Lords Sitting of 25 July 1977

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock: The LORD CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Chelmsford.

ANGLO-SOVIET MARITIME DISCUSSIONS
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNESIDE: 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 will make a Statement on the negotiations arising out of the recent visit of the Soviet Minister of Marine.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I can add nothing to the Answer which I gave to the noble Baroness on the 4th July. The next round of discussions with the Soviet authorities will take place in August.
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNESIDE: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for a gracious Answer without getting us much further, may I ask him whether, representing his Government and I hope, my Opposition as well, he thinks any real progress is being made, and if not, what the Government will do about it?
Lord ORAM: My Lords, as I indicated on 4th July, we made our position very clear during the talks that were held earlier this year, and we believe that the Soviets understand our position very much better. The fact that the new round of talks is to take place in August gives us some expectation that we can make progress on that occasion.
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNESIDE: My Lords, I suppose it would not be possible to say whether the Soviet Minister of Marine, who visited us here recently, is really on our side, having regard to what he said when he met some of us? Does the noble Lord think he is having some difficulty with his own Government, and would that not be a good thing?
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I expect Mr. Guzhenko rather regards himself as being on the Soviet side in these matters, but he accepted our aim that there should be a greater degree of parity between the carryings of the Soviet Union and of the United Kingdom. As I said earlier, I think that we put our position clearly to him, and he has taken note of it.
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNESIDE: My Lords, as the House will be in Recess, may I ask the noble Lord whether he will be kind enough to send me a letter about what happens in August?
Lord ORAM: Certainly, my Lords. The Recess continues rather a long time after the end of August, and I will certainly keep in touch with the noble Baroness on the matter.

RHODESIA: ANGLO-AMERICAN POLICY
Lord ALPORT: 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 will make a Statement on the present Anglo-American policy for achieving a negotiated settlement in Rhodesia.
The MINISTER of STATE, FOREIGN and COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (Lord Goronwy-Roberts): My Lords, with the leave of the House and with the noble Lord's agreement, I shall answer this Question by repeating, at a convenient moment after 3.30 p.m., a Statement on Rhodesia which will be made this afternoon by my right honourable friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary in another place.
Lord ALPORT: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord very much.

RAIL FARES: SCHOLARS' CONCESSION
2.40 p.m.
The Earl of KINNOULL: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the first Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question vas as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government why the policy of freezing of rail fares for the remainder of the year will not affect the declared intention by British Rail to double as from September the present fares charged to schoolchildren between 14 and 18 years.
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, these are both matters for the British Railways Board. It was a decision by the Board—and a very welcome one—not to make any further general increase in fares this year. It is also the Board's decision to keep to their planned withdrawal of the special concessionary half-rates scholars' season tickets at the end of this academic year.
The Earl of KINNOULL: My Lords, while thanking the noble Baroness for that reply, may I ask her whether she would agree that, of the tens of millions of pounds lost every year on the railways, there must be many hidden concessionary fares which are partly responsible? Would she not agree that it is somewhat heartless and insensitive to say to one group of travellers—that is, to child travellers—"Your fares will go up double in September while the rest of us enjoy a freeze until December"?
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, this decision has obviously proved unpopular with some parents, but it is the local authorities which have to pay for 90 per cent. of the tickets which are used by this age group of scholars. After allowing for the rate support grant, it would still cost local authorities between £300,000 and £400,000 a year. It was one of the submissions made to the Price Commission in the fares package. There were at the time no objections raised by the Price Commission. The British Railways Board think that this change will improve their finances by £1 million in a full year. It is a loss-making concession to a much greater extent than that made to students in full-time education, which really produces revenue for the railways.
Lord GAINFORD: My Lords, is there any possibility that this concession might be reinstituted if there is hardship
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to the persons who have been finding it advantageous?
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, that would be entirely a matter for the British Railways Board.
The Earl of KINNOULL: My Lords, would the noble Baroness agree that the Price Commission were consulted 12 months ago on this issue and that matters are very different now? Of all people, families are hit worst by inflation. Would she ask her right honourable friend to reconsider asking the railways either to stagger the increase or at least to delay it for three or four months?
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, the Government have no power to interfere with the British Railways Board in the judgments they make about the running of the railways. Neither, in the present financial position, can the Government offer any increase in subsidies in order to postpone this.

POST OFFICE PHILATELIC DEPARTMENT
2.42 p.m.
The Earl of KINNOULL: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what annual income is derived from the philatelic department of the Post Office, and how does it compare with that of other EEC countries, notably Germany.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, this is a matter for the Post Office, and if the noble Earl would write to the chairman he will give the fullest information he can.
The Earl of KINNOULL: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for the fact that I am having such luck this afternoon, but may I ask him whether he is aware that this department of the Post Office had a revenue of something like one-sixth that of Western Germany and many other countries? There is a

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feeling that this department is not as vigorous as it could be and is losing revenue accordingly.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, I was not aware of the disparity mentioned by the noble Earl. Perhaps he could discuss the matter with the chairman of the Post Office.
The Earl of KINNOULL: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord one other question regarding the way in which the choice of commemorative stamps is made? Can the noble Lord say whether, within the department, there is a board set up to make the choice, who is invited to serve on that board, and what evidence is taken from users and those interested as to what stamps should be chosen?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, in my unofficial capacity, I have heard of such a board and I understand that the Palace is involved. Again, the chairman of the Post Office will give the noble Earl a full picture.
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, is the noble Lord saying that the only information he has for my noble friend is that this is a matter for the Post Office? Is that all his brief says?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, this is a firm rule which I hope noble Lords will consider: the day-to-day management of nationalised industries is a matter for the nationalised industries.
Lord HALE: My Lords, can the noble Lord assist the House by elucidating what is the procedure when we want to know anything? Do we first put down a Question in this House, and are we then told to write to the chairman of the Post Office, or do we first write to the chairman of the Post Office and get told that he is not quite sure what is our interest in the matter, and will we identify ourselves and send documents? I regret to say that I lost my documents this morning at Victoria Station.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, my noble friend has a problem. I suggest that he reads the annual report of the nationalised industries and raises the matter on debate.
Lord CARRINGTON: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord the Leader of the House this question: The noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, is right in what he says about matters being for the day-to-day management of the nationalised industries. But I wonder whether we might devise some procedure in this House whereby we should save a lot of time by not allowing these Questions to be put on the Order Paper. To reiterate time after time that it is a matter for the nationalised industry in question is not only a waste of the time of the House, but of that of the Minister and the person who asks the Question.
The LORD PRIVY SEAL: (Lord Peart): My Lords, I will certainly take note of what the noble Lord has said.
Lord PARGITER: My Lords, would my noble friend agree that it should be possible, if a Member of this House puts down a Question which is for any one of the nationalised industries and there is doubt whether the Minister or the industry should answer, for the Minister concerned to forward it to the particular board and notify the Member accordingly?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, that is a procedure which I follow perhaps two or three times a week.
Lord AIREDALE: My Lords, did the Government refer this Question to the Post Office? Did the Post Office declare to the Government what this annual income amounts to? If they did, and if the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, knows, would there be any harm in letting the House know what this annual income is? May we have an answer?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, there is no harm. But the point is that it is something that really is a question for discussion between the noble Earl and the chairman of the Post Office. I certainly cannot speak for what the Germans earn.
Lord AIREDALE: My Lords, may we have the answer so far as it relates to the British Post Office? If the noble Lord knows the answer, may we have it?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: I was asked for the comparative figure, not the absolute figure.

BRITISH RAILWAYS ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
Considered on Report.
Then Standing Order No. 43 having been suspended (pursuant to Resolution of 13th July), Bill read 3a, and passed.

NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE BILL [H.L.]
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, I rise on behalf of my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor to say that I understand that no Amendments haw been set down to this Bill and that no noble Lord has indicated a wish to move a manuscript Amendment or to speak in Committee. Therefore, unless any noble Lord objects, I beg to move that the Order of Recommitment be discharged.
Moved, That the Order of Recommitment be discharged.— (Baroness Stedman.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Then, Standing Order No. 43 having been suspended (pursuant to Resolution of 13th July), Bill read 3a, and passed.

COAL INDUSTRY BILL
2.48 p.m.
Report received.
Clause 10 [Activities relating to minerals other than coal or petroleum]:
Lord SANDFORD Lord SANDFORD moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 8, line 6, at beginning insert ("Subject to subsection (1A) below,").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move this Amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Long and myself. Perhaps I should start by reminding the House of the stage we have reached on this Bill. In some respects particularly in respect of Clauses Nos. 1 to 8, one could say it was a normal Coal Industry Bill in that it increases the National Coal Board's borrowing powers and makes available a further range of grants. However, it is not all that normal because it increases the borrowing powers from £1,100 million to £2,600 million without further recourse to legislation. That in
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itself is significant enough, and on top of that it increases the grants available to the Board by anything from £325 million to £475 million, again without further recourse to Parliament.
We do not quarrel with that because that recognises the future significance of this large indigenous source of energy in an energy-hungry world. However, there are two abnormal features about this Bill, and both of them are wide extensions of the National Coal Board's operations, first, into the petro-chemical industry—that is dealt with by Clause 9—and into the mineral industry, other than coal and petroleum, which is dealt with in Clause 10.
On Committee, I moved and pressed an Amendment which would require the Board to secure approval of the Secretary of State before entering into the petrochemical field, and on Clause 10 we had a wide-ranging but inconclusive debate, in the course of which the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, gave a number of assurances which I was seeking for the mineral industry and which I welcomed. But I urged the noble Lord to do what he could before this stage to incorporate those assurances into the Bill. He undertook to do that. I know that he has given the matter thought, but he has not found it possible to incorporate the assurances into the Bill.
It is to this matter that we now need to return, but the proceedings at the Committee stage led me to suppose that there are two matters which I ought to deal with briefly by way of preliminary. The first is to make it quite clear that in moving these Amendments we are not expressing a general opposition to nationalisation. I certainly admit that my noble friends and I are not as fond of nationalisation as are some noble Lords opposite, but that is not what we are concerned with now. We have learned to live with nationalisation in the same sort of way as noble Lords opposite have learned to live with the private sector of industry and a mixed economy. But we are concerned to make the point that use of the wide powers that are now conferred by this legislation on the National Coal Board is not just a matter for the Board's own commercial judgment but requires the approval and sanction of the Secretary of State in his judgment of the national interest, and the approval of someone

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who is answerable to Parliament. As we have just heard, in no less than two of our four Questions, the Secretary of State is not answerable for the day-to-day management of the nationalised industries.
The second point I have to deal with was the contention from several noble Lords opposite that we could entirely rely on the exercise of the Minister's financial control over the National Coal Board, as with all other nationalised industries. Our point is that financial control is one thing and day-to-day management is another, but in this respect the Minister needs the kind of powers which have been conferred on him by Parliament on many occasions since the nationalisation of coal. In the first instance, he has a number of powers to direct the Board in addition to his financial control in Clause 3, and that is continued right up to 1981, and in Clause 7 he is given further powers of direction over the Board to discontinue or to restrict any of their activities, such as the ones we are talking about now. This is the context in which I want to deal with these Amendments—
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord. Will he tell us which Amendments he is speaking to? It would be useful.
Lord SANDFORD: My Lords, I am speaking to ail the Amendments at the moment, though, of course, I have moved only Amendment No. 1.
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, I do not think the noble Lord has yet sought the permission of the House. Will he tell me exactly which Amendments he is speaking to? For my part, I should be happy if he were to take Amendment No. 3, perhaps, with Amendment No. 1, if he wishes to do so; and then perhaps Amendments Nos. 2, 4 and 6. In my judgment, Amendment No. 5 is slightly different.
Lord SANDFORD: My Lords. I am grateful to the noble Lord. I was speaking and I will speak, if I may, for a few more moments to all the Amendments, describing the context in which we are considering them. I will then return more specifically to Amendment No. 1 and link it, as the noble Lord suggests, with Amendment
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No. 3. I would then suggest that we might subsequently return to Nos. 2, 4, 5 and 6. I shall be quite happy to say more about Amendment No. 5, if the noble Lord wishes, when we come to it.
Still speaking at the moment to Amendments Nos. 1 to 7, standing in my name, what I am seeking in this connection is the incorporation of assurances into the Bill—assurances which have been given at various earlier stages of the Bill by the noble Lord and his colleagues. I am doing this because the noble Lord has not so far been able or willing to do so. I am doing it not because we do not trust the assurances of the noble Lord or of his honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary, but we have to face the fact that they may not be in office for ever—or, indeed, for all that long. They cannot bind their successors and they do not control the day-to-day management of the nationalised industries. I would put it to the House that, as legislators, our duty is to ensure that, whenever possible, all significant factors relating to new legislation are written firmly into the Bill. That is what we should always be concerned to do, and that is what my noble friends and I are concerned to do now.
The only other preliminary point I have to make is that these points are significant enough to be incorporated in legislation. I believe that to be the case, and I shall just spend a moment or two seeking to show why. As I say, Clause 10 gives the National Coal Board the power:
"to work and get any minerals, other than coal or petroleum, which are discovered in the course of searching or boring for, or working and getting coal …".
Those are certainly very wide powers. Among the minerals most commonly or most likely to be encountered by the National Coal Board in those processes of searching and boring for coal are the bulk minerals such as whinstone, limestone and extensive deposits of sand and gravel. These, as well as providing a number of valuable raw materials for the steel and chemical industries, also provide the aggregates, the main sinews of the housing, building and construction industry. That is the aspect on which I shall concentrate almost entirely.
This industry is, as your Lordships know, currently working very far below

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capacity and its suppliers are therefore in considerable difficulties. If the industry is to survive and surmount these difficulties and to be in a position to continue to serve the construction industry, it must be assured of some sort of protection from intrusion into a very competitive and, at present, very vulnerable field from a body like the National Coal Board, coming, as it does, with an accumulation of advantages of the kind conferred upon it by this Bill, amounting, as I said just now, to no less than £325 million-worth of grants of various kinds. The lack of assurances for the industry in such a situation will cast its shadow ahead long before the National Coal Board actually uses these new wide powers and, in our view, it would soon begin to impair the ability of the mineral industry to raise funds on the market, to retain staff and to continue investment.
Although the Parliamentary Under-Secretary and the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, have shown their awareness of this danger—that is certainly true—and although they have given us assurances which go far to meet the anxieties of the industry, we have one further job to do, which is to give those assurances permanence and substance, and to do so by moving them into the Bill.
After those preliminaries, which I hope the noble Lord will feel were called for, I should like to turn specifically to Amendment No. 1 which I am moving, and Amendment No. 3 which is linked with it. These two Amendments do no more than incorporate in the Bill the suggestion made by the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, at the end of our Committee stage, as his way of giving more Parliamentary control over the approval of the Secretary of State than I had myself envisaged. There were some noble Lords, speaking at the Committee stage, who thought that it would not be sufficient for the approval of the Secretary of State to be given prior to the exercise of these powers, but that they should be subject to Parliamentary control as well. I move Amendment No. 1, and link with it Amendment No. 3, as a way of doing that, but more as a probing Amendment to get the reaction of the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, to his noble friend's suggestion, before I go on to move Amendment No. 2 and speak to the
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remaining Amendments with it. My Lords, I beg to move.
3.1 p.m.
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, I was waiting in case any other noble Lord wished to take part. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, for putting down these Amendments, because it gives the House an opportunity to consider this very important matter further. It also gives me the chance to spell out briefly the possible sequence of events if the National Coal Board decide that they wish to work a mineral under the powers to be conferred by Clause 10, and to consider these in the light of the proposals which the noble Lord has put down for amendment.
Assuming that they have discovered some deposit as a result of searching or boring for coal, the Board would first have to assess whether the project was likely to be economic. This would mean taking into account not only the size of the deposit, the ease with which it could be worked and the amount of investment that would be required, but also the current and prospective demand for that kind of mineral and the extent to which the demand was already being met. Assuming that the Board decided in the light of this assessment that the project was sufficiently attractive in commercial terms, they would have to go through further stages.
First, if the mineral was an aggregate—that is, sand, gravel or rock, such as limestone suitable for crushing—and if the date was within five years of the passing of the Bill, the Board would be obliged to honour the undertaking already given, and notify the representatives of the bulk minerals industry of their intention. If the industry was concerned about the impact on their business, they would make representations to the Board and there would be discussions between the parties. The Board would still have to secure the rights to work the mineral and, as I have already explained in Committee, the Board would be in no more favoured position than anyone else in this connection.
Of course, they would also have to secure planning permission in the normal way. The planning process itself allows for existing spare capacity in an industry

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to be taken into account before a decision on the application is taken. The Amendment proposes to add to this process that the Board must then put their proposal to work a surface mineral deposit—otherwise, of course, than in association with coal getting—to the Secretary of State. The Amendment does not itself make clear whether this is to be done before or after securing planning permission. The Secretary of State has then to make an order which is to be subject to Negative Resolution of either House.
The Amendment does not make any exception in the case of proposed projects. It might be that the bulk minerals industry would have raised no objection, and that the planning approval had been obtained without any questions about existing spare capacity being raised. But under the Amendment the Board would still have to go to the Secretary of State, who would still have to make an order, and Parliament would still have to scrutinise it. But I submit that this reference to Parliamentary scrutiny raises another question on the Amendment, of what considerations Parliament would take into account in deciding whether or not to seek the annulment of an order. Would either House be able to come to a decision without setting up Committees to take evidence from the National Coal Board and from the minerals industry, if there were objectors
The Amendment would apply, too, to all proposed working of surface minerals not in association with the getting of coal, however small. As has been said more than once, the National Coal Board are not expecting to utilise the power in Clause 10 to a significant extent to extract surface aggregates. The projects which they might wish to undertake could be quite small, and yet the Amendment would require them to be considered first by the Secretary of State, and then by both Houses of Parliament. I suggest that this would be a cumbersome procedure out of all proportion to the magnitude or significance of the likely use of the powers under Clause 10.
The noble Lord, Lord Sandford, spoke about lack of assurances. During the Committee stage, I explained the Government's and the National Coal Board's appreciation of the present difficulties
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through which the bulk minerals industry is passing. I said that neither the Government nor the Board has any wish to aggravate those difficulties. I repeated the assurances that had already been given in another place by my honourable friend, and I also repeated the assurances that had been given by me on Second Reading in your Lordships' House: in particular, that it was considered by both the Board and the Government extremely unlikely that the powers in Clause 10 would be used to a significant extent to excavate aggregates by opencast methods. I referred to the procedure for notification to representatives of the bulk minerals industry during the next five years, so that account can be taken of any continuing concern they may have before the Board embark on a surface minerals project not associated with the getting of coal.
In the light of the discussion in Committee, the Government have considered whether by means of amendment to the Bill, or in other ways, they can go further than this. I have to report that the Government's firm and considered view is that, together with the National Coal Board, they have gone a long way to reassure the bulk minerals industry, and that in the light of the assurances given it is surely unreasonable for the representatives of the industry still to be expressing concern. If they will read and weigh carefully what has been said, I think they will come to realise that their essential interests are not being assailed, that there is no risk of any significant loss of business to the National Coal Board, and that there are no grounds for fearing that Clause 10 will lead to any loss of business confidence. In the Government's view, therefore, it is unnecessary to make the exercise of the power in Clause 10 subject to the various changes proposed in the Amendment. I therefore hope that the noble Lord will withdraw the Amendment or, if he does not do so, that the House will not accept it.
3.9 p.m.
Lord LLOYD of KILGERRAN: My Lords, in view of the emphasis which the noble Lord. Lord Strabolgi, has placed on the fact that, as it seems to me, there will be no risk of loss of business in any circumstances whatsoever, I am encouraged to put to the noble Lord a question that

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was asked of me only on Saturday in the very far West of Wales. The news had percolated even there, that I had spoken briefly on Second Reading and at Committee stage on this matter. I was present at an historic occasion, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest, who is in his place, was also in Aberystwyth, when His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales was introduced as President of University College Wales, in the presence of his father the Duke of Edinburgh.
I was asked the following question about a farmer in Ceredigion, who struggles to wrest a living out of the land in very difficult conditions: "If a man had an interest in a gravel and sand excavation business and if he had been excavating gravel and sand for a number of years, would the Coal Board be allowed to come along and start boring near to that business to find out whether there was any coal there?"
May I ask the noble Lord the Minister whether he is able to give an assurance that where there is an active sand and gravel business in a rural area, particularly in West Wales, a limitation on boring will be placed upon land near to that business? If the Coal Board were to make borings for coal and found coal near to an active business, what would be their reaction in relation to that business and their application for planning permission? I ask this question, in view of the emphasis which the noble Lord has placed on the fact that there will be no risk of loss of business to any active gravel and sand operation. In parts of Wales there is anxiety that, in all honesty and sincerity, the Coal Board may come within a mile of an opencast gravel and sand working, find some coal and then wish to go into business. Surely an assurance ought to be given by the Minister that no exploratory boring for coal should be made within five or 10 miles of an active sand and gravel pit.
Baroness LEE of ASHERIDGE: My Lords, before the Minister replies to the question which has just been asked, I wonder whether he could explain to me why there is one law for private industry and another for the nationalised industries. Can the Minister explain why when coal was nationalised the Conservative Members of another place fought day and
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night to prevent the National Coal Board from expanding into profitable by-product industries? I am sure that the Minister is aware that miners feel deeply about the restrictions that were then placed upon the Board—just as, at that time, they felt that members of the Conservative Party managed to secure what many of us considered to be too high compensation terms. It looks as though the same story is being repeated all over again, in reverse. Apparently, there is to be a tender list, and protection is to be given to private industry that was never given to the nationalised industries. Is it not part of the philosophy of free enterprise that good competition is good for everybody and that if private business expands they will be great patriots and will probably help the export trade? If, on the other hand, a nationalised industry is likely to increase its profits, which in turn come back to the taxpayer, it seems that the most tender care must be taken to ensure that its activities do not encroach upon any possible profits that can be made for private industry. I am not advocating chaos. We want our industries, both private and public, to be properly organised. However, I should like to know why there is one law for private industry and another for nationalised industries.
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNESIDE: My Lords, before the Minister replies, may I put on record that I disagree with everything that the noble Baroness has said. It would be a pity if even that little statement on my part were not put into the record. I have no intention of going into all the answers, although I know them very well. Naturally, the noble Baroness believes in nationalisation and I think that she would like to extend it. I do not believe in nationalisation. When people read debates they do not take quite so much notice of them as they would take of an Act of Parliament. I hope that when the noble Lord replies he will remember that I do not agree with the noble Baroness. I should like certain things to be put into the Bill so that, when people are interested enough to find out, they can look at what is contained in the Act instead of having to look at what either I or the noble Baroness have said.
Baroness GAITSKELL: My Lords, may I intervene for a moment, because I cannot stay until the end of the debate.

