Lords Sitting of 20 January 1976

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock: The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Leicester
The Earl of Caithness—Took the Oath.

"SIMPSON FAçADE", MARKET STREET, ABERDEEN
The Earl of SELKIRK: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether the City of Aberdeen are taking steps to re-erect the "Simpson Façade" formerly in Market Street, Aberdeen, and whether British Home Stores are still willing to pay the cost of re-erection.
The MINISTER of STATE, SCOTTISH OFFICE (Lord Kirkhill): My Lords, the noble Earl will no doubt recall that I had a strong interest in the preservation of this façade. He will, I am sure, share my own regret that, apart from a small amount of granite used in the erection of the new building the façade no longer exists and its re-erection is therefore not possible.
The Earl of SELKIRK: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that this was a listed building, a very highly rated one? Is he further aware that some years ago the Government, of which I was a member, were accused of being barbaric apes in architectural circumstances? May we have an assurance that those words would be wholly inappropriate if applied to the council and City of Aberdeen?
Lord KIRKHILL: My Lords, I can indeed give the noble Earl exactly that sort of assurance. He will recall that when he was chairman of the Commissioners who visited the City of Aberdeen, I, as one of those protesting against the demolition of this very fine building, led evidence before him. He might also recall
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that this Commission merely "noted" that the developers, the Commercial Union Assurance Company, might, if the town council so requested, remove the façade elevation and direct it elsewhere. My own view—I hope the noble Earl will not mind my making this point—is that the Commissioners might perhaps have been more strong in their recommendation.
Baroness TWEEDSMUIR of BELHELVIE: My Lords, is it not a fact that Simpson was one of the few architects whose work still exists in the City of Aberdeen today? As one who was able to listen to the inquiry before the Commissioners, and knowing the noble Lord's interest in the matter, may I ask why the town council did not itself insist that this façade should be re-erected? If I remember aright, it was said that the development would take place but that the few examples of the Simpson work should be kept and re-erected.
Lord KIRKHILL: My Lords, the noble Baroness may recall that in the course of the proceedings before the Commissioners it was pointed out that the developers would not retain the facade within their new development; they argued that the cost would prevent their doing so. The town council thereafter took the view that there would be little point in removing the façade stone by stone, and in its varying elevations, and re-erecting it somewhere else in isolation within the City of Aberdeen.
Lord SEGAL: My Lords, may I ask the Minister to give the House a full assurance that British Home Stores will continue to exert their full influence in Aberdeen?
Lord KIRKHILL: Yes, my Lords they are continuing to sell beef at very competitive prices.

AIRLINES AND PASSENGER OVERBOOKING
2.39 p.m.
Baroness BURTON of COVENTRY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether, in view of the fact that the

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House of Lords, on 10th December last, expressed the unanimous opinion that BOAC was guilty of an offence under Section 14(1) of the Trade Descriptions Act 1968 while operating the international "overbooking" policy, they will make a Statement concerning future Government policy on overbooking by airlines operating in this country.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, the noble and learned Lords made it clear that they were not concerned with the policy of overbooking as such, but only with the application of the Trade Descriptions Act 1968 to a letter sent to a prospective customer about his booking. In the recent report on overbooking, completed before this decision, the Civil Aviation Authority concluded that there was no effective way of deterring the substantial number of what are termed "no shows", who are the root cause of overbooking. It would, therefore, be against the interests of airline users generally to prohibit overselling. Even if effective, it would simply cause all passengers to pay more to solve a problem affecting very few.
However, the Authority recognises the hardship overbooking can and does inflict on those few passengers and proposes to introduce a scheme for mandatory compensation for passengers of British airlines who are not carried although they have confirmed space on a particular flight. I understand that the Authority plans to do this by way of a licence condition and as a first step it will naturally consult the airlines. In this connection, I gather that British Airways and British Caledonian Airways already operate their own compensation arrangements on a voluntary basis. In view of my right honourable friend's function in hearing appeals from licensing decisions of the Authority, I would prefer not to comment in more detail. So far as foreign airlines are concerned, my advice is that powers do not exist at present to enforce compensation, but my right honourable friend will in due course be urging those who operate to and from this country voluntarily to adopt similar arrangements to any applicable to British airlines.
Baroness BURTON of COVENTRY: My Lords, is it not becoming increasingly clear that if one is ever to have a satis-
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factory Answer, it must always be brief? Is my noble friend aware that, although we have a variety of Ministers answering on this issue, we never get a better Answer? Reverting to the Question on the Order Paper, may I ask whether my noble friend is aware that what I have stated is quite correct; that is, that the Law Lords found that this application of the over-booking policy fell foul of the Trade Descriptions Act? Is it the intention of Her Majesty's Government to allow to continue a practice which has been ruled to be illegal, or do they intend to allow the practice to continue with some small alteration of the text so that the customer is no better off but the law is satisfied?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, I wish that I could answer with a short statement my noble friend's supplementary question. I thought that what I said was very clear; that is, that the decision is that the recommendations of both the Civil Aviation Authority and the Airline Users' Committee, of which my noble friend is a member, recognise the problems facing the airlines and maintain that the disadvantages which may arise through over-booking are cancelled by the need to avoid unnecessary losses to the airlines operating scheduled services. It is a matter of choice and this is the choice we have made.
Baroness BURTON of COVENTRY: My Lords, my noble friend is doing his best and, before the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham. proceeds, may I ask the Minister whether he is aware of the frustration of those of us who wish to see the users' point of view considered and whether he is aware that the reasons put forward by the airlines are accepted by the Civil Aviation Authority because it is airline-orientated, as it has to be in view of the work it has to do? Who is to consider the user when the Users' Committee is responsible to the Civil Aviation Authority?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, so far as I know, the Airline Users' Committee is responsible to the Secretary of State and not to the Civil Aviation Authority.
Baroness BURTON of COVENTRY: That is not so.
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords, is it not true that what the House of Lords in its judicial capacity decided was illegal was a misleading letter? I have two questions to ask about that: first, what assurance has the noble Lord that, whatever the merits or demerits of the overbooking policy, British Airways will not in future issue such misleading letters? Secondly, how can it be right that no powers exist against foreign airlines if they are guilty of sending misleading letters in this country? Are they not covered by the Trade Descriptions Act equally with British Airways?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, I understand that the letter in question was addressed not to British Airways but to the British Overseas Airways Corporation and that, although there is clearly a link, there is a legal difference. However, I believe that the point which the noble and learned Lord has made is valid. As he knows, a review of the Trade Descriptions Act is taking place and this is one of the questions that will be considered in the course of that review. Unfortunately, many international airlines are State airlines and I presume that we can operate in this country only by persuasion.
Lord MAYBRAY-KING: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that those of us who watch with admiration the efforts of the noble Baroness in her battle with the airlines to achieve fairness also watch with despair her failure to make any impact on Her Majesty's Government?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, with due apologies to my noble friend, it would be marvellous if one were always right, but that is, unfortunately, denied to most of us. My noble friend is perhaps in a stronger position than most of us because she is a member of the Airline Users' Committee and has a forum in which to express her views. If my guess is right, a tribute is paid to her in the Committee's report, which says:
"We are pleased to report that, due principally to the tenacity of one of our members, matters are a great deal further forward."
I can only assume that that refers to my noble friend.
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords, will the noble Lord not review with his colleagues the point which I put to him in my previous supplementary?—that is, if foreign airlines do exactly the same thing as was done in the case which came before the House of Lords and in that litigation, they will be guilty of an offence if they do it in this country. I ask the noble Lord to consider with the Government whether he can possibly be right in saying that persuasion, not prosecution, is the only remedy open to them.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, the noble and learned Lord speaks with great weight and I shall convey his views to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State.
Baroness WOOTTON of ABINGER: My Lords, does the Minister not appreciate that when a person arrives at an airport having, as he thinks, booked a seat, what he wants is not a sum of money but to reach his destination? Money paid on a voluntary, or even a compulsory, basis may be no adequate compensation at all.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, we live in an imperfect world and all we can do if the machine goes wrong is to pay monetary compensation. That British Airways and British Caledonian Airways are doing.
Baroness WOOTTON of ABINGER: My Lords, surely the machine need not go wrong if the airlines would adopt a policy which many travel agents adopt?—that is, that on making a booking the passenger pays a deposit which is forfeited if he does not show up. Would not this provide the means of paying for the expense which the airlines now say compels them to overbook?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, this is a very complex problem. Clearly, it is attractive to take the course proposed by my noble friend, but the flexibility that "no shows" and overbooking give the scheduled airlines outweigh, in the view of those qualified to judge, the very irritating frustrations experienced by 0·01 per cent. of travellers who experience what I believe is known in the trade as "bumping".
Lord DRUMALBYN: My Lords, will the noble Lord look again at the question of compensation? Is he not aware that the amount of damage or loss suffered by one person as a result of being put off a plane may differ very greatly from that suffered by another? Is he satisfied that a fixed sum of compensaton is the right way of dealing with the problem?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, I shall make certain that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State is informed of the views of this House.
Baroness BURTON of COVENTRY: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether he can commit the Government to investigating whether or not the claim that the airlines can do nothing about this practice is indeed correct before accepting it?
The LORD PRIVY SEAL (Lord Shepherd): My Lords, my noble friend has extended an invitation to the Government. I know that this is a subject in which many noble Lords, both among those present this afternoon and among those present on earlier occasions, have an interest. I wonder whether my noble friend would consider putting down an Unstarred Question for an early date at which time we could discuss this matter in detail and with full explanations at the end of the debate. If so, I should like to suggest that we should move to the next Question.
Baroness BURTON of COVENTRY: Yes, my Lords, with the greatest of pleasure. I am much obliged to my noble friend.

CONCORDE: ENTRY INTO UNITED STATES
2.50 p.m.
The Earl of KIMBERLEY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether, in the event of Concorde being refused landing rights in New York and Washington as a result of the current Federal Government in-
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quiry, they will, in concert with the French Government, take steps to restrict in a similar manner the operations of Pan Am and TWA at Paris and London Airports.
The PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF INDUSTRY (Lord Melchett): My Lords, we had a fair hearing in Washington and put forward a strong case. I do not therefore expect the decision to go against Concorde's entry into the United States.
The Earl of KIMBERLEY: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer. But my Question is: Should the decision go the wrong way, will Her Majesty's Government be in complete harmony with the French Government as to what they will do? It will be no good shutting the door after the horse has gone.
Lord MELCHETT: My Lords, what happens in the event of what the noble Earl is envisaging is a hypothetical question, and Her Majesty's Government would need very carefully to consider the terms of any refusal which might come from the United States. There has been complete collaboration with the French Government over the presentation of the case for Concorde in the United States, and I certainly expect that very close and complete collaboration to continue.
Lord DUNCAN-SANDYS: My Lords, in the course of the argument, will the Government make sure that they remind the United States authorities that a leading American firm was developing a faster and far noisier supersonic airliner, and that if the project had not beeen abandoned for technical and commercial reasons it is inconceivable that it would not have been allowed to operate from American airports?
Lord MELCHETT: My Lords, that is another hypothetical question; but I have no doubt that the American Government are acutely aware of that.
Earl FERRERS: My Lords, can the noble Lord answer a question that is not hypothetical; namely, in terms of revenue, how much does the United States benefit over ourselves from bilateral agreements that we have to land aircraft in the United States and England?
Lord MELCHETT: My Lords, I cannot answer that question without notice.
Earl FERRERS: My Lords, would the noble Lord look to see whether it is not four times the amount?
Lord MELCHETT: Yes, my Lords, I will.

STREET FURNITURE IN CONSERVATION AREAS
2.54 p.m.
Baroness YOUNG: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what is their policy concerning the preservation of street furniture in conservation areas.
The PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE, DEPARTMENT of the ENVIRONMENT (Baroness Birk): My Lords, local authorities are in the first instance responsible for conservation areas. Street furniture like other environmental artifacts can be statutorily listed as of special architectural or historic interest, and in an outstanding conservation area is eligible for grant aid for repair.
Baroness YOUNG: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for that reply. But would she not consider issuing a circular on the subject of all street furniture in conservation areas, as prevailing opinion has moved away from the listing of individual buildings to looking at an area as a whole, of which street lamps, street signs and all types of street furniture are usually an integral part?
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, at present I would not entirely agree with the noble Baroness. In a conservation area everything, even those items which are not listed, has to be looked at before any development can take place. Where either the artifact or the building is considered to be of sufficient architectural value to be listed, it is listed. But in many of the cases it is up to the local authority. Certainly the local authority must take this into account with everything else. There is a point beyond which
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the Government cannot go on giving out more and more directions on various matters.
Lord CAMOYS: My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware of the extraordinary secondhand value of old Victorian lanterns which were used for street lighting? There is a terrific demand for these. They are being sold at very high prices, such as £40 to £50 each. I can see that there is a temptation on the part of local authorities, who are replacing these lights with modern, hideous floodlighting, to forget the fact that what they are getting rid of has a considerable commercial value.
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, that is a matter which it is up to the local authority to deal with. As a Government, we are concerned with the actual architectural and historic value of the particular objects.
Lord PANNELL: My Lords, would the noble Baroness tell me what, apart from street lamps, comprises street furniture?
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, all sorts of things do, such as seats, old letter boxes, and almost anything which is contained in the phrase "environmental artifacts".
The DUKE of ATHOLL: My Lords, would the noble Baroness not agree that this street furniture, such as horse troughs and those charming Victorian canopy letter boxes, is equally important in non-conservation areas where there is, on the whole, not very much worth looking at? Would the noble Baroness not further agree that these items ought not to be removed in the interests of improving the traffic control or of modernisation without very great regard being had for their historic and architectural interest in the somewhat dull situations in which they may happen to find themselves?
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, that is exactly what we do take into account. But I must stress that the criteria centrally is that which is recommended by the Historic Buildings Council, and when our investigators decide that a building does not come up to that criteria then it is up to the local authority to decide, and for local residents to make their voices heard by the local authority.

ICELAND: FISHERIES DISPUTE
Baroness LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOE: My Lords, with the leave of the House, at a convenient moment after 3.30 p.m. my noble friend Lord Goronwy-Roberts will repeat a Statement on Icelandic Fisheries.

COUNTY OF SOUTH GLAMORGAN BILL
2.56 p.m.
The CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES (The Earl of Listowel): My Lords. I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. At the end of the debate on the special Report of the Select Committee on Recommitment, on 9th December, I gave an undertaking to move a procedural Motion to recommit the appropriate clauses of the County of South Glamorgan Bill. It is to implement this undertaking that I am asking the House to agree to this Motion this afternoon. I have also considered the question of a most suitable Committee to which to recommit these clauses of the Bill. I am pleased to inform the House that the noble Earl, Lord Cathcart, and the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, have agreed to sit with me to consider these clauses. If the Motion is agreed, the Committee will start work next week. A list of the clauses proposed for recommitment is now available in the Private Bill Office. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be recommitted to a Select Committee to consider those clauses in the Bill as deposited last Session which were disallowed by the Select Committee (on Recommitment) or withdrawn, because they were to meet a need common to all or a great number of local authorities.—(The Earl of Listowel.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

BRITISH RAILWAYS ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
Considered on Report.
BROWNIES TAING PIER ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
Considered on Report.

DIVORCE (SCOTLAND) BILL [H.L.]
The Earl of SELKIRK: My Lords, I understand that no Amendments have been set down to this Bill and that no noble Lord has indicated a wish to move a manuscript Amendment or to speak in Committee. Unless therefore any noble Lord objects, I beg to move that the Order of Commitment be discharged.
Moved, That the Order of Commitment be discharged.—(The Earl of Selkirk.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

FATAL ACCIDENTS AND SUDDEN DEATHS INQUIRY (SCOTLAND) BILL [H.L.]
3.2 p.m.
Report of Amendments received.
Clause 1 [Investigation of death and application for public inquiry]:
The Earl of SELKIRK The Earl of SELKIRK moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 1, line 10, leave out from ("was") to ("employment") in line 11 and insert (" at his place of").
The noble Earl said: My Lords, frankly, this is not one of the most important Bills we have had to deal with (except for Clause 9, which was drafted by my noble friend Lord Campbell; and the House is grateful to the noble Lord for his drafting of it) but there is a part of the Bill which I think could be improved and on which I should certainly like to have a fuller explanation of what the Government intend. The position to which we have come, if I may recall it, is this. For a very long time it has been the responsibility of the Lord Advocate to investigate any deaths other than those by natural causes. There has been only one exception to that, and that is under an Act passed in 1895, when Lord Salisbury was Prime Minister, which made it obligatory that any deaths occurring in industry should necessarily have a judicial inquiry.
Seventy years later the operation of this Act was brought under review by Lord Grant, then Lord Justice Clerk, and he came to the conclusion that it was not necessary under the Act to have obli-

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gatory judicial inquiries into deaths in industry. He had two reasons for doing that. One was that it had become clear that many of the inquiries were no more than a formality. I believe it is the case that four or five of these inquiries, even perhaps six of them, could be taken on one morning in the sheriff court, so clearly the inquiry was more or less a formal business. That was one reason.
The second reason he gave was that all these matters were properly covered by factory inspectors; and if anyone doubts the accuracy of that I ask them to look at Schedule 1 to the Bill which we are now considering. There your Lordships will see a number of Acts mentioned—the Gas Act, the Mineral Workings (Offshore Installations) Act, the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act, the Petroleum and Submarine Pipe-lines Act, In each of these cases the 1895 Act is made entirely subordinate to whatever arrangement is provided for in those Acts; and I have no doubt whatever that in every case of any significance it will be the factory inspector, or alternatively someone appointed by the Secretary of State, who will conduct the inquiry under one of these various Acts. There is therefore a very strong reason for removing mandatory judicial inquiries from this clause, because, as I say, they are a formality and the area is already fully covered.
We came to know during the Committee stage that the Government have been under considerable pressure to retain a measure of obligatory inquiry. We all recognise the emotive pressures on Governments which exist, and it is not my intention to embarrass the Government in any way by this Amendment. It is my intention simply to make this clause more sensible. As I read the clause at present it would include not only what one might call accidents at the job: it would also bring in road accidents, running-down accidents of all kinds, and I think this is undesirable. I gave some examples in the course of the Committee stage. The simple answer is that if we include those it means that if someone is killed on the road, we have to inquire why he was there before deciding what procedure should be followed. As the man is dead, ex hypothesi it is not easy to say why he was there. Therefore, I think it would
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be foolish to bring in some road accidents and not to bring in the lot. So far as I know, the examination of road accidents is as satisfactory as it can be—at least I have heard no complaints on this score—so I should have thought that, by and large. road accidents should be dealt with by the same procedure.
The intention of my Amendment is simply to say that these mandatory inquiries will continue in those cases concerning persons at their place of employment; that is to say, when they are in their place of employment. Those words seem to me to confine the mandatory requirement to those cases which the Government have said they require to cover. The words which the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhill, used were, "any case where there seems to have been a safety regulation breached". That is the example he gave, and I entirely agree that that is a matter which should be very carefully examined. I suspect that, as a matter of fact, in most cases it will be examined under the relevant Act by a factory inspector rather than by this procedure, but, none the less, it remains as a mandatory requirement that when a man is actually at his job there will be a mandatory inquiry.
That is the purpose of my Amendment: particularly to take out all road accidents and other things which in most cases have very little to do with working in the place of employment itself. It is that which I am trying to circumscribe, to make more clear and, I hope, define the circumstances in which a mandatory requirement will apply. It is those cases which I have in mind, and it is for that reason that I ask the Government to accept this Amendment. I beg to move.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY: My Lords, I support this Amendment, to which I have added my name. In the debate on Second Reading we made it clear that we on this Bench preferred the view that my noble friend Lord Selkirk has just indicated. We thought that a much wider discretion should be given to the Lord Advocate, and we were sorry that in recent months the Government had apparently changed their official attitude on this matter and had decided instead to extend the mandatory inquiries to cover all employment, and indeed occupations, rather than just industrial

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employment, as at present. In that debate my noble friend Lord Selkirk pointed out that there could be ridiculous situations where a road accident occurred and it was difficult to prove whether or not a person was engaged in his employment if it involved driving a car. Indeed, the whole issue might depend on whether there were golf clubs in the car and what his plans were; and this seemed quite unnecessary. More to the point, it did not seem to be what the Government themselves intended, because quite clearly they were more concerned that these should be fatal accidents in factories or at work in other, similar places which were not covered by inquiries under other legislation; and even, indeed, ones that were covered by legislation, because these fatal accident inquiries are to be mandatory in those circumstances.
I hope that since the Committee stage the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhill, has been able to consider this question, particularly of road accidents, and the fact that the term "employment and occupation" could raise difficulties where deaths occur a long way from a person's place of employment. If the noble Lord cannot accept this Amendment, I trust that he will be able to make a Government change at a later stage. I am glad to see that the noble Lord has put down Amendment No. 3, which appears to meet a particular point which I made at the Committee stage, but we shall be coming to that later.
Lord WILSON of LANGSIDE: My Lords, in supporting this Amendment may I remind your Lordships briefly of the consequences which will follow if this clause is enacted unamended. Before doing so, I should declare my interest in that the matter falls within the jurisdiction of the sheriff court of Scotland, and I am, for my sins, the head of one of the six sheriffdoms into which Scotland is divided. If this clause is passed unamended the consequences will be, first of all, that there will be a number of anomalies of the nature of those which were spelt out in Committee by the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk. It is bad laws that create anomalies. Good laws may not save us from perdition, any more than did those of Justinian and the Roman Empire, but bad laws certainly tend to lead us on in the opposite direction.
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The second consequence—it is a more practical one—is that in intercourse in which a major existing problem now is that of delay, there will be injected some additional work which is unnecessary and which according to the Committee which examined this matter "serves no useful purpose". The third consequence which humbly appears to me to be undesirable is that the clause unamended will result in the relatives of deceased persons being subjected unnecessarily to the distress of a formal judicial inquiry, whether or not these relatives want the inquiry. In the light of these three factors, I find it very difficult to understand why the Government should resist so stubbornly the suggestion that the Bill, so far as Clause I is concerned, should be amended.
Baroness SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord a question? I have bothered him about this before. Each time he mentions this it pains me. How is it possible for the relatives of a man who has been killed in the kind of circumstances we know about to have such knowledge of the conditions existing that they will be distressed? He gives that as an argument as to why this inquiry should not take place. These people may be distressed, and I am sorry if they arc. But, surely, they are not qualified to pronounce on these things!
Lord WILSON of LANGSIDE: My Lords, they are, in fact, distressed. It was the Grant Committee who said that it was unnecessary so to distress them.
Lord LEATHERLAND: My Lords, those who are not Scots and not lawyers may be slightly mystified about the relative merits of the Bill as it stands and the Amendment as suggested by the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk. The Bill as it stands says that there shall be an inquiry if an employee is killed in the course of his employment. The Amendment suggests that the inquiry should be held only if death takes place or an accident takes place at his place of employment. What we really want is a definition of" place of employment". Let us assume that instead of embarking on a career of journalism I had, in my younger days, decided on the honourable estate of a steamroller driver. I went in the morning to the depot where the steamroller was stored and attempted to drive it out

