Lords Sitting of 20 April 1977

Preamble
The House met at half-past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR On the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Peterborough

WATER SUPPLIES: UN CONFERENCE
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 United Nations conference on world water supplies and needs.
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, the United Nations Water Conference held in Argentina from 14th to 25th March produced about 100 action proposals for improving the quantity and quality of the world's water supply which will be inadequate to sustain future growth in many places unless water management is radically improved. It was urged that these proposals should be implemented by member States. For the developing countries, it was agreed that the Secretary-General should review the funding of water projects so that increased resources could be devoted to them.
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, while thanking my noble friend for that reply, may I ask whether there will be any report of these very important decisions by that conference? Furthermore, while there is concern about energy resources, is not the problem of water supplies far more important for millions in the world? Was it not reported to this conference that one-third of the population of the world is without secure drinking water, and can we have an assurance from the Government that they will give the utmost support to United Nations scheme plans for dealing with this matter in its second development decade?
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, so far as the first question, that of whether the report will be published, is concerned, I am afraid I cannot give my noble friend an answer but I will make inquiries and write to him if it is to be published. I can say that the conference did not take the view that the developing countries were risking running out of water, but was rather aimed at ensuring that the best use was made of the water resources available. I think it is fair to say that the United Kingdom delegation played a major part in this conference. They stressed the need for training at appropriate technical levels. The conference as a whole did not accept that there was any need for a separate United Nations organisation, but organisation does exist at the moment to do all that they wanted to do. So far as finance is concerned, in 1974 we spent in this field over £6 million. The figure rose to more than £10 million in 1975 and, within the present constraints, I can give my noble friend an assurance that the Government will give what support they can to funding.
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, is it not a fact that 99 per cent. of the sweet water in the world is now underground? Is it not therefore desirable that there should be a big plan to bring this to the surface, not only to fertilise the deserts but in order to supply the needs to which the noble Baroness has referred?
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, I am sure that these are all points which were taken into account at the conference. We have already helped the financing of water supply projects in Malawi, Jordan, Sri Lanka and Indonesia, many of which were for bore holes, and we are also interested in irrigation and water resources projects in Indonesia, Thailand, Ghana, Sudan and Pakistan. I am sure that we are aware of the fact that the water is underground and with our technical know-how we shall be able to help these projects to get it to the surface.
Lord AVEBURY: My Lords, does the noble Baroness consider that it is appropriate for the United Nations to hold international conferences in countries where there are consistent and flagrant violations of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights? Could this factor be taken into account in determining

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the venue of any future international conferences of this kind?
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, I think that that is rather outside the scope of the original Question.
Lord HAWKE: My Lords, will the Government supply to any nation in dire straits the name of the Sikh rainmaker who was responsible for giving us one yard of rain last September?
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE: Denis Howell!
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, this plan will be implemented at enormous cost. Are there proposals to meet that cost; and, if so, what do Her Majesty's Government propose to contribute?

OVERSEAS CIVIL SERVICE: WIDOWS' PENSIONS
2.40 p.m.
Lord GRIDLEY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are aware of the delay occasioned in the payment of pension to the widows of deceased officers of the Overseas Civil Service, due immediately on the death of these officers under the Widows and Orphans Pension Fund, and of the distress caused to the widows by this delay.
Baroness LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOE: My Lords, overseas widows' and orphans' pensions are normally paid promptly but I am aware that sometimes there have been delays, usually when the pension is payable from a scheme managed outside the United Kingdom. In these cases Her Majesty's Government try to do everything possible to obtain an award and payment from the responsible overseas authority.
Lord GRIDLEY: My Lords, while thanking the noble Baroness for that reply, may I assure her that we are grateful for the help received from the
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Government in this respect? Is she aware that principles are involved here and that the pension of every officer, when pensionable, on overseas territory must be approved by the Secretary of State? In that territory —in order to safeguard the position of his widow, because his pension ceases on death—he is required to pay into the widows' and orphans' pension fund. Is she further aware that there are now three cases where widows in that category on the death of their overseas husbands, former pensioners, have been waiting for three months or more for some sort of payment in connection with their pension?
Baroness LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOE: Yes, my Lords. I think the whole House is grateful to the noble Lord for the constant vigilance that he exercises on behalf of these people. On the first point, we are very much aware of the principle that, when money has been paid in, it should be available for the widows. I think that the whole House will understand that where overseas countries have taken over the payment the solution really is to do what we are aiming to do: to get the whole thing transferred to Her Majesty's Government so that then delays will be very rare. In regard to the specific cases to which the noble Lord referred, I am sure that he will be glad to hear that three have already been paid and a fourth will be paid by the end of this month.
Baroness VICKERS: My Lords, may I ask the noble Baroness whether she will not agree that the countries concerned, where these civil servants acted so well, owe them a debt of gratitude? Will she also ask Malaysia to look into their cases, because the Malaysian civil servants were asked by the Government to stay on even though they had been prisoners of war under the Japanese and many of them were not in good health, and they nevertheless did so in order to help the country get on its feet again?
Baroness LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOE: My Lords, not only this House and this country, but also the overseas countries concerned are very much aware of the debt of gratitude that is owed to these very deserving and distinguished public servants, and therefore to their widows.

CONCORDE: AIRCREW TRAINING
2.45 p.m.
The Earl of KIMBERLEY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government to what extent the full exploitation of a New York Concorde service would be limited by a lack of trained aircrews, and what steps British Airways have taken to train aircrews for a possible service to Australia.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, British Airways have informed me that their Concorde pilot training scheme is now running smoothly and efficiently. If access to New York were available, the airline could operate five flights per week by the end of July, and a daily service by the end of September, but some of these would have to be switched from the Washington service. The output from subsequent pilot training courses would be deployed on restoring the Washington services and on the route to Australia.
The Earl of KIMBERLEY: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for that Answer—which is not entirely satisfactory —may I ask whether he can say when a full complement of aircrew will be trained by British Airways so that not only can the Washington and New York runs be fully utilised but also the run to Australia?
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I had hoped that the noble Earl would have found my original Answer very satisfactory. There have been difficulties, as he knows, and we should be glad that those difficulties are now being overcome and that British Airways can indicate the kind of timetable to which I referred in my original Answer.
The Earl of KIMBERLEY: My Lords, the noble Lord has not answered my question as to when British Airways say they will have crews available for the Australia run.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, it is hoped that operations to Singapore will be possible by the spring or summer of 1978, and to Melbourne shortly after that.
Lord THOMAS: My Lords, would the noble Lord accept that, although there were massive delays in the training of Concorde pilots due to their asking for extra recoverable expenses to reach the training centre, the programme is now going well and with very few delays? Furthermore, would the noble Lord accept that during these unfortunate industrial disputes at Heathrow all Concorde flights have been on schedule, so far as they are permitted by route licences at the present time? Is not that something of which British industry can feel a little proud?
Lord ORAM: Yes, indeed, my Lords; there were early disputes. First, there was a dispute over pay and, secondly, over the provision of cars for the pilots in training. But those difficulties have been overcome and, as I indicated, the programme is now operating smoothly. That is a matter about which we can all feel satisfied. I endorse what the noble Lord said about the schedules being kept in good order, despite the well-known extreme difficulties in connection with the dispute with the maintenance engineers.
Lord CARRINGTON: My Lords, why should we be proud when people do their job properly? Should we not be irritated when they do not?
Lord ORAM: My Lords, when industrial disputes arise, we ought to take satisfaction at a successful outcome to them.
Earl ALEXANDER of TUNIS: My Lords, can the noble Lord say whether talks have taken place with the Canadian authorities to establish a service to, for example, Montreal or Toronto?
Lord ORAM: No, my Lords, I am afraid that I have no information about that matter, but I will look into it.
Lord BALFOUR of INCHRYE: My Lords, would the Minister agree that, as regards safety and regulation, the efficiency of the aircrews of the Concorde in its months of service is something of which we can be proud? If the other crews now under training attain that standard, our pride will be even greater.
Lord ORAM: Yes, my Lords. If the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, does not mind me expressing pride, I think we should be proud.

HOMELESS YOUNG PEOPLE
2.50 p.m.
The Earl of LONGFORD: 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 intend to designate homeless young people as a priority group in the order issued under the Housing (Homeless Persons) Bill.
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, as was made clear in the Second Reading of this Bill in another place, my right honourable friend is considering the arguments which were urged on behalf of homeless young people at that time. He has also undertaken to make a draft text of such an order available before the Committee stage of the Bill starts in that other place. My right honourable friend had understood, in the course of consultations with the local authority associations, that the view there expressed was that the priority groups should be confined to those identified as such in the joint circular on homelessness issued in 1974. We have, however, recently started consultations with the associations on the recommendations contained in the report of the Working Party on Homeless Young People and will take into account the views then expressed on this point.
The Earl of LONGFORD: My Lords, while recognising the guarded nature of that reply—which leaves one uncertain as to whether anything particular is contemplated—may I ask the noble Baroness whether she is aware of the debate in this House recently? Is she aware of the strong views expressed? Would she be surprised to know that, to take a typical young people's centre, perhaps 2 per cent. or less—nearly all pregnant girls—would be assisted by what she has in mind?
Baroness STEDMAN: Yes, my Lords; I am very much aware of the recent debate we had in this House and of the points
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raised by my noble friend. As I said, at this time my right honourable friend in another place has promised to consider whether the priority groups can be extended; but I must remind my noble friend that, if we extend the priority groups with the agreement of the local authority associations, we have to find money from somewhere to extend the service, and we then have to consider further where that money has to come from.
Lord SOPER: My Lords, would my noble friend agree that there is a correspondence between the incidence of crime among young people and the number of homeless young people? Would she not regard that as almost a peremptory argument for making a priority group of these homeless young people, in the interests of a greater degree of probity and decency among those who are at present in great danger because of the lack of any home to which they can go and of people in whom they can confide?
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, I regard it as a very good argument, but, as I said, consultations are already going on with the local authority associations as to whether they are willing for these priority groups to be extended. At this stage I could not give any further commitment.
Baroness YOUNG: My Lords, while deeply sympathising with the terrible problem of the homeless, whether they he young people or families, may I ask how the noble Baroness feels this Bill will help, since it will provide for no more houses to be built and no more houses to be let?
Baroness STEDMAN: That is as may be, my Lords, but the Bill certainly places the onus of responsibility for housing homeless people on specific authorities.
The Lord Bishop of LONDON: My Lords, will the noble Baroness appreciate that the very muted reply she has just made will be very discouraging to those people who feel very strongly about this terrible problem of the homeless young? Will she ensure that Her Majesty's Government bring every pressure to bear upon local authorities to appreciate the seriousness of the problem and to appreciate that there

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is nothing upon which money is better spent than on providing housing for the homeless young?
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, I am sure that Her Majesty's Government appreciate the situation as outlined by the right reverend Prelate, and I am sure they will do what they can with the local authorities. We accept that there is a problem concerning homeless young people and we are trying to do what we can. We think this Bill is perhaps a step along the way. We hope that as a result of the consultations, we might at some future date, if not now, be able to extend the priorities to include the young people to whom the right reverend Prelate has referred. In the meantime, we shall continue to give as much guidance as we can to local authorities on how to handle this specific problem in their areas.
Lord JANNER: My Lords, while appreciating the reply given by the noble Baroness, may I ask whether it is not time the Government made up their mind that this is a particularly serious problem? In view of the fact that there are so many people who are terribly agitated about the situation—young and old, very devoted and dedicated people—would it not be possible for my noble friend to say that she will now give sympathetic and full consideration to the problem and that, even if the Bill does not go through, my noble friend herself and the Government will see to it that the matter is attended to in the way which has been suggested?
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, the Government always give sympathetic consideration to problems of this nature, so I have no hesitation in giving my noble friend that assurance. What I have said is that on 18th February in another place my honourable friend agreed to institute consultations about widening the scope of priorities with the local authority associations, and those consultations are now taking place.
Baroness VICKERS: My Lords, may I ask the noble Baroness what action the housing corporations are taking in this matter?
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, that is a rather different question. I have no
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information available at the moment, but if there is any information which can be sent to the noble Baroness I will write to her.
Baroness MACLEOD of BORVE: My Lords, as the noble Baroness will know, both this House and the other place are deeply concerned, as has been said. May we be given a period of time during which we may be told what the Government are doing? May I suggest that, irrespective of what the local authorities do and the tardiness of their delays and deliberations, the Government themselves should exercise their prerogative and authority to do something now about the matter?
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, in another place my honourable friend promised to have these consultations before the Committee stage in another place. I am not aware, off the cuff, of the exact timetable of the other place concerning further consideration of this Bill, but I anticipate that there will be some decision from the Government as to whether the priorities remain as they are at present in the Bill or whether it will be possible to widen them by the time the Bill reaches Committee stage in another place. Then, in due course, the Bill will come to this House.
The Earl of LONGFORD: My Lords, would the noble Baroness be disturbed to know that a number of us hope to promote a debate about this matter in the near future?
Baroness STEDMAN: No, my Lords; I should not be disturbed.

CONSTRUCTION OF ROADS (TIME LIMIT) BILL [H.L.]
Lord AVEBURY: My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to prescribe a time limit for the construction of certain roads and for purposes incidental thereto. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a—(Lord Avebury.)
On Question, Bill read 1a and to be printed.

POSTAL AND TELECOMMUNICATION SERVICES
2.57 p.m.
The Earl of KIMBERLEY The Earl of KIMBERLEY rose to call attention to the organisation of the postal and telecommunication services; and to move for Papers. The noble Earl said: My Lords, I was very pleased to have won first prize in the raffle for the short debates. However, I have a certain number of misgivings, because the subject is very diverse and wide-ranging. I should like your Lordships, and particularly the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, to understand that I am not here in an aggressive or attacking mood. The object of the debate is in general to produce, I hope, some constructive suggestions to the Post Office.
It is a great pity, alas! that we do not have with us today the report of the Carter Commission, as was hoped would be the case before the last Recess. The noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, kindly wrote to tell me that unfortunately the report would not be available.
The object of this debate is two-fold: first, to provide a cheap and efficient postal service and, secondly, to provide a cheap and efficient telecommunications system—because at the moment in this country I do not think we have either. Also at the moment, looking at the future, the prospects from the public's point of view do not appear too rosy for any chance of improvement in efficiency or cheapness. I hope that some of the criticisms and suggestions that are made today by other noble Lords as well as myself may lead to some general rethinking by the Post Office.
I start with the postal service. I am sure your Lordships are aware that the Post Office has a monopoly on letters but not on parcels or newspapers. In the Second Report of the Select Committee on Nationalised Industries, dated 3rd February 1976, it was stated that:
"…during the past 10 years the tariff for first-class letters had quadrupled, the quality and service had deteriorated and the traffic had declined".
So the general picture is not very good.
Since 1969 the main service changes that have occurred are as follows: the downgrading of head post offices; the
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closure of sub-post offices; the closure of post offices on Saturday afternoons; the withdrawal of the third delivery in London, the withdrawal of bank holiday collections, the withdrawal of Saturday afternoon collections; the ending of Saturday afternoon parcel despatches; the widening of the service differentials between first-class and second-class mail; the withdrawal of Sunday collections—to which matter I shall return later—and the withdrawal of late evening collections. The Post Office claims that 93 per cent. of first-class letters are delivered by the following working day, but this means that about 700,000 first-class letters every day are still subject to delay.
I should now like to discuss the price factor. So far as one can ascertain, the only justification for the reduction in service would have been the holding of prices. But I am afraid that the record is unimpressive. In 1970, the cost was 5d for a 4 oz. first-class letter, which in metric terms was 2·08p for 113 grammes. But on 13th June this year, if the current proposals of the Post Office go ahead, it will cost 12p for 113 grammes, which is nearly six times the price in 1970. With parcels, it is the same sad story. In 1970, a kilo cost 3s. or 15p, and the proposal is that on 13th June it will be 13s. or 66p. During the same period, the retail price index will have risen only from 100 to about 254.
I now come to overseas mail and the proposed increases in printed paper rates, which will especially damage exports. The service which is mainly used is known as the direct agents bag, and this cost 16p for 2 lb. in February 1975. But, once again, it is proposed that in June there will be a charge of 40p for a kilo or 2¼ 1b., and adjusted for metrication this is an increase of just over 125 per cent. Over 50 per cent. of the output of publishers is exported and they have to compete with a subsidised American postal service. I have been given to understand that the postal business usually had a target of a 2 per cent. return on revenue, yet on overseas mail it is attempting a return of 6 per cent.
Private industry is subjected to the most detailed examination and scrutiny before any price increases can be approved. The Post Office seeks to justify its current

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proposals, by its own admission, in its statement to the POUNC's report of 5th April 1977, on the grounds of "the possibility that inflation will be higher than assumed." The Post Office is asking to be allowed to anticipate inflation—something which no private firm would be allowed to do. It went on to say that there is a "possibility that traffic levels will be lower than assumed." If we take the history of Post Office forecasts, we should be very uneasy. For instance, in 1975 it forecast, and was targeted to make, a loss of £70 million on posts, but in fact the loss turned out to be only £9 million. Therefore, the first- and second-class increases of about 20 per cent. in September 1975 were not necessary.
Again, in productivity the record is poor. Since 1970, the throughput per employee has fallen by 12½ per cent., which is equivalent to about 1p on an ordinary letter. It is also noteworthy that administrative staff increased from 5,800 in 1970 to 6,744 in 1975/76. This is a 16 per cent. increase, and if you add on the TV licence records staff it is a 28 per cent. increase. Concurrently, total traffic declined by 13 per cent., and the number of operative staff remained at about 160,000. The cost of this increase in administration works out at over £11 million—enough to restore Sunday and late evening collections. The annual report and accounts do not give administrative staff growth for telecommunications, but there is good reason to believe that their administrative record is far worse than that of posts.
I now come to postal customers—the commercial user, the charities and the general public—who have all lost faith in the postal service. The parcels service is being priced out of existence, as I have already said. Only 160 million parcels were carried last year, compared with over 240 million in the early sixties. The reduction of the first letter weight step to 50 grammes, with so little notice, will affect the direct mail industry, which in turn will damage the Post Office itself. Delays in mechanisation have been such that few expect it ever to be introduced. The general pattern of postal services has been one where all users are asked to pay more and more for less and less, and are subjected to bewildering policies. Many
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users would like to make more use of the post, but they are often prevented from so doing by excessive prices and by continual uncertainty. What users need is an open approach from the Post Office, under which it makes public its plans and discusses them with all sections of customers.
I should like to give your Lordships one example of the Post Office's heavy-handedness. At Christmastime, just over a year ago, because of the cost of posting Christmas cards, a vicar advertised to his flock that local Christmas cards could be collected and delivered through his church. But he was informed very sharply by the local postmaster that he was infringing the Post Office's monopoly, and was therefore breaking the law. That is reported in Hansard for the Commons of 4th February, 1976, at col. 1211.
To return to Sunday collections, not long ago the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, replied to a question of mine that the Post Office has said that it costs eight times more to collect mail on a Sunday than on a Saturday. I can well understand that, with overtime and this, that and the other, it might cost two, three or perhaps four times as much, but I fail to understand—and nobody can explain the reason to me—why it should cost eight times as much. Maybe the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, can inform us of the reason when he replies.
I now come to a commercial which was done by Tommy Steele and shown on ITV the other day. I am not anti-Tommy Steele, but it was a long and very expensive commercial put out by the Post Office, saying "Write and post more letters". Do we need to have this kind of thing, to tell us what to do with the Post Office? It was an extremely expensive commercial to make, and it will be extremely expensive to pay for every time it is shown on ITV. If we are to have advertisements, why cannot the Post Office advertise where we can post our letters on a Sunday, because there are some places where one can do that, although I have not been able to find out where they are. There are also some rural areas where there are two deliveries a day, one for letters and one for parcels. Again, I do not know where they are; but surely two deliveries in a rural area cannot be economical.
I should now like to turn to the telecommunications side, on which I know the noble Lord, Lord Ferrier, and probably the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, are to speak. In the past, I have complained in your Lordships' House about the fact that when the STD does not work, and you have to get the operator, you are then charged the full operator rate. Why should we have to pay for this when the equipment is faulty? When the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, was in the "hot seat", he said in answer to a question on this point that the operators have to be paid. But they have to be paid whether they are getting calls or reading a book. A spokesman from the Department of Industry said to me the other day that if the full operator rate was not charged the public would cheat. To me, this seems a non sequitur. How would they cheat, if they were charged for a call at the normal STD rate? Surely nobody is going to ring up an operator by dialling 100 and wait for an answer if it is possible to get the number through STD!
On 16th March last, the noble Lord, Lord Ferrier, said that £45 for installing a telephone is far too high, and in many instances causes great hardship to the old, the handicapped and ordinary people who live in sparsely populated areas. How right he was! Surely it would be better to pay a smaller installation fee and thereby perhaps generate more business.
Then there is the rental payable in advance. Perhaps it would be a good idea if every subscriber had to use "X" units, and to pay the rental even if he did not use them. But once he had used that amount of units the rental could be waived. Surely this would encourage more use of the telephone. I believe that only 50 per cent. of the households of' this country have telephones; so if we could increase substantially the number of telephones the whole service should, in theory at any rate, become cheaper. As there seems to be little likelihood of the postal service becoming cheaper and every likelihood of fewer facilities being provided, surely it must be right to try to increase the number of telephones. On 16th March, at col. 128 of Hansard, it was implied in your Lordships' House
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that the Post Office exercised its discretion on telephone installation charges. The noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, was unable then to give any information on how often this discretion is exercised. Perhaps the noble Lord could do so today.
As I have said, it is most sad that the Carter Committee is not with us today. However, I have heard a rumour that it has suggested that the postal and the telecommunication services should be separate entities. If the rumour is correct, it is probably a good idea, particularly as one service makes a loss while the other makes a profit and at the moment neither helps the other. However, I should like to say one word of warning. If the services are to be split, there should be no increase in the aggregate staff employed, as occurred when the Corporation was set up in 1969. An enormous increase in staff took place then.
Before I finish, may I give one or two examples of money being frittered away, perhaps unnecessarily. At the Old Bailey the other day a witness was asked by the judge: "What is your profession?" He replied, "I am a Post Office delayer". The judge asked him what that meant, and he said, "My job is to scrutinise second class mail to make certain that it does not get delivered too quickly". Very often I have likened our country to Alice in Wonderland but that, I think is Through the Looking Glass. There is another perhaps unnecessary expense. If you watch commercial television you are likely to see a "commercial" of a bird sitting on a telephone wire saying "Use the telephone on Saturdays and Sundays" when you can use it at a cheaper rate. Most people who have a telephone realise that. Again, do we have to pay for this unnecessary advertising?
I have nearly finished and I am sure that your Lordships will be delighted to hear me say so. However, I should like to mention one other matter about which I feel the general public and all noble Lords feel very strongly. Why should the Post Office worker, or a small group of workers, have the right to dictate to us whether we may have our mail delivered to South Africa—and also whether we may have our mail delivered to a film processing firm in London because a small group of workers disagreed with the

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way that firm was being run? The Post Office has a monopoly, and I maintain that thereby it has placed upon it a responsibility as well as a special obligation to deliver the mail.
Perhaps I may now make a few suggestions which I hope will be constructive. First, why not advertise where the Sunday service postal collection exists already? Why cannot post offices accept bulk postings on Sundays? They will do so in one area and if the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, would like to have details I will gladly give them to him afterwards. Inter-city deliveries are profitable, whereas deliveries in rural and isolated areas are not. However, I believe that Scotland has very successfully started the practice of delivering local mail by local bus services. Could not this system be adopted in the rural areas of England? Perhaps the parcel delivery system could be improved by amalgamating the parcel delivery service of British Rail National Carriers and British Road Services.
On 31st March the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, said:
"Do we want a commercial undertaking or a social service, for at the moment we have neither".
I should like to read one sentence out of the Post Office Act 1969. It comes from Section 9(1):
"It shall be the duty of the Post Office (consistently with any directions given to it under the following provisions of this Part of this Act) so to exercise its powers as to meet the social, industrial and commercial needs of the British Islands in regard to matters that are subserved by those powers and, in particular, to provide throughout those Islands (save in so far as the provision thereof is, in its opinion, impracticable or not reasonably practicable) such services for the conveyance of letters and such telephone services as satisfy all reasonable demands for them".
We live in one of the finest Welfare States in the entire world. I humbly suggest to your Lordships that we should have a social service from the Post Office which should be viably run for the benefit of all. My Lords, need I say more? I beg to move for Papers.
3.17 p.m.
Lord REDESDALE: My Lords, we are all most grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Kimberley, for his extremely able and very useful contribution to the debate, which affords us with a wonderful opportunity to discuss the Post Office,
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a subject close to our hearts. In fact, it is a subject which we all love to hate. I should at the outset declare an interest. I am President of the British Direct Marketing Association and we are very much concerned with mail. Therefore I have had a certain amount of input from members. Over the years, the Post Office have been very courteous to me and have shown me both the telecommunication and the postal side. If, therefore, in taking up the last point made by the noble Earl about the service which the Post Office has to provide under the 1969 Act I sound rather astringent, I could, having these friends, hide behind the cartoon of my family which appeared recently in The Times, which said that some of my best friends are Mitfords.
The Post Office is enormous. In some ways, it is as large as China. It is the largest employer of labour and, because it is so large, it has, unfortunately, other similarities with China. It tends to hide behind its inscrutable Great Wall of non-accountability, an area that I should like to touch upon later. One aspect of this non-accountability comes up right at the start. It stems from a number of questions which have been asked from these Benches over the last year on the sore and sad subject of Sunday collections. The Post Office said that there would be a one year experimental period, which should end on 2nd May. However, it is not very experimental, because the Post Office has already made up its mind, as we know only too well, that on 2nd May it is not going to return to Sunday collections. This is very sad, because everybody who was consulted said that we need Sunday collections. The Post Office hides behind the fact that it was not a very large service. It is quite true that the service did not have so much of the business mail, but it handled an enormous quantity of personal mail and this fact has been totally disregarded.
I feel your Lordships should have your attention drawn to an article which appeared in the Observer on 17th April. Readers were asked for the actual areas in which hardship occurred. I will not weary your Lordships because it is already in print, but there is sufficient material there to show that hardship is being caused to a large number of people because of the withdrawal of the Sunday collection service.