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Is this not the usual reaction of noble Lords opposite when there is the slightest hint of the sweet smell of profits for the nationalised industries? Their reaction is not new; it has always been the same. The moment that there is the chance of a nationalised industry doing anything that will show a profit, the noble Lords opposite are against it.
Viscount MASSEREENE and FERRARD: My Lords, if the nationalised coal industry cannot make a profit out of coal, it is extremely unlikely that they will make a profit out of gravel and sand.
Lord DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I hope that the noble Lord will tell his noble friend Lady Lee of Asheridge that one reason why nationalised industries are different from other industries is because public money has to be voted for them and that the National Coal Board was set up specifically to deal with coal. This was the purpose of the Act. I do not want to develop the argument. We are not saying, as the noble Baroness, Lady Gaitskell, appears to suggest, that the coal industry should not do this under any circumstances; only that they should require the permission of the Secretary of State before they do it. That is the purpose of the first Amendment which we are discussing.
I should like the noble Lord to be a little more specific about what he has said. He has spoken as though this were a question of only surface minerals. That is not what the Bill says. It states in Clause 10 that:
"The Board shall have power—(a) to work and get any minerals, other than coal or petroleum, which are discovered in the course of searching or boring for "—
I am not concerned at the moment with the words "working and getting"—
"coal".
That would not necessarily imply surface working. In the course of boring, the Board might discover other minerals, not just aggregates. If that were so, surely it would be imperative that the approval of the Secretary of State should be obtained. Nor are we saying in these Amendments that the approval of Parliament has to be obtained. It is made subject
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to the Negative Resolution procedure. In other words, it is tacit approval if it is not opposed. Therefore the kind of consideration which the noble Lord has in mind does not apply. It might conceivably apply if there were a Negative Resolution and if, in the course of the debate, it were shown that all of the considerations had not been taken into account. Then it might be said that a committee ought to be set up if the House so decided, and it would certainly be highly desirable that further consideration should be given to the question in one form or another.
I do not think the noble Lord has made a comprehensive case against this Amendment. If it were a minor matter there is no doubt the approval would be easily given. If the noble Lord says, "At what stage should it be given?" I should think the prudent thing would be for it to be given before the request for planning permission, because from that there arise other considerations altogether. But under this Amendment it does not really matter at what stage it is given. No doubt it would be for the Government to lay down when the Secretary of State would consider this matter and give his approval. So I do not think the noble Lord has made a case at all. In the first place, he has made it on the basis that this would relate only to surface minerals, whereas it might relate to other things: it might relate to uranium or lead or even precious metals if they happen to be found in the course of boring. That being so, it seems to me imperative that the Secretary of State should be involved in a matter which obviously concerns the national interest.
Lord LEE of NEWTON: My Lords, it seems to me that we are again rehearsing some of the discussions that we had at the Committee stage. In the main I should have thought there were very few minerals or other materials which are found, or even looked for, below the level of the coal measures; in other words, we go through most minerals and other materials, such as sand, gravel, et cetera, while we are looking for coal. The noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, raised an interesting point when he asked whether, when a gravel or sand pit was functioning, the Coal Board should be barred from sinking a shaft within a certain distance. Some of the greatest tragedies in the coal

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industry in this country have arisen because the shafts were sunk in the wrong places. That has caused literally hundreds of deaths. Therefore, I should have thought that one must look at that angle. I see the noble Lord's point clearly. As I think we all agreed in Committee, nobody wants the Coal Board to interfere with a successful enterprise which is doing a good job of work. On the other hand, if we are to prohibit the Coal Board from sinking its shafts in the best places the accident rate will rise.
I have made the point that coal is probably in the lowest measures that we ever drill in this country and it follows that on many occasions other types of minerals, and so on, will be found. I may be wrong, but in the days when I had something to do with this work I believe there had never been a geological survey of Britain. We did not know what was below the surface and when we were boring for coal we came across other things.
Supposing the Coal Board are putting a bore through, as indeed at the Selby coalfield which is now going to be developed, and supposing they come across extensive reserves of sand or gravel, are they really going to be prohibited from moving that sand or gravel or anything else they come across until all the procedures of the inquiry are complete and planning permission is obtained? Are they going to be held back in the exploitation of some of the biggest coal reserves that Britain has, at the very moment when we are all convinced that there has to be a wide expansion of our coal production if we are to surmount the energy crisis which is upon us?
I do not want to see, any more than the noble Lord opposite does, any deviation of the Coal Board from their main purpose, especially if it is going to disrupt any other industries, but I do ask that the Coal Board will not be disrupted either, because the odds are that they will work far more in that direction than in the other. I should have thought that what my noble friend has said about co-operation and discussions as between the Coal Board and other industries is a very good way of beginning the operation. I am sure the noble Lord does not want to hold up vital developments at Selby and at other coalfields which are now to
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be developed while the argument and discussion goes on, possibly for months and even years, before the Caol Board are permitted to exploit a very fine reserve which has now been discovered. For these reasons I hope the noble Lord will not press the Amendment.
Lord SANDFORD: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lee of Newton, because I think his remarks have moved the discussion into the area where we on this side of the House certainly wanted it to be. While those thoughts are before us, I should like to confirm that we are not seeking to prohibit, or even greatly to restrain, the exploitation of minerals by the National Coal Board, but just to regulate the conditions of competition in which it is done and, furthermore, to do it in the terms which the noble Lord has suggested by the assurance that he has given. What we are seeking to do is to incorporate those assurances into the Bill.
Before I go on to say what I propose about Amendment No. 1, perhaps I might say to the noble Baroness, Lady Lee of Asheridge, that certainly private industry thrives on competition but one only has to look at this particular Bill to see how unfair competition with the National Coal Board would be, in view of the fact that by this Bill alone they are accorded grants of between £325 million and £475 million. That is not the kind of thing that comes the way of private industry. That is why one has to adopt—
Baroness LEE of ASHERIDGE: My Lords, I must take the noble Lord up on that point, because a great deal of public money is now also going to private enterprise.
Lord SANDFORD: For these reasons matters have to be regulated and we are not in the position of a purely free market economy. The noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, was invited to reply to various noble Lords, but in fact it is my Amendment and I have to reply to this particular debate. No doubt, the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, will answer those noble Lords who asked him questions in whatever way he sees fit. I do not feel that it is my job to do that.
Turning specifically to Amendments Nos. 1 and 3, having listened to the noble

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Lord I am persuaded that to introduce the Negative Resolution procedure of Parliamentary control on top of the approval by the Secretary of State would probably be cumbersome in this particular case, and I would prefer to rest matters on requiring the approval of the Secretary of State without this procedure when we reach Amendment No. 2. I tabled Amendments Nos. 1 and 3 because I felt I owed it to the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, who had intervened in our Committee stage debate in such a helpful way, but having listened to what the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, had to say I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
3.28 p.m.
Lord SANDFORD Lord SANDFORD moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 8, line 6, after ("power") insert ("subject to the approval of the Secretary of State").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I have spoken to this Amendment already so there is not a great deal more to be said, except to confirm that in moving Amendments Nos. 2, 4, 5, 6 and 7 we are not seeking to do any more than to incorporate in statutory and legal form what the Minister and his noble friend Lord Strabolgi have said in so many words in the course of the assurances that they have given on this Bill. Amendment No. 4 incorporates the assurances which the noble Lord gave at columns 121, 122, 124 and 125 of the Official Report, at the Committee stage. It requires the Minister to be the judge of the demand on the mineral industry, to consult with the Secretary of State for the Environment, and to come to his view as to what is commercially reasonable and in the national interest. That being so, it seems inappropriate to have in line 21 the terms
"which in the opinion of the Board is calculated to facilitate the proper exercise of their powers"
because we are asking the Secretary of State to come to that judgment; and that is the reason for Amendment No. 5.
Amendment No. 6 incorporates what the noble Lord has more than once said about the notification procedure. He spoke as though this procedure was prescribed somewhere, but of course it
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is not; all we are seeking to do is to prescribe it in the Bill, and this is what we have done. I am not conscious of having added anything at all to the assurances that the noble Lord gave, only of having incorporated them in the Bill. I hope that the House will feel that Amendments Nos. 2, 4, 5, 6 and 7, all hang together and that we need not have separate debates upon each one of them: but, of course, if noble Lords have any further questions about the details of each individual Amendment, I shall be happy to try to answer them. I beg to move Amendment No. 2.
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, I should like to deal first with Amendment No. 2, and to explain why this Amendment achieves nothing of significance beyond what is already on the Statute Book. Under Section 1 of the Coal Industry Nationalisation Act 1946, the National Coal Board is charged with certain duties relating to the mining and supplying of coal. Nothing in this Bill, let alone this clause, derogates from those duties; and nothing in this clause enables the Board to undertake anything which could interfere with its performance of those duties.
Secondly, controls over the Coal Board's activities already exist through agreed procedures governing its planned expenditure. Every year, the Coal Board provides to the Government its survey of its plans and forecasts for the industry during the following five years. This is discussed between the Department of Energy and the National Coal Board; and ministerial approval is subsequently sought for the level of capital expenditure, broken down into mining and non-mining activities, to be undertaken by the Board. This arrangement has a formal basis in the Coal Industry Nationalisation Act. Section 3(2) of that Act states that:
"In framing programmes of reorganisation or development involving substantial outlay on capital account, the Board shall act on lines settled from time to time with the approval of the Minister."
If and when the National Coal Board plans to invest in operations for extraction of other minerals, the sums involved will be included in its five-year forecasts and the Secretary of State and his Department will be able to discuss with the Board the nature and extent of the proposed

753
operations. The sums involved will then be included, provided that the Secretary of State is satisfied with the Board's plans, in the maximum level of capital investment that the Board may undertake in the following year.
Another statutory provision bearing on this Amendment is the power included in Sections 6 and 7 of the Coal Industry Act 1971, passed by the Conservative Government, which enables the Secretary of State to call for a report by the Board on its non-colliery activities and to direct the Board to discontinue or restrict any of its activities or to dispose of any assets, provided that the activities or assets are not necessary to the discharge of its duties. I should emphasise that I do not foresee the situation arising where this power might need to be used, but nevertheless it remains on the Statute Book and helps to make this Amendment unnecessary.
A third statutory provision bearing on the Amendment is that all borrowings by the Board and by its wholly-owned subsidiaries count against the statutory borrowing limits. The Board's borrowings from the National Loans Fund are controlled by the Government, and the Board's borrowings from other sources, and its power to lend to subsidiaries and its power to provide financial guarantees, are subject to the controls set out on pages 12 and 13 of the Bill. So much for Amendment No. 2, which, I submit, is not necessary.
With regard to Amendment No. 4, to which the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, was also speaking, as I have already explained, the Government do not think it necessary to go beyond the extensive assurances already given. This particular Amendment would require the Secretary of State, before giving approval to the Board to go ahead in the case of projects as defined in the Amendment, to have regard to the overall demand on the capacity of the mineral industry.
In the course of the Committee stage, I said that the Government and the National Coal Board recognised that the bulk minerals industry was currently working well below capacity. I have said so again this afternoon. I added that it was implicit in the assurances already given that, while demand for aggregates remained well within the capacity of the industry, the Board would not use the
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powers under Clause 10 to any significant extent in working surface aggregate minerals otherwise than in association with the working and getting of coal. Therefore, I submit that these two Amendments are not necessary.
3.37 p.m.
Lord DRUMALBYN: My Lords, the most puzzling thing about what the noble Lord has said is that, given the powers and the duties that the Coal Board already have, it remains difficult to see why this additional power should be required at all. They are given power to deal with these minerals which they may discover in the course of boring, searching, working and the getting of coal. Can the noble Lords say why it is now necessary to provide this power at all, and in what circumstances that power is going to be exercised? He has been busy explaining how unlikely it is that the power will be exercised. Then why at this moment apply for powers for the purposes concerned? I find that very puzzling, and very difficult to understand. I hope the noble Lord will be able to answer on that.
I think it is very important to realise the distinction between powers and duties. This certainly does not give the Coal Board any duty to work minerals other than coal; it merely gives them a power to do so. The question we are concerned with is whether this should be an unfettered power or whether it should be subject to the control of the Secretary of State. The noble Lord says in reply that of course it is subject to the control of the Secretary of State because the capital plans have to be approved. If that is so, it seems to me extremely difficult to see why the board are applying for the power at all; but if they do apply for the power it seems to me to be necessary to have the approval of the Secretary of State. This is what the noble Lord has not really answered. He is merely saying that the capital investment applications will have to be approved, but he is not saying that particular exploitation in particular parts will require the approval of the Secretary of State, which, if I understand it correctly, is what this Amendment seeks.
Lord SANDFORD: My Lords, I do not think there is really all that much between us. I have not asked the noble

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Lord to go beyond the assurances which he has already given, and which for my part I regard as almost entirely adequate; at any rate not far from being adequate. He has reiterated and somewhat expanded an account of the procedures that he envisages will be used. He has reminded us of the powers of direction over the Board which were given to the Minister in the original Act of 1946 and in Sections 6 and 7 of the Coal Industry Act 1971, one of which is specifically concerned with these diversified activities. He has also confirmed yet again the power that the Minister exercises over the borrowings of the industry and over their five-year plans.
All of that is very useful and we are
grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, for it. However, he has not said why this cannot be incorporated in this piece of legislation, because that is what is needed to give these assurances permanence and substance. I do not think that there is any need to pursue the matter further. We are grateful for the assurances. All that we are seeking to do is to incorporate them in the Bill, and Amendment No. 2 is the first of a batch of Amendments which does that. I beg to move.
3.40 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 2) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 105; Not-Contents, 58.

CONTENTS

Abinger, L.

Donegall, M.

Monk Bretton, L.

Addison, V.

Drumalbyn, L.

Montgomery of Alamein, V.

Airedale, L.

Effingham, E.

Mottistone, L.

Aldenham, L.

Elles, B.

Mowbray and Stourton, L. [Teller.]

Alexander of Tunis, E.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Alport, L.

Emmet of Amberley, B.

Moyne, L.

Amherst, E.

Falmouth, V.

Newall, L.

Amory, V.

Foot, L.

Northchurch, B.

Amulree, L.

Gladwyn, L.

O'Neill of the Main, L.

Atholl, D.

Grey, E.

Rankeillour, L.

Avebury, L.

Hawke, L.

Redmayne, L.

Avon, E.

Hives, L.

Romney, E.

Balfour of Inchrye, L.

Home of the Hirsel, L.

Sackville, L.

Banks, L.

Hornsby-Smith, B.

St. Aldwyn, E.

Belstead, L.

Howe, E.

St. Davids, V.

Birdwood, L.

Hunt of Fawley, L.

Salisbury, M.

Blake, L.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Sandford, L.

Boyd-Carpenter, L.

Inglewood, L.

Sandys, L.

Byers, L.

Ironside, L.

Selkirk, E.

Camoys, L.

Jessel, L.

Sharples, B.

Carr of Hadley, L.

Kemsley, V.

Strathclyde, L.

Carrington, L.

Kintore, E.

Strathcona and Mount Royal, L.

Cathcart, E.

Lauderdale, E.

Strathspey, L.

Chelwood, L.

Lloyd of Kilgerran, L.

Sudeley, L.

Clitheroe, L.

Long, V.

Swinton, E.

Clwyd, L.

Loudoun, C.

Thomas, L.

Cornwallis, L.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Thorneycroft, L.

Craigton, L.

McFadzean, L.

Trefgarne, L.

Cranbrook, E.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Tweedsmuir, L.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Malmesbury, E.

Vivian, L.

Daventry, V.

Marley, L.

Wade, L.

Davidson, V.

Massereene and Ferrard, V.

Wakefield of Kendal, L.

de Clifford, L.

Mersey, V.

Ward of North Tyneside, B.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Middleton, L.

Ward of Witley, V.

Derwent, L.

Monck, V.

Young, B.

NOT-CONTENTS

Ampthill, L.

Bruce of Donington, L.

Clancarty, E.

Ardwick, L.

Buckinghamshire, E.

Collison, L.

Aylestone, L.

Burton of Coventry, B.

Cooper of Stockton Heath, L.

Boston of Faversham, L.

Caradon, L.

Crowther-Hunt, L.

Bowden, L.

Castle, L.

Davies of Penrhys, L.

Brimelow, L.

Champion, L.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Douglas of Barloch, L.

Maybray-King, L.

Shepherd, L.

Douglass of Cleveland, L.

Murray of Gravesend, L.

Snow, L.

Gaitskell, B.

Pannell, L.

Stamp, L.

Gordon-Walker, L.

Pargiter, L.

Stedman, B. [Teller.]

Goronwy-Roberts, L.

Parry, L.

Stewart of Alvechurch, B.

Hale, L.

Peart, L. (L. Privy Seal)

Stow Hill, L.

Hankey, L.

Phillips, B.

Strabolgi, L.

Henderson, L.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Ilchester, E.

Popplewell, L.

Wallace of Coslany, L.

Janner, L.

Ritchie-Calder, L.

Wells-Pestell, L. [Teller.]

Leatherland, L.

Roberthall, L.

Winterbottom, L.

Lee of Newton, L.

Sainsbury, L.

Wise, L.

Listowel, E.

Samuel, V.

Wynne-Jones, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.

Resolved in the affirmative, and Amendment agreed to accordingly.

RHODESIA: ANGLO-AMERICAN POLICY
3.50 p.m.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I rise to repeat a Statement on Rhodesia which is now being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary. The Statement is as follows:
"As the House knows, I visited Washington over the weekend, primarily to discuss the Anglo-United States peace initiative for achieving a negotiated settlement in Rhodesia. I spent nine hours in discussion with Secretary Vance and one and a half hours with the President.
"Mr. Vance and I have agreed to meet again in London around 11th and 12th August. Meanwhile, detailed work will continue with a view to putting forward specific Anglo-United States proposals to all the parties.
"We are all agreed that the situation in Rhodesia is potentially so serious that the Anglo-United States initiative, despite all the difficulties, should continue and that we should do all that we can to bring about an independent non-racial Zimbabwe after a fair election and on the basis of universal suffrage. Peace can only come from agreement between those people, black and white, who will be living together in an independent Zimbabwe."
My Lords, that completes the Statement.
Lord CARRINGTON: My Lords, it is customary to thank the Government for repeating a Statement of this kind, but at this particular juncture I find this a not
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very informative Statement. Even allowing for the difficulties of timing, which I accept, I think that the House ought to know a little more than simply to be told that this is "potentially so serious" a situation that we must press for a solution and that:
"Peace can only come from agreement between — black and white".
There has been some criticism of the decision by Mr. Smith to hold an election at this time. I should have thought that that was about the only thing he could do, as his own political position is such that if he is to negotiate it is necessary for him to get a mandate. I very much hope that if Mr. Smith—as I imagine he will—gets an overwhelming mandate from his electorate, he will use that mandate to negotiate a reasonable settlement, because I agree with the Government that this situation is very serious indeed.
The Statement is unsatisfactory in the sense that Parliament is adjourning at the end of this week for three months and we shall have no opportunity to know what the Government's proposals are, or, indeed, to debate them. We have no idea what the Government are proposing in their new initiative. Would it be possible at any rate for the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, to give us some indication, first, as to whether or not it is proposed that there should be a General Election or an election of some kind in Rhodesia? One of the factors which strikes most of us as curious is that no one has yet asked the people of Rhodesia what they want. If there is to be an election, on what franchise will it be held and how will it be organised?
Secondly, could the noble Lord tell the House whether the Government still propose that there should be an amalgamation, as I understand it, of the present Rhodesian security forces and the guerrilla

759
forces of the Patriotic Front into a new security force? That is a question which needs an answer if there is to be any solution in the future.
Lord GLADWYN: My Lords, I, too, should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, for repeating the Statement, although, as the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, said, it is rather an unsatisfactory one. Parliament is adjourning for three months without knowing anything at all of the Government's intentions or what is likely to happen while we are in Recess.
I trust that the Anglo-United States proposals will be formulated as soon as possible, in fact, immediately after the next meeting with Mr. Vance, and I hope that once they have been formulated we shall unhesitatingly pursue them and continue to pursue them to the limit of our ability. I assume that the proposals, whatever they are, will contain recommendations for elections on the basis of one man, one vote. If that is not so, the Government will be abandoning much of what they have already said.
If that is so, and as I think the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, hinted, does not much depend on the result of the election that Mr. Smith will hold on his own account in Rhodesia?—because if he emerges triumphant from that election, he and his régime would be the only people who could possibly organise any direct elections on the basis of one man, one vote. If he does not organise them, no one will. If the extremists, for instance, turn him out, as they may, they will not heed any advice from the British and the Americans—of course they will not. Therefore, the Anglo-American plan would presumably have to be put into effect by some kind of external means, which seems very difficult. What is much more likely, I fear, is that we should have to await the development of the situation, the collapse of the régime and the almost inevitable tribal war which would then follow. In the event, therefore, of things getting seriously out of hand and a terrible situation arising, would the Government consider recalling Parliament?
3.57 p.m.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I wish to thank both noble Lords
760
for their gratitude, however muted, for this Statement and, in the circumstances, for their forbearance. The noble Lord, Lord Carrington, referred to Mr. Smith's mandate. No doubt that will be evaluated by everybody, including black Rhodesians, for what it is worth. The noble Lord, Lord Carrington, and the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, referred to the fact that this juncture in the discussions between us and our American friends happens when both Houses of Parliament are on the point of rising. That is undoubtedly a difficulty; it is inevitable.
As to the specific point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, certainly in this, as in any other matters where a position of real emergency arises, the normal channels of consultation about early recall would no doubt be resorted to. The noble Lord, Lord Carrington, asked me about the kind of General Election that we look forward to in Rhodesia and the basis of the voting. In answer to his point I shall quote the Statement which, in this respect at least, is very informative. It says:
"… after a fair election and on the basis of universal suffrage".
I believe that that answers his point. As to the "amalgamation of forces", as he called it, there will have to be some changes in the Rhodesian security forces during the transitional period. The question of how they should be reorganised has been one of the most difficult issues. But no decisions have been taken—I repeat, no decisions have been taken—and we acknowledge that the whole question is one that requires detailed negotiation.
Lord HOME of the HIRSEL: My Lords, if we must assume, as I think we must, that the franchise for a constitutional settlement will consist of one man, one vote—and the noble Lord has made that clear—will he recognise that precise proposals for security, both internal and external, then become of absolute importance if there is to be a multiracial society in Rhodesia? Will the Secretary of State therefore, between now and 11th August and indeed after that, give the closest consideration to the possibilities of the organisation of the security force? Can he say what the next stage will be when the Secretary of State and Mr. Vance have finally made up their minds

761
on matters, including the security proposals? Will this then be put to the Rhodesians, and certainly to Mr. Smith and Dr. Muzorewa?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I very much welcome Lord Home's intervention on a point which I know my right honourable friend will instantly agree with. It is clearly of the utmost importance that the transitional stage, involving elective procedures, should be properly secured. As to the second point he put, may I quote the second part of the second paragraph of the Statement again:
"Meanwhile, detailed work will continue with a view to putting forward specific Anglo-United States proposals to all the parties".
Lord ALPORT: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord three things. First, will the Government hear in mind the paramount importance of the necessity that, when their plan is issued, it is in sufficient detail to carry conviction among Europeans and Africans in Rhodesia, and also to make clear what, if any, part of it is negotiable? Secondly, will the Foreign Secretary remember that he has already undertaken that no party to the present situation there will be entitled to a veto as to the participation of any other party in any proceedings that take place subsequent to the present negotiations? Will he make certain, too, that when the plan is issued it is issued with the full authority of the United States and British Governments, and that every effort is made to ensure that it is known and understood in Rhodesia itself via the various channels of communication available to us, so that the people can understand the full implications and, not as so often in the past, be led astray by casual interpretations by vested interests within Rhodesia?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I shall take the last point first. Certainly full publicity and explanation of whatever proposals emanate finally from the Anglo-United States initiative will be necessary, and I think I can give the undertaking that this will be done. As to the point the noble Lord made that such proposals should be seen to carry the full authority of the two Governments, our Government and that of the United
762
States, they have been engaged for some time, as the House knows, in detailed and close discussion precisely on this point. One would naturally expect that when the proposals are finalised they will be put forward with the full authority of the two Governments. Indeed, the presence of the American President, perhaps somewhat unusually in this kind of diplomatic context, is I think an indication of the intention of the American Government to play a full part in the preparation and the presentation of these proposals.
As to the second point made by the noble Lord, that there will be no veto by one party to the presence of another, I would entirely agree. We seek the widest possible representation of Rhodesian opinion at the time when any proposals that emerge are put to the peoples of Rhodesia, of Zimbabwe. It may be that we can improve upon the width and the length of the spectrum that emerged for the Geneva Conference where certain elements among the white Rhodesians were not represented.
The first point referred to the need for these proposals to be in sufficient detail. This, I think, explains the reason why these discussions have continued, as they have, for some weeks and may yet continue for a considerable time. I do not anticipate that there will be an outcome which might place Parliament at a disadvantage chronologically about discussing them, or indeed, short of a new real emergency, necessitate the course suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn. But in answer to the noble Lord, Lord Alport, on that point, Yes: we hope the proposals will be in sufficient detail to comprise a working solution by agreement of this problem.
Lord HANKEY: My Lords, on a previous occasion the noble Lord was so good as to say that he would consider with the Foreign Secretary the possibility of sending some sort of representative to Rhodesia. Is it not a pity, in view of the tremendous issues now at stake, and of the absolute necessity for agreement, to which the noble Lord has drawn attention, that we do not have any representatives, so far as I am aware, in Rhodesia? Do we rely on an American representative, or are we hoping to deal with this at arm's length? The Foreign Secretary having taken so much trouble about contacting

