Lords Sitting of 29 January 1976

Preamble
The House met at three of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Sheffield.

TRIBUTES TO THE LATE LORD DE LA WARR
The LORD PRIVY SEAL (Lord Shepherd): My Lords, the House will have heard with sadness that Lord De La Warr died yesterday at the age of 75. "Buck "De La Warr was a genial Member of the House with friends on all Benches. Though he left office in 1955, we were glad that he continued to sit here from time to time and, in fact, did so only quite recently. He was always a welcome figure surrounded by an aura of warmth and patience and with a dry good humour. Speaking from this Box, I am naturally conscious of his progress from one side of the House to the other, though it was indeed remarkable that he held Office under a Labour Government, under a National Government and under a Conservative Government.
I pay tribute to his great versatility and stamina in the number of posts he held. In addition to becoming a member of Neville Chamberlain's Cabinet in 1937 as Lord Privy Seal, he held Office over a period of 31 years from 1924 to 1955 with, of course, some intervals. He served in seven different Ministries, the War Office, the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, the Board of Education, the Colonial Office, the Office of Works, the Ministry of Supply and also as Postmaster General. He was also a past Chairman of the Royal Commonwealth Society. That is indeed an astonishing record.
My Lords, as we note Lord De La Warr's passing, I know that the House will join with me in expressing deepest sympathy to his widow and family, and in expressing a very real sense of loss at the death of a longstanding friend and colleague.
Lord ABERDARE: My Lords, from these Benches we should like to endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, said
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in tribute to my late noble friend Lord De La Warr. Lord De La Wan came from an old and distinguished family, and he lived up to all its best traditions in a life of unusually long and varied public service. He was a very popular Member of this House and his death has come as a great shock to a number of his friends who saw him here only last Tuesday. It was typical of him that, despite his early pacificist leanings, he enlisted as an able-bodied seaman in the Royal Navy in the First World War immediately on leaving Eton, and served until the end of the war on board a minesweeper. He is said to have been the only person to have sat on the steps of the Throne in this House in the uniform of an able-bodied seaman. He had a remarkable political career—as the noble Lord the Leader of the House has reminded us—holding Ministerial Office first as a member of the Labour Party under Ramsay MacDonald, then in the National Government of 1931 and later as a Conservative in Sir Winston Churchill's Government of 1951. That is an example of political wisdom I would warmly commend to noble Lords on the Front Bench opposite.
He held many high political Offices, some in the Cabinet, none perhaps more testing than when as Postmaster General he had to pilot through this House proposals for the introduction of commercial television in which he had not the wholehearted concurrence of your Lordships; but he succeeded in this difficult and delicate task largely thanks to his tact and good humour. Outside Parliament he was well known and very well respected in agricultural circles. He was a pioneer of new agricultural methods on his own very well-run farm in Sussex and, despite his busy life, he also found time to take a leading part in local affairs. He was a JP, Deputy Lieutenant for Sussex and from 1932 to 1935 he was Mayor of Bexhill. Those of us who knew him only comparatively recently will always remember his kindness, friendliness and constant good humour. We should like to express our sympathy to his widow and family.
Lord AMULREE: My Lords, from these Benches I should like to add to what the noble Lord the Lord Privy Seal I and the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, have

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said about the late Lord De La Warr. I knew him quite well in a rather different capacity, because he and my father were both members of Ramsay MacDonald's Government in 1929, and then they both followed Ramsay in the National Government in 1931. My other connection with him was at the end of the war. He went out to Ethiopia when the Emperor was installed there. I had certain contacts in the past with that unfortunate country. The late Lord De La Warr was always a very good friend to Ethiopia and did a great deal to help that country. I should like to add to what has been said in expressing our sympathy to his widow and family.
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, as a humble Back-Bencher. I wish to join in the tributes to the late Lord De La Warr He was a colleague of mine in the first Labour Government, he was Lord in Waiting, he then became a Member of the second Labour Government and we were colleagues in the War Office, I as Financial Secretary and he as Under-Secretary. He was a man of the most friendly disposition, and although he joined Ramsay MacDonald in the Coalition Government in 1931 I believe he sincerely felt himself to be right to do that; I would apply the same appellation to Ramsay MacDonald himself. In spite of Lord De La Warr's association with the Conservative Party in later years, he remained as friendly as ever and when I read about his sudden and very tragic death, while he was walking in the street, I recalled at once how friendly we both had been at the War Office. I have the impression that now that Lord De La Warr has gone, I happen to be the sole survivor of the first Labour Government. How long that situation will remain, I have not the faintest idea.
The Earl of SELKIRK: My Lords, I should like to add to the tributes which have been so charmingly delivered. I valued very deeply Lord De La Warr's friendship. He was an extremely loyal Member of this House and up to the end was immensely conscientious. He would sometimes say to me: "Do you think I stay here long enough?" He kept coming here, although he did not take a very active part in our proceedings. My chief recollection of him is of his great
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humility, as one who, as we have heard, had held high office for a considerable period. There was a total absence of pomposity in his disposition and the idealism which he showed from his very early youth was never in any way clouded by rigidity of outlook.
His passions were the Commonwealth, about which he felt very deeply, and agriculture. Nowhere was he more at home than on the land; and he loved it. I remember that the first time I stayed with him he went so far as to eat some grass from his grass-dryer. The machine had just been introduced and that gave him immense pleasure. We have lost a great Member of this House. I wish to add my sincerest sympathy to Lady De La Warr and all other members of his family.
Lord GARNER: My Lords, as one who once served as Private Secretary to Lord De La Warr, may I add a short tribute from these Benches and testify to the extraordinary flair that he had of establishing personal relations of great warmth with all classes of people, as I witnessed when he attended the Sesquicentennial Celebrations in Australia?

AIR FARES AND IATA MEETING
3.16 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 they are in a position to make a statement on the outcome of the meeting of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) on 12th January concerning the introduction of cheaper fares on regular flights within Europe; and whether they will support the principle of cheaper fares in view of increasing consumer dissatisfaction with the structure of international air fares.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, this is a matter for the Civil Aviation Authority. The IATA meeting, which began on 12th January, was not concerned with intra-European fares. However, I understand that the fares proposed to apply within Europe from 1st April 1976 have yet to be agreed by all the IATA

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airlines concerned and have not yet, therefore, been submitted to the Civil Aviation Authority for approval. With reference to the last part of my noble friend's Question, the Authority informs me that it is working in consultation with British airlines on both the level and complexity of European fares. A satisfactory solution of these problems would, of course, require international agreement.
Baroness BURTON of COVENTRY: My Lords, is the Minister aware that as long ago as February 1971 I raised the question of the lack of cheaper air fares available to the public without strings on the major routes of scheduled airlines? Does my noble friend realise that air fares in Europe are higher than those elsewhere and that we still have a confusing variety of booking and short-stay conditions attached to European fares? May I ask my noble friend whether that could be looked at, too?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, I am certain that that is an important factor which will he considered when the moment comes. Obviously the simplification of these fares must be of advantage to everyone in the long run.
Baroness BURTON of COVENTRY: My Lords, may I raise another matter? Following what the Minister said about British Airways, and perhaps as a welcome change, may I ask if he is aware that British Airways' European Division has been a consistent advocate of a cheaper fares policy, that such simplification as we have had in the fares structure in Europe has been due largely to its efforts, and that I pay it that tribute for the work it has done?
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, is it possible to say whether the higher level of fares obtaining in Europe relates to the higher level of costs experienced by airlines operating on those routes? Is there any evidence to show that European airlines are earning excess profits on their European routes?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, as far as I know, several airlines are finding it difficult to earn profits.

PARLIAMENTARY VISITS TO NATO AND SHAPE
Lord ELTON: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many Members of each House of Parliament have, in the past 12 months, visited either NATO or SHAPE at Government expense.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (Lord Goronwy-Roberts): My Lords, there have been no such visits at Government expense, since no Government funds are allocated for visits of this kind. However, in the past 12 months 6 Members of this House and 11 of another place have visited the NATO Headquarters and SHAPE at NATO's expense. A further 10 Members of another place went at the expense of the United States Embassy.
Lord ELTON: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for that Answer, which was a little more satisfactory than I expected, may I ask him whether, when the diminishing echoes of Helsinki are only barely being overtaken by the rumble of an American re-armament programme, he does not at this juncture find it rather alarming that the only institution charged with the preservation of the liberty, independence and democratic organisation of this country should have such an extraordinary lack of interest and regard for the only institution which is organised to defend the liberty and independence upon which that democratic organisation depends?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I should need a little time to study that supplementary question. But if, as I am quite sure, the noble Lord means that it is necessary to increase the interest and the participation in discussions with the North Atlantic Assembly and the British Atlantic Committee, I fully agree with him.
Lord LLOYD of KILGERRAN: My Lords, as one of those who had the honour of going on the recent trip to NATO, under the leadership of the noble Lord, Lord Winter bottom, may I ask

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the Minister whether he agrees that it is most important that Members of this House should have greater information about the activities of NATO, and that they should make that information more available to the public, having regard to the amazingly fine deterrent policy which has been adopted by NATO, but which is not adequately known to the public at the present moment?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I entirely agree, and fully endorse what my noble friend Lord Winter bottom said in reply to similar questions last week on this matter. I should like to re-affirm that the active support of NATO is a priority of Her Majesty's Government.
Lord LLOYD of KILGERRAN: My Lords. may I also ask the noble Lord—and he may consider that this is not a question which follows naturally on that put to him my the noble Lord, Lord Elton—whether he considers that the fact that there was an all-Party group which went to NATO under the noble Lord, Lord Winter bottom, is a useful precedent in relation to adopting some kind of all-Party policy committee in this House in relation to defence?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I warmly agree with the first part of the noble Lord's question and I am sure that I will, on reflection, equally warmly agree with the second part.
Lord WYNNE-JONES: My Lords, apart from these visits, will my noble friend say how many Members of this House have been to see NATO as members of the North Atlantic Assembly?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I do not have such precise information by me today. But I can say that the 18 members which this country contributes as a delegation to the North Atlantic Assembly, five of whom are drawn from this House, pursue the policy and practice of which my noble friend is evidently in favour in their fairly frequent attendances at the meetings of that Assembly. If he wishes for facts and figures about other attendances I shall try to get them, although I do not think I shall have free access to information about individual visits.

LONDON RECEPTION CENTRES:CHRISTMAS INTAKE
3,23 p.m.
Baroness MACLEOD of BORVE: 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 how many people were given board and lodging in their reception centres in London during the five days and nights of the Christmas period.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, the numbers accommodated in the Supplementary Benefits Commission's reception centres in London during the Christmas period were as follows:

Christmas Eve 965,

Christmas Day 986,

Boxing Day 1,021,

Saturday 27th December 1,145,

Sunday 28th December 1,106.

Baroness MACLEOD of BORVE: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his reply. Will he agree that there is very grave concern among most people in our cities about the single homeless people in the community? May I further ask him whether he is aware that a charity has been set up, the sole object of which is to try to take care of some of these people who are without homes at this time; and that, as a result of the creation of that charity, during the five days of Christmas over 11,000 meals were served by volunteers, over 500 people were given shelter and over 426,000 cups of tea were made, all by young people in our society?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, the noble Baroness may be referring to the St. Mango Community Trust—and she may well not be, having shaken her head—and we are aware of the work which is being done by a number of voluntary organisations. The one to which I have referred provided accommodation during the Christmas period for an average of over 900 people each night and accommodated the people fed by the Crisis at Christmas organisation. But the noble Baroness is talking about single homeless people. I must remind your Lordships that the Question relates to the Supplementary Benefits Commission's

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reception centres, and the Commission are required under Section 34 and Schedule 4 to the Supplementary Benefit Act 1966to maintain reception centres for the provision of temporary board and lodgings for persons without a settled way of living. They have no powers to provide accommodation for single homeless people as such.
Lord MAYBRAY-KING: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that any of us who happen to be out in London late at night are appalled by what we see under the railway bridges of London and in sheltered corners—fellow citizens sleeping on the pavement covered with newspapers; that we appreciate all that is being done by the State and by the voluntary associations, but that it has still not grappled adequately with this terrible problem of almost sub-humanity living like animals in the streets at night?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I am personally very familiar with that situation, having observed it over a period of years. But one has to face the fact that there is an enormous amount of accommodation available every night, much of which is not taken up, and we have no compulsory powers to deal with people who appear to be anxious to sleep out, because they will not during daytime accept the invitation to sleep in a proper bed.
Lord AMULREE: My Lords, arising from that reply, can the noble Lord tell us what number of people lie every night in the streets of London? Has he any figures which would help on that?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: No, my Lords. I do not have them. I doubt whether there is an exact figure. I know that over a period of years professional social workers have tried to assess the situation, but I will make a point of finding out whether there is a reasonably accurate figure and will let the noble Lord have it.
Baroness SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, can my noble friend tell me what means are adopted to inform these people that these services are available?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, a large number of people sleeping out in London are, I believe, visited at some
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stage of every night by members of voluntary organisations running soup kitchens and things of that kind, and they are made aware of the facilities that are available.
Lord PARGITER: My Lords, can my noble friend say to what extent, since the end of the war, vagrants' institutions have been closed down because of alleged lack of use?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: No, my Lords. I cannot answer my noble friend's question.
Lord ABERDARE: My Lords, can the noble Lord say whether those who go into these centres and may be in need of psychiatric care and assistance are then referred to a psychiatrist?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, there is an obligation on reception centres to see each individual personally on entering the centre. There is a preliminary interview immediately those individuals arrive, but on the following day, if it is felt necessary, the person is examined by a doctor in case there is evidence of mental or physical illness, and appropriate action is then taken. Help is given to obtain employment if they are fit for work. If they require other accommodation, which many of them do as single homeless persons, efforts are also made to assist them in that respect. However, I think that the answer to the noble Lord is, Yes.
Baroness MACLEOD of BORVE: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether he is aware that in fact it was not the St. Mango Community Trust but Crisis at Christmas?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I do not want to prolong this Question but it was the St. Mango Community which took in a large number of people and fed them as a result of the Crisis at Christmas campaign.
Lord ELTON: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord to accept that we share his concern and admire his implementation of it. Does he also share our anxiety that there should be research into the way in which these people's lives degenerate to a position where they are virtually lost?

NORWEGIAN FISHERMAN LIMITS
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY: 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 their proposed negotiations with Norway on fisheries have been postponed and what considerations apply to the timing.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, Her Majesty's Government have not proposed any such negotiations. Norway is, like us, working for general acceptance of 200 mile fisheries limits at the United Nations Law of the Sea Conference, and has begun a round of consultations with other States about the implications of a Norwegian 200 mile zone. Following informal talks last October, my right honourable friend the Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, Mr. Ennals, and Mr. Evensen, the Norwegian Minister of Fisheries, agreed that the two countries should keep in touch on fisheries matters. This is at present being done through diplomatic channels.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his Answer. Is he aware that it was reported in the Press last week that negotiations with the Norwegians on the subject had been postponed? Such negotiations are inevitably connected with the Icelandic situation. Without disturbing the delicate stage which has now been reached, can the noble Lord give to the House the latest information about the Government's reaction to the message from our trawlers? Apparently they were asking for a reply by mid-day today.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I am sorry to say that I am not in a position to add to the Statement made yesterday in another place by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister.
Lord LOVATT: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that there is an increasing scarcity of herring in the North Sea, and that they have long since been fished out of the Baltic? Will the noble Lord further agree that it is becoming increasingly
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important to conserve our fish stocks rather than to rob the ocean?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, certainly. This is fairly generally agreed, but the issue for all fishery nations is not only to control the catch but to conserve fish stocks.
Lord PANNELL: My Lords, as soon as is convenient after the heat has died down over the present Icelandic dispute, will the noble Lord consider laying before Parliament a White Paper, or some other kind of document, that will set out the future consequences of fishing, bearing in mind that we are in the presence of something like an international tragedy in which everything cannot be said on one side or the other?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I think that the whole House will agree with my noble friend that this is a matter of far-reaching importance, not only to coastal States but to others as well. I take particular note of what he has said. I am quite sure that my right honourable friends have this under advisement and will be glad of the reinforcement which my noble friend's interjection has given to this very important issue.
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNESIDE: My Lords, does the noble Lord know whether the Royal Navy have sent out their ships for protection, as requested by our fishing fleet? If I understand the position correctly, the fleet said that the Royal Navy must be sent out, otherwise they would stop fishing. It would be of great interest to the House to know what has or has not happened.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I am afraid I am in no position to assist the House on this matter at this stage.
Lord LEATHERLAND: My Lords, in view of the great difficulties which are likely to confront not only this country but many others regarding fish supplies in the coming years, can the Government take specific action to encourage fish farming on a large scale, so that instead of being a mere hobby as it is at the moment it could become a great British industry?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, this is a worth-while suggestion

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which is the subject of increasing examination by experts and, indeed, by commercial interests. It is well worth considering whether or not fish farming could be more extensively pursued than it is at present on the high seas as well as in inland waters.
Lord PAGET of NORTHAMPTON: My Lords, while recognising the modern principle that it is indecent to resist blackmail so long as the blackmailer is small, can one still ask whether we have Norwegian approval for the submissions which which we are making in Iceland?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I do not think that this is a question of blackmail.
Lord PAGET of NORTHAMPTON: My Lords, of course it is!
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I do not think that this is a question of blackmail. It is a question of careful consultation between friends and allies.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY: My Lords, when the negotiations with Iceland are concluded, we hope satisfactorily, will the Government consider exploring with the Norwegians and other countries concerned arrangements for fisheries in the North-East Atlantic area, whether or not agreement on a 200 miles economic zone is reached at the Law of the Sea Conference which is about to take place?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, we shall have to consider that eventuality. We hope that the movement towards general agreement, which is now descernible in the various stages of the United Nations' Law of the Sea Conference, will prove that international agreement is possible. If that is not so, however, the situation which the noble Lord has mentioned will clearly call for British Government appraisal, and appraisal by other Governments for the same purpose.

COMMODITY PRICES
3.38 p.m.
The PRINCIPAL DEPUTY CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES (Baroness Tweedsmuir of Belhelvie): My Lords, on behalf of the Chairman of Committees. I beg to move the Motion standing in his name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That the Third Report from the Committee of Selection be agreed to and that the following Lords be named of the Select Committee:

E. Lauderdale,

V. Simon,

L. Campbell of Eskan,

L. Davies of Leek,

L. Gainford,

L. Lee of Newton,

L. Redmayne,

L. Roberthall (Chairman),

L. Terrington;

That the Committee have power to appoint specialist advisers;
That the Minutes of Evidence taken before the Committee from time to time be printed and, if the Committee think fit, delivered out; and
That the Committee do meet at a quarter before Four o'clock on Thursday the 5th of February next.—(Baroness Tweedsmuir of Belhelvie.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

TRUSTEE SAVINGS BANKS BILL [H.L.]
Read 3a, an Amendment (privilege) made; Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.

INSOLVENCY BILL [H.L.]
Baroness LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOE: My Lords, I have it in command from Her Majesty the Queen to acquaint the House that Her Majesty, having been informed of the purport of the Insolvency Bill, has consented to place Her prerogative and interest, so far as they are affected by the Bill, at the disposal of Parliament for the purposes of the Bill.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a.— (Lord Winter bottom.)
On Question, Bill read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

EDUCATION (SCHOOL-LEAVING DATES) BILL [H.L.]
Considered on Report.

SOLICITORS (SCOTLAND) BILL [H.L.]
3.40 p.m.
The Earl of SELKIRK: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. The noble Lord, Lord Hoy, is interested in supporting this Bill and we did, so to speak, toss a coin as to whether he should promote it or whether I should, because in this House we are not allowed to have more than one sponsor. I say this for two reasons: one is that I am glad to have his support and the second is to indicate that this is in no sense a Party Bill.
The Bill is promoted by the Law Society of Scotland and the purpose of it is to exercise closer discipline over its own members. The powers here are fairly strong, but I should say that allpractising solicitors are members of the Law Society of Scotland and the recommendation and support of this Bill is unanimous, in so far as anything can be unanimous in a council of 40. It is interesting that we in this country have long pursued the policy of expecting professions to exercise discipline over their own members. To a large degree this is not the practice on the Continent and many of your Lordships will agree, I am sure, that ours is a better practice. As in other professions solicitors should be responsible for ensuring that their own profession maintains the standard which they would like to see.
The explanation of this Bill will cause me a little difficulty and I will try to do it with such skill as falls to me. In the first place, there is no common thread in this Bill. It is a series of points by which the Society can be strengthened. Secondly, it is a clarification and strengthening of five previous Acts from 1933 to 1965.
Perhaps I should say one word about the growth of the Society itself. In 1933 the General Council of Solicitors was formed; it was only charged with the examination and admission of students, and it kept the roll of solicitors. This
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was slightly clarified in an Act of 1934 and the main Act came in 1949. The Law Society was then formed. The Bill to do this had been drafted before the war and indeed had been passed by this House, but it did not become law until after the war was over. At that time there had been added to it considerable duties in regard to legal aid. It was given fairly extensive powers and it was given the responsibility for issuing certificates. This Bill was extended in 1958, which gave power to the Society to strike off solicitors for misconduct. In 1965 further powers were given to make rules applicable to the manner in which clients' money should be kept.
In principle, this Bill is not greatly dissimilar from one passed in England in 1974 and. if I may deal with the details of the Bill, Clauses 1 and 2 deal with the case of solicitors who for one reason or another are incapable of carrying on their business. In such cases, the performance of their duties can be taken on by the Law Society; that is, they may take over the documents and, in the normal case, would hand over the business to one or other of their own members. Clause 3 entitles them to obtain reasonable expenses for their services.
Clause 4 strengthens the Act of 1958. It applies to the situation in which a judicial factor can be petitioned for. It can be petitioned for in any case where the accounting rules are not being fully or satisfactorily carried out. There is an addition to this in this clause: it is not only when they can show that they are not being properly carried out, but if the Council have reasonable grounds to assume that they may not be so carried out. If these powers should be wrongly observed, there is an appeal to the courts.
Clause 5 regulates the banks and other places in which clients' money may be deposited. Here I must declare an interest, because I am president of the Building Societies Association and one of the places in which money will be enabled to be deposited is in building societies. In general, the position is that they were entitled to put their money in banks. "Banks "as a word by itself is not very closely defined, so it is now restricted to banks which appear under the Protection of Deposit Act 1963, along with savings banks, Post Office savings banks and building societies. There will require to

