Lords Sitting of 18 November 1976

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

UNESCO CONFERENCE CONCLUSIONS
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 conclusions were reached at the recent meeting of UNESCO, particularly on the issues of State supervision of the Press and the right of Member States to belong to a regional group of their choice.
Baroness LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOE: My Lords, these matters are still the subject of debate at the UNESCO General Conference in Nairobi and we shall not have the conclusions until the last days of the Conference, which ends on 30th November.
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, is it not the case that two decisions were reached at the meeting: first, that there should be no State control of newspapers; and, secondly, that there should be a reversal of the decision that Israel should be excluded, by being allowed the choice whether or not to join the European Community? Were not Resolutions to that effect carried?
Baroness LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOE: My Lords, the proposed draft Declaration on the mass media has been referred to a reviewing and drafting committee and we await the result of the review, which I think will be next week. On Israel, the chairman of the Conference is consulting the regional groups and he will be reporting back this week too, and the conclusions will be reached in the following week.
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, were not the Resolutions carried in principle?
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May I ask the Minister whether it is not greatly significant that the Third World group not only was unaligned from the West but unaligned from the Communist countries on these issues?
Baroness LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOE: My Lords, we very much welcome that.
Lord JANNER: My Lords may I ask the noble Baroness whether it is a fact that the British representatives have voted to see to it that Israel shall be allowed to do what she is asking, and that the other question raised by my noble friend is also practically certain to be carried? If so, would she convey to the British Government for the position they have taken the thanks of those who, like myself, follow these issues? Can the noble Baroness give any hope at all that the intolerable abuse of this Agency, which exists for the purpose of cultural advancement, shall not continue by certain States or groups of States attempting to introduce improper political issues which have nothing at all to do with the Agency itself?
Baroness LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOE: My Lords, as I think I said last week, Her Majesty's Government very much deplore having Resolutions at UNESCO which should more properly be put to the Security Council. But it is absolutely true, as my noble friend says, that Her Majesty's Government have spoken and voted against all Resolutions directed at Israel in this context. I am afraid I must add that nothing is certain in this wicked world—nothing is certain even in your Lordships' House—and I cannot guarantee that it will be as we wish, but we hope that it will.
Lord PAGET of NORTHAMPTON: My Lords, in view of the Resolution referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, and purely as a matter of interest, could the noble Baroness tell us whether there is a single member of the third unallied group in which the Press is allowed to criticise its Government?
Baroness LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOE: My Lords, I should think there probably are, but without notice I could not confirm it.

BNOC AND THE TREATY OF ROME
3.11 p.m.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have considered the compatibility of the role and proposed operations of the British National Oil Corporation with the Treaty of Rome, in particular with Articles 34, 37 and 90; and whether they intend to discuss these with the EEC Commission in the context of the circumstances likely to exist in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, the Government intend that the role and proposed operations of the BNOC shall be fully consistent with the Treaty of Rome. The Government have not been in touch with the European Commission on the matter.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that Answer. Are the Government looking ahead realistically and responsibly? These Articles provide for a ban on restrictions on trade between Members, and also for fair competition, and these are in the interests of the United Kingdom as much as in the interests of any other Member. While the BNOC appears to be being. prepared as a State Corporation, its operations would run counter to these Articles. Have the Government at least sounded the Commission, shortly to have a British President, about this general question?
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, we are of course willing to discuss the matter with the Commission should they wish to do so. The Government are confident that participation is fair to the companies, is in the national interest, and is consistent with our international obligations.
The Earl of LAUDERDALE: My Lords, can we take it from that reply that there will be no discrimination as to marketing, which is forbidden by Article 37, and that the BNOC will confirm with the EEC's rules about free competition under Article 90?
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, the Government's expectation is that up to two-thirds of United Kingdom continental shelf oil production will be refined in this country. This was stated by the then Secretary of State for Energy in December 1974. The Government are naturally concerned to maintain flexibility in any policy decisions. We do not see this as contravening the Treaty.

MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING: TANK ARMAMENT
3.14 p.m.
Lord NEWALL: 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 Memorandum of Understanding signed in September 1975 by the United States and the United Kingdom will apply to the tank armament trials due to take place between Germany, the USA and the United Kingdom in December.
Lord WINTER BOTTOM: My Lords, the tank armament trials planned for this December are within the spirit of the Memorandum of Understanding to which the noble Lord has referred, though they are in practice a further instalment of earlier trilateral tank armament evaluation trials which took place in the first half of 1975, before the Memorandum of Understanding was signed.
Lord NEWALL: My Lords, while thanking the Minister very much for that full Answer, may I ask whether the British invention of Chobham armour will be used in future as a factor in deciding whose armament we shall use, or were the secrets given to our allies in such a way that there were no strings attached?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: That is another question, my Lords, but I will bring it to the notice of my right honourable friend. If the noble Lord would care to put down a Question on the subject, I will try to answer it.
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, may we have an assurance that the information

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that is being conveyed to the United States—I mention the United States in particular because they are concerned with the Memorandum mentioned in the Question—is being conveyed on the basis of reciprocity; that is, that secret information of this kind, which is of great importance in terms of military strategy, demands a quid pro quo? Do we understand that?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, I assume that my noble friend is referring to the armour rather than the weapon. The point is that we have an agreement for the exchange of information with the United States and it is a reciprocal one.
Lord SHINWELL: I want to be sure about that, my Lords. Can my noble friend be more specific? We are giving information of considerable strategic importance to the United States. That country is in possession of very modern weapon devices. Can we be assured that we are provided with information about those?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: In so far as that is outside the scope of this Question, yes, my Lords.
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, it was right inside the Question, I should have thought.

OVERSEAS STUDENTS' FEES
3.16 p.m.
Lord GLADWYN: 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 it is true that the Secretary of State for Education and Science is shortly to make a Statement regarding the fees payable by overseas students, revising the proposals made on 5th July last, and if so whether she will, before making such a Statement, take into consideration the views of the representatives in London of the overseas countries concerned.
The MINISTER of STATE, DEPARTMENT of EDUCATION and SCIENCE (Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge): Yes,
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my Lords, it is true that my right honourable friend hopes to make a Statement shortly on the fees recommended for home and overseas students in 1977–78, in the light of the consultations which have followed her predecessor's statement of 5th July in another place. The noble Lord will not expect me to anticipate the substance of that Statement. My right honourable friend has already received through various channels a wide range of views from representatives of overseas countries in London, and she will of course weigh these against the many other considerations which have to be taken into account in reaching a decision.
Lord GLADWYN: My Lords, while thanking the Minister for that reply, may I nevertheless inquire whether the Government do not take the view that any substantial increase over and above to increase suggested the other day, which was substantial enough, would not only have a deplorable effect on our relations with many of the poorer countries, who are considerable friends of ours, but would also deprive us of a much-needed source of foreign exchange?
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: My Lords, the answer the question which the noble Lord just asked will doubtless be included in the Statement which my right honourable friend will make. I repeat that he will not expect me to anticipate that Statement; if he does, I am afraid he will be disappointed.
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords, having regard to the difficulty in which overseas students are necessarily placed by not knowing what their financial future will be in the current year, may I ask the noble Lord to say how soon "shortly" is likely to be?
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: My Lords, the answer to the noble and learned Lord is that I cannot give a date, but I can say that the consultations are in their last stages.
Lord DAVIES of LEEK: My Lords, further to my noble friend's reply to the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, may I ask whether he is aware that some of us believe that the scientific, political and engineering education that has been given to students of all races from overseas and from places of

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every kind has been one of Britain's great assets overseas, in that money spent in this way is money well spent for the future of Britain?
Lord ROBBINS: And for the world, my Lords.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: My Lords, I in no way differ from that. I would only point out that quite a lot of money is being spent in this way.
Baroness VICKERS: My Lords, in view of the previous Statement about an increase in fees, may I as, the Minister whether there has been a fall in the number of applications from students?
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: My Lords, there was a fear that the number of applications from home students might fall, but as I am not fully briefed on the matter I had better write to the noble Baroness about it.
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, in considering this matter, would the Government bear in mind that a number of these overseas students, when they return to their countries, have high influence both politically and economically, and that it is very desirable that their good will should be maintained?
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: My Lords, of course this is one of the things that is taken into consideration in the very difficult decisions which the predecessor of my right honourable friend and my right honourable friend herself are having to make.

HEALTH SERVICES BILL
3.21 p.m.
Baroness LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOE: My Lords, I have it in command from Her Majesty the Queen to acquaint the House that Her Majesty, having been informed of the purport of the Health Services Bill, has consented to place Her prerogative and interest, so far as they are affected by the Bill, at the disposal of Parliament for the purposes of the Bill.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a.—(Lord Wells-Pestell.)
On Question, Bill read 3a with the Amendments.
Clause 13. [Authorisations to construct or extend controlled premises]:
Baroness YOUNG Baroness YOUNG moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 16, line 11, at end insert—
("(5) With the consent of the Board (which shall not be unreasonably withheld) an applicant may at any time transfer an authorisation to another person.").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I am moving the Amendment as my noble friend Lord Kinnoull is unfortunately unable to be present this afternoon. I do not think that there is anything further that I need say about the points raised in debate last night. The essential point is that when a planning application is before a local authority planning committee, the merits of the case shall be entirely decided for planning reasons and that no other outside points shall be raised.
In this case, the point is that the authorisation from the Board that has been given to one particular person should be able to be transferred to another person, because there would be a number of cases when another person might be taking on the building company or whatever it was. It would be very difficult for such a person to apply to the Board for authorisation when authorisation had already been received. Of course, it would also be much less efficient. I believe that it would be very helpful to hear what the noble Baroness has to say in answer to the points that were raised in the debate rather late last night. I beg to move.
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, when we discussed the Amendment yesterday, I thought that the noble Earl was satisfied with the reply that I gave him. I am therefore a little unsure what is now troubling noble Lords opposite about the issue. It might perhaps be helpful to your Lordships if I repeat the remarks that I made yesterday.

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When we were discussing the Bill earlier at the Committee stage, the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, asked whether it would be possible for a developer, having been granted an authorisation, to sell his company and, by that means, transfer the authorisation among the assets of the company. I said then that I thought this would be possible and I wanted to take the opportunity yesterday evening to confirm what I had said. I realise that this could be used purely as a device for transferring authorisations, but I submit that it would be a rather cumbrous procedure for a developer to adopt. The Board, as I said in Committee, would have no reason to refuse to transfer an authorisation in respect of the same development if none of the circumstances had changed.
I should also remind noble Lords that, if an authorisation is part of the assets of a company and passed with that company's assets to a new owner, it would remain subject to the terms on which it was originally issued, which could include a time limit after which the authorisation would expire if the controlled development in question had not begun. It would then be up to a new developer to reapply for authorisation to build in the way that had been agreed earlier on.
Baroness YOUNG: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Baroness for that reply. I do not want to go on at length about the difficulty of not having a print of Hansard after 10 o'clock last night so that we have not had an opportunity to read what the noble Baroness said, but I am grateful for the trouble that she has taken. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Baroness YOUNG Baroness YOUNG moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 16, line 11, at end insert—
("(5) An authorisation granted under this section shall be for a period not less than three years.").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, here again, the point that was raised was that when the Board gives an authorisation for the building of a private hospital the authorisation shall run for not less than three years. Again, this is a matter that was debated last night and it would
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bring the provision more in line with common planning procedure, where an approved planning application does not lapse until five years have passed. I believe that it is important that there should be some time limit in the Bill so that when somebody receives an authorisation from the Board he knows that it cannot be revoked within a given period of time. Again, if the noble Baroness has anything further that she can say on the point I should be glad to hear it. I beg to move.
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, I have, as promised, looked again at this Amendment and I am still certain that the matter cannot be dealt with appropriately in Statute. Accordingly, I give this firm assurance to the noble Baroness. We will draw this debate and the concern of noble Lords to the attention of the Board once it is set up. I am certain that the Board will take account of it and it will, I expect, want to have discussions with those concerned in the private sector before coming to a decision on their procedure and on the manner of setting the conditions on which the authorisations are issued. Accordingly, I hope that the noble Baroness will be satisfied and will not feel it necessary to press the Amendment.
Lord HARMAR-NICHOLLS: My Lords, this is a fundamental change from normal procedure. I accept absolutely what the noble Baroness has just said in offering to draw the attention of the Board to what had been said. But I do not think that it has been the practice in the past—nor ought it to have been, nor ought it to be the practice in the future—for the words in the Bill to be disregarded as a result of having substituted for them what has been said in this House by way of unauthorised exchanges in debate. I feel that this is a matter that ought to have been included in the Bill. I believe that it ought to have statutory weight behind it. I do not think it right that any Board or planning authority or anybody who administers the Acts that we have passed in this House should have to take into account what is said across the Floor of the House.
While I know that the noble Baroness has said what she said in good faith, I doubt whether it would be a good thing,

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or even whether it would be accepted, that the mere indication of what has been said in this House alters the meaning of the words in the Act itself. I should have thought that, in order to give some sort of confidence to people to do things which we clearly want them to do, they ought to be certain that they have a three-year certainty irrespective of what they do.
Baroness YOUNG: My Lords, of course I am not satisfied with the reply of the noble Baroness because, like my noble friend Lord Harmar-Nicholls, I think that this matter ought to be written into the Bill. However, I appreciate the trouble that the noble Baroness has taken over this. I believe that it is a very important matter and I hope that, if, as I imagine they will, the Government issue a circular explaining the Bill, they will indicate these various planning points to the Board on general lines. All that is being asked is that the Board should bring itself into line with what is common practice and is, indeed, the law governing planning applications. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 15 [Planning permission for works requiring authorisation]:
3.29 p.m.
Baroness YOUNG Baroness YOUNG moved Amendment No. 3:
Page 18, line 7, at end insert—
("(4A) For the purpose of any application for planning permission for any controlled works and any appeal as aforesaid, an authorisation for those controlled works shall be conclusive as to the matters referred to in subsections (2) and (3) of section 13 above.").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, of all the three Amendments concerned with planning, this, in my view, is the most important because it is essential to get the assurance that the matters that will concern the planning committee when a planning application for a private hospital is made will be only those that are rightfully the concern of a planning committee and not other matters that could be extraneous to that. There have been most unfortunate cases in which an application to build a private hospital has been refused by a planning authority for a variety of
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reasons, one of which was that the people on the committee did not like private medicine.
Whatever one's view about that, this is not a planning consideration and it ought not to be allowed to be a planning consideration in law, not simply because it affects this Bill but because, once it could ever be thought that planning committees were concerning themselves with matters outside the rightful concern of the planning authorities, the country would get itself into very great difficulties and planning applications would be subject to the prejudices of committees up and down the country. The matter is therefore wider than this Bill, and it would be very helpful if the noble Baroness could give us any further assurances since we last debated the matter, because I think that the Government appreciate this point just as we do on this side of the House. I beg to move.
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, as promised we have given further consideration to this Amendment this morning. The effect of the Amendment would be to state in the Bill that the fact of an authorisation having been given for a project ought to be conclusive when the planning authority considers the planning application for that project with respect to the matters in Clause 13(2) and (3). These are: whether or not the project would cause detriment to the National Health Service by virtue of the amount of its accommodation; the facilities which it will provide; and the staff which it will require. With the greatest respect, the Amendment is completely unnecessary. The planning authority must have regard only to planning considerations, and planning considerations most definitely do not include questions about detriment to the National Health Service or disadvantage to National Health Service patients. They would be going outside the scope of the matters to which the Town and Country Planning Act 1971 requires them to have regard if they took any account at all of the matters dealt with in Clause 13(2) and (3).
Indeed, to my certain knowledge the Secretary of State for the Environment has reversed the decision of a planning authority that planning permission should be refused for a private hospital because in its view there was over-provision of

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hospital accommodation in its area. On appeal my Secretary of State took the view that in refusing the permission the authority was exceeding its powers. I hope that that will satisfy the noble Baroness.
Baroness YOUNG: My Lords, I am grateful to have that statement on the record. Can the noble Baroness say to which authority this applied?
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, my understanding is that it was Westminster.
Baroness YOUNG: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness. Although I should have preferred to have had this written into the Bill, nevertheless it is useful to have it on the record, and I hope that on this matter it will be taken by planning authorities as guidance. Having said that, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Baroness YOUNG Baroness YOUNG had given Notice of her intention to move Amendment No. 4:
Schedule 1, page 25, line 9, at end insert ("who holds or has held high judicial office")
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I have reflected on this matter and I do not wish to move this Amendment.
3.34 p.m.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill do now pass.
Moved, That the Bill do now pass.—(Lord Wells-Pestell.)
Baroness YOUNG: My Lords, I do not believe that anybody who has taken part in the proceedings on the Bill over the past fortnight, and who has considered all the very many detailed matters that have been raised, can fail to realise that a Bill which is entitled the Health Services Bill in fact has nothing to do with patients at all, either patients in the National Health Service or private patients. So far as I can see, it has very little to do with medicine. As we have now discovered it is a narrow minded document, the result of the Government's promise to the doctors to legislate on what have come to be called the Goodman Proposals, and the guarantee of legislation was given in return for a
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promise from the doctors that they would stop working to contract.
It is a narrow Bill, and we have been constantly told by both the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, and the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, that the Government are implementing the Goodman Proposals; and they have appeared like a religious tract from which no one can move at all, and in which every single word must be enacted, and indeed was enacted, precisely as the document was drawn up. It is a Bill with a sting in its tail. Part III is outside the Goodman Proposals; it is outside the Government Manifesto; and it is outside what was written into the Queen's Speech. I shall comment on that later, but it is I think a very unpleasant Part of the Bill, with sinister overtones.
Therefore, it is not surprising that we have had what has seemed to myself and my colleagues to be rather a curious stand on the Bill by the Government. With the notable exception of the Amendment on the question of right of appeal, moved by the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, for which we are very grateful, there have been no Amendments from the Government at all. Allowing for that one notable and very good exception, the Government clearly believe that they have produced a perfect Bill. At times we have been criticised for putting down Amendments to the Bill, yet surely the principal function of the House of Lords is to amend legislation. It has a particular function in this case, as when this Bill was being debated in another place there were tied votes on 52 occasions in Standing Committee, the Bill was guillotined at the Report stage, and proceedings from this House will be guillotined when they return for consideration in the House of Commons.
This Bill is, in truth, a Government Bill. With the notable exception of the time when it was debated on Second Reading in another place, the only times it has been debated in either House of Parliament have been in your Lordships' House at the Committee stage, at the Report stage, and at the two other stages—the Second Reading and the Third Reading. It seems to me that if we have fulfilled no other function we have given an opportunity for some detailed discussion on many of the very important points that will arise.
I speak this afternoon conscious that

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almost everything we have said will be guillotined without discussion in another place. I am tempted to feel that perhaps I should just state our principles without giving our reasons. But, unlike the Health Services Board, I am not somebody suitably independent, suitably well qualified, whose word can be taken as law and as perfection, and somebody for whom there is no reason at all why reasons for our Amendments should be given. I am inclined to think that if one is making a case one should give one's reasons and then ask others to comment upon them having seen the way that one's thought is going. This will not be open to the Health Services Board, which of course will not be required to give its reasons. But then, as the Government have told us, the members of the Board will be very exceptional people.
However, even if I am only one of those curious, what might be called hybrid Members of your Lordships' House—a Life Peer—not of course of the excellence of the members of the Board, I should like to give the reasons for the Amendments that we have put down and which we think are at least worthy of consideration by another place. There are five of them. None of them goes against the principle of the Bill, but all of them are designed to help patients in hospital. I would single out as the first and most important of those the fact that the first 1,000 beds to be phased out ought to be given over to National Health Service patients. It seems to me incredible that a Bill, the purpose of which was to shorten the National Health Service queue, to improve the lot of National Health Service patients, and for which therefore 1,000 beds in the private sector in National Health Service hospitals are to be phased out, is not at the same time to require that those beds should be used by National Health Service patients. The accommodation arising from phasing out those beds could be used for offices; it could be used for a whole variety of reasons. That is why the Government will not accept this. But it is not true for them to say that it is going to shorten the queue in any way, if the beds are not to be used for patients.
The second Amendment, to which we would attach great importance, relates to the question of medical confidentiality.
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I know that there have been great discussions on Clause 6, as to whether or not there should be common waiting lists between patients in the National Health Service and private patients. Personally, I am very happy to abide by the decision that there should be a common waiting list, and I would never quarrel with that. But I think it is essential that the fundamental belief of doctors in the confidentiality of medical information between a doctor and his patient should be kept, and it is very difficult to see how this will be done under the Bill. Furthermore, we believe that patients ought to be given the maximum freedom, whether they are in the National Health Service or outside, to have a consultant of their choice: whether this involves a Roman Catholic patient and a Roman Catholic consultant, a woman patient who would like a woman consultant, or a Pakistani patient who would like a Pakistani consultant. I cannot see that that goes against the principle of the Bill, or does anything other than provoke the kind of thing that most people would like but unfortunately are not always able to achieve.
There are two other points about the staff. I believe that one ought to consider the needs of the staff in the best and widest meaning, both those who work in any of the ancillary services of the hospitals and the consultants. I find it quite extraordinary that the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, can say that there will be no detriment to anybody, nobody will lose their jobs, nobody will be worse off as a result of this reorganisation. It is stretching belief too far to think that we can accept that statement at its face value. It is even more disturbing that the letter he wrote to me on the subject is not the same as the statement made by his honourable friend Dr. David Owen in another place, and it is very difficult to draw any other conclusion than that the Government are not very concerned about this point. As far as the consultants are concerned, it is no use saying that a part-time consultant can automatically become a full-time consultant in the National Health Service following upon this Bill if, when he wishes to do so, there is no job for a full-time consultant and the Area Health Authority has not the money to pay a full-time consultant. He will inevitably suffer financial detriment and this will be one of the consequences of this Bill.