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Another aspect is the so-called planned cut deliveries. In fact, Mr. Tom Jackson raised the point and I rather agreed with his description of the Post Office when he said:
"This is all part of the usual Post Office policy of giving less and less service to the community at higher and higher price".
That is a serious charge, but I am afraid that we are in fact getting less and less service. I said that I was going to be astringent and perhaps I sound far too critical, but we used to have by far the best postal service in the world. That is absolutely unquestionable, and I will say that it is still a very good service compared with that in a lot of countries, but, accepting that point, I feel that we should not say that because it is better therefore it must decline from now on. Let us try to maintain the service that we had in the "good old days" when the Post Office was part of the Government under a Postmaster-General.
Many aspects of Sunday collections have been referred to. Mr. Alex Currall, who is a most charming and able man, answered questions put by my noble friend Lady Young about Sunday collections, and all I can say is that his four-page letter tried to set out the facts but it did not really cover the situation. It was a sort of apologia for it, and it did not give any real answers. My charge is that the philosophy of the Post Office is wrong. It does not accept bulk buying on the postal side because it claims that it costs more, but this is a question of approach. On the telecommunications side, there is a degree of acceptance of bulk buying but at the same time the charges are exorbitant.
In a speech which I made in your Lordships' House on 16th March, during the very useful debate which was initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Ferrier, I referred to the question of charges and that subject was covered quite fully, so I will not weary your Lordships with it now. However, the noble Earl has spoken of the incentive to use more of the services, and although our installation charge and our rental charges are not so exorbitant, we do have to pay a lot more for local calls. So we are caught at the other end; there is a fairly hefty "Catch 22" in regard to the charges.
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We have heard a lot about Carter, and we have waited with great enthusiasm for the Carter report, but it is always just around the corner. It would have been useful if we could have had the Carter report today, but we must look forward to the pleasure of its arrival later. However, there is one aspect on which I should like to ask the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, a question. The Post Office has made a submission and supplied a business plan. This has not yet been published although parts have either been leaked or in some way have appeared in the Press. I do not want to be taken up on that but certain information has appeared in the Press and therefore I feel that we should see the Post Office submission in this regard.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, the noble Lord has made a most important point and I want to get it absolutely right. Was the noble Lord saying that this House should have a view of the Post Office submission prior to the appearance of the Carter report?
Lord REDESDALE: Yes, my Lords. The reason why I say that is that some information has already appeared in the Press. In my view, that is rather a mistake and therefore it would be of value to us all to see the whole thing now rather than just getting little bits.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: Because of the leakage, my Lords?
Lord REDESDALE: That is correct, my Lords. I am only too aware that this is a short debate and I do not want to take up too big a share of the time that is available, so I will go on to the question of cost. The noble Earl spoke of second-class deliveries and the interesting occupation of being a Post Office delayer, referred to at the Old Bailey. I must confess that when the Old Bailey was referred to I thought it was a reference to the last Postmaster-General, but in fact I want to raise a question on what he said on the whole question of accountability during the debates on the Bill which later became the Post Office Act 1969. On the second-class mail we now have a ½p rise, which is very considerable. The increase is to be ½p on both first-class and second-class mail. The answer

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given by the Post Office is that this is only a 6 per cent. increase on first-class and an 8 per cent. increase on second-class mail. I feel that here the Post Office, as usual, is being a little naughty. I can cite many examples of where it tends to hide behind things or perhaps does not disclose everything. This increase is allied with a reduction in the maximum weight from 60 grammes to 50 grammes. If your letter happens to be on the heavy side—and perhaps some of us are rather more prolific writers; I do not know—and is above 50 grammes you will have to pay 12½p, instead of 8½p, which means in fact an increase on that small segment of about 46 per cent., not the 6 per cent. or 8 per cent. that we have heard about. I do not think the increase would have mattered so much if it had not reduced the weight. I should be grateful if the noble Lord would consider that point.
I have said previously that I wanted to raise the whole problem of accountability. Just to go back on the history of this, it was raised by Mr. Stonehouse in 1969 during the passage of the Post Office Bill. He accepted that the change to a Corporation would mean that the Post Office was not as answerable on the day-to-day items as it had been in the past. It was glossed over by Mr. Stonehouse and by the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, in this House when they said that in fact one could always get an answer one way or the other from the local postmaster or by various Parliamentary devices. But we have had experience of the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, dancing around on this subject and hiding behind the fact that he is not actually responsible for the day-to-day running of the Post Office. That is quite true—I am not saying that the noble Lord is wrong—but it is rather a pity because we cannot actually bring our guns to bear on somebody on the other side. We have to rely on these other, rather more diffuse methods of getting information.
I have long waited for the occasion when I could actually refer to something which had been said by my noble cousin Lord Denham. In a Second Reading debate in your Lordships' House on 12th June 1969 he made the point that we would lose out very considerably on our ability to gain information on the
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Post Office. As a result of that the service has slipped.
Being very conscious of the passing of time, I should like to turn to one other aspect. We have a Post Office Users' National Council, chaired very ably by the noble Lord, Lord Peddie. The noble Lord, will not, I hope, instantly rise to his feet when I say that, although they do a good job, they have no teeth. I will say immediately that I know that the noble Lord has teeth, because about 10 years ago on a police debate he bit me very firmly. So I would not say he has no teeth and I would not say that he does not do a very strong job himself. But they have very few statutory teeth and very little actual power. On a number of occasions, when they have spoken on the subject of price or something else, they have not had the power to do anything about it; they can only recommend. It is a great pity. We hear about representation. We hear about worker representation on the Post Office Board; well and good. Bees do it for years in hives. Fine. But what about the users. I think the users ought to have considerable representation on the Post Office Board. Only in that way could we get something done. POUNC does its very best, but it has a large number of laymen on it. I feel that there ought to be many more people on the Board who are concerned in the day-to-day effects of the Post Office on business, whether it be telecoms or whether it be postal. I hope the noble Lord will give some consideration to this point.
My Lords, as I said earlier, I know that we have a good service. In fact, it is not as good as we should like it to be. Other countries complain about their services and the delays in services. In Canada, where they have just had a two cents rise in costs, it is said that the two cents is for storage. Perhaps our service is getting slower, but it is up to us to chase the Post Office to provide improved service.
3.32 p.m.
Lord WALL: My Lords, may I also thank the noble Earl, Lord Kimberley, for this opportunity of a preliminary canter down the Carter course. Like others, I look forward very much to its report, especially on the performance of

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the Post Office since it was set up in 1969 in corporation form. I have a special interest in this; it is now more than 10 years ago since, at the request of the Government, I was loaned by my firm to the Post Office for two years to see whether I could do anything to help in the preparations for the eventual translation of the Post Office, after 300 years as a Government Department, into a public corporation. Two years is far too short a time to learn a great deal about a large organisation, but I think I came to understand a few of its problems. After nearly nine years I am very much out of touch, but, unlike the noble Earl, I think that in all the circumstances the total performance of the Post Office Corporation since inception has been most creditable. I will support that statement with a few facts.
Taking telecommunications, it has grown rapidly; the number of telephones has grown in the last nine years by 60 per cent. and the number of calls by 100 per cent., with an increase in staff of only 5 per cent. Much progress has been made with new technology, for example, digital switching and wave guides, and with modernisation. STD is almost complete, and the call failure rate has been cut in half in the last nine years. The less fortunate postal service has certainly seen its services declining, but its standing as a service as compared with other countries has not diminished.
Turning to financial matters, the Post Office has made profits in four of the last seven years. The three years in which losses were made were due to Government insistence on price restraints. The recent turnround in profits in 1975/76 was, of course, largely due to higher prices, but also due in part to internal savings of no less than £80 million. Compared with other nationalised industries, I think the Post Office's record is good, and I shall be interested to see whether or not Carter shares that view.
I should now like to touch very briefly on some of the management problems of the Post Office—size, diversity, monopoly and relationships. First, size. The Post Office is a very large organisation measured by any standard. I remember that 10 years ago I estimated that in most respects the Post Office was larger than the United
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States Steel Corporation—one of the world's industrial giants—and since then it has grown faster than US Steel. The postal side offers a graphic illustration of size related to performance, as the noble Earl has said. Ten years ago the Post Office was handling 35 million letters a day. Taking a reasonable figure of performance of 90 to 95 per cent., this means that every day some 2 million letters can give cause for complaint.
It is now generally recognised that size poses serious problems of management and organisation, and the classical methods of tackling these are by the maximum delegation of authority and responsibility, the hiving off of units before they get too big, by cost and profit centres to measure performance, and by periodic reviews of the total organisation. Unfortunately, these solutions are not easily available to the Post Office. It has to provide services at uniform prices throughout the United Kingdom, irrespective of actual cost. Wages are also fixed on a national basis irrespective of local supply and demand. Thus any kind of real delegation is almost impossible. Ten years ago the Post Office separated the organisation into four self-contained businesses and separated posts and telecommunications within the regional organisation. We looked into profit centres, but so many arbitrary cost allocations had to be made that the whole exercise made no sense, apart from Scotland. So the Post Office has to face its size problems with a much more limited armoury than is available to private enterprise.
Diversity presents the usual problems of handling four quite different businesses, but I will touch only on posts and telecommunications. These two businesses differ fundamentally. Posts is a public service, telecommunications a public utility. Posts is labour intensive, telecommunications capital intensive. Posts is contracting—the volume now is about what it was 40 years ago; telecommunications is expanding—it is doubling itself roughly every eight years. Posts can never be run commercially, telecommunications must be run commercially. So the two businesses have nothing in common except their history. Is it not time, therefore, that this was recognised? I personally am now convinced that these two vast operations should be completely separated into two corporations.

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Turning to current criticisms, it is, of course, the posts that come under the greatest fire. While posts must remain a large service demanding large resources, the underlying trend is contraction. Its technologically based competitors in personal communications, such as telephone, telex, teletext and facsimile, have so much to offer. Seventy-five per cent. of its costs are labour, and many of the hours worked are what these days are called "unsocial". Who really wants to get up at 5.30 in the morning for six days a week all the year round in all weathers?
The question then is how, against this adverse background, we can maintain, as we must, an acceptable postal service. Let us not delude ourselves into believing that we can have this without rising prices and without changes in services. Some people will say that we should subsidise the losses. This, surely, is the worst solution. When subsidies come in through the front door, efficiency goes out through the back door. Once you are accustomed to working in the red, the size of the red figure soon ceases to matter. But I accept that to set the postal services the objective of operating without subsidy is to set a most challenging task, but not an impossible task. If I had time I would spell out some possibilities, but I will move on to a much more easy picture, that of telecommunications.
Here the outlook is very much brighter. We have a fast growing industry—as I said, doubling itself every eight years—with exciting technological developments, especially as telecoms converge with computers, broadcasting and information services, all with increasing international connections. Here is a highly capital intensive business which can offer a fascinating future for its staff and can meet higher wage costs by increasing productivity. The contrast with posts could not be more marked. It seems to me, though, that the real issue for telecommunications is to make sure that they can achieve the high level of profits which is essential to provide full depreciation on assets at replacement values—and the historic values are already £5,000 million—especially with the accelerating obsolescence of Strowger equipment; to pay interest on borrowing and to provide for a substantial part of the new money needed to finance the vast future investment programme, which will soon
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approach £1,000 million a year. The target of 6 per cent. set last December by the Government looks low in relation to the expected inflation and to the 9½ per cent. to 10 per cent. which is permitted in North America. The Post Office is well on course to meet the target of 6 per cent. and its primary aim must be to ensure that the telecommunications part of the Post Office is run on sound commercial lines with the minimum of political interference.
I turn to the question of the Post Office monopoly. Every time the Post Office comes under fire some suggest that the monopoly should be changed. This defeats me. In every country of the world the postal service is a State monopoly, and that includes North America. In every country of the world telephones are a monopoly. In most countries they are a State monopoly but in North America they are private monopolies, but none the less monopolies. The real differences between the private monopolies of North America and the State monopolies elsewhere are two-fold. The first is the system of regulation; the second is the fact that in North America the telephone monopolies also manufacture most of their own equipment. I shall deal with this point later, but I should like to deal with the question of regulation as here we can learn something from North America.
The private telephone monopolies of the United States are regulated by the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC is a really tough regulator. No telephone company can change its prices without FCC approval. Likewise, both the amount and the terms of new money need its approval. It also looks into complaints against the private monopolies and on at least two occasions in the last few years has taken important decisions which were far from welcome to the telephone companies. The beauty of the American system is that regulation is concentrated, whereas in this country it is diffused—stretching from the Cabinet, through the Department of Industry and the Price Commission to the users' organisation. Our system is far too subject to political forces.
I turn to relationships. I have just touched on the relations of the Post Office with the Government. I think

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they need improving. In fact, I believe that the whole system of regulation needs looking at again. I shall not venture into the area of the relations of the Post Office with its customers because time is too short. On the other hand, I want to say a little about relations with staff and suppliers. The Post Office probably has the most developed Whitley system in the public sector. Although I, personally, have doubts about this system for a commercial business, I shall not pursue the argument now.
However, I am concerned about the recently announced new structure of the Post Office Corporation Board. To have taken this major decision before the Carter report is published and the future of Bullock has been decided looks unwise as well as discourteous. I am certainly not against having trade unionists or workers on the Post Office Board, but I believe that the Board needs some really top-rate business people as well. This hasty decision can hardly help.
The relations of the Post Office with its suppliers have recently been in the news. We are told that they are not close enough; there is conflict between the two sides. Yet it is barely 10 years since the Post Office was severely criticised both by Government and by Parliament for continuing the former Post Office rings—they were too close. We were told to break them up. It looks at times as though the Post Office can never win—every time it comes round the last bend there is someone busy removing the winning post, and that is usually the Government. However, this problem badly needs more attention.
The American private telephone companies are the main suppliers of all kinds of telephone equipment. Western Electric, for example, is a very important and profitable part of the great and successful ITT empire. In the light of American experience, and, for that matter, Swedish and Japanese experience, we must take a new look at the organisation which will bring together the Post Office telecommunications section and its suppliers. Of course there are great problems. For example, unlike America, our telephone suppliers are all part of large electrical and electronic businesses. We must find a better answer if we are to have both a
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well run and successful telephone communications monopoly and a successful group of telecommunication suppliers, especially with the great export opportunities that exist in this field. At least we must devise an organisation to deal with product development—indeed, with research and development in general—and with exports.
It has been estimated in America that it takes some 15,000 man years to develop a new telecommunications system, and I suppose that the cost must be £150 million. As is the case with computers, we as a nation can afford to do this only once every 10 years, so we must get it right. Sir William Ryland has expressed some interesting personal thoughts on this problem of relationships with suppliers and I hope that they will receive urgent examination.
I have run over my time, my Lords, although I know that I have left a good deal unsaid. In conclusion, may I hope for more understanding of the problems of the Post Office and the great efforts it is making to overcome them. It is time that there was some praise as well as criticism. Perhaps the Carter report will provide the opportunity. Some years ago in the United States the FCC took a major decision in what is known as the "Carterphone case". It stands as a milestone in American telecommunications history. Let us hope that the Carter report will provide a similar milestone in the history of our great Post Office.
3.46 p.m.
Lord ALPORT: My Lords, I intervene only briefly to express a point of view which I have voiced in your Lordships' House on a previous occasion. I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Kimberley, for giving me an opportunity to do so. My theme is very like that of the noble Lord, Lord Wall, but there is one fundamental difference. The noble Earl, Lord Kimberley, has given a long catalogue of the changes in the standard of services provided by the Post Office. I am sure he will realise, as the House will realise, that much of this is due to the fact that the Post Office is caught between the Scylla of inflation in a labour-intensive industry and the Charybdis of the financial disciplines of a nationalised corporation.

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I, personally, regret that the whole problem of the Post Office has been referred to a Commission, although I hope that when the Carter Commission reports it will be able to give some advice as to the very obvious changes which are necessary in the whole establishment of the Post Office at present.
The major change—this was touched on by the noble Lord, Lord Wall—has been obvious to anyone who has been interested in and sympathetic to the problems of the Post Office ever since it was turned into a nationalised corporation. The fact of the matter is that to regard the postal service as a nationalised industry has always been nonsense. To combine posts and telephones into one corporation has always been wrong. As the noble Earl and my noble friend Lord Redesdale said, the Post Office is a service. It is important to remember that it is not only a service that is important to the individual consumers and the mail order business, but it is an essential part of the administrative structure of the Government of this country. It would not be possible to run this country without it. It is true that it would not be possible to carry on normal trade and commerce, even at a relatively low level, without it. That is not true of the telephone service. We could govern, we could collect taxes and rates, we could operate in industry and commerce and conduct trade without the telephone, but not without the Post Office. Nor for that matter would the Government he able to carry out as effectively as they do at present, or without great additional overheads, the administration of the social service, national savings and pensions.
I repeat that the Post Office is not an industry; it is a public service. Public services are a very different proposition from the financial point of view from that of a nationalised industry. As the noble Lord, Lord Wall, said, the postal services are labour-intensive and dependent upon the 300.000 men and women who work for them. The telephone industry is technologically sophisticated and increasingly automated. The management problems, development, labour relations, recruitment and investment policy are totally different as between the telephone industry and the postal services. Moreover they are not complementary. The fact
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that if one has a telephone does not mean that there is no need to have a postal delivery; but the converse is not true.
The noble Earl, Lord Kimberley, said that 50 per cent. of the households in this country do not have telephones, but everybody, or the vast majority, has a postal address. In fact, a postal delivery is a necessity, and it is a necessity to every household in the country. All this has been recognised for at least the last 100 years by the equalisation of charges in the postal service, but that is not true of the telephone service or telephone industry.
Finally, there was in the old Post Office, as the noble Lord, Lord Wall, will know, a special esprit de corps among those who worked in it. It was the oldest Department of the State; older than the Army, older than the Navy, older, if I may add to that, the Excise, and certainly the police. As such it attracted a particular type of employee. There were, and still are to my knowledge, old Post Office families who give to the Post Office the kind of devoted service which the military families or the naval families give to their services. There was, and I hope and believe there still is, a sense of loyalty and co-operation between management and staff in the Post Office which is of great importance to the organisation and the wellbeing of the Post Office as a whole.
I do not say for one moment that there is not loyalty and co-operation in the telephone industry, but the relations are different. I have no doubt in my own mind, and I say it with all the confidence that I can muster, that the only way in which this country will get the standard of postal service to which we were accustomed when the Post Office was a Department of State is by making the Post Office a Department of State again. By all means let the telephone industry remain a nationalised corporation. I do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Wall, in saying that there should be two corporations. I say that the postal services, the Post Office, should again be under the Postmaster General; that it should be regarded as part of the Government service just as the police are part of the public services, or the Army or the defence services, or what you will.
I am quite certain that if the country wants the standard of postal service which

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the noble Earl, Lord Kimberley, has mentioned, then it has to be administered according to the financial disciplines of the Civil Service and not of a nationalised industry. So far as the telephones are concerned, that is something going from strength to strength as technological change takes place. That is fine. Let it take the challenge of the ordinary industrial world and make good at that, but let us return a great public service, an historic public service, which is represented by the postal services of this country, back to where they belong as part of the Government service of the United Kingdom.
3.53 p.m.
Lord FERRIER: My Lords, we are all grateful to the noble Earl for introducing this debate; but as it has proceeded, I have been more and more impressed by the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Alport, and by the powerful speech by the noble Lord, Lord Wall, of how important it is that we must wait for Carter and for Professor Posner too. There are great issues at stake, and I feel that as we have so to wait your Lordships will forgive me if, in my approach to today's debate, I may be almost kindergarten in my simplicity.
The other day I introduced a debate on an Unstarred Question and I can therefore be brief. Since it was an Unstarred Question I could not reply following Lord Winterbottom's answer, but I have since had communications of all sorts, some by telephone, about what we said. These subsequent exchanges have emphasised one or two extensions of the points I raised, and I have had a word with the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, on the subject.
First, there is the question of reducing the cost of new installations. This is obviously a matter of great importance to the public, particularly to the old, the handicapped, and people in remote areas. In the course of that debate the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, said that the Post Office has given regional directors discretion to consider reducing installation charges where there are "sound reasons for reducing connection charges." Those were his words. My noble friend Lord Kinnoull took him up on this.
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I only mention it because I wonder whether, when he replies, the noble Lord can tell us that the Post Office is following this up with vigour. It seems to me, living as I do in a country area, that it may well be that underloaded rural exchanges may constitute sound reasons for careful consideration of this business promotion. After all, to add to the connections is good business from the Post Office point of view. At the same time we know—and I think I am right—that one of the troubles today is that there are large stocks of equipment which if not obsolete is at least obsolescent. If the Post Office could improve the rural services where there are old-fashioned exchanges which are going to have to be remodelled as time goes on, this might be a sales gimmick and a way of disposing of such stocks of almost obsolescent material.
The fact of a telephone being a potential lifeline, which was the word we used in the debate the other day, is particularly important, as I said, in remote areas where contacts with centres of population are becoming more and more difficult as the cost of motoring increases. With the increase in the road fund licence and the cost of petrol, and so on, the business of getting a letter to the post if you live in a remote area makes postage more and more expensive.
That brings me back to the suggestion for which I have received much encouragement, that there might be a return to the system of allowing so many free calls or free units per connection. The noble Earl touched on this matter and produced an alternative suggestion which would go the same way. I hope that the postal authorities will give consideration to this matter where, by a judicious use of such a gimmick, as it may well be described, we can increase the usage of the telephone system and improve the convenience to the consumers.
To return to the cost of motoring, this can be a heavy surcharge on the posting of a letter when the nearest letter box is at a distance and inward letters are infrequent. Where I live we are well served by a local post office and, like most of your Lordships, I get letters by every post. Twice a day we get a delivery and that means that the postman can take away, as he does, letters which are ready to go. Therefore, I am not complaining for myself, but it is not

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everybody who has a stream of letters and a visit from the postman twice a day anyway.
One of my informants tells me that a recent programme on Radio Forth, which is the Edinburgh local radio—I did not hear this programme—made reference to second-class letters not being delivered by second deliveries. The suggestion was made by, I believe, two postmen that they regard the second-class mail as not of great importance. I should like to know whether it is a fact that postmen, particularly where they are dealing with high rise flats, regard a second-class letter as a second delivery job, and what I believe they call a "bumper", or some such word, and because it is a second-class letter they pop it back in the bag for first delivery next day.
Regarding the weekend service, I return to what I said about the overnight letter telegram, which costs 50p plus 4p a word, plus the address at 4p a word. Where I live the last weekend collection, at the East Linton post office, is at 12 noon on Saturday, so it is reasonably possible to get a Saturday letter away to reach London on Monday. Failing that, and as is more common, the last collection on Saturday is at an earlier time, which may mean that the overnight letter telegram service is particularly useful, even if it is quite an expensive way out.
I therefore repeat my suggestion that in view of the paucity of collections over the weekend, the Post Office might consider waiving the 50p impost on Saturdays and Sundays. I appreciate that such a step would be dependent on pressure on the "Dial 100" staff over the weekend. Talking of the overnight letter service, another interesting line which I did not mention to the noble Lord, even when we met the other day, came from a contact of mine who pointed out that an overnight letter telegram is a much more legally binding message than a telephone call, which may be misunderstood or disputed. This could be used as an important advertising point if the Post Office wished to push it.
Those are the main observations I wished to make arising out of what has been said by other noble Lords. As I said at the outset, we must wait before we can
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tackle vital decisions such as those Lord Alport suggested until after Carter and the other considerations which we hope will soon be before us. Before concluding, however, there are a few small additional points I would make. First, is the Post Office properly remunerated for all the services it renders to the public? I refer to departments other than the post and telegraph services such as Giro, old age pensions and the issue of television and road fund licences. Is the Post Office properly compensated for this work and is any consideration given to those who go into small post offices to buy a stamp and have to wait for I do not know how long while a few old age pensioners draw their money?
Secondly, another contact of mine has drawn attention to the extraordinary effect of the high cost of postage. I suppose the Post Office knows what it is doing, but certainly many small businesses have had to stop sending small articles because of the high cost of postage. I am thinking of a barber shop which used to deal in hair dressings but which has stopped doing so because of the cost of postage. I do not see any solution to that kind of difficulty. Thirdly, is there any possibility of getting the Post Office—this might be an advertising gimmick—to produce 50 or 100 gramme weights which we could use on our letter balances? I understand that it is impossible to obtain them from any private undertaking and I should be glad to hear of any being made available.
As many noble Lords will be aware, I spent many years in India. One of the thrills there is to consider how the Post Office and postmen deliver letters at all. It is quite possible from Bombay to write to a friend up country giving an address as Lamp-post number so-and-so, Queens Road— because the sender sleeps under that lamp-post every night—and somehow one receives a letter in reply.
4.5 p.m.
Lord PLATT: My Lords, while there are a number of points I wish to make, I shall be brief, and I wish at the outset to apologise deeply to the House because I had a committee meeting to attend and was not able to be here for the whole of the debate. I was able to hear the rather devastating remarks of the noble Earl,

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Lord Kimberley, to whose speech I listened with great interest, but I fear that I did not hear the other speakers. I shall be brief, only to be sure that I am not repeating, to the boredom of the House, points that others have made.
I wish to say something in favour of the Post Office. My experience is that the first-class mail is an absolutely excellent service, particularly when one considers the millions of letters that have to be sorted, say, this afternoon and this evening for delivery tomorrow morning. I find it an excellent service when I think of such letters that will be posted today and will be delivered at my house on the outskirts by first post tomorrow morning. It is a reliable and, on the whole, excellent service, and I wish to put that on the record.
Many letters that are said to be delivered late—it is said that some have taken four days to pass between Regent Street and Trafalgar Square—are late because of the fault of the senders and not of the Post Office. If one dates letter arrivals by looking at the postmark and not the date of the letter one will often find that the letter is dated, say, the 17th but was not in fact posted until the 21st, yet the Post Office is blamed for the delay. Most of those who complain about the Post Office are the sort of people whom I would never trust to post a letter for me. I think a great deal of this difficulty is also due to the employment of junior typists who, while they may be excellent at their work, are not senior enough to put to the chief, "Do you realise you have not yet signed Thursday's letters?" Much of the blame that is put on the Post Office can be laid on the posters.
I have frequently met people at dinners or meetings who have asked, "By the way, Platt, have you received my letter?" When I have asked, "What letter?" the reply has frequently been, "Perhaps I haven't signed it yet." I am sure that others more intelligent on the subject than I have spoken on this issue. I would only ask whether it is particularly serious if the Post Office is losing money on its postal services when it is making a handsome profit on its telecommunications. If it were a private industry would it matter so much if it was losing on some of its products but making handsome profits on others?
4.9 p.m.
Lord HARMAR-NICHOLLS: My Lords, I regret that my name was not attached to the list of speakers and, as a recompense, I shall be brief. Recently I became president of the National Wholesalers' Association and I was very impressed indeed by the recommendations that were put in by the British Stationery Office Productions Federation when the Post Office proposals for tariff increases were being, discussed in March of last year. Three of the points that were put in fit in properly to this debate initiated by the noble Earl, Lord Kimberley.
I see that my noble friend Lord Alport has left the Chamber. However, I agree with him absolutely about the esteem in which we should regard the Post Office. Indeed, the first very important Parliamentary office I held, 25 years ago almost exactly, was as the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Assistant PostmasterGeneral—and one cannot have a much higher office than that! During that period I appreciated the esteem in which that great Department—which covers such a wide front and which is such an essential part of the make-up of this country—was held. I therefore agree completely with Lord Alport about it being a national service. However, we should remember that it is also one of the arms of industry. It is certainly one of the arms of the British Stationery Office products industry, a point they make perfectly plain when they say:
"We rely upon an efficient postal service for our livelihood and for our expansion and any increase in postal charges or changes in the service have an immediate effect on our industry".
What they are saying is that if, for reasons which on other grounds may be very good indeed, prices are put up, or the system is changed in such a way that it affects them, we may be inflicting unemployment on those industries which rely on this Department to exist at all.
Therefore while I find my noble friend's description of a national service very attractive and indeed true, it is also part of our industrial arm and there are three points which I think will pinpoint that. We ought to recognise that, while an organisation which has to cover the whole country has to rely to a large extent on what is known as rough justice in order to operate at all—because administratively

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it is so huge and so difficult—we must find ways, within the broad span of what is called rough justice, in which discretion and good sense can be used.
In this regard my one point concerns the question of Christmas cards. Very many people are employed in the manufacture of Christmas cards, which is an important section of our industrial makeup. When the cost of postage of Christmas cards was increased to the same level as that for letters and similar items it was found that, of the 1,000 million Christmas cards sold in 1975, 40 per cent. were hand delivered because of the extra cost of the postage. From the point of view of the Post Office, if finance is one of its problems—and we know it is—perhaps it should depart from rough justice by recognising that Christmas is a special time and that the sending of Christmas cards is a special activity confined to one particular time of the year. It could he that the Post Office, if it recognised this, would increase its own income while providing the satisfaction that a national service, as my noble friend Lord Alport said, would give to the public generally.
It might be said that an increase of ½p is hardly noticed, but one does not send only a single Christmas card. Ordinary families send several Christmas cards—some send many—and so the increase is not one ½p but several during that period of the year. That makes all the difference to the question of whether people buy Christmas cards, which in turn affects maintaining people in employment as well as giving income to the Post Office itself.
With regard to postal charges, it should be remembered that during the Post Office strike the pools promoters and various other big firms started their own delivery service, and this business has never been returned to the Post Office. It could be that, if an attractive price inducement were given, such organisations could be persuaded to use the Post Office service again, which would be better for everybody and produce more money for the Post Office itself.
As distinct from the Christmas card, there is the pictorial postcard, which is a very important part of the card industry.
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I should like to mention some figures which are involved here, and it is these figures which have caused me to intervene very briefly in the debate. In the pictorial postcard industry in 1973/74 sales totalled 359 million. In 1974/75 the figure had fallen to 198 million, and in 1975/76 it was down to 163 million. That is due to the extra cost on postal charges, which has discouraged this particular industry very much. The pictorial postcard, like the Christmas card, is a special item which goes with holidaying and similar pursuits, and so here a separation from what I call the rough justice could, I believe, be sensibly introduced. It is not without interest—and I did not know this—that many foreign countries, including the United States of America, West Germany, Holland, Belgium and the Scandinavian countries, as well as, I think, many others, reduce the postal charge for pictorial postcards to below the normal level for the very reasons that I am now arguing. So I believe that here again special discrimination could be made which would meet the needs of the general public—as a national service should do—and at the same time bring in extra income which the Post Office badly needs.
My next point was made very well earlier by my noble friend from the Front Bench. When what I understand is called the weight step on packages was reduced from 60 grammes to 50 grammes, calendars and certain Christmas cards and postcards were brought within the range that was affected. The argument that an extra ½p would not make much difference is completely shattered when not only has an extra ½p to be paid on the postage, but, by a reduction in the weight step from 60 grammes to 50 grammes, covering many calendars and postcards, a further 3½p is put on the cost. So the actual extra impost on the posting of calendars and certain cards is not ½p, which can be passed off as being not very much, but 4p each time. That is the point that my noble friend made, and this situation is having a disastrous effect on the prospects of an important industry, which employs many people and which is, I believe, an essential part of the general industrial make-up of this country. Those points may be small when taken separately, but they are a very important part of maintaining general

