industry. The second is preparing a comprehensive régime for the coastal economic zone, likely to be accepted internationally, I believe, within two years. The third is Britain's role in harvesting the riches latent in the deeper waters, including the precious metals on the floors of the oceans.
The Government must recognise that the present plight of our fishing industry, the first point, is by far the most urgent of these matters. It cannot wait indefinitely for final agreement at the World Conference on the Law of the Sea, which is bound to involve other elements of a package. The next session of the Conference is due to start in New York in three weeks' time, and every effort should be made by Britain and like-minded countries to secure formal agreement on the 200-mile economic zone for which there is general approval. However, we cannot rely upon obtaining this by May, when the session is due to end. I am not usually a pessimist, but it seems to me unlikely, despite the consensus in favour of it, that agreement will be reached by the end of that session in May. The underdeveloped and land-locked countries will not consent unless they have some assurances in return.
The British Government ought accordingly to be ready to take action to increase conservation of fish stocks in concert with the United States, Canada, Norway and other countries to whom the protection of

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sea fisheries is vital. Bilateral talks should be proceeding to that end. The United States Congress has already passed domestic legislation to create a 200-mile economic zone and indicated that this could be treated as a domestic matter if international agreement was not reached in reasonable time. The noble Baroness made reference to a similar attitude in Canada.
Britain's fishing problems are not by any means confined to Iceland. The middle-water trawler fleet, especially that based on Aberdeen, much of which fishes off the Faroes and Norway, is faced with going out of business because of the difference between their mounting costs and fish prices. The inshore fleets also, although more prosperous between 1970 and 1973 than at any time in their history, have been passing through a desperately difficult period and the herring fishermen have suffered severely from overfishing by other nations.
On the second point—coastal economic zones—we support the Government in aiming for international agreement upon a 200-mile zone, and also upon rights over seabed resources to the limit of the Continental Shelf. But is enough being done now to prepare for the maritime management of the large area which will be Britain's responsibility when this is finally agreed? It will be about twice our land area. There are all the matters connected with navigation, pollution, oil and gas installations, fisheries and other matters. A multitude of Ministers and bodies are involved. Should not a senior Minister have a special assignment to direct and co-ordinate? Perhaps this could be the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, when he has finished with his 51 per cent. participation negotiations. Many might think that he would be occupying himself more usefully, where the Continental Shelf is concerned, if he were to assume such a new responsibility, instead of twisting the arms of the oil companies on 51 per cent. participation. With our maritime experience and the technology being developed now around our coasts, Britain should in due course play a leading part in harvesting the deep sea resources which are waiting to serve mankind.
That brings me to the third point, because it has been estimated that there is much more manganese, aluminium,
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nickel, copper and cobalt on the beds of the oceans than all the deposits known to exist on land. This is a veritable deep sea El Dorado. The world needs these precious materials and the maritime industrial countries, especially Britain, cannot indefinitely wait during endless discussion at the World Conference before a regime is established to regulate deep sea mining beyond the coastal economic zones.
It is accepted that some of the primary producers of these materials could suffer serious blows to their economies if countervailing measures were not made available. For example, there is at least one African State which provides a very large proportion of the total world supplies of one of these important substances. In principle, also, the members of the United Nations have declared that these resources should benefit the world as a whole, including land-locked countries. Even in today's state of technology, it is calculated that some of these metals could be won more cheaply at sea from the ocean floors than they can at present be extracted on land, and in the next few years this cost comparison will probably become more favourable.
They are to be found mainly in manganese nodules, but also in hot brine pools in various parts of the world. Another remarkable point is that these concentrations of substances arc being formed continuously so that, unlike reserves such as oil and coal, they are not unchanging but arc increasing. I believe that deep sea mining could add a new dimension to Britain's maritime and industrial future, but first we must strive to promote an international organisation which will reconcile the interests of the nations which are capable of the deep sea operations, with the reasonable aspirations and economic problems of the rest of the world.
As regards the domestic changes and the Minister who might be in charge, I do not think that it could all be given to one single Department—certainly not at this stage. The Fabian pamphlet, to which the noble Baroness, Lady White, referred and which I agree sets out many of the subjects extremely clearly, suggested that it might be the Home Secretary and the Home Office who should take over maritime affairs. Then, I understand that others have suggested the Department of the Environment. I hope

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that I shall not be regarded as a chauvinist Scot, when I say that both of those suffer from the same defect—that their relevant functions do not apply North of the Border; and, of course, most of the hydrocarbons found so far have been around the coasts of Scotland.
There is a great deal more that can be said on this subject, but I do not want to take more of your Lordships' time as this debate has a time limit. But I hope I have said enough to indicate that there are great opportunities for a country with Britain's experience and maritime potential. We should be preparing now to seize those opportunities, and to seize them with both hands.
5.40 p.m.
Lord PARRY: My Lords, a former Member of your Lordships' House once introduced himself to an audience in the county of Pembroke with the words: "I am a baron. You all know me. My grandfather was a baron. My father was a baron". At that point one of his audience shouted, "It's a pity that your mother wasn't barren, too ". I rise in this House at this time and am unable to use those words because all of your Lordships do not know me. My grandfather was not a baron, my father was not a baron and I have been a baron for such a short while that it would be presumptuous of me even to enter into this debate if I did not feel that it was so important. Therefore I take readily the kindness and courtesy of this House in giving me the opportunity to speak today.
I want to underline two points among the many which have been made to the House in this debate. I wish to take up the point of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, who pointed to the British indigenous fishing industry and the difficulties it faces, and to take this opportunity of thanking my noble friend Lady White who sponsored me when I was introduced into this House. At the same time may I thank the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor who, in welcoming me to the House, greeted me in my own native tongue.
It is true that the British indigenous fishing industry is in grave plight. It is true that a number of factors have combined to rob this country, and particularly
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Wales, of a resource which was worth a great many millions of pounds but which at this time is unable to compete with the many factors that limit the skills and energies of those involved in the trade and the courage of the men who go to sea in ships to bring ashore the fish. My first point, then, is that the British indigenous fishing industry has declined throughout my lifetime. For example, I have seen the Welsh fishing industry decline from having fleets sailing from Cardiff and Swansea, from almost every minor port around the coast of Wales and from Milford Haven in hundreds, to the point where the Milford Haven fleet is only 12 in number and where the men who try to bring the fish ashore—those responsible for management and working in the ships—are desperately worried that, as your Lordships consider this matter, their industry is dying.
First, we have a crisis in an existing indigenous industry. Secondly, we have a challenge in the development of a new industry that is using an asset which for too long we have disregarded. Around the shores of Britain there are many great harbours, such as Milford Haven, which for too long have been underdeveloped because successive Governments of many different political colours have, during times of war, used them in order to tide them over an emergency and then, in times of peace, forgotten them. Therefore, I say in this non-political setting at this non-political moment in my life that there is a double challenge in this debate. The use of the sea is part of the heritage of our nation. It is part of that which made our nation great and we neglect it always at our peril. I believe that we should be looking at these two problems out of the many outlined by the noble Baroness, with a sense of urgency because I wish to see not simply the development of ports which will bring in giant tankers.
May I give your Lordships the figures of development which are little less than dramatic, and I find this exciting. I found exciting what the noble Lord opposite said; namely, mining under the sea and getting that great element under control by man's ingenuity. To this generation of ours I find the conquest of inner space as exciting as any conquest of outer space. As to the port of Milford Haven—I am not being parochial but many times during my life I have quoted the words