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Part III was not in the Manifesto, and in our view it sets a dangerous precedent. As the noble Lord, Lord Hill of Luton, said during the Report stage; Why have a limit on private hospitals? Why should it be necessary to authorise certain numbers of beds? If there is a demand, why should it not be met? The reason given by the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, was that nothing must be done to damage the National Health Service. What is sinister about this is the implication that the National Health Service standards might fall so that it could be damaged by private practice. If the National Health Service is as good as it is made out to be people should choose it freely rather than something else which would be implied by an enormous expansion of private medicine at whatever the cost of that might be. So it seems to me that the doctors are right to be frightened of this Bill because there is an implied threat to their professional freedom.
The fact that private medicine is ultimately going to be limited, as Part III suggests, would indicate that not only are the doctors right to be frightened but also all those who wish for nothing more than the right to ask for a private room when they are ill. I believe that the number of people who would like that and would choose it is far greater than the very narrow group of people referred to. I think there are hundreds of trade unionists who would subscribe and who would choose to go to their own private hospital and private convalescent homes—and why not? There are a great many people who, of all the things they would wish to spend their money on, would choose to do it on a private room when they are ill.
I once read that a lot of people would not like to share a room when they are well, let alone doing so when they are ill, and I cannot see that there is anything morally wrong in choosing to spend your money in that way. The Bill is not for them; in fact it is not for the sick and distressed, it is the official stamp of the Government on the Goodman Proposals. We indicated at Second Reading that we were opposed to it on principle and I reiterate that now, not because I do not want to see anything done to improve certain things in the Health Service. There are many things
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that are wrong with the Health Service and those are the matters to which we should be addressing ourselves, not to creating a medical apartheid which will help neither patients in the National Health Service nor as private patients. That is the ultimate tragedy of this Bill.
3.45 p.m.
Lord WINSTANLEY: My Lords, it has always struck me as rather sad that so many of us have to make mistakes in order to learn sense. Children have to be permitted to do unwise things in order to acquire wisdom. It seems to me that the same principle applies to politicians as well, and in this Bill we see that it certainly applies to Governments. I would suggest that nothing illustrates this principle more vividly than this misconceived and misguided measure. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Young, that your Lordships' House has improved the Bill in many respects, though neither she nor I would suggest that what your Lordships have done to the Bill has made it wholly acceptable. Far from it. It seems to me that at a stroke this Bill reverses the principle upon which 30 years of growth in the National Health Service has taken place. I think that takes us back to the beginnings of the Bill and the beginnings of the Health Service by Mr. Bevan in 1946.
Perhaps I could briefly remind your Lordships of what Mr. Bevan said in 1946 at Second Reading. Let us be quite clear: Mr. Bevan held no brief for private practice. In talks I had with him he told me that when the Health Service was functioning effectively, private practice would disappear because there would cease to be a demand for it—and I agree with him. But he decided that it was preferable to allow private practice within the National Health Service rather than have a separate private service developing outside, as a threat and almost in opposition to the Health Service. Lest it should be thought that he did this as a sop in order to induce the profession to come in, one should look at his Second Reading speech in which he made it utterly clear. May I quote his Second Reading speech on 30th April 1946, column 57:
"Specialists in hospitals will be allowed to have fee-paying patients. I know this is criticised and I sympathise with some of the reasons for

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the criticism, but we are driven inevitably to this fact, that unless we permit some fee-paying patients in the public hospitals, there will be a rash of nursing homes all over the country."
He went on:
"We want to keep our specialists attached to our hospitals and not send them into nursing homes."—[Official Report, Commons, 30/4/46; col. 57.]
He elaborated this point and went further into it in Standing Committee, when he said:
"What he must try to secure, is that the specialist is induced, as far as possible, to spend all his time at the hospital, both for his own sake and for the sake of the patients in the hospital and—in the case of the teaching hospitals—for the sake of the students, and indeed, the whole atmosphere of the hospital. The more he spends his time in the hospital, the better for everyone concerned. I would encourage the specialist to have as much consultation in the hospital as possible. I do not want him to go to his surgery; I want him to be there on the spot and to see the people in the hospital. It would be disastrous if as a consequence of not accepting this principle, there grew up in Great Britain a rash of nursing homes, where the specialist would be intelectually isolating himself."—[Official Report, Commons Standing Committee, 21/5/46; col. 1155.]
It seems to me that this Bill puts that principle precisely in reverse and at a stroke we are embarking on the creation of a separate private service outside the National Health Service. It is my belief that once that develops it will in the end bleed the National Health Service white. I believe that it will increase the view of some people—a regrettable view, I would suggest—that somehow they can get better treatment by paying for it. If they see a separate service outside, I think more people rather than less will opt for private treatment, particularly in those areas in which they see the National Health Service having certain difficulties. In addition, by setting up this separate service outside, we are diverting all sorts of resources in an unfortunate way to an undesirable development.
So far as the building industry is concerned, they will be encouraged to invest and to use their energy in building nursing homes and private hospitals rather than in concentrating their efforts on more socially acceptable work. So far as investment is concerned, this will encourage investment in an area which, while it may create wealth, will not create wealth of the kind that I think the Government, and indeed all of us, would like to see this country now creating.
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The Bill will in the end, of course, cost money—a lot of money—in administration and in bureaucracy; and it will lose money, since it will forfeit the money which private practice at present earns for the National Health Service; and this is at a time when our National Health Service is starved of resources and is, indeed, very short of money. I think it will encourage many people—doctors, perhaps—to feel that they will have better opportunities, more freedom, outside rather than inside the National Health Service. I think they will be mistaken, but I believe many will think that. I think even those who leave money in bequests for research will begin to think that they will leave it to a private institution rather than to one of the National Health Service hospitals. Indeed, as time goes on I think we shall see a threat to the National Health Service growing up outside the Service which will not assist the Service but which, as I say, could in the end bleed it white.
My Lords, for once I hope that I am proved wrong. I do not think that is likely to be the case. Indeed, I think that as time goes on we shall see the kind of developments of which I have great fears. But I have a ray of hope, my Lords, and that, I think, comes from the Goodman Proposals. I welcomed the Goodman Proposals, not only because they secured a compromise of a kind, and a kind of agreement—perhaps not complete agreement, but they did something, I think, to cool the atmosphere and to bring the two sides together—but even more because I think the Goodman Proposals now written into the Bill spread out the whole process and make it take a lot longer. Therefore, my Lords, stemming from the Goodman Proposals is time—time which will possibly give us and others in another place an opportunity for second thoughts before we pass too far down a rather dangerous and, indeed, damaging route. I hope that we shall concentrate on what really matters, which is putting the Health Service to rights; and those who want to see the end of private practice should surely realise that nothing could end it more quickly and more certainly than establishing a truly effective, humane and efficient Health Service—and once we have that we shall all look in vain for private practice.
My Lords, my noble friends and I will watch with sadness as this Bill passes,

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as it must pass for reasons unconnected with health or with the National Health Service. But I think it is a sad occasion, not for private practice but for the National Health Service.
3.53 p.m.
Lord HUNT of FAWLEY: My Lords, in Lord Goodman's absence may I ask permission of the House to speak before he does. First I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, and his Front Bench supporters for their patience and for the clarity with which they have considered our many Amendments. I must enthusiastically congratulate my noble friend Lady Young on the way she has spoken in this most complicated debate, with such good will throughout. After our marathon all-night session, which started at 3.0 p.m. and went on to 7.0 a.m., we had breakfast. I sat next to her. She did not seem unduly tired. We both agreed that we had hardly ever eaten a better breakfast! I am sure your Lordships will agree that seldom in your Lordships' House has a noble Baroness spoken for so long, so well.
As your Lordships must know by now, nearly all members of the medical profession are convinced that this is a bad Bill even with the comprise proposals of the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, in it. They fear that it may harm the National Health Service in the ways we have already discussed and perhaps disrupt relationships between it and the private sector of medicine in Britian. That could happen if it encouraged militant trade unions of hospital workers, and some others in the Labour Party, to pursue their declared doctrinaire policy of trying to abolish private medical practice in this country, leading to a salaried medical service and a State monopoly in medicine. This policy has been clearly put forward in recent Labour Party and certain trade union conferences. In spite of what the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, said to me so soothingly in the Committee stage of our debate, one cannot help being worried. I am told that Labour Party Conferences differ from those of other Parties in that their resolutions are supposed to be rather more mandatory towards Party policy than the others, which are regarded as more advisory. If your Lordships obstruct this Bill, that, as the right honourable Mrs. Barbara Castle
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said so militantly in another place on 12th October, would reopen the gates for industrial action and we in your Lordships' House will for certain be blamed and held responsible.
On the other hand, if in spite of its deficiencies this Bill becomes law I see the possibility of infinite troubles lying ahead over its implementation. There will be arguments about how quickly private beds can be phased out of NHS hospitals. And there will be a pile of difficulties for consultants to face in trying to obtain, outside the NHS, the private accommodation, facilities and equipment for their work of reasonably the same standards and availability (for them and for their patients) as those of which they have been deprived. To find good accommodation may not be too hard; but to provide in small hospitals and nursing homes, even for quite simple and straightforward illnesses and operations, adequate medical, surgical anaesthetic, recovery-room, intensive-care, resident-medical-officer, X-ray, pathological, physiotherapeutic and other facilities may be very difficult indeed in many places. Does all this suggest that the parts of the Bill about reasonably equivalent, alternative, standards do not mean as much as they imply? Or, owing to difficulties in achieving these standards in small hospitals, will only a few pay beds be phased out until sufficient and adequate private hospitals can be built? That may take several years.
Woe betide British medicine if, when this Bill is on the Statute Book, the Goodman compromises are not strictly adhered to and if people do not co-operate in what has been agreed! If there is interference in future on doctrinaire, ideological grounds by the Government, trade unions, local authorities or by anyone else with the planning, building or running of the private hospitals referred to in this Bill, or with pay beds not yet phased out, doctors will be justified in opposing that in the words of the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, "by every means in their power". As I indicated to your Lordships on 21st October, unless some practical and effective conciliatory mechanism is evolved before then many doctors are now prepared to fight, and they have learned how to do so. They are very likely to resist firmly such a threat to their profes-

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sional freedoms, and they will be supported in this by many of their patients.
If that happens, the passing of this politically motivated, impractical medical Bill, of which nearly the whole of our medical profession disapproves, will do enormous harm to relationships between the public and the private sectors of medicine, just at a time when co-operation between the two is so badly needed. It may open up a running sore which will take many years to heal. The blame and full responsibility for all that disruption, unpleasantness and unhappiness will then lie squarely on the shoulders of those who gave birth to this Bill and who have forced it through Parliament with several guillotines, without even allowing Parliamentary discussion on parts of it, and who have obstinately refused against so much advice to refer to the Royal Commission this very debatable pay beds issue which involves only 1 per cent. of the beds in the National Health Service. In time, if these troubles are not avoided, I believe that those who introduced this Bill, who really do have the welfare of the National Health Service and of British medicine at heart, may well wish that they had never thought of it.
My Lords, let us hope that during the next two or three years this Government (or any other which may take their place) and the trade unions will have the good sense to ensure, with the help of the BMA and the Royal Colleges and Faculties, that the Goodman compromise proposals are given a fair chance to be implemented by all concerned. In that way the possibility of a harmful immediate conflict will be reduced. Even then, we may be in for some serious trouble later if trade unions and others do not play fair. But if this moderate and conciliatory course which we are now adopting does by chance succeed, this will encourage and help the public and the private sectors of medicine in Britain to work together amicably and peaceably in future—which is what a great many patients and a great many doctors in our country now want.
4.1 p.m.
Lord O'HAGAN: My Lords, I am not sure whether your Lordships are attending a funeral or a christening and my mood of uncertainty has been confirmed by the
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speeches we have heard so far today. Certainly, the Bill which we are now discussing is a major change and, as the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, has said, it marks the end of the historic compromise achieved by Mr. Bevan over a quarter of a century ago. Whether the Health Service in its new form will succeed one cannot tell, but certainly this Bill has been very much improved by what your Lordships have done to it. Whatever we think about the Bill, your Lordships have given it a great deal of attention and, in the light of the amount of debate it did not receive in another place, I think we have fulfilled a useful Parliamentary function and I hope that it is one that will be recognised outside the House.
I should like to pay tribute to the Government Front Bench for their steadfastness under fire, and particularly I should like to pay tribute to my own noble chieftainess, Lady Young, on her unflagging energy in directing that fire from this side of the House. The funeral mood is appropriate because this Bill contributes nothing to the resources of the National Health Service. I noted in today's The Times that Mr. Albert Spanswick, General Secretary of the Confederation of Health Service Employees, said yesterday that last summer there were 2,300 nurses unemployed and that now there are 6,500 unemployed. What is this Bill going to do for those nurses? Nothing at all. The Government would not even introduce a provision to protect nurses and others from the consequences of the Bill. They would not accept our Amendments to do with "no detriment"; yet this is the background against which we are debating this major change in the Health Service.
It would not be a proper use of a Third Reading debate to try to run through all the many arguments of principle that have come from both sides. Looking at this small, rather unpleasant Bill, if we are to see what its nature really is we must have some more information from the Government about what they think its effect is likely to be. I have sat through most stages of the Bill in this House and I have read nearly everything that passed in another place. There are still two major questions that the Government have not yet answered or, at least, I have not discovered the answer. The first question

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is this: what effect will this Bill have on waiting lists? It is said that this Bill has been introduced to help with the problem of waiting lists. I notice that the Labour Party programme for 1976 said this (in page 59):
"We believe that this measure together with the strengthening of primary care and other steps will help to reduce waiting lists for hospital beds."
Do the Government agree with the Labour Party? What is the Government's view? How much reduction in the waiting lists will this Bill achieve? Could we have some figures?
The second question—which may have been answered by a Parliamentary Written Answer to the noble Baroness, Lady Hornsby-Smith; but I have not seen it in Hansard—is this. What loss is the National Health Service suffering in income from the withdrawal of pay beds? We have never had a firm statement about this that I have been able to discover. What price are the Government prepared to pay for this measure? Could we have it spelled out and could we hear how the Government plan to restore that loss that all patients will suffer because the amount of resources available to the National Health Service is bound to decline as a result of the passing of the Bill?
My Lords, it may be that I should not act as an evil god-father to this legislative baby and cast a bad spell on its future, but I do not think that the reasons for its birth are really all that wholesome. All that we can hope is that some of the promises and the fears that we have heard about its consequences will be belied by the facts and the Government, having freed themselves from this commitment, will now be free to devote themselves to the real problems of the Health Service and leave behind the corroded atmosphere that the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, sought to remove when he introduced his proposals. In that hope, I think we should give this Bill a Third Reading.
4.8 p.m.
Lord PLATT: My Lords, I am sorry to say that during the last days—or is it now weeks?—that we have been discussing this Bill I have been appalled at the apparent ignorance of the Government on a lot of the issues which we have been debating and a lot of the solutions
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which have been put forward in this Bill. In saying that, I do not wish to make any personal attack on the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, who has battled on most valiantly on an impossible brief. If I use words as strong as that I must have some reason or some standing for doing so. I think that most noble Lords know that I have perhaps a unique experience in this matter, having been in consulting practice, having been a professor of medicine without private patients and having occupied a large number of other positions which brought me into touch with research and medical education and so on.
As chairman of Distinction Awards, I visited every medical school in England and Wales regularly every year and also a lot of the smaller areas where there are important hospitals which are not teaching hospitals; areas such as, for instance, Bath, Middlesbrough and so forth. The first indication of this appalling ignorance was when the noble Lord told us what this Bill was about. The Government had no objection to private practice. He said, "All we want to see is that those who want it pay for it", as if he did not know that they already paid for it once or twice over. This shook me a great deal. When I raised that question, I received nothing but an evasive reply, I am sorry to say.
I raised a lot of other points to which there has been no reply. For instance, I raised the question of whether the hospitals which are going to sacrifice a certain number of beds in the first round of closing down the first 1,000 pay beds should be mentioned in an Act of Parliament. Who had been at the root of making these decisions? There was no reply to that. Yesterday the ignorance of the Government spokesman was revealed once again over the question of the hospitals which had very few pay beds. We were told—and no doubt the figures are correct—that in a large number of cases there are no more than five pay beds in a hospital. These are areas in which there is no great demand for private practice, but some physicians and surgeons like to carry out some private practice. Maybe it increases their income; maybe it is because the patients want to attend a private consultation.
Some of those patients need to come into hospital for further investigation or an operation; these few beds allow

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these people to do this practice. The Government argument was that, as there were so few beds, it did not really matter whether or not they were closed. That was the impression that was given; no doubt it will be denied. Those surely are the very beds which you should not close because those physicians and surgeons have every right to the private practice of medicine if they wish to pursue it. They will lose that right if those few beds are taken away. That seems to me to show very great misunderstanding of what really goes on at the present time in the practice of medicine.
Then there was further ignorance regarding research. The actual money that comes from pay beds, patients in the private wing of hospitals and so on, compared with the whole amount of money spent on research in the whole country, may be small. But, as the noble Lord, Lord Stamp, told us—and he has been on the staff of the London Postgraduate Medical School for many years—last year £83,000 came in. This is the lifeblood of research in the most important postgraduate medical school in this country, if not in the world. I am repeating what I said yesterday, and I will repeat it tomorrow if necessary. This is absolutely disastrous.
We are told that it can be supported from other funds. What other funds? No doubt it is the Medical Research Council, of which I was a member for seven years. Do the Government think that the Treasury would welcome an application for an extra grant of £83,000 because of the closing down of pay beds at the London Postgraduate Medical School? I would not have thought so in the present state of the country. Arguments were brought up about the educational value of private beds. We were told that this is of no importance, and the whole argument seemed to be on the question of whether this brought the subject of rare diseases into postgraduate and undergraduate education. It does to some extent, but I point out that we medical educators (I speak of myself in the past tense of course) were not concerned just to teach about rare diseases which anybody can look up in a book. We were out to teach the handling of patients and the general conduct of consultation. Private practice is very good
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postgraduate education for consultants, and it is very good education for nurses. I only cite those as examples of how little the Government seem to know of what goes on.
I asked more than once: who is going to monitor what goes on in this rash of private hospitals to which the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, referred? Yes, they are to be inspected to see whether they have the requisite facilities for carrying on medicine and surgery. But who is to monitor the people who work in them? Is there to be some entrance examination or is it to be confined to people who are already consultants in the National Health Service? We do not know anything of this, neither is it laid down in the Bill and neither has my question been answered.
One of the great advantages of doing private practice within your own hospital is that you are under the scrutiny of your colleagues and nursing staff the whole time. People cannot get away with what they do, I may say, in the United States of America. The ethical standards of people are known at the moment, whereas we know nothing about who is going to work in these private hospitals. However, I received no reply to that at all. There was no mention of it in the noble Lord's various speeches.
How will the private hospitals keep up with new advances which are often extremely expensive ones? Is the country in its present state really going to duplicate a lot of new and extremely expensive apparatus so that it can be used either privately or in National Health hospitals? Is not the present system much more sensible, where the NHS hospitals have the apparatus and the private patients can use it under certain conditions? The private patients, do not forget, pay their share of the total cost of running a hospital.
Regarding the abuses, the only abuse which is referred to very frequently—and not without reason—is the abuse of queue-jumping. It is not a question of a person paying to go into a private bed and therefore jumping the queue, because if there are beds reserved for private patients you cannot put other people into them. A patient sees a consultant in his private consulting rooms, which he has every right to do, and the consultant says,

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"You must come into hospital". This may be for investigation or treatment. The patient replies, "How much is it going to cost me?" to which the consultant says, "It may cost £300 or £400." If the patient replies, "I cannot afford it", does the consultant put the patient higher up in the queue because the patient has paid him a fee? I know this happens.
I said to the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, that the point I was making was not that these abuses do not exist but that this Bill would do absolutely nothing whatever to correct them. Your Lordships know what his reply was: it is to be found in col. 1583 of Hansard of 21st October:
"that remains to be seen."
My Lords, are we going through all this—are we making changes in the National Health Service which will possibly be even as disastrous as the reorganisation of 1973—to see whether it works? I have never heard such an answer in my life. As others have already pointed out today, the Bill will do nothing to reduce the queues and, indeed, it may increase them. The question of a common waiting-list and the criteria of only medical need are fine in theory but absolutely impossible in practice. Of course, that is not to say that we should not work towards that end.
Finally, I want to raise again several points. Whom does the Bill benefit? My answer is: Nobody. National Health Service patients will be worse off for various reasons. For example, their consultants will not be so often on the premises but driving their cars across London in the middle of the day and so on. The private patients in their new nursing homes will not be better off, either. They would be much better off under the present system in a private bed in a National Health Service hospital.
The second question is: Who wants this Bill? I think I am right in saying that not a single speech from the Government Benches has been in favour of it. In fact, there have not been any speeches from those Benches, except an intervention from, I think, the noble Lord, Lord Leatherland. The Liberals have spoken against it, the Conservatives have spoken against it, and people from these Benches have spoken against it. In addition, Members of the Government Party whom I know well enough to address rather
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wicked remarks to and to ask: "If you had a free vote, would you vote for this Bill?" have all said, "No". Of course, I admit that is a highly selective sample because these people are my pals; but they do not want it and I do not not know who does.
A good many consultants are not enthusiastc one way or the other. I am told that in fact half the consultants are working full-time at present in the National Health Service and not doing any private practice work. I think that is right; but do not let us forget that the half who are not doing private practice includes a good many pathologists and biochemists who work in laboratories and never come face to face with the patient at all. Also, it would include anaesthetists who face the patient for only a few fleeting moments before the patient loses consciousness. It also includes a large number of university staff and research workers in places such as the famous postgraduate medical schools. They work part-time because, apart from their duty to the patients, their first duty is to research: that is what they are primarily interested in. Therefore, that particular statistic does not really interest me at all.
I have been a supporter of the National Health Service ever since its inception in the very early days and when the BMA was trying to persuade doctors not to join it I was on this side of Bevan and Lord Moran. We wanted this Service because we thought it would do good to millions of people. It has turned out that way, and so it is now very sad to me to see the Party who brought it in under such opposition now taking a course which may very well wreck it.
Baroness PHILLIPS: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, while not in any way questioning the content of his speech I want to put to him that I am directly in touch with a number of young women anaesthetists and they have great care for their patients and great concern for the National Health Service. I think it was a little unfortunate that the noble Lord rather suggested that they saw the patient only for a few seconds and had not any great interest. I wonder whether the noble Lord would like to correct that, because they do care as much as other people.
Lord PLATT: My Lords, I entirely accept that correction, but of course they do not have the lasting care of the patients that physicians and others have. But I accept what the noble Baroness says.
4.26 p.m.
Baroness MACLEOD of BORVE: My Lords, I should like, first, to add my compliments and congratulations on the way the noble Baroness has led the debate on this Bill, together with her colleagues. All day and all night the noble Baroness has kept her temper and her cool and has led us in a way that I think few others could have done. My Lords, I do not like this Bill. I do not like any part of it, and that is mainly for two reasons. I think, first, it is a mean Bill because the phasing out of the pay beds means that three and a quarter million people who are members of BUPA and other private schemes will not now be able to have the private beds that they have up to now been paying for. I do not accept the contention put forward by the Government that there will still be sufficient private beds. I do not believe that that will be so. Nor do I believe that BUPA or any of the other schemes will be able to provide the hospitals and nursing homes that are needed in time to compensate, first of all, for the 1,000 beds to be phased out in the early stages, and then for the full complement of 4,000 beds to be phased out within the next two years.
That figure of 3¼ million people does not represent just the white-collar workers, and they are not people with a lot of money. They are the people who have chosen, perhaps instead of buying a car or even new clothes, to put money aside year by year in the hope and expectation that through these organisations they will be able to have some privacy when they are ill. We do not all want privacy, but in this day and age those of us who are getting older may not like the clatter and banging that is a normal occurrence in a big ward.
I was a member of the Magistrates' Association, which had thousands of members of all shades of creed, denomination and political belief who were members of BUPA (I happen to know more about that organisation than the others) and willing to pay for the benefits they wanted. There is the very large trade union called NALGO. They, too, have an enormous
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membership in BUPA, and I suggest that in the very near future those people who have been paying not inconsiderable amounts of money for many years will not be able to get the privacy for which they have been paying. That is why I think this Bill is particularly mean in its effect on those people. I believe it is about time that the Government got their priorities right as regards the allocation of funds. Surely, the most important people—almost the paramount people on the list of priorities—should be those who are in ill health in our country. I would put it second only to education.
Secondly, I dislike this Bill because of the Socialist political philosophy of bringing everyone down—and I emphasise the word "down"—to being equal. But when we are told by the Secretary of the National Union of Public Employees that half a million people are waiting to enter hospital, and that because of the lack of finances, and finances only, nurses are finding that having finished their training there are no jobs for them—as my noble friend Lord O'Hagan told us—surely something has gone very radically wrong with the planning of the financial priorities of this Government.
Despite the fact that during our many debates here we have managed to make a few amendments to this Bill—for instance, making sure by our votes that X number of pay beds will be used as beds by National Health patients and will not be turned into offices; that the membership of this Board, which we have heard so much about and with which I have absolutely no sympathy at all (I doubt very much whether it will be of a high enough calibre) should be composed of seven members; and that the chairman should be a man of very high stature and calibre—I feel that nothing has been done to increase the welfare of the patients, nothing has been done to increase the welfare of the staff and nothing has been done to shorten the waiting lists. This is what we understood this Bill was intended to achieve, but if ever it is put into operation—and I hope it will not be—I do not think that any of the Government's priorities, or any of the promises which they have made as a result of the Goodman Proposals, will be fulfilled, and therefore I deplore this Bill.
Lord MESTON: My Lords, will the noble Baroness kindly tell us what is the cost of a pay bed? Secondly, and much more important, can she tell us whether BUPA are prepared to pay the full cost or merely a fraction?
4.33 p.m.
Lord TRANMIRE: My Lords, it is a great joy to me to follow my noble friend Lady Macleod. It is also a coincidence, because many years ago I followed with pride her husband Iain Macleod as Minister of Health. During that short period when I was Minister of Health, I developed an immense respect and affection for the National Health Service and those who worked in it. But I also had a determination, so far as it was in my power, to keep the National Health Service out of Party politics. I felt that it had enough battles of its own, without being involved in the political battle. There was the constant fight of successive Ministers with the Chancellor of the Exchequer to get adequate finance. There was the problem in the war against disease that you found in one sector that you were winning a victory, only to find a strong attack in another sector. Then there was the whole problem—which is probably the most difficult of all—of trying to humanise the Health Service and to attract to it the voluntary help, the local patriotism and the generosity of people, without which I do not believe any Health Service can survive. It is for those reasons, and because I felt that I wanted to keep the Health Service out of Party politics, that I have carefully abstained during all these debates from making any contribution at all. But I want this evening, as the Bill passes, just to say how much I deplore it.
Before 1948, we had two standards of hospital care. We had the voluntary hospitals which were desperately short of money and relying on charitable gifts, local patriotism and schemes such as the penny-a-week scheme, but they were good hospitals. Then we had the local authority hospitals which had the aura and atmosphere of the Poor Law. During the war, it was the unanimous view of the Coalition Government that that system should be swept away, and that there should be a comprehensive Health Service. With the war over, the Coalition Government disappeared and Labour came to
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power. Let it be said to his honour, that Aneurin Bevan loyally accepted the decision of the Coalition Government. The noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, has robbed me of my best quotation and I am grateful to him for it, but let me just go on with what Aneurin Bevan said later on that same day. He said:
"But while we have inadequate hospital facilities, and while rebuilding is postponed, it inevitably happens that some people will want to buy something more than the general health service is providing. If we do not permit fees in hospitals, we will lose many specialists from the public hospitals for they will go to nursing homes"[Official Report, Commons, 30/4/46; col. 57.],
and I would add—these are my words and not Aneurin Bevan's—and abroad.
I must say that when I was Minister I found that there was a good deal wrong with the National Health Service. There was a tripartite division, which meant that medical time and valuable medical brain power were wasted far too much in committees, and I am afraid that even under the new dispensation it still is. I found, as we have all found, that somehow the nation is not paying enough for health. I remember going up to Aneurin Bevan, when I was Minister, and saying "You have given me a very defective machine", and I remember his reply. He said "Yes. I only got halfway through my work. I wanted to make a really unified service and bring in all the medical services". I do not agree with his view, but I want the House to realise that what Aneurin Bevan was trying for was a unified Health Service, because he believed that that was right. No doubt, he wanted to have enough money from his Chancellor to make that possible.
I fear that this Bill will gravely weaken the National Health Service, because once pay beds are removed from National Health Service hospitals consultants will be attracted more and more away from the National Health Service and towards private hospitals and nursing homes. If those are affected by Part III of this Bill, then let this noble House realise that the result will be to draw consultants, and indeed patients, abroad to Eire and other countries, rather than here. That is the warning to me.
If perhaps I may make one further point, I have attended a good many of the debates—although I am afraid that because of my age I escaped the all-night sitting—and I do not believe that this

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House realises the difference between the problem of London and the large cities, where a great many private hospitals, clinics and nursing homes are available, and that of rural England where there are large distances to be covered, with a much lighter population per mile, or shall I say hectare? As a result a different system exists. In each National Health Service hospital a certain number of private beds are set aside because there is no other alternative accommodation. Let me make the position quite clear because I know what happens in rural England. Emergencies go into either a private or a public bed, because they have complete priority. However, the private bed enables those people to whom time is a factor in their business to buy earlier treatment, and when this facility disappears great hardship will be created for very many people. I hope that the Health Services Board will take that point further into consideration.
Finally, I believe that this is a very sad day for those who take pride in the National Health Service, for there was another course open. This Bill is so untimely. Hospital beds are being closed. There are long waiting lists because hospitals cannot be staffed as a result of financial stringency in the National Health Service. This additional wound is grievous to the National Health Service, especially since there was such an easy way out that would have avoided all Party political controversy. The solution would have been to put this matter before the Royal Commission and let them make a considered judgment. That solution the Government have declined. For that this country will never forgive them.
4.45 p.m.
Lord HARVINGTON: My Lords, first may I thank the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, for correcting what he said at col. 1433 yesterday afternoon when I questioned him about the 75 and the 100 beds. I feel, as must all your Lordships, that there is a spirit of sadness about the Chamber this afternoon, a spirit so thick that it could almost be cut with a knife. That is because we are doing something today which we know we shall regret most profoundly if we do not have an opportunity, in good enough time, to correct the mistakes which we are making. Yesterday the noble Lord, Lord Hill of
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Luton, stated so well the position regarding the disclaimed or private hospitals that it would be superfluous of me to try to improve upon it. Therefore noble Lords understand their position in relation to this Bill.
If your Lordships will forgive me for speaking of my own experience, I have spent 20 years in the administration of just such a hospital, either as chairman of the board of management, or as trustee, or in some capacity of that kind. I am simply horrified that Part III of the Bill seeks in the long run—if we accept, as most of us do, that the Bill does not further the cause of national health but is a Socialistic measure—to scrub out the private practice of consultants in this country. It is in this rather mean and underhanded way that the Government have gone about it. It was not contained in the Manifesto; it was not even recommended by the noble Lord, Lord Goodman.
The smallest alteration, and I really mean small—not the addition of a new operating theatre but quite tiny alterations to any private hospital which is over the specified number of 100 beds in London and 75 beds in the country—must be notified to the Board and permission must be obtained. The Board can refuse its permission if it thinks that a National Health Service hospital is going to suffer as a result, thus taking away the last chance the private person and also the consultant have of doing what they were told should be their right by the father of the National Health Service. That is what I most deeply regret about the whole of the Bill. It is a bad Bill and I hope that things will so work out that one day, before it is too late, we shall have the opportunity to correct it.
4.47 p.m.
Lord GRAY: My Lords, if I were to cite one area of the Bill which gives me particular cause for concern it is its potential to affect our great teaching hospitals. However, it is not to make a speech of a general character that I rise this afternoon. I am very conscious, in the wake of so many significant contributions, that when I speak to a detailed and narrow point I am going to strike a somewhat thinner and less interesting note than has been struck in the speeches which we have already heard.

