Lords Sitting of 21 July 1976

Preamble
The House met at a quarter-past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Worcester.

LORD ALLEN OF ABBEYDALE
Sir Philip Allen, Knight, G.C.B., having been created Baron Allen of Abbeydale, in the City of Sheffield, for life—Was, in his robes, introduced between the Lord Trend and the Lord Carr of Hadley.

HIJACKING OF AIRCRAFT
2.30 p.m.
Lord JANNER: My Lords I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether in view of the situation which has arisen owing to the aid and asylum given by Uganda to hijackers in their evil designs, they will now take action in conjunction with other civilised countries to deny air facilities to any State which aids or harbours hijackers.
The MINISTER of STATE, FOREIGN and COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (Lord Goronwy-Roberts): My Lords the United Kingdom delegation to the Extraordinary Assembly of the International Civil Aviation Organisation held at Rome in August 1973 fought hard, but regrettably without success, to secure the necessary international support for such measures. That meeting indicated that international support for such action did not exist. Nor since then have the Government's constant consultations with other countries revealed a workable consensus on this matter. In consequence, Her Majesty's Government have concentrated their efforts on collaborating with other countries in improving security precautions against hijacking.
Lord JANNER: My Lords, while I thank my noble friend for that reply and for the action he is taking, is it not absolutely essential at this stage that those countries which are not accomplices in these crimes should come together to see to it that action which I have indicated is taken? Without such an action there is not likely to be a successful prevention of these hijackings, and, particularly now, when we have a visible and very sad effect of the kind of villainy that is going on in the sphere of terrorism, is it not essential—and we have it here by the assassination of one of our own eminent representatives—that civilised nations should, as I have tried to emphasise so often, get together and see to it that the kind of action which I have suggested, and similar action, be taken to stop this?
May I ask whether my noble friend is aware that in some 72 cases of hijacking and terrorism out of the vast number into which I have specifically inquired so far, of the 204 prisoners who were apprehended in consequence of their vicious criminal acts, only three are left in prison, and those are in Israel? Is that not a sign that this intimidation must be dealt with at once?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I believe that we should all like to study the second part of my noble friend's question before passing any comment upon it. As to the first part, certainly, Her Majesty's Government, as I made it clear in my substantive Answer, agree with the noble Lord. Unfortunately, other Governments do not.
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords, does the noble Lord think that it would be worth while to remind the world Press from time to time of the extraordinary sequence of disappearances which have taken place in Uganda under the régime of the gentleman who is at present in charge of that place? Do the Government not remember that the Chief Justice of Uganda disappeared the day after he had given a judgment critical of his Government? Does the Minister not remember the disappearance of two journalists whose bodies were found in a lonely ravine, and the attempt to suppress the inquiry ordered by the Government of Uganda and conducted by a British judge? And what about Mrs. Bloch? Ought not the Press to remind the

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public of the immense damage done to the prestige of other African nations by the actions of this régime?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I would sincerely hope that the world Press including our own will take full note of and will give full coverage to what the noble and learned Lord has just said.
The Earl of ONSLOW: My Lords is it true that the European Economic Community gives aid to Uganda and if so is it not possible for Her Majesty's Government to stop this, because it is wrong that a tyranny so vile should in any circumstances whatsover receive any aid from the civilised world?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, unfortunately I cannot answer that question. I can only tell the noble Earl that I shall look into the point whether the Community as a whole extends aid or possibly technical assistance to Uganda. All I know is that this country does not extend aid to Uganda.
The Earl of LAUDERDALE: My Lords, the noble Lord mentioned just now that we must try to get international agreement but that several countries will not support us. Can he tell the House which they are and can he also tell us whether there is yet a consensus within the European Economic Community on this subject?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I do not think that it would be useful for me to name those countries which failed to support our initiative. We live in hope that, owing to our constant endeavours which are now proceeding as they have continued to proceed at the ICAO, we may be able to persuade those other countries. As to the attitude of the Community, it is substantially, but not completely, that of the British Government.
Baroness ELLES: My Lords, can the Minister say what initiative the Government take in relation to Interpol, which would surely be one of the means by which action against hijackers could be taken?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: Yes, my Lords, my right honourable friend the Home Secretary and his Department are of course in close consultation and co-operation with Interpol among other international agencies.
Lord COLERAINE: My Lords, is it not time that we abandoned the pretence that the United Nations stands in any sense for world order?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: I could not agree, my Lords. The United Nations is probably the last best hope of the civilised world. It is the duty of this country and other like-minded countries—and there are many of them—to reinforce the authority of the United Nations, and not to give up.

POST OFFICE: MAIL COLLECTIONS
2.40 p.m.
Baroness YOUNG: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they agree with the results of the survey of the delivery of letters following suspension of Sunday collections carried out by The Times newspaper and reported on 6th July, and whether they still think that the decision of the Post Office to end Sunday collections was the right one.
The PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE, DEPARTMENT of INDUSTRY (Lord Melchett): My Lords, I am not in a position to comment on The Times survey without knowing the statistical basis on which the survey was conducted. The Government's view remains that it would have been wrong to prevent the Post Office from taking the steps it considered necessary to eliminate its financial deficit.
Baroness YOUNG: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that reply. Can he say whether or not the Post Office is monitoring the effects of the ending of the Sunday collection? If the answer to that question is, Yes, does the Post Office agree that it has in fact meant

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that mail is delayed for 48 hours and that one in every four letters posted first-class on a Friday does not reach its destination on a Monday?
Lord MELCHETT: My Lords, my understanding of the Post Office's monitoring of the delivery of mail is that figures are taken on a monthly basis and therefore they would not show the results of letters posted on a particular day of the week. As the noble Baroness knows, this particular cut is to be reviewed after 12 months.
Lord DERWENT: My Lords, would it be in order to congratulate the noble Lord upon not giving the usual Government Answer that this is a matter for the Post Office? I quite agree that the Government should not interfere with day-to-day running, but is not this a question of policy, rather than of day-to-day running? Surely when it is a matter of policy the Government should protect the interests of the citizen.
Lord MELCHETT: My Lords, this Government always protect the interests of all the citizens of this country. Having said that, I do not think that the noble Lord is right to congratulate me for not giving the usual Answer. I suspect that if I did not give the usual Answer I should be stepping out of line.
The Earl of LAUDERDALE: My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that his answer has to be taken with a pinch of salt?
Lord SLATER: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the Post Office, while responsible for its own administration and running under the new set-up, is still under constant attack (as I have said previously) in both this House and the other Chamber, as it was previously? Secondly, is my noble friend aware that before the Post Office Board would take this particular decision in regard to Sunday collections, it would take into consideration the views and expressions of opinion of the Post Office trade unions—I believe there are six in number—because they have to be considered in regard to the running of the Post Office service?
Lord MELCHETT: Yes, my Lords. As my noble friend will know, the trade unions are not entirely happy about the cut which the Post Office has made on Sunday collections and I am sure that this is one of the factors which the Post Office will take into account when it comes to review the service after 12 months.
The Earl of KIMBERLEY: My Lords, is the noble Lord in a position to amplify his statement made not long ago as to why it costs eight times as much to collect the Sunday post as it does to collect the Saturday post?
Lord MELCHETT: My Lords, the figures given by the Post Office are that it costs eight times as much to collect the mail on a Sunday as it does on the average week day. My understanding from the Post Office is that this is because of the extra journeys which have to be made on a Sunday solely for collecting mail. On a Saturday Post Office vans have to call at Post Offices for other purposes—for example, to collect registered mail, and they are quite capable of collecting letters at the same time, with very little, if any, additional expenditure being involved.
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNESIDE: My Lords, will the noble Lord kindly convey to the Post Office that at any rate this noble Lord would be very pleased if the Post Office could answer the letters that she has addressed to it?
Lord MELCHETT: My Lords, if the noble Baroness followed the practice of many of her noble friends and sent letters for the Post Office via me she would get a reply immediately.
Baroness YOUNG: My Lords, I wish to thank the noble Lord for his Answer to my original Question. But can he tell me how the Post Office can get an answer at the end of the year on the effect of the ending of the Sunday collection if it is not monitoring the effect on the distribution of letters week by week? If the noble Lord cannot answer that point now, will he write to me about it?
Lord MELCHETT: My Lords, I shall certainly draw to the attention of the Post Office what the noble Baroness has said, because as her noble friend has reminded

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me this is a matter of the day-to-day running of the Post Office, and not a matter in which a Government Minister should intervene. But the Post Office has said in a radio broadcast—and I am sure that the noble Baroness will bear with me if I repeat what the Post Office has said—that its feeling is that if any serious delays are being caused by the cessation of Sunday collections they will show up in the statistics which it is collecting on a monthly basis.
Lord CLITHEROE: My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that millions and millions of pounds could be saved by giving up the postal codes?
Lord MELCHETT: No, my Lords, do not. My experience in going around several sorting offices is that the postal code system is leading to a great deal of increased efficiency, and if members of the public used the postal codes more often there might be less complaints about the service which the Post Office is giving.
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that an increasing number of people are saying, "Come back Postmaster-General, all is forgiven"?

HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL
2.46 p.m.
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what proposals are under consideration for changes in the composition of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, the question of the size and composition of the Legislative Council is being discussed with the Governor of Hong Kong who is in London this week and I cannot anticipate the outcome.
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, will the Minister be surprised if I come back with a Question on this matter later? In the meantime, is it not the case that the
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Legislative Council in Hong Kong has no elected members, and is that consistent with our policy in other colonial territories? I should like to ask the noble Lord in particular whether direct elections are ruled out, and, if there are to be more unofficial members of the council, balanced by more official members, can they not come from the Urban Council in Hong Kong which at least is an elected body, even if its franchise is very restricted?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, there are a number of points in what my noble friend has said with which I am in no way in disagreement. He knows of course—indeed I would refer him to the debate which he initiated on the 1st April this year—what the special circumstances are in this one colony, Hong Kong, where the traditional and effective British policy of advancing to elective self-government is not possible. There are external reasons why it is in the interests of the colony that this should not be done, at least at the present time.
The point which my noble friend makes about making the Legislative Council more reflective of various aspects of the population of the colony is well taken, and I am hopeful that the present discussions will lead to an improvement in the situation in the way he seeks. As to the Urban Council, the Question relates to the Legislative Council and I think we had better concentrate on improving the composition of the Legislative Council before looking at the Urban Council.
Lord RHODES: My Lords, is the Minister aware that if he wishes to retain the friendship of mainland China he will have to proceed very warily in any alteration to the Legislative Council?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: Yes, my Lords, I wish I had put the position in those succinct and precise terms.
Baroness ELLES: My Lords, does the noble Lord agree, in so far as there is not an elected body, that we could not have a better Governor of Hong Kong in order to listen to all the democratic views that are put forward?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I very warmly respond once more; this must be Sir Murray's week. The

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other day my noble friend Lord George-Brown quite rightly paid tribute to the great services which Sir Murray MacLehose has rendered in this very difficult situation. I was glad to respond on that occasion and I do so equally on this.
Lord LEATHERLAND: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that this House, also, is a non-elected body, but is held in the very highest esteem by all?
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, no doubt owing to my own failure, the Minister did not understand my reference to the Urban Council in Hong Kong. I was not asking that it should be changed at this moment, but that representatives to the Legislative Council should come from the Urban Council, which, after all, is an elected body.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend. I would not rule out any source of expanded representation on the Legislative Council. There is, of course, this question to be considered in Hong Kong; that is, that membership of the Legislative Council, whether official or unofficial, is a demanding position, and it does not always follow that those elected to the Urban Council are those best fitted for the Legislative Council function. However, as I said, one would not rule out this possibility for the future. At the moment, I do not think we can go much further along that road.
Lord DUNCAN-SANDYS: My Lords, is the Minister aware that many people who are conversant with the problem will be pleased to note that the Government recognise the need for caution in this matter?
Lord LEE of NEWTON: My Lords my noble friend referred to the unique position of Hong Kong. Could he say whether any discussions have taken place recently with mainland China about what is to happen at the end of the century?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, as my noble friend will be well aware from his previous incarnation in Government, such discussions would be wholly confidential.

EDUCATION BOARDS: A-LEVEL EXAMINATIONS
2.52 p.m.
Lord NUGENT of GUILDFORD: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether the Secretary of State for Education and Science defines a policy for education Boards and, if so, whether that policy indicates the percentage of candidates for A-level examination to be given a "pass" at their respective levels and whether the attainment of this percentage may involve the uplifting of the examiners' marking figures.
The MINISTER of STATE, DEPARTMENT of EDUCATION AND SCIENCE (Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge): My Lords, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science is responsible for the overall direction of policy for secondary school examinations. In the exercise of that responsibility he is assisted by the Schools Council, who also undertake on his behalf the co-ordination of the work of the examining boards. My right honourable friend does not, however, lay down detailed conditions as to how the boards should distribute grades. In 1960 the Secondary School Examinations Council, whose functions have been assumed by the Schools Council, suggested certain guidelines for the percentage distribution of A-level pass grades, but emphasised their tentative nature. The examining boards have regard to the guidelines, but rely mainly on the expertise and experience of their examiners to establish and maintain standards and to judge the performance of individual candidates by those standards.
Lord NUGENT of GUILDFORD: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for that informative Answer, may I ask him whether his attention was called to an article on this subject in The Times on 10th July which threw some doubt on the reliability of the system? Is he aware that it is generally regarded as essential for the maintenance of high academic standards that the independence of examiners should be without

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doubt? Would it be possible for the noble Lord to publish the results as recorded by the examiners, and therefore the action which the Schools Council take in exercising the degree of judgment which has been put in their hands?
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: My Lords, I have indeed read this article. I do not think one should pay too much attention to an anonymous article because its value depends very much on the qualities as an examiner of the man who wrote it; but clearly it is a danger signal, of which my right honourable friend is fully aware. There is a report, which has been commissioned by the Schools Council, from the National Foundation for Educational Research which is looking at O-level and CSE results over the years. This report has not been published, but it will be. There are some elements in it which are rather disturbing, but generally speaking the evidence is not such as to suggest that there is a better way to keep up examination standards than the way which we use; that is, to have the Schools Council keeping a very close eye on them and doing specific research year by year, and to wait for the results.
Lord WYNNE-JONES: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that all examining boards have moderators who adjust the marking of all the examiners in order to ensure that there is uniformity in the marking? Is my noble friend also aware that in the so-called good old days there was a very distinguished examiner in the University of London who stated that he did not mind who saw the papers of the candidates whom he failed but heaven forbid that anyone should see a paper of a candidate whom he passed?
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: My Lords, I am aware of the first part of my noble friend's question but I was not aware of the second.

GOVERNMENT STATEMENT
Baroness LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOE: My Lords, with the leave of the House, at a convenient moment after 3.30 p.m. my noble friend the Leader of the House will repeat a Statement on the tragic murder of Her Majesty's Ambassador in Dublin.
SUFFOLK COASTAL DISTRICT COUNCIL BILL
Read 3a, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.

GREATER LONDON COUNCIL (MONEY) BILL
The PRINCIPAL DEPUTY CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES (Baroness Tweedsmuir of Belhelvie): My Lords, on behalf of the noble Earl the Chairman of Committees, I beg to move the Motion standing in his name. The purpose of the Motion is to enable the Select Committee on the Bill to carry out the Instruction moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Young, to which the House agreed on the 12th July. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Select Committee to whom the Bill is referred may hear evidence other than that tendered by the parties.—(Baroness Tweedsmuir of Belhelvie.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LAND DRAINAGE BILL [H.L.]
Report received.
LERWICK HARBOUR ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
Read 3a, and passed.

TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO REPUBLIC BILL [H.L.]
2.58 p.m.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. The need for this Bill arises from the proposed change of the Constitution of Trinidad and Tobago, which has been a sovereign independent member of the Commonwealth since 1962, from a Monarchy to a republic. Such a change has been the declared policy of the Government of Trinidad and Tobago for some time. A Bill to that effect was passed through both Houses of the Trinidad Parliament on the 26th March and received the Governor General's assent on the 29th March.

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The Trinidad and Tobago Republic Bill now before your Lordships is to make the adjustments in our own law which are necessary as a consequence of this constitutional change in Trinidad and Tobago. This is not a new procedure; there are well-established precedents. Similar Bills were introduced when other Commonwealth countries made similar constitutional changes. The most recent case was the Malta Republic Act 1975.
The present Bill like the others which preceded it is short and, I feel sure, uncontroversial. It provides that the operation of the law of the United Kingdom, Channel Islands and the Isle of Man existing in relation to Trinidad and Tobago when it becomes a republic and to persons and things belonging to or connected with Trinidad and Tobago is not affected by the fact that Trinidad and Tobago becomes a republic.
The reason why it is desirable to make such provision is that much of our existing law relating to Commonwealth countries still dates from the time when all such countries were under the Queen's sovereignty. One therefore finds in it, for example, expressions such as "parts of Her Majesty's Dominions", which, in the absence of this Bill, will no longer cover Trinidad and Tobago when it is a republic. The Bill will also have the same effect on the law of dependent territories of the United Kingdom in so far as their law consists of Acts of the United Kingdom Parliament extending to them, and of Orders in Council extending such Acts to them. This is desirable since the local Legislatures in the dependencies would not be competent to make the necessary provision themselves.
The new Constitution of Trinidad and Tobago retains provision for appeals to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. Because of the Judicial Committee's interest in avoiding possible delay between the effective date of the constitutional change and the passage of our legislation, the Bill has been drafted on a prospective, rather than the more usual retrospective, basis. It will be brought into force by Order in Council once the date of the constitutional change is known, probably during our Parliamentary Recess.
The Government of Trinidad and Tobago have informed the Commonwealth
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Secretary-General that they wish the country to remain a member of the Commonwealth after it becomes a republic. The Secretary-General has so informed other members. Her Majesty's Government warmly welcome Trinidad and Tobago's continued membership of the Commonwealth.
I am sure all noble Lords will join me in extending to the Government and people of Trinidad and Tobago our sincere good wishes for their future peace and prosperity.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Goronwy Roberts.)
3.2 p.m.
Baroness ELLES: My Lords, we thank the noble Lord for his very clear explanation of both the meaning and the purposes of the Bill before us. Of course, we agree entirely that it is a non-controversial Bill and we on this side of the House would like to join the noble Lord in his message of goodwill to the people of Trinidad and Tobago. Those of us who are stamp collectors have wonderful memories of that country with their stamps depicting palm trees and pleasant sandy beaches; and for many others it conjures up ideas of calypso and steel bands.
That is only part of the Trinidad and Tobago of today. In a world of interdependent economies, they have rightly decided to share their economic problems with other members of the Caribbean in the formation of CARICOM. One sometimes feels that the problems of Trinidad and Tobago are very much like those of our own country. They depend largely upon oil and are switching from a labour-intensive to a capital-intensive economy, with the consequent unemployment. It is very much a reflection of what is happening here; so that we can appreciate the problems that are affecting that country.
Trinidad and Tobago will be holding elections very shortly. In so many of our dependencies which have become independent, we notice that there has been a one-man Government with no Opposition. I think that all of us who support democracy in every part of the world should be grateful and thankful to the people of Trinidad and Tobago for, according to the latest information, they