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efficiency in one of our basic industries, and I hope that at the appropriate time they will be taken fully and properly into account.
4.18 p.m.
Baroness MACLEOD of BORVE: My Lords, I, too, must apologise for not putting my name on the list of speakers for this debate. I presumed that other noble Lords would have said what I now intend to say, but I hope to take up not more than three minutes of your Lordships' time. My point concerns the enormous cost of the spoken word and the written word, the spoken word being the telephone and the written word being letters. There is involved here the enormous cost of communication within families. When I mention families, I am sure your Lordships will all be aware that nowadays families are broken up more than ever before. In some cases grandparents are moving away to live, while younger members of the family may be going abroad or to far away places, such as Scotland, or to other distant parts of the country. They are not remaining in one community as they used to do.
In my view, the fact that such people are not able to communicate is having a disastrous effect upon the family. When I say that they are not able to communicate, I mean that even a very brief telephone call from, say, a son to his mother every Sunday evening must now, to my knowledge, be abandoned because of the enormous cost to the son. This means that the mother, or the grandparent, as the case may be—people in this age group, including retired people—or a father living alone, are more lonely than they were previously. They are more cut off than ever before from the family which they have raised. In my view, the spoken word is far more important in this context than the written word, but the written word—the letter—is also of vital importance to all who try to keep the family together. When it takes up to one week for an 8½p letter to be delivered 100 yards in Hertfordshire near where I live, one would like to use a pigeon if one could catch one, or, as I do now, deliver letters. It is not worth trusting the Post Office to deliver mail within a reasonable time.
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My main point is the communication of the family because I seriously think that, if the rates for letters and for telephoning were, because of the large surplus we have heard of, able to be reduced, a great number of families would be much happier. I am sure that all of us in this House know of family connections—grandparents, mothers, daughters—who long to communicate and to keep up some tie with the family, whereas, with the vast amount that it now costs for these methods of communication, family ties are becoming less close and are more often broken. That is all I have to say on the subject.
4.22 p.m.
Lord BOWDEN: My Lords, if I may presume to do so, I should like to ask a question of the Minister who is to reply to the debate. It relates simply to the rate at which the Post Office is continuing to invest. Over a period of many years, the Post Office used to recruit 200 or 300 engineers at a time. Over the past decade the number increased to 700 and the forecast was that last year it would recruit 840. In fact, it recruited 35, as a result of an enormous, unpredicted and totally catastrophic cut-back in the investment programme. I should like to ask the Minister whether this number is likely to be increased again, because unless the Post Office can recruit more engineers, particularly into the telecommunications industry, it is extremely improbable that it will survive as a going concern when the time comes that these young men ought to be there in posts of responsibility.
4.24 p.m.
Lord NEWALL: My Lords, we have heard quite a lot of knowledge being aired this afternoon. Since I cannot really contribute greatly to the knowledge, I shall be fairly brief. First, I should like to talk about the telephone system and, in particular, the equipment. I think we would all agree that there have been considerable improvements over the past few years. However, I shall come back to that in a moment. The main problem seems to be—and this has already been raised by one or two of the previous speakers—the fact that there is an equipment monopoly. The choice of equipment appears to be extremely limited and people seem forced

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to use what can only be called "illegal" equipment. For instance, I know that many people have loudspeaker telephones from Sweden. They are highly efficient and very small and compact, and they compare very favourably indeed with the rather monstrous efforts which the Post Office provide and which are anyway not very efficient.
I am told that the intercom system on Independent Television News is Italian because the same thing does not exist over here. That is not illegal, but it bears on what I shall say in a moment. Why can we not have the 500 Series telephone which is used in America? It is a telephone with four or five or three or four lines in the telephone itself and it avoids the need for an exchange. It is very useful for small businesses. It seems to me that this would be an ideal piece of equipment to use here. It would make us all more efficient.
The Post Office licenses various people to use telephones but has the right to withdraw the licence. The sort of telephones that I am thinking of are the porter telephones in hotels and flats, the warden calls and the door entry telephones. I am told that most of these contracts can range up to 14 years but that the licence for these can be revoked by the Post Office at any time. I should like to ask the Government why this is still necessary. I can see that there might have been some point many years ago, but I cannot see that there is much point now. However, it is obviously very difficult for the companies concerned.
Many of us will have seen the various telephones on sale in shops. Even some of the larger stores in Knightsbridge are selling telephones which are made all over the world, and one shop I know even goes to the extent of exhibiting a notice saying, "These telephones are illegal". However, people buy and install them, and I cannot remember hearing of any prosecutions whatsoever. Surely, this is an anomaly and is a fact to which the Post Office must face up. I think that it should begin to understand that most countries have agreed that supplying equipment to the building is all that is necessary, and that it should allow a wide choice of equipment to be used inside the building, provided it ties in with the various wiring systems that are necessary.
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As a result of monopoly, I know that, though there are some very competitive tenders for equipment, their number appears to be limited. I am not quite sure in my own mind whether enough attention has been paid to the different sorts of equipment that are available. I believe that any good private company would ensure that its equipment was so good that it would be able to export a lot of it. Can the Government tell us—not necessarily today—how much of our equipment which is licensed and made here is actively exported? I have a feeling that the marketing of our equipment is sadly lacking. I also believe that it is true to say that, if the Post Office does not approve the equipment, the manufacturers will not make it. Therefore, it is a vicious circle. I am also told that of the telephone answering equipment which is licensed here none is available from the Post Office itself and the latter takes no interest. I should have thought that this was a highly competitive area where it could make some extra money.
I know that a lot of money has been spent on equipment. Perhaps some has been not so modern as it might have been, however. I know that decisions have to be made many years in advance, and I am looking forward to hearing in the near future of some really good electronic equipment being installed which will be equal or even better than any in the world. The present scale of wrong numbers and crossed lines is, to my mind, beyond a joke. Anybody who is in business is tremendously affected by this, and the number of extraordinary conversations that I have almost listened to is legion. However, I shall not bore your Lordships by telling you about some of those.
One further point is that no amount of modern equipment will make people more efficient. I should like to see more attention paid to the calls which are made through the operators and calls made to operators, engineers and, perhaps, telegrams. They are sometimes answered extremely slowly, and often one is told, "Well, we are very busy". I am afraid that I do not accept that as an excuse. I believe that the patterns must be very clear by now and I feel that, in the last resort, there could be some recording system saying, "We have your call in

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hand and it will be taken care of as soon as possible". However, I believe that staffing levels need to be looked at rather carefully. The American system—with which I am familiar having lived out there for five and a half years—is probably the most efficient in the world; one can get any State in the country very quickly indeed and with no trouble at all. Perhaps the American operators have a fuller training. I do not know. The noble Lord, Lord Wall, brought up the factor of monopolies existing in America, but the great point here is that those are private and not State monopolies. I believe that that is why the Americans are so much more efficient. In a way, they are competing.
Before I leave the telephone system, I should like to take issue with my noble friend Lord Alport. I felt that he was a little wrong in saying that we could do without the telephone. I believe that my noble friend said that we were able to do without the telephone, but I feel that the data transmission services which are provided, and, sometimes, the lifelines of old people, are very relevant in this case. Perhaps I can quote briefly from the Observer of 17th April, where an elderly person wrote:
"I live in a town full of elderly people, to whom letters are a lifeline. Some are just elderly, some handicapped, many lonely and unable to afford a telephone. Regular letters, like warmth, are a must".
This brings me on to the next point, where I leave telephones and talk about Sunday letters. It is a "hot potato", I know, but I think that, although most of us have talked about it, there is no doubt that the post on Sunday is a very difficult problem to solve, for financial reasons. I have no doubt that the Post Office is correct in saying that the percentage of post on Sunday is extremely small, but I think it is the type of people who are being hurt that is really the point. So much can be done with a letter written on a Sunday, especially when no other time is available; and I think that the quote from the Observer brings this out, because it goes on to say:
"There is nothing, absolutely nothing, to replace the feeling that your letter will he on somebody's mat on Monday morning".
My Lords, the noble Earl, Lord Kimberley, touched on advertising, and
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perhaps I can refer to a letter from the Post Office written to my noble friend Lady Young which talks about advertising. I note that in 1971/72 the cost of postal advertising was £1·1 million and that in 1975/76 it had been reduced to £0·9 million—quite a reduction—whereas, on the other hand, telecommunications advertising started at £2·1 million in 1971/72 and was up to £3·4 million. I must say that I agree with most of the remarks made by the noble Earl, Lord Kimberley, about the unnecessariness of a great deal of the advertising; but in view of these comparisons, I must ask the Government whether the Post Office is being run-down in any way because of lack of advertising, which obviously it feels, in general terms, is a necessary evil. May I, lastly, make one very small plea to the Government that they should use their best influences on the Post Office in regard to the wearing of uniforms by postmen? When a postman is in uniform he is very obvious because of the difference in his appearance from all the others one sees frequently nowadays who do not seem to feel that wearing a uniform is at all necessary.
My Lords, although we have a little time in hand, there seems to be no need to drag on with this matter. I think we must all thank the noble Earl, Lord Kimberley, for giving us the opportunity to bring out into the open some very glaring gaps in the efficiency of the Post Office, albeit that we certainly have a service that is better than many others around the world.
Lady RUTHVEN of FREELAND: My Lords, I did not put my name down to make a speech, nor do I mean to make one, but I have asked the noble Earl, Lord Kimberley, whether I might ask a question before the Minister rises to reply. It is a quite banal question, and perhaps does not affect a great many people, but, personally, I have a lot of correspondence with people overseas, and the appalling thing about our airmail paper is that the gum is so bad that the flap will practically never stick to the letter. I think the Post Office ought to make an effort to use a better gum for their overseas letters.
4.35 p.m.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, I believe this has been a valuable debate.

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The last time we in this House had any substantial time for an exchange of views on the Post Office was, I believe, in November 1975. We have had, of course, lively exchanges at Question Time but think we can all agree that it is a good thing that from time to time we should cast our eyes over major public bodies such as the Post Office, and the noble Earl, Lord Kimberley, deserves our thanks for raising this topic. Having said that, I should like to go a little further and say that I think that the subject we have discussed today is worth more than a mini-debate. I think that within this mini-debate there is a major debate struggling to get out. We might bear this in mind in the future and see that the usual channels enable us to express our views at greater length in a major debate. Because the subject is immensely important.
As the noble Lord, Lord Wall, pointed out, this is an industry about the size of the United States Steel Corporation, and the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, very rightly indicated his views about how an organisation of this size should be made accountable to Parliament. There is of course, as everybody will agree, a difference between accountability and meddling, and speaking from this Box or from any Box one finds that people ask questions which really are part of the day-to-day running of a nationalised industry and should be kept out of general debate. But it is not quite as easy as that, particularly in the case of the Post Office, where every day, every one of us, probably, is in contact with someone working in the Post Office.
The noble Earl, Lord Kimberley, although recognising the problem, I think put his finger on the difficulties we face, or which any Government face, when he quoted from the Act, showing that the Act laid certain duties on the new Corporation which, on certain occasions, could clash, and yet did not lay down any system whereby this conflict of duties could be resolved. The Conservative Administration used the Post Office as a social implement when it was fighting inflation. We in the Labour Party, perhaps strangely enough, went back to strict commercial orthodoxy and raised the tariffs charged on both parts of the Post Office services very substantially to
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put both parts of those services back into profit. We were taking a much more capitalistic view than the Conservative Government had taken before us.
I think the dilemma indicated by the noble Earl is profound and, as I have said, is worthy of a major debate. That view of mine has been, I think, reinforced by the most important speeches of the noble Lord, Lord Wall, and the noble Lord, Lord Alport, who restated the dilemma in a different way. They pointed out that the postal services and the telecommunications services are two entirely different animals. As the noble Lord, Lord Alport, pointed out, we could get on without the telephone as a social instrument, but we could not get on without the post. The noble Lord, Lord Wall, pointed out that the postal services were labour-intensive, whereas the telecommunications industry was capital-intensive, and that for that reason, again, we were dealing with two separate types of social organisation. The two noble Lords proposed solutions to this dilemma which differed, but not very widely, I thought: two Corporations by Lord Wall, a State service plus a Corporation by Lord Alport.
These things are matters of very great interest and importance when we are dealing with an organisation which employs about 2 per cent. of the working population of this country. It really is quite a size—almost elephantine. For this reason, I believe that perhaps those noble Lords who have shown their interest today might think it worth while debating the annual accounts of the Post Office, which are laid before Parliament and which are likely to be published in July, for the year 1976/77. This is the conventional way of avoiding meddling while ensuring supervision of a nationalised industry; and by that time, of course, the Carter report should be available to us. A debate on a subject of this importance, but not within a limited time-scale, I think could be of great value.
I believe that many of the points raised today must have been put in front of the Carter Committee; and I noted the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, when he said that, because of leakages, we should debate this as soon as the Carter report is published. I shall bring that point of view to the notice of my right honourable friend the Secretary of

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State. But I suppose we shall have to wait for Carter, and perhaps, as some other noble Lord said, for Posner, because that deals with the situation in the telecommunications industry and, taken in conjunction with the annual report of the Post Office, we might in fact get nearer to the heart of the matter than is possible to us today in this short but, I think, very valuable debate.
I should like to underline the problems of the Post Office which arise from the fact that it is so large. Because of its size, of course innumerable mistakes must be made. If one judges its performance, one must take any mistakes that are made, and any shortcomings, in relation to its size. For instance, 30 million letters are collected daily from 125,000 pillar boxes, post offices and other collecting points, and from these boxes letters are delivered to about 21 million addressees. At the end of the financial year 1975/76 there were 21 million telephones installed in the United Kingdom; that is to say, we are in the third position after the US and Japan in the actual installation of telephones in relation to our population. A total of some 16,000 million calls were made during the year, virtually all on automatic exchanges. Roughly 2 per cent. of the working population is employed by the Post Office.
I stress these points so that where shortcomings can be seen one must realise that, with the very large number of human beings and the massive banks of machinery involved, shortcomings must come about. As the noble Lord, Lord Platt, pointed out, if we try to compare statistically the work of our Post Office with others, I think that the record is very far from bad. We have the British habit of focussing attention on what goes wrong and losing sight of our achievements. I should like to support what the noble Lord, Lord Platt, said by listing a few of the achievements of this country. Letters delivered per employee by the Post Office compare well with every other EEC country except the Netherlands. United Kingdom charges for basic inland and overseas letters are lower than those of any other EEC country and are not very different from those in the United States, where the post office receives a hugh subsidy. As I have said, the United Kingdom has the third largest total of telephones in the world.
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In recent years, we have seen the Post Office developing and evolving such new services as Household Delivery, Datapost and Expresspost to meet new types of demand from its customers. I have no doubt that more needs to be done; but that is not surprising because, after all, business is a constant struggle to strike the optimal balance with external demands within a given set of financial and social objectives which frequently are in conflict with each other. Not only has the Post Office got to ride the world economic swells, it has also to overcome the philosophies of Governments—and that is, perhaps, even more difficult.
At this point, I should like to take note of remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Newall, in relation to the actual dynamic industrial policy for selling abroad the telecommunications equipment which is produced in this country under semimonopoly conditions. Perhaps the House will forgive me—as we have a certain amount of time—if I develop this point extensively; because I think it is important for the future competitiveness of our telecommunications industry. We know that it is not only private individuals who buy foreign equipment, but the Post Office itself from time to time does the same thing. This, in fact, has not been a widespread and large-scale problem. Britain's telecommunication requirements have grown, as have the similar requirements of other large developed countries indigenously and manufacturing industry has, generally speaking, developed with its eye on the Post Office as its main customer. This is true also of other developed countries.
In many respects those other countries' equipment differs in technical characteristics from ours and it follows that there is not at present great scope for export and import trade with such countries in telecommunications equipment of the kind used by the Post Office. In fact, figures used by the EEC Commission suggest that less than 5 per cent. of telecommunications equipment within the EEC is purchased across frontiers. I would suggest, although I speak without any exact knowledge, that as the Community develops, standardisation must also develop between the communications systems of the nine members of the Community. I would feel—again speaking personally—that it would be better

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to try to harmonise our telecommunications equipment than our beer. This would be of greater value to us.
The disparity at the moment in these technical characteristics has been widely realised—for instance, in the EEC—and that requirement for open international tender of the sort widely applied in other public purchasing fields is at present inappropriate to telecommunications. That is as far as I can go today. We have the fact that in all countries, with the exception of the USA, there is a Government monopoly operating. The Government naturally wish to support their own indigenous industry and at the moment this situation inhibits the export in a large way of telecommunications systems to developed countries from this country. But the point made by the noble Lord is of importance, and for that reason I am underlining the point he has made.
My Lords, may I turn now to points made by a number of noble Lords in the course of the debate. One noble Lord raised the question of charges made by the Post Office for calls passed through the operator when the caller cannot dial directly or because the dialled call has failed. The Post Office has recently changed its policy on charges for calls connected by the operator, and for the reason that as from 4th January such calls will be charged at about the dialled rate.
Turning to the various points made by the noble Earl, Lord Kimberley, I must say also that I thought he was slightly pessimistic about the cost of Sunday collections. We believe they are six times as expensive as weekday collections rather than the eight times he suggested. That, of course, does not alter the principle. There is a very high price to be paid for Sunday collections and perhaps we will adjust our letter writing habits and thereby enable very substantial economies to be made in the cost of running our postal services.
The noble Lord, Lord Ferrier, made an important point when he suggested that overnight letter telegrams might, to a certain extent, mitigate the disadvantages of the limit on Sunday collections. All I can do is to draw his views to the attention of the Chairman of the Post Office. As I understand it, the noble
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Lord feels that if over the weekend the Post Office could waive the 50p impost, it might encourage people to use the overnight letter telegram over the weekend to a greater degree.
Lord FERRIER: My Lords, but without mitigating in any way the inconvenience of the absence of Sunday collections or, even more, the absence of a late Saturday collection.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, in relation to that, when we talk about the lifeline factor in telephone communications, I have been advised that the areas where regional directors have exercised their powers to reduce charges have been the following: the Eastern Telecommunications Region, the Midlands Telecommunications Region, the North-Western Telecommunications Board, Wales and the Marches Board and the Scottish Board. I do not know whether there is a board covering the whole of Scotland, or whether Scotland is broken up into divisions, but my advice is that the Scottish board as a whole has used its powers. Discounts were £5 or £10 per installation. I have to add the bad news, however, that unfortunately discounts are made for relatively short periods because the actual discount made had a relationship to the unused facilities. I have no information on how many connections have been made so far at the reduced rate. On the other hand, the power is there. Noble Lords are alert to the existence of this power, and I am certain that use will be made of that knowledge.
The noble Baroness, Lady Macleod of Borve, will also have noted this point, because it is part of the way in which the actual lifeline costs could be reduced. I am certain that the point she makes is of great value and must be balanced on the social service side of the postal communications and telecommunications systems. The noble Lord, Lord Bowden, made a very important point about an uneven rate of recruitment for young telecommunications engineers. It is a highly technical point, but I will write to him and give him information on policy and a forward projection as to what is expected to happen.
There was another point which I should have touched on a little earlier; that is,

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the question of the Post Office's experiment in industrial democracy, to which more than one noble Lord referred. The noble Lord, Lord Wall, mentioned the proposed Post Office experiment which would involve, as we know, a single clause Bill to increase the size of the Post Office Board. Final decisions have not yet been taken on this and therefore I cannot at the moment comment upon the matter. Again, if we have a major debate later in the year, by that time decisions should have been reached on whether to go ahead on the Post Office's own proposals, and whether to go ahead with Bullock in his present or in some transformed state. That is all I can say today in answer to what I found a most interesting debate.
Lord HAWKE: My Lords, there are two important points to which the noble Lord has not replied. First, my noble friend Lord Ferrier asked whether the ancillary services of the Post Office were being properly rewarded; that is, payments of pensions, et cetera. Also, did not the noble Earl state that there was a job in the Post Office known as a "delayer", and the general public are very exercised because they believe that their second-class mail is being deliberately held back. Is that true?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Ferrier, asked whether the Post Office, when it undertook work for the Government—for instance, when it arranged to pay old-age pensions—was properly remunerated. This particular point was considered by the Select Committee on Nationalised Industries in another place. In their reply in October last year, the Government explained that existing arrangements which had been freely negotiated between the Post Office and the Treasury already met the recommendations of the Committee. I believe noble Lords who are interested in pursuing this matter will find it in Command Paper 6629, which was published in October 1976. As regards the fascinating character called the "delayer", and the technique known, as I understand it, as "bumping", I can say nothing helpful at all. It is perhaps useful that the role of the "delayer" and the art of "bumping" have been
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brought into the light of day since now many people will watch out for the "delayer" and his "bumping".
Having said this, ending on a slightly frivolous note, may I repeat what I said at the beginning: I think that the debate has been most valuable, and I personally also think it merits a much larger debate when we have more facts which we can use to judge the efficiency and possible future organisation of what is one of our major industries.
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNESIDE: My Lords, can the noble Lord kindly reply to the very important points which were made by my noble friend Lord Harmar-Nicholls? Will the noble Lord refer them to the appropriate Department for consideration? Those are the kinds of things in which the ordinary public are interested. The noble Lord has hardly commented on them. May I have an answer to those most important points, please?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Harmar-Nicholls, was courteous enough to mention to me that he had to leave before the end of the debate. There is a convention in this House that I do not have to reply to points raised by noble Lords who are not in their place. But the debate will be studied and the points made by the noble Lord, Harmar-Nicholls, will doubtless be noted.
4.57 p.m.
The Earl of KIMBERLEY: My Lords, first of all I should like to thank all noble Lords who participated, whether by listening or speaking, in the debate this afternoon. I should like to elaborate on what the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, said about Sunday collections which have been mentioned by several other noble Lords. I believe that the Post Office claim that they have saved £9 million by not having Sunday collections. However, if 3 million letters were posted on a Sunday, as opposed to 30 million which are posted on most other days, at first-class rates, by my mathematics this would produce a revenue of over £13 million, so maybe we might eventually get back to Sunday collections.

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The noble Lord, Lord Wall, has a much greater knowledge of the Post Office than I do—because I only speak as a member of the general public—and I agree with most of what he said. I agree that the telecommunications is a commercial enterprise and, unfortunately, the postal system is not. That again brings us down to the point that it may well be a good thing eventually perhaps to split them apart. The noble Lord, Lord Wall, also mentioned the new Board, and so did the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale. I have been led to believe that the proposals which were worked out about the new Board were done basically in private by the Post Office, the unions and the Government, and I believe that no user organisations were consulted about this at any stage. As yet, there have not been any proposals as to how the user's interests may be safeguarded. Industrial democracy, certainly if carried out carefully and well, could be very beneficial, but I feel that your Lordships would like reassurance—which perhaps can be provided only by hard evidence—that the experiment will produce results. If it was done badly, if anything it would be counterproductive.
The noble Lord, Lord Alport, said that the Post Office is a public service, and I agree with him absolutely. That goes back to what many noble Lords have said already this afternoon: that postal deliveries are a necessity. The noble Lord, Lord Ferrier, when talking about his telecommunications, said that perhaps we should have greater use of discretion, and I think the noble Lord, Lord Winter-bottom, was fairly helpful over that. The noble Lord, Lord Platt, said that he was in favour of the Post Office, and perhaps may have seemed to imply that I was not. But I am in favour of it and merely feel that it could be improved.
The noble Lord, Lord Harmar-Nicholls, who told me he had to leave, talked about Christmas card manufacturers, and said there were 1,000 million cards in 1975. He also said that 40 per cent. of the cards were hand delivered. If my simple arithmetic is correct, if that 40 per cent. had been posted, say, with a 4½p stamp at Christmas, it would have generated revenue for the Post Office of something like £25 million. So perhaps the noble Lord,
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Lord Winterbottom, could ask somebody to look into that particular point and see whether it might he feasible next Christmas.
The noble Baroness, Lady Macleod, talked about communications between families, and I am sure that all your Lordships in this Chamber would agree with her. As regards the point put by the noble Lord, Lord Bowden, of course I cannot answer for the Government, but I think the noble Lord, Lord Winter-bottom, gave a satisfactory answer. The noble Lord, Lord Newall, said we ought to have more efficient equipment; and I agree. He said that if we had that we could export more, particularly answering service machines, and so on. However, the only point I am not certain about is whether, when I dial 100 or whatever it may be for telegrams, I want to be told "You have been answered and you will be dealt with when it is your turn"—because I think one might then wait for ever!
The noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, said there was not time enough to discuss the whole of such a large subject. I agree entirely with him, and I think it would be very good if we could have a major debate in your Lordships' Chambers, particularly following the receipt of the Carter Report. I should be very interested to know whether, later on, the noble Lord, Lord Winter-bottom, could write and let me know, if he could find out, what the term, "about the rate" actually means. I was optimistic about the Sunday post: I thought it might cost four times as much. The noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, said it would cost six times. It was the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, who said it might cost eight times. Finally, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, for answering this afternoon on behalf of the Government, and I should also like to thank all the other speakers who have participated in the debate. I beg leave to withdraw my Motion for Papers.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

PUBLIC RECORDS
5.4 p.m.
Lord TEVIOT Lord TEVIOT rose to draw attention to the present state of the public records; and to move for Papers. The noble