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It is not unusual during the course of the passage of a Bill through this House that points arise or are brought to notice during its later stages. Last evening I raised verbally with the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, a point that concerned me in Clause 12. Subsequently during the course of last evening I wrote to the noble Lord on another point connected with the same clause. The first point, that which I raised verbally, is potentially a point of considerable importance. The other is of less importance and more of a purely drafting nature. In the last two days I have fallen victim, and perhaps I am not the only victim, to the concertinaed timetable for the Bill in this House. I have fallen victim in part, perhaps, through a lack of aggression on my own part and because I did not wish wantonly to bring before your Lordships Amendments for debate when the Government before this afternoon could perhaps have reassured me that my fears were groundless. I intervene now lest perchance one part of the Bill should fall victim by default.
The points which I raised last night and to which I wish to return this afternoon concern Clause 12 of the Bill and are to be found on pages 14 and 15. The point of significance—that is, the point that I mentioned last night—relates to the use of the word "premises" which occurs some nine times in Clause 12 (2) and which occurs once or twice elsewhere in the Bill. As I read and understand the word, it could be interpreted as referring not merely to a single premises within one self-contained boundary, albeit that there might be different buildings going to make up the premises, but it could equally be interpreted as referring to a multiplicity of premises within separate boundaries geographically separate one from another.
If that interpretation, which I am certain—and I have been assured—is contrary to the Government's intention, is possible, then it would have a most unfortunate bearing upon words which my noble friends have sought on previous occasions to amend within this clause; namely, those words which cite the number of beds which are to be the criteria then we are faced with questions of authorisation concerning controlled works and controlled extensions. If the interpretation could be wider than I believe is intended, I think it is self-evident that the effect
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would be considerable and disastrous.
When the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, replied to me last evening, I thought then, and on reading Hansard I still feel, that his answer—and I intend no discourtesy—was not directed precisely to the point which I was making. There are obviously two separate instances where my concern could arise. One would concern the group of hospitals under one management which are geographically separately situated in different parts of the metropolis or in different parts of an area outwith the metropolis. Or, if a computation is to be based upon a number of premises when considering the number of beds to be provided, it could relate to separate, unrelated, individual establishments.
I think I have said enough to make my fears clear—perhaps too much—but before sitting down I should like to bring forward the point which I raised in writing with the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell. It related to line 8 on page 15, where we find paragraph (b). It strikes me that this paragraph is miswritten. I intend no disrespect to the draftsman, but I believe he has left out certain words. At present it reads:
"To extend or adapt works used in conjunction with the controlled premises".
I fail to see how "works"—that is, works of construction—can be used in conjunction with operative controlled premises. I should have thought—and I realise that I should not draft on my feet—that someone has accidentally omitted the words, "designed to be". That is a very small point and I hope it has not detracted from the major, and I think considerable, question of concern which I have placed before your Lordships.
Before I sit down, it would be churlish of me not to acknowledge the help and courtesy which I have received from the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, during the last few hours. I want also to express my thanks to his team in that direction. Having done that, it would be singularly inappropriate not to acknowledge my thanks to my noble friend Lady Young and her colleagues, not only for the way in which they have conducted the Bill from this side of the House but for the help which they have given me.
4.55 p.m.
Lord SEGAL: My Lords, if the House with its customary indulgence will forgive a personal note, I should like to say that in the greater part of a lifetime, now over more than 50 years, during which I have been a member of the Labour Party, I have always been accorded the greatest degree of toleration and understanding on certain issues where I have found myself slightly at variance with Party policy. In my opinion it is symbolical of the greatness of our Party that it is able to embrace within its ranks members of all shades of opinion who do not always necessarily toe the line in accord with Party policy, and I rise with the very greatest reluctance during the closing stages of this Bill to express, perhaps as one lone voice from these Benches, my own sadness at its passing. I have refrained from participating in any of the stages until now. I abstained on the Divisions because I have always felt that a cast-iron majority has no need of one extra vote to carry its weight, nor of one extra voice to add to the expert body of opinion which has been able to express itself on medical lines and, as I firmly believe, entirely in the interests of the patients.
May I then, with the greatest possible reluctance, say that I deplore perhaps more than anything else about this Bill the Government's intention to separate private medicine from National Health medicine. To me the two ought to be inseparable. I regard them—I have not always done so, but of late years I have come to regard them—as a case of Siamese twins, almost a perfect example of symbiosis. In my view, to effect their separation is to perform an operation which is fraught with the gravest dangers to both sides. I would always like to hold the view that the Government might have been wiser to bend their efforts towards bringing them closer together, so that they could not only share their common circulation, but be able to nourish, feed and sustain each other, rather than submit them to this enforced surgical separation which might run the risk of leaving them gravely enfeebled and in a more precarious state of health than if they were left alone. I feel that the Government are embarking on a course where dangers that we are afraid of now may even become intensified as the years go on.
It is on record, as a matter of interest, that the survival incidence of Siamese twins has lasted in one instance for as
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long as 62 years, which, according to my impression, is probably longer than the lifetime of this Bill. I can only express the hope that my own fears of the harm that this Bill may cause, not only to the medical profession, not only to the workers in our magnificent hospitals, but also the harm which it may cause in the last resort to the patient himself may be unrealised, and that in the long run the wisdom, the common sense, the understanding and the dedication of all the parties involved in the working of the National Health Service will combine to triumph in the end.
5 p.m.
Lord HARMAR-NICHOLLS: My Lords, I hope that it will not be any embarrassment, however small, to the noble Lord, Lord Segal, when I say that I think that he has just exemplified the highest level of public life in this country. He has just shown that we still have that high attribute which I always thought was the strength of our system, of being able to be a loyal Party man and, at the same time, retain one's individualism and one's honest convictions even when temporarily they may be in conflict with the leaders of one's own Party. I congratulate him upon it, and I think he has set an example that people who follow, and those of us who are here now, ought to take up on many occasions. I hope that that is no embarrassment to the noble Lord, Lord Segal, who is a friend of mine outside this House. What he has just said from those Benches is in keeping with the sort of character he has shown to me in his private capacity.
I apologise for trying to jump the gun an hour ago. I did not know there was a list of speakers on the Bill passing. In this House sometimes there is a list and sometimes not; you do not know where you are. In the other place—and the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack will know this—unless you jump up at the earliest stage you do not get called at a later stage, and so one is perhaps still remembering that sort of experience. I apologise to noble Lords if I inadvertently conflicted with what is a very excellent convention of knowing where you are.
I merely want to say what has already been so well said by my noble friend Lord

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Tranmire. This is a bad Bill, and it is a bad Bill because it brings the National Health Service into the cockpit of Party politics. This is bad. I believe that Defence, foreign policy, education, and the Health Service should be matters which are outside the normal conflict of Party politics. They are matters which cover everything and all attitudes, and they ought not to be there at all. To some extent the National Health Service has been outside it for a good number of years. This Bill brings it back again into Party politics, and that is bad.
I do not mean that in a general sense. What I mean about bringing it back into Party politics is that this Bill which I have in my hand, and which will obviously become an Act, has left so much in the hands of the Secretary of State that people who want to do things within what is permitted within this Bill know that at the end of the day they will be dependent on the views of the Secretary of State. My noble friend congratulated the Government on accepting a certain Amendment which has given more power to the Secretary of State, and that was better than not having that appeal court there at all. But noble Lords will recognise that that brings an important part of the application of this Bill, if it becomes an Act, within the orbit and the views of some individual. Could they deny that if one wanted to do something on the private side of this Bill, they would get different treatment from the right honourable lady Mrs. Barbara Castle, if she were Secretary of State, than from my noble friend Lady Young, if she were Secretary of State? It is clear from the honestly held convictions of both of those ladies that their views, as a final court of appeal, would be quite different.
The uncertainty at a very important time when you are trying to organise a new hospital, which has cost a lot of money, time and energy in getting it properly equipped, is dependent upon the will of the person. So in legislating that the Secretary of State, whoever it is, has the final word brings the matter within the cockpit of Party politics, because the Secretary of State happens to be a Party politician. I believe that the uncertainty as to whether sympathy will be with you will injure the implementation of an important section of this Bill because of the uncertainty of Party politics. I hope
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that the situation will not develop on those vicious lines, but my fear is that it might.
Your Lordships may remember that I intervened for one minute when one of the Amendments was being discussed just prior to this debate. We could not get from the Government an undertaking that a temporary approval for the extension of one of these matters would have certainty for even three years. They will not guarantee even three years of a scheme that is to cost money and a lot of thought to put into operation. We were told by the noble Baroness in the exchanges in this House that the Government would like any future Secretary of State to be generous in giving at least three years or more. But those of us who have been in politics long enough—and I speak only as a Parliamentarian in this sense and not from a business context—know that what we say in debates in this House does not matter at all. What matters, when it is implemented, is what is in the Act.
It is not right that what is said in the course of debate should be taken into account. It is our duty to put words in the Bill which are clear and cannot be contested and which will put into effect what we want done. Time and time again the courts have made it perfectly clear that they cannot be responsible for interpreting an Act other than on the words that are in the Act. To allow ourselves to be fobbed off, if I may use that term, by saying that what has been said here may well be taken into account, means nothing at all. The only words in this Bill are words which make it very discouraging for anybody who may want a private hospital or private health service running alongside the National Health Service.
I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Hill of Luton, was absolutely right in his normal common sense approach to this question. Why should there be any restriction at all as to what private hospital or health service should run alongside the National Health Service? Why should any fear be put in the mind of anybody who may want to extend that second tier of health by having the Bill say that there might be some doubt as to whether one can get it or, having got it, as to how long one can pursue it. I

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believe that for all of those reasons this Bill brings something back into the cockpit of Party politics that ought not to be there.
I did not altogether agree with the conclusion of the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, although what he said was absolutely right. I do not think the fear is that this will prevent people from entering into the private health service part of this Bill. My fear is that it may well drive them out of the country completely. This was a point made by my noble friend Lord Tranmire. I do not know whether your Lordships are aware of it, but when there was a suggestion in another field that a similar Bill to this would be brought in which would end the public school system in this country, it did not mean that the public school system would end. It was made known in many quarters that if that Bill to end the public school system had been operated in the same way as this Bill would be operated, plans were afoot for those public schools to go to Ireland. You would not have stopped parents who wanted their children to go to that sort of school from sending them there because the school was not domiciled in this country any more but was in Ireland. The only effect of that would have been, not that you were ending the public school system; you would be driving that service, which has so much to offer to the country, to another country, which would have all the benefits.
That is what I fear, as a consequence of this Bill, may well happen to our private hospital service. Those who want to be a member of BUPA, as my noble friend Lady Macleod said, and who truly want to spend their money on preserving their health, and that of their family rather than on other things, will go elsewhere if they cannot get the sort of hospital services they want in this country, and the services are set up in another country, be it Ireland or anywhere else, they will go there. The only effect will be that, instead of this country being one of the leading centres for health and hospital services generally, that drive and that impetus will be in another country altogether.
Nor should your Lordships be bamboozled by all this talk about the Goodman Proposals. They are very good; the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, is one of the best ambassadors in the world
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at trying to arrive at a consensus. Nevertheless, his proposals are only proposals and once the Bill becomes an Act they will remain merely words, no matter what has been said about them and what half-promises have been given. This measure will be enacted and in five or 10 years from now the Goodman Proposals will be history. The provisions will be operated according to the Act and the noble Lord's proposals are not written into it. Therefore, let us not persuade ourselves that simply because sensible points have been made by Lord Goodman and sensible answers have been given by he noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, and the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, that automatically means that they can replace what is in the Bill. In other words, do not let us be side-tracked by what has been said about the Goodman Proposals. What is in the Bill is what matters.
In my view, the Bill can only result in what was an all-embracing National Health Service centred in this country becoming not so all-embracing because a good part of it will be driven abroad. In this connection, I want to kill a myth, one accepted by my noble friends as much as by noble Lords opposite. Mr. Aneurin Bevan and the Labour Party did not invent a free National Health Service. It is a myth to think that the Service, which we all praise today, began in 1946 when the Labour Government came to power. My father was a miner, for what that is worth; to me it was worth a lot because he was a great father; and the whole of my life I lived in the industrial Midlands of England. The Nicholls family never paid a doctor's bill. When my brothers and I were young my parents paid one penny a week to the Free Gardeners Friendly Society and that society operated precisely in the way the NHS operates today; it gave us a free health service and, later on, we paid threepence a month to one of the local works and that gave us free hospital service. One had to get a certificate but that was invariably given and that service worked in the way the NHS works today. The Nicholls family was typical of most families in the country and for our one penny to the Free Gardeners Society and threepence to a local works we received health and hospital services equivalent to those now offered in the NHS, and in some instances better because the system was not surrounded by bureaucracy.

1501
As my noble friend Lord Tranmire said, those of us who fought the 1945 Election know only too well that the introduction of the NHS was a coalition idea accepted by us all, underwritten in a broadcast by Mr. Winston Churchill as he then was. It so happened that the Labour Party were elected to government and implemented the idea. Those who fought the 1945 Election worked hard to try to get it implemented, not by setting up this nationalised bureaucracy but by having it implemented through the various friendly societies which had the equipment and organisation to do it, and I believe they would have done it more cheaply and efficiently. I want to kill the idea that those of us who criticise the Bill because it comes from a Labour Government are criticising those who invented and brought about the free Health Service. They did not invent it. It was a logical next step from a free Health Service that already existed and from which my family and millions of others throughout the country benefited.
I have spoken for rather longer than I had expected. I feel strongly about these matters and I am anxious to point out that the Bill will undermine something which is very precious to this country. It involves something much more dangerous than the aspects that have been raised in the debates we have had in your Lordships' House. Those debates have been interesting, but they do not matter. What matters more is the fact that the health and facilities offered to our children will be much weakened as a consequence of the Bill. I hope that future Secretaries of State, who are given powers under the Bill and on whom much of the authority will rest as a result of it, will take into account the general propositions I have been putting. I want them to realise that they are not carrying on as the inventors of an idea but are merely the trustees of a Health Service which grew and evolved and which was in existence before the 1946 Labour Government and before the 1935 Tory Government. To break away from that on the Party political partisan grounds embodied in the Bill is a sad thing to be doing. If the power of the Secretary of State can mitigate those dangers, that will be all to the good. I may have taken a few minutes longer over my speech than noble Lords would have wished, but I
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trust that my remarks will have served their purpose.
5.16 p.m.
Lord HILL of LUTON: My Lords, I hope the House will forgive me if I make a brief intervention. The need to attend a funeral this afternoon prevented me from being here for the whole of the debate and was the reason why I did not put my name down to speak. However, I have attended the whole of the Committee and Report stages of the Bill. It must be said that the debates have been conducted at an exceedingly high level; by the noble Baroness, Lady Young, with astonishing clarity, courtesy and persistence and by the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, with his customary courtesy and tremedous care and thought. I am particularly grateful to him, although he may not regard it as true gratitude, for never pretending that the Bill was anything but a political exercise to serve a particular non-medical purpose.
Confronted with a Bill of this kind, it is reasonable to ask; what does it do for the National Health Service? That is a fair question. Does it make more easily available the skilled services of consultants? It does nothing of the kind. In fact, it may do the opposite. It will certainly involve more time being spent journeying between hospitals and nursing homes. Let us bear in mind that from next month under the EEC provisions it will be possible for doctors in this country, without re-qualification, as of right to move within the Community and set up in practice in other countries. I hope they will not do that. Like most noble Lords, I would not leave this country for another, whatever happened. Nevertheless, it might encourage a drain which would have a damaging effect on the quality of the consultant and specialist services.
Secondly, will the Bill ensure that pay beds are not closed before alternative private provision is available? Lord Wells-Pestell has said time and again that this is not an exercise to destroy private practice, and I believe him to mean that. But if private beds are closed before alternative accommodation has been established, that will reduce the quantity of bed service available. If one looks at the small print of the Bill one sees that

1503
12 months after it comes into operation the Board must produce proposals for the closure of private facilities in part or in whole. It takes into account the alternative provision, but 12 months after it comes into operation there must be a reduction, even though there has been no time to establish alternative facilities. Thirdly, one would have thought, bearing in mind the shortage of hosiptal beds in so many parts of the country, that at least there would have been an assurance that the beds and bedrooms that are closed will be available automatically for NHS patients.
There may be some weakness in the Amendment in using the word "resident", but one would have expected at least as a gain from an otherwise unfortunate Bill that the beds freed from private patients would automatically be made available for public patients. Not a bit of it. It is not so provided, and the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, did not feel able to do other than give us a debating reply about the wording of the Amendment. This is a political exercise and nothing else. It is making it less likely that the people who want to buy privacy will be able to get it. Is it a wicked thing for a man whose wife is going into hospital to want to buy privacy for her either directly or through insurance? It is aimed at that kind of thing. People can spend their money in scores of other ways but not in this way. I regard this as a rather shabby, narrow Bill with a wholly political purpose, with no benefit whatsoever for the National Health Service and reasonable potential for damage to the National Health Service, not only to private patients but for patients in the general wards of the National Health Service.
5.22 p.m.
Lord SANDYS: My Lords, we have had a long and, I hope, fruitful debate. The first thing I should like to do is to thank my noble friends on this side of the House—and I know that my noble friend Lady Young will wish to join me in this—and all those who have participated throughout the long course of the debates. Your Lordships will be aware that the Bill was introduced on 21st October. It is something of an achievement that we have reached the end of this very substantial Bill in such a short time in the face of a
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Parliamentary programme of almost unique difficulty and conflict. I should like to say to the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, and the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, that in their speeches and replies, in handling a number of questions which were directed to them outside this Chamber, they have done as much as they possibly could in the circumstances. We are most grateful to them fortheir courtesy, knowing full well that both of them have laboured under disabilities of colds and toothache and other things in the course of these past weeks.
My Lords, this does not in any way affect our views on the Bill, but it is a fact that the way in which we conduct our business in your Lordships' House by the use of the usual channels in enabling affairs to progress is a very important factor. It is certainly not our role, as Her Majesty's Opposition, to enable the Government to achieve one clause in this Bill, but I should like to stand back for a moment and look at the Bill in the context of the scene as it is this afternoon. I entered the Library this morning and looked at a paper, and a most alarming headline confronted me. It read:
"Big London Hospital Cut-back"—
and it went on:
"A London health region is planning to axe 4,600 beds in an attempt to save nearly £50 million."
Quite rightly, my noble friend Lord O'Hagan suggested to your Lordships that in listening to this debate this afternoon, he was attending a funeral.
This is a particularly sad day for the National Health Service, not only in the context of the Government's Third Reading of the Bill but on the background of cuts in a service which we all wish to prosper. How right my noble friend was when he referred to the situation of nurses. I think he quoted the figure of 2,300 nurses unemployed last year, which has risen to no less than 6,500 this year. This is an alarming situation, a background against which the Government are pursuing relentlessly their intention to phase out a further 1,000 beds in the private sector. There is no doubt that the question of staff is most intimately tied up with the proposals under the Bill, and I totally disagree with what the Government have said on the matter of no detriment, which we have dealt with in great detail.