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have at least 15 Parties standing and campaigning in their next Election. I think that this is a matter for great rejoicing in all democratic countries. Certainly those of us on this side of the House would like to welcome the fact that Trinidad and Tobago, unlike other countries which have chosen to become Republics, have retained close links by retaining the right of appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council as well as becoming and staying members of the Commonwealth.
It only remains for me and for noble Lords on this side of the House once more to wish the people of Trinidad and Tobago great peace and prosperity in the future, and to assure them that we shall always wish to retain the closest links with them.
3.5 p.m.
Lord PITT of HAMPSTEAD: My Lords, I hope your Lordships will forgive me for delaying you for a few minutes to make some comments on Trinidad, perhaps to reminisce a little and even to dream about what might have been; because I have very close and intimate connections with Trinidad. My wife was born there; it was there that I met her. My two elder children were born there. My elder daughter is now living there and, as she is married to a Trinidadian, if I am fortunate to have grandchildren some of them may well be born there. I practised medicine in Trinidad for several years and I am often meeting Trinidadians whom I knew before they were born.
I was very active in Trinidad politics. I was a member of the San Fernando Borough Council for six years and when I left Trinidad I was, in fact, the deputy mayor of San Fernando. I am, I may add, an honorary life vice-president of the Trinidad and Tobago Association, an office of which I am very proud. Moreover, it is because of Trinidad and Trinidad politics that I am in this country and a Member of your Lordships' House. I came here in 1947 to try to persuade the then Labour Government to grant responsible government to Trinidad and Tobago. I was then the president of the West Indian Party and Dr. Patrick Solomon who is at present the Trinidad High Commissioner in this country was the first vice-president. I was leader and he was deputy.
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We had been agitating for responsible government. In fact we had got all the representative organisations to pass resolutions supporting our stand. By that, I mean all the borough councils, all the county councils, the majority of the elected members of the Legislative Council and, in fact, we passed resolutions in all the main centres of population in Trinidad supporting our stand for responsible government. On the other hand, the Governor and his official advisers and the nominated members of the Legislative Council were opposed to our proposals and were advising Her Majesty's Government to move slowly.
It was felt that because I had been an active member of the Labour Party in my student days and knew some of the Ministers I should come to Britain and put our case, while Dr. Solomon stayed in Trinidad and continued to campaign. I came. I was received by Ministers. In fact I was hoping that the noble Earl the Chairman of Committees would be on the Woolsack at this moment because he was one of the Ministers who interviewed me; he was then Minister of State at the Colonial Office. I was given the opportunity to address several Labour Party meetings but, in the end, the Secretary of State agreed to a Constitution substantially along the lines advocated by the Governor and his officials.
I decided that I was not interested in trying to work such a Constitution. I remained in this country and settled in practice in Euston. This is the history of why I am here. The odd thing is that I had decided at that time that I was through with politics; but, as your Lordships realise, it was not to be. By 1957 I had become the Labour Parliamentary candidate for Hampstead. I was defeated in the General Election in 1959; in 1961 I was elected to the London County Council and in 1964 to the Greater London Council, of which I am still a member.
Meanwhile, my colleague Dr. Solomon carried on the struggle in Trinidad. He, too, was defeated in the elections in 1950. But in 1956 he joined with Dr. Eric Williams and the late Learie Constantine to form the People's National Movement. He became Deputy Leader of that Party, and when that Party became the Government he was first Deputy Premier. On

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independence, he was Deputy Prime Minister. Your Lordships will be interested to know that the Party came to power after winning the 1956 elections by the then Secretary of State for the Colonies agreeing to the Governor's appointing to the Legislative Council two members nominated by the Party. In other words, he was sensible enough to use the Constitution in a flexible way to bring about some degree of responsible Government, even though the Constitution, as drafted, did not allow it. He further gave an undertaking that the Government would accept the advice of the executive council on which there was a majority of members of the majority party. That is how Trinidad moved to its first stage of responsible government.
Then, of course, came the Federation. Between 1958 and 1962 there was the West Indies Federation with Trinidad very much a part of it and the capital was actually in Trinidad. The Federation died when Jamaica decided, through a referendum, that she did not want to continue in that Federation. Your Lordships will be amused, but I must confess that the result of that Federation has had such an effect on me that when in 1970 during the General Election I was asked whether I would support a referendum about Britian joining the Common Market, I indicated that my answer was a very firm, "No".
After the Jamaica referendum we did not give up. In fact, I was asked to go out to the West Indies to see if I could help to salvage something from the wreckage, the idea being then we continue the Federation, with Guyana taking Jamaica's place. Frankly, I did not go beyond Trinidad. I found that too much water had passed under the bridge; the antipathy to the Federation was too great. As the Minister told your Lordships, Trinidad and Tobago became independent in 1962.
Our next "ploy" was to try to get Trinidad and Tobago to join with Grenada in a union. I have always regretted that that, too, did not come off. From the point of view of political union, we have not been able to make the grade in that part of the world at all. As the noble Baroness, Lady Elles, pointed out, the West Indies has not done too badly in terms of economic union. First, the Caribbean
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Free Trade Area and subsequently CARICOM have been quite successful and one hopes that will lead to a much closer union in the end. Trinidad is the island which is best placed to help this along. It is to the credit of Trinidad that it has recognised that fact. For example, it helped to bail out Grenada when Grenada was in difficulties. It has played a leading part recently in helping Jamaica out of her difficulties.
On the diplomatic side it has been very useful to Guyana on more than one occasion: first of all in defusing to some extent the Guyana-Venezuela problem. Trinidad and Venezuela are close, perforce they must be close, because the distance between Trinidad and Venezuela at its nearest point is seven miles. In the days when Venezuela had frequent revolutions, we were always told to be very respectful to the Venezuelans whom we met in Port of Spain because they might well be President the next day. This closeness has enabled Trinidad to help Guyana, not only in that respect but getting Guyana admitted to the American International Bank, even though by the Constitution of the OAS, Guyana cannot become a member of the OAS. Trinidad has to be complimented on the way, by some quiet diplomacy, they were able to achieve these things.
Now Trinidad is to become a Republic. It is the will of the people and one must accept it. There is, however—and here I perhaps disagree with the noble Baroness—an illogicality in the new Constitution in Trinidad's retention of appeals to the Privy Council. It is perfectly in order for a country of which the Queen is sovereign to retain the right to appeal to her through her Privy Council. It does not seem to me, however, to make sense to say that the Queen is no longer your Queen but that you still wish to appeal to her through her Privy Council over the heads of the judges and the Court of Appeal of your country. But that is how Trinidad wants it and that is how it will be.
I hope, however, that the Republic of Trinidad is merely a forerunner to the establishment of a Republic of the West Indies. Obviously, no nation in the West Indies can be a Monarchy now that both Guyana and Trinidad are Republics. One must hope that one day we will

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have a Republic of the West Indies. It is worth noting that there are only two things that carry the name "West Indies" at the moment; the cricket team and the University. I and many like me hope that one day there will be a nation carrying that name.
3.17 p.m.
Baroness VICKERS: My Lords, I also have pleasure in welcoming this Bill. I am delighted that these people are continuing their prosperity and, I hope, their peace. My reason for joining in this debate is because I had the honour of visiting these islands, first of all, with the noble Baroness, Lady White, and secondly, with the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell (who is an excellent travelling companion) to present in 1962 on behalf of Her Majesty's Government a bookcase and gavel to the Government of Trinidad and Tobago when that country became independent. I should like to take this opportunity of thanking them for the great hospitality we received and congratulate Doctor the Honourable Eric Williams, Companion of Honour, for the excellent way in which he has conducted the island's affairs since that date. We were given every opportunity to meet the people. I have warm recollections not only of the excellent opportunity of seeing them in debate in Parliament but of the way in which we were received and the hospitality with which we were presented.
The present history has been given by the noble Lord, Lord Pitt of Hampstead. May I refer for the record to something of the past history? The aboriginal name was Iere—the land of the humming bird. This was discovered by Christopher Columbus in his third voyage in 1498. Through the Court of Madrid he changed the name to Trinidad. It is interesting to note that in 1532, Sir Walter Raleigh visited the islands and mended his ships in the great asphalt lake which is still there today and is still in use. The Dutch were there from 1595 to 1640; from 1677 to 1690, the French.
In 1725 there was a blight on the main crop in the island, which was cocoa. The Court of Madrid then issued, by Royal Proclamation, an offer to Roman Catholics of friendly countries to go to the
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islands to help to resuscitate the industry. The French Revolution followed later of course. In 1802, under the Treaty of Amiens, Trinidad was ceded to Britain as a Crown Colony. In 1834 came the emancipation of slaves and in 1845 a number of immigrants from China, India and Madeira came to the country. In 1488 Tobago was discovered. At that time it was inhabited by Caribs. Strangely enough, they all deserted the island and in 1596 it was found to be uninhabited. In 1630 300 Zealanders from Holland were settled on the island, and in 1888 the island was amalgamated with Trinidad.
In Parliament they have one Chamber, and perhaps your Lordships may be interested to know that they have unrestricted time in which to speak. In fact when the noble Lord and I were there we heard only one speaker, because he was speaking for the entire time of two and a half hours, which was the time we spent there.
We had a debate last night on race relations, and I should think that Trinidad and Tobago represent excellent examples of good race relations. I have mentioned the number of races which came to the island, but there are also ten completely separate religions. In their Parliament one sees names like Robinson, Gomez and Mohammed. I would suggest one cannot have names that are more mixed than that.
Lord DAVIES of LEEK: My Lords, I am sorry to intervene in the charming and excellent speech of the noble Baroness and I do apologise; but please do not let us forget the contribution made by Welsh pirates!
Baroness VICKERS: My Lords, I did not mention them because I thought that was the only blot there was in the history of the country. I should like also to pay tribute to the educational facilities in this very mixed association of peoples. The education is excellent and I, too, having seen it personally, would like to pay tribute to the excellent work done for handicapped children, and particularly for blind and deaf children.
I think the noble Lord, Lord Pitt, may be interested to know that when the noble Baroness, Lady White, and I attended the last meeting and the last lunch with the

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Federation—which I regret as much as he does—there were many tears shed at that last meeting. But I shall always remember the gaiety of the people and the magnificent festivals they organise. I hope that, through the High Commissioner, we may this afternoon send our greetings to the islands, together with our best wishes that they should continue in peace, prosperity and happiness in the future.
3.23 p.m.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I should like briefly, but very warmly, to extend my thanks to those Members of your Lordships' House who have spoken with such grace and in such a constructive spirit on this Bill which is so important for the future of Trinidad and Tobago, and its relations with this country. The noble Baroness, Lady Elles, made what I thought was an admirable speech, and I am sure that the Prime Ministers of this country and of Trinidad and Tobago will read it with great pleasure. My noble friend Lord Pitt made a speech of great fascination. One would have liked to listen to much more, but no doubt we shall hear him on further chapters of autobiography and of the history of Trinidad and Tobago in the future.
There cannot be much wrong with a country which produces so sturdy a constitutionalist as my noble friend Lord Pitt, so brilliant a cricketer as the late Lord Constantine or indeed so devoted a Parliamentary democrat as Dr. Eric Williams. I should like particularly to thank the noble Baroness for making that latter point. In a world where too many countries are in a hurry to seek illusory short-cuts by abandoning fundamental freedoms, the example of Trinidad and Tobago, its Prime Minister and its other statesmen, should serve as an example to many.
I am most grateful to my noble friend, if I may so call her, Lady Vickers, for what she said and for her historical resume. I could not fault it in the least, except that I noticed my noble friend Lord Davies of Leek, in a skilful intervention, attempted to annexe Trinidad and Tobago to the Principality of Wales. My final point, after listening to my noble friend Lord Davies, is to observe that all the Welsh pirates are no longer in the West Indies.
On Question Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

DEVELOPMENT LAND TAX BILL
3.26 P.m.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. The Government's land policy was laid down in the White Paper entitled Land (Cmnd. 5730) which was published on the 12th September 1974. In brief the Government's policy was stated as being that all land needed for development should be acquired by local authorities at current use value. It was, however, realised that there would be a transitional period and that during the transitional period there would have to be three objectives. The first objective is to maintain the flow of land coming forward for development; the second objective is to ensure that an appropriate proportion of the development value is returned to the community, and the third objective is to reduce the effective cost of land to local authorities.
The purpose of this Bill is to achieve those objectives. The tax for which it provides replaces the provisions for taxing development gains which were included in the 1974 Finance Act. The intended appointed day for this Bill is 1st August 1976. The tax will be charged on realised development value. When there is a disposal the gross amount for tax purposes will be the net proceeds. Disposal will include a part disposal, that is to say, a sale of part of the land or interest in the land, and also the granting of a lease.
When there is a start on material development it will be deemed to be a disposal, but in that case the gross amount for tax purposes will be the market value. Therefore, for the purposes of this tax we start with the gross amount equal to the net proceeds, or the market value, as the case may be. From that gross amount there is deducted a base value, and the Bill provides that it shall be the highest of three base values: A, B or C. Base A is the cost of acquisition plus any increase in the current value during the period of ownership. Base B is the current use value at the date of disposal, plus 10 per cent. Base C is the cost of acquisition

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plus 10 per cent., and the base value that is chosen is the highest of any of those three.
For a limited period there will be a special addition to Base A to allow for the possibility that the transactions involved in the purchase of the interest in the land may have been financed at very high rates of interest. In the case of land acquired on or before 12th September 1974, the additional allowance is 15 per cent. per annum, with a maximum of 60 per cent. Where land is acquired after 12th September 1974 but before 1st May 1977, there will be an allowance of 10 per cent. per annum, with a maximum of 40 per cent. So that in order to calculate the development value, we have to take the net proceeds or the market value, as the case may be, and deduct the highest of these three base values. The first £10,000 of development value in any one financial year for any one taxpayer is exempt from tax. Up to 31st March 1979, the next £150,000 is taxed at 66⅔ per cent.; only the balance is taxed at 80 per cent.
There are a number of exemptions or quasi-exemptions. First, local authorities and similar bodies are exempt; for example, among the similar bodies are the Scottish and Welsh Agencies. Secondly, there is a limited exemption for the residential owner-occupier. In the original Bill the limit was one-quarter of an acre, but in the Bill now before the House the limit is one acre. It is also provided that this exemption shall apply when the occupier is not the owner but a dependent relative of the owner. In the case of an industrialist who develops for his own use, provided it is an industrial use, the tax is deferred interest free until he disposes of the land which has been developed, or ceases to use it for his own industrial purposes. Statutory under-takers have the same right of deferment, as also have certain housing associations.
In the case of charities, land held by them on 12th September 1974 is totally exempt. if the land is acquired after 12th September 1974 and is developed for the charity's own charitable purposes, then it can be deferred interest free, in much the same way as the tax of the industrialist. Traders in land will have had some in stock on 12th September 1974, and in certain cases it will have had
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planning approval. In so far as the development value arises from the planning approval already obtained, it will be exempt.
There is, of course, an interaction between this tax and some other taxes. Capital gains, for the purposes of the capital gains tax, or profit, for the purposes of income tax or corporation tax, will be reduced by the slice of development value which is, or will be, subject to development land tax. Where there is a gift or a legacy which has attracted capital gains tax, capital transfer tax or estate duty and the property is subsequently sold, appropriate relief for those taxes already paid will be made in calculating the development land tax. Local authorities will acquire land net of tax. Wherever possible, the amount of the deduction will be the actual or approximate liability already agreed between the vendor and the Inland Revenue. In all other cases, there will be an overriding limit to the deduction, which cannot exceed 50 per cent. of the gross value. In all cases there will be a final adjustment and the balance, whether payable by the vendor or to him, will carry appropriate interest. That, I think is a fair summary of the tax.
In conclusion, I should like to say that since the first White Paper was issued on 12th September 1974 there have been the most thorough consultations, especially with those affected by the tax, and in February 1975 the Revenue issued a statement giving the main features of the tax in substantial detail. In August 1975 a further White Paper was issued entitled Development Land Tax (Cmnd. 6195) in which there were draft clauses and Schedules and explanatory notes. As a result of these publications and the consultations which followed them, there were many improvements made to the Bill and when it was published an explanatory booklet was issued as a partner to it. There were very constructive debates in the other place in both the Committee and Report stages and, in consequence, many Amendments were made, most of which were either improvements to the Bill or to meet some of the criticisms. The question of the taxation of development value is a problem which has been with us for a long time, and we believe that this Bill sets out a sound method of dealing with this problem. It is for that reason that I have pleasure in

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commending the Bill to the House. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Jacques.)

ASSASSINATION OF BRITISH AMBASSADOR IN DUBLIN
3.37 p.m.
The LORD PRIVY SEAL (Lord Shepherd): My Lords, with the permission of the House I shall now make a Statement, and I shall use the words of my right honourable friend the Prime Minister.
"Honourable Members will have been shocked to hear of the explosion in Dublin this morning which wrecked the British Ambassador's car killing the Ambassador, Mr. Christopher Ewart-Biggs, and Miss Judith Cook, a Private Secretary in the Northern Ireland Office. Mr. Brian Cubbon, the Permanent Under-Secretary at the Northern Ireland Office, and the driver of the car, Mr. Brian O'Driscoll, are now in hospital in Dublin. Both are seriously injured.
"According to the information so far available the explosion was caused by a land mine planted in the road about 150 yards from the Ambassador's Residence.
"The Taoiseach, Mr. Liam Cosgrave, telephoned me a short while ago. He expressed his deepest sympathy and regret and that of his Government and has undertaken that every effort will be made to bring to justice those responsible for this atrocity. He reiterated the Irish Government's intention to safeguard the lives of the United Kingdom citizens in the Republic.
"My right honourable friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary is sending the Deputy Under-Secretary dealing with Irish affairs, Mr. Richard Sykes, to Dublin so that he can report back urgently on the situation.
"The Queen has been informed. She was horrified to hear of this outrage and extends Her sympathy to the relations of those involved. The whole House will join with me in extending our sincere sympathy to the families of those killed or injured, and our hopes for a successful recovery by Mr. Cubbon and Mr. O'Driscoll."
Those are the words of my right honourable friend the Prime Minister, but there are many in your Lordships' House who knew the Ambassador, Mr. Cubbon and Miss Cook. Many of your Lordships have worked with them—some recently, others perhaps a year or so ago—and I think that I should be speaking on your Lordships' behalf if I sent a message from this House conveying our own very deep sense of sympathy to Mrs. Ewart-Biggs and to the relations of all those who have suffered, and to those who have been injured in this terrible atrocity our very best wishes that they will have a speedy recovery.
3.41 p.m.
Lord CARRINGTON: My Lords, the whole House will echo the last words of the noble Lord the Leader of the House—and, more particularly, those of us who knew Mr. Ewart-Biggs. I have known him over a great number of years. Certainly we wish to send both to his family and to the family of Miss Cook our very deepest sympathy, and we echo the hope of the noble Lord that the two people who have been injured will recover successfully.
Those who are responsible for these barbarities totally misunderstand the British character and the likely results of their actions. There will be no political shift in the Government's policy or in the bipartisan policy on Ireland which we have followed together. There will only be an even greater feeling of disgust and repulsion of people who can commit this kind of atrocity—alas, an atrocity not confined to this one occasion. It is almost an everyday occurrence in Northern Ireland. I will say just one other thing which I hope will not be misunderstood: that when those members of the SAS appear in court for accidentally crossing the Irish border, the Irish Government will consider sympathetically the reasons why they are in Northern Ireland at all and the kind of incidents which, by their presence, they are seeking to do away with.
Lord BYERS: My Lords, there is little that I from these Benches can add to the words of the two noble Lords who have already spoken. The nation will indeed be outraged at this senseless and mindless assassination, and most certainly we should like to be associated with the expression