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of William Wordsworth the poet who, in his prelude to the Lyrical Ballads, said that it was the duty of the poet to seek for truth. That is also the duty of both the politician and every other individual. In this House I have been impressed by the manner in which the debates have, for the most part, sought for truth. Wordsworth warned that there was always the danger of searching for that truth which was local and particular rather than general and operative. In this debate I believe it is important that in order to understand all these problems we should put the emphasis on local and particular truths but should move from those as quickly as possible to the general and operative ones. This is why I am sure that the noble Baroness will welcome, as I do, the emphasis that was placed by the noble Lord opposite on the extension to all mankind of the rights which we seek for ourselves in the use of the sea.
There is, then, this about Milford Haven which is local and particular. Last year Milford Haven handled 4,200 oil tankers, of which about 200 were what are called VLCCs—very large crude carriers. They are 1,140 feet long, 160 feet wide and they bring oil from the Persian Gulf: between 200,000 and 280,000 tons of it at a time. That was the 1974 figure. Milford's exciting and increasing importance as an oil port is part of the challenge of the development of oil which is too often expressed in narrow terms rather than in the general and operative ones' of a great natural resource being brought to the service of man.
I have a very limited mandate. All that I have the time and right to do in this maiden speech is to underline those two problems which I particularly understand. May I give one instance of the difficulties of the law of the sea, a law which is as old as any that noble Lords here practise in relation to things on land, yet an incredibly difficult one. When the tanker "Donna Marika" went on shore on Longberry Point in the Dale Roads in Milford Haven, carrying on board 5,000 tons of highly inflammable petrol, she presented, not as the Press at that time emphasised, a floating time bomb or a stranded time bomb but a great legal difficulty within the context of the rule of the sea. This one ship, owned by one company, registered under a Liberian flag of convenience and insured with
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a British-based company, was, in fact, a sovereign State of another land while she sat on a rock in a Welsh harbour. Here is a great problem which we have to solve and it is one to which the Government have to address themselves. How does one resolve a situation like that when a company can move off, leaving a stranded hulk if it wishes to do so? —although in this case fortunately it did not. Let me complete the tale and say it was a history of magnificent effort in saving the contents of the tanker and removing the tanker, and an exercise in international co-operation.
I have exhausted my time, and I hope I have not exhausted your Lordships' patience. In future times I hope I may join in your Lordships' debates, and that when I do so I shall have even more time.
5.48 p.m.
Earl CAIRNS: My Lords, it is a great personal pleasure to be able to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Parry, on a most remarkably efficient maiden speech. He made two very valuable points and I am sure that your Lordships hope to hear frequently from him. My Lords, I believe it is fair to assume that within the next two or three years the 200-mile economic zone will be established in law. Therefore, I am certain that our planning should start from that premise. Of course, planning is merely one of the three stages required. The second is legislation. The third, which is the most important, is enforcement of that legislation. In this context it seems to me that if we are to patrol all of the 200-mile zone, and safeguard all the 23 interests (I think the noble Baroness said) within that zone, we shall require some very special form of united command. I do not know what it will be. There is the example of the United States Coastguard service. On the face of it, it has the disadvantage that it has 40 Admirals and 40,000 men, which seems rather a lot. But if we scale down to our coastline and to the area that is to be policed, something along those lines is a possibility and might be examined.
Next, there is absolute certainty that we must carry out the hydrographic surveys which were mentioned in a recent debate, and I hope we can soon get some

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assurance from the Government that that will be done.
I should now like to turn to shipping and fishing. I entirely agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Parry, said. Our fishing industry is in a parlous state. I hope the Government will consult the fishing industry when formulating plans for our 200-mile zone, which will make a tremendous difference to that industry. For instance, unless we have an efficient national plan for our fisheries we shall be in great trouble when we negotiate within the European Community. Your Lordships may remember that when we joined the European Community we obtained special immunity from joining the common fisheries policy. That immunity expires in 1982. It is therefore most important that our national policy should not only take into account the fact that we have to negotiate with the EEC before 1982, but should also take account of the 200-mile zone limit.
I do not know what is the form of the Government's thinking. It could be that we shall have a European Parliament. I am not quite certain what that means, but that is what is being discussed internationally. While I cannot possibly give advice, I know that it is terribly important and if the noble Baroness who is to reply could give me an assurance that industry will be consulted by the Government when formulating a national plan, I shall be glad. If our negotiations with the EEC fail it will be a disaster for 23,000 fishermen and their families, for 100.000 other people who arc actively employed in the fishing industry, and for every housewife in the nation. It will also be a major blow to our economy. That is the measure of the importance of the fishing industry.
A year ago we had a short debate on the future of fish farming and I should like briefly to refer to it. I rather hoped that as a result of that debate the Government might find time for a very small Bill which would remedy some of the present deficiencies. For instance, the salmon now being farmed in our sea lochs—who do they belong to when they are in their tanks? There is no law and anybody can come and "pinch "them. As to the oyster beds, now instead of having oysters on the shore we have them floating in trays. Under the present law
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those trays belong to no one. There are various such matters which could be legislated for in a short Bill, but I understand that the Government cannot find time, except for some legislative amendment which will affect the measuring of lobsters, which is not very important. I believe the Government are going to produce this little mouse. It seems to me odd that there is plenty of Parliamentary time to introduce legislation which will probably in law prevent a rodent operator from advertising for at assistant as a "Tom cat ". Equally I think he could not advertise for a "pussy in boots ", and I believe he could not even advertise for a neutered variety of either sex, whose mind would probably be more on the job. It is a pity, and I wonder whether we have our priorities right.
5.55 p.m.
Lord CLIFFORD of CHUDLEIGH: My Lords, first, I should like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Parry, on the most eloquent maiden speech I have heard. I look forward to hearing him often in your Lordships' House. I shall be unashamedly parochial, no matter what Wordsworth said about it. Twice in the last seven years I have instituted a debate in your Lordships' House on the problems of the South-West. On both occasions I have drawn your Lordships' attention to the problems of our fishing industry, and since our last debate on the subject I have asked a Question concerning the Russian "hoovering "of fish —if I may use the expression which I used at the time—of the English Channel. In the earlier debate I drew particular attention to the fact that the French, having fished out their side of the Channel, were increasingly poaching on our side, to the ruination of our inshore fishermen, who were voluntarily organising their catches so as to preserve breeding stocks and conserve future supplies. At that time the Government gave no sign of support for our South-West fishermen.
On the second occasion I brought the subject to the attention of Her Majesty's Government in order to emphasise the colossal Russian fishing flotillas which were removing not only our fish but also our breeding stock and mining the breeding grounds into the bargain. The noble Lord, Lord Melchett, barely touched on

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the matter in reply and certainly gave no assurance that the Government were prepared to do anything to come to our aid. I sometimes wonder whether our Government are prepared to fight for our interests anywhere, let alone on our own doorstep. I suppose they have a lot of excuses about law, and so on.
The Russian fishing fleet alone is over 2½ million tons and the next largest—that of Japan—is only 200,000 tons. The Russian fishing fleet is equipped with all the latest fishing devices, using ultrasonic waves and light to drive or attract the fish into their scoops, which themselves break all the accepted rules. This is excused by Admiral Guryunov because he says that it will raise the living standards of the workers. When a Russian or a Communist talks about "the workers "we know what that means—up Russia and ruin the rest. They add to our South-West fishermen's problems by removing the North Sea herring and so the Scots now send their large sophisticated trawlers with purse seine nets to our part of the world. These Scottish trawlers can take up to 200 tons of fish in a single cast and one can see why their method of fishing has been banned in other parts of the world and should be banged in the Western Approaches. This method decimated the Californian and South African pilchards, the British Columbian, Icelandic and North Sea herring and is now in the process of doing the same to our South-West mackerel.
In the South-West our fishing industry employs 2,000 men, is worth £10 million a year and depends largely on the mackerel season from September to March; but by purse seine fishing the Scots are cutting our throats and will end up cutting their own, unless we can do it for them. The fishermen of Devon and Cornwall have been and are being nut out of business, added to which the Scots are undercutting us in selling their catches to France; when not satisfied with the standard of their catch they jettison so many dead mackerel that the local fishermen who are after bottom-feeding fish like plaice get their nets "gummed up "with dead mackerel. The Scottish fishing industry received massive Government help for the herring boom. Your Lordships may remember that on two occasions I asked for that aid to be applied to our smaller boats, but to no avail. The herring boom is over,
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others are to blame for that, as doubtless we shall hear this evening, and we in the South-West are left holding the baby.
But to return to the Russians; I am by way of being a bit of a yachtsman, and twice in the last two years, I have had a hair-raising journey from the Channel Islands or from Brittany, back to Dartmouth through the unlit—navigationally, of course, not otherwise—Russian fishing fleet. It is dangerous to say the least. We all know what happened last season when one of them was armed. The Navy and the coastguard were not allowed to do anything. The Russians got away with murder, not only of our fishing stocks but a lot more. Let us set the North Sea and the Channel median line; let us agree our 200-mile limit and then police and plan it adequately. If Canada can save her fishing grounds, in the name of all that is reasonable, why cannot we? If we do not do it now, we shall have left no stock, no fishermen, and no fish.
6.1 p.m.
The Earl of KINTORE: My Lords, first of all I wish to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Parry, on what I thought was a fine maiden speech, and I am sure he will not mind me telling him so. I hope we shall hear him many times in the future. I must apologise for inflicting myself upon your Lordships twice on the same day. That is because of the draw, as a result of which the two debates in which I wanted to speak came up at the same time. I have a special interest in the North Sea. The Grampian Region roughly has a 300-mile coastline on the North Sea. I am an elected member of the Grampian Regional Council and of its public protection committee. I am also an associate member of the Society for Underwater Technology, which gives me a particular interest.
I intend to speak on two aspects of the many problems arising from the discovery of oil and gas in the North Sea, and among the subjects mentioned in the opening of this debate, security and pollution, two matters of extreme urgency at this moment. Our small but extremely efficient police force has to maintain civil law and order over all the rigs, barges, platforms and so on which are serviced from the ports of Aberdeen, Peterhead and the Orkneys and Shetlands. There are between 20 and 30 rigs working in the