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Lord said: My Lords, in opening this debate I must declare two interests. One is that I am a member of the National Advisory Council on Public Records and the other is that I am a professional record agent. Your Lordships will know that the history of scholarly interest in the public records of this country goes back for many centuries. In the time of Elizabeth I an Act for the safe keeping of records was passed.
If the practical results left much to be desired, the result in terms of scholarship, and indeed of politics, was both subtle and profound. It could be, and indeed has been, argued that without that scholarly interest there would have been no English revolution, no Civil War, no Hampden and no Cromwell. Your Lordships may think that that might have been a jolly good thing! However, I merely want to emphasise the importance of the records and to remind your Lordships of the long history of interest in them and of the effort that has gone into their care over the centuries.
In this century there have been two notable occasions when the administration and state of these records has been scrutinised by Parliament: the great Royal Commission set up in 1910 and the Departmental Committee which produced the Grigg Report of 1954, on which the present Public Records Act was founded. That was nearly a quarter of a century ago, and I trust your Lordships will feel that enough time has elapsed to justify further consideration. Thus, I am most grateful to all noble Lords who have put down their names to speak today, and in particular I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord who is kindly going to answer on behalf of the Government. I should also like to pay a very genuine tribute to the PRO staff, with whom I have enjoyed a very close and intimate connection for seven years, for their dedication and helpfulness.
I hope your Lordships will bear with a little brief history. The Public Record Office dates back to 1836, when the first modern Public Records Act was passed. That was as a result of six Public Record Commissions dating back to 1800. Initially, the Office was intended to deal with the enormous collection of records which had accrued since the Norman
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Conquest—these records that were rendered, for all practical purposes, obsolete and useless: indeed, it seems that those entrusted with their custody could find little better to do with them than sell them off to be boiled down to make soap. Following that was the fire of 1834 which burnt down the Palace of Westminster, in which many of the records were stored. It was that event—as always with disasters—that seems to have been the immediate spur which convinced politicians of the day to stop shilly-shallying with the problem, accept their responsibility for this great heritage and pass the Act of 1836.
At first, the Office was intended to deal with the enormous collection of records which had accrued since the Norman Conquest and which, with the great reforms in public life and the law which took place between the abolition of feudalism in 1660 and the Industrial Revolution of the early 19th century, had become quite obsolete. Therefore, the immediate task at that stage was to sort out and arrange this vast collection—a process which occupied the full attention of officials for many years and which is still done on an ever-decreasing scale as part of the Office's activities today. As one part of this effort, the Office engaged in a massive scheme of publication which, in the course of the succeeding century or so, resulted in the production of something like 600 large volumes of calendars alone. Again, that side of the Office's work still continues, though what was once a flood is now reduced to little more than a trickle.
As I have said, the Office started out with the medieval records but later in the 19th century was made responsible for the records of many active Government Departments, some of which had not even been in existence when the Office was established. In this century there have been added numerous new Departments—Ministries of Labour, Pensions, Health, Education—I do not need to go on; we are all familiar with them. The Departments produce an enormous quantity of paper. I do not say that that is necessarily their purpose, but it is certainly an inevitable by-product of their work. As a result, the building in Chancery Lane was soon bursting at the seams and more accommodation had to be found

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elsewhere. Many hospital huts and munitions factories in the country, disused for many years, served that purpose.
This year marks a very important event in the history of public records, in that this autumn there will be opened the new Public Records Office at Kew. That building will solve the accommodation problems. It is the most advanced office of its kind in the world. No expense has been spared. It is equipped with all the best and latest machinery, and it is something of which we can all feel proud. As a building, it will certainly do justice to the great collection—surely the most complete and impressive that any nation can boast. It must be admitted that some of us have had misgivings about its location, but the argument about that is past. We all now wish it well, I am sure. What I am concerned about is that, having provided this splendid building, we should not sit back and assume that we have done everything that was required.
There is a very wide interest in our records, as can be seen in a very good article in today's The Times. They touch upon not only the many nations which formerly made up the British Empire, but those—and they are virtually in every part of the world—with which we have had any contact, whether it be commercial, diplomatic, military, naval or otherwise. This interest is profound and is growing. It is essential, if only as a matter of prestige, that we cater for it as well as we possibly can, and not only cater for it in some passive way but go out and encourage it.
The last major study of our archives was, as I have said, by the Grigg Committee in 1954, which resulted in the 1958 Public Records Act. The results have, on the whole, been successful. For the first time, a special responsibility was placed on Departments for the long-term preservation of our records. It gave the PRO a loose, but more clearly defined, co-ordinating role. It established certain broad principles on which to determine which records should be kept and which added to the nation's heritage, and which to destroy. It established a 50-year rule, which was later reduced to 30. All these were substantial advantages, but since 1954 there have been great changes in the records themselves, in the users and in the ways in which they use them.
To give an obvious example, who in 1954 could have foreseen the great changes that the computer would bring? Again, the needs of historians and scholars were very different then. That is not to say that Grigg should have foreseen them, any more than we can foretell what historians of the year 2007 will be wanting. The late Sir Lewis Namier, whose work on 18th century political and 20th century diplomatic history did so much to revolutionise those disciplines, used to claim that a laundry bill of a man of eminence might be as valuable a piece of historical evidence as a paper which he drafted to put before the Cabinet. No doubt that is an extreme example, and no system would cater for it, but I should like to emphasise the study of low-level papers.
But since Grigg reported there has been a distinct shift in interest from, perhaps, old-fashioned political and diplomatic histories, on which I and most of your Lordships were brought up. There is now an emphasis on economic, social and local factors and, most important of all, the scientific. Would the guidelines set down by Grigg have identified the records appropriate for studies of this kind? I do not know, but we should ask the question and I am certainly not convinced that we are doing all we can to let the professional historians—who, if anyone, should know about these things—have a fair say in the process of selection.
These are hypothetical questions and we cannot answer them here. What we can do is concern ourselves with the practical question of whether the machinery, which is established to determine them on a day-to-day basis, is the best that can be devised. At this stage, I want to make it quite clear that I am fully aware of the present economic situation, so that, purposely, one is trying not to make any suggestions which could cost a lot of money. Ideally, a new Royal Commission would be the answer, but that is quite obviously out of the question at the moment. Perhaps another Grigglike committee could be formed to look at certain aspects of archive management. This brings me on to suggest a Government archive service to be set up on the same lines as the Government economic service and the Government accounting service.
The present situation is that each Department appoints its own departmental record officer, who has a small staff under him. The idea behind this, as recommended by Grigg, was that the DRO should have some long experience in the Department and be able to follow the records throughout the 30-year period. To advise him, there is an official called the PRO inspecting officer who calls and advises him from time to time. There are only five of these inspectors, excellent as they are, one scientific adviser and a medieval specialist to cover 200 Government Departments and three nationalised industries. There is something to be said for this system. The long experience and wide knowledge of the best DROs is not lightly to be cast aside, but I question whether the man from inside the Department is any longer really the man for the job.
Is he not likely to be parochial? Even if he escapes this, how is he to maintain his enthusiasm? Able men join a Department in order to forward its primary functions, not to preside over the funeral arrangements of its long-forgotten triumphs and disasters. Years ago, when the pace of life was slower and the great Departments of State endowed from generation to generation, the post of Librarian and Chief Paperkeeper was no doubt something to be sought after. But today, when the life expectancy of many Departments is so short and when the administrators scarcely remember what happened the day before yesterday, let alone 20 or 30 years ago, the post of departmental record officer is all too often, and regrettably, regarded as an assignment to oblivion. This may sound harsh, but would one expect to find in many Departments able people whose interest lay in the history and records of 20 and 30 years ago? I think that the answer must be found.
With a Government archive service, you would provide a career structure. People interested in records would want to join such a service, and it would not be staffed by those who felt that they were being pushed into a backwater. A proper training in archives management would be given, which I gather is not so at the moment. Historians would be invited to take part in selection and reviewing at early stages. I do not say
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that this is a perfect solution, but it is the kind of solution which merits proper study.
My next question to the noble and learned Lord is to ask whether he is satisfied that adequate arrangements are being made for records of bodies wholly or substantially supported by public funds. My impression is that he is not, and I hope that he can tell us what he proposes to do about it. Regrettably, there is no national archive service in this country. There is the PRO with its duties, the Manuscripts Department of the British Library, the Historic Manuscripts Commission and the National Register of Archives and a growing number of other bodies, supported directly or indirectly from public funds, but there is no overall co-ordinating body and there is certainly no overall directing body. My personal opinion is that the Public Record Office is the right body to deal with them, because the HMC and the others do other excellent work in advising on and recording private collections.
To give one example of these other bodies, there are the records of the National Enterprise Board which are outside the scope of the Acts, as are all but three of the nationalised bodies. The NEB is concerned with a critical element in the Government's economic strategy, and has a decisive power over the future of British Leyland and several other manufacturing concerns. Future economic historians will need a full record of those proceedings for a comprehensive study of the British economy in the late 1970s.
At this stage, I shall say little on the question of access and closure, as I know that my noble friend Lord Bethell, who has very strong views on this aspect, will deal with it extremely thoroughly. I can say only that I have been advised that, on the whole, Departments take a very robust line and close documents only if they are strictly personal and sensitive, or perhaps politically sensitive. But there, again, I leave that entirely to my noble friend. Another point is the transfer of the 100-year old records from the Registrar-General to the Public Record Office. Here, again, I am hiving-off this one, as it is a wide debate, to my noble

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friend Lord Sudeley, except to say that when it happens it will benefit an enormous number of people, not only genealogists but demographers, social historians and epidemiologists, to state a few. Practically the whole of my speech has been devoted to the public records in the Public Record Office and not to those deposited elsewhere, but I do not want to underestimate the importance of these records. I should like to mention and welcome the Parochial Records Measure which has been passed by the Synod and which is on its way here. It is an extremely good Measure and it has been eagerly awaited for a very long time.
The Lord Bishop of LONDON: My Lords, may I correct the noble Lord. The Measure has not yet received final approval in the general Synod but it is hoped that it will do so very shortly.
Lord TEVIOT: My Lords, I thank the right reverend Prelate for his intervention. However, I understood this to be the case. I hope, therefore, that the right reverend Prelate is going to give me some good news on that particular point, and I shall eagerly await his speech. Finally, there are two important domestic matters about which I should like to ask the noble and learned Lord. The first is the question of the opening hours at Kew and Chancery Lane. Will there be any Saturday opening at Kew and Chancery Lane? And in view of the fact that many people will have to travel far to Kew, could there be a late night opening there? This service is enjoyed at other similar institutions, such as the British Library and elsewhere, and it is very important for those members of the public and students who are unable to get there at other times. I appreciate that there are staffing and financial considerations, but I cannot stress the importance of late night openings too strongly.
Lord BETHELL: My Lords, may I interrupt my noble friend for a moment in order to add to what he has just said? The National Archives in Washington stay open until nine o'clock every evening.
Lord TEVIOT: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his intervention. The photographic charges are at present disgracefully high. I am aware that the Keeper and the Assistant Keeper have
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done their best to control costs but they, like holders of high office in other Government Departments, are continually being hounded by the Treasury. For example, commercial firms charge 6p for a Xerox copy, and University libraries less, whereas the current price charged by the PRO is 14p. This charge is prohibitive to many students and others and in some cases curtails their work and studies. Is the noble and learned Lord able to give us any hope that the charges will not go up any further in the near future?
One aspect of the costing that I cannot understand is this: why, when the Rolls building at Chancery Lane and presumably the new building at Kew are Crown property, do we have to pay accommodation rates which are equivalent to the current inflationary rates which are being charged for rents in Central London? Other costs, like staff and the handling of documents, I can perhaps understand but the high accommodation costs I find a very difficult pill to swallow. I fear that I have spoken for too long, but it is a very wide subject. Thus, I eagerly look forward to the intervention of other speakers. I beg to move for Papers.
5.23 p.m.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, I believe that I speak for all noble Lords, not only on my side of the House but everywhere else, when I say that we are grateful to my noble friend Lord Teviot for introducing this debate. My noble friend has cast his eyes over the broadest horizon, although he seems to have left out Scotland. Perhaps he was thinking of the well-known Scottish mottoes which serve to caution those South of the Border: "Touch not the cat without a glove" and, "Gaing warily". Therefore I presume that my noble friend is happy about the way that the Register in Edinburgh and Scottish records in general are being looked after. Before continuing, may I say that we ought not to forget that this work is going on in Scotland also. Because the Public Records Acts of Parliament do not deal with Scotland, my noble friend's Motion does not mention them; it just speaks about public records. However, this is the Parliament of the United Kingdom, and I should like to make the point that Scotland is being looked after very well and that the rules which apply to England and Wales apply also to Scotland.

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My noble friend has asked many searching questions, to many of which he applied that old Latin friend of ours "Nonne"—which reminds me that we expect the answer, Yes. All of us like to ask questions to which we know the answer. Governments have to answer those questions, and I am sure that the noble and learned Lord will do his very best to answer them.
May I state right away that we are dealing with a side of the public service which receives no publicity or laurels and where the senior officers, after a lifetime of service, appear to be rewarded in a rather niggardly fashion. This is the case, despite the fact that our records, on the mere pittance of an annual budget of well under £2 million, are looked after, and produced for historians and students, as well as anywhere else in the world. We do not have many Knights in the Public Record Office, nor do we have many CBEs there. It is an Office which has no excitement about it. Nevertheless, the work goes on there, day in and day out, and without that work a great deal of our most exciting history would be lost. We have probably more records than almost any other country in the world.
Before we carp about whether or not we can use our records in one way or another, we ought to give thanks that they are there and that they are looked after so well. Many of us today think that yesterday's events call for remedies. For this purpose, many people demand greater and fuller access to our records, but let us consider whether it is common sense to show all too early? Which of us would show our intimate papers, if awkward, to the world? Yet today we are being urged to withdraw the safeguards against personal distress and loss of commercial confidentiality and State security from the documents which are so carefully preserved before the sting of time has been removed.
Let us first remind ourselves of how grateful we should be to the guardians of our record heritage. I take a great interest in this subject because my great grandfather, Speaker Gulley, later Lord Selby, who was a QC, took a great interest in records. I have some of his papers and books which deal with the matter, and yesterday I was looking at
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some of them. I thought it would interest that most noble, learned and erudite of Lord Chancellors if I cited an example that I found among his papers concerning a recent part of the history of his rightly beloved country of Wales. The Record Commission Board held a meeting at the Speaker's House in New Palace Yard on 30th March 1833. The business to be dealt with concerned the records of the Auditor of the Land Revenue for Wales. The board were given an extract from a Select Committee Report of 1800 of the House of Commons to consider which said, and I quote:
"They were lodged in a building in New Palace Yard adjoining to the Exchequer within a few yards of the Thames in one room only, and much too small at that, but otherwise tolerably convenient as to security and accommodation for the keeping thereof, were it not so very damp, for being on the ground floor and near the Thames, every high tide brings the water more or less into it, but the floor has been raised to try to keep it dry."
In 1833 the Board laconically commented that after the building in which they had been situated was pulled down
"these ancient and valuable records were placed in the Wooden Shed in Westminster Hall. From this place it seems they were removed to the Bail Court. They are now"—
we are speaking of 1833, of course—
"in one of the bins at the King's Mews. No keeper of them has, it is believed, yet been appointed, and if they are as wet and mouldy as were the King's Remembrancer's records which lately occupied the other bins in the same depot, it is pretty certain the services of such an officer will never be wanted."
That, my Lords, shows how recently they were in danger and during this debate tonight the Master of the Rolls, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, will be speaking and he might be interested to hear about how some of the Rolls fared as they were kept not so very long ago.
I am now speaking of a letter dated 10th June, 1833, written by a Mr. E. Protheroe Junior. The New World did not have the monopoly of the title "Junior" even then. He wrote about the Rolls:
"Only one man was at work in this office—Henry Gay. He was engaged on the Inquisitions post-mortem and the Parliamentary writs. His working place was the recess of a window in the large room next the roof and over the Rolls Chapel. It is in this chamber, subject to all the variations of temperature felt in an old and

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ill-built house, that are deposited some of the most valuable records of the Kingdom. The space allocated to the workman seemed much too limited and the spot in every respect so inconvenient and ill-adapted for the work that it scarcely admitted of the task—this was certainly done with less facility and expedition than could have been performed with more room. In winter I remember the coldness of the chamber was given me as a reason for his being absent from his work, as having gone to warm himself by a fire".
That is only 140 years ago and we are dealing with documents that go back much further than that. So before we carp and criticise let us give thanks that what we have got have been brought into order—indeed, not only brought into order but preserved and available.
The two noble and learned Lords now have a right to purr to themselves as they lick their cream at the way things have changed. The 1838 Act brought order out of that chaos. The Grigg Report of 1954, after an interval of 116 years, highlighted the modern needs based on modern technology and, above all, made the right of access after 50 years dependent upon the Lord Chancellor. It made it the norm that after 50 years all documents were available with the exception of one or two which the Lord Chancellor, as advised, could deal with.
As has been said by my noble friend Lord Teviot, the 1967 Act merely changed the 50 to 30 years with the same powers to the Lord Chancellor on non-disclosure. As my noble friend has said, The Times today asks whether the advisory council of the noble and learned Lord should not be made to advise more on such matters as the bodies corporate of the State, which are not included by law. We have the Post Office, the National Coal Board and the Atomic Energy Authority mentioned specifically as being bodies corporate whose records are to be looked after. I suppose the noble and learned Lord can assure me that this is written into their constitutions? I have assumed that it is, but am not certain about it. It is in the Public Record Bill but I am not sure whether it is in the Acts of Parliament setting up those authorities.
However, what about the other authorities which have come into existence since then? They are not mentioned. One thinks of the Race Relations Board which has been functioning, I believe, since 1968 and which is now going into
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limbo and a new body is emerging. What is to happen to its records? To say the least, they are of some historical interest for the future, if not now, and I am sure my noble friend Lord Bethell would say they are of interest now. Whether or not it is wise, Parliament has decided that 30 years is a good period and I am not querying that because it is for this Parliament or future Parliaments to change it if they want to. But with bodies such as this, and other corporate bodies such as the water boards, is the advisory board unable to advise the noble and learned Lord as to whether these other corporate bodies of the State whose existence is important should not also be brought into some form of advisory or compulsory saving of their documents for the future?
Recently there was a letter in The Times by a Mr. Aronsfeld dealing with a distressing matter to his people at the time of the German ill-treatment of the Jews. He complained that under Section 5(1) of the Public Records Act 1958 the disclosures have not been allowed. It made me wonder. I do not suppose for one second that without prior notice the noble and learned Lord will be able to give me the answer, but it might be interesting to find out on just how many occasions the noble and learned Lord, in his capacity as an adviser, has issued evidence as to non-disclosure under this section of the Act. I am sure it would be interesting not only to this House but to the country if we could have that information, but I appreciate that I have not given the noble and learned Lord any warning.
I have enormous sympathy with both views on this point. I can appreciate completely the points raised by my noble friend Lord Teviot and what I feel sure my noble friend Lord Bethell is going to say, knowing him as I do. One wants to know the truth and the sooner one knows it, the better, if only to castigate those with whom one disagrees who may still be in some form of public office, and one would like to castigate them while there is a chance to do so.
Bearing in mind the other points mentioned, such as personal distress and Government security and commercial confidentiality, it is difficult to decide. I am sure we should all love to punch some

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people on the nose, but whether or not it is a sensible thing to do is another matter. On balance, I am prepared to believe that we have probably got it almost right. As I have said, if Parliament believes otherwise it can change the law and give the Lord Chancellor and his advisers advice to consider the matter in another way. But as long as we give him this advice I do not see how we can blame him, and I am not sure that we should blame him or the Act at the moment, although on certain matters we should all like to know what has happened. That is only human.
I suggest that historians like my noble friend Lord Bethell will always be upset by the fact that they are going to be delayed in getting their information. I can remember just after the war being absolutely amazed when an Australian war correspondent called Chester Wilmot wrote a book called Struggle for Europe. I thought then—and I still think with knowledge later acquired—that it is one of the best accounts of the last war ever written. The interesting thing about this book is that it was an Australian war correspondent, historian, writing very soon after the event, without the advantage of the memoires of British, German, American and other generals, without the advantage of documents made public by Governments of one sort or another, enemy or friend. That man, Mr. Chester Wilmot, was a great historian; he was a great journalist. He got his facts right without having all the proofs there. I suspect that my noble friend Lord Bethel!may be able to get some of his facts right without all the proofs, and it may be that his son or grandson will say, "Daddy" or "Grandpa, was dead right; here is the proof". We in this age get our facts moderately right, I think, if we have our antennae out in the right directions.
I gave the list of the reasons which the noble and learned Lord had for withholding, and I personally think that this discretion is by and large right. Bearing in mind the type of noble and learned Lord Chancellors we have had in recent decades I think they can be trusted to do this duty. If circumstances totally change, well, all right, Parliament can change the law, have another advisory body to advise. My noble friend Lord Teviot mentioned the late Sir Lewis Namier. I was thinking
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how L. B. Namier would have loved to have the original documents about the Balfour Declaration. Would it have been good, though, if he had got them, I ask myself, and I think the answer would be, No; his historical antennae might have had too much support perhaps.
My Lords, I have been speaking for a long time and I apologise; it is a subject which interests me. I really do believe that, with all the political interest and excitement which can be caused by complaining, we have to remember that the chief duty of the Public Record Office is to preserve, codify and, when possible, when more money is available, of their own accord to publish some of the facts they already have. My great-grandfather, Speaker Gulley, was one of those who said, "Is it as important to record as to publish?" I think myself that you cannot publish without recording, so I think the records must be kept first.
The Public Record Office is now, as my noble friend said, about to move to Kew; the building opens in some two weeks' time, and the official opening is in October. The £6 or £7 million spent on this building at Kew is an enormous sum when you consider that their annual income is well under £2 million. I think they are going to be very happy there. Some two-thirds of these dedicated servants of the Crown are moving there. It is not easy for them; they do not want to move there; very few of them want to move there. One-third only will stay in Chancery Lane. It means that searchers will have to go down to Kew. It is not far, I know, but nevertheless for those who work there it is not always all that easy. We should pay tribute to the fact that they are going to move. What they will need is a period of consolidation to be able to get their feet more firmly and efficiently on the ground with these new buildings. At the moment they have only some 20 years filing space ahead of them. After that they will have to consider with the Government of the day acquiring more buildings. When we are considering these things, we forget what is involved. There are over 80 miles of shelves filled with files.
In this debate we should not be doing our duty if we did not primarily put forth our thanks to the Public Record Office for what it is doing. Whether or

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not we as Parliament see fit to authorise the earlier or later publication of the documents they so carefully record is another matter, but in a debate of this kind the least we can do is to say thank you to these people, 450 of them, of whom only some 33 are on the repair and maintenance side of these very delicate documents. They work on a comparatively minute peppercorn budget, and with no glamour. I for one should like to say to the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, whose pleasant duty I imagine it is to preside over this body in a paternal capacity, that I would wish him to pass on from myself and from my Party our grateful thanks for what this body does.
5.47 p.m.
Lord DENNING: My Lords, as Master of the Rolls, I have many occupations; perhaps I might say I have many roles. Among these are the records of the Realm. My Patent describes me as the Keeper or Master of the Rolls and Records of the Chancery of England, and those go back for at least the last 700 or 800 years. The Master of the Rolls, I am afraid, must have been a little remiss in 1834 in the care he took then. I should like to say it was my predecessor Lord Langdale—and, of course, in those days the Master of the Rolls owned all the land between Fetter Lane and Chancery Lane—who made it possible for the Public Record Office to be built. He presented the land on which the Public Record Office now stands to the Government, and the Government built the Public Record Office on it. Since that time the Master of the Rolls was Keeper of the Public Records and responsible for them, with a deputy keeper, who, of course, did all the work.
Since the Grigg Committee in 1954 and the Public Record Act of 1958, the Lord Chancellor has been responsible for the public records. The Master of the Rolls is chairman, shall I say, of the consumer council; he is Chairman of the Advisory Council on Public Records. One of the most valued members is my noble friend Lord Teviot, who has practical experience of the working of the Office, and his most valued initiation of this debate has brought to your Lordships' attention matters which do need consideration. I have been Chairman of the Advisory
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Council for the last 15 years. We meet regularly and we have under review many of the matters which have been raised today.
During that time there have been two major achievements. When I became chairman of the Advisory Council there was the 50-year rule which meant that Government Departments kept all their documents close to their chests for 50 years and that no one could see those documents until the 50 years had expired. A few years ago, on the advice of the Council, the period was reduced to 30 years bringing it into line with that applying in other countries. That was a great improvement. Government Departments are now bound to release the documents and send them to the Public Record Office after 30 years. That is the first great achievement.
The other is that as accommodation was so short in Chancery Lane—the search rooms were overcrowded and papers could not be kept within those confines—a great new building has been erected at Kew. The site was provided by the Government and the finest record office in the world is now built and will be opened later this year. There have been some difficulties over staff having to move their homes closer to Kew, but I hope and believe that the new building will give rise to a great advance in the keeping of records in England. Those are the two major achievements in recent years.
My noble friend mentioned the problem of the new situation since the Grigg Report. We have all the computerised systems, mechanised records and the like. However, there has been a change in emphasis in history. In addition to the great diplomatic changes that have taken place, there have been changes in the social and economic history of the people. Furthermore, great new bodies have been set up which are not subject to the Public Record Office at all. My noble friend mentioned the National Enterprise Board. There is also the Race Relations Board, the Steel Corporation, the transport undertakings and many others which do not come within the ambit of the Public Record Office. Some means should be provided or advice should be given whereby their records can be preserved and allocated instead of being destroyed. The problem has been considered by the

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Advisory Council and it does not come within the terms of the Statute. However, the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts has initiated a pilot study to discover the extent of the problem as regards these fringe bodies. Therefore, that matter is being dealt with as far as possible.
It has been well said that, in view of these changes, perhaps it is time to take a new look, rather as the Grigg Committee did 23 years ago. The Advisory Council thought that that was desirable and put it before the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor. The noble and learned Lord was sympathetic to its request but felt that this was not the time to take such a look. We must accept that. It is important to say that the Public Record Office is serving the country well. The users and readers of its records, and those overseas who use it, are well served as economically as may be.
One particular problem which has been raised lately—I think my noble friend Lord Bethell may raise it—is whether Government Departments disclose or send to the Public Record Office all that they should. It is a difficult question because if Departments do not want to disclose their records, they may overlook them, miss them or even destroy them. The Public Record Office can do nothing about that. There may be very good reasons for Departments acting in that manner. Perhaps I could give an illustration.
Some years ago I had to conduct an inquiry into the Profumo incident. Some very secret records containing all sorts of indiscretions were made. Should those records be kept, or not? The key answer to that was that the evidence was given in confidence. I assured everyone who gave evidence before me that such evidence was completely confidential and would not be disclosed. Only one copy was kept and many people would have liked to read it. A year or two later I was asked whether even that one copy could be destroyed. A good case was put forward for destroying it. The information had been given in confidence and, therefore, the question was raised as to whether it would not be a breach of faith for such records to be disclosed later—even 30, 40 or 50 years later. The answer is that the confidence is being maintained; the records
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of the Profumo inquiry have been destroyed and the information is only in my head and I am forgetting it all now. That is just an illustration of the way in which Departments can control—I do not say wrongly—the disposition of records.
The other problem is whether the period should be extended from 30 years to 50, 75 or 100 years. Departments can often make out a good case for that. National security, international diplomacy or exceptionally sensitive matters may be involved, or information may have been given in complete confidence, never to be disclosed. There is also the exceptionally sensitive situation where individuals who are still living might have their characters injuriously affected. All those are grounds on which the period of 30 years is from time to time extended. However, I hope that there will not be too much anxiety over this because the inspectors of the Public Record Office inquire of the Departments the grounds for closure for a longer period. They tell the Departments that the Advisory Council keeps an eye on the matter. The Advisory Council looks into these requests for extended closure to see whether they are justified. We hope to institute a procedure whereby samples can be taken of these requests for extended closure.
I hope and believe that the procedure works reasonably well. We should thank the Keeper and staff of the Public Record Office for keeping the records as well as they do. From time to time improvements have to be made, and the Advisory Council will do what it can.
5.58 p.m.
Lord BETHELL: My Lords, I wonder whether it is necessary for me to make my speech at all because my noble friend and former colleague Lord Mowbray and Stourton has told the House what I am about to say. Nevertheless, I can perhaps add to the interpretation of my speech, which noble Lords have already heard, and I hope that they will not be too surprised if it differs in certain respects from the version they heard from my noble friend Lord Mowbray and Stourton.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: Pure guesswork!
Lord BETHELL: My Lords, indeed, pure guesswork. I should like to join with my noble friend Lord Teviot in paying a tribute to the Public Record Office and to those who work there for the extremely noble contribution that they make to the recording of this country's history. My noble friend Lord Teviot and I are, I think, the Members of your Lordships' House who spend most time in the Public Record Office. In fact, my noble friend probably spends more time there than I. Certainly, whenever I go there I usually see him. I have yet to meet my noble friend Lord Mowbray and Stourton there. It is on the basis of continually visiting those excellent offices for seven or eight years that I believe that I may have something to contribute today. Like my noble friend Lord Teviot, I wish to declare an interest in that I am a professional writer who makes use of the Public Record Office for his writings.
I fully accept that this is a question of balance, and most of the speakers this afternoon have emphasised this point: how do you balance the arguments for disclosure against the arguments for closure? The noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack has the unenviable task to maintain the balance, and what is he to do about it? It has been said in a previous debate on this subject in 1967 that sound Government must be the primary consideration, and historians must take second place. I entirely agree with that. Historians are an interest, but a comparatively narrow interest, and sound Government must be the main consideration which the noble and learned Lord takes into account when deciding whether or not to close documents.
I would make only one point here and that is that when making these decisions the noble and learned Lord should bear in mind that it is not only the narrow interest of the historian that he has to consider, it is also the public interest, and on occasion the public interest may be better served by disclosure than by closure. There are certain areas of history where the national point of view is kept hidden; where documents which would put us in a better light, or would explain why this country acted in a certain way, would reveal to the world the reason behind our actions, even though they are criticised elsewhere; documents which perhaps are
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kept closed, perhaps to the detriment of the national interest. This is a consideration that should be borne in mind.
So we get back to the question of balance and the noble and learned Lord's unenviable task. This is where I wish to put to him and to the House my first point where I think there is cause for concern. We all know that the noble and learned Lord has it as part of his duties to close documents for longer than the statutory 30-year period. In this duty he acts upon advice. It is obviously not practicable for the noble and learned Lord to read every single document to which he affixes his signature for closure. He acts upon advice. But the question is on what advice. How does he decide which, closure or disclosure, is in the interests of the nation as a whole? How does he maintain this balance? What advice does he get?
Of course, he gets advice from the Department which issued the documents in question. I cast no aspersions whatsoever on the members of Government Departments who give the Lord Chancellor advice suggesting that documents should be closed, but the fact remains that the member of the Department who gives this advice is a member of that Department; he has an interest in the matter. I would submit that it is not only the advice of that person, or of that group of people, that should be taken into account by the noble and learned Lord when making his decisions, but in practice this is so. I shall willingly give way to the noble and learned Lord if he will interrupt me and tell me that it is not so, but in practice, I feel, after making inquiries, that it is so.
The noble and learned Lord does not, in practice, have the chance of getting any advice from any other body of people, whether from any group of historians or the Advisory Council. The Advisory Council can request the right to see documents but this request will be granted only if the Department feels able to allow it. Nor does he get advice from the Public Record Office itself. In other words, it seems to me that the noble and learned Lord who acts in a judicial capacity in this matter is hearing only one side of the case. I ask him seriously to consider whether some improvement