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of sympathy and the condolences which the whole House will send to the families of those involved in this tragic affair. I would make only one point to the Minister: that if this was a landmine which had been dug into the road within 150 yards of the Ambassador's residence, it casts some doubt on the efficiency of the security arrangements in that area. I assume that the Irish Government and we ourselves will together do something to remedy that gap, but should we not also look at other residences of Ambassadors, particularly in Europe, which also may be at risk?
The Lord BISHOP of LONDON: My Lords, had he not been in hospital, I am quite sure that the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury would have wished to associate those who sit on these Benches with the expressions of sympathy for those who have been injured and for the relatives of those who have been killed, and that he would also have expressed the hope that, terrible as the consequences of this awful event are, it should not be allowed to divert us from our peaceful desire to create the right circumstances in Ireland. There is a great temptation for the boundaries to be hardened as a result of this incident, but we must make it quite clear that these terrible acts are purely negative and that in no way will they divert us from our desire to find peacefully the answer to these dreadful circumstances in Ireland.
Lord SHEPHERD: My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords and to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London. It is too soon to question the security arrangements at Dublin. The security arrangements at all British Embassies and High Commissions are under constant review, and until we know more about this incident perhaps the less said the better.
The Ambassador, Miss Cook, the Permanent Secretary and the driver were involved in an incident during the call of duty. It is well to remember that many men and women in Northern Ireland have either lost their lives or been severely maimed in a similar way in the call of duty. I hope that one consequence of the assassination of our Ambassador, the Representative of our Queen, in Eire
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will be that we become even more conscious of the price that is being paid on a daily basis for the establishment and maintenance of the rule of law and the maintenance of democratic freedom in Northern Ireland.
I do not wish to comment upon what has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Carrington. I have a great deal of sympathy with his remarks regarding the SAS. They, like many of their other compatriots, follow the call of duty and occasionally mistakes are made. I hope that the Irish Government will take note of what has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, because I think that his views on this matter are shared by all of us.
I agree wholeheartedly with the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, and also with the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London that this incident will not shift the resolve of the British Government, the British Parliament and the British people to bring about order and a decent way of life in Northern Ireland. I do not know how we can get across this message to the people who perpetrate this form of atrocity, and others perhaps even worse, but one day I hope the truth will get through. If as a consequence of this tragic incident the message gets a little closer to them, then perhaps the price of the Ambassador's life might be nearly bearable.
Lord O'NEILL of THE MAINE: My Lords, I should first like to say how much I agree with the content and the tone of the remarks made this afternoon by the noble Lord the Leader of the House. As one who knows the house, who has travelled in the car, who knows the people, who had Mr. Brian Cubbon here for lunch 10 days ago, I feel deeply involved. I am glad to hear that the Taoiseach has already been on the telephone to the Prime Minister, and I was glad to see on the ticker tape that Mr. Jack Lynch has wholeheartedly condemned this action. These are two brighter spots which we can see on this grim day.
I should like to make two points. As the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, has said, there is a case pending against the Army people who strayed across the border and who are to be tried, I gather this autumn, in the special court which, strangely enough, was blown up by the

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IRA last week. Secondly, at Strasbourg there is pending against the Government another case which may come up at the same time as the one in Dublin, or probably earlier. I am sure the Government will support me when I say I should like to appeal to the Government of the Irish Republic to put both these cases on the long finger. Up to date we can all be proud, by and large, of the wonderful way in which the British people have behaved towards the large Irish population in this country, and I hope that the Dublin Government will do nothing to put this situation at risk.
Lord SHEPHERD: My Lords, I have already indicated to the House my sense of support for what the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, has said. I wonder whether perhaps we should leave it there. I think the Irish authorities will be as shocked and as grieved as are we today in this House, in Parliament and throughout our country. I know that the sentiment and spirit are here, but my feeling is that the less said on this matter, the better.
Lord GORE-BOOTH: My Lords, I think your Lordships might find it appropriate if one member of the Diplomatic Service were just to pay tribute to a gay, gallant and highly serious colleague who had six years at the summit of his career to complete before this tragedy happened, and I am sure his family will be very grateful indeed to your Lordships for the sentiments that have been expressed to them.
I wish only to add a point which is perhaps almost the same as that expressed by the noble Lord the Leader of the House. If, in addition to those who are in official positions in Ireland, whether North or South, the people of Ireland themselves may come a little nearer to consciousness of a collective responsibility for these things and achieve a desire that such things shall at last cease to happen on this earth, then, as the noble Lord said, perhaps Christopher Ewart-Biggs will not have died in vain.
Lord BEAUMONT of WHITLEY: My Lords, gestures are a minor thing compared with the tragedy of which we are speaking, but may I ask the Government to see that appropriate tribute is paid to
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the sensitive, in some ways courageous and, I understand, fairly unparalleled action of the Irish Government in ordering all flags to be flown at half mast and all members of the Irish Government not to attend public functions, in an expression of official mourning for what has happened? I think we should all be pleased and proud that the Irish Government have done this, and we should give them full credit for it.
Lord SHEPHERD: My Lords, I am very grateful for the sentiments which have been expressed. I suggest that we move to the next business, but may make one last observation: I have no doubt that one day the Irish problem will be solved; but it w ill only he solved by the people of Ireland, the British Government and people, and the Irish Government and people, working together, and what the noble Lord has just reminded us of, namely, the physical act of the Irish Government. I think this is a symptom of their resolution and ours to bring an end to this tragic story.

DEVELOPMENT LAND TAX BILL
3.55 p.m.
Second Reading debate resumed.
Viscount COLVILLE of CULROSS: My Lords, we must turn from a matter which has united the House back to the Development Land Tax Bill, which I am afraid substantially divides it. The noble Lord, Lord Jacques, has given us a quick and efficient guide to the Bill, but neither he nor I will be able to embark upon many of the technicalities in this debate. Your Lordships need not worry; this is the third time round and there are as many technicalities as there were in 1947 and in 1967. One eminent tax expert told me yesterday that this one was, "The worst of the lot", and it certainly will be among the most expensive, with its massive headquarters in Middles-brough.
To be charitable, my Lords, here there might have been a framework of legislation of which the Opposition could have approved. As your Lordships will recall, we on these Benches are now agreed that there should be some taxation of

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realised development value, though personally I believe—and I am glad to find that I am not the only one in my Party who does so—that my noble friend Lord Barber overreacted in December 1973. I am not at all sure that the proposals which he then put forward would have survived in that form if they had had to be passed in a legislative form through another place. We shall never know.
But the Bill is unpalatable to me, coming as it does from a Socialist Government. There are three main reasons for this. First, I believe that the rate of tax is unrealistically high and even then is intended to be only a step in the direction of total confiscation. Secondly, the measure marches hand in hand with the much-loathed Community Land Act of last year towards an all-embracing and all-pervading bureaucracy. Not only do we think that the incentive to bring forward land for development has been given a death blow but the method of murder will not even be an efficient one. There will be no rapid humane killer here but slow strangulation at the hesitant hand of a local government committee.
Thirdly, I am afraid I detect a deplorable lack of principle in this Bill: a wriggling about to seek to justify that is nothing more than a collection of political expediencies, or in some cases an inability to find answers to real problems which have been pointed out to the Government. First, let me say a word about the rate of tax. Your Lordships will appreciate that this Bill is only a temporary measure. When it first comes in, development land tax on the first £10,000, as the noble Lord has told us, will be nil. On the next £150,000 it will be two-thirds and it will be 80 per cent. on the rest. Thus for almost everybody, except builders, for the three years until 1979 the tax will be lower than it is at the moment under Development Gains Tax.
This is clever politics, but it is totally unprincipled. There is only one reason for it. As the Minister said on Second Reading in another place, it is to encourage the release of land for development. They have to make these concessions because Her Majesty's Government know well that the tax at its final rate will utterly dry up the release of land and will thereby frustrate the first of the objectives
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which the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, has just told us about. In order to get the Government past the danger zone of the next General Election they tempt us all with the poisoned lollipop of the reduced tax. Of course people like the concession, but in making it I am afraid that the Government at once betray their reliance upon this political expediency rather than upon any matter of principle, and at the same time they display the fear of the stagnation which will fall when the rate of 80 per cent. Comes in.
On all sides it is said that there is about two or three years' worth of building land now in stock. Under this legislation there will be no more. But that situation will be as nothing to the ultimate conclusion of the Government's intentions. As I have said, this is a temporary measure because Her Majesty's Government, for some strange reason, look forward to the second appointed day under the Community Land Act, when there will be 100 per cent. confiscation of development value achieved by a simple change in the code of compensation for compulsory purchase. Indeed, before that, we are promised 100 per cent. development land tax. I can only suppose that in their sweet innocence the Government imagine that people will readily volunteer to hand over 100 per cent. of the development value to something called the community. It is not even as if the people being invited to do so will see anything tangible in their locality as a reward for their sacrifice.
The financial controls which cocoon the Community Land Fund, and any surplus it may one day produce, are far too stringent to allow anything like that. Nor, it seems, will any other good emerge from the totality of this scheme. Some people may think cheap housing will result, but it will not. There will still be a market in land, with developers bidding for sites from a monopoly seller, the local authority, which has in addition a financial stake in the selling price, and by law they will be required to get the best possible price reasonably obtainable for the land they dispose of.
Of course, the other difficulty is that the Government find they cannot finance the scheme, either. This year there is only £25 million allocated for the whole of England for the community land scheme.

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One of my honourable friends in another place quoted the figures for a major Midlands county. The whole county this year has an allocation of £450,000, and the county council say that of that, £200,000 will be used up in staff costs. This Bill, therefore, is in bad company, associating, as it does, with the Community Land Act. When the coating of the pill has worn away, people will taste the bitter reality. The supply of land will dry up. It looks as though the community land scheme will not be capable of replacing it and making up the shortfall.
Then I look at the principles that are apparent, or perhaps not so apparent, in this Bill. I have already identified a serious shortcoming in these tax concessions for an initial transitional period. Next, I should like to look at the position of the charities, that I know other noble Lords wish to discuss. Though they will be exempt in relation to any land which they own before White Paper day in September 1974, they will pay tax on land bought since then if it is developed or used for anything other than the charity's own purposes. There will be a deferment if it is used for those purposes, but only a deferment.
My Lords, nobody since Tudor times has attempted to tax charities. The Socialist Party did not do it in 1947; they did not do it under the Land Commission Scheme, and they have not done it for development gains tax. The only person who tried, apparently, was Mr. Gladstone in 1863, and he had to withdraw quickly, and very chastened, from the attempt. Why do the Government wish to do it now? To prevent, they say, a two-tier market. This is nonsense. There will be a two-tier market anyway. There are many other organisations exempt from this tax. Your Lordships will see a list of them in Clause 11 of the Bill. There is a whole page of exempt authorities who will pay no tax. There are also the co-operative housing associations and the self-build housing societies. They can all engage in the market, knowing that there will be no tax payable by them on disposals or starts of development, so why not charities? Those other organisations are exempt because they are the embodiment of the community, so it is said, or in the case of the housing bodies because they are the next best thing to owner-occupiers—the embodiment of the community, which
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is supposed to have created the betterment. But so are charities. Listen to what the Charity Commission said in their 1975 Report:
"One of the requirements which must be satisfied by every institution which is a charity is that it exists for the benefit of the community, or of a sufficient section of the community. Any increase in the value of charity land arising from the grant of planning permission for development accordingly in this sense already belongs to the community".
So the charities are also an embodiment of the community.
How do they differ from other exempt authorities—the Lea Valley Park Authority, the Scottish Special Housing Association, Letchworth Garden City—so that they have to be given a special and different role, and be made to pay tax for the first time? They have not even been given any roll-over relief. The Minister in another place said in mitigation that the exemptions under the Bill will cover 98 per cent. of land owned by charities. This takes me on to the next point, where I fear there are misgivings in my mind about the principles that have motivated the Government.
My Lords, 98 per cent. of the land owned by charities now, may be, but this is going to be a continuing process. This legislation in other respects is faulty, by admission of the Government. The Government recognise there will be a problem in the long term for charities. They have said so. There are other defects which the Bill leaves unresolved. For instance, there is the question of interaction with other taxes; there is a limit to the time during which one can claim an offset against other taxes, and it is so short that the Government have admitted in another place that it could be unfair. Then there is the ability of local authorities to use their compulsory purchase powers, and the formula deduction under Schedule 7 of so much of the purchase price which represents development land tax, in such a way as to prevent a provisional assessment of that tax by the Revenue and thereby they will deduct more money from the purchase price than they should. In another place, the Minister said that this could be abused.
One day the Government seem to think that they will get round to legislating to cure these defects. I say it is wrong to pass a Bill with this sort of defect in it. It is not good enough to say that the

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Government will legislate when the trouble has been spotted and the cure seems necessary, because this falls into a double trap. It does not help the cases of unfairness which have already occurred unless the legislation is retrospective. Retrospective legislation in the realm of taxation is a very dangerous policy indeed upon which to embark, and I do not think this Bill ought to contain these defects. There are plenty of others. I should not be at all surprised if my noble friend Lord Kinnoull were to tell us about some of them. I will be content with two, which perhaps show the range.
Under the Bill it is not what is called material development—and so attracts no tax—to rebuild any building so long as you do not increase its cubic content by more than one-tenth, and the one-tenth is measured from external measurements. So if in the Cotswolds you rebuild a building made of stone, which needs thick walls, instead of rebuilding it out of brick, you get less room inside to enjoy. If you wish to replace the full amount, you will either have to pay a little tax, or you will have to build it in brick instead. Did the Government really mean that sort of situation to arise?
Then, at the other end of the range, if your Lordships have penetrated the murky forest of Schedule 8, in paragraph 48 there is something I believe to be the ultimate of all absurdities. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, will tell me whether I am right on my facts. Supposing a developer wishes to build 25 houses on a site and he elects to pay his development land tax in instalments. As each house is sold to the family who wants to live in it, there will have to be a recalculation of the original tax, of the amount that now has to be paid over on a final basis, and on the rest of the instalments. If one looks at the formula for the assessment of the recalculation of these taxes in paragraph 48, one sees that it is no small effort to comply with it. For that development of 25 houses there will have to be 26 different recalculations of the tax. It is little wonder that there will be a massive empire of civil servants doing this in Middlesbrough.
I have not time to go into any more of the defects, but I note in particular the much lamented lack, in this legislation,
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of roll-over relief which has been a feature of previous Bills and particularly of development gains tax. I want to say a word about the appointed day, 1st August, as the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, has just confirmed. I have a real worry about the practicability of bringing in this legislation in about ten days' time. Originally, I believe the Inland Revenue said that they wanted about two months from the date of Royal Assent before the appointed day was brought in, and I can well understand why. Can the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, tell me this. If a developer starts his development on 2nd August, he will of course be caught by this Bill. He is required under paragraph 36 of Schedule 8 to notify the Inland Revenue of the project within 30 days. The builder will have to use prescribed forms and he will have to provide the information that the Inland Revenue need. Where arc the forms? This is going to happen in ten days' time. What is the information that the Inland Revenue need? Where can the builders and developers get hold of this? This applies nationwide to every corner of the United Kingdom.
Then there are the regulations to be made under subsection (7) of Clause 40 to deal with conveyancing for those who are non-resident in this country. There are to be exceptions; there is going to be small print, and solicitors will need this because they have to deduct tax when it is paid to such a person. Where are the regulations? Will they be made in time for conveyancers to understand them by 1st August? I very much doubt it.
In another place we were told that a booklet is promised on the workings of this tax, and Heaven knows! it will be necessary. When will it be ready? It is said by the Minister to be a major job for the Inland Revenue to produce a proper book. My Lords, is it not just too soon to try to bring it in on 1st August? The time-table of all the Government's business has slipped, and I would suggest to the noble Lord that they really ought seriously to reconsider this. I believe that what will happen is that developers—wanting to calculate, for instance, the instalments that they ought to claim in relation to the tax; trying to decide upon the size of the project they are going to notify as that upon which they are going to embark, and the effect on their cash

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Flow—will just stop for a month or so to take advice. This Bill was printed in its final form only on 13th July. Nobody's advisers are up to date with it. None of them has attempted to take on board the whole of the contents of this legislation until it emerged from another place. I believe that there will be another period of stagnation in the house-building market simply as a result of bringing in the appointed day too soon.
My Lords, my copy of the Bill—and I think everybody else's—has printed upon its face the words, "Brought from the Lords 13th December 1976". I wish that prophetically this were true. We hardly need any more legislation for the autumn Session, but I think we could gladly do without some that is promised to us. I believe we could have gone carefully through this Bill again and made some substantial improvements to it. I think my noble friends would have been able to continue the process which the noble Lord rightly said has taken place in the House of Commons whereby this new tax has been refined and improved. But this is denied us. Nor can we throw the Bill out. I shall, therefore, suggest to my noble friends on this side of the House that we allow it to pass under protest. As it stands it is a bad Bill. It is insufficiently thought out. It is part of a desperately serious Left Wing community land scheme. When we come to draw the teeth of that scheme, we shall also look very closely at this Bill, and at any period of time it has been in operation, to show us how it works and to ensure that the necessary changes are made, because only then would it be acceptable to us as a proper vehicle for a tax on betterment.
Lord GEORGE-BROWN: My Lords, before the noble Viscount sits down may I put this to him? He is very persuasive, and he carried me with him with much of what he said, until he reached the point when he said that he was going to advise his friends to allow the Bill to pass under protest. His arguments being so persuasive and so damaging, why does he offer that advice?
Viscount COLVILLE of CULROSS: My Lords, because it has been certified as a Money Bill. If it had been similar to
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the Land Commission Bill which we had in this House, which could be divided, Part from Part, and we could look at Part 3 and amend it, I should have been only too glad to take that course. But as it is, this Bill is one and unified, and I am afraid we cannot do that.
4.17 p.m.
Viscount SIMON: My Lords, I think we would all agree that no tax is ever welcome, but, as the noble Viscount said in his speech, the major Parties in Parliament are all agreed on the principle of taxing the betterment in land values that arises from development. So it seems to me that the question to which we have to address ourselves is really how to give effect to that principle. My noble friends and the Liberal Party as a whole have always expressed the hope that we might eventually achieve a tax on the annual site value and that this would be the best way of dealing with the undoubted problems that arise. But we realise that this is unlikely to be possible for some time to come—in fact I think the Layfield Committee threw a good deal of cold water on the idea—and so we have to look at this Bill and the development land tax which is proposed as the method which the Government have thought fit to introduce to us for use, as the noble Viscount said, in harness with the Community Land Act. We did not like the Community Land Bill when it was before us, any more than did noble Lords on my left; but it is now an Act, and it seems to us that we have to accept it as an Act, and that the form the taxation should take should be related to that Act, even though, as the noble Viscount said, the Act has left a nasty taste in many of our mouths and that makes us react almost instinctively against this tax.
My noble friends believe—and I do not hold myself out as a tax expert—that on balance, by perhaps a rather narrow margin, the development land tax is better than the development gains tax introduced by the Conservative Party in 1974.
Viscount COLVILLE of CULROSS: My Lords, it was introduced by the Socialist Party in the Finance Act 1974. The details belong entirely to the Socialist Party.
Viscount SIMON: My Lords, I beg the noble Viscount's pardon; I had misunderstood this. At any rate, it is marginally better than the development gains tax. This is a highly technical matter, and I would not attempt to give a lecture to your Lordships on the difference in impact of these two taxes, but I think it is reasonable for any Government to re-examine a tax which is basically a tax on development value to see whether they can put forward a better proposition.
So far as my noble friends and I are concerned, we think that this is a marginally better form of tax. Of course there are objections to it, and I entirely agree with the noble Viscount in much of his criticism. The first one related to the level of tax. He suggested to your Lordships that this would, in course of time, be a disincentive to land finding its way into the market for development. But if we accept that there should be a tax on development value, then whatever form that tax takes it will act in that disincentive way. The extent to which it acts will depend upon the rate of tax. The rate of tax has been criticised, but if the noble Viscount turns out to be right and the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, turns out to be wrong, the rate of tax, I would assume, could always be varied from year to year. All the Bill lays down is the initial rate of tax. I stand to be corrected if I am wrong but I should have thought that in any subsequent Finance Bill the Government of the day could vary that rate of tax. I do not think that the level of tax at this stage is really a matter which would justify us in criticising this proposal.
I very much agree with the noble Viscount that it was wrong—and I say "wrong"—for the Government to use this tax to withdraw from charities the exemption they have enjoyed all these years. I am very much disturbed that this should have been done, and I know that efforts were made in another place to get that corrected, but those efforts were unsuccessful. Here again, I take it that the Government can still have second thoughts next year, if they can be so persuaded, and that so far as the charities are concerned it is probably correct that in the first year the effect upon them will be minimal. I think the same applies
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to the exemption for pension funds, about which some of us feel very strongly.
The noble Viscount also extended his criticism to the timing. I must say that I entirely agree with him. How it is possible to introduce this very complicated tax on 1st August when practically nothing, as he says, has been circulated because there has not been time, passes my comprehension. This is a matter which could be altered by administrative decision, and I do not see why the Government should not have a look at it very seriously between now and 1st August.
As regards the curious point to which the noble Viscount called attention, this reference to the Bill being brought from the Lords on 13th December 1976, I hope that the noble Lord is going to tell us what it means. It is in very small print and I congratulate the noble Viscount on being so observant. I do not wish to speak at length because this is a Money Bill and we have to let it go. In short, we feel that the exemptions for charities, churches and pension funds ought to be looked at again. But we would not, as I am advised, raise objection to the principle of the tax because we believe that it is generally agreed that there should be taxation, and I say substantial taxation, on the windfall gains that arise from development value in land. This Bill in fact gives effect to that principle.
4.25 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of WORCESTER: My Lords, following the comprehensive remarks which have already been made this afternoon, especially by the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, and indeed those made by the noble Viscount, Lord Simon, I rise briefly to make three points. I do so on behalf of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London, who hoped to remain here this afternoon but is now not able to. In his place I find myself speaking for the Churches' Main Committee which, as many of your Lordships know, represents all the leading religious denominations in this country, and acts for them in secular matters of common concern. I believe that what I have to say on behalf of the Churches very much applies to the great body of charities.