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of the depot. Unfortunately, I drove it into a wall and killed myself. Clearly that accident would have taken place at the place of my employment in addition to being in the course of my employment. Let us assume that, having safely circumnavigated the depot yard and having driven through the gate, I had driven the steamroller, in the course of my employment, 10 miles down the road where unfortunately something happened. I got out and attempted to remedy the mishap. The steamroller started and killed me. That was in the course of my employment but not in the place of my employment, unless we have a definition of the term "place of employment" which indicates a place of my employment including the place 10 miles down the road where I was attending to the steamroller. To summarise what I have said, we want to know the meaning of the words "at the place of employment".
Lord KIRKHILL: My Lords, I have already explained both at Second Reading and in Committee why the Government consider the scope of mandatory inquiries under this Bill is correct. But before discussing this Amendment in detail I think it might be helpful to deal with two matters raised in Committee last week by the noble Earl. The first matter was the question of whether the words "self-employed person engaged in his occupation" included a housewife. The Government are satisfied that the term "self-employed persons" means persons engaged in gainful employment on their own behalf and would not therefore include persons such as housewives who offer their services on a noncommercial basis. I am sure that that will be disputed by many!
The second matter was the more general point that the mandatory provisions of the Bill led to many anomalous cases. For example, an inquiry would need to be held into the death of a teacher at a school but not into the death of a pupil; an inquiry would be required to be held into the death of a person driving for business reasons but not into the death of a person driving for pleasure. It seems inevitable that wherever the line is drawn between circumstances giving rise to an inquiry and circumstances not giving rise to an inquiry there
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will be some anomalies. After giving this a great deal of consideration, the Government have come to the conclusion that to draw the line to include all people in the course of their employment was more logical than any other division and would produce fewer anomalies.
My Lords, I should like to deal now with the Amendment before the House. I would point out that the Amendment as drafted does not, in the Government view, achieve its apparent purpose if this is to cut out deaths occurring while travelling from place to place and, in particular, deaths resulting from road traffic accidents. I should like, first, to make it plain that, in the Government's opinion, the terms of the Bill at present referring to deaths" in the course of his employment "do not cover accidents occurring during the normal journey between home and work. In this respect the Amendment makes no difference to the present situation. It can only affect journeys made in the course of the deceased's work. I think there is a question to be posed and it is this. What is the "place of employment"? Indeed, this is the very question which my noble friend Lord Leatherland has just put. In the case of the normal factory worker or office worker, this is no doubt quite clear. It is the factory or the office premises.
But what of the worker whose work is by its nature peripatetic? It could hardly be disputed that the place of employment of a sailor is his ship, wherever it is. Would it not be fair to say, also, that a lorry driver's place of employment is where his lorry is, a bus driver's, where his bus is, a taxi driver's, where his taxi is and a baker's van driver where his van is, and so on? In the context of this Bill the place of employment can only mean the place of actual work and not merely the administrative headquarters. I am already into the depths of road traffic accidents which the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, considers inappropriate to include in this Bill. I rest on that point.
My Lords, before turning to an aspect of the Amendment which appears to be defective, I have already reiterated why the Government clearly must stand firm on Clause 1of the Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, made mention of the extension of the mandatory inquiries under the Bill and I would re-remind him, as I would remind the noble

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Lord, Lord Wilson of Lang side, that the Government had extensive consultations both with the STUC and the Law Society of Scotland. Although, in the end, the Law Society of Scotland withdrew its objection to the Grant Committee recommendation, the STUC continued to manifest objection and the Government have included that substantial objection—for the reasons I have already explained at Second Reading and at Committee stage —in the Bill itself.
In another respect the Amendment appears to be defective. The present wording of the Bill confines mandatory inquiries to deaths in the course of employment. The Amendment refers to deaths "at his place of employment", but does not specify that they must be in the course of work. Thus if the deceased was at the place of employment for quite extraneous reasons his death would occasion an inquiry.
A more general criticism of the Amendment is the lack of definition of the concept of the "place of employment". In the innumerable different circumstances in which work is done, this concept is capable of extremely variable interpretation. For instance, if someone is employed to repair a road, is his place of employment the place where he is based, the place where he is working at any time, or the whole length of the road? Is a solicitor's place of employment just his office, or does it include the sheriff court, any place where he visits a client and, if he takes work home, his own house? The term cannot simply be left undefined, as it is here, but to devise a universally applicable and fair definition would be a formidable task. I hope I have said enough to convince you that the introduction of this concept of the place of employment does nothing to simplify matters and could indeed lead to considerable uncertainty, anomalies and unfairness. Accordingly, I ask your Lordships not to accept this Amendment.
Lord WILSON of LANGSIDE: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, I wonder if he would say whether he, together with his right honourable and learned friend, would consider the possibility of having joint discussions on this small matter between those involved in the day-to-day running of the courts and the STUC, whose representations I under-
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stand led the Government to draft Clause 1 as it is presently drafted?
Lord KIRKHILL: My Lords, I am not able to give the House such an assurance.
The Earl of SELKIRK: My Lords, if I may say a word to the noble Lord, Lord Leatherland, of course if you are employed to drive a steam-roller and you are going from one part of a road to another to do your job, that is the place of your employment. I never had any doubt that a lorry driver was in his place of employment. But something that the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhill, brought out as clear as crystal is the need for discretion in deciding whether or not there should be inquiries. He spoke about defining precisely when these inquiries should take place as being a formidable task. That is our whole case. The Lord Advocate has plenty of power to carry out his discretionary task. I have no doubt whatever this is the correct way of doing it. I do not think my phrase is any vaguer than the words "in the course of employment". There is, as the noble Lord knows well, an enormous range of legal decisions on the subject of what is in the course of employment. He did not attempt to define what was in the course of employment. I do not blame him for that; all sorts of interpretations could be put on it.
I am sorry that the noble Lord cannot accept Lord Wilson of Langside's suggestion for discussion; it is worth seeing whether greater precision could be reached. The only point of my Amendment is to get greater precision. I am not arguing the basis of it. I think the words "in the course of employment" are capable of wide interpretation. I accept the case of people who are employed to drive steam-rollers or lorries. I would exclude road accidents altogether; they should be excluded. I should be grateful if the noble Lord would consider this. Will the noble Lord give any thought to considering something of this sort?
Lord KIRKHILL: My Lords, as those who have been taking part in this debate—both at this stage and earlier stages—will know, this is a Bill emanating from the Lord Advocate's Department of the Scottish Office. I cannot give the type of assurance asked of me today. The

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noble Earl's comment will be in Hansard and no doubt others will consider the point which he has made. I reiterate that extensive consultations have taken place with the STUC, and the weight of their argument—which I have already described at some length and in some detail —was the consideration which prompted the Government to seek the extension of the mandatory inquiry.
The Earl of SELKIRK: My Lords, I can only accept what the noble Lord has said, that inquiries have taken place. He says what we have discussed will appear in Hansard and that it may be looked at. I do not think that this is a matter of sufficient significance to ask the House to divide on it. I am bound to say that both phrases have their dubieties. I admit this is true. I was trying to get a more precise definition. If the noble Lord says that we have these views and that we are anxious to get a better definition, I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
3.26 p.m.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY Lord CAMPBELL of CROY moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 2, line 4, at end insert—
("( ) In any case arising from section 9 of this Act, the Lord Advocate shall direct which procurator fiscal and which sheriff shall be the responsible authorities for the purposes of the foregoing subsection").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Amendment has been put down in order that the Government may reply on a matter that I raised at the Committee stage to which the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhill, then said he could not reply without notice. When Clause 9 becomes effective and this fatal accident procedure is extended to the Continental Shelf, which authorities will be the responsible authorities under the Bill? At the top of page 2 the Bill says:
"…the procurator fiscal for the district with which the circumstances of the death appear to be most closely connected shall investigate…".
Then he is due to make a report to the sheriff. The question is: which procurator fiscal and which sheriff should be brought in for accidents in different areas of the Continental Shelf? This may be 200 miles from land, over a hundred miles from the Shetland Islands or round from the West coast.
There are two points on this matter. The first is geographical, and the noble Lord said he would look into it as he could not answer off the cuff at the Committee stage. Secondly, there is the matter of the administrative suitability or convenience. Should it be something which should be judged in the circumstances at the time? That is the sense of my Amendment which leaves it to the Lord Advocate to decide on the matter. It may well be difficult to lay this down beforehand. May I draw attention to the fact that only the day before yesterday another diver was killed in the North Sea. When I was speaking exactly a week ago at the Committee stage of the Bill, a diver had died a day before. Those two divers have lost their lives in off-shore operations within the space of six days. The deaths taking place now may never be investigated by this fatal accident inquiry procedure, although they must be accidents of the kind for which this legislation is most suitable. This is a new industry where new tasks are being carried out and inquiries could well help to bring in quickly safety precautions which could prevent other accidents. So Clause 9 should he considered with Clause 1. I agree with my noble friend Lord Selkirk when he says that Clause 9 is probably the most important part of this Bill inasmuch as it extends this procedure to the Continental Shelf.
If the noble Lord cannot reply to the following point now, I hope he will be able to do so later when we reach the Amendment concerning. Clause 9. What kind of inquiry is there now? According to yesterday's Press, a Department of Energy diving inspector was immediately brought into the picture over the sudden surfacing—due no doubt to some mechanical error—of the diving bell which caused the death the day before yesterday. After this Bill has been enacted, which I presume will be in the early summer, will the Lord Advocate be able to institute inquiries into the deaths which took place in January this year, or the deaths which unfortunately took place in the North Sea last year? Under subsection (2) of Clause 1, this Bill is to go back three years prior to the coming into effect of the Act. Under Clause 10 the Lord Advocate is able to name the date when the Act will come into force. One presumes that will be soon. Will it be possible, when this Bill is enacted, for

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the Lord Advocate to have inquiries made into accidents in the North Sea over the Continental Shelf which have taken place in a period prior to that? It is not clear now how these provisions of the Bill will apply to Clause 9 and Continental Shelf accidents. It is clear how they apply to other fatal accidents.
The divers are doing a very important job which is essential for some of the offshore operations. In previous debates in your Lordships' House I think we have all agreed that it is very important for us to win as much oil as we can in the next five years. After that we shall be going in for depletion controls, but I hope that during the consideration of these Amendments, either now or under Clause 9, the Government will provide information on this activity, because diving in waters above the Continental Shelf seems to be more in need of fatal accident inquiry procedure than any other.
Lord KIRKHILL: May I first associate the Government with the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, about the very real and pressing need for an established form of inquiry, over these horrendous tragedies now occurring with ever-increasing frequency in these Northern seas. I will certainly take the opportunity of replying in detail to the points made by the noble Lord later in this debate.
Turning to the Amendment, I would say initially—as I seem to be saying each time so far this afternoon—that the Government are unable to accept this Amendment since they consider it to be clearly inappropriate for the Lord Advocate, a Government Minister, to issue directions to the Judiciary regarding the exercise of their jurisdiction. Since the introduction of this Bill we have received strong representations from sheriffs, sheriffs principal and others on the need to preserve the independence of sheriffs holding these inquiries from any control by the Government. The proposed Amendment would appear to run counter to this principle.
The situation under the Bill, as at present drafted, where a death has occurred on the Continental Shelf in circumstances giving rise to an inquiry, is that in the first place the procurator fiscal will have
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to decide whether he is the fiscal for the district most closely connected with the circumstances of the death, and is therefore required to investigate the death and apply for an inquiry. In case of a death, the Crown Office and ultimately the Lord Advocate will decide which fiscal should do this. It will then be up to the fiscal to decide to which sheriff he should apply. When the procurator fiscal lodges his application with the sheriff, it is up to the sheriff to decide whether he is the sheriff of the sheriffdom with which the circumstances of the death appear to be most closely connected and, accordingly, has jurisdiction to entertain the application.
In practice, it is expected that there will be little difficulty in determining with which sheriffdom and procurator fiscal the circumstances of the death are most closely connected. In the case of deaths on or connected with oil installations, the clearest link will normally be the port from which the installation is serviced. In the case of supply vessels, the clearest link will normally be with the port from which the vessel operates. There are only a few ports involved, notably Aberdeen, Lerwick, Peterhead and Dundee. As regards identifying the appropriate sheriffdom, the task will be made easier by the fact that Scotland is now divided into only six sheriffdoms, with the sheriffdom of Grampian, Highland and Islands occupying the Northern half of the country. The Government believe that the provisions for division of responsibility among procurator fiscal districts and sheriffdoms are the most reasonable that can be devised, and they are confident that sheriffs and procurators fiscal will have little difficulty in operating them. For these reasons, the Government consider that the proposed Amendment is contrary to constitutional principles, and I would ask your Lordships not to accept it.
The Earl of SELKIRK: Would it not be sensible to let the public know which procurator fiscal district they were in or which rig was in and which sheriff was in charge? I imagine there may be other applications to the sheriffs in addition to those made under this Bill. Instead of keeping this a sort of "unknown secret" in the Lord Advocate's Department, the Crown Office, and so on, would it not be more sensible to have this information made available?
Lord HOY: If I may intervene briefly, I do not quite understand what the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, meant by "an unknown secret". I do not know how you define that term, but I would have thought that in this case if in fact sheriffdoms have been divided into six, with procurator fiscals applied to each of them, obviously the Scottish people are not quite so ill-informed as not to know what is happening. I think that both the noble Earl and the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, will remember from experience that when inquiries are to be held they are very suitably advertised in the Scottish Press. People then know what is happening, not only from a legal point of view but from a public point of view. So there is nothing secretive about it and I should have thought that, with these new arrangements which have been made, the position today is a great improvement on anything that happened in the past. From that point of view, I think people will be very well satisfied.
Lord KIRKHILL: On behalf of the Government, I hesitate to say that we might again consult with sheriffs or sheriffs principal in view of the minor lambasting which took place at an earlier stage on the basis that our relationship and consultation had not been as thorough or effective as it might have been. Nevertheless, I think the noble Earl has raised a point which is worthy of consideration, and I will take note of it.
Lord LEE of NEWTON: Is there not close liaison with other Departments about this? I recall the first accident that we had in the North Sea, which did not occur opposite a Scottish port. That accident was concerned with the Sea Gem, which went down with the loss of many lives, and it occurred when we were searching for gas. It would not be the case, therefore, that legislation which was purely appropriate for Scotland would cover emergencies of that type. Diving and drilling for gas is just as hazardous as drilling for oil. It is our hope and belief that we shall find both gas and oil also in the Celtic Sea and in the Irish Sea. What I am afraid of is that if we base all our legislation on proximity to the Scottish coasts, it may well be that a great deal of further legislation will be necessary later to cover operations based on other stretches of the coasts around
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this island. I would ask my noble friends to remember, first, that these great risks and the very arduous jobs which are necessary have brought great suffering to people who are not working near the Scottish coasts, and, secondly, that there is the possibility in the future of the extension of our operations to the English and Welsh coasts. When considering legislation of this type, this should be taken into consideration.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY: As I indicated earlier, I moved this Amendment as a probing Amendment, as the only way to enable the Government to explain how they expected the Bill to operate as regards Clause 9 and the authorities who would be concerned with an inquiry; namely, a procurator fiscal and a sheriff. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhili, for explaining how the Government see the operation of this clause. It appears that it will be the procurator fiscal related to the port rather than to the nearest land where the accident has taken place. That seems to be the interpretation of his remarks, and that is certainly sensible. As I pointed out in my opening remarks, it is a matter of weighing administrative suitability and convenience against geography. The noble Lord said that later, on my Amendment to Clause 9, he would tell us about the present system—if there is a system —for looking into accidents concerning divers in the North Sea, and whether Department of Energy inspectors have any rights at present to undertake inquiries.
The noble Lord, Lord Lee, raised the question of what happens in the waters over the Continental Shelf, off the shores of England and Wales. I would say only—as I have said two or three times during the passage of this Bill—that the system when there is a death in Scotland is completely different from that in England. There are no inquests and no coroners in Scotland, and that is one of the reasons why there is special fatal accident legislation of this kind. There is certainly no intention on my part to overlook the gas operations that have taken place and have led the way in the Southern basin of the North Sea, or the operations that are going on all around our coasts. But with this Bill we are taking an opportunity of reforming the

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fatal accident procedure which applies only to Scotland—where, as I said, there are no inquests or coroners and the system is quite different—and of extending it to the Continental Shelf around the shores of Scotland.
The noble Lord, Lord Kirkhill, has explained how he sees the procurator fiscal and the sheriff being brought in, and he does not think that the Lord Advocate should be left to indicate which one. But at one point he mentioned consultation with the Crown Office, so the good offices of the Lord Advocate would clearly be used—because the Crown Office is the Lord Advocate's office in Scotland—and that seems to me a sensible system. My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
3.42 p.m.
Lord KIRKHILL Lord KIRKHILL moved Amendment No. 3:
Page 2, line 6, after ("Act") insert ("(other than such a death in a case where criminal proceedings have been concluded against any person in respect of the death or any accident from which the death resulted, and the Lord Advocate is satisfied that the circumstances of the death have been sufficiently established in the course of such proceedings)").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the purpose of this Amendment is to make it unnecessary to hold a public inquiry in cases where there has already been a criminal prosecution connected with the death, and in the course of this prosecution the facts of the death have been clearly ascertained. The Amendment makes it possible for the Lord Advocate to satisfy himself that these facts have been fully brought out and to instruct that a public inquiry is unnecessary. This power to dispense with an inquiry applies to all cases where an inquiry is mandatory under Clause 1(1)(a)—to deaths resulting from fatal accidents at work and to deaths of people in legal custody.
The Government have considered the need for such an Amendment in response to the views expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, when this Bill was in Committee, and in response also to views expressed to us in recent consultations. The Government have concluded that a dispensing power is desirable. Where a death gives rise both to a public inquiry and to criminal proceedings, both are conducted by the procura-
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tor fiscal who will normally postpone the inquiry till the criminal proceedings are over. In these circumstances, the inquiry is frequently merely a re-run of evidence led in the criminal proceedings and reaches the same conclusion regarding the death. It seems pointless duplication to have an inquiry when the facts have already been ascertained in a public judicial process.
It therefore seems appropriate to give the Lord Advocate a discretion whether or not to dispense with an inquiry in this situation, as in no two cases will the circumstances be exactly the same. I would stress that an inquiry will automatically be held in every case unless the Lord Advocate positively rules that it is unnecessary. The facts must have been sufficiently established in criminal proceedings. This implies that they must have been ascertained in public since criminal proceedings are normally conducted in public. The criminal proceedings may have been against any person—not necessarily the person responsible for the death—and they may have arisen out of the death itself (for example, culpable homicide) or out of the accident which caused it (for example, careless driving). The outcome of the criminal proceedings is irrelevant; what matters is that the facts of the death are established in them. I hope your Lordships will agree that this is a sensible Amendment which should be supported. I should like to express my personal gratitude to those who pointed out to me the need for such an Amendment. My Lords, I beg to move.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY: My Lords, I must thank the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhill, because by this Amendment he has carried out my suggestion as to the least that should be done to avoid duplication. This Amendment is exactly what I suggested, so there will be no need to have a fatal accident inquiry when criminal proceedings have already gone over the ground. The Amendment also gives the Lord Advocate discretion to wait until he sees whether criminal proceedings are being started, or, if they have been started, to wait to see what happens. So I have no objection to the word "concluded", because it means that, unless there was a special need for one, a Lord Advocate using his discretion would clearly not call for a fatal accident

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inquiry when he knew that there was a possibility of criminal proceedings being started, or that they had been started. So I am grateful to the noble Lord for having met this point. The Amendment is a definite improvement to the Bill, and I would recommend my noble friends to support it.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.