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be a small technical amendment to this clause which, if I get your Lordships' permission for the Second Reading, I will move at a later stage.
Clause 6 gives, I hope, the answer to that woe of the world referred to by Hamlet, the law's delay, because it enables the Society to bring pressure to bear on solicitors who are guilty of delay. This is something which few people in the world from time to time would not like to see improved. Clause 7 deals with the appointment of lay observers. This is a matter which falls to the Secretary of State for Scotland and I very much hope that the noble Lord who will be speaking for the Government will find this appointment one which he can generally accept. The Secretary of State for Scotland, after consultation with the Lord President of the Council—that is the Lord President of the Court of Session—can appoint a lay observer who will examine the manner in which complaints are handled by the Society. He does not resolve the problems he merely sees that they are properly looked at and that their manner of examination is satisfactory. The terms of his appointment will be settled by the Secretary of State, and such fees, and so on, as may be necessary.
Clause 8 deals with professional indemnity. In some cases a client may sue his solicitor for professional negligence and it can happen that, having won the case, the client finds that the solicitor is unable to pay the compensation which may be due to him. This is grossly unfair to the client, but this clause enables the Society to cover this point by insurance in one way or another. Clauses 9, 10 and 11 deal with the training of apprentices and the issuing of practising certificates. I do not think I need go into that, except to say that under Clause 11(f), if a solicitor does not reply to a complaint or to the reporting of a complaint of a client by the Society, he may have his professional practising certificate withdrawn.
Clause 12 deals with the position of consultants and limits the field of their liability in certain cases. Clause 13 deals with what is called the effects of "covering"; that is, it sometimes happens that solicitors employ another solicitor who has already been struck off the roll. That will be prevented by this
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clause, except by special permission of the Law Society. These cases, of course can be appealed against to the Court of Session. Clauses 14 and 15 deal with discipline. First, the name of the Discipline Committee is changed to "Solicitors Discipline Tribunal ". The reason for that is to make it quite clear that the Tribunal is not part of the Law Society at all and acts in a judicial capacity. To this Tribunal will be appointed two lay members, who will be appointed by the Lord President of the Council and any meeting or session will be valid only if one at least of the two lay members is present. In this case the money will be paid by the Secretary of State, or at such level as will be approved by him.
My Lords, Clause 16 enables the Society to deal with any client account of a solicitor who has been struck off. Clauses 17 and 18 specify a slight change in the date of a solicitor being struck off. In such case, he will cease to be allowed to handle his clients' accounts from the moment of intimation of the fact that his name has been struck off. Now it is true, of course, that an appeal may run, but none the less a lien on any moneys in his hands is effective from the moment when intimation of striking off is received. It is possible that the court may order otherwise, but from that time onwards the solicitor cannot in any way operate that account, which is a safeguard which may be necessary in certain circumstances. Clause 19 to 21 are minor amendments which I do not think I need go into. Clause 22 increases the annual fees to the Solicitors' Guarantee Fund from £10 to £25—this is partly the result of inflation —and also increases the special fee which can be raised in any one year to £25, if it should appear to be necessary. I think this is necessary in view of the change in the value of money. Clauses 23 to 26 are consequential and relate to interpretation.
My Lords, I hope that this Bill will receive a Second Reading in this House. I think it is important that the profession should have the power to exercise discipline on its own members. I believe it is by far the most satisfactory way in which that discipline should be exercised. There is nothing that anyone holds more dear than the respect of his peers, and that, I am sure, is a view very strongly held in

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the profession of solicitors as, indeed, in other professions. I beg to move.
Moved, that the Bill be now read 2a. —(The Earl of Selkirk.)
3.52 p.m.
The MINISTER of STATE, SCOTTISH OFFICE (Lord Kirkhill): My Lords, the Bill of the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, is a most useful measure and its general aims, as the noble Earl's admirable exposition of them has clearly shown, are to provide additional safeguards for ordinary members of the public. Some of these safeguards will be operated by the Law Society themselves, as guardians of the high standards of the solicitor profession in Scotland. Others will strengthen the existing statutory tribunal which considers formal complaints against solicitors. For the first time, however, it is proposed to introduce a lay element into the consideration of complaints against solicitors in Scotland and the Government welcome particularly the provisions giving effect to these proposals. The principle that justice must not only be done but must be seen to be done may have become something of a cliché but it is no less valid for that. It cannot be denied that there is a certain public suspicion of arangements for dealing with complaints which do not involve some external and independent consideration, and it is hoped that the proposals to appoint alay observer and to include lay representatives in the composition of the disciplinary tribunal will create public confidence in the machinery for considering complaints against solicitors.
The Government are also glad to see the arrangements in the Bill dealing with the question of indemnity for solicitors against professional liability. These provisions also provide, of course, a new and additional safeguard for the public. Your Lordships will have gathered from what I have said that the Government are fully behind the principles embodied in the noble Earl's Bill, and would be very glad to see your Lordships' House give the Bill a Second Reading.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY: My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Selkirk on introducing his Private Bill. He is a lawyer I am not. The Scottish Law Society commends this Bill. We find a situation in which the legal
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profession in Scotland are recommending safeguards and remedies for clients where there are complaints against solicitors. In particular, as has just been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhill, the Bill introduces a scheme under which non-lawyers will play an important part in the procedure. There may be points for discussion at later stages in the Bill, or possibly need for some changes, but this is a measure which is needed in Scotland. Certainly a Bill of this kind is needed. Similar action has been taken in England and Wales. I believe this House can welcome this Bill as one which is not controversial, and which will improve the remedies open to members of the public.
3.57 p.m.
Lord WILSON of LANGSIDE: My Lords, although my name does not appear on the list of speakers, may I be permitted to say that the House is in the debt of the noble Earl. Lord Selkirk, for his introduction of this very useful measure. Speaking as one who, prior to the Second World War, acquired the qualifications of a solicitor in Scotland but who has never, unfortunately, practised as such, and as one who since then has had a good deal of association with the solicitors' branch of the legal profession, particularly those working in the courts, I would say it is highly desirable that this Bill should, if your Lordships see fit, make speedy progress through this House, and indeed in the other place.
Lord HUGHES: My Lords, I wish to associate myself with the support for the Bill brought forward by the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk. I did not put my name down on the list of speakers because I had another commitment in the House and was not certain whether there would be a clash of time, but that clash has not arisen. My Lords, I was particular interested in two of the points made by the noble Earl in relation to remedies against delay and holding where a client has sued his solicitor and then finds he cannot get the compensation to which he is entitled. As did, I am certain, many millions of other people, I watched a programme on television the title of which, unfortunately, I cannot remember but which everyone talks about as the Esther Rantzen show. There were a number of rather distressing cases quoted on that programme about the difficulties

1117
of people—I think they were all English cases; I do not know whether that means it cannot happen in Scotland—particularly when they are seeking to sue a solicitor for negligence.
It seemed to be extremely difficult for some of these people to get a solicitor to represent them. It was argued that the principle arising was that dog does not eat dog. I do know whether I am right in this, but it seemed to me that some of the points put forward by the noble Earl touched on this. It seems as if the effect of this Bill at least would be to make it easier for people to get the same degree of justice when their complaint was against a solicitor as when it was in any other direction. I hope I am right in that assumption. I would be even happier if the answer were to be given to me that here is no such difficulty in Scotland.
Lord FRASER of TULLYBELTON: My Lords, I did not put my name down to speak either, but I should like to associate myself with the Bill which is now before your Lordships. With regard to the point just raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, as I understand it, the clause giving power to the Society to deal with cases of undue delay is really intended to deal with cases where delay is not so great as to amount to professional negligence—something with which the Society already has power to deal. It is intended to deal with the sort of case where the solicitor has seemed dilatory and the client is dissatisfied, but it is not possible to "get him" for professional negligence. It extends the power of the Law Society to relatively less serious cases, but cases which may cause some trouble to the lay client. I would respectfully commend this Bill for your Lordships' approval.
The Earl of SELKIRK: My Lords, I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Fraser, is perfectly right in what he says. There is not only power to take up the question of delay, but if the solicitor does not answer the letter complaining about delay he can be struck off, or rather have his practising certificate withdrawn. I think this provision meets the point. And the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, is absolutely right: this indemnity service is vitally important. It is not a question necessarily of any criminal offence, but it may none
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the less be professional negligence for which the client can obtain no other remedy at all.
I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Wilson. I did not even know we had a solicitor in this House; it adds greatly to the value of your Lordships' House that we should have one. May I thank Lord Campbell, too, for the support he has given. I am very glad the Government find that they are able to support this Bill, and very grateful indeed for what the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhill, said. I hope that if this Bill goes through this House the Government will consider seriously whether time can be given to it when it reaches the other place. It is something which is urgently needed in Scotland. May I also say it is something which is not wholly unconnected with the extended debate we have had over the last two days.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

FATAL ACCIDENTS AND SUDDEN DEATHS INQUIRY (SCOTLAND) BILL [H.L.]
4.1 p.m.
Lord KIRKHILL: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a. —(Lord Kirkhill.)
On Question, Bill read 3a.
Lord KIRKHILL: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill do now pass.
Moved, That the Bill do now pass.—(Lord Kirkhill.)
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY: My Lords, I would not like this occasion to pass without marking what I think is the first Bill the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhill, has taken through all its stages in this House; and it was introduced in this House and not in the other place. Moreover, it is a technical Bill emanating from the Lord Advocate's Department. I wish to express our thanks for the way in which the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhill, answered many of the questions which were put and for the fact that he accepted a number of Amendments and made Amendments to meet our points. There

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was one difference of opinion on which clearly the Government had made up their mind and were not prepared to change the Bill, but I thank him for the way he handled it.
Lord WILSON of LANGSIDE: My Lords, may I add my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhill, as one who has been perhaps a small thorn in his flesh—I hope not too serious a thorn—both in the House and behind the scenes? I am most grateful for the consideration he gave to the representations which were put to him.
Lord KIRKHILL: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, and the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, for their very helpful suggestions for improving the Bill, some of which, I am glad to say, the Government have been able to accept. I also pay tribute to the contribution which my noble friend Lord Wilson of Langside made to our deliberations. Finally, I thank all noble Lords who have assisted me in piloting this Bill through your Lordships' House.
On Question, Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.

DIVORCE (SCOTLAND) BILL [H.L.]
The Earl of SELKIRK: My Lords, I should explain to the House that on this occasion I do not propose to move the Third Reading of this Bill; a similar Bill has been drawn in the Ballot in the other place. It has been represented to me that there might possibly be a slight element of complication in the other place if two identical Bills are before the House. Such complication is certainly not necessary and the course I propose might even facilitate the future passage of that Bill when it comes here from the other place. I propose, therefore, to defer asking your Lordships to give this Bill a Third Reading for the time being and, accordingly. I do not propose to move the Third Reading of the Bill today.

RATING (CARAVAN SITES) BILL [H.L.]
4.5 p.m.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, that the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Wells-Pestell.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The Baroness TWEEDSMUIR of BELHELVIE in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [Rating of caravan sites in England and Wales]:
Lord ELTON Lord ELTON moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 1, line 13, at end insert—
("( ) Except in the case of a site not previously rated as a caravan site the valuation officer shall not exercise his discretion to treat all or part of a site as a single hereditament less than two months before the beginning of the rating year in which that discretion is to have effect.").
The noble Lord said: This small Bill is perhaps more complicated than appears on the surface. Together with my noble friends, I have tabled a number of Amendments the principal object of which is to give an opportunity for Her Majesty's Government, in the person of the noble Baroness, to explain the operation of the Bill and to show good reason why the ends which our Amendments seek to achieve cannot be achieved by the Government accepting them or by some better means. We shall therefore be in a better position on Report to judge what should be done. My first Amendment also relates to Amendment No. 6, and the noble Baroness has agreed that it would be convenient for me to speak to both at the same time. The object of the Amendment is quite simple; it would avoid the effect of retrospection in the Bill, firstly in Clause 1, where the valuation officer is to exercise his option, and secondly in subsection (6), where an option can be exercised to alter the valuation list.
It is common practice for site operators to collect rents at the beginning of the year. They are, by this Bill, required to

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incorporate in the rent demands they send out an apportionment of the rates which are to be charged on the whole site, where the valuation officer exercises his option under Clause 1(1). If that option is to be exercised after the beginning of the valuation year, then site operators will not know how much the bill should be that they will be sending out to their tenants. They may in fact not know until after the letting season is over, by which time the caravan site occupants will have gone back to whatever smokey and wintry fastnesses they occupy in the unsunny months of the year. The operator will be required to pay the rates on their behalf, not having had an opportunity to collect them. I hope the noble Baroness will not feel that I have broached this subject too precipitately at the beginning of the debate and that she will be able to help us. I beg to move.
The PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE, DEPARTMENT of the ENVIRONMENT (Baroness Birk): As the noble Lord, Lord Elton, explained, the purpose of this Amendment—and I am grateful to him for taking Nos. 1 and 6 together—is to ensure that the option which may be exercised, at the valuation officer's discretion, to rate caravan sites as a single unit must be made at least two months before the beginning of the rating year in which it is to take effect. The noble Lord is suggesting in a later Amendment that the Bill should not be effective until 1st April 1976. He will have seen that there is an Amendment down in my name, Amendment No. 7, more or less to the same effect. When we come to it, I shall explain why I think that the drafting of the Government Amendment is preferable. As we now agree with this, this means that the valuation officer cannot exercise his discretion until 1st April 1976 at the earliest.
If the noble Lord's Amendments are accepted, any proposal resulting from the exercise of this discretion made during the 1976–77 rate year would not be effective until April 1977. In addition, for procedural reasons, the second Amendment could cause a year's further delay, which will bring us to 1978. Thus, the rating authorities would have to continue to levy rates on all of the 250,000 separately assessed holiday caravans for the
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whole of the 1976–77 rate year, since the provision of the Bill could not be put into practical effect until 1977–78.
I agree with the noble Lord that this is a much more complicated Bill than I thought at the beginning. I think that we should stop calling it a little Bill. So far as contents are concerned, it is a large Bill in small clothes. In this case I am sure that the noble Lord would not wish to press an Amendment which would delay for a whole year the large savings in local authority expenditure which are the primary purpose of the Bill. I appreciate that site operators who have already collected rent for 1976–as we know the collection is usually some time in advance —may need to ask for an additional payment in respect of the caravans which are included in a single assessment. Nevertheless, as I am sure the noble Lord appreciates, site operators have been aware that this legislation is impending, and most will have ensured that any agreements would take account of the proposed changes. I have a copy here today of what I understand is a typical agreement. When it refers to the necessity to increase the licence fee, et cetera, it goes on to say:
" Since no decision has been arrived at regarding individual rating assessments of caravans, any adjustment brought about through Government legislation will have to be made at a later date as and when a final conclusion has been reached."
Therefore, I think that one can assume that most of them are taking this into account and are already acting on it.
Any site operator who is about to enter into an agreement for the next year would be advised to ask his local valuation officer if he intends to apply the provisions of the Bill; so that is a further step that he can take. This information will help both site operators and caravanners to determine their commitments. Site operators are all fully aware of their opportunities to discuss matters with the valuation officer, and from our information there is usually a fairly constant to-in and fro-in and discussion between them. I should have thought that this would take care of the matter. The deletion of the words on page 2, line 25, from "it"—Amendment No. 6—to the end of line 27, would mean there is no date.
Lord ELTON: As this is a complex subject, would the noble Baroness allow me to intervene? Although we are considering these two Amendments in relation to each other, might it be helpful if we have an exchange on what she has said so far before we go on to the next half. I am in her hands. If she would prefer to extend her line of concentration further, I am willing for her to do so.
Baroness BIRK: No; this is onlya simple point. I was not going into an argument about it. I was going to say that, as Amendment No. 6 is drafted, it would mean that there is no date from which the deletion would have effect. There is a date crossed out altogether. I think that this hangs together, and I have now dealt with all of the difficult stuff. Finally, I think it would be inequitable to delay this because of the number of caravans which have already been separately assessed, and for the reason which we discussed. I explained at Second Reading that we have a situation in which some have been assessed separately and some have not, so there is a certain injustice. This would be perpetuated. It is complicated, I agree, but I think it is the core of the first part of it which is most complicated.
4.15 p.m.
Lord ELTON: I am indebted to the noble Baroness both for the lucidity of her reply and her concurrence with my view that this is a complicated Bill. What the noble Baroness seems to be smiling upon is a piece of legislation which can require a site operator to deliver to the Government monies which he has not been able to collect unless he has been very fortunate. Can the noble Baroness assure me that at the time when site operators customarily send out their bills, every site operator will not only be aware of the intended legislation, will not only assume that the intended legislation will pass both Houses of Parliament in its present and intended form, but that he will also be aware of the firm intentions of the local authority and of the valuation officer as to whether or not their options will be exercised under Clause 1(1)? Furthermore, will he know how much that option is to amount to. If not, we are asking him to make provision for an unknown quantity, which may not yet be required of him.
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I accept that a person of great prudence will make provision in contracts entered into for Acts of government which have not yet come to fruition, but to assume that they all will, and to imply that they all must do this, could be inequitable. I think, also, that perhaps one ought to know more than I precisely do—I hope that my noble friend Lord Wakefield of Kendal will put me right on this—about the degree of transits of these site occupiers. If one is to have the sort of condition written into a contract to which the noble Baroness alluded earlier, it implies that the person who has not paid the first time round will be there to pay the second time round.
I ought to make two other points, one of which I hope is implicit from my opening remarks. None of these Amendments is intended to be perfect, and would not be pressed, as such at this stage. The other point is that I do not quite follow the noble Baroness's reasoning on the specific and, as she put it, simple point that a date had been deleted in Amendment No. 6, line 25 after "it ' to the end of line 27, because the Amendment specifies a date "less than two months before the beginning of the rating year ", so a date exists. It is in effect 1st April in any year, as I understand it. I do not think that there is a lack of precision. I do not think it matters too much whether or not we have some imprecision. because it is the principle of this and the mechanics of putting it right that we are after.
I should not be happy to save time at Committee stage by leaving this without a clear idea of how the difficulty can be overcome, because I think then we should quite possibly waste a good deal of time at Report stage. I accept, if the noble Baroness wishes to go away and think of that up to Report stage, that would be perfectly understandable. We are then in the procedural difficulty that Report stage is only seven days hence, and we could not reasonably expect her to reply to us before Wednesday or Thursday of next week, and she could not reasonably expect us to make up our minds on her reply by this day seven days. That is why I am anxious to discuss this coolly and at length at the present time.
Lord WAKEFIELD of KENDAL: I should like to support what my noble friend has said. This presents a great difficulty not only for the site operators but for those in occupation of caravans because of the uncertainty. We all know that where there is uncertainty there is bound to be difficulty. We appreciate the information already given by the noble Baroness in this complicated situation, but further information or, if need be, further exploration of the intentions behind this clause would be very acceptable, The important thing is to try to get this information over to the people concerned—that is, to the site operators and the quarter of a million occupants and owners of caravans who may be affected. There is not much time in which to do it and it will not he easy, but I suggest that it is important that whatever information is conveyed to these people is conveyed in very clear terms indeed so that there can be no uncertainty. We want no disputes or arbitration or other matters of that kind if they can possibly be avoided, so I strongly support what my noble friend Lord Elton has said.
Lord AVEBURY: I wonder whether I may intervene at this stage to raise a matter which has been put to my noble friend Lord Amulree by the Association of Metropolitan Authorities. I apologise to the noble Baroness for not having given notice of this point but it has only just come to my attention. As she knows, I am not by any means an expert in the province of pleasure caravans, although I have always taken a great interest in the problems of residential caravans. The point which has been raised by the Association of Metropolitan Authorities is that, although the Bill provides for the collection of rates by the site owners, it does not specify how the owners will allocate the rates to the individual lessees. Nor does it include any provision that the site operator must notify the tenants of the amounts he will charge.
As the debate so far has made clear, the site operator would be in no position to do that at the moment because, until the valuation officer has exercised his discretion to treat the site as a single hereditament for rating purposes and the site operator has had the opportunity of considering how the amount is to be
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apportioned among his tenants, there will be no figures which he can impart to them. Because the noble Baroness has referred to an Amendment which she is to move later to ensure that the provisions of Section 1 do not come into operation until 1st April, I believe I may point out that it may be some way into the 1976–77 fiscal year before the valuation officer has exercised his discretion, the amount of the rateable value of the heraditament has been approved and the site operator has made his calculation of the apportionment among his tenants and finally notified them of the amount for which each is liable. I am not quite sure what will be the contractual position.
Perhaps the noble Baroness can explain what will be the position if the site operator charges in advance for six months or a year and finds that there is an additional amount which has to be recovered by way of rates. In the event that the contingency is covered in the agreement there will be no problem and, as the noble Baroness has pointed out, there is a clause in the model agreements provided by the site operators which enables the operators to recover any rates for which they later find themselves responsible. However, as we discovered when talking about residential caravans, there are many site operators who belong neither to the National Caravan Council nor to the National Federation of Site Operators. Such people can adopt any agreement they please and it may or may not contain a provision such as the noble Baroness read out. I believe that it would be for the convenience of the Committee for it to be told what would be the contractual position as between the site operator and the tenant if there were no clause in the agreement to cover this eventuality. Perhaps the noble Baroness could at the same time discuss the notification to tenants, which I agree is not a matter for this year, since, until the discretion is exercised, there is nothing which tenants can be told. Does she not, however, think that in future years there should be some provision in the clause requiring the site operator to inform the tenant at the beginning of the financial year what amount of rates he will be liable for separately from any other charges which are to be imposed on him?
One further point occurs to me as a result of the second intervention of the

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noble Lord, Lord Elton. It is that in many cases the tenancy of an individual pitch may change part of the way through a year. If the tenant is entitled to pay his rates by instalments as he would be under a residential agreement, and if, to take an example, he is present on the site for the first six months of the financial year 1977–78 and is paying the rates on a monthly basis, the site operator, assuming that he does not immediately re-let the pitch, will be saddled with the liability for the second half of the year without having a new tenant from whom to recover the amount. I should like the noble Baroness to explain how that would be dealt with under the provisions of the Bill.
4.27 p.m.
Baroness BIRK: The question of being aware of the situation already applies to some extent. It is clear from the form of contract that the site operators are reserving their position on the amount of the rates and, in any case, they already have to pay rates on the site itself. All that is new about this is the introduction of the leisure caravans and the pitches on which they stand. The rates for the rest of the site and the common ways and paths have anyhow had to be paid until now. So each year the site operators have had to wait to see what is the amount of rate from the relevant local authority. They appear to have managed quite successfully, considering the amount of business which is done and the increase in the number of caravans used in this country, and, to put it mildly, to make ends meet over this.
It is quite clear from what I read out from the model form that, as the decision has not been arrived at, any adjustment will have to be made at a later date. That is accepted by the caravanner who will have had to sign his contract and pay in advance and whose caravan will be in situ anyway. He will have committed himself to paying any additional amount which may arise. I should also point out that it is possible that the amount of rates may come down. It will be interesting to see what arrangements will be made for that to he passed on. In adopting a discretionary approach at this point, we are here following closely the provisions set out in Section 24 of I he General Rate Act 1967, which
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allows the valuation officer discretion to assess certain hereditaments as a single unit. The same discretion and the same problems exist in many other fields, but they seem to have been surmounted.
On the point to which the noble Lord, Lord Elton, came back, it might be easier if I wrote to him about it as it is very technical but, as I see it, taking Amendments Nos. 1 and 6 together, he takes out the discretion. We have the following wording:
"… such a deletion shall not be made less than two months before the beginning of the rating year in which it is to have effect ",
and we have no date at all. So this comes out altogether. There is no criticism of drafting here. Drafting is extremely difficult and I am bringing forward drafting Amendments myself.
The core of this Bill is concerned with facilitating matters for the rating authorities and it is to be of benefit to the caravaners. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Wakefield of Kendal, does not agree about this, but having had an opportunity to look into this matter since the Second Reading I cannot see that the site operator will be at this great disadvantage. I say this because up until now there have always been included in what we now call the site charges charges for electrical supply, insurance, water and services, and these have had to be collected with the rent. All one is saying is that there is this other slight extra ingredient, and proceeding in this way should be of benefit all round.
A point has been raised about a tenancy changing through the year and how this change will be known. The valuation for the single assessment will have regard to the rent which the site operator would pay on a year-to-year basis. It would also have regard to the average number of caravans on his site. He also has the right to make a proposal for a reduction at any time; a reduction in the number of caravans would be a ground for this. I believe that problems such as those which have been raised would be very unlikely because the same position would apply to the site operator obtaining rent and other charges. But if he is able to show—certainly in the first year—that through no fault of his own he has great difficulty in collecting what he considers is the rate contribution, he would be at liberty (and indeed it would be to