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As we look together at the representations made by the charities and Churches on the effect of this Bill on their work, I regretfully have to register real sadness at the cavalier treatment that we have received at the hands of Her Majesty's Government. I do not often feel called to speak in such clear terms, but here we have done all we can to point out those things which we wish to place on record, and have believed that our proposals were valid. But even now, although it is too late to expect any changes, we very much hope that certain matters will be taken notice of in the years of working this out.
My first point (following the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Jacques) is that for the first time in history Churches and charities are subjected to direct taxation. This Bill makes a most unwelcome and dangerous precedent in this respect. It has already been pointed out that this policy has been established ever since Tudor days, and that Governments at all times and in successive years have been at pains to encourage voluntary giving, to safeguard the property when given, and to ensure that it was applied strictly in accordance with the donor's wishes. For the first time this great concept of charitable giving is being questioned.
The whole subject was gone into in great detail in 1950 and 1952 by the Nathan Committee, who reported unhesitatingly that charitable resources should remain at the disposal of the trustees. Effect was given to their recommendations in the Charities Act 1960, and subsequently Churches and charities have continued to be exempted from direct taxation, including indeed the betterment levy under the Land Commission Act, and the present development gains tax.
Why then this change of heart on behalf of the present Administration? Because, it is said, development land tax is not an ordinary tax at all but a stepping-stone to a new system of land tenure under which all development gains which are created by the community return to the community. But, my Lords, the same could be said of capital gains tax, and many others. What are capital gains but increases of value brought about by the pressures of supply and demand within the community?
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Moreover, this argument overlooks the fact that, in the case of the Churches and charities, all their resources, of whatever kind, flow to the community and are used for charitable purposes beneficial to the community. What else are the Charity Commissioners there for but to watch this very thing? None goes into private pockets, and none can if charity law is properly applied. So when the Churches plead for complete exemption, they do so not in order to make money for themselves but simply to have more to devote to the work of the community. The plain fact is that any tax diminishes the resources which the Church can devote to the community. For example, I have more than one redundant church in the denuded populated areas of the centre of the City of Worcester, and now I find myself questioned as to whether I can transfer the assets of that piece of land to meet the needs of Redditch New Town, some 20 miles away.
The Government have said that for the particular purposes of the community land legislation the community is represented by the local authorities. But the Churches are just as much a part of the community as are the local authorities—and, if I may say so, just as worthy. Indeed, as many of your Lordships will know, much of their social work is carried out in partnership with local authorities. Local authorities and local churches, thank God! are working together in an enormous number of spheres. At this time, if cuts in local expenditure are with us, does it not seem strange that there should be any question of taxing the resources which the Churches and charities devote, often in partnership with local authorities, to the community?
Another argument which is put forward by Her Majesty's Government is that if Churches and charities were exempted from this land tax, the result would be to establish a two-tier land market. This point was raised by the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, and I simply wish to point out that such a market already exists, and will continue to exist, in the case of land which the Churches and charities already owned on White Paper day. However, even in the case of land acquired since that day, it is difficult to see that complete exemption for Churches and charities would have done any real damage to the

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Government's land scheme. This is something I fail to see. As it is, the fact that pre-White Paper day land is free of tax and post-White Paper day land is not, will inevitably make the Churches and charities increasingly chary of giving up one for the other, and so this will tend to result in work continuing in one place which really should be transferred to another. I, as a Bishop, stand as the representative of many of my brothers in realising that one of the principal roles of the Churches and charities these days is to be adaptable with their resources and to meet new situations.
That brings me to my second point, which is that even if Churches and charities cannot be given complete exemption in respect of the land which they acquire or are given since White Paper day, it seems particularly hard in this new situation that they cannot even be exempted on such land which they develop for their own charitable purposes. It means, for example, that a given property belonging to a charity or Church, such as an over-large church, will be severely restricted in developing the site into a hall, school, community centre, hostel or children's or old persons' home. We are being restricted to that extent. It is true that the Churches will not be liable to tax on such developments at the time when they take place, but the tax is not cancelled. It is merely deferred, so that if eventually the land has to be sold—perhaps because the site or buildings become too small, or the need moves elsewhere, or the land is needed by the local authority for other purposes—the tax then becomes payable, just at the time when the Church or charity needs all its resources to rebuild and restart the work in the face of greater need.
Thirdly, it is equally surprising and disappointing that the Government should apparently be contemplating taking away with one hand a concession which they gave with the other; namely, the right to compensation based on prevailing use value, when, after the second appointed day under the Community Land Act, land is acquired which has been in charitable use for at least seven years. This concession was particularly important for Churches and was much welcomed by them because the value of a redundant
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city centre church for its current use as a church is usually particularly low. I contine to use my example; the land value of a redundant city church is usually low, whereas its value based on the uses prevailing in the neighbourhood—for example, offices or shops—may well be higher. However, as the Bill is drafted, it seems only too likely that the Church would be liable to tax on that difference in value. The Government have said that this is something at which they will look again nearer the time, but we have had such offers before. Churches and charities have to make their plans a good many years ahead, and this they cannot do if there is uncertainty about the tax situation when the time comes to put the plans into effect.
Those are the three points which I would make personally and which would have been made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London had he been able to be present, but I am sure that in a great measure of what I have said I speak on behalf of the charities and Churches. As I said at the outset, nothing can be done about them now in relation to this Bill. But is it too much to hope that they will be borne in mind in relation to any future legislation affecting the Churches and charities, and that the traditional exemption of Churches and charities from direct taxation will be restored as quickly as possible? Otherwise, only the community itself will suffer.
4.37 p.m.
The Earl of KINNOULL: My Lords, I rise to support both my noble friend and the two other speakers and I wish at the outset to congratulate them on the effective piercing of the very tough skin of what my noble friend described as the worst Bill and what I would describe as the most vicious land tax measure that has yet come before Parliament. I believe that not even one's eight year old daughter would believe that a Bill with 47 clauses and eight Schedules has but one sole, simple objective; namely, to tax profits on development land for the benefit of the community. Surely the Bill will win the Oscar of the year for being the most incredible tangle of tax gibberish yet approved by Parliament. Its content is farcical, frightening and

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odious and shows the appalling mess that our tax system has degenerated into.
I condemn the Bill on three counts. First, I condemn it because of its incomprehensible complexity; secondly, because of the active damage which I believe it will do to our planning system, to our housing programme, in the short term anyway, to our construction industry and, most shameful of all, to our churches and charities, as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Worcester pointed out: and, thirdly, because almost certainly it will cause confrontation and friction between the individual and local and central government, something which is very serious. The Bill's complexity is a matter of serious charge on the Government and while I think that few will disagree with its general purpose—of introducing a development land tax; my noble friend said that there was a consensus to that effect—it is the percentage and method which are deeply divisive. Why, one asks, do we need this draconian form of tax law? Is it, as I suspect, designed to soften us up for total land nationalisation? I regret that because this is a Money Bill this House is unable to examine, probe and seek clarification of many of its clauses.
As the House will recall, we did this quite successfully with the Land Commission Bill, but we are reduced to peppering the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, with a series of specific questions which are but a handful of the many we have received. I would, however, say that I look forward with hopeful anticipation to what the noble Lord will be able to tell us on the points we have raised this afternoon.
My first question, which is a simple one and one that my noble friend mentioned, is this: assuming that the Government accept responsibility for ensuring that the tax laws are understood, when will the simple man's guide be published? When will there be a guide written in three letter words and when can we be advised on how we can be taxed under Clause 2 on profits one has not yet made or received but which are anticipated? Where is that money to come from? Where will one borrow the money? What penalties will face a person if he refuses to pay until the profit has been received?
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I hope that the guide book will also throw light on Schedule 6, of which a certain professional body has said:
"We have found the schedule extremely difficult to comprehend … We would stress that valuers will have to understand it as well."
I am not surprised that they mentioned that. Lastly, I hope that the guidebook will be able to paraphrase the 30-odd pages that form Schedule 8. That Schedule subtly slips into the Taxes Management Act 1970 numerous new clauses which will confuse those who had mastered that Act.
My noble friend dealt most persuasively, in my view, with his appeal to the Government to rethink their decision on the date of the first appointed day, which they have already said is to be 1st August. I support my noble friend in his plea. Surely, it is not good enough for the Government to say, "But we warned you last February during the Second Reading of the Bill." That was at an early stage in the life of a highly controversial Bill, a Bill, one must recall, which was published months after it had been promised and which was considerably altered in another place. Now, with nine days to go and the first appointed day so very close, the Bill has only just reached this House.
The first appointed day brings with it certain duties on both the developer and on the Inland Revenue—duties of identification and time limits upon those duties. I believe that there is a very strong case for the Government to reconsider this date and to put it back perhaps two months to 1st October. That would be little harm to the Government and it would restore some confidence to those who have to operate the Bill when it becomes an Act. I should like to turn to certain specific questions of which I have given notice to the noble Lord, Lord Jacques. I hope he has received that notice of my questions.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, I have not received any notice.
The Earl of KINNOULL: My Lords, I regret that this should have happened. The usual channels must have slipped up in some way. Perhaps it may be a little unfair, but I should like to put my questions and, as there is another speaker to follow me, the noble Lord may receive guidance from the Box in time to answer me when he replies.

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The first question I should like to ask concerns Clause 4(5). I am glad to see that the noble Lord has completely mastered the Bill. The noble Lord will remember that, under the clause in question, developers faced with development land tax assessments will deal initially with the Board and then, if they disagree, may appeal to the Commissioners. The simple question I want to ask, and to which I am sure the noble Lord will have an answer, is: why is the appeal to go to the Commissioners when it will be a matter of land valuation which is a field for which the Land Tribunal has for years been responsible? Indeed, it is very well respected for its work. Would it not be better if the Land Tribunal took the place of the Special Commissioners on issues of land valuation, particularly under this tax?
My second question concerns Clauses 5 and 19 and the future mobility of industry. Under Clause 19, there was a welcome relief, which was put into the Bill in another place and which gave the companies which were to develop existing sites an exemption from this tax. The point that has been put to me is that there will be no corresponding relief for companies which wish to move, say, to a development area and which wish to sell their factory and build elsewhere. In other words, there are no roll-over provisions. Would the noble Lord consider that sympathetically for the future?
I should like now to turn to Schedule 1, paragraph 5, which deals with the cut-off point on the exemption from the new tax, where planning permission has been granted and a start must be made before the first appointed day. There is some confusion, and here again, I believe that this is a matter where clarification would be of great assistance to those concerned. Where one gets a planning permission conditional on reserved matters such as, say, the colour of facing brick which needs to be approved by the planning committee, will that small, insignificant condition make the planning permission void so far as the exemption is concerned? I hope the noble Lord will be able to give some indication on that.
Next, I turn to Clause 15, which deals with the exemption of a single, owner occupied dwellinghouse. The point which
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has been made to me and which I think is a good one—and perhaps the noble Lord will advise us why the clause has been drafted in this way—is that the clause gives certain limited categories where the owner occupier can build a single dwellinghouse and not incur the tax, though he will need to have owned the property from 12th September 1974. The point which is obvious is that this is such a small exemption: why cannot the Government abolish the date? Why cannot it be that, so long as the land is owned regardless of 12th September 1974 and so long as it fitted into these small categories, that the exemption would apply?
Under Clause 16, there is an apparent conflict between what was the original White Paper intention and what is in the Bill today. The conflict occurs—and, again, I am afraid it is a rather dry valuation matter—in that under the White Paper the exemption granted was for land held as stock in trade by builders. This was land held before the date of the White Paper and which had planning permission. That land will have created a value, so far as the valuation of development land tax is concerned, and will have been valued according to that permission. If that permission is changed for whatever reason, one understands that the previous value under the White Paper will not apply and that development land tax will apply to the whole amount. I wonder if this is correct.
Viscount COLVILLE of CULROSS: No, my Lords.
The Earl of KINNOULL: My Lords, my noble friend says, "No", so that may answer my question. However, perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, will give me some indication on that point. I was going to ask the noble Lord about minerals but, as he has no brief, perhaps I am wasting my time.
Viscount COLVILLE of CULROSS: My Lords, before my noble friend leaves that point and in case I can assist the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, there is a very interesting concession given on the stock in trade situation which appears on Report at column 1868. My noble friend might like to study that. He will see that the planning permission on the appointed day can be substituted for one which is substantially the same.
The Earl of KINNOULL: My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend. Would the noble Lord like to say whether he is going to answer the points which I am now asking about?
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, I am going to answer technical questions of which I had notice. Technical questions of which I have not had notice I shall answer tomorrow, when the Third Reading is moved.
The Earl of KINNOULL: My Lords, I am grateful for that information. I should like to pursue one other clause dealing with minerals, because this is an important matter to a number of people. There is a welcome relief under Clause 17 of the Bill regarding minerals. There is a partial relief, I understand, as regards minerals with planning permission. But for one reason or another there is no relief where minerals are disposed of without planning permission. I am advised that it is not unusual for mineral operators to lease land for mineral extraction before seeking planning permission. It would be quite inequitable for such a case to be treated differently under the DLT if that was the case. I hope that tomorrow the noble Lord will be able to indicate confirmation of this fact.
My Lords, I do not think that anyone wishing to speak on the Bill—other than the spokesman for the Government—could take part without mentioning the way in which the charities and the Churches have been treated. I do not think that any noble Lord could support the Government on what must be described as very shabby treatment to both the Churches and the charities. We now see the full significance of the partial exemption that was granted, I think, under the Community Land Act to the Churches and the charities. We now see that land acquired, donated or given to these bodies after the date of the White Paper will be treated exactly alongside land owned by land speculators. There will be no difference at all. I believe that it is a terrible effrontery by Government to claim that they have a better moral reason for putting into the Bill a quite unprecedented tax on the work and efforts of the Churches and the charities.
I should like to refer to two points which come under Clauses 24 and 25 relating to charities. First, I should like
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to ask the noble Lord (who can perhaps reply to this tomorrow) what happens if a charity loses ultimately its status as a charity. I am told that under the provisions of the Bill it is possible that those who are operating the charity may find themselves liable for development land tax retrospectively ad infinitum. I am not sure whether this point was raised by my noble friend when he spoke, but I hope that the noble Lord can give some assurance on this because it is a very important point to the management of charities.
The other point which has been put to me is this. If the Government feel that they have to tax charities and Churches, why could there not be some roll-over provision where a church hall is being relocated and the massive costs of building that church hall have to be found? Why should the old church hall, which is to be valued as a very old church hall and all the possible and potential funds for the church, not be utilised in going towards building the new church hall?
The right reverend Prelate spoke very movingly to the House, as did the other two noble Lords in supporting him, on this unhappy Government policy. The Bill has been described in another place in many differing colourful adjectives. I believe that the tax under the Bill is penal. The effect anticipated in many quarters will be traumatic. Gone are the incentives for a natural voluntary supply of development land on the market. Gone is the co-operation of those who previously were prepared to offer this supply of land; and to replace it will mean a desperate attempt by local authorities to provide an involuntary supply of land, no doubt with the ever-increasing aid of the compulsory purchase order.
I believe that the result of the Bill will be very damaging. As I have said, it will be very damaging for the housing programme; very damaging to the construction industry, and indeed it will be to the aggravation of the individual. In my view, the Bill is a dreary, penal, incomprehensible package, all of which leads me to the conclusion that it will prove unworkable. I look forward to the day when either the Government see the light of reason and throw this package away, or when the Opposition have a chance to redress the damage in Government.
4.55 p.m.
Lord GORE-BOOTH: My Lords, I hope that the ingenious suggestion by the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, that the Minister should spend the occasion of my speech quickly making up his mind about the suggestions which the noble Earl made, will not be fully carried out but that he will lend me one ear. The criticisms of the Bill from the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Worcester, my old and good friend, have done so much in the scientific way to demolish such merits as this Bill may appear to have in relation to the Churches and charities, with which I think my connection is known, that I do not need at this stage to make a scientific diagnosis of the text and its apparent meanings. But perhaps at this stage I can give your Lordships a few impressionistic points which I believe to be relevant and, even if they have been made substantively by others, are perhaps still worth expressing in other terms.
A most traumatic experience if one goes through the text of the Bill is that, looking down the columns to gain some guidance, one comes, at last, on I think page 40, to a figure, 24. Then it says "1972/1634", and a great deal more. It says:
"Charities: interests in land held on 12th September 1974."
What on earth is the 12th September? What that says is: "Charity begins at home but ends on 12th September 1974"; or to put it another way, it says: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you except as hereinafter provided from 13th September 1974, when the rules that are well known will be modified by Her Majesty's Government".
This is the effect it has—and I apologise for saying this—but it makes it so extraordinary that the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, who is so articulate, so friendly, and so lucid should deal with these few paragraphs here as though they were just another little detail of the hundreds of paragraphs which clutter up the Bill, as though this were just one of the little things which one has to deal with. Possibly it was his brief, or possibly he was wishing to spare us time, but it seemed to me that anybody, even if they are in favour of the Bill, must recognise
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that there is a qualitative difference, not just a quantitative difference, between the position of Churches and charities and the rest. The point about the community has been sufficiently dealt with. If there is a difference it is the difference between the people who want to give for good purposes and the people who have to give whether or not they like it because they are taxed; and surely the discrimination should not be against the former.
So one is deeply moved by the thought that a good impulse of her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth I should be legislated on in the name of Queen Elizabeth II in the reverse direction, throwing away the good motive that inspired the earlier legislation. I need not develop that point further. However. I should like to develop one point which was alluded to in a very eloquent and practical manner by the right reverend Prelate. It concerns what will happen.
What happens at present—and this time I speak from the point of view of charities rather than Churches—is that various enterprises are undertaken by charities around the country. These may involve relief of handicapped children or the finishing off and rounding up of the facilities for work in a club for young people in a disadvantaged area. One can make a long list of these things. Very often these enterprises are carried out and completed by a combination of the work of a charity and a considerable contribution of money, and then a supplementary grant of help by local or possibly even central Government.
We are coming to a time in respect of Government expenditure when, to our great admiration, the leaders of our Government are trying to desperately, in a difficult situation, cut Government expenditure. Very well; but this will affect the kind of work I have just been describing. The Government will then have to come to the voluntary organisations to say, "We are very sorry indeed, but we are not going to have so much money, and we shall not be able to help you so much". The voluntary organisations will naturally say, "We have not got any more money in present conditions", and the Government will then have to say, "In addition to what we have said we are going to tax your expectations if not your immediate operations". It creates a doubly