ICELAND: FISHERIES DISPUTE
3.47 p.m.
The MINISTER of STATE, FOREIGN and COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (Lord Goronwy-Roberts): My Lords, with permission I shall repeat a Statement which has been made in another place by my right honourable friend the Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. The Statement is as follows:
" With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House I should like to make a Statement about the fisheries dispute with Iceland.
"Vessels of the Royal Navy which have been protecting British trawlers fishing in international waters around Iceland are being withdrawn today. Flights by Royal Air Force Nimrod aircraft which have been over flying the area have also been suspended. This course of action was determined by the Prime Minister and the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary in Copenhagen yesterday morning and was subsequently confirmed following a full discussion between the Foreign Secretary and the Secretary General of NATO, Dr. Luns, in Brussels last night. The Ministry of Defence have issued the necessary instructions today.
" The decision to go ahead was taken in the light of Dr. Luns' account of the visit he made to Iceland last week and in the expectation that our trawlers will not be harassed by Icelandic coastguard gun boats. It was taken despite the unfortunate complications represented by the Icelandic Government's announcement yesterday of their intention to break off diplomatic relations with the United Kingdom.
" As a result of the full protection and skilful interception measures of our
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naval vessels no trawler wires have been cut since 3rd January and fishing has continued, despite Icelandic harassment. But it has always been the hope of the British Government that this dispute would be ended by negotiation.
" If, contrary to our hopes, there is further harassment then naval protection will be restored. However, in the light of Dr. Luns' account of his discussions in Reykjavik, we believe that the withdrawal of the frigates and the Nimrods will now create an atmosphere in which talks between Britain and Iceland can proceed. The Prime Minister is sending a message to the Prime Minister of Iceland, Mr. Hallgrimsson, inviting him to come to London as soon as possible.
"Her Majesty's Government remain ready to negotiate an agreement which would recognise Iceland's special dependence on fishing and the need to take adequate measures to conserve the cod stocks. However, Her Majesty's Government will also naturally take full account of the importance of these fisheries to the livelihood of our own trawlermen and the communities in Britain which depend on them."
My Lords, that is the end of the Statement.
3.51 p.m.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY: My Lords, we thank the noble Lord for repeating the Statement that has been made in another place. The asperity of the dispute and its repercussions have unfortunately become out of proportion to the difference in annual catch which was the principal subject of a further agreement between Iceland and Britain, although unilateral extension of limits is still a matter of principle which we deplore and which we deplored during the currency of the last agreement. May I ask the noble Lord in what circumstances the frigates will return? Can our trawlermen count upon their immediate return if harassment starts again or if attempts arc made to cut trawl wires? And will the noble Lord tell us whether there is now a real prospect of negotiation? If not, are the Government considering mediation? It is important to both countries that fish stocks should be preserved and that, if necessary, there

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should be an independent assessment of what conservation measures are required. I should like to express our gratitude to the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force and to reiterate what I said last week about the outstanding skill and service which they have brought to a difficult and delicate operation.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I should like to join the noble Lord in the tribute he has paid to the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force and, indeed, to the intrepid men of the trawler fleet setting out from our ports. As to the conditions under which our forces would return to the area, that would depend upon whether the Icelanders resume harassment and would have to be assessed by our own Ministers in London. As to the conditions for mediation, naturally we hope that we shall achieve a workable compromise with our friends and allies, the Icelanders, on a bilateral basis. If, however, mediation by a third friendly country or organisation commends itself to the Icelanders, certainly we should not object to that method of solving this dispute. I accept entirely the point that the noble Lord has made about the need to consider the best way to conserve fish stocks. We are as concerned as are the Icelanders about this question and certainly we should not rule out of discussion this point or any other point that is germane to the fishing industry in these waters. As to an independent assessment of the extent of the stock and its pace of depletion, the noble Lord knows that there have been certain differences between our experts and theirs. I am sure that part of the negotiations will be to collate all proven facts in the scientific field for the purpose of expediting the conclusion of the negotiations.
Lord BANKS: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for repeating the Statement that has been made in another place, on behalf of my noble friends I should like to welcome this development. We are encouraged to know that negotiations are likely to take place. The sooner this breach between NATO Allies is healed the better, and the negotiating table is clearly the right place to attempt to heal it. The Government have indicated that they are aware of the need to combine a conciliatory attitude with a determination
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to protect the legitimate interests of British fishermen. I should like to take this opportunity to express appreciation both of the role played by Dr. Luns in his mediation (if that is the correct word) in this dispute and of the way in which the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force have carried out their duties in difficult circumstances.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I warmly welcome the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Banks, and in particular what he has said about the importance of NATO in this connection. In doing so, he gracefully referred to the very helpful role which Dr. Luns, as Secretary General of that Organisation, has played in this matter.
Lord MAYBRAY-KING: My Lords, as one who has many intimate friends in Iceland and who taught as a boy at school our ambassador who is at present in that country, may I welcome the initiative of Her Majesty's Government and plead with my friends in Iceland to accept it in the spirit in which it is offered—in the spirit of the old friendship between Iceland and the British Government.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I am sure that our friends and allies in Iceland will pay particular attention to what has been said by a former Speaker of perhaps the second oldest Parliament, theirs probably being the first, in the world.
Lord PEDDIE: My Lords, could my noble friend give the House any indication of the reaction of the representatives of the Hull and Grimsby fishermen to the decision to withdraw protection and indicate also whether British trawlers will continue to fish within the 200-mile limit without the overall protection of British frigates?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, so far the reaction of both sides of this industry has been cautious, reasonable and responsible. It is our expectation that while the negotiations take place fishing will continue in the disputed areas. However, I wish to reaffirm and emphasise that if harassment is resumed, protection for these fishermen will immediately be resumed.
Baroness TWEEDSMUIR of BELHELVIE: My Lords, while welcoming very much the invitation to the Icelandic Prime Minister, may I ask whether any inquiries were made before the withdrawal of our fleet as to the likelihood of such a personal invitation being accepted? If the invitation were accepted, could the Minister say whether he has any date in mind for these talks to take place? In what is, without doubt, an extremely dangerous situation, speed is very necessary.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I could not go into any detail as to what, after his intervention, Dr. Luns reported to the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary, but I am sure that the invitation would not have been sent by us without the reasonable expectation that it would be accepted. As to the urgency of the situation, I agree entirely with the noble Baroness, who on a previous occasion played a very distinguished part in achieving, at least temporarily, an accommodation in this very difficult field. We wish to move forward as quickly as possible, and although I could not put a date to the actual start of the negotiations I hope that the waiting period may be counted in days and not weeks.
Lord COLERAINE: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware—although there is no particular reason why he should be—that for nearly 20 years I represented in another place what I think is the principal fishing port engaged in this dispute, the port of Hull? Is the noble Lord also aware that as a result, while not in any way dissociating myself from what the noble Lord, Lord Maybray-King, has said about conciliation, I am asking him and the Government always to bear in mind the great debt that this nation owes to the deep sea fishermen of Britain both in peace and in war?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: Most certainly, my Lords. They are an industry and a race of men who symbolise in their lives and in their industry some of the best qualities of our race. I would equally add that I am perfectly well aware of my noble friend's former distinguished career in another place.
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNESIDE: My Lords, I should like to ask
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the noble Lord whether, during all these negotiations, the trawler owners, representing their fleet and their crews, have been kept fully in the picture. What happens as a result of the action taken by Her Majesty's Government matters so very much to them.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: Yes, my Lords. The British Trawlers' Federation—and the unions—has been kept fully informed of all the steps we have taken during this dispute, on this occasion as on previous occasions. The BTF inform us that it shares the view of Her Majesty's Government that a negotiated settlement of this unhappy dispute should be reached as soon as possible. The Federation also shares our hope that the initiative taken by the Foreign Secretary yesterday will lead to this end.

FATAL ACCIDENTS AND SUDDEN DEATHS INQUIRY (SCOTLAND) BILL [H.L.]
Report stage resumed.
4.1 p.m.
Lord KIRKHILL Lord KIRKHILL moved Amendment No. 4:
Page 2, line 28, after ("taken") insert ("(i)")
The noble Lord said: My Lords, in moving this Amendment I should like at the same time to speak to the following Amendment, as I think this would be a convenience to the whole House. This Amendment amends Clause 1(4), to provide that a person who is being taken from a penal institution, or from a police station, police cell or similar place where he has been detained, is a person in legal custody for the purposes of this Bill. This supplements the provision already contained in Clause 1(4)(c) that a person being taken to these places is considered to be a person in legal custody.
The noble Earl, Lord Selkirk. indicated in Committee last week that he thought such an Amendment necessary. He cited a prisoner being taken to a hospital or to a court as a case which might not at present fall within the terms of Clause 1(4). The Government have considered this point and have come to the conclusion that while the case of a person taken from a penal institution to a hospital or

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a court is probably covered by the existing wording of Clause 1(4), being a person "subject to detention", a person being taken from a police station, police cell or similar place to a hospital or court might not in certain circumstances be covered. The Government have therefore introduced this Amendment to bridge the gap and I commend it to your Lordships. I also take the opportunity of thanking the noble Earl for bringing this matter to our notice. I beg to move.
The Earl of SELKIRK: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord. This is a very small point and I hope he will not mind my saying that my Amendment was much shorter and, I thought, was adequate. However, the Government have tabled a very much more elaborate Amendment, and I have no objection, except to say this. If the noble Lord will look at the words in Amendment No. 5:
"(ii) from any such place in which immedately before such taking he was detained",
surely all that is needed is
"in such place in which the person was being detained".
I think the word "taking" is possibly a "Scottishism", but not a very happy one. I wonder whether the noble Lord will be good enough to look at this point.
Lord KIRKHILL: My Lords, having been totally submerged by the considerable and expert legalism of Government draftsmen over these past few days I can give the noble Earl no assurance at all that I will consider that point.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord KIRKHILL: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 5, which I spoke to when moving the previous Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 30, at end insert—
("or
(ii) from any such place in which immediately before such taking he was detained.").—(Lord Kirkhill.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 6 [Sheriff's determination etc.]:
4.6 p.m.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY Lord CAMPBELL of CROY moved Amendment No. 6:
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Page 5, line 3, leave out from beginning to ("and") in line 8.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 6. At the Committee stage I asked the Government about the consequences of these two paragraphs which require the sheriff to include certain things in his report, and this Amendment seeks to leave out these two paragraphs. It is of course a probing Amendment in order to give the Government the opportunity now to tell us, because they were not able to give us a full reply at the Committee stage.
The point which I raised was that although the sheriff is not required to find fault and allocate blame to any person or persons, in the course of carrying out the requirements of these two paragraphs he may inevitably do so in certain cases. Does the noble Lord agree that when determining the factors in paragraphs (c) and (d), as he is now obliged to, the sheriff may find himself blaming some individual or a number of persons? There would then be a situation in which the person blamed might well disagree. In some cases, of course, the sheriff's findings may be followed by criminal proceedings, when no doubt the matter will be dealt with; but if nothing further happens and if no criminal proceedings arc started, what action is open to the private individual who has been blamed in this public report but who disagrees and wishes to clear his name?
I am inquiring for information what the Government's view is here because it has always been a sensitive point in the fatal accident procedure in Scotland. Now the Government are changing that procedure. The sheriff is required to provide explanation in accordance with these paragraphs, which may inevitably mean finding fault. How do the Government visualise such a situation being resolved? I beg to move.
Lord KIRKHILL: My Lords, the effect of this Amendment is to delete from the list of matters on which the sheriff may make findings the following headings:
"(c) the reasonable precautions, if any, whereby the death and any accident resulting in the death might have been avoided;
(d) the defects, if any, in any system of working which contributed to the death or any accident resulting in the death."
This would leave the inquiry concerned solely with ascertaining the place and time of the death and of any accident

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resulting in the death, the causes of the death and any such accident, and any other facts relevant to the circumstances of the death. In practice, this would mean that inquiries would be confined entirely to the bare facts of the death and little or no indication would be given of means whereby the death might have been avoided.
This Amendment is not therefore acceptable to the Government. It would in our view deprive the system of public inquiries of a great part of its value. It is true that the essential purpose of these inquiries is finding facts, not making judgments; but the facts are being ascertained for a specific purpose, namely, to enable those concerned and the relevant authorities to find out what went wrong and to take steps to avoid any repetition. It is highly desirable that where the death occurred as a result of the omission of a reasonable precaution or a defect in the system of working the findings should highlight this fact.
I would stress that these provisions are no innovation. The matters on which the sheriff is to make findings are exactly those on which the jury has to decide under the Fatal Accidents Inquiry (Scotand) Act 1895, with one exception, that the sheriff is not to be required, as the jury is at present, to make a finding of fault where appropriate against a particular person. It has long been felt that the requirement to make a finding of fault is inappropriate in a fatal accident inquiry which is in essence a fact-finding inquiry. Such findings have in practice been rare.
The fact that there is no longer to be a requirement to find fault makes it all the more necessary that the findings should, where appropriate, include a finding that a reasonable precaution has not been taken, or there has been a defect in the system of work. It is true that in making a finding under head (c) or (d) the sheriff is being asked not just to find out facts, but to exercise his judgment to interpret them. He is, however, well qualified to do this, and no sheriff will make a finding that a precaution has been omitted or that the system of work is defective without being fully satisfied that this is the case.
It is true that a finding by the sheriff under heading (c) or (d) may at times
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clearly lead to the inference that a particular person was at fault. It would not necessarily lead to such an inference in every ease. It is also the case that a finding under heading (b), that the cause of the death was the act or omission of a particular person, may clearly lead to an inference that that person was at fault. Such inferences will inevitably be made; but to forbid the sheriff to make any finding that might lead to such an inference would often frustrate the whole purpose of the inquiry. I think we must trust the judgment of sheriffs in this. A sheriff is not going to make a finding from which fault may be inferred unless there is very good reason for doing so. Sheriffs are well aware that a civil or criminal action may follow an inquiry, and that such action should not be prejudiced. The abolition of the requirement to make an express finding of fault where appropriate makes it much less likely than under the existing legislation that an inquiry will prejudice the outcome of any subsequent action. I would stress that where, apart from the inquiry, there are civil or criminal proceedings arising from the death, any fault must be fully established by evidence. Under this Bill, as under the existing legislation, it is not possible for the findings in the inquiry to be used in evidence as a shortcut to establishing fault in civil or criminal proceedings.
I would now deal with another point about which the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, expressed concern, namely, the making of recommendations by the sheriff. There was no express power for the jury to make recommendations under the existing legislation, and there is no express power of the sheriff to do so under this Bill. In the past, recommendations have seldom been made. There is nothing in the Bill which would prevent a sheriff from making recommendations, but it is unlikely sheriffs will generally do so. The only recommendations that sheriffs are likely to make under the Bill arc those which are relevant to findings under heads (c) and (d), and even there the probability is that the sheriff will seldom make recommendations.
The Government think that in general it is desirable that sheriffs be sparing in making recommendations, and that the Bill is right in not giving an express

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power to make them. The sheriff is the appropriate person to find out and interpret the facts surrounding the death, but he is not necessarily the best judge of what action should be taken in the light of these facts. The outcome of the inquiry will be brought to the attention of the relevant safety authorities and it will be for them to decide if action is necessary. It is not desirable that the sheriff should appear to speak with authority in fields where he has no particular expertise. In any case, it is unlikely sheriffs would want to do so. I hope that this explanation will satisfy the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, that the Government have given a lot of consideration to the points regarding which he has expressed concern, and that the provisions of the Bill regarding findings will work out in practice. I can assure him the Government will fully consider any further points which he feels require clarification, and would hope it will be possible for him to withdraw the Amendment.
Apart from the subject matter of this Amendment, it would appear appropriate at this point to reply to two questions relating to procedure at inquiries which were raised by the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, in Committee but to which I did not at that time reply as I had to seek further information. The first of those questions was: Does the deletion from the Bill of Clause 5(3) alter in any way the manner in which evidence can be led in a judicial case? The terms of Clause 5(3) would have rendered transcripts of evidence and reports inadmissable for all purposes in judicial proceedings arising out of the death. They could therefore not have been used in such judicial proceedings as evidence, in accordance with the Evidence (Scotland) Act 1852, that a witness had made a different statement at the inquiry. The provision of Clause 5(3) would prevail over the 1852 Act. The deletion of Clause 5(3) restores the position under the existing law of evidence; namely, that transcripts of evidence and reports of inquiries would normally not be admissible in judicial proceedings, but transcripts might in certain circumstances be admissible in such proceedings as evidence that a witness had made a different statement at the inquiry.
The second question was: Is it compulsory under this Bill for a record in short-
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hand to be taken? It is not compulsory. Clause 4(7) provides that subject to rules made under Clause 7 the procedure at the inquiry shall be as nearly as possible that applicable in an ordinary civil case brought before the sheriff sitting alone. One effect of this provision is that Rule 65 of the First Schedule to the Sheriff Courts (Scotland) Act 1907 will apply. This authorises the sheriff either to take down notes of evidence himself or to nominate a clerk or shorthand writer to do so. It is thus left to the judgment of the sheriff whether a shorthand writer is necessary. I hope that the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, will consider these replies helpful.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY: My Lords, I think the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhill, realises, as I indicated in my opening remarks, that I am not proposing to press this Amendment. Indeed, I had no intention that these two paragraphs should he left out, but as this is Report stage there would have been no other opportunity for the Government to give their promised further explanation on these points as to how they see the Bill in operation unless there had been an amendment of this kind. I am glad the noble Lord has taken the opportunity of replying to the two points raised in Committee by the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, also on this clause.
The noble Lord, Lord Kirkhill, confirmed that there is no requirement for a sheriff, under this Bill, to find fault. That is what we understood to be the situation. But the noble Lord also confirmed my interpretation that a finding could in certain circumstances lead to the inference of fault attaching to particular persons in carrying out the requirements of paragraphs (c) and (d), and again I have no objection to that. The noble Lord pointed out how necessary it was that paragaphs (c) and (d) should be carried out and observed in the sheriff's report. I do not object to this at all. I raised the question of the remedy open to persons who would be blamed in a public report, who disagreed. What action is open to them? I do not think the noble Lord has replied to that point. I will give way to Lord Kirkhill in a minute, but it may well he they should take legal advice, which no doubt is the short answer which the legal profession would

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give. I would be very glad to give way to the noble Lord if he has other information.
Lord KIRKHILL: My Lords, I stressed that where, apart from the inquiry, there are civil or criminal proceedings arising from the death, any fault must be fully established by evidence.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY: My Lords, the noble Lord said that if criminal proceedings followed, then the facts would have to be substantiated aeain—and we know that because we discussed this at an earlier stage in the Bill. But the case I raised was where there are no criminal proceedings and no further action is being taken. There is an unsatisfactory situation where there is a report, no doubt in the Press and elsewhere, attaching blame to a person, who himself wishes to contest the report's findings in this respect because it affects him as an individual.
I was inquiring how the Government saw the situation developing there—no criminal proceedings, the situation just left. The answer may well be that that is a situation where the member of the public has to ask for legal advice; there are various courses open, and it is impossible to generalise. I would draw attention to this because I think this is the difficult part. I agree with what the noble Lord said, that the sheriff is not obliged to find fault and no doubt he will not wish to find fault unless he is absolutely obliged to under paragraphs (c) and (d). If he then does find fault attaching to an individual, and if there are no further proceedings, criminal or otherwise, then it is an unsatisfactory situation because that individual is left with this blame, as he may think, something on which he ought to be able to clear his name. We should like the Government to tell us what remedy is open to him. That was the one point the noble Lord did not deal with; he did deal with criminal proceedings.
Then, in addition, the noble Lord has given us a reply about recommendations by the sheriff. I did not raise this point today but I raised it at an earlier stage, and I am grateful to the noble Lord for having made that statement today. I agree that what he has said is satisfactory.
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I had understood that the sheriff would not be obliged to make recommendations but he would be free to do so if he thought it appropriate. I agree with what the noble Lord has said, that the sheriff ought to be sparing in making recommendations; but there are occasions—perhaps some calamity of a quite new kind—when recommendations of a general or particular nature made by a sheriff after a fatal accident inquiry may be the first indication that something needs to be done to prevent other accidents. I agree entirely with what the noble Lord said on that point. I do not think any other noble Lord wished to speak, and so I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 7 [Rules]:
4.23 p.m.
The Earl of SELKIRK The Earl of SELKIRK moved Amendment No. 7:
Page 6,line 21, leave out ("to solicitors,").
The noble Earl said: My Lords, under Clause 7 the Lord Advocate is entitled to make rules in respect of judicial inquiries held by sheriffs. I raised at Committee stage the question whether it was desirable that he should make rules regarding fees paid to solicitors. I raise this question not because the fees of solicitors do not require controlling; the question is really whether the Lord Advocate is the appropriate person in the circumstances to do so. Already the fees in judicial proceedings are controlled, and, I think I am right in saying, have been controlled for nearly 70 years by the Lord President of the Court of Session. It seems to me it would be very much better for his control to extend to the sheriffial inquiries, which, after all, are judicial inquiries. Clause 4(7) says that the rules
"…shall be as nearly as possible those applicable in an ordinary civil cause brought before the sheriff sitting alone".
In other words, they come very close to the ordinary sheriff inquiry. It would seem, therefore, natural that the Lord President should also control the fees of solicitors at this point. They are also, of course, controlled by a table laid down by the Law Society of Scotland, and in certain respects they are controlled by the Price Commission. I am wondering whether the Lord Advocate does fix fees in any other field, or whether this is

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entirely a new field as far as he is concerned. It seems to me that as fees are fixed in very similar circumstances by the Lord President it would be better for the Lord President to include this in the existing powers which he already has. I beg to move.
Lord KIRKHILL: My Lords, at Committee stage I gave the noble Earl an assurance that the Government would consider this matter further. This matter is somewhat complicated and before deciding on it my right honourable and learned friend would like to have discussions with, among others, the President of the Law Society. These discussions will be undertaken as a matter of urgency. In view of this undertaking, I would hope that the noble Earl would agree to withdraw this Amendment.
The Earl of SELKIRK: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhill, for his reply. I am very happy in those circumstances to beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 9 [Application to continental shelf]
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY Lord CAMPBELL of CROY moved Amendment No. 8:
Page 7, line 12, at end insert—
("(2) Where there is doubt as to whether a fatal accident has occurred in the circumstances set out in paragraph (a) of the foregoing subsection or has occurred in another maritime connection, the Lord Advocate shall decide whether the provisions of this Act shall apply.")
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this brings us to Clause 9 and the proposed extension of the fatal accident procedure to the continental shelf. I raised, at earlier stages, the question of whether an accident would be an ordinary maritime accident, concerning ordinary seagoing vessels, or whether it would be considered to be an accident connected with work on the continental shelf, the extraction of oil and gas. The noble Lord, Lord Kirkhill, said that he would be glad to have notice of these matters, which needed sorting out and that he would give us an explanation at a later stage. Hence, this Amendment. I have suggested that if this is an area where there is doubt and difficulty it might be left to the discretion of the Lord Advocate again. What I am really seek-
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ing is an explanation from the Government as to who determines whether a fatal accident in waters over the British sector of the continental shelf is
"in connection with the exploration of the sea bed…or the exploitation of their natural resources"—
that is the wording of the Bill as it stands at the moment—or whether it is in the nature of an accident at sea of a kind which we normally know. For example, if a supply boat, which is not very different from other vessels, in fact particularly like a fishing boat, on its way to a rig or platform has a collision with another boat, and a death occurs, will it be dealt with under this legislation or under the existing ordinary maritime legislation? Then, for example, if there is an engine room explosion in a vessel which is fully engaged on work connected with offshore oil and nothing else, an ordinary vessel with an ordinary engine room, and there is a death resulting from the explosion, would it be regarded as a maritime accident and involve perhaps a merchant shipping inquiry or some other inquiry, or would it come under this new legislation because the vessel was totally engaged in supplying rigs and platforms?
It is a matter of the significance of these words "in connection with". I think it should be made clear now who decides this. Provided there is a proper inquiry suitable to the circumstances, I do not believe it matters whether it is under this legislation or other legislation or regulations which will apply. But before the Bill becomes law those who are involved in its application should know how it will fit in with existing maritime legislation in this field.
I gave another example at Committee stage, where a platform for an oil field is being towed. A platform is a huge structure and it is expected to be installed for 15 or more years for operating wells in an oil field. But to reach its destination in some cases it will have to be towed right round the North of Scotland. Suppose it is not yet operating in its intended role over an oil field, but an accident occurs—I would remind the noble Lord that these are going to be very tricky operations—while the platform is on tow; it is in connection with the exploitation of the natural resources of the sea bed. It could be an accident to the tug or some other ordinary vessel connected with