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might not be considered in the implementation of either the present 1958 and 1967 Acts or of some new Act, which would enable an advocate for disclosure to have the chance of putting arguments to him.
In this respect I have a lot of sympathy with the suggestion put by my noble friend Lord Teviot that a national archival service might fill this gap—a group of men with a career structure who had an interest in history and the preservation of documents; who were cleared for security at the, highest level; who were thoroughly reliable, and who might be able to balance the arguments to enable the Lord Chancellor and his successors to take a judgment over closure or disclosure. This is not the only problem over the closure of documents. If it were the case that the noble and learned Lord made decisions about closure and disclosure either himself or under advice entirely, this would not be so bad. At least we would know that there was a machinery through which all documents had to go before they were closed to the public. But this is not the case. There is, I am sorry to say, the notorious matter of Section 3(4) of the Public Records Act.
Lord WIGG: My Lords, would not the noble Lord agree that a completely new situation has arisen through the publication of the Crossman Diaries? I entirely support the extreme objectivity and fairness with which the noble Lord approaches this subject. The documents will be published under advice; the most skilled and impartial advice one can get. But the situation now is that it does not wait 30 years; its waits five minutes. On this point, would the noble Lord take into account that nobody's name was more lavishly mentioned by Mr. Crossman than my own? There is a difference between Mr. Crossman and myself. He kept diaries and no papers; I have kept the papers but no diaries. I shall leave my documents, too, for them to be looked at perhaps in 30, 40, or, so far as I am concerned, 100 years hence. But I can assure the noble Lord that I know of no single instance of which Mr. Crossman has given an account in which he is not the major part of 100 per cent. inaccurate.
Lord BETHELL: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, for
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that interruption. However, may I say with great respect that it is on a slightly different point from the one I was arguing. While I have the greatest sympathy with him in what happened to him over the Crossman Diaries I am, at the moment, addressing my arguments to the question of documents which are at least 30 years old and to the problems which arise from the existence of those 30-year-old documents.
I mentioned Section 3(4) of the Public Records Act. This section provides that—
"any records may be retained after the said period"—
of 30 years—
"if, in the opinion of the person who is responsible for them, they are required for administrative purposes or ought to be retained for any other special reason and, where that person is not the Lord Chancellor, the Lord Chancellor has been informed of the facts and given his approval".
In other words, Government Departments may retain in their offices documents
"for administrative purposes or … any other special reason",
and I should be interested to know what kind of special reasons are envisaged in this Act, provided that the Lord Chancellor has been informed and given his approval.
One may say that there is an adequate safeguard against abuse of this section of the Act because the noble and learned Lord has to be informed of facts and to give his approval. But I have to inform the House that on 13th November 1967 the noble and learned Lord's predecessor, Lord Gardiner, gave a general authority for the retention in Departments of various categories of records. He gave that authority in advance for 25 years, authority which will lapse only in 1992. I wonder whether the noble and learned Lord could allay my anxiety in this matter by indicating to the House exactly which categories of records can be retained in Departments indefinitely without even being submitted to him. At present, Governments can and do retain papers without even submitting them to the Lord Chancellor for long closure under this section of the Public Records Act 1958 and I feel that in this matter justice is not being seen to be done and that, in all justice, the noble and learned Lord should turn his mind to the problem.
My third point where I think there is cause for concern was referred to, I thought dramatically, by the noble and

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learned Lord, Lord Denning—the question of the destruction of records—and here again the Public Records Act 1958 provides certain opportunities, if that is the right word, for Government Departments, for under Section 6 we read:
"If, as respects any public records in the Public Record Office or any place of deposit appointed under this Act, it appears to the Keeper of Public Records that they are duplicated by other public records which have been selected for permanent preservation or that there is some other special reason why they should not be permanently preserved, he may, with the approval of the Lord Chancellor and of the Minister or other person, if any, who appears to the Lord Chancellor to be primarily concerned with public records of the class in question, authorise the destruction of those records, or, with that approval, their disposal in any other way."
Again, we have this provision that for any "other special reason" documents may be destroyed, and Lord Denning described how the documents which related to the Profumo affair had been destroyed. I was rather alarmed and shocked when I read in The Times this morning that there was a rumour that they had been destroyed; that is, the documents in the Profumo and Suez affairs. Lord Denning has now confirmed that the Profumo documents have been destoyed and I wonder what others have been destroyed.
I very much doubt whether the noble and learned Lord will be able to give me an answer now, but have the Suez documents been destroyed? I dare say he will not be able to tell me today, but I should like him to write to me on the subject telling me what documents on important controversial matters have been destroyed and what is the machinery for authorising the destruction of documents. It seems to me, as an historian, an entirely different thing to close documents for 50, 100 or even 150 years than to destroy them. As an historian, it goes very much against the root of my professional feelings to think that documents on such a crucial matter could have been destroyed. It is not possible to argue it out here, but I wonder whether the noble and learned Lord did not make an error here and whether it would have served the purposes which he rightly had at the front of his mind—the question of confidentiality—if he had requested that the documents be closed (even for 150 years) so that some future historian could have made use of them.
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My noble friend Lord Mowbray and Stourton said that in his opinion the 1958 and 1967 Acts were probably working reasonably well and he felt that radical changes were perhaps not necessary. Personally, I doubt whether he would feel the same way if he had had as many bounced tickets as I have had. A bounced ticket is a ticket applying for a document which is returned to a reader with an inscription on it indicating that the document, for one reason or another, is not available, usually because it is retained in the Department under Section 3(4) as I have described. I was, in one particular case, the victim of many bounced tickets earlier this year when I was researching the question of Palestine—and here I must declare a special interest in that I am writing a book on Palestine. As was published in the Press at the time, a large proportion of the Cabinet Office papers on Palestine were closed for 50 years instead of 30 years; in other words, for an extra 20 years.
While being sad about that at the time, I could not complain about it because I did not know what was in the documents; for all I knew they might have contained most damaging matter extremely dangerous to the security of the United Kingdom. Thus, I should have been in no way justified in making any complaint about the decision taken by the noble and learned Lord to close the Cabinet Office papers on Palestine on the recommendation of the Cabinet Office. However, by an archival quirk I had the opportunity of seeing some of the documents which the noble and learned Lord closed last year, and I am holding one in my hand. The reason I was able to see this document is because it was cross-referenced in the Foreign Office documents. It had been closed in the Cabinet Office but a copy of it appeared in the Foreign Office documents, so I found myself in the lucky position from my point of view of having obtained a document which the noble and learned Lord closed. I was able to obtain several such documents.
I hope the House will accept that I mean no disrespect to the noble and learned Lord when I say that, having read these documents which he closed last year, I cannot for the life of me see why he did it, because while the material in the documents is extremely interesting and

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indeed controversial and might embarrass—embarrass but not, I think, injure—one or two individuals, it is in my view in no way prejudicial to this country's security; it is in no way likely to damage this country's diplomatic, national or economic interests. The most extraordinary part about it is that it seems that the noble and learned Lord agrees with me, because when I pointed out this quirk a reconsideration was made of the 1946 Palestine papers and I have now heard that, with one small exception, they have all been opened. I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord for taking the trouble, which I know he took, to reconsider this matter and for coming to a generous decision on reconsideration.
While this is a story which ended well, it forces me to ask myself how many other documents there are which have been closed by the noble and learned Lord or his predecessors or which are retained in Departments under Section 3(4) on the cautious advice of Government record officers but which could be revealed without any damage whatsoever to individuals, to the national interest, to economic interest or to any of the other criteria mentioned by my noble friend Lord Mowbray and Stourton.
Those are three points which I would put to the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, and upon which I hope he will be able to give me some sort of an answer. I shall end with one or two positive suggestions: my first suggestion has already been mentioned by my noble friend Lord Teviot. I agree with him that perhaps a Government archive service would answer some of the genuine worries which historians feel about the way that documents are closed, preserved or kept in Departments. A professional body of civil servants whose job it was to take a personal interest in the history of our country and in the records themselves would provide a balancing factor to the advice of Government Departments which, although it is in no way sinister—I am not suggesting that there is any sinister motive here at all—must always be seen from one point of view.
I would also suggest that the noble and learned Lord might perhaps think it advisable to consider ways of strengthening his Advisory Council. At present, it meets only once a quarter and I gather
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that it is not always well attended. The members are not entitled to see individual documents unless the Departments give their consent. They have no powers, but give advice only. Perhaps a few teeth for the Advisory Council would allay some of our worries.
My third and most immediate practical suggestion is that the ad hoc Cabinet Committee which is about to review Section 2 of the Official Secrets Act should take under consideration the question of public records. I know that the noble and learned Lord is a member of that ad hoc Committee and I wonder whether he can indicate to the House whether he would think it useful for this matter to be put on the Agenda of the ad hoc Committee which, I understand, is to meet on the general question of open government this summer. It seems to me to be something which would be very much in the spirit of the Government's Manifesto, and we all know how anxious the Government are to fulfil their Manifesto. In that document, there is a promise to move as quickly as possible towards the maximum degree of open government.
I wish to close by once again expressing thanks and paying tribute to the archive officers in Government Departments who have always been very helpful to me personally and against whom I have no complaint whatsoever, as also to the staff of the Public Record Office, who have always been politeness and helpfulness itself. I hope that I have advanced certain arguments which indicate that the situation, while not at all bad, leaves room for improvement.
The LORD CHANCELLOR (Lord Elwyn-Jones): My Lords, may I, with great respect, remind your Lordship that this is a short debate? If there is to be any expectation that I am to reply to the debate—and I gather that there is—perhaps those who are to follow will bear in mind that the debate has to end at 7.30 p.m. or thereabouts. I apologise for this intervention, which I hope will not be thought unkind to those who are to follow.
6.23 p.m.
Lord SUDELEY: My Lords, I shall keep my speech as short as I can, though

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I am afraid that there are four points which I had it in mind to raise. The first relates to the Registrar General. In February, 1975, the Registrar General reached an agreement with the Keeper of the Public Record Office on the transfer to the Public Record Office of the registers of all births, marriages and deaths which are more than 100 years old. However, before the transfer can be made, the Public Records Act 1958 must be amended so that these records can be treated as public records and the Registration and Marriage Acts must be amended so that the records can leave the custody of the Registrar-General. In January last year, the Lord Chancellor's Office advised that the chances of amending the Public Records Act 1958 in the near future were slight. Once the records have been transferred, the Keeper of the Public Record Office intends to preserve the original registers by giving public access only to microfilms of the registers. The microfilming, which has already been put in hand, is proceeding in reverse chronological order and should be completed by about 1980.
This is the state of affairs at the moment, but, in many ways, it is rather unsatisfactory. There is no reason why only those registers which are more than a century old should be transferred. Registration has always been an open matter, so no objection can be raised that the privacy of individuals will be infringed if the registers of births, marriages and deaths which are less than a century old are also transferred. Also, though changes in the law may be required before the registers themselves are transferred, I am not sure whether there is anything to prevent the microfilms from being transferred to the Public Record Office immediately after they have been completed.
Meanwhile, students using the Registrar-General's office labour under great disadvantages. They have access not to the registers but only to indexes of them. After consulting the indexes, they can only obtain certified copies of particular entries. This is of little use to demographers and social historians who have to consult large quantities of the original entries rather than just individual entries. Then, the high cost of certificates has gone far to drive down the demand. In February,
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the Registrar-General wrote to me to say that since 1975 the demand for certificates had dropped substantially. When questioned as to why he will not give the public access to the original registers the Registrar-General likes to argue that under the Births and Deaths Registration Act 1953 and the Marriage Act 1949, he is not required to provide access. However, the point here is surely that neither of these Acts prohibits the Registrar-General from providing access.
The Registrar-General is also to be criticised for his change of policy over providing access to the records of local superintendent registrars. In the autumn of 1973, the General Register Office did not see why historians should not have access to those records but, in August 1974, Miss Graham of the General Register Office, sent out a circular letter reversing that policy. Miss Graham said that the volume of requests for access had reached unmanageable proportions. But it is pointed out in Local Population Studies No. 13 for the autumn of 1974 that this statement is not well founded and that the number of students was unlikely to exceed about 60. It would be very satisfactory if the law were changed so that these local records could be transferred to county archivists under whose care the same problems would not arise.
The second matter upon which I should like to comment is one which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, mentioned. It relates to the political papers which should be recovered as public records but which are not so recovered. In February, the Secretary to the Advisory Council on Public Records wrote to me saying that the papers of Ministers and officials in the registered files of Departments were safe enough but that difficulties arose where papers were in unregistered folders or not filed at all and so became intermingled with private papers. The extent to which loss has occurred in the past owing to these difficulties has recently been indicated in two surveys which have just come out—Hazlehurst and Woodland's Papers of British Cabinet Ministers 1900–1951 and C. Cook's British Political History 1900–1951, Vol. 2, Guides to the Private Papers of Selected Public Servants. While the Public Record Office does its best to try to stop this loss continuing,

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the Secretary to the Advisory Council on Public Records does not think that anything like total success can be claimed.
The third matter upon which I should like to touch is one that has been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, my noble friend Lord Mowbray and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning; that is, records of a public character about which Her Majesty's Government ought to do something even though they are not covered by Statute. These are the records of the fringe bodies. The secretary's report to the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts for 1975–76 included a note headed Historical Documents of the State, Records of the Fringe Bodies, which deals with this subject, and I should like to give the gist of this note so as to make it better known. It has not been mentioned in the debate so far.
The note speaks of the growing numbers of bodies of a public character, financed by public funds, which would resist attempts to bring their records within the scope of the Public Records Act because this would vitiate their independence of Government control. The note goes on to say that discussions have taken place between the Keeper of the Public Record Office and the Lord Chancellor's Office with a view to making such records into a new class, called protected records. The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor would decide which records would fall into this category, and where they do so there would be an obligation to consult the Keeper of the Public Record Office on how these records should be selected and disposed of, where they should be deposited, and what access the public should have to them. I should like the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor to say, when he answers the debate, whether these proposals which I have just outlined have any chance of being implemented in the very near future.
The fourth matter on which I should like to touch is that of the records of the Church of England, which I trust come within the scope of the debate, since if one goes back far enough one sees that the Church courts governed many matters which come under the arm of the secular law; the Church is not disestablished, and many of our parish records are already in the care of the local record offices. On
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the subject of parish records, some months ago genealogists were extremely pleased with the Parish Registers and Records Measure, which far exceeded their original expectations. They were so happy indeed that they hoped that when the Measure came before your Lordships' House no noble Lord would criticise it, because they were afraid that the Measure might then have to go back to the Synod which has taken so much trouble over the Measure that it has by now become rather tired of it.
But unfortunately I am afraid that at the last moment an Amendment has been put down to the Measure which has given much disquiet to historians and genealogists. The 1962 Public Records Act enables bishops and incumbents who deposit the registers of baptisms and deaths to request that research into these records should be free of charge, but if the Amendment to which I refer goes through, then diocesan record offices will be able to override the provisions of the 1962 Act. Some diocesan record offices come under local authorities and they will continue to be restrained by some kind of public accountability. But private diocesan record offices, such as the Borthwick Institute at York, the Cathedral Library at Canterbury, and the Bodleian will be able to charge what they like. I am not sure whether the movers of the Amendment realised the full implications of what they did, and I am hoping very much that there might be some happy chance that when the right reverend Prelate speaks after me he will be able to give the House some assurance that the Amendment will be dropped before the Measure goes before the Synod for final approval.
Then there are the records of cathedral libraries. At the moment the deans and chapters of cathedrals are able to dispose of their records without reference to the Cathedrals Advisory Committee as a statutory body, and not so long ago some mediaeval records were sold from Bury St. Edmunds. But if, as I hope, the Cathedrals Advisory Committee can be turned into a statutory body—and I should like to ask a Starred Question about this—then the deans and chapters of cathedrals are unlikely to surrender their independence without getting some kind of State aid in return. Once the cleans and chapters

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receive their State aid, then the need to consider their records as public records will become twice as significant.
The final matter on which I should like to touch is that of the central records of the Church of England, covered in Dr. Kitching's pioneer survey published last year by the Church Information Office. Dr. Kitching mentions the possibility of the Public Records Acts being amended so that the Church might make greater use than hitherto of the services of the Public Records Office, and together with his survey there is published a report of the Survey Committee which goes so far as to suggest that if the central records of the Church of England were entrusted to a State-managed institution this would in no way conflict with the interests of the Church. What the Survey Committee has gone so far to suggest might in some ways be a happy alternative to the present sorry state of affairs where, on the one hand, it is often contemplated in Dr. Kitching's survey that the central records of the Church of England should come under the umbrella of the Lambeth Palace Library and, on the other hand, it is apparent from many paragraphs of Dr. Kitching's survey that Lambeth Palace Library is starved of money. Several paragraphs of the survey spell out in detail the consequences of the Church Commissioners not providing the money that is needed for the very necessary expansion of the library.
For example, it is mentioned that the records of the Archbishop's Counsellors on Foreign Relations, and bishops' meetings, should be transferred to the library, yet for want of space the first of these two classes of records cannot be transferred. Again, it is mentioned how, during the course of the survey, the records of the Jerusalem and East Mission and of the Archbishopric of Jerusalem had to be turned away from the library for want of space. My Lords, this is a wide debate, and I hope that I have not erred in trying to cover so many rather disconnected points in the scope of a single speech.
6.36 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of LONDON: My Lords, I should like to add my voice to those who have expressed gratitude to
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the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, for the introduction of this very important debate, and I have immediately to make an apology to him and to the noble Lord, Lord Sudeley, because I am afraid that due to a lapse of memory I gave wrong information in the intervention which I made in the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Teviot. The new records Measure has now received final approval by the General Synod last February. I was under the impression that it was to receive it in July, and I am very sorry that I gave that wrong impression. The Measure is on its way to this House. It is incapable of being revised now, and of course I cannot in any way possibly comment on the debate which will no doubt take place in this House when the Measure is presented for Affirmative Resolution, but I can only agree with the noble Lord, Lord Sudeley, in saying that the General Synod has spent a very long time on the Measure, and I doubt that it will want to spend any more time on it. But I apologise to both noble Lords for having, as a result of an aberration of my memory, given a false impression on that point.
However, I am very glad that the noble Lord, Lord Sudeley, mentioned the question of the ecclesiastical records of this country because they are very widespread. They vary enormously in their characters, and yet cumulatively they amount to one of the major sources of information on our history and on research into our people. The widest area of distribution of these documents is the parochial records; that is to say, records of baptisms, of marriages, of burials, church wardens' accounts, terriers of possessions, tithe maps and so on. These documents are of not only ecclesiastical interest. As the noble Lord pointed out, they are great sources for the social historian, for the genealogist, for those who are interested in the movement of population and for those who are interested in medical history.
They are of the greatest possible importance, and I should like to give two very small instances from my own experience. When I was Bishop of Chester, I carried out a visitation of my diocese and I examined all the burial registers, among others. It was very interesting to note that up until about the year 1914 every page had an entry relating

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to three or four infants having been buried. I think that in the whole of my ministry I have buried only one or two infants, and here is an illustration of the way in which medical aid has come to help in the preservation of life. Moreover, occasionally an assiduous parish priest would enter the cause of death, and one would see references to diseases which one never hears of now, such as croup and other childish diseases which no longer are the cause of death.
Another instance concerned one of the most remote and tiniest of the parishes in the Chester diocese, which was Woodhead, where for some years the navvies had congregated in order to cut the tunnel through the Pennines and create the Woodhead Tunnel. When a certain historian was recently writing the history of the navigators he was particularly interested in the records of this parish, not only because of the strange names which the navigators gave to one another but also because at a particular period they had had a very serious outbreak of cholera, and this was all recorded nowhere other than in the burial registers of the parish. So one recognises how very important these documents are, and also, of course, at what risk they are at the moment, because under the existing measure a bishop has very little power in order to ensure that they are safeguarded. He can do something about it only if he is absolutely convinced that the parish will not spend the money on them to provide a proper safeguard, proper repair and so on.
So I am very glad that the two noble Lords have welcomed the new measure, and I hope that the one particular point that the noble Lord, Lord Sudeley, has mentioned will not act as a barrier to the passing of the measure, because it does enclose so many important things. The most important from our point of view is that it will require that all documents older than 100 years must be deposited in the diocesan record office unless there is some special reason and the bishop is satisfied that a particular parish has a proper safe, that it has had the documents properly repaired, that they are kept in proper condition and so on. This will be a very great advance, as will also be the requirement that the bishop must immediately carry out a survey of all the documents.
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Some reference has been made to the diocesan record offices, and I want here to pay a special tribute of gratitude to the public authorities who have made it possible for diocesan record offices to be incorporated into the public record offices. I think I am right in saying that 40 of the 43 dioceses all have diocesan record offices alongside the public record office of the local authority, and where that has not happened they are kept in very responsible places such as the noble Lord, Lord Sudeley, mentioned—the Borthwick Institute in York, the Bodleian for the Oxford diocese, and so on. I believe that this new measure will provide a very much greater safeguard and will also provide much better opportunities for students, because one of the difficulties at the moment is that if a student wants to make a survey of some particular issue in an area then, if the parish has not deposited its records in the local authority record office, he has to go from one parish to another and back again in order to compare documents. Moreover, it is very seldom in these days that a parish priest can provide a proper oversight when students are examining documents, and there have been cases when pages have been removed from important documents because of a lack of proper oversight. All these things will be cured if, as I believe, it is right that these documents should be deposited in diocesan record offices alongside the local authority record offices, so that they can be properly cared for and properly available to students.
But, of course, the ecclesiastical documents and records are not confined only to the parochial records. There are, as the noble Lord has reminded us, archbishops' and bishops' records, and there are documents attached to particular sees. I think, for instance, of the very interesting and very important documents that attach to the See of London which are known as the Fulham Papers, because for 200 years the Bishops of London were responsible for the oversight of all Church of England congregations outside the British Isles. This meant that they had to exercise very considerable control over the early American colonies, as well as other places where the British Empire was spreading its influence. It is a remarkable thing that the Bishops of London, sitting in their study at Fulham Palace, were able to exercise this control, and yet all

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those documents are there. They have been most beautifully cared for and catalogued, and they are now in the Lambeth Palace library and available for scholars.
Then there are the papers of the societies, and reference has been made to these. The big societies can of course look after their own documents, like the United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel and the Church Missionary Society. Their documents are invaluable as records of work done overseas at a time when there was very little evidence available otherwise. Then there are such documents as are contained in the archives of the Council for Places of Worship. We owe this to Dr. Francis Eales and Miss Judith Scott, who created a library of photographs of churches which is quite invaluable and which is there, carefully kept, for all to see. But, as the noble Lord, Lord Sudeley, pointed out, the danger is that some of the smaller societies —small religious communities, for instance—if they fold up or unite with some other body, do not quite know what to do with their documents. It was in order to advise about this that the Pugh Committee, as I would call it, although Dr. Kitching was the secretary and the research officer, made recommendations about the appointment of an archive officer; and I very much hope that the advice that that archive officer, who has now been appointed, will be able to give will protect these documents with the greatest care.
The noble Lord, Lord Sudeley, referred to the great library at Lambeth. Apart from small sums of money that are raised by friends and others, this is entirely financed by the Church Commissioners, and the Church Commissioners, not unnaturally, are very much concerned, about the rising costs of preserving a great library like this, because any money that is spent on the library is not available for the stipends of the clergy, which is the main objective for which the Church Commissioners have to exercise their stewardship. The cost of preserving this very important library at Lambeth is a matter of great concern. However, we place every hope in the appointment of the archivist by the Central Board of Finance of the Church of England and
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by the Church Commissioners. They have followed almost exactly the recommendations of the Pugh Commission, and it was only after very careful consideration by the policy sub-committee of the General Synod that it was decided to go ahead and make this appointment. We have every hope that it will meet many of the anxieties which have been expressed.
My Lords, I thought it right that I should express my gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, and take this opportunity to assure noble Lords that the Church is very conscious of its responsibility in looking after this unparalleled treasury of historical interest to our country, and that we shall continue to do so to the best of our ability.
6.49 p.m.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I should like to begin by expressing my gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, for introducing this fascinating debate in so informative and interesting a manner. Clearly we are touching at the very roots and heart's core of our history in this debate. It is a refreshing thought, as the noble Lord, Lord Sudeley, said in debate in 1973, that:
"We have a literature which compares with that of the Ancient Greeks and, on account of the continuity of our institutions, which is unique by European standards, our records are wonderfully preserved". [Official Report, 13/6/73, col. 7911.
As I was listening to what the right reverend Prelate was saying just now about church and cathedral records, I was thinking that my noble and learned friend, Lord Denning, would be the first to recognise that at least it was due to the care of the cathedrals that some of the historic copies of Magna Charta have survived, so that they may indeed have exercised care where other authorities have failed through the centuries.
I myself, as a lawyer, am proud to recall the words of F. W. Maitland as to the Public Record Office: that it is the most glorious store of material for legal history—as, of course, it is. While I cannot, as can the noble Lords, Lord Teviot and Lord Bethell, claim to have worked in the public search rooms myself, I have visited them and I am aware of the unique collection in the Public Record Office of documentary