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destructive situation for people spending money on charity work, the second part of the double being totally unnecessary; and when you compare the expense of the Bill with the amount which will come in, at least in the earlier time, there is no sensible comparison.
So what is proposed will result simply in making the work of voluntary organisations more difficult still, and it is really not at all surprising that so little support for this Bill comes from the Government Benches in this House. I find it totally natural that this should be so.
One comes then to wonder for a moment about what can be the inspiration behind these parts of this Bill. I think perhaps one of them is a little archaic. Up to two or three years ago, say, the charities suffered a little in the public relations sense from a curious trendy dislike of charities. There was no reason particularly; it was a fashion of the times which the voluntary organisations have happily survived, but it did exist. It was difficult to deal with, and one had to wait patiently for it to die away. It is disappointing to find traces of it in a Government Bill since—and I would emphasise this again—it is an archaic motivation which one had hoped had died away, and I am sure it is not shared by the Minister.
Secondly—and this, perhaps, is more serious—I think this is one of the cases (and one makes one's own identifications) in which doctrine has got hold of the Government and impelled them into a Bill to do something that the country does not in the least want. Some people would attribute more Government legislation than I would to that particular defect; but there is certainly no demand whatsoever among the broad mass of the people for anything which inhibits the work of voluntary organisations—absolutely none. Only one thing is necessary; that is, some form of supervision, which I think is amply provided and comes through the Charity Commissioners, to ensure that charities are doing what they say with the maximum of efficiency and, perhaps I could add, compassion.
My Lords, I have little to suggest to the Minister. Perhaps I am of an optimistic disposition, and I do not disbelieve in miracles. Therefore, a little
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unlike the right reverend Prelate, I still say that it is possible that the Government could do something about this section of the Bill, and indeed they should. Whether they will do so, of course, I am less optimistic, but, none the less, I think it is worth saying that it could be done if the Government would listen to your Lordships' House on this question.
I can only convey my sympathy to the Minister who will be answering the debate, with the corollary, in case he should feel instructed or inclined to reject it, that sympathy, like mercy, drops "as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath", and the place beneath has not much ability to return it. So I fear it will remain with him, and I am afraid that the discredit for the negative elements in this Bill will remain with this Government. I myself think this a very great pity, and I hope there may be some way of thinking again. The only alternative, as was said by the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, will be for somebody to repeal these parts of this Bill, at least, at some—I hope not too much—later date.
5.5 p.m.
Lord FERRIER: My Lords, I should like to say only a word or two in order to add my voice to the protests which have been made by every noble Lord who has spoken in this debate, and especially to support what the right reverend Prelate said in regard to this wretched Bill, which will serve, as clearly indicated by him and by the noble Lord, Lord Gore-Booth, to choke the fountain of massive communal service which is represented by the Churches and charities. I look forward to hearing what the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, has to say in regard to the queries raised by my noble friend Lord Kinnoull. I realise there is nothing we can do about it now but protest, and that I do with all my strength.
5.6 p.m.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, first of all the printing error in the front of the Bill. This was done quite inexplicably by the printer. The document that went to him was absolutely correct: it was returned absolutely wrong. I wish that was the easiest of the points with which I have to deal. The suggestion is that the rate of tax is too high. I would

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point first of all to the very generous way in which the base values for deduction from the gross value are drawn up, and the way in which you can choose the highest of the three. I think that in that part of the Bill there is considerable generosity. I would next point to the exemption for the first £10,000 of development value. The result is that if you get a case where, after deducting the base value, you have £10,000 of development value left, the average rate is nil. If it is just a little higher than that then the balance would be charged at 66⅔ per cent., and the average rate would be very small. I suggest that by the time you take into account the liberality of the base rate, the £10,000 exemption and the fact that the next slice of £150,000 is at only 66⅔ per cent., then the average rate of tax will in most cases be a relatively small rate. I think that the fact that 66⅔ and 80 per cent. are mentioned is unavoidable but misleading. The average rate is going to be substantially less.
There was some criticism that there should be a liability for tax at the start of development. This is a vital anti-avoidance measure. It would be quite possible to sell the development value without actually selling the land. For example, it would be possible for a company to sell its shares at a price which would take into account the development value of land it held—land which, when the development is started, invites tax. We cannot just permit development value to be realised in that way; it would lead to inequity as between different developers. Furthermore, there is an eight-year spread. Where there is a liability at the start of development it can be spread over eight years. In the case of an industry it can be spread over indefinitely until either there is a sale or the land is no longer used for the qualifying purpose. I would point out that most developers will have paid something near development value; and, consequently, the tax liability which arises on the start of development would be relatively small. They have already paid almost the development value when they bought the land. Certainly most would be helped by the £10,000 exemption.
I come now to charities. Can we get the position clear as to what the Bill does
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in respect of charities? There is no liability in respect of land which was held by the charities before 12th September 1974, no matter how that land may be developed. Regarding land which is purchased by the charity after September 12th 1974, any liability is deferred if the land is developed for the purposes of the charity. In that case, there is interest-free deferment and not just for eight years but on the same lines as the deferment for the industrialist. It is deferred until there is an actual sale or the land ceases to be used for the use for which it had the exemption. There is only one case where there is immediate liability. That is where the charity buys land after September 12th 1974 and either disposes of it or uses the land and develops the land as an investment; for example, develops it into shops and offices.
Our view is quite clear. It is that development value arises because of the activities of the community. It is our intention that an appropriate proportion of the development value created by the community should go back to the community, no matter who owns the land.
Viscount COLVILLE of CULROSS: My Lords, would the noble Lord tell us why, in that case, a body like the Highlands and Islands Development Board is not treated in the same way?
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, the Highlands and Islands Development Board, like the Scottish and Welsh Development Boards, are part of the community. They are developing for the community. They are not people who have simply got desirable charitable objectives. They are working as part of the community and they are appointed by Parliament for that purpose.
The noble Lord in his speech drew attention to the position of housing associations. Why were charities not treated like housing associations? I was astonished at that suggestion. The only privilege that housing associations have is that if housing associations use the land for the purpose for which they are created—that is, for housing—then there is the same kind of deferment of payment of tax as for the industrialist. The charity has got exactly the same deferment so the charity is, in fact, being treated the same as the housing association.
Viscount COLVILLE of CULROSS: My Lords, the noble Lord failed to take my point. That is right in the case of most of the housing associations; but there are two sorts which are totally exempt. If the noble Lord looks at Clause 26(1) he will see which they are.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, I am not aware that there are two sorts. I will look at that and answer the point at Third Reading. On the question of charities, there has been gross exaggeration. For example, the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, said that we were for the first time taxing the work and efforts of charities. That is nonsense. What this Bill does is to tax the development value in the land which may be bought by a charity after 12th September 1974 and then sold by the charity.
The Earl of KINNOULL: My Lords, if I said that specifically then I would withdraw the specific words. I was trying to say that the charities, in particular the Churches, are, by nature, often landowners. In the past, they have never been taxed on development land, under Development Gains Tax, under Land Commission Tax; they were never taxed on land. That is the point. This is a precedent that the Government are now setting.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl for having withdrawn those words. If he looks at Hansard he will see that I was not mistaken. Those are the precise words he used; I took them down.
The noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, was wise enough to give notice of his points. I will try to answer them. First, he asked the question about notices and argued that with the 1st August starting date there would not be time for the forms in which the notices of the start of the project must be given to be distributed and understood by the builders. Copies of the forms will be obtainable from the Development Land Tax office in Middlesbrough and from Somerset House, as from 1st August; and from 1st September onwards they are also available at local district valuer's offices. Immediately after the Royal Assent the Revenue will be issuing a statement drawing attention to the circumstances in which notice is required to be given.
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The notice will set out the circumstances in which no notice is required. It is considered that these arrangements will give builders and others reasonable time to familiarise themselves with their legal obligations.
The noble Viscount also said that most professional advisers have not yet applied themselves to the details of the Bill. The Revenue experience is quite contrary. During the preparation of the legislation and during its passage through Parliament the Revenue had full consultations with the professional bodies and the builders' representatives. It is evidence from these that the provisions of the Bill had been carefully studied.
The next question was on Clause 40 which relates to the deduction of tax on sales by non-residents. The noble Viscount asked whether the regulations spelling out the purchaser's obligation to deduct tax from consideration on buying land from a non-resident vendor will be made. It is hoped to lay regulations before Parliament by the appointed day. In the course of drafting them, both the Law Society and the Law Society of Scotland have been closely consulted. A practice note giving guidance to professional advisers will be issued at the same time as the regulations are published. This practice note is being prepared jointly with the Law Society. It is hoped that the problems facing solicitors and other advisers have been recognised and catered for.
Viscount COLVILLE of CULROSS: My Lords, these regulations are subject to Negative Resolution procedure. Parliament will have risen by 1st August for the Recess. There is the difficulty, is there not, that I suppose they will only have a provisional validity because time does not run during the Recess, as I understand it, and the 40 days will not begin until we come back in September; so that at any time subsequently, it is, in theory, possible for these regulations to be annulled by Resolution?
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, that seems to be the position on the face of it. If this House rises on the date on which it is stated that it will rise, we shall not be able to deal with it before 27th September when we come back. As to the legal effect of the regulations in the meantime,

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I am prepared to leave that to the Table. I do not know what the position is. Since the noble Viscount is a "learned" Lord, I leave it to him.
On the commencement date in general, the noble Viscount claims that the 1st August starting date is too early for the tax to get off to a smooth start. It was however stated so long ago as last February that it was hoped to bring the tax into operation on 1st August, so there has been ample notice of the Government's intentions. Putting it off for a month or two would lead to uncertainty. What people want to know, above all, is where they stand. Concern has been expressed lest the Inland Revenue would expect a developer of a large housing estate to notify them formally of the sale of each house and that on each such occasion the Revenue would call for a part of the tax and revise the instalment arrangements which had previously been made. I am glad to be able to reassure the noble Lord that the Revenue does not operate in this manner. In practice they will ask such a developer shortly before each instalment of tax is due for details of sales made since the previous instalment was paid. On the basis of his reply, they would calculate the amount of tax to be paid in respect of all the sales during the period and collect this from the developer. The amounts of future instalments would then be correspondingly reduced.
Viscount COLVILLE of CULROSS: My Lords, I am sorry to keep on interrupting the noble Lord, but that is a very useful explanation. So far as I know—and I have combed through all the official reports over this matter—there has never previously been an explanation of that. Will the noble Lord make perfectly certain that the widest publicity is given to this? I happen to know that the house builders are wholly in doubt about how this is going to work and will be very glad indeed to know what the noble Lord has just told this House.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, I give that assurance. The remainder of the questions which I have not answered I will answer at Third Reading. I am indebted to noble Lords who have taken part, in spite of their gross exaggerations.
On Question, Bill read 2a; Committee negatived.

ARMED FORCES BILL
5.22 p.m.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, I beg to move that this Report be now received.
Moved, That the Report be now received.—(Lord Winterbottom.)
Lord LYELL: My Lords, perhaps it would be for the convenience of the House if I raised one minor point that I observed on going through the Bill as it was amended on Committee. It refers to one of what I understand are several cross-references. I noticed this one which seemed to me to be relevant. This particular reference occurs in the Interpretation in Schedule 3. At this stage I should say that I was very grateful for the information that reached me from the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom; it enabled me to clear up many doubts which were in my mind at an earlier stage. I compared the noble Lord's notes and the information with the interpretation in the Bill which we have before us today, as amended in Committee. It seemed to me that there was a definite error; I think it might be a printing error but it could be a drafting error. I should be glad if the noble Lord could confirm this. At page 16 (line 12) of the Bill we are considering this afternoon under "Interpretation" we find:
"'Prescribed' means prescribed by an order under paragraph 11 below …".
But paragraph 11 refers to the rules of evidence. This does not tally with the Bill which we did not amend at this point in Committee. In the old Bill paragraph 11 referred to "Procedure, etc. of court". In the present Bill this is paragraph 12. As the Bill is now drafted I do not believe it means what it is intended to mean. Perhaps the noble Lord will enlighten me on this; I await his answer with interest.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord—and everyone concerned with this Bill must be grateful to the noble Lord—for the thoroughness with which he has cross-checked the information that I gave him.

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What he has discovered is entirely correct: the Bill as printed at the moment is incorrect. There is a printing error. When Amendment No. 25 was agreed, a new paragraph was marked in Schedule 3. Unfortunately the necessary cross-reference in paragraph 1 of that Schedule to the then paragraph 11 was not made. The noble Lord is absolutely correct in his criticism of the Bill as has been reported back to this House. I apologise to the House for the mistake. The printing error will be corrected before the Bill goes to another place. A careful check will be made to make sure there are no other errors. I am slightly consoled by the fact that my noble friend Lord Jacques also had to stand in a hair shirt over a printing error in the previous business.
On Question, Report received.
Then, Standing Order No. 43 having been suspended pursuant to the Resolution:
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time. After the constructive debates we have had upon this Bill, your Lordships will be familiar with the general principles behind it and with its major provisions. These have of course been subjected to keen scrutiny both by your Lordships and in another place, and I do not intend to rehearse again the many arguments that can be used in their support. However, it is a complicated piece of legislation and, with your Lordships' permission, I should like to spend a few minutes on the few detailed points that were raised when the Bill was considered in Committee.
The first point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Leatherland, was whether it would be made obligatory to have a woman officer as a member of a court-martial trying a member of the Queen Alexandra's Royal Naval Nursing Service or the Women's Royal Naval Service. This is not a statutory requirement in the Women's Services of the Army and the RAF, and we do not now intend to make it one for the Naval Women's Services. It is the responsibility of an officer convening a Royal Navy court-martial to select suitable officers to form the court, and the attention of Naval Commanders-in-Chief and Flag Officers will, of course, be drawn to the new provisions in Schedule 2 to the Bill.
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I should certainly expect, therefore—as I said in Committee stage—that if a member of the QARNNS or WRNS were to be tried by a Royal Naval court-martial the convening authority would normally wish to include an officer of the appropriate Women's Service as a member of the court.
I also undertook to explain a number of matters concerning the terms "higher authority" and "directing officer" in Schedule 3 to the Bill—the one dealing with the procedures of the new Standing Civilian Courts. "Higher authority" is an expression already used in the Army and Air Force Acts 1955 and means an officer in the disciplinary chain of command higher than the commanding officer of a unit. At various levels related to the rank of the person concerned and to the organisation within which he is working, these higher authorities have power to convene courts-martial, and are then called "convening officers". Now, with the introduction of Standing Civilian Courts, a higher authority will also have power to direct trial by Standing Civilian Court in an appropriate case. Since it seemed helpful to give the higher authority in these Standing Civilian Court cases a distinctive label, he is to be called a "directing officer". The change is one of terminology, not of substance, designed to assist users of the Service Manuals.
It was also felt desirable to provide quite plainly for the situation when a higher authority goes on leave, or is ill. Thus I moved the Amendment to page 15, line 9, so that there is no doubt that a civilian can be sent for trial by Standing Civilian Court and have his case subsequently dealt with, where necessary, by "the higher authority who sent him, or any officer for the time being discharging the functions of that authority". Again, no change of substance is involved.
This general question concerning "higher authority" and associated terms also arose when I moved Amendments 38 to 45 on the Marshalled List. The Amendments in question related to page 20, line 36, and page 21, line 10, which are provisions about giving notice of appeal or petitioning for review in relation to Standing Civilian Courts. As it was, the Bill said that the notice of appeal or the petition had to be lodged with or presented to higher authority by the

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accused. However, that might be difficult if the accused were in prison. Indeed, the equivalent court-martial provisions say that the notice on petition has to be handed to a prescribed person, and different persons are prescribed for different circumstances in the Rules of Procedure for the Army and the Royal Air Force. Thus, where the offender is in prison, he prescribed person is the governor. It is simply that we wanted to be able to make the same sort of provision in relation to Standing Civilian Courts in this respect as exist in relation to courts-martial. These are entirely innocuous Amendments, which make for clarity, help the accused, and bring the provision in these respects for the Standing Civilian Courts into line with that for courts-martial.
The noble Lord, Lord Lyell, mentioned the Amendment to page 20, line 40, which replaced the general term "prescribed steps" with a phrase intended to direct those concerned precisely to the relevant Rules of Procedure which have to be used in these circumstances. This is because "prescribed" is already defined in the Schedule as meaning prescribed by an order made under paragraph 11 of the Schedule, and this order will relate to Standing Civilian Court procedures, whereas the steps concerned must relate to the court-martial procedures, and should therefore be correctly prescribed under Rules of Procedure.
The noble Baroness, Baroness Vickers, also mentioned a point on Amendment 51, which removed the words "by a court-martial" from one of the provisions concerning compensation orders. It is quite clear that a compensation order under Schedule 4 can be made either by a court-martial or by the Standing Civilian Court, but by no other tribunal—this arises from the opening words of paragraph 11(1) and the reference there to "the court", which is defined in paragraph 2 of the same Schedule as meaning a court-martial or Standing Civilian Court. In the context, the words removed by the Amendment exercised a limiting effect, so that a compensation order imposed other than by a court-martial—that is, by the Standing Civilian Court—would not be included in the provision. The exclusion of the words now removes this erroneous limitation and brings the
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provision into effect whether the compensation order was made by a court-martial or by the Standing Civilian Court.
A further drafting point was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, in respect of Amendment No. 62, and may I say that I also found this a little confusing initially. However, if that Amendment is read in conjunction with the next Amendment—No. 63—I think, and hope, all becomes clear. Both Amendments affect paragraph 15 of Schedule 9 to the Bill, which deals with consequential Amendments necessary to Schedule 4 to the Naval Discipline Act 1957. With the second Amendment being introduced—that is, No. 63—it was necessary within paragraph 15 of the Bill to have two subparagraphs—one for each Amendment. Amendment No. 62 places what was already there under a subparagraph letter "(a)", so that we now have in paragraph 15 the introductory words,
"In Schedule 4 to that Act (application of Act to civilians subject to it)"
a subparagraph (a) which contains the previous Amendment, and a subparagraph (b) newly introduced by Amendment No. 63. This all involves the structure and layout of the paragraph and becomes quite clear from the reprint of the Bill.
All these Amendments, as I said when moving them, are drafting refinements of some nicety. They do not introduce any changes of policy, but are designed to aid and facilitate the operation of some rather complicated provisions. However, your Lordships' attention was drawn to them, and I hope—despite my lack of legal expertise—that these are satisfactory and illuminating explanations. I should add, in particular answer to the noble Lord, Lord Leatherland, but I believe to the general satisfaction of this House, that the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 will be applied under Clause 17 of the Bill to all civilians found guilty under the Service Discipline Acts in exactly the same way as it would if they had been found guilty by a civil court in the United Kingdom.
Your Lordships have listened with your customary patience, and I shall not detain the House for very much longer. I am very pleased to move this Bill, secure in the knowledge that it will introduce some desirable changes in the operation of the Service Discipline Acts, and confident that

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its benefits—to Servicemen and to their dependants—will meet with the wholehearted support of your Lordships. I am grateful to noble Lords in all parts of the House for their customary diligence and care in scrutinising this Armed Forces Bill. That this country's Armed Forces are rendering such splendid service is, I am sure, deeply appreciated by all of us in this House, and I am gratified by the thought that by bringing in the provisions of this Bill we are improving to some degree the conditions under which they, and those closely associated with them, serve the country. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a.—(Lord Winterbottom.)
5.38 p.m.
Lord LYELL: My Lords, perhaps I might at this stage thank the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, for all the help he has given in connection with this Bill. I am sure he is aware, and of course the House will have become aware, of the fact that this Bill is intensely complicated and also very important for the discipline and indeed the daily life of Service men and women in our Armed Forces, together with many of their dependants. I have been particularly pleased with the progress made on Standing Civilian Courts because I believe these are a far better method of dealing with lesser offences committed by civilians abroad or by those who might be under the jurisdiction of Service discipline. They might be Service dependants or they might be civilians abroad. I believe that this represents a far better and more up to date procedure. The improved methods of dealing with juvenile misdemeanours are also admirable.
I should also like to say that the noble Baroness, Lady Vickers, has asked me to extend her gratitude concerning the Bill and also her apologies for the fact that she is not here at this stage. I should like to associate myself with what has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, so far as the Servicemen and Servicewomen are concerned.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord for his kind words of thanks for any assistance I have been able to give him. In fact, all I did was to repay a debt I owed to
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Members of the Party opposite when, in 1971, I was responsible from the place of the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, for dealing with the Armed Forces Act 1971. At that time the help I received from noble Lords opposite smoothed my way, and I should like to thank them.
On Question, Bill read 3a, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.