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North Sea. It is not generally realised that the distance from Aberdeen to the Murchison, Thistle and Magnus fields, is the same as the distance between Aberdeen and London. To get there, our chief constable has to thumb a lift from a passing helicopter. I do not mean that he stands on the roof and waves his arm; I use it as a figure of speech. There is nothing official. He has to get his police force there as best he can and, of course, he does. But this is something which should be looked at.
My Lords, Aberdeen is an open port. When I am wearing another hat, I have to supply water to any foreign boats, including the Russian fishing fleet or that part of it which comes to Aberdeen. Since Aberdeen is an open port, their crews can get through easily and, indeed, roam about Aberdeen. If they wanted to get on a train at Aberdeen station there is very little to stop them, and they could then get anywhere else quite easily. At the helicopter port at Dyce, from which there are 50 or 60 helicopters operating at this moment, searching of people and baggage is only voluntary, not mandatory. At all main airports it is mandatory I think it should be made mandatory tomorrow, because if there is no search going on it would be the easiest thing in the world to hijack a helicopter, and having done that one could sabotage a rig. I do not want to give people ideas, but this is an urgent matter.
If I may become parochial, for supplying this major policing service our region gets no benefit from the rates; nothing is rateable. We get no financial benefit at all. It is true that our expenses are paid. but the fact is that we have to dilute our already under-strength police force and send policemen at considerable risk over these long distances at sea by helicopter, and we receive no recognition for this. The feeling is fairly strong, both among the police and ourselves, that the United Kingdom is living off our backs to this extent.
As I understand it, we are responsible locally for pollution within one mile of the shore. We are organised and equipped to deal with any minor incidents. We have already dealt with one or two small ones. But with pipe-lines coming ashore, production platforms off-
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shore, giant oil tankers going north about, dodging supply boats, of which there are a whole host, and getting out of the way of another tanker, they have a first-rate chance of running into another platform. Sooner or later there is going to be a major incident. Surely, the place to deal with oil slicks and oil spillages is at sea and not after they have come ashore.
My Lords, there appear to be a number of Ministries with a finger in this pie. I hope that if the noble Baroness, Lady White, reads this debate, she will write to me because she knows most of the answers. I would like to know what the latest approved techniques are. Is Warren Springs Laboratory responsible for the scientific advice? How much approved detergent is stored at the ports of Aberdeen, Peterhead and Lerwick, for example? How many of the large number of workboats working out of these ports are equipped with pumps and spray booms and what might be described as sea harrows for dispersing oil slicks? How many sets of this type of gear are available on site? Is there a single production platform with a set of this type of gear stored on the platform? If not, this should be looked at because in an emergency the sooner one can start things, the better. The distances are very great and the rate at which an oil slick travels in the sea is astonishingly quick.
I have mentioned a few of the points which worry us. Surely it is high time that, as an emergency measure, there should be established in Aberdeen an overall co-ordinator with a small staff and office which is in the centre, and the nearest one can get to any of the rigs. We have telephone numbers, but it is possible that when one phones someone in Edinburgh one will be told, "I am sorry, he has left; his address is some-where else." Even by our normal United Kingdom standards this seems a little slap-happy. Fishery protection, military security, civil security, pollution control, fire and hyperbaric problems should, for a start, be dealt with at once under an overlord in Aberdeen so that one can get at him quickly and not have to chase people through the telephone directory to find out who is responsible for what, and then be told "Awfully sorry, he is at a conference ", which is the state of affairs at the moment.
6.10 p.m.
Lord MOTTISTONE: My Lords, I should like to begin by congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Parry, on an absolutely brilliant and most inspiring speech. I look forward to hearing from him when the subject under discussion is a little more argumentative to see how it comes out against that background. We heard from the noble Baroness, who so wisely introduced the debate, how many Government Departments and external bodies have responsibilities for bits of things in the sea. It seems to me that the most important thing, which indeed the subject of the debate makes clear, is somehow to invite the Government to find a method of co-ordinating the planning of the work associated with the sea between all these various bodies. I am sure that they are aware of this need, but perhaps it is somewhat difficult to find the right solution.
It could be argued that we ought to have a special Ministry, but I think we would all agree that yet another Ministry would be most undesirable at this time. Everybody says we are overgoverned, and I rather subscribe to that view; so, not another Ministry. Another possibility which has been suggested to me and to which I have given a lot of thought is that it might be an opening for an outside agency, on the lines of the Manpower Services Commission, for example. But, giving thought to that, it seems to me that an outside agency of that sort—as, if we are to believe what the noble Baroness, Lady White, told us, there are 22 Departments of State involved, and some of them, the most powerful in the land—would not command the authority in Whitehall which would be necessary for it to exercise its co-ordinating role.
I should have thought, therefore, that we have to look to the possibility of some particular Ministry or Department which might be charged with the function of managing the planning, albeit leaving the execution of the different bits, as I describe them, in the hands of the people who are currently dealing with them. This sort of solution was suggested by the noble Baroness, Lady White, and indeed touched upon by my noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy, but I noticed, very interestingly, that neither of them referred to what is to me the obvious
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Ministry; that is, the Navy Department of the Ministry of Defence. I would hate your Lordships to think that, because it has been my privilege to serve Her Majesty in the Royal Navy, I am unduly biased towards the Navy Department of the Ministry of Defence. Indeed, in earlier times I was wont to attack it rather than to support it, seeing myself more as a seagoing officer than somebody who sat at a desk in Whitehall.
But, if you come to think of it, in history, particularly in the 18th and 19th centuries, we were, of course in a much more minor way, in much the same quandary as we are now as to what to do about the sea. It is now much more complicated, but there are two points which are common to this country's attitude before the present century and at the present day. One is that the international acceptance of the protection of shipping at large was somewhat nebulous, and in the case of this 200-mile zone it is now, as we have been told, becoming nebulous again; so there was not really too much hesitation in using, in a sensible fashion, warships in the employ of Her Majesty to support the seakeeping activities of the Merchant Marine of those days. The other point that is similar is that we knew at that time very little about the sea. That great institution, the Hydrographic Service, was started in that period, and what it has achieved during the last 200 years or so has been to discover all that until recently we thought we needed to know about the sea. We were happy to allow the Admiralty to manage and administer the Hydrographic Service for us, even though it is in practically every respect a civilian type of operation.
There is another area in which the Ministry of Defence is currently operating and, over centuries, has operated in support of civil activity; that is in the Fishery Protection Service. And, of course, though it is not something they have to do very much now, in the early part of the last century they were much employed in supporting the preventive service in chasing smugglers. There is, therefore, quite a strong and honourable tradition of the Royal Navy acting as a co-ordinating link of both civil and military operations within sea areas. I suggest that what we need to do is to think of some way by which we could charge the