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the tow. Who is to decide which legislation should apply?
I come also to the question of divers. I mentioned earlier today the tragic toll of lives of divers, with yet another dying the day before yesterday. How closely must the work of a diver be related to offshore oil and gas for him to come under this legislation? Is the position of divers covered now by any system of inquiries? I gave the noble Lord notice that I would be asking this again when I moved Amendment No. 2 earlier today.
If, as I presume, there is little, if any, investigation at present because this legislation and other legislation has not yet been extended to the Continental Shelf, will the Lord Advocate be able to institute an inquiry retrospectively under Clause 1(1)(b) of this Bill? These deaths have occurred in January in the last two weeks and, unfortunately, there were deaths of other divers last year. This Bill is expected to be law by June. With the Lord Advocate being able to state under Clause 10 what should be the date of the entry into force of the Bill, can the clauses be interpreted so as to enable incidents to be taken into account which have occurred within the period of three years stated in the Bill before the entry into force of the Act? In other words, can accidents which are occurring now and which occurred last year be the subject of fatal inquiries later this year if they have not been dealt with by other legislation?
4.33 p.m.
Lord KIRKHILL: My Lords, this Amendment is not acceptable to the Government. Its effect is to confer on a member of the executive an essentially judicial function—the interpretation of a statutory provision—which properly belongs to the sheriff. The position under the Act as at present drafted is that in the first instance it will be for the procurator fiscal to decide whether the death or accident has occurred in these circumstances and that therefore it is necessary to apply for an inquiry to be held. If he does apply for an inquiry, it will be for the sheriff to make the final decision whether the death or accident has occurred in these circumstances and an inquiry is therefore necessary.
It is in any case likely that the interpretation of the expression,
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"in connection with the exploration of the sea bed or subsoil or the exploitation of their natural resources",
will occasion less difficulty of interpretation than the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, anticipates. The natural interpretation of the expression is, in the Government's view, that it covers all activities on the Continental Shelf consequential on oil operations. Thus it would cover not only deaths occurring on or near fixed installations but also deaths connected with the towing of installations and deaths occurring on supply ships or resulting from a collision between a supply ship and another ship. Thus, some of the difficulties of legal interpretation foreseen by the noble Lord would, in my view, not arise.
Clearly, this interpretation leads to some theoretical overlapping with the inquiry procedures under the Merchant Shipping Acts. May I at this point make reference to the intervention on an earlier clause by my noble friend Lord Lee, and say to him that, as I explain two or three points at this stage and onwards, it might at least explain the terms of remit in Clause 4 so far as this Bill is concerned. There are two procedures under the Merchant Shipping Acts. Where a person dies on board ship in any circumstances there is provision for art inquiry usually held by an official of the Department of Trade. Besides such routine inquiries there may be formal investigations by the sheriff at the instigation of the Department of Trade into loss of ships, damage to ships, or loss of life through accidents to ships.
This problem of overlapping procedures is not new—it occurs under existing fatal accident inquiry legislation in respect of deaths on ships within the three-miles territorial limit—and, as I understand, it has not caused any trouble for the past 80 years. There need therefore be no duplication of inquiries. As regards routine inquiries into deaths, the Merchant Shipping Act 1970, as amended by Schedule 1 to this Bill, provides that where an inquiry under this Bill is held an inquiry under the 1970 Act shall be unnecessary. As regards formal investigations before the sheriff under the 1970 Act, the Secretary of State for Trade has a discretion whether to order such investigation. Where there is to be an inquiry before the sheriff under this Bill, it is unlikely that such an investigation would be

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thought necessary. Duplication of preliminary investigations can, of course, be avoided by co-operation between the procurator fiscal and the Department of Trade.
I would stress that there is an important difference in scope of jurisdiction between inquiries under this Bill and inquiries under the Merchant Shipping Acts. Inquiries under these Acts can be held into deaths occurring outside territorial waters only where British ships are involved. Under this Bill, however, we are seeking to inquire into deaths occurring on the Continental Shelf in connection with mineral operations whatever the nationality of the vessels or installations concerned. The Government consider this necessary in view of the Government's general responsibility for ensuring the safety of mineral operations on the Continental Shelf and any activities related thereto. It is for this reason that it is necessary to confer the jurisdiction to hold inquiries in fairly wide terms.
To sum up, I would submit that it is for the sheriff, not the Lord Advocate, to interpret the provisions of the Act and determine if the death has occurred in circumstances giving rise to an inquiry. I am advised that the terms of Clause 9 should not give rise to difficult problems of interpretation. The question of the relationship between inquiries under this Bill and those under the Merchant Shipping Acts has been fully looked into and the Government are satisfied that this should not give rise to serious problems. I would therefore ask you not to accept this Amendment. I should like also, at this point, to take the opportunity to reply to queries which were raised in Committee by the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, and others regarding the appropriateness of the words "or accident" occurring in Clause 9 at page 7, line 1. The Government have considered this point and have come to the conclusion that the present wording of Clause 9 is correct and that there would be no advantage in altering it. Clause 9 is essentially supplementary to Clause 1. Its effect is to extend the meaning of the phrase "a death occurring in Scotland", used in Clause 1(2), to include in appropriate circumstances a death occurring on the relevant part of the Continental Shelf, and likewise to extend the meaning of "an accident occurring in Scotland",
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used in Clause 1(l)(a)(i) to include in appropriate circumstances an accident occurring on the Continental Shelf. Since the intention of Clause 9 is to extend the meaning of these phrases, it is appropriate that it should reflect the wording of the phrases and use the words "death" and "accident" without qualification.
It would not appear appropriate to substitute for the words "a death or accident" in Clause 9 the expression "a death arising from an accident". This would have the effect of extending the meaning of "a death occurring in Scotland" but not the meaning of "an accident occurring in Scotland". As an inquiry under Clause 1(1)(a) into a death arising from an accident can be held only where both the death and the accident occurred or are taken to have occurred in Scotland, the suggested wording would not be effective to confer jurisdiction in respect of deaths occurring on the Continental Shelf. The use in Clause 9 of the words "a death or fatal accident" would also be inappropriate, as this would not reflect the wording of Clause 1(1)(a)(i).
It is deliberate policy that a mandatory inquiry into a death arising from an accident should be required only where both the death and the accident occurred in Scotland or, where appropriate, the Continental Shelf. The Government would not consider it appropriate to take jurisdiction where the death occurred outside Scotland and would not normally wish to investigate accidents occurring outside Scotland. In the case of inquiries into deaths of people in custody and of discretionary inquiries, on the other hand, the only requirement is that the death has occurred in Scotland.
Before leaving comment on Clause 9, I should mention some points raised earlier in the debate, principally on Amendment No. 2. The noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, asked whether or not it would be reasonable for the public to know the relevant sheriffdom and procurator fiscal district. It is always the procurator fiscal who has the duty of instituting the inquiry. The public need not, therefore, be concerned at that stage regarding the problem of the relevant procurator fiscal and sheriff. Immediately the sheriff has ordered the inquiry, the practice will, I understand, be that a notice will be given to the public by

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Press advertisement saying where and when it will be held. For procedural purposes, this is what the public will need to know.
The noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, raised two points under Amendment No. 2. He first asked whether there had been difficulties in deciding who was the appropriate procurator fiscal for a specific inquiry. I can tell him that until the difficulty concerning jurisdiction was raised in July 1975, a number of fatal accident inquiries had been held into deaths connected with North Sea operations. No difficulties were experienced in deciding which procurator fiscal was most closely connected with the circumstances of the death or with which sheriffdom the circumstances were most closely associated. The noble Lord next asked what kind of inquiry would be held into the most recent death in the North Sea; he was, of course, referring to the recent diving tragedy. It is most likely that after the death has been investigated by the procurator fiscal, in conjunction with the Department of Energy inspectors, the Lord Advocate will be able to consider instructing the holding of a fatal accident inquiry using the power under Clause 1(2) dealing with retrospective inquiries.
If I have strayed somewhat in my latter remarks from the earlier points of this Amendment, it has been in an attempt to be helpful to noble Lords who raised specific points with me and in an attempt to cover as comprehensively as I could the matters raised earlier. I revert to the point I made when opening my remarks on this Amendment, when I indicated that the Government would resist it.
The Earl of SELKIRK: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhill, for the trouble he has taken in answering the questions I raised, though I am bound to say that I have not found his answers absolutely convincing. I will not raise the same matters again, but his comments were far from satisfactory in settling some of the points at issue. For example, he said that it was not the business of the Lord Advocate to interpret Statutes. I thought that one of the things he was supposed to do was to interpret Statutes for the benefit of the Government, but I will not go into that. In any event, the procurator fiscal has to decide when Clause 1(1)(a) applies.
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He does not go to the sheriff and ask, "Should I here hold an inquiry?" He goes to the sheriff and says, "This is the inquiry". I will not go into this point now because it is not of itself very important. The noble Lord has gone to considerable pains and trouble to answer my questions and, while he has not entirely answered them, I have no doubt that the bureaucracy concerned will find ways and means to work it all out satisfactorily.
Lord KIRKHILL: My Lords, perhaps I might intervene to say that it has been the intention of the Government in their executive capacity to stand back so that they do not appear to influence the judicial process, and that is the concept behind much of the thinking relevant to these clauses.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY: My Lords, I, too, am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhill, for replying to many of the points we raised on Clause 9, using the peg of my Amendment, which if course is why it was tabled. He told us how the Government saw this clause being applied, and he answered my question by saying that it would cover all vessels and structures involved with offshore oil and gas, even though they might be ordinary supply boats and the accident was what would happen to any other kind of vessel. If it is engaged in these offshore operations then it will be considered under Clause 9. That was not at all clear until this moment and we are grateful to him for making that clear. The noble Lord also indicated that the same consideration would apply to divers. If divers were involved in any kind of work in connection with offshore oil and gas, then Clause 9 would extend to them; they could be working on a pipeline many miles away from an installation, but they would come under Clause 9.
I asked about the question of timing because under Clause 1(2) those cases which come within the Lord Advocate's discretion—and there will be fewer when this Bill is enacted than there are now—can be dealt with if a death has occurred during the period of three years before the entry into force of this measure; so there is a period of about two years—up to now it has been two and a half years—when accidents which fall within

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the Lord Advocate's discretion in that way can be looked into. From one remark in his reply it sounded as though the noble Lord thought that the divers' accidents which had occurred this month and last year could be, if the Lord Advocate thought it appropriate, dealt with when the Bill was enacted.
The noble Lord was at pains to say that the Lord Advocate did not wish to interfere, and my noble friend Lord Selkirk mentioned that the Lord Advocate was expected to intervene on various occasions. The good offices of the Crown Office—that is, the Lord Advocate's Department—may well be needed when the Continental Shelf starts to come within this area of fatal accident procedure. For example, he has not considered the case where two procurators fiscal both consider that they are the ones involved. Somebody has to give them guidance. The matter has been perfectly clear, or there has been little doubt, when accidents have occurred on land, but now that this is extended to the Continental Shelf it will be a matter not so much of geography but of which is the appropriate port, and there may have to be some guidance given if two or three procurators fiscal think it is their particular baby.
Lord KIRKHILL: My Lords, I should like merely to indicate that, in my view, the Lord Advocate would give guidance in such circumstances.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord. That is the way in which I would interpret this. Also, while, like my noble friend, not being entirely satisfied with all the Government's answers, I am most grateful to the noble Lord personally for having replied to all the points which we have raised by means of the Amendments which I put down. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES (DEFINITION OF TREATIES) (No. 3) ORDER 1975
4.52 p.m.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS rose to move, That the draft European Communities (Definition of Treaties) (No. 3) Order 1975, laid before the House on 12th November, be approved. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I should like to say at this stage how sorry I am that many of the noble Lords who are members of the United Kingdom delegation to the European Parliament are prevented by their duties there from attending this debate. We must all regret that their active participation in European affairs means that we shall not today be able to benefit from their invaluable experience.
I have described to the House the purpose of this particular designation procedure before and I shall not repeat it in detail this time. The purpose of the designation order is to enable the treaties included to take effect directly in United Kingdom law. So far as this order is concerned, the two treaties contained in the Schedule provide for the amendment of important basic Community treaties; namely, the EEC Treaty, the ECSC Treaty, the Euratom Treaty and the Merger Treaty (which established a single Council and a single Commission). It is to bring these two amending treaties similarly within the scope of the European Communities Act 1972 that the order has been introduced.
Of the Treaties covered by this order, the one which I expect to be of greater interest to Members of this House is that on the budgetary powers of the European Parliament on which the noble Baroness, the Chairman of the Select Committee on the European Communities, will no doubt be speaking shortly. I shall not anticipate her, but will simply say that the Government commend to this House this limited extension of the powers of the Parliament in the budgetary field, over and above the powers given to the Assembly, as it was then generally called, under the treaty of 22nd April 1970. The extension is limited, but it is certainly an extension. It is designed to give the representatives in the European Parliament the right to play a role

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in determining the nature and the extent of Community spending. Also important are the provisions of the treaty under which will be created a permanent Court of Auditors to replace the present part-time Audit Board.
The Court of Auditors will have powers to examine all revenue and expenditure accounts. Its task will be to ensure that spending is consistent both with Community law and with sound financial management. It will present an annual report to both the Council and the European Parliament. In our view, the creation of a Court of Auditors is directly related to the proposals made to the European Council by our Prime Minister for the improvement of financial control in the Community, including the creation by the European Parliament of something like the Public Accounts Committee which we have for many years had in another place.
The purpose of the other Treaty which is the subject of this order is to amend the Statutes of the European Investment Bank to enable the Governors of the Bank, acting unanimously on a proposal from the Board of Directors, to alter the rules governing the Bank's unit of account. The EIB Statutes are a Protocol annexed to the Treaty of Rome. They cannot therefore be altered except by the procedure laid down in Article 236of that Treaty, the final stage of which is ratification by all Member-States in accordance with their respective constitutional requirements—a task on which we in this country are now engaged. For the United Kingdom this involves giving the proposal legal validity under the European Communities Act by means of this order.
The Amendments are necessary because the Statutes of the EIB define the capital of the Bank in terms of units of account which have a gold value. I shall not, except under considerable pressure, go into detail on that point. Article 7 of the Statutes provides that the conversion rate between Member currencies and the unit of account for the purposes of subscription to the Bank's capital shall be the par value of that currency as notified to the International Monetary Fund.
During the recent period of generalised floating of currencies the use of a gold weight for the definition of a unit of account has become inappropriate and
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the conversion rates for gold-based units of account no longer reflect the market rates of Member currencies. The course of discussion in the International Monetary Fund has made clear that there will be no return to the international gold-based standard of earlier years. EIB Governors therefore agreed at their meeting in July 1974 to start the process under Article 236 which would eventually take the valuation of the unit of account out of the Statutes and give the Governors the power to alter the definition of the unit of account and the method of converting it into national currencies.
The changes proposed are merely broad enabling provisions. They say nothing about the ultimate definition of the unit of account or the rules for its conversion into Member currencies. That will be for the Bank Governors to decide in the light of circumstances when the Statutes have been amended to give them the power to make that decision. And when a proposal for a change is put before the Governors, their decision has to be unanimous. This effectively gives the United Kingdom—if it wants it—a veto. It does not mean that we should wish to resist the introduction of a more realistic unit of account for the Bank's dealings but it does mean that we shall, like other countries, have a deciding voice in the timing of any change and the mechanics of any transitional period. I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft European Communities (Definition of Treaties) (No. 3) Order 1975, laid before the House on 12th November, be approved.—(Lord Goronwy-Roberts.)
4.59 p.m.
The PRINCIPAL DEPUTY CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES (Baroness Tweedsmuir of Belhelvie): My Lords, it has been agreed through the usual channels that it may be for the convenience of the House to debate not only the order which has already been moved by the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, but also the Report of the Select Committee on the European Communities because that is also devoted to the budgetary powers of the European Parliament. I should therefore like merely to move the Motion standing in my name formally at the end of this debate. I hope that the House will agree.

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The Select Committee's Report is dated June 1974 and was prepared by my predecessor, the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, and his Committee. It was thought at the time that it would be most convenient to debate it when the order amending the Treaties came before the House. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, for his explanation of the effect of the new budgetary powers both in the European Parliament and in the financial control within the Community. Like him, I must say how much I regret that this debate has been timed at a moment when some Members of your Lordships' House have to attend a Budget Committee of the European Parliament in Brussels.
I was asked in particular by my noble friend Lord Bessborough to say that he would have very much liked to take part, but with the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, he feels that he must be in Brussels, because at the Budget Committee of the European Parliament the whole question of the establishment of a kind of Public Accounts Committee, and its relationship to the Committee of Auditors is being discussed. I know very well the difficulties of arranging business ahead, but I understand that in the European Parliament the Committees are fixed quite regularly, and perhaps in future the European Parliament's commitments might he taken into account when we have our European debates.
In the normal course of events, proposals of the importance that we have before us now would have been considered by the Select Committee of your Lordships' House at a far earlier stage, and they would have been reported upon in order to give the House an opportunity to comment before the order is laid. But the Commission's original proposals appeared in June 1973, and after consideration by the European Parliament the proposals were revised in October 1973. Your Lordships will recall that the Select Committee was not established until May 1974, and therefore it was impossible for it to consider the matter in what we would now feel to be the proper manner. Therefore we are at this moment in a position where we cannot, as a House, amend the order before us, even if we wished to do so; we can only accept it or reject it.
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But I should say that the Select Committee, in its 11th Report, commended these proposals to your Lordships' House.
Nevertheless, I suggest that we should realise that in practice the first power in the No. 3 Order, which is designed to strengthen the budgetary powers of the European Parliament, is likely to be used only rarely. The Parliament is given the power to reject the budget as a whole and to require a new budget. This can be done only by a two-thirds majority of the votes cast and an absolute majority of the Members of the Parliament. If a budget is rejected, expenditure may continue month by month to the extent of one-twelfth of the previous year's budget. But I suggest that this is a change rather more in form than of substance. It is a large power, which was described by one witness before the Committee—Mr. Kirk, the Leader of our British Delegation at Strasbourg, who has now become Sir Peter Kirk—as a nuclear power akin to the power always possessed by the European Parliament to dismiss the Commission as a whole. I should like to take this opportunity both to congratulate Mr. Kirk on becoming Sir Peter, and to wish him a very sure recovery from an illness which I believe is somewhat protracted.
The Council of Ministers has in fact refused to allow the European Parliament to reject only part of the budget. The Council has also refused to Parliament power over the financial regulations which will continue to be issued by the Council without approval from either Parliament or the Commission. Nevertheless, the European Parliament possesses certain very important budgetary powers which are not affected by the order before us today. The Parliament can reject the non-obligatory expenditure of the Communities, and it has the right to increase this type of expenditure within an agreed ceiling, which is a greater power than that possessed by another place in the case of the budget. How an agreement is reached as to what the ceiling should be is described in Cmnd. 6252—which goes with the order before us—in Article 203, and particularly in paragraph 9. I quote:
"A maximum rate of increase in relation to the expenditure to he incurred during the current year shall he fixed annually for the total expenditure other than that necessarily

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resulting from this Treaty or from acts adopted in accordance therewith."
They take account, for example, of the trend in terms of volume of the gross national product within the Community, the average variation in the budgets of the Member-States, and the trend of the cost of living during the preceding financial year.
As the House knows, the European budget is divided into obligatory expenditure which derives from commitments resulting from the Treaties, such as a Common Agricultural Policy, or secondary legislation derived from the Treaties. Non-obligatory expenditure comprises, for example, the administrative costs of the Community; in other words, financial commitments which have not been incorporated into legislative instruments. The latter is very important, because a European Parliament could in fact bring the Commission to a halt by refusing to supply the machinery for the Executive. I understand that last year, 1975, the non-obligatory part of the budget amounted to about 15 per cent. of the whole. But there is as yet no agreed procedure within the Community for deciding whether future expenditure is obligatory or non-obligatory.
Let us take for example the Regional Development Fund. This was set up on the basis of Article 235 of the Rome Treaty. This article allows the institutions to draw up policies, and consequently to allocate funds, in areas not specified in the Treaties. The Council of Ministers considers this to be obligatory expenditure. But Parliament believes that all expenditure of this kind should logically be classified as non-compulsory because it is connected with regulations which in fact do not necessarily result from the,
"Treaty or from Acts adopted in accordance therewith."
I understand that, not unnaturally, Parliament wishes to see some kind of agreed interpretation of the Treaties in this respect.
I am very glad that we are, I understand, to see the establishment of a full-time Court of Auditors to succeed the part-time board. I am sure that this is very important. The Government, your Lordships' House as a whole, and its Select Committee have been very much concerned over financial control in the
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Communities. In the Select Committee we are very conscious ourselves that we have not yet devised a means whereby we can see the total financial result of the various legislative instruments which come before us. But our 34th Report, and the debate upon it last year, drew attention to these matters in considerable detail.
In the 11th Report which is before your Lordships, the Select Committee recommended that a further measure of Parliamentary control over Community finance could be added by making the appointment of the auditors to the audit court subject to the approval of the European Parliament. Under present proposals this has been the responsibility of the Council alone. There has been considerable delay in creating this audit court, and we should all welcome the complementary exercise being discussed today by the Parliament to try to bring in a system of financial scrutiny that is similar to the Public Accounts Committee in another place. No doubt this new committee will examine the report of the audit court in its work on the control of spending. I understand it is also intended to examine proposals for future expenditure as well as past expenditure, maybe with yet another committee, which should, I should have thought, ensure greater financial control. My Lords, it will be interesting to know from the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, when he comes to reply, the exact date on which he thinks the audit court will be established. I think this Order has to be ratified by all the other eight members, and it will be interesting to know whether it will come into force a month after the last ratification or when the exact date will be.
My Lords, the budgetary powers of the European Parliament will of course have a very important bearing on the question of direct elections and on the composition of those who will become elected members to a European Parliament. I do not wish to discuss this now because I understand there will be a Government White Paper on direct elections on the 2nd February, with a debate to follow in February, before the Council of Ministers meets to decide this issue in March. But I think that we should not pass any budgetary powers without giving some thought ourselves to the kind of powers that the European Parliament