PHARMACY (NORTHERN IRELAND) ORDER 1976
5.40 p.m.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: My Lords, I beg to move that the Pharmacy (Northern Ireland) Order 1976, a draft of which was laid before this House on 30th June, be approved. With the leave of the House, I should also like to speak to the Poisons (Northern Ireland) Order 1976, as these orders are closely connected. At the present time in Northern Ireland there are a series of Acts which deal with pharmacy and poisons, and the purpose of the draft orders before the House is to consolidate those Acts and, at the same time, separate the two subjects into a pharmacy code and poisons code. Consequently, both orders are very closely related with references in each to the other, and for these reasons it is desirable that I deal with both orders together. The corresponding legislation in Great Britain has already been consolidated in the Pharmacy Act 1954 and the Poisons Act 1972.
It is anticipated that Part III of the Medicines Act 1968—a United Kingdom Act—which refers to the retail sale of medicinal products will be brought into operation later this year. The provisions of that Part of the Act will supersede many of the provisions contained in the current pharmacy and poisons legislation. The orders before the House today have been drafted to take account of the amendments to be effected by the Act, and are designed to be brought into operation by a commencement order from a date subsequent to that on which Part III of the Act comes into force.
I will deal with the pharmacy order first. Part II of this order provides for the continuation of the Pharmaceutical Society of Northern Ireland and of its

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Council; Part III of the order continues existing provisions relating to the registration of pharmaceutical chemists, druggists and students, and Part IV maintains the existing procedures for the conduct of disciplinary proceedings within the profession.
While the order is almost entirely a consolidating measure, the opportunity has been taken to include a number of comparatively minor amendments aimed at clarifying and updating the legislation. For example, a period of practical training is required before anyone can be registered as a pharmaceutical chemist. Article 8(2) of the order requires the applicant for registration to show that he:
"has undergone such a course of practical training as may be prescribed"
This is in place of the present provision which calls for practical training of two years for pre-August 1967 students, and of one year for post-August 1967 students. The new provision will provide flexibility and will enable the Council of the Pharmaceutical Society, subject to the approval of the Northern Ireland Department of Health and Social Services, to prescribe as they see fit both the duration and content of the practical training.
In addition, it is made clear in Schedules 1 and 2 that the Council of the Pharmaceutical Society may elect suitable members or associates of the Society as Fellows of the Society, and that the President and Vice-President are elected by the Council. This order is not in any way controversial, and the Northern Ireland Department of Health and Social Services did not receive any substantial comments on the explanatory document which was issued to interested organisations earlier this year.
Turning now to the Poisons (Northern Ireland) Order 1976, in Part I, Article 2(3) introduces the new term "non-medicinal poison". This term is used to describe the poisons which will be retained on the poisons list when medicinal products have been removed and brought under the control of the provisions of the Medicines Act 1968. Part II of the order continues the provisions relating to the constitution and duties of the Poisons Board. The Northern Ireland Department of Health and Social Services will be advised by the Poisons Board on the substances which
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should be treated as non-medicinal poisons, and on such other matters as may be referred to the Board for advice. The controls on the sale of non-medicinal poisons are set out in consolidated form in Part III of the order, which also continues the arrangements for the registration by district councils of persons who are permitted to sell certain non-medicinal poisons. Part IV of the order contains provisions concerning the sale of methylated spirits and ether.
Although the order is mainly a consolidating measure, it includes a few amendments of a comparatively minor nature; for example, the amount of some fines which have not been changed in the last 20 years are increased to more realistic levels. Schedule I provides that the Poisons Board will be constituted, as is common with other advisory bodies, by the head of the Northern Ireland Department of Health and Social Services. In addition, Schedule III to the order repeals Part IV of the Revenue Act 1889 which prohibits the sale of methylated spirits between 10 p.m. on Saturday and 8 a.m. on the following Monday.
In conclusion, may I say that the two orders bring into easily accessible form a code of legislation which until now has been dispersed in a series of enactments dating over 50 years. The consolidation which they undertake will, I am sure, be welcomed by everybody concerned with the profession of pharmacy or with the sale of poisons. I commend the orders to the House. My Lords I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft Pharmacy (Northern Ireland) Order 1976, laid before the House on 30th June, be approved.—(Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge.)
5.45 p.m.
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, will be aware that the Twenty-Seventh Report of the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments has drawn special attention to both of these orders, because they make certain amendments to legislation which the orders are consolidating which the Joint Committee hold to be substantive. I make no complaints about the intention behind either of these orders, and I support both of them. But a criticism from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments raises once again

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the question whether these orders are suitable for legislation by Parliamentary order, or whether they should perhaps be the subject of Bills. I should like to hear the noble Lord's comment on that observation, but may I say again that I certainly support the intention behind both of these orders.
5.47 p.m.
The Duke of ATHOLL: My Lords, as a Member of the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, perhaps I may say a few words about why we felt it necessary to report these orders. As I am sure noble Lords are aware, we do not look at all at the policy of the matter. All we are interested in is the form of an order, and whether it is an unexpected use of the power which the Act authorising an order gives to the Department concerned. In this case, we felt that the Explanatory Notes on both orders were somewhat muddling. For example, the Note on the poisons order states:
"This Order consolidates with minor amendments the enactments relating to non-medicinal poisons, methylated spirits and methylated ether."
The Amendments are not really so minor. As the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, has said, one of the amendments is about the fact that up till now in Northern Ireland one has not been permitted to sell methylated spirits between 10 p.m. on a Saturday and 8 a.m. on a Monday. I doubt whether this law was obeyed, although I would not know about that. But it seems to me that removing that offence is not a minor piece of legislation. I strongly suspect that that offence is committed by very many people every week-end, particularly those who are yachting chandlers, shipping chandlers and so on, who probably have people with boats in only on Sundays. I assure the noble Lord that most marinas are extra busy on Sundays, and I strongly suspect that chandlers do not refuse to sell methylated spirits to people who want them for stoves on their boats. Therefore, the Joint Committee took the view that that was not a minor amendment, and that had it, been in a normal consolidation Bill the Consolidation Committee might have had something to say about it.
Similarly, it did not seem to us to be a minor amendment that students of pharmacy no longer had to have one year's
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practical experience. Up till now, one of the conditions for qualification was that they had had one year's practical experience, but under Article 8(2)(b) the Pharmaceutical Society can make regulations prescribing a course of practical training which must be undertaken, but there is no indication as to whether the course has to be of a year, six months, three months, one month or even five years before students can qualify. It seemed to the Joint Committee that, possibly, this was not a minor amendment. That is the reason why the report was made. It seems to happen frequently with Northern Ireland orders that the Explanatory Note is not what we regard as adequate, and in the light of the report of the Joint Committee f am wondering if the noble Lord can tell us whether he considers that the Explanatory Notes are adequate or whether they should spell out in more detail what the so-called minor alterations are.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: My Lords, I will endeavour to answer the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, and the noble Duke. The first point that I should like to make is that to remove a restriction which is not being observed is a minor change, but this is purely a question of opinion.
The Duke of ATHOLL: My Lords, would the noble Lord regard it as a minor change if the 50 mph speed limit, which I believe applies on all roads except dual carriageways, were removed? That limit is certainly not observed, but there is a great deal of feeling about it.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: My Lords, there is no feeling about methylated spirits, which perhaps makes all the difference. However, this is a matter of opinion. I have not yet seen the report of the Joint Committee and therefore do not feel in a position to comment upon it. The Committee asked the Department for information about the amendments contained in the two orders and a memorandum—I have it here—giving this information was sent to the Committee by the Department. It consists of one page for one order; a second page deals with the other order. No further comments from the Committee have been received by the Department. Earlier this afternoon I gave the House an account of

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one or two of these amendments and I maintain that they are of a comparatively minor nature.
This is a matter which we must leave for the next stage. We must wait to hear what the Joint Committee has to say in response to the Department's reply; then we shall see whether anything can be done. The argument has gone on for a good many years between the two Parties, in which there are expert and strongly held legal views. I do not think that the answer will necessarily be very simple, although I am quite sure that in this case the answer should not be one of legislation by Bill. This is a consolidating order which is eminently suited to the shorthand method that we use. This is not a totally satisfactory answer but it is not a totally satisfactory situation, and I must leave it there.
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, before the order goes through, may I thank my noble friend for what he has said, although he spoke as a member of the Joint Committee and not in a Party political way. It was the training provision to which he drew attention that I had particularly in mind in the brief remarks that I made. If the noble Lord does not mind my saying so, the situation is not very satisfactory. I will not press him any further, but perhaps this matter could be looked at again with the greatest closeness by the Northern Ireland Office. The noble Lord knows that the suitability of legislation passing through the House either by order or by Bill is a matter which I have raised many times. If, as I say, the Government could look at the question, I should be very happy to leave the matter there.
The Duke of ATHOLL: My Lords, I am very sorry if the noble Lord has not seen the Report of the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments but it has been in the Printed Paper Office, certainly since lunchtime. The Committee met only yesterday, so the Report could not have been in the Printed Paper Office before today.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: My Lords, I will, of course, take up this matter. It is rather a difference of opinion between legal experts than a matter of substance; but this is only an
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opinion and I am more inclined to back my own legal expert than somebody else's. But again this is a matter of fancy, one might almost say. Nevertheless, I will see that the matter is taken up.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

POISONS (NORTHERN IRELAND) ORDER 1976
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: My Lords, I beg to move, That the draft Poisons (Northern Ireland) Order 1976, laid before the House on 30th June, be approved.—(Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

DEPARTMENT OF THE CIVIL SERVICE (NORTHERN IRELAND) ORDER 1976
5.55 p.m.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: My Lords, I beg to move, That the Department of the Civil Service (Northern Ireland) Order 1976, a draft of which was laid before this House on 30th June 1976, be approved. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State in answering a Question on 8th June in another place announced his decision to establish a Department of the Civil Service for Northern Ireland. This order gives effect to that decision.
At present the Department of Finance in Northern Ireland, through its Civil Service Management Division, is responsible for the management and control of the Northern Ireland Civil Service. Unlike his predecessor, however, the present Permanent Secretary of the Department of Finance is not also head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service. The head of the Civil Service is responsible to the Secretary of State for the co-ordination of the policies and programmes of all Northern Ireland Departments and for advising him on these matters, including the allocation of resources. He also continues to be answerable to the Secretary of State for the overall direction and management of the Civil Service and especially for recommendations on top appointments. In these circumstances, it is structurally

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and administratively appropriate for the present Civil Service management division of the Department of Finance to become an independent Department.
Article 3 provides for the establishment and title of the new Department, makes provision for the distribution of its business, its seal, style and like matters. Article 4 constitutes the new Department as the Department for the general management and control of the Northern Ireland Civil Service and substitutes it for the Department of Finance in the Civil Service Order (Northern Ireland) 1975 which deals with making regulations and giving directions about employment in the Civil Service, It also allows for the transfer of specific functions to the new Department by subordinate legislation. Article 5 extends the jurisdiction of the Parliamentary Commissioner to the new Department and applies the provisions of the Northern Ireland Constitution Act which make it unlawful for a Department to discriminate or to require the taking of oaths in connection with appointments. I commend the Order to the House. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft Department of the Civil Service (Northern Ireland) Order 1976, laid before the House on 30th June, be approved.—(Lord Donaldson of kingsbridge.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

WORLD ECONOMIC ORDER
5.59 p.m.
Lord BROCKWAY Lord BROCKWAY rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what is their attitude towards the Third World's proposals for a new World Economic Order. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Unstarred Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. During the last few years there has been a series of conferences dealing with environment, population, food, employment, the status of women, UNCTAD and habitat. These conferences are of historic importance. For the first time in history nations have got together to consider basic human problems. All of these conferences came to the same conclusion: that none of their specific problems could be settled separately from the dominating presence of the poverty of two-thirds of the world
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and the gulf between the rich North and the poor South on our planet. This destitution of millions is the unifying cause of all the other evils.
One need not dwell upon the facts; they are too well known. I draw attention only to two of them. First, North America, Western Europe, the Soviet Union and Japan command over 70 per cent. of the earth's wealth for the benefit of less than one-quarter of the earth's population. Secondly, the expectation of life of an individual in the poor South is half that of an individual in the rich North.
Representatives of 77 nations of the South met four years ago to consider how this fundamental cause of the world's ills could be remedied. They concluded that there must be a restructuring of the world's economy. The present economy was established at Bretton Woods 30 years ago, before these countries were politically independent. They—more than half the world—had no part in the shaping. It was weighted heavily on the side of the rich against the poor.
With great thoroughness and expertise the representatives of the 77 countries formulated the conditions of the new international economic order which would go far to establish equality of opportunity between rich and poor, and progressively end the destitution of two-thirds of the population of the earth. They recognised that they themselves had some responsibility for the poverty of their peoples. They acknowledged that it was not all due to unfair international practices.
In the forefront of their proposals for a new international economic order they emphasised the need to reconstruct their own economies with prior emphasis on rural development, incidentally restricting the drift to the towns, with its fatal unemployment. Rural development would be followed by the processing of the natural products in agriculture and minerals in their territories. The best of the 77 countries, though not all, insisted on the redistribution of wealth. As Barbara Ward said in her speech at the Habitat Conference, in many countries in the Third World economic growth in the past two decades has been almost entirely appropriated by the wealthy

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10 per cent., of the people. The exploitation of the few in the Third World is similar to the exploitation of the few in capitalist nations.
But even the internal development required a changed relationship with the economic giants of the world. It meant a right to transfer ownership of the natural resources, including mineral wealth, from external monopolies to the peoples of the territories. It meant control of the multinational companies, whose activities would be co-ordinated with the economic reconstruction planned. It involved mutual arrangements with the developed nations for the provision of modern technology.
It is not possible to outline the details of the proposed new international economic order. The Manila Declaration, which formulates the proposals, is thousands of words in length. But there are three issues which are relevant to our discussion. They have become controversial with the leading countries of the industrial North—the United States of America, Great Britain, West Germany and Japan.
The first issue relates to the prices paid by the developing countries for goods imported from the developed countries, compared with the prices which the developing countries receive for their exports to the developed countries. These prices are at present determined by international financial agencies dominated by the West. The Third World propose that these prices should be indexed, and the prices of exports related to the prices of imports.
Secondly, they propose the establishment of a Common Fund to stabilise prices, balancing bad years with good, and to enable buffer stocks of goods to be created, particularly in food, as a safeguard against drought and famine. Thirdly, they suggest that there should be an international conference to come to an arrangement about debts. The amounts are colossal. Every year the Third World countries are required to pay at least twice as much to the developed countries as they receive from them. In view of the benefits that the colonial Powers received in cheap foodstuffs and raw material for two centuries, I urge that we should meet
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these demands sympathetically. The authors of the new international economic order suggest that the debts of the least developed, the landlocked and the island countries, should be cancelled altogether.
These issues arose particularly at the recent UNCTAD conference. I was pleased to hear the Minister, at the end of our debate on UNCTAD, say that the Government supported the compromise decisions reached at the end; namely, agreement to stabilise prices for 18 commodities and to adjourn discussion for reconsideration of the Common Fund, although on debts the Government insisted on bilateral discussions rather than a general conference. I welcome the statement of the Minister, but I was intrigued by it.
My Lords, I had disturbing information which I did not reveal during the debate, because I received it confidentially from Nairobi. I am now able to refer to it because of the article by Judith Hart, contributed to Socialist Commentary. There was a point in that conference where the delegates of the United States of America, Britain, West Germany and Japan decided to stand firm on their original intransigent attitude, and to reject compromise. This was strongly opposed by six of the nine EEC nations, and it was only then that the delegates of the "Great Four" agreed to refer the matter to their Governments. Both London—I believe Mr. Callaghan personally—and Bonn prohibited the proposed rejecting statement. The result was that the delegates of Britain and West Germany accepted the final compromise although the delegates of the United States of America and Japan remained silent. This is very disquieting. It suggests that greater care should be taken in appointing our delegations to these international conferences.
I want to ask the Government to reconsider their attitude on the Common Fund and on the debts. The Common Fund will be realised whether we participate or not. The Third World countries, backed by some oil wealth, and the assenting countries in Europe—France, and particularly Scandinavia—will join the Common Fund. It may be unfortunate for our relationships with the Commonwealth if we continue to boycott it.
I also urge a responsive attitude to the reconsideration of debts, particularly those of the less developed countries, sometimes called the Fourth World. I cannot refer, even superficially, to many of the other proposals of the new international economic order. They include Third World representation in the world's financial agencies, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. They also advocate international monetary reform. They propose a world economic authority under the United Nations, equal in status to its political arm. These are profoundly transforming suggestions, and require a new Bretton Woods Conference. The proposals were motivated by a burning desire to lift from poverty a deprived two-thirds of the world, but it is now evident that changes in the world economy are needed also for the maintenance of the standard of life of our own country and the other developed nations. Our unemployment, our inflation, the threats to our housing, schools and hospitals will be overcome only in an international pattern. Raise the standard of life of two-thirds of the world's population, and you create demands for our exports which will absorb our unemployed. I appeal for the Government to respond.
Lord BALOGH: My Lords, before the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, sits down, may I ask him two questions? My first question is, has he heard of OPEC? Secondly, has he calculated what percentage fall in the average real income in wages in this country his proposals would entail?
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, first of all, of course I have heard of OPEC.
Lord BALOGH: My Lords, there was no—
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: Order! Order! My Lords, may I suggest that the noble Lord, Lord Balogh, is out of order in speaking from the Bishops' Benches.
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, of course I have heard of OPEC. If the noble Lord, Lord Balogh, had listened to my speech, he would have noted that I made reference to the oil countries which will contribute to the proposed Common Fund.
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As to the extent of the changes which will be brought to our standard of life if these proposals are carried out, I cannot possibly say. Not even an economist of the calibre of the noble Lord himself would be able to answer that question.
6.17 p.m.
Lord ELTON: My Lords, I should like at the outset to thank the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, for bringing this profoundly important question before your Lordships' notice. Having got no very encouraging answer to the Question he asked Her Majesty's Government almost exactly a month ago on the Common Fund, proposed at Nairobi during the last meeting of UNCTAD, the noble Lord now seeks to establish the Government's intentions in a wider field, and has asked a Question and in part suggested in measured tones what the answer to it should he. The noble Lord entered into no great detail, and I do not propose to follow him even to that level of the nuts and bolts of the question, because I think in this Chamber, at this juncture, what should concern us is the attitude of mind in which the answer to his question should be formulated.
The noble Lord asks his question at a time when the attitude of the Government to the developing world is a matter of close and critical interest to a very wide audience. I believe it is subject to a far closer scrutiny abroad than it is at home, and I fully expect that the reply from the noble Lord will be read with greater attention and by more people overseas than it will be at home. That audience was soured and rendered disillusioned, rightly or wrongly, by the role our representatives played in Nairobi. I hope I can persuade him to reassure them in his reply.
My Lords, the smallness of the audience at home may be a sad commentary on our preoccupation with our domestic difficulties, but it should not deter the noble Lord from a forthright answer. What he says will fall upon ears which, although they are distant, are far from deaf, and far from few. The policy which he will enunciate is a matter of moment, not only to a great number of people in distant lands, but also to our own people in the not so very distant future.
My Lords, to many of your Lordships it will seem that the serious economic

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difficulties in which we find ourselves make this a bad time at which to consider overseas aid and other aspects of our relationships with the underdeveloped world as a subject, let alone the larger and graver matter of a new world economic order, which naturally follows upon it. When our own ship is leaking so badly, who are we to throw a line to anyone else? Yet the true qualities of a people are shown at times of stress, and our ship has a great deal more freeboard than many others that are, if I may so phrase it, equally at sea. At a time like this, in a debate like this, there is a great danger that we will stand too close to the canvas, see too much of the detail of our own immediate predicament, and so mistake entirely what is our national tradition and role.
My Lords, there is a kind of symmetry in history. For every great movement there is an echo, an answer or a continuation. I believe that we now stand at the conjunction of one such movement, one such arch, if you like, in our own national history, and the parabola which is its proper counterpart. Many of your Lordships will share with me a pride in the achievements of our forefathers. They went out into the world as explorers, as merchant venturers, as privateers, as soldiers and sailors, and they built an empire. It is not fashionable to take pride in this now, but that is partly out of a proper wish to avoid wounding the pride and the sensibilities of those nations whom once we treated with harshness and little respect, and it is also because people enlightened and intelligent in all respects but this, and in this sense wrong-headed people, persist in judging the deeds of the past by the moral standards of the present, by the highest moral standards at that. It took courage, as well as cupidity, to establish for the first time a trade with the East Indies, in ships in which we would not today trust ourselves to circumnavigate the Isle of Wight. It took dedication, as well as arrogance, not merely to build up but to maintain the successor State to the Mogul Empire in India. I will not offer your Lordships a treatise upon the history of the British Empire. I will merely say that a great many of those who built it, and who built it very often in the teeth of furious armed opposition from the evolved European military powers, were
916
by the standards of their contemporaries humane. By any standards a lot of them were heroic, and, furthermore, quite a number of those who subsequently administered it, in humble as well as in exalted office, were men seriously dedicated to serve as well as to rule.
But all that, my Lords, is gone, and bears inevitably and rightly a very different complexion when seen through the eyes of those whose forebears lived and often suffered as its subjects, just as it looks very different through our own eyes opened over the generations by Wilberforce, by the philanthropists, and even by Lord Durham who stood at the junction of old Empire and new Commonwealth. It may give little solace but will serve none the less to put things in truer perspective if I say simply that the English chimney boy was by and large treated a great deal worse by his English master in London than many of his contemporary Indian bearers were treated by their English masters in Delhi. The comparison does not diminish the sufferings of either, but it gives a common denominator to the sufferings of these various peoples. It is the times that have changed, and we with them.
Whatever our judgment of those events—and they do colour our approach to this issue in political terms, I regret to say—it does not matter whether the chapter was one of unsullied glory, as a few still believe, of unrelieved exploitation or, as I believe, an amalgam of the two. The fact is that from these small islands the British people went out and by trade, by conquest, by exploration, by diplomacy and by war, whether by means fair or foul, they became the rulers of a great part of the world. They went out, they took, they built, and latterly they withdrew. That is the first great parabola at whose end we stand. Like the parabola of a boomerang, it soared outward only to return to our native soil, but the pattern is not complete. We stand now at a crossroads, and at a loss. For the first time at the end of two titanic world wars, separated by a period of desperate economic and social insecurity, there is nothing to distract us from the fact that we have lost an empire and replaced it with nothing. I do not believe that that nothing, that preoccupation with parochial difficulties or even with the birthpangs of Europe, represents our true destiny.