1129
his own benefit and it would be his duty) to discuss the matter with the valuation officer. This discussion between the site operator and the valuation officer must not be overlooked. Perhaps noble Lords are inclined to overlook this very important stage of the negotiations in the early part of the change-over. This discretion and this change affects so many things when something comes within the rateable area or goes out of it.
This brings me to another point which I shall deal with only briefly now, because I intended to refer to it in relation to a later Amendment. It is the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, about how the caravaner will know what is the rate ingredient in the payment he is making. I am very exercised about this point. It was not possible to bring forward an Amendment at this stage, because in the Department we were formulating our proposals on this matter. My line of thinking at present is that we should take steps, at any rate in the Bill, to ensure that the caravaner will at least be able to obtain information about the rating of a site as a whole and the number of rateable caravans. Speaking personally, I should like to be able to go further than that and, if possible, find a means of assessing the rate contribution for each separate caravan and have that stated on the notice or demand.
However, there are tremendous difficulties involved here, because we return to the main point, as expounded in Clause 1, which is that it is rated as a single hereditament. The result will be a lower rating for the individual caravaners—the general contribution should benefit the site operator as well—due to this rating as a single hereditament. Here the single should be smaller than the accumulation of the parts. I am entering into some form of pseudo-mathematical language on this point, but I am very concerned about it. If noble Lords are agreeable, I should like to come back on this at the Report stage.
I will take a careful note of the other points raised and I shall be able to examine them with greater care when I read them in Hansard tomorrow. As the noble Lord rightly said, this has been a probing Amendment, and it is important that the matter should be very carefully and fully discussed at this stage. But, having aired his views, I hope that the
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noble Lord will not withdraw the Amendments.
Lord AVEBURY: I am very grateful to the noble Baroness for her remarks about the problem of information for the individual tenants on the site. This will go a long way to reassure the Association of Metropolitan Authorities about the general principle it has raised that a ratepayer is entitled to know what is the just amount of the charge. As I understood the noble Baroness, the Amendment which she is contemplating will require the site operator to give the tenant information about the total rate charged on the hereditament and the number of caravans to which it refers; so that, presumably by a simple division, he will be able to calculate what is the proper amount of rates chargeable on his individual pitch. But that does not quite get round the other point which the Association of Metropolitan Authorities made; namely, that there is no requirement in the Bill for the apportionment to be determined in this specific manner.
The implication of the remarks by the noble Baroness is that normally every pitch on a site would bear an equal portion of the total rate charged, and one would agree with that in most circumstances. But one can imagine certain sites, and indeed I know of some, where some caravan positions are far more favourable than others. For example, on holiday sites some pitches will be more adjacent to the beach than others, while some will be more remote than others. In such circumstances it might be quite proper and reasonable to have a different rate contribution according to where the caravans are placed.
I do not know how this point can be got round in drafting, and I can see that the noble Baroness has a difficulty, particularly as there are, I understand, only seven days before the Report stage. I certainly would not push this point at the Committee stage, knowing that the noble Baroness has it under consideration, but if she could say what general principles she thinks ought to be applied in determining the apportionment, it would be helpful to those of us who are considering whether or not we should put down Amendments before the Report stage.
Lord ELTON: I am much obliged to the noble Baroness for what she said. On the whole, we are friendly to the aims of this Bill. It reduces the cost of both administration and tenancy, and we are in favour of that—I see that the noble Baroness looks surprised. But the noble Baroness has not altogether answered the points which I put forward, as she will find on reading through what I said earlier. I am encouraged that she has already met a point I was going to raise later, and which the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, has now raised, about the information being given to the tenant, which bears on the related matter of an appeals procedure. I take it that she has in mind some sort of printed form on which the necessary information on the breakdown of the charge made to the tenant would be shown by the site operator. May I ask that it should not be a hideously complicated piece of paper, but a very simple one, when everybody's life will be both happier and longer.
Perhaps I may revert (so that the noble Baroness can consider this when I withdraw the Amendment) to the matter of the uncertainty in retrospection introduced by this provision in the Bill. The noble Baroness has said nothing to enable us to suppose that the site operator may not be faced with the duty of filling in this form, which we do not yet know about, when he does not know what is to go on it. Obviously that must be attended to in the drafting of the Bill. But the noble Baroness said that this is only a small part of site charges and that the operator is accustomed to collecting a number of other items and putting them into the whole. If that is so, would it not be possible, at the point at which she says there should be discussion with the valuation officer, for there is to be a procedure whereby a site operator who was unable to meet his commitment under the Act, as it will be, to collect the money for reasons beyond his control, could have a remission, if it is such a small amount, of the rates? This would avoid an inequitable charge or the man being compelled, in effect, to commit a misdemeanour.
4.42 p.m.
Baroness BIRK: Before the noble Lord withdraws his Amendment, as he has indicated he will—and I am grateful to
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him—I should like to say another word on the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, and, again, by the noble Lord, Lord Elton. On the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, as I pointed out, this is at a formulative stage, and some of the remarks I am making will, I fear, fill the lawyers in my Department with horror. So when I am speaking on these legal matters I am speaking on my own, and am just feeding it in to see how it works out.
The big problem here, as the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, is probably aware —and I have been through this myself in discussion—is that the site operator is for these purposes the ratepayer. It is a single hereditament. It is extremely difficult—and I have been arguing with lawyers over this for three days to try to find a way in which one can really get an apportionment of that part of the rate. The noble Lord put his finger on some of the difficulties when he pointed out that some caravans may have a better position and, also, some will be bigger than others. There is also the whole question of the mixed hereditament, which again is of advantage to the caravanners, because it gives them the domestic ingredient. Because of these really extremely difficult problems, at the moment I am advised that it is virtually almost impossible to apportion separately what would be an individual caravan's contribution, if you like, to the general rate of the single hereditament, short of going back to the system which we are trying to depart from because it is so costly and needs so many personnel at a time when we are trying to reduce costs and personnel that is to say, without going back to a separate assessment. So we are between the two.
So the line we are following at the moment—and this is without prejudice to anything I may say at Report stage—is really to use a rather rough yardstick in order to give an indication, so that when a caravanner is told, say, that the charges have gone up by so much because of the rate ingredient in them, he has some idea by means of, for instance, a notice posted on the site or a leaflet, which he can be given on demand, explaining what the situation is in broad terms. I can promise the Committee that if we can find a way to be more detailed and also practical about it, certainly we

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shall do so, and I shall be only too happy to come forward with an Amendment which covers it as far as possible.
Then the noble Lord, Lord Elton, made the point that, if we are able to propose a form, it should not be hideously complicated. He is pushing at an open door there because I feel very strongly that we should explain things as simply as possible. At the moment, on an Amendment, I do not think I can discuss the question of remission. We are now getting down to individual cases; and, in any event, not only in the case of caravans but with all sorts of rating problems, arrangements are made between the ratepayer and the valuation officer. I think that at this stage I must leave it at that. I do not think it would be possible to write into this Bill something about a remission without it being not only extraordinarily complicated but also inapplicable.
I would say finally that if a site operator is quite prepared to go ahead—and these are the lettings for the 1976 season —and to say that, since no decision has been arrived at, any adjustment will have to be made at a later date as and when a final conclusion has been reached, then one must accept that the site operator is going ahead with his business, is making arrangements and is arranging contracts with caravanners, and is content to do so. If not, he would not be proceeding in this way.
Lord ELTON: If I may take the noble Baroness's points in reverse, I think she should not assume, because she has encountered one prudent soldier, that everybody's powder is dry and we are concerned with the less prudent. She also said, as I expected, that a remission would not be something she would smile upon; but she further said that discussions could be held between the person who had to pay the rates and the valuation officer. When she originally raised this matter it was in the context of the person who had to pay the rates not having received the money with which to pay them. Therefore, unless the valuation officer had some authority to vary his activities as a result of those discussions—because he will already have made the valuation—the discussions, it seems to me, would be of little value. However, I hope it
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will be possible for there to be a communication from the noble Baroness before we come to Report stage, which would make it easier if we are to take the Report stage early, though I recognise that this will place a great burden on her and her advisers. Having said that, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
4.49 p.m.
Lord ELTON Lord ELTON moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 1, line 15, leave out (" including ") and insert (" excluding ").
The noble Lord said: We are probing again. Here, what we are saying is that where a caravan is not on a site valued as a single hereditament the caravan site occupier should be rated and the the site operator should be only the agent for the collection of the rates. This relates to the new clause tabled as Amendment No. 9. It is only probing. It looks straight at the basic concept of the Bill, and in fact bears very strongly on the remarks made by the noble Baroness at the end of the last Amendment. Case law has established that a caravan can be rateable if it satisfies given conditions. This places the rate burden fairly on the owners of caravans, and this principle has not been objected to by caravan owners in general experience, provided that the level of the rate is reasonable.
If the method now proposed by this Bill is adopted, it would distort the appeal court decision by transferring the liability for the rates on the caravan accommodation from the caravan owner to the park owner. It could be preferable to see the individual caravan owners continue to be rated and the park owner made responsible for the collection of the rates. This could in part answer some of the difficulties already encountered. This could be done under Sections 55 and 56 of the General Rate Act 1967. The purpose of this Amendment is to make way for the later new Clause 9, and I think that I have said enough now to give the noble Baroness good cause to say where she stands on this approach to the problem.
Baroness BIRK: As I understood when reading it and from what the noble Lord has said, it does not seem to make such difference which way round it is put; so at this point I would say that, subject to

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any second thoughts between now and Report stage, I accept this in principle; but I should prefer to redraft it because it could be drafted in a slightly tighter way and bring it back on Report. This is provided that some awful, knotty, problem is not shown to me in between. At the moment it would appear that there is no objection in principle to this.
Lord ELTON: I am much obliged to the noble Baroness. We will not press it at this stage, and I hope that no thorny problem will arise. It is something that we can discuss outside the Chamber before the Report stage. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
4.52 p.m.
Lord ELTON Lord ELTON moved Amendment No. 4:
Page 2, line 1, leave out subsection (4).
The noble Lord said: May I speak at the same time to Amendment No. 10? We here broach the difficult matter of the basis on which the decision is made whether a site is commercial, mixed or domestic. The effect of the Amendment is to leave out subsection (4), and I hope that it will also have the effect of giving the noble Baroness the opportunity to explain in some detail what will be the effect of subsection (4) if it is left in. It seems to me that most caravan sites will have the option exercised upon them. There are factors which could make them mixed, more in favour of the commercial than the domestic part of the mixture. If on a mixed hereditament a large proportion of the caravan owners opted to become individually rated under Clause 1(7)—and I know that the noble Baroness has assured us they will not and that it is intended this shall be done only by people suffering from a disability which will enable them to claim benefits they would not otherwise get—it remains the fact that if they are not satisfied with the opportionment of rates they receive and if there is no clear appeal procedure between them and the site operator (that is, nothing more clear than that existing in the Bill), the recourse for anybody who feels hard done, anybody in the position, as Lord Avebury suggested, who is paying the same rates at the back of the park next to the sewage works as does
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one who is at the cliff edge, his simple recourse is to say:" This is not fair. I don't trust you. I will have myself rated individually ". If a quarter of the site did that, the remainder could be deemed to be commercial for the balance would be changed and even the caravan owners who do not opt for individual rating would become commercially rated to their disadvantage. It is not dear whether these consideration; are taken into account in the drafting. This is in the nature of a probing Amendment to discover the Government's intention and to ensure that caravans are subject to the domestic rate. Later, we approach this in another way and if the noble Baroness could lead us through this particular thicket now we should be much obliged.
Lord HAWKE: I would support my noble friend in objecting to the involved wording of this particular subsection. This subsection must be understood by the Inland Revenue, and they can understand anything. It must also be understood by the valuation officers, and I suppose they can understand it; also by the rating authority, and I think they might understand it. But it must also be understood by the fellow who owns the caravan site. I defy the noble Baroness to tell us that more than one in ten of those will have the least idea of what it means.
Baroness BIRK: I shall attempt to explain to the noble Lord, Lord Elton, and to the noble Lord, Lord Hawke, what the subsection means. I am grateful to them for finding this rather hard going. I thought that I was the only one who did so and it is nice to find others, obviously highly intelligent, who find it difficult. I learned that our rating law is very difficult to express in simple language. I had believed that anything, however difficult, could be expressed in simple language; but I think that rating foxes me; it is the exception to the golden rule. I believe that if the noble Lord, Lord Elton, looks again at subsection (4) he will find that it has the same objectives as he has and is trying to insert by means of his Amendments.
The aims of this clause are to ensure that the impact of rates on the caravanners will be less than would have been the case of the partly domestic and partly separately assessed and they continued

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to be liable to the local authority for rates. He raised that point when he made the distinction between the hypothetical case of the partly domestic and partly commercial site. First, we have allowed for the hereditament to be valued direct to the net annual value. I have already written to the noble Lord about this. I hope that he now appreciates that this provision in the clause ensures that a lower and more realistic net annual value will be proposed than if the hereditament was first assessed to gross value, which would be the approach if it were not for this clause and this subsection.
Secondly, it provides that all caravans in a single assessment occupied by anyone else than the site owner should be treated as private dwellings. The affect will be that in the majority of cases that the new single hereditaments will be classed as mixed hereditaments and will qualify for half domestic rate relief. That is one of the points the noble Lord, Lord Elton, mentioned. To qualify as a mixed hereditament, the value attributable to the domestic part of the property must be greater than the value attributable to the rest of it otherwise there would be no benefit. If Clause1(4) is deleted, the new single units will be automatically classed as commercial and in that case they would not get half the domestic rate relief. Furthermore, they will be valued initially to gross value and this means that the resulting net annual value will be higher than it would be under this clause.
The noble Lord also spoke to Amendment No. 10. This Amendment is puzzling, because it is what we are seeking to do under subsection (4) which the noble Lord wishes us to delete. Our view is that if our subsection stands and then he withdraws his Amendment No. 4 there is no need for his Amendment No. 10. I do not see how this explanation could possibly satisfy the noble Lord, Lord Hawke, but it is correct. I agree that this is complicated language, but I have already sent a letter to the noble Lord, Lord Elton, and I hope my explanation has helped. He will see that the objective he is after, which I appreciate, is dealt with in Clause 1(4), the very subsection he wants to delete.
Lord ELTON: I said at the outset that this Amendment was something of a stratagem to enable the noble Baroness
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to say what she has said. I thank her for her full letter in which she justified the rating to net annual value, and explained that this assures the availability of domestic relief. However, from that point she began to lose me. She said that the effect of subsection (4) is that when the proportion of caravans in the hereditament that are rated together as one item falls below half the value of the site, then those caravans will not be rated domestically but commercially.
If I withdraw Amendment No. 4, we are left with the fall-back of Amendment No. 10. That would have the effect that Clause 1(4) would be in force. It would provide all the benefits which the noble Baroness used to extol its virtues, but it would not have the effect of causing those caravans that were on a hereditament which had lost its balance of 50 per cent. of domestic rating to be commercially rated.
Our Amendment No. 10 is therefore a great deal more important than Amendment No. 4, which was what in the Army used to be called "speculative fire", provoking a response which is useful and informative. That has already been done. I think the noble Baroness will accept it that if we agree with her explanation on Amendment No. 4, then Amendment No. 10 will have the virtue of extending the panacea which she attributes to subsection (4) to all the caravans and not just 49 per cent. of them.
Lord HAWKE: I thank the noble Baroness for her explanation. I may be dense, but there is one point I do not understand; that is, what is the difference between the types of site? In one case the site owner may let a site to other people who pay him a rent. The other case is where he owns the caravans and lets them out. If he lets the caravans out, I cannot see any difference in rating between a commercial undertaking and a domestic one because it appears to be a commercial undertaking. I wonder whether the authors of the Bill have defined a difference between these two types of undertaking. I imagine they have somewhere or other, but I have not been able to follow it.
Baroness BIRK: As I understand Lord Hawke's point, if a number of caravans are occupied by the site operator, it is likely—he will not be living in them all

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—that they will be used for commercial purposes. Where they are let out to different occupiers, they attract the domestic relief because they are being lived in by the caravanners. Listening to what the noble Lord, Lord Elton, said, I will consider further whether it is necessary to cover a rare case where the site would not be a mixed hereditament. That seems to he the one outstanding point to which both noble Lords referred and if the noble Lord will withdraw Amendments Nos. 4 and 10I will undertake to consider it.
Lord HAWKE: The noble Baroness did not cover the point regarding a bare site let either permanently, by the night or week, to people who bring their own caravans to the site. I am not sure whether that case is covered.
Baroness BIRK: The noble Lord is referring to touring caravans. This Bill is concerned with leisure caravans situated on a site for longer than a transient period, which means not less than a year. This Bill has nothing to do with the "one-nighters "to which the noble Lord referred.
Lord ELTON: I am most grateful to the noble Baroness. Of course she needs to look at this. If she can find means of showing the likelihood of a frequent occurence of the situation I have described, that would be helpful. If she would also consider the principle that caravans covered by the Bill might always be considered as described in Amendment No. 10 which is possibly a slightly different proposition, and that it will not involve too major research, then I happily withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
5.7 p.m.
Lord WAKEFIELD of KENDAL Lord WAKEFIELD of KENDAL moved Amendment No. 5:
Page 2, line 14, leave out subsection (5).
The noble Lord said: I hope it will be for the convenience of the Committee if we discuss Amendments Nos. 5 and 8 together. Amendment No. 5 seeks to confine a site owner's right of appeal to the whole hereditament without reference to any part of it. Surely this must be wrong in equity, because the valuation
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officer has had to have regard to all the separate parts in drawing up his valuation. It ought to be possible for him to be questioned and perhaps challenged upon any such part. If this is not allowed, how can it be possible for any determination to be made of the fairness and the accuracy of the proposed valuation?
The valuation of the whole hereditament is mixed. There will be the commercial part, and again it ought to be possible to have the details of how that part of the hereditament is valued. It must be right for the site owner to know how the domestic part of the hereditament comprising the pitches and caravans is calculated. He should be entitled to know the basis of the valuation of this domestic side of the total valuation of the hereditament as well as of the commercial part. If a site owner is to be left completely in the dark regarding these matters, it is not fair to him or the caravan occupier, upon whom the cost of this imposition ultimately falls. Site owners would then have to decide on the charge to be made to the caravan owner or occupier and, if challenged, would be in no position to justify the amount proposed to be charged.
In this connection, I would suggest that it is desirable that provision be made in the Bill for the settlement of any dispute which may arise. That is the purpose of the proposal to include a new subsection (9), according to Amendment No. 8. It is suggested that in the event of a dispute over this matter there should be a reference to arbitration. I would suggest that in view of the provisions of the Bill, the owner or occupier of a caravan could challenge the right of a site owner to pass on the charges. I hope the Government will look sympathetically at this problem with a view to ameliorating what I am sure the noble Baroness will agree is an unfair and unsatisfactory position, one which ought to be tidied up. I beg to move.
Lord ELTON: It may be for the convenience of the Committee to know that in Amendment No. 11, which is a new clause, subsection (3) advances an alternative method of appeal. If the noble Baroness wants to draw that into her net at this stage I would not object, though she may wish to discuss it later.
Baroness BIRK: I have rather a lot to discuss. The noble Lord, Lord Wakefield, brought in his Amendment No. 8 with this one and perhaps we might take those together, even if it means our having to go over the same arguments again, although we do not want to become too confused. I can see exactly what the noble Lord, Lord Wakefield, is aiming at in his Amendment regarding the right to object, and as it seems on the surface very much in line with the line of thought I have been following on the rights of the caravanner—rights which concern me as much as those of the operator—I can see the motivation behind it. However, I regret that I cannot accept the Amendment; after much careful thought I have come to the conclusion that if we were to allow individual caravanners the right to object to the new single assessments, which is different from objecting to the assessment for themselves, then it is important that we do not confuse these two things. We could find ourselves in a situation where one caravanner on a site, which might have hundreds of caravans on it, could, by objecting, hold up the entry of the rateable value of the combined unit in the list. One could therefore find just one caravanner objecting to a proposal that it should be treated as a single hereditament, which is quite different from somebody objecting to being part of it themselves, and we feel that this would be grossly unfair.
But we have taken steps to protect the rights of the individual caravanner in another way, and it may be that the noble Lord is referring to this by enabling the caravanner under Clause 1(7) to opt for a separate assessment, although we feel, for the reasons I gave in our extended discussion of the first Amendment, that it would be rarely in his interests to do so. As I pointed out on Second Reading, the position would be similar in the case of a disabled person. The site operator has the right to object to the valuation on the new single assessment and the valuation officer would always be willing to discuss how the assessment had been arrived at, so he could discuss the quantum of it. This is not a case of something strange appearing in the Bill; there are many instances where the ratepayer, whether living in a house, in a block of flats or in some other property where there is a mixture of commercial
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and domestic property or where there may be complications, discusses the assessment with the valuation officer. The site operator is in exactly the same position here. Where the caravanner wants a separate assessment—although, as we have seen, it would rarely be to his advantage to do so, and therefore it is unlikely that he would ask, unless he is disabled—then he has the right to say so. This right is not taken from him.
Lord WAKEFIELD of KENDAL: I am obliged to the noble Baroness for what she has said, but I am afraid I have not understood it. Subsection (5) clearly says:
" … the reference to any part of the hereditament shall be omitted."
That refers to the right to object, so when the noble Baroness says that the site operator can discuss with the valuation officer how the valuation is made up, I do not see how that can be possible, for the Bill says that he is not allowed to do it. It specifically says, as I understand the words, that he is not allowed to do it. That is the point of my Amendment; it is really an exploratory Amendment to try to resolve the position because, quite frankly, what the noble Baroness said did not seem to tie up with what is in the Bill. I would be grateful if she would explain how a site operator can discuss an assessment with a valuation officer when in fact the Bill says he cannot.
Baroness BIRK: The Bill does not say that he cannot discuss it with the valuation officer. The noble Lord wants to leave out the whole of that subsection, but all that the subsection does is to remove from the individual caravanner the right to object to the valuation officer's proposal for the new single hereditament. I think, with respect, that the noble Lord has become a little confused about this. The subsection refers to any individual being able to hold up the whole proposal. The noble Lord then went on to discuss the difficulty a site operator might have if there was no right to object to the assessment, and I pointed out that in the new single assessment, which would then be a single hereditament, the valuation officer would always be willing to discuss with him how the assessment had been arrived at. The objection there is that of a caravanner saying, "I do not

