Lords Sitting of 2 May 1977

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

UNEMPLOYMENT
Lord LEE of NEWTON: 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 initiate discussions through the International Labour Office on methods for countering the large-scale unemployment from which so many nations are now suffering.
Lord WALLACE of COSLANY: My Lords, the achievement of full employment and the prevention of unemployment have, since its foundation, been keystones of the charter of the International Labour Organisation. Discussions and practical programmes for alleviating unemployment are among its continuous activities and the United Kingdom Government, employers and workers play a full part in both. Examples are the ILO's World Employment Programme launched in 1969 and the World Employment Conference held last June. It is doubtful, however, whether any new initiative by Her Majesty's Government could achieve more in the ILO context than is already being actively pursued.
Lord LEE of NEWTON: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend, but would he agree that in the present economic climate it is extremely doubtful whether any measures which any single national Government could take could possibly bring us back to full employment? Is he aware that only by examination of such matters as the length of the working week, retirement age, pension rates, and so on, can we hope to get full employment back again and that if one national Government
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took a lead in that they would be in a position where they were not competitive with the rest of the manufacturing world?
Lord WALLACE of COSLANY: My Lords, my noble friend is obviously concerned with the unemployment in the Western industrialised countries. The present problems of unemployment in those countries can be solved only by concerted action on the part of the international community. The Prime Minister has stressed this point repeatedly in his meetings with other international leaders, in particular in his recent meeting with President Carter and at the European Council meeting on 25th and 26th March. At the latter meeting it was agreed that a further tripartite conference should be held in the first half of this year to review progress on growth, inflation and employment. In the immediate future, at the Downing Street Conference the Prime Minister will again raise the question of the need for international action on unemployment.
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, arising from that reply, may I ask the Minister whether it is not the case that the International Labour Office, representing Governments, employers and workers from all over the world, should be very much concerned in an international solution to this problem; and whether he is aware that we are a little disappointed that he seemed to indicate that he was satisfied with what is now being done?
Lord WALLACE of COSLANY: My Lords, in answer to my noble friend, the main purpose and objective of the ILO is to establish aid in dealing with unemployment and economic matters in the developing countries. That is its primary objective and in this case the Western industrialised countries must necessarily take second place. It is a responsibility of international bodies and Governments to get together to solve these problems, not only on behalf of the Western industrialised countries but on behalf of other countries in the developing areas which have known poverty, hunger and unemployment for far too many years.
Baroness ELLES: My Lords, will the Minister explain why he says that the Western countries must take second place? Surely the Minister would agree

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that it is only wealthy industrial countries which have full employment which are able to support those countries suffering from underdevelopment, and it is only if we have wealth-creating activities in the Western countries that we are able to do as we should and to help other countries in the rest of the world.
Lord WALLACE of COSLANY: My Lords, I would not disagree with the noble Baroness so far as the contribution of the Western industrialised countries is concerned, but, as I stated in my reply to an earlier supplementary question, the primary objective of the ILO must be, and in point of fact is, dealing with the problems of the underdeveloped countries and in this the Western industrialised countries, in their contribution to the ILO and with their financial and other efforts of aid, will also assist. That is the point I made.
Lord LEATHERLAND: My Lords, although unemployment in this country is nearly as bad as it is in many other countries, may I ask my noble friend whether it is not also a fact that the number of people in employment in this country is as high as it has ever been?
Lord WALLACE of COSLANY: My Lords, I cannot answer that question offhand without having the relevant figures, but generally I would accept the position. That does not mean to say that we are unconcerned about the position, particularly of our young people and the training of young people in skilled industries which the country needs, and this must be our immediate objective in dealing with unemployment.
Lord LEE of NEWTON: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that, while we all wish the Prime Minister success in his endeavours, we are not now playing for small stakes? Heavy unemployment and very high inflation do not sustain a democratic Constitution for very long.
Lord WALLACE of COSLANY: My Lords, it is up to the Western industrialised countries and all those taking part in the Conference, and their Ministers and Governments, to show common sense and to get down to work together for their mutual salvation.
Lord HALE: My Lords, would my noble friend not agree that, while his general statement was excellent, there have been dreadful policy mistakes by Governments of this country and reversals of policy, particularly in regard to energy, where we ran down coal production and created unemployment; where we are now running it up, and where we were going to turn to atomic energy—
Several noble Lords: Order!
Lord HALE: My Lords, would my noble friend not agree that there are also internal problems which have produced unemployment and on which a substantial measure of all-Party agreement in future planning—recalling, for example, the National Plan put forward by the noble Lord, Lord George-Brown—might be of use?
Lord WALLACE of COSLANY: My Lords, all Governments make mistakes from time to time. The trouble is that people dwell on the mistakes and do not appreciate some of the valuable contributions Governments make.
Baroness GAITSKELL: My Lords, does not the Minister know that high unemployment is a much greater threat to a mixed economy, a democratic society, than it is to a Communist and authoritarian society?

OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS: RETENTION
2.43 p.m.
Lord BETHELL: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether it is their practice to order the destruction of official documents which relate to controversial or sensitive political issues; how many cases they are aware of in which such historically valuable documents have been destroyed; to which political issues these destroyed documents related and whether, in their view, such destruction is in accordance with the Public Record Act 1958.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: (Lord Elwyn-Jones): My Lords, it is not the practice of the Government to order the destruction of official documents which relate to controversial or sensitive political issues. In respect of the period during which I have had ministerial responsibility in this field no such documents have to my knowledge been destroyed.
Lord BETHELL: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord for that reassuring reply, although it is in a sense somewhat limited. Is the noble and learned Lord aware of the deep concern felt among historians and others at the system under which public records are weeded out for permanent preservation, and in some cases destroyed on the basis that they are not of any value? Will he understand that there is concern, and consider this matter in the Cabinet Committee, a Committee of which the noble and learned Lord is a member, which is about to sit on Section 2 of the Official Secrets Act?
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, of course I am aware of that concern. The difficulty is the quantum of the mass of paper produced by Government Departments, both under the present Administration and perhaps even the previous one. The difficulty is that preservation of all records is not only administratively impossible but might even be detrimental to historians, because the sheer bulk that would otherwise survive would mean that the whole business of processing and arranging and issuing the material would slow down the possibilities for the historian to an unacceptable extent.
The process that now takes place of weeding out—as it has been somewhat inelegantly described by the noble Lord—follows the recommendations of the Grigg Committee, and the procedure does now enable a Department to get rid of duplicate copies or strictly subordinate and routine materials within a period of five years. If the material is not destroyed then, it is kept for a further 20 years, and at that point of time there is consideration of the historical criterion. But I have no reason to believe that at either of those stages is there destruction of documents because their survival would cause or could cause political or other embarrassment. Indeed,
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the fact that the Cabinet Office still holds the Profumo papers, despite Lord Denning's view that they had been destroyed, is evidence of itself of Departmental attitudes. May I say that—I apologise for the length of the answer—so far as is known, deliberate destruction of an official record on grounds of political sensitivity has never been established in modern times, although the possibility that it has happened cannot, of course, he excluded.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, is not the boot slightly on the other foot in fact? After the further 20 years, I think most of the documents are sent to Hayes. The experts concerned tend to keep what is tendentious rather than what is run of the mill. I should like the opinion of the noble and learned Lord. Is it likely, I ask him, that the Paston Letters would have been kept when they came up for review? I do not know what the answer would be. My feeling is —and I should like confirmation—that the fact that it was a quarrelsome matter might lead to their being kept rather than otherwise.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I wish I was as familiar with the contents of the Paston Letters as the noble Lord, but I am quite sure that the test that is applied in the preservation of records is not: "Are these tendentious? Jolly good; then we will keep them" I am sure that is not the approach of the responsible civil servants, who retain documents which are of historical significance and withhold those which are affected by considerations of security or by the consideration that they came into being as a result of confidential information communicated, in which case, of course, in a given case they can be withheld from publication for ever.
Lord TEVIOT: My Lords, on listening to the noble and learned Lord's reply, as he mentioned Grigg, would he be aware that the Grigg Committee did sit 25 years ago? He also spoke about these documents as being of historical significance. Would he also be aware that it is not only the historical significance that now has to be considered in relation to documents, but a great many more interests: that is, scientific, political, economic, and even geographical?
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I fully accept that amplification of the grounds which I gave which has fallen from the noble Lord who so helpfully introduced a lengthy debate we had on this interesting subject some time ago. I appreciate that the Grigg Report came out in 1954, but I am satisfied that since then there has been a very considerable improvement in the keeping of records and the care of public records.
Lord BETHELL: My Lords, will the noble and learned Lord please answer that part of my question which related to the Cabinet Committee which is about to sit, of which he is a member?
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, yes. That Cabinet Committee is considering openness of communications and greater openness in regard to Government and preparatory papers. I am not sure that the precise matter which the noble Lord raised comes within its field, but I am willing to have a look at it. I am full of sympathy with the concern of historians and researchers in this area, but I must also ensure that I maintain responsibility for the public interest in this matter.