917
The parabola which I have described lays upon us a duty to complete its counterpart. We have taken and we must give. We who want out in our ships, our armies, our commissions and our companies right around the world, should know better than any other what the needs of that world are. The chapter of empire is over, but if we now close the book, what a sad if glorious waste it will all have been. We went out, we built, we returned, but let us not abandon the lands where the bones and indeed the hearts of so many of our countrymen's ancestors are buried. We more than any nation on earth know that we have it in us to build, and to build not just at home but worldwide. We have learned much also about the common humanity of man. I do not believe that the pattern of history will be complete or our destiny fulfilled until in the fullness of time we have gone out again and helped others to build a world that is founded on justice, the only secure foundation for the future. As the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, has said, upon it depends the standard of our own lives as well as those of the under-developed two-thirds of the world.
This does not mean—and I do not wish to be misunderstood in this—that we should instantly drain the coffers of the Bank of England. That would ruin overnight our capacity to contribute to a new order. Nor does it mean that we should transfer overnight the bulk of our manufacturing capacity or even of our technological knowledge abroad. That would have the same result, and a resort to either policy would in addition lead to the downfall of the Government who proposed it. But it does mean that we must recognise two things. The first is this. If we do not treat the developing nations—the nations in which a drought does not just mean that you cannot wash the car or water the garden, as it does here, as we have recently discovered, but where it means that you cannot graze your cattle or even feed your children—with common humanity and fairness, if in effect we say, "Let your people die", then one day their children may say those same fell words to ours. And in a world subject to a conflict of ideologies between the super-Powers, in which nuclear weapons proliferate, in spite of international treaties, among their hangers-on, that is a terrible legacy to leave to children in any or every country.
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Let us remember that first. Let us remember next that by and large nations get a good deal of what they deserve. Whether a man be a pacifist or a militarist, it is very hard for him to deny that what makes a nation great is in the long run moral fibre, the courage to act upon principle even in the face of adversity.
I said at the outset that this might seem a bad time in economic terms to discuss a new world order. But I believe that it is in fact a good time. What is required of us now is no great deed of heroic self-sacrifice, it is merely the resolution to take one small step in the direction of a just and stable world. It is not for a revolutionary but for an evolutionary step that I ask, which symbolises our willingness to continue along that path which leads to security in economic terms for the poor South and hence also the rich North of the world which we inhabit. To go any great distance down that path requires the support not only of your Lordships, not merely of politicians; it requires the support and the understanding of the British people as a whole. This it will take time and effort to secure, and I believe that politicians are not properly the only people to secure it. There is need for what is somewhat dauntingly called "development education", and resources should be found from within whatever budget can be made available to this end. The Government should not abandon the voluntary agencies to this task but offer them such council, such assistance and such finance as they can afford within committed resources. We are talking now in terms not of millions but only of tens of thousands of pounds. We are talking of allocations, if need be, within existing budgets, money to finance the education of opinion in this country. That is a small, but I believe a seminal expenditure which I would welcome.
But that alone is not in the long run enough. We need, as I say, a small but a significant and a symbolic step on the world as well as upon the domestic stage, and the time is ripe for the first. The earnest of our good intentions would be seen by the rest of the world, and by ourselves, in the priority which Her Majesty's Government accord in their review of public expenditure to our overseas aid programme in comparative terms. Whether in cash or in other resources, be it remembered, that represents the degree

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of our commitment to a cause which may be unpopular in the short term but will be vital—and I use the word advisedly—in the long. We have reached a cross-roads. The noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, with the rest of the Government, stands upon it. I hope they have the courage and good sense to take the right turning, and, by acting in concert with Europe, to multiply the force of what they plan to do.
6.30 p.m.
Viscount SIMON: My Lords, I must apologise for inflicting two speeches on your Lordships in one afternoon, but I hope that this one also will be a short one. I rise to support the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, in the Question he has asked, because to my mind it is, as he rightly said, one of the vital matters that must be decided, in this country and in the world, for our future, and the sooner we can get a clear declaration from the Government of their policy the sooner will the clouds begin to clear.
First, with all humility, I should like to question one point which was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Brockway. He did not use quite the same words on this occasion, but on the last occasion, on 22nd June, he said at column 262 of the Official Report:
"With extraordinary unanimity, the developing countries have now prepared an integrated plan for a new world economic order."
With all humility, can we really call it a plan? I have read a good deal of the voluminous document that came from Manila. Objectives were expressed in rather general terms, and those objectives have been refined to some extent at Nairobi. But how to achieve those objectives, whether it is possible to achieve those objectives, are matters still to be discussed and determined. As I think all noble Lords will agree, these problems are extraordinarily difficult. If I may express a personal view, I should have thought it almost impossible to solve them in enormous international conferences. But at any rate we must see what can be done.
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, would the noble Viscount allow me to intervene? He referred to statements made at Nairobi
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and elsewhere. I wonder whether he has seen the very detailed and constructive plan which is in the Manila Declaration, which has been signed by these countries?
Viscount SIMON: My Lords, I have the Manila Declaration. I think it must be the same one. It was held in Manila on 7th February 1976. No, I am sorry, that is the date of circulation. Anyway, I think it may be the same document.
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, I think my copy is much larger.
Viscount SIMON: My Lords, I will confer with the noble Lord afterwards. May I refer to something that the noble Lord, Lord Oram, said at the last debate on 22nd June, which I liked very much. He said at column 283:
"As I have said, someone has to look at the paths rather than at the stars, …"
I like that expression because it brings us down to earth. Translating these objectives into a workable plan will, I am sure, need all the ingenuity and skill that men can apply from their different standpoints, and indeed from all quarters—a spirit of goodwill and a determination to find a solution.
I hope that when the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, comes to reply he will be able to confirm that the Government have that good will towards the proposals—and this is echoing what the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, said—and also that the Government will be ready to contribute constructive help in the discussions which will follow. We are all aware that we are not, as a nation, as rich as we were, but we have in our public service an accumulation of knowledge and experience that can surely be of use in these difficult discussions. Perhaps, as one of the great colonial Powers of the past, we have in this respect a special measure of responsibility too.
I believe that for those better off to help those in a worse position is a moral duty. In spite of the troubled times in which we find ourselves, we must recognise that we are still infinitely better off than those people about whom the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, has been speaking this evening. Not only do we have a moral duty, but we would also, I think, show political wisdom in doing this

921
because the problems of the Third World, unless they are solved, will leave a terrible legacy for our grandchildren.
I should like to mention the words of President Nyerere in an address which he gave to the Royal Commonwealth Society towards the end of last year. He spoke of the demand of the Third World countries on the lines which the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, set out so clearly. He said:
"As far as we are concerned the only question at issue is whether the change comes by dialogue or confrontation."
If we, as the developed nations, fail to find an acceptable solution to these problems by discussion, we shall inevitably come to a confrontation, the consequences of which none of us can possibly foresee, but we can be quite sure that they will be disastrous for us and for many others in this world.
If then it is, as I believe it to be, both politically wise and morally right to offer from our comparative richness help to those who are in a much worse plight than ourselves, then Government and Parliament have a heavy task ahead of them. Here I take up a point that the noble Lord, Lord Elton, made. This heavy task is to lead, to persuade, to educate the people of this country on the need to forgo some advances that we might otherwise make in our material standard of living so as to help those who are less fortunate than ourselves.
There is no alternative. We must face the fact that we cannot give any worth-while help in this direction unless we hurt ourselves, and we have to face up to that. Just soaking the rich, if there were any more scope for that in this country, would not provide the tiniest measurable fraction of what is needed in even one of the many countries that are in distress, so it is no good looking in that direction. We have to face the fact that if we are to do our duty—and, as I have said, I believe it is politically wise to do so also—we have to face, if not an immediate reduction in our standard of living, at least forgoing some advantages that we might gain in the future.
I know that the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, suggested that if you could once raise the standard of living of these millions abroad this would create new
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trade upon which, in due course, our employment and our prosperity would increase. But I think that the timing here is extremely difficult, and I should have thought, although I did not completely follow the interjection of the noble Lord, Lord Balogh, that what he was getting at is, how do the sums work out. This is one of the many matters which we shall have to study very carefully, and which I hope the Government will study.
I should like to make one more quotation in this context from President Nyerere. He was speaking on this very subject when he said:
"Without hesitation or apology I assert that if the wealthy nations still have an ambition for material growth and greater consumption, then they need to ask themselves whether they are serious in their desire to reduce the gap between rich and poor countries and to eradicate poverty from the earth."
We should contemplate those words very carefully. Let us not think that we can make any worthwhile contribution to the needs of the poor and under-privileged without feeling it. Do the Government accept the need to do all we possibly can to help the nations in what I think Lord Brockway called the Fourth World, and even those in the Third World, the nations which are so much poorer than ourselves, recognising that it will hurt us to do so and that we will have to give up something that we might otherwise have liked to do in order to do what is our plain duty?
6.40 p.m.
Earl RUSSELL: My Lords, I ask for the indulgence of the House as this is the first time that I have spoken to your Lordships. I rise to protect the Third World from the usurpations of it which the First and Second Worlds have produced. The Third World is the world; the First and Second Worlds are the cold war and our first duty is to the Third World. Our duty is to keep it fed and thriving. Once you get this idea into your head and your policy treads nimble-toed back to a solid stance, you are on your feet again. Really, in conscience, we shall not have fulfilled our duty to the Third World until we have spent as much annually on feeding it as we at present spend annually on defence. Helping it with investment, so far as development goes—where this is desired by the Third World—is likewise our duty.

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You are not telling me that Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union cannot together feed India and Pakistan, because they can. Why, then, are they not doing so? Give the Ministry of Overseas Development a world buyer of food surpluses who can travel round wherever there is a food surplus with funds to purchase it and give the food surplus concerned either to the Third World Government concerned or to Oxfam and World Aid to remove famine. It is in the power of the First and Second World Governments to remove famine and to end hunger as a menace to man. Let them do so, let them not hesitate and let funds be supplied for this purpose. You need a food buyer for the United Kingdom, a food buyer for the European Economic Community and a food buyer for the dollar area and the fate that you do not want is the fate you have visited on the Argentine. A few years ago the Argentine had a beef surplus. You left it unbought. The Argentine, as a result, suffered inflation and economic stagnation and, as a result of those, it suffered its present near-Fascism. You should not have abandoned the Argentine or its beef surplus. You should have bought it for the underdeveloped nations.
I have said enough to indicate what ought to be the defence of the Third World so far as economic policy is concerned. It is for you to walk in the way of truth and righteousness and support that policy. Remember, you will not have done so until you spend as much on feeding the Third World annually as you at present spend on defence—as much on feeding people as on killing them. Defeat the usurpations of the First and Second Worlds against the Third World, feed the human race and end the cold war and then your feet will be treading the path of the right policy; your policy will have virtue and will prevail. Neglect the Third World and continue with your present policy of nonsensical cold war competitiveness and you will never get anywhere—nor will the human race. End these nonsensical competitions and spend on food rather than on killing people.
There is enough food in the United States and Russia to feed India and Pakistan. Let them do so. Let them give up their hostilities and feed people, and all the parts of Africa where there is endemic famine could be fed as well.
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Concentrate on food and not on war and you will win; show that Lord Boyd Orr did not live in vain. Use world food surpluses to feed starving nations and do not stop until you have done so. Let your food buyer roam the world with funds at his disposal and you will win. Now heed the Third World's requests economically. Do not brush them aside. Let us hope that the attitude of Her Majesty's Government towards the Third World proposals for a new economic order is friendly and that attention is paid to the Third World. Let the First and Second Worlds be brushed aside, end the cold war, concentrate on food and not on killing, and you will win.
A great prize stands to be gained; the abolition of hunger. Make for it and do not stop until you win the prize. Then, when you have won it and when more is spent annually on feeding people than on defence, you will be able to congratulate yourselves and shout "Huzzah!" at the edifice of the international welfare state which you will then have constructed. After all, these proposals amount to no more than the construction of an international welfare state—the extension of the Welfare State to the international sphere.
I have said enough to indicate where the right path is. Let us hope that Her Majesty's Government have the strength to walk it. All that we can do is urge them to do so; urge them to spend money on a food buyer who carries with him funds equal to the funds at present spent on defence, funds which he spends on food, food which he gives to the Third World nations, thus ending famine everywhere. He should not leave out Latin America, where there is much famine, just because people ordinarily think of the Third World as India and Africa. He should spend as much on ending famine in Latin America as he spends on ending it elsewhere. He should not stop until his task is done.
As I have said, give the Ministry of Overseas Development a world buyer of food surpluses who can travel around the world buying them. Open the grain stocks of Chicago and its meat supplies to India and Pakistan. Do not stop until everyone is fed. Cause Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union to cease to be the First and Second Worlds and cause them to side with the Third World first. Then the cold war will go and the world

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will return to itself. The Third World will no longer be so styled but will be called "The World", which it is. The First and Second Worlds will then have disappeared and there will remain the Third World, which is The World. Let us hope that Her Majesty's Government will heed it and not stop heeding it. Let us hope that they will give themselves no peace until they have heeded the Third World. Let us hear no more of neglect but only of fulfilment. Let us see famine and hunger banished from the world; we have the power to see that happen. Do not stop short but go on until the food buyer appears everywhere and until the national estimates annually on defence are totally eclipsed by the estimates for what is spent on food, food for the Third World countries.
If Italy and Greece should be called Third World countries, then listen to them. Let your policy be strong, useful and consistent. Let it be a continuing policy of feeding the Third World and let us see it done in practice with enough publicity to allow the public to know that something is being done, and properly. Then people will have confidence in your Third World policies, because at present they have very little. By continuing diligence and effort, Her Majesty's Government could recover our confidence and could show, by appointing a food buyer, that they intend to get something done. Then we will know that there will be prompt famine relief wherever famine occurs and that Her Majesty's Government have the situation well in hand. Then we will have confidence that the Government have indeed heeded the Third World. It remains for me only to move that the food buyer be appointed. I do so move.
6.47 p.m.
Lord RITCHIE-CALDER: My Lords, it falls to me to congratulate the noble Earl, Lord Russell, on his maiden speech, the sentiments of which I fully endorse, and I hope that we shall hear him speak on many occasions in the future. I wish to follow, as invariably I do, the line taken by my noble friend Lord Brockway in the powerful arguments which he put forward. However, I will not repeat or recapitulate the points he adduced, but simply point out that we are looking tonight for a statement of the Government's
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position so that we may at least have an idea of what our real posture is.
As Lord Brockway pointed out, there have been great inconsistencies. For example, I believe that in our overseas aid programme we are behaving very sensibly. I feel that we have now reached the point, which we should have reached many years ago, of directing our overseas aid to the poor, to the poorest of the poor in most cases, and to seeing that, by raising standards at the bottom levels of countries, we are at least removing the kind of thing that was developing and which may have produced the disenchantment with aid policies in general, where the profits of development were manifestly going to the rich and were not fulfilling their objective of removing the destitution of the poor. On that, Her Majesty's Government have been very sound indeed, and what aid we have available, and which I hope will be maintained—I hope it will not be cut in the present processes—should be directed wisely in that direction. This situation we applaud; at the same time we applaud our initiative in the Lomé Convention and, above all, we applaud the position which was taken by my right honourable friend Sir Harold Wilson in Kingston, Jamaica.
I want to know, as I am sure do all of us, what happened between Kingston and Nairobi? Where did we lose our way? Whatever the facts behind the scenes may have been, and whatever issues may have been discussed or have failed to have been discussed in something we call generically "the Government", why did we have a situation in which we came up with a policy which put us wrong in the eyes of the people we should be trying to impress? We should not only be doing so in terms of the recognition that we are a great country and have a great past, with the responsibility which goes with that, as the noble Lord, Lord Elton, pointed out. This is not somewhere where we should be walking out on our destiny. It is a moment when we should be thinking out the nature of that destiny. I have said before, and I repeat, that I have been anti-colonial and anti-imperial all my adult life, but I do not stand in this House as the pall bearer of the British Empire. I stand, as I hope we all stand, as the trustee of the heirs of that Empire, not reproaching ourselves with our failures, but making

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sure not only that we help to indemnify them—that is always a provocative suggestion—but that we help them to fulfil their own true destiny.
One thing is manifest in all our treatment of overseas problems. One cannot achieve the objects one is determined to achieve with the best intention in the world—and here I grant ourselves and the Government good intentions—if one is not seen to be doing it; that is to say, if one is giving with one hand and taking away with the other. Even in the rhetoric of this debate, one cannot. So what we failed to do at Nairobi we redeemed in some part during the latter stages, but not enough to impress those who were disillusioned and disenchanted. But we did achieve something. Believe me, I am not impeaching my colleagues on the Front Bench, both of whom I know to be as completely devoted as anyone to what I am saying, including Fenner Brockway and myself; but can we get from Her Majesty's Government an answer to the question, why are we inconsistent in our position? The posture which we are trying to define here tonight is very important because it means that not only will we not be able to reinforce the developing countries and the Third World by anything we do, but also that we shall not have the influence with which to do it. We have lost the initiative. If we have been dragged at the chariot wheels of the United States, Japan and West Germany, heaven help us! Heaven help us in our relations with the developing countries! This is the last position we should be in.
As the noble Earl, Lord Russell, pointed out, while John Boyd-Orr may not have lived in vain, he appears to have done so for the simple reason that everything he was saying 30 years ago is what we are saying now. He said it without any equivocation and it was as clear as any of the arguments put up at Manila. It was exactly the same proposition. It was the new economic order but seen as something which, demonstrably, could be done in direct influence and with the momentum we hoped we had from the common cause among the allies. Everything he said and everything which came out of discussions of the World Food Board, which was the control of the kind of commodity and revolving fund situation which the new economic order is working
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for, was possible and feasible. It was shot down by the conventional economists who have been shooting this down ever since. We lost our way because we could not see that our best interests lay in so organising the world that one could have exactly what we have been talking about. One could have had the buffer stock, controlled prices, regulated incentives to producers everywhere, including peasant producers in the developing countries, not merely the big corn growers in the United States. One could have had all that. It was all there. It was all spelt out as clearly as anything in the Manila Declaration.
We are 30 years after that. Where did we lose our way with this momentum and with the capacity that we apparently had at least to envisage, to direct and to lead the developing world? We lost the opportunity because we could not understand where our best interests lay. The death of the World Food Board was simply a result of the fact that we, as a consumer country, thought that we could buy cheaper and that the world food situation would improve. The United States calculated that world food prices would rise and that they would make a profit. The result was that we had no control, no buffer stocks, no means of a basis of commodity direction. Both of us were wrong. The world food situation and the 30 years in between demonstrate that we were wrong. The conventional prophets were basically wrong. The greedy people were wrong, whether in the interests of people in general as consumers or in the interests of profit-making on the side of the producers.
We have had this before us for 30 years. The situation now is that we are seeing things as they are seen through the eyes of the Third World. They are coming up with the proposals which we could have initiated, supported and sustained throughout these years. One must not misunderstand: this is hindsight with a terrible sense of prophetic judgment. If we have been that wrong over the last 30 years, heaven help us if we enter the next 30 years as blindly as we have done here!
I agree to some extent with the noble Viscount, Lord Simon, that the new economic order is a rhetorical document. But it is being spelt out. The Manila