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think that this should be a single hereditament ". That objection we are not allowing, and I think that when the noble Earl considers it he will find that it makes sense. We are not saying that somebody who says, "I am personally opting out ", should not be able to do so, although I gather it would probably be to his grave disadvantage to do so.
Lord HAWKE: I cannot find anything in the Explanatory and Financial Memorandum to say to what particular type of tenancy this refers. If the owner of the site is to be assessed for rates and is unable, or refuses, to pay them, will it be possible for the rating authority to sell up the private caravans located on the site? I do not know whether that point could arise, but if it could, how would such an injustice be impossible under the Bill?
Baroness BIRK: On that last point, it is very unlikely to arise. I think I should like to write to the noble Lord so that I can be quite correct about it. On his other point, what I want to stress is that the site operator still has the right to object to its being a single hereditament. What we are saying is that you cannot have odd caravanners standing out and stopping the rating process for the whole lot. If the noble Lord, Lord Hawke, would prefer it, I will write to him on the other point, and I will also write to the noble Lord, Lord Wakefield. Although we have had a rather lengthy discussion, it will probably be helpful if I set out the position in case I have missed out any points.
Lord WAKEFIELD of KENDAL: I believe that the noble Baroness was intending to go on to Amendment No. 8, which we are taking with this Amendment, but I interrupted her and she very kindly gave way.
Baroness BIRK: If we speak to it now, perhaps the noble Lord will not wish to move it later. For the benefit of the Committee, I should explain that Amendment No. 8 provides for disputes between caravanners and site operators over the amount of rates payable in respect of a caravan pitch to be referred to arbitration. I can appreciate what is behind this Amendment, but again I am afraid that I cannot advise the Commit
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tee to accept it. I should begin by pointing out that there is a technical defect in the drafting—although that is not the main objection—which conveniently explains my argument against the substance of the Amendment.
The Amendment refers to the,
" amount of the rate payable in respect of such pitch".
But under the Bill rates as such will not be payable in respect of the pitch; they will be payable only in respect of the composite new unit of assessment. What the caravanner will be paying is a rent or charge to the site operator at a level fixed by the site operator to cover rates, among all the other expenses of running the site. Unless the site operator himself states that a specific amount is intended to cover the rates, it is not possible to identify the precise sum which is attributable to rates. As I explained, this is one of the problems of not being able to set out the rates ingredient precisely, as one can in many other cases.
Let me for a moment assume that one has identified a rates element in the site operator's charges and knows precisely how much it is. If the Amendment were accepted. somebody might go to arbitration about the amount. Let me further suppose that the arbitrator finds in favour of the caravanner and reduces the sum. We then have the position that the site operator has apportioned his rates bill among all the caravanners, and one apportionment has been found to be wrong in one direction—either too high or too low. But if the operator is to be able—as clearly he must—to charge the whole of his rate bill, this must mean that at least one of the other apportionments is wrong in the other direction; indeed, they may all be wrong in one direction or other. That indicates the kind of chaos into which one could be led if one pursued this Amendment—however worthy its intentions—to its logical conclusion.
I am afraid that site operators would simply load their total charge sufficiently to cover the risk of arbitrators' findings going against them, which would be another ingredient going into the site charge—not to mention the cost which they would have to bear in bringing proceedings—and the total situation would

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thus be thoroughly inflationary. Remembering what the noble Lord said on Second Reading about inflation, I do not think he will want to pursue this very interesting probing Amendment now that I have explained the position in some considerable detail.
5.26 p.m.
Lord ELTON: May I ask the noble Baroness to imagine a hypothetical situation? Let us suppose that, full of years and honour, she decides in her declining years to take a caravan on a site such as we are talking about. Her identity is not known in the first year, but in the second year it is revealed to the caxavan site operator, who, I am sure, would be unique in such unpleasant conduct, that she has a political background of which he disapproves, or perhaps he does not like people with red hair—the reason is immaterial and we would sympathise with her in her predicament —and he then transfers £1,000 of the £1,025 rates on the site on to her pitch. What would she do about that? I am sure that she would remonstrate; she is a person of resource and vigour and will, I am sure, continue to be so in her declining years. Under this Bill, could she do anything except hitch her caravan to her motor car and go elsewhere?
Baroness BIRK: I do not like the words" declining years ", which the noble Lord repeated so often. I have tremendous admiration for people who live in caravans, but caravanning is the last thing that I would ever dream of doing in either my declining or ascending years. But I do not think such an iniquitous situation would arise. One reason is that we are starting at a much lower level of differentiation. As I explained earlier on Amendment No. 1, I am very seriously considering the best way of making known to caravanners what is equitable. The hypothetical example of the noble Lord would immediately indicate that I was being asked to pay very much over the odds, and I should at once protest to the rating authority.
Lord ELTON: Is there a provision in the Bill for the noble Baroness to do that?
Baroness BIRK: Anybody always has a right to go to the town hall and see the valuation officer. What I think would
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happen in that situation—if the noble Lord would allow me to finish—is that the caravanners on a site would probably get together and form a tenants' association, such as one sees elsewhere, and would try to make sure that they were treated as equitably as possible. One hopes that they would demand to know why their site charges had gone up enormously, and would ask the site operator what it was all about. If he said that the increase was due to the fact that the rates had gone up by what seemed an outrageous amount, they could make inquiries as to whether that was so. If I were put in that position—in the unlikely event of my having a caravan—I could ask for a separate account. In a case such as the noble Lord mentioned, it would obviously be beneficial to me to have a separate assessment, rather than be part of the whole hereditament. Beyond that, if somebody really wanted to "rook" an individual caravanner like that, he could do it today by including in the rent agreement, the site charge, the contract or whatever it is called, a clause stating that it covers insurance, rent and charges. In fact, the model form which I read out begins, "I am sorry, but I have to increase your charges this year ". Finally, as the noble Lord said, I could hitch it to my back and move or sell it to him.
5.30 p.m.
Lord LUCAS of CHILWORTH: Could the noble Baroness explain the position which might arise on a site that at the beginning of a season was only two-thirds occupied and had a previous history of partial occupancy? If the total site charge is to be spread it can be spread only over those who are under contract. If more people enter into the contract as the season, or seasons, progress, how are adjustments to be made? I do not have quite the same faith as the noble Baroness has in the site operator. This kind of arrangement suggests to me that under one very large umbrella get lumped a number of charges, including the rate, the water rate, the electricity, the ground rent and any other charges. It is a very strong-minded person who will sort this out. Mostly he is prepared to accept it.
I can assure the noble Baroness that steadily over the years charges on this kind of site have gone up and up. For

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example, let me take the electricity charge. This, and I quote:
" for convenience of administration will be charged at 2.1p per unit ",
whereas, in fact, the charge is 2001p per unit. Therefore, the site operator is making a great deal of money, but it is not really worth arguing about. Exactly the same can happen with the rate, only here a much larger amount of money is involved. After all, the site operator is human and it is unlikely that he will say, "I'm going to challenge this ". The easy way out for him is to say, "That's too bad. I have 500 or 1,000 tenants or licensees and I will just spread it ". The trouble with this kind of bulk charge system is that it becomes a great big envelope into which everything is swept and nobody knows the answer. From all that the noble Baroness has said so far, I do not see any way out of this.
Lord HAWKE: I support what my noble friend has said. Admittedly, ladies with red hair and Socialist principles are not very plentiful, but they are by no means unique. I feel that the site operator has the opportunity to discriminate in favour of his friends and against his enemies; but he will be put in a quite impossible position in the event of a site not being fully occupied, because presumably the site will always he rated as if it were full. If it is supposed to cover 50 and for part of the year only 25 people are there, how does the operator charge? Does he divide the total rate bill among 25 and then discover a few months later that there are 50 people on his site? Either the money will go into his pocket or he will have to make very complicated returns to these people in respect of varying periods of occupation. I am sure that the Bill is well meaning but it absolutely bristles with practical difficulties of this kind.
Baroness BIRK: The noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, has raised basic points, some of which were discussed earlier. I should have thought quite the reverse. I do not know whether the noble Lord was in the Chamber at the time, but I explained at some length my anxiety about caravanners not knowing what was the rate ingredient and said that I was trying very hard to find a way round it so that they would know at least that part of the charge. This
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is the only area with which this Bill is concerned. The noble Lord widened his argument to cover all the other charges —rent and so on—but this Bill is concerned with rating. ft was because I was aware that it becomes a package that I wanted, so far as is humanly possible, to find a way by which one could protect the caravanner who would be subjected to exploitation in respect of this extra ingredient as well as the others. I am hoping to try to find some way round the problem so as to be able to introduce an Amendment on Report. I am well aware of the problem and of the difficulties. But it is not new. I am sure that the noble Lord will agree with me that it has not arisen as a result of the Government's plans to introduce this legislation that lie is referring to a much wider issue.
The price controls are applicable so far as site operators are concerned. In most circumstances, the charges made by them are subject to the counter-inflation legislation, certainly where the occupation of an individual plot on the site is by licence and where some element of service is provided. This will be the case on almost all of the sites covered by this Bill. Therefore, the site owner must relate any increase in charges to increases in costs specified as allowable by the price code. The owner will also be subject to control of his net profit margin, and where the sites are owned by companies and many are—with sales in excess of £5 million they will be required to notify the Price Commission of intended price increases. The profit margins of smaller firms are liable to check by the Price Commission's regional offices. There are, therefore, checks, if they are used. The noble Lord implied that many people unfortunately accept these charges without taking any action. I agree with him. That is why the discussions on these points arc of importance and of even wider application.
The noble Lord, Lord Hawke, supported these points and I believe I have answered the points he raised in my answer to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth. If, however, I have omitted a reply to a specific point made by him, perhaps the noble Lord will be kind enough to remind me of it.
Lord HAWKE: My principal point is that presumably the site owner is rated

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on the whole of his site as if it were fully occupied. In practice it may be half-occupied for a portion of the year. He pays the rates, and charges the full rates to the "half-occupiers ", but when other occupiers come on to the site he gets the same out of them also.
Baroness BIRK: I thank the noble Lord for reminding me of his point. The number of caravans on which the assessment will be made will bearrived at after discussion between the site operator and the valuation officer and it will have to be an average figure. So supposing the site should hold 300 caravans but in fact it is usually occupied by 250, then the assessment would be made on 250. If in the following year the number dropped to 200 it would be up to the site operator to discuss the matter again with the valuation officer. If the number rose then the valuation officer would have to approach the site operator for an adjustment to be made. But this again is not peculiar to this situation.
Lord LUCAS of CHILWORTH: Arising out of that reply, what is the position, if the rate is to be levied upon the site and van as a complete unit, when on one pitch you have a four berth van while on the next pitch you have a six berth van? Or what happens in the event of one or the other of those vans being changed on a pitch during the season? This is quite a likely possibility, provided a site operator allows a variety of vans on his site. It would he quite wrong, of course, for a four berth non-luxury van to be rated precisely the same as a six-berth luxury van.
Baroness BIRK: But the rating is on the site, the single hereditament. Within that sphere the site operator has to adjust or apportion the amount. If in the charge to the person with the smaller caravan he says, "It has been increased by £x because of the rates ", and that person suspects that he is being overcharged, because it would be part of the whole site charge, he has the right to object. He also has the right to go direct to the Price Commission. Also, if the caravanners get together they will soon find out who is paying for what. But that is the way in which the operator apportions it. He is responsible for the whole sum. It is not for the valuation
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officer to say to him, "You put so much on the site charge for this caravan or that caravan ". That is what might be called the domestic housekeeping, and where that is not done equitably it is the fault of the site operator, and then it becomes a matter between the site operator and the caravanners.
Lord LUCAS of CHILWORTH: I do not wish to pursue this any further because the noble Baroness has been generous in her responses. However, as a parting shot and not meaning to be too acid about it, I think it is grossly unfair that the site operator—and, as I have already said, from my personal experience, I do not have quite as much faith in site operators as perhaps the noble Baroness has—is doing the job of the valuation officer, and I can foresee a great deal of dissent and disharmony in what in the past have been peaceable little caravan retreats. On the wider issue, in my view it is quite wrong that it has been inherent in local affairs and business affairs over the past few years (whichever Government have been in power) to saddle the individual businessman with the responsibility for that which has normally been carried out by the authorities.
Lord WAKEFIELD of KENDAL: We must all be grateful to the noble Baroness for the very full explanation she has given on Amendments Nos. 5 and 8. I should like to consider carefully what she has said. There has been a full discussion, which I think was most worthwhile and desirable. Many people are interested in this matter and no doubt it will be possible for them to read in Hansard what has been said. In view of what has been said, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment No. 5.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
5.43 p.m.
Lord ELTON Lord ELTON had given notice of his intention to move Amendment No. 6:
Page 2, line 25, leave out from (" it ") to end of line 27 and insert (" such a deletion shall not be made less than two months before the beginning of the rating year in which it is to have effect.").
The noble Lord said: We spoke to this on Amendment No. 1 and therefore I shall not pursue the matter.
Baroness BIRK Baroness BIRK moved Amendment No. 7:
Page 3, line 5, at end insert—
(" (9) This section shall not come into force before 1st April 1976.").
The noble Baroness said: This Amendment arose because during the Second Reading debate the noble Lord, Lord Wakefield of Kendal, expressed the fear that if the Bill came into force before 1st April, it would be possible for site operators in England and Wales to be made liable for rates on the whole site and caravans for 1975/76. As I said in my speech during the Second Reading debate, this was not our intention, but to put the matter beyond doubt, and in order to please the noble Lord, I have tabled this Amendment. I hope that the Committee will approve this in preference to the Opposition's Amendment on the same point. That provides that the Bill shall come into force on 1st April. If the Bill does not get the Royal Assent until after that date, it will require further amendment on this point. The Government's Amendment has been drafted in such a way as to overcome this difficulty, and the effect of it is that the Act will come into force on the date of Royal Assent or 1st April whichever is the later. I beg to move.
Lord ELTON: I am grateful to the noble Baroness because this is helpful to us also. It ties in with the question of retrospection, and on that we await what she has to say between now and the Report stage. Beyond that I would say that it is a small step in the right direction.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
On Question, Whether Clause 1, as amended, shall stand part of the Bill?
Lord ELTON: I think the briefer we can be on this, the better. There is some doubt about how soon this Bill can be got into operation even if it comes into effect on 1stApril. There is one point left over from the Second Reading debate which the noble Baroness might like me to refer to; it is the question of the incompatibility of water rating and general rating when it comes to certain provisions for remissions which are retrospective. The noble Baroness was kind enough to write to me at length on this and I accepted her explanation: the legislation is piecemeal throughout
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the country. As well as the two pieces of legislation not matching each other, it applies beyond the area of effect of this Bill and I am glad the noble Baroness has assured me that the whole problem is being looked at in order that the process may be harmonised in all areas for the future.
Clause 1, as amended, agreed to.
Lord ELTON Lord ELTON moved Amendment No. 9:
After Clause 1, insert the following new clause:
Collection of Rates
Where a caravan park has leisure caravans sited on it which are capable of being individually rated, the owner (or occupier) of the land comprising such park shall be responsible for the collection of the rates in respect of the accommodation afforded by such caravans when they are in separate ownership. The valuation officer shall separately assess and enter on the valuation list all leisure caravans that are on the park and not in the ownership of the park owner and the rating authority shall levy rates on these valuations but shall appoint the site operator as their agent for the collection of such rates (without liability for the default of any rateable person) and shall be authorised to pay such site operator a commission.
The noble Lord said: We have covered a great deal of this ground already. This is a way of converting the site operator into a rate collector and thus relieving him of the burden which alarmed my noble friend Lord Lucas of Chilworth a few moments ago. It is not closely drafted and I hope the noble Baroness therefore will not feel it necessary to spend time on the effects of errors. She may like to summarise briefly her view of why it would not be possible to resolve the difficulty in this way, as she has already outlined.
I believe I am right in saying that the great majority of individual pitches have already been assessed under the existing law, so that there would be no enormous, crippling burden of work on the local authority to be performed immediately, although, of course, there would be a sustained burden in running a system which I think she may well convince us we should like to see wound up. I beg to move.
5.50 p.m.
Baroness BIRK: I have some difficulty in understanding how this new clause fits into the Bill because although the

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noble Lord, Lord Elton, has said constantly that he is basically in favour of the Bill—but has just picked out certain points about which he is concerned—it adopts such a fundamentally different approach to the whole problem that if this were accepted it would beat at the central core of the Bill. As an additional clause, it would be quite meaningless unless the whole of Clause 1 were dropped. As we are not prepared to do that it does not have any place in the Bill. However, the noble Lord quite rightly asked me to explain the reason and I will try so to do.
When we orginally considered how we might tackle the problem of collecting rates on leisure caravans, we considered the possibility of a Section 55 approach. Section 55 of the General Rate Act 1967 gives local authorities discretion to rate the owners instead of the occupiers, of certain hereditaments and provides that if the owner pays the rates demanded before the end of the first half of the period to which the demand relates, the rating authority must make an allowance equal to 10 per cent. of the amount payable. This provision cannot apply at the moment to the caravan situation because in the majority of cases the site operators are not the owners of the caravans. It would have been a relatively simple matter to introduce legislation to meet this point, although after seeing the Bill and hearing the complicated Amendments moved today, I hesitate to say that rating is a simple matter. The Section 55 approach would have relieved many of the rate collection problems faced by local authorities once the rateable values on the separately assessed caravans had been entered in the valuation list. But as noble Lords must be aware, the problems which can arise before the assessments go into the list are legion.
The valuation officer has to make a proposal for each caravan, identify the individual caravans and serve the notices. To do this, he must have access to the caravans. This involves crossing the site, which many site owners have resisted. Invariably, caravan owners are not present to take delivery of the notice, so it is attached to the caravans, which are often on exposed coastal sites; the notices are blown away or otherwise lost. Finally, there is the problem to which the noble Lord, Lord Wakefield of Kendal, force-
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fully drew attention on Second Reading that of identifying individual caravans when one has what we might call a shifting element in the caravan population. The kind of approach which is being advocated in this new clause would do nothing whatever to alleviate the considerable problems arising in valuing caravans as separate units; nor would it completely remedy the problems of local authorities. They would still have the task of listing the separate assessments on the rate demand, and for those authorities with thousands of such caravans this would not be an easy matter.
I am rather surprised to see that the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, has attached his name to this Amendment because he has already brought before your Lordships a proposal for Scottish legislation, similar in principle to the present Bill. During the course of the debate on the Local Government (Scotland) Bill in April 1975, at columns 23 and 24 of Hansard, the noble Lord withdrew his Amendment because all this legislation was in hand and because he agreed that the exact form in which his Amendment was drafted was not acceptable. In fact, his Amendment then was along the lines of the Bill and not along these lines.
Lord ELTON: I think the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, has now said what I was hoping to save her the necessity of saying. I put down this Amendment in order to give her a chance, if it had not yet become clear, of explaining the philosophy behind the approach to the rating. The noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, has not asked to dissociate himself in any agony of embarrassment. I put down his name so that if I fell off a bus between putting down my name and speaking to the Amendment, someone could speak to it.
Baroness BIRK: I would hate the noble Lord, Lord Elton, to fall off a bus, but I am surprised that the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, should be "doing a somersault" on this. We have come to the conclusion that this solution would leave unresolved too many problems. Unless the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, has changed his mind—which was so excellent in its direction when he spoke on the Local Government (Scotland) Bill—then I think he will agree with me, certainly on this point.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY: Perhaps the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, will allow me to say at this stage that I am reserving my ammunition until Clause 2, which applies to Scotland. I shall be wanting to say quite a lot about the matters which she has raised.
Baroness BIRK: I am sorry to see that the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, has devolved from us. The noble Lord, Lord Elton, in speaking to this Amendment, once again emphasised the unfair burden placed on the site operator. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, obviously cannot bear to hear the words "site operator "any more because he is leaving. Before he goes, he must accept that the Government—and I am speaking on behalf of the Government—are equally concerned, if not more so, for the caravanners who are "on the end" of this and who are the people paying the site operator. I should not like the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, to leave the Committee stage feeling that there was any unfair balance in taking any particular group of people. Because of our awareness of this, we are concerned to get an equitable arrangement in the Bill, winch is why we are spending so much time on these Amendments.
The noble Lord, Lord Elton, and the noble Lord, Lord Wakefield of Kendal, when speaking on Second Reading, felt that it would be unfair for the site operator to have to collect the additional sum from caravanners. The noble Lord, Lord Wakefield, suggested that as the site owner was effectively acting as a rate collector, he should be given a commission, as he would get under Section 56 of the General Rate Act 1967. I should set the record straight at once. We are not envisaging that site operators will become rate collectors. We are deeming them to be the rateable occupiers of this single hereditament. Although we appreciate that the owners are in business, and rates would be a cost which they would have to pass on to their customers, as they have always done, we are concerned that they should not tip the balance and pass on more than they themselves are being asked for. Frankly. I cannot see why site operators should be rewarded for passing on this cost by receiving a com
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mission. It will not involve them in extra work. They already pass on a certain rate element because the site is rated, anyway. All that they have to do now is to pass on a rather larger element which is attributed to the caravan and its site.
The question of liability when a caravanner defaults on payment to the site owner, which I think the noble Lord raised—if he did not, I am sure he will; and if he did not, he should have done so because I have a note on it—is not a new problem, either. All site owners have arrangements for the recovery of debts from caravanners. I suspect, because of the very nature of their business, that it is difficult to unhitch and make off with a heavy load such as a caravan, so I think that site owners are more successful in recovering such debts than the average commercial undertaking. As a result of my researches I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, that site operators seem to cover themselves very well for any eventuality of this sort. So I reject any attempt to enable the site operator to get commission for something which really is part of a site charge, which he is collecting anyway.
Lord WAKEFIELD of KENDAL: Of course, it is the practice at the present time in some areas and in some places for the site operator to receive a commission on the amount he has collected. There are a number of site operators who have collaborated with the local valuation officers and have saved all the expense of collection to which the noble Baroness has referred, and which is in fact one of the main reasons for this Bill. By this collaboration that has taken place the local authorities have been relieved of a lot of trouble and expense in collecting the individual rates from the caravanners. The site operator has done this satisfactorily and everybody is quite happy.
It is a great pity that when Whitehall —which we know, of course, always knows best—sent out their directions for the collection of individual rates from caravans they did not at the same time give guidance and suggest this kind of arrangement. It is done, I think, very successfully in Scotland—no doubt my noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy will say something about that in a moment—and in certain parts of this country. On

1157
Second Reading I was suggesting that it was a pity that what is already happening quite easily and satisfactorily in parts of England and Wales could not be extended; in that way there would have been no need for this Bill. As I see it, all this new clause does is to authorise a practice which is taking place now, very satisfactorily and to the mutual advantage of everybody.
Lord ELTON: I think the best procedure here would be for us to consider what the noble Baroness has said and to return to it at Report stage. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
6.2 p.m.
Lord ELTON Lord ELTON moved Amendment No. 11:
After Clause 1, insert the following new clause:
Powers of site operators
.—(l) A site operator may recover as a specialty debt enforceable by action from the occupier of each caravan pitch owned by the site operator a proportion of the general and drainage rates which may be levied upon the site as a single hereditament such proportion being calculated in accordance with the provisions of subsection (2) of this section.
(2) The proportion of general and drainage rates recoverable under subsection (1) of this section shall be such proportion as shall be reasonable having regard to the size position and general amenity of the caravan pitch and the caravan sited thereon in relation to the site as a whole to the total number of caravan pitches on the site to the period of occupation of the caravan or the caravan pitch during the relevant rating period and to any other matters which ought reasonably to be taken into account.
(3) Within 28 days of the service upon him by the site operator of a notice to pay a proportion of the rates due on the site, the occupier of a caravan pitch may object to that proportion; and for this purpose sections 70 to 74 of the General Rate Act 1967 shall apply as though for the words "valuation officer" the words "site operator" were substituted in each place where they occur.
(4) A rating authority may remit an appropriate proportion of the rates attributable to a caravan pitch where—

(a) the caravan previously occupying such pitch is removed from that pitch during the relevant period; or

(b) the site operator has made diligent attempts to recover the due proportion of such rates from the, occupier of an individual caravan pitch but has been unable to effect such recovery.