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material spanning 10 centuries of British history and also of the formidable problems which the Office has had to grapple with in recent years, some of which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, referred to in his speech.
Since the beginning of 1966, when records of the period up to 1922 were opened as a first step towards establishing the present normal access period of 30 years, the quantity of records held by the Record Office has risen by one-third from 300,000 ft. to 400,000 ft. The number of attendances in the Record Office search rooms each year has more than doubled from 43,700 to 89,300, and the number of records produced annually for students has risen nearly 2¼ times; so that there is a splendid awareness of the value of the Record Office. I should like to join in the tributes paid so eloquently by the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, and others to the magnificent work of the Keeper and staff of the Public Record Office. It is skilled work; it is difficult work. There must be acres of boredom involved in it as well as moments of glistening history and excitement. We are all very conscious of the debt that we owe them.
My Lords, we were all fascinated to hear the account by the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, of the activities of Mr. Speaker Gulley and Lord Denning's own historical introductory survey. The noble Lords, Lord Teviot and Lord Bethell, were good enough to give me some advance notice of some of the matters that they raised and for that I am grateful. One of the questions raised by the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, was whether the Government would consider amending the Public Records Acts to bring within the definition of "public records" the records of all bodies wholly or partly financed from public funds; and that has been mentioned by other noble Lords as well.
Already, under the terms of the Act, public records defined in the Act include the records not only of central Government but also of the establishments and organisations that are listed in Schedule 1 to the Act. Among these are three nationalised industries, the Coal Board, the Post Office and the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority. The Keeper of Public Records already has powers to
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accept custody of records of public bodies which are excluded from the statutory definition of public records; and in some cases he has already accepted such records; for example, those of British Rail, the Commonwealth Institute and the British Council. Amendment of the statutory definition to include the records of all kinds of public bodies would, however, require the most detailed consideration of the implications of such a policy not only for the bodies themselves but also for the Public Record Office; so I am afraid that I cannot at this moment give any undertaking about that, but obviously it is a matter which needs further thought and consideration.
Discussions have taken place, as members of the Advisory Council who are here will know, on the proposal that a new category of "protected" records should be created and it is hoped eventually by Statute. Appointment to that status, it has been suggested, should be by the Lord Chancellor with the agreement of the body concerned and would carry no more than an obligation on its part to consult the Keeper of Public Records on the selection and disposal of records, the choice of place of deposit and the regulation of public access. It may be that that more flexible approach will provide a more practical way of resolving the problem; but I must add the caveat that even that modest measure would require a strengthening of the Public Record Office resources which, I am afraid, would be rather difficult to justify at the present time.
Perhaps the most interesting matter, and certainly that which perhaps gave most concern during the course of the debate, was with regard to the closure of public records beyond the normal 30-year period. As noble Lords have already been informed in the course of the debate, the statutory position is that under Section 3(4) of the 1958 Act, records may be retained in Departments if, in the opinion of the person responsible for them, they are required for administrative purposes or ought to be retained for any other special reason, and the Lord Chancellor has been informed of the facts and given his approval.
The noble Lord, Lord Bethell, asked me about the action taken by my predecessor, my noble and learned friend

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Lord Gardiner, in 1967. What happened then was that he was invited by the Secretary of the Cabinet to consider a number of documents and he agreed to their classification at that time as being suitable for closure and desirable that they should be withheld. The documents in question all concerned the security of the State. The classes of records had been identified as closely as possible by the appropriate inter-departmental committees concerned with intelligence and security. So that was the circumstance in which they were withheld, and noble Lords may think rightly withheld. After all, one must have a certain confidence in the great Government Departments and the civil servants when they give assurances that the security of the State will be adversely affected. I hope that we have not become so mistrustful and lacking in confidence in our public servants as to question their integrity and judgment in these matters.
Lord BETHELL: My Lords, if the noble and learned Lord will permit me to intervene, can he please confirm that his predecessor gave this blanket provision for documents to be retained under Section 3(4) of the 1958 Act only in respect of documents which relate to national security and not in relation to documents which are sensitive or which fall into any other of the categories under which the noble and learned Lord may close documents?
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I have already indicated that the documents in question were all documents which were retained for reasons of the security of the State. That is the position. They were concerned with Intelligence and Security and were classified after careful consideration by the appropriate interdepartmental committees. The position under Section 3(4) of the Act I have already indicated is that records may be retained in Departments if, in the opinion of the person responsible for them, they are required for administrative purposes or ought to be retained for any other special reason, and I have been informed and given my approval. Section 3(4) requires that the Lord Chancellor must be informed if there is a retention by the Department, and therefore the Department could not retain the document without my being informed.
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Records which are transferred to the Public Record Office must, under Section 5(3), when 30 years old, be made available to the public, unless it appears to the person responsible for them that they contain information obtained from members of the public under such conditions that their release to the public at large would constitute a breach of good faith on the part of the Government. In that case they are closed, except as agreed with the Lord Chancellor, or unless the Lord Chancellor, at the request of the Minister concerned, prescribes a period of closure longer or shorter than 30 years.
Previous Lord Chancellors have on two occasions announced the broad categories of records for which they prescribed periods of closure in excess of 30 years. On the most recent occasion in 1971 my predecessor, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, classified these records in these terms: first, exceptionally sensitive papers, the disclosure of which would be contrary to the public interest, whether on security or other grounds (including the need to safeguard the revenue); secondly, documents containing information supplied in confidence, the disclosure of which would or might constitute a breach of good faith. The withholding of those documents is all that was contemplated.
I may say in regard to that that certainly no destruction was contemplated, refrain from making any comment upon the remarkable fact that was disclosed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, but I imagine that the circumstances there were of such an exceptional character personal to him that he thought it right, in view of assurances he may personally have given, to take the course that was taken. But I would venture at least to express the view that that must be regarded as a highly exceptional event—namely, the destruction of records—and what I have been concerned with is the retention of them in appropriate cases. I see the noble Lord wishes to speak again: I have a great deal of ground to cover and the noble Lord has had a very long run for his unpaid money, if I may say so.
The third category is documents containing information about individuals,

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the disclosure of which would cause distress or embarrassment to living persons or their immediate descendants. Those are the kind and class of documents with which we are concerned. I was asked by the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, in how many cases the Lord Chancellor had intervened under the powers of the Act. My information is that Lord Chancellors have approved 47 schedules under Section 5(1) of the 1958 Act, closing records for longer than 30 years or opening them sooner. The number of classes of documents in each schedule varies greatly, and the number of records in each class equally, so I am afraid I cannot give an arithmetical total. The last schedule contained about 45 classes of records.
I am of course aware of certain recent criticisms of this procedure—and some of them have been made tonight—which has focused on the fact that decisions on what records should be submitted to the Lord Chancellor for prescription are made by civil servants alone. But I should point out that when a complaint is made about individual closures, the Minister responsible for the Department which has requested the closure is himself bound to investigate the matter in the same way as any other complaint about his Department's actions. As to the suggestion that there should be independent checks on the power of Departments to withhold documents beyond 30 years, the House will have heard with interest of the suggestion which has been made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning (to whom I am deeply grateful for his services as Chairman of the Advisory Council on Public Records) and we shall look forward to learning how the measures he has proposed will work out. I am very willing to give careful consideration to other suggestions which have been made about present procedures.
I was perhaps somewhat harshly chastised by the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, about the Palestine papers. There was clearly a misunderstanding between the Cabinet Office and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. I have since signed the instrument opening the Palestine papers, with one minor exception, and I am grateful that at least I have credit for having done that. I hope that there
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will be no unfortunate repetition of that kind of departmental misunderstanding. I was asked by the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, whether the subject of public records would be considered by the Cabinet Committee which the Prime Minister set up last year to pave the way for legislation to amend the Official Secrets Act and to provide for more open Government. The Government have of course looked at a number of possibilities in the course of considering their commitment to more open government, about which the Prime Minister made a statement in the debate on the Address in another place towards the end of last year.
Open government is generally equated with more information about current issues, and I think it was to this that the Prime Minister's statement was largely addressed. There was a suggestion that a committee should be set up to review the working of the present system for selecting records for permanent preservation. The Public Records Acts place the duty of selecting records for permanent preservation on the Departments or bodies which create or hold them. They also provide that this duty should be performed under the guidance of the Public Record Office. Following the recommendations of the Grigg Committee in 1954, each Department subject to the Acts, appoints a departmental records officer to carry out its duties under the Acts, while a records administrative division of the Record Office provides guidance and supervision. The staff of that division under the records administration officer comprises seven inspecting officers, one principal inspecting officer, two senior assistant keepers, with of course executive and clerical support. Guidance is given by the Public Record Office to more than 200 Departments and other bodies which are subject to the Records Acts.
The changes that were made after the Grigg Report have improved things considerably, and give I believe reasonable ground for confidence in the present arrangements for permanent preservation of documents. Whereas before the Grigg Report Departments generally did not usually bother about their records until they became a nuisance to them, they now recognise that they have a duty towards their records, even if it is a duty

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which has often to take second place, I fear, to the more pressing needs of their current work. But that change of attitude has been of great significance and has provided a fulcrum on which the Public Record Office can exert leverage; and it does not fail to do so.
I am doubtful therefore, in the light of the improvement that has undoubtedly taken place, and the problems about setting up further committees of inquiry at this time (which may, and often do, result in the recommendation of measures involving considerable expenditure of additional resources), whether this is quite the time to set up such a committee. But, naturally, my noble friends and I will pay careful attention to the suggestions concerning the better use of existing resources.
Valuable suggestions were made by the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, and others about the setting up of a national archives service. What I can say by way of assurance as to the quality of the staffs and those engaged in the protection and selection of records is that the Public Record Office has made determined efforts to maintain its standards by giving guidance and co-ordination to departments which, since Grigg, have honourably fulfilled the duty they owe to history by the care of records. The Public Record Office provides instructional visits by departmental record staffs to the Office and it has also made preparations to deal with machine-readable records on computer tapes by recruiting technically-qualified staff, commissioning specially-built tape stores and engaging in discussions with departmental computer staff and academic researchers experienced in the use of such records, so that a great deal of progress has been made.
I am afraid that at this time I cannot undertake to establish a national archives service on the lines suggested, attractive in many ways though I find the proposition to be. If there were more funds available we might be able to do so but, here again, I should like to hear further detailed proposals of exactly what noble Lords have in mind regarding this, because certainly my mind is not closed on the matter.
There was commendation of the new Public Record Office building at Kew,
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which will be handed over to the Record Office on 2nd May. The formidable and complicated task of moving to Kew documents which at present occupy a quarter of a million feet of shelving in four different repositories will begin in mid-May and will take about five months to complete. Arrangements for maintaining the best possible service in the search rooms while the move is in progress are being given the widest publicity, and we hope that the new building will be open to the public in mid-October. Then it will become the administrative headquarters of the Record Office and will be the most advanced purpose-designed archival building in the world. It will have no equal and it will be a national institution of which we should be proud. It will maintain the worldwide reputation which the Public Record Office has maintained in its 120 years of existence.
If members of the staff of that Office feel anxiety because of any implied lack of confidence in them, I must say the opposite has been the case from everyone who has spoken in this debate. While the move to Kew will clearly cause personal difficulties to some members of the staff, I hope and believe that they will find at Kew a satisfactory working environment in which to continue their skilled and loyal service. I believe, also, that the excellent research facilities there will compensate for the inconvenience caused to readers who might find Kew less accessible than Central London.
I was asked points of detail about charges for photo-copying services. I am afraid that I cannot hold out much comfort as to charges, and unfortunately the same must also apply to the other points of financial detail, which I agree are not unimportant, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Teviot. As regards the charges made for the photo-copying service, the Record Office is bound by the Government policy that a Government Department providing a service for which a charge is made must recover the full costs that are incurred. Therefore, I am afraid I cannot hold out great hope for a reduction in this field. Indeed, in a time of inflation, such as we are in, we shall do well if we can maintain prices at their present level.
There was a question as to whether the search rooms at Chancery Lane will be

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open on Saturdays or one or two evenings a week after the movement to Kew has been completed. I understand the extension of the opening hours at Kew would be more costly than a similar extension at Chancery Lane, and that staffing problems to meet such an additional service would be more difficult. It has been decided, therefore, that Saturday or evening openings at Kew cannot be considered until the pattern of public use of the search rooms there has been established and the extent of any demand for opening beyond normal weekly hours is known. But it is hoped that it will be possible to con-continue the present limited Saturday morning service in the search rooms at Chancery Lane to enable readers to see documents which will be sorted in that building.
My time is nearly up, so I hope I shall be forgiven if I deal only briefly with the delightfully ecclesiastical note upon which this debate has ended. I hope I have dealt with some of the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Sudeley. If not, I will communicate with him. It is excellent to hear that such useful steps are being taken to safeguard ecclesiastical church and parish records, which again go to the very heart of our history as a people. I am sure we have all been greatly reassured by what was said by the right reverend Prelate about that. I thank noble Lords for their participation in this debate. I feel sure I have not been able to satisfy all of them, but I assure them that we do our best to fulfil the principle that documentation of our historical past is made available wherever it can be done safely.
7.8 p.m.
Lord TEVIOT: My Lords, this has been an extremely useful and enjoyable debate. There has been a lot of strong talking, which is very good. Quite often some of our Wednesday debates are criticised for being bland. This debate has been far from being bland. I shall be extremely brief and not be "dog in the manger" for the next minutes to have my time, because there is a very important Unstarred Question still to come initiated by my noble friend Lord Boyd of Merton. Perhaps this would be an apt point to mention that a senior member of the Public Record Office, who comes here occasionally and is currently engaged in
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that important dependency, is looking at its archives at the moment.
I must apologise to my noble friend Lord Mowbray for the omission, which he pointed out, of any reference to Scotland. I agree that it is a great personal omission not to have mentioned Scotland, and even more disgraceful because more than five-eighths of my blood comes from that country. I do apologise for not mentioning it. My noble friend started to pre-empt the speech made by my noble friend Lord Bethell, which I thought was a little unfair. However, it did not matter; but my noble friend did make a very controversial speech. He is a believer in open government. He is an historian and is thinking of posterity, and all the facts—the correct and complete facts—which will be available to historians at that time.
The noble and learned Lord manfully did his very best to answer all our questions. He will realise that one is naturally rather disappointed that he can accept so few of the suggestions which one made. But he has assured us that he will consider matters such as the Government archive service. I feel that this debate has not been wasted, and one v, ill read very carefully the Report of what he has said and look forward to better things to come. On my domestic points, I hope that photographic charges will be pegged. I am disappointed about the opening hours at Kew, and I hope that that is another point which will be considered. I noticed that the speeches of my noble friend Lord Sudeley and the right reverend Prelate gave an added touch. When we got on to the internecine warfare with my noble friend Lord Bethell, their speeches provided the right colour. On that note, my Lords, I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

THE FALKLAND ISLANDS
7.21 p.m.
Viscount BOYD of MERTON Viscount BOYD of MERTON rose to ask Her Majesty's Government when they propose to implement the recommendations in the Shackleton Report dated July 1976 and entitled Economic Survey of the Falkland Islands and, in particular, its recommendations concerning

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the permanent airfield; and whether they will ensure that, in accordance with the wishes of the inhabitants, any discussion with the Argentine Government should not put at risk British sovereignty over those Islands. The noble Viscount said: My Lords, I rise to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In July last year, the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, as Chairman of the Economic Survey of the Falkland Islands, presented his report to the Secretary of State, and we are all very grateful to the noble Lord and to his admirably chosen and highly competent team. It must have been a very moving moment for the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, to visit Grytviken in South Georgia, the dependency, and see the grave where his father was buried in 1922 "Under", as his biographer wrote, "the shadow of the mountains he has been the first to cross". I doubt whether ever before any Member of your Lordships' House has had the same experience and then come back to our very different world and written a report to remind us of our responsibilities to a territory with which we are so closely linked.
There have been some 20 or so reports on the Islands in the last decade. Indeed, the noble Lord himself referred to the definition of an "island" as, "a piece of land entirely surrounded by advice". But expert as many of these reports have been, there has been nothing before on this scale about the Falklands. A good many of the recommendations of previous reports have not been followed up. It will be a tragedy and a shameful abandonment of our responsibilities if the same fate should befall the major recommendations of this report.
Twice before in the lifetime of many Members of this House events, or a fear of events, in the Falkland Islands have affected our national security. In December 1914, as a result of our naval victory in the battle of the Falkland Islands, German cruiser warfare collapsed and our country held outside the narrow seas undisputed control of the ocean trade routes of the world. Then, a generation later in 1941, as recorded in the Diaries of Lord Alanbrooke:
"One fear against which Brooke had to guard that winter was a Japanese descent on the Falkland Islands, where an enemy base would have had disastrous effects on the South Atlantic convoys and the supply of the Middle East and India."
I am sad, and somewhat ashamed, that during my long spell at the Colonial Office I did not visit the Islands, though met Falkland Islands company officers and islanders from time to time. I know that the islands and the islanders have made a great impression on the present Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office; and, indeed, he himself has made a very good impression on the islanders. It is clear that he has the islanders' interests very much at heart.
All of us are very glad of the great interest being shown these days, both here and in another place, in the welfare and security of the islanders; for it would be a sad thing if our interest arose only when, as in two World Wars, our own security was at risk. For the Falkland Islands have been a British colony for 150 years and the culture, language, history and traditions of the people are all British. I remember the words of one of my illustrious predecessors as Colonial Secretary, Lord Milner, who, when speaking to our fellow countrymen who went to live in the colonies, said:
You can feel at home wherever you are—serving directly or indirectly the interests of Great Britain. You will not cease to be ours because you have been transplanted. Our horizon must widen. That is all."
The Shackleton inquiry, as noble Lords know, was conducted on the assumption that the political status of the Islands and their dependencies would remain the same as during the last century and a half, and this is what the islanders passionately desire for the future. The report stresses what it calls, "a striking vigour of feeling about sovereignty". Of course, as the report points out:
"Regional co-operation between different nations is as relevant to this part of the world as to other areas".
But I was somewhat surprised to read in February some words said by the late Foreign Secretary, whose death grieved us all, and was a great loss to our country. He said that it was:
"… implicit in many of the things Lord Shackleton says about tourism, fisheries, airport enlargement and so on, that in practice they can go ahead only in the framework of a wider economic co-operation in the South-West Atlantic." [Official Report, Commons, 2/2/77; col. 558.]
But that is not really what the report said. I refreshed my memory. It said:

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"It is logical that in any major new development of the Islands' economy, especially those relating to the exploitation of the off-shore resources, co-operation with Argentine, even participation, should if possible be secured".
There is a lot of difference between offshore and onshore development and if we want—and I shall refer to this briefly later on—to develop, for example, the largest concentration of seaweed (kelp) resources in the world, we can go ahead with the islanders with the infrastructure needed, and with the continuing development, without the consent of the Argentine.
As I have said, the islanders are resolved to remain under British sovereignty. I was in Canada at the time when the report was first being studied by British Ministers. There I was charmed to read in the Alberta, the newspaper in Calgary, some words on self-determination. The heading was, "Falkland Islanders cling to Britain", and it went on:
"Somewhere in the Third World there must be hidden away the secret rules about who is entitled to self-determination. One suspects that they consist of just one rule and one exception. The rule seems to be that any colonial territory, however minuscule, is not only entitled to independence but obliged to demand it. The exception simply states that European populated territories are different".
It must be for this House and for Parliament to see that they are not different in the Falkland Islands.
Of course, we welcome the assurances given by Ministers, notably the Minister of State, on the question of sovereignty and in the most recent, on 30th March last, he stated that the Government will not bring proposals to the House if they are not acceptable to the islanders. But, welcome as it is, this by itself is not enough. Some weeks ago, The Times newspaper stated:
"The islanders fear that the Shackleton report may be ignored. Unless something is done quickly, they believe that the noose is being tightened economically, so that they will be forced into accepting an unwanted solution with the Argentine."
So assurances that nothing will be done behind their backs are not, by themselves, good enough, for if consent to the transfer of sovereignty is ever forthcoming it must not have been brought about by disillusion with us, or despair caused by our failure to carry out our responsibilities.
While talking about assurances to the islanders, may I ask the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, who I am delighted is answering today, this question? Two years ago, he was asked in the House by the late Lord Cowley:
"Will the noble Lord ensure that the islanders, or representatives of the islanders, are included in all British delegations in their substantive talks with the Agentine Government?"
The noble Lord replied:
"Yes, my Lords. It has always been our policy that representatives of the islanders should be present at all substantive talks, and this will continue to be our unchanging policy." [Official Report, 10/4/75; col. 181.]
The question that I should like to ask the noble Lord is whether this is still the policy of Her Majesty's Government. And as no representatives of the islanders have been present at any talks, does this mean that there have been no substantive talks with the Argentine? I note that the noble Lord is nodding and I think he is nodding his agreement. However, I shall be very glad if he will change his nod into an explicit statement when he replies to the debate. Incidentally, if the islanders have confidence in us, pressures from the Argentine will not unduly concern them.
How, then, can we show them that confidence? It seems to me, and to many others, that the most impressive, effective and tangible action we can take is to ensure that the Shackleton Report recommendation on the length of the airstrip is carried out. The report urges the extension of the planned runway of 1,250 metres by a further 950 metres to accommodate short-medium haul jets and part-loaded long haul jets on the final leg of international flights. This is the most tangible evidence we can give of our solidarity with our fellow citizens in the Islands and the best possible encouragement to investment and development; for, as the report makes out quite clearly, without this extension there is a strong doubt whether the diversifying suggestions which have been made in the report can be realised to any significant degree. I am assured that, if the airstrip stays at its present planned level, the islanders will still be dependent on the Argentine for essential goods for development to be flown in, and the white card of entry demanded by the Argentine will remain. But if the airstrip is enlarged by another

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950 metres, the white card can be a thing of the past, the islanders can be independent of the Argentine and development materials can flow in. The contractors are still on the site and only a word from Her Majesty's Government is necessary for what all regard as essential for development to proceed.
The Minister of State, on the last Commons sitting day before the Recess, said about this extension that it is a serious and important project, but he said:
"… it seems to us that on present evidence it would be hard to justify it".
He went on to say:
"We have not closed the door to the project but we need more convincing that it is viable".
He added that it could bear very heavily on the current revenue problems of the Islands. However, the Islanders remember certain observations on revenue matters in the Shackleton Report. This report highlights the fact that between 1951 and 1973 revenue from taxes on profits transferred from the Islands to Great Britain was twice the amount of aid from Britain to the Islands. The report says:
"Over the life of the colony the United Kingdom Exchequer benefit from tax on funds transferred to the United Kingdom has almost certainly exceeded the value of United Kingdom Government aid".
Surely considerations of justice and wisdom, and of trusteeship, should compel us to listen to their advice.
The report examines many ways of improving the economic prospects of the Islands: improvement perhaps as much as 10 per cent. in the nutritional value of the grass on which the present sheep-based economy depends. We are all delighted at the efforts which the Falkland Island Company is making to find new wool markets in East Europe, France, Switzerland and North America. Another suggestion is to increase the yield of blue whiting on an enormous scale—possibly equal to the current United Kingdom total fish landings. There is krill in the area—perhaps the largest untapped source of protein in the world—and I am very glad to read of the intention of the British Antarctic Survey to increase its research work into this and other resources in Antarctica. There are also strong possibilities of a healthy tourist trade and, in the long run, of oil development.
The report covers a wide range of imaginative possibilities and I hope that the noble Lord will be able to give us good news of progress by the Government in their consideration of these ideas. I have just mentioned alginate development, to which the report gives considerable attention. As the report shows and as I have mentioned, large quantities of kelp—giant seaweed—exist around the Falkland coastlines, within the area which it is free for us to develop with the Islanders, which are suitable for the production of alginates. About one-third of the current world supply is manufactured by a British firm, Alginates Industries Limited, in Scotland. Further developments, as the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, has pointed out, have been frustrated by the world recession and political uncertainty.
The company issued a statement some two months ago in which they said:
"The overriding question is the political future of the Islands",
and they stressed the need for an assurance that British sovereignty will continue. The company has now asked for three assurances before they can reach a decision whether to safeguard future supplies of a raw material, which may be scarce in the long term, by development in the Falkland Islands. They have asked to be assured regarding the continued British sovereignty of the Islands; to be guaranteed an indemnity, should a change of sovereignty take place; and to be promised financial assistance no less valuable than that which is currently available in Scotland. They go on to say, concerning sovereignty, that no assurances regarding this would be credible in the event of the Government deciding not to implement the recommendation of the Shackleton Report on the aerodrome. They make one very helpful comment:
"At the time of the Shackleton Report it was considered that only the production of dried milled seaweed would be a viable proposition but it is now considered that sodium alginate is worth even more than calcium alginate since it is an end product and is worth around £2,000 a ton".
If, given the facilities I have mentioned, they should decide to go ahead, the gathered seaweed would end in sodium alginate in the Islands and then be transported to the United Kingdom by a company which is already earning £10 million a year in foreign exchange and

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whose development, if possible and encouraged, could cover the cost of enlarging the airstrip in a very few years.
The noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, told us in February of this year that by the middle of next year we shall see whether a further enlargement of the airstrip will be cost effective and, indeed, whether it will be desirable. I know of the noble Lord's keen interest in the welfare of those overseas territories for which we are still responsible, and I very much hope that he will be able to give us this afternoon a more encouraging answer about the aerodrome than he felt able to give us two months ago.
7.39 p.m.
Viscount THURSO: My Lords, there will be many in your Lordships' House and many more outside it who will be grateful to the noble Viscount, Lord Boyd of Merton, for giving us this opportunity to ask the Government about their intentions towards the Falkland Islands, to speak about the problems involved and, indeed, to some extent to try to confess the weight which we feel upon our consciences about the way in which these Islands have been left so amazingly under developed by us when they have so much to offer. I share with the noble Viscount an admiration for the report produced by the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, and his team but I do not share with him his enthusiasm about its composition. I find gaps in the composition of the team which was sent out to look at the Falkland Islands. I think that these gaps in its composition account for certain gaps in the recommendations to which I should like to draw the attention of Her Majesty's Government and which I should like to ask them to look into.
The two gaps which I see most particularly in the composition of the team are these. First, there is the lack of a forester and of an agricultural botanist. The other gap is the lack of anybody with practical experience in agriculture: experience of how to apply systems to the research of grassland researchers and people of this kind, and how to come out with a system that is suitable to the soil and climate as well as to the markets which would be available to this agricultural economy. I will refer to this point later, but at this stage I should like to refer to some of the
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key conclusions in the Shackleton Report, comment on them and ask certain questions involved in those conclusions—questions about the Government's attitude to those conclusions and what they intend to do about them.
There is no doubt, of course, that the economy of the Falkland Islands is static and that the current development plan is insufficient to reverse that situation. Obviously I agree with that, and I hope the Government also agree with it. The ownership of farms in the Falkland Islands and the absence of institutions such as banks form one of the main reasons why development has not hitherto taken place, particularly agricultural development. That is a valid conclusion to have reached. That is where the Falkland Islands are so very different from those parts of Scotland which they most closely resemble. They most closely resemble the islands of Shetland and Orkney and the County of Caithness where I live and where there is a strong body of independent yeomen farmers; where there is a strong tradition of independent land ownership and farm operation. This is particularly visible, for instance, in Orkney where enormous tracts of land, similar in many ways to the land in the Falkland Islands, have been reclaimed and put to use at an intensity not to be dreamed of by the inhabitants of the Falkland Islands. I feel certain that this kind of energy could be released if people could be got to the Falkland Islands who would like to use the land in that way, or if the people already in the Falkland Islands could be given both the availability of the land and the finance to develop it. I feel that is a key conclusion in the Shackleton Report and one on which I should like to hear the comments of Her Majesty's Government.
This is again supported by the conclusion in the Shackleton Report that the population tends to show a marked degree of dependence on Government and on employers and that there is a low level of confidence and of enterprise. That is a most important thing to overcome. What must be got across to the people in the Falkland Islands is that they have every right to have confidence in the future of their Islands; that they have priceless assets, both on land and in the seas around them; that they can develop by their own