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should have in this important field in the future.
I should like briefly to refer to the conciliation procedure (known by the terrible name of "consertation", instead of "conciliation") between the Council and the Parliament. This is not, of course, the subject of the order before us, but it is designed to allow the members of the two institutions, the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament, to confer on matters of difficulty, particularly matters concerning non-obligatory expenditure. While the Council will still have the last word on obligatory expenditure, the European Parliament has it on non-obligatory expenditure; and I suggest to your Lordships' House that the way in which this conciliation procedure is carried out can be of immense benefit to the operation of the Community as a whole.
5.12 p.m.
Baroness ELLES: My Lords, we in this House have had the advantage of being able to consider Orders Nos. 3 and 4 separately, and also to have, following the Minister's explanation, a very lucid and most helpful account of the contents of the draft treaty relating to the budgetary powers of the European Parliament from my noble friend Lady Tweedsmuir of Belhelvie. I very much endorse her remarks concerning regret that some of the members of the European Parliament are not able to take part in this debate today. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, will, with his usual courtesy, have taken note of this comment;and I hope that another time we shall be able to have the benefit of the knowledge and, in particular, the practical experience of noble Lords from both sides of the House. I can put quite briefly the views of our Party on the two draft treaties before your Lordships' House. Basically, we support any improvement in flexibility and pragmatic approach in dealing with the very difficult financial measures with which the Community is faced, and at the same time, of course, introducing more transparent, clear and effective methods of control over the expenditure and financial undertakings of the Community.
The draft treaty, containing provisions to grant powers to the Board of Gover-
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nors of the European Investment Bank to alter the definition of the unit of account if necessary, takes account very clearly of the evolving situation of international monetary relations, and I think this is to be warmly commended. It has in fact been said elsewhere that the European Investment Bank, possibly because of its relative autonomy and non-interference from other institutions and Governments, has been an un-qualified success, and possibly the noble Lord might feel willing to support that comment. It would, however, be interesting to know what the total amount of loans from the EIB to the United Kingdom has been, with an indication of the rates of interest of such loans. It must surely be beneficial to the economy of the United Kingdom, for both public and private sectors, at a time of great need of injection of new investment, that this kind of medium-term money should be available to this country at reasonable rates of interest, and I should be very grateful if the noble Lord could give at least some indication of the size of the loans which we in this country are now receiving.
Turning to the second draft treaty, we can but welcome extension of the powers of the European Parliament to control the European budget, particularly now, because from the 1st January 1975 it is financed from the so-called "own resources", although the extension of such powers is in effect rather slight. The new power granted to the European Parliament to reject the draft budget as a whole and to require a new draft to be drawn up has been described, as my noble friend Lady Tweedsmuir of Belhelvie has said, as a kind of nuclear deterrent: there, but on no account to be used. It is somewhat similar to the power to dismiss the Commission; threatened at one time, I think in November or December 1972, but never exerted. The power to reject a part of the budget, which has of course been a really useful power, has quite naturally been denied, in that you can give the power in form but Governments are very unwilling to give it in fact. We welcome the small but practical advance of extending the European Parliament's power of modification of the budget and of discharge to the Corn-mission in respect of the implementation of the budget.

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The establishment of a court of auditors, largely due to proposals by the British delegation and worked out during the course of membership from 1973 onwards by all sides, will undoubtedly be a great improvement to the present audit board; and I should like to emphasise, if I may, what is contained in the Eleventh Report very clearly, in the evidence printed; that is, that it was clarified that the board had not been able to operate effectively, not because of any lack of skill or competence on the part of the staff (there might have been some misunderstanding on this, so I think it might be emphasised that it was not a question of the personalities involved, or their skill or competence) but because the conditions necessary for effective control were lacking. I think it is fair to say that.
The powers given to the new court to investigate on the spot and the new powers to receive information and documents should all contribute to considerable improvement in the controlling of Community expenditure as such and also in determining (and this is an advantage which perhaps has not been emphasised) whether such expenditure is indeed sensible or suitable. So that really the powers of the Court of Auditors are quite considerable if they are exerted in the way that we envisage; and I would join with my noble friend Lady Tweedsmuir in asking the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, whether he can give us some indication as to the appointment of the United Kingdom member to the audit court, and when the court will take effect.
The third element, the draft joint declaration by the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission on the setting up of a conciliation procedure, is now almost past history, and it is really a matter of legal technicality to bring the document into force, because as we understand it, and as was pointed out in the debate on the draft budget of 1975, some form of conciliation procedure was in fact set up. I think that both the European Parliament and the Communities, and indeed your Lordships' House, were extremely grateful for the efforts that my noble friend Lord Bessborough contributed to the successful starting off of such a procedure. It could very easily have gone wrong if the wrong person had been appointed chairman, so I would
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hope that noble Lords would feel that a warm tribute should be paid to my noble friend for the very great contribution he has made in this rather delicate, new area of relationship between the European Parliament and the Council.
There are undoubtedly still areas of disagreement in principle, such as those already mentioned by my noble friend—the definition of compulsory and non-compulsory expenditure—but it is frequently true to say that what appears to be an insuperable difficulty can find its solution through adequate and appropriate procedures, especially when these lead to closer and clearer communication between the institutions. I think that both the setting up of the Court of Auditors and the conciliation procedure, together with the possible setting up of this public accounts committee, will all contribute to clearer and more successful control and communication. These new measures, containing a modicum of increased Parliamentary powers, more effective control over expenditure and easier communication, we believe will contribute to a better working of the Community institutions.
5.21 p.m.
Lord GORDON-WALKER: My Lords, I should really be in a Committee at Brussels at this very moment, but after a great deal of doubt and thought I came to the conclusion that this House and this debate should be given priority. I belong to both Parliaments, as does everyone who is there. I should like to support those who have said that the meetings of our Committees at Brussels are known far ahead and that it should not be too difficult, when business is planned, to fit in this kind of debate on those days—and there are some in the whole week—when no Committee is meeting. Since this House did me the honour to send me to the European Parliament I have found that Parliament more vigorous and effective than I had originally expected; but I am less enthusiastic about the budget procedure, even as it has been recently amended, as the noble Baroness described to us and as is described in a Report before the House.
The one trouble, I think, is that the budget, so-called, of the European Community is not a budget in our sense of

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the word at all. It is simply an aggregate of the sums that it is calculated by the Commission will be spent in a year. They are added up; and that is the budget, so-called. One major defect of the budget system is that the revenue that is made available by the Council to the Commission is not really related to proposed expenditure. It is fixed by a system known as "own resources "—which means resources belonging to the Community; and they consist mainly at the moment of contributions by Member-Governments. They will consist in due course primarily of receipts of VAT.
In passing, I may say that I am not sure that it will be altogether good for the Community if it comes to depend entirely for its main source of revenue on a tax which is really most unpopular in all parts of the Community. If everybody says that what is done by the Community and what is spent by the Community is coming out of VAT, I do not think that this will endear the Community as much as it should be endeared to the public in our country and in other countries. The Commission submits the budget to the Council of Ministers, who habitually reduce and cut certain items from it. Some of these cuts are made just for show. A lot of the budget procedure is a kind of dance, a ceremonial affair. Some of the cuts made by the Council of Ministers are for show and are intended to be restored by supplementary budgets during the year. This flies in the face of the basic principle that supplementary budgets should be there only to meet unforeseen and unpredictable, new expenditure. Incidentally, this system of phoney supplementary budgets wastes a good deal of time of the European Parliament.
Lord DAVIES of LEEK: My Lords, I hesitate to intervene, but is there anything like the conception of a contingency fund or any check like our Public Accounts Committee in this set-up?
Lord GORDON-WALKER: Not yet, my Lords, There is no contingency fund. There is thought of a public accounts and audit committee; but this will take some time. There is on contingency fund except in the sense that the Council has at the back of its mind restoring some of these cuts by later supplementary budgets. There is not a public contingency fund. Some
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of the Council cuts are intended to be partially reversed by Parliament. This is a formal concession to Parliament. It expects and allows for these. Our Governments also do that sort of thing, but not on the same scale.
My Lords, the power of the Parliament is extremely rigidly limited, because if Parliament proposes a restoration of a cut which the Council insists on—which constantly happens—Parliament's only remedy would be to reject the whole budget. This I will come back to. It seems to me that an improvement would be for the Community to have proper budgeting in our sense of the word. Proposals for expenditure should as now be made by the Commission and the Council and then approved and amended by Parliament. A most important reform would be that proposals by Commisison and Council should be made for specific votes of supply, balancing the proposed expenditure; so that the two things are in a balanced and proper form. I think that only in this way can we get a balanced budget in which expenditure and revenue are set out and balanced one against the other, so that one has, as all Parliaments and Governments ought to have, responsibility for proposing revenue to balance proposed expenditure.
Baroness ELLES: My Lords, if the noble Lord is putting forward this thesis, may I ask him whether he is suggesting that there should be a European tax to provide European revenue?
Lord GORDON-WALKER: My Lords, I do not doubt that that will come one day; but it is a long way off. Once VAT is put into the budget it becomes almost a European tax. They would have to harmonise it a little; and that is why they hesitate. It is the intention that there should be a European tax, a VAT which is on the same principle, at the same rate, over the whole of the Community. I suppose that there is this intention.
I would say that the most important aspect of the budget is that it could be used to increase the powers of Parliament, and an increase in the powers of Parliament is more than ever necessary since direct elections are now in prospect. If direct elections are held with a Parliament as slight and as weak in powers as

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it is at present, I think there would be a great danger of derisory votes which would do the whole concept of a developing Europe and direct elections grave harm.
I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Tweedsmuir, that there is a direct relationship between elections and the budgetry powers of the European Parliament. Obviously, if you have direct elections it becomes a different kind of Parliament and it ought to begin (as I will urge in a moment) to exercise some of the true powers of a true Parliament. Our own Parliament, I need hardly say, got powers against the Crown, a Crown that had much more power than the Council of Ministers now has, by insisting on remedying grievances before supplying. The European Parliament has, and will continue to have, grievances enough: different kinds of grievance from what the House of Commons had in the 17th century, but not altogether different because the two are related to taxation. Some of these grievances are directly related to the budget; because Parliament feels itself helpless to restore cuts made by the Council or to propose increases that the Council does not want.
Other grievances, which are graver, relate to the whole question of Parliament's general lack of power. That is the permanent grievance in the European Parliament against the Council of Ministers and the Governments of Member-States. The only means to assert the powers of the Parliament would be to reject, or to threaten to reject, the budget as a whole, which is in its power. That is a great step; but it is somewhat less than nuclear, as Sir Peter Kirk. I believe, said. Incidentally, I should like to say how much we miss him on our side in the Socialist group as well as do others in that Parliament. In the short time that I was there with him, I thought he behaved extremely well and spoke not only for his own Party but very often for the country, which is proper, and very often for Europe. I also wish him a very speedy return to health and congratulate him on his recent honour, very well deserved.
But it is not nuclear because it would not have the same drastic consequences as if the House of Commons or the
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House of Lords—as happened in 1910—rejected the budget. There is no budget then. What would happen has been set out in the Report and referred to by the noble Baroness: the previous year's budget would remain in force. The Community would not be without a budget. Every month the Commission could spend one-twelfth of the previous year's budget until a new one was voted. It would be a very serious step, especially in times of inflation, because one-twelfth per month of a budget of last year is not really worth anything like as much as one-twelfth of a budget for this year. But if there were no inflation, it would not be nearly so "nuclear" as that.
If the European Parliament showed itself serious in the purpose or possibility of rejecting the budget, it almost certainly would not be necessary to carry out the threat. If it were seriously intended, the Council and Commission would certainly make some concessions desired by Parliament. Rejection of a budget would be very inconvenient and a slap in the face. No Parliament that does not show Parliamentary' courage can have or deserve real power. This is one of the troubles of the European Parliament; it does not have Parliamentary courage and does not try to assert powers which are already within its reach, and would be more in its reach after direct election. The best means by which the European Parliament can display real Parliamentary courage would be by exercising its powers over the budget. I am sorry that nearly all previous speakers indicated this is an unreal power; that it is so great it cannot be used. It is something possible to be used, and certainly something to threaten to be used. I hope in the debates in the European Parliament on next year's budget a good proportion of European MPs—and I hope also of British MPs there—will be ready to advocate such a course.
Lord DAVIES of LEEK: My Lords, before my noble friend sits down, would he agree that whatever new ideas we try to set up—and those of us who were against the Community are accepting it now as it is a fait accompli—we must still stick to the famous formula that there should be no taxation without representation, and a Parliament without power over taxation is not a Parliament at all?
Lord GORDON-WALKER: My Lords, a Parliament which is not elected is not a Parliament at all, either. Therefore, when it is elected I hope it is much more likely to exercise some powers over taxation. It took a few centuries for Parliament in this country to reach this point; it may take a decade (which is a good deal less) for the European Parliament to reach it.
5.33 p.m.
Lord BANKS: My Lords, as has been already explained by previous speakers, the Report of the Select Committee which we are debating together with the Order is concerned with three reforms: first, the Amendment of the budgetary procedures giving in particular the powers to Parliament to reject the budget as a whole; secondly, the establishment of the conciliation procedure; thirdly, the setting up of the audit court. As I understand it, the conciliation procedure has been in operation for some18 months. The power to reject the budget has been recognised by the Council but is only now being ratified. The audit court has not yet been set up pending ratification.
It is argued by the Select Committee, and has been argued this afternoon, that conferring on Parliament the powers to reject the budget as a whole is a change in form rather than substance since by its control of the non-obligatory expenditure the Parliament could previously have paralysed the administration. But, in my view, being able to accept or reject the budget as a whole is a more straightforward procedure and goes some way to recognising the authority of the Parliament, particularly as it carries with it the right to ask for a new budget.
If the Community is to be supported by its own resources, by its own level of taxes, it is right that the Community expenditure should be clearly acknowledged to be subject to the democratic control of the Parliament. Community taxation will not be subject to the democratic control of any other Parliament. But the sovereignty of the Parliament will be sadly incomplete so long as the distinction is maintained between obligatory and non-obligatory expenditure, as other speakers have already insisted this afternoon. With the Parlaiment unable to reject the budget in part or to amend, against the wishes of the Council, the
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obligatory expenditure covering some 85 per cent. of the total, the power of the Parliament remains limited. It may well have to use its more drastic power of the rejection of the budget as a whole in order to get these important lesser powers. In that connection, I was interested to hear what the noble Lord, Lord Gordon-Walker, had to say about the possibility of the use of this power of rejection.
The conciliation power is to be welcomed because it permits a dialogue between the Council and the Parliament. The original design envisaged the Commission and the Parliament engaged in constant dialogue, but since power has now moved to the Council of Ministers, which is part executive and part legislature, it is important to bring the Parliament and the Council closely into contact. The audit court is much to be welcomed, and the sooner it is established the better. I join with others in asking when it is likely to be set up. Clearly it must work closely with the Parliament. I, too, should like to have seen the Parliament given the power to approve the membership of the audit court. It will be working full time, armed with the three additional powers outlined in the Select Committee's Report, and it should be a most valuable instrument for the supervision of control and expenditure.
Regarding the general level of expenditure, I repeat in conclusion what I said during the debate in this House on 7th November on the Community's 1976 budget. The total annual expenditure of the Community at the moment comprises 0.57 per cent. of the gross national product of the Community. It is a very small sum. As Community policies are developed—and we must hope the Regional Fund and Social Fund will be developed—we must expect Community expenditure to increase considerably. A good deal of that no doubt should be a transfer from national government. But the prospect of this increased expenditure makes even more necessary the proper supervision of that expenditure and its democratic control.
5.38 p.m.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, if I may briefly sum up the discussion and address myself to one or two of the more important points that have I been raised during this debate, I am sure

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that I voice the feelings of every Member of your Lordships House when I once more address our warmest gratitude to the noble Baroness, Lady Tweedsmuir of Belhelvie, for having initiated a very useful debate on questions which she, as Chairman of the Committee, has made her special field. She raised a number of apposite points, which other noble Lords also stressed.
There is a general feeling that the time has come—or may soon be reached—when an agreed definition of "obligatory" and "non-obligatory "expenditure will be needed. It is certainly desirable, and it is a matter which we expect will be the subject of discussion between the institutions in due course. As she suggested, it would certainly reduce the risk of such disputes as occurred over the Regional Development Fund. We all know that the RDF has had to cope with certain organic difficulties without that kind of theological preoccupation being imposed upon its operators.
I think it was the noble Baroness who also led the discussion on the relationship of direct elections to taxation and to the yield of revenue. This was a point followed up by other noble Lords. On her question as to whether the White Paper on direct elections will be published, I cannot be precise but I would hope that it would be published within the next few weeks. That gives scope for the noble Baroness and myself to come back to this question.
Baroness TWEEDSMUIR of BELHELVIE: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for saying that, but in fact I did not ask that question. I said I thought it was to be published on 2nd February. It would be very nice to hear it confirmed.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, the period between now and 2nd February is, by stretching a point, the next few weeks. The noble Baroness also asked when the budgetary powers treaty would come into force and hence the court of auditors be set up. Naturally, that was a point which practically every speaker raised. Article 30 of the treaty, which is the subject of this order, specifies that the treaty will enter into force on the 1st day of the month following the deposit of the last ratification instrument.
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This, of course, depends on the speed with which other countries ratify, and I can only express the hope that they will do so quickly. None has as yet done so. However, I think that, like this country, other countries are seized with the importance of this reform—because it is a reform to substitute for a part-time audit board a full-time court of auditors with the powers that we have heard summarised from this Bench and by others.
The noble Baroness, Lady Elles, asked me to join with her in testifying to the success of the European Investment Bank. I do so gladly. There are certain aspects of the operations of the Bank which should commend themselves increasingly to this country—the medium-term nature of its operations, for instance, —and also one or two other points which arise from the answers which I tried to get to the important questions which she put to me regarding loans. The full list of loans from the EIB to the United Kingdom was published in a Written Answer in the Official Report of another place on 4th November 1975. Since then there have been six further loans, totalling £61·7 million. This brings the total since accession to £299·3 million, and the total for 1975 to £186·5 million.
The second point which was raised by the noble Baroness leads me to say that the loans are currently at the rate of 9·5 percent. This has fluctuated during the year only by about a quarter of one per cent. I particularly asked whether there was a floating element in the interest charges. There is not. I understand that it is composited so that a fairly constant rate of interest is struck for a fairly long period. This enables people within the limit of about a quarter of one per cent., to decide how useful the loan will be and how it should be used by them. It has in fact been steady at 9·5 per cent. since September.
My noble friend Lord Gordon-Walker in, if I may say so without presumption, an admirable speech to which we all listened with great pleasure raised a number of fundamental questions. If I may say so without offence, this was a Second Reading spech on a major proposal and it was good to hear these points raised, orchestrated, as they were, so effectively by my noble friend Lord Davies of Leek. I should like to touch only on one or two of the important points which were raised.