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My Lords, I shall make my remarks very brief. Many of your Lordships have addressed yourselves to important speeches, and this will be among the briefest, but I should like to make a few remarks. I believe that in quoting the debates held in 1946, the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, did the House a great service. It was very important, too, to hear from another doctor, the noble Lord, Lord Segal, about the situation as he saw it in the separation of the private sector from the National Health Service. As a doctor, he would speak with great professional knowledge on a subject about which I know nothing; that is, symbiosis. This word has been used once or twice in your Lordships' House and I understand it means "one feeding upon another".
Two medical practitioners of great eminence were followed by the noble Lord, Lord Platt, whose experience in the particular field of medical education is unrivalled in this House. He brought forward one very important factor on which I addressed your Lordships, both on Committee and on Report; that is, the question of medical education and also research. I quoted the Todd Report and went into great detail. I believe that this is of the first importance, and further, that the damage being done to medical education in this country through the bringing into force of this Bill will be very substantial. We have been accused of exaggeration; we totally deny it. We have behind us many experts in the medical profession. The very important speech of the noble Lord, Lord Platt, this afternoon bore this out to a great extent.
There is one further factor, and that is the matter of research, on which he addressed your Lordships, and I feel that it would be unnecessarily repetitious to return to the matter of the gains brought to research through the very important postgraduate school at Hammersmith. In my researches I went back to 29th July 1975, when the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, may remember that he answered a Question set down by my noble friend Lord Cottesloe. My noble friend sought from the Government information on the rebuilding of that very important hospital, and at that time, July 1975, the Government were unable to give any encouragement. What can we hope today, after a period of 14 or 15 months has
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elapsed with the further economic ills which beset this country?
I believe also that my noble friend Lord Tranmire brought in a very important element. If I may be allowed to say so, as a former Minister he brings unique experience to your Lordships' House as, indeed, he did to another place. He contrasted the needs of rural areas with the needs of London, and I am certain that as the Bill makes progress over the coming months it will certainly do rural hospitals a great deal of damage.
I will not detain your Lordships very long except to remind you of one final matter—the question of public accountability. I regret particularly that the Government, having enforced a closure of a number of beds, would not agree that the Board should give its reasons. This is absolutely crucial. The present Government have shown a tendency to pass public affairs over to a public board and a chairman. They disqualify or disallow the possibility of the Secretary of State of the Department concerned being answerable for the Board in the House of Commons. This is a matter of the greatest public importance as a principle. It relates particularly to the present Bill, but it follows a very wide coverage in other areas, notably the Post Office and other public Corporations. This is a black day, my Lords. I should be wearing a black tie on this occasion. However, I feel that, in giving this Bill a Third Reading, your Lordships have expressed their particular sorrow over what the Government have done.
5.31 p.m.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, it is a very long time since I have listened to so much pessimism coming from a group of people who are blessed with a great deal more intelligence than have a good many people one meets outside your Lordships' House.
A Noble Lord: Is it hereditary, my Lords?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, if the noble Lord really wants me to answer that, I will, but intelligence, like knowledge, is not the monopoly of any one particular group in our society, although, when I listened to the noble Lord, Lord Platt, I thought that the monopoly of

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intelligence rested only with the medical profession.
It has been unusual until these last few weeks to have so many speakers on Third Reading or, to be more precise, on the Question That this Bill do now pass. It has become a habit since September 27th. May I give due warning that it has not passed unnoticed by Members of my Party? No doubt there will come a day when we shall change places
Several Noble Lords: Hear, hear!
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: Oh yes, my Lords! I should like to see the Party opposite try to cope with the difficulties that we are in today.
A Noble Lord: Who made them, my Lords?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, if the noble Lord really wants to know who made them, we can choose a time and I will tell him. However, let me go on. This device has not passed unnoticed and I think I can promise that we shall use it to great advantage if we are ever in a position to do so. Having said that, I should like to take the opportunity of thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Young, for her conduct of the Bill from her side of the Chamber. There were times when, like me, she got a bit warm under the collar and it is only right that she should do so. However—and I have said this many times before, and I think that the noble Baroness knows that I mean it—I always find it a joy to be opposite her. She always presents a challenge and a test. She knows. She has done her homework and, in consequence, when I find myself up against her, I have to do mine as well. Perhaps I cannot pay her any greater compliment than that. I can take a chance on some others.
I should also like on behalf of myself and my colleague Lady Stedman, who is associated with me in my remarks to the noble Baroness, Lady Young, to thank the noble Lord, Lord Sandys, the noble Viscount, Lord Long, and the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan. I am probably doing a very dangerous thing because I am missing people out and I shall probably fall foul of somebody, but the noble
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Lords have made a tremendous contribution and we are grateful for it.
There have been 13 speakers who have been totally—and I feel that that is the right phrase—against this Bill. I cannot hope to answer all their questions, nor would I if I could, because nothing has been said by any speaker this afternoon that was not said time and again on Second Reading, in Committee and on Report. There is no point in my trying to answer because the bulk of the minds of noble Lords opposite are closed to anything I may say. I realise that there is no possibility of my being able to give them a satisfactory answer or of convincing them that some of their arguments are wrong.
I have been thinking of a suitable way to comment on something said by the noble Lord, Lord Harmar-Nicholls. I thought of the word "audacious". I thought of the phrase, "the biggest piece of cheek I have come across for some con-desirable time". He had the audacity to stand tip in your Lordships' House and say that what the Bill has done is to bring the National Health Service into the cockpit of politics. Had there been no Labour Government just after the war, there would have been no National Health Service. The noble Lord's Party voted against it time and again and, if the noble Lord does not accept that, let him look at Hansard for the period in question. I accept that during the war there was a Coalition Government and a Beveridge Committee and that a good many things came from both. However, from 1945 onwards, when the blueprint of the National Health Service was drawn up and presented to Parliament, the Conservative Party voted against it. As I said some time ago in your Lordships House—
Lord TRANMIRE: My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Lord will allow me to intervene.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, will allow the noble Lord to intervene, but I shall not give way to anybody else.
Lord TRANMIRE: My Lords, does the noble Lord recollect that on the Second Reading of the National Health Service Bill the Conservatives opposed merely the taking of the private money

1509
from the voluntary hospitals and that the Amendment was limited to that? That was the vote that was taken.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I think that we might perhaps both do well to read Hansard for that particular period. I gave way to the noble Lord because we on this side of the House pay tribute to the way in which the noble Lord fought hard when he was a Minister to get money for the National Health Service. I believe that he may have antagonised his own side to his own ultimate disadvantage by doing so. I want to go on record as paying tribute to the way that the noble Lord fought for the National Health Service.
As I said, however, the noble Lord, Lord Harmar-Nicholls, having had very grave reservations about the National Health Service when it came into being, has the further cheek to appear in this House today as its champion. The two do not go together.
Lord HARMAR-NICHOLLS: My Lords—
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I did not interrupt anybody while they were speaking and I ask noble Lords to afford me the same courtesy. The object of the Bill is to separate the private sector from the National Health Service. The divide between us is so deep that there is no meeting point at all. Therefore, as I said, it is problematical whether it is worth while making any serious comments. The noble Baroness referred to the intransigence of the Government. I do not think that she used that word, but that was precisely what she meant. We have been intransigent.
We think that this Bill is a good Bill. We examined it in great detail and it presented in terms of clauses precisely what we wanted. If we believe in something which we think is right and it is worded in the way we want it, why should we give way on matters to which we are totally opposed? We know that the Conservative Party in this House, with its built-in majority, can play ducks and drakes with any Labour Government, and it does not hesitate to do so. What chance did this Party have with the Industrial Relations Act? We knew that we could not win a single Amendment. What
1510
chance did this Party—now in Government—have with the Local Government Act? None at all! What chance did this Party—now the Government—have with the legislation relating to the National Health Service reorganisation? So I say to noble Lords opposite, do not appear righteous today about the intransigence of the Government. The Party opposite, with its built-in majority, can always defeat the Labour Party in your Lordships' House, when the Labour Party is in Government, and it never hesitates to do so.
I do not want to say what I have said so many times about the Goodman proposals and the purpose of those proposals. As I said, the purpose was to try to heal a growing breach between the medical profession and the Government, and those proposals, whether or not noble Lords opposite like it, will, we believe, achieve something, and achieve something that is really worth while. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Platt, as well as others, asked, what will it achieve? We believe that it will achieve a good deal. We believe that it will get rid of some of the abuses in the National Health Service today. We have no quarrel at all with people who want privacy and who want to buy that privacy. None whatever. But we say that they must do it outside the National Health Service, in the private sector.
Do not let us shut our eyes to the fact that there is a good deal of abuse; and I am referring not only to queue-jumping, but also to privilege generally. Noble Lords opposite know better than anybody that money will buy anything and everything, and this is something that we are pledged, and have been pledged for years, to stop in the National Health Service. We believe—we may be mistaken, but time will tell—that the gloom of the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, will be dispelled within the foreseeable future. I say this because I think that members of the medical profession will come to see that the private sector will turn out to be a very good thing for them and that the National Health Service, under its new régime, will also prove to be very beneficial to the people of this country.
I believe that one noble Lord asked what support is there for this measure. There is no support at all from the other side of this Chamber, nor from the supporters of the Conservative Party.

1511
I believe that there may be some support for it among the several millions of people who vote Liberal in this country. But there are millions of people in this country, in the Labour Party and in the trade union movement—and they do number millions—who attach considerable importance to it.
Here I wish to address my remarks particularly to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Fawley—I had a go at him once before on this—and to the noble Lord, Lord Platt. I do not think that I have to do it quite so much to the noble Lord, Lord Hill of Luton, whom I think is a little ambivalent towards me. I think he likes only half of me because he uses only half my name. I do not know what the "Wells" side has done to him. But I want to say to noble Lords who are members of the medical profession that they could do much to improve the relationship between the Government and the medical profession if they were not so aggressive in their outlook, and if they would work towards looking at this matter in a positive way, rather than talking about difficulties, taking action, and so on. I would urge—I say this very sincerely—members of the medical profession who are Members of your Lordships' House to take a much more positive view.
The noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, said that this is the end of an historic compromise. He is absolutely right—but he often is. It is his emphasis that is so often wrong. He asked, how will this Bill help? He wanted to know about loss of income from private beds. I have said before, and I say again, that there will be very little loss so far as the 1,000 beds are concerned because they are so grossly underused that they produce little or nothing. No doubt there will be a loss on the remainder when they are finally phased out. But many times I have tried to remind your Lordships of Clause 8, and there is some reason to believe that under this clause we shall recoup a great deal of what Members opposite describe as loss. At least the losses will be cut down because eventually we shall not have paying patients who bilk the National Health Service, as so many of them do; who come into private beds, pay their physician, pay their surgeon and undertake to pay whatever the private bed costs, but then
1512
leave without doing so. We are involved in a very considerable expense every year trying to recover this money. Let me say, if it has never been said publicly before, that we have to write off quite substantial sums because we cannot recover them.
The noble Lord, Lord Platt, referred to the appalling ignorance of the Government. He talked about what he regarded as unsatisfactory replies. I am sure that he is absolutely right on this matter of unsatisfactory replies, because if I do not get the kind of reply I want I always regard it as being very unsatisfactory, and in politics it is found more than ever that when a person asks a question, if he does not then get the answer he wants he regards it as unsatisfactory. My very good friend the noble Baroness, Lady Ward of North Tyneside, is a classic example of this. It is only recently, after about two and a half years, that I have been able to get her to say, "I thank the noble Lord for his most satisfactory reply", and I look forward to the next occasion when I hear her say that.
One must bear in mind that people who do not get the kind of reply they want will always dismiss it as being unsatisfactory. It may well be that some of us on this side have fallen short of our responsibilities. It may well be that we have not always come up with what noble Lords opposite think is the fullest possible answer. I can only say that my noble friend Lady Stedman and I have given an awful lot of time to this matter, as I know people on the Bench opposite me have done, and we have tried to deal frankly and honestly with your Lordships' questions. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hill of Luton, who said at least that I made no bones about what the Bill is about. As a Socialist, it is something I have been looking forward to for years and, let me say, working for; and it gives me very great pleasure to feel that we are at last going to achieve this. I do not say that with any maliciousness at all but because I think it is right that the National Health Service should be able to provide a comprehensive service—and I know there are financial difficulties—to people in this country who want it, and that our waiting lists and our admissions into hospital should have one test and one test only, and that is of need and urgency, which is not the case today. I do not want to give examples of how one

1513
can by-pass this by going to a consultant and paying a fee. The noble Lord, Lord Platt, has admitted, as he admitted once before, that this is so in some instances.
The noble Baroness, Lady Macleod, made some reference to 3¼ million BUPA payers who will be denied the National Health Service pay beds. It is perfectly true that ultimately they will. This is what the Bill is all about: that if they want private medicine, with a private consultant and with a private bed, they must go into a private hospital. This is the whole point of BUPA. BUPA owns hospitals into which people go; and pay beds will be made available by such organisations as BUPA. When the noble Baroness expresses some anxiety as to whether BUPA and such organisations will be able to meet their responsibility, let me say here and now that there seems to be no evidence—no evidence at all—that the private sector is short of money. Many hospitals have been built and are used; many others are in the process of being built; and there are many others for which plans have been accepted by the responsible planning authorities. There is no evidence at the moment that they will not be able to meet the demand. I think that, again, it was the noble Lord, Lord Hill, who said that the size of the private sector will depend on demand. I think that is roughly what he said on one occasion. We have no quarrel with that at all, but we want to know what is going on. If they want to build hospitals of a particular size, they must be authorised. Below that size they can build what they like, but they have got to notify.
The noble Lord, Lord Tranmire, raised the question of the Royal Commission. He will forgive me if I do not go into that deeply again except to say this: we feel—and I have said this before—that the decisions to take away pay beds is a political one, and, as a political decision we accepted it and made it. Your Lordships may say that we are wrong about this, but we regard it as a political decision, and everyone listening to me now, on both sides of the Chamber, would accept that it is a political decision. It is one that we on this side, with certain exceptions, welcome, and it is one that noble Lords on the other side do not welcome; but it is a political decision. Why ask a Royal Commission to make what is, after all, a political decision?
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That is why we decided that we could not refer it to a Royal Commission.
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Gray, who wrote me a brief note last night about matters, at the bottom of page 14 and the top of page 15, on the meaning of "premises". I saw him, I admit for a brief moment, with my advisers, and we came up today with an answer—an answer in which we said that the fears of the noble Lord, Lord Gray, were not necessary, that in our view there was no justification for his apprehension. We have had a further talk, and we have decided—because we, too, want to be absolutely right—that we shall take further advice of a legal nature on this, and before we met today I undertook to write to the noble Lord.
My Lords, I have spoken for 24 minutes, which is much longer than I wanted to, but your Lordships will understand that when one is trying to reply, however inadequately and superficially, to 13 speakers, that is less than two minutes per speaker. I believe—and I believe this most sincerely—that this Bill is right; that it is right that we should separate the private sector from the public sector. There has been a great deal of criticism of Part III but if you look at Part III dispassionately you will see that what we have done is to lay down certain conditions for notifications and authorisations. When you look at them I think you will see, if you can look at them dispassionately, that they are not such terrible things after all. In every community every local authority wants to know what is happening in the planning field and to give authorisation or not, as the case may be; and one really must know what is going on. It is nothing more than an extension of that: of giving liberties to do certain things below a certain bed occupancy, and saying that there must be authorisations if you want to go above it and notification if you keep below it. It is, I believe, perfectly reasonable.
As I say, my Lords, I suppose certainly more than half the noble Lords present today do not like this Bill. I hope to see it on the Statute Book, and I hope—because I think most of us, if not all of us, in your Lordships' Chamber consider that our outlook is democratic—that once it gets on the Statute Book we shall see what

1515
we can do to make it work. There is no reason why the private sector should be any worse off than it is at the present time—and I do not think it is badly off at the moment. I am expressing a personal opinion, but I think it may well be better off in the future. Once it is on the Statute Book, let us concentrate what resources we have, both in manpower and in time, and in money, on equipping the National Health Service so that it becomes the kind of Service which I believe certainly the noble Baroness, Lady Young, and her noble friends want to see, because as far as that is concerned I do not think there is anything between us at all.
On Question, Bill passed, and returned to the Commons.

EDUCATION BILL
5.58 p.m.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: My Lords, I beg to move that the Commons Amendments and Reasons and Motion be now considered.
Moved, That the Commons Amendments and Reasons and Motion be now considered.—(Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

AMENDMENTS AND MOTION TO BE MOVED ON CONSIDERATION OF COMMONS REASONS FOR DISAGREEING TO CERTAIN OF THE LORDS AMENDMENTS
[References are to Bill (300) as first printed for the Lords. Commons Reasons are printed in italics.]

LORDS AMENDMENT
1 Clause 1, page 1, line 6, at beginning insert:
"Without prejudice to the general principle that pupils are to be educated in accordance with the wishes of their parents as provided for in section 76 of the Education Act 1944 and subject to the duty of local education authorities to secure provision of secondary schools sufficient in number, character and equipment to afford for all pupils opportunities for education, offering such variety of instruction and training as may be desirable in view of their different ages, abilities and aptitudes as provided for in section 8 of the Education Act 1944 and"
The Commons disagreed to this Amendment for the following Reason:
2 Because the Commons consider that the words added by the Amendment are without operative effect.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist upon their Amendment No. 1, to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 2. This Amendment has been discussed at great length both here and in another place. Only last week the House of Commons spent 2½ hours on it, and then rejected it by a majority (large as things go now) of 16 votes. Up to date, we have rejected this Amendment on grounds which I shall come to in a moment, but we have now reached the last stage of consideration, and I must point out something I think noble Lords opposite have never denied, that the drafting will not do at all. What it says, in a most confusing way, is that local authorities, in carrying out their duties under Section 8, must have regard to Section 8. This is not very helpful, and we really cannot allow this sort of thing to get on to the Statute Book.
The Opposition's next step is not clear. Noble Lords will not wish to put nonsense on the Statute Book, and if I am asked to redraft the Amendment they can hardly expect me to accept because we reject the whole of the Amendment. Like the Commons, we consider it to be without operative effect. Secondly, in so far as the Amendment has any meaning, it adds nothing to the Bill which is to be construed, through the last clause, with the Education Acts. The reference to Section 8 is, as I have shown, tautological; the reference to Section 76 is not likely to make any difference to the way in which local authorities discharge their functions. In these debates we have heard much, and rightly about the rights of parents. This Amendment will in no way strengthen them since Section 76 is not affected by the Bill. I ask your Lordships not to insist on the Amendment.
Moved, That this House doth not insist on the said Amendment to which the Commons have disagreed for their Reason numbered 2.—(Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge.)
6.1 p.m.
Lord HACKING: My Lords, I rise with a certain amount of diffidence to intervene at this stage of the Bill but I have become increasingly concerned as this week has progressed upon how this

1517
House has been considering the Amendments in each of the Bills which have been returned to us by the other place. I should like, if I may, to pass a few observations directly related to this and to every Amendment now before us. I have become concerned because I have been reading the Parliament Acts of 1911 and 1949 and setting these against the pretty strong allegations made upon those of us who have not been happy about the Bills and who have displayed our unhappiness, when we thought it right (I certainly have voted with the Government and against the Government) by voting for Amendments in the Division Lobby. I have in mind such allegations against this House as "wrecking the Bill" which I think was an allegation made by the Secretary of State in the Commons, "mutilating Bills" and "challenging the elected Government".
This House has not the power, even if it had the intention, to do these things. The Parliament Acts simply do not permit us. All that the Parliament Acts—and it was a Labour Government who passed the last Parliament Act—allow us to do is to impose a minimum period of delay to enable the Commons to have more reflection. This delay is not for a year, not for six months or for any other general fixed period. Let us test it, if we may, upon this Bill. Let us see exactly where we stand on this Amendment upon this Bill.
If we insist on this Amendment and return the Bill with the Amendment still incorporated, we shall be deemed to have rejected the Bill within the meaning of Section 2(3) of the Parliament Act 1911. Then two critical dates come into play: the date when this Bill was sent in this Session to us by the Commons, which I am told by the Public Bill Office was July 22nd of this year; and the date when the Second Reading took place in the Commons, which I am told was on 4th February this year. It is not complicated. It becomes easy because the first date complies with the requirement that the Bill should be sent to us one month before the end of the Session. Indeed my calculation (if the date on my watch, of 18th November, is correct) is that the Bill was sent to us nearly four months ago.
Then we have only to turn to the second
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date—4th February 1976—and we know by turning to that date that the Commons are entitled to begin to invoke the Parliament Act on the next day, namely, 5th February, after the year has passed which, in fact, is a Saturday, so that they will have a frustrated wait until the following Monday, the 7th February, 1977. Having invoked the Parliament Act the Commons are entitled to process the whole Bill on one day and then to send it straight back here. It must be noted that this is precisely the procedure that the Commons followed on this Bill when they considered it earlier this week. Then, if it is a straight issue between the two Houses of Parliament, this House rejects it again and on its rejection it becomes law. Alternatively, we come to some agreement. The point is: either way the Commons without disruption of their legislation can have this Bill on the Statute Book on their own terms before March, as the old saying goes, "comes in like a lion" or certainly before it "goes out like a lamb".
Some may see this in terms of drama. It is not a drama. It is not dramatic, and it is not the stuff which should create a constitutional crisis. Anyway, how can the House of Lords be creating a constitutional crisis when it is acting within the Constitution? It seems to me that this House should not let any of these Amendments be withdrawn if we believe it right that they should be in the Bill. A great deal more could be said but the important thing is now to settle down; listen to the arguments and vote according to the merits. That is what I ask your Lordships to do now.
6.6 p.m.
Viscount ECCLES: My Lords, I hope that the noble Lord who has just spoken will not expect me to continue with the lecture on the Constitutional position. It would be better for the House if I returned to the Amendment itself. It is a very curious thing that the Government say that the Amendment is without operative effect; yet we pressed it and they resisted it stubbornly. There must be something in it beyond what is put on our Marshalled List. I agree that from the aspect of law it does not add anything new, because whether or not they are put into Clause 1 of the Bill, Sections 8 and 76

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would still be lurking in the recesses of the 1944 Act.
That is a fact. But life is rather different and this Amendment would, I think, in a broader sense have a salutary effect. Feeling is running high among parents that they should have a greater say in how their children are educated. Are their children well taught, or are they taught at all, the subjects which the parents think they should be taught? What effect will the reorganisation of secondary education have on the standards of teaching? Those are legitimate questions. Parents are entitled to ask them and, within the comprehensive system, to find the best school for their child. In my belief, this Amendment could be a definite help in making the comprehensive system more widely acceptable to parents and more easily workable by local education authorities. That is a view I venture to ask your Lordships to look at with some care.
My Lords, I begin by referring to what the Ministers themselves have said about this Amendment. The Government have not claimed that it would destroy the principle of the Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, on 6th October said, in col. 1303 of the Official Report:
"this is not a wrecking Amendment".
In similar style, the Secretary of State began her speech against the Amendment by saying that it was unnecessary. Sections 8 and 76 were kept alive by Clause 12 of this Bill. In other words, whether those sections are left in the background or are brought forward into Clause 1, parents will not have any new rights to opt out of the comprehensive system.
Therefore what was the problem? What is it that the Government consider the Amendment might do to upset their policy? In both Houses when it became clear that the Opposition were going to press this Amendment to a Division, Ministers changed their ground. The noble Lord, Lord Donaldson (at column 1322 of the Official Report) told us this:
"of course, the meaning in Sections 8 and 76 will be different after the passing of this Bill because something has been added to it".
What has been added to the meaning of these sections is the principle of non-selection as defined in Clause 1. We accept that because we did not vote
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against the Second Reading. It means that after the Bill becomes law, the scope for parents to make sure that their wishes are effective will be changed. It will be reduced in one direction—no more grammar schools, for instance—but it could be much increased in another, and used to make the comprehensive system work better. It is this latter possibility which gives the Amendment an important meaning.
Parents know and care more about education than they did. They will search out the comprehensives which teach well and offer courses in which their child is interested—not just at 6th form level, but all the way to the 6th form. Would they be wrong to believe that unless Section 76 is reaffirmed in the Bill, it will be more difficult to make known and respected their preference for one comprehensive school rather than another? We have to be clear about this. Whatever the Department or LEAs may do, parents are going to express their preference on educational grounds between comprehensive schools just as much as they will express their preference on grounds of religion or sex.
Parents, as well as the Secretary of State, have their suspicions and both need to be set at rest if this new system is to have a chance. Parents think that Clause 1 can be interpreted to deny them any right to express a preference between comprehensive schools. The Secretary of State, on the other hand, ended her case in another place against the Amendment with these words:
"…we are bound to conclude that the Opposition are supporting this Amendment not on the ground that they have suggested—namely, their concern for comprehensive education—but on the ground that they would do everything possible to water it down."
That is at column 270 of Hansard of the other place for 9th November.
So there you have it. Mrs. Williams abandons her original position that the Amendment has no effect or meaning and comes out with a different and, I hope to show, mistaken argument. She opposes it because she believes that it may have a practical effect and be used to undermine the basic principle of non-selection. After that admission, it is extremely difficult to see how the Government could say that that Amendment would have no operative effect.

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Be that as it may, there remains a very difficult problem in the solution of which the Amendment could be useful. That is the concept of neighbourhood schools. It is true that in Clause 2 (6) the Government have already made a grudging exception to neighbourhood schools in favour of intake by banding. This method will certainly be in direct conflict with many parents' wishes. Banding is a form of selection by ability carried out against the spirit of Section 76 in order to achieve a balanced intake in schools with different backgrounds. Children will be directed away from their neighbourhood comprehensive because the area in which they live contains too many or too few able boys and girls. Quite a number of parents are going to be furious when the comprehensive in their area is closed to them in order that their child shall be drafted to another comprehensive school which they have every reason to think is inferior. They will ask: what has happened to Section 76? Supposing they are told that the Labour Government refused to reaffirm it in this Bill, is that going to help to make the new schools a success?
That is one reason for putting our Amendment in the Bill; but the case is just as strong if the Government's original intention is insisted upon and all comprehensives become strictly neighbourhood schools. The essence of the neighbourhood school is that parents' choice counts for nothing. The place where you live decides where your child is to go to school. If you consider your neighbourhood school unsatisfactory, your only escape is to move house to an area in which the school meets your wishes. Somehow the Government must come to terms with the educational problems raised by neighbourhood schools, or they will face a row with parents that will do great damage to their comprehensive system. One sensible step to head off this row is to reaffirm Section 76 in the body of the Bill and then have an open debate on how to organise medium-sized comprehensive schools to give the best possible education to children and the greatest satisfaction to parents.
In most areas LEAs will want to develop a group of medium-sized comprehensive schools within which there will be considerable specialisation, one school making a reputation in some subjects and another in other subjects. There is no other way of offering children as good, let alone
1522
better, teaching than they get now. The Secretary of State says the comprehensive system can teach as well as when the grammar schools existed. It does not now. If she intends that to come about—and we are all with her on that—then the necessary arrangements must be made for the intake into comprehensives which can only offer a few special subjects and features. Under these arrangements, parents can be given a real chance to express a preference between the schools. I beg leave to doubt whether, unless this Amendment is put into the Bill, parents will be able to get their choice.
I turn now to the other aspect of the Amendment which has a great and urgent social significance. During the Committee stage of the Bill the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Blackburn, at col. 1320, of the Official Report of 6th October, reminded us that Section 76 does not talk about the choice of schools but simply says that parents' wishes must be respected where resources and conditions make it reasonable to do so. This reminder is extremely important.
No one can understand the tensions in the education system today who does not realise that the area in which parents' wishes cry out to be respected has grown enormously since 1944. In 1976 parents want to have much more information about and more influence on what happens in the school which their child is attending. What matters to the thoughtful parent is whether the values they believe in are taught in the school and how successfully the curriculum and the standards of teaching fit the child for the career he or she hopes to follow—not in the fantasy do-as-you-please world, but in the real world of holding down a good job. Mrs. Williams recognises this. She has said so plainly in speeches and on television.
Her words are sympathetic and reasonable but words alone will not calm the parents who are now on the warpath. How can they be reassured and be persuaded to give the schools the considerable time needed to put their house in order? When the 1944 Act was planned, the management of the maintained schools was organised as a partnership between the Government, the LEAs, and the teachers. Society has greatly changed since then.