The noble Lord said: We return at a different tangent to the same problem, though we have drawn the Amendment rather wider to cover a number of points, and I hope this may have the effect of expediting rather than confusing our proceedings. Under subsection (1) of the new clause, we have provision whereby the site operator may be empowered to recover, as a specialty debt enforceable by action, from the occupier of each caravan pitch monies due to him as rates. We also have some sort of guidance under subsection (2) as to how the rates should be apportioned. We are in this difficulty: if we are to save the great burden of local authority work involved in the assessment of individual pitches and caravans, to which the noble Baroness has alluded already, we have, almost as a corollary of that, to transfer the burden of apportionment to the site operator.
At least in concrete terms which I have been able to understand, the noble Baroness has so far denied to that person any recourse for the redress of what he considers to be an unfair apportionment to his pitch and caravan, other than opting for individual rating. When she referred to her own hypothetical case, she said that that would be the effective course open to her; she would be able to remonstrate and take advice, and so on, which owing to the force of her character, might be effective, but which, for the general public, would not. In the third subsection we have, therefore, put in a right of objection, and we have used existing statutory machinery to do it. The wording may not be perfect, but, if she would be kind enough to comment on the intention, I am sure this would satisfy the Committee. On subsection (4), the noble Baroness has already spoken about remission. She has said that she will be in touch on the matter—although she is not very optimistic about the content of her communication—before the next stage. Therefore, I think it would be possible for her to refer to that only briefly, if at all. I beg to move.
Baroness BIRK: I am very grateful to the noble Lord for explaining so fully and clearly his intention in tabling this new clause. Although he described it as covering powers for the site operators, I should like to say that I think he rather underplayed it. I have a great deal of

1159
sympathy with one of his objects, which is to give some protection to the caravanner on the amount of rates. His clause is really covering both the site operators and the caravanners included in the total charge for rates made by the site operator. Nevertheless, I have considerable misgivings about the form of protection he proposes. Perhaps I can deal first with this point, the protection of caravanners, because I think it is worrying a number of us, although it is not the first point in his proposed clause.
The scheme, as the noble Lord explained, is that the rates bill on the whole of the new composite rating unit should be apportioned by the site operator according to the criteria laid down in subsection (2), and as a check on the equity of this apportionment each caravanner would be able to appeal against it in the same way as a ratepayer can appeal against the rateable value of his property as entered into the valuation list by the valuation officer. If agreement cannot be reached, this involves reference to the local valuation court, with a further avenue of appeal to the Lands Tribunal, and so on. It is this invocation of the whole elaborate machinery of rating appeals into a scheme for apportioning the rate element in a caravan site operator's charges which gives me such great misgivings. We have been trying to simplify matters for everybody, bring down cost, personnel and all the other things which we are all at one in believing need doing at the moment. Having brought it down to the single hereditament with the one ratepayer, so to speak, the site operator, we are now invoking a very elaborate machinery which was not really set up for this situation. As I say, the main purpose of the Bill is to simplify the present procedures with an aspect of rating which makes fewer demands on manpower.
Much more fundamentally, if we did this and invoked all this machinery, I cannot see that we would have achieved anything worth while, in the light of the fact that there is no similar machinery under which the site operator's charge as a whole can be questioned; that remains an individual bargain. Perhaps the noble Lord would like to see machinery set up for this purpose; I do not know. I think there are great
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merits in that, and I am sure everything Lord Lucas of Chilworth said adds weight to that argument. But I am sure the noble Lord would agree with me that we could not do this with the Bill now before the House, because what he is really covering in this Amendment is the whole question of the composition of the site charge, how it should be dealt with and how there should be a way of appealing against it. This goes much further than what will turn out to be the smallest ingredient of it, which will be the rate content.
I can assure the noble Lord that the Government have in mind importing into the Bill at a later stage, I hope at Report stage, a provision which, while recognising the impossibility in all cases of identifying the rate element without throwing away the desirable simplifications we are seeking through this very unsimple Bill, will nevertheless enable caravanners to form a reasonable judgment about whether they are getting a fair deal. I do not think that I can go into that matter in more detail because I went into that when the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, raised it on another Amendment, when in fact I was going to discuss it on this one where actually it is more appropriate.
Although again I sympathise with what is behind this clause, for those reasons and a number of technical and other reasons, it would be extremely difficult to do it in this way. It seems to me that this is much more tied up with the whole process and make-up of the site charges and, if you like, relationship between site operators and caravanners than to do with the far more specific and narrow question of rating.
Lord ELTON: I am much obliged for that useful and helpful explanation that the noble Baroness has succinctly made, particularly on subsection (3) of the proposed new clause. I recall what she said in response to the noble Lord, Lord Avebury. I think that that, if it materialises in a satisfactory form at Report stage, would go some way towards allaying our fears which are, I suppose, also tempered by the reflection that here we are dealing with people's second homes. They are not anchored or trapped in them to the extent that people were in the Caravan (Mobile Homes)

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Bill with which we dealt earlier. To that extent I am in sympathy with what the noble Baroness said.
As to the question to which she did not refer very closely in her reply, covered by subsection (1) of the proposed new clause, I am not entirely happy about the situation of debt recovery. It meshes in with the very thorny problems raised by my noble friend Lord Hawke earlier on, and with the whole philosophy of the Bill. I should like to read with care what the noble Baroness said and take advice on a number of matters, including the probable frequency of the difficulties we have in mind and the probable proportion of the total demand the site operator will be making on the caravan pitch occupant, which she frequently assures us will be a very small one; and I am sure that she is right. If we might satisfy ourselves on these points before we go to the Report stage we might well have a meeting of minds on that. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 2 [Valuation and rating of caravan sites in Scotland]:
6.13 p.m.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY Lord CAMPBELL of CROY moved Amendment No. 12:
Page 3, line 10, leave out (" shall ") and insert (" may ").
The noble Lord said: Now we come to Clause 2, which is the clause applying to Scotland. The systems of valuation are different North and South of the Border, and also the legislation is different. It will be noted that all the references to legislation in Clause 2 are to Scottish Acts of Parliament. It is evident that when I moved an Amendment on the rating of caravans to a Scottish local government Bill in your Lordships' House on 8th April last, and drew attention to the need for some action for Scotland, I appear to have started something, because the noble Baroness, in her introduction of the Bill at Second Reading on 15th January, referred to that. I, of course, was suggesting that something needed to be done where Scotland was concerned. I was somewhat surprised, but gratified, to think that the Government had decided to take similar action in regard to England and Wales, which
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of course is in Clause 1, which we have just been considering.
I was surprised when the Bill appeared. I saw it when it first appeared in the Printed Paper Office, and then suddenly realised that the Government were proposing to do something where Scotland was concerned, which I had suggested some months ago, and I had not received any previous warning. I had not expected to, but my noble friend Lord Elton was aware of my surprise. If, in raising this question where Scottish legislation is concerned, I have contributed to producing a complicated Bill and raising a complicated subject, I apologise to your Lordships on both sides of the House.
Where Scotland is concerned the valuation system is different and so are the terms in legislation. For example, there is no such thing as "hereditament", which constantly occurs in the English legislation. In Scotland it is "lands and heritages ". Therefore, the Government have had to draft a completely separate clause where Scotland is concerned. I think there is some consolation in grappling with what the noble Baroness has agreed is not only a complicated Bill but one that has more content than previously had been thought. When she told us that it meant that those in caravans would be overall paying less in rates in future than they paid in the past, I think we can all reckon that the effort we are making on this Bill is worth it. She gave that assurance to us, and it is one we welcome.
Against that background, this Amendment is to inquire why it is that the Scottish clause is not permissive. It says "the assessor shall", whereas in the equivalent for England and Wales the valuation officer "may"—that is the word— "if he thinks fit ". In the equivalent part of Clause 1 the valuation officer, if he thinks fit, "may", whereas in the Scottish clause he is obliged to by the word "shall".This seemed strange, and it seemed curious that there should be this obligation where Scotland is concerned. There may be a perfectly good explanation, but this was naturally a matter which immediately came to my attention. I should be grateful if the noble Baroness could tell us the reason for it. I beg to move.
Baroness BIRK: The noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, explained briefly and succinctly that there were two different systems in Scotland and England, and that this applied to Scotland. In order to save the Committee's time, unless I am asked to I shall not go into a long explanation of the difference between the two systems, except to point out that while it is true that in England and Wales a valuation officer has discretion to adopt the comprehensive basis of assessment or not as he thinks fit, it is true that in Scotland the assessor has not. There are good reasons for this difference in approach. In England and Wales there is a precedent for the exercise of discretion by valuation officers. Valuation officers are appointed by Central Government; they are not the servants of the local authority.
It is true that where a building is occupied in part, Section 24 of the General Rate Act 1967 allows the making of a single entry in the valuation list, or separate entries. A discretion of this kind is unknown to the Scottish valuation code, and after its 120 years of history we feel its introduction would be unfair to assessors and ratepayers alike. There is in Scotland the crucial difference that the assessor, as I have already pointed out, is a local government official, engaged by a local authority, and much more closely involved in its working than is the English valuation officer, who is a Central Government official.
The choice of the basis of assessment is not academic. The amount of rates payable will almost certainly be affected and the assessor could be placed in an invidious position if he had to weigh administrative convenience against rate yield. He could be put in such a position and any decision could generate irritation with an operator, a caravanner or within a local authority. With the proper safeguards provided by Clause 1, discretion has advantages in England and Wales, but, though I hesitate to put my toes too deeply into Scottish waters, I understand it to be fundamental to the Scottish code that the law should be certain and applied uniformly.
What I myself do not understand is why it is that the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, made the provision mandatory in his original clause—a clause from which, as he rightly said, a
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great deal appears to stern. Now he has returned and wants this provision to be discretionary for Scotland. I suspect that on the earlier occasion he was thinking of the Scottish system and was seeking to make that universal, but that he now likes the English system better and is trying to apply it to Scotland where it does not belong.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY: My Amendment was put down to a Scottish Bill in April and, as I indicated just now, I was not seeking to make the provision universal. In April I was merely dealing with Scotland because it was a Scottish local government Bill. At that time I was moving an Amendment which I began by saying I did not expect to be accepted because it was simply moved in order to put forward the proposition that we needed action in this field to clear up the situation so far as Scotland was concerned. When the present Bill appeared and I found that the Government had decided to act on what I had suggested, not only in relation to Scotland but also as regards England and Wales, I noticed the difference between the two clauses and put down the Amendment out of curiosity to see why it should be mandatory in Scotland whereas it was not proposed that it should be so in England and Wales.
I thank the noble Baroness for the information which she has given us. As I imagined, this arises out of the two completely different systems and, as I understand it, she thinks it necessary because in England and Wales the valuation officers are appointed by Central Government whereas their Scottish equivalent, the assessors, are officials of local government.
I should like to take this opportunity of saying that, as my noble friend Lord Wakefield of Kendal said, both today and, at greater length, on Second Reading on 15th January, in many areas there have been very good working arrangements. What the Government are proposing in the present Bill has been happening successfully in Scotland. My noble friend was inquiring why it should be necessary to do this in Scotland so I should like to make it clear that when I put forward the proposal last April that there should be some action in Scotland it was because doubt had been

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thrown on those good arrangements by a court case. The courts had not agreed with the interpretation which had led to very satisfactory arrangements. The case in question was that of Redgates in Ayrshire about four years ago. That was what threw into doubt the satisfactory systems which had been operating in Scotland on the lines now proposed in the Bill. I hope that the noble Baroness will realise that that was why I put forward the original suggestion and why I have now put down Amendments to seek information concerning the present clause which applies only to Scotland.
I agree with the noble Baroness that there is no need for her to give us a long dissertation on the differences between the English and Scottish systems. It is enough for both of us to have said that they are very different and that that is the reason why there are two clauses. Indeed, had it not been for the greater ease in passing through both Houses of Parliament, these might have been two separate Bills because, as I pointed out, these matters where they affect caravan sites North of the Border are dealt with entirely in Scottish legislation. However, I accept that it was convenient to deal with them in one comparatively short Bill. I am grateful for what the noble Baroness has said in reply to the Amendment and I beg leave to withdraw it.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
6.28 p.m.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY Lord CAMPBELL of CROY moved Amendment No. 13:
Page 3, line 10, leave out from (" shall ") to (" for ") in line 11.
The noble Lord said: This is an Amendment which affects timing because the following words would be omitted:
" As regards the year 1976–77 and subsequent years ".
We have just accepted an Amendment put down by the Government to Clause 1 and which related to England and Wales. As far as they were concerned, that Amendment will bring the Bill into effect on 1st April 1976. However, it does not apply to Clause 2 and there is therefore no effective date for Scotland. I feel that that is probably right because the reorganisation of local government in Scotland took place a year later than in England and Wales. This was done by
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a separate Bill to which I gave up many hours because I was the Minister in charge of it when it went through Parliament.
The reorganisation in Scotland therefore took place comparatively recently and the new local authorities are still finding their feet. As the noble Baroness said, the assessors in Scotland are officials appointed by the local authorities and it has been put to me by people in Scotland that it would be better not to try to rush this, nor to have an early starting date in so far as Scotland is concerned. I repeat that satisfactory schemes are already operating in Scotland on these lines, so that, again, there is no special need to bring this in early. It is a matter of clarifying the law so that schemes of this kind can continue or can be set up without dubiety where the courts are concerned. I therefore think it unnecessary to have these words which would indicate that the assessor was to start in the year 1976–77, and I should be glad to hear the Government's views.
Baroness BIRK: I take the noble Lord's point but, as I have said, it is a major objective of the Bill to allow the assessment and collection of rates on sites and caravans without disproportionate cost in manpower and ratepayers' money. To introduce the new arrangements at a random date would almost certainly entail additional trouble and expense rather than a saving. If a firm starting date is not very soon known to assessors and rating authorities, many thousands of separate demands will have to be sent to individual caravanners. That is what we are trying to avoid.
In Scotland, the normal mode of paying rates is by monthly instalments and a change to the new basis at any time other than 1st April would mean several thousands of cancelled demands and the calculation of several thousands of small refunds or balances due. This would be an intolerable burden on rating authorities, an expense to ratepayers and an unnecessary irritant to caravanners. It also seems to me that there is no reason why the major benefits of the Bill should be postponed. On the other hand, I take the point made by the noble Lord, that the timing of the operation may be complex in particular cases and I can

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tell him that the matter is being considered to discover any possible anomalies.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY: I am glad to hear that it is being considered. I should add that in Scotland this Bill took many people by surprise. Those organisations concerned have been in touch with me and have said that they did not know of the existence of the Bill until it was published, or until I let them know that it had appeared, following the Amendment I moved last April. This is another reason why they have not had time to consider the matter in the way they would have done had they been consulted beforehand, although of course they welcome in principle the fact that action is being taken.
I agree that it is appropriate to start at the beginning of the rating year, and I hope that the noble Baroness will consider postponing the start for a year. I am not suggesting that it should happen at random. By putting down this probing Amendment I have drawn attention to the matter, and I hope that the Government will consider inserting "a year later", or "two years"if they think that more appropriate. A postponement would be beneficial and would be welcome among all those concerned in Scotland, though the system in principle which is being proposed is one which we regard as an improvement because it clarifies the law.
Baroness BIRK: I do not want the noble Lord to be misled over my saying that I would be looking at this point because there were anomalies in particular cases. It would be quite wrong of me to lead him astray in such a way that he would think that I would come back at the Report stage with an Amendment to postpone this for one year or two years. This is extremely unlikely, unless I receive other information between now and then.
I am concerned with the possibility that a disabled person may suffer from the absence of discretion in Scotland. I have this point under consideration, and I hope to bring forward an Amendment at the Report stage. I do not know whether the noble Lord got the point I was making about the disabled. This afternoon I suddenly realised that Scotland did not appear to be covered in this
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respect. Unless the noble Lord objects—and I am sure he will not—I will bring forward an Amendment to cover that point.
The noble Lord has gone further and suggested longer term postponement of the date in Scotland. The Convention of Scottish Local Authorities was consulted a week or so before presentation and discussion with the assessors' association started as early as last October. Thus it is not quite right or fair to say that Scotland was entirely taken by surprise, especially as so much regarding this matter emanated from the noble Lord himself, with his connections in Scotland. But I will certainly look at the question of anomalies and see what weight there is in it.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY: I am grateful to the noble Baroness for those comments. I understand that the assessors' organisation had been approached, but I think that it was the other people concerned—the whole caravanning world—who were taken by surprise. I acknowledge that I understand that the assessors' organisation received some indication that the Government might be legislating, although the, answer which I received in April was that the Government were not to legislate because they felt that it could not be done within the foreseeable time.
I intended to raise the matter of the disabled on consideration of clause stand part, and indeed I shall still do so, along with one or two other matters. But I am grateful for what the noble Baroness has said at this stage. I ask her whether she, or the Scottish Minister concerned, would, between now and a later stage of consideration of this Bill, consider with the Scottish assessors the question of the date, because they are the people most concerned in this work. They can consider whether it can be done in time, or whether it would be a rushed job if they have to do it in the forthcoming rating year. If the Government will consult again to see whether or not too many difficulties would be created, then I should be glad to leave the matter there.
Lord WAKEFIELD of KENDAL: I wish to support what the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, said about postponement. Surely the very fact that

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the system is now working so well in Scotland suggests that postponement might be a help rather than a hindrance. I hope that the noble Baroness will look into this matter further. If the system is working well, then to try hastily to change to something else might be a disadvantage rather than an advantage. Therefore I strongly support the request for further consideration of postponement.
Baroness BIRK: The noble Lord, Lord Wakefield of Kendal, also raised this point on Second Reading, when he suggested that the Bill would be unnecessary if the example of Scotland had been followed. But, with great respect, I must tell him that this is nonsense, because the problems in Scotland relating to this matter have been just as great as those in England and Wales. The need for, and the benefits of, the Bill are just as great in Scotland as in England and Wales. I will look at any anomalies which may arise and consider carefully what has been said during the Committee stage. Nevertheless, there is no basic reason for any long-term postponement in Scotland, as suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY: I was not intending a long-term postponement. The noble Baroness herself indicated that it would be appropriate and convenient to start from the beginning of the rating year; 1st April was the date she gave. It was on that basis that I reckoned a period of a year if it was to be postponed, and I should not regard that as long-term. However, I have made my point, and I hope that the Government will consult further with the assessors and others concerned with this matter. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
6.37 p.m.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY Lord CAMPBELL of CROY moved Amendment No. 14:
Page 3, line 23, leave out (" tenant ") and insert (" occupier ").
The noble Lord said: The occupier may not necessarily be the proprietor or his tenant, and I believe that in the Bill the Government do mean the occupier. Therefore I suggest that in this clause there should be inserted the word "occupier" instead of "tenant". This would be correct. I beg to move.
Baroness BIRK: The significance of being the proprietor, tenant or occupier of property is that one is so named in the valuation roll and has a right to a notice of assessment and, most important, to appeal against the assessment in the valuation roll. The only persons with a material interest in the assessment of a caravan site are the proprietor, tenant and occupier of the site. Individual caravanners have no direct interest which would justify their being allowed a right of appeal and the issue of notices of assessment would only mystify and confuse them. Clause 2(1) deems the site operator to be the occupier of the whole complex, so he will get a valuation notice. He has the major interest in that he will pay the rates, but in line with the Scottish valuation system the proprietor and tenant, if different from the operator, will get notices also.
Taken together subsections (1) and (3) of Clause 2 produce the sensible result that the occupier, tenant and proprietor of the site are deemed to have an interest extending to the whole complex. The Amendment would leave in doubt the position of individual pitch tenants, and for this reason I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw his Amendment.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY: If the noble Baroness is satisfied that the present wording in the Bill carries out the intentions. I will not contest that. I thought that this would be a helpful Amendment which would clarify what was intended, but in view of what has been said I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY Lord CAMPBELL of CROY moved Amendment No. 15:
Page 3, line 24, leave out (" and any area comprising it ").
The noble Lord said: This, too, is simply a short matter of drafting. The words "and any area comprising it "seem to be unnecessary and could be misleading. When used in conjunction with the term "caravan pitch ", the words simply seem otiose, and we wonder whether the Government might be assisted by this Amendment in deleting the words in question. I beg to move.
Baroness BIRK: I am very grateful to the noble Lord for drawing our attention to this. I should like to take it back and

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consider the point, because I think there is some merit in what the noble Lord has said. So if he would withdraw his Amendment I will consider it.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY: I am grateful to the noble Baroness for having recognised the point. We on this side are only trying to be helpful. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Baroness BIRK Baroness BIRK moved Amendment No. 16:
Page 3, line 28, at end insert (" section 6 of ").
The noble Baroness said: This is a very simple drafting Amendment. It is to overcome an omission in the Bill as presented, which provided an incomplete reference to the Valuation and Rating (Scotland) Act 1956. The section was left out, and there should be inserted the words, "section 6 of". I beg to move.
Lord ELTON: I do not wish to delay your Lordships, but are we not to have two "ofs" in succession if this Amendment is accepted? I am sorry; I think I now understand what is intended. I apologise for rushing in so swiftly.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY: I would only say that this requirement had been drawn to my attention by so many people that I was not surprised when the Government put down this Amendment.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY Lord CAMPBELL of CROY moved Amendment No. 17:
Page 4, line 1, leave out subsection (8).
The noble Lord said: This is another Amendment which your Lordships will be glad to hear involves a very brief point. Is it necessary to have subsection (8) and these explanations? It is purely a matter of drafting, but I would ask the Government—I have given them notice by putting down this Amendment—whether it is really necessary to have subsection (8) at all. I beg to move.
Baroness BIRK: I think the noble Lord is now pushing his luck. While I am still ready to listen, I think I have been very generous over some of his other suggestions and Amendments.
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There are a number of expressions in Clause 2 which have a particular meaning in Scottish law, such terms as "lands and heritages", "valuation roll" and "assessor ". They are used in a series of Scottish Acts which go back to 1854, and are rather different from the expressions which we use; by "we" I mean those of us who are unfortunate enough not to be Scottish.
The subsection which the noble Lord would remove has, I feel, the indispensible function of importing the settled definitions of these and similar expressions in the Bill. But, more than that, the subsection ensures that any change in the valuation code—for example, if it were necessary to implement some recommendation of the Lay field Committee—will affect this Bill with all the other valuation Acts. Without the subsection this Bill would need to be explicitly mentioned. I think, if I may say so, that it is because this is a Scottish part of a whole Bill, instead of being a Bill on its own, that, understandably, the noble Lord has nicked up this point. But now I have explained it. I hope that he will withdraw his Amendment.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY: I am grateful to the noble Baroness for what she has said, because it does become clear now. This subsection would probably not appear if this were a completely Scottish Bill, because these expressions would be understood but I now see that in a Bill which covers the whole United Kingdom it is helpful if these expressions are spelt out in the Bill. I also take the point about the Lay field Committee and any changes which may be introduced later. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
6.47 p.m.
On Question, Whether Clause 2, as amended, shall stand part of the Bill?
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY: I should like to raise a point here. The noble Baroness mentioned the disabled and gave us notice that she intended to introduce an Amendment to the Scottish clause as well as to the English clause at a later stage. I think that is what she said. I should like to raise the question of rate rebates. When I spoke on this subject in April 1 recognised that there might be difficulties in carrying out a

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scheme of this kind arising from the eligibility for rate rebates of some of the persons living in leisure caravans. I thought that, having given notice of that matter at that time, this would be a subject which would come up, and I apologise for not having given notice that I was going to raise it. I shall absolutely understand if the Government are not fully ready to reply on this point at short notice. I hope that there will be no undue difficulties. I was simply foreseeing them when I was speaking on this subject last April. I hope that the scheme can include, without complications, the rate rebate system, so that nobody who is eligible for a rate rebate will suffer because of this scheme.
Baroness BIRK: That, if I may answer briefly and simply, is quite a direct point. Since leisure caravans are a second home they are not eligible for rate rebates, so that matter really does not come into the Bill at all. It was not that it was overlooked in any way, but that it is not applicable in this case.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY: I am grateful to the noble Baroness who has been able to give us an absolutely clear answer to that point.
Clause 2, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 3 [Interpretation and application]:
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY Lord CAMPBELL of CROY moved Amendment No. 18:
Page 4, line 16, after (" if ") insert (" paragraph 4 and ").
The noble Lord said: Certain organisations are exempted from the duty to apply for a site licence, and I can give as examples the Camping Club and the Forestry Commission. They usually cater only for touring caravans, but I think we have also to be prepared for their going in for a policy of accommodating long-stay caravans because there is nothing to prevent them from doing so unless there is invariably going to be a prohibition as a condition of the certificate which is granted in those cases. In Scotland there are sites of this kind, and we feel that in Clause 3 there ought to be a reference, not only to paragraph 11 of the Bill but also to paragraph 4, in order to cover this kind of situation. I beg to move.
Baroness BIRK: Perhaps I can say at this stage that this will certainly be accepted in principle. I can see no reason why the examples which the noble Lord has given should not be included in the Bill. If he would not mind leaving it with me so that we can bring forward a draft—it may be the same wording or it may need different wording—I would prefer it that way. But certainly the principle of it is completely acceptable, and I am grateful to the noble Lord for raising it.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY: In view of what the noble Baroness has said I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 3 agreed to.
Remaining clause agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported with the Amendments.