763
everybody, is it not a pity that we should start this most complicated negotiation at such a disadvantage? Would it not really be worth sending now a representative of some sort, under whatever title, to Rhodesia, to advise the Government how to handle the matter?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I shall take note of what the noble Lord has said, not for the first time. We do not rule out this suggestion for implementation at the appropriate moment. I can assure him that we have not been disadvantaged so far by the arrangements we have for contact and consultation in Rhodesia. But I repeat that we do not rule out such a proposition.
Lord CARADON: My Lords, would it be suitable at this moment for all of us perhaps to join together in welcoming the fact that the drift which has been going on for so long in regard to Rhodesia is not to continue, and to welcome the decision of the Government, in close cooperation with the United States, to take a new initiative on a basis which now gains increasing support? Is it not to be noted from what has been said even today that there is agreement that there must be a new Constitution; that there is agreement that there must be a full and free election on a full adult suffrage, and that we therefore have certain principles and purposes which I believe are fully agreed on both sides of the House and throughout the country?
But there is one main and perhaps central difficulty to which we should perhaps address special attention, which is the difficulty of transition. From the first it has seemed to many of us that there must be an independent authority for the period of transition to see the thing through, to see a new Constitution prepared, and the elections carried out in a way which can be satisfactory to all. I have thought, and many of us have thought for a long time, that it should be an independent authority. I should have thought originally it should be a British authority. It could be another independent authority. It could be a Commonwealth authority, or a United Nations authority. But I trust—in fact I am sure—that the Government, in carrying a great deal of support on the purposes
764
which are now to be achieved, will give their earnest attention to the necessity of making it clear, both to the illegal régime and to the Africans concerned, that there is an independent authority to see this thing through to full independence on the basis of free elections.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I think that my noble friend's point about the need for authoritative guarantees that the crucial period of transition will be seen to a successful outcome is yell taken. I think it links with the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Home, about the need for security on the spot to buttress any movement forward to independence through a transitional stage. I have no doubt at all that Her Majesty's Government, and my right honourable friend in particular, will take full note of what has been said by the two noble Lords.
I welcome what the noble Lord, Lord Caradon, speaking as he does with very considerable authority, has said about the possibilities. We rule out no option in regard to the way to secure authoritatively a position of security on the spot. What he said is part of the consideration now continuing. I very much welcome what he said about this Statement as marking perhaps a pause or stop in the drift which this very difficult and dangerous situation seemed to many to be taking. The fact is that there has been and is very close consultation between us and the Americans as to the best way to move forward, and consultation also with the peoples of Southern Africa and in even wider fields.
Lord CARRINGTON: My Lords, perhaps I may put one more question to the Minister. I agree with the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Caradon; the transitional period is essential, as are the arrangements for the election, to see that it is held fairly. I quite understand that the Minister may not be in a position at this moment to tell us the details of the Government's proposals. As I said earlier, that puts us in some difficulty as Parliament is adjourning for three months. Did I understand the noble Lord to say in one of his earlier answers that this did not matter very much because he did not think anything would emerge for three months before Parliament resumes?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, is of course entitled to translate my remarks in the way he thinks fit. I was responding to the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, by saying that we have been engaged for some weeks in close consultation with our American friends; speaking personally, I see this going on for at least a few weeks more. It may well be that, chronologically speaking, the difficulty he raised may not happen, but beyond that I do not think it would be reasonable for me to go.
Lord LEE of NEWTON: My Lords, reverting to the point about Parliament recessing for three months without the Parties knowing precisely what the proposals are, may I ask my noble friend to agree that perhaps the country would feel more easy on this issue if it was known that some arrangements had been made? Perhaps a collection of appropriate Privy Councillors could be brought together if things should turn on a point which may divide the Parties here. It would, I think, he of some assistance if the country, in the absence of Parliament, knew there was machinery as between the Parties if things should go wrong.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: That would certainly be a matter for judgment, my Lords, according to the way things moved. I repeat that, subject to the situation as it has been reached, all these options about consultation with Parliament will be instantly studied. I do not think it is necessary for me to go beyond that. We are all aware of the arrangements
that can be made, if necessary, for a recall of Parliament for a purpose that is an emergency.

COAL INDUSTRY BILL
4.12 p.m.
Report stage resumed.
[Amendment No. 3 not moved.]
Lord SANDFORD Lord SANDFORD moved Amendment No. 4:
Page 8, line 17, at end insert—
"( ) Where the Board intend to exercise their powers under this section to work and get minerals by means of open-cast operations otherwise than in association with working and getting coal, the Secretary of State shall not give his approval under subsection (1) above unless he is satisfied, after consultation with the Secretary of State for the Environment and having regard to the overall demand on the capacity of the mineral industry, that the exercise of such powers by the Board would be commercially reasonable and in the national interest".
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I have spoken to this and all subsequent Amendments except No. 8 and, unless any noble Lord has further questions relating to it which I can deal with, I propose to move it formally.
4.13 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 4) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 109; Not-Contents, 59.

CONTENTS

Abinger, L.

Clwyd, L.

Glasgow, E.

Addison, V.

Cornwallis, L.

Greenway, L.

Aldenham, L.

Craigton, L.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L.

Alexander of Tunis, E.

Cranbrook, E.

Alport, L.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Hankey, L.

Amory, V.

Daventry, V.

Hawke, L.

Atholl, D.

Davidson, V.

Hives, L.

Avon, E.

de Clifford, L.

Home of the Hirsel, L.

Balfour of Inchrye, L.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Hood, V.

Belstead, L.

Derwent, L.

Hornsby-Smith, B.

Berkeley, B.

Donegall, M.

Howe, E.

Blake, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Hunt of Fawley, L.

Boyd-Carpenter, L.

Ebbisham, L.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Broadbridge, L.

Eccles, V.

Inglewood, L.

Camoys, L.

Effingham, E.

Jellicoe, E.

Carr of Hadley, L.

Elles, B.

Jessel, L.

Carrington, L.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Kemsley, V.

Cathcart, E.

Emmet of Amberley, B,

Killearn, L.

Chelwood, L.

Erroll of Hale, L.

Long, V.

Clancarty, E.

Falmouth, V.

Loudoun, C.

Clitheroe, L.

Gainford, L.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

McFadzean, L.

Newall, L.

Stamp, L.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Noel-Buxton, L.

Strathclyde, L.

Malmesbury, E.

Northchurch, B.

Strathcona and Mount Royal, L.

Mancroft, L.

Orr-Ewing, L.

Strathspey, L.

Marley, L.

Rankeillour, L.

Stuart of Findhorn, V.

Massereene and Ferrard, V.

Redmayne, L.

Sudeley, L.

Merrivale, L.

Robbins, L.

Swinton, E.

Mersey, V.

Romney, E.

Teynham, L.

Middleton, L.

Sackville, L.

Thomas, L.

Monck, V.

St. Aldwyn, E.

Trefgarne, L.

Monk Bretton, L.

St. Davids, V.

Trenchard, V.

Montgomery of Alamein, V.

Salisbury, M.

Tweedsmuir, L.

Mottistone, L.

Sandford, L.

Vivian, L.

Mowbray and Stourton, L. [Teller.]

Sandys, L.

Ward of North Tyneside, B.

Selkirk, E.

Ward of Witley, V.

Moyne, L.

Sharples, B.

Young, B.

NOT-CONTENTS

Ampthill, L.

Fletcher, L.

Phillips, B.

Ardwick, L.

Gaitskell, B.

Pitt of Hampstead, L.

Aylestone, L.

George-Brown, L.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L.

Bacon, B.

Gordon-Walker, L.

Popplewell, L.

Birk, B.

Goronwy-Roberts, L.

Ritchie-Calder, L.

Blyton, L.

Hale, L.

Sainsbury, L.

Boston of Faversham, L.

Henderson, L.

Samuel, V.

Bowden, L.

Janner, L.

Segal, L.

Brockway, L.

Leatherland, L.

Shepherd, L.

Bruce of Donington, L.

Lee of Newton, L.

Snow, L.

Buckinghamshire, E.

Listowel, E.

Stedman, B.

Castle, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.

Stewart of Alvechurch, B.

Champion, L.

Lovell-Davis, L.

Stow Hill, L.

Chorley, L.

Maybray-King, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Collison, L.

Murray of Gravesend, L.

Thomson of Monifieth, L.

Cooper of Stockton Heath, L.

Oram, L. [Teller.]

Wallace of Coslany, L. [Teller.]

Davies of Penrhys, L.

Paget of Northampton, L.

Wells-Pestell, L.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Pargiter, L.

Winterbottom, L.

Douglas of Barloch, L.

Parry, L.

Wynne-Jones, L.

Douglass of Cleveland, L.

Peart, L. (L. Privy Seal.)

Resolved in the affirmative, and Amendment agreed to accordingly.
4.22 p.m.
Lord SANDFORD Lord SANDFORD moved Amendment No. 5:
Page 8, line 21, leave out from ("which") to ("to") and insert ("is necessary").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 5. Again, this is a case where I have spoken to the Amendment and explained that the Amendment which makes the exercise of these powers by the National Coal Board subject to the approval of the Secretary of State makes the wording in line 21, which relates to the opinion of the Board, inappropriate, and I hope that the noble Lord will agree that in view of the two decisions that the House has just taken the Amendment can be accepted. I beg to move.
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, I should like to say a few words at this stage because the Amendment is, I agree, loosely linked, but there are other aspects
768
to it, and some rather important reasons why I am to suggest to the House that it should not be accepted. No doubt unintentionally, the Amendment appears to call into question the competence, or the good faith, of the National Coal Board in exercising its judgment. The fact is that it is the Board which has to decide to what extent to enter into transactions to facilitate the proper exercise of its powers under the clause. There is no escaping that. And, in fact, surely the Board is likely to be in the best position to judge just which activities it is appropriate, or advisable, to carry on under the relevant subsections of the clause. Who, otherwise, is to be the judge?
It is important to bear in mind, too, that the wording of subsection (2) of Clause 10 follows that of subsections (2) and (3) of Section 1 of the 1946 Nationalisation Act. That Act has stood the test of time, and I suggest that it would be unwise to depart from the kind of wording that it has become customary to use in defining the powers of, not only the National Coal Board, but of other

769
statutory corporations. Another reason why I submit that the Amendment should not be accepted, but will, I hope, be withdrawn, is that Clause 9 of this Bill includes identical wording to that now proposed for deletion in connection with a related activity. Correctly, to my mind, noble Lords opposite chose not to move an Amendment to delete that wording. It would, I suggest, be very anomalous if the Bill were to leave this House, this revising Chamber, with an alteration to the same wording in Clause 10 which it is thought fit to leave alone in Clause 9. For all those reasons, I hope that the Amendment will be withdrawn.
Lord SANDFORD: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for making that point, which I agree has some validity. Certainly the retention of the original words, though I think inappropriate, will not do any harm, as we have now secured that the whole business of whether or not these powers should be exercised is, at the end of the day, subject to the approval of the Secretary of State. I agree with the noble Lord that there is something to be said for consistency between the two clauses. In view of that situation, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord SANDFORD Lord SANDFORD moved Amendment No. 6:
Page 8, line 23, at end insert—
(" ( ) Within the period of five years beginning with the day on which this Act shall come into force, where the Board intend to exercise their powers under this section to work and get minerals by means of open-cast operations otherwise than in association with working and getting coal, the Board shall notify such organisations representative of the mineral industry as appear to the Board to be likely to have an interest in such operations, and shall consider any representations made by those organisations as a result of such notification; and the Secretary of State shall not give his approval under subsection (1) above unless he is satisfied that the Board have taken into account any such representations.")
The noble Lord said: My Lords, Amendment No. 6, like Amendment No. 4, seeks only to incorporate in Clause 10 the assurances which the noble Lord and his right honourable friend have given at various stages of the Bill with increasing
770
emphasis. This Amendment is concerned with the undertaking to notify the mineral industry, to listen to its representations, and for the Secretary of State to be satisfied that those representations have been taken into account. Unless any other noble Lord has any questions on this matter, I simply beg to move.
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, as I explained during the Committee stage and have repeated today, an undertaking has already been given by my honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy that if, during the five years from the passing of the Bill, the Board planned, using the power under Clause 10, to embark on a project for the extraction of bulk minerals not in association with the working and getting of coal, the Board would notify the Sand and Gravel Association and the British Quarrying and Slag Federation, so that there could be discussion about any points of concern to them.
I venture to suggest that this is a very reasonable and, in fact, a handsome, undertaking. I remember, too, the words about nationalised industries and the attitude to them of noble Lords opposite, which were used by my noble friends Lady Lee of Asheridge and Lord Lee of Newton. I wonder how many concerns in the private sector, which sought to widen the scope of their memoranda of association, would give a similar undertaking to other commercial interests? Here is an undertaking given, not on the spur of the moment, but on full consideration by the Government, in both Houses of Parliament, with the entire agreement of a statutory Corporation—one of the most important statutory Corporations in this country and, indeed, in the world—the National Coal Board. It is not given idly. There is very little more I can say, beyond recommending to your Lordships that this totally unnecessary Amendment should not be accepted.
Lord SANDFORD: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for repeating those assurances with such emphasis. We are well satisfied with them. All that the Amendment seeks to do is to incorporate them into the Bill, which I am sure we as legislators must do, because they are of such significance.
4.29 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 6) shall be agreed to?
Resolved in the affirmative, and Amendment agreed to accordingly.
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 118: Not-Contents, 61.

CONTENTS

Abinger, L.

Eccles, V.

Middleton, L.

Addison, V.

Effingham, E.

Monck, V.

Adeane, L.

Elles, B.

Monk Bretton, L.

Aldenham, L.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Montgomery of Alamein, V.

Alexander of Tunis, E.

Emmet of Amberley, B.

Mottistone, L.

Alport, L.

Erroll of Hale, L.

Mowbray and Stourton, L. [Teller.]

Amory, V.

Exeter, M.

Arran, E.

Falmouth, V.

Moyne, L.

Atholl, D.

Gainford, L.

Newall, L.

Auckland, L.

Glasgow, E.

Northchurch, B.

Avon, E.

Greenway, L.

Orr-Ewing, L.

Balfour of Inchrye, L.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L.

Rankeillour, L.

Barnby, L.

Robbins, L.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Hankey, L.

Romney, E.

Belstead, L.

Hawke, L.

Sackville, L.

Berkeley, B.

Hives, L.

St. Aldwyn, E.

Birdwood, L.

Home of the Hirsel, L.

St. Davids, V.

Boyd-Carpenter, L.

Hood, V.

Salisbury, M.

Camoys, L.

Hornsby-Smith, B.

Sandford, L.

Carr of Hadley, L.

Howe, E.

Sandys, L.

Carrington, L.

Hunt of Fawley, L.

Selkirk, E.

Cathcart, E.

Ilchester, E.

Selsdon, L.

Chelwood, L.

Inglewood, L.

Sharples, B.

Clitheroe, L.

Jessel, L.

Strathclyde, L.

Clwyd, L.

Kemsley, V.

Strathcona and Mount Royal, L.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Killearn, L.

Strathspey, L.

Cornwallis, L.

Kinross, L.

Stuart of Findhorn, V.

Craigton, L.

Kintore, E.

Sudeley, L.

Cranbrook, E.

Lauderdale, E.

Swinton, E.

Croft, L.

Long, V.

Teviot, L.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Teynham, L.

Daventry, V.

Lyell, L.

Thomas, L.

Davidson, V.

McFadzean, L.

Trefgarne, L.

de Clifford, L.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Trenchard, V.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Malmesbury, E.

Tweedsmuir, L.

Derwent, L.

Mancroft, L.

Vivian, L.

Digby, L.

Marley, L.

Wakefield of Kendal, L.

Donegall, M.

Massereene and Ferrard, V.

Ward of North Tyneside, B.

Drumalbyn, L.

Merrivale, L.

Ward of Witley, V.

Ebbisham, L.

Mersey, V.

Young, B.

NOT-CONTENTS

Ampthill, L.

Goronwy-Roberts, L.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L.

Ardwick, L.

Hale, L.

Popplewell, L.

Aylestone, L.

Hanworth, V.

Ritchie-Calder, L.

Bacon, B.

Henderson, L.

Roberthall, L.

Birk, B.

Heycock, L.

Sainsbury, L.

Blyton, L.

Houghton of Sowerby, L.

Segal, L.

Bowden, L.

Janner, L.

Shepherd, L.

Brockway, L.

Lauderdale, E.

Spens, L.

Bruce of Donington, L.

Lee of Newton, L.

Stamp, L.

Buckinghamshire, E.

Listowel, E.

Stedman, B.

Castle, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.

Stewart of Alvechurch, B.

Champion, L.

Loudoun, C.

Stow Hill, L.

Chorley, L.

Lovell-Davis, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Clancarty, E.

Murray of Gravesend, L.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Collison, L.

Noel-Buxton, L.

Thomson of Monifieth, L.

Cooper of Stockton Heath, L.

Oram, L. [Teller.]

Wallace of Coslany, L. [Teller.]

Davies of Leek, L.

Paget of Northampton, L.

Wells-Pestell, L.

Davies of Penrhys, L.

Pargiter, L.

Winterbottom, L.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Parry, L.

Wynne-Jones, L.

Douglas of Barloch, L.

Peart, L. (L. Privy Seal.)

Douglass of Cleveland, L.

Pitt of Hampstead, L.

4.37 p.m.
Lord SANDFORD Lord SANDFORD moved Amendment No. 7:
Page 8, line 26, at end insert—("and the Opencast Coal Act 1958.")
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Amendment is consequential on the previous Amendment, incorporating the words on the Marshalled List in line 26 because of the content of the previous Amendments, and I hope that the noble Lord will feel that, if the others are to be in the Bill, this one should be as well. I beg to move.
Lord STRABOLGI: Yes, my Lords, I agree that this is a consequential Amendment, following the others which have already been pressed and carried.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord SANDFORD Lord SANDFORD had given Notice of his intention to move as Amendment No. 8:
Leave out Clause 10.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Amendment was tabled merely to guard against the eventuality that, at the end of the day, the noble Lord would say that he would like to take the clause away and introduce another in another place; but, as matters have not turned out that way, I do not propose to move it.
Then, Standing Order No. 43 having been suspended (pursuant to Resolution of 13th July), Bill read 3a, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.

LOCAL AUTHORITIES (RESTORATION OF WORKS POWERS) BILL
4.38 p.m.
Report received.
Clause 1 [Restoration of powers conferred by certain orders]:
The PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY of STATE, DEPARTMENT of the ENVIRONMENT (Baroness Birk)The PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY of STATE, DEPARTMENT of the ENVIRONMENT (Baroness Birk) moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 1, line 6, at end insert ("which are specified in the Schedule to this Act and").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, with the leave of the House I shall move Amendment No. 1 and speak at the same time to Amendment No. 3. At the Committee stage, as your Lordships will recall, I expressed sympathy and support for the view put by the noble Lord, Lord Sandys, that we should seek to simplify the Bill, and do this by including a Schedule listing the 25 authorities covered by the Bill. This Amendment fulfils that undertaking. At the time, I said that I would consider it only to make absolutely sure that, by doing this, it would not in any way make the Bill hybrid. I am sure that it will be of considerable benefit to those who refer to this measure in the future, because it will save them from having to refer to three orders under the Local Government Act 1972 in order to find out which authorities have been affected. I think that this is an improvement, and I am glad that it has been drawn to my attention. I beg to move.
Lord SANDYS: My Lords, from this side of the House we warmly appreciate the care with which the noble Baroness has set out this Schedule to the Bill, and we believe that it is both an improvement and a simplification. It is of course a matter of regret that there is no provision for the relinquishing of powers by these authorities. Nevertheless, we acknowledge what the noble Baroness has achieved by these two Amendments.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 6 [Separate accounting]:
Baroness YOUNG Baroness YOUNG moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 3, line 25, leave out ("and").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, this is a paving Amendment for Amendment No. 4. The House will recall that, at an earlier stage of the Bill, we debated at length putting in the CIPFA recommendations on accounting systems for these 25 local authorities. That having been agreed by the Committee, it was necessary to make a consequential amendment to the Long Title of the Bill. These two Amendments are designed to achieve that. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Baroness BIRK Baroness BIRK moved Amendment No. 3:
After Clause 7, insert the following new schedule:
("SCHEDULE
LOCAL AUTHORITIES TO WHICH SECTION 1 REFERS

The Borough Council of Barrow-in-Furness.

The Borough Council of Blackburn.

The Borough Council of Bolton.

The City Council of Bristol.

The Borough Council of Burnley.

The City Council of Cardiff.

The City Council of Derby.

The Borough Council of Gateshead.

The Borough Council of Grimsby.

The City Council of Kingston upon Hull.

The City Council of Lincoln.

The City Council of Liverpool.

The City Council of Manchester.

The City Council of Newcastle upon Tyne.

The Borough Council of North Tyneside.

The City Council of Plymouth.

The Borough Council of Rotherham.

The Borough Council of Scunthorpe.

The City Council of Sheffield.

The Borough Council of South Tyneside.

The City Council of Stoke-on-Trent.

The Borough Council of Stockport.

The Borough Council of Sunderland.

The City Council of Swansea.

The Borough Council of Wigan.")

On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Baroness YOUNG Baroness YOUNG moved Amendment No. 4:
In the Title, line 1, leave out from ("to") to end of line 4 and insert ("restore certain powers conferred on certain district councils by certain orders made by virtue of section 254 of the Local Government Act 1972; to impose certain financial duties; and for connected purposes.")
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Then, Standing Order No. 43 having been suspended (pursuant to Resolution of 13th July), Bill read 3a, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.