CEMENT PRICES
2.50 p.m.
Lord HALE: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what are the number and sizes of increases in the price of cement since April 1974, and whether a further price increase is under consideration.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, these are questions for the Price Commission. I have asked the chairman of the Commission to write to by noble friend.
Lord HALE: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that answer. Is he aware that the figures were published in the excellent paper, the Construction News, a few days ago? They show that there have been three or four increases in cement prices every year since 1974 and that in two years prices rose from £9·10 per ton
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to £13·10 per ton. There were four increases last year and there was an increase this January. An increase is now under consideration. Is it right that that would increase the price to £22 per ton?
Lord ORAM: My Lords, to answer the last part of my noble friend's supplementary question, he may have overlooked an announcement that was made towards the end of last week that the Price Commission has rejected the proposed increase to which he referred. However, prices may be increased to help recoup expenditure or deal with low profit situations only if production costs have increased. The price controls which operate through the Price Code in general require that there should be an interval of at least three months between price increases.
Lord HALE: My Lords, does my noble friend really think that an interval of three months is enough? Is it not essential that we should try to obtain stability in this excellent and much-used material, which is absolutely vital to the building and construction industry? Is it a fact that the last increase was made partly because increased fuel prices were in the pipe-line; cement manufacturers build pipe-lines and therefore increased fuel prices are partly due to the price of cement? This is a very alarming economic situation because it does not seem to show any practical future policy.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, the Price Commission examines such applications to ensure that increases are authorised only if they are within the provisions of the Price Code. The Price Commission takes into account exactly those factors to which my noble friend referred, and indeed others.

NHS: NURSING PROBLEMS
2.56 p.m.
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 propose to take quick

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action as a result of the various reports from the nursing profession on their problems which are being received by the Royal Commission on the National Health Service.
Lord WALLACE of COSLANY: My Lords, evidence submitted to the Royal Commission on the National Health Service is submitted to the Royal Commission and not to Her Majesty's Government. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Social Services would not wish to initiate action solely on the basis of individual submissions until such time as all the evidence has been evaluated by the Royal Commission and the Royal Commission has reported. However, the nursing profession has direct access to my right honourable friend, and he is aware of some of their problems. On 3rd May—tomorrow—he will meet representatives of the Royal College of Nursing to discuss their recent report, The Effect of Financial Cutbacks in the NHS on Standards of Care.
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNESIDE: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that answer. Will he agree that over the years neither his Government nor indeed my own Party when it was in Government have taken sufficient notice of what has been required by the nursing profession? The recent report which has been submitted by the Royal College of Nursing, of which I have the honour to be a vice-president, and the report which was submitted by the Conservative Party both deal with matters which are not necessarily related to salaries but to administration. Does the noble Lord not agree that perhaps the administrative side could be dealt with, even if salary scales cannot be altered? It is most important that this very wise and important service should receive all the support it can in the requests that it makes. I am sure that the noble Lord will not disagree with me about that.
Lord WALLACE of COSLANY: My Lords, I am fully aware that the Royal College of Nursing criticised the reorganisation of the National Health Service, as does the women's Working Party of the Conservative Party—in fact, the words of that Working Party are rather straight to the point. I would remind
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the noble Baroness that the Health Service is suffering from many problems due to the reorganisation. In another place I voted against the reorganisation but the then Conservative Government rushed it through.
Lord POPPLEWELL: My Lords, can my noble friend give any indication when the Royal Commission will issue its findings? There is widespread anxiety over the cumbersome and heavy administrative tasks being carried out in the Health Service which does not altogether tie up with the anxiety of those who are ill or dying. Only three weeks ago I heard a complaint about the administrative side of the York District Hospital. It is matters of this kind that need to be cleared up quickly.
Lord WALLACE of COSLANY: My Lords, my right honourable friend is very anxious indeed that the Royal Commission should issue its report as soon as possible so that the Government can give it close study and reach a conclusion as quickly as possible, because, quite frankly, the National Health Service needs it.
Lord AVEBURY: My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that we cannot afford to wait until the Royal Commission has reported and the Government have had an opportunity to consider its recommendations before doing something about the top heavy, increasing administrative structure to which the noble Lord himself has just referred? Would not one answer to the present difficulties in the Health Service be to impose cash limits on the amount of expenditure on administrative staff?
Lord WALLACE of COSLANY: My Lords, if the noble Lord were a member of an Area Health Authority he would be well aware that cash limits are being applied. In point of fact, there is enough material in the document which has been submitted to the Royal Commission and which my right honourable friend will discuss with the Royal College of Nursing tomorrow. Therefore, action can be taken on some of these recommendations ahead of the Royal Commission's findings.
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNESIDE: My Lords, the noble Lord said that

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he voted against the action taken by the Conservative Government. He was not the only one, because I did too.
Lord WALLACE of COSLANY: My Lords, I am very well aware of that. My then colleague, Dr. Tom Stuttaford, also did so on Third Reading. I salute both the noble Baroness and my colleague in having the courage of their convictions.
Lord BRUCE of DONINGTON: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that recommendations of Royal Commissions very rarely give rise to economies in administration? Will he bear in mind that for the five years immediately following the introduction of the National Health Service by the late Aneurin Bevan the administrative costs were running at about 3 per cent. of the total, whereas now they are nearer 5 per cent? It may well be that there is a case for simplification.
Lord WALLACE of COSLANY: My Lords, the reorganisation has caused additional administrative expense, but administrative expense is being closely watched and the authorities have been asked to make a cut.