1523
Parents have emerged as a big factor in education. It is high time they were formally taken in as the fourth partner. The Prime Minister spoke in this sense; the Secretary of State agrees. In this atmosphere of understanding and good will, not to put this Amendment into the Bill would be construed as a slap in the face for parents. They would see it as a repudiation in an Act of Parliament of the fair words which Ministers have recently used about them.
I say with all the emphasis I can that to reject the Amendment would make Section 76 an ongoing subject of acute controversy. That would be bad for the schools. The schools are in deep trouble and, for the sake of the children, the two sides of the House should come together and in this modest gesture show that we are equally mindful of parents' wishes. The difference between the Government and this side, after all, is not great. They think we may be trying to put parents against the comprehensive system. I hope I have shown that such a suspicion is without foundation. We think they underrate the justifiable anxiety of many parents and therefore it would be wise to give this symbolically important sign that in this Bill parents' wishes are not forgotten. That would help to make a system of medium-sized comprehensives workable.
I very much hope that the Government will change their minds and accept the Amendment in the constructive spirit in which I am putting it forward. If they cannot see their way to do this, my noble friends will have to make a choice either to vote on it this evening or to let the Government take the odium—which I think would be extremely bad for their system of education—and then on this side of the House I feel sure we shall have to prepare to repeal a large proportion of this Bill. That, my Lords, would be a pity. It does not do our schools any good to change the nature of the ogranisation every time there is a change of Party in Office.
6.22 p.m.
Lord BEAUMONT of WHITLEY: My Lords, the noble Viscount raised a magnificent edifice on a rather minor Amendment, and although I agree to a certain extent with a lot of what he said—and he produced a lot of wisdom on the
1524
subject of comprehensive schools, their size and what they are going to have to do about selection and about specialisation in certain subjects—I hardly think this Amendment really bears the weight of a threat to repeal quite a lot of the Bill at a later stage.
I shall confine myself to two short points which arise merely from this particular stage. First of all, I do not know what gremlin at the last moment persuaded the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, to raise the point about drafting, but my noble friend beside me and I have looked through his speech two or three times and we fail to see any substance whatever in the point. We fail to see that it is badly drafted or tautological. But that is by the way, because I do want to make one point before advising your Lordships' House not to insist on this Amendment, which is that I think it is a very great pity that the Government have not been more eirenic about it.
I think the point made by the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, about the public relations effect of putting in Section 76 and re-emphasising it could well have been met by the Secretary of State—particularly since the argument being put forward by another place is that it is without operative effect—with a little more good will. That would have done nothing but good. Perhaps it may well be that we had a change of Secretary of State a little too late in the proceedings of this Bill for that to happen. I see no reason why they should not have assisted the House in its evident wish to have a reference to Section 76 put in. I think it is a great pity and I fear they will regret it. However, I agree with another place that this Amendment is without operative effect. I do not believe it would be a suitable Amendment to send back to another place, and therefore I shall be advising my noble friends—and I would also advise your Lordships—not to insist on this Amendment but to agree with the Commons Reason.
Lord ALEXANDER of POTTER-HILL: My Lords, I find great difficulty on this Amendment. I think we have to recognise the problem which will face the local education authority in the operation of this Bill. To say that it denies selection is really meaningless

1525
because selection is inevitable. They can select territorially by having neighbourhood schools: that is still selection. They can select on other grounds. My worry is that, while I wholly support the principle of parental choice within the limits provided by Section 76, I recognise the difficulty of 500 parents choosing one school where there are only 100 places, because that could drive the authority into deciding which were the 100 to be admitted and which were the 400 who could not be admitted. In other words, they would be driven to selection of some kind.
I am also worried because the concept of neighbourhood schools has no status in law, so far as I can see. I have suffered for 30 years from the inevitable parent who refused to accept the definition of catchment areas which a local authority had found it necessary to operate; and indeed, if there is a place in another school the parent must win. The only grounds on which an authority could win was if there was no available place in that school. I would have been happier myself if Amendment No. 9 has been praised not as a duty but as a power, because I believe that it is probably the most effective solution to the problem. It would retain section 1, which would in fact enable the local authority to have regard to the wishes of parents, so far as practicable, as to the admission of pupils with particular needs, without having to ascertain the particular needs of all the pupils. In other words, if a pupil would normally have been allocated to the neighbourhood school but if the authority had said: "This child has a need which we do not think this school could adequately meet", they could say "Here is another school which could meet that need and they could go there" That would not offend Section 1 in any way as regards meeting the needs of a particular pupil. I can think of many cases where it would be effective. Unfortunately, as I said on an earlier point, it raises an entirely different issue, because it would place an obligation on an authority to ascertain the particular needs of all the children.
I do not think the issue of the first Amendment is one that necessarily solves the problem. The authority would still have problems if too many parents chose a particular school. On the other hand, it is important to acknowledge which takes precedence: is Section 1 overriding Sec
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tions 8 and 76? It is true they still remain in the 1944 Act, but do they take precedence or does Section 1 take precedence? It seems to me that by accepting this Amendment a balanced picture would be provided in which we should be saying in effect: "We accept Section 8; we are concerned to meet the individual needs of children, and we accept that those needs vary very substantially". Certainly that is accepted by the Government. The concept that all children are the same is not accepted by any of us. They differ very greatly. They differ in the colour of their hair, in the colour of their eyes, in their height, in their weight and in every human attribute. This is fact.
The Government are saying, "We believe that these variations can be met within the school, rather than by having to send them to different schools." This is the basic principle. I do not reject that, and I accept it. But I also have to accept, having administered at local authority level, that in the nature of things there will be children, who would normally on a territorial basis attend a certain school, who would be much better served by another school, and I want the means of doing that. The Minister may say that this could be done without this Amendment. I think it would be easier with this Amendment. There would be a basis for doing it.
I think, also—and this is not unimportant—that banding as a solution of this problem will not work. This is a certainty. If I, as a parent, feel that the neighbourhood school which my child would attend is not what I would wish for, and I take the trouble to buy a house in another area, can your Lordships imagine how I would feel if I were to be told that my child was to be bussed back to the area from which I had come, and would be forced to go to that school which I had been trying desperately to avoid? This is a very difficult situation. I doubt, therefore, whether banding can succeed. Inevitably, we are moving, and will move, in general, towards the concept of the neighbourhood school, and I merely seek a measure of flexibility which will enable the operation of the principle that the reasonable wishes of parents could be met, if they were practical, within the provision which an authority can make.
6.32 p.m.
Lord BOWDEN: My Lords, I wonder whether I may comment on the observations which the noble Lord, Lord Alexander, has just made and follow, however inadequately, the speech which the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, has made. I wonder whether I can do that in a rather odd way, by considering my own education. I was born in a very small village populated almost entirely by colliers and by railwaymen, and I wonder what would have happened if I had gone to a neighbourhood comprehensive school which was appropriate to a place like that, instead of being fortunate, as I was, to pass the 11-plus examination and go to a grammar school, from which I was able to get to Cambridge. I do not believe, in the circumstances, that I would have had any chance at all of getting to one of the greater universities, had I been restricted to a small neighbourhood comprehensive school in a village some distance from a town. So the principle for which I plead, which has already been made by the other speakers, is that there should be flexibility in moving children from place to place, so that when there are facilities in a school which are better than those elsewhere, and when they are needed by individual children, those children should be able to travel from one school to the other.
How far this point is covered in this Amendment, I cannot be sure. But it is extremely important because I believe that it does great harm to children not to allow them to exploit their abilities to the full, and we risk great dangers if we gear our whole educational system to the slow developer and fail to give the young, precocious, hard-working little swot the opportunities which, in the old days, he had.
I was extraordinarily fortunate. My parents never had to spend a penny on my education and I was able to get to Cambridge. I spoke this week to a dozen academics, whose names I must not mention but all of whom are well-known in this House. I asked them "If you as a child had had to go to your neighbourhood comprehensive school, would your career have been as distinguished as it has been? Would you have gone to London, Cambridge or wherever it was?" They all said "No". They all came from very
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small schools in remote districts, in which it is inconceivable that the opportunities could have been as good as they were in the grammar schools to which they were able to go.
It is my belief that the best of the comprehensive schools will be able to give to the brighter children the opportunities which they seek, but it is also my belief that small ones in isolated districts, and in the centres of cities, too, will become intellectual ghettos, as some neighbourhood comprehensives have become in the United States. It is a terrible prospect that able children will in future be denied opportunities which they have today, and this will happen unless there is a fair mobility as between schools which will enable children to move to where opportunities exist.
I make one more point before I sit down. At this moment in time, we have a three-year university course, and the final degree standard is as high as is to be found anywhere else in the world after a four-year course. The reason why other countries need a four-year course is that, almost invariably, they have neighbourhood comprehensive schools. May I warn the Government that, unless something is done to make it possible for the brighter children to be taught by the ablest teachers, they, too, will have to introduce a four-year course if the standard of the honours degree is not to fall. Nowhere else in the world do they achieve the standards that we achieve in three years. I think it true to say that in most other countries the first year, and sometimes even the second year, of the university course is devoted to teaching subjects which are taught in schools here. Once we lose this, we have to insist on a four-year course if our degrees are to remain as they now are—acceptable in all countries of the world.
The problems of negotiations with the French, who have a very much more elaborate system that we have, have been difficult hitherto. They will become impossible in future. They have the most highly selective system of education anywhere in the world. They glory in it, and it works extremely well. The Americans have neighbourhood comprehensives schools, some of which are good and some of which are very bad, and they have a four-year course. But many

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students have no hope at all of getting to the university of their choice.
We are faced today with a very real problem, and it is this. How are we to retain our acedemic standards? How are our universities to continue giving a good honours degree in three years, unless the students are better taught than they are likely to be in the average neighbourhood comprehensive school? How far this first Amendment covers this point, I do not know. But I believe very strongly indeed that there should be an opportunity for children to migrate to those schools which are accessible to them in the district, and, if necessary, away from what has made the neighbourhood comprehensive school into a term of abuse, in many countries. I cannot understand how far this Amendment will cover that problem, but I pose it to the Government, and I should like to ask the noble Lord who is to reply how this problem will be resolved.
6.38 p.m.
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, I think it is fair of me to claim that while this Bill has been going through the House noble Lords on the Liberal Benches, on these Benches and on the Cross-Benches have all been trying to bring home to the Government that what is objectionable about it is its insistence on a totally uniform system of education. I assure noble Lords on the Government Front Bench that we on these Benches want to see comprehensive schools established and flourishing. But the Government—and it is the Government alone who are guilty in this respect—do not appear to realise that, if they insist on forcing non-selective education down everyone's throats, they will be rendering a disservice to the cause of comprehensive schools. Local authorities must have some discretion about how and when they will reorganise; there must be sufficient resources to do the job properly, and there must be a right for parents to have some say in how their children are to be brought up and educated. Yet the fact of the matter is that, through all the stages of this Bill, Amendments directed to these points—indeed, Amendments directed to the principle of comprehensive education—have all been resisted by the Government.
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If I may call in aid the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, this Amendment is not confusing; it is a simple re-statement of two of the most important sections of the Education Act 1944; Section 76, which provides that, when possible, the hopes and wishes of parents for their children shall be taken into account, and Section 8 which lays a duty on authorities to match their schools and the education given to the different ages, abilities and aptitudes of the pupils.
As we understand it from the Marshalled List, the Government are resisting their case on the ground that the Amendment is unnecessary. In effect, in another place the Secretary of State has said that within a system of totally non-selective schools each comprehensive school should be suitable to all children and, therefore, acceptable to all parents. How right my noble friend Lord Eccles was to point out that this is not what happens in reality. Indeed, it is probably not what local education authorities are going to want to happen as the years go by.
Today, increasingly, parents want the very best start in life for their sons and daughters, and in many cases they are just not prepared to be directed to the nearest neighbourhood school. After all, has not the Prime Minister himself said that today our country needs, as never before, boys and girls whose education fits them to make their way in the world? Parents have listened to that Oxford speech and have taken it very much to heart.
What I am putting to the Government is that in the real world parents will want their children to go to the school which they believe is best for them. It may be because the school has a very strong science department, or because the language teaching is good, or because it has a very good remedial teacher, since their son or daughter is rather backward, or because the school is small, or because it is a single-sex school, or because the parents happen to like the headmaster or the headmistress, or just because, in a free society, the parents happen to like the school. They will want to choose in this way between different comprehensive schools. The noble Lord, Lord Bowden, said that he was not certain that the Amendment would cover what he wished to see; namely, the opportunities that he had to

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go to a school which gave him the opportunity to reach his academic position in. life.
As I understand it, under the law as it stands parents have no absolute right of choice. What Section 8 (which is included in this Amendment) of the 1944 Education Act does is to lay a duty on authorities to provide a variety of education. Although the school which is then chosen by parents may be full, unsuitable or too far away, nevertheless the duty on authorities to try to match provision to needs is provided for in Section 8. This is the practical application of the principle of parental choice which is contained in Section 76. The Government may protest when the noble Lord replies—as, indeed, the Secretary of State protested in another place—that comprehensive education is its own Section 8; that each comprehensive school must provide all the necessary variety. In a system of totally comprehensive schools, particularly at a time of scarce resources, I believe that nothing could be further from the truth.
Yet what do we find? At the moment, the Department of Education and Science is busy preparing a new circular which I assume it would like to send out as an accompanying document to the passage of this Bill. I have quoted before paragraph 8 of that circular as it stands in draft form, and I make no apology for quoting it again. Paragraph 8 says this:
"Questions of a school's suitability to the aptitude and ability of a child are not expected to remain of practical significance for much longer, as they should not normally arise in the case of admissions to a comprehensive school".
Those words run directly counter to the wise and moderate advice which has been given to the House this evening by my noble friend Lord Eccles. Freedom of choice in a comprehensive system is going to be increasingly important to parents.
Those words also run counter to what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhill, in his speech, when he pointed out that it is the law of the land that a parent can always choose another school under Section 76, provided, of course, that it is suitable and provided also that there is room in the school. I must say that if those words in the draft circular of the Department of Education and Science represent the way in which the
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Government intend to interpret Clause 1 of the Bill, it is of the utmost importance to ensure that Section 76 and Section 8 remain operative.
When the noble Lord in his few remarks explained why the Government are standing against the Amendment he said that, if written into the Bill, Section 8 would be tautological and Section 76 would not be of much effect. I should like to ask the noble Lord when he replies for the Government to give an assurance that the House may take it that the Government are absolutely genuine in their view that to write Section 76 and Section 8 into the Bill would be unnecessary because those two sections continue to stand, whatever other things this Bill may say. That is the way in which I interpret the words which are on our Marshalled List.
May I refer to one other matter. My noble friend Lord Eccles pointed out that when the Secretary of State was speaking in another place on the consideration of these Amndments she appeared suddenly to change her ground and to give it as her opinion that this is also intended in some way to be a wrecking Amendment. That suggestion was made in col. 269. Let us remember that in a debate on parental rights in this House two years ago no less a person than the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Saffron Walden, told your Lordships that it was he personally who drafted Section 76. I remember that the noble Lord admitted that Section 76 is only a general principle because it is impossible to assure every single parent of absolute choice of school. The noble Lord came back to this House a year later for a debate on direct grant schools in which he returned to the same subject and said this:
"Section 76 has, alas, been forgotten not only by many of your Lordships but by the country as a whole, and the sooner we get back to remembering that that was the original idea, backed by a Coalition Government, by myself, by Mr. Chuter Ede, by noble Lords I have mentioned and by others in the Labour movement, the better".
I put it to the Government that if they really do believe that Section 76 would wreck the intentions of the Bill they should reflect very seriously on the wisdom of the Bill itself. But of course the Amendment is not a wrecking Amendment. It simply states, in the simple words which were used by the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Saffron Walden, and Mr. Chuter Ede over 30 years ago, one of the oldest principles in the

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world, that parents really count for something and that no major Education Bill ought to be allowed to omit mention of them. The Amendment adds one of the most firmly based principles of our education service, that the service is a partnership between local and central Government, involving teachers, governors and parents, a partnership which needs every ounce of mutual understanding in these very difficult times.
At a time when local government expenditure is again bound to come under such heavy pressure it is unrealistic of the Government to lay down that each comprehensive school is going to be all things to all pupils. Only today the newspapers carry reports of the Secretary of State's consideration of a new examination which there may be for school leavers. In the reports I have read, constantly one finds a reference to the shortage of teachers in mathematics, in languages and in English.
Individual comprehensive schools are going to have their strength and their weaknesses and this Amendment would write into the Bill, alongside the comprehensive principle, recognition of the simple, human and educational factor which my noble friend Lord Eccles explained so clearly, that in a comprehensive system parents will go on wanting, and wanting more and more, their children to go to one school but perhaps not to another. Therefore I hope that the Secretary of State will at least alter her mind that this Amendment would, to use her words, "bury the comprehensive principle under Section 76 and Section 8 of the Education Act". It was an expression of opinion, I thought, which would bring dismay to many people—people who believe in comprehensive education but who realise that unless local education authorities and parents feel really committed to the schools in their area those schools will never really be a success.
For this reason, we on these Benches believe in the rights of parents and the responsibilities of local education authorities. Because the Bill, taken as a whole reduces those rights in many ways and diminishes those responsibilities, I should like to repeat the undertaking which was given on Second Reading in another place by Mr. St. John-Stevas, that when the moment comes, a future Conservative
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Government will feel impelled to repeal the objectionable clauses in what we feel is in so many ways an irrelevant Bill.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: My Lords, I should like to begin by making three things very clear which have not been clear in the widespread but extremely interesting speeches we have had. What we are discussing is not whether Section 8 and Section 76 are good things or bad things—and a number of speeches have suggested that the Government, by not accepting this Amendment, are undermining those principles. Let it be perfectly clear that the reason why the Government are rejecting this Amendment is because those principles are firmly established in the Bill.
The second thing the noble Lord asked me was to give him an assurance that those two sections from the 1944 Act are firmly established in the Bill. I give that assurance and I give it readily. Thirdly, we had such an interesting discussion that I think even though it is really not my business to reply to a Second Reading debate—which is largely what we have had—I should like to make one or two comments.
I agree with most of the things that the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, said about the importance of giving confidence to parents. This is not a view which is held only on one side of the House; it is held by everybody who has the faintest interest in education. But the way it was put suggested that the noble Viscount and his colleagues are interested in it and we are not. I simply cannot let that pass, because it is not the case. The noble Viscount knows very well that it is not the case. It will not do. Our position is just the same as that held by others: there are very difficult problems connected with neighbourhood schools, of course, and although I think the experience of my noble friend Lord Bowden is interesting, I would point out to him—because I think it is worth saying—that at the present moment comprehensive schools in catchment areas of the kind he was speaking about, where there are no grammar schools taking from the same catchment area, are producing high level results. I could go into this at greater detail or, if the noble Lord wanted me to, I could write to him about it. If the

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grammar school was not there, the comprehensive school would be different and would include the wider talents, and I think that is an entirely separate situation.
I think it is important in discussing an Amendment such as this, and having had a good "run around", that we should stick to the Amendment. The Amendment is that two sections which the Government believe in implicitly should be written into the Bill. The Government say that they are already fully covered by the Bill, particularly in Clause 12, and that to write them in would be a possible source of confusion for the future. I will not argue the case of drafting because if the Opposition press this Motion it will be their problem and not mine, but I hope the Opposition will not find it necessary to press it. The argument has been on the Bill as a whole and not on this Amendment, but at this stage we must return to the Amendment. I ask your Lordships not to persist in this because basically there is nothing between us on this Amendment and I think I have said all I need to make that clear.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
LORDS AMENDMENT
3 Page 1, line 11, leave out "or partly"
The Commons disagreed to this Amendment for the following Reason:
4 Because the Commons do not consider that the provision of secondary education in schools where the admission arrangements are partly based on selection can be justified.
6.45 p.m.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist upon their Amendment No. 3 to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 4. The other place spent two hours in discussion on this Amendment last Tuesday, having previously considered the Amendment for one and a half hours in Committee. The Commons as a whole have now disagreed to it because they do not consider that the provision of secondary education in schools where the admission arrangements are based partly on selection can be justified.
Moved, that this House doth not insist upon the said Amendment to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 4.—(Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge.)
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, the intention of this Amendment, of course, was not to wreck the principle of the Bill but to try to open the door to some flexibility in putting comprehensive education into effect. I should just like to say one thing on the Amendment. Since the Amendment was passed by your Lordships, the Government have remained inactive in the matter. They have apparently been content to wait and then to disagree with this Amendment in the other place. But the difficulty that this will put the education service into is that there will be very little flexibility about admission arrangements in the Bill. I would go so far as to assert that there will be no opportunity to send a backward child to a school with particularly good remedial teaching or to enter a very gifted child for a school which would seem to meet their needs better than another one, or to allow a boy or girl to go to a particular school because the maths or the science or the language teaching suit the pupil.
My own apprehension is that in fact these sensible admission arrangements will continue—I heard the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhill, saying that this is the sort of thing that is sensible—and the Bill will be breached until the time comes when a parent takes the case to appeal under Section 68 because he is suddenly denied admission for a child on the same grounds as other people have been able to gain admission. Finally he may even take it to law. I think it is a pity because in essence it leaves the drafting of the Bill obscure and we shall have to await the outcome of events to see the exact meaning of Clause 1. With that regret, I would not stand in the way of the Commons insistence in regard to this particular Amendment.
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNESIDE: My Lords, never having taken part in an education debate of this kind, I am not really in a position to make good observations, but what rather worries me with regard to parental interest in children's education in future is this. I want to know from somebody how children with parents who have not really got a knowledge of what school their children ought to go to or what their children's capacity is, are to be advised. In other words, children with parents who are not quite qualified to give advice because they

1537
have no real knowledge of the educational opportunities for their children, need to be protected. Where parental advice is given to local education authorities or to head teachers, there will then be parental control. The parents will have the knowledge and can keep on asking for their children to go to special schools where they will receive specialist teaching in relation to their capacity.
I know only too well from the time when I was in the House of Commons that if one went on and on sometimes one won a battle which perhaps one should not have won. But on the other hand, what is going to happen to children who are in a position where the parents cannot go on and on, or do not know how to go on and on? I can see that some children will then miss their opportunity. Where parents do not know how to make representations, and cannot go on arguing and do not know how to argue, I should like to know how those children are going to be protected so that they will not miss the opportunity of getting the benefit of whatever school they want to go to.
I am very worried about that, because those children need protection from somebody or other. I am afraid I have not put it very well because, as I say, I am not really very knowledgeable about all this, but I want to be quite sure that all children are going to have the same opportunity of going forward in whatever school they attend, even if they do not have parents who can argue with the local authorities, or argue with head teachers, or whoever they have to argue with.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: My Lords, I find it a little difficult to relate the noble Baroness's remarks to the Amendment, but I shall try to answer her. The normal recourse of a parent worried about where the child shall go is the head of the primary school. This, as a general rule, is fully observed. I think that the advice—of course there may be bad advice occasionally—is very good, and I think that the primary school head consults individual teachers, matrons, and everybody else. In the present state of society, I think this is about as far as you can go, and is not really half bad.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENT
5 Clause 1, page 1, line 21, at end insert "or such other ability or aptitude as the Secretary of State may from time to time by order designate."
The Commons disagreed to this Amendment for the following Reason:
8 Because the Amendment extends the exceptions to the comprehensive principle beyond what the Commons consider justifiable.
7.2 p.m.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: My Lords, I beg to move that the House doth not insist upon their Amendment No. 5 to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 8. It may be to the convenience of the House if we are able at the same time to discuss Lords Amendment No. 11 to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 12. The other place debated these Amendments last week, having previously considered the general question of exceptions to the comprehensive principle for no less than six and a half hours in Committee. They have not agreed to the Amendments because they consider that their acceptance would lead to an unacceptable breach of the comprehensive principle. As the Parliamentary Under-Secretary said at column 317:
"If the Amendment were to be retained in its present form a future Secretary of State could, in effect, repeal the Bill without the unpleasant necessity of arguing in any detail for its repeal before Parliament or the country."
I hope noble Lords will accept the verdict of another place and not press these two Amendments.
Moved, That this House doth not insist on the said Amendment, to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 8.—(Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge.)
Lord BEAUMONT of WHITLEY: My Lords, of course the Reason numbered 8 has absolutely nothing to do with Amendment No. 5. It is a reason, possibly a good one, for rejecting Amendments Nos. 6 and 7. But what the Commons say is that the Amendments extend the exceptions to the comprehensive principle beyond what the Commons consider justifiable. Of course this Amendment does nothing of the sort; it merely allows the Secretary of State in future to bring proposals for that to come before

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Parliament. I think that we were entitled to a better Reason than that for the rejection of this particular Amendment.
When we put forward this Amendment in the first place it was in a completely and absolutely genuine desire to be helpful. We still think that the Government would save themselves a great deal of trouble in the future if they accepted this ability to widen the exceptions when and where it should become necessary. I do not accept the argument given by the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, that somehow a future Secretary of State could completely de-comprehensivise the school system without anyone noticing. It is not at all likely to happen.
However, since the Government do not see that it would help them particularly to have that ability when, as I am sure will happen, future research and study over the whole educational field isolates and points out certain possibilities where it may be a good thing to have more exceptions to the Bill than what has sometimes been described as the rather frivolous ones of music and dancing (and exceptions have already been granted), far be it for me to force such exceptions on them. I am merely trying to be helpful.
Lord SOMERS: My Lords, I think this Amendment is an addition to the exceptions already made in the Bill for music and dancing. Naturally, I am only too pleased about the exception so far as music is concerned, and I presume dancing means ballet dancing, but I am not certain. Of course both of those are very specialised subjects, but they are not the only ones. What about maths? What about science? What about history, which really needs a teacher of genius if he is going to make it interesting? All these subjects are specialised subjects, and it is a great pity if the average child, or one which has a particular talent or interest in that direction, will not be able to get the teaching he deserves.
Lord BOWDEN: My Lords, we have spoken on this question of precocity of mathematicians before. It is as notorious as the precocity of chess players, the precocity of dancers, and the precocity of musicians. Gauss is just as precocious and Mozart, if one can take a particular case. I think it is hardly worth objecting
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to this, because I believe that sooner or later selection will come back because it will be demanded in the interests of national efficiency, and if it does not after all what a wonderful play some future Gibbon might make in writing of the decline of Great Britain, to say that the only subjects they took seriously in their schools were music and dancing.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENT
6 Clause 1, page 1, line 21, at end insert
"; or
(c) the provision of education in any school where the arrangements for the admission of pupils are based partly on selection to ensure the most effective use of qualified teachers of mathematics"
The Commons disagreed to this Amendment for the following Reason:
8 Because the Amendment extends the exceptions to the comprehensive principle beyond what the Commons consider justifiable.
7.8 p.m.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 6, to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 8.
Moved, That this House doth not insist on the said Amendment, to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 8.—(Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge.)
Viscount ECCLES: My Lords, I should like to ask a question or two of the noble Lord. He knows perfectly well that there are nothing like enough qualified mathematics teachers. Those teachers will be grouped more strongly in some schools than others. In fact, there are schools—and I fear for some time there will continue to be schools—where really there are no teachers qualified to teach mathematics to A-level.
Since we have just agreed with the Commons that the words "wholly or partly" are restored in subsection (1) it means that no local authority has the legal right to send pupils to the schools where there are qualified mathematics teachers if there are no qualified ones in a comprehensive to which the child has originally been allocated. This is very serious. There is no disagreement between