EEC: THIRTY-SECOND REPORT ON THE TECHNOLOGICAL PROBLEMS OF NUCLEAR SAFETY
6.50 p.m.
The Earl of LAUDERDALE The Earl of LAUDERDALE rose to move, That this House takes note of the Thirty-second Report of the European Communities Committee (Session 1974–75) on the Technological Problems of Nuclear Safety (R/681/75). The noble Earl said: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. Before anything else is said, I should like to make it quite clear that nothing I have to say is intended in any way whatever to reflect upon or diminish our Committee's gratitude to the staff of the Department of Energy who always help us most readily and, very often, I know, at great cost in time and trouble to themselves. We on the Committee are very grateful indeed for the constant help that we receive from that quarter. I want therefore to stress that nothing I am going to say is intended in the slightest degree to be a reflection on their kindness and willingness always to help us.
My Lords, there are three reasons for asking for this debate. The first is the Government's treatment of our Committee and, through our Committee, of this

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House. I am reminded of a writer of the 18th century who said that what Bishops most like in their clergy is a drooping and submissive aspect. Our second reason is the Government's now familiar practice with regard to apparently harmless resolutions and the Government's readiness to assent to these in the Council of Ministers. I can only think that ignorance is the mother of admiration. The third reason is the actual content of the Commission's document which the resolution carried—and if I were to coin a phrase to illustrate our thinking on that, I would call it "transcendental moonshine ".
I shall not say much on the last point; others will deal with it more effectively; but let me take the question of the Government's behaviour. Before our Committee was able to take evidence—that was on 3rd July last year—the Government had agreed in principle to the resolution that we were examining at the Council of Ministers a little while before, on 26th June. The Council had referred the resolution back to the Committee of Permanent Representatives who, in turn, refer such a resolution and such subject matter to the Atomic Energy Group. That was done so that the resolution could be revised in the light of points made by the several Governments. We on our Committee were not—and I repeat "not "—given to understand that, once the revision was done, the amended version would be taken through the Council as we would say in Parliament "on the nod" and, as they say, "as an ' A' item ". We did not understand that. Had we done so, our treatment of the situation no doubt might have been somewhat different. But because we did not understand that it was now going to go forward, once revised, "on the nod", we asked for a sight of the re-draft believing, of course, that if we saw the re-draft we could scrutinise it before anything final took place.
We were indeedassured—and this appears at Question 7 in our evidence taken on 3rd July—that we could see the revised draft. Two weeks went by and the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State to the Department of Energy, Mr. Eadie, was good enough to respond to our invitation and come to our Com
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mittee. The first thing he did was to contradict that assurance. After a bit of to-ing and fro-ing, I, as the Chairman, made this remark, which appears at Question 137:
"We are in the dark, having the pleasure of your company and discussing a document the text of which we cannot see and which we were led to believe from previous evidence that we could see?"
The answer Mr. Eadie gave us was:
" … the point is that it is a working document, and this is the difficulty. This is a very practical difficulty since this is a working, on-going document."
It is, indeed, true that the following day we got the revised text. But if Mr. Eadie carried anything away from his exposure to questioning by our Committee it must have been that we were very concerned indeed about the content of this document; and I think that a careful reading of the evidence will show that he must have got that impression. If he did get that impression, did it have the smallest effect on the Government's behaviour? Only four days afterwards, the Government assented to this resolution without further discussion. The Government, their heart crammed with arrogancy, as might have been said in a different connection, just let it go and ignored our manifest anxieties, anxieties expressed on behalf of this House. Thereafter, the matter was taken up by the Chairman of our Select Committee, my noble friend Lady Tweedsmuir, in correspondence with Mr. Hattersley at the Foreign Office. I have to say that his reply to my noble friend was not strictly correct, if not actually misleading.
He said two things. He said that our Committee was already aware that the revised resolution would go through on the nod. We were not so aware. Mr. Hattersley was misinformed when he signed that letter. He added that as the primary responsibility of the Scrutiny Committee was, in any case, relating to legislation and this was a mere resolution, it did not really matter very much anyway; and, in any case, it did not call into action the Government's assurance of 11th June 1974 that when Parliament wanted to look at something they would put a reserve on the subject in question in the Council.
In fact—and this is worth stressing through the medium of this House to Ministers in another place—our remit is

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critically different from that of the other place in that our instruction by Parliament is to look at all proposals; not just proposals for legislation, but all proposals. That means really any document that the Commission produces. Whether they are legislative or otherwise, we are expected to look at these things and we are expected in the course of it to look at the relative resolutions being submitted to the Council. So we have an obligation to scrutinise these things, and although the Government commitment to put a reserve on certain matters if Parliament is anxious about them pending a debate relates, it is true, only to legislation, it is well that the Government should understand that we are not altogether happy with that situation and that we would ask for, and would expect, some similar consideration to be given when resolutions coming before the Council excite our anxiety.
My Lords, the difficulty about the resolutions that come before the Council is that they are usually phrased in very general terms. Often they invite the countries involved to take note, or ask the countries to do something without requiring them to do these things. It may readily be inferred from the gentleness of the language of these resolutions that they have no cutting edge; but, by a process of accretion the passage of successive resolutions, even in those general terms, builds up a negative consensus which accumulates, which establishes a legacy of precedent and is in danger, finally, of being established as an all-embracing policy.
On that ground we are cautious about these resolutions; we believe that the Government should be much more cautious than they have been, and we took particular exception to this resolution for a number of reasons, of which I shall cite only one. In this particular case the Government assented to the proposition,
" That it is encumbent on the Commission to act as a catalyst for initiatives in the field of nuclear safety to be taken on a broad international plain."
In other words, the Government accept the view pushed steadily by the Commission that although an immense amount of work is being done in this field by competent people, the European Commission should add another layer of
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examination, protection, activity or verbiage to it all. This concept that the Commission must be a catalyst—and that is their phrase—in this highly technical field, which is already being handled by other agencies, reminds me of Samuel Butler's words:
" Learned nonsense has a deeper sound than easy sense, and goes for more profound."
Our Committee found that the European Commission is not only trying to do what others were doing already, but trying, as in the energy field, to widen and therefore disperse the focus of Community action. In this case it would add to the workload of the very few experts available. We found the Commission's own detailed technical information is limited to that provided by the experts of the Member-States themselves, and its own staff are mainly administrative and therefore not competent in these matters. So we said in our Report that consequently the Commission is not technically equipped for this action. We reached the conclusion that the creation of a new Community focus for nuclear safety questions would only proliferate the number of international organisations already active and, as a result of that, it could only overtax—as we put it—the
" resources of the comparatively small number of experts available "
which could well be
" at the expense of those experts' pressing obligations in research, design, operation and inspection ".
Our Report has an annex to which I commend the attention of your Lordships. That gives an indicative or illustrative list of some of the international activities in the field of nuclear safety which are claiming the constant, the peripatetic, attention of the limited number of real experts available. To give one or two examples, the International Energy Agency, in its first year's work, set up no fewer than three working groups with all the inevitable derivatives from them. The International Atomic Energy Agency held no fewer than 40 meetings in 1975 —that is almost one a week—and somebody has had to travel from the Member countries to Vienna, or wherever the meetings have been held, has had to be briefed and has had to take time off from urgent work to support that. I am not saying that should not be done; but one should have some pity on the experts in

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their opportunities to get a decent rest and refreshment. The OECD has an energy steering committee with no fewer than five sub-committees; and one of those sub-committees held no fewer than eight conferences last year; that is, every six weeks.
These are the pressures to which the limited number of experts are exposed, and the EEC Commission proposes that it should act as a catalyst in addition, and the Government here have assented to this. The European Communities Advisory Committee on the Safety Research Programme for the Euratom joint research operation is served by no fewer than ten separate bodies, all of whom need to be serviced with information, and all of whom are taking up the time and draining the energy and nerves of the very few—only a few thousand—number of experts available.
When we saw Mr. Eadie he could also have noted from our questioning that we were worried on one or two other aspects. I refer to the Commission's proposal on standardisation of design, manufacturing procedures, safety standards and quality control in power stations. From our evidence we concluded—and he must have taken this away from what he heard—that even the Commission's general statements about safety could never be of universal application, simply because there are different types of reactor in use, and design is continually developing. Then we were worried because we found the Commission was urging approval procedures for nuclear power stations to be speeded up, and the word we used in our Report was "centralised ".
Commissioner Spinelli, who was good enough to see us in Brussels on our visit there, was kind enough a few days back to write me a letter commenting on our Report. I have taken care to circularise this letter to those Back-Benchers who had put their names down to speak in this debate. I wanted them to have the information about what Commissioner Spinelli wrote to me, and I should like the Commissioner to know we appreciated the trouble he took. He said. among other things, the words "centrally" and "centralise" do not appear in the resolution and, by implication, we had got it wrong. He was good enough
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to quote the relevant passage from the resolution which calls for
" appropriate action at Community level ".
That is the phrase which we took to amount to a centralising proposal. We as a Committee viewed with concern this suggestion, and we felt that the ability to make direct representations on this sensitive subject to accessible elected representatives, or at a public inquiry, would be a valuable safety valve which would be lost if approvals
" were in effect centralised in Brussels ".
That is how we interpreted the phrase "at Community level ". We may have misunderstood what the Commission had in mind.
Others will enlarge on what I have said. I would only conclude that the Government are inclined from time to time to be high-handed. The Government knew we were concerned; the Government had led us to believe that we could see the text before it was too late. The Government denied that to us, and never told us they would agree to the revised text going through "on the nod". The Motion I move before this House is mildly to take note of our Report, but there are other and stronger types of Motion which are possible. Indeed, it is perfectly possible to move a Motion in this House and press it to a Division. Perhaps it may be well that the Government should realise that this could happen one day. Threatened folk live long. This Committee and this House have not been set up to be browbeaten or ignored, and any repetition of the treatment we have had will elicit a very different reaction. My Lords I beg to move.
Moved, That this House takes note of the Thirty-second Report of the European Communities Committee (Session 1974–75) on the Technological Problems of Nuclear Safety (R/681/75).—(The Earl of Lauderdale.)
7.11 p.m.
Lord LLOYD of KILGERRAN: My Lords, my intervention in this debate should have occurred after a characteristically charming speech by the noble Baroness. Lady Elles; but unhappily I find myself in the rather invidious position now of having to speak after the distinguished Chairman of Sub-Committee

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F, who has just sat down, and immediately before the world's greatest technical expert on nuclear matters, the noble Lord. Lord Hinton of Bank side. My technical experience of nuclear matters is limited to an immediate post-graduate stage and to some military research during the last War, but I am not proposing to talk about technical matters. I wish to raise what I feel is a serious political issue arising out of the Government's attitude in relation to this Directive on nuclear safety.
It is inevitable, when we are discussing anything concerned with nuclear safety, that the element of fear must always be present. Therefore it seems to me politically important in this area of fast-moving technology, as a matter of vital public policy, that the aspect of fear should be entirely removed from the public domain. Indeed, the public must be encouraged, particularly by Government action of all kinds, to have the highest confidence in nuclear activities, particularly in the commercial field in the United Kingdom. Many of your Lordships will remember the anxiety which arose a number of years ago in agricultural areas in the North of England around Wind scale. Happily, those fears were rapidly dissipated.
When this EEC Directive on nuclear safety first came to the notice of the Sub-Committee of which I have the honour to be a member, many of us were very much afraid that the Commission, with every good intention, was, to put it quite crudely, perhaps "messing about" in an area in which it had insufficient expertise. Therefore, its persistent attempt to produce a so-called "harmonisation" in this field could be dangerous and cause public unrest. Indeed, some of us, after reading the draft Directive, felt that representations should be made immediately in Brussels. As the Report of the Sub-Committee indicates and as has been referred to by the noble Earl, Lord Lauderdale, we have pointed out on page vi that we feel the Commission was not technically equipped for action in this field. Indeed, in the fifth paragraph on the same page it is recorded that the view of the Committee was that
" Uniformity might be only achieved by levelling down ".
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That would produce a certain political anxiety. As the noble Earl, Lord Lauderdale, pointed out, there were times when members of the Committee could not understand the attitude of the Government. The Committee had the opportunity, as your Lordships have heard, to get evidence from the Under-Secretary of State for Energy. I was particularly anxious about the political aspect of public anxiety which this kind of Directive might have produced, so I asked the Under-Secretary of State for Energy specific questions on these vital matters. I must say that his replies were, to some extent, helpful and reassuring in regard to the technical attitudes of the Government in these matters. I should like to refer to page 29 of the Report, where the replies are recorded. The Under-Secretary of State said (line 4, left-hand column):
" On the other hand, harmonisation Will be difficult and the time estimates could be in error."
Lower down in the same reply to my question about anxiety which might be caused by the attitude of the Commission, as expressed in the Directive, in the nuclear field, he said:
" We are anxious to ensure that our excellent record in nuclear safety is maintained and that our nuclear programme may be advanced in a controlled manner."
It is perfectly clear, therefore, that the Government there recognise the desirability of relieving public anxiety over any matters dealing with nuclear safety. At the end of his reply to my question, the Under-Secretary of State said this:
" … I did say that we are perhaps fortunate in this country in that the concern felt about the safety of nuclear installations is less intense, largely because of the record and because of the contribution made by a member of this Committee."
Those remarks are, of course, to some extent reassuring from the technical point of view. But, like the noble Earl, I feel anxiety over the attitudes of the Government about this Directive as regards their official actions within the Community. However, it is essential for this House to be ever watchful in the interests of the public of the United Kingdom as regards the progress of EEC activities in this field, and I join with the noble Earl in asking for the assurances of the Minister in this connection.
7.18 p.m.
Lord HINTON of BANKSIDE: My Lords, the noble Earl, Lord Lauderdale, made it clear when introducing the Motion that Sub-Committee F was not happy about some of the procedural incidents which took place during our consideration of the Report; but I do not think I need underline or enlarge on what he said. The Report of the Select Committee makes it clear that we found objection to the draft resolution, but I do not think we would wish to give the impression that we disagreed with the Preamble to the Report, many parts of which were quite wise. For instance, the Preamble said:
" It is essential to take note of the increasing criticism which is being directed against the growth in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and which in some countries takes the form of a struggle between the environmental protection movements and the promoters of nuclear development."
The noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, was making this point.
With that statement I fully agree. It was where the Commission went on in its resolution to call for the harmonisation of standards, and where it apparently envisaged setting up its own organisation, that Sub-Committee F felt extremely ununhappy. It considered that the proposals of the Commission were not merely un-unrealistic but might, indeed, be obstructive rather than useful, because, as the noble Earl said, the additional organisation would take up the time of a very limited number of experts. But those points are made in the Committee's Report, and I am sure that they will be emphasised by other speakers in this debate, so there is no need for me to enlarge on them or to emphasise them.
But I feel that this occasion gives us an opportunity of looking at the broader problem of nuclear safety, and of trying to get it into perspective with other manmade hazards which we constantly and happily face, either because we have become acclimatised to them or because we are unconscious of them. In his evidence to the Sub-Committee, Mr. Farmer said:
"When one examines, in the detail that is currently given to reactors, the possible hazards from other industries, one gets the feeling that one should be discussing all major hazards in a country and not concentrating on one source of hazard such as nuclear. I believe
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that we have been isolated in the nuclear community far too long."
With that statement of Mr. Farmer's I find myself in very full agreement, and I believe that the public evaluation of the relative importance of hazards is based far too much on emotion and far too little on logic.
Last year, the Health and Safety Executive of the Ministry of Labour set up an Advisory Committee on Major Hazards. How much that Committee intends to publish, I do not know. But I gather from conversations with people who are interested in it that it is likely to recommend the use of the statistical approach to the evaluation of hazards, which has been advocated and developed by Mr. Farmer at the Atomic Energy Establishment at Risley over the last 25 years. In the simplest possible terms, the philosophy which underlies that system of evaluation accepts the fact that absolute safety is absolutely unachieveable; that accidents involving only minor hazards can be accepted quite frequently, but that accidents involving major hazards and probable loss of life ought not to be accepted unless they are extremely infrequent.
I have already said that the Advisory Committee on Major Hazards has not yet published any figures, but there is an article by Mr. Farmer in a recent number of the Atomic Energy Authority's information bulletin, which discusses the hazards that can be expected from nuclear plants and compares those hazards with risks arising from other causes. In that article, Mr. Farmer reproduces graphs which were prepared by Rasmussen in the United States for the Regulatory Commission there. Of course, Rasmussen's calculations apply to American conditions, but when allowance is made for that his figures are very closely in line with those prepared by Mr. Farmer for British conditions. The curves which are reproduced in that article by Farmer show the relationship between the extent of the hazard which can arise from a given accident, and the frequency with which that accident can be expected.
I am quite sure that neither Rasmussen nor Farmer would claim absolute accuracy for any of their figures, but the graphs which were prepared certainly show an order of magnitude. They suggest, for instance, that air crashes causing 100 or

1185
more deaths can be expected on average once every three years; that fires causing 100 or more deaths can be expected every eight years; that failures of large dams causing 100 or more deaths can be expected every 12 years, and that releases of chlorine gas causing 100 or more deaths can be expected every 80 years. By comparison, the figure which Rasmussen gave for the probability of a nuclear incident causing more than 100 fatalities shows that for every 100 reactors in use such an incident could be expected less frequently than once every 10,000 years. Extensions of Rasmussen's curves show that for accidents causing 1.000 or more fatalities the probability is that failures of large dams will occur 10,000 times more often, and that chlorine releases causing 1,000 fatalities are likely to occur 1.000 times more often, than similar failures of nuclear power plants.
If I may put those figures into more human terms, the man in the street ought, if he thinks logically about it, to be worried far more about the risk that he runs from the transport of substantial quantities of toxic or dangerous materials, such as chlorine, ammonia, high test hydrogen peroxide or even propane and butane, than by the proximity of a nuclear power plant. However, if his sense of logic is really fully developed, he will inevitably realise that by far the greatest hazard that he faces throughout his life is that of dying from natural causes.
There is, of course, an inevitable degree of uncertainty in both Rasmussen's and Farmer's estimates of the probability of a district hazard which arises from a nuclear power plant. Engineers have learned most of what they know by making mistakes; the bridges, cooling towers and buildings that collapsed, the aircraft that have crashed, the boilers and turbo-alternators that have broken down or have proved to be unreliable have taught them far more than they have learned from the corresponding buildings or plants that have been successful. But that easy progress from one disaster to the next has been denied to nuclear engineers. The implications, both physical and psychological, of failure of atomic energy plants have been so serious that from 1946 the tendency was to make cost and convenience secondary to safety. Whether the extrapolation of unit rating and of design parameters has destroyed
1186
that philosophy, I do not at the moment know, because I am not sufficiently closely in touch with the industry. But the policy of the early years was such that there was no bracket between success and failure within which one could determine with reasonable statistical accuracy what was the chance of accident.
However, by using the data available both from laboratory experiments and operating experience it is possible—although one has to make some arbitrary assumptions—to predict the amount of radioactivity which might be released in accidents of varying degree of severity. The aim in reactor design is to ensure that there is a safeguard against every foreseeable accident. After all, design is done by human beings who are neither infallible nor omniscient. Even if design is perfect, safety still depends on quality assurance in manufacturers' works, on the construction sites and on the quality of operation and of maintenance. In the debate in your Lordships' House on 2nd December I suggested that the very large nuclear programme which was planned by the EEC might have made quality assurance difficult; but with a reasonable programme of construction and cautious extrapolation of design, experience does give a guide to the possible incidence of engineering failures in nuclear plants and shows that the hazard which arises from them is, as I say, far less than the hazards which we happily face day by day.
In the assessment of those risks, Mr. Farmer has 25 years of experience of risk assessment in the atomic energy industry. I know that in arriving at the figures which he has used he has made allowance for all of the hazards which have to be taken into account and that he has also carefully analysed the hazards from the more conventional types of accident. I accept his assessment of risk; but the fact that I, as an individual, accept that assessment of risk is of comparatively little importance. What really matters is what the man in the street thinks about it; whether that risk worries people at large.
I believe that in the public assessment of atomic energy hazards, ground has been lost over the last few years. Both before and after the first nuclear power programme was announced in 1955, facts and hazards were made clearly and