THE DUKE OF MONTROSE: PROPOSED VISIT
3 p.m.
Lord PAGET of NORTHAMPTON: My Lords, I beg leave to draw to your Lordships' attention what would appear to be a breach of the privileges of your Lordships' House. The Duke of Montrose, a Peer of Parliament, appears to have been obstructed and denied access to this country, and therefore to Parliament during the Session of Parliament. Under Standing Order No. 22 the Duke of Montrose is deemed to have leave of absence and that would limit what he could do if he came here to giving 28 days' notice of an intention on applying to this House to withdraw his leave. But that does not seem to me to affect the principle here. It is a principle of Parliament that we should have the right to the attendance of our Members and to such advice as they can give us, and that to obstruct or deny access to Parliament of a Member of the other place or of a Peer of this House during the Session of Parliament is a grave breach of our privileges.
The LORD PRIVY SEAL (Lord Peart): My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Paget, has raised an important question concerning the privileges of this House. This is not a matter on which the House would expect an immediate answer. With the leave of the House I propose to take it away and look into the matter. When I have taken advice I shall be able to give the House a considered opinion.
Lord CARRINGTON: My Lords, I would not wish to comment on that because we shall listen to what the Leader of the House has to say when he comes back. I would ask him whether he would speak to his colleague in the Foreign Office or the Home Office who is responsible for this ban on the Duke of Montrose, and perhaps suggest to him that it seems to be a little odd in the light of the numbers of people we had visiting this country last year, and apparently there are some rather strange people who may come this year.
Lord PEART: My Lords, the noble Lord has mentioned an important matter. Of course I shall take that into account.
Lord LEE of NEWTON: My Lords, while my noble friend is doing that will he look at the position which may arise if that noble Duke is allowed in, so far as rebellion against Her Majesty is concerned and indeed the crime of treason?
Lord PEART: My Lords, as I have said, I shall look into this matter and then I shall make a Statement to the House.
Lord LOVAT: My Lords, would the noble Lord the Leader of the House agree that the Duke of Montrose fought against Hitler in the last war, and stood as a barrier against communism in Africa? May I say that, in 45 years in this House.this is the most disgraceful case of double standards that I have come across.
Lord SHEPHERD: My Lords, may I just—
Lord PEART: My Lords, a lot of us fought against Hitler, but that is not the issue. I have said that this is a matter that has to be considered as privilege.
Lord SHEPHERD: My Lords, I was seeking guidance of the Leader of the

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House. Seeing that we were getting into a debate and there did not appear to be a Motion before the House, it would seem to me not only abuse of the Rules of your Lordships' House but also abuse of the matter which the noble Lord the Leader of the House has undertaken to look at.

WHITSUN RECESS
Baroness LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOE: My Lords, with the leave of the House I shall make a Statement about the Whitsun Recess. Subject to the progress of business, it is proposed that the House should rise on Thursday, 26th May and return on Tuesday, 14th June.

GOVERNMENT STATEMENTS
Baroness LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOE: My Lords, with the leave of the House, at a convenient moment after 3·30 p.m., my noble friend Lord Melchett will repeat a Statement on the threatened strike in Northern Ireland.
May I also take this opportunity to say that a Statement was made in another place on Friday about business to be taken in the EEC Council of Ministers during May. I shall, as usual, arrange for the Statement to be made available in the Official Report.
Following is the Statement referred to:
EEC COUNCIL OF MINISTERS: MAY BUSINESS
"With your permission, Mr. Speaker, I will make a Statement about business to be taken in the Council of Ministers of the European Community during May. The monthly forecast for May was deposited on the 22nd of April.
"At present three meetings of the Council of Ministers are proposed for May. Foreign Ministers will meet on the 3rd and possibly 31st although this is unlikely because it clashes with the Ministerial Meeting of the Conference on International Economic Co-operation in Paris and Agriculture Ministers on the 16th and 17th of May. There will also be a meeting of the Standing Committee on Employment on the 5th of May.
"At the Foreign Affairs Council on the 3rd of May, Ministers will discuss relations with Cyprus, Malta and with the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance; renewal of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade Multi-Fibre Arrangements; participation by the Community in the International Sugar Agreement; fisheries matters; and the Community's position for the Ministerial
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Meeting of the Conference on International Economic Co-operation from the 30th of May to the 1st of June.
"The Agenda for the meeting of Agriculture Ministers on the 16th and 17th of May has yet to be decided, but it is expected to include consideration of revisions of the Common Fisheries Policy.
"The Standing Committee on Employment will consider a paper on employment prospects to 1980, the review of the European Social Fund and a Commission Communication on the co-ordination of the Community's Financial Instruments".

ROAD TRAFFIC (SEAT BELTS) (NO. 2) BILL [H.L.]
Lord WIGG: My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to confer power to make regulations requiring the wearing of seat belts in motor vehicles on motorways. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a —(Lord Wigg.)
On Question, Bill read 1a, and to be printed.

STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS
The CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES (Lord Aberdare): My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, on behalf of the Committee of Selection, That the Earl of Kimberley be appointed a member of the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments in the place of the Lord Wallace of Coslany. —(Lord Aberdare.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

INCUMBENTS (VACATION OF BENEFICES) MEASURE
3.5 p.m.
The Lord BISHOP of LONDON said: My Lords, I beg to move that this House do direct that in accordance with the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act 1919, the Incumbents (Vacation of Benefices) Measure be presented to Her Majesty for the Royal Assent. Those who take note of the Measures which from time to time reach your Lordships' House from the General Synod may be surprised at our dealing with this

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particular Measure today, since, with certain significant amendments, it is the same Measure as that to which on 21st July 1975, without any debate, this House gave an affirmative assent.
It is, therefore, unnecessary for me to go into the details of the Measure, but the House is entitled to be reminded, in broad principle, of what it attempts to do and why, having come before your Lordships' House in 1975 and received your approval, it comes to you again two years later. The Measure is roughly divided into two parts. Part II replaces the Incumbents Disability Measure 1945, whereby power is already in existence to remove from office, with compensation if necessary, an incumbent who has a freehold and who, through age or infirmity, is incapable of discharging his duties and who cannot be persuaded to retire. There is, therefore, nothing new in that part of the Measure. But it is thought desirable that we should have two Measures rather than one, and, therefore, the earlier Measure is repealed and the substance of it is brought into this Measure.
The rest of the Measure is designed to deal with the situation when, for one reason or another, relationships between an incumbent and his parishioners have completely broken down and it has become impossible for anyeffective pastoral care to be exercised. These cases are, I am thankful to say, exceedingly rare but when they occur they cause deep hurt and widespread scandal.
Generally, in the exercise of his pastoral oversight the Bishop examines the situation, sees all those who are involved in it, and by his pastoral council seeks to find a peaceful solution. But there are the occasional cases when all these efforts fail, when the incumbent refuses to resign and rests upon his freehold, and at present nothing can be done to remedy this unhappy situation. If a clergyman commits an offence he can be charged under the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Measure. If he fails by reason of physical disability, he can be dealt with under the Disability Measure. But if for other reasons things go wrong and pastoral advice proves to be of no avail, nothing can be done.
So far as I know, most of the other provinces of the Anglican Communion—certainly the Church in America—have
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machinery to bring about what is called a Dissolution of Pastoral Relationships. This Measure provides the Church of England with similar machinery. Under this Measure, when a complaint has been properly laid it is, under careful safeguards, to be investigated by a diocesan committee of three clergymen and two laymen who are chosen from a panel. If the committee so advises, the bishop must execute a declaration of avoidance and the clergyman must vacate his benefice and receive compensation. This is purposely a gentle and a pastorally-directed Measure. The cases with which it is designed to deal are generally very distressing and they need sympathetic handling, and that is what the Measure provides.
The origins of this Measure go back 11 years when, in 1966, the Convocation of Canterbury, representing the clergy of the Southern Province, asked for a Measure of this nature. In 1967 a commission on the deployment and payment of the clergy failed to gain general acceptance, but a proposal along the lines of this Measure gained substantial support throughout the Church. A subsequent committee on the terms of ministry brought forward proposals similar to those in this Measure, and its basic proposals were approved in 1972. A Measure was given general approval in February 1974. It passed through its revision stages in July 1974 and it received final approval in November 1974. On that occasion a Division was dispensed with by leave of the chairman and the Motion was carried by an overwhelming majority; therefore that Measure came before this House and was given approval. The Measure had its critics, but they carried little weight.
Your Lordships, therefore, may be surprised that the Measure comes before you for a second time. The reason is that when it reached another place certain flaws were discovered which had eluded the careful scrutiny given to the Measure both in the General Synod and in your Lordships' House. Mr. Patrick Mayhew, who declared himself generally in favour of the Measure, pointed out in the other place four shortcomings. He reminded the House that under the Measure the clergyman had a right to make written submissions but no absolute right to give oral evidence to the committee; that the clergyman could object only to two