"DEVELOPMENTS IN THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES: THE UNITED KINGDOM PRESIDENCY"
4.43 p.m.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS rose to move, That this House takes note of Developments in the European Communities: The United Kingdom Presidency (Cmnd. 6887). The noble Lord said: My Lords. I beg to move the Motion which stands in my name on the Order Paper. Debates on the six-monthly White Papers on developments in the Community have
776
become a regular feature of the business of this House. This occasion is different: some might say unique, because, for the first time, I have to present to your Lordships a White Paper covering a period in which Britain has held the Presidency of the Council of Ministers. Where there have been Council meetings it is we who have chaired them; where there have been Presidency initiatives it is we who have taken them. Our involvement in the Community's achievements and in its undoubted difficulties has thus been a double one as President and partner, and that much more intimate in consequence.
However, the uniqueness of the occasion can be overstated. The Government's objectives for the Presidency were in fact modest. We decided from the start not to set ourselves grandiose targets for the building of Europe." The Community is today far too complex for any Presidency in six months to bring about a great leap forward.
We therefore decided to aim to conduct the Community's affairs with despatch and objectivity, preserving a proper balance between our national interests and our Presidency obligations, tightening up procedures where we could and providing an example of efficient management. We recognised that much of the business which would come before the Community during our Presidency would either be inherited from our prodecessors or dictated by events over which we had no control. Consequently, the scope for control by the chair would be limited to a modest application of the brake or of the accelerator. We set our ourselves, therefore, few concrete policy objectives. The objectives we have pursued we would no doubt have pursued had we not been in the chair: for example, changes in the Common Fisheries Policy; an agricultural price fixing which discouraged surpluses; an attack on unemployment; the completion of work on some useful internal Community measures already in hand, such as standardising motor vehicle requirements and the arrangements for levying VAT. We also looked forward to developing the Community's external relations: in the North/South dialogue and in the co-ordination of Community business and political co-operation, and to giving a sensible lead in the Community's approach to its own enlargement.
These objectives were the background to the keynote speech which Mr. Anthony Crosland delivered to the European Assembly in its first session during the United Kingdom Presidency. Barely a month later that great man was dead. There has not I think been enough recognition of the remarkable way in which my right honourable friend the present Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary took over at very short notice the major role of presiding over the Foreign Affairs Council in these difficult circumstances, doing so smoothly that there was barely a jolt in the conduct of the Council's business.
We took the chair in a Community whose basic common policies had evolved to a stage demanding serious re-examination or major new development: for example, the Common Agricultural Policy, the mechanism of Community finance and fisheries. A new range of common policies were also in the stage of discussion and construction, for example, energy and certain types of joint action in the economic field. And, finally, this was a Community poised somewhere between two enlargements, that from Six to Nine, and the prospective step from the Nine to something more. Quite apart from the continuing discussions on further enlargement itself, this perspective made it harder than ever to envisage the Community as something self-sufficient and closed to the outside world. There was plenty to be done in managing and developing therefore both the external relations of the Community as such, and the separate framework of political cooperation.
In this opening speech today I should like to review, briefly, the concrete progress that has been achieved in areas like these. I shall be dwelling less on the more general and polemical issues that have been aired in the media and other public discussions of our Presidency. These are legitimate questions, and I shall be very surprised if they are not raised later in our debate. I should be still more surprised if I do not refer to those criticisms when winding up the debate. But to assess our Presidency purely in such terms would do far less than justice to the patient, detailed labour it has involved for so many Ministers and officials all through Westminster and Whitehall, and
778
it would do less than justice also to the valuable if sometimes unspectacular progress that has been made as a result.
I mentioned, first, the Common Agricultural Policy. The annual price-fixing fell within the six months of our Presidency. It was completed perhaps rather later than normal, but it also started late because there was a new Commission. There is, anyway, plenty of room for argument over what is normal and what abnormal in this particular field. The important thing is that the common price rise was held down to 3½ per cent., the lowest since the United Kingdom accession. And it was part of a package which was the best, in consumer terms, for many years, which marked our determination to continue fighting for the reforms that are so necessary in this most traditional and elaborate of European common policies, the Common Agricultural Policy. Such reform is not a selfish British interest. It is logical, and indeed essential, if the Community is ever to find ways of discouraging in-built surpluses and protecting consumer interests while assuring a decent return to efficient farmers.
The financial machinery of the Community has been evolving ever since its inception and is now ripe for major change. From 1980, the plan is to go over to fully automatic own-resources financing, to supplement the two existing resources (customs duties and agricultural levies) by a third drawn from a notional rate of VAT. Quite separately, it is proposed in 1978 to introduce a new market-based European unit of account. Preparations for these changes have been in hand for some years, but reached a particularly crucial stage during our Presidency. We were able to achieve one very important step towards the goal in the form of agreement on the VAT Sixth Directive, which will harmonise the VAT base throughout the Community and thus open the way for collecting the third "own resource". Valuable progress was made, too, on the other necessary revisions of the financial regulation. But, as your Lordships know, there are political as well as technical issues involved in this area. British Ministers have made it quite clear, for example, that we cannot agree to the regulation introducing the European unit of account into the budget until and unless we receive satisfaction

779
on the question of how this will affect our budget contributions in 1978 and 1979; and that turns on the interpretation of Article 131 of the Treaty of Accession.
Compared with agriculture and the budget, the Community's policy on fisheries is a recent creation and consists at present largely of a number of guiding principles, rather than concrete policies and measures. Precisely because it is still in a formative phase, we have to make sure it is built up in a way that fully recognises our special position and special interests. But in spite of the inevitable difficulties this involves—which partly arise from the fact that a start was made before United Kingdom membership—a good deal in the way of agreed foundations have been laid in the last six months. Member States have concerted action to extend their fishery limits in the North Atlantic and North Sea to 200 miles, with a Community system of licensing for fishing by third countries.
The Community went on to begin and, in some cases, complete negotiations on arrangements with all the interested parties; these included the Soviet Union, Poland and the German Democratic Republic, who are now negotiating with the Community, as such, for the first time. The publicity given to reactions to the United Kingdom ban on herring fishing at the end of the Presidency period should not be allowed to overshadow the progress made by agreement on other conservation measures, and the rest of the useful groundwork that has been done for a future internal régime. This was, in any case, a non-discriminating conservation measure supported by the Commission and taken on the basis of scientific advice. It has now been made a Community measure. The Community has still to address itself seriously to the central problems of the internal régime; this is an area requiring particularly concentrated attention in coming months.
In the energy field, we stand at the very beginning of a common policy. Here, too, the United Kingdom has something very special to offer, and we were able to take the opportunity of our Presidency to provide for wide-ranging discussions on such themes as refining problems, the world energy market, nuclear questions, the development and protection of energy
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investments and the general issue of conservation. Among measures adopted was a programme of Euratom loans for financing nuclear power stations, and the extension of a scheme for helping intra-Community trade in coking coal.
Economic and monetary union has been a preoccupation since the earliest days of the Common Market, but in spite of such basic achievements as the customs union there are still many aspects of the problems where more time has been spent on discussion blueprints than on laying concrete foundations. Britain has devoted much energy since Accession to arguing the apparently simple proposition that it is the foundations which must come first; that is, that the primary task is to establish a basic minimum of economic convergence. the logic of this approach is widely recognised now, and during our Presidency two European Councils have focused their attention on how the Community should be tackling the immediate and related problems of growth, inflation and unemployment. At their second meeting in June, Heads of Government were already able to note the first fruits of the appeal for more effective and co-ordinated use of Community instruments which they issued in March. The Social Affairs Council had agreed on the main lines for reviewing the Social Fund, and would be meeting in the autumn to consider action to deal with unemployment among young people and women; Governments and the social partners had held a constructive discussion at the Tripartite Conference; the European Investment Bank had adopted a programme for extending and intensifying its activities; and the Commission had come forward with a proposal on investment and borrowing in the Community. These are all themes for further work and development in the coming months; there is every reason to hope that the results will not only contribute to the ultimate aim of economic convergence, but will bring very real benefit to ordinary men and women throughout the Community.
I turn now to our achievements in external matters, and political co-operation. Perhaps, they do not need much advertisement. Ever since Accession, the special contribution Britain can make in these areas has been universally recognised. During the Presidency, we have continued to give a lead in the construction

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of an outward-looking Community, united and constructive in its dealings with other world Powers and organisations, and generous and far-sighted in its relations with the developing world.
Among specific steps forward, I might mention the influential and positive role the Community was able to play at the CIEC and UNCTAD; the successful meeting of the Second Joint ACP/EEC Council which reaffirmed the Lomé tradition with all it stands for; the speedy establishment of a good working relationship with President Carter's Administration; the signature of the Mashraq agreements completing the network of agreements with Mediterranean countries; the arrival on 1st July of virtually free trade between the EEC and EFTA: and the progress made in developing relations with interlocutors as varied and important in their different ways as Japan and the countries of the CMEA.
Political co-operation has brought the Community to the Belgrade Review Conference on the CSCE with a comprehensive, consolidated position; has brought the full weight of the Nine behind the search for peaceful solutions in Southern Africa; has helped the Nine to co-ordinate policies over the Cyprus dispute and to carry forward their dialogue with the Arabs. This busy and fruitful area of joint activity was fittingly crowned by the joint statement on the Middle East issued at the June European Council.
Each of the events and achievements I have mentioned so briefly represents a tremendous amount of detailed preparation, and of time and trouble expended at every level from Ministers downwards. We have tried throughout the process to conduct business efficiently and promptly, giving a clear steer whenever necessary to help matters forward. I think it very significant that, whatever else commentators at home and abroad may have said about our Presidency, none of them has given us less than full credit for our conduct of business and our influence on the Community's working procedures. This is the heart of the matter.
In the long term, our Presidency will be judged by the very practical criterion of how many bricks we have added to the collective enterprise of building Europe. And I think it will be seen that where the
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result was dispute and disagreement, it was because the conditions for a firm common position did not yet exist: because we refused to be a party to making bricks without straw. It will also be seen that our Presidency achieved important progress in a number of fields, and set an example of efficiency and forthrightness. Our management both of Council business and of political cooperation has been described as technically perfect. Above all, I believe that the United Kingdom's Presidency in the first six months of the year was marked by a proper relation of national interest and Community obligation. I beg to move.
Moved, That this House takes note of Developments in the European Communities: The United Kingdom Presidency (Cmnd. 6887).—(Lord Goronwy-Roberts.)
5.5 p.m.
Baroness ELLES: My Lords, I should first like to express our gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, for having given us a review of developments within the Communities during the United Kingdom's Presidency. There is, of course, on this side of the House considerable agreement on many of the aspects on which he touched, and we should certainly like to join with him in congratulating and thanking all those officials in all the Ministries concerned—and, presumably, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, in particular—for the way in which the mechanisms of this Presidency have been handled. I would certainly confirm that on all sides we have heard nothing but good words for the technical detail, and the way in which the meetings, agendas and so on have been prepared. With this I would certainly agree. We would also agree that one does not expect spectacular matters to occur the whole time, but that the on-going processes of the Community should be encouraged and dealt with as efficiently and speedily as possible, without necessarily rushing things to a possibly unsatisfactory conclusion.
But as the noble Lord himself said, there are certain matters within the six months' review which are polemic and which, as Opposition spokesman, I naturally feel it is my duty to raise before your Lordships this afternoon. First, I should like to say that on 1st January 1977 we could have

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had a day of hopeful optimism for the 67 per cent. of the British population who believe that it is in the best interests of the British people to remain within the European Community. Then the United Kingdom had for the first time a President of the Commission, a British Chairman of the Economic and Social Committee and, above all, the Presidency of the Council of Ministers for the coming six months which ended on 30th June.
This unusual combination of British chairmanships could have been a great opportunity for Britain: first, to show willingness to co-operate in European Community affairs to influence constructively and contribute to the furtherance and development of Community policies; secondly, to carry on in the spirit in which Mr. Crosland so ably started the Presidency of the United Kingdom, when he made what has become a famous speech in the European Parliament in January of this year, which noble Lords will recall was universally acclaimed in this House at the time, and said that a great deal of Community spirit would be needed during the coming six months if events were to proceed smoothly and success was to be achieved; thirdly, to make a positive contribution following a stagnant period in Community affairs, after the holding of the referendum, and, fourthly, to endorse wholeheartedly the words of Mr. Anthony Wedgwood Benn, when he wrote in the Tribune—and his letter is worth quoting—
"Having campaigned so long to win for you the right to have a referendum, I am proud to serve in a Government that has promised that the final decision will be made by all the electors through the ballot box. The whole nation and all political Parties are divided on the Common Market question. We must respect the sincerity of those who take a different view from our own. We should all accept the verdict of the British people whatever it is, and I shall certainly do so".
Whether or not he has done so is open to considerable question. One can only quote from the speech of Mr. Jenkins as President of the Commission, when he spoke in Glasgow on Friday, 1st July, and said:
"No one any longer expects us to be a rich country, but with an almost touching faith they still hope that we will be consistent and reliable. It is exactly this store of remaining national credit which the false democrats who first demanded and now deny the referendum seek to undermine".
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No more comment is needed by me to show which way we are thinking and the way in which the United Kingdom Presidency is judged to have been carried out over the last six months.
To be fair—the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, has outlined several of these matters—there are fields of policy where certain welcome initiatives have been taken. Progress has been made over association agreements with Mediterranean countries. This progress is vital for the development of good relations between Europe and other parts of the world. Also, there has been a continued and concerted effort to reach a satisfactory policy at Belgrade in preparation for the review of the Helsinki Final Act which is to take place in October. Then a common position has resulted in a joint Statement on the Middle East, which again is of vital importance to a possible peaceful solution in that area of the world. Initiative has also been taken on all aspects of foreign affairs and matters external to the European Community.
Without putting too fine a point upon it, it is perhaps surprising that no common stand has been taken or publicly considered in relation to the foreign policy of the United States Administration. I am referring in particular to Mr. Carter's speech in May of this year. I should have thought that considerable significance and importance ought to be attached to that speech by the Member States of the European Community, but I have seen no formal statement by the Council of Ministers on the forign policy of the United States; nor did I find anything in the White Paper which is before your Lordships' House upon which I could comment regarding that country's foreign policy.
There are two other aspects which are worth mentioning. In the White Paper there appears to be no reference to the European Community's delegation to China, which I believe is in China at the moment. Surely this is a matter of considerable importance so far as relations with China and prospects for the further development of commercial and trade relations with that country are concerned.
What has happened during our Presidency? The Session of the European Parliament opened with that stirring speech of Mr. Crosland which included in

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particular his statement regarding direct elections. For those who do not understand the attitude of the present British Government and who believed that "perfidious Albion" was an historical terminology rather than one which is still relevant today, what are we to believe with regard to the way that our Presidency has been conducted in many of the fields which are under review? Do the reactions of other Member States to the way they have been carrying on and the immense resentment caused by the kind of tactics which have been used by certain Ministers during our Presidency never concern the Government? The Government should be aware of the immense harm, both in the short and the long term, which has been done by the way in which they have behaved. Their behaviour will affect decisions which are to be made as well as those which have been made during the past few months. It is not surprising that Community reaction to the United Kingdom Presidency has been unfavourable and that co-operation may well be minimal when the main subjects under regular discussion—and, indeed, of greater significance—are energy, agriculture, fisheries, employment, the environment, social security and, recently, direct elections. One does not need to emphasise to your Lordships that the Ministers responsible for these matters happen to be Mr. Benn, Mr. Silkin, Mr. Booth, Mr. Peter Shore, Mr. Orme and Mr. Michael Foot. What do these gentlemen have in common? We know, of course, that in another place they all voted on 7th July against the principle of direct elections.
To take agriculture, the tactics of the Minister of Agriculture during the negotiations over the farm price proposals caused not only immense resentment but also, as has been pointed out by our Commissioner, Mr. Tugendhat, an increase in cost to the European taxpayer—from £104 million to £417 million—and the creation of more surpluses. This was an opportunity to bring about the much needed reform of the Common Agricultural Policy. Everybody agrees that the CAP is not perfect; everybody agrees that it needs to be reformed. At that time we had an opportunity to make a contribution, but the Government—including, of course, Mr. Benn—continued to decry the CAP. Naturally, they have taken no measures to inform the public
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that the CAP is not the cause of the rise in food prices. During the campaign at Grimsby, Mr. Foot took the opportunity to inform the electorate of Grimsby that prices, unemployment and inflation were all caused by Britain being a member of the Common Market. Happily, the White Paper puts the record straight. I refer to Annex 3 on page 17 where we read at the foot of paragraph 1:
"The resulting average increase in food prices in the United Kingdom was estimated at one-third of one per cent. in the period to April 1978".
Surely the fact that the United Kingdom belongs to the European Community and benefits from the CAP ought to be shouted from the housetops. When food prices as a whole went up by 84·4 per cent. during the period February 1974 to March 1977, and by 21 per cent. alone during the last 12 months, surely it is relevant that we can say that, thanks to being members of the Community, those foods which are affected by the CAP will go up in price by only one-third of one per cent. over the next year. Mrs. Shirley Williams, who must have official sources for her statement, said in a speech on 1st July that the cost of food due to the CAP had risen by only a maximum of 2 per cent. which, in the case of the Retail Price Index, meant an increase of only ½ per cent. Surely this is something to be proud of, not to decry.
Why is it that we always hear the Government decrying the effects of Britain being a Member of tile Community? The advantages of our membership of the Community ought to be broadcast in order to put the housewife right. When one sees that opinion polls show that 50 per cent. of the housewives of this country believe that food prices have gone up because Britain is a Member of the Community, one feels that it is up to the Government to say that they have risen not because Britain is a member of the Community but for other reasons. The Government can use which reasons they like—I do not mind which—but they should state that it is not membership of the Community which has caused the rise in food prices.
Similarly with energy, because of the capital investment of European Community funds which will be involved, is it surprising that there is reluctance to site JET at Culham? This reluctance by European Community members to

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invest for the future in Britain has, on the other hand, not hindered the payment of about £1,500 million in loans and about £500 million in grants to the United Kingdom over the last four years. These payments will continue to be made, regardless of the attitude of this Government. These are sums which have come out of various funds which have been established within the Community. At this point, I should like to pay particular tribute to Lord Thomson of Monifieth, who was largely responsible, by his courage, perseverance and persistence, for the establishment of the Regional Fund from which we have benefited and from which we are continuing to benefit.
The noble Lord has mentioned the question of the convergence of our economies. The convergence of the economies of the Community countries is referred to frequently throughout the White Paper, but of course it has not been forthcoming. On the contrary, the increasing disparity between our rates of inflation and those of other Member States is very marked. In the United Kingdom it is about 17·1 per cent., whereas in Germany it is only 3·8 per cent., and in France about 9 per cent. Surely the very statistics quoted show that it is not the Community which has caused the economic situation of this country to be so drastic. The responsibility for the state of prices, inflation and unemployment in this country rests fairly and squarely on the shoulders of the present Government because of their economic, fiscal and commercial policies.
Finally, I should like to say a few words about direct elections. To most of us, direct elections should be, and are, an inspiration that the people of this country and of the eight other Member States will be represented by members of their own choice in the only forum which is available to all these people for the outlet of their needs, aspiration and opinions. We see it as essential for the European people to have this opportunity to choose whom they wish to send to the European Parliament. But direct elections have become a form of political semantics in this country. We only have to take the last paragraph of the White Paper now before your Lordships' House, to see that and, although I shall not go
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into a lengthy analysis of every single word, I should like to pick out one or two things which strike me as being a new form of political semantics. The last sentence on page 31 says,
"In common with other Member States we have taken steps to provide for direct elections…"
It does not say that every other Member State already has its legislation in draft ready to be ratified, if it has not already ratified the Convention of 20th September 1976. It does not say that we are the only country which is not ready for elections in 1978 or, indeed, that it is almost impossible for us to be ready by that date.
Another curious statement which has been made, admittedly not in the White Paper, but nevertheless providing an interesting study in semantics, was this: the Liberal and Labour pact which was reported in The Times on 24th March of this year stated,
"We agree that legislation for direct elections to the European Assembly in 1977 will be presented to Parliament in this Session".
Since when has the phrase "legislation will be presented" to a Parliament not meant that that legislation would be completed during that Session? This is a new definition of the word "presented" and we are now warned that when the Liberals and the Labour Party refer to presenting legislation to Parliament it does not necessarily mean that they have any intention of seeing it through both Houses before the end of the Session.
But perhaps the most significant interpretation will be applied to that oft used phrase "the use of the Government's best endeavours". How often have we heard that phrase in your Lordships' House and, indeed, in another place in debates throughout the year! Does it mean that the Government are making an all-out effort to take the necessary steps to be ready? Does it mean that they will implement their signature to the Brussels decision of 20th September and honour their international legal obligations to ratify? Does it mean that they are not prepared to let down those eight other Member States and to uphold for once the standing of the United Kingdom, not only among the Nine but in the eyes of world opinion? Does it mean that the Government will implement their

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undertaking contained in the Queen's Speech to legislate for direct elections during this Session? Regrettably, it appears that the answer must be, No, because, in the words of the Prime Minister on Wednesday, 6th July:
"It will not be the end of the world if it is not 1978. I have always said to my colleagues on the Continent that it might have to be 1979 if the procedures were proper".—(Official Report, Commons, 6/7/77; col. 1271.)
To my knowledge, no noble Lord from the Government Benches in this House has ever admitted in public that there is a possibility that we shall not be ready for the elections by 1978; how is it that the Prime Minister can say he has always told his colleagues abroad and yet he has failed to tell it either in the House of Commons or, through Ministers in this House, to your Lordships?
One must really ask whether, if the Liberals seek to maintain a Party in office which has shown by its record not only that it is not wholeheartedly committed to co-operating in the European Community but also is not going to be ready for direct elections (and we remember that the Liberal Party has always worn the mantle of a Party which has been in favour of European commitment and of direct elections), they are to continue with the pact with Labour or are to come out and have the courage to say, "We will not go on with this because we believe that we must have direct elections". Or was the correct position indicated in the reply by Mr. Thorpe in the House of Commons recently when he was asked, "Which is more important, the direct elections or the electoral system?" and he replied, "The electoral system"? To us, this is an unacceptable position, and a Party which is prepared to put its European commitment after the question of how that commitment is to be fulfilled is not a European Party.
So, in the last resort, I must quote the words of the Leader of my Party when she said that the Conservatives are the European Party. We shall certainly encourage and honour our obligations in co-operating with other Member States in the European Community and see that we, at least, try to honour our obligations to our fellow partners.
5.26 p.m.
Lord BANKS: My Lords, I, too, should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord
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Goronwy-Roberts, for the very comprehensive review which he gave us of the six months' British Presidency of the Council of Ministers. I certainly appreciate that a great deal of hard, painstaking and efficient effort must have been put in by Ministers and Civil Servants, whatever I might say about the general political stance adopted. There is much ongoing work in the Community all the time. It has many encouraging aspects and some of those aspects were enumerated by the noble Baroness, Lady Elles, at the beginning of her speech. But the White Paper was heralded in the Press as a defence of what the Daily Telegraph called "Britain's controversial six months' Presidency of the Common Market" The Guardian described Mr. Callaghan as "the first President of the EEC who has openly declared himself to be an agnostic about European union". We know that Dr. David Owen, the Foreign Secretary, is on record as being in favour of the Community remaining as a fairly loose alliance of nation States rather than as a closely integrated supranational entity.
The noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, knows that I believe the fundamental question of the direction in which the Community is to move—not the speed at which it moves but the direction in which it moves, whether towards a supranational European union or towards l'Europe des parries—to be of the greatest importance. I believe that only limited success can be hoped for unless the supranational aspect is strengthened and the power of national governments restricted in matters within the competence of the Community and in the establishment of a common foreign policy. That is why I felt very strongly over the treatment meted out to Mr. Jenkins at the time of the summit meeting of the industrially developed nations held in this country a month or two ago. It seemed to me that, within the EEC, national interests were being boosted at the expense of the Community point of view. However, we had the opportunity to debate this on 25th May and on that occasion the noble Lord replied very fully so I shall not pursue that particular point further today. But, even within the limits which the Government set for the development of the EEC, we are bound to ask whether the six months reveals any strong commitment to Europe. Wilhelm Hadler, writing

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in Europa, published with The Times on 5th July, had this to say:
"Few governments have been criticised so much for the management of discussions in the Council of Ministers. And no 'Council power' has ever admitted so blatantly that it is primarily concerned with looking after its national interests in Brussels even during the term of its Presidency".
He went on to say:
"They"—
that is the British Government—
"risked a crisis when they took the traditional marathon on agricultural prices to the brink of collapse; they blocked a decision by the ministers with responsibility for research on constructing the Joint European Torus (Jet) because there was not a majority of the partners for the British Site at Culham in the vote; and they provoked the Irish into going it alone on fishing policy, although a Community solution was in sight which had been worked out by Dublin and seven other Community countries. By the end of the British presidency even circumspect heads of delegations were giving vent to their displeasure".
That is an impression which has been created. It may be said it is one person's opinion, but I think it is a very fair description of an opinion fairly widely held among our partners. Mr. Roy Jenkins, the President of the EEC Commission, said recently:
"Our Governments have been too inhibited by the minority of unreconstructed anti-Europeans in their midst".
I can well understand that it must be difficult for the Government to take a bold positive European line when the majority view is so obviously not accepted by a significant minority.
If we are to believe yesterday's Sunday Times report, the Government will shortly be faced with a strong attempt from within the Labour Party, and no doubt from within the Cabinet, to overthrow the British commitment to Europe entirely. I must confess that I am profoundly depressed at that prospect and at the paralysis of action to which it could lead. We on these Benches look to the Government to reject firmly any campaign of that kind. We regard a positive attitude to our European commitment on the part of the Government to be an essential basis for all Government policy. We are not happy, as I have indicated, about the attitude taken by the British Government throughout its Presidency, although we fully recognise that some very difficult issues arose where British interests were
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deeply involved, and we appreciate, too, that it would be wrong to suggest that the United Kingdom is always the odd one out.
However, it has not always been a question of conflicting national interest. Some of the issues have divided opinion in Britain, and indeed in other countries of the Community. Nothing demonstrates this more clearly I think, than the current difficulties over pigs. British consumers want low food prices; Britsh farmers want high prices for pig products. Our farmers complain of the subsidies given by the EEC to the exporters of pig products from other EEC countries. These products are subsidised, making them cheaper for British shoppers. This is done because the unit of account in which payments for agricultural goods are made has not been altered, at British insistence, to take full account of the devaluation of the pound. Therefore, if there were no compensating subsidy, the Danes, for example, would get less money than they ought for the goods which they sell us and would have to raise their prices. Confronted by angry British pig farmers, the Danish Farm Minister summed up the dilemma in these words:
"if you want low prices for consumers and high prices for farmers, I do not know a magic formula for that".
He went on to explain the difficulty he had in explaining to Danish housewives why they can buy Danish bacon and butter in Britain at half the price they can in Denmark, and he said:
"If British consumers do not want to pay the price to cover farmers' costs, you have a problem".
So very often the problem is created by a consumer-producer clash of interests and not any conflict between nations or between Britain and the rest of the EEC.
I would touch briefly on two matters referred to in the White Paper. Just at the time when the customs union is fully completed and the common external tarriff has been adopted by all the Nine, there is much talk of a relapse into protectionism in the Community. We did have the opportunity to discuss this last week when we debated the report of the Select Committee on the Common Commercial Policy. I am glad the European Council at their meeting on 29th and