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My noble friend asked, with others of your Lordships, that we on the Government Front Bench should try in future to plan these debates in consonance with the calendar of the European Parliament. I can only say that we shall do our best. All Parliaments have their time-table difficulties, but I am sure that the noble Lord the Leader of the House, and my noble friends the Chief Whip and the Deputy Leader of the House, will address themselves with enthusiasm to such an obviously sensible point.
My noble friend also said that the budget should not depend too much on VAT. When my noble friend said that I thought perhaps he was shooting the rapids with a somewhat hasty generalisation. Perhaps we could agree to put it like this. He said that most of the Community's revenue will come from VAT. I should think it would be quite some time before that happens. For the foreseeable future the majority of the Community's revenue will be derived from customs duties and agricultural levies under the Common Agricultural Policy.
A Noble Lord: My Lords, that was 19p.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, that may be so but I am addressing myself now to the somewhat technical point raised by my noble friend. Perhaps we might discuss this point. It is for serious and constructive discussion as to the source of funds to the European Parliament, and I agree with him that some fundamental thinking about this will have to take place, and that in the fairly near future. For instance, my noble friend suggested that proposals of expenditure should be balanced by requests for votes of supply. Some people might think that was going too far too fast. It is a matter of judgment. The European Community is not a nation-State. It may never become a State. There is a good deal of variation of view as to how it will evolve. It may evolve into a confederal or federal situation—who is to say? But these are open questions and, as I said, it is refreshing and helpful to have them raised in the way that my noble friend has raised them today. I wish I had time to follow up a number of other points; for instance, the role of the supplementary budget—
Lord DAVIES of LEEK: My Lords, may I interrupt my noble friend? I am glad he made that last remark, because in all sincerity one of the great problems of those of us who are prepared to accept the result of the national vote on this issue is, "What is it ultimately going to be philosophically?—because we seem to be moving through pillars of cloud. Is it to become a federated State or a nation State? Once we can be clear on that we can approach the financial problems connected with this European organisation. But at the moment I and, I am sure, many others are not clear on what is to be the ultimate state of the European Economic Community.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I am sure that my noble friend is quite right, but we are not alarmed at the prospect of evolving as so many other States and confederal States in the world have evolved over a very long period of time. My noble friend reminded us that we have taken a very long time in this country to evolve to the system that we have now. We may be evolving out of it in the next year or two—who is to say? I hope not. These things take time. As my noble friend Lord Davies has said, no one knows the exact shape of the European fact. It is a fact and it will continue to be a fact, but a changing fact. It may never become a State in its own right, as it were. Do we refer to the State of USA? In fact, we refer to the United States—in the plural—of America. We have the Commonwealth of Australia, and the Canadian system. All these are different. There is also the South African system.
I think it would be well to invest time, patience, knowledge and views for quite some time on the question of how we want to see Europe, the congenial Europe of the Nine, and perhaps of other countries as well in the future, and that is an extra dimension of the consideration which we shall have to give—how it may, indeed, enlarge as well as change the Constitution. I am most grateful for the welcome that has been given to this important order, and particularly for the tone and content of the useful debate which we have just had.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES (DEFINITION OF TREATIES) (NO. 4) ORDER 1975
5.52 p.m.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM Lord WINTERBOTTOM rose to move, That the draft European Communities (Definition of Treaties) (No. 4) Order 1975, laid before the House on 2nd December, be approved. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I seek the approval of the House for the European Communities (Definition of Treaties) (No. 4) Order 1975. In moving approval, may I briefly describe the purpose of this draft Order though this is now well-known to your Lordships, particularly since we have just dealt with the No. 3 Order. I shall then briefly describe the five treaties which we propose should be defined as Community treaties in the order.
The European Communities Act 1972 itself gives effect in the United Kingdom to all rights, powers, liabilities, obligations and restrictions embodied in Community treaties. But such Community rights and obligations do not apply and cannot be applied under the Act unless they arise under Community treaties, as defined in Section 1 of the Act. Agreements entered into by the United Kingdom after 22nd January 1972—which, of course, was the date of the Treaty of Accession—cannot be regarded as Community treaties unless they are designated as such by means of the special procedure provided under Section 1(3) of the Act.
The Schedule to this No. 4 Order is split into two parts. Part I contains a decision of the Member-States of the ECSC opening tariff preferences for European Coal and Steel Community products originating in Israel. This decision brings into effect—pending ratification of the main ECSC/Israel Agreement, the tariff provisions of that Agreement. This decision will have legal force as a Community treaty in Britain as soon as the Order is made.
Part II of the Schedule covers four treaties. Two of them—namely, the additional Protocol to the EEC/Greece Association Agreement, and the main ECSC/ Israel Agreement—will enter into force after ratification by all the parties concerned. This Part also contains a treaty in the form of an exchange of letters
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between the EEC and each of the Member-States, on the one hand, and the Government of the Lebanese Republic, on the other, giving the Lebanon most favoured nation treatment. This treaty is renewed annually, and will enter into force after procedures in each of the Member-States have been completed. Previous exchanges of letters for this purpose have been brought before this House in the same way as I am doing today. As with previous renewals, the treaty provides for provisional application from 1st July 1975.
The United Kingdom will accede to the Protocol on the Accession of Greece to the Convention of the provision of Mutual Assistance by Customs Authorities (Cmnd. 6331) as soon as possible after this Order has been made. The United Kingdom acceded to the main Convention, which is a pre-accession treaty within the meaning of Section 1(2) of the European Communities Act 1972, on 23rd January 1974. The Convention concerns provisions for mutual assistance for the prevention of fraud. The Protocol, which extends the provisions to the three new Members of the EEC, will enter into force for the United Kingdom on the date of an accession to it.
Of the treaties covered by the order, the one which will I expect be of most interest to Members of this House is the additional Protocol to the Association Agreement with Greece (Cmnd. 6289). Under this Protocol, new Member-States accede to the existing EEC/Greece Association Agreement which provides for a full Customs union between the Community and Greece over a period of 22 years from 1962. We have welcomed the application for full membership of Greece, but that is some way in the future. In the meantime, the Association Agreement is a helpful transitional prelude for both the Community and Greece. The purpose of the order before us is to designate the treaties which it lists as Community treaties. Without the approval of both Houses of Parliament, these treaties would create rights and obligations at the international level but could not, for instance, be involved before the courts of this country. My Lords, I therefore beg to move.
Moved, That the draft European Communities (Definition of Treaties) (No. 4) Order 1975, laid before the House on

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2nd December, be approved.—(Lord Winter bottom.)
5.57 p.m.
Baroness ELLES: My Lords, we on these Benches should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, for outlining the contents of Order No. 4, and for giving us a few details about the agreements which are to be ratified. The agreements to which he referred are all part and parcel of the continuing efforts of the European Community to create a free trade area in the Mediterranean, and to bring the benefits of the large trading market to areas outside the Community itself, through the removal or partial relief of tariff barriers. There is some information for which we should be grateful to the noble Lord, and I say straight away that I did not give him notice of these questions. I shall not, therefore, expect an immediate answer, but I should be very grateful for a written reply at some convenient time.
The annex to the agreement with Israel contains a list of commodities affected, and it would be helpful to know whether there is any idea of the kind of financial and commercial consequences of this agreement. For instance, what would be the cost to the United Kingdom of allowing imports of such products, are similar products already made in this country and how would they affect the markets? These are all questions which Government Departments will undoubtedly have considered, but it would be of interest to know a few more facts on this matter and I should be very grateful to the noble Lord if at some time he would write about them.
The agreement relating to Greece is presumably an extension to the new Member-States of the European Community's responsibilities and arrangements relating to the association between the European Communities and Greece, which was already in existence before our accession. This is an Association Agreement of considerable significance in commercial, financial and political terms, both for Greece and for the Member-States of the Community. It has been made clear that the Greek Government are requesting closer links with the Community and, if it is the opinion of the Greek Government that such links would be of benefit to the Greek people, we hope that our Govern-
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ment will consider their request sympathetically and will not necessarily be confined to the date of 1984.
It should be questioned whether economic imbalance in industrial terms is necessarily a reason for delay of membership, though of course we realise that the position of the Greek economy, based to some extent on agricultural activity, is not in accordance with the development in other Western industrialised countries. But I think one is entitled to ask whether the industrialised development in Western countries has brought all the prosperity, happiness and wellbeing which is sometimes enjoyed by agricultural communities, and whether the political importance of Greece, if invited to enter the Communities, might be the overriding consideration. I should therefore be grateful to the noble Lord if he would give us a little more enlargement of the Government's view, and of the encouragement they are giving in the Council of Ministers about assistance to Greece, in order to join the Communities rather earlier than the date which I have already mentioned. Finally, the renewal of the agreement on trade and technical co-operation between the Europeon Community and the Lebanon again raises the point that economical development alone is not a panacea against the violence and destruction which so regret-ably we see taking place at the moment in that country. While, therefore, welcoming such trade and aid as are given by the Western Powers, is not this a case where the European Communities could give much more support and formulate sonic kind of foreign policy relating to Middle East countries which would at least assist, if not guarantee, the independence and security of those States? I believe that financial and commercial support are not sufficient and that the European Communities should direct their efforts towards making more helpful proposals in the political arena of that part of the world.
Lord WINTER BOTTOM: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Elles, for making life comparatively simple for me. As this is my first excursion into the jungle of European and European-related legislation, I am grateful for any help that I receive. I will make sure that the noble Baroness receives written details about the finan-

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cial and commercial implications of the agreement with Israel, together with as many hard facts as I can provide. I notice that the noble Baroness shares my view that the association of various Mediterranean countries with the Community can be and should be of positive value both to the Community and to the individual countries. I agree with her for more than one reason. It would be highly desirable if the passage by Greece to full membership of the EEC could be accelerated, particularly having regard to the present political situation in Greece. Although I am in no position to speak for Her Majesty's Government on this point, clearly this is part of the spirit and intent of the Community. The year 1984 is reputed to be a bad omen, so let us hope that agreement is reached earlier than that. What applies to Greece applies also to the Lebanon, which at the moment is a troubled but potentially a rich country, for the reason that annual reaffirmation by the exchange of letters between the Community and the Lebanese Government is desirable and should be supported by your Lordships' House.
Lord CHELWOOD: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord one question that arises out of his last point. As he knows, the Community is seeking to make trade, aid and co-operation agreements with all the countries that border the Mediterranean. The first of these agreements was with Israel, and since then there have been agreements with Morocco and Tunisia. As I understand it, the agreement with the Lebanon is merely a renewal of an existing agreement which has been renewed once in the past already. May I ask the noble Lord whether that is so or whether it is part of the trade, aid and co-operation pattern of the free trade area which the Community is seeking to create with all the countries bordering the Mediterranean?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, I speak with hesitation on this point because, as I said earlier, I am not an expert in this area. I think that the agreements with Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia were negotiated within the last couple of months, whereas the Israeli agreement was a much earlier one. Nevertheless, it seems to me that this is an implementation of the philosophy of the Community—the closer relationship of
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the whole Mediterranean area with the Community that lies to the North—and I should have thought that your Lordships' House would welcome it.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

DEVELOPMENTS IN THE EEC APRIL-OCTOBER 1975
6.5 p.m.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS rose to move, That this House takes note of the White Paper Developments in the European Communities April-October 1975 (Cmnd. 6349). The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the last of the two Motions standing in my name on the Order Paper. The Report which we are debating today was published in November last and covers the period April to November 1975 in accordance with the Government's acceptance of the recommendation that it should report to Parliament on EEC matters every six months. For us and, indeed, for the Community the key event in the period under review was the referendum last June. With the referendum behind us, we have been playing a full part in the activities of the Community.
With the referendum there came a change of gear in our handling of Community matters. No longer were we faced with the prospect that immediate short-term successes or failures would be used in argument on one side or the other to show that membership was good or bad for Britain. It made it easier for us to concentrate on a longer time-scale, operating on the basis of massive popular endorsement for our permanent membership. We have followed and will continue to follow a carefully considered and balanced policy, neither dragging our feet nor rushing into agreements which might prove to be unsatisfactory.
We intend ourselves to take carefully considered initiatives in order to improve the working of the Community and, where appropriate, to extend the area of co-operation between the Member-States. I will refer later to our initiative on the improvement of financial control. In all the matters we handle in the Community we think it better to build well than to build hastily. Equally, we are looking for the sound policy rather than the quick

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return. Whenever it is necessary we shall not hesitate to criticise proposals for Community legislation and to press for changes, even if that causes some disappointment at the failure to meet a real or imaginary deadline.
There are two particular areas of activity in which the Community looms very large. They are external trade relations and agriculture, both of which are areas in which policy is now conducted very largely at the Community level. In other areas reported on in the White Paper, such as industry, environment, transport or education, activity at the Community level forms so far only a very small part of the responsibilities exercised by the Government, and these I do not propose to deal extensively with in this speech, though I will, of course, try to answer any points raised in the debate when I come to wind up.
If I may speak first of external relations, the six month period under review saw considerable activity. There can be few people, if any, who still think that the Community is inward looking. One has only to look at the agendas of the Councils of Ministers (Foreign Affairs) to see the number of areas in which the Community is striving to improve and develop its economic relations with other countries and organisations. Similarly, the increasing number of areas in which the Nine co-ordinate their foreign policies under the political co-operation arrangement demonstrates a very encouraging trend.
The Government strongly welcome this trend which shows a will to achieve greater co-ordination of foreign policies as well as a desire to improve our understanding of the preoccupations of others outside the Community. May I give one or two specific examples. The most striking example of the Community's openness to the outside world was perhaps the success of the Community at the Seventh Special Session of the United Nations.
This success was achieved not just because the Community had maintained its unity, but also because we adopted a policy of consultation and co-operation which had previously been shown to such good effect in the negotiations for the Lomé Convention. The signature of the Lomé Convention did not mean that contact and consultation ended there. The
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Convention itself, which I am happy to announce the United Kingdom ratified at the end of 1975, will provide for frequent consultation and discussion between both parties. These consultations will be carried on not only at Government or official level, but also by means of direct contact between Parliamentarians from both Europe and the developing countries concerned—a point which I think my noble friend Lord Davies of Leek is particularly interested in and active about.
The period under review also saw, for example, close co-ordination of the Nine's policies towards Portugal. The Community has shown a genuine willingness to take account of the situation in Portugal and the democratically expressed wishes of the Portuguese people. Following the visit of Sr. Antunes to Brussels at the time of the October Foreign Affairs Council, there has been progress in the discussions of the development of the EEC-Portugal Free Trade Agreement.
In the Euro-Arab Dialogue, which is conducted through the political co-operation machinery because it extends over a number of areas which do not fall within the coverage of the EEC Treaties, we have ensured full co-ordination with Community policies in Brussels. Some Arab countries already have formal relations with the Community through the LoméConvention, and the Community is negotiating other agreements under an overall Mediterranean policy as described in the White Paper. A meeting of experts in Abu Dhabi in November made considerable progress towards finding areas of possible mutually beneficial co-operation: for example, industrialisation, infrastructure, agriculture and rural development in the Arab world.
Another country in the Mediterranean area has already made an application to join the Community; that is to say, Greece. This application was welcomed by the British Government and we look forward to seeing the result of the Commission's detailed consideration of the Greek application. There will inevitably be a number of technical discussions to be carried out covering both the agriculture and the economic situation before the Community and Greece will be able to reach agreement on this further enlargement of the Community. But I am confident that when the details have

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been hammered out and Greece, as the noble Baroness said, is ready to join, the Community will welcome her membership. This is by no means an exhaustive list of areas where real progress has been made in political co-operation and the development of the Community's external relations. It is not easy to establish common positions, to balance the interests of Member-States, the Community's interests, and the interests of other countries. This is a very long process, as we heard in a previous debate this afternoon, in a speech made by my noble friend Lord Gordon-Walker. Here, as in the interior of the Community, unity does not mean uniformity, and inevitably vital national interests arise and have to be defended from time to time. This country is allowed, I hope, from time to time to have regard to its own national interests and to stand up for them. But the six months under review have shown that we are embarked on the right road. The Government welcome the fact that in his report on European Union (to which I shall refer again later) M. Tindemans emphasises the need for the Community to be outward looking.
I turn now to the Community's internal policies. In the agricultural field, the Government contributed actively to the stocktaking of the agricultural policy. This was originally a German initiative, I suppose, and certainly the United Kingdom contributed substantially to the promotion of what we now call the stocktaking of this policy. Our aim throughout these discussions has been to improve the operation of the common agricultural policy, in particular by ensuring better market balance and prices geared to the needs of the modern and efficient farm, avoiding the creation of unnecessary surpluses and waste—mountainsand lakes, about which I do not need to go into scarifying detail. Of course, these changes cannot be secured at once. But discussions on the stocktaking will influence the conduct of this year's farm price review.
In the economic field, the White Paper shows that the Community, in the face of the persistent world economic recession, has undertaken to co-ordinate action in the attempt to fight inflation and unemployment. The Community has yet to find a distinctive rôle in the industrial field, but ideas are being discussed,
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and in particular the Commission's report on the aircraft industry is being closely studied. This autumn also saw the first allocations from the Regional Development Fund, and by the end of last year the United Kingdom had taken un its full quota, to an amount of £35·9 million.
To turn to the institutions and structure of the Community, we are all aware that during the period under review M. Tindemans completed the consultations which he had been carrying out throughout1975 with Member Governments and others with a view to submitting a report on what is called European Union. M. Tindemans presented his report before the end of the year, and its recommendations are now being actively studied in the various Member-States of the Community, with a view to their possible discussion at the next meeting of the European Council, probably in March. Noble Lords will not expect me to comment in any detail on these proposals. I can say, however, that we welcome the realistic approach which M. Tindemans has shown and in particular his proposal that we should build on the basis of the existing institutional structure, which has been accepted by the Parliaments in all the Member-States.
The other major institutional development during the period was the continuing discussion of the introduction of direct elections to the European Parliament in line with the commitment in Article 138, paragraph 3 of the Treaty of Rome. At the European Council meeting in Rome at the beginning of December Heads of Government agreed that direct elections should take place on a single date in May or June 1978, but that any Member-States which was unable to meet that deadline would be allowed to continue for the time being to nominate its representatives in the Parliament as it does at present; and perhaps I might make it clear in passing that there was no suggestion that in our case this should exclude Members of this House, who have served this Parliament and the European Parliament so well. The Prime Minister made it clear that the Government required more time for further consultations in this country before we could agree to a precise date by which we could commit ourselves to hold the first direct election. Since then work has begun in the Council machinery

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on the text of the draft Convention on direct elections. It is hoped that this will be finalised by Heads of Government at the next meeting of the European Council in March.
My Lords, in parallel with the work going on within the Community institutions, the Government will be engaging in the consultations to which the right honourable Gentleman the Prime Minister referred in Rome. The Government will shortly be putting forward a paper containing their proposals as a basis for these consultations. I know that some noble Lords believe it is a matter of regret that the Government have not felt able to indicate at this stage that they can accept the 1978 deadline, but I would assure those noble Lords that if it is possible in the event to meet this deadline then we shall do all in our power to do so. As the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary has said in another place, if Parliament so wills, it should be possible to do so. I feel sure that the House will recognise that the Government could not have taken upon themselves the decision to introduce direct elections by a specific deadline without having had full consultations with political Parties in Parliament and outside and with Party political organisations. In this, our situation may differ from that in other Member-States where consensus views may already be known. The original Member-States already have had a good many years to consider the questions involved.
My Lords, before I conclude I should like to mention one area of institutional development in which the British Government have played a particularly leading role. On the basis of proposals put forward by the Prime Minister and by the German Government, the European Council, meeting in Rome last month, agreed that the Council of Ministers should be asked to carry forward an examination of a number of suggestions which should lead to a considerable improvement in the Community's mechanisms for controlling expenditure. We have already discussed this important matter today in this noble House, and I need not dwell upon it. These ideas were fully developed in the White Paper on financial control, published in early December.
I would just add that it is the hope of the Government that the proposed Public Accounts Committee will offer the Euro-
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pean Parliament a real job to do in monitoring expenditure over a wide range of Community policies. I hope that this will soon be fully operational and ready to assume the role suggested by the European Council, including monitoring the report which will be produced by the European court of auditors to be established under the treaty of 22nd July, which was the subject of the earlier debate today.
My Lords, the period under review shows a steady and regular development in the activities of the Community, both internally and externally. I welcome the opportunity of the debate today to hear the views of the House on the developments of the last six months. I hope we may all learn from the experience of the last six months, how we should proceed in the next six months and, indeed, in the years to come. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That this House takes note of the White Paper Developments in the European Communities April-October 1975 (Cmnd. 6349).—(Lord Goronwy-Roberts.)
6.24 p.m.
Baroness ELLES: My Lords, we have spent some time this afternoon in discussing sonic of the "nuts and bolts" of the Community, and it is right that we should now have a further opportunity of discussing matters on a much wider and broader basis, and of taking into account the report of Her Majesty's Government on Developments in the European Communities up to October 1975. This also gives us an opportunity, which the noble Lord the Minister himself has used, to take advantage of this report and to speak not only of matters which have occurred within the past six months but also of on-going matters since October. As the noble Lord the Minister rightly says, this gives us an opportunity to see in which direction we are going. It is clear that we are not all going to speak on every item in the report, although I think every item in the report deserves discussion; they all, in fact, raise extremely important matters for the United Kingdom. The noble Lord the Minister confined himself to certain areas which he considered to be of particular interest to your Lordships. I will try to do the same, although the areas I am going to talk about may

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not be quite the same as were touched on by the Minister.
We are all agreed that the success story for the United Kingdom in 1975 was undoubtedly the good sense of the British people, which was able to find expression in the satisfactory results of the Referendum, when over 67 per cent. voted in favour of remaining within the European Economic Community. The Referendum confirmed the views expressed in Parliament both in 1975 and in 1972, and the results were well received by the other eight Member States. However, I think it is fair to comment that the whole process of renegotiation and the Referendum did considerable harm to our relations with the other Member States. The holding-up of proper, progressive development, the inability to take any political decisions of importance on the elaboration of regional community policies in so many areas of national and international life, and even the psychological effect on personnel in the different institutions of the Community, and the insecurity, all contributed to make the months leading up to the Referendum a painful experience for all Member States.
We now realise that this is past history. I hope we can bury this past history and go forward in a more constructive spirit. But it is fair to comment, particularly for those of us in European institutions, that that period was an extraordinarily difficult one. I would pay tribute particularly to the many British subjects employed in the institutions who, during that particular period, went through a very painful situation in relation to both their colleagues and the security of their own jobs. It is fair comment to pay tribute to them, and to the way in which they passed through that difficult period.
Having passed the Referendum, however, I must regretfully say that there appears to be no resurgence of a spirit of co-operation. The hopeful words of the Prime Minister in the statement of 9th June 1975, that the Government would give a lead in working together to play a full and constructive part in all Community policies and activities, were not borne out, regretfully, by later facts. The reluctance of the Foreign Secretary to take part in the energy conference in Paris as
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one of the Members of the Community in full co-operation with our eight colleagues in other Member States, and the insistence on the fixing of a floor price for oil—and, indeed, we may wonder how relevant it really is—did not enhance the standing of the United Kingdom, either in European or anywhere else. Apart from this unhappy episode, the political co-operation of the Nine has made the promised advance. We recognise this, and possibly for the first time acting together at the United Nations, gave added strength to the voice of the European member States.
As the noble Lord the Minister has already said, the successful outcome of the Seventh Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly in September 1975 was due, in no small measure, to co-operation and co-ordination between the leading Western industrial countries. Here I wish to pay tribute to the Italian Presidency. I remember reading at the time the speech of Sr. Rumor, on behalf of the European Community, at the special session in the General Assembly. It was a remarkable speech which expressed the views and feelings of the citizens of the Nine very clearly and very well.
I would say just a word about agriculture, since the noble Lord the Minister referred to it. I should like to repeat, as has so often been repeated in all the arguments, the dangers of exaggerating what have been so graphically termed, "mountains" and "lakes". It has to be remembered that the responsibility of the Community in providing sufficient food for 250 million people—and it is inevitable, if you are going to provide any single item sufficient to feed 250 million people —is not going to be exactly "peanuts". As I understand it, and I am subject to correction, never has there been more than three weeks' stock of any agricultural product, however big the "mountains" or large the "lakes ". I will lust draw attention, which I do not think the Minister did—although I may not have heard him do so—to the enormous amount of food aid the Community has been able to give to other parts of the world which have not had the benefit of such successful
When we talk of the agricultural stocktaking, we should in all fairness bear those agricultural policies or development as the Community's,