811
members of the diocesan committee; that there was provision for a quorum of three but no requirement that they should be present throughout the hearing; and that all proceedings were to be in private.
Consequently, the Measure failed to receive the necessary resolution in another place. It was recognised that there was considerable substance in those criticisms and, since there is no machinery for amending a General Synod Measure once it has received final approval, it was necessary that a new Measure should be prepared and passed through all its stages in the General Synod, incorporating the matter that had been criticised. Mr. Mayhew's criticisms have now all been met in the Measure. His right to give oral evidence is rectified in paragraph 13(1) of the Schedule; under paragraph 4 of the Schedule to the present Measure the incumbent may object to as many members as he likes and appeal to the chancellor of the diocese until the point is reached where there are only sufficient members left on the panels to constitute the diocesan committee. There is also a right of objection to members of the provincial tribunal which allows appeal to the vicar general of the other Province. In the new Measure there is no provision at all for a quorum, which means that all members must be present throughout the hearing. Finally, the Measure gives the incumbent the right to ask for oral evidence to be heard in public, according to paragraph 14(2) of the Schedule.
While the Measure was being reexamined, it has also provided for an objection that was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Greenwood, in the Ecclesiastical Committee sitting on the first Measure. He criticised that earlier Measure because it gave the Synod power to alter the composition and procedure of committees and of tribunals by Statutory Instrument using a Negative Resolution procedure. This point is remedied in this Measure in Clause 18(3) where such rules require an Affirmative Resolution in each House of Parliament. The new Measure passed through all its stages of the General Synod—general approval, revision and final approval—in February, July and November 1966, and comes before your Lordships' House again for an Affirmative Resolution.
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There is, however, an unusual feature of the second appearance of this Measure to which I must, in fairness, draw the attention of your Lordships. The earlier Measure passed through all its stages—admittedly it had its critics, but no Divisions were demanded —and it received overwhelming support on final approval. The second Measure—amended, and admittedly an improvement on the first Measure, in that it increases the safeguards for the clergy —was generally approved without serious challenge. On the revision stage, the one Amendment which was moved on the Floor of the House failed to receive the necessary support and so lapsed; yet, when it came up for final approval in November 1976, there was a considerable minority in the House of Clergy against the Measure. The House of Bishops carried it by 26 votes to 6, a majority of 20; the House of Laity carried it by 131 to 43, a majority of 88; but the House of Clergy carried it by 93 votes to 87. a majority of only six.
It is difficult for me to comment on this unusual state of affairs. It is strange that a Measure, which was the outcome of a demand by the clergy themselves in 1966, which was required generally by the Church in 1967, which was recommended by a committee in 1972, which passed through all its stages in 1974 and which was agreed on general approval and revision stage in its amended form in February and July 1976, should have provoked such a strong reaction in November 1976. Possibly it was due to the fact that it was a new Synod which considered the second Measure and its members were unaware of the volume of thought and discussion which had preceded the Measure. Possibly it was thought to be a challenge to the parson's freehold. Anyway, I can only say to your Lordships that I believe that these misgivings have no substance.
As in all ecclesiastical legislation, the Measure contains many safeguards, and I do not believe it would or could ever be used to persecute a clergyman or to remove him improperly from office. But I think your Lordships should be reminded that when an impasse has arisen in a parish—when, through incompatibility or other reasons, relationships between parson and people have irremedially broken down, despite every pastoral effort to mend them —the people who have to carry the burden

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of distress and scandal are mainly the bishop and the laity; the bishop because he finds himself impotent to put right a situation in which he shares, since every parish is his cure as well as that of the parish priest, the laity because they are deprived of the ministry of their parish priest. The House of Bishops and the House of Laity voted strongly in favour of the Measure.
I do not believe for one moment that the Measure will affect the parson's freehold. If anything, it will commend it, for I cannot think it is to the credit of the Church or of the clergy that, when, for one reason or another, pastoral work in a parish has virtually come to a standstill, there should be no means to remedy the situation in the last resort. In a pastoral setting, this Measure provides the remedy that is so greatly needed, and I ask your Lordships' House to give it an Affirmative Resolution.
Moved, That this House do direct that, in accordance with the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act 1919, the Incumbents (Vacation of Benefices) Measure be presented to Her Majesty for the Royal Assent. —(The Lord Bishop of London.)
3.20 p.m.
Lord BROOKE of CUMNOR: My Lords, after that powerful speech in favour of the Measure by the right reverend Prelate, I feel that it would be unfortunate if, for a second time, the Measure were to go through the House without debate. I should like, as a temporal Lord, to give my strong support to the right reverend Prelate for this Measure and for the necessity of the Church being armed with some procedure by which a situation such as the right reverend Prelate has described can be tackled.
I agree with the right reverend Prelate that the Measure has been greatly improved in the two-year interval and, indeed, I feel that I myself carry some sort of guilt in that, two years ago, the original Measure went through the House without notice being taken that there was no right of personal appearance guaranteed to the clergyman whose conduct was in question. We owe a good deal to another place for having taken action which required the General Synod to rectify that.
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I agree with the right reverend Prelate that the cases in which this Measure may need to be used are few, but it is most important, in my judgment, that there should be adequate machinery within the Church to ensure that the situation within such a parish is not allowed to fester any longer. In the average case I am sure that non-official action should suffice to clear up the difficult ties but, as the right reverend Prelate said, there are cases when the difficulties have gone on for so long that opinion on both sides has hardened, and it is impossible under existing law for anybody to take effective remedial action.
The result of a breakdown of the pastoral relationship is not confined to the parish in question. In that parish, it will lead to an empty church, but the sorry situation will become known a long way beyond the boundaries of that parish, and people, whether or not they be churchmen, will repeatedly ask themselves why it should be that the Established Church appears to have no power to rectify an unhappy situation of that kind. That, I am sure, is part of the scandal to which the right reverend Prelate referred.
Not only that. A breakdown of the pastoral relationship means that, in a parish consisting of a village or a small town, not only do the people not receive the pastoral care which is their due, but they will also suffer from a sad lack of leadership. In my submission as a layman—though perhaps I am trespassing on other people's ground here—it is important that, in a village or a small town, the vicarage should be giving positive support to all local projects which appear to be for the good of the community, whether it be that the village should take seriously its efforts to win the best-kept village competition, or whether it be that the place needs a new village hall which can be obtained only if there is united support for the idea throughout the parish. The secular as well as the spiritual life of the village as a whole suffers handicap if a situation such as the right reverend Prelate has described is allowed to continue indefinitely. That is why I am certain it is right that Parliament should support the General Synod in making a change in the law.
In my former local government days, there was a story of a newly elected