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30th June, while referring in their communiqué to their concern at the effects of the employment situation on the Common Commercial Policy, nevertheless reaffirmed their strong attachment to an open and liberal commercial policy. I hope that that attachment will be firmly upheld.
I note that the Foreign Affairs Council have been considering the possible enlargement of the Community from Nine to 12, and indeed the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, referred to this in his opening speech. There is to be a report on that subject from the Select Committee of this House in the near future, so I will not attempt to go into the details of the economic consequences of enlargement on that scale. I will simply say that enlargement has strong political pressures in its favour, but it gives rise to considerable problems for the Community's institutions. It raises in particular the question as to whether the present unanimity procedure in the Council of Ministers will be possible with 12 nations or whether it would paralyse decision-making.
In this connection one wonders about the modest institutional reforms proposed by Mr. Tindemans. Are they ever going to be considered? Perhaps there is hope, my Lords. Mr. Simonet, the Belgian Foreign Minister, at the beginning of his country's Presidency of the Council of Ministers, has drawn attention to this problem. He has urged more recourse to majority voting in the Council of Ministers, which he said implied the progressive surrender by members of their right of veto on matters of vital national concern. Mr. Simonet saw only two alternatives to this course: either an enlarged Community would grind to a complete halt or it would degenerate into a loosely knit free trade area dominated by a nucleus of big countries.
Parallel with this institutional development the Belgians want to see some progress towards economic and monetary union. There is no doubt that during their terms of holding the Presidency the Belgian Government will try to make progress along the path indicated by Mr. Simonet. So, I end with the same point with which I began. I think the Belgian Government are right. I wish them well. I wait to see what support they will get from the large EEC nations, including Britain.
5.48 p.m.
Lord BRUCE of DONINGTON: My Lords, the House must have awaited with some keen sense of anticipation the debate that is taking place today on the conduct of the British Presidency over the first six months of the year. From all the reports that we have seen in our national newspapers there has apparently been grave disquiet over the unco-operative attitude of Ministers. It has been complained that by their actions, by their demeanour and by their policies, they seem bent on wrecking the community. So, when today's debate was scheduled, I must say that I anticipated a full-scale attack on the Government by the noble Baroness, Lady Elles. I am amazed. We have had this afternoon from the noble Baroness what amounts to an accolade on the policies which have been pursued by the Government.
The noble Baroness appeared to be a little dissatisfied with her own moderation, because, of course, inevitably, she had to bring in the dubious activities or the mischievous activities—whichever way she put it—of anti-Market Ministers within the Government. This, of course, is in accordance with her Party's policy, which is, every time anything is done in Europe, to draw attention to the activities of those Ministers who, prior to the referendum, were anti-Market.
Baroness ELLES: My Lords, I interrupt because it is a question not of Party policy but of constitutional rectitude that people who are in Cabinet follow the policy and honour the international obligations of the country which they serve.
Lord BRUCE of DONINGTON: My Lords, I could not agree more with the noble Baroness, Lady Elles. As the noble Lady will observe, Command 6887 is a Government document issued on the responsibility of the entire Government. The noble Baroness referred to rectitude and I shall also refer to it in connection with the actions of her colleagues in Europe on the various questions to which she has directed our attention. Her accusations became specific in only two cases—as regards my right honourable friend John Silkin and perhaps half-heartedly as regards the right honourable Anthony Wedgwood Benn. That was the principal area which she sought,

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albeit half-heartedly, to attack. The noble Baroness has been reticent this afternoon, but her colleagues in Europe were not so reticent. I propose to acquaint the House with the attitude taken by her colleagues in the European Parliament at a time when British Ministers were doing their best within the Community to safeguard British interests in so far as it was proper to do so.
I shall quote Mr. John Corrie. I should perhaps mention that unlike the House of Commons and possibly also this House, in the European Parliament in this instance it is apparently not the case that one declares one's interest when one speaks upon a subject from which one can derive some financial benefit. Both the gentlemen to whom I shall refer are farmers.
Baroness ELLES: My Lords, if the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington intends to make any recriminatory statement about an individual who serves his country both in another place and in the European Parliament, will he kindly do it outside this House as well?
Lord BRUCE of DONINGTON: My Lords, certainly with the greatest possible pleasure. However, I shall pass no observation on either of the honourable gentlemen to whom I shall refer. I shall merely quote what they said. Mr. Howell said:
"Mr. President, it is my very painful duty on behalf of the Conservative Group to criticise a British Minister for his appalling behaviour as President of the Council of Agricultural Ministers. He has embarrassed and humiliated the British Members of this House and he has done no credit whatsoever to his country. We find it totally inexplicable: his methods are nothing less than blackmail".
That is a quotation from the speech of Mr. Howell on the occasion of the review of agricultural prices. Mr. Howell, of course, is a farmer. At page 142 of the report, Mr. Corrie said:
"It is a sad day for Europe, Mr. President, and it is a sad day for Britain. I say all this in sadness rather than in anger. How can we expect the eight other countries to help Britain in the tremendous troubles that she is in just now, if we treat them in this way?… The British Minister who is President of the Council is being nationalistic and narrow-minded in his thinking. It almost makes one ashamed to be British. We in this House are Europeans, we are not nationalists."
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That accusation was against a British Minister of the Crown and the President of the Council who had been doing nothing more and nothing less than presiding over the Council of Ministers.
Baroness ELLES: My Lords, will the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington confirm that the Minister of Agriculture, by common agreement with all our European partners, refused to come to a settlement on the day given on which the annual farm price review should have been completed; that he used delaying tactics for some considerable time; and that in the end the result of his delaying tactics and negotiations was that the European taxpayer was made to pay instead of £104 million, £417 million? I have been referring to the speech of the Commissioner Mr. Tugendhat. None of us was present at the time when the Minister was reported to have behaved in this way. I can only say that the whole of the European Press said exactly what was said by my colleagues in the European Parliament.
Lord BRUCE of DONINGTON: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness. I am not quite sure from what she has just said whether her principal complaint is that the British Minister agreed to too high a price or whether he agreed to too low a price. However, this much I do know: the other Ministers on the Council and, indeed, the Conservative Group in the European Parliament and the Christian Democrats in the European Parliament, were demanding price increases significantly in excess of the 3·5 per cent. which was ultimately agreed in the Council. One of the reasons for the delay in the Council was that our Minister would not go above 3·5 per cent.
Baroness ELLES: My Lords, would the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, not agree that the original proposal from Commissioner Gundelach was something in the nature of 3 to 3·5 per cent. but that we also had to devalue the Green Pound and that it was on the question of the devaluation of the Green Pound that the negotiations stuck?
Lord BRUCE of DONINGTON: My Lords, I am aware of what the noble Baroness, Lady Elles, has said, but what

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she is apparently not aware of is that these matters were debated in the European Parliament before they ever went to the Council of Ministers. In particular, they were debated by the Committee on Budgets which, as the noble Baroness knows, comprises MPs of all nationalities and of all Parties. The Committee on Budgets decided that the Commission proposals were too high. It did not want 3 per cent. over the entire spectrum; it wanted 3 per cent. only on those agricultural items that were not in structural surplus. Moreover, the Budget Committee resisted any change whatsoever in the monetary compensatory amount.
Therefore, if there is to be a denunciation, surely the denunciation should have been of Parliament's Budget Committee? I point out to the noble Baroness that, included in the Budget Committee supporting these reduced proposals were, in fact, two Members of her own Party. It is true enough that they chickened out at a later stage in the Plenary when Sir Henry Plumb had cracked his whip at his pet poodles. Therefore, was there any denunciation of the Budget Committee?
Baroness ELLES: My Lords, I do not want to continue this type of argument across the Floor of the House. However, I remind the noble Lord that matters which take place in the European Parliament Committees have always, to my knowledge, been confidential and should not be reported outside.
Lord BRUCE of DONINGTON: My Lords, on the contrary, I point out that I am quoting precisely from Document No. 9/77 (Annex of 22nd March 1977) which can be obtained from the Vote Office. I have disclosed nothing to the House that is not already contained in the report. Moreover, I shall follow that report with another. The Budget Committee considered this matter further on the first Supplementary Budget for 1977 and reiterated the views that it had expressed. Therefore, the responsible Committee in the European Parliament took a far more astringent attitude towards the price proposals than that taken by the Commission—certainly more astringent than that taken by the Council. Moreover, the Socialist Group in the European Parliament, uniquely representing nine nations, entirely backed the
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stand taken by the Budget Committee and repudiated the stance taken by the European Progressive Party which, apart from one person, is a British Conservative Party, together with the Christian-Democrats.
Therefore, where does the sin of Mr. Silkin lie? As is quite clearly set out in the report we are now considering (Cmnd. 6887), this is the first time that the Council of Agricultural Ministers has taken consumer organisations into consultation. Whatever the noble Baroness may say, and whatever her national newspaper editors may say—indeed, what-ever Sir Henry Plumb may say—the consumers of Europe are very grateful indeed to Mr. Silkin for the stand that he took.
There is a very difficult question and one that I have had to face. It will be within the recollection of the House—and I make no apology for it—that, before the referendum, I campaigned actively against Britain's entry into Europe. I gave an undertaking to this House that once the referendum was decided, it must be made to work; but I reserved my right, in so far as it lay within my modest power, to endeavour to protect Britain's interest to at least as great a degree as other members protected their interests. It is very difficult to know which way to go. The impulse is as far as possible to unite Europe. The advantages of that are obvious, though not all of us would go in the federalist direction so completely as some noble Lords in this House and indeed some Members in another place. However, we must forge the unity of Europe. That has many advantages.
But, while we are doing that, is it to be said that every Minister and every Member who goes to Europe and participates in Euro-Community activities should back down purely because he might be accused of being anti-EEC if he ventures to dissent from his nine colleagues? Is that the suggestion? I cannot believe it. I have now had two years' experience of Europe and my experience is that the other representatives of the nine expect candour and frankness; they expect one to stand up for one's country when it is necessary; they view with contempt those who do not and those who bow down every time European unity is mentioned for fear of being called anti-European. I venture

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to suggest that that is not the stance that Her Majesty's Government or any delegation from this House or another place should adopt.
The other snide remark that was mentioned—and it was snide—relates to Mr. Anthony Wedgwood Benn. It is somehow suggested that by his conduct and his insistence on JET coming to Culham he had wrecked the European energy policy. No doubt noble Lords will also recollect that France is not even a member of the International Energy Authority and that France, Germany and Italy have not been backward in backing their own claims for the siting of the JET project. Is it to be held against Mr. Anthony Wedgwood Benn that he has insisted in this one instance that JET should be sited at Culham? Nobody who listened to the noble Lord, Lord Hinton of Bankside, in the famous debate that we had here on 18th May could fail to be impressed by the absolute objectivity and lack of jingoism with which he put forward his argument.
At present Britain has no Community installation at all. In 1978 Britain will pay £562 million net into the Community coffers. The other night when I spoke I asked the question: what for? That question has still to be answered. How ever, there is one thing that I can say in the meantime. As an instalment towards the massive contribution that Britain has made and is making to the Community, it would do her no harm if JET comes to this country on the merits that have been stated.
Baroness ELLES: My Lords, perhaps the noble Lord would allow me to make one remark on the matter of Mr. Wedgwood Benn as he has raised it. No one doubts the way in which Mr. Benn has presided over the Council of Energy Ministers over the past six months. Indeed, I have heard nothing but praise for the way in which he has done so. However, what is in question is this. He is a sponsor of the Common Market Safeguards Committee which is known to be anti-European; he is also on the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party, which has had a great deal of press coverage over the weekend about its daft proposals as to the relationship between the United Kingdom and the Community. What is
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in doubt is whether Mr. Benn believes that the United Kingdom should remain within the Community and play its full part under the Treaty. It is not for me to say whether he believes that or not. I can only quote the great feeling of resentment in the Community about his attitude to Europe, an attitude which is known through the Press, his statements and his associations. He has been very careful to make only implicit remarks. There is no statement that I can pin down or read, and I do not pretend to know.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I hesitate to intervene in this interesting debate between my noble friend Lord Bruce of Donington and the noble Baroness, Lady Elles, but it would be interesting to know whether the noble Baroness condemns Mr. Wedgwood Benn for his opinions in the national DNEC or for his practice as chairman of the Council of Energy Ministers. I understand that he has been an outstandingly successful European chairman of the Council of Energy Ministers, whatever opinions he expresses when he is home and to which he is entitled.
Lord BRUCE of DONINGTON: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Goronwy-Roberts. I am particularly gratified that the noble Baroness, Lady Elles, has withdrawn any imputation against the professional ability, the political acumen and the political will with which Mr. Benn has carried out his duties in the Council of Ministers. The noble Baroness amazes me. What on earth has it to do with this debate on the record of the Government's Presidency over the past six months whether or not Mr. Wedgwood Benn is a member of the National Executive Committee? Whatever views he may hold there, what is their relevance to the British Presidency and the action of the British Presidency? However, I am most grateful that that matter has been disposed of and I hope that we shall have no more of it.
My own view of the matter and that of a large number of Europeans, not all of whom read the British national daily Press, is that the British have made a very good job of the Presidency, particularly in the field of agriculture. It is all very well for the noble Baroness to say that the agricultural policy should be reformed. She knows perfectly well that it will not

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be reformed because the French would veto it and therefore the Opposition can fulminate against the Common Agricultural Policy and get many plaudits thereby, knowing that they are quite safe.
It can be said about the British Presidency, in particular in regard to Mr. Silkin, that for the first time he challenged the automatic right, through the Ministers of Agriculture, to have the will of Sir Henry Plumb put straight into legislation in the European Community. For that we are grateful. On reflection, I think that the very considerable moderation which the noble Baroness has displayed today is in itself an adequate reflection of the resounding success that has attended our Ministers' efforts over the past six months.
The Earl of LAUDERDALE: My Lords, before the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, sits down, perhaps he would clear up one point. He referred to the siting of the Joint European Torus. He commended Mr. Benn for his very stout-hearted campaign to get the project to Culham. Will he go so far as to say that the Secretary of State's tactics were right in blocking the vote of funds for the JRC research programme until a matter of a couple of weeks ago in order to further Britain's cause? Secondly, the noble Lord mentioned the noble Lord, Lord Hinton of Bankside. Is he aware that the noble Lord, Lord Hinton of Bankside, who is not here today and who in any case has lost his voice and could not speak if he were here, has expressed the view that on scientific grounds the case is very evenly balanced as between Culham and Garching in Germany?
Lord BRUCE of DONINGTON: My Lords, first, perhaps I could answer the last part of the noble Earl's question. I have the speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Hinton of Bankside, before me. He said, at column 1316 on 18th May:
"In hoping that Culham will be chosen as the site for JET I am not being chauvinistic. If it could be proved that results could be obtained more quickly and more statisfactorily at Garching, I should be in favour of building JET there. But I think that, with the present load of work on Garching, results will be obtained most quickly at Culham."
I would remaind the noble Earl that the Select Committee which considered the evidence which was provided came firmly down in favour of the Culham site.
The Earl of LAUDERDALE: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that I was chairman of that Select Committee, so I know about it?
Lord BRUCE of DONINGTON: My Lords, I have the report here. May I reply to the first point of the noble Earl's question as to whether Mr. Benn was right in pursuing the tactics that he did? I am not in a position to offer any opinion about that because I do not know all the circumstances. I know something of the atmosphere in which nine Ministers and their official advisers meet. I know something of the tensions that arise. I know something of the temporary and shifting alliances that are formed between States when decisions are made. I am not in a position to pass any comment on tactics. This much I will say: although Mr. Benn's action in vetoing particular expenditure—or rather putting certain expenditure at referendum, which is the same thing—put the Commission to some inconvenience, I am happy to report to him that, as Rapporteur of the Budget Committee, I myself arranged for the necessary transfers to be approved from other funds.
Lord ALPORT: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord the Deputy Leader of the House whether he will confirm, when the time comes for him to reply, that it is entirely contrary to the practice of this House that any Member should criticise by name the actions or motives of any Member of another place?
6.2 p.m.
Lord GEORGE-BROWN: My Lords, since this is a short list and in the hope that my noble friend can resist any further attempts to get him to make a third, fourth, or fifth speech, I thought I should like to put one or two thoughts to the House. The noble Lord, Lord Bruce, began by saying that the noble Baroness had made a moderate and only halfhearted attack. The response it produced in him must make us all happy that that was so. Had she made an all-out attack we might have had quite a crisis on our hands and had to send for a doctor in the House.
The noble Lord seems to misunderstand one major criticism of the actions of the British Ministers who occupied, because it was the British six months of Presidency,

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the Presidency of various sectors of the Community. It may or may not be to one's taste that they should act as firmly and as vigorously in a nationalist way as in fact they do. I confess freely that it is not wholly to my taste. But what they are criticised for is not doing that but the fact that everyone of them did it when he was occupying the presidency of the Commission or its sectors when he should have been acting as the European President and not as the national delegate. It was this that folk found so hard to understand.
It is indeed difficult to see how, until this Government or their supporters, or those whom they have so far nominated to go to Strasbourg, really get it clear in their minds that when they are acting on behalf of the Community they are Community spokesmen and not national delegates, this Government, on behalf of this country, will be playing the role that we claim we wish to play. I am not going to get into the arguments about Mr. Silkin in particular, or the agricultural agruments that went to and fro between the noble Lord and the noble Baroness, except to remind the noble Lord that he was in the House of Commons 30 years ago when I was a responsible Minister at the Ministry of Agriculture. I just want to remind him, with the greatest of respect and in that very dignified way which is now my mien, that I had as much trouble with him, and some of the fellows now vigorously against the CAP, about the British Marketing Boards and support prices for the British farmers as ever we are having now.
The fact of the matter is—and again this is according to one's taste—they are for cheap food even at the price of cheap farmers and cheap farmworkers. There always has been a sector of the Labour Party of which that is true. It was true in 1947 when Tom Williams and I were fighting some of these measures through the Commons, and sitting very late at night to force them through against our own Back Benches, and Mr. Jay—the one who is still at home, I mean—was as vigorous in leading the opposition to the British farm support measures of the Labour Government in 1947 as Members are in opposing them on the CAP. Not very much has changed. Whatever is wrong with the CAP is not, in my view, what they are basically against.
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May I turn to the speech of the Minister of State, with whom I had such a happy association when he was at the Foreign Office in the same capacity and I had the privilege of being the Foreign Secretary with whom he worked. That leads me to say even more sadly how much I regretted, knowing the part he played then, the air of complacency that he felt constrained, or maybe was under instructions, to convey to the House this afternoon.
He said something about bricks. I thought he was going to say we had not dropped any bricks, which seemed to be rather a great claim, but even if true it is not necessarily something to write home about. I have myself been a great believer in occasionally dropping bricks. He said we still believe in not making bricks without straw, which I suppose is a reasonable proposition, and that we had been complimented all round the place on our technical conduct of business. But the issue is not whether we know better than the Continentals—not, incidentally the Europeans; we are Europeans too, and always have been—how to conduct a meeting from the chair, how to read the agenda, how to take the votes at the proper times. The issue is the content of what we put into our conducting of the meetings.
With great respect to the Minister of State, I hope that he will take back to his colleagues at the Ministry that this six months' tenure of office by us has been the great lost opportunity. I speak for a wholly united Party—it comprises me, and we do not have much trouble in coming to our general views. We, in my Party, feel that the purpose of carrying the referendum, as we did, by such a magnificent vote of two to one in pretty well every area of the country (with one tiny exception where it was about the same), and arriving at the point where we would hold the Presidency, and the time when one of our people would be the President also of the Commission, was that it provided the great opportunity that everyone until now had missed; to realise that making Europe is not a matter of a balance of agricultural prices, or whether an energy station goes into this part of Europe or that part of Europe.
It was to take a step towards realising the ambitions, aims and aspirations not

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only of those with experience of two World Wars who set out to foster the idea—Mollet, Schumann, Winston Churchill and others—but also of those carrying the ambitions, aims and hopes of millions of young people in our Continent that we would never again see the conflicts or the balance of power arise inside this Continent again. That is the opportunity we missed and that is why some of us who would not normally follow the noble Baroness—some of us who now sit half way from grace and half way towards grace, depending on which way one looks at it—feel so tremendously let down. That is why, with great respect, I fear very much for the future, so far as Europe is concerned, under this Government.
The Minister of State will know as well as I that when those bitter fights were going on inside the Government—the noble Lord, Lord Gordon-Walker, will remember them too—to get authority to lay the application for signing the Treaty of Rome and adhesion to the Communities (they will both remember, one because he was a member of the Cabinet and the other because he was present with me at all the briefing meetings that went on) the then Government consisted of very few of us who were believers, and for the rest consisted of people who spanned the spectrum from agnostics to unbelievers.
If the Prime Minister today says he is an agnostic, it is fair to say he has been consistent all the way through; that has always been his view, never much of a believer and not an anti-believer, a follower of the traditional role of the agnostic who would go along with what came out in the end. He went along with the decision in the end to table, but he is not in any sense out of character in saying that in his view it will not be the end of the world if this, that or the other does not happen so far as Europe is concerned.
I wish to make it quite plain that, in my view, it could be a contributory cause of the end of the world that we know, and most certainly the world we hope for, because unless we can make of this Continent an entity, a reality, we will lose all opportunity of affecting world events. We will have no chance of stopping the polarisation. I would not like a Giscard-Schmidt arrangement any more than I liked the de Gaulle-Adenauer arrangement.
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I did what I could to see that that did not happen any more. It was one of the great reasons for forcing my way through, ultimately by the use of subterfuge, to table the application in the name of Britain at WEU. The Low Countries supported us loyally all the way through for that more than for any other reason. They feared, distrusted and disliked a Europe where France and Germany together could dominate all the other Continental countries and separately could threaten all the other Continental countries with another conflagration. They saw Britain's role as a leading one; they saw Britain as bringing a new dimension to the situation in Europe.
I ask those who have been members of the delegation seriously to ask themselves: Have we as a country been making it clear, under our presidency or even before—our presidency gave us so much of a chance—that that was our vision, the reason we decided to sign the Treaties and join such Communities as existed? I repeat, the EEC and the Steel and Coal Community are only there, not because that is the way the founding fathers wanted to begin, but because, as Mollet put it both privately and publicly many times, he wanted something they could be busy with while they were waiting for Britain to come in so that we could resume the grand march that Winston Churchill described so vividly at The Hague conference.
The fact that the White Paper, as the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, pointed out, is issued on the authority of the whole Government means little if anything, for so was the commitment to direct elections, as was the Bill issued on the authority of the entire Cabinet, with certain Cabinet Members having their names printed on the front of it; but that did not stop them from voting against it. In the present situation nobody believes—I say this with great sorrow to my ex-colleagues and my friends in the Labour Party—that we mean what we say. They feel we are interested only in fighting our nationalist battles; farm prices, budgets, the citing of particular institutions and so on. There is nothing wrong with fighting those battles—this, with respect, is the point which Lord Bruce misses—provided that they are fought within a much bigger fight to create