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two points in mind. Small improvements in progress should not go unnoticed. I would draw attention to the Directive to free the road and rail transport from quota and permit restrictions. This is undoubtedly of benefit to those sectors of the population who are involved in transport, and has an indirect effect on practically everybody in the country. In particular, I would draw attention to the Directive which bears on the free movement of doctors. I think these are both elements of the kind of ongoing activities of the Community which we welcome and which we recognise as part of the process of development in co-operation.
Section 11 on institutional matters contains two items having important consequencies, not only during the six months under review but also for the future, as the noble Lord so rightly said. The Government's views on the concept of European union, which were given to Mr. Tindemans during his visit at the end of June after the referendum, have not been published. Now that the Report itself has been published, we should at some stage like to be able to debate this matter, because the Tindemans Report contains some very important directions in which the Community may go, particularly on the two-tier system, which might vitally affect the future of this country, both within the country and within the context of the development of the European Community. I think it would be very valuable if we could have perhaps an Unstarred Question or a debate of some kind on this matter.
More particularly I come to the question of direct elections. At the moment we are realising only too clearly that the balance of powers between national regions and the State, and between the State and international regions, the powers to be reserved to each geographical unit and how they are to be exerted, will involve key decisions being taken. The implications of such decisions should be debated fully and their effects shown to the people, on whom responsibility will lie to elect their representatives. Of course, I am referring not only to attempted unification at the top, but a rather more sad attempt to dismember at the lower end of the constitutional scale. I think, therefore, that here again the public should be given very much
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more detailed information; for instance, as to the effect of direct elections, how they will be proposed, how they will be managed and the kind of programme the Government have in view as to implementation.
Although I appreciate the point the noble Lord made, that the Government will make every effort to follow a timetable leading to direct elections in May 1978, it is fair to point out that the Patijn Report, adopted by the European Parliament, was available at the end of June or beginning of July last year, and we must really wonder what has happened in the last six or seven months. It would indeed have been helpful if at least a Green Paper had been put forward as a basis of discussion, without in any way committing the Government. I have always thought that the process of a Green Paper is one of the most useful things a Government can do to put to the people fairly and objectively the difficulties, the objectives, the hazards and the possible consequences of a policy which ultimately is for the benefit of this country. I would ask, particularly in view of the Prime Minister's letter published in today's Times relating to direct elections, that we might have more detailed information as to the development of the programme which will lead us towards direct elections. I would very much hope that in this area at least we shall not prove lacking in our relations with other Member-States.
Finally, my Lords, if the countries of the Western World are to continue to live in freedom and to remain strong in their resolve to retain their democracies and existing civilisation, much more hard work will need to be done in willing cooperation with our partners in Europe. The mechanisms are there; they are being developed. The possibilities are there. It is for the Government to lead and show that the political will is also there. Initiatives to co-operate in energy, industrial, and particularly foreign policies are all to be encouraged. I think we might remember the words of Gaston Thorn, the new President of the Council, and take note of what he said, that States should be encouraged to control the propensity to magnify national interests to the detriment of the common European interest.
6.36 p.m.
Lord BANKS: My Lords, the White Paper we are now considering is somewhat out of date, because the Rome Summit, the unfortunate argument about representation at the Conference on Energy and other matters, and the publication of the Tindemans Report have all taken place since the period under review. The report itself is a fairly routine report, although it has many interesting and important items in it, as the noble Baroness, Lady Elles, has already made clear. It has no great leap forward to report. however. I think that perhaps the most significant event which is recorded as happening within that period was the coming, into force of the trade provisions of the Lomé Convention on 1st July.
Of course, the most important item in terms of British national interest was, as the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, said, the referendum, with its decisive majority for continued membership. But I think in the aftermath of the referendum there has been a general feeling that the European Community cannot stand still; a general feeling that its present degree of development is far from complete. But at the same time there is some doubt as to what should happen now. Earlier this afternoon, the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek, was asking what the next step should be and what the objective should be, and the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, was disinclined to speculate. But this was really why Mr. Tindemans was asked to prepare his report. As the White Paper reminds us, he was asked to clarify the concept of European union. In the House of Commons on 10th November, the right honourable gentleman the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs said:
"What is certainly not settled is how the Community will grow and whether it will he a federal system or a series of nation States acting together."
The first of those concepts is the concept of the founding fathers, a federal system. The second is the concept of General de Gaulle, L' Europe des Patries. Which of these concepts is the concept of the Government?—or do they believe that there is a middle course involving some restricted, limited and selective use of the supranational principle? The report of the Commission of the European Community on European union was
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sent to the Council of Ministers on 26th June, during the period under review, but I cannot find any reference to it in the White Paper. That report states unequivocally that European union means nothing if it does not involve the development of a European governmental executive. The Commission, in the course of their report, sketched alternative models for the possible development of the institutions of the Community to meet this requirement. It envisaged a European Government, either a collegiate body like the Commission or a group of national Ministers, but in each case answerable directly and totally to a bicameral European Parliament, with one Chamber directly elected and one Chamber representing the nation States and the regions within the Community. That is certainly the direction in which I should like to proceed. That is the aim I should like to see ultimately achieved.
But politics, of course, is the art of the possible, and perhaps the first steps are to be found in Mr. Tindemans more limited approach. Compared with the report of the Commission, he appears cautious. Compared with the position as it is at the moment he appears ambitious. The first step on which all are agreed, the Commission, the Parliament, Mr. Tindemans, and the British Government, is direct elections to the European Parliament. I hope that the target date of 1978 will be met by the British Government, and I am much more hopeful as a result of what was written by the Prime Minister in his letter to the Chairman of the British Council of the European Movement and reported today in the Press, and by what has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, here this evening.
I hope too that when the Parliament is directly elected it will be by a proportional voting system. Of course I have a vested interest in that since unless there is a proportional system, even should the Liberals poll half as much as the other Parties again, as they did in 1974, that would be unlikely to have a representative. But there is another reason which is well worth driving home; that is, that the great defect of the single member constituency system, whatever its merits, is that it exaggerates swings of opinion, which is why you have with it Governments with a minority of votes in the

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country having a majority of seats in the House of Commons. It exaggerates small swings, small changes of opinion.
The larger the single member constituency the greater is the effect of that exaggeration and, if you have 67 seats instead of 635, then you will have the distortion which normally takes place on a very much greater scale. Should the election for the European Parliament take place in what is mid-term, so far as our national elections are concerned—one would hope that the elections will be held at different times so that the European election is not confused with national politics—and if the Government of the day, as is often the case at that time, are extremely unpopular, then there could be a complete landslide of representation if the single member system with only 67 seats is used.
I should like to commend to the noble Lord a study of the document which was prepared by the Working Party of the study group of the European Movement, which was all-Party, and which considered this question of direct elections to the European Parliament and favoured a proportional system. It considered a number of different possibilities and it sets them out, but it favoured a proportional system. I was privileged to be a member of that Working Party, along with the noble Lord, Lord Chelwood, and the right honourable gentleman who leads the Labour delegation to the European Parliament, Mr. Michael Stewart.
The second step is more power to the Parliament, and we have spoken earlier today about budgetary control. Some years ago now the Vedill Committee, which considered the working of the institutions, advocated a power of co-decision for the Parliament. Mr. Tindemans speaks of a power of initiative for the Parliament. I should like to see a gradual transfer of the legislative process from the Council of Ministers to the Parliament area by area and over a period of time. There was the question of the need for a governmental executive, to which the Commission referred in their report, and in this context I think that the views of Mr. Tindemans on the European Council are of particular importance and significance. He believes that the European Council, the Heads of Government, should direct the working of the
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Community, leaving detail to the Council of Ministers, with the Council of Ministers preparing their meetings, and with majority voting applying at the meetings of the European Council. In effect, he wants to institutionalise the European Council. I would welcome this. It would be swinging the European Council away from l'Europe des Patries, which it seemed to be very much a part of, towards the supranational principle which is the essence of the Community. Also, it seems sensible that the top men of Europe should direct the Community, although one is bound to ask whether they would be able to do so for very long on a part-time basis, and whether they would require to have at least deputies, who would be Ministers from the nation-States, who would be devoting all their time to the direction of the affairs of the Community.
Then Mr. Tindemans says that there should be a united face to the world by the Community—the White Paper reminds us (and the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, has referred to it) of how there was a united face presented to the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe—one voice with which to speak to the United States, one Minister, perhaps, or one nation designated to speak on behalf of the Community. Whether or not we adopt that, I have no doubt that a common foreign policy is vital, and also a common defence policy linked with it along the lines which have been previously presented to this House by my noble friend Lord Gladwyn.
One point on which I find it difficult to follow Mr. Tindemans is his recommendation that there should be a two-tier approach to economic and monetary union, because I feel that this would divide us into first- and second-class nations and that we should drift apart. I retain a belief in the ultimate achievement of monetary union. I believe that it must remain a goal, although I know it is no longer fashionable to hold that view, as it once was. There are, of course, enormous difficulties in the way. Governments are told that they must harmonise their policies, and yet you have differing economic situations with rates of inflation varying from 5 per cent. to 25 per cent., which makes it very hard. I think we have to hold to the goal.

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Finally, the President of the Commission, in his covering letter which he sent with the Commission's report to the Council of Ministers, wrote:
"The Member-States, tempted by purely national solutions, have faced international discussion divided. The Community institutions have been too weak and the means at their disposal too meagre to counteract this tendency."
Mr. Tindemans, in his report, points out that for 30 years the relative weight and influence of the nine nations comprising the Community has been continually reduced. He maintains that the construction of Europe is the only all-inclusive answer to the challenge. If we agree with that, then it becomes a matter of the greatest urgency, and a matter not only of European idealism—although it is certainly that—but also of national patriotism to rectify that situation described by the President of the Commission in his letter.
6.48 p.m.
Baroness TWEEDSMUIR of BELHELVIE: My Lords, when one looks at the White Paper as a whole, one is bound to feel how on every aspect of our national lives our membership of the European Community is gradually affecting us more and more, and of course in foreign policy alone I should think that 70 per cent. of our foreign policy is now devoted to matters within the European Community. Easily the most important event described in those six months in the White Paper was the result of the referendum. I thought that one of the most fascinating things about it was its consistency. Even in such countries as Scotland, from where I come, it was a consistent vote, and I think it ought to give us a feeling that if we work for Europe we are doing something about which the country itself really cares.
Lord DAVIES of LEEK: My Lords, would the noble Baroness give way for a moment? I apologise. What I cannot understand with my own countrymen, Plaid Cymru, as well as the Scottish Nationalists, is that at home they are centrifugal but, so far as the Common Market is concerned, they are centripetal; that is, looking for the Common Market, and at the same time wanting to splinter its units. I cannot bring these two things together at all. It is completely illogical.
Baroness TWEEDSMUIR of BELHELVIE: I agree it is very odd, my Lords, but no doubt the noble Lord will have ample opportunity to discuss that when we have a devolution debate on England and Wales. I do not think this White Paper concerns devolution, though it might because it discusses direct elections. I was interested in certain remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Banks, and I hope that I shall have a chance to speak in the debate on direct elections which will come early on after the Government's White Paper, so I will not refer to it today.
I wish to refer to certain matters of detail within the White Paper and then briefly discuss the broader issue of Europe and where we are going. The White Paper refers in paragraphs 74 to 77 to the work of the Scrutiny Committees of both Houses of Parliament, and I thought it might interest noble Lords to know that only this morning I presided over a meeting at which, at long last, we made arrangements by which Members of another place will now work with Members of your Lordship's House on certain matters in European legislation. This was recommended in the Maybray-King Report—indeed, by the Foster Report of the House of Commons —and your Lordships' House made certain representations to another place which were not acceptable at the time. Now at last it has been suggested, not by us but by Members of another place, that there are many ways in which we could usefully work together on the volume of legislation that comes before us. Without doubt this will certainly save expensive duplication of time and effort among those not only inside but outside this House, for while we of course exchange all memoranda and minutes of evidence between us, it is not quite the same as having the stimulus of the two Houses of Parliament working together and taking evidence together. This is an historic decision as well as being most interesting and valuable.
The White Paper mentions certain statistics on the work of your Lordships' Scrutiny Committee and I thought I might usefully bring them up to date, as the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, in certain respects brought his six months' Paper up to date. Since the

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present Select Committee under my chairmanship was established, taking into account those proposals still left from the previous Committee, the total number of proposals coming before the Committee before they go to the Council of Ministers, is 1,050. As I have the task of sifting all this material, I always have in mind the people on each sub-committee and I try not to sift measures to them as meriting further scrutiny unless I think they are really vital. Thus, 309 out of the 1,050 have been put forward for further examination as being important to this country and for our future in the Community. I am glad to say that the sub-committees, of which we now have six, examined 167 proposals but thought that, on the whole, they did not merit a report to your Lordships' House. They have, however, recommended to this House 60 reports for information and 24 for debate. I therefore take this chance of thanking all those concerned who made it possible for us to have debates on these matters at a time when it matters; in other words, when we can perhaps draw the attention of the Government to subjects which are troubling us.
Of course the great question which always conies before one's mind is whether all this work is really having any influence. As one very distinguished noble Lord said to me, "I am enjoying myself immensely, but I do not know whether it does any good ". I must say that I very much felt that with him, so I thought I would try to explain to your Lordships whether or not we have any influence. I will pick on the work of some of the sub-committees—not all of them, because that would take too long and would not be welcome. I will refer to the work that is being done on company law by two sub-committees, one which deals with finance and economics, under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Mais, and the legal subcommittee under the chairmanship of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Diplock. These committees have produced and are shortly producing reports on all the major company law Directives; and remember, this will affect intimately the trade and industry of this country. They have not yet reported on the European Companies Statute Fifth Directive, but that will come soon. They have reported, or are about to report, on mergers and
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take-overs, prospectuses, company accounts, company taxation, withholding taxes on dividends, the formation of public liability companies and the maintenance and alteration of their capital. I often find that the far-reaching nature of these proposals is not really understood, even in the City.
The purpose of our sub-committees is to examine these matters with the experience and talent we have at our disposal in this House, and to make those who have to carry out the work as a result of these Directives understand that these things matter. This is not just something that is coming from the Commission to the Council of Ministers. It matters and it will affect us. We hope to have two debates on these matters. I understand that one will be a technical debate and one of more political interest in that it will concern worker representation and two-tier boards. The studies of the two sub-committees, who sometimes meet together for this purpose, have led them to consult, apart from the Government Departments concerned, a great many outside interests; for example, accountants, the Stock Exchange, bankers, the Take-over Panel and the Law Society. Members of both sub-committees have been to Brussels to discuss their draft reports with those in the Commission who are at work now producing further EEC proposals on related subjects.
When we were debating the whole question of our entry into the Community it was pointed out in those great debates in this House, which I remember well, that the fact that we joined so late would be bound to have great difficulties for us as a country, and this is perfectly true. Consider, for example, just this one example because the first five company draft Directives were prepared before we became a Member and naturally they were drafted without regard to the common law used in this country. There is, of course, a quite profound difference between the British and Continental systems, and therefore, starting late, however much work we may do on these proposals which will affect every one of us, we have to work very hard not just to influence our Government in what they say and do but to try to create an understanding, a two-way system of ideas, between those who work within the Com-

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mission and those of us who are responsible here to Parliament.
I sometimes think that we do have influence. Take, for example, the work of our Sub-Committee F under the indefatigable leadership of the noble Earl, Lord Lauderdale. That, I think, has had some effect. Noble Lords will have noticed that future discussions on energy policy in the Council of Ministers will, at the suggestion of the Government, take existing national plans as their starting point. This is a new approach because the view previously held by the Community was that energy policy should begin at the centre—in other words, that it should start in Brussels—and I really think that the House has helped to bring about a change in the attitude to energy problems.
We have had some very lively discussions in Brussels, one way and another, but they have been constructive. That is what is important because, when our sub-committee on energy went to Brussels to discuss its report, which it did as a natural courtesy, that was followed at his own request by a visit to this House by a vice-president of the Commission, M. Simonet, to appear informally before the sub-committee. This is the first occasion upon which a Commissioner has visited our Parliament for that purpose. I suggest that we should recognise it as an important way in which Westminster and Brussels can confer together during the formative stages, when we are together trying to build up on important matters.
We have, since I last reported to the House, set up a sixth sub-committee, under the very able chairmanship of the noble Baroness, Lady White. That subcommittee deals with all matters concerning the environment. As chairman of the Select Committee, I can say this, even though the noble Baroness is sitting opposite looking rather apprehensive. I believe that the knowledge and experience of the noble Baroness and of the noble Lord, Lord Ashby, have unquestionably been recognised by the Commission's Environment and Consumer Protection Service. The sub-committee made full use of the opportunity to go to the Commission and meet its counterparts, and to have informal but very frank
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discussions—the kind of discussions one cannot have in public but which are of immense benefit behind the scenes. I believe that the sub-committee has helped to moderate feelings and to bring a new and refreshing element into a debate which had started long before we entered the Community.
That is only possible because of the quality of the work done by many noble Lords and, I suggest, because of the quality of those who give of their time and intellect. I believe it may interest your Lordships to know that, if one takes the total membership of the Select Committee—which is 22—and add to that those who are good enough to allow themselves to be co-opted—which is 38—no less than 60 Members of your Lordships' House give a great deal of time to the work of Europe. I understand that the average daily attendance at your Lordships' House is now 263: that means that the Select Committee on the European Communities has nearly a quarter of your Lordships' membership really working hard and doing their homework on these important matters.
That is all I wish to say about our work, but I should like, in ending, to refer to the comment on paragraph 2 mentioned by my noble friend Lady Elles. I refer to the fact that, on 9th June, the Prime Minister made a Statement in the House of Commons in which he said that the Government intended to play a full and constructive part in all Community policies and activities. That is surely the kernel of the White Paper. We have the Tindemans Report. What does that Report say about the state of Europe today? The Belgian Prime Minister says,
"I believe that over the years the European public has lost the guiding light; namely, the political consensus between our countries on our reasons for undertaking this joint task and the characteristics with which we wish to endow it. Europe today is part of the general run of things. It seems to have lost its air of adventure…An unfinished structure does not weather well. It must be completed, otherwise it collapses."
I am very well aware that, when we come to examine some of the proposals which come before us from Brussels, we may make critical reports. However, we try to do it in a constructive way. We try, above all, to remember that we are here in Europe because we want to be

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and because our future lies in Europe. It is not for me to go into various matters which noble Lords will no doubt raise about whether or not the Government have taken a lead in certain matters, but I feel passionately that we must not be overborne by our nationalist preoccupations, however great our unemployment or our inflation. We must work at Europe. It is our future, and I hope that we shall put our heart into it.
7.7 p.m.
Lord O'HAGAN: My Lords, it is extremely difficult to follow the powerful and, indeed, passionate speech of the noble Baroness who presides over the scrutiny committee of your Lordships' House. She has illustrated with both brevity and detail what a constructive part has been played by your Lordships' House through its scrutiny committee in adapting this country to its new role inside the Community. The noble Baroness has made two speeches; the noble Lord the Deputy Leader of the House has made innumerable speeches today. We always enjoy hearing from the noble and mellifluous Lord, if I may so describe him, but, in the present debate, I suggest to the House that we are hearing him too often and too late. Too late because the debate on this White Paper in another place took place on 3rd December, and too often because it would have been much better had we in this House been able to adopt the practice of another place whereby at least some of the speeches from the Front Benches are made by Members of the European Parliament. It was extremely exciting to hear the radical and far-reaching proposals put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Gordon-Walker, in a previous debate, but how much more exciting would it have been had lie been winding up for the Government. I hope that, when the usual channels are considering organising these debates in a way which will enable members of the European Parliament to participate more fully, they will also consider following the lead of another place and will suggest to the major Parties that members of the European Parliament might lead for their Parties in these debates.
Your Lordships may think, when I devote the rest of my very brief remarks to one particular aspect of the White Paper which we are discussing today, that
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that flows from a hasty or too innocent reading of the late Mr. Crossman's Diaries, which I was given as a Christmas present. However, I can assure your Lordships that this results rather from overhearing some advice given by Lloyd George to Mr. Macmillan, as retailed by the latter on the radio. Lloyd George suggested to Mr. Macmillan when he was quite a young Member of Parliament that Back Benchers should speak on only one aspect of a subject lest they should lose themselves and the attention of the House as well. I do not expect to emulate either of those distinguished gentlemen, but I wish to concentrate on one subject. It is the preparation and execution of British policy inside the Community.
I wish to refer, as have others of your Lordships, to the Prime Minister's statement after the Referendum, in which be said that he hoped that the country would play a full and constructive part in all Community policies and activities. I should also like to refer to the statement made by the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts. on 26th November, when he said
"we have fulfilled and will continue to fulfil this pledge."—[Official Report, col. 280]
The question I wish to examine is, have we done so? My answer is: Not altogether; on the whole, No. I should like to examine that in the remainder of my few remarks.
There have been isolated, sporadic and successful attempts to fulfil that pledge. The Prime Minister has extended and elaborated on the pioneer work of Mr. Rafton Pounder in suggesting a new way of extending control over the budgetary mechanisms of the Community, and controls over budgetary expenditure. This is an extremely important step to which too little attention has been devoted in the media in this country. It is of enormous importance in the longer-term story of the Community's development. I ask the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, whether Her Majesty's Government envisage the new Public Accounts Committee, or the court of auditors, or any other body being able to control, or question, national civil servants who are implementing Community policies, expending Community money that comes from the people of the Community.