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Ministry of Defence Navy Department with the management of the planning of sea resources.
What will be troublesome about that —I trust that the Government would look into this, too—is that, as we found in our recent debate on the Hydrographic Service, we are so narrowminded about how we allocate resources of essential sums of money that we find ourselves parcelling in our minds as a defence issue anything to do with defence. Therefore, all the people who would like to spend all the money on hospitals, et cetera, say, "Take it off Defence; nobody wants Defence ". When that happens—regrettably it has happened a lot in the last 25 years—activities such as the Hydro-graphic Service suffer in proportion.
There are probably lots of other areas with other Ministries required to be the lead Ministry. What I feel we need is some means by which the appropriate Ministry could be responsible for the management of the planning, and the charge for that should be isolated from the main Vote which supports the Ministry concerned. Accordingly, I would ask the Minister who is to reply, the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, whether she could indicate to us if the line of thinking which I have put across and which other noble Lords have put across is one which commends itself to the Government. It seems to me that, above everything else, we must have some co-ordinating body; it must be Whitehall-based because there are so many Ministries involved, and it must get going jolly quickly.
6.19 p.m.
Lord NUGENT of GUILDFORD: My Lords, I should like to begin by congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Parry, on his admirable maiden speech, which I much enjoyed. I look forward to hearing him frequently in the future. I should, first, declare an interest in this topic. As chairman of the National Water Council I have some responsibility for the water industry, and the water industry is responsible for the prevention of pollution of our rivers, the discharges into our rivers, into our estuaries, and from there into the sea. When the second part of the Prevention of Pollution Act 1974 comes into operation the regional water authorities will be responsible for all discharges
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within a three mile limit of the coast. There is, therefore, a general responsibility for the prevention of pollution from the landward side.
In Lady White's speech, with which she so interestingly opened the debate, I was relieved, when she spoke about the need for the prevention of pollution in the sea, that she made no reference to my particular neck of the woods because evidently she did not feel that there was any great danger there; in other words, that the matter was reasonably under control. I think that that is indeed so. The 10 regional water authorities have ongoing policies for the prevention of pollution; spending large sums of money. Their capital programme on the dirty waterside is about £400 million per annum. Although most of that goes on keeping the system going, there is a useful on-going programme (a minor part of their capital expenditure) on improvement, and there are such notable improvements as the Thames Estuary and the Tyne Estuary very soon to come along.
I should add a technical comment about the kind of pollution which could come from the landward side. First of all, so far as our pollution is concerned, there is no harm in remembering that no substance is of itself polluting. It is concentration that makes it toxic. This, of course, particularly refers to Lady White's point about the disposal of radioactive waste, but I am not concerned with that. What I am principally concerned with is the disposal of sewage and sewage sludge, and this is largely degradable. Seawater is a strong oxidising agent and the potential dilution of the sea is almost unlimited. We are fortunate in these Islands to have the Atlantic Ocean sweeping our coasts and the strong tides which wash our shores, so that dilution is really on a very large scale indeed, and our problem here, fortunately for us, is in no way comparable with the Mediterranean problem to which the noble Baroness, Lady White, referred, where there is, practically speaking, no tide and there really is a major problem of the build-up of pollution.
I should mention that where there are unsatisfactory sea outfalls round our coasts, it is invariably because the outfalls are too short. They are often not even down to low tide level, and this is the reason why they are unsatisfactory.

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So long as sea outfalls are carried far enough out, probably one mile or more, well beyond the tidal reaches, they are entirely satisfactory. Perhaps I should add that where the discharge is into an enclosed water like the Solent, of course again there are problems because there is not a complete scouring and there can be a build-up there, and there is just no alternative to treatment on the land before the discharge goes into the sea. There is one other proviso in order to get satisfactory disposal, and that is, of course, that where there are wastes which are heavily toxic, especially metallurgical wastes, pre-treatment is desirable before these wastes go into the treatment works, into the rivers and into the estuaries. In the main, these matters are being adequately dealt with.
The disposal of sewage sludge is another matter with which we deal, and sewage sludge is disposed of in sludge ships which sail from our estuaries. They are then allowed to deposit this sludge at a chosen spot some miles from our shores; a spot chosen by the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries as one being suitable for the purpose. These areas are carefully monitored to ensure that there is no build-up of toxicity there. On the whole, fish seem to thrive and multiply there, so evidently we arc not doing too much harm. Our research station at Stevenage, a part of the Water Research Centre, has done some pioneering work in this field in order to determine just what adequate monitoring methods there may be to ensure that there is not a build-up of toxicity.
The picture I wish to leave is that the new water industry is effective in administration and scientific strength to manage the discharges from our shores in a fashion which is not significantly polluting the sea round our coasts. At the same time, I should mention—and this particularly will be music to the ears of the noble Baroness who is to reply to the debate—that our relationship with the D of E is excellent in our working relations, and similarly with the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. So when saying that my interest in this debate is marginal, I hope I shall leave the impression that at least this is one aspect of the management of the sea which does not need any new planning arrangements.
6.26 p.m.
Lord ENERGLYN: My Lords, may I join other noble Lords in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Parry. In congratulating him I also find great pleasure in welcoming another Welshman to the House, and in particular one who comes from my favourite geological hunting ground, Pembrokeshire. I am grateful to him too for freeing me of the responsibility of talking about the importance of Milford Haven. If I may sweepingly make this statement, it is going to become the focal point of the geological projections of new oil fields, not only within the so-called Celtic Sea but beyond on the shelf to the West of Eire.
Having said that, the theme that I should like to follow is that in formulating laws connected with natural processes one should not go into antagonism with nature; one should try to formulate laws which imitate nature. This planet has been endowed with many riches, and the greatest of them all has been the molecule of water. If we add all these molecules together they would envelop the earth with a layer of liquid over 1,000 feet thick. By the laws of nature this volume of liquid has been divided into several parts; part has been fed into the atmosphere to protect the earth from the lethal rays of the sun; part has been consolidated into ice; the remainder has been dedicated to the oceans. With this tripartite division, about a quarter of the crust of the earth has been allowed to become exposed, and this is essential for the natural process we are discussing.
The earth is a thermostat. The earth exposed also provides the sediment, and this sediment is delivered into the sea at an erosional rate necessary to sustain life in the sea. I humbly suggest that it is extremely important to remember that the amount of sediment that enters the sea is just more than sufficient to provide the marine organisms with the trace metallic elements they need for life, and, in addition, to absorb the excreta and deposit that excreta on the sea floor to create future oil-bearing deposits. This, in principle, is how a source for oil is created. The finer the sediment, the greater its capacity to absorb and its ability to create a source rock for oil. Having said that, I take the point of the

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noble Lord, Lord Nugent, that pollution is a capricious and possibly accidental over-concentration of certain materials. However, if that material can receive sediment in suspension fine enough to carry it to the ocean floor where it belongs, it will be fitting into the balance of nature which I have tried to outline.
I now turn from theory to pragmatism. The land is not producing for the rivers sufficient fine sediment to deposit the effluents that man is ejecting into those rivers. They are incapable of taking these pollutants out to sea because of the lack of sediment. Man, in his activities beneath the crust of the earth, produces mine wastes which are the kind of sediment we could use to fill in the gap which I have described—that is, make up the optimum required to deposit this excessive quantity of pollutants in the sea.
In my humble opinion, the greatest enemy of the sea at the moment is the use of detergents. They perform the reverse function. They spread particles. They prevent them from sedimenting. It may look nice to spread an oil slick over thousands of square miles, but the detergent will remain in the sea and will have an insidious effect in the long term on the planktonic life of the sea. Without the plankton, the fish will not live. Without the minerals, the plankton cannot have its skeletal structure. Without the minerals, the fish cannot have its bones and its scales. It is all part of a picture. My appeal is, do not introduce detergents to tamper with this picture. They are antagonistic to the natural cycle of events.
Having said that, I suggest that we in this country have at our disposal a new industry. We produce literally millions of cubic yards of ultra fine dust in our solid fuel power stations. This, mixed into a colloidal condition and tanked and sold to ships, could be exactly the coagulant which would take the bilge water and the accidental oil slicks down to the sea floor where they belong. An even better product is to be found in the effluents of the kaolin mines of Cornwall. We could utilise those mines now and make them into a profitable organisation selling what might be called "kaolin milk "for the deposition of oil slicks. Thirdly—and how blessed these Islands
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are—we have chalk in vast quantities. We know from our examination of chalk using the magnificent microscopes which we now have at our elbow, that chalk has a high absorptive capacity due to the way in which it was formed. It was formed by deposition out of the sea floor. Therefore, it is the medium to use to deposit oil slicks.
I could perhaps have gone on talking about the exploitation of minerals from sea water, because one cannot manufacture sea water. It is one of the fundamental units in the natural cycle of events and, when everything is balanced on either side, the greatest asset of this Island is the sea that surrounds it.
6.33 p.m.
Lord BALERNO: My Lords, I join other noble Lords in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Parry, on his maiden speech. I feel that many Scots envy the Welsh their powers of rhetoric and we heard an excellent example of that in the speech of the noble Lord, which also contained two very important and illuminating lessons which I hope we shall take to heart.
I am not sure whether this debate is meant to ginger up the Government, but I hope to do a little of that myself. However, before I do so, I should like to say that things are happening in the technologies which are connected with the sea. I believe, however, that what is happening largely results from a greater awareness on the part of what one might call the lower levels of the administrators. These people are awake to the problems and arc co-operating with each other where Departments tend to clash. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, who gave us an excellent example of the lower levels of Departments working together. I also agree with the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, that we do not want another Ministry nor an overlord to fuse matters together. However, we do want a joining up of the groups of related industries and enterprises at lower levels so that we shall get a better spirit of co-operation for the future, if that should be necessary.
An example of that is the importance of fusing the food from the sea into aquaculture, as it is called, and of establishing an aquaculture section of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and