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councillor who, by way of conversation, asked the mayor, "How long has the town clerk been with us?" The mayor replied gloomily, "He is not with us; he is against us!" That is a clash which under the law can be resolved because the council will have power to terminate the town clerk's appointment if there seems to be no other way. However, in the case of the Church, in parishes where this lamentable situation has arisen, as the right reverend Prelate has explained, there is no power anywhere to enforce some change or improvement.
Your Lordships must not imagine that the difficulties are always the fault of the incumbent. In the case of the town clerk, it may have been the fault of the town clerk or of the mayor, and very likely it was a hit of both. This is not a Measure aimed against the clergy; it is a measure aimed at the good of the place as a whole. That is why I feel that your Lordships should not treat this as exclusively a matter of interest to the Lords Spiritual or the clergy. It concerns us all and I, who during my lifetime have had the experience of living in a parish which has been through this very sad trouble, should like most strongly to support what the right reverend Prelate has said.
Viscount MONCK: My Lords, may I join my noble friend in supporting very strongly the Measure so ably proposed by my very old friend the right reverend Prelate. I happen to know a parish not far from where I live, though not, thank God! my own, where the existence of such a Measure could be a godsend, and I trust that your Lordships will pass this Measure without dissent.
Baroness STEWART of ALVECHURCH: My Lords, may I ask the right reverend Prelate whether there would be any right of appeal from the decision of the five-member committee?
3.29 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of LONDON: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. As the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, pointed out, this is a matter that concerns not only the incumbent himself but also the laity and the welfare of the whole parish. As
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regards the question put by the noble Baroness, there is no appeal from the decision of the Committee. However, the noble Baroness will remember that, before the matter can even come to the Committee, it will have had to be subjected to an inquiry by the Archdeacon, for the Bishop is directed to tell the Archdeacon to take such steps as he considers approppriate to promote better relations between the incumbent and his parishioners and to remove the causes of their estrangement. If he fails, then it is a committee of three clergymen—three fellow parish priests—and two laymen which has to examine the situation. It was thought right that there should not be an appeal to, say, the Bishop, because he would be able to override the opinion of a committee that had most carefully and pastorally gone into the situation. Therefore, we felt that this was the right way in which this matter should be dealt with.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE BILL [H.L.]
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. This is another of those useful, but I fear unexciting, Bills which Lord Chancellors have to bring before your Lordships from time to time to make helpful improvements in the administration of justice and to meet changing demands and circumstances. The last one was introduced by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, in 1973, so I do not apologise too much for bringing this one before you after an interval of four years.
The provisions of the Bill are, I think, even more than usually miscellaneous. In another place they used to be called, unkindly, a "ragbag", but if that is meant to be deprecatory I hope to persuade your Lordships that this is a Bill of value. The only recurring theme which I can detect is that, since inflation has come to he accepted as an ever-present factor in our lives, or at any rate to be an ever-present factor in our lives, it is inconvenient that figures of jurisdiction, interest rates, and so on should be in primary legislation alterable only by an amending Act of Parliament, instead of in subordinate legislation, or in some

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cases—for instance, in relation to rates of travelling and subsistence allowances—dealt with by administrative direction. This is a trite thought for us, but it would indeed have shocked our Victorian and Edwardian predecessors. Indeed, between the wars, and even shortly afterwards, Parliament was still prepared to insert the current rates of interest into primary legislation in the firm belief that they would be durable and valid for the foreseeable future. A number of the clauses in the Bill cover that point. Otherwise they are, as I have said, an assortment of beneficial and I hope noncontroversial reforms.
It may suffice for me on Second Reading to run through the provisions of the Bill, and perhaps we can leave the consideration of the matter in detail until the Committee stage. Clause 1 and Schedule 1 implement two recommendations of the Legal Aid Advisory Committee. First, for England and Wales they remove the considerable burden on those who administer the civil legal aid scheme of re-calculating an assisted person's contributions whenever there is a change in the income limits, which nowadays is very nearly an annual event. There is no such provision in Scotland. Secondly, for both England and Wales, and Scotland, the clause and the Schedule abolish the panels or lists of barristers, advocates and solicitors which are now generally acknowledged to be an unnecessary complication in the running of the legal aid scheme. In practice the panels have already in effect been replaced by legal aid "referral lists", which are widely available to the public, and which indicate not only solicitors who take legal aid cases, but also the types of problem each is normally prepared to undertake; and this improved system will continue.
Clause 2 and Schedule 2 carry out the policy which I have just mentioned by enabling the rates of certain expenses and other allowances which now have to be prescribed by Statutory Instrument—such as payment of travelling, subsistence and loss of earnings allowances and of other expenses to magistrates—to be determined administratively. I should emphasise that this applies only to the rate of the allowance. The conditions for payment and other matters will continue to be prescribed as before.
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Clause 3 and Schedule 3 require a word of explanation because, though the concept is simple enough, the form of the amendments is complicated. Under the Maintenance Orders Act of 1950 a maintenance order made by a court in one part of the United Kingdom may be registered for enforcement in the equivalent court of another part of the country; for example, a Scottish Court of Session order may be registered in the High Court here, and probably will be if the person liable to make the payment comes to live in this part of the country. Now, under the Maintenance Orders Act 1958 an order made by the English High Court can be registered for enforcement in a magistrates' court so that the payee can take advantage of the simpler enforcement procedure available in the magistrates' court. But at present an order made by the Court of Session and registered under the 1950 Act in the High Court here, cannot be re-registered under the 1958 Act for enforcement in a magistrates' court.
The purpose of the provisions in the Bill is to enable that to be done, and it will be a considerable benefit to a Scottish or Northern Irish woman whose husband comes to live here after she has obtained a maintenance order against him in the courts of Scotland or Northern Ireland. These provisions do not apply to enforcement in Scotland or Northern Ireland because the 1958 Act operates only on enforcement in England, and the systems of enforcement in the other two countries are different. I should add for completeness that the clause does enable an order registered in a magistrates' court to be re-registered in the High Court, although that will be a rare case.
Clause 4 makes amendments to a number of Statutes which have become necessary now that the old rule has been abolished under which the courts of this country gave judgment in sterling only and in no other currency. Clause 5 remedies a defect in the powers of the Courts Martial Appeal Court to award costs in favour of a person who has been successful on a special reference. Clause 6 enables temporary additional judges to be appointed to the Employment Appeal Tribunal. This is a precautionary measure to enable any necessary steps to be taken to deal with a backlog of business if that situation should arise in what has become an increasingly busy appeal tribunal.

819
Part II of the Bill, which applies to England and Wales only, opens with Clause 7 which contains two provisions about appeals. The first abolishes the rule that the Court of Appeal's decision is final on ancillary matters in matrimonial cases, save on a point of law, and will enable questions of custody, maintenance, financial provision, and so on to be taken right up to the House of Lords in the rare cases—and they will be rare—where that may be appropriate. The second removes the statutory rule which requires an appeal from an inferior tribunal to be heard by a Divisional Court and leaves the Rule Committee to make provision as appropriate in each case for an appeal to be heard either by a Divisional Court or by a judge sitting alone. Clause 8 enables me to appoint temporary officers to posts in the Supreme Court, as well as deputies for any officer who is absent, and it enlarges the field of choice from which appointments to certain of those offices can be made. It has become apparent that in some respects the qualifications are nowadays too restrictive.
Clause 9 has, as its main purpose, to enable funds in court to be banked at any bank designated by the Lord Chancellor and not necessarily at the Bank of England. Your Lordships will note in this respect as a side note that the requirement for banking suitors' funds at all was first imposed in the year 1721. Until that year the officers of the court were free to invest such funds as they chose and to pay the expenses of their offices and staff out of the income. Any balance of the income they kept for their own benefit. That practice continued until, unhappily, serious deficiencies occurred when some of the funds were found to have been lost in the South Sea Bubble. As a result of this and other irregularities in the Court of Chancery, I regret to say that one of my predecessors, the first Earl of Macclesfield, was impeached and fined in the sum of £30,000 by your Lordships' House—a mournful event, indeed. Coming back to the present, it seems expedient to relieve the Accountant General of his duty to maintain his account at the Bank of England. This implies no lack of confidence in that institution, but it no longer in practice maintains a branch in the Law Courts, and it is therefore more convenient to make use of whatever
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alternative and responsible banking arrangements may be available.
Clause 10 reduces from five to three years the period of service as a recorder which qualifies a barrister or a solicitor for appointment as a circuit judge. In particular, this will enable me to recommend a solicitor/recorder for appointment to the Circuit Bench after three years' service, where he has shown himself suitable for the higher appointment. Under the operation of the present provision requiring a five-year period of service I have been able to recommend this year five solicitors who have become circuit judges.
Clauses 11 to 18 all relate to the county courts. Clause 11 simplifies the administration of those courts by removing certain statutory requirements as to the place and time of sittings, and will save a good deal of wasted judicial and administrative time. Clause 12 gives a county court jurisdiction to grant an injunction or declaration in relation to land of appropriate value even though no other remedy is sought in the proceedings. At present, the remedy of injunction or declaration can, as a rule, be given only where it is ancillary to another claim; for example, for damages. The new provision will, for instance, enable a tenant to obtain an injunction against unlawful harassment or threats of eviction on the part of his landlord. Clause 13 raises the limits of Admiralty and probate jurisdiction in the county courts, and enables those limits to be raised by Order in Council in future. Under Clause 14, directions may be given to enable a solicitor's clerk to appear in court on certain minor and uncontentious matters, such as applications for adjournment by consent, so saving the time and expense of attendance by his employer solicitor. The Law Society and the Institute of Legal Executives have urged this sensible change.
Clause 15 removes a defect from the highly successful small claims procedure, which is now in operation in the county courts, under which cases are referred for informal arbitration by the registrar or judge, instead of being heard in open court with formal rules of evidence and procedure. This has enabled a large number of people to bring or defend their cases successfully in person, without a lawyer, thereby saving a good deal of money. It is mainly used for small