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the Government and those on these Benches that the standards of mathematics have fallen, that the standards which we need under modern conditions should have risen and that industry and many other employers looking for young people with the basic mathematic skills are highly dissatisfied.
What can we do about it if we pass a Bill which legally prohibits any local authority from matching the pupils who would get the most benefit from the qualified mathematics teachers from doing so? In view of the rigidity of the Government on this question, the only thing they will be able to do about it is, roughly speaking, to disregard Clause 1, and I agree with my noble friend Lord Belstead that as soon as the Bill is passed local authorities will say, "We will not pay any attention to it; it makes absolute nonsense of our education system if we are not able to use to the full the qualified teachers we have." And there is no subject so important as mathematics in relation to the deficiencies of teachers today. Therefore, although I quite see that if one is wholly sold on the comprehensive principle and one does not want any form of selection by ability or aptitude, which is what Clause 1 says, one pushes it through, one does it to the damage of the children and against the national interest.
Lord ALEXANDER of POTTER-HILL: My Lords, we should not avoid facing this problem. The only solution which seems practicable if the Bill goes through is to recognise that it would be quite impracticable in comprehensive schools—even if they are of a considerable size, and one does not want them to be too large—to provide A-level mathematics teaching in all such schools (indeed, to provide sixth form teaching in all such schools) without having either sixth form colleges or tertiary colleges; in other words, bringing toegther those who wish to pursue these courses. The problem which the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, faces, and it is a difficult one, is whether this means that the teaching below that age, say 16, will be adequate. As I said earlier, I believe the problem starts earlier than that; in the primary school. We must face up to the issue that as soon as one takes a concentration of probably the best qualified teachers in mathematics and proposes to disperse them over all second-
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ary schools, there is no prospect of providing adequately for sixth form teaching in all schools.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: My Lords, there are serious problems over mathematics. We all know that and we have spent hours here and in another place discussing it, so I will not go over the ground again. We have said that one solution would be for a boy with a particular aptitude where a teacher was not available in a comprehensive school to go to a course at another school. This may sometimes be possible and at other times not, but there is no rigid exclusion of trying to get the best teaching here and it is wrong to suggest that there is. The Commons in their Reason are accurate in saying that the Amendment goes too far and allows children to be selected not for courses but for schools on aptitude, something against the entire comprehensive system which the Bill is here to try to enforce. Although, therefore, I have never—I think I have shown this to be the case in our discussions—taken less than very seriously the mathematics problem we have in the schools (and particularly it is a question of teachers, which is really nothing to do with the point before us) I hope noble Lords will not find it necessary to insist on the Amendment which the Commons have asked us to remove.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENT
7 Clause 1, page 1, line 21, at end insert
"; or
(c) the provision of education at any non-maintained school which can afford opportunities for education to a particular pupil which cannot be afforded at a maintained school in that area."
The Commons disagreed to this Amendment for the following Reason:
8 Because the Amendment extends the exceptions to the comprehensive principle beyond what the Commons consider ustifiable.
7.15 p.m.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 7, to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 8. When this was discussed by your Lordships on Report, the noble Lord who moved it made clear that his main concern was that the Bill should not prevent a local education authority from providing

1543
education in non-maintained schools for children who could not otherwise be satisfactorily educated. Boarding education was mentioned frequently in the debate on this and related Amendments, which were discussed at considerable length in Committee, in total for over seven and a quarter hours. I assured the House that the Government's intentions were to operate flexibly the provisions of the Bill relating to support for education in non-maintained schools, their sole object being to prevent children being chosen for support from public funds on the ground of ability. There are a number of other grounds on which support will be allowed, and the character of the school will not in itself be a barrier to such support. Any other approach would be unrealistic.
This Amendment, however, would introduce such wide freedom as to put into doubt the possibility of the Government having any control over public support for education in non-maintained schools. There must be few, if any, such schools which, at a pinch, could not point to something that only they, as distinct from the local maintained schools, could offer to any particular pupil. It is much to broad, ill-defined and subjective a basis to be acceptable and is certainly likely to add to public expenditure. I hope, therefore, that noble Lords will agree not to insist on it.
Moved, That the House doth not insist on the said Amendment, to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 8.—(Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge.)
Baroness FAITHFULL: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, for that explanation. I find the whole situation in regard to pupils with particular needs getting the help they need in the way the noble Lord outlined difficult to envisage unless this Amendment is implemented, and I referred to this subject some time ago. I speak particularly of children with social problems who come from families which are disadvantaged through no fault of their own. I speak of the children of widows, widowers, divorced parents and children where one or perhaps both parents suffer from a physical or mental disability within the home.
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Such children react in different ways, though it would be presumptuous of me to speak to the House on the ways in which such children react. I am not, so to speak, a biological parent, but I have been responsible down the years for I should not like to say how many disturbed children. However, they have been children who have not fallen within the part of the measure which deals with special schools. They have been parents and children who have suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune who have needed a particular setting in which to develop, in which to counterbalance the difficulties of their backgrounds and in which to stabilise their emotional difficulties in order that they may gain and learn intellectually.
Many of these children, I have found, have needed small schools, small day schools and small boarding schools, but all these schools have not fallen within the comprehensive system, and could not do so by virtue of the fact that they are small schools. I quite understand what Lord Donaldson said about there being flexibility; he said it would be possible for education departments to give grants to pupils in special circumstances and with special home difficulties. But will this be understood broadly by local authorities throughout the country, where there is a shortage of money? Is this not likely to be something that they will cut?
If a disadvantaged family is suffering in the way I have outlined, it will almost certainly be short of finance. It will find that it has two options. The parents know and feel that their children need something special which is not available in their neighbourhood. They cannot afford it and they can go to the local authority and, if the authority is generous, it may accept—although the school does not fall within the comprehensive principle—or they can go to a voluntary organisation or a voluntary trust. I have made inquiries from a number of voluntary trusts. I have found that, in anticipation of this Bill, they have trebled their applications for grants for their children to go to particular schools to meet the individual emotional needs of those children.
Parents who are in this very difficult position do not wish to be placed in further difficulty by having to go to the Social Services Department. They want to

1545
prevent their children from falling into further difficulties. They want to counterbalance the difficulties that the children are in. The noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, said that there could be counselling in the local comprehensive school and I would absolutely agree that, where it is possible for teachers, education welfare officers and social workers to help children from families where there are difficulties to attend a local school and be supported locally, that is outstandingly good. But reality compels me to say that there are children who need a counterbalancing influence in the form of a very special type of school. Without that counterbalancing influence of a very special type of small school which does not fall within the comprehensive system, those children may, can and do fall into delinquency or into mental trouble later, or they become the frozen and hardened children who have no feeling for anybody and who become the social problens of the future. I should be most grateful if the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, can help me on this matter.
Lord BOWDEN: My Lords, I should like to say a few words after the very moving speech that we have just heard. For many years there has been a system in this country by which perfectly ordinary children who passed or did not pass the 11-plus examination could be sent away to a similar school in another district on the understanding that the parents paid the boarding charges and that the transfer was arranged as between local authorities. I should like to ask my noble friend Lord Donaldson whether this system, too, will be put in jeopardy by the Bill.
Baroness ELLIOT of HARWOOD: My Lords, I should like to support my noble friend Lady Faithfull. I have had exactly the same experience of trying to organise, either as the chairman of the education committee or chairman of the social work committee, the kind of care and education that these deprived children—or whatever phrase one likes to use for the children whom my noble friend has so accurately described—need. It is extremely important because, in the end, if nothing has been done, they will turn up at the age of 14, 15 or 16 either as delinquents or as so mentally retarded that they cannot get a job. It all depends
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on being able to do something for them as they grow up. The rigidity that the Government have put into the Bill, so that everything is excluded that does not fit into the exact pattern of what they think comprehensive education should be, inevitably leaves out quite a large proportion —larger than your Lordships would like to know about—of children who need this special care. It seems to me to be most wrong and, what is more, it is storing up many problems and a great deal of difficulty for the community as the children get older.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: My Lords, this Amendment brings a third class of exception to Clause 1. What the Commons have said is that it is much too wide. If noble Lords will accept that—which seems clearly to be right—let me reply to the two noble Baronesses who were talking about the realities of need, delinquency and the first of it. There is nothing that we have yet come across that refers to this at all. There is a later clause on which we shall discuss it and which makes it clear that local authorities have the right to send people to non-maintained schools for certain reasons. One of the reasons is need. Clearly, if someone is a cripple or is educationally subnormal or anything similar, nothing has changed. There are places in most local authority areas which deal with such people and, in so far as they belong to these categories, they will still go there. In so far as they do not, this Bill has nothing to do with it. There should be more, but this Bill is not attempting to deal with that. I assure the noble Baroness that there is nothing in the Bill, as introduced, to prevent local authorities from helping parents with fees at boarding or day schools or special schools if that is desirable. The only point is that the children should not be admitted on ability and aptitude. This is not the same as not being admitted on need. I hope that that makes it clear.
Baroness FAITHFULL: My Lords, it makes it very clear. Nevertheless, when one is dealing with a child, it does not work. Take, for example, Finchden Manor, which was run by the late Mr. George Lyward. It accepted 45 boys who did not fall within the terms of reference of special schools but, at the same time, Mr. Lyward found that he could not deal

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with the type of boy he was offering help to if the boys were below a certain IQ. He took the bright boys and it was selected and it depended on the parents' choice. In very many cases, it met the boys' needs. Many of Mr. Lyward's boys are now leading people in the country.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: My Lords, with the leave of the House, we must not have an argument. This is not the moment for it. Of course, I know about Mr. Lyward's answer. What I am saying is that there is nothing in the Amendment which the Commons have rejected to make things better or worse for such a school.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENT
9 Clause 1, page 1, line 21, at end insert—
"() Subject to subsection (1) above, local education authorities shall have a duty to arrange as far as is practicable for the admission of pupils with particular needs to the schools most suitable for them."
The Commons disagreed to this Amendment for the following Reason:
10 Because the Amendment is unnecessary.
7.28 p.m.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 9, to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 10. In a sense, this is nearer what the noble Baroness was talking about on the last Amendment. When we discussed this Amendment at Report and again at Third reading, I said on both occasions that the Amendment was quite unnecessary. I explained that it would be permissible for a pupil to be admitted to a school in order to benefit from special facilities if his admission was not governed by his general academic ability. I went on to emphasise that it would remain a duty of the local authority to ensure that each child was provided with an education suitable to his or her needs. In essence, then, Clause 1 is dealing with general arrangements; the needs of individual pupils will still fall to be considered as at present.
At Third Reading, the noble Lord, Lord Alexander, described the difficulties which would arise if such a duty were to be placed on local authorities. He persuaded me—and no doubt your Lordships
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too—of the impracticability of establishing the particular needs of each pupil without some selection procedure. This Amendment was rejected without debate by another place, but in fact the subject had been debated at some length during their Committee stage. The Commons Reason is that the Amendment is unnecessary—a view, as I have just reminded your Lordships, put forward by the Government in this House also. I hope that the House will not feel the need to press this Amendment further.
Moved, That this House doth not insist on the said Amendment, to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 10.—(Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge.)
Lord BEAUMONT of WHITLEY: My Lords, here again I find myself caught between the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, and the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhill. I do not see how the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, can in fact agree with the Commons Reason and agree with the noble Lord, Lord Alexander. If Lord Alexander is right in saying that to have a duty to do this would put an unconscionable burden on local education authorities, then surely it cannot be said that that duty exists already. If the Commons Reason means anything, it presumably means that that duty exists already. I do not want to press this point, but I ask the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, to reply to two short questions. Does the local education authority already have power to arrange these matters—to which I imagine the answer is, Yes—and does it, or does it not, at the moment have the duty to arrange these matters?
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: My Lords, I will answer those points and I will check my answer. My answer is, Yes to both questions; but I should like to verify this, although I am fairly sure that I am right.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENT
11 Clause 1, page 1, line 21, at end insert—
"() No order shall be made under this section unless a draft of the order has been laid before Parliament and approved by resolution of each House of Parliament."
The Commons disagreed to this Amendment for the following Reason:
12 Because the Amendment is consequential upon the first Amendment made by the Lords, in page 1, line 21, to which the Commons have disagreed.
7.32 p.m.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 11 to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 12. We discussed this with Amendment No. 5.
Moved, That this House doth not insist on the said Amendment, to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 12.—(Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENT
13 Clause 2, page 2, line 6, after "specify" insert "not being less than 18 months,"
The Commons disagreed to this Amendment for the following Reason:
14 Because the Amendment would delay the submission of proposals for secondary reorganisation to a degree which the Commons do not consider justifiable.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 13, to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 14. When this Amendment was discussed earlier in Committee, I explained that it is settled law that the Secretary of State should stipulate a reasonable time-limit; any time-limit considered unreasonable could be challenged in the courts. But I assured the House that my honourable friend would have nothing to gain by seeking to give authorities too little time to submit proposals, and I gave assurances that she would not do so. However, in the majority of cases, 18 months is a substantially longer period of time than should be necessary.
The other place rejected this Amendment without debate, but they had in fact spent two and a half hours on a general debate on timing during their Committee stage. The Commons Reason for rejection was that the Amendment would delay the submission of proposals for secondary reorganisation to a degree which they did not consider justifiable. This is the view of the Government, as I explained in
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Committee, and I therefore hope that the House will not press this Amendment.
Moved, That this House doth not insist on the said Amendment, to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 14.—(Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge.)
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, the noble Lord says that it is settled law that there is a period of time for consultation on reorganisation proposals. I do not like to cross swords with him, but I should have thought that rather than it being settled law it is a part of the Section 13 procedure that there shall be provision for objections from local government electors. The difference between that and what we are discussing here is that Clause 2 of the Bill has no provision written into it for objections to be made, unlike the Section 13 procedure. Apart from the consideration of this, I do not think it is a very desirable way to promote democratic procedures. The practical effect is that it could mean that proposals under Clause 2 will eventually reach the Secretary of State without the Secretary of State having a clear indication of whether or not the proposals are accepted locally. I am sure that the noble Lord will protest that the Government have no intention of preventing proper consultation under Clause 2, and I have very little doubt that usually there will be proper consultation.
But the fact of the matter is that under Clause 2 the Secretary of State can dictate exactly what a local education authority or a voluntary school is to propose, so that by the time the Section 13 procedure is reached under Clause 3, the issues will have been virtually decided. This is the reason why it was felt so important on these Benches that during the procedures under Clause 2 it should be possible for proper consultation to be absolutely assured, and it was for that reason that this Amendment was agreed at the Committee stage.
Without this Amendment the only statutory guarantee of consultations will be the assurance which was given by the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman. But normally at least six months will be specified by the Secretary of State, and possibly 12 months in cases where no contingency planning has already been

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undertaken by the local education authority. I should very much have preferred to have seen some time limit written into the Bill.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: My Lords, the position is very simple. If a local authority is asked to submit plans and it submits plans, and is then asked under Section 13 to submit detailed plans and go through the Section 13 procedure, it will agree with the Department and ultimately with the Secretary of State the time that it is going to take. There will be a timetable, and this is a matter for mutual discussion. If the very unlikely situation should arise that there is a Secretary of State who is totally unsympathetic, or that there is a local authority that is totally unwilling to play, and if the Secretary of State insisted on a minimum timetable, in the end the local authority has recourse to the courts. But to insist on 18 months when many of the cases can perfectly well be done in three months would be foolish. I should have thought that this is a perfectly satisfactory arrangement so long as we are dealing with human beings and not idiots.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENT
15 Clause 2, page 2, line 35, leave out from "unsatisfactory" to end of line 38.
The Commons disagreed to this Amendment for the following Reason:
16 Because the Amendment would deprive the Secretary of State of powers which the Commons consider are required for the effective exercise of his functions under the clause.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 15, to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 16. It may be for the convenience of the House if we were also to discuss Lords Amendment No. 17 to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 18, but to which the Government have tabled an Amendment in lieu thereof, No. 18A. Amendment No. 15 would leave out from "unsatisfactory" on page 2, line 35 to the end of line 38. If the original wording of this subsection is not kept, any local education authority reluctant to reorganise would be able, because of the inability
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of my right honourable friend to require that fresh proposals deal with the defects she has discerned in the earlier ones, to resubmit proposals which did not attempt to remove the unsatisfactory elements of the initial proposals. Thus the Bill's intention would be undermined.
I gave assurances in Committee that this power would not enable my right honourable friend covertly to dictate to local education authorities the form of organisation that they should adopt. This is not the Government's intention; we hold firmly to the view that decisions on how best to reorganise rest at the local level. This Amendment was rejected by the Commons for the Reason that it would deprive the Secretary of State of powers which they consider are necessary for the effective use of her functions under the clause. Although this particular Amendment was not debated, a similar Amendment had been fully discussed in their Committee stage. The Government could not then, and cannot now, accept this Amendment, and I hope that your Lordships will not press it further.
I have asked leave to consider Amendment No. 17 with this one because it also bears on the same subsection of the Bill. It was moved by the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, at Report stage and would require the Secretary of State to give reasons for finding proposals unsatisfactory. Owing to the fact that the Opposition took two and a half hours discussing Amendment No. 1, there was not time within the six hours allowed for discussion in another place for my right honourable friend the Secretary of State to move the Amendment which she had intended to propose.
The Government are prepared to accept the principle underlying this Amendment but the present wording is, unfortunately, unacceptable. It has three defects: it refers to "local authorities" rather than to "local education authorities"; to "detailed reasons" rather than to "reasons"; and would, in its present form, bear only on proposals submitted by local education authorities and not on those submitted by the managers or governors of voluntary schools. I am sure that the intention of the noble Lord was that whenever the Secretary of State rejected proposals submitted to her under this section, whether put forward by local

1553
education authorities or the managers or governors of voluntary schools, she should give reasons for doing so. The Amendment which now stands in my name on the Marshalled List may have a rather unfamiliar look to the noble Lord. Nevertheless I can assure him that the substance of his original Amendment is contained in (a) of the one now before the House. Part (b) reinstates the words which your Lordships Amendment No. 15 omitted.
My Lords, the Government cannot accept Amendment No. 15 and I hope that your Lordships will not insist upon it. If your Lordships allow Amendment No. 15 to fall it will be in order for me to move the Government's Amendment to No. 17 at the appropriate time. If however your Lordships insist on retaining Amendment No. 15 it will not be possible, for technical legal reasons, for me to move the Government Amendment to No. 17. In that case the Government will be obliged to resist Amendment No. 17 because in its present form it is unsatisfactory for the reasons I have given. I hope your Lordships will not press Amendment No. 15 further.
Moved, That the House doth not insist on the said Amendment to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 16—[Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge.]
Lord BEAUMONT of WHITLEY: My Lords, this was a genuinely difficult part of the Bill, in that whereas we obviously could not leave the Bill without any teeth whatsoever, it was necessary to ensure that local education authorities and, of course, governors and managers, had the greatest possible choice themselves as to how they would solve problems set for them. I still see that there is a point in the Conservative arguments at an earlier stage that this, if the Government had their way, still gives the Government, the Secretary of State, a little too fierce power in dealing with this. On the other hand, if we are to pass this Bill, and we are, there has to be an end to delay at some time.
The Amendment which the Government are bringing forward is one which will improve matters because it will enable people much more easily to produce their own arguments, to get on to the telephone to which we referred often at an earlier
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stage, and produce their own solutions if they do not like the one put forward by the Secretary of State. I am grateful to the Government for accepting the burden of my Amendment. I am delighted that they have made it viable in two respects. I am extremely sorry that they have removed the word, "detailed", but I can hardly cavil at that because I think they have gone a long way to meet our point.
Baroness ELLIOT of HARWOOD: My Lords, I spoke on this Amendment at the Report stage. As I think the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, knows, I am exceedingly suspicious of what I call dictatorial powers in Bills which the Government are putting forward, whether in the case of education, health or tied houses. I see the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, coming into the House. This is an authoritarian approach to what, in the case of any local government matter, I believe should be dealt with by the people who are engaged in local government; by education committees who are responsible for children in their area. I do not believe this Government have got firmly in their heads that this is the right way to organise a democratic system.
Having said that, and having listened to the noble Lord, I think this is an improvement on what we had before. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, that the redraft of No. 18A is better than the original proposal. However, I still urge upon the Government, in all the legislation that is being put through both Houses of Parliament, that they must believe in local government, in the responsibilities of local authorities as they are elected, in education committees and many others, and not always hand everything over to the Secretary of State or to boards or to some other authoritarian body. This is my grave suspicion. However, I think this is better than it was, and I am not prepared to oppose it.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: My Lords, may I just say that even the smallest approval from the noble Baroness is very welcome.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENT
17 Clause 2, page 2, line 38, at end insert "and if the Secretary of State does so require, he

1555
shall inform the local authority of his detailed reasons for finding the proposals unsatisfactory."
The Commons disagreed to this Amendment for the following Reason:
18 Because the Amendment is consequential upon the Amendment made by the Lords to page 2, line 35, to which the Commons have disagreed.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 17, to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 18, and I propose Amendment No. 18A in lieu thereof:
18A Page 2, line 35, leave out from ("unsatisfactory") to end of line 38 and insert ("and any such requirement—

(a) shall be accompanied by a statement of the matters in relation to which the previous proposals are in his opinion unsatisfactory and of the reasons for his opinion; and

(b) may specify conditions to be fulfilled by the further proposals with respect to any of those matters.")

I have already spoken to this.
Moved, That this House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 17, to which the Commons have disagreed for their Reason numbered 18, and propose Amendment No. 18A in lieu thereof.—(Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENT
19 Clause 3, page 3, line 25, at end insert:
"() Where proposals submitted under section 13 in conformity with the requirements of section 2 above include proposals to cease to maintain a voluntry school, the local education authority which has made such a proposal shall provide education at the school under the powers conferred upon them by section 6 of the Education (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1953 for every pupil registered at that school on the day immediately preceding the day on which that proposal comes into effect until such pupils cease to he registered at that school."
The Commons disagreed to this Amendment for the following Reason:
20 Because the Amendment involves a charge on public funds and the Commons do not offer any further Reason trusting that this Reason may be deemed sufficient.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 19 to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 20.
Moved, That this House doth not insist on the said Amendment to which the Commons have disagreed for their Reason numbered 20.—(Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge.)
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, I am genuinely surprised that the Government have rejected this Amendment. I thought that my noble friend Lady Brooke of Ystradfellte made an unanswerable case when she spoke on this Amendment at the Committee stage. Your Lordships may remember she spoke of being the chairman of the governors of a voluntary aided school subject to a cease-to-maintain order. The maintaining authorities, the Inner London Education Authority and one other authority, were prepared to see pupils through, but four other local education authorities with pupils at the school were going to cease to pay for those pupils after next September. As I listened to the noble Baroness on that occasion I thought that that really is not good enough, and it is the sort of situation that this Amendment would prevent. The Amendment would protect the education of a very small number of pupils attending a voluntary school which an authority ceases to maintain, and to that extent this Amendment would be a minimal charge on public funds. I would have hoped that the Government could accept an Amendment which deals only with the education and welfare of boys and girls. Although, with regard to voting, I am not going to disagree with the Government in their view on this, I am disappointed that the Government could not have found it in their hearts to accept this Amendment.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENT
21 After Clause 3, insert the following new clause:
". The Secretary of State shall, within two years of the passing of this Act and after consulting such persons as he shall deem to be representative of the interests of local education authorities, of parents and of governors, make regulations specifying the information which local education authoriities shall publish about the schools in their area and the means by which and the time within which such information shall be made available to the parents of children to whom places at such schools may be allocated and to such other persons as he may direct."
The Commons disagreed to this Amendment ment for the following Reason:
22 Because the Commons do not consider it appropriate that the publication of information about schools should be the subject of subordinate legislation.
7.50 p.m.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: My Lords, I beg to move that the House doth not insist upon their Amendment No. 21, to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 22. This Amendment was moved at the Report stage. Its predecessor at the Committee stage was, I think, generally accepted to be inappropriate in that it would have introduced into the Bill itself a long list of specific items about which local education authorities would have been required to provide information to parents in respect of local schools. The Government's view was, and remains, that this modified approach, by way of statutory regulations, is also inappropriate because there are better ways of ensuring that the necessary information is made available; but I must make it clear that the Government accept the principle underlying the Amendment, and my right honourable friend intends to consult all the interests concerned and to provide guidance in a more flexible and appropriate way in a circular. If that were to fail, she could resort to statutory regulations if necessary: she already has power to do so under Section 5(2) of the Local Government Act 1974. The Amendment is therefore unnecessary, and it is undesirable in that it would require statutory regulations to be made even if, as the Government expect, they turned out not to be necessary. I hope noble Lords will note that my right honourable friend has conceded the substance of the Amendment, though not its insertion into the Bill. I beg to move.
Moved, That this House doth not insist on the said Amendment, to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 22.—(Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge.)
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for making it clear that the Secretary of State accepts the principle of this Amendment, which was an Amendment moved by my noble
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friend Lord Elton; and I am also grateful to the noble Lord for repeating that the Secretary of State will consider what guidance on this subject can be given by way of circular. I should like to take this opportunity to make one point. The importance of my noble friend's Amendment, to my mind, is that it is in line with the wishes of parents. By that I mean that increasingly parents want to know what a particular school has to offer. I therefore hope that when the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, said on Report stage of this Bill that the Secretary of State intends to consult with all those concerned—and he repeated those words this evening—somehow his right honourable friend will consult with parents. There is, after all, the Federation of Parent-Teacher Associations, and of course there are the individual PTAs of schools. I believe that it is a priority in this matter to discover, among those consulted, what it is that parents will wish to know.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENT
23 Insert the following new clause:
".—(1) The Secretary of State shall appoint an independent Committee of Inquiry into the operation and results of secondary schools having particular regard to—

(a) the experience so far gained of the effect of the size of schools upon the quality of education, the turnover of staff and the discipline within them; and

(b) the effect of classes of mixed ability on the quality of education.