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Food. I believe that cohesion there could do nothing but good, and I should like to ask the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, whether any progress is being made along those lines. Your Lordships may recollect that we had a debate some months ago on this point, to which the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, replied and it is being taken arizandum by the Government.
On fish farming, may I ask the noble Baroness whether any progress is being made about the derating of the buildings used for marine farming or for fish farming in general? It seems to me to be iniquitous that farming buildings should be de-rated but that fish farming cannot benefit from de-rating. If one studies the arrangements in other parts of the world it will be seen that fish farming in most countries receives some degree of Government help through de-rating concessions or others of a similar nature.
A point to which I should like to draw the attention of the Government is the good work which is being done at Stirling in the Unit of Aquatic Pathobiology. That sounds rather wonderful but the unit is there to deal with the diseases of fish, and anybody starting fish farming knows how dreadful it is to get diseases in stock. This Unit of Aquatic Pathobiology is the best, at any rate in Europe, and it has been going for only a short time, entirely on a grant from the Nuffield Foundation. Its director's advice and guidance is sought by other nations in Europe, and he is shortly to pay a visit to advise the Russians on disease problems in their fish. The Nuffield money comes to an end in about 18 months. There is the Unit. Will it have to be disbanded? If so, the disbandment must be the responsibility of the Government in not coming in to help.
Things are happening in the development of the technology in the North Sea. It is some years since I drew your Lordships' attention to work on offshore engineering at the Heriot-Watt University. This has got going very well indeed. The money for the offshore engineering was provided by the Wolfson Foundation; but the School of Petroleum Engineering, which is now coming into action, has been provided by Government funds from the Department of Energy. That is going to do postgraduate work, as well as train for higher degrees, so that our young men
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can go forth and find jobs in the oil industry.
Work of this nature is being done in other parts of Edinburgh. There is some extremely interesting work taking place at Edinburgh University on the utilisation of wave power. So far it is a dream of people who try to look far ahead for sources of energy. With the financial support of the Department of Energy, British oil technology is at present being exported by missions which are working in Singapore and in Brazil. We are sending out there both brains and material. There has been some disputation, or some talk, today about pollution. I should like to give another example of technology relating to pollution. At the Occidental terminal in Scapa Flow tankers come in to collect the oil from the pipe from the field. Those tankers have to come in in ballast. That ballast is water, and that water has to be disposed of. Scapa Flow is a relatively constricted area, and in order to ensure that the methods of disposing of that water are correct and adequate, a survey has been started by the biology department of Heriot-Watt University to monitor all forms of marine life and the composition of the water, to see what is happening. This information will be of considerable value in relation to pollution in other parts.
The noble Earl, Lord Cairns, spoke about the need for more information from the hydrography department. The hydrographic survey is non-existent in Scapa Flow. It has been done in other parts, but if there is any place where it is important to get it going it is in Scapa Flow. I hope that the Government have had second thoughts and that they are now not scrapping any of the hydrographic survey ships.
My Lords, things are happening, perhaps rather slowly, but I believe that a good deal of the progress that is taking place is due to debates such as this in your Lordships' House, and I feel that we are right to go on prodding the Government. There is revolution on the sea, in the sea, and under the sea. Things are happening, and just as there was the big Industrial Revolution, now there is the big revolution in the sea. This revolu-is moving faster than the Industrial Revolution moved, and we must keep up with it.
6.46 p.m.
Baroness VICKERS: My Lords, first I wish to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Parry, on his excellent speech. I was particularly struck with one point, which I think I have got down rightly. He said that sea planning is extended for the benefit of all mankind, and I think that that was a very good example of what we are talking about today. But I should like to talk about something completely different from what has been proposed to date. I wish to mention the question of farming on the edge of the sea. This is not a new idea. It was done at least 100 years before Christ by the Romans. In Java in 1400 there was so much aquaculture and fish breeding that it was necessary to bring in a law to prevent thieves stealing from the fish farmers. Marine and brackish-water farming is very neglected in many countries. It is known that in the poorer and developing countries more trouble is taken with aquaculture than is taken in this country. At present Japan is the leading country in marine aquaculture.
The area of the sea is so much greater than that of the land. It is estimated that at least 400 billion tons of organic material, net weight, are produced annually in the sea, and only a very small proportion of this is harvested for the use of man. Aquaculture has benefit over agriculture, because in agriculture it is necessary continually to replenish plants with fertilisers and artificial manure, whereas in the ocean the nutrients are replenished by a natural process, such as regeneration due to microbiol activities, and the inflow of fresh water from the land, including agricultural fertilisers. Strange to say, sewage does not seem to do them any harm—as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford—provided it is not in too large a supply.
With the death of animals or plant life in the sea, organisms sink and are decomposed, releasing other nutrients. I suggest that there are opportunities to enrich and amplify man's food supply by this method. Fishing in the open sea is significant, as has been mentioned several times. However, it may become increasingly limited. Aquaculture offers new opportunities these days for employment, and with so many people unemployed I wish to suggest that many people might
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be encouraged to take up this work in the future. I do not want a committee set up, because there are plenty of marine laboratories which can give advice to anyone who would like to start on this kind of job.
But if the Government gave encouragement, for example, by making it easier to obtain licences, and by offering loans, which could be repaid after a period of time (as is often done in other countries), I think that many people would like to take up this work. More people are regretting having to live in towns, and particularly in areas like Devon and Cornwall, where there is great unemployment, people would be only to happy to consider this type of work. It is suggested that the oceans might in the future become controlled by the Soviet Navy, and it looks as if this might happen. After all, we remember what happened in the last war;how it was so difficult for our merchant ships to get through. Our food supply would be considerably enhanced by farming of the type that I am mentioning. Also, for those fish that need warm water we could use quite a lot of the warm water coming from the power stations. There is plenty of algae, seaweed and carrageen, and the algae produces chemicals for about 300 different types of industrial applications. In fact, noble Lords who drink beer may be interested to know that almost every pint that is drunk in the United Kingdom has some fraction of algae in it. It is also used for ice-creams, dental moulds and many other things, including canning food. So I think we really ought to continue to try to do more in this way, encouraging people to take up this type of work.
The ecology of the sea has become a topic of widespread interest only recently, and as arable land is becoming more and more insufficient for our ever-increasing population I think we should continue to study this. In fact, at the time of World War Two we in Britain did study the question of using garden algae, and during that same war the German scientists, too, attempted to strain out plankton from the North Sea water for supplementing the diets of their people. So I would hope today that we might consider this side of it, too—farming on the edge of the sea. It would not be expensive to start, it would give employment to quite a lot of people and it