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a more real, unified integrated Europe. They become wrong when those are the only things one shows interest in.
I worry very much about direct elections. Frankly, I do not think the Prime Minister—it is not just that he does not regard it as the end of the world if it does not happen this coming year—has yet seen or taken upon himself the case for direct elections. There are members of the Labour Party, Members of the Government and members of the National Executive of the Labour Party who are now busy, as a fall-back position (just in case we get direct elections) organising so that the powers of the European Parliament will be circumscribed and restricted before direct elections take place. It is all to be done in the name of the supremacy of the national Parliament, but one cannot have nine supreme national Parliaments and a united integrated. Europe with a European Parliament controlling the Ministers and Commissioners.
If that Parliament became a talking shop, no better than the Assembly or the Council of Europe—perhaps not even as good—it would be destroyed from the beginning. I feel that if we get to the direct elections, some of us will make it very plain that the only Parties putting up candidates who have the right to claim to be in favour of the concept of an integrated Europe, are those who are willing to accept the consequences, who accept that this makes a changed situation, and that it restricts and circumscribes Germany, and France, and all the rest, just as much as it would ourselves.
I will finish on that point, my Lords. There will be other opportunities to come back to it. If the Bill for direct elections, by whatever form or method gets past the two Houses but does not come into effect before the next General Election in this country, which many people suspect is what the Prime Minister would like to happen, then many people will feel that we have in fact no interest in what is, unquestionably, the next step along this road. Europe has been waiting for us to make progress since the great Congress, since the formation of the Communities more than a decade ago, and it is not for us to come and tell them what they did wrong during, the ten years we deliberately absented ourselves, but for
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us now to take the lead in creating a new kind of Continental Europe, in a world in which very soon only continents will be able to speak again.
6.22 p.m.
Lord ARDWICK: My Lords, I must apologise for intervening without having put my name down on the list of speakers. It was an inadvertence. I want to make a very brief intervention, and I speak as an unreconstructed pro-European. In the two years that I have been in the Parliament in Europe I have been surrounded by the disillusion and despair of the old European idealists. Nevertheless, I still feel as keen on the European idea, and of Britain's participation, and my hopes remain that the Community will go on to great achievements. I had intended to say a mild word in defence of our Presidency, but my noble friend has put up such a terrific case that any words of mine would be an act of rather mild supererogation. I should like to say to the noble Lord, Lord Banks, that if he was troubled by what he read in the Press this morning, I hope he will take heart from the robust reply that was given by my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer in another place this afternoon, when he was questioned on the subject of the Government's attitude to Europe.
I should like to say a few words to the noble Lord, Lord George-Brown, who has just spoken. I wonder what opportunity it was that we missed on our achieving the Presidency? We certainly lost the opportunity of a rhetorical triumph. We did not try to go for that. My own view is that the economic situation of Europe did not permit an advance, nor did the political situation. One must take into account that almost all the Governments of Europe have very tiny majorities, very fragile coalitions, and in fact sometimes they have mysterious ghostly coalitions, as we have in this country with the Liberals, and as the Italians have in theirs with the Communists. In circumstances like these, it is impossible to make a great leap forward. I was very pleased that my noble friend in opening the debate—
Baroness SEEAR: My Lords, surely the noble Lord is not suggesting that what he

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calls, not altogether flatteringly, the "ghostly coalition", is in any way holding the Government back in their European activities?
Lord ARDWICK: I am quite sure, my Lords, that it is not holding the Government back, but it is an indication of the fragility of Governments, and of their difficulty in proceeding to bold policies. Almost all Governments have not only these narrow majorities and unstable coalitions, but they are facing electorates who are aggrieved at the result of the inflation of recent years. This applies to whatever country one visits. It applies even in Germany, where the rate of inflation has been so conspiciously low. This was not a time for boldness; this was not a time for a great leap forward.
I was very glad that my noble friend this afternoon referred to the speech by the late Anthony Crosland. It was the last great intellectual work of one of our great thinkers. And it was almost totally acceptable to all members of the British delegation, no matter what their political views, no matter whether they were pro-Market or anti-Market. Somehow he managed to put the general British point of view. Of course, he was very strong on the question of convergence. I sometimes wonder whether the words of convergence and divergence are a well chosen metaphor. I have always understood that it really meant that the key economic indicators, particularly those of growth and inflation, were running together. I think that there was a small flaw in Crosland's argument when he seemed to suggest that before any substantial progress can be made towards monetary and economic union, there has to be something like equality of living standards. I do not think that anyone had ever imagined that Europe had to wait until the peasants of Fontamara had caught up with the living standards of washing machine makers of Dusseldorf.
I believe that quite a number of people have gone wrong on the question of convergence, and I wonder whether it is the right phrase; whether we ought not to say that when the countries of Europe are marching together again in prosperity according to their fashion and their standards, when their growth rates and their inflation rates are roughly parallel, then it might be possible to make some
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progress towards some form of monetary union, or an approach to monetary union, on the kind of modest lines that Mr. Duisenberg has suggested.
I believe that this afternoon we have left out one of the greatest developments in Europe that has occurred during the past few months; namely, our beginning to get an industrial policy, a structural policy, a sectoral policy. This will cause us much thought and many pains, because we have been, and we are, a low tariff area, and we have been extending the markets of Europe to the undeveloped nations in Lomé, and to the Mediterranean nations, too. But now we are in trouble. We are in trouble in steel, in textiles, in boots and shoes, in shipbuliding, and so forth. There will have to be a working out of some forms of defence—perhaps only a temporary defence, one hopes—of these industries.
People become horrified if one uses the word "protection" in Europe. Europe does not believe in protection. Nevertheless, these are protective devices in a special sense of the word. The great problem is that we are doing all this pragmatically; we have not yet evolved a European philosophy about it. The great problem is to reconcile this immediate need, to prevent great industries from being destroyed and millions of people put out of work. We have a primary need to maintain a liberal world trade, because we are still a great world trading community. We must also reconcile our needs with moral obligations to the developing countries which can develop only if they begin to industrialise; and they can industrialise successfully only if we are willing to go on importing their manufactured goods.
But this is the great turn, I think, in European affairs over the past few months. The Economic and Monetary Committee, on which I serve, was at one time occupied all the time on rather airy-fairy schemes of monetary union, parallel currencies and so forth, but now it is down to this hard and practical work of, what do we do about these threatened industries? and, at the other end of the scale, What do we do about the high technology industries of aircraft, computers and so forth, in which we have pretty well missed the boat and as to which we shall be very lucky if we catch the next

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boat, in the next decade? This is the way in which the Community is developing.
I come back to Anthony Crosland's address. He saw this very clearly, and he bade those who could think only in terms of monetary union not to be in despair; that the Community is advancing all the time on the industrial front, on the commercial front and on the world political front. This was the message of hope that he brought, and I think that, had he lived during the past few months, perhaps a rather different style might have been brought to our Presidency in Europe. But at least he set the beginning, and I hope that that speech will stand as the historic British intervention in its first Presidency.
6.32 p.m.
Lord CHELWOOD: My Lords, I, too, did not put down my name to speak, but I am stimulated to do so briefly on two matters. One general comment first, if I may. We were asked by the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, about our view of the Presidency during the six months in which we held it. I must say for myself that I feel it has been a very undistinguished period, and that our attitude to many major questions has been rather less than half-hearted. I feel that the noble Lord, Lord George-Brown, provided the answer to this when he said that there was a failure on the part of quite a number of senior Ministers, Cabinet Ministers, to see Britain's interests in the European context, which is what the European Community is all about. I have observed this. I will not go into details; it is just my personal view.
I think this must be due to the fact, which everybody knows, that a number of Cabinet Ministers who were always against our joining the Community (although one of them, oddly enough, was the Chief Whip at the time that the Labour Party was "whipped" so fiercely into the Lobby in favour of our joining the Community; that is, the present Minister of Agriculture) refuse absolutely to accept the decision in the referendum, which led the Government to decide that we were right to remain in the Community, and that in spite of the fact that the majority in the Referendum was two to one in favour of our remaining in the Community. I think this is deplorable and
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very regrettable indeed. In fact, it goes rather further than this, because these Cabinet Ministers, and junior Ministers as well, actively campaign in favour of our withdrawing from the Community, and indeed against the kind of common policies which are enshrined in the principles which we read in the Treaties. So there is nothing to be proud of here; and this, I think, accounts for the half-hearted attitude of Her Majesty's Government during our six months of Presidency.
I should now like to turn very briefly indeed to the section on the Middle East. I have a word of praise here, and perhaps this is the exception which proves the rule. I warmly welcome what we read on pages 9 and 10 about the Middle East. The first time, under this system of so-called political co-operation, that the Nine Community countries spoke out boldly in favour of peace in the Middle East on the basis of Resolutions 242 and 338 was in Copenhagen in November 1973. That was reiterated, but it has never been reiterated so clearly as it was recently. I think that what we read in these paragraphs is very much to be welcomed. I cannot say that I have high hopes, after the recent visit of Israel's Prime Minister to the United States, because he seems to be in a very invidious position. While he says that everything is negotiable, he makes it clear at the same time that there will be no withdrawal from the Left Bank; and, as is made quite clear here, the occupation of territory by force is inadmissible, and therefore it is necessary,
"for Israel to end the territorial occupation which it has maintained since the conflict in 1967"—
and I was there quoting. This simply cannot be gainsaid. There will be no lasting peace until that happens.
Of course, there are bound to be minor adjustments, but here I am not talking about the Golan Heights, or anything like that. However, mentioning them leads me to say that I also welcome the fact that in the last sentence or two the Community countries have made it absolutely clear that they are willing to participate in guarantees within the framework of the United Nations. This presumably means that we would be willing, if asked and if wanted, to provide some kind of forces

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for demilitarised zones; and it would be absolutely essential, of course, that such demilitarised zones should be policed on both sides of the frontier. One of the things that went wrong last time, when the 1967 war broke out, was that the United Nations peace-keeping forces were on only one side of the frontier. The Egyptians told them to go away, and, therefore, there was nobody left. So I hope that this really means that, if asked and if wanted, the Community countries are willing to contribute to peace-keeping forces in demilitarised zones until Israel and her Arab neighbours can learn to live together in security, within recognised boundaries, with the peace for which undoubtedly most of the peoples in those parts of the world long.
There is only one other point on the Middle East that I should like to make, and that is about the representation of the Palestinians. One reads here that the Community recognises,
"the legitimate right of the Palestinian people to give effective expression to its national identity",
and that this must be translated into fact. This is all fine, but it rather skates around the issue, I think, the issue really being that these things are unlikely to happen, and I do not really think they will happen, unless the Palestinians are actually rep-resented at a Geneva Peace Conference.
Of all men in the world who ought to recognise the need for this, the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr. Begin, is perhaps the first who comes to mind, because he himself was a leading member of the Irgun Zvei Leumi, which was a terrorist organisation in the same context as one talks about the more extreme Palestine organisations being terrorist organisations. The Irgun and the Stern Gang had a powerful influence during the partition discussions in the United Nations. In exactly the same way, I feel that the PLO must be directly represented, and I very much doubt whether they can be asked to play second fiddle to Jordan, or take part in some other compromise like that.
So I warmly welcome what is said here about the Middle East, and I hope to goodness that there really will be a follow-up now from the Community, because these things have been said before but it has been left to the United States to make all the running, and everybody knows under
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what colossal Zionist pressure the United States Administration comes, and how much its hand needs strengthening by the Nine Community countries, which have a deeply vested interest in peace and stability in the Middle East and in friendship with Israel and the Arab countries. So much for that, my Lords.
I should like to turn lastly, and equally briefly, to the question of direct elections. I have spoken on this subject in your Lordships' House before, and I do not want to repeat everything I have said before—that would be stupid—but I should like to say that I do not honestly feel that anybody can now say that Her Majesty's Government have used their best endeavours. I do not think it is true, as we read on page 31, to which my noble friend Lady Elles, who spoke from the Front Bench, referred, that
"we have taken steps to provide for direct elections …".
That is a sort of throw-away sentence. I do not believe it is true, and I have two reasons for saying that. First of all, there has been a totally unnecessary delay. We were warned in the first week in August last year, in the Second Report of the Select Committee of another place, that unless we got a move on we would be too late and would prevent all the other eight countries from holding direct elections. Nothing happened at all. The Queen's Speech told us that we were going to have legislation. We did have it, but not until six months later than we could have had it presented. Six months went by which need not have gone by. It was an unwarranted, unnecessary and, I think, quite disgraceful delay, for which there was no excuse.
The only action that could have saved the situation and enabled Britain to come into step with legislation so that direct elections could be held in May or June next year, would have been the Government permitting another place to choose one of the two methods which are incorporated in the direct elections Bill. It is said—and this is almost certainly true—that the majority of Members of another place favour first-past-the-post, our normal system. I do not happen to do so, and from the debates that we have had in the past I do not believe the majority of your Lordships appear to do so. Though my views do not matter, of the two

815
methods in the Bill, the regional list system on the basis of proportional representation is much the better of the two; but it is by no means a perfect system.
Be that as it may, the refusal of the Government to allow Members of another place to choose which method they prefer was absolutely wicked and un-justified. If it is correct to say that the majority in another place favour the first-past-the-post system, that would only be possible if the Boundaries Commission were briefed to get on with their work right away this week. Then there would just be time. But there is not going to be time. The Bill will be in the Queen's Speech later in the year. It will have a Second Reading, I suppose, in November in another place. It will drag on in Committee with every conceivable opportunity for delay. The guillotine will undoubtedly be necessary but I doubt whether one will be imposed.
Therefore one must come to the conclusion that the unnecessary delay and failure to allow Members of another place to choose which method they prefer, add up to the fact that we shall not be able to get legislation on the Statute Book in time for direct elections to be held in May or June, and this is going to prevent their being held at all. I honestly believe that this is the situation in which we find ourselves. This is a disgrace.
We shall do great harm to our reputation in Europe, which does not stand particularly high at the moment, and the reason for this is perfectly clear. I come hack to how I started my short speech. The reason is that the Prime Minister is frightened of the Left Wing of the Labour Party because they do not want direct elections to the European Parliament on any terms whatsoever. They feel that this is going to prevent the onward march of Socialism, or whatever they like to call it. Some of them, frankly, would be happier if we belonged to the Warsaw bloc.
There is—and I regret to say this—no doubt whatsoever that the only democratic Party in any of the Nine countries beloning to the Community which is against the whole principle of the European Community, is the Labour
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Party. I do not think that there is any other democratic Party in that situation in any of the other eight countries, not one. What comfort it brings to the Labour Party to know that the Communist Party and the National Front are also against our remaining in the Community, I have no idea. It may be a tiny bit, but I must say that I would think very hard and very long indeed if I found myself putting forward the same kind of attitude to the European Community as is put forward by the Fascists and Communists.
That is the position in this country and I see no reason why I should pretend otherwise. I conclude by saying—and I am sorry if I have been outspoken but I feel very strongly on this—that it is fair to say, as I said I hoped it would not be fair to say when I spoke last December on this subject, that the Labour Government have put Party unity above our national interest and national honour, and there is now a very big question mark indeed over their good faith where direct elections are concerned.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, we have, as always, had an interesting debate. I thought it was brought into perspective—
Baroness SEEAR: My Lords, before the noble Lord replies, may I ask him whether he would clarify a remark which I thought I heard him make in his intervention in the play within a play that we have had this afternoon? I understood him to say—I hope I have it wrong—that it was entirely proper for a Cabinet Minister to campaign against the policy of the Government of which he is a member. I recognise that, so far as direct elections are concerned, it has been agreed that this should be so, whether we like it or not. But the campaign to which exception is taken is the campaign to bring the country out of the European Community, which is certainly not the policy of Her Majesty's Government. Was I right in hearing the Minister say that it was proper for a Member to campaign in this way? I think that this is what the record tomorrow will show.
6.45 p.m.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, may I first of all apologise to the

817
noble Baroness. I had no previous knowledge that she wished to intervene. As always, she intervened for some purpose, although I cannot at the beginning of this reply address myself to what she said; I may do so before I sit down. As I said, we have had an interesting debate. I thought that it was brought into perspective by the last two speeches that we heard, although not everybody in the House would agree totally with either of them. Those were the speeches of my noble friend Lord Ardwick and the noble Lord, Lord Chelwood. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Chelwood, that one of the major achievements of the Community in its search for a common foreign policy—certainly of political action and co-operation—has been the firming up of a common attitude to the Middle East question. It is one of the hopeful features of the general situation in that area.
As always, we are indebted to the Members of the Select Committee on the European Communities for their hard work and for the expertise which they have brought to bear on their task of scrutinising the very large number of legislative and other proposals from Brussels over the course of the past six months. I am sure that the House would wish me to link with that a warm tribute to the former chairman of your Lordships' Select Committee, the noble Baroness, Lady Tweedsmuir of Belhelvie.
Several noble Lords: Hear, hear.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: I should like to add my own appreciation for the valuable work that she performed as chairman of the Select Committee. I know that your Lordships will want to join me in wishing her a speedy and complete recovery from her present temporary illness.
Baroness ELLES: My Lords, will the noble Lord allow me to intervene on this point, before he starts discussing any other matters? May I say how very much we concur with everything that the noble Lord has said regarding my noble friend Lady Tweedsmuir. My noble friends certainly wish me to join with the noble Lord the Minister in his wishes for her recovery.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, not for the first time the noble Baroness, Lady Tweedsmuir of Belhelvie, has been the means of achieving specific agreement between the noble Baroness, Lady Elles, and myself on some subject or other. I am sure that the noble Baroness, Lady Tweedsmuir, will read tomorrow in the record the expressions of sympathy and good wishes to her which the noble Baroness, Lady Elles, and I voice on behalf of the entire House.
Both the White Paper and our debate have revealed the sheer volume and diversity of Community activity over the past six months. It is difficult in a debate of this kind to do much more than pick out the main areas of activity and to try to show how the Government—I repeat, the Government—while paying due regard to United Kingdom interests—and how could it be otherwise?—have sought to further the process of forging a real political Community which can be seen to promote the interests of the citizens of all the Member States.
Here I join with the noble Lord, Lord George-Brown, who eloquently expressed the aspirations which people of my and his generation nurtured for so long, and sometimes so hopelessly, of a new world where the age-old quarrels of German and Frenchman involving our own country would emerge from the last holocaust so that political unity would make impossible in the future the kind of catastrophe that had bedevilled Europe so many times in the recent past. In less than three-quarters of a century, such a catastrophe has occurred, and on the last occasion, almost fatally.
My noble friend put it exactly in the right spirit. It is for that purpose that we have united to support a process of political unity in Europe; and it is because that high and necessary purpose might be put at risk that we urge that Europe itself, and all who live and lead in Europe, should address themselves increasingly to the undoubted anomalies of the system as it has evolved over the economic and social fields during the past ten or 15 years. I should like to repeat that those of us who have been dedicated "Europeanists", for political reasons have been from time to time concerned that the economic infrastructure has not

819
always seemed to be sufficiently resilient or responsive to criticism, whether national or international.
This debate has brought out suggestions that we, in our six months' Presidency, rather more than anybody else before us in the same position, have ruthlessly and selfishly pursued British national interests to the exclusion of the Community interests. I think that a moment's thought will convince us all that that is not so. I said that the noble Lord and others had brought this debate into perspective; and well he did. He instanced a point where political cooperation in Europe has markedly benefited from British leadership in the chair and in other ways. For example, as regards the crucial area of the Middle East, I need not say, in an assembly which contains a distinguished former Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, how important the Middle East is to the future peace of the world.
Here, I would join with my noble friend Lord Bruce, when he says that he, as a former critic and, indeed, an opponent of our country's joining the Market, nevertheless entered the European Assembly with a desire to make a constructive reality of our membership. I know that he did so sincerely. He consulted me at the time and, as an old friend as well as one who knew that he meant what he said, I felt it possible to urge him to do so at, if I may say so without presumption, some cost to himself. He has, as your Lordships' will know, played a truly distinguished part in the deliberations and, indeed, in the leadership of the European Parliament as a Rapporteur of probably the most important Committee in that body. Therefore, he speaks with authority.
It is not for me to become a referee in the very interesting debate within the debate which was conducted between the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, except to say that here we have necessarily two variations of view on the continuing nature of the Market. I do not share this sensitivity to criticism of the Market. It is no more sacrosanct than, say, the Government of this country—and I have not observed that it seems to be a case of laying impious hands on the Holy Grail when the Government of this
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country are criticised. Why not, therefore, constant criticism of the Market? It can only benefit from such criticism.
The noble Baroness raised the question of whether a member of the Government should express, as a member of the Labour Party, at a conference of the National Council, his views about the future. Certainly he should. What concerns us, today and always, is how, as a Minister, lie discharges his duties not only to this country but to the Community as chairman of the Council of Energy Ministers; and the testimony, if he needs it, is unanimous that he was an outstandingly successful and sincere chairman. Therefore, if, through an article or by a speech, he expresses his views of the future, good luck to him ! If, however—and here the noble Lord, Lord George-Brown, makes a sound point—the chairmanship were to be used to advance national interests unduly, then it would be right to criticise and to advance views on that. What I do not accept, having followed very closely the Presidencies of the last two or three years in particular, is that any special allegation of national partisanship lies at the door of this country.
I do not want to be tempted into an excursion of the precedents and practices of others, but it must be perfectly clear to all of us that all countries, including those in the Community, have a lively sense of national interest. This is not the only country which, through its Ministers and through its Presidency, seeks to assert legitimate national interests. Indeed, I would not give very much chance of the survival of the Community if there were not this inner force of assertion of normal interests, any more than there would be hope for a democracy if suddenly all the individuals within it were withdrawn in favour of some specious common accord.
Perhaps at this juncture I might take up one or two specific points that have emerged. The noble Baroness said that a great deal of community spirit will be needed if the Community is to succeed. How true that is! One must only hope, on the occasion of a debate such as this, that not only this country and its leaders, but the leaders of all other members of the Community also, will respond to that quite proper hope expressed by the noble

821
Baroness. In making a valiant essay in condemnation of this Government, she had to recite a long catalogue of successes; and I put it seriously that, when we look with objectivity at the record of the first six months of this year, there have been a great many very important successes achieved by British Ministers in Brussels. There have been a great many failures. There have been points on which there has been dispute and disagreement; but that does not derogate from the facts.
I will not repeat what both she and land I—commend her fairness in this—have said to the House today on this point: she said it was surprising that there was no European attitude towards the United States' foreign policy. I believe there is. It is evolving very rapidly. Certainly, that of the United Kingdom has been most affirmative, as I think the noble Baroness, and everybody in this House, would agree. It may be that others have been less affirmative, but that is no reason for decrying their attachment to the European ideal. Even on political as well as economic matters, there is an uneven readiness to come to a general European consensus. We have worked very hard indeed to help a European consensus in relation to the United States, and we shall continue to do so. The fact that we are somewhat in advance of one or two other members of the Community does not mean that we despair of achieving a consensus in this important field.
On direct elections—and I expected that most speakers would mention this subject—I wish to say this. I am a believer in direct elections, and always have been. The views which the noble Baroness ascribed to my right honourable friend the Prime Minister are not new. In the negotiations leading up to the signature of the agreement of September last year, the United Kingdom sought a special arrangement so that if the United Kingdom was not ready, because of our own peculiar and somewhat prolonged processes in constitutional change, including electoral adjustments, we would not hold up the elections elsewhere in the Community. This was a sincere offer that if the Eight wished to go ahead, if they were ready—and not everybody was ready at that time, last September I could name two Members who were not ready then—we would not object if they went ahead on a due date, and we would catch up as soon as our
822
processes in this country, which are difficult and prolonged as everybody agrees—
Lord GLADWYN: My Lords, will the noble Lord allow me to intervene?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: I had hardly finished answering this point, which has been repeated throughout the debate, and is, I think, entitled to a reply. I will give way in a moment. This was well known, for instance, from the Green Paper which was published earlier in 1976. However, our partners preferred an arrangement for the first elections to take place on the same date throughout the Community. We totally respected and accepted this, and we see no reason, if Parliament wills it, why we shall not be ready to hold direct elections by mid-1978.
Lord GLADWYN: My Lords, am I right in thinking that the Government's position is that if we are not ready by next spring to hold these elections, for various reasons which may seem good to them, we quite agree that they should go ahead with the elections; that the Eight would therefore directly elect the Parliament? What would then be our position? Should we nominate our 81 people, or should we not take part in it?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, we said last year to our partners that if they wished to go ahead on this basis, then we would catch up, as it were, as soon as we could. What alternative proposals we made as to how we would join them in the Parliament in the interim. I could not say. What I am saying to the noble Lord is that we see no reason if Parliament wills it, why this should not happen and this means agreeing to electoral systems. Perhaps Members on the other side of the House will bear in mind that the proposals include an electoral method which, besides being fair and equitable, will also dispense with the often lengthy Boundary Commission procedures. It is we who have brought this into the Bill, with, of course, the support and help of the Liberal Party, and I should like to commend the Liberal Party for the very constructive ideas which they put forward at the time, which enabled us to truncate the processes of preparation for direct elections in this way.
Baroness ELLES: My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Lord will give way. I understand from him that it is still possible, according to the timetable of the Government, that we could be ready for direct elections by May or June next year. Can he confirm whether, in that case, another place would still have a free choice of which electoral system to have, and would either system still enable us to have elections by June 1978?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I doubt whether the first-past-the-post system—which is the traditional system, and the one that will continue in regard to our own internal elections—would enable us to do that. I may be wrong. However, the point I want to make absolutely clear is that, if Parliament wills it, there is still time to make the necessary arrangements to hold direct elections by mid-1978. That is our intention as a Government. We think that adopting the Liberal proposals, if I may so call them, has assisted in this and we have been glad to accept them for that reason, as well as for reasons of equity. I hope that in this House, and indeed in Parliament as a whole, we shall now do our part to expedite the passage of this measure which will enable us to hold direct elections in mid-1978.
Baroness ELLES: My Lords, I wonder whether the hoble Lord will be good enough to allow me to intervene again, I hope for the last time. May I put one question to the noble Lord? If there had been a vote in another place on the electoral system before the end of this Session, would it then have been possible to have a first-past-the-post system ready by June 1978?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, with all respect, that is not the kind of hypothesis within a hypothesis that should be answered. Indeed, I should not attempt to answer such a question. That is for discussion between the noble Baroness and myself. It is not for me to give a hypothetical answer to a purely hypothetical question.
May I turn once more to the question of particularist British action during the past six months. We have had a good discussion on the CAP. I am tempted to ask whether our European respectability
824
would have been enhanced, and whether there would have been an increase in prices of more than 3½ per cent. Is that the test of European respectability? We fought not only for the interests of British consumers, but, as my noble friend said, for the interests of European consumers as a whole. This was not a purely nationalistic effort. It will come up for discussion again next year and there will be circumstances, economic and otherwise, which will operate to decide the percentage increase or decrease—who knows?
On the question of the siting of institutions, I think we need to look at a subject like the siting of the JET at least with objectivity, if not in a pro-British sense. We have made it clear on a number of occasions to our Community partners that we regard Culham as the site which is most appropriate, because it has a proper background in fusion research and engineering. This is the basis on which we have argued over Culham. If others are arguing similarly, as our German friends are arguing for Garching, and as other members of the Community are arguing for sites within their countries, that is fine. Let the argument proceed. We believe that we have the best of the argument, but it does not mean that, because others are arguing similarly, we alone should drop out in the interests of Europeanism. This is not the way the Community will work. The Community will work on the basis of self-respecting, ancient States and nationalities, with great histories and records of great achievement and great mistakes, particularly the political mistakes which from time to time brought them very close to catastrophe. The Community will not become a new reality on the basis of the abolition of history, but only on the basis of respecting it and carrying it forward into a future which aims at closer unity all the time, on the basis of mutual respect among nations.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
7.10 p.m.