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Unless the Community's control mechanism is capable of overseeing what the national Governments are doing on behalf of the Community in implementing their policy, then this new system of control will be not nearly as far-reaching and successful as one would hope.
One of the difficulties that our entry into the Community posed to Whitehall is that Community policies break all the traditional barriers. They are neither domestic, nor foreign. They are a mixture of both, and the proportions between the two vary very much. Sometimes cod becomes a matter for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and sometimes foreign affairs become a matter for ordinary domestic departments when we are negotiating trade deals. But membership of the Community brings in its train a continued breaking down of the traditional distinctions between the various parts of British Government machinery. In trying to answer the question of whether we have succeeded in attempting to play a full and constructive part in all Community policies and activities one must begin by asking: has the British Government machine adapted to the new situation?
I am not sure how improper it is to refer in your Lordships' House to Cabinet Committees; and if it is improper I think it is a pity. I do not intend to attempt to "do a Crossman" and interfere in what actually goes on, but because of what I have been saying about the breakdown in the traditional barriers between different parts of the Government machine, it follows that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office cannot have as thorough a control over what happens in the Community as it did before we became a member of the Community, over the matters that normally came within its handling. For example, the Council of Ministers discussed in December a Directive on the mutual recognition of navigability certificates for inland waterway transport. That was worked on in the Council by people from the department concerned as well as by officials from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office who, one imagines, previously were never intimately concerned with inland waterways.
Therefore, departmental views, prejudices and interests have a greater weight in foreign affairs than ever before, and
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Ministers who normally cannot expect to exercise much influence or control over what happens abroad have had their powers to do so enormously reinforced and increased by membership of the Community. This does not matter, but it does increase the need for overall co-ordination of policy towards the Community. If these barriers have been broken down there must be some form of overall supervision. Is that supervision adequate? If it is not, I suggest to your Lordships that it will lead to unnecessary and embarrassing incidents in the Council. I suggest, further, that some of the difficulties into which we have got with our partners in the period that we are discussing are due to the fact that the machinery in Whitehall has not been sufficiently adapted to membership of the Community to co-ordinate all the different types of activities that now become subjects for foreign and commonwealth affairs.
There is an uneasy division between the Cabinet Office, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and the other Departments, and because of this uneasy division it seems sometimes—and I stress "sometimes "—to our continental partners that we are reneging on commitments and undertakings when, in fact, we are not. I feel, and I may be wrong—I hope I am wrong—that part of the trouble we have got into in recent months flows from this lack of co-ordination at home. In particular, the row over pollution could have been partly avoided had we not seemed to be going back on what we had already committed ourselves to at an earlier date. The noble Baroness disagrees, it seems, but she is quite at liberty to do so, and I hope that later she will intervene to correct me.
I suggest that the Government are to some extent imprisoned by the inadequacy of their own co-ordinating machinery, but I hope very much that I am wrong in that suggestion. The defects in this machinery are due in part to the lack inside the Government of an overall political view of the Community. That may be a matter for regret, but it is not a matter for surprise. We cannot expect that to be replaced very quickly by something else.
I suggest to the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, that there is a need to take a long term view of Britain's

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place inside the Community. If no effort is made to sit down and think it out, it should be. I am sure that some effort is made; I am not saying that no effort is made. But if not sufficient effort is made, then, again, as with the question of machinery, we may find ourselves falling into traps which we could have avoided had we taken earlier steps to think about how to avoid them. While the EEC may not know where it is going, we sometimes seem to have even less idea of where we are going inside the Community. I suggest that while there is a need for greater co-ordination of the machinery there is also a need for a focal point inside Whitehall for an examination of the long-term implications of our membership of the Community; and such a unit could prepare plans for what we should do inside. The Central Policy Review Staff was set up to do this in domestic matters, but occasionally it overlaps into Community matters. This is the type of approach that I feel we need inside the Community.
My Lords, there may be some voices that say, "Why can we not do it alone?", or, "Why can we not hold the others up until we get what we want?" I do not think we have the economic or the political power to do so; but one of the reasons why General de Gaulle was so successful was surely because the French have the most tightly co-ordinated and the most efficient system of control of their policy at home. The SCI coordinates French policy towards the Community in a way which is generally thought to be the most efficient and the most co-ordinated of all the Member States, and part of (whatever you like to call it) the General's success in imprinting his image upon the Community came from that special machinery that was set up at home. Whether or not one likes it, that was one of the reasons for it.
My Lords, I hope I have not seemed too negative. I should have liked to have been more constructive on endless delectable topics, such as European union, the future of the European Parliament, the Lomé Convention or all the other constructive things which have happened in the Community in the period covered by this White Paper. In particular, I should have liked to have drawn much more attention to the very real
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contribution that the Community made towards stabilising the situation in Portugal, which I think was a very real achievement of the Community. But I felt it was better to talk about one thing, and one thing briefly, and I will now sit down.
7.22 p.m.
Lord SAINT OSWALD: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Chelwood—a friend of 47 years' standing —for permitting me to make a short intervention before his own speech. It seems right, at least to me, that on such rare occasions as we are able, due to our European duties, to attend our mother Chamber, we, the present, current members of the European Parliament dispatched from Westminster, should take the opportunity to speak, however briefly, whenever it is possible to do so on our subject. I have found dismayingly few such opportunities and my own contribution today will have been, I have no doubt, entirely eclipsed by that of the noble Lord, Lord Gordon-Walker, the only other of my current European colleagues to join in today's debates.
I should like to make this the pretext for mentioning how much we lament the inevitable temporary loosening of day-to-day links with our own Chamber in Westminster. It is inevitable because our own conviction in the importance of the work we do in Strasbourg, in Luxembourg and in Brussels requires us to apply ourselves continually to our tasks there. We fully admire, and we have every reason to admire, the reports of the European Communities Committee and sub-committees, which show such a close understanding of our own efforts and pour out the results through a kind of selective cornucopia of information to your Lordships' House, with my noble friend Lady Tweedsmuir as a kind of "Goddess of Controlled Plenty ". It gives us also great satisfaction and uplift to see and to welcome members of those committees when they are able to visit us and observe part of the laborious turmoil in which we function.
Although, as I have said, the noble Lord, Lord Gordon-Walker, is the only present European member, apart from myself, to speak today, the debates will have been assisted by three former members in the persons of my noble friends

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Lady Elles and Lord Chelwood, and the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, who has just spoken; and I should like to give testimony as to the extent to which they are missed by their former colleagues, not only in the British delegation but from all nine delegations and all political groups. The particular brand of individuality of the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, has not been replaced since his departure, and I, as one of many, sincerely hope that the future may provide for his return to a forum where he had made such a distinctive and valuable mark, exemplified by his thoughtful and penetrating speech today.
It seems clear that when the noble Lord returns, as I hope, this will be to a different and a far larger Parliament than the present one, I hope working under better conditions and with a more powerful role. One admirable outcome, or at least consequence, of the Referendum has been the new impetus given to the concept of direct elections; but in order to be consistent with an earlier observation I should like to offer your Lordships the thought (subliminally, since it hardly belongs to this debate) that in the directly elected European Parliament of tomorrow links with the "indigenous" Parliament will not be lost. I cannot suggest, nor would I think it appropriate to attempt to suggest today, how these links are to be preserved or constituted, but I bear heartfelt witness to their importance. I feel entitled to make such a comment by the direct reference to the matter itself in paragraph 70 of Section XI of the White Paper, and by the fact that the noble Lord, Lord Banks, dwelt upon it in some detail.
With regard to the White Paper itself, I should like to touch upon one development which is unobtrusively, somewhat obliquely forecast in Annex A. There are now 18 members of the British Labour Party in the European Parliament, six of them from your Lordships' House. I am glad to remember how, when there was occasion, I mentioned how much their absence was felt during the years before their arrival, and logically enough I can now express satisfaction at the completeness of the British delegation. I believe that those there with us now sometimes take their own form of satisfaction from
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the belief that, having also imported Parliamentary disciplines endowed by Westminster, they are from time to time able to queer our pitch in certain instances in a manner to which we in the European Conservative Group had not been accustomed. This is perfectly salutory, and I hope I shall not be spoiling their fun or deflating their boyish or girlish sense of exultation if I tell them, truthfully, that any frustration of our righteous designs which they from time to time effect is more than compensated for by the knowledge that Britain is now fully represented in that Parliament.
7.28 p.m.
Lord CHELWOOD: My Lords, I am glad to have the chance to make a contribution to this important debate today, and I was very happy indeed to be able to give way to my noble friend Lord Saint Oswald, who has, I think, emphasised to us the very great strain that the dual mandate imposes, even on Members of your Lordships' House. This, I think, is an absolutely unanswerable argument for direct elections at the earliest possible moment.
The White Paper that we are debating covers—and I think I am the only person to have spotted this—seven months, not six. I am not complaining about that; it will mean that the next report will take us up to the end of April, I think, which will mean that there will be ample time for it to be debated before Parliament rises for the Summer Recess. Rather like the noble Lord, Lord Banks, did, I regret that we did not debate this White Paper before Christmas, because quite a number of important things have been overtaken by events, which have been moving quite fast. I have one small criticism of the White Paper, and that is that nearly six pages—that is, Annex C—are taken up with a list of all the meetings that Ministers have attended. This seems to me to be quite unnecessary and a waste of paper, and I hope that it will not be thought necessary in future.
These half-yearly debates, my Lords, give both Houses of Parliament an excellent opportunity to review Community strategy, and, coupled with the debates recommended by the Scrutiny Committees, they mean that on the Floor of your Lordships' House and in another place we have fairly ample opportunities

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to discuss what is happening on the other side of the Channel. There is, of course, I think it will be agreed, a continuing need for both Houses to follow the progress of events in the Community, to look at the future and to devote ample time to some of the big strategic questions which never seem to get debated—questions such as the GATT negotiations, the Common Agricultural Policy, foreign policy and defence questions, the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe as well as relations with the USA. I could think of other subjects as could other noble Lords.
My Lords, I found the White Paper rather disappointing and a little lacking in inspiration. I had hoped that after the crushing victory in the referendum, the United Kingdom would play a more constructive and forthright role in the Community. I am sorry to say this, but as I see it Her Majesty's Government have stepped into the worn-out French shoes, dragging their feet in them just as did the Gaullists at their very worst. What I read in paragraph 63 about energy, in paragraph 66 about the environment, in paragraph 58 about transport, and, for that matter, in paragraph 70 on direct elections—although I am glad to say that there have been second thoughts on that which I welcome—seems to me to be inconsistent with the Foreign Secretary's most encouraging statement in Appendix B of the White Paper.
My Lords, the examples I have given seem to me to indicate a failure on the part of the Government for some curious reason to understand completely how the Community works, to understand that almost everything is negotiable behind the scenes through a whole network of Working Parties, standing committees and in many other different ways. This is the case even if the Luxembourg Agreement, to which no reference has been made today, is strictly applied. Even in the Treaty of Accession it was made clear that the Community would never in any circumstances seek to ride roughshod over the important national interests of any member country, and in any case, if we want to use it, the veto remains always in reserve.
This brings me to M. Tindemans' recommendation that recourse should be had to the majority vote in certain matters
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as envisaged in the Treaty, and we should not be afraid of advancing at two different speeds where total agreement cannot be reached. This is one of the keys to real progress towards greater unity in many different fields. It amounts to the need to use the abstention procedure more frequently in the Council of Ministers. It was said 18 months ago that they proposed to do this. Just how much has been done, I am not sure. There is a case for the use of the abstention procedure when strong majority views arise, even in matters which involve the vital and important interests of one or more member countries so that progress is not blocked and partial agreements can be made. This is a suggestion of the Tindemans Report with which I concur. I realise that to move all the way back to majority voting—and we are only trying to regain ground which was lost since 1965—automatically means that we must have confidence in each other's good will and good intentions. That will gradually develop.
There is also the question of who has the right to decide that a problem involves the vital interests of a member country—I am still speaking of the Luxembourg agreement—and not only who has the right (whether it is the Council of Ministers, the Commission or the member country itself) but whether this has to be declared before or after the subject is debated. This has never been decided. It has been left, I think, too vague and has led to difficulties. Procedural uncertainties, I think, have made it all too easy for the Council of Ministers to block progress in numerous directions, progress which was strongly recommended after years of consideration and thought by the Commission and often their views have been heavily endorsed by the European Parliament.
When I was a member of our delegation and deputy leader, I felt that the Council of Ministers showed a lack of understanding of the amount of work done by the Commission and the amount of work done in the committees of the European Parliament, in studying complicated matters and they received very cursory treatment when they went to the Council of Ministers and sometimes no treatment at all. I am thinking of direct elections and the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, will correct me if I am wrong;

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but I think it was something like 18 or 20 years ago that the Assembly, as it then called itself, put forward proposals for direct elections. That communication has not yet been answered. That is an extreme example.
I look on the suggestion that the presidency of the Community should be held for one year rather than for six months as being sensible. It takes a very long time to work oneself into a complicated job. I and others have noticed that as the months have gone by the President has acted with increasing authority; and just as he is beginning to know his job he hands it over to somebody else. This is more suitable even if it means a nine year wait before one's turn comes round again. I thought myself that the Tindemans Report on the whole was pragmatic, sensible and practical.The Times summed it up well when it said that it fell between the desirable and the acceptable. That was about right.
I must also admit that I agree with some regret that the tacit dropping of 1980 as a target for European union and economic and monetary union is, in the circumstances, sensible. I feel that I should say that.
My Lords, I want to say something which is slightly controversial and I hope that I shall be forgiven for saying it. I think that one factor that has inhibited Her Majesty's Government—and I made some criticisms earlier—is that four Cabinet Ministers who have always been utterly opposed on ideological grounds to the whole concept of the Community continue to serve in the Cabinet. They did not feel it right to resign when the referendum went heavily against them. They remain in the Government. They should have said: "We have fought and lost and now we propose to bend all our efforts to make a success of British membership of the community." That would have been fine. They did not say anything of the sort. I think that this is sad and deplorable and I do not see in the circumstances how their hearts can be in their work.
I should like to turn in my last few minutes to another subject, ignoring the excellent advice given by the noble Lord. Lord O'Hagan, and taking two subjects
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instead of one. I should like to say something about what I regard as M. Tindemans' other equally important recommendation among the many important ones that he has suggested. It comes under the heading of political co-operation. Why it is called that I have never been sure. I am only repeating what was said in the Second Report on European Political Co-operation on Foreign Policy. Here I read:
"The Ministers "—
that is, the nine Foreign Ministers—
"consider that co-operation on foreign policy must be placed in the perspective of European Union. From now on, it is of the greatest importance to seek common positions on major international problems."
The noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, himself said that he strongly welcomed this trend. The Foreign Secretary has said the same thing and Mr. Tindemans himself has said that if European union did not have the means to cover all aspects of our external relations it would not be equal to its task. He goes on to say that in his view it is essential to put an end to the distinction between Ministerial meetings dealing with political co-operation and those dealing with subjects covered by the treaties. I warmly welcome that also. This is a field in which the Community can make spectacular progress given the political will. A number of things follow from it to which very little thought has been given. I do not know which commissioner would really be responsible for the external relations of the Community. Sir Christopher Soames is responsible for the external economic relationships, and he always steps gallantly and efficiently into the breach when foreign policy questions arise; but if there is going to be a common foreign policy on an increasing scale it will have to be the full responsibility of a commissioner, and perhaps a full-time job for him. Of course trade, commerce and aid cannot be divorced from foreign policy. Of course the Community cannot develop common foreign policy unless there is far closer co-operation in the field of defence. This has been made absolutely clear on a number of occasions.
I should like, with permission, to read a brief extract from the definition of the European identity which was issued in

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Copenhagen by the Nine Foreign Ministers:
"The Nine will never succeed in maintaining peace if they neglect their own security…The Nine agreed that in the light of the relative military vulnerability of Europe, the Europeans should, if they wish to preserve their independence, hold to their commitments and make constant efforts to ensure that they have adequate means of defence at their disposal."
The naughty word was mentioned. Very little has happened since then, but it was mentioned and all nine Foreign Ministers agreed that this was the case. I am pleased to see in the Tindemans Report—and I will be brief again—a clear and straight-forward reference to this. It is one sentence:
"European union will not be complete until it has drawn up a common defence policy."
I could not agree more; I agree wholeheartedly. I realise that this is controversial and raises all kinds of difficulties. Nobody knows more about the subject than the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn (who was in his place earlier), and was Rapporteur of the Political Committee studying this matter. I am sure a great deal of careful thought will have to be given to it.
Heaven knows! Britain waited long enough and tried hard enough to join the Community after the initial blunder of not joining when it was first created. This is something for which both major Parties, saving the presence of my noble friend sitting on the Liberal Benches, must accept equal responsibility. More and more of the problems that face us in Britain can never be solved in the national context taking no account of the interests of other members of the Community. Britain can help to make the Community into a world Power economically and politically with increasing influence for stability, peace and rule of law. At present I fear we are in danger of beginning to exhaust the great fund of good will that exists towards us. I am sorry to say that, but I believe it to be true. We must not expect progress to be spectacular, but it can and must be steady, and a very heavy responsibility indeed rests on Her Majesty's Goverment.
7.43 p.m.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, this has been an invaluable debate and has lasted rather longer than most of us expected. Every contribution has
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been to the point, and I believe, on the whole, has accepted the presidial dictum set out at the beginning of the debate; that is, that we should not waste any more time arguing about the referendum and renegotiation, but should concentrate on the facts of the present and the promise of the future. If I may take note of one or two of the more important points, the noble Baroness,. Lady Elles, referred to the Tindemans Report and direct elections. As I have said, there will be a White Paper on direct elections within the next few weeks. It will need to be debated by this House and, indeed, another place. As for the Tindemans Report, which raises wider issues, I am sure a debate at an appropriate time could be arranged though the usual channels, and I assure the noble Baroness that the Government are determined that Parliament should be properly consulted on all these issues.
I do not agree with the noble Baroness in what she said about the British representation at CIEC. These are vital national interests and we are entitled to protect them. I have said on another occasion that Britain is not the only member of the EEC to have its liquidity problems. In our case it may be oil; in another case it may be wine. Whenever this country asserts its proper national interests in its obvious national context somehow everybody falls on it and criticises it for doing what so far as I can see the rest of the Nine are assiduously doing all the time, and nobody says a thing. Nor do I agree that MSP is of doubtful value. It would come into effect if there was a dramatic fall in the price of oil. That would be a serious matter for the Community countries who have, or contemplate having, investments in alternative sources. There is a need for a measure of stability to protect existing investments in supplies and to ensure development as quickly as possible of alternative sources.
The fact that there is also a United Kingdom interest and possible benefit for it in that it is the only European oil power should not blind us to the arguments for MSP on a European basis. The minute there is some suggestion of a British advantage—this is a somewhat perverted way of approaching the question—there must be something wrong with what is put forward. I protest

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against this constant denigration of this country in that European context. In the past year we have made every effort in the face of real difficulty to help to build up in Europe a more coherent system of accountancy in CAP, at the budgetary level and in regard to the overridingly important question of energy, particularly oil.
Baroness ELLES: My Lords, would the noble Lord give way? The point I was raising was not that the interests of the United Kingdom should be defended, because we all absolutely agree on this. The interests of the United Kingdom should always be defended. I was questioning the way in which that interest was defended and whether it was successful.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, clearly it has been successful because the progress of the conference and the institution of the four commissions is a proof that this approach was fully understood and was successful. I will now say a word about renegotiation and the referendum. It may be that, as matters proceed internally in this country, those who have been the most critical of the principle of consulting the people as a whole about far-reaching constitutional changes may find new virtue in this method of democratic consultation. I will say to the noble Baroness that that period which she described as having done harm to Europe, and possibly to this country's standing in Europe, during which renegotiation and a referendum were promoted, may well prove to have been the only ways in which this country could meaningfully have been drawn into the European venture. Let us consider whether or not, without engaging in these processes of consultation and drawing in the people in the way we did, we would be today considering progress in Europe.
The noble Baroness, Lady Tweedsmuir of Belhelvie, welcomed the arrangement to co-operate with another place on the Scrutiny Committee. I warmly welcome what she said. This may well be a historical, constitutional or at least procedural movement in the more effective use of rare and highly qualified manpower and woman-power in both places.
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We were all delighted and impressed with the account she gave of the tremendous work which the Committee, over which she so ably presides, performs. It was a revelation to me that as many as a quarter of the active membership of this House is engaged, through several Committees, on complex, demanding and no doubt very rewarding work concerned with the application of European statutes and regulations to the life and industry of this country.
Referring to the question which was put by the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, as to whether the court of auditors will have control of Community expenditure of Member-States, a fair answer would be that the court will have the power to examine records and documents on the spot in the States, and the Administrations of Member-States may be required to provide all information required by the court for the purpose of the audit, that is, within their remit. The Articles referring to that are numbers 8, 16 and 24.
The noble Lord raised a number of other important questions and he quite legitimately criticised the machinery in Whitehall for co-ordinating our policy on Europe. We are still learning and, so far as I can see, the rest of the Nine are still learning, too. Idol not know who may be at the top, but I do not think this country is lagging very far behind. Indeed this country has a Civil Service which is constantly ready to learn from its critics. So if there is a practical and thought-out criticism or suggestion made, I can assure the noble Lord that the Government and the permanent staff in Whitehall will be delighted to have it. Let us have any such suggestions. We are constantly seeking to improve our arrangements.
The noble Lord, Lord Banks, in an impressive speech which I wish I had time to deal with more fully than is possible at the moment, said among other things that the Lomé Convention was the outstanding fact of the last six months. So it is. One reason for this is that under British stimulation a consensus of approach to international aid was finally framed and. as I suggested before, did not stop at the Convention. Indeed, it did not stop at Kingston. From Lomé to Kingston and on the Seventh Special

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Session of the United Nations dealing with those matters is a progression of success. At the start of it lies United Kingdom initiative, and all along there has been the progession, the influence, the thinking and the hard work of this country and its leaders at these gatherings. Let us take pride in what this country has contributed, especially in the last six months, to the evolution not only of an effective co-ordination in Europe but of a more successful application of the European idea.
My noble friend (as I like to call him) Lord Chelwood made an attractive speech in which he laid about him with a will and naturally complained about the Government's performance. That is fair enough. We are here constantly to criticise performance. But in addition the noble Lord made a number of concrete suggestions, and that makes the criticisms valuable. In particular, he stressed the importance of co-ordinated foreign and defence policies for Europe. This cannot be emphasised too often or too much. There are many people who came to support the idea of British membership of the EEC not for economic reasons but for political ones. Many people saw in a united Europe—or at least in the union of democratic Europe—the possibility of co-ordinated foreign policy, linked with a co-ordinated policy of aid and a more rational, coherent, defence policy and a rationalisation of scarce resources. I think this should be at the heart of our thinking about Europe.
Europe has been very much a political and cultural fact through the ages; and into the future it is very much the European influence in foreign relations and on the culture of the world that will count. But, of course, before that influence can be effective, Europe—and the United Kingdom as part of it—must so organise its economics and its resources in men and materials that they are made effective in the service of a rational, effective and pacific foreign policy and an effective system of security.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

EEC: 11th REPORT ON THE BUDGETARY POWERS OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT
Baroness TWEEDSMUIR of BELHELVIE: My Lords, the substance of this Motion has already been debated and therefore I should like formally to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That this House takes note of the Eleventh Report of the European Communities Committee (Session 1974) on the Budgetary Powers of the European Parliament (R/2504/73).—(Baroness Tweedsmuir of Belhelvie.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.