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would increase the amount of nutrition we have to offer to people—nutrition which I think would be of good quality. I therefore hope that when the noble Baroness comes to wind up she will say that this point will be considered in the future.
6.52 p.m.
Lord BOOTHBY: My Lords, my only excuse for intervening for three or four minutes in this debate is because I have been closely associated with the fishing industry in the North Sea for over half a century. All I want to say is that I was very satisfied with the reply of the Government to a Question I put the day before yesterday about the herring fishing industry. It was that they are going to have a conference and that they are going to try to stop industrial fishing of herring. What I am frightened of is that the North Sea fisheries industry is dying at the present time, and that would be a disaster for this country and, indeed, for the whole of Western Europe.
My Lords, I just want to say that I think the Government should now call off what I would describe as their blackmail of Iceland, because I think the Icelanders are right. I think they have got right on their side. We have got to face up to the fact that drastic reductions of catches, not only of cod but of herring, mackerel and other fish in the North Sea, will be necessary for the next two or three years if the North Sea fisheries are to survive—and I think the survival of the North Sea fisheries is absolutely essential. I really have nothing more to add except that I wish the Government would realise the gravity of the present situation, because the fisheries industry in the North Sea is to my certain knowledge—and I went to look at it the other day—dying. That is due primarily to over-fishing of all stocks of fish, largely for industrial purposes, for which they were never intended.
So I hope that something will come of this international conference; and I hope the Government will not be too hard on Iceland, because there is a lot to be said on the side of Iceland. We cannot carve into the cod industry in the way we have been doing for the last few years without destroying it, and my whole purpose in rising to speak in this debate tonight is conservation. We must, by international agreement, conserve the fish in the North Sea. It is essential for this
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country, it is essential for Europe. I remember the days when we exported well over a million barrels of salt herrings to the West European continent and to Russia. Where have those days gone? Mr. Khrushchev once said to me, "Your herrings are no good without vodka." I said to him, "I entirely agree. You give us the vodka and we will give you the herrings." He put in an order for the herrings but we had not got them, so we did not get the vodka. So we missed a lot.
My Lords, all I want to do before I sit down is to repeat that conservation of fish stocks in the North Sea is now absolutely essential. I hope the Government will take up this point, and will stop the fight with Iceland, because the Icelanders are right.
6.56 p.m.
The Earl of INCHCAPE: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Henley, for initiating this debate, and I am extremely sorry that he was unable to be here today to introduce it. It is of profound interest to the shipping industry, in whose affairs, both as vice-president of the General Council of British Shipping and as chairman of a large shipping company, I am closely involved. The noble Baroness, Lady White, in introducing this Motion, has clearly outlined the many different uses to which the sea is now put, and I need not add to the full description she has given us. At this stage, the only point I would make is that this conflict of use is not peculiar to the North Sea. It is a problem which has arisen in other parts of the world and which will arise elsewhere in the future. We can learn from the developments in the Gulf of Mexico which started about a quarter of a century ago, and we must consider what will happen in the next Quarter of a century in such areas as the Persian Gulf, South-East Asia, the waters of the West African coast and, indeed, in many other areas.
Noble Lords will forgive me if I approach this problem of sea use planning purely from the shipping angle. I can explain the conflicts which arise between shipping and other users of the sea, and how these have been resolved, or at least how we have attempted to resolve them. From that practical experience some lessons can perhaps be

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drawn. This is an area where it is tempting to produce policies based on theory, but there is much to be said for a pragmatical approach. We had a very interesting debate before Christmas about hydrography, and during that debate the noble Lord, Lord Henley, said that the hydrographer's work was itself a sine qua non of any sea use planning framework. I agree with him completely. The report on hydrography gave many good reasons why the hydrographer's work should be continued and, indeed, expanded, and not least of the reasons is this matter of providing the facts upon which sea use planning can be based. That debate showed the great importance that Members of your Lordships' House attach to the Report, and I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, who will be replying to this debate, will take the opportunity to give us some encouraging indication of the action that the Government are taking on the Report. We appreciate that there is a financial problem in so far as the Ministry of Defence is concerned, but the Government can presumably impart the necessary degree of urgency so that we can be assured that the hydrographer's department will, somehow, from some source, obtain the necessary funds.
Shipping, my Lords, does not use the sea in quite the same way as some other interests. We do not consume the resources either of the seabed or of the sea itself, and as far as possible we do not damage those resources. Oil pollution has in the past given shipping a bad name; but in the last five years the number of oil slicks officially sighted in British territorial waters has fallen year after year and it is now only half of what it was five years ago. There are more measures to reduce pollution still on the way, and while I am not complacent I believe that in a few years' time oil pollution will not be a significant factor in discussions such as this.
My Lords, the use of the sea for shipping can be in conflict with its use for oil and gas exploration. In 1970 the former Chamber of Shipping, mindful of the problems that had arisen in the Gulf of Mexico, initiated proposals to establish certain "clearways "for shipping around the coast. The intention was, and is, that drilling operations should not nor
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mally take place in the area of the clearways which are essentially the routes usually followed by shipping; if an oil strike makes it necessary to change the clearways then reasonable notice is given and the necessary adjustments are made. Any applications to place a rig or a structure outside a clearway do not need to be referred to the shipping industry. The shipping industry is also asked for its views, from the safety of navigation standpoint, on applications to dredge for aggregate. The system works well, with the Energy Department dealing with applications for licences for oil and gas, the Department of the Environment acting similarly over licences for dredging and the Department of Trade maintaining an overall interest for the safety of navigation on which ship owners are closely consulted. This system involves no new authority or Ministry, but the interests of the various parties are effectively coordinated and we have all learned to work together.
My Lords, I do not wish to imply that every conflict of use is invariably resolved to our satisfaction. There are some places where improvements would be possible. I wonder, for example, whether it would be an advantage to look at the areas where the major yachting races take place. I am not a yachtsman, but is it necessary that the Dover Strait should be used for this purpose? There is plenty of more open sea room elsewhere. I understand that the Royal Yachting Association is reviewing the problem and I hope it will come up with a solution. As noble Lords know, there have also been problems in relation to fishing vessels in the Dover Strait; but it is probably fair to say that these have been mostly foreign fishing vessels. This emphasises the international nature of some of these problems of the competing use of the sea.
We cannot solve our problems in isolation. We must take account of the fact that not only are our seas used by international shipping but our ships use international seas. It is in our interests that no exaggerated claims are made for coastal State Powers. Happily, the British delegation at the Law of the Sea Conference is aware of this problem and is pursuing a line which I believe to be for the benefit not only of this country but of international trade generally. In matters of maritime law, the Briitsh Government

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have traditionally taken the lead and I hope that at the next session in New York they will continue to do so.
Now for the conclusions, my Lords, which I draw from our experience in shipping, As I hinted earlier, my basic belief is that although a number of Ministries can be involved in these problems, that is not a conclusive argument for adding yet another one. A fifth wheel on the coach makes it no easier to drive. So far as shipping is concerned, such conflicts as arise can, we believe, be resolved satisfactorily without complicated new machinery. I appreciate the case for a system of planning inquiries ashore, but because the conflicts at sea are between interests rather than individuals I doubt whether we need a system as expensive or as time-consuming as that. I mentioned the case of new oil installations in the North Sea outside the clearway lines. All the other interests can be consulted and approval obtained within a matter of weeks. I do not believe that anything would be gained if some new machinery protracted that process of consultation into months or years.
7.6 p.m.
Lord HODSON: My Lords, I am not an expert in the uses of the seabed and my presence here is really due to the fact that I am the President of the David Davis Memorial Institute. That Institute has recently published a book which I think worth reading, about the challenges and opportunities presented by the North Sea. I do not suggest that the noble Baroness should have to read it herself but that someone could read it for her, for it contains a great deal of information. I should like to add my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Parry, on his maiden speech, and furthermore to express my pleasure to see Lord Boothby here again. This fishing business has been almost a disease with him for years. He has been talking about it for nearly all my professional life.
I myself would like to add such slight weight as I can to the emphasis already placed on the fishing industry. The fishing industry is obviously in a very difficult position, and one point, which I suppose is a fairly obvious one, is that an enormous amount of money is spent not only in buying ships but in fitting
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them out with technological equipment, so that the unfortunate trawler captain has to go to sea and then come back again with enough fish to make it worth his while. The result is that we have been over-fishing. It is difficult for the commercial fisherman to do otherwise.
That leads me to the second part of my theory, which is that we really must —and I know that it is not easy—look after our fish farmers. That is an industry (if it is an industry already) which I think we may have started here, but I understand that, other countries have made greater advances than we have. I know that it is difficult to farm certain fish, that some can be farmed and some cannot be farmed. Some demersal fish may be difficult to get hold of at all. That is a matter which is of vital importance.
I know that this problem is being considered by the Government. It is an extraordinarily difficult problem because, as is obvious to all of us, the fish and the waters move. They are not affected by men's desires or men's activities, and to control the waters when you have a 200-mile limit or any other limit, is quite impossible. We are met with an entirely new situation when we try to go further and further afield to get our fish. It is probably true that this 200-mile limit is coming. That will be valuable. In the end, the alternative to the 200-mile limit seems to me probably disorder and possibly anarchy. We cannot go on as we are now. The freedom of the seas is no longer with us; it has been eroded by modern developments.
I do not want to say any more about the various uses of the sea which the noble Baroness mentioned when she opened this debate. I think that waste disposal has been dealt with, mineral resources have been dealt with, the oil situation and marine transport; but we have not spoken much about defence and strategic use. The Royal Navy is a navy of which we are proud. In connection with that I think it would not be out of place to say that the responsibility in making charts is the responsibility of the naval hydrographer. My information (and I have not read the report myself) is that the 1973 report of that hydrographer stated that the charts were mostly out of date, that many large parts of the sea arc completely uncharted. I do quite know what the