821
consumer disputes or for small claims arising out of motor accidents. In 1976, over 12,000 cases were determined in this way, by arbitration in the county courts. At present, an order of the court is required before this procedure is brought into play, and the parties cannot be certain from the outset that this will be given. Under Clause 15(1) the parties will be able, in suitable cases, to agree among themselves on the arbitration procedure. The clause also enables small awards under the Arbitration Act to be enforced through the county court rather than the High Court.
Clause 16 raises from £10 to £50 the figure which requires an unsatisfied county court judgment to be entered in the register of county court judgments, and enables the figure to be amended in future by order. The present figure of £10 has stood since the year 1852, and the increase proposed can hardly, I think, be called excessive in the circumstances. Clause 17 carries to its conclusion the process by which, over the years, the county court registrar, who was originally purely an administrative officer, has become a judicial one, to the great advantage, I believe, of the administration of justice in small cases. It is indeed an essential part of the reorganisation of the civil and criminal courts that he should perform judicial functions. Under this clause the registrar's remaining administrative duties will be transferred to the officers of the courts service, and the registrar will be given clear authority to determine small cases without any right for the parties to object. Such an objection is very rarely made in practice, but the provision for it causes administrative difficulty. Clause 18 makes a small change in the method of proving service in the county court. It reflects a technological change in the keeping of court records, and will save costs.
Clause 19 has more historical interest than any of the others. Put briefly, it removes the obsolete jurisdictions which are now possessed by certain local courts, but it leaves those courts in being to perform any non-judicial functions which they now carry out and which may be valued in the locality. I should also make it clear that the clause does not abolish the judicial functions of a court—and there are about 20 of these—which currently exercises them to the benefit of the area
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which it serves. There are two examples of such courts in Clause 19(1), and they are specifically excepted since they might otherwise have lost their jurisdiction under the general heading of Courts Baron and Courts Leet in Part I of Schedule 4. The Estray Court for the Lordship of Denbigh (where the Sovereign is the Lord of the Manor) sits once a year to adjudicate on claims to the ownership of sheep that have been gathered in by the court bailiffs from the Crown wastes during the year. There is no suggestion that these sheep have been culled in from the farms and lands of those who are the rightful owners of them. Those days, if they ever existed, my Lords, have long since passed. This is a very useful court, and it would be quite wrong to abolish it.
The Court Leet for the Manor of Laxton, in Nottinghamshire, also sits once a year to administer and settle any disputes over the open field system of farming, which still operates in that area. A substantial part of the parish has never been enclosed and survived the Enclosures Acts, and it is still farmed on the mediaeval three-field system. Again, to do so would be highly unpopular, for the tenants who farm on the estate are very jealous of their ancient traditions and are extremely keen that they should continue undisturbed; and in my view it would be quite wrong to abolish such a useful institution. I do not think that I need say any more about this clause or Schedule 4, which sets out in Parts I and II the courts which are to lose their obsolete judicial functions, and in Part III the non-judicial business which will continue to be conducted by certain of those courts where it has proved to be identifiable. Those of your Lordships who are further interested in the subject will find a fuller explanation in the Law Commission's Report No. 72, on which this clause is based, although it is not fully followed in every detail.
Clauses 20 and 21 make alterations to the Land Registration Act 1925. Clause 20 enables the register to be inspected, on proper authority, in connection with criminal proceedings or to trace the proceeds of crime. It may be right, although opinions differ on even this, that the register should, in general, be private, but it cannot, I think, be justifiable to enable the privacy of the register to act as a barrier behind which the proceeds of crime used to acquire land may be

823
concealed. Clause 21 abolishes an obsolete procedure known as the "mortgage caution", which serves no useful purpose but causes a certain amount of confusion in the scheme of protecting minor interests in registered land.
Clause 22 corrects a minor defect in the Proceedings Against Estates Act 1970 which at present prevents it from providing the full benefit intended for cases where legal proceedings are instituted against a person who has died. Clause 23, first, enables the rate of interest payable on an unpaid statutory legacy to be determined by Statutory Instrument; and, secondly, enables the method of capitalising a surviving spouse's life interest in an intestate's estate to be similarly determined. In each case the statutory provisions of the Administration of Estates Act are now inequitable and out of line with current conditions.
Finally, my Lords, Clause 24 enables the Court of Session to make an Act of Sederunt (rules of court, in English parlance) allowing written statements and reports to be given in evidence in Scotland in circumstances where that is not now possible; and Clause 25 raises the limits of value under Section 68 of the Lunacy Regulation (Ireland) Act 1871. This will enable the simplified procedure for administering the property of a mental patient in Northern Ireland to be extended to a wider range of cases.
My Lords, those are the substantive provisions now in the Bill and I commend them to your Lordships. It is, of course, always difficult to know when one has come to an end with reforms of this nature and I may well have one or two further proposals to put before you at the Committee stage; but I shall do my best not to overburden your Lordships further. I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, that the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Lord Chancellor.)

NORTHERN IRELAND: STRIKE CALL
3.51 p.m.
The MINISTER of STATE, NORTHERN IRELAND OFFICE (Lord Melchett): My Lords, I will with permission repeat a Statement that my right
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honourable friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland is making in another place. The Statement is as follows:
"A body calling itself the United Ulster Action Council seeks to bring Northern Ireland to a standstill by calling for a stoppage of work from midnight tonight. Most of the militant Loyalist paramilitary organisations are associated with the Council whose membership includes the Ulster Workers' Council, the newly formed United Ulster Unionist Party led by Mr. Baird and the Democratic Unionist Party led by the honourable Member for Antrim North. The Action Council are asking for the implementation of the majority Report of the Constitutional Convention, which was rejected by this House a year ago. They are seeking confrontation with the Government and with Parliament. They are also asking for a different security policy.
"I believe that the proposed action would be economically disastrous for Northern Ireland, especially at a time when the Government have been giving special attention to the needs of the Province where much has been done to help restore confidence. Such confidence is, of course, essential if much needed foreign investment is to come to Northern Ireland. Only last week I was able to announce new orders worth £60 million to £70 million for Harland and Wolff. The House must also remember that the disruption of the Northern Ireland economy is also an aim of the Provisional IRA.
"I am not in the least complacent about the present security situation. I can well appreciate the feelings of frustration in Northern Ireland that the community there has had to suffer so much for so long. But equally I am convinced that what the United Ulster Action Council is doing and proposes to do is not the way to improve matters. A stoppage would distract the Security Forces from their efforts against the Provisional IRA, who have recently suffered reverses.
"The Government will not be coerced. They will help the community to resist bullying tactics. The Government are supported in this by all the other political Parties in Northern Ireland, and by the trades unions and