WINTER PROVISION FOR THE DISADVANTAGED
Lord BANKS Lord BANKS rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what policies they propose to implement to ensure that the elderly,

825
the sick and disabled and the low-income families are adequately protected against the cold during the coming winter. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. I am asking this Question tonight because I feel that the subject is very important and also because I feel that it is vitally important to consider it before the winter is upon us, so that we can make certain that adequate provision will be made in time. I should like to thank all noble Lords who have indicated their intention to take part in this short debate.
The House will be aware of the nature and extent of the problem. Help the Aged stated recently:
"Over 2 million people live in temperatures that would bring instant prosecution if they occurred in factories or offices"
They also asserted that, at a conservative estimate, 700,000 pensioners risk hypothermia every winter. The Right to Fuel campaign, which is backed by 20 national organisations, has pointed out how, since 1974, fuel prices have been rising faster than the retail price index. In the period from January 1974 to May 1976, for example, electricity prices increased at nearly double the rate of prices generally, and general fuel costs rose 50 per cent. faster than prices generally.
The poorest householders spend on average 13 per cent. of their income on fuel, compared to only 4 per cent. at the top end of the scale. They are more likely to live in draughty and uninsulated housing and to have inefficient heating appliances. People who are retired, unemployed or sick, or who are looking after young children, need more warmth for more hours of more weeks in every year. So poor people need extra fuel; they spend a high proportion of their income on fuel, but most of them actually use less than the average amount of fuel. A survey by the National Consumer Council last year showed that, of poor consumers—that is, those with an income less than 20 per cent. above the supplementary benefit level—71 per cent. use less electricity than average and 64 per cent. use less gas; 42 per cent. of households use less than 50 per cent. of the average amount of electricity and 38 per cent. use less than 50 per cent. of the
826
average amount of gas. Disconnections increased from 155,000 in 1974–75 to 178,000 in 1975–76.
My first question is, what is to be the Government's policy towards disconnections? In February 1976, the Secretary of State for Energy announced that pensioner households would not be disconnected during the winter months. Does that remain the policy of the Government for the coming winter, and have they any plans to extend this policy to other disadvantaged groups in the community? The committee chaired by Mr. Gordon Oakes, the Under-Secretary of State for Energy, of which the noble Lord, Lord Lovell-Davis, was the first chairman, recommended the total abolition of the powers of disconnection of domestic consumers. A similar recommendation was made by the National Consumer Council in their report Paying for Fuel, which was published in September, 1976. That report was commissioned by the Department of Prices and Consumer Protection.
My second question is whether the Government, in the light of these reports, have any plans to implement their recommendations in relation to the withdrawal of the power to disconnect. The National Consumer Council have calculated that if as many as three times the number of consumers currently disconnected had to be taken to court instead, the cost would mean an increase of less than 1 per cent. on all bills. The Government will no doubt say that they consider the code of conduct to be a satisfactory answer to the problem of disconnections.
Fourteen days' grace, or such other period as may be regarded as necessary or reasonable, is allowed before disconnection if' the person upon whom the household depends is on supplementary benefit; if the family are in receipt of family income supplement; if the breadwinner is unemployed; or if there is a child under the age of 5 in the household. The difficulty about this is that the person concerned has to declare that he comes within these categories, and it is not always clear to people that this is what they are supposed to do; the instructions are not always such that in all cases they can easily and immediately understand. When deductions from supplementary benefit are made in order to pay arrears for fuel bills

827
incurred by those who are receiving this benefit, the individuals concerned have no say as to the amount that is going to be paid, which may be quite substantial.
The question I want to ask the Government is, who decides what is a reasonable period and who exactly assesses the income position of the household? Is it the fuel boards which do that, since they issue the code of conduct? Clearly, when income is small and very stretched a "pay as you go" system is greatly to be preferred. What are the Government and the fuel boards doing to increase the availability of coin slot meters, which the code of practice says will be available in certain cases? And what is being done to produce token operated meters as a safeguard against theft and to install them in substantial numbers? I know that the Government have plans in this respect, but I want to be assured as to their adequacy and urgency. Are the fuel boards being encouraged to permit even weekly payment systems and methods of spreading the cost over the year so that the heavy cost in the winter months can be spread throughout the rest of the year? The widest availability of different options will help to meet differing circumstances. Is the code of practice being adhered to in this respect?
The problems encountered over fuel for the poor households raise the question of the adequacy of social security benefits. The notional amount included in supplementary benefit for heating and hot water is £2·80. Last year, again according to the National Consumer Council, two-thirds of supplementary benefit claimants spent more than the notional amount, and over one-third were given an extra heating addition—a weekly discretionary increase—which was available in exceptional cases. Since 57 per cent. of the pensioners on supplementary benefit now receive this exceptional extra, it is no longer particularly exceptional. Do not the Government feel that these amounts should be looked at again?
Then there is the question of the electricity discount scheme which I understand is to be repeated again in the coming winter, by means of which 25 per cent. of one quarter's bill may be remitted in certain circumstances. Many people, however, consider that the scheme was not a success, since less than half of the
828
money allocated was taken up. Are the Government contemplating extending the scheme to other fuels? Next there is the problem of insulation and the conservation of heat. There are, I believe, 7 million uninsulated houses with accessible lofts in this country—nearly half the number of houses in that category. However, I shall not pursue that point any further because I believe that my noble friend Lord Grey has questions which he intends to ask in connection with it.
I have been disturbed to read in the newspapers in the last few days of the shortage of coal supplies which has been prophesied for next winter. I am wondering whether the noble Lord who is to reply has any information about that report and also whether he has any information regarding the way in which a shortage might affect the categories of people whom we are especially considering this evening. I shall listen with great interest to the explanation of the Government's plans which is to be given to us by the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell. I am quite sure that he appreciates, as the House will appreciate, that this is a serious human problem requiring to be tackled in a positive and vigorous manner.
7.20 p.m.
Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, this debate is timely, in the sense that we want to be sure that the Government are thinking and acting now to prevent potential disaster in the winter-time. Indeed, that was the purpose of a debate I initiated in the middle of a heat-wave in June 1976, and the theme I was then trying to put over was prevention. I must congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Banks: he managed to introduce his debate in ten minutes and I see that I took rather over half an hour on that other occasion. I shall try to avoid repeating myself since I then raised most of the issues which I think should be raised again this evening.
I wonder whether the Government really have taken on board the message inherent in the rising price of fuel combined with an ageing population, low incomes from unemployment and the slump in the housing industry. Before we go further, we had better have a quick look at the hypothermia statistics, which are rather confusing because I see that

829
in another place in June 1977 the figures for deaths from hypothermia were still given as very low: 16 in 1974, 25 in 1975, and they said the figures were not available as yet for 1976. On the other hand, a recent report, in February 1977, from the Supplementary Benefits Commission, who visited 1,000 people, said that 10 per cent of those they visited were at risk of suffering from hypothermia. If we extrapolate that figure over the 9 million or so old age pensioners in this country, we come back to a figure in excess of 700,000, which I believe was the figure mentioned by the noble Lord, and certainly a figure which has been put forward before by Help the Aged. It is as well to recognise that we are dealing with an enormously wide bracket, although I recognise also that in the one case we are speaking of actual identifiable deaths, whereas in the other we are speaking about those who are potentially at risk.
It seems to me that the main approach of the Government is still to make available more public money for discharging heating bills and preventing disconnections and so on. In principle, that is an approach which concerns me. The greater objection is that not only are we condoning waste, but in the process it seems to me that we are making a rod for our own backs. The cost shortfall of heating will continue to rise as the prices rise unless incomes rise, and it is very unlikely that they will rise in harmony with the increase in cost. So the cost of lopping off the crisis peaks will continue to increase.
But if we went about the matter the other way and had a programme of draught prevention and a down-to-earth insulation programme for at least one room in each house, then gradually over a period of time we would reduce the outlay needed to keep some semblance of human condition for those people to live in during the winter. The Oxford Area Health Authority, who have been active in this field over a number of years, reckon that some of the more obvious insulation costs could be recovered in as little a period as one year. Certainly if a given household is going to receive something like £40 in their heating allowance that is the kind of figure which would, in fact, buy a substantial degree of insulation, anyway in one room of a house, and I am not trying to set our sights too high. It
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seems to me that this would be particularly attainable if we took advantage of the large number of volunteers who are working in this area and also derive some benefit from the job creation schemes.
Age Concern mentioned in May 1977 a really remarkable figure, if, indeed, it is true, and I hope the noble Lord may be able to tell us. Talking about the improvement grants which are available for insulation, they point out that one now can get improvement grants for insulation alone, without other things, and then they produce the really staggering comment:
"It is regrettable that in the first two years of this operation only two authorities have applied for such a grant—each making a single application."
Can it really be true that this is the total impact of this scheme? I find it hard to believe; but if so, it shows that this particular scheme is apparently a total flop.
The mention of volunteers brings me to the problem mentioned by all the authorities in this field; namely, the identification of need and the promulgation of information about help which may be available for remedial action. Help the Aged have recently pointed out that 34 per cent. of those they studied are visited less than once a week by their relatives or by officials. If We had a corps of volunteers going round to identify the people and to advise them as to what might be done, would we not be killing a number of birds with one stone? This would lead on, I hope, to some sort of local task force who could use these local authority grants in a way they are apparently not being used at the moment. In this way we should be getting to grips with and reducing the problem rather than continuing simply to pour money into the atmosphere in trying to keep up the heat level.
If, indeed, the Government have made new policies and taken action, then I think one has to say that their publicity has been remarkably ineffective. I have a slightly different figure from that given by the noble Lord, Lord Banks: I understand that something like one-eighth of those eligible for grants have in fact taken them up; that one-quarter of the £25 million—that is about £8 million—of the scheme has been used and this has cost £1 million to administer. Mr. David Donnison, of

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the Supplementary Benefits Commission, in the report to which I have already referred, said:
"Three-quarters of the supplementary pensioners in our sample were unaware that they could get extra financial help towards their heating costs."
Clearly, there is a major problem here.
I do not know whether it comes in the immediate ambit of the scheme, but clearly the Government deserve credit for their Good Neighbour scheme. I am also aware that the Department of Energy has produced a booklet which, in fact, was largely based on the work of the booklet produced by the Oxford Area Health Authority, Help Yourself to Warmth. But local authorities are hardly the people—indeed, it would not be effective to distribute this to the old age pensioners themselves. Would it not be better to make sure that those who visit the elderly in their homes have the information available, so as to put it over to the pensioners in a way they can understand. Would it not be better to use the home helps, the health visitors, the GPs, social workers, district nurses, and Meals-on-Wheels deliverers?
The noble Lord, Lord Banks, has already referred to the rather melancholy point that it is, unfortunately, the low income groups who are most likely to live in poorly insulated houses equipped with the least efficient means of heating. I suggest that, sooner or later, we have got to get down to tackling this problem at the roots. I believe that even in our present straitened circumstances we would find that this would be money well spent, that many willing helpers would assist the Government to achieve a very worth while return from measures of this kind, rather than simply carrying on using stopgap measures to treat the symptoms of the disease, which I hope the noble Lord will be able to tell us is not the sum total of the Government's policy at the present time.
7.32 p.m.
Lord COLLISON: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for putting down this Unstarred Question because it gives us an opportunity of thinking about this very difficult problem which we face as a nation over the years. Tragically, if we have a hard winter some people,
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maybe a large number of people, are certainly going to die of hypothermia, or, if not recorded as such on the medical certificate, from an illness which has been generated or exaggerated by coldness. Hypothermia is an insidious illness. It does not affect only those on low incomes, either. Old people do not realise that they are too cold, and unless someone is able to help them, explain to them, then there is a danger of death by hypothermia, even if the persons concerned, and there have been some, have enough money to provide themselves with fuel.
I left the Supplementary Benefits Commission in October 1975. When I was the Chairman of the Commission I made it a point of spending a great deal of time out of London meeting the office staffs up and down the country, and visiting the claimants. I must have visited thousands in my time, and I can confirm what has been said by the two noble Lords who have preceded me. It is a fact that many low income earners and people on supplementary benefits and pensioners do live in the worst type of property, and it would cost not £1, £2, £3, £4, £5 a week to keep those properties warm; it is virtually impossible to do so unless something is done about restructuring. I left the Commission, as I said, in October 1975, and it was in that year that on my visits I realised that a new problem was developing. At that time we were told by people in our offices that claimants who hitherto had been sufficiently wise and able to put aside monies to pay their fuel bills suddenly found that there had been a tremendous increase in costs and the money they had put aside was not in fact sufficient to cover them. The Commission had to do something to help them, and we did. We made exceptional needs payments to help them over that particular hurdle, and we hoped that it would be the only hurdle. But, of course, as we all know, it was just the beginning of a tremendous increase in costs, and the problem therefore remains with us.
This evening I am going to concentrate, if I may, upon what I consider to be one vital aspect of this problem, one vital means whereby we may be able to do much more to put it right, but without which we cannot. Of course, it is known that the Supplementary Benefits Commission do give help in a number of directions. First and perhaps foremost on the cash

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side—the heating additions I have already mentioned, which go on top of the basic supplementary benefit rates, and will with other State benefits go up next November by 14 per cent, well before the really hard weather hits us. This should help. Incidentally, it is interesting to note that the number of heating additions have doubled or more in the last three years. There are now over 1 million beneficiaries who get them. The lump sum exceptional needs payments help towards fuel bills when, for example, we get a sudden onset of very severe weather and the heating costs jump. We are able—I say "we" still; it is an instinct; the Commission are able—to help them meet the quarter's Bill. The Commission can also help with the replacement of heating equipment which is not working properly, and indeed it can and does help with regard to clothing, blankets and so on. The Commission can also—insulation has been mentioned—help with simple insulation materials, and it is true that a few pounds spent on insulation, the exclusion of drafts and so on, can do a great deal to improve the temperature of a room—and I agree it could perhaps be just one room. Then there are the arrangements the Commission has made with the fuel authorities; with them they have agreed that beneficiaries are not cut off if part of their benefit is passed directly to the Board, plus a figure of 50p to pay off arrears. I do appreciate what the noble Lord has said, that the accelerating costs may make the payment back difficult, but I will leave that kind of technical point to my noble friend Lord Wells-Pestell. The point I am making is that there are a lot of people who have been helped by the Commission, including those who find it difficult to organise their finances.
When one has the experience of meeting people in need it is so difficult to condemn, and I think that some people condemn too easily and too soon. Mismanagement is certainly there in some cases. Let me say at once that my experience is that the vast majority of Supplementary Benefits Commission beneficiaries are people with dignity who wish to get along without undue aid from the State, only taking what they need. But, of course, you do meet those who cannot do this, who mismanage or perhaps even do what some people consider worse—and
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I suppose it is worse—spend money on the wrong things: instead of on food and clothing on drink. However, in view of my experience, I find it hard to condemn. I always want to know what has happened and what has made people behave like that. I suppose that it is proper that one should have a sense of compassion.
I should like to take this opportunity to say that the Supplementary Benefits Commission staff and the staff of the welfare departments of the local authorities have a most difficult job. The staff of the Supplementary Benefits Commission often find themselves in hostile situations. We have all heard about scroungers. There are some scroungers, but not many. On one day the staff of the Supplementary Benefits Commission may open the newspapers and find that they are being charged with being over-generous or with giving away and squandering public money and not having concern for the public purse. The next day they may open the newspapers and find that they are charged with being hard, brutal and not seeking to understand the problems of the unmarried mother and so on. They are in a crossfire.
This is the first time I have spoken about supplementary benefits in your Lordships' Chamber and I should like to put on record my own appreciation of the officers of all levels of the Commission and the welfare staff who undertake this difficult task.
Mention has been made of the electricty discount scheme which I understand is to be continued. I think that it can justly be said that real efforts are being made by the Government, not only through the Commission but in other ways, to ensure that people, especially the old, do not suffer from the cold.
That would be fine if the aid which the Government are willing to channel in and which the people of this country were willing to channel in through welfare departments and the Supplementary Benefits Commission, reached all the people who need help. However, it does not work like that. Mention has already been made of Professor Donnison, who succeeded me as chairman of the Commission. In his introduction to the Commission's new handbook, he writes:
"More of those entitled to supplementary benefits are now coming forward to claim it."

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That is fine.
"But there is still too much ignorance, anxiety and hostility about the scheme."
It is the failure of people to know about and claim what is available to them on which I wish to concentrate the rest of my remarks. Clearly the local authorities, the Government and the Commission must make every effort to publicise what they are doing and what they can do. As regards the Commission, during my association with it, we started the handbook and that is now continuing. It is a simply worded statement of what the Commission does, what it can do and which claimants are entitled to benefit. There is a multiplicity of leaflets. Supplementary Benefits Commission's Notes and News are published at regular intervals, mainly for social workers. However, all that will never do the job completely.
I agree that the supplementary benefits scheme is extremely complex and that there are great difficulties about it. It is good to know that, at present, my right honourable friend David Ennals has announced that a review to revise the scheme and to make it more simple, is in progress and I wish him every success. However, I am convinced that, unless more people do more to help publicise to those who need help what help is available to them, then what the Government and the local authorities are trying to do will not reach all the people concerned.
Help the Aged has been mentioned twice before. That group has stated that it believes that 45,000 old people will die of cold this winter. It goes on to say:
"The terrible truth is that thousands of these deaths are unnecessary. Thousands of our old people who die every winter could survive and enjoy future summers if only we looked after them."
I emphasise "we". What do we mean by "we"? We mean you and I; we mean the citizens of this country in the street; we mean those who are good neighbours. I very much welcome the Good Neighbour scheme that was introduced by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State. I know that there is a responsibility not only upon us but the people of this country as a whole. We should be able to give advice even if we do not know the ins and outs of the supplementaty benefits scheme. I hope
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that people will want to know enough about it to encourage them to go to the local social security office or, if they are incapacitated, to know how to go about arranging for visits. Who will know about the old who are cold if they have no friends and relations unless their neighbours, the people in their streets and villages, take the trouble to visit them, take them under their wing and keep an eye on them?
The success of the Good Neighbour scheme and of the work done by organisations like Help the Aged and others has been quite remarkable. That satisfies me that the willingness and the desire to help is present if it can be triggered. That is why it is so important that these aspects should be voiced. The Government are willing to do so much. The Supplementary Benefits Commission already spends millions of pounds.
However, we all know that, although the situation is improving greatly, some get through the meshes of the nets. It is not good enough to think that because the Government act and the Supplementary Benefits Commission is present, it is their responsibility, and that, if there is a failure, it is their failure. On the contrary, what is done by the Government through the scheme can only be part of an overall social responsibility which lies upon us all. If people respond to that, I do not think that even then we shall cover every single person who needs help in terms of money, medicine or anything else, but we shall go very much further towards ensuring that there is good and pretty well complete coverage.
7.50 p.m.
Earl GREY: My Lords, every winter there arises the problem of caring for the elderly, the infirm and those in the lower income bracket. As the noble Lord, Lord Collison, pointed out, the responsibility should not rest with the Government alone. Those of us who are fortunate enough, in spite of crippling inflation which faces us all, to manage to have a comfortable, well-fed winter, should be aware and play our part. We have all at some time suffered from the cold and known how inconvenient and discomforting it can be. We treat it as a nuisance and know that as soon as we are at home we shall be warm and comfortable.

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But what of the people who view each coming winter with absolute dread and fear? It is a prospect in 1977 that should never arise. We are living in a Welfare State that decrees that no one should go without and exist below a basic level. I agree with my noble friend Lord Banks, who says that the debate must take place now and not when the cold weather and conditions of hardship are with us. I hope that the Government and the responsible bodies take note and act now on the suggestions that are being put to the House today.
Since March 1974 to my knowledge, we have had a total of 10 Budgets and mini-Budgets designed to provide the answer to our economic problems. And what is the result? The cost of living is at a record level while the standard of living has declined. And who are the main sufferers?—the old age pensioners, the widows and the low income earners. They feel that they are forgotten; there are no unions to fight for them. Many sympathetic noises are made concerning them but never enough positive action is taken.
What can we do to alleviate the problem? The Electricity and Gas Boards have part of the answer. It was recently announced that the Gas Boards made a profit of £35 million. That is welcoming news, but it is due to the fact that over the last three years gas prices have increased by 57 per cent. When that was made public there was a demand for a rebate, as has been promised by the telephone services. While that demand was rejected, cannot an exception be made in the case of the needy?
The breakdown of the figures in the Electricity Council is even more revealing, with a price increase during the last three years of 119 per cent.—that is, 40 per cent. a year. For 1975–76 salaries and related costs and consumer services totalled £3,190 million, while administration and general expenses, which include television and other forms of advertising, totalled £3,694 million. Why spend a fortune encouraging the public to use gas or electricity when in most cases one has no choice and both are nationalised?
"Think Electric—It helps you in more ways than you think",
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so the slogan goes. It makes me think, and seriously ask the question: Will the Gas and Electricity Councils, by making reductions in tariffs and giving concessions to the needy throughout the winter, show that they have thought? The publicity gained by this action and good deed would benefit the Boards and the consumers much more effectively than wasted money on advertising.
The noble Lord, Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal, has mentioned pretty strongly insulation and the problems concerned with the local councils. I should like to return to this subject because it is an important matter. A voluntary organisation called Friends of the Earth has been striving extremely hard to assist those requiring help by appealing to the Government to carry out various programmes, such as a national insulation project to conserve energy. Mr. David Green of that organisation this month has written to the Prime Minister urging the Government to act. Included in the proposals put forward are that:
"The Government give priority to the insulation of the homes of the elderly and disabled people by encouraging the employment of local task forces to carry out such work under any Government measures to alleviate youth unemployment."
That organisation urges that:
"The Government take steps to advertise to those on low incomes what grants and other incentives are available for insulating their houses.
The Government encourage the fuel boards, oil and coal industries to make available easy-payment methods for insulation e.g. saving schemes, regular instalments payable through the usual accounts system etc."
These practical suggestions are endorsed by many other groups, such as have been mentioned this evening, including Help the Aged, the National Council of Social Services and the National Consumer Council. Can the Government say what actions can be implemented in this area? Through the activities of these groups many deprived people have good cause to be grateful for the benefit that they have received. Long may the good works continue. The time for action is now. Let us hope that the time is not wasted. It is the concern of us all.
7.55 p.m.
Lord LOVELL-DAVIS: My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Strathcona and

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Mount Royal, has reminded us, the last time we discussed this specific subject was just over a year ago when it was raised by many noble Lords during a debate on a Motion put down by the noble Lord himself on the needs of the elderly. As the noble Lord has said, it is timely that it should be raised again now by the noble Lord, Lord Banks. Perhaps we should make it, both here and in another place, an annual or more frequent event, until there is no question of anyone being denied domestic fuel supplies and adequate protection against the cold.
Shortly before our debate last June, the Department of Energy published the report of an Informal Inquiry into Payment and Selection Methods for Gas and Electricity Bills, to which reference has already been made by the noble Lord, Lord Banks. The report pointed out that these fuels are provided by statutory monopolies with:
"a clearly defined duty to adopt methods of payment … which suit the circumstances and convenience of every type of consumer,"
particularly in view of the fact that:
"the sharp rise in fuel prices has presented many families with a difficult and immediate problem."
The report identified the groups most adversly affected as those about which we are talking this evening.
The report summarised 17 main recommendations. I shall not list them, but they were all aimed at easing the problem of payment for the disadvantaged groups which we are discussing today. As today's Unstarred Question specifically asks what policies the Government propose to implement to ensure that these groups are adequately protected, I, too, should like to ask my noble friend the Minister—as has the noble Lord, Lord Banks—whether he can tell us which of the recommendations in the report have been taken up and will be implemented during the coming winter. I appreciate that the fuel Boards already offer a variety of methods of payment, but I should like to know whether they have agreed upon:
"a common code of payment methods,"
which was one of the recommendations. Are they and the Government satisfied that "payment schemes" have been and are being "more widely publicised", which was another of the report's recommendations?
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At the time of the publication of the report I felt that its recommendation that:
"the power to disconnect supply to domestic consumers"
should be withdrawn would present the Boards with major problems so far as simply recalcitrant payers with adequate means were concerned, and that this recommendation tended to be so attractive a story to the media that it obscured the many other recommendations and observations contained in the report. However, that does not mean that I believe the Boards should have the right to disconnect or threaten disconnection across the board. There can be no question of monopoly suppliers of gas and electricity being allowed to inflict this hardship on those who genuinely face difficulties in meeting today's vastly increased fuel bills.
I do not wish to take up the time of the House by covering ground that has already been fully explored. The point of this debate is to draw attention to this very real problem for those who face it, and to ensure, well before the onset of next winter, that the Government have the policies to deal with it. Every possible action must be taken to prevent suffering, physical or mental, because the problem is two-edged. Removing the fear of disconnection, for example, will not prevent many people in financial difficulty from worrying to such an extent—and I am thinking particularly of old age pensioners—about the size of the bill that ultimately has to be paid by someone, that they would simply reduce their use of fuel to dangerous levels. I hope that when my noble friend Lord Wells-Pestell replies he can reassure us that everything possible is being done to get this message across, and that action will be taken to alleviate the fears that undoubtedly exist and that can lead to tragedy.
The Government, quite rightly, decided that the fuel industries should charge realistic prices. But, having done so, they have the responsibility to ensure that the elderly, the sick and disabled and low-income families do not suffer as a result. In the case of any excess profits that the Boards may have accumulated recently, perhaps instead of these being generally shared out they could be used to help resolve this problem.