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frankly available to the public. Looking back, it is interesting to remember that at the inception of the nuclear power programme there was no public inquiry into the construction of the nuclear power plant at Berkeley because no material objections to the construction of that plant had been raised. It seems to me that over the last 10 years the public image of the nuclear industry has deteriorated. To some extent I think that this has resulted from over-ambitious extrapolation of designs and I doubt whether the authorities have done all that they could to reassure the public. I think, too, that in some cases they have played their cards very much too close to their chests.
In the debate on 2nd December last year I spoke of the shortage of energy which it seems will face both this country and the EEC at about the end of this century. In the light of that threatened shortage, it is, I suggest, important that nuclear power, including the fast reactor, should be developed as quickly as is technically wise. It is important that the public should be shown the need for nuclear power and that it should be explained to them in such a way that they understand that, with wise and careful development, the benefits of nuclear power far outweigh the disadvantages. As is said in the Select Committee's Report:
"Standardisation generally, as proposed by the Commission, must imply that decisions would be taken centrally and therefore by an agency remote from the public affected."
The British Organisation for Safety Assurance may be imperfect in detail, but I believe that in principle it is right and that it has the advantage of being near to the man in the street. I support Dr. Franklin's written evidence in which he says of a proposal to set up any central safety organisation in Brussels:
" The best line of action for the Commission would be the encouragement of others … rather than anything that could be represented as direct participation and therefore an increasing remoteness of those who set the safety standards ".
I do not believe that safety and confidence can best be secured by remote control from Brussels, nor do I believe that standardisation is possible in this rapidly growing branch of technology.
7.38 p.m.
Lord SHERFIELD: My Lords, the House will be grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Lauderdale, for introducing this subject and to the noble Lord, Lord Hinton of Bank side, for his informed comments. It is fortunate that the House has the benefit of Lord Hinton's great experience of nuclear engineering, and one follows on after him at one's peril! I am not a member of the Sub-Committee and I intervene in this debate only to make a couple of general points which have struck me and which are, perhaps, worth bearing in mind. Both of them have already been made, in substance, and I shall only try to underline them from a rather different angle.
As the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, suggested, the circumstances in which nuclear power originated created apprehension and fear in the public mind. This has led to the application of criteria and regulations to the nuclear industry quite different from those applicable to other industries: for example, the chemical industry or the steel industry. As the Committee's Report points out the result has been that there are a great many organisations and authorities, national and international, which concern themselves with various aspects of nuclear power and which, in their turn, have spawned a perfect jungle of committees. Since nuclear safety is a highly specialised and technical subject, there are, as the noble Earl observed, only a limited number of experts qualified to sit on or advise these committees.
There is, therefore, an ever-present danger that progress in the construction and operation of nuclear reactors may become completely bogged down in a morass of regulations, inquiries and requirements for authorisations. Even on our own national ground it is apparently taking two years to evaluate the steam generating heavy water reactor, although the prototype has been running for nearly 10 years. I suggest that it is in this light that the EEC Commission's proposals to the Council for harmonisation need to be viewed. I do not suppose that anyone would question the right of the EEC to become involved in the question of nuclear safety or other aspects of the civil applications of nuclear energy.
The question is what action can usefully and helpfully be taken in this field

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in the present evolving state of nuclear plant design, without placing a yet heavier burden on the available experts, in the first place, and on the hard-pressed nuclear industry, in the second place. The answer seems to be very little, beyond the assembling of information. It is surely much too soon to attempt to standardise design or to centralise control, but it is not too soon to put the issues of nuclear safety into better proportion. The nuclear industry has suffered by being singled out for special and exceptional treatment. The safety record of the industry up to the present time is second to none. Uniquely, and due to its characteristics, safety was a first priority from the very outset.
It is always rash to make statements of the kind that I shall make, but they are based on the record up to date. So far as I know—I may be out of date—in the whole history of nuclear power development only one death has occurred through a nuclear accident, and that was 20 years ago in a small experimental American reactor where the accident was due to human folly. In the same period, very serious and lethal accidents in the chemical industry, the steel industry, the transport industry—indeed in almost every branch of industry—have taken place. Of course, I am not talking about people falling off ladders—ordinary accidents which happen everywhere—but accidents due to plant failure and the like. Recent statistics available from the Atomic Energy Authority are relevant in this connection. I read in the recent report on their operations last year:
" Since 1962, when accident statistics were first compiled on a central basis we have had a total of four fatal accidents inside our establishments";
that is, accidents in the "failing off the ladder "category. More generally—and I quote again:
" … for virtually every medical group, the death rate for atomic energy employees, properly corrected for age distribution, is lower than the comparable figures for the population at large as published in the Registrar General's statistics. This applies to our employees of today and to our pensioners."
The nuclear industry and Governments have not yet been successful in securing public acceptance of the fact that the hazards of nuclear installations are, on the record, far less than those of older industries. It is quite time that questions
1190
of nuclear safety were handled on the same level and together with questions of safety in industry. This brings me to a suggestion which I fear may be unpopular and may in any event come too late.
The EEC are just beginning, as the papers before us show, to feel their way into questions of nuclear safety. Would it not be much more productive. instead of trying to duplicate what other agencies, national and international, are doing in this field, for them to approach the matter from a fresh angle, to relate nuclear safety specifically to the safety of industrial plant in general, and start the process of harmonisation on a broader front? This might be the more practicable, as we are, I think, dealing in present context only with plant safety and not with radiological protection, though there again the realities are wildly different from what the public apprehends.
Let me quote once more from the report of the Atomic Energy Authority for 1974–75:
"The radiation injuries "—
that is, among the Authority's employees—
" have been no more "—
that is since 1962—
"than four cases of skin burns on the hands and only one required significant medical attention. This should be compared with the 66 off-duty employees who have been killed outside our establishments in traffic accidents during the same period."
It is I believe of urgent importance that Governments should make a real effort to educate public opinion in these matters, and not pander to environmental lobbies. In the United States of America, these lobbies have already been responsible for holding up, under the flimsiest of pretexts, the development of the nuclear power programme. In the process, they have brought much aid and comfort to the members of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Let the EEC Commission address their minds to this problem rather than complicate still further the arduous but necessary progress of the nuclear industry. Some of the problems, especially in the reprocessing field, are admittedly more complicated and difficult than they were when the spent fuel was dealt with at a relatively low level of irradiation. But

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these problems are, I feel sure, perfectly soluble with time, especially if the industry is allowed to develop in relative freedom from strangling by red tape, national or international, or from choking in clouds of misplaced popular emotion.
7.48 p.m.
Viscount HANWORTH: My Lords, I do not think one can start a speech on this subject without also entering into the field of the risks. From the environmentalist's point of view there are really three difficulties with nuclear reactors. The first is the safety of the reactor itself, and the noble Lord, Lord Hinton of Bank side, has dealt with this very adequately. All I would add, from my little knowledge, is that I support everything which he said on the subject. Here I think it should be said that one must realise that life is not completely safe and that perhaps one is, or ought to be, almost as much concerned with the quality of life as with life itself. We have to face it: whatever people may say about new methods of energy production, there is not at the moment, and there is unlikely to be for the next 20 years, any viable alternative to the nuclear reactor unless we are going to forgo our present type of society and completely change the industrial society we have. I think few people faced with that alternative—though they may talk about windmills because they do not know any better, but this does not solve our problem—would really assume, with the minimal risks we have, that we should not continue with this programme.
On the other hand, a balanced view might well be that we do not regard it as an ideal. It has disadvantages and it may be that in the long run there are other, cleaner methods of obtaining power and we ought to press on with research into all the other possible methods, such as energy from the sun, by photo-electric and other means. But this will not come about until our present generation of nuclear reactors which we are likely to be building now have come to the end of their useful life.
The second trouble about nuclear reactors that is referred to by the environmentalists is the explosion of the fission products. Nobody is particularly keen on this. They do not like leaving this
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heritage to future generations; but I do not think any of us, looking at the problem, regard it as too serious, provided again that we do not continue to do this for perhaps 100 years. I think the sensible conclusion is to deal with this generation of nuclear reactors until something new comes on to the scene. I believe that this is a perfectly reasonable thing to do.
My Lords, the third objection is that a lot more plutonium will be moved about. There is a real danger that this might get into the wrong hands, and might be used for making some elementary atomic bomb. Having made that elementary atomic bomb, it might also be used for holding people to ransom. I regard this as a rather unpleasant possibility. But we must see this against the background that, whatever we may think and whatever we try to do in the world today, we shall not stop the developing nations having their own nuclear reactors. There was a time in history when we would have told them they could not have things like nuclear reactors, and that would have put a stop to that. But I do not think this can happen today. Nuclear reactors they will have, and these nations will be able to use them as weapons for blackmail if they wish. I therefore submit that the increase in plutonium which may be hijacked is only a question of degree; but it is by far the most unpleasant possibility, and far more important than either of the other two factors I have mentioned.
My Lords, in relation to putting these risks in perspective, I might have said, when talking about the quality of life, that we have to accept at least some road accidents. Nobody has yet gone so far as saying that they are prepared to take extreme measures to reduce road accidents. Let us not forget that we could reduce them to any degree we really wanted, if we were prepared to pay the price.Reductio ad absurdum, all one needs is a man with a red flag walking in front of every vehicle. Along the way from that extreme to what we have today, there are many passing points where we could reduce the accidents by almost any number we wished. It therefore follows that in nearly everything in life we have to take a certain risk. That was my earlier argument when I said

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that we could not do without the nuclear reactor if we were to keep our own quality of industrial life, and the quality of life in general.
Having said that, one comes to the point at which one asks: is anything the EEC is going to do in the way of legislation likely to be useful? First, nuclear physics is a relatively new science, and its implementation in reactors is relatively new. Improvements and variations are still being made at a considerable rate. When faced with a situation like that, it is utterly impossible to standardise one's requirements without inhibiting development. In this context, I am talking about development for safety as well.
Secondly, if one tries to achieve an agreed code of safety, inevitably it will be that of the lowest common denominator of the people sitting round the table. I have a good deal of experience of electrical safety standards on domestic equipment. Although I shall not go quite so far as saying it always lands up with the lowest common standard, it will nevertheless not be with the highest. We have also to remember that in the EEC we are dealing with a number of responsible, experienced and industrialised nations. To a greater or lesser extent, in all these nations there will be a strong environment lobby pushing for safety. I simply do not believe that EEC legislation in detail is likely to improve the safety which nations will produce on their own at this time. I go so far as to say that it will be quite the reverse. If the EEC say they are worried about tariff barriers being erected in this new area, it is certain that if they try to prevent them, their legislation will be both stultifying and on a low common denominator in terms of safety. So I should think that they were convicted by that very statement.
My Lords, is there anything that usefully could be done at this stage? The EEC could put down some general principles, but would this really help? Would it help safety at all? The general principles are accepted, and the details and further developments are being considered by the other Committees, so I rule that out. What else could they do? I think they could usefully look at the security of plutonium. That was the third thing I mentioned about which I am very worried. But not to put too fine a point
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on it, I regard the proposals as a monumental piece of bureaucracy, stimulated by the incentive of "jobs for the boys ".
7.58 p.m.
Lord AVEBURY: My Lords, I am not sure that everyone would agree with the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, that there is no alternative to nuclear power, because in other scenarios a continued growth in the use of nuclear power would require a fundamental alteration in the quality of our industrial life. If I may suggest it, there are many who would like to see a different outlook and philosophy applied to the future of this country, a scenario which would be based on alternatives to continued growth of the production of energy and of raw materials, which some of us, in any case, think are not sustainable very much beyond the end of this century. I would like to discuss that with the noble Viscount on some other occasion.
Meanwhile, may I say that apart from the speech of the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, and that of the noble Lord, Lord Hinton of Bank side, this debate seems to me to have been less concerned with the safety of nuclear processes than with the political niceties of our relationships with the EEC. That is what the Report is mainly concerned with. My noble friend mentioned this explicitly. He also said, and I agree with him on this, that the Government must produce in the public a sense of confidence in any nuclear plans that we follow. Draft EEC Directives are not the ordinary bedside reading of the average citizen, and I do not suppose the Reports of Select Committees are best sellers either. But even if the majority of people in this country did read the draft resolution which is before us, and the Report of the Select Committee, I am not at all sure that they would be much reassured.
My Lords, I am looking at the draft resolution which, as the noble Earl. Lord Lauderdale, pointed out, was before the Committee when it started its deliberations, but which he informed us was altered half-way through. The final text of the document, I have ascertained, is not available in the Printed Paper Office. I am using the one presented to the Select Committee, dated 9th March 1975. If I may say so this is a flaw in your Lordships' procedures which perhaps on

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some other occasion the usual channels might like to look into.
This draft resolution contained in its preamble the statement that:
" Nuclear power is required to play a privileged part in the supply of energy to the Community ".
I would suggest that as long as there are so many fundamental problems in the field of nuclear safety which remain unresolved it would be foolish and dangerous for the Community to become heavily dependent on it, and some of the enormous budgets now being devoted to nuclear research in the Member nations of the Community might possibly yield a higher and more certain return if they were diverted into the conservation of energy. For instance, if we were to spend as much as the cost of even one single nuclear reactor on insulating domestic buildings it would be a far better return for the money invested.
The noble Lord, Lord Hinton, gave us some figures about engineering risks involved in nuclear reactors. He quoted the findings of Mr. Rasmussen and Dr. Farmer; the latter was writing in a recent issue of Atom. I must say that when one looks at figures such as these they offer a spurious air of scientific accuracy which is given to any statement by the insertion in it of numerical calculations. I do not think, quite honestly, we are in any position at all to make predictions of the risks on the lines that these experts purport to do. The noble Lord, Lord Hinton, mentioned some of the other engineering developments that we have seen in our lifetime, which he said proceeded by way of catastrophe: the large buildings, the box girder bridges, and so on.
Nobody actually predicted when we started to use very large crude carriers that there would be explosions in their tanks, caused by the cleaning methods used, that would involve the loss of life and the loss of very large vessels, to the consternation of the designers and no doubt of the insurance companies who had to bear the cost. Nobody said when we started manufacturing caprolactam that enormous explosions might take place in plants like Flixborough, again involving serious loss of life. When the DC.10 went into operation nobody predicted
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that because of the fault in the design of the rear door those aircraft might crash and the loss of many lives result.
I think we are in no better position to say what are the likely risks of the reactors which are coming into operation now, some of which have been tested only on a prototype scale: our own advanced gas cooled reactor, which was scaled up from a 30 Mw prototype to the 1200 Mw plants now under construction, some of which are approaching completion; the steam generating heavy water reactor, of which we have only a 100 Mw prototype, which we are now proposing to take straight up to 1200 or 1300 'Mw; and the fast breeder reactor, for which we have an intermediate stage of a 250 Mw plant, but which is then to be scaled up to commercial size. I do not think that many engineers would care to stick their necks out and make a guess as to the likelihood of technological failures resulting in these full-scale plants when experience has been gained only on prototypes of a very different character.
What I wanted to say principally—and this follows, to some extent, the remarks made by the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth—is that if one looks at the Annex to the resolution, which is in very general terms, there is one passing reference in just over 32 pages to the need for consideration to be given to external events which might affect the safety of nuclear plants, events such as earthquakes, explosions, riots, wars or sabotage. These are not, of course, technological risks, though technology obviously must have a role to play in their prevention or the minimisation of their consequences. I believe that the risks involved in the huge expansion of nuclear power now being contemplated, up to 200,000 Mw of installed capacity, in the Community by 1985—and I was glad to hear the noble Lord, Lord Hinton, agree that it would be difficult to maintain standards of quality assurance with a programme of that scale—are not principally of a technological nature, and that to discuss safety solely in technical terms is to prevent the public from recognising the true implications of the political and external risks.
One must also note that if the United States and Western Europe greatly expand their nuclear programmes, because that

1197
turns out to be a cheaper way of satisfying what they see to be their energy requirements, then we can scarcely deny the same economic benefits to other nations, including those who may be less responsible in the degree of control they exercise over both the operation of plants and the use of the fissile material contained in them. We have already seen that India has used material derived from its peaceful nuclear programme to manufacture a bomb of sorts. We know that there are many other nations approaching that stage of development, among which one might mention, just as examples, Korea and Argentina. I am not suggesting that at the moment either Korea or Argentina have any intention of entering the military nuclear race, but I am just pointing out, as Herman Khan did some 10 or 15 years ago, that almost inevitably with the spread of peaceful nuclear technology more and more nations would be tempted into developing their own military capabilities. I think that is a very serious risk which is encouraged by the great expansion of nuclear plants in Western Europe.
Reverting to the external risks which I mentioned a few minutes ago, and which were merely listed in the Annex to the draft resolution of the EEC, obviously we do not need to cater for earthquakes in this country, and we have siting restrictions on the location of nuclear plants to keep them well away from potential fire or explosion hazards. But that leaves the very serious problem, to my mind, of deliberate interference with the operation of nuclear plants by either criminals or terrorists, or the theft of nuclear material by such groups mentioned by the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth. I think one is in something of a dilemma even in raising this subject; because one may be accused of putting the idea into the heads of the criminals and terrorists simply by referring to the appalling consequences that theft or sabotage might imply. On the other hand, if one fails to mention this problem at all, how could the public be adequately reassured that Governments have properly considered the matter and taken steps to prevent these consequences from arising.
In fact there have been attacks on nuclear installations; already there have been thefts of nuclear materials. I think,
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unfortunately, those who would be likely to contemplate threatening or endangering the lives of their fellow human beings are not going to require any prompting. If I may give a couple of examples, in May last year the nuclear power plant at Fessenheim on the Rhine was damaged by two explosive charges. I understand that the responsibility for this outrage was claimed by a group associated with the Bader Meinhoff gang. The explosions are said to have damaged a steam generator pump and the system for lowering uranium rods into the core. On the 6th June two bombs exploded simultaneously at nuclear sites in France. One damaged Framatome's main computer at Courbevoir, and the other exploded in nuclear workshops at Argenteuil. The responsibility for those outrages was claimed by an urban guerrilla group. Finally, on the 15th August two explosions occurred damaging equipment at the Monts d'Aree (EL4) nuclear station. The responsibility for that outrage was claimed by Breton nationalists.
On the question of nuclear materials, I mention just two examples from Britain. In 1966, 20 uranium fuel rods were stolen from the Bradwell nuclear power plant in Essex. They were subsequently recovered, I believe, by the police, and the reasons for the theft were not reported at the time. In 1971, five uranium rods disappeared somewhere between the fabrication plant at Springfields in Lancashire and the nuclear plant at Wylfa, Anglesey. This loss was discovered only after an investigation of some 120,000 numbered elements. The reports do not go into any detail as to how these uranium rods were stolen or whether anyone was subsequently charged with the theft.
I hope that I have said enough to show that the risk of the great expansion of the nuclear programme is not principally technological and I agree with the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, here—but the theft, the purloining of nuclear material, and the possibility that terrorists, or other criminal elements, will cause damage to nuclear installations far worse than anything that might result from technological failures in equipment. I should like to be assured that either the EEC Commission or some other authority was properly taking this on

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board, and was not simply attempting to reassure the public by saying—and I am sure it is true, as the noble Lord, Lord Hinton of Bank side, has claimed—that some of the best engineering minds in the world are concentrated on this problem of nuclear safety, when the problem we are really trying to cure is not a technological one at all.
8.13 p.m.
Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, contrary to the last contribution, by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, who was addressing himself principally to security matters, when we have been talking about technological matters we have had a very typical House of Lords' authoritative debate which, on the whole, has been reassuring without, I hope, being complacent. When it comes to the Report from the Committee I should like to start by expressing agreement with the second paragraph on page vi, where the Committee said:
" The Commission's general case might have been more acceptable if it had included a survey of the considerable national and international activity in this field, had identified deficiencies. had explained why the Commission was thought to be the body best suited to remedy them, and had shown how its present resources, would need supplementing for the purpose."
On balance, I would agree with the general view that these proposals should be viewed with British caution and reserve.
Let us start by applauding the objectives set out in the Document 681/75 which seek to avoid a number of things happening. They mention the proliferation of trade barriers, divergence on licensing procedures, lack of uniformity in presentation to the public, possible development of disparities in quality of public protection, and the duplication of applied research. The danger seen by the Committee is that in order to achieve these objectives we run the risk of making a further addition to the already formidable bureaucratic edifice which is exemplified by the 12 Agencies listed in the annex to the Report. The point has been made several times by a number of noble Lords this evening that we run the risk of wasting the time of valuable people. I suppose, in fairness to the Commission, they would claim they are
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seeking in fact to save these people time by not duplicating so many of the bodies they have to attend.
Then the Committee also points out that the United States is represented on the IAEA, the OECD, and the IEA. I am bound to say that I was not very impressed with the argument in the letter which the noble Earl, Lord Lauderdale, kindly sent us from Mr. Spinelli. The Commissioners advanced the argument that the exclusion of the United States does not matter because their interest is limited principally to the light water reactors (the pressure water reactor and the boiling water reactor) whereas Europe is interested in all types, including our own gas-cooled route and steam generating heavy water reactor. In passing may I say that I have been glad to hear recently that this particular route appears to be coming back into favour among a number of the experts whom I have heard talking.
We should also admit that the danger points must differ from reactor to reactor, and hence the safety standards must differ, and it is difficult to draw up all-embracing standards when you are dealing with so many different types of reactor. In the light water reactors you are principally concerned with these large pressure vessels but some of the other types of reactor have pressure tubes and some have sodium coolant;and anybody who is familiar even in a superficial way with the great variety of reactors which are being proposed, and indeed manufactured, will know very well that while many of the principles are common the danger points must differ markedly in each case.
This country is probably more experienced than anyone else. I think we still have more installed capacity than any country in Europe. This changes by about 1980. Our experience goes back over 20 years or more. As the noble Lord, Lord Sherfield, among others, pointed out, our record is extremely good. It is a perfectly fair comparison, which was made by a number of noble Lords, to distinguish the record of the nuclear industry from that of almost any other industry you like to mention—including, I suppose, the industry of walking about on the roads. or driving a motor car on the roads, which is probably the most dangerous one of all.