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employers' organisations, all of whom have condemned the proposed stoppage.
"The Government will deal firmly with any disruptive action that may be taken and will give full support to all efforts to keep industry and commerce in operation. There may be attempts by intimidation to prevent people getting to work. This activity is clearly illegal and a matter for the police. The Chief Constable has informed me that the RUC will act against this and all other forms of illegal activity, invoking support from the Army if necessary. The GOC has called up all the Ulster Defence Regiment for full-time service in order to assist regular troops. The Spearhead Battalion and further reinforcements have arrived in the Province. If there is disruption of public utilities, the Government will do everything possible to mitigate the hardship and inconvenience. As a last resort specialist servicemen are available to maintain minimum services essential to the life of the community and of individual citizens.
"I hope, however, that common sense will prevail and that a small section in Northern Ireland will not try to inflict this pain and distress upon themselves and their fellow citizens. The House will, I know, join me and the majority of people in Northern Ireland in condemning those who seek to foment the proposed disruption."
My Lords, that is the end of the Statement.
Viscount LONG: My Lords, I am sure that we are all most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, for repeating the Statement made by his right honourable friend, Mr. Roy Mason, in another place. I think from these Benches we must surely feel once again sad that Northern Ireland is caught up in yet another, if I might say so, irresponsible action. So far as we can all see, it can only do harm to the economics of this land. I know that from these Benches we fully support the Government's intentions to be firm with these minority groups who are trying to disrupt Northern Ireland.
We should also like to say how much we appreciate and respect the work which our security forces have carried out in past years in order to maintain law and
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order. But at this moment our troops are having to be taken away from seeking out the bomber and the criminal, to man the barricades and to do light jobs which are not, after all, going to keep the criminal at bay. We are not going to proceed with a long speech about the agonies of this wretched strike of these irresponsible groups, but we do intend to say that we back the Government and hope the Government will make these people see common sense.
Lord BEAUMONT of WHITLEY: My Lords, I, too, should like to join in thanking the noble Lord for repeating the Statement which has been made. We, too, should like to assure the Government that we on these Benches are firmly behind them in this attempt to make a firm stand on this occasion—rather more firm than happened unfortunately on a previous occasion. I think that this might be the right moment to say how heartened we are by the enormous proportion of the Unionist movement which has refused to get itself stampeded into any support for this insane action.
There is only one question I should like to ask. There have been ugly rumours that there were plans afoot to get hold of the weapons issued for self-defence to reservists in the Ulster Defence Regiment and police off duty. I should like to ask whether steps have been taken to safeguard this particular aspect of security.
Lord MELCHETT: My Lords, may I thank both noble Lords very much for their support for the steps which the Government are taking and the policy the Government have adopted. I am sure that that support will be welcomed by the overwhelming majority of people in Northern Ireland. I echo what the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, has said about the marvellous stand that the huge majority of the Unionist population have taken in opposing this threatened action.
The noble Lord asked me one question about a rumour which I confess not to have heard, although I have heard a large number of very silly and unsubstantiated rumours. I can assure the noble Lord that there is no basis to it. I can assure him that all the necessary security measures on arms and everything else have been taken.

ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE BILL [H.L.]
3.59 p.m.
Second Reading debate resumed.
Viscount COLVILLE of CULROSS: My Lords, we now return to the Administration of Justice Bill which perhaps interests rather fewer of your Lordships than the Statement which has just been repeated. When I read the Bill it seemed to me that the only matter of principle that could be uncovered in it was that the noble and learned Lord had required each section of his Department to make at least one contribution, so miscellaneous is it in its coverage. I observe that some of the reforms have waited for quite some time—one, I think, from as long ago as 1955—before an opportunity has arisen to put things right.
I welcome some of the moves towards flexibility: for instance, in Clause 5, the freedom granted under the Courts Martial Appeal Act, for the Court of Appeal to award full costs and expenses without any statutory disadvantages, and also under Clause 12, which the noble and learned Lord explained, whereby one can go rather more easily to the county court for an injunction or declaration without having to join some other course of action. Under Clause 6 we heard that it would be possible to appoint temporary judges of the Employment Appeal Tribunal. I am sure that this is a useful and a wise clause to have on the Statute Book; but if one looks at The Daily Cause List it is very surprising to see how many High Court actions in the ordinary courts are now being tried by people, who are distinguished of course, sitting as additional judges. I very much hope that the noble and learned Lord will not need to use Clause 6 very much. This is in no way a criticism of those who sit as additional judges, but if people go to the High Court or the Employment Appeal Tribunal, they expect to have their case heard by a High Court judge, and they may be a little disappointed if it is not, so I hope this clause will not need to be used very often.
It amuses me very much to find that under Clause 9 a Socialist Lord Chancellor should forsake the nationalised Bank of England and court trade with the private banks, who have not yet been nationalised. I am sure that they will provide a much
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better and more flexible service, and this therefore adds to my applause on the flexibility that we can find in the Bill. I was very glad indeed to hear the news announced under Clause 10 of the appointment of the first five solicitor circuit judges. I am sure that those who have been interested in this argument ever since the Courts Act—and, indeed, probably before it—will wish them very well indeed in their new appointment. I am sure that they will be every bit as successful as those who come from the other side of the profession.
Now I should like to ask the noble and learned Lord a few questions. I attempted to give him notice, but unfortunately the "pigeon" to whom I entrusted my "post" seems not to have flown straight to the roost. Therefore I will forgive the noble and learned Lord if he has not all the answers today. Perhaps he can tell me in due course. First there must be one or two welcome savings of public money. There should be one saving under Clause 1 and Schedule 1, whereby contributions by legally-aided persons out of their own resources do not have to be recalculated in the middle of a case.
The only disadvantage seems to be—and I wonder whether the noble and learned Lord can say anything about this —if a person embarks on a case with legal aid at a certain level only to find that the lower limit of his income is raised, and that had he started later he would have received a greater contribution out of the legal aid fund. So he may feel that he has been somewhat prejudiced by the failure to recalculate. I wonder whether the safeguards applicable here could be explained.
The second saving appears in Clause 23. In the obsolete method of capitalising the amount that a spouse may get under the intestacy of the husband or wife there is still the necessity, under the legislation as it stands, to publish something called the Government Annuity Tables Order which has not been necessary for any other purpose at all since 1962. Anything that gets rid of even a few pages of the published subordinate legislation that is passed in any year gladdens my heart. There are already about 2,800 pages of it in the Statutory Instruments that are published; that involves only some of the

829
Statutory Instruments that are passed, so there must be a saving in not having to publish and print that. Could the noble and learned Lord confirm that?
When I looked at Clause 13, it appeared to me that this was yet another nibble at the financial limits of the county court. This is the most substantial matter that I should like to raise. There are already a number of limits of financial jurisdiction in the county court which can be raised by means of an order in council; but the situation is getting very complicated indeed. The latest exercise in this line are two Statutory Instruments which came into effect at the end of March. Although I grant that there is the additional fact that there was a regency during that period of time, we have an extremely complicated set of references which grants the powers to raise these limits. The limits are set out.
That is not all, because on the same day there was laid another County Courts (Administration Order) Jurisdiction Order which is not made under any of those Statutes, but under the Administration of Justice Act 1965. I cannot imagine why there have to be two Statutory Instruments. Perhaps the noble and learned Lord can tell us. Does it not really give rise to this, that there cannot be any sense in having any financial limits retained in these Acts requiring substantive statutory amendment from time to time? Could the noble and learned Lord confirm that this is the end of this exercise? He has now picked out the only remaining areas where it can no longer be done by way of Order in Council. If not, would he please look at it again, to see whether that can be done?
First, could he arrange—because here we have a perfect opportunity—for all the limits of financial jurisdiction to be raised in one order so that the practitioner would know that that was the only place he had to look? Secondly, could the Government deal with all of them in the same place, this avoiding the necessity of having to go back and look at one or more Acts of Parliament which still maintain an area which has not been able to be covered by an Order in Council? This is important, if only for the reason that if a litigant starts proceedings in the High Court in a case where the financial jurisdiction is within the county court's
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limits, he is penalised in costs. Therefore, it is very much to his benefit to know what are the up-to-date limits of the county court's jurisdiction.
On Clause 16, I agree that a £10 limit on an unpaid judgment in the county court, if it is 125 years old, is now out of date; but there is one matter which I remember; that is, that there are agencies which compile lists of people who are bad payers. These are used widely in commerce, particularly in terms of credit rating. I am not altogether certain that I like these things, and it may well he that the mistake or error is not so much in having them at all but in the difficulty of any person whose name happens to appear in one, finding out that this is so. If he was able to be told and perhaps have his name struck out this would take a good deal of the problem away.
If the lists are to continue to exist, and are going to be relied upon, I would ask the noble and learned Lord to think very carefully before he cuts down their ambit. If it is thought that they are comprehensive lists of bad payers, by a stroke he is able to reduce substantially the number of people whose names appear on them and it may be very misleading. That is a slightly difficult point which could be looked at again.
I was also fascinated by Clause 19 and Schedule 4 about the ancient courts. I looked at Law Commission No. 72, which was published some time after the Courts Act had begun the reform that is here completed. I studied with great care what the Law Commission had to say then and the way in which it has been picked up in the Bill. There is only one court that the noble and learned Lord has left out. It was going to have its jurisdiction abolished by the Law Commission, but it has been left out of the Bill and I am very curious about it. It is called The Maldon Court of Record for Passing the Estates of Married Women. Why has it been left out? It seems to me immensely sinister, and I should like to know why that court is to keep its civil and criminal jurisdiction, if any, and what is the good work that it does on the same lines as that interesting insight into Welsh life in North Wales that the noble and learned Lord talked about. I am sure that in Maldon some very worthy