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hard work and initiative, and that we should give at least that much back to the Islands as will help them to get started upon this road.
The Shackleton Report refers to the pattern of economic activity, the fragmented social structure and the other factors that have slowed the evolution of a distinctive local culture. I do not think the local culture matters so much as the local confidence, the local sense of ability to control their own future. That appears to me to be most lacking, and that is where I should like the assurance from Her Majesty's Government that they are going to give this sense of confidence to the people of the Falklands.
We then come to the conclusion that wool output has been static over the last 10 years and that the Falkland wool crop can be expected to do no more than hold its own in real terms relative to world prices of manufactured goods. I have to confess that I have never had the good fortune to go to the Falkland Islands, but everything I read in the report and everything that I read of the geography and geology leads me to believe that I know similar land and similar country. I live in similar country. The thing that astonishes me about the report is the lack of confidence in the agricultural future of the Islands.
If I may do some mental arithmetic, systems have been developed which have become very popular in the island of Orkney where problems are similar; where there is little growth in the grass crop over the winter months, where there is a high background wind speed and gales of up to 100 miles an hour are not unusual; where the whole top of the sea can blow off and blow across the land, landing on the soil, leaching out the top layer of lime and substituting sodium and making the top layer of the land tacky and nasty. If the sheep are left out in those conditions they poach up and puddle up the surface of the grass and the grass does not come away in the spring.
In order to overcome that the College of Agriculture demonstration farm at Kirkwall has developed a system of sheep husbandry whereby the sheep are taken in and kept on a slatted floor inside from about the turn of the year until after
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lambing. This has two effects: first, it protects the sheep from the worst effects of the winter and, secondly, it protects the land from the worst effects of having the sheep on the land at a time when the grass is not growing. So when the sheep lamb, the grass is then ready to come away and grow and the sheep can go out to a good growing crop of grass. As a result, areas where before very few sheep were being kept to the acreage of the farm, are going up to stocking rates of about six sheep to the acre on grassland. They are preserving the grass in a silage tower making a good quality silage, feeding the sheep over the short part of the winter and getting a much higher return from the land.
Let us do some quick mental arithmetic on this. There are 3,800,000 acres of land in the Falkland Islands. Let us say that only one-sixth of that (and I do not really believe that that is the limit, but let us say only one-sixth) is capable of improvement, and let us say that on that land we can achieve only a maximum of two-thirds of the standard that can be achieved in the islands of Orkney. Again I do not believe that because the summers are a great deal warmer than the Orkney summers. If that is so, one might then be able to carry a sheep stock of four sheep to the acre on 500,000 acres, which is 2 million sheep, as compared with the present sheep population of 644,000. This would not only produce an enormous increase in wool but would surely produce enough carcases to start up the mutton processing industries which are referred to in the report.
People have said that we cannot run mutton processing industries because they have never been economic. Of course they have not been economic; there has not been enough raw material. One cannot run a whole mutton-packing industry based on a total population of 644,000 sheep. If you can work up to something in the region of 2 or 3 million sheep you then have a chance of backing that production of wool with a very much better chance of running a mutton-processing industry, with, of course, hides and things of this sort as well.
What also struck me, coming from the North of Scotland as I do, was that the native Falklanders are known as "Kelpers". If you say "kelp" to a

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Highlander you mean fertiliser, because that is what kelp was to the Highlands of Scotland. The arable areas of the Highlands of Scotland were reclaimed by the use of kelp, and the burning of kelp for fertiliser was a major industry of the Highlands at the time of the 'forty-five and afterwards, until the development of artificial fertiliser at a later stage. This would be a very quick source of fertiliser for the areas which one would require to improve, without importing anything from anywhere.
The next thing that struck me about the report was that nobody had referred to shell sand, and yet there was a great deal of talk about crustacea, there was a great deal of talk about mussels and shell fish and things of that kind. Nobody referred to the absence of shell sand, but nobody referred to the presence of shell sand. I would be very surprised if there are not supplies of lime available in the shape of shell sand on the beaches around the islands. This again had been a source of lime to the Highlands of Scotland, particularly to Caithness and Orkney and to many of the seaward farms and island farms of the Highlands of Scotland. I am surprised that nobody looked for it, but I would not expect a vet to look for it necessarily. He would tend to think probably in terms of fertiliser out of a bag rather than in the old traditional sources of lime fertiliser.
I am also surprised that nobody really went into the possibility of growing trees on the islands, not in order to sell the timber, but if you intend to intensify the agriculture of the islands then you are going to require trees for fencing. If you are going to intensify the life of the islands, you are going to require materials to build houses and bridges, and harbours and jetties. Therefore, some effort to grow trees within the islands would undoubtedly be beneficial, and this is not referred to on any scale within the report. I should like to make mention again of Caithness, where the Forestry Commission are beginning to develop techniques and find varieties of tree which can grow in deep peat. They have discovered that certain varieties of lodgepole pine can in fact put their roots down below the anaerobic layer, below the water table; the roots can go on living. They can do this because they have an air pipe going down the
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roots and the root is breathing like a diver underneath the level of the water table. These trees are actually capable of drying out peat land, and they are capable of standing up to wind pressure in deep peat. It would have been very helpful, I have no doubt, to Lord Shackle-ton's team to have had somebody there to say whether they thought that this kind of forestry could be pursued within the islands. Forestry within the Falkland Islands could mean a great deal in terms of the ability to carry out any other developments.
Reference has been made to the possibility of fishing. Clearly, there is a most fertile sea around the Falkland Islands and it would seem wrong not to develop this fishery. What we have to remember is that with this fishery should go all the ancillary trades. You will want nets, you will want a net maker, you will want people repairing boats, coopers making barrels and boxes and all kinds of things for dealing with your catch. Again, you will want the freezing capacity for dealing probably with the filleted product, the by-product of the filleting process being either a livestock food or a fertiliser to put back into your expanding agriculture. So here again I have to draw Her Majesty's Government's attention to the enormous possibility of a rolling increase if you can once get a start made. Again, I have to ask them whether they really intend to inject this kind of confidence into the people of the islands so that they will be prepared to take risk in this kind of industry as well.
I do not by any means set aside the possibility of other major industries on the islands. If you can get the farm production of sheep to increase, I see no reason whatever why there should not be a properly vertically integrated wool mill making cloth, tweed, wool, knitting wool and so forth. I know that Hunters of Brora, who run a very good wool mill in the county of Sutherland, would be glad to give Her Majesty's Government any help they wanted in setting up, and advice on how to set up, a vertically integrated wool mill that does everything from taking in the fleece to putting out the finished product. I am quite certain that there could be markets for the quality and type of tweed that could come out of the sheep if there were enough of them.

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Finally, there is one thing to which nobody seems to have referred. I notice that the surface of the Falkland Islands is covered with peat. There is water in the Falkland Islands, and if you can get the barley there you can make whisky. I see no reason particularly to call it Scotch whisky; you could call it "Falkland Island Grog". I am sure that it would have a worldwide sale. It should not be too difficult to set up a distilling industry there, and there seems to be a very large demand for the right sort of quality of drink all over the world. You would have to import the barley, but you would get an agricultural by-product in the shape of distillers grains, in the shape of grouts which you could then feed to your livestock, a very valuable feed which would be left after you had made your Falkland Island Grog, or whatever it is. I see no limit to the possibilities once one gets it going.
Therefore, along with the noble Viscount, Lord Boyd, I ask Her Majesty's Government to give us in their reply this feeling of enthusiasm for the job, of real interest in the islands, of intention to support the islanders in grasping their own future. I ask them to give an earnest promise of this by saying that they will in fact set up an air strip of the right length, and perhaps they might even add to that proper sea facilities, so that if the economy grows there will be harbours into which boats can come to take away things by sea and to bring in supplies by sea. I urge Her Majesty's Government to give us a good reply to this Question because a good, warm, vigorous, encouraging reply will give enormous heart to these people on the islands, who deserve our very best, and in regard to whom I at any rate feel a certain sense of shame in that I have stood idly by all the years of my life and done little until now to speak up for their cause.
8 p.m.
Baroness VICKERS: My Lords, I should like to support the Question so ably put forward by my noble friend Lord Boyd of Merton. I have heard him speak very many times in the other place and I realise that when he was Colonial Secretary he had an intense interest in and understanding of many countries. He was given an outstanding nickname; when he dealt with East
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Africa he was called Bwana Kilimanjaro. I do not think that many Colonial Secretaries who have had the honour of dealing with this kind of work have been given a nice nickname.
Unfortunately I have not been to the Falkland Islands and it seems a great pity that the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, does not have a magic wand, because as a result of the excellent suggestions that he advanced there might be a complete change. I have taken the opportunity of reading the debates and Questions in the other place, including the Adjournment Debate on 21st January this year. From all these studies, including the excellent report by the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, it seems impossible to get a clear picture of what will happen in the future. That is why I am so pleased that we are having this debate tonight. There was also the 85th plenary meeting of the United Nations' Assembly on 1st December 1976. This was rather disturbing because one of the resolutions was that the Assembly expresses its gratitude,
"for the continuous efforts made by the Government of Argentina in accordance with the relevant decisions of the General Assembly"—
and these are the words I wish to emphasise—
"to facilitate the process of decolonisation and to promote the wellbeing of the population of the islands."
What about the Charter of Human Rights? The Minister in the other House was asked about the Charter of Human Rights in these terms:
"In view of the widely authenticated reports on the systematic suppression of human rights in Argentina, which my hon. Friend may have seen —the Amnesty report and others—does he think that this is an appropriate moment to enter into any kind of negotiations with that Government about the possible transfer of sovereignty over the Falkland Islands?"
The Minister replied:
"We all deplore abuses of human rights, where-ever they occur. Nevertheless, the welfare interests of the islanders require our discussing these matters with the Argentinian Government." —[Official Report, Commons, 30/3/77; col. 395.]
I should like to know why. Welfare is our concern. A headline in the Financial Times of 22nd February this year was:
"Islanders fear a sell out."
That is probably true. It must be remembered that the prospect of Argentinians bringing with them the turbulent

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and regrettably often bloody political management of their own country is not conducive to the idea of happiness and peace, which the inhabitants have received under British administration since 1833. An article in the Economist of March 1977 states that for the first time Britain has offered to discuss the question of sovereignty with the Argentinians. I gather that there has been no sign—perhaps the Minister will correct me if I am wrong —of the Argentinians modifying their claims. It must be remembered that the Argentine claimed the Islands as a successor to imperial Spain. I should like to remind the House that Spain used the Islands as a convict station and then abandoned them. There is no indigenous population.
Last year's military take-over in Buenos Aires cannot have given any comfort to the Falkland Islanders. Now the prospect of oil, krill and blue whiting, which has been mentioned by noble Lords, is encouraging Argentina to take a greater interest. In opening the debate the noble Viscount mentioned the question of chemicals and seaweed. On this matter the Economist said that a single year's production would bring Britain foreign exchange earnings greater than the cost of the airport extension. I should like to suggest that perhaps some of our very hard-hit fishermen in this country, who find employment difficult, might go there with their families on perhaps a five-year contract to help with this fishing problem. As has been suggested, other facilities could be set up, such as the canning of fish. Undoubtedly it would be quite easy to set up such a factory and I presume that some of the catch could be frozen and exported to this country or elsewhere.
The need for the lengthening of the airport runway has been discussed. I remember when I was working in the Far East—and I dare say that my noble friend Lord Boyd will remember this—metal strips were put down on the runways because there were no proper airports. These metal strips lasted a long time and were able to take the weight of the heavy transport planes. As a semi-permanent measure, until more money is available, perhaps this could be reconsidered.
There is also the example of the island of Grand Bahama in the Bahama group
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of islands. Only a few years ago it was a barren area and it is now one of the best tourist centres in those islands. Many tourists, especially Americans who like to change the venue of their holidays, might like to get away from the "rat-race" for a while and go to the Falklands. One learns from the report that migration loss is acute owing to the lack of knowledge about the future. Should, however, new land holdings be created, this might help some of those on the Islands. The noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, referred to this. Perhaps in the distant future some of the Rhodesian farmers might like to go there, should they have to leave their homes.
I believe that a new Deputy Governor has been appointed and I should like to know whether this so-called wrangle over the Government's refusal to implement changes in the Constitution is over, and what changes are being made to make the Government more democratic. I should also like to know—perhaps this is a minor point—why the words, "Private—Governor's House" are painted in Spanish on the Governor's house. That does not seem to be very appropriate. Is the Governor personally still seeing copies of the local news bulletins, which I gather have to be submitted to the secretarial staff 24 hours before going on the air? If so, why? Even in this country nothing is vetted that goes out on the air from local radio stations. This matter was raised in the report of the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton. Has a political adviser been appointed, or is there about to be one? Have commercial firms shown any particular interest in the report?
There is the case of the islanders of Tristan da Cunha, although there the circumstances were very different. Those islanders were miserable when brought to this country and preferred to return to the poor conditions prevailing in Tristan da Cunha rather than to stay here. I believe that many of the Falkland Islanders will be disappointed and upset if their life's work and the work of their fathers and grandfathers is not carried on, and that they will never want to settle in this country.
Finally, is it not time to set up all-Party Select Committees to look into these matters? The other countries of the EEC have them. We could quite easily ask people, not only from these Islands but

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from other countries, for their views when there is need for inquiries. It is much easier for many of us to put forward ideas and questions and see how they are received by those concerned than simply to have a report, although I am in no way criticising this excellent report. Personal contacts give better personal communications. I hope that after this debate some real action can be taken to reassure the Islanders about their future.
8.9 p.m.
Lord SOMERLEYTON: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Viscount, Lord Boyd of Merton, for bringing this vitally important Question before the House. I speak as a member of a tourist expedition to the Falkland Islands and the Antarctic Circle led by Sir Peter Scott in February 1968. Our stay in the Falklands was brief; we had time only to visit Port Stanley and two or three sheep farms, as well as West Point and Carcass Islands to see an abundance of wild life, including several breeds of penguins, the black-browed albatross and large populations of seals and sea elephants. Noble Lords will probably have realised that the object of this expedition was to study the conservation of wild life in this remote part of the world. But the overriding feeling of the "kelpers", the population of the Falklands, as it was in 1968 is unchanged today. They are truly British and their simple wish is to remain British. They have said recently that they do not wish the future sovereignty of the Falkland Islands discussed—and little wonder, when one sees the state of the Argentine Government.
Your Lordships will know that the Falkland Islands are British by right and in law. They do not want independence, they do not want a change of sovereignty, so there is no real comparison to be made with former colonies where a majority of the population favoured independence from Great Britain. Neither is there any racial problem. My Lords, this is the overriding factor. I was asked by a member of the Falkland Islands Committee at that time in 1968, "Did you notice any mortal thing here remotely suggestive of South America and the Argentine in particular? Don't you agree that it would be shameful to hand us over under any conditions? "I am
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quite sure that the same person and the same people would say that again today. Of course, I agree that the country, as a lot of you know, is very like the West Coast of Scotland, and the people in it are very like the people who live in the West Coast of Scotland.
I feel sure that that feeling is as strong now as it was then. These islanders are more British in origin and in culture than the British themselves. But, my Lords, since 1968 the population has been steadily decreasing and this is happening for obvious reasons. The first reason, of course, is uncertainty of the future. Whenever the question of "change of sovereignty" rears its ugly head more uncertainty follows. I understand that there are considerably more men than women in the Islands at present, which makes population increase difficult, to say the least. I further understand that in 1974 no fewer than 12 Falkland Island ladies were married to Her Majesty's Royal Marines, and they have naturally come back to the United Kingdom at the end of their tour of duty.
Education, as your Lordships will be aware, is also a grave problem. I understand that many parents in the Falkland Islands do not wish to send their children to school in Argentina because they do not like the political climate in that country. But if the young people do go away to be educated, there are very few jobs to come back to and therefore the young people are forced to move from the islands. It is also abundantly clear that the Falkland Islanders cannot afford to send their children back to this country for their education. Your Lordships will know that the school leaving age in the Falkland Islands is 15, and this does not include the "O" level stage, although correspondence courses are done, I believe, by a few. This all means a continual drain on an already small population.
My Lords, in my humble opinion to put these matters right communications must be improved to the United Kingdom and the outside world, as has already been mentioned by the noble Viscount, Lord Boyd. Did you know that every Falkland Islander has to have a white card to travel to or from the Islands, and that journey has to be made via the Argentine or Uruguay?

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I earnestly hope that the Government will find means of stalling the decrease in population by the building of a bigger landing strip which will be capable of taking large passenger and freight carrying aircraft, as suggested in the Shackleton Report. Surely the spending of approximately £5 million—I believe that that is the amount—on such a project would be well within the Government's intentions for developing a purely British colony which has such enormous potential resources.
This will immediately bring more employment and there will be a firm base on which to build a sound economy, with a thriving fishing industry and probably a thriving oil producing industry, as well as an economy built entirely on wool as at present. My Lords, let us make it possible for the Falkland Islanders, or "Kelpers" as they are affectionately known, to have a say in determining their own future.
8. 16 p.m.
Lord GARNER: My Lords, I too am grateful to the noble Viscount, Lord Boyd of Merton, for giving us the opportunity to debate this subject this evening. I am particularly grateful to him, and so I think will noble Lords also be, in that he has made some of the points that I was hoping to touch on. I can therefore be extremely brief. I shall say nothing about the economic side because he has covered it so fully, and I shall content myself with a few observations on some of the political difficulties that lie surrounding this problem.
The debate has shown that there is a good deal of common ground between all of us. Nevertheless, it is understandable that the problem should be seen differently in the Falkland Islands and in Whitehall. The Islanders are naturally disturbed about the stagnating economy, and anxious to see an immediate improvement in the livelihood for the younger people coming up. They are particularly nervous of any talk of a political change. The British Government have other responsibilities. They see the problem in terms of the reality of the 20th century. They feel that the long-term future of the Islands can be assured only if there is at least a degree of understanding with Argentina, and they put the emphasis on trying to reach some sensible arrangement so that economic progress can go ahead on an assured and long-term basis.
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We ought to face frankly the issue of sovereignty. For my part, I think that I accept that with all the appropriate reservations that certainly should be called for, the topic should not be taboo in any later discussions with the Argentine, because clearly if that were so there will be no discussions, and this is something to which one wants to work in the long run. I gather from the nod which the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, gave earlier that substantive discussions have not yet begun. That is something about which one need not feel any regret, because it seems to me that the present time may be a rather puzzling one in which to initiate long-term discussions of this kind with the Argentine regime in its present shape, as symbolised by the fact that we do not at present have an Ambassador there.
All this seems to me to emphasise the extreme delicacy of the diplomacy on which the British Government will have to engage. My own thought would be that, when any substantive discussions take place, they should embrace both the political and the economic. There should be no question of going cap in hand and offering some political concessions. Rather we should speak from a position of strength, showing what prospects may flow from economic development, so that it can be seen to be something of mutual advantage.
The Government deserve credit for the way they have handled the tactics of the matter so far. Reference has already been made to Mr. Rowland's visit to the Falkland Islands—incidentally I think the first by a Minister for some nine years—and the impression he created there, and the impression he has also created by the consultations he has had with representatives of the Falkland Islanders in this country. Perhaps I should say that I got a feeling a little time ago that the relationship between my old Department, and some of the people in this country interested in the Falkland Islands, was not as close as I would have hoped it might be and I hope that it will again become. From my own experience, I can say that it seems to me extremely important for an overseas Department to have close and friendly relations with any organised body representing the interests of the particular territory with which we are concerned. I am thinking of my experience,

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for example, with the India-Pakistan-Burma Association, the West African Committee and a number of bodies which are extremely valuable and it seems to me important that that sort of relationship should be established in regard to the Falkland Islands.
I promised to be brief. I end by saying that the Falkland Islands should not be regarded as an historical anachronism or geographical inconvenience. The Falkland Islands represent people, perhaps not a large number of people, but they are British people and I believe that, given a fair chance, given help, they have the prospect of continuing to make a contribution to the development of their islands, to the development of that part of the world and to the advancement of British interests. They are a sturdy and hard-working people who deserve our understanding, guidance and support.
8.21 p.m.
Viscount MASSEREENE and FERRARD: My Lords, I, too, thank my noble friend Lord Boyd of Merton for bringing this question of the Falkland Islands to the attention of the House. My interest in the Falklands arises only because two shepherds of mine came from there, one named McCaskell, who is no longer with me, and another named Howard Duncan. They told me much about the Falkland Islands and I therefore feel very sympathetic to that part of the world.
I agree with the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, that an agricultural advisor should have been on the Shackleton Inquiry, but I could not agree with him that a forester would have done much good. From my slight experience of the Orkneys, it is quite impossible to grow trees there, and as the noble Viscount said that the Orkneys were very like the Falklands, I cannot see any point in sending out a forester. However, I will not waste the time of the House by going into matters of that kind because I intend to be brief; my speech will be short and sweet, like a donkey's gallop.
I cannot understand why the Government are hedging, as they appear to be, on this issue. After all, only a very small amount of aid, £5·1 million over five years, is involved, and I would call that chicken feed compared with the vast
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amount of aid we give to the various developing countries. Although the overall sum has been reduced, it is running at about £230 million, and most of those countries have far fewer ties with the mother country than the Falkland Islanders. Perhaps I am wrong and the Government will give the aid that has been requested, but I cannot understand why they should even be considering not giving it. Apart from any feelings of patriotism or sympathy with the people of the Falkland Islands, such expenditure would appear to be commercially wise.
I understand that 94 per cent. of the Falkland Islanders are of British stock and that about three-quarters of them were born there. The two shepherds who came to my place in the Inner Hebrides said that they left the Falkland Islands mainly because of the question of communications. They objected most strongly to having to apply for a visa to the Argentinian Foreign Office if they wished to leave the Islands. They also felt rather out on a limb and forgotten by the mother country. So far as I can recall, those were the only reasons why they left. I implore the Government very seriously to consider providing this £5·1 million, because I understand that £3·3 million of it will be spent on extending the airfield. If the airfield is not extended to take big aircraft, no company will invest in the Islands.
We have heard of the great possibilities for the Falkland Islands, with fishing, seaweed, making calcium and sodium alginate. This process goes on in my part of the world in the West of Scotland with seaweed, making alginate; it is actually calcium and not sodium alginate. I understand that if the Falkland Islands had a factory there to carry out this process, within 10 years there could be an export trade worth about £40 million, which would help the balance of payments of this country to the tune of perhaps £20 million.
As for wool, which now and always has been the chief, almost the only, product of the Falkland Islands, I understand that last year it grossed £2·6 million. However, I believe that the Islands have increased their gross national product by the staggering figure of 80 per cent.; if this country can increase our GNP by 2½ per cent. we think we are very fortunate.

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I will not delay noble Lords much longer because everything that ought to be said has been said. Again, I urge the Government seriously to consider the request that has been made. I appreciate that the Argentinian Government is a military Government, and for all I know it may be a very good one, although it is not in our tradition. I agree that we must be tactful with the Argentinians, but we have had a long connection with them, with tremendous British investment there. I am sure that if this matter is handled tactfully they will raise no objection to the Falkland Islands remaining completely British, remembering that 94 per cent. of the Islanders are from British stock.
I understood that Her Majesty's Government had agreed not to consider any change in sovereignty without the consent of the people of the Falkland Islands, but I gather that some people there are not too happy about that assurance. I urge the Government to make it clear in the strongest terms that there will be no question of the people of the Falkland Islands losing their British sovereignty unless they wish to do so.
I do not think that I can say any more because it has all been said, but I just repeat my comment that this small amount of money is really chicken-feed when we think of the vast sums that this country wastes. Here is something from which the British Government will really get a return and which will help a very patriotic people. I conclude by emphasising something which came up in the debate: we take in taxation twice what we give back in grant aid. If that is so, we should be very much ashamed of ourselves. I was surprised to hear that. I would repeat that I implore the Government not to quibble about this. Having said that, I shall sit down and hope for the best.
8.31 p.m.
Viscount MONTGOMERY of ALAMEIN: My Lords, my thanks are also due to the noble Viscount, Lord Boyd of Merton, for initiating this Question, as they are to the noble Lord, Lord Shackle-ton, for his splendid report. At the outset, I should say that, when not in this Chamber—which is most of the time —I spend my professional life as a consultant in trade with Latin America and I travel extensively in that continent.
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For various reasons, I had not been in Argentina for some years, but I was there during the last week of March, which was most fortunate and which gives rise to my intervention this evening.
Unfortunately and unwittingly, I find myself at variance with my noble friends on this issue, because I believe that the issue of the Falkland Islands is much wider than that of island sovereignty alone. I feel that we must cut through some of the confusion surrounding the issue. In doing so, we must consider what are the real interests of the islanders in the future, which even some of the islanders themselves may not have recognised. Economic development is the key to the future. Following the promulgation of the law of the sea with the extensions to 200 miles and so on, the territorial dispute now includes a vast area of the sea and the seabed. While Britain and Argentina fail to agree on this matter, the ocean surrounding this area, which is full of riches, is being "hoovered" clean by fleets from third party countries. Neither Britain nor Argentina can do anything about this alone, but together we could do something.
As has already been said by various noble Lords, the Falkland Islands are 7,000 miles away. They are outside NATO and they are just off the Argentine mainland. Whatever may be the historical reasons for our colonisation and whatever may be the flimsiness of the Argentine claim, the fact of the matter is that the future of the islands must now be the subject of joint discussion with Argentina. Obviously, this must include representation by the islanders at all stages. It has already been said by various noble Lords that the population of the islands is now down to under 2,000 and that it is declining. It is also alleged that the islanders do not like Argentina, but I am not sure that that is correct. The fact of the matter is that there are in Argentina some 30,000 Britishers and Anglo-Argentines who all seem very happy with their lot. I believe that Argentina is our friend and I would take issue with my noble friend Lady Vickers and ask her not necessarily to accept all that she reads in the newspapers on this subject.
Argentina has undergone a spectacular economic recovery in the last year and there will be many opportunities for trade

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in the next few years. We currently have an imbalance of trade with Argentina, in that we import more than we export. We need to have no impediment in order to take advantage of these favourable circumstances. The recent visit by the Minister of State, Mr. Rowlands, paved the way for discussions to start. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Gornwy-Roberts, will be able to say that discussions on the Falklands Islands will start shortly and that full diplomatic representation at ambassadorial level in both directions will be established in the near future.
8.37 p.m.
Lord MORRIS: My Lords, I intend to delay your Lordships only a short while and I am most hesitant to speak after the distinguished contributions that have gone before. I feel that the importance of the Statement made in the other place by the then Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, Mr. Anthony Crosland, cannot be too strongly stressed. He stated in February this year:
"I must make certain things absolutely clear. Firstly, any such discussions, which would inevitably raise financial questions in the relationship between the islands, Britain and Argentina, would take place under the sovereignty umbrella; that is, Her Majesty's Government would wholly reserve their position on the issue of sovereignty which in no way would be prejudiced."
By that, I understand that the Government are of the opinion that the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands, on the basis of history, equity and international law, is not a matter of dispute but a matter of fact and should not form a basis for discussion with the Argentine Government.
In the words of Professor J.C.J. Mitford:
"The Argentinians' claim is founded on emotion and recurrent irredendist fever."
Yet in the same Statement that I have quoted, the Secretary of State quoted his right honourable friend the Prime Minister, who said in another place in January 1976:
"Given good will on both sides, Britain and Agentina should be able to transform the area of dispute concerning the sovereignty over the islands into a factor making for co-operation between the two countries which would be consonant with the wishes and interests of the Falkland Islanders."
The problem which that Statement raises is that it could well be inferred from it that
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the disputant has grounds for dispute. It thus incalcates into the hearts and minds of the islanders the fear that the United Kingdom will negotiate behind their backs—an area which they feel should not even be the subject of discussion.
The islanders are right: there is no case to answer. The United Kingdom's case for sovereignty is irrefutable. I feel sure that your Lordships would welcome a firm statement from the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, that the United Kingdom's claim to sovereignty is irrefutable and in accordance with the principles of international law and that Her Majesty's Government intend seeking international corroboration of the British case should the need arise. Furthermore, may I respectfully ask the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, whether he can state that the sovereignty of the islands would never be transferred without the consent of both Houses of Parliament and the islanders themselves in accordance with the spirit of the reply by Mr. Ted Rowlands in another place on 30th March, when he said:
"As I have told the House over and over again, we certainly shall not bring forward any proposals which are not acceptable to the islanders and they must obviously receive the consent of this House".—[Official Report (Commons), 30/3/77; col. 394.]
Your Lordships' House has once more shown its concern for the interests of the weak and the small and can be seen to have joined itself with the islanders in their national motto: "Desire the right".
8.39 p.m.
Lord SHACKLETON: My Lords, I do not conceive it as my duty, as the Chairman of the survey which produced the report that we are discussing, to lead the campaign for the implementation of our recommendations. However, I could not resist intervening in this debate and I am most grateful to the noble Viscount, Lord Boyd, both for his personal remarks and from my own family's point of view. I am also grateful for the remarks of other noble Lords and for the very kind reception that has been given to our report. I was particularly interested—if I may refer to certain of the points that have been made, for practically every point of significance has been made—in the remarks of the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso. I was very glad that he seized on the point