(2) The said Committee of Inquiry shall lay the report of its findings before both Houses of Parliament within two years of the passing of this Act."
The Commons disagreed to this Amendment for the following Reason:
24 Because the Commons do not consider it appropriate that statutory provision should be made for the appointment of a Committee of Inquiry into the operation and results of secondary schools.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist upon their Amendment No. 23, to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 24. The Commons do not consider it appropriate that statutory provision he made for the appointment of a committee of inquiry. Successive Secretaries of State have always been prepared to establish committees of

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inquiry, with outside chairmen and members, into various aspects of the education service, without statutory compulsion. Noble Lords on all sides will acknowledge, I am sure, the valuable contribution their reports and recommendations have made in formulating educational policy. Provision in this Bill for a statutory committee of inquiry into secondary education is therefore unnecessary: if the Secretary of State considers one is appropriate, she is free to establish one. I hope your Lordships will not insist on this Amendment. I beg to move.
Moved, That this House doth not insist on the said Amendment, to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 24.—(Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge.)
Viscount ECCLES: My Lords, I apologise to the noble Lord that I was out of the House when this Amendment was called on, but I was caught by the speed at which the previous Amendment was disposed of by your Lordships. I want to say just a word on this. I suppose it is partly because we have had this Bill dragging through both Houses for so long that the public's view about our educational system and the possible fall in standards has, I think, been inflated to a very considerable extent. It is not good for the schools that there should be so many particular instances quoted—whether they are all true in every case we do not know, but there they are—about defects in the system. I am the first to say that what has gone wrong—and quite a lot has gone wrong—is also balanced by a very considerable amount which has gone very well; but I think that the state of public opinion which has now been reached is such that it needs some calming process; that it needs some independent inquiry that would, as it were, take the heat out of this.
The reasons why we are in this difficulty, as we have said on previous occasions on this Bill, are by no means all connected with the principle of non-selection, though some are. Probably the major factor has been the curious forms of teaching that have been introduced and practised by, particularly, the younger teachers, who have not had the skill to make a success of these methods. I think we ought to know what has hap-
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pened more accurately than we do now. In my time, there were fewer than half the teachers in post who are in post in the maintained schools now. It is impossible to increase a force of teachers at that rate without getting it out of balance between the older and experienced teachers and the new ones coming in at the bottom. One is bound to add that the competition for sixth-form leavers who opt for teaching and go, in the old days, to a teacher training college has grown more severe all the time; so the increased numbers and the lower quality have really produced a very serious situation.
I do not think the public will give up what I would call the evening newspaper scandal sheet business, which does not do the schools much good, unless the Government take some much more definite step towards reviewing the present situation. Could there be a better moment to do it than now, when there is to be a considerable reorganisation of secondary education? This seems to me to be exactly the time when this inquiry ought to be made. I am of course not going to press this to a Division, but, again, it is one of those failures in public relations which seems to be characteristic of the Department and of the education system today. So I would hope that the noble Lord would be able to say that the Secretary of State is not content with these internal inquiries and that she really will do something on a scale which will set at rest this great volume of anxiety. Much of it, I would agree, is being stoked up on very flimsy evidence, but that does not destroy the fact that it is there, and it ought to be dealt with if this Bill is to have a fair chance.
Lord HAMPTON: My Lords, nothing that I have heard in this House this evening makes me think other than that this is an important Amendment. It is, I believe, relevant still to recall briefly, and repeat, the circumstances in which this Amendment was in due course accepted by your Lordships and subsequently rejected by the Commons. First, in Committee of the House it was proposed that the committee of inquiry should investigate only non-selective schools. The Conservatives wished this to be linked with another Amendment, delaying the implementation of the Bill until the required report had been received

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and found satisfactory. In some confusion, both Amendments were withdrawn, but not until after the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, had said, at col. 1614 [Official Report, 7th October 1976]:
"I would have absolutely no objection, and would certainly recommend to my Secretary of State that we bring in something in the form of your first Amendment. I see no objection to it at all".
It should be added, in fairness, that the noble Lord covered himself by adding:
"There may be difficulties; I do not know what they are".
So far, so good.
Then, secondly, on Report the original Amendment was reintroduced, but with an important change in that the committee was to be asked to investigate secondary education as a whole, and not just comprehensive schools. It was in no way an attack on the comprehensive system but a request for information so that our system of education could be made the best possible and help all dedicated teachers to give of their best. The noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, said of the inquiry into aspects of the education service (in col. 835):
"We welcome it provided that it is not based on blind prejudice or on a nostalgic or often mistaken view of past practices."
I think that the implication that his Party alone is free from blind prejudice is totally unacceptable. I think he made an excellent case for an independent committee of inquiry. In the same column, the noble Lord continued:
"May I add also that we understand teachers' resentment at uninformed attacks on the professional interests and judgment of educational needs."
I should say that I have spoken since then to teachers in the independant sector who say that they would welcome such an inquiry. They are quite prepared to stand up and be counted. I have also spoken to teachers in comprehensive schools and I have found none who would oppose the setting up of such a committee. The dedicated head of a comprehensive school told me that she would wholeheartedly welcome it. She has the humility to admit that she is learning all the time and considers that such an independent inquiry would help her and her staff to give of their best.
The noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, went on to give a number of reasons why this inquiry was unecessary. Conservatives,
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Liberals and Cross-Benchers were unconvinced by his case. He clearly had been instructed to resist and resist he did; but the Government were defeated. At Third Reading an attempt from these Benches to offer a further practical alteration to the Amendment was barely considered. We suggested, first, that three years rather than two should be allowed for the committee to prepare the report; secondly, that careful consideration should be paid to the experience of comprehensive schools gained in other countries. The noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, seemed to think that if you had to have such a committee of inquiry, the longer the report was delayed the better. The Commons, it was stated, would be throwing out the whole Amendment anyway and that, under the guillotine, without further consideration, is what happened.
The other day I heard the right honourable lady the Secretary of State speaking in an educational debate in the other place. I was moved by her obvious dedication to her task and by her sense of idealism. One cannot but respect her for it. It is therefore all the more disappointing that she has not seen fit to accept an Amendment such as this. Her idealism does not seem to go further than along strictly Party lines. There seems, alas! little point in asking the Government to think again on this Amendment; but we feel that the Record must be put straight. We do not question the value of what Her Majesty's Inspectorate are doing. We are sceptical about proposals for a massive conference. We remain unconvinced that this committee of inquiry would not be the most practical answer, at what has been called a time of crisis in secondary education.
This Amendment cannot be considered an attack on the comprehenisve system any more than it is an attack on the independent sector which would also have been under review. It is a search for facts and for the truth. It is an attempt to ensure that in the long run we are giving our children and their children the best education possible. The Government remain adamant in their resistance. So be it. But let the public know that we have tried and let them know how negative we on these Benches think is the Government's response. Let the public judge for themselves.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: My Lords, if I may make a final remark on this, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State is deeply concerned with the monitoring of what is going on. I gave on three occasions a good many instances of what is being done. It may be that in due course she will think it a good plan to have a major inquiry of the kind noble Lords are talking about; but if she does she will do it in her own good time and in her own good way and, in my opinion, it should not be part of an Act of Parliament.
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, if the right honourable lady does so, the Liberal and Conservative Parties will undoubtedly claim all the credit for it.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENTS
25 Clause 4, page 4, line 5, at end insert:
""provided that the necessary resources for building and equipment have been made available to give full effect to the Secretary of State's approval of the proposals." "
26 Clause 4, page 4, line 12, at end insert—
""provided that the necessary resources for building and equipment have been made available to give full effect to the Secretary of State's approval of the proposals.""
The Commons disagreed to these Amendments for the following Reason:
27 Because the Amendments are unnecessary.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I beg to move that this House doth not insist upon their Amendments Nos. 25 and 26 to which the Commons have disagreed for their Reason numbered 27. These Amendments were disagreed to without debate in another place, but the whole question of resources had been fully debated for four hours earlier during their Committee stage. On that occasion, Ministers gave various assurances which I have repeated in Committee, on Report and at Third Reading. I hope that three times is enough.
I will not go over the same ground again. I will merely remind the House that the Government recognise that resources are limited, that in certain areas it must be quite a number of years before reorganisation can be satisfactorily completed. Obviously we do not start with a clean slate. Authorities do not have unlimited resources to give effect to
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their ideal reorganisation plans but neither does the combination of resources and existing provision totally preclude substantial and reasonable progress towards reorganisation at this time.
The school building programme is announced to authorities in the form of a lump sum allocation. It does not differentiate between sums for primary and secondary schools and it is open to authorities to deploy their allocation according to their own assessments of their priorities. While the Secretary of State may prefer that these resources should be used to facilitate reorganisation, the authority could well have a different order of priorities. Unless therefore a separate building allocation were made for reorganisation it would be impossible to say, in the terms of these Amendments, when the necessary resources for building and equipment had been made available to give full effect to proposals approved by the Secretary of State.
This Bill has been introduced to ensure that the resources available in the school building programme are used in ways compatible with the development of comprehensive education. We have never expected reorganisation to outpace resources; but there are many areas where, if the will existed, progress could be made within the constraints of available resources. The Commons consider the Amendments unnecessary; they are also potentially wrecking; this remains the Government's view. I hope noble Lords will accept our assurances and not press these Amendments further.
Moved, That this House doth not insist upon the said Amendments to which the Commons have disagreed for their Reason numbered 27.—(Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge.)
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, I am bound to say that I think that the Commons Reason, that they are unnecessary, and the tailpiece which the noble Lord added, that they are potentially wrecking, rather spoiled the undertaking which the noble Lord was good enough to give at Third Reading on November 3rd (in col. 1406) when he said:
"No authority or governing body of a voluntary school will be penalised by the Secretary of State

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for failing to implement its plans under Section 13 if it can convince the Secretary of State that resources to do so are not available."
I should like to thank the noble Lord for that assurance on that occasion.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: My Lords, I repeat it now.
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, may I add that I have a concern and it is this: that a few authorities may none the less be tempted—indeed some authorities under the terms of the Bill may be forced—by the Secretary of State to produce what we call "botched up" schemes because the resources are not available for the authority to reorganise as it would wish. In addition to that, I have another concern which is that the present economic situation brings home to us the danger of resources being cut suddenly and interest rates being increased between the time when proposals have been approved by the Secretary of State and the time when those proposals are due to be implemented. If I may chide the noble Lord gently, when he said that all was splendid because this Amendment on resources had been fully debated in another place in Committee, that was five months ago. A great deal of financial water has flowed under a great number of bridges since then.
The amount of resources which local authorities have are not going to be the same in December as they were in May. Under those circumstances, the assurance which the noble Lord has given me is an important assurance. In addition, the noble Lord will remember that he also gave me an assurance about the use of Section 99 of the 1944 Education Act. I have deployed my reasons at previous stages why I dislike that procedure, and I am sure that local authorities would have been re-assured if these Amendments could have been written into the Bill. None the less, perhaps it is fair for me to concede that the difference between the Government and myself is rather more about means than about ends. I repeat that I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, for the assurance he gave me.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
8.11 p.m.

LORDS AMENDMENT
28 Clause 5, leave out clause 5.
The Commons disagreed to this Amendment for the following Reason:
29 Because the Commons consider that the Secretary of State should have power to control the exercise by local education authorities of their functions in relation to the provisions of education in non-maintained schools.
Lord BEAUMONT of WHITLEY 29A Lord BEAUMONT of WHITLEY to move, This this House doth insist on Amendment No. 28 to which the Commons have disagreed.
Lord BEAUMONT of WHITLEY: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth insist on Amendment No. 28, to which the Commons have disagreed. I am glad to see the resistance of the Government Front Bench is weakening.
Lord BELSTEAD: Good!
Lord BEAUMONT of WHITLEY: My Lords, not only have they actually given us during the course of this debate an Amendment—or at least half an Amendment—but the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, who earlier on in the proceedings was telling us that what he told us three times was true, is now reduced to saying that what he has told us three times is enough. That is a significant change. Let us get it clear that the object of this Bill is to establish the comprehensive principle nationally. We on these Benches believe that the Government are right to do so, and have the right to do so. In doing it, it is absolutely certain that they will take away from local authorities—using that in the widest sense of the term, any kind of devolved authority—some powers and put them into the bank of the central Government. That in itself is bad. There will probably be general agreement in your Lordships' House that there needs to be more devolution and not less, more control at local level and less by Whitehall and Westminster.
Nevertheless, we are absolutely behind the Government in saying that if they feel that they need this Bill to have a national system of comprehensive education, then they must have it. But is Clause 5 necessary for the establishment of the comprehensive principle? We on these Benches will listen with great care to the answer. But my answer is, No. I do not believe that in the foreseeable future—and by that I mean a long way ahead,

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20 or 25 years, which is quite long enough to be legislating in this House—anyone can imagine a local authority having enough money to send enough children to independent schools to breach the comprehensive principle. That means a large number of children. Even if they had the money, and even if their local electors did not turn them out—because I agree it is difficult to turn out councillors on a one issue point—there is a remedy. That is a remedy of the district auditor.
The district auditor was recommended as a remedy by the last Secretary of State before this Bill was brought in. If it was dubious, then, no matter whether he would have had the power to disallow the one or two authorities of this country which make a habit of sending quite a lot of children to independent schools, nevertheless I submit that, once this Bill is passed into law, it is clear what the intention of Parliament is; that is, to establish the law that there is a national comprehensive system. Then the power of the district auditor in these cases will be a satisfactory resort. I do not stand by that; I put that forward as an argument.
My main argument is that it is inconceivable that any local authority would have the money. resources and will to put so many children into independent schools to breach the comprehensive principle. The Amendment has nothing to do with independent schools; it has to do with freedom for local education authorities to do as they want to do, what they see fit for individual children in individual cases with money at their disposal.
I have said before in the debates in your Lordships' House that there appears to be a conflict of paranoia, fears as to what local authorities may get up to on the one hand, and fears as to what an evil—or perhaps I should say a "misguided"—Secretary of State may get up to on the other hand. I think the balance here is definitely for the paranoia against the Secretary of State, because whereas I cannot believe, for the reasons I have stated, that local education authorities are likely in any way to breach this principle, it is by no means inconceivable that a future Secretary of State—not the present one—would use this as a weapon to cut all the links between local
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education authorities and independent schools. Under Clause 5 that could be done.
Your Lordships have spent a great number of hours discussing whether private practice in the National Health Service should be separated from public practice. It is right that you should have spent a lot of time discussing this extremely important matter. It would not be right that this should be dealt with by a back door entry. It would be extremely wrong for that to happen. That is, as I say, the effect of Clause 5.
It may be right or it may be wrong that we should have this partnership between the local education authority and the independent sector. I happen to think that so long as we have the independent sector it is certainly right. What is absolutely certain is that it must not be decided as a subordinate part of a Bill dealing with something else. I believe that Clause 5 is harmful in that it takes powers away from local education authorities and gives them to Whitehall. I believe that it is dangerous because it opens up the door to the dangers which I have outlined. I believe that it is unnecessary because I do not believe its absence will leave any loophole which can break open the comprehensive principle. I believe that this is the one Amendment upon which we should insist. I beg to move.
Moved, That this House doth insist on their Amendment No. 28, to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 29.—(Lord Beaumont of Whitley.)
8.19 p.m.
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, I should like to add a word or two to what the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, has said. I believe that the Government's insistence on keeping Clause 5 in the Bill stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of the reasons which prompt local authorities to take up places outside the maintained sector. This is something on which the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, has spoken. In essence, authorities take up places in non-maintained schools because they need them: they want boarding places or they have children such as my noble friend Lady Faithfull talked about, bordering on mal-adjustment, children from broken homes or who want to study shortage subjects.

1569
It is true that one finds authorities taking up places in schools which have had a hand in educating the children of the area for many years—for centuries even—and everybody is very proud of that link between the authority and the school.
Having said that, I must join the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, in doubting whether, in these days of very scarce resources, you would find an authority leaving places empty in its own schools—certainly not sixth-form places—in order to take up places at independent schools. To that extent I think the Government are labouring under a misconception if they think authorities are going to drive a coach and horses through the Bill by the taking up of these places. Anyway, it strikes me it has escaped the notice of the Government that the operation of the first four clauses of this Bill will ensure that authorities will not avoid providing comprehensive education because, of course, Clause 4 requires authorities to implement the proposals. I draw the conclusion that it is inconceivable that a local authority forced to reorganise its schools would then pay out unnecessary recurrent expenditure on fees at independent schools in order to educate children in places which they could already have been providing in the schools they have been asked to reorganise. I thought the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, made a very valid point at a previous stage when he said that this clause has no criteria in it. It certainly leaves a blank cheque to the Secretary of State in this most important field of local authority discretion.
I have one other point, which is this: I am surprised that a Government which have signed the international covenant on economic, social and cultural rights, which expressly requires the signatories to undertake to have respect for the liberty of parents to choose for their children schools other than those established by public authorities, can be bringing a clause of this sort into the Bill. The Liberal Party intend to vote on this Motion and, if I may say so, they have every right to do so, particularly on the strong case made by the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont. Speaking on behalf of my noble friends and myself on these Benches, I have this worry: I believe that to insist on this Amendment alone out of all the Amendments put forward, when so many others may not be so important but have a
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wider effect, could be interpreted as not being as responsible as perhaps one ought to be in looking at the Bill as a whole. Although I believe that the case put forward by the noble Lord is absolutely watertight, with very great regret I shall content myself this evening with reiterating my hope that before long this Bill and all it stands for is going to be repealed.
Lord HACKING: My Lords, can the noble Lord explain what he means by "responsible"?
Lord BELSTEAD: Yes, my Lords, I do not think we should be as responsible as we ought to be in picking out an Amendment which, important though it is, does not have such a wide effect as many other Amendments. I could give the noble Lord as an example Amendment No. 1, which affects really all children who go to school. This Amendment affects about 20,000 children who are in places taken up by local authorities at independent schools.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: My Lords, when this Bill was first tabled, Clause 5 was included so that, in order to ensure that local education authorities proceeded as quickly as possible towards full comprehensive education, the Secretary of State could use certain powers which Parliament intended her to have under previous legislation but which, for various reasons we have discussed earlier, could not at present be exercised effectively. They were powers intended to enable her to control the circumstances in which local education authorities provide or support the provision of education in non-maintained schools in three different ways: by giving grants to a school, by taking places at full cost without regard to a parent's means, or by giving income-related help to a parent to pay the fees.
The point was simply and solely that this could be used by a local education authority as a way of avoiding their duty to work as quickly as possible towards the provision of education without reference to ability or aptitude. It has been suggested that such a thing is most unlikely to happen, but there have been instances of acute disagreements in the past—I need not give names—and as a matter of interest the number of places taken up by some LEAs at independent

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schools is quite high. For example, Tameside is planning to take up about 300 per annum; Lancashire, 320; Bexley, 150; Bolton, 500; Brent, 200.
These are not negligible figures. Whether they are legitimate or not is not the point. It was never our intention to suggest there would be any widespread attempt by local education authorities to evade their duties in this way, but we think some might be tempted to do so and we have had experience which reinforces that fear. Much reassurance has been given both here and in another place that the powers reinstated by the clause would be used flexibly and sympathetically. We have repeatedly made clear that all applications to make arrangements relating to the non-maintained sector would be considered on their merits. If I remember rightly, the noble Lord in Committee described my account of how the Secretary of State would use her powers as "positively moving". Additionally, without the restraints this clause could be used to impose, it would be possible for a misguided local authority to take up places at independent selective schools and to incur extra public expenditure unnecessarily at a time when numbers at secondary schools will be falling substantially. Admittedly, there might be a partial solution, as the noble Lord suggested, through the district auditor, but I do not think that would completely resolve the matter. Tameside and perhaps one or two other authorities are contemplating just such action.
Before I end, it is only right to refer to the important constitutional issue which arises on this Amendment. The Education Bill had a majority of 41 on Second Reading in another place and relatively comfortable majorities at every subsequent stage, usually with the support of the Liberal Party. The Government have not been adamant in this House on points of detail. We have agreed to the deletion of Clause 10 and to the insertion of what is now Clause 11 concerning the education of handicapped children. We have accepted the substance of the Liberal Amendment to Clause 2, Amendment No. 17 on today's Marshalled List. We have undertaken to issue a Circular giving guidance to local authorities about the information they should make available to parents, thus meeting the spirit of
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Amendment No. 21. All these are concessions to views expressed in this House. Let nobody suggest that these things have not been fully discussed here or that no notice has been taken of the views expressed. Is it not time for some reciprocity and some regard for the views of another place, which has so recently rejected this Amendment without even voting on it? I believe it is. I appreciate the intentions of the noble Lord and his friends not to force this issue and I hope very much that the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, will not feel obliged to do so.
Lord BEAUMONT of WHITLEY: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, said that this was, of them all, a narrow point to choose. I think that is, in a way, one of its forces, because whereas we on these Benches agree with the Government, as we have said so often, about the purposes of their Bill and have not been prepared to see it modified out of existence, and although we have supported the Government in the Lobbies on a number of occasions, we think that this is an individual occasion where a completely different and very important principle is at stake. That is the principle—and I do not put it any lower than that—of devolution, of whether power is to flow unnecessarily to Whitehall and Westminster or whether, on the other hand, it must be stopped and eventually, we hope, turned back. It is for that reason that my noble friends and I have chosen this point on which we say that the Government should give way. I entirely agree with the Government that they have helped us on a number of points. But one or two of those which they quoted were not quite so full-blooded as they made out. They never liked Clause 10, anyway, and to make a virtue of that necessity seems to me a little unfair.
The noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, raised a constitutional point. He said that there is a constitutional issue involved, and so there is. We sent this Amendment, fully argued, back to another place and they did not discuss it. But to say that that is the fault of people who spent two and a half hours discussing a Timetable Motion, or that too much time was spent on Amendment No. 1 on which, I may say, we spent considerable time ourselves, is to beg the issue. The reason why it was not discussed at all when it went back to another place was that the

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Government had so mucked-up their legislative programme with totally unnecessary and objectionable Bills that they did not have the time to consider our proposals as they should. We are a revising Chamber and we are entitled to expect our Amendments to be considered by another place. There is no constitutional point in this except that,

WEIGHTS AND MEASURES (No. 2) BILL [H.L.]
8.40 p.m.
Baroness LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOE: My Lords, I have it in command from Her Majesty the Queen and His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales that they, having been informed of the purport of the Weights and Measures (No. 2) Bill, have consented to place their prerogative and interests, so far as they are concerned on behalf of the Crown, the Duchy of Lancaster and the Duchy of Cornwall, at the disposal of Parliament for the purposes of the Bill.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I beg to move that the Commons Amendments be now considered.
Moved, That the Commons Amendments be now considered.—(Lord Oram.)
and I hope that noble Lords will follow me into the Lobby.
8.32 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Motion shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 27; Not-Contents, 30.

CONTENTS

Airedale, L.

de Clifford, L.

Monson, L.

Amherst, E.

Faithfull, B.

Morris, L.

Ampthill, L.

Greenway, L.

Norwich, V.

Avebury, L.

Hacking, L.

Robson of Kiddington, B.

Banks, L.

Hampton, L. [Teller.]

Seear, B.

Barrington, V.

Hanworth, V.

Somers, L.

Beaumont of Whitley, L. [Teller.]

Henley, L.

Thurso, V.

Hunt of Fawley, L.

Wigoder, L.

Broadbridge, L.

Lindsey and Abingdon, E.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

McNair, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Arwyn, L.

Hale, L.

McCluskey, L.

Birk, B.

Harris of Greenwich, L.

Oram, L. [Teller.]

Champion, L.

Hirshfield, L.

Peart, L. (L. Privy Seal)

Collison, L.

Houghton of Sowerby, L.

Peddie, L.

Darwen, L.

Jacques, L. [Teller.]

Phillips, B.

Davies of Leek, L.

Janner, L.

Pitt of Hampstead, L.

Delacourt-Smith of Alteryn, B.

Kagan, L.

Ritchie-Calder, L.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Kirkhill, L.

Segal, L.

Elwyn-Jones, L. (L. Chancellor.)

Llewelyn-Davies, L.

Stone, L.

Fisher of Camden, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.

Strabolgi, L.

On Question, Motion agreed to.