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answer is going to be. We seem to be continually cutting down our Navy and I am sure that we shall cut down the hydrographers, too. That will not do any good. If anything is going to be preserved in connection with what has been discussed tonight, it is most important that that department should, if necessary, be reinforced and given the means to carry out their duties. I will not take up your Lordships' time any further; it is time we all stopped talking, for we are all waiting to hear what the noble Baroness has to say in reply.
7.11 p.m.
Lord ZUCKERMAN: My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, has graciously allowed me to steal three minutes of her time to make three points, to none of which I hope it will be necessary to make a reply. First of all, I recognise absolutely the need for co-ordination in the activities to which reference has been made. I had more experience of lack of co-ordination than most people when, in my official capacity, I was charged with dealing with the "Torrey Canyon "on those rocks. I will not say any more about that. I agree firmly that we do not need a new Ministry.
Secondly, there is a need for realism. We have to separate the short-term from our long-term concerns, both national and international. In the short-term I put the problems about which my noble friend Lord Boothby has spoken; our dispute with Iceland; conservation of fish; problems regarding pollution, which was dealt with by the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford. There is the question we are dealing with now, which is oil. We can deal with those with difficulty. But I am afraid a lot of the long term problems belong to the dream world. We are not going to deal with them as an independent, national entity. This business of grabbing manganese nodules from the seabed has to be an international effort if it is ever going to work. We have to realise that there is an energy balance in which the question of national resources comes in. Unless we know exactly what we are up to, we may embark on more ground nuts schemes. We have to be careful about this. Somebody said the resources of the seabed are reproduced. If they are, I do not know
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where they are reproduced. Manganese nodules certainly are not. What is required is to get the molecular biologists, supported as they are by Her Majesty's Government, to tailor make a nitrogen-fixing organism for the sea. Then the food problems will be solved overnight. At the present moment the nitrogen in the sea comes mostly from run-off.
My third point is that in dealing with these long-term matters and the need for realism we have to deal internationally; but equally it seems very important that Her Majesty's Government keep the matter up to date. In keeping it up to date, may I plead for a use of the best ascertainable facts, even in your Lordships' House. It creates certain misconceptions about our capacity to deal with some of these matters when we talk about matters such as the conservation of fish stocks in the same breath as we talk about mineral explorations or getting ships, let us say, to work 2,000 feet below the surface of the sea. That is not done yet and we have to be careful. I listened with admiration to the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Parry. I wish I could quote the words of a great Welshman, Aneurin Bevan, whom I knew very well. He said he wondered how it was that we shivered through the winter and starved in the summer in an island made of coal surrounded by seas full of fish. I think he used a similar phrase. I hope that, in contriving not to do things which he spoke about there, we understand that we will have to play the whole of this game from the long-term point of view internationally and not nationally.
7.15 p.m.
The PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE, DEPARTMENT of the ENVIRONMENT (Baroness Birk): My Lords, may I first say how sorry I am that the noble Lord, Lord Henley, is ill, and how admirably I thought my noble friend Lady White stepped into the breach. The interest in this subject has been indicated by the tremendous number of people who have spoken and who have exercised such enormous self-restraint and self-control in this wide-ranging area. My own interest has been one almost of sitting in at a high-level seminar, because I have learned a great deal from the debate. I should

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like to add my praises and congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Parry, in what was, as we have all agreed, an outstanding maiden speech. I particularly liked his phrase in referring to the sea as part of the heritage of this nation. As we draw to the end of European Architectural Year it is nice to turn to another part of our heritage, and to extend the idea.
I cannot attempt to answer the many individual points in the limited time available to me, but I undertake to reply to every noble Peer who has spoken and I will do my best to pick up all the matters which were raised. I am glad that I handed over a little of my time at the last moment to the noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman, who put the subject into the right context for all of us. This is something which was put across in different ways by other speakers: the structure of Government. This particularly fascinates me and I want to concentrate on this.
What is clear is that there is not any real definition yet of "sea use planning ", as Elizabeth Young said in the fascinating Fabian tract. Primarily, I understand it to mean that what we do on, in, or under the sea should be done by design, in accordance with a positive and cohesive approach, rather than dictated solely by the accident of immediate pressures. Further, our decisions about the use of the sea should be based on consideration of all the relevant factors and forward projections in order to take ample account of future developments. I also understand it to mean that, in our relations with other countries, we should be guided by a balanced appreciation of all our various interests in the seas.
In other words, we have to have an international as well as a national approach. The fundamental question which has been raised tonight is whether the Government have the body of information, including information about future developments, and the necessary machinery of co-ordination between different Government Departments, to enable them to achieve these objectives.
Some important measures have been taken by the Government, and as this was mentioned by many noble Lords, I feel I should refer to the second United Nations Law of the Sea Conference, where changes will probably give all coastal
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States increased powers in respect of a wide belt of the seas around them, and the conferment of these powers will be accompanied by the acceptance of liabilities to preserve rights of freedom of navigation and by the acceptance of internationally agreed standards for the control of pollution by ships.
In those few remarks there are a number of "crunches". I think noble Lords appreciate the difficulties. The Government's principal objective—and the noble Earl, Lord Inchcape, touched upon this—is working for agreement of a convention which will be widely acceptable. We have made some significant modifications in our position in the interest of working towards compromise, and have urged other States to adopt a similar approach. When agreement is reached, it will no doubt have consequences for our law, rights and liabilities. Having said that, it would be unwise to reach any premature conclusions.
In 1972, my Department promoted a global convention on dumping of wastes at sea, and the United Kingdom has played a significant part all the way through in the Law of the Sea Conference. This has involved close cooperation between a number of Government Departments, and there has been continuous co-operation rather than the remoteness that may perhaps have been implied in some of the speeches. The global convention has been ratified by many countries, and came into force at the end of August last year. This convention, among other things, covers the problem of dumping of radioactive waste at sea, which was mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady White. In particular, it prohibits the dumping of high-level radioactive wastes, as defined by the International Atomic Energy Authority.
There have been numerous measures taken in response to the challenge of North Sea oil, even though certain aspects have been criticised tonight. Here again, I must refer to what the noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman, said and say that in regard to the sea—and this is why it is so important for us to be discussing this tonight—we are in danger of doing the same thing as we have done for centuries on the land; in other words, trying to have it both ways. It really does not work. The Department of Trade has