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about the dependent situation and the difference between the independent-minded crofter and the really rather splendid but dependent people in the Falkland Islands.
Of course we owed a great deal to the members of our team and I pride myself on the fact that, although we did not include everybody whom the noble Lord would have wished, we did take Bob Storey who is the former development officer from Shetland and who is now the development officer of the Highlands and Islands Board, because I realised at a very early stage that it would be useful to find an analogue, and the obvious analogue was in fact Shetland. If I may say so to the noble Viscount, not much progress has been made in growing trees in Shetland. It was because of the absence of trees that I thought that it was relevant, and I do not believe that the addition of a forester, in the short time that we were there, would have solved the problem, which is dependent on many issues, including the problem of a much lower soil temperature and a continuous wind. Of course there are trees, and there is one splendid two acre forest, which is a great joy to find, at Hill Cove, in the West island.
It was a great problem for us to attempt to cover such a vast subject when only three months were set aside, and if I have a criticism of our Report it is of its over-voluminous length, 140,000 words, based on about three to four months' work only, of which only one month was spent in the Falklands. I think that I should stress to noble Lords, and again particularly to the noble Lord on the Liberal Benches, that much of the information on which we relied had already been published. If anyone cares to turn to the appendix he will see reference to the various reports, and I will not list the names of all the distinguished people who reported. This situation was particularly true on the agricultural side. We had two Welshmen and two Scotsmen. We had Williams the Sheep and Williams the Fiscal, and then we had two Scotsmen. What impressed me most was the ability of animal husbandry expert Huw Williams to grasp the vast amount of information that was available and update it with complicated statistics against a fairly narrow base. If we are to be condemned it is on the point that we have published
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too much information, rather than not enough.
I should like to stress one or two points on which I believe there are misconceptions. I have heard it said by certain people who ought to have known better that there is no real future in the land of the Falkland Islands. Nothing could be less true, and the potential for development and the already high quality (not the moderate quality, as has been suggested) is very great.
But of course more needs to be done, and it has mystified us, as it mystified the noble Viscount, Lord Boyd of Merton, why some of the many recommendations in the past, with which we very largely agreed and which we reflected, have not been carried out. Overhanging everything is, first, the cost and, secondly, political uncertainty, and before sitting down I should like to say a few words on the latter point. It is true that there is enormous wealth in the sea; that the krill beyond the Antarctic convergence and a long, long way from the Argentine, is beginning to be harvested by Germans and Russians and Japanese—and I am sorry to say that the British are not present. This is greatly to be lamented, because it is the largest untapped source of protein in the world. There is the equivalent of perhaps once or twice the total world fish catch waiting to be found.
Again, much of the off-shore development will call for international co-operation. I passionately desire to seek cooperation with the Argentine in these areas, but I must say that politics in the Argentine do not make this very easy. I should say to those who think that there is a short cut to viability through oil, that we made it very clear that it is in co-operation with the Argentine, with British expertise now in the matter of off-shore oil, that we can hope to see a useful development, both political and in terms of wealth.
But while we have stressed the fact that there are areas in which development will proceed much faster with co-operation, we have also indicated, as the noble Viscount, Lord Boyd of Merton, made clear, that though that development could be faster, it is possible for development to proceed, with or without Argentine development, provided there is the will

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in this country. One has only to look at the prospects in regard to alginates, in regard to tourism, to see that the Falkland Islands themselves could generate much of the wealth.
This brings me to the point about the proposals and the cost of the proposals. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, will confirm that the Government were somewhat disingenuous in expounding the details that we gave in regard to cost. They added up a number of items and said that we had proposed a total recommended expenditure of up to £13 million to £14 million. This is rather misleading. As the noble Lord said, the position must be put on the record. What we actually recommended was £5·4 million over the next five years, with an exploratory fishing programme adding another £1·15 million; in other words, a total of something under £7 million. We are well aware that we cannot on the one hand ask the Government to cut public expenditure, and at the same time ask them to increase the expenditure. But we took this very much into account when we said that a further expenditure of £6 million might well take place, but not necessarily in the next five years.
I believe that it is important to get this clear, because it has been suggested by people that we have made extremely extravagant proposals, and these suggestions must have been made by people who had not studied the proposals in any detail. In fact, if one leaves out the airfield—and I want to say something about that—the actual expenditure is relatively small. Again, it has not been sufficiently appreciated that over the last 30 years the outflow of funds to the United Kingdom, largely in the form of company dividends and undistributed profits, has greatly exceeded the inflow made up of United Kingdom aid and Falkland Islands Government income from their United Kingdom investments.
Successive United Kingdom Chancellors of the Exchequer, of all Governments, have gained substantial amounts from taxes on this outflow, particularly on dividends and profits. It is estimated very approximately that between 1951 and 1973 the United Kingdom direct tax take was about £1·9 million on dividends and profits—twice the amount given as
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United Kingdom aid to the Falklands. There are those people who think that, somehow, the Falklands have been living off the British: it is, in fact, the United Kingdom which has been living off the Falklands. Even if only a small proportion of the kind of aid which has very properly gone into the Highlands and Islands Boards and other bodies to help outlying communities in the Highlands and Islands area had gone to the Falklands, it would have made an enormous difference. Unfortunately, the Falklands, instead of being 70 miles from Scotland, are 7,000 miles from Scotland. But, of course, the analogy with Scotland is very apparent. It was very apparent when we consulted the Highlands and Islands Board. I wish, in a way, that the Highlands and Islands Board could he concerned with the administration, because they would understand it in a way which I regret to say I do not believe the Department of Overseas Development begin to understand it. It is a problem of a very special kind. These are people who are wholly British. They are not even Scots, I may say: they are indistinguishable from the kind of people you meet anywhere around, either in England or in Scotland.
My Lords, may I, at this point, turn very briefly to the subject of the airfield? We spent many anxious times considering whether or not we could justify the extension of the airfield to take larger aircraft. It is very difficult; and any one of your Lordships who has been concerned with cost-benefit studies will know the limitations in a cost-benefit study. We attempted it, but we were not entirely satisfied with it. One thing we were certain of, however, was that the prospects of success in development, particularly in tourism, in alginates, in fisheries and, indeed, in other activities, would be diminished very considerably without the expenditure on the extension of this airfield. This was not a decision to which my admirable team came lightly. It was a matter which we debated long and carefully, but we were unanimous that if there was any single expenditure which it was necessary for us to recommend immediately it was on the airfield: and I am deeply concerned that the Government will not adopt this recommendation. I stress this because we were so strongly convinced of it that we put in a recommendation ahead of the main report in order that it might be considered.

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My Lords, there are many other areas into which it would be desirable to go, but I should like to say two more things. An important part of the report which has not been discussed as much as perhaps it might concerns the restructuring of government. It is not just a question of improving the democratic content, although we have proposals with regard to that and we regretted that the Stanley Town Council had been abolished. There is a need for more of these sort of Highland community councils. But what is needed is a different style of government. One needs the determined ability that one found, if I may say so, in the county clerk, the chief executive officer, of Shetland: in fact, someone who will be able to support and encourage the development of industry while at the same time ensuring that British traditions of law, rule and justice are maintained. Again, those sections of this report are yet to be reported on.
The other point I wanted to make was that, whereas it is for the Government to give the lead, it is also for the people of the Falkland Islands and the companies themselves to respond. I believe they will. I believe there is a will in the Falkland Islands Company, in the other companies and among the sheep-owners and sheep managers to encourage the kind of development to which the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, referred. The most striking thing to us was the absence of what can only he called private enterprise in the ordinary sense. I am bound to say that, speaking as someone who still firmly sits on these Benches, it was a striking example of the dangers of the absence of scope for individual enterprise, whether it is in a Socialist society or a company society: and the need to provide that sort of opportunity to some of the younger and energetic people of the Falkland Islands is very necessary.
I should like to make two points in conclusion. First, I should like to express my deep gratitude to the people of the Falkland Islands. It was a most exciting and enjoyable experience. They are a hospitable, friendly people—the young man who had come out from England to get away from it all and thought it better to work on a farm, at much lower pay but still at a good standard of living, rather than on an assembly line in Coventry. The second point is that I
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would really make a personal appeal to the Argentine Government. My family have had long associations with the Argentine; and, after all, the Argentine itself has great traditions. It was conceived in freedom, and has great traditions of democracy. I think it is important to recognise that the Argentine claim is a very long-standing one. It has been the subject of contention, and there is no doubt that many people in the Argentine are convinced that the Malvinas are Argentine. Yet the simple fact is that the people who live there are British, and are more British than you could find in any other colonial territory in the world.
I would appeal to the Argentine, although they were not very nice to me. They prolonged our stay and they called me rude names like Drake and Dampier, which actually was rather encouraging; and when they tried to arrest HMS "Endurance" they found they were shooting at our research ship "Shackle-ton". None the less, I met so many Argentines who understand the problems of the Falklands, and realise that it is not right at this moment to pursue, ultimately by some form of duress, possessing lands where the inhabitants do not wish to join. It may be that, if friendship developed over a period of 30 or 40 years, you might get the sort of development in co-operation that I hope we shall see in Europe, but at the moment I hope the Government will continue to stand firm. I say this because I believe the will is there in the Falklands, and I hope the will is here in the United Kingdom and in Whitehall.
8.58 p.m.
Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, it is almost superfluous to add anything further after listening to Lord Shackleton, and one can understand why the Report is so full of good sense. I, like my noble friend Lord Massereene, have always felt a certain affinity towards the Falkland Islands, having spent my life on an island off the West Coast of Scotland near his. I am bound to say to Lord Thurso that, if the climate of his part of Scotland is anything like that of my part of Scotland, I am surprised that he can claim that the Falkland Islands are anywhere near as warm. They certainly were not when I was there.

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My other claim to be interested in this subject is that I can say that I am a living proof of the wool-growing capability of the islands, since I grew my beard there in 1970. I may say that the salvage operation on which we were engaged was seriously impeded by the kelp, and so far as I am concerned the alginates are welcome to it. None of these things makes me an expert; but, luckily, all the important points have already been raised this evening, I think. We owe a debt of gratitude to Lord Boyd, an ex-Colonial Secretary, for having given us an opportunity to discuss this excellent report and to seek from the Government the reassurance which I think is needed to answer the justifiable uncertainty and the doubts of the Islanders. I shall come later to some of the reasons why I believe these doubts exist.
I am therefore going to start by exhorting the Government to be both robust and realistic because I believe that honour and self-interest demand that it should be so. As my noble friend Lord Morris mentioned, there can be no historical doubt of the legal validity of the British sovereignty over the Falkland Islands which the Argentine Government resolutely refuse to test in the international courts. The Islands were uninhabited when the British discovered them and we colonised them in the 1830s. Charles Darwin is supposed to have said when he visited the Islands in the "Beagle" that he thought them eminently suitable to be a penal colony because while they appeared to provide all the necessities of life, there was no way in which they would provide any of the luxuries. I was therefore interested to hear my noble friend Lady Vickers say that the Spaniards used the islands for a penal settlement, something of which I was not aware.
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, in his report identified considerable economic potential, in addition to the wool and mutton which is already being produced, in the fishing possibilities, the oil possibilities, the seaweed possibilities and the tourist possibilities, to mention a number of the principal items. I think I should also again underline the point that both the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, and the noble Lord, Lord Boyd, made; that is, that there has been a net inflow of money from the Falkland Islands to this country over the years—
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and that in spite of this astonishingly elaborate panoply of government which one finds there, with the Governor, the Legislative Council, the Executive Council, the Colonial Secretary and 18 people in the Post Office in 1970, I think—all to administer a population of 2,000 people. So the point is well taken that possibly the system of government would stand some re-examination.
Lord SHACKLETON: My Lords, if I may interrupt the noble Lord, the Post Office is, of course, one of the income earners for the Falklands and the philately side is very important.
Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, one of the custodians in this House was telling me before the debate that he is a passionate collector of Falkland Islands stamps which,I agree, are exceptionally well designed. The report identified these two essential preconditions for economic expansion. These were political confidence and at least adequate or improved communications. As has already been said, Lord Shackleton's Report was anxious that the Argentine workforce which was being used under the 1971 Agreement to construct the temporary airport should secure continuity of work by being allowed to carry on with the major project of building the permanent airfield capable of accepting international aircraft. This is fundamental.
May I digress for a moment to ask the noble Lord about the situation regarding the shipping services to the Islands? Am I right in thinking that under the 1971 Agreement we were responsible for providing a steamer service to succeed the service which was withdrawn in 1972? If that is so, are we not in default of our agreement made at that time?— because it must be right that, however good an air service you eventually establish, there is always going to be a need for some kind of heavy goods carriage which, presumably, must be by some kind of shipping service. I think that the important point—which has been made several times today with the mention of the white cards—is that a fully-fledged air service, free from political interference, is a necessary precondition for any development plan; and there is evidence that such an investment could, in fact, earn a return.

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It has even been suggested that history might turn full circle and go back to the old days when the Falklands Islands was a coaling station and conceivably such an airport might be used as a refuelling stop for flights over the Southern Pole to the Antipodes. I have no idea whether what sounds like a rather far-fetched proposal has any validity. The important point is the political implication of the airfield. I would believe that the best chance of achieving an agreement with the Argentine, which is so essential, would be if we were in a position to negotiate from strength. I think this was a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Garner. We are much more likely to get agreement on the logical short-haul service on sensible terms if it is clear that we have the fallback position of direct international flights elsewhere if we need them.
This also leads us on to the crucial point which has been mentioned several times and most effectively by the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, and by my noble friend, Lord Montgomery, that the Islanders have got to realise that it is in everybody's interest for us to establish a modus vivendi with the Argentine sooner or later. The very fact of the existence of commercial potential surely makes this all the more important. Meantime, my noble friend Lord Montgomery tells us that the Russians and the Japanese—and I think Lord Shackleton suggested, also, the Germans—were busy "hoovering" the oceans. This brings us to another rather worrying circumstance.
Lord SHACKLETON: My Lords, may I interrupt? They have not actually got a Hoover. They are still doing only sample fishing but it is becoming significant with regard to krill.
Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, whether it is happening, or is about to happen, the situation is one that we should be worrying about. I am concerned about whether or not, in the course of paring down our defence forces, we have now got ourselves into a situation where one wonders how we should be in a position to assert our sovereignty in the area and what forces we could deploy if it became necessary to do so. Like the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, I realise how careful we must be in advo-
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cating commitment to increases in expenditure at a time when we are urging the Government to economise; but I notice in some of the debates in another place there was mention of the Ministry of Overseas Development undertaking expenditure on some of these projects, anyway. So it seems to me that the first point is that probably some of this expenditure is envisaged as being in the pipeline, anyway.
Secondly, as has already been said, the amounts of money are small. This is always a rather dangerous argument. But more important is the fact that the time scale appears to be relatively long, and that it might be in fact some time before we started incurring expenditure, and I hope that this nation does not have to face an indefinite sentence of abject poverty such as we are going through at the present time. So might there not be a case for giving a commitment to undertake the development of the airfield against possibly an extended time base? I believe nothing would do more to engender confidence in potential investors, and to set at rest some of the doubts of the Islanders on their political future.
Against that background, one might hope that we could explore with the Argentines how best to co-operate in exploiting the resources of the area to the mutual interest of both countries and with due regard to the Argentine sensibilities about the Malvinas. This in turn would open up the re-establishment of proper, sensible diplomatic relations so that we can pursue the revival of the once extensive trade that we used to enjoy in that country, which is a very old-established tradition between our two countries.
Here I have to express some misgivings, because if we examine against these possibilities some of the recent Government Statements I think we are entitled, to ask the Government for a clear reassurance. On 14th January 1976, Mr. Callaghan asserted in another place, to applause, that the inhabitants of the Islands must be free to choose their own destiny. On 27th January, the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, told my noble friend Lady Vickers that there would be no change against the wishes of the Islanders. On 2nd February of this year, the late Mr. Crosland said that any

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changes must be acceptable to the Islanders. Then in March Dr. Owen was invited to give an assurance that there can be no question of handing over sovereignty without consent, and that consultation involves consent. Dr. Owen specifically refused to give those reassurances, even when pressed several times. That hardly seems consistent with some of the earlier pronouncements that I have mentioned.
In a recent letter from no less a convert, as we had hoped, than Mr. Rowlands, writing to one of his colleagues in the House of Commons (Mr. Brown), he said that there would be full consultation with the Islanders during the course of any negotiations. That is not quite the same as some of the earlier statements which were being made. One does not have to be a graduate in diplomatic studies to suspect that there seems to be a gradual shifting of the ground away from the initial very firm position which the Government were taking.
May I also ask the noble Lord what exactly is meant in this context by words like "consent" and "consultation"? How is consent to be determined? For example, are we going to have a referendum in the Falkland Islands before there is a change of status in the way we have described? Unless we have reassuring answers to some of these questions, it is inevitable that the Government will be suspected of deliberately muddying the waters so that they can subsequently use these muddied waters to wash their hands of what one noble Lord described, in a rather happy phrase, I thought, as a "geographical inconvenience".
I have to ask these questions in what I hope is not an over-contentious manner. Is it the Government's intention to ignore the Shackleton Report? Do they intend to erode our defence capacity to the point where we are manifestly seen to he incapable of asserting our sovereignty, either overland or on the sea? Are they further going to claim that the prospect of continuing poverty precludes any possibility of our ever being able to invest in the colony, and that therefore they are gradually preparing the Islanders for some inevitable deal whereby they will become vassals of the Argentine without their consent? If those are their intentions, then I believe the Government should own
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up and admit to them. But I sincerely hope that the noble Lord is going to be able to tell us a very different story when he answers this debate.
9.14 p.m.
The MINISTER of STATE, FOREIGN and COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (Lord Goronwy-Roberts): My Lords, we are all very grateful to the noble Viscount, Lord Boyd of Merton, for initiating this debate. His great experience of British overseas territories and his distinguished contribution to their development over the years make it most appropriate that he should have raised the matter of the Falkland Islands. Other noble Lords with experience of, and a deep interest in, the Falkland Islands have made valuable contributions to the debate. I think we were all particularly interested to listen to my noble friend Lord Shackleton, whose wide-ranging, erudite and truly invaluable report your Lordships have been discussing this evening. His contribution to the debate confirmed the impression of great dedication, immense knowledge and balanced recommendation which the report itself presents.
I think it was on 2nd February that I repeated to your Lordships what my late right honourable friend Mr. Anthony Crosland said about the report. His statement made clear that, because of current financial constraints—which I would not describe as abject poverty, and I certainly would agree with the noble Lord, Lord Strathcona, that it is a temporary phase in our history—and the more urgent claims of poorer countries, the Government would not find it possible at the moment to accept the more costly recommendations of the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton.
At this point I should like to join my noble friend in clearing up a misunderstanding relating to the financial statistics which that Statement put forward. I think it is absolutely fair to say that when my late right honourable friend referred to the "total recommended expenditure as being some £13-£14 million, he was endeavouring to indicate in broad terms the overall scale of expenditure which might be necessary in the long term. It was not possible for him to relate that figure to any time scale, as that depends on the degree of co-operation with

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Argentina that we can establish. But the Government agree that, if this overall expenditure were to be related to time scales, a distinction would have to be made between the figure of £5·4 million recommended for a development programme over the five years, which my noble friend mentioned, and the further expenditure of £6 million, or rather more, which would be related to a further period, which cannot be as closely defined in time as the period to which the £5·4 million clearly would be devoted. I therefore join with my noble friend in clearing up the misunderstanding and I hope that what I have said will be welcomed by him and by the House as a genuine contribution to the clarification of what my late right honourable friend wished to convey to Parliament.
When I refer to "the more costly recommendations", I mean such investment as might be needed to build up nontraditional industries such as fishing and tourism. In general, we would expect the capital inputs to come from the private sector. Other recommendations, such as organisational changes and improvement in investment and banking, which were specifically mentioned from the Liberal Benches, are mainly for the Falkland Islands Government to implement. But that leaves a number of proposals—some for technical co-operation and others involving capital expenditure—which I believe my right honourable friend the Minister for Overseas Development is willing to investigate, and to support if on investigation they are found to be justified. There is, as the noble Lord reminded us, an ODM programme which is continuing, and one would hope that on investigation a number of the proposals made in the report, which are within the first category of development proposals, will be found to justify financial support.
My honourable friend the Joint Minister of State who deals with Latin American matters, Mr. Rowlands, said in another place on 1st March that he had found that the Islanders placed great importance on the problems of internal communications; also, on facilities like better schools and small local industries. The Falkland Islands Government have now submitted project applications for a road linking the capital, Stanley, with the large settlement of Darwin; for radio communications
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between Stanley and the settlements; for an oil landing jetty and for a school hostel. All these projects, if brought to fruition, would certainly improve the quality of life in the Islands, an improvement to which Her Majesty's Government attach the greatest importance, for reasons which we have heard mentioned in this debate tonight.
My right honourable friend Mrs. Hart, the Minister for Overseas Development, is now considering setting up the necessary feasibility studies into all these matters, especially one into the improvement of internal communications, on which the Islands as well as we ourselves place very great store, and this would include a study into the improvement of the vital internal air service. As a first step, my right honourable friend is appointing a fiscal adviser whose prime task will be to look into the possibilities of increasing revenue, so avoiding the burden of extra recurrent costs which all these projects could generate. In the long run, aid funds must be used to help the Islanders develop their own economy so that they will eventually be able to afford from their own resources—which are considerable, as we have heard—better communications, more social amenities and higher standards in the medical and social fields.
A number of speakers have made extremely interesting, and, shall I say tentatively, for the most part constructive, suggestions for the development of the resources of these Islands. I have noted the emphasis placed by a number of speakers on the need for an extension of the airfield and the terms and manner employed by my noble friend in making this point. My honourable friend the Minister of State in the other place has said that the viability of such an extension would depend on a development of the major resources of the area, and the islanders themselves accept that the development of offshore resources depends very much on Argentine co-operation. This is noted. I have no doubt that what has been said in this debate will be taken very carefully into account as our consideration both of the report and, indeed, of our relations with that part of the world develops in the near future.
At this point may I welcome very much a number of speeches which related to what we regard as an essential key to a

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viable and secure future for the community of these Islands—that is, the replacement of the threat of confrontation by the practice of co-operation between them and the mainland. Two points have been emphasised in this debate: the need for an assured economic future and the need for an assurance as to the constitutional position of the Islands. The one is underlined by their proximity to the mainland and the other by their distance from the homeland. It must be the duty of the British Government to work for the attainment of the one—economic development—and the maintenance of the other; a sense of assurance as to their constitutional position. I will come to that point in a moment.
The right climate of co-operation which we are seeking to promote in the whole region of the South-West Atlantic is, I believe, a key to what we wish to assure for the Falklands. As I said earlier, my honourable friend who visited the Islands found that they were aware that the present deadlock was inhibiting their economic and social development. With this in mind, the Islands' Councillors approved my honourable friend's visit to Buenos Aires to try to work out with the Argentine Government terms of reference for future negotiations aimed at breaking this deadlock. They accepted that it would be unrealistic to exclude the discussion of sovereignty from such negotiations. The question was bound to be raised, at least by one side, and realistically they accepted that it might figure in the discussions. When terms of reference for negotiations have been agreed, my right honourable friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary will wish to inform Parliament. However, the Councillors also accepted the assurances of Her Majesty's Government that any negotiations would be without prejudice to present British sovereignty over the Islands.
This brings me to a point made by a number of noble Lords. From the distinguished speech which initiated this debate right through the discussion, there has been the request that I should confirm —I borrow the phrase of the noble Lord, Lord Morris—that there will be no transfer of sovereignty except as stated (I am using his words) by my honourable friend the Minister of State, Mr. Rowlands, in another place in the terms
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of the quotation which the noble Lord read from his speech. I have a number of quotations of reassurance which I could give, and perhaps the best thing to do is to set them out in a fair list. I will not bandy them with the noble Lord. He quoted the firm assurances on this point which have been given by the Prime Minister and by myself. There is no need to prompt any of us, least of all me, on this point. However, I will make this point on one quotation of a remark made in a speech given by my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary when winding up the last Foreign Affairs debate in another place—the question of the word "consent".
We might indeed have a prolonged debate about the respective meanings of "acceptability", "consent" and a great many other words. I have learned to avoid these tautological involvements. What is clear can clearly be said. I believe the phrase quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Morris, from my honourable friend's speech puts it exactly. I do not want to embroider it. What my right honourable friend was stressing was the role of Parliament and the special meaning of "consent" in the Parliamentary sense, because there was nothing between him and my honourable friend in the same debate on our intentions: first, that nothing will be put to Parliament unless it is acceptable to the islanders; secondly, it will be put to Parliament, and I should imagine to both Houses. Certainly as my right honourable friend said, "to this House", referring to the other place, and I would add "and to this House also" referring to your Lordships' House.
There is a certain danger if we over-argue this point of assurance. There is absolutely no doubt in this country in legal or Government circles about where sovereignty lies. It is here, in the United Kingdom. Having made that clear in every discussion we have had with the Argentine, we propose to go on making it clear as and when necessary. Successive Governments have made it clear, and all Ministers in this Government have made it clear that there will be no transfer except in the terms which my honourable friend used in the other place. If we go on too much about this, we may reinforce uncertainties both in the Falkland Islands and possibly on the mainland. I will

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leave it at that on the record. It is clear enough, and I confirm tonight what my honourable friend said in the debate on foreign affairs when he wound up in the other place.
The noble Viscount raised the question of representation of the Islanders at substantive talks. I confirm two things: there have been no substantive negotiations with the Argentines yet. If and when there are, I now confirm that should the Islanders desire it arrangements will be made to ensure their presence at any substantive talks. The noble Viscount, Lord Massereene and Ferrard, and a number of other speakers asked me to make that point clear. I know of no way of making it clearer than I have put it.
I hasten to cover the more important points. If I omit a point of substance relating to the detail of life on the Islands, I am sure noble Lords will forgive me. A great many details were raised and I shall be ready to make available information on specific points in some other way if time runs on.
Some noble Lords have referred to the question of human rights in Argentina. I must repeat that this country and this Government, successive Governments in this country, of all Parties, deplore the violation of human rights wherever this occurs and we have made this clear on every possible occasion to the Governments concerned. Nevertheless, the welfare and interests of the Islanders require that we discuss with the Argentine Government and authorities economic co-operation and indeed all other matters having a bearing on the future of the Islands.
I was impressed by a number of speeches, that of the noble Viscount, Lord Montgomery, that of my noble friend Lord Garner, as well as that of my noble friend Lord Shackleton, who stressed the need for an understanding for mutual benefit between the Falkland
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Islanders and the Argentine Government, a tripartite understanding between us, the United Kingdom, the Islands and the mainland. This is quite essential. The noble Lord, Lord Garner, put it like this: it is necessary to have at least a degree of understanding with Argentina; otherwise we cannot move forward to develop the Islands, to give a fuller and more attractive life to the Islanders. They are within 300 miles of the mainland, after all, and they are 7,000 miles away from us geographically. I was grateful to Lord Garner for emphasising the extreme delicacy of the diplomacy needed to move forward on these lines. It is not enough to assert, not today; there is need to concert, to persuade, to attract into consensus. There is every need to be robust on principle and resilient on tactic. So far I think successive Governments have conducted these very difficult negotiations with reasonable success. The noble Viscount, Lord Montgomery, also made a plea for this co-operation, and so did a number of other speakers.
My Lords, I think the debate has been extremely useful in bringing out essential points on which I think this House, and I believe this people, are agreed. Again to quote the winding-up speech in another place—not that all the best speeches are made in another place—first, there will be no sell-out of the Islanders; secondly there will be an attempt to put into practice at least some of the recommendations made in this invaluable report, and there is no rejection of any of the recommendations; it is a matter of pace and of capacity. It is on that note I should like to end, thanking once more the noble Viscount for initiating this debate in a speech to which it was a pleasure to listen and which put the case so cogently and so effectively.
House adjourned at twenty-one minutes before ten o'clock.