COMMONS AMENDMENTS
[References are to Bill (193) as first printed for the Commons]
[No. 1.]
Clause 1, page 1, line 14, leave out subsections (2) and (3).
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 1, and on this Motion I will also speak to Amendment No. 22. These Amendments remove from the Bill all reference to the redefinition of the litre and the gallon. These redefinitions and the consequential repeal of the Weights and Measures (International Definitions) Order 1963 are no longer necessary since they have already been effected in the Units of Measurement Regulations which came into force on 1st November.
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Oram.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

COMMONS AMENDMENTS
[Nos. 2 and 3.]
Clause 2, page 2, line 42, at beginning insert "Subject to subsection (3A) below".
Page 3, line 10, at end insert—
"(3A) An order under subsection (3) above shall not remove from Schedule 1A—

(a) in Part I the mile, foot or inch, or

(b) in Part IV the gallon or pint,

but this subsection is without prejudice to the power under paragraph (c) of the said subsection (3) to add vary or remove any restriction on the cases or circumstances in which, or the conditions subject to which, a unit of measurement, measure or weight may be used for trade, or possessed for use for trade."
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in their Amendments Nos. 2 and 3, and on this Motion I will also speak to Amendments Nos. 6 and 16. These Amendments make two changes limiting the Secretary of State's power to amend Schedule lA which lists those units which may lawfully be used for trade. Amendments Nos. 2 and 3 prevent the Secretary of State from removing certain specified units from that Schedule. However the Amendment makes it quite clear that this restriction is without prejudice to the powers contained in subsection (3) (c) to allow restrictions to be imposed on the particular use of any units of measurement. I should add, however, that any use of these restricting powers would be subject to consultation and the Affirmative Resolution procedure.
Amendments Nos. 6 and 16 are intended to prevent the powers in Section 21 of the Weights and Measures Act 1963—powers which allow the Secretary of State to regulate transactions in particular goods—from being used so as to make the sale of those goods illegal in Imperial prescribed quantities before April 1978. In other words, the Government cannot outlaw the sale in Imperial quantities of those goods which include many basic shopping basket items—for example, flour, sugar, tea, salt, et cetera which are currently allowed to be sold in Imperial prescribed quantities. The Government will, however, be continuing to make orders introducing metric prescribed quantities as an alternative to the Imperial quantities.
The date of 21st April 1978 has been chosen because that is the date after which, because of our obligations under the EEC Directive on Units of Measurement, metric packs may be freely imported into the United Kingdom.
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendments.—(Lord Oram.)
Lord REDESDALE: My Lords, we are grateful for the explanation which has been given to us by the noble Lord, Lord Oram. We on these Benches shall not disagree with any of these Amendments. However, we do not like compulsion. Our opinion is that there is far too much legislation as a whole and we should like an opportunity to see how the Bill operates. The noble Lord has said that Statutory Instruments will be made from time to time. I cannot say that we are at all enthusiastic about the powers of compulsion which are laid down in the Bill unless an overwhelming case is made out that their use will be in the interests of the consumer—who would not believe it. That will also apply when we are in power again, which I am sure is not too far away. As I have said, we do not disagree with the Bill but we should like to see how it operates. I am most grateful for the explanation which the noble Lord has given to the House.
Baroness SEEAR: My Lords, we on these Benches will not disagree with the Amendments moved by the noble Lord, but for reasons which are slightly different from those given by the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale. Because this is largely a non-Party matter it is very much my view, speaking as much with my hat on as President of the British Standards Institution as from these Benches, that the sooner we get on with the introduction of metrication the better. There is great exasperation in many circles, and much wider circles than is generally realised, at the delay over a matter which has been under discussion now for months and months.
While we accept the need for double marking that we are going to have for a period of time, we hope that before very long—indeed, as soon as possible and practicable—we shall all become accustomed to metric measures and that they will be used, and will be expected to be used, singly. It is quite ridiculous at the present time, when we need every possible aid to get overseas markets and when over 90 per cent. of the people to whom we sell our exports deal in metricated

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standards, that we should still be considering producing goods in Imperial standards. There is waste in doing it doubly.
Also, it is said frequently that consumers do not want metrication to happen. It is only three weeks ago that the British Standards Institution's Consumers' Advisory Service, which represents a large number of consumer organisations and leading women's organisations and which covers 4 million consumers, expressed the very strongest hope that metrication will come about very quickly indeed.
Lord MONSON: My Lords, may I say how much I welcome Amendments Nos. 2 and 3 and, indeed, many of the later Commons Amendments. Latterly, particularly during the past few weeks, there has been little doubt that your Lordships' House has reflected public opinion far more accurately than has the Commons. At last we have an issue where the Commons are indisputably more in tune with the deepest instincts and wishes of the people than are the Lords. I wish only that the Commons had gone further in retaining Imperial units of measurement.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I am glad to learn from the noble Lord, Lord Redes-dale, and the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, that they are not likely to seek to get the House to reject any of these Commons Amendments. We are returning to something akin to the spirit which we had during the various stages of the Bill here. I believe that this was not entirely the spirit in another place, which was more in line with the sentiments of the noble Lord, Lord Monson. But the noble Lord referred to the Commons having "held up" or some such expression—removed certain units—
Lord MONSON: My Lords, I simply expressed the wish that they had gone even further in retaining Imperial units of measurement. I was essentially praising the Commons for what they had done.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I do not object to the noble Lord doing that, but I would point out that what we are doing with these Amendments is in effect to change procedure. The power to move along the path of metrication still remains
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when these Amendments have been accepted.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

COMMONS AMENDMENT
[No. 4]
Clause 2, page 4, line 39, at end insert—
"() in the said section 52(1) for the words '£20' there are substituted the words '£50', and the amendment of that subsection in Schedule 3 to the Criminal Justice Act 1967 (which is superseded by this paragraph) shall cease to have effect."
8.51 p.m.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, with the leave of the House I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 4, and I shall also speak to Amendments 8, 9, 20 and 21. This Amendment, together with the consequentials, increases the maximum fine for certain offences under Section 52 (1) of the Weights and Measures Act 1963 and the corresponding offences under the Weights and Measures Act (Northern Ireland) 1967 from £20 to £50. The sort of offences that are caught by Section 52(1) are, for example, the use of illegal measures, and the use of unstamped equipment. For most of these offences there has been, since the passage of the 1963 Act, no increase in the maximum fine and an increase would seem reasonable if only to keep in line with inflation.
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Oram.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

COMMONS AMENDMENT
[No. 5.]
After Clause 2, insert the following new clause:
Dual marking and conversion charts: duty to consult about regulations
". Before making any regulations under section 9B of the 1963 Act (as amended by this Act) the Secretary of State shall consult with such persons as appear to him to be representative of interests substantially affected by the regulations."
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 5. This Amendment imposes on the Secretary of State a specific requirement to consult interested parties before using his powers to make regulations under the new Clause 9B. These are regulations relating

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to dual marking and the display of conversion charts. The Government would in any case consult before making regulations of this type and we see no harm in such a requirement being written into the Bill.
Moved, That the House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Oram.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

COMMONS AMENDMENT
[No. 6.]
Insert the following new clause:
Pre-packed and other goods: temporary restriction on removal of permitted imperial quantities
". —(1) The powers to prescribe the quantities in which goods may be made up sold, or made for sale, which are conferred by section 21 of the 1963 Act shall not be exercised so as to make unlawful any sale of goods to which this section applies.
(2) This section applies to a sale—

(a) which is of goods which are pre-packed, sold, or made for sale, in any quantity specified by the enactments and orders in Schedule (Pre-packed and other goods) to this Act (quantities expressed in the imperial system), and

(b) which is made at any time before 21st April 1978.".

Lord ORAM: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 6. I spoke on this in connection with Amendment No. 2.
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Lord Oram.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

COMMONS AMENDMENT
[No. 7.]
After clause 5, insert the following new clause:
Solid fuel
". Schedule (Solid Fuel) to this Act shall have effect."
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 7. On this Motion I will also speak to Amendments 10, 17, 18 and 19. Since I have mentioned Amendment No. 18, I should like to call your Lordships' attention to a misprint. Unfortunately the figures "18" have not been included in the Marshalled List. Towards the
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end of Page 7 of the Marshalled List the figures "18" should appear in the margin against the word "Schedule". I think that puts the matter in order.
This group of Amendments introduces new provisions relating to transactions in solid fuel and amends the existing provisions contained in Schedule 6 to the Weights and Measures Act 1963 and the corresponding Northern Ireland legislation. The principal changes effected by the Amendments are, first, that metric prescribed quantities of 25kg and 50kg are introduced in addition to the existing range of Imperial quantities in which solid fuel is required to be made up for sale. Secondly, the Schedule excepts metric quantities of solid fuel in open-topped sacks from the general requirement that solid fuel shall be made up for sale only if the container is marked with an indication of the net weight. The main new requirement as far as Great Britain is concerned is that when solid fuel is carried on a road vehicle for sale or for delivery after sale and it is made up for sale in metric quantities in containers which are not securely closed, an indication of those metric quantities and the name and address of the seller must be displayed on the vehicle. I should add that Northern Ireland legislation already requires that road vehicles carrying solid fuel should display an indication of the quantities carried.
These new provisions reflect the extensive consultations the Department has held with trade, consumer and enforcement interests. The fact that metric open-topped sacks of solid fuel will not be required to be quantity marked will not lead to any lessening of consumer protection. The existing requirement for sacks to carry a quantity indication (a metal tally) is ineffective since, given the robust nature of the trade, many of these tallies become detached or are frequently rendered illegible. A "quantity indication" notice displayed on a coal lorry is at least as effective a form of consumer protection and has worked well in Northern Ireland for a number of years.
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment—(Lord Oram.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

COMMONS AMENDMENTS
[Nos. 8–10.]
Clause 7, page 8, line 6, at end insert "(a)".
Clause 7, page 8, line 8, at end insert—
", and
(b) for the words 'twenty pounds' there are substituted the words 'fifty pounds', and the amendment of that subsection in Part I of the Schedule to the Increase of Fines Act (Northern Ireland) 1967 (which is superseded by this paragraph) shall cease to have effect."
After Clause 7, insert the following new clause:
Solid fuel (Northern Ireland)
". Schedule (Solid Fuel (Northern Ireland)) to this Act shall have effect.".
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in their Amendments 8 to 10 en bloc. These have been referred to earlier.
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in their Amendments 8 to 10 en bloc.—(Lord Oram.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

COMMONS AMENDMENTS
[Nos. 11 and 12.]
Clause 11, page 11, line 9, after "Act" insert "except Schedules (Solid Fuel) and (Solid Fuel (Northern Ireland))".
Clause 11, page 11, line 12, leave out "section 6" and insert "sections (prepacked and other goods), (solid fuel) and 6 and schedules (prepacked and other goods) and (solid fuel)."
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in their Amendments Nos. 11 and 12. Amendment No. 11 exempts the new provisions relating to solid fuel from the general coming into operation date of one month after the Bill is passed. The general enabling provisions contained in the Bill do not in themselves impose any new requirements and there is no reason why they should not come into operation quickly.
The provisions relating to solid fuel impose new requirements, such as that for signs on lorries, and therefore should not come into operation until the required consultation with interested parties has taken place. Amendment No. 12 provides that the new provisions relating to solid fuel and the temporary restriction on the removal of Imperial prescribed quantities shall not apply to Northern Ireland. In the case of solid fuel separate
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provision is made in the Bill. Since Northern Ireland follows the Great Britain practice on prescribed quantities it is not considered necessary to make any Amendments concerning these to the Northern Ireland Act.
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendments.—(Lord Oram.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

COMMONS AMENDMENTS
[Nos. 13 to 15.]
Schedule 1, page 13, line 4, at end insert—

"Hectolitre

Litre

Decilitre

Centilitre

Millilitre."

Schedule 2, page 14, line 40, at end insert:
"3. Measures of—

any multiple of 10 litres

100 millilitres

10 litres

50 millilitres

5 litres

25 millilitres

2·5 litres

20 millilitres

2 litres

10 millilitres

1 litre

5 millilitres

500 millilitres

2 millilitres

250 millilitres

1 millilitre.

200 millilitres

Page 16, line 19, column 1, at end insert "25 kilogrammes".
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in their Amendments Nos. 13 to 15 en bloc. These are technical Amendments. Amendment No. 13 adds the litre and its compounds to those units of volume which Schedule 1A lists as lawful for use for trade. Amendment No. 14 authorises the use for trade of certain specified litre measures. Amendment No. 15 adds the 25 kilogramme weight to those weights which may be used for trade. The addition of this weight has been requested by the wholesale fruit and vegetable trade and the retail solid fuel trade.
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said amendments.—(Lord Oram.)
Lord MONSON: My Lords, I should like to put one question to the noble Lord, Lord Oram. The fundamental purpose of this legislation is presumably to harmonise British practice with that

1583
prevailing in other EEC countries. Why, therefore, have the centilitre and the decilitre not been included? Anybody who has spent any length of time on the Continent will know that no Frenchman, for example, would ever in everyday life use the term "two hundred millilitres", a unit of measurement listed at the bottom of the first column of Amendment No. 14. He would in practice be infinitely more likely to use "20 centilitres" or "2 decilitres".
Lord ORAM: My Lords, to start with, I would disagree with the noble Lord that a main purpose of this legislation is to conform with EEC requirements. I explained on many occasions during earlier stages that this was a programme upon Which we wished to embark because we believed that it was right for Britain, but that in consequence we would wish to see that the legislation we passed was in harmony with the EEC requirements, and that has been taken account of several times. On the more detailed points about the decilitre, and so on, I am not in a position to give the exact reason at this moment. I hope that that fact does not mean that the noble Lord would want to delay proceedings. If I may, I will write to him with an explanation.
Lord MONSON: I am grateful to the noble Lord.
Lord SOMERS: My Lords, before we leave this subject, I should like to point out to the noble Lord that the use of centimetre would in no wise be in contradiction to the Continental system, the European system, since the centimetre is a perfectly obvious part of a metre, and incidentally a very useful one, and at present in use in the measurement of engine capacity of cars is the cubic centimetre.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that intervention.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
COMMONS AMENDMENTS
[Nos. 16 to 22.]
After Schedule 2, insert the following new Schedule:

SCHEDULE
PRE-PACKED AND OTHER GOODS
Permitted imperial quantities in Schedule 4 to the Act of 1963
1. The following provisions in Schedule 4 to the Act of 1963 so far as they permit the use of quantities expressed in the imperial system—

paragraph 3 of Part IV (bread),

paragraph 3(a) of Part V (milk),

paragraphs 2 and 3(a) of Part VI (intoxicating liquor),

paragraph 2(b) of Part VII (potatoes),

paragraph 3(a) of Part VIII (miscellaneous),

paragraph 3(a) of Part IX (miscellaneous).

In this paragraph references to provisions of Schedule 4 to the 1963 Act are to those provisions as amended by any order made under section 21 of the Act of 1963 before the passing of this Act.
Permitted imperial quantities in orders made under section 21 of the Act of 1963
2. The following orders so far as they specify quantities in the imperial system—

The Weights and Measures Act 1963 (Pasta) Order 1973

S.I. 1973/1967

The Weights and Measures Act 1963 (Salt) Order 1973

S.I. 1973/1968

The Weights and Measures Act 1963 (Sugar) Order 1974

S.I. 1974/1166

The Weights and Measures Act 1963 (Cereal Breakfast Foods and Oat Products) Order 1974

S.I. 1975/1177

The Weights and Measures Act 1963 (Flour and Flour Products) Order 1975

S.I. 1975/1178

The Weights and Measures Act 1963(Dried Vegetables) Order 1975

S.I. 1975/1179

The Weights and Measures Act 1963 (Biscuits and Short-bread)Order 1976

S.I. 1976/111

The Weights and Measures Act 1963 (Edible Fats) Order 1976

S.I. 1976/430

The Weights and Measures Act 1963 (Dried Fruits) Order 1976

S.I. 1976/431

The Weights and Measures Act 1963 (Tea) Order 1976

S.I. 1976/1294

The Weights and Measures Act 1963 (Bread) Order 1976.".

S.I. 1976/1297

Insert the following new Schedule:

SCHEDULE
SOLID FUEL
1. For paragraph 3 of Schedule 6 to the Act of 1963 there are substituted the following paragraphs—
"Quantities in containers
3.—(1) Solid fuel shall be made up in a container for sale, or for delivery after sale, only if it is made up in one of the quantities by net weight specified in the following Table—

TABLE

Imperial

Metric

7 pounds

25 kilogrammes

14 pounds

50 kilogrammes

28 pounds

56 pounds

1 hundredweight

1¼ hundredweight

Any multiple of 1 hundredweight

(2) This paragraph shall not apply to any solid fuel pre-packed in a quantity not exceeding 30 kilogrammes in a securely closed container.
(3) References in this Schedule to solid fuel made up in an imperial quantity are references to solid fuel made up in one of the imperial quantities specified in the Table in subparagraph (1) above, and references to solid fuel made up in a metric quantity shall be construed in a corresponding way.
(4) This paragraph, and paragraphs 3A, 3B and 3C below, have effect subject to the exemptions in paragraph 3D.
Indication of quantity
3A.—(1) This paragraph applies to solid fuel made up in a container for sale, or for delivery after sale, except where it is made up in a metric quantity in a container which is not securely closed.
(2) The solid fuel shall be made up in a container for sale, or for delivery after sale, only if the container is marked with an indication of quantity by net weight.
Loads on vehicles
3B.—(1) Solid fuel made up in containers in the quantity of 1¼cwt. shall be carried on a road vehicle on a highway for sale, or for delivery after sale, only if all solid fuel carried on the vehicle which is made up in containers is so made up in that quantity.
(2) Solid fuel made up in metric quantities in containers which are not securely closed shall be carried on a road vehicle on a highway for sale, or for delivery after sale, only if all solid fuel carried on the vehicle in containers which are not securely closed is made up in metric quantities.
(3) If this paragraph is contravened the seller shall be guilty of an offence.
Information about containers made up in metric quantities
3C.—(1) This paragraph applies where solid fuel is carried on a road vehicle on a highway for sale, or for delivery after sale, and is made up in metric quantities in containers which are not securely closed or is delivered from the vehicle in such containers in any metric quantity.
(2) There shall be displayed on the vehicle—

(a) an indication of the quantity, or quantities, by net weight of the fuel comprised in the containers (other than any securely closed containers) on, or delivered from, the vehicle, and

(b) a statement of the name and address of the seller.

(3) Regulations under section 21(4) of this Act may prescribe the manner in which the information required by sub-paragraph (2) above is to be displayed, and a person contravenes any such regulation shall be guilty of an offence.
(4) If this paragraph is contravened, the seller, and any other person who is in charge of the vehicle at the time of the contravention, shall each be guilty of an offence.
Exemptions
3D. There shall be exempted from all the requirements of paragraphs 3, 3A, 3B and 3C of this Schedule—

(a) solid fuel supplied under a arrangements made in the coal industry for the supply of solid fuel to persons who are or have been employed in that industry or to the dependants of such persons;

(b) solid fuel made up in a container only for ease of handling as part of the load of a vehicle or ship where the whole of that load so far as it consists of solid fuel is being delivered to a single buyer."

2. At the end of Part I of Schedule 6 to the Act of 1963 there are inserted the following paragraphs—
"6A.—(1) This paragraph apples to any vehicle which is used on highways for carrying solid fuel for sale, or for delivery after sale, and in this paragraph 'container' means any container in which solid fuel is carried on such a vehicle, or is delivered from suet a vehicle.
(2) The Secretary of State may by order make provision—

(a) for securing the display on any such vehicle of an indication of the quantities in which solid fuel is made up in containers;

(b) for requiring all containers carried on or delivered from any one vehicle to be made up in the same quantity or for regulating in any other way the quantities in which they are made up;

(c) for imposing any requirement as to the loading of the vehicle, or the delivery of solid fuel from the vehicle, which appears to the Secretary of State appropriate for securing that purchasers are not misled as to the quantity of fuel they purchase.

(3) An order under sub-paragraph (2) of this paragraph may—

(a) make provision for any of the purposes mentioned in that sub-paragraph by means of amending, or of applying with or without modifications, or of excluding the application in whole or in part of, any of the preceding paragraphs of this Schedule;

(b) contain such consequential, incidental or supplementary provision, whether of such kinds as aforesaid or otherwise, as appear to the Secretary of State to be expedient;

(c) may in particular make provision, in respect of contraventions of the order for which no penalty is provided by this Act, for the imposition of penalties not exceeding those provided by section 52 of this Act for an offence under this Act.

(4) An order made under this paragraph may be varied or revoked by a subsequent order so made.
6B. An order under section 21 of this Act may amend or repeal any of the preceding paragraphs of this Schedule."
3. (1) In section 54(2) of the Act of 1963 (consultation on orders) for the words "paragraph 2(3) of Schedule 6" substitute the words "paragraphs 2(3) and 6A of Schedule 6",
(2) In section 54(3) of the Act of 1963 (orders subject to affirmative procedure) after paragraph (c) there is inserted the following paragraph—
"(d) paragraph 6A of Schedule 6".
4. This Schedule shall come into force on such date as the Secretary of State may by order contained in a statutory instrument appoint, and different dates may be appointed for different provisions or different purposes."

SCHEDULE
SOLID FUEL (NORTHERN IRELAND)
1. In Schedule 4 to the 1967 Act—

(a) leave out paragraph 2(2)(a);

(b) in paragraph 3(1) leave out from "and except" to "twenty-four pounds";

(c) in paragraph 3(1)(a) after "quarter hundredweight", insert "or 10 kilogrammes, 15 kilogrammes, 25 kilogrammes, 50 kilogrammes or 62.5 kilogrammes";

(d) in paragraph 3(1)(b) after "paragraph 5 or" insert "of an order under paragraph 6A(2)(a) or the provisions of";

(e) in paragraph 3(2) after "quarter hundredweight", insert "or 25 kilogrammes, or 50 kilogrammes, or 62.5 kilogrammes";

(f) in paragraph 5(1) after "less", insert "or 200 kilogrammes or less";

(g) in paragraph 5(2) at the end add "and the name and address of the seller";

(h) in paragraph 7 leave out from "except" to "twenty-four pounds";

(i) in paragraph 9(c) after "paragraph 5(2)", insert "or an indication of quantities so displayed in accordance with an order under under paragraph 6A(2)(a)".

2. At the end of Part I of Schedule 4 to the 1967 Act insert the following paragraphs: —
"6A—(1) This paragraph applies to any vehicle which is used on highways for carrying solid fuel for sale, or for delivery after sale, or on or from which any solid fuel is sold or kept or exposed for sale, and in this paragraph 'container' means any container in which solid fuel is carried on such a vehicle, or is delivered from such a vehicle.
(2) The Department may by order make provision—

(a) for securing the display on any such vehicle of an indication of the quantities in which solid fuel is made up in containers;

(b) for requiring all containers carried on or delivered from any one vehicle to be made up in the same quantity, or for regulating in any other way the quantities in which they are made up;

(c) for imposing any requirement as to the loading of the vehicle, or the delivery of solid fuel from the vehicle, which appears to the Department appropriate for securing that purchasers are not misled as to the quantity of fuel they purchase.

(3) An order under sub-paragraph (2) may—

(a) make provision for any of the purposes mentioned in that sub-paragraph by means of amending or of applying with or without modifications, or of excluding the application in whole or in part of, any of the provisions of this Part;

1588

(b) contain such consequential, incidental or supplementary provisions, whether of such kinds as aforesaid or otherwise, as appear to the Department to be expedient;

(c) make provision, in respect of contraventions of the order for which no penalty is provided by this Act, for the imposition of penalties not exceeding those provided by section 34 for an offence under this Act.

6B. An order under section 15 may amend or repeal this Part.".
3. In section 35(2) of the 1967 Act (consultation on orders) for the words "and 43(1)" substitute the words "43(1) and paragraph 6A of Schedule 4".
4.—(1) This Schedule shall come into force on such date as the Department of Commerce for Northern Ireland may by order appoint and different dates may be appointed for different provisions or different purposes.
(2) An order under sub-paragraph (1) above shall be made by statutory rule for the purposes of the Statutory Rules Act (Northern Ireland) 1958".
Schedule 4, page 19, line 21, column 3, at end insert—
"In Schedule 4, paragraph 2(2)(a), in paragraph 3(1) the words from "and except" to "twenty-four pounds", and in paragraph 7 the words from "except" to "twenty-four pounds".".
Schedule 4, page 19, line 21, column 3, at end insert—

"1967 c. 80.

Criminal Justice

In Schedule 3 the amendment of the 1963 Act."

Schedule 4, page 19, line 21, column 3, at end insert—

"1967 c. 29 (N.I.)

Increase of Fines Act (Northern Ireland)1967.

In Part I of the Schedule the amendment of the 1967 Act."

Schedule 4, page 19, leave out lines 23 to 25.
Lord DRAM: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in their Amendments Nos. 16 to 22 en bloc. These have been referred to on earlier Amendments.
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendments.—(Lord Oram.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

INDUSTRIAL COMMON OWNERSHIP BILL
Returned from the Commons with the Amendments agreed to.
ENERGY BILL
Returned from the Commons with the Amendment to the Commons Amendment agreed to.
RENT (AGRICULTURE) BILL
Returned from the Commons with certain Lords Amendments agreed to; with certain other Lords Amendments agreed to with Amendments; with one other Lords Amendment disagreed to but with an Amendment proposed in lieu thereof; and with the remaining Lords Amendments disagreed to with Reasons for such disagreement; the said Amendments and Reasons to be printed.