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One of the reasons for this good safety record is the early appreciation of the inherent risks and the awareness of the danger. I think that that is one of the answers to the point of the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, about the very large crude carriers. Real care has been taken in the nuclear industry to look for causes of possible accidents, whereas people blundered into the dangers of the VLCCs totally unaware of what they were getting into. In the nuclear industry, great pains were taken to guard against every conceivable and, indeed, inconceivable accident.
I am reminded of the old adage which was the watchword of the Sappers when handling explosives. It was, "Explosives arc not dangerous until you forget that they are." In view of these stringent precautions, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Sherfield, that the dangers can readily be exaggerated. It was Professor Heisenberg in Germany (one of the fathers of fission) who said publicly that he would rather live next door to a nuclear reactor than to a conventional power station. This was also the import of some of the quotations and statistics of Dr. Farmer referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Hinton of Bank side.
In the report presented to the European Parliament by Mrs. Walz, this country is specifically commended, in particular for the way in which it has educated and carried the public along in an awareness of nuclear safety. The report mentioned that there had been less public worry about recent power stations than there had been over some of the earlier ones. There, I found myself at variance with the noble Lord, Lord Hinton, and, if one finds oneself at variance with the noble Lord, one is almost certainly wrong. I am distressed that he feels that we have fallen down, though I feel that we should listen to him if he tells us that that is the case.
Our approach to the standards of nuclear safety has been typically pragmatic and British. Rather than trying prematurely to lay down standards which might easily become unrealistic and might create a straitjacket leading to ossification and ultimately to delay, my understanding of our system is that anyone wanting to build a nuclear power station has to satisfy the nuclear inspec
1202
torate that what he is proposing to do is a safe method of procedure. That has the great merit that, in these early, experimental days, all the options are left open.
Here, I believe that we should be warned by the absurdities which we have been led into in our building regulations. We are all familiar with the nonsense about larders, ventilated lobbies and the ratio of window height to floor—for instance, in one county one can have a ceiling of 7 ft. 10 in. and in another it must be 8 ft. 1 in. Let us not get into the kind of situation which has happened there. I should like to go a stage further and suggest that it is reasonable for this country to have a somewhat isolationist view of the matter. I believe that a measured and leisurely approach may be appropriate for us, because our modest nuclear programme means that we shall only be ordering two more stations between now and 1985. So, for once, we may benefit from the experience of the mistakes of others rather than being in the position of blazing the trail and spending all the money from which others will derive the benefit.
I also think it fair to point out that the impact of some of these dangers has slightly receded since the early EEC document suggesting the installation of 200 gigawatts by 1985. This has been curtailed to 150 gigawatts and I understand that it is likely to be further reduced since it looks very much as if the Commission has overestimated the demand for electricity in Europe up to that time. We are probably still talking about something of the order of 190 reactors by 1985, however, and that is quite a lot. I have not done the mathematics of the risks of the noble Lord, Lord Hinton, but I believe that we still come out on the basis of 200 reactors with about one accident in 5,000 years, so I do not feel that that will be of very great interest to me.
There is one rather curious point which the noble Lord may perhaps be able to elucidate for me, though it is not a Government attitude. Do the different pressures which exist according to where a station is to be sited justify different criteria for safety? If the place is sufficiently remote, it is clear that a higher degree of potential risk may be

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tolerable, but are we suggesting that we want different standards or that we are ready to accept different degrees of risk?
I think we may have been a little harsh on the Commission this evening. It has a good track record on harmonisation and it has taken a great deal of care not to offend national susceptibilities. Perhaps we on our part should not be unduly defensive and should not tell them not to trespass on our own self determination where possibly no such trespass is intended. I believe that harmonisation is a proper and laudable objective and I believe that we shall get there in the end. On the other hand I feel it would be unwise to rush and push too hard, too early.
I should like briefly to turn to two parochial matters of procedure. The first is a truly trivial point which is addressed to the Printed Paper Office. We want to educate ourselves and the public, but we do not want to proliferate papers. However, when we have these pink demands for papers passed round it is singularly uninformative to be told that we are now offered the Sixth, Seventh Eighth and Tenth Reports of the Select Committee unless we have some indication as to what they are about. Would it be possible for that information to be put on this piece of paper, so that we shall not have to order the lot and then throw away nine-tenths?
The second and more important matter is that of congratulations to the benign chairman of this august Committee on the way in which the Committee has succeeded in condensing the large quantities of documentation which will undoubtedly have passed across its desks into a commendably brief Report which has enabled all of us to read it before appearing here this evening. I am also glad that we are now seeing a gradual trend towards the Committees of the two Houses working slightly more together than has been the case in the past. This must mean a saving of time and. in particular, I like to think that the other place will benefit by being the recipient of the great degree of expertise which this House deploys in this Committee.
But, my Lords, I feel bound to support the noble Earl, Lord Lauderdale, when
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he complains that co-operation between the two Houses has not been aided by the behaviour and the demeanour of the Under-Secretary of State for Energy. Indeed, when I read the Report I was astonished that the entire Committee had not walked out in a huff. I have some difficulty in understanding the language of the officials, but of course they are talking about an extremely difficult and complicated subject. But what was worrying was to find the Minister declining to supply a document on the grounds of what he called "practical difficulties". When he was pressed by the chairman, it turned out that what he really meant by "practical difficulties "was that he was unwilling to produce the paper because it was what he called a "working document". I do not know whether he was labouring under the conclusion that Sub-Committee F had come to this House to play games, but I suggest that the Committee was undertaking a very serious and painstaking task.
This struck me as being a highly provocative way to behave. I can only hope that the noble Lord who is to reply to the debate has some acceptable explanation of this extremely ungracious behaviour; or, conceivably, the Minister was covering up for the fact that he did not know what he was talking about. While we are on the subject of consultation, confidentiality and responsibility, can the noble Lord tell us whether it is the policy of his right honourable friend to leak documents on this kind of subject to the Press? Can he deny that it was a document leaked by the Department of Energy to the Daily Mirror which started the extremely unfortunate scare—and it was pure scaremongering—about the reprocessing contract with Japan?
This is an industry in which this country has established a great reputation—I see the noble Lord, Lord Hinton of Bank side, nodding, thank goodness !— and a great degree of knowledge. We even stand to make a profit out of it. To try to stir up a scare in this way is not calculated to enlist responsible support from a body such as this House.
I regret that I have had to introduce these two contentious notes into the debate, but I cannot honestly apologise for doing so. I sincerely hope that the noble Lord will be able to reassure the House, without, I hope, resort to the

1205
rather dubious stratagem of what was once euphemisticallly called the use of a "terminological inexactitude", and that both he and his colleagues will treat the matter with the proper degree of seriousness and respect in the future.
8.35 p.m.
The PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY of STATE, DEPARTMENT of ENERGY (Lord Lovell-Davis): My Lords, the Government attach the utmost importance to the subject of nuclear safety and protection of the population. I should, therefore, like to thank the members of Sub-Committee F of the Select Committee for their penetrating examination of the Document R /681/75 Technological Problems of Nuclear Safety. The Sub-Committee obtained views from all sectors with responsibilities in this field, for licensing, research, construction and operation. Its Report raises questions about the relative responsibilities of the Commission and Her Majesty's Government in the field of reactor safety. As has been pointed out during the debate, reactor safety is, of course, only one aspect of nuclear safety. Others, for example, are radiological protection, transport of nuclear materials and radioactive waste management. These subjects are being considered separately at Community level and are not our primary concern today.
The importance to the Community of reactor safety is highlighted by the ambitious Community targets for nuclear power capacity mentioned in the Report of the Select Committee. Although we do not regard the targets as realistic, there is no doubt that the Community is embarking upon a programme of rapid expansion of nuclear power. All are agreed that an essential prerequisite is the ability to ensure that nuclear reactors meet proper safety standards, and that these are arrived at in such a way that the public can be confident, as the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, stressed, that its safety is protected. In answer to the noble Lord, I should point out that the subjects of harmonisation of safety standards and health protection are part of the Euratom Treaty, to which we are a party.
The stated purpose of the resolution is to ensure that the nuclear objectives of the Community can be achieved under
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economically viable conditions without prejudicing safety, by pursuing and intensifying action in two main areas. These are the gradual harmonisation of safety requirements and criteria, and the coordination of applied research programmes. Noble Lords will be aware that since the resolution was adopted in July, 1975, the Commission has made further proposals to implement the terms of the resolution. These proposals, which are being considered by the Government, may go some way towards meeting the doubts expressed by the European Parliament when it called upon the Commission to "submit practical proposals ", and by your Lordships' Select Committee in its concern for the potential overtaxing of the resources of the comparatively small number of national experts available. We shall study these proposals with care and with the advantage of the opinions of noble Lords as expressed in today's debate.
We have debated the place of nuclear power in the Community's Energy Policy Strategy. In that debate on 2nd December 1975. the urgency of making good the shortfall in fossil fuel supplies between now and the end of the century was emphasised. This deficiency will have to be met mainly from nuclear sources. We in the United Kingdom are more fortunately placed with reserves of fossil fuels than are our Community partners, and our own immediate nuclear programme is a relatively modest one, as the noble Lord, Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal, pointed out. But this does not allow us to be complacent about the subject of reactor safety, and as he said we are certainly not showing any complacency about the subject in this debate. Our safety organisations have our regulatory procedures under constant review and are always ready to discuss our arrangements with our European partners. Our regulatory experience dates from the first Nuclear Installations Act and the setting up of the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate in 1959. We, therefore, have a major contribution to make to Community thinking and activity in the nuclear safety field, and other matters to which the noble Lord referred.
As I have said, we are always ready to discuss our procedures and standards with our European partners. We have much to gain from such discussions.

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Even if the Community's programme is not fully realised, it will, by the 1980s, be very much larger than that of the United Kingdom on its own, and will provide a strong base for international co-operation on nuclear safety, from both the organisational and technical points of view. We welcome, and intend to continue, to participate in this co-operation.
I should at this stage, my Lords, make it absolutely clear that co-operation within the Community on the technological problems of nuclear safety is already well established. We play a leading part in the working groups of experts representing the Member-States. The expertise is drawn from these national representatives, and not from the Commission. The Commission can only reflect the consensus of the representation within the working groups. These groups are concerned with both water reactors and fast reactors. They cover, for example, the exchange of information on research and development programmes, comparison of computer codes, classification of national regulations, and investigation of information systems. The more recent proposals by the Commission, to which I have referred, make it clear that they accept this method of operation and seek to strengthen secretariat support for the work of these groups, and increase their efficiency.
My Lords, I should like to turn now to some of the specific points in the Select Committee's Report under the heading "Opinion of the Committee", and I must address myself first of all to the complaint made by the noble Earl, Lord Lauderdale. On reviewing the matter, I have come to the conclusion that he really has few grounds for complaint against the Government, and there is no question whatsoever in my mind of the Government treating the Sub-Committee in any arrogant or high-minded way. The fact is that copies of our 681/75, which was annexed to the draft resolution, were available to the House from the 7th April. Sub-Committee F knew that the resolution would be taken at the 26th June Council. However, they did not commence their consideration of it until then. They were also aware that the June Council, in remitting the draft text to Coreper for revision, had asked that the final
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text should be adopted without discussion by the Council before the end of July.
The Earl of LAUDERDALE: My Lords, would the noble Lord allow me to interrupt him for one moment? I am much obliged to him for giving way. I wonder whether he could indicate the point in our evidence which makes it clear that we knew that the final text would be adopted "on the nod".
Lord LOVELL-DAVIS: Yes, my Lords. If the noble Earl would be so kind as to refer to his own words in the document on the 3rd July, for instance, he will see that he there makes a specific reference. It is paragraph 3 of the Minutes of Evidence of the 3rd July. That shows quite clearly that the noble Earl understood that the draft resolution had been referred back, and that, after Coreper had dealt with it, it would be treated as an A item.
The Earl of LAUDERDALE: My Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Lord for giving way again. What I said was,
"…it may well be treated as an A item ".
There then followed much evidence to show that we were gravely anxious about it, and we naturally took it that our anxieties would be noted and understood by the Government.
Lord LOVELL-DAVIS: My Lords, the noble Earl said:
"…it may well be treated as an A item. in other words, be adopted formally in the Council. Is that correct? "
The answer he received was, "Yes". I do not think it could have been much clearer than that, my Lords.
The Earl of LAUDERDALE: My Lords, I am very sorry to press this, but this is really the nub of the matter. Could we go on? We asked:
"Can you tell us what amendments have been made? ",
and they could not tell us. Then they promised us a revised text, which we did not get.
Lord LOVELL-DAVIS: My Lords, it was, of course, impossible for them to say what provisions were being made.
The Earl of LAUDERDALE: My Lords, I am very sorry to press this, but

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this is why we are having this debate. We wanted to know what were the amendments the Government were trying to get. They would not tell us.
Lord LOVELL-DAVIS: My Lords, the fact was that my honourable friend Mr. Eadie made the point quite clearly that these were working documents which contained Member-States' reservations, and he felt that he could not go into detail about them. I am sorry, my Lords; I am confused. This is to some extent a debating point. The noble Earl has implied that the Government have paid no heed to his concern about the text of the revised resolution. This is not so. In his evidence to the Sub-Committee my honourable friend Mr. Eadie explained the type of amendments necessary for the draft resolution which the noble Earl wanted to see, and stated:
" The latest text we have seen includes all the changes considered essential to the United Kingdom."
The Earl of LAUDERDALE: My Lords, I am very sorry to interrupt the noble Lord again. I know he is very patient, and I shall keep my flashpoint as low as I can this evening. But on the first day that we took evidence we asked:
" Would the Department be able to let us have a re-draft before it goes back to the full Council? "
That was the question that we asked on the 3rd July, and the answer we got was that the Department thought that that would be possible:
" Would you be able to communicate this draft to us?—I should think that it would be possible."
A fortnight later we are putting our questions to Mr. Eadie, and I have to say with the very greatest reluctance—I did not want to be drawn into saying this—that some of his answers were obscure, if I put it no stronger than that, and we did not get from him a picture of the amendments which the Government were trying to introduce; and, we having been promised, as we understood, a sight of this text, he said we could not have it. With all respect to him, I must get this on the record. I know that the noble Lord is seeking to be co-operative and wants to get through this thing as quickly as possible and I will not interrupt him again, I hope.
Lord LOVELL-DAVIS: My Lords, the point is that we did not receive the text to which the noble Earl refers until the 18th. At the time the Committee pressed Mr. Eadie for the document, it was explained that the text was a working document. In fact, that was on the 17th July, before the working text had even been seen by Coreper. We had expected that the working text would have been ready for submission to them before then, but in the event it was not submitted to Coreper until the 18th July. On the 18th July we sent a copy to Sub-Committee F. That was on that same day. Immediately we had it, we sent a copy to Sub-Committee F. I think that the Government have taken great care to ensure that the Sub-Committee was kept fully informed about the progress of the resolution in all the Council stages. The type of amendments being made following the June Council, and the fact that the final text would include all the changes considered essential by the United Kingdom, were explained, as I have said, to the Sub-Committee by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy on the 17th July. I do not think, my Lords, that we could have done any better than we did.
The noble Earl has referred to the correspondence he has had with my honourable friend Mr. Hattersley, and I stick by the point he made. This is not legislation. There is no commitment in the document, as he explained to the noble Earl. It may be that the noble Earl can extend this, but the fact is that the Government did not give specific assurances outside this matter. This is not legislation; there is no commitment being made in this document. Therefore, the Government are not bound by what they have said to give specific assurances on this matter.
Now, hoping that I have satisfied the noble Earl, I will try, if I may, to pick up where I left off. I am convinced that anybody who really looks at this and looks at this matter of the timetable carefully, will see that the Government have given the greatest attention to this matter. They could not have done more than they have in fact done. The Committee have suggested that a survey of national and international activities, with the identification of deficiencies and an explanation of how the Commission was

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equipped to deal with them, might have been a more acceptable basis for action.
The noble Lord, Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal, has repeated this suggestion. This type of work is implicit in the existing Community programme, but it is the Member-States rather than the Commission who carry the responsibility. National experts in the Community's Working Parties are able to identify gaps in the work being done and to coordinate action to fill them without unnecessary duplication of effort. They are greatly assisted in their work by the technical secretariat provided by the Commission. The close association and common interests of the Member-States, and the correspondingly free interchange of information, ease the problems of agreeing a common approach, and when the Community is able to reach a common view this assists the work of the larger organisations in which its Member-States participate.
There is no question of Community discussions replacing our independent participation in, for example, the IAEA, the NEA and the IEA. One of the objectives of the Euratom Treaty, in Article 2, is to,
"…establish with other countries and with international organisations any contact likely to promote progress in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy ".
We are satisfied that the resolution provides a framework in which this activity can progress in the field of reactor safety. In answer to the point raised by the noble Earl, the Commission can be said to act as a catalyst, for instance, in the sense that members of the Secretariat of Community Committees also participate on behalf of the Commission in the meetings of Committees of the international organisations referred to by the noble Lord and covering a broader field than that of the Community.
I understand the Select Committee's concern—as expressed by the noble Earl and by the noble Lord, Lord Sherfield—that proliferation of organisations might make calls on our expert resources which could be met only at the expense of our domestic nuclear programme. There is, however, no proposal to increase the number of existing Community organisations following the adoption of the resolution. We shall look to existing working groups —if necessary with strengthened secre-
1212
tariat services—to provide the means to carry on this work.
I agree wholeheartedly with the Select Committee's view that the ability to make direct representations on this sensitive subject to accessible elected representatives or at a public inquiry is a valuable safety valve. In its report to the European Parliament, the Parliament's Committee on Energy, Science and Technology highlighted and commended United Kingdom procedures in this field. The resolution in R/681/75 requests Member-States and the Commission to continue and strengthen their efforts to ensure that the public is given the best possible information. This is entirely consistent with our own policy and supports the case made by the noble Lords, Lord Hinton and Lord Sherfield.
In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Hinton, on the question of safety standards for other industrial activities, the House has been informed that the Health and Safety Executive, which came into being last year and has set up a major hazards unit to look into these problems, has drawn together the various inspectorates in this country (including the nuclear installations inspectorate) and will no doubt take advantage of their experience in safety matters in their efforts to reduce the hazards in other industries to the low levels applicable to the nuclear industry. On the time taken to assess the safety of steam generating heavy water moderated reactors by the nuclear inspectorate, a point which was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Sherfield, the nuclear inspectorate take great care in the assessment of every reactor for which a licence is requested. This involves detailed examination of design which may differ significantly from the prototype. This approach has contributed greatly to the safety record of the nuclear industry.
The matter of transport of nuclear materials was raised. I can assure noble Lords that arrangements for the safe transport of radioactive material conforms to standards laid down by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Environment on the basis of the stringent requirements set by the International Atomic Energy Agency. The requirements include provision as to the leak tightness of the container (which is a massive steel flask) under both normal conditions and accident con-

1213
ditions of transport. Tests or ability to withstand these conditions include subjection to impact, fire, immersion in water including seawater.
On the subject of information raised by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, which as I say, is covered in the resolution and is entirely consistent with our own policy, I will not follow his argument through fully as to how best information might be transmitted to the public; but I agree that it is an aspect which merits consideration. I trust that note will be taken of the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal, about publications shown on the list issued by the Printed Paper Office. On the subject of individual papers, the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, said that he has not been able to see a copy of the final text of the resolution. A copy of this text appeared in the Official Journal of the European Communities for 14th August 1975 and copies of the Council-approved resolutions are also supplied to the Printed Paper Office in your Lordships' House.
Lord AVEBURY: My Lords, the point I was making was that no doubt these documents are available somewhere but that when it is known that a debate is to take place on the same afternoon, the documents ought to be mar-shalled together in the Printed Paper Office. So, when one goes in to ask. "May I have copies of the resolution and their annexes which are to be debated this afternoon? ", one is handed the actual text and not something which was published six months earlier.
Lord LOVELL-DAVIES: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord. I hope that attention will be paid to the request that he has made.
Noble Lords have expressed concern during the debate (and perhaps none so well as the noble Lord, Lord Hinton of Bank side) that the safety approval of nuclear installations in the United Kingdom might be centralised in Brussels. But that is not proposed or foreseen in this resolution. Your Committee also suggested—and the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, referred to it again, as did the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth—that uniformity of standards might be achieved only by levelling down. International experience in the nuclear field
1214
suggests the opposite. Standards are consistently being improved. In any case, we will maintain the right to superimpose on Community standards or precedures any additional measures which our independent regulatory authorities consider necessary to protect the public.
The resolution itself does not deal, as some noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Sherfield, indicated it might, with standardisation of reactors, components or fuel. I agree with the Select Committee that this is a very long term matter. It is true that the Commission's Document R/681/75 suggested the possibility that the Commission might at some future date be able to present Directives to the Council on the basis of Article 100 of the EEC Treaty. Your Committee questioned the propriety of invoking this Article, which the Treaty provided for commercial purposes, in order to achieve objectives in the field of nuclear safety. If such Directives are eventually put before the Council we shall consider them carefully, but we could not accept the furtherance of trade at the expense of safety.
The harmonisation to which the resolution refers is concerned with "safety requirements and criteria "rather than hardware. Even this may be a long and difficult road, but the difficulties should not prevent the Community from continuing along it. The areas for harmonisation identified by the Select Committee as potentially more rewarding, relating to, for example, siting and radiological protection. are already the subject of Community activity in which we are participating.
The Committee considered that the proposals raise important matters of policy and principle to which the special attention of the House should be drawn. What are these matters? The rÔle of the Commission, the proliferation of international organisations, the potential centralising of approvals, a possible ultimate goal of standardisation, the responsibility of Her Majesty's Government to the United Kingdom public. None of these is changed by the resolution.
My Lords, before I come to the end I should like to refer to a matter raised at the end of his own contribution by the noble Lord, Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal. His criticism was that a leak had been made from the Department of Energy. I feel that I should scotch that

1215
straight away because it is an important matter. I can assure the noble Lord that, so far as I am concerned, I am aware of no leak whatsoever from the Department of Energy.
This debate has provided a valuable opportunity for noble Lords to explore the scope and intention of the Council's resolution and the Government's attitude to it; I am grateful, as we must all be, to the noble Earl for initiating it. Our objectives in this field are clear. They are to secure for all our people the benefits of nuclear power while ensuring that their health and safety are fully protected. The United Kingdom's record in this is good and the Government intend to see it maintained.
9.0 p.m.
The Earl of LAUDERDALE: My Lords, once again I must preface my remarks by saying that nothing I have to say is in the smallest degree intended to be a reflection on the staff of the Department who have always been so helpful to our Committee. Many points have been made by the noble Lord; too many to answer at this time of night. The critical question as to whether or not it was made clear to us that "willy-nilly" the revised text would go "on the nod"is one that I leave to others to judge on reading the evidence. I was in the chair, and we were clearly under the impression that there would be a chance to look at the text, and comment on it if we were not satisfied, before it went to the Council at the end of July. In fact it went to the Council on 18th or 19th July. I will not go into those details, and how it was we came to look at this document so late (frankly, due to the fact that we were swimming in a bog of paper on the Community's energy policy and were just bogged down) as those matters are not really of prime importance.
What is important is the Commission's tendency to meddle in matters that they really know nothing about. We have on our Committee eminent experts who are able to question our witnesses and to form a judgment; and, indeed, to go to Brussels and form an impression from people there. To say that these resolutions commit us to nothing is, in my submission, incorrect. There is little point in passing resolutions unless they commit you to something. I was struck by the
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fact that we were not given a list of the changes that the Government wanted in the resolution. We were given no sign of the text until it was too late to do anything about it. The noble Lord stands "pat"on the position of the Government as enunciated 18 months ago, that they would put a reserve on legislative proposals but not on anything else. We are pressing for proper consideration to be given to the idea of putting a reserve, if necessary, on resolutions. I shall come back to that in a moment.
We are told there is no extra burden on the experts, but the evidence is the opposite. I ask anyone who reads the report of this debate to judge for themselves, and I also ask them to take a good look at the evidence given by Mr. Eadie, on which it is kinder not to comment. I invite anybody who reads this debate to look at this Report and read Mr. Eadie's evidence and judge whether he even knew the documents on which he was giving evidence. I did not want to say that, but I have been somewhat provoked by the line of the noble Lord's answer. I consider the answer to be about the most unsatisfactory one I have ever received within the past eight years in this House, outside the field of sex education for the under-thirteens.
Somebody once said:
" Peril is the cheapest way to happiness."
Somebody else said:
" Act if you like but do it at your peril."
If the Government treat this Committee in this way another time, it will not be a mild "take note" Motion that we shall put down. There are various grades of Motion, there are Unstarred Questions and Motions for Papers. Some Motions for Papers have been pressed to a Division. I think I owe it to fellow members of my Committee to make it clear that we are not satisfied with the answer we have had; we are not satisfied with the way we were treated, and we look for better treatment next time. I have no doubt that the noble Lord, relying on a rather restricted brief, could not go further than he did just now, though my guess is he would have liked to have done so. My Lords, having said that, and wishing the noble Lord the best of British luck in the future, I come back to the original Motion, which is to take note.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

NATIONAL COAL BOARD (FINANCE) BILL
Brought from the Commons, endorsed with the Certificate from the Speaker that the Bill is a Money Bill within the meaning of the Parliament Act 1911; read 1a, and to be printed.
PREVENTION OF TERRORISM (TEMPORARY PROVISIONS) BILL
Brought from the Commons; read la, and to be printed.
HOUSE OF LORDS OFFICES
Second Report from the Select Committee made, and to be printed.