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been given the overall responsibility for marine safety and my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Industry announced on Monday in another place that the maritime science and ships division of the National Physical Laboratory are to be brought together in a new National Maritime Institute. Research is continuing and I could send details of this to the noble Lord. It is being carried out by the Departments of Energy and Industry, by my own Department and by the National Environmental Research Council. Information which is not available has a very limited scope, and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food Laboratory at Lowestoft is compiling an atlas of the United Kingdom's Continental Shelf, in which all the available information will be plotted.
The key question which kept on arising tonight—a fascinating one, I think, when we are taking a long, forward look—is whether our administrative machinery is really adequate to cope with this dimension of our society. For we must start now if we are to find the right solution for the future. The analogy between the kind of machinery necessary for sea and land use planning is a seductive one and has been referred to by several speakers. It is possible that one day we might need a "Community Sea Act ", although I only hope that I do not have to pilot it through your Lordships' House! I see, as other speakers have also, important differences as well as similarities between the two elements. I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Balerno, who reminded us of the Industrial Revolution. It is perfectly true that the absence of a system of land use planning which permitted all the dereliction arising out of the Industrial Revolution, together with the more contemporary aspects of the short-sighted planning from which we are still suffering, should pressure us into the avoidance of equivalent errors as far as possible during the second industrial revolution which is to be based on the sea.
I think I am right in interpreting the feelings of noble Lords who have spoken that the proposal for a giant Ministry has not met with general approval. Certainly, it is not something that I would go along with at the moment. It is not surprising that the responsibility for so many of the matters connected with the
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sea should be spread among a number of Government Departments. Even if we had a Ministry which was comparable to, say, the Department of the Environment, we should still have to deal with other Ministries. For instance, as regards the Department of Energy, in some instances planning permission rests with the Secretary of State. Personally—and I emphasise that I am speaking only for myself—I believe that before we embark on, or increase, any of these giant structures of government, they must justify themselves beyond any doubt. The justification for the DoE is that it is concerned with the whole of the environment and the improvement of the quality of life. To justify a similar influence at sea, one would have to look at this matter very carefully, because big is not always beautiful, nor, indeed, efficient. A more attractive proposal, certainly for me, was the idea of a Minister of the Sea, who would have a personal co-ordinating role in relation to the whole of the issues. I was fascinated by the notion put forward by the noble Earl, Lord Kintore, of an outside agency. That is another alternative, but one I am afraid that there is no time to deal with in detail tonight.
But whether there be an agency or a Minister—and my personal inclination is towards a Minister who would have some political "clout "in this field—if it is to be a viable starter the area of coordination must be precisely defined and positively integrated into the Government structure. One does not want a gimmicky appointment or somebody there with a title but with no powers or influence to do an effective job. The Government recognise the need to co-ordinate discussions and decisions in relation to the different uses of the sea and, in cases of potential conflict, to consider carefully which area should be used for which purpose. This is a matter which has already been touched upon in this debate.
The traditional uses of the sea are ongoing, and I do not think there is one which has not been mentioned, starting with the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy. I shall not enter at the moment into what appears to be the war which is about to break out between Scotland and England, concerning the noble Lord, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh. I think that war had better be settled outside at the bar. The traditional uses of passage by

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ships, fishing and national defence are on-going. Other uses of the sea are now becoming environmentally critical, and the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Energlyn, were extremely interesting, as were some of his other points. Waste disposal is the prime example here. New uses are emerging such as the exploitation of seabed minerals, sand and gravel, gas and oil; and there are more to come. We have to assess the possibility of accidents: their prevention must always have a high priority, otherwise we shall end up in the sea with the same congested situation that we have on land on our roads.
New forms of traditional uses are emerging, such as fish farming and also the use of the sea as a recreation area; this aspect is becoming more popular all the time. At the same time, increasing pressures resulting from all these uses have led to growing concern about conservation and the preservation of scarce marine species and uncommon marine habitats. However, we still believe that it is possible to overstate the degree of conflict which arises in practice, since different uses are often compatible—though I am by no means underrating the economic and environmental damage which could result from a maritime "free for all ", which is something that every-one in this House wants to avoid.
The Government are aware of these problems and are reviewing the adequacy of present arrangements to deal with conflicts between the different uses of the sea, in order to take account of the relevant interests and to achieve an ecologically satisfying solution. One problem is that when Governments do this, they do it in such a sotto voce way that they do not often get the credit for many of the things they are quietly undertaking. At the same time, the Government are reviewing likely future scientific and technological developments. This involves long-range forecasting in the light of the Law of the Sea Conference. This debate, I believe, has therefore come at a very apposite time.
I intended, but there is not much time to do so, to comment on the decline of the fishing industry, which Her Majesty's Government recognise and are attempting, so far as we can, to deal with, and also on the points that were
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raised on fish farming. I would say only that at the moment shellfish farming is allowed under statutory order by the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, but farming of the open sea type is still very much at an experimental and research stage and, of course, suffers from prohibitive costs.
Several noble Lords asked about the hydrographic survey. I really cannot say very much about the difficult problems there, except that the ship and marine technology requirements board of the Department of Trade is helping the hydrographer by funding the development of an advanced sector scanning sonar for his use, which device is aimed at reducing the cost and improving the effectiveness of hydrography. I agree that it is a very small drop in the barrel, but at least it is something in the right direction.
A number of very interesting and constructive points have been made. I was rather surprised that the question of structure plans being produced for sea use, which I thought was one of the most important, did not arise during the debate. But I can assure the House that I shall draw the attention of my right honourable and honourable friends to what has been said, and it will be taken into account in the current reviews. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Henley, for having initiated this debate and wish him well very soon. It is essential, in my opinion, that Governments should be pressured into taking a look into the future, particularly when so much of our time is taken up with day-to-day affairs that what today appears to be long-term catches up with us so quickly tomorrow that we are then ill prepared for it.
The seas, in particular, are so vast and mysterious that we cannot appreciate them just in a romantic or literary manner, though we should do that as well. As I said at the beginning of my speech, we have to plan ahead and use this not as a new dimension—because the seas have always been there—but as a dimension that needs planning and a great deal of thought given to it. All the various factors that have been put before us tonight must also be weighed, so that what we finally plan and do will be for I the benefit of the whole community, and

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for the enhancement of the whole environment of our society, whether it is on land or in the sea.
In conclusion, I would say only that preparing for this debate has certainly increased the knowledge of one Minister in Her Majesty's Government. To those people who, quite rightly, are pressing that thought should be given to this subject and to the possibility of diverting resources at some time to the study of how we can make the best, the most healthy, the most economically viable and the most environmentally viable use of the seas, as well as of many other aspects in the environmental field, all I can say—and it may be only a small crumb of comfort—is that they certainly have a friend at court.
7.34 p.m.
Lord LLOYD of KILGERRAN: My Lords, I have the honour to speak on behalf of my noble friend Lord Henley who, unfortunately, was stricken yesterday with a severe bout of 'flu. But I also speak, I understand, according to the technicalities of this House, on behalf of the noble Baroness, Lady White, who this afternoon so ably and cogently moved the Motion on behalf of my noble friend Lord Henley. In her opening of this debate, she certainly showed what a wide and extensive scope this debate had. I telephoned my noble friend Lord Henley this afternoon and, with difficulty, he spoke to me, and your Lordships will be pleased to know he confirmed that, in view of the expansive nature of this debate, he thought it would be totally inappropriate for anybody to spend time at this late hour, and in a limited debate of this kind, in attempting a full winding-up speech. He explained about his purpose at those meetings with his technical experts, including the noble Baroness, Lady Kennet, and Commander Rankin, to whom, had he been here, I am sure my noble friend would wish to pay tribute for the help they gave in the preparation of what would have been his opening speech.
I should like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Parry, of Dyfed, on his admirable and able maiden speech. I do so with very great pleasure, but I combine
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that pleasure with a great deal of humility, because in his title the noble Lord has the geographical designation of Dyfed, which is all-embracing of the little Welsh village which is to be found in my title. We shall look forward to hearing him again when he is dealing with matters of land, in addition to those in relation to the sea with which he dealt this afternoon.
I have congratulated the noble Baroness, Lady White, on the way she opened this debate. I think your Lordships will agree that the debate has been most useful, which was shown in the contribution of the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, who kept so well to her time in summing-up the comprehensive matters which have been under discussion. She certainly made it clear to your Lordships that the Government are not unaware of the serious and novel problems associated with this subject.
If I may, I should like to raise a small matter of procedure. The noble Baroness was so kind as to say that she would not answer all the points raised by so many noble Lords, but would write to them about those questions which she was unable to answer in the course of a debate on this difficult subject. Therefore, may I ask the noble Baroness whether she will find it possible to communicate the information which she supplies to certain noble Lords to all the other noble Lords who participated in this debate? All of your Lordships, particularly my noble friend Lord Henley, consider that this is a matter of great importance upon which the Government should be pressed, and no doubt sour Lordships will concur with me that if it were possible for the noble Baroness to undertake that task it would be useful. In these circumstances, acting for my noble friend Lord Henley this evening, I do not think it would be helpful of me, even if there were more time, to do more than beg leave to withdraw this Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.
House adjourned at twenty-three minutes before eight o'clock.