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Convention was a great advance on what we heard at the original six special Conferences of the United Nations. This is being spelt out by the people who make up the Third World. They are growing up. That is what I am trying to emphasise. The new countries are growing up. They know where their best interests lie. At the seventh special Conference there was no rhetoric, no invective, no neo-colonialism. They talked about the concrete problems with which they had to deal. At Nairobi this time we had a snub in the sense that what they see is something with which, manifestly, we should have been prepared and on which we should have been ready to negotiate. We eventually agreed rather grudgingly, as has been pointed out. We should have seized the opportunity with both hands, because this was the developing countries' approach to us. We should have responded to them.
If we miss this crossroads where we are now, we shall be in a very serious situation. The question was raised, who is to pay for it? This is not—if I may say so in the absence of my noble friend Lord Balogh—something to be looked at in conventional, old-fashioned economic terms. This is not the moment to say, "Yah! OPEC!" OPEC is involved in this, however they resolve it with OPEC, however OPEC resolves it with us. It is all there for discussion. It ought to be, and we shall be very unfortunate if we fail now at what I feel—and on this I follow the noble Lord, Lord Elton—is a real moment of truth and, above all, something which is not just a question of looking back on a glorious history, maybe with some repentance. It is not a question of recrimination; it is a question of enlightened foresight in which we know we have to survive in a world in which we had better count our friends and count them quickly.
7 p.m.
Lord PITT of HAMPSTEAD: My Lords, I am in a very fortunate position in that much of what I wanted to say has already been said, and therefore I shall not delay the House for long. I must thank my noble friend Lord Brockway for introducing this Unstarred Question and I wish to congratulate the noble Earl, Lord Russell, on his very effective maiden speech. I look forward to our hearing
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much more from him; I like his philosophical approach to things.
I intended to ask the question which my noble friend Lord Ritchie-Calder has in fact asked of the Government. Among my friends—I do not mean only among my Third World friends, but also among my Labour Party rank and file friends—the question was being asked: Was the Party really back-sliding on this issue? I put my name down on the list of speakers in order to ask the Minister that question quite straightforwardly, because when all is said and done the evidence is quite clear that the world is being divided further, rather than that the gap is closing. In fact, the gap between rich and poor is getting wider, not narrower, and so the old system had failed. There was this new suggestion from the Third World which it was expected a Socialist Government would grab. Many of the methods suggested are the methods which we are using internally to bridge the gap.
It occurred to many people, certainly to many of my rank and file friends in the Labour Party, that it is inexplicable that we cannot get from our Government a straightforward acceptance of the kind of things which are being asked for by the Third World. Therefore, I was very glad that my noble friend Lord Ritchie-Calder asked the question which I had in mind and so I do not need to ask it myself. However, I wish to ask the Minister to explain something to me. If it is right and proper for us to get together to pool our labour in order to get the right price for it, why is there anything wrong in people who merely produce (and therefore that is what they are selling) coming together to get the best price for it? Again, there is the question of tying prices and wages, which is what we are trying to do. We are saying, "Let's keep prices down in order to keep wages down. If that is right in the national field what is wrong with it in the international field, and therefore what is so wrong with indexation?
Again, there is the question of the use of the collective fund in order to make sure that we keep the farmers' wages up while we keep food prices low to the consumer, as we used to do in terms of agricultural policy before we joined the EEC. If that is right in the nation, what is so wrong with it internationally?

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These are the kind of questions on which I should like some answer. It strikes me that somewhere or other either I am not following the philosophy properly or the philosophy is not being translated into action in the proper way. These are the kind of questions I want to ask.
In particular I want to ask why, when we initiated something at Kingston and there was a committee of experts which came out with reports signed by one of our members (because we had a representative on it), we appeared not to be on that side but on the other? These matters are difficult for ordinary Party members to understand, and I hope that when he replies the Minister will be able to reassure us.
7.4 p.m.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, we have had a most interesting debate and I am most grateful, as are all noble Lords, to my noble friend Lord Brockway for once more giving us an opportunity of retreading this question. There was an exhaustive debate on all these matters three weeks ago, and today we have heard much in repetition of that debate. A number of speeches have been addressed to the Government to express their good will towards the objective of narrowing the gap between the developed and the developing, the rich and poor, nations. Indeed, one or two noble Lords have positively beseeched one to assure them of this. But it does not need to be said; it is so easy to express good will in general philosophical terms. Compassion is not enough. We must deal with the computers.
As my noble friend said in reply to the debate three weeks ago, plenty of people will stare at the stars. We need people to look at the paths, the practical avenues, to do something effective to help the impoverished millions whom of course everybody wishes to help. I have been asked to express good will. I do so. It is the easiest part of my task. I have spent my life working for it, and to be challenged as a Member of a Government as if we were villains in the dock, is a little hard to take when it is a country and a Government who have refused to sign, easily and freely, documents which will put you in good with these millions,
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but on the other hand insist that the hard thinking and the hard work needs to be done by somebody; and I shall come to some of the practical points in a moment.
I was asked by the noble Viscount: do we accept the need to do all we possibly can to help the developing countries? Of course we do! We do more than that. We have worked harder than anybody else on the practical difficulties of really advancing in this complex and difficult field. Then there was the statement that of course we must all be ready to sacrifice and to hurt ourselves. I say "Amen!" to that. I hope we mean it.
The noble Earl, Lord Russell, made an admirable maiden speech which I did hear although I was momentarily transferred to the developing world in the experts' box. The noble Earl made a concrete proposal that we should spend on aid as much as we spend on defence. I think I quote him correctly. Does the noble Viscount agree? Does the noble Lord, Lord Elton, agree? That was the one firm, clear suggestion as to how much we should do in implementation of this fine philosophy which, nevertheless, cannot be effected by assertions of good will, by a readiness to do everything we can. It is time that we realised that an ounce of practical work on these matters is worth a ton of idealistic asseveration. The latter feeds nobody in the impoverished world.
My noble friend Lord Ritchie-Calder in an excellent speech, as usual, was fair to this country and to this Government. However, he asked the question: what went wrong—if I quote him rightly—between Kingston and Nairobi? Nothing went wrong. Indeed, if your Lordships are prepared to stay here for some considerable time I might refer to a list which I have here of the things—practical things—that were done between Kingston and Nairobi. There is the transfer of real cash and asistance that is now happening as a result of Kingston, on the initiative of the former Prime Minister, Sir Harold Wilson; of the former Foreign Secretary, now Prime Minister; and of the Commonwealth. If there is no time, I shall retain this useful note and make it available to any noble Lord who wishes to consult the actual record.
My Lords, major elements in our Kingston proposals were in fact carried

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over into the position adopted by the developed countries collectively at Nairobi, and were incorporated into the commodity resolution adopted by that conference. The very success of the Kingston initiative limited the room for the United Kingdom proposals at Nairobi; and it should be borne in mind, by the way, that the proposal for a Common Fund—and I will deal with the question of a Common Fund in a moment—which the developing countries pressed at the conference, did not figure in the Kingston ideas. There was no going away from the Kingston ideas. Indeed there was the promotion of them at Nairobi, as anyone will see if they take the time and patience to read the record, and not pick up headlines here and there and toss them about as though they were the true interpretation of what happened at this conference.
My noble friend Lord Brockway presented a dramatic scenario of the UNCTAD conference, representing the four delegates of the United States, the United Kingdom, the Federal Republic of Germany and Japan as the defendants. I am glad to reassure him that at no stage did the British delegates decide to reject the compromise. Indeed, they sought it energetically throughout, and much of the credit for achieving it goes to them. They referred home for instructions. This is normal and natural. I would hope that delegates to any conference, and certainly one of this import and importance, would at any point of option refer home for clear instructions or confirmation. The answers on the Common Fund, taxation and debts were as I propose to give them now. May I at this point make it absolutely clear to the House—I have been asked for reassurances—that the United Kingdom intends to play a full and constructive part in the forthcoming discussions, both on individual commodities and in the programme of preparatory meetings in advance of next year's conference on the Common Fund.
Of course, as a responsible member of a conference that we assume wants to do something rather than make diplomatic gestures towards the suffering world, we had practical reservations, and it was right that we should express them. It is much better for the developing world that the real difficulties of restructuring
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the world economy—it is no less—should be made absolutely clear. There is not a national economy in Western Europe, the most sophisticated part of the world, which is not having its serious difficulties about restructuring itself, let alone the world economy; so it is no service to the developing world to trot out these resounding idealistic slogans and to connive at a feeling of expectation, so that when you get down to the worktable you are confronted with people who have been talked into unreality, the unreality of expectation.
This deeply worries me. As I have said, I have spent my life promoting precisely these policies, but in the last five to ten years the task has been made immeasurably more difficult because of the propaganda, the confrontation, the ideology, the philosophising, the endless theorising, about this. We know that Bretton Woods proved to have its deficiencies, but for a long time it has made it possible for the strong to help the weak. I agree with my noble friend that its genesis, of course, was in the world as it then was, and that it had to be replaced with something better, but at least Bretton Woods was a practical arrangement. It was based on practical thinking and practical organisations. This, my Lords, is what we must do to replace it.
Now may I go on to the three main points that my noble friend Lord Brockway quite rightly raised and to which others have also referred. I take first, following the order in which they were raised, the question of commodities. The question of commodities was in fact the central issue before the conference, and the conference adopted by consensus a resolution establishing an integrated programme for commodities, and named them. The main elements in this programme are a series of preparatory meetings followed, where appropriate, by negotiations on particular commodities of export interest to developing countries, and preparatory meetings on a Common Fund to be followed, hopefully, by a negotiating conference on such a Fund. It would not help the realisation of a credible and working arrangement that everybody should stop expressing their informed reservations about how this should be done in case they should offend a number of countries diplomatically.

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This is the wrong sort of diplomacy. The true diplomacy is one of frankness.
As my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Trade indicated in his Statement in another place on 8th June, the United Kingdom Government very much welcome the proposed programme of action on individual commodities. This has been said; it was said on 8th June. Not only has it been said, but we have moved to practical action on it. The products selected as the subjects for early discussion were chosen by the developing countries themselves in the Manila Declaration. I am now reading:
"The United Kingdom will play a constructive role in this practical programme of work in fulfilment of the Kingston initiative on commodities".
It is a matter for very close discussion how you do this, whether it be in terms of a Common Fund, a central fund or guarantees as to buffer stocks. That is a matter for practical, frank discussion, and we shall not shie away from it. We may be accused of dragging our feet. It is better to face accusations of that sort than to go into major discussions of this kind without having done the necessary homework.
On commodities and the Common Fund, my noble friend said on 22nd June that of course we have our doubts about the Common Fund as so far described. We do not underestimate the importance attached by the developing countries to the concept of a Common Fund, but we continue to have questions about the claimed objective benefits which a single Common Fund would provide and we doubt whether the case for such a fund can be effectively evaluated before the financial needs of individual commodity agreements can be more clearly foreseen. The resolution adopted in Nairobi recognised that there are differences of view on the objectives and modalities of such a fund. These differences of view exist among the developing countries—I repeat, among the developing countries—no less than among the industrialised nations.
It is the fashion, rather a kind fashion, not to mention this kind of thing. But, sooner or later, it must be faced that there are something like 150 countries, developed or developing, involved in this kind of
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discussion, and within both sections, developed and developing, there are wide varieties of views as to how these things ought to be done. The United Kingdom is one of them. It has from time to time its own views based on not inconsiderable experience and not a poor record of exertion and achievement in this field.
As to debts, after commodities indebtedness was one of the most important topics discussed at UNCTAD 4. The consensus resolution that came out of the conference avoids the earlier proposals for generalised measures of debt relief and for an international debt conference. I have every respect for Lord Brockway's advocacy of an international conference on debt. I know that he will listen very carefully to what I have to say on this matter. We are not convinced that this is the right way to go about this massive problem of debt among the developing countries. The circumstances vary so much. In my former incarnation at the Foreign Office I had, as a penalty or a pourboire, the task of engaging in the re-scheduling of debts owed by certain countries to this country. No two cases were the same—and I had a great many. It was fascinating in its way and also fearful in that there did not seem to be a kind of generality of technique that one could evolve in dealing with one case after another.
I join with what my noble friend Lord Oram said when he replied to the debate three weeks ago as to how we should deal with the question of indebtedness. To my noble friend Lord Brockway I would say this. The developed countries have pledged themselves, and we with them, to give quick and constructive consideration to individual requests by developing countries suffering from debt service difficulties—in particular the least-developed and the most seriously affected developing countries. I think that if one looks more carefully at the debt position one will see a kind of league table of disservitude and an across-the-board approach under a general "threshological" umbrella. It is not only impracticable but indeed unserviceable in this direction. There are some countries which need fairly immediate attention in regard to their debt position. That is what this means. It is common sense. Let us translate it into common action as soon as possible.

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In addition there will be further international discussion to determine features of past debt operations to go with relevant aspects of the present situation which could provide guidance for the future in dealing flexibly with individual cases. In short, there is at the moment no case law. We must build one up. When we have done that I think we can tackle this question of indebtedness, linking with it a sensible system of priorisation.
I pass now to indexation—blessed word!—if I may requote it in the company of a certain number of civil servants. My noble friend Lord Pitt was very eloquent about this. I know him well enough and I am so friendly with him that I am going to speak very firmly to him. Indexation, once more, is a kind of slogan. It looks so simple. You guarantee prices; you index them and you do that for the primary commodity countries in particular. You extend it to whatever developing countries produce or make. This is the end of it. The developed countries will be able to pay the indexed prices. However, the developing countries also buy those goods and would have to pay the indexed prices. Can that be overcome? Of course. But not like that.
If I may address myself to my noble friend directly, it is not quite enough to cry "Indexation" in this field. You need to look round the corner and see what the effect of that would be, not on the prices which the noble Lord, Lord Elton, and I, in this kind of country, would be prepared to pay, but the effect of it on the external balances of some of the very countries that we are seeking to help. Now indexation, in one form or another, may be the answer. It figured in the Kingston statement. Let us look at it. We related it more to Stabex. I hope that the House will forgive me for using this acronym. The resources of the English alphabet must be exhausted by now. I wish I had time to look at Stabex—stability of prices rather than precisely their guarantee. There is a difference. But it needs our best minds, our best endeavours, to get the right approach to this; otherwise we may do as much harm as good. I have dealt with that.
My Lords, although I am tempted to do so, I will not go into the field of technology. I will say this. Here again I join
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hands with my noble friend Lord Brockway. I always have. Figuratively, I have sat at his feet. Occasionally, now I have grown up, one or other of his feet is raised and I get a good kick when I reply from this Box. Well, that is the law of life. He has taught me a great deal and I reply to him in a spirit that I hope he will regard as being responsive. He is right about the transfer of technology, of machines and know-how. And with it, in the first stages at least, the men and women who know how, is probably as much at the heart of this as the transfer of cash. Both must be done. There is no simplistic option between the two; there is a mix that is necessary. I have always thought that the "deeps" of the problem are best tackled by creating, through a transfer of technology and technicians at least for a period, the means of viability for these developing countries.
The debate on technology at UNCTAD IV was notable for the amount of constructive work put in by both sides and the high level of agreement reached. Most attention was given to the international market for technology and the scope for international action in influencing the terms on which technology is transferred and, in particular, the role of a code of conduct. UNCTAD IV looked at this, not only at the need to transfer technology but to be very careful to see what happens to technology when it is transferred.
We have a picture of the starving millions. We have a number of examples of developed countries responding by a transfer of nuclear technology for the purpose of building up the standards of life of those toiling millions. We know for a fact that that technology was not so used. Dare we say it? We must say it! This is the basis of equality: that you speak out, otherwise you do not get anywhere. I put it to my noble friend—I know he agrees—that this role regarding a code of conduct will be very difficult indeed, especially in the nuclear field which is a field at least as susceptible of peaceful development as it is of destructive development. It was agreed at UNCTAD IV that work should go ahead with the drafting of such a code, with a view to its adoption by a United Nations Conference by the end of 1977. This country was very much in evidence in promoting that.

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My Lords, I have kept the House too long. I hope that I have answered the central question put to me—which I was surprised to hear—as to whether Her Majesty's Government really do wish to do everything in their power to help the developing world. The answer is a simple and sincere, "Yes, of course". But I would be less than frank with the House if I did not enter here a necessary caveat. We cannot quarrel with the facts of the economic situation in this country. Thankfully, all the economic indicators show that this country is pulling itself up, gradually ascending the scale. In some respects it is overtaking comparable countries.
Given a little good will among ourselves and a little less unnecessary knocking of the achievements of this country, a little more real patriotism, speaking well of one's own sometimes, there is no reason why this country should not once more achieve a powerful and beneficial position among comparable countries in the world. Until it does, it must measure very carefully how it disposes its resources. We are engaged now in a further exercise to see where we can prune—not expand—public expenditure. Everybody of course is in favour of the reduction of public expenditure in general but never in particular. If we really mean to put this country on a firm financial and economic base we must face the fact that a reduction of expenditure across the board is necessary. I join with the noble Lord in agreeing with him that there is a kind of "most favoured purpose" clause involved here. I can make no commitment because it is not in my power to do so.
I have listened with great sympathy to what has been said about the moral and practical need. I take the point that it is not only a moral duty that the "haves" of the world should spare more than a tear for the "have-nots"; it is also practical, good economic sense. My noble friend could give us endless examples where aid in fact not only benefits the receiver, but provides work for the country that gives it. I well understand the morality and practicality of this when joined together to make a policy, and that, I assure the House, is the policy and purpose of the British Government.
Lord ELTON: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down at the end of that admirable and lucid speech, and at the risk of spoiling the symmetry of it, may I ask him whether he took the points which I asked him by inference to reply to, that there is a great weight of persuasion to be done on the people who keep Governments in power and enable them to spend money; and whether he will look with favour to giving resources to voluntary agencies which pursue this aim in a responsible manner? I have an interest only in that I look with favour on these agencies; I hope that he does too.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I fully agree that a tremendous amount of education remains to be done to persuade us all. None of us is over-sophisticated about this. When it comes to the point it is necessary to persuade everybody that there is an element of sacrifice here. The noble Viscount said that he did not believe that we could raise the necessary money by soaking the rich. I presume that he was not absolving the rich from sacrifice. Of course not. No true Liberal brought up in the traditions of 1908 or 1911 would for a moment adopt that attitude. Nobody can be absolved.
It is necessary, as the noble Lord has said, through our schools, universities, the media—some of the best things produced on the broadcasting and television media have been on this kind of subject—to put the point graphically and cogently. I take the point. I do not represent a Department, as the noble Lord knows, which has the disposal of educational resources. I used to. However, in expressing genuine sympathy with the purport and purpose of what he said, I can engage in the commitment to have further talks with my colleagues about this obvious necessity.

STORNOWAY HARBOUR ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and (pursuant to the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act 1936) deemed to have been read 2a and reported from the Committee.
SEXUAL OFFENCES (SCOTLAND) BILL [H.L.]
Reported from the Joint Committee with Amendments, and re-committed to a Committee of the Whole House; Bill to be printed as amended.

PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE
First Report from the Select Committee made, and to be printed.
House adjourned at nineteen minutes before eight o'clock.