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I hope, therefore, that during the past year the closest liaison has been established between the fuel boards, the Department of Health and Social Security services, the Supplementary Benefit Commission and local authorities, and the many individual groups and associations concerned with these special problems, to make sure that cases of hardship are quickly identified and properly dealt with. Perhaps the Minister can confirm that this is the situation.
There is another aspect of protection against the cold which is of major importance, and that is home insulation, to which several noble Lords have already referred. Last year, in his reply to the debate on behalf of the Government, my noble friend Lord Kirkhill stated that the Government were aware of the importance of house insulation and were
"taking steps to help old people enjoy the benefits of good insulation in the context of their programme for bringing the country's housing stock up to standard."
He referred to roof insulation in council houses attracting Government subsidy when installed in the interests of an elderly or disabled occupant, and said that this would be emphasised in a forthcoming circular on subsidy for local authority house improvement in the public sector. I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal, has already mentioned this. I am sure that we shall all be interested to hear more about what has been done in this respect if the Minister is able to provide the information.
Not only is proper insulation of prime importance in achieving higher temperatures in the home at lower cost but it is also a vital part of energy saving generally, and on both grounds it should have a high priority. When we launched the energy conservation programme with the "Save It" campaign in 1975 the principle items that were concentrated upon heavily in the early stages of the domestic side of the campaign were draught-proofing, hot-water tank jackets, and loft insulation. There were good reasons for doing so—and there still are—for all three are lacking in the accommodation, the homes, of the people least able to pay for the heat that is being wasted.
The initial cost for the Government of tank jackets and roof insulation for those
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who cannot afford the capital outlay may seem high, but is it? Does it not make economic sense? An unlagged hot-water tank, heated by an electric immersion heater, is likely to waste up to about £1·25 worth of heat every week. A jacket 75 to 80 millimetres thick costs about £6, and can be fitted in a matter of minutes. It will pay for itself in terms of savings within about five weeks. And it will go on making savings on the individual's and the nation's heating bill—savings which will become more significant with each rise in fuel prices.
If we take the case of loft insulation of the 125 millimetre thickness recommended for elderly people's heating standards by the Department of the Environment, applied, for the same of example, to a semi-detached bungalow with a roof area of 40 square metres, the cost of installation would be about £55. The cost of heating the bungalow to the full "Old People's" standard of 21 degrees celsius throughout, if it were not insulated, would be about £210 a year. With insulation that figure would be reduced to about £160 a year. That is a saving of £50 in a year, for the single cost of £55 for carrying out the insulation.
If we assume heating to be the lower minimum heating standards of 16 degrees Celsius in living areas and 10 degrees in bedrooms for the same bungalow, the cost of heating it uninsulated would be about £86 a year, whereas with insulation this would fall to about £61—so that there one has a saving of £25 a year. Alternatively, for the same cost—£86 a year—one could heat the home to the higher and more comfortable temperatures—21 degrees celsius in the living areas and 15 degrees in the bedrooms.
Surely, therefore, effective insulation (which I seem to have been urging in your Lordships' House for years) should be a Government priority so far as the elderly, the sick and disabled, and low income families are concerned. In every sense it is in the national interest, and the cost of carrying out the work could surely be covered by a special additional heating allowance provided over a limited period; say, £1.10p a week for a year. In national terms, the savings accruing year after year would rapidly repay the initial outlay. In fact, I believe that this should be seen as an essential part of the much

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wider need to raise standards of insulation of buildings generally as part of our overall energy policy, even though this is an aspect of it which falls within the ambit of the Department of the Environment rather than that of the Department of Energy. Perhaps we can take a lead from EEC countries such as Germany and France, whom at one time we led in matters of energy conservation but who now seem to be ahead of us in encouraging and giving an incentive for home insulation.
We are all aware of the importance of the Question that the noble Lord, Lord Banks, has raised today. Those of us who are taking part in this debate have obviously all seen the horrifying statistics provided by Help the Aged, to which noble Lords have referred.
"At a conservative estimate"—
they say—
"700,000 pensioners risk hypothermia every winter"
of whom up to 55,000—that was the average figure—could die of cold, many thousands of them unnecessarily.
It is hard to believe that it is a possibility in this society. It is a cruel and senseless state of affairs which no Government, no member of our society, can allow to continue. I hope, therefore, that my noble friend Lord Wells-Pestell, whose deep personal concern in matters such as this is known to all Members of this House, can assure us that the Government for their part—through the relevant Departments of State; the DHSS, the Department of Energy, and the Department of the Environment—have the policies, are implementing them, and intend to continue implementing them to protect those who will be most at risk during the coming winter and in all future winters.
8.8 p.m.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, let me say at the beginning that I greatly welcome this debate not only as the Minister responsible to your Lordships for answering it but also personally because the noble Lord, Lord Banks, and those who have participated in this debate tonight have raised a matter of supreme importance. I do not think we
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ought to use any other phrase than that. There have been, as we all know, dramatic increases in fuel prices in recent years. Everyone of us, without exception, has been affected by them. But where most of us can accommodate ourselves in some way to them we have to recognise that there is a vast army of disadvantaged people who can do precious little about it, and the noble Lord, Lord Banks, has selected three of them—the elderly, the sick and disabled, and families on low incomes.
In short, it is the more fortunately placed members in our society who can cope with the situation, and those who are less fortunately placed who cannot. Many of them, as we know, cannot afford to install insulation or buy a better heating system. I know from my own observations the large number who live in rented accommodation who could not get a system installed even if they could afford to pay for it—and they cannot. For some, as I say, this may be a simple choice. Some of us can spend more, or less, on heating as we like. We can switch on and switch off when we like. These are things, as my noble friend Lord Lovell-Davis put so bluntly, that are denied so many people in our community. I do not think that any useful purpose can possibly be served by going into the causes of all this; we are familiar with the causes, though perhaps there is very little we can do about them in the way we should like to do.
As a country that is in our present financial position, we must recognise, that we are paying out about £11,000 million on pensions and benefits. The uprating which was announced in your Lordships' House will when it comes into effect in November, cost another £1,500 million. We are therefore faced with the problem, and we shall be faced with it for a long time to come, of too many needs chasing too little money. It is easy to talk about priorities. My sympathies are always with the aged. After all, I am getting precious near that stage myself so perhaps I have a vested interest in the subject.
Every year we face an increasing mumber of people who are living not to 65, not to 75 but to 85, and, within the next 15 to 17 years, we shall face an old age problem which, if we do the right thing by them, causes one to wonder from where the money is to come. The noble Earl,

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Lord Grey, said that sympathetic noises were made but he wanted to know what was being done. I know him and I do not think he really meant that.
Earl GREY: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord—
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: I have a lot to say, my Lords, and I would rather not be interrupted. We are doing more than just making sympathetic noises. It may be that a large number of people in the community should be doing more than they are doing, and, if that is the case and if that is what the noble Earl meant, then I am with him.
I wish to start by considering two points. The first is the cash help we have given. First and foremost we have greatly increased the value of social security benefits, and we must remember that, out of a population of about 55 million, over 12 million people are in receipt of benefits or help, very nearly one quarter of the population. I am not suggesting that it is a made to measure garment. I realise that often the help we are giving only fits where it touches. Nevertheless, from October 1973, when the previous Government last increased benefits—that was the last opportunity they had; this is not a criticism—to the uprating in November 1976, long-term benefit rates rose by 97 per cent. and, in the same period, prices rose by only 72 per cent. Thus, the purchasing power of long-term benefits was increased by 15 per cent.
As well as increasing benefit rates, we have widened the scope of the social security scheme and introduced several new benefits, particularly for the chronically sick and disabled, for whom we have provided more than just a modest mobility allowance, invalid care allowance and non-contributory invalidity pension. And this November we are bringing in the housewives' non-contributory invalidity pension which will provide £10·50 a week for disabled married women unable to cope with their housework. All these improvements to the social security scheme represent concrete help for the weaker social groups. In addition, we have provided considerable extra assistance directly related to helping poorer people with their fuel bills.
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Since 1973, we have increased by 133 per cent. the rates of supplementary benefit heating additions, and they are going up by a further 14 per cent. in November. There will be three rates of heating addition—80p, £1·60 and £2·40 a week—but we must bear in mind the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Banks, that there is contained in all supplementary benefits, throughout the whole of the year, a notional amount for heating. I think Lord Banks fixed it at £2·80, and of course that is £2·80 which is given throughout the year, when, for many months, the expense of heating is very low. For those who, in addition, have the extra heating allowance, that too goes on, not just for the autumn and winter period but throughout the year.
I believe that I am right in saying that between 50 per cent. and 60 per cent. of all pensioners in receipt of supplementary benefit receive one of the three scales of heating allowance. Thus, when one adds the two together, the result is not bad. It may not be enough, but the Government must always ask themselves whether they can do more in one direction or another. Moreover, the number of heating additions has also increased; it has more than doubled in the last three years and well over one million supplementary beneficiaries now get the heating allowance.
There are other ways in which the Supplementary Benefits Commission can and does help people with their fuel costs. It has discretion to make lump-sum exceptional needs payments towards fuel bills in certain circumstances; where, for example, a period of very severe weather has led to an unusually high bill or where a claimant has perhaps not learnt to use the heating system economically. Many people find there is a process of experimentation, and, as I say, if they run into difficulties, the Commission can do something to help. In addition, the Commission can make these payments for such things as repairs or replacements of heating appliances, for clothing and blankets and for simple measures of insulation such as draught-proofing, curtains and floor coverings.
The Commission's discretion is not unlimited, as noble Lords will appreciate, and it can make lump-sum payments only in limited circumstances. Indeed, were

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it to make special payments to settle the bills of every claimant who got into difficulties over fuel it would both discriminate unfairly against the majority of its claimants who manage on their incomes and would cause resentment among people not entitled to such help. To limit the discretion seems quite right because we must look at the needs of individuals and satisfy ourselves that difficulties have arisen.
It is perhaps a dangerous thing to mention the Christmas bonus at this stage, but giving £10 costs £100 million a year, though that is not the deciding factor. The deciding factor is always how the Government should use the money to the best advantage, and the best advantage is to give it to those who need it. Not everybody on pension needs the £10 a week bonus—but I am straying from the subject. This has little to do with what we are talking about at present.
To help, therefore, in those cases where a lump sum payment for a fuel bill would not be justified, the Commission and the fuel authorities agreed some arrangements in February 1976. Under those arrangements people likely to suffer from hardship—namely, the elderly, the sick and the disabled, and families with young children—would not be disconnected if part of their benefit was paid directly to the fuel board to cover current consumption with a small amount, which was fixed at 50p a week, towards the arrears. This money can be so arranged that there can be a direct payment, so that while they are paying for the electricity they are consuming, they are paying so much off the arrears. Any arrears still outstanding after two years would be cleared by the Commission by means of a lump sum payment. I should like to give your Lordships some idea of the numbers helped by these arrangements in the first three months of their operation. I refer to the period in February 1976, when there were roughly 14,500 claimants who were put on direct payments, and a similar number of lump sum payments for fuel bills were made.
There is the electricity discount scheme, which my noble friend Lord Lovell-Davis mentioned, and which was introduced last winter. It provided for a 25 per cent. discount off one winter quarter's electricity bill for people getting Family Income
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Supplement or Supplementary Benefit. As my noble friend the Lord Privy Seal announced on 15th July, a similar scheme will operate this coming winter. I accept that there was a disappointing take-up on this scheme, as I believe my noble friend Lord Lovell-Davis said. We have done almost all that is humanly possible to publicise this. The matter of the entitlement of the deprived groups in the community is known to our officials, to health visitors, and to social workers, and it is surprising how well-informed on these matters are many voluntary workers in each area. We find it rather difficult to suggest what more we can do in this respect.
These, then, are the main cash measures which we have taken to help people with their fuel bills. But it is not just the size of the bill that is important; there is also the question of the method of payment. Over the last few years there has been a general trend away from coin-in-the-slot meters towards quarterly billing. For people who receive their income on a weekly basis, as most poorer people do, this causes real problems, and it means that they must budget over a 13 weeks' period, a period in which they may not have any precise idea of how much fuel they are consuming.
Again, we have taken several steps to alleviate this problem. Last December, the fuel authorities announced a code of practice on disconnections. This contains several provisions, such as budget payment plans, prepayment meters, and no disconnection of needy pensioners during the winter, which are designed to help people budget for their fuel consumption and avoid disconnections. In addition, the gas and electricity industries are now offering their customers a wide range of budget payment plans. In most areas stamps can be purchased from showrooms and used towards payment of bills. Weekly and montly payments are now widely accepted and these schemes should soon be available in all areas.
The industries have also agreed to provide in appropriate cases a prepayment meter, if it is safe and practical, and they are actively examining the possibility of meters operated by self-destroying tokens which would overcome some of the problems associated with coin meters. This was a point which the noble Lord,

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Lord Banks, made. I cannot take it further than that, except to say that it is not only very much in the forefront of our thinking, but, I hope, will be very much in the forefront of our activity in the not too distant future.
My Lords, I should like to turn now to consider the other side of the fuel problem, which is to ensure that people get enough heat. Here we have taken action on a number of fronts. First, we have increased provision for insulation. I have already mentioned that the Supplementary Benefits Commission can make lump sum payments for simple measures of insulation. On a much larger scale, we are using the Job Creation programme, to which the noble Lord, Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal, referred, to operate schemes for home insulation, particularly for the houses of elderly and disabled people.
Here I should like to reply to one point made by the noble Lord, Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal. By the end of June last, 86 local authorities were involved in schemes which had resulted in over 80,000 houses being insulated at a cost of about £1 million. I am prepared to accept that this is small fry as compared with what needs to be done, but at least it shows that 86 local authorities are involved and that some tangible result is being achieved. In addition, Government subsidy is now available to help local authorities with the cost of installing roof insulation in their existing houses. Where this is done for elderly or disabled people, no other work has to be carried out in order for the grant to be payable. We have also introduced special arrangements for the private sector under the improvement grant scheme.
Secondly, we are undertaking research to determine what improvements can be made in heating arrangements for old people. The Department of the Environment, with the help of the Research Institute for Consumer Affairs, has carried out a limited number of case studies in Coventry, Wandsworth, and South Tyneside. Measures adopted included draught-proofing and insulation, additional heating appliances, and rearrangements of living areas. The accent was on simple and cheap measures which could be undertaken by volunteers or those responsible for old people. The results are
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now being written up and will be available in booklet form before next winter. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Environment will, in collaboration with other Departments, consider carefully any implications for existing systems; for example, improvement grant arrangements.
A number of noble Lords have referred to a statement made by Help the Aged. I received a copy of this statement this morning, and I was told that one was being sent here in case I did not get it at home before I left, which I did not. The noble Lord, Lord Banks, quoted, quite rightly, that the statement said that over 2 million people live in temperatures which would bring instant prosecution if they occurred in factories or offices. The statement goes on to say that at a conservative estimate 700,000 pensioners risk hypothermia every winter—and many do not just risk it, they die. I do not know the basis for these figures, nor does my Department. I wish we did.
I want to draw the distinction between hypothermia, a condition in which the deep body temperature falls below 35 degrees centigrade and which requires medical treatment in hospital, and subjective feelings of cold which are often confused with it. It is obviously undesirable for old people to feel cold, but there is no firm evidence of the incidence of hypothermia among old people in the community. All we know for certain is that, out of the total number of deaths in England and Wales—and there are something like half a million people who die every year in England and Wales—hypothermia is mentioned on the death certificate as the sole or main cause in the case of less than 20 of the people who died, and the number in which it is given as a subsidiary cause is less than 500. I am not suggesting that we need not bother about 20 people, or about another 500 people. What I am saying is that, when we are looking at the problems facing us, we must keep things in the right perspective.
Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord for one moment? He said he did not know where these figures came from. I suggest to him that possibly the Supplementary Benefits

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Commission's findings are relevant here. Unfortunately, I have sent my papers up to the Hansard office now, but I think I am right in saying that they say they visited 1,000 people and found 10 per cent. of them were potential hypothermia sufferers. I then extrapolated that to suggest that the figure could be as many as 900,000 if your take 10 per cent, of 9 million pensioners. That is a possible basis, is it not?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, a most unreliable basis. There are ten noble Lords in the House at the moment, and if each of us underwent a very deep medical examination it might well be found that three of us suffered from a particular complaint. Would it be right to say that one third of the Members of your Lordships' House—namely, nearly 400—therefore suffered from it? This is a very dangerous way of coming to conclusions. I take the point that there are propably more people suffering from hypothermia than ought to, and more than we should be satified to know.
Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord one more thing?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: No, my Lords. I have taken 24 minutes, and I very often get into trouble for speaking too long.
I want to deal with one other matter. Help the Aged quoted another study which found hypothermia present in a higher percentage of elderly patients admitted to hospital—a higher percentage than in previous studies. This was in fact a pilot study to look at suitable research measures to examine the significance of low body temperatures in the elderly, and therefore dealt only with a small number of patients admitted to one hospital. In fact there were only 13 patients in the study who were admitted with primary hypothermia. Six of them showed factors such as refusal of services which had been offered to them; several showed an excessive consumption of alcohol; and some of them had been taken off the streets, where they had been living rough for some considerable time. Whether one ought to draw conclusions and say that the number represented 3 per cent., or something like that, and it
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therefore means that this is always the case, I do not know. I merely draw attention to that because I think we must be very careful about the kind of statistics we talk about and the kind of statistics that we use.
However, the noble Earl, Lord Grey, said that it was everybody's responsibility. I think it is everybody's responsibility. I think that there is a responsibility on Government to assume certain responsibilities for a person from the cradle to the grave; that is why I am on this side of your Lordships' House. I believe that fervently; but I also believe that that does not exonerate or excuse the rest of the community from playing their part, and far too few people in our community today are concerned even with the people living next door to them. My right honourable friend has launched a Good Neighbour compaign. As far as we can tell, it is doing extraordinarily well, and we shall be giving it a push this coming autumn, on its first anniversary. This is what we want to try to get across to people: that they, too, have a moral responsibility for doing something for people who live near and around them, even if the State has a responsibility for providing certain monies.
The noble Lord, Lord Banks, asked me about the amount deducted under the direct payments scheme. I think that in point of fact I answered that. I think he also asked me the latest estimate of take-up for the discount scheme. My understanding is that it is 57 per cent. The noble Lord, Lord Strathcona, mentioned ignorance among pensioners of supplementary benefit heating additions. I think that, in my reply, I said that something like 50 and 60 per cent. of pensioners receiving supplementary benefit are in fact getting the heating allowances. Then I dealt with the statistics, if not satisfactorily to the noble Lord, certainly to my own satisfaction; and I dealt, I think, with the reasonable period for paying off arrears, which I said was 13 weeks.
In answer to one question, I cannot now remember the exact wording that my noble friend Lord Lovell-Davis used but he asked me about the Government's policy as regards disconnections. I understand that the industries have voluntarily agreed not to disconnect pensioners'

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households between the beginning of October and the end of March unless it is clear that they have adequate financial resources. The Government have therefore deferred consideration of any changes in the law relating to disconnection until the effectiveness of the voluntary code can be judged. The operation of the code is being kept under close observation by the area electricity consultative councils, and the national and regional gas consumer councils. My noble friend Lord Lovell-Davis, as I think the noble Lord, Lord Banks, pointed out, was himself, I believe, the first chairman of the special committee set up by the Department of Energy when he was the Parliamentary Under-Secretary there, so really he should be here answering rather than myself, because he is much better informed than I am. But we cannot say (at least, I cannot say) which of the 17 recommendations in the Oakes Report have been taken up or rejected. What I am proposing to do is to look at that and let my noble friend know. I shall certainly bring the attention of my right honourable friend to the remarks which have been made this evening, because it is a matter of some emergency, as well as a matter of national urgency having regard to the fact that we are talking tonight about a number of deprived groups which have anything but a comfortable time during the winter.
In conclusion, perhaps I may say that if people outside your Lordships' House, as well as your Lordships, look at what is being done at the moment by the Government in the much wider field and by the Supplementary Benefits Commission, particularly for the aged, for the low-income groups and for the chronically sick and disabled, it will be seen that however deficient it may seem to some of us, it is a matter for which we can take some credit in having gone quite a long way, having regard to the demands on our national income and the resources that we have left for distribution to so many members in our community who are far less fortunately placed than we are ourselves.

CALENDAR OF THE MANUSCRIPTS
The LORD CHANCELLOR (Lord Elwyn-Jones)acquainted the House,
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"That the Clerk of the Parliaments had laid upon the Table the Calendar of the Manuscripts of the House of Lords, Volume XII (New Series) in continuation of the Volumes issued under the authority of the Historical Manuscripts Commission".
Ordered, That the said Calendar do lie on the Table, and be printed.

GREATER LONDON COUNCIL (GENERAL POWERS) BILL
Report from Her Majesty's Attorney General received and ordered to lie on the Table.
ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE BILL [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons on Friday last agreed to with Amendments; the said Amendments printed pursuant to Standing Order No. 47.
PATENTS BILL [H.L.] PROTECTION FROM EVICTION BILL [H.L.] RENT BILL [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons agreed to with Amendments; the said Amenements to be printed.
UNFAIR CONTRACT TERMS BILL
Returned from the Commons with certain of the Amendments agreed to; with one other Amendment agreed to with Amendments; and with the remaining Amendments disagreed to with a Reason for such disagreement: the said Amendments and Reason to be printed.