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jurisdiction is being here fulfilled, but why is it that the Government disagree with the Law Commission?
The only other clause to which I should like to draw attention is one which, of course, has been explained briefly: it is Clause 21 concerning the mortgage caution. I do not practise in this branch of the law, but two or three years ago a judge of the Chancery Division decided that a mortgage could not be protected by an ordinary caution, as I understand it, but only by a mortgage caution. It would seem to me that the change being brought about here, although highly sensible, needs fairly wide publicity because there must be a great number of properties and a great deal of money tied up and protected by cautions of one kind or another in the register. So if the noble and learned Lord could see his way to explaining a little more fully what is being dealt with here and how it is going to work, and how everybody may be made perfectly safe and happy by this new method of protecting their interests, then I feel sure that would be useful.
So far I have not been able to find any other fine pieces of cloth to put in the "ragbag" of the noble and learned Lord, but I will continue my search. Perhaps I might raise a final point. Subject to the noble and learned Lord finding a few more, is he now content to leave this Bill as the culmination of a very distinguished tenure of his office and make perfectly certain that, before the forthcoming Election, the cupboard is bare and all his tasks have been achieved?
4.12 p.m.
Lord GARDINER: My Lords, my main purpose in rising is to congratulate my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack on obtaining Parliamentary time for this Bill. Under any system of justice, of course, there are changes which require to be made—very often small ones —and there are anomalies to be put right and, while it may be true that the Administration of Justice Bill is very often referred to as a "ragbag" Bill, it is really none the worse for that in character.
I should also like to congratulate the Law Commission, whose industry is shown in Clause 19, Schedule 4, in the work they have done regarding these
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obsolete courts. One of the advantages of a barrister is that when he is not sure whether or not something might be properly done he has only to ask the Professional Conduct Committee of the Bar Council whether or not it is a thing that he can properly do. They are bound to tell him. Doctors, of course, have no such facilities. And if there is not going to be a meeting of the Committee in time, the chairman is bound to give him a ruling. I remember when I was first chairman of the Professional Conduct Committee, the very first question I got—and it had to be answered at once because it was urgent—was: should a member of the Bar wear wig and robes when sitting as Steward of the Manorial Court? That is not a question which is likely to arise very often in the future.
I have only one or two small questions to raise. Referring to Clause 1 and its appropriate Schedule 1, although it appears to state that a man on legal aid can choose his own barrister or solicitor, am I right in thinking that the effect of paragraph 2 of the Schedule is in fact to maintain the distinction which has long existed between a solicitor who, without giving any reason, is always entitled to refuse to act for anyone he does not like the look of, and a barrister who, since he has a monopoly of audience in the High Court, has—at any rate since the time of Lord Erskine—a duty to act for anybody, however much he may disapprove of him and however little sympathy he may have with him in any proper case?
I would respectfully agree, subject to what my noble and learned friend may have to say, with the purport of the observations of the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, as to the desirability of ensuring that at last we have got rid of all those cases in which a Government cannot alter the financial jurisdiction of the county court without legislation. Referring to Clause 5, solicitor employees, the matter has always seemed to me to raise a rather difficult question. In the original proposals, and indeed in the 1949 Legal Aid and Advice Act, legal aid was to be available in the High Court, the county court, in domestic proceedings before magistrates and in every tribunal before which there was a right of legal representation. But a distinction was drawn: tribunals were not to be included in that procedure until an order in council had

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been made. The reason for that was simply that it was doubted at the time whether there were sufficient lawyers in the country to do all their ordinary work and legal aid work in the High Court, the county court, before the magistrates and before tribunals as well; so tribunals were to be left for a time until it was seen that there were enough lawyers.
In the event, it did not work out like that at all, because the Act was passed in July 1949, and then came devaluation—crash, bang! crisis, cuts all round—and Lord Jowitt was told, "Of course, you cannot do any of this now." It was a year before he was allowed to start legal aid in the High Court. Then the Government fell and we had to battle against Conservative Governments for seven years before we got it introduced into the county courts. Then we had to battle for another three years before we got it introduced into domestic proceedings before magistrates. I could only persuade the Government of which I was a Member to introduce it into at least one tribunal as a start.
It has always been the case, I think, that if one takes tribunals a man could be represented by somebody who is not a lawyer as well as, and sometimes better than, by a lawyer. For example, in industrial tribunals there are many capable trade union representatives, and before a tribunal like the Supplementary Benefits Appeal Tribunal, a social worker with great experience in that particular field but otherwise knowing nothing about the law, can be a very good representative. However, there is this difficulty: those who appear in our courts, whether barristers or solicitors, are professional men with a strict code of professional conduct, particularly in relation to any court or tribunal, and the courts rely very much on the Bar and on solicitors to maintain the high standards of conduct which professional men ought to observe. One of the first cases which I saw, as a pupil in chambers, was one of Mr. Horatio Bottomley's libel actions. He always employed barristers and solicitors to draft the pleadings and do all the interlocutory work; but when it came to the trial he always got rid of them and appeared in person. Having been for many years a court reporter, he was, of course, very familiar indeed with our rules of evidence; and as a litigant in person he would
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deliberately introduce hearsay or other matters, the truth of which was quite incapable of being checked, and then he I would look at the jury, if rebuked by the judge, and say: "Of course, I am only a layman and I don't understand these things."
I think that our courts are particularly known in other countries, although no doubt they have their bad points, for the quality of their judges and the integrity of our system of justice. It is now so long ago since anybody even suggested that an English judge was taking a bribe from a litigant that nobody can remember when it was. One has only to read the newspapers to see in how many developed countries it is otherwise. That is largely true because of the way in which our judges are not a separate profession but are taken from the leaders of the Bar and because of the very high standards of professional conduct enforced by the professional bodies.
I am sure it is still the case that there simply are not enough lawyers to go round. They cannot appear for everyone, whether legal aided or not, in all the courts or tribunals. If a line has to be drawn, I have always thought that perhaps the right way to do it is to say that at least those appearing in the courts, as apart from tribunals, ought to be professionally qualified. It is quite true that Clause 14 limits this to very trivial applications in court and so on, but it appears to me to be the first time that that line has not been drawn at that place. While there are, of course, what used to be called managing clerks—now legal executives—men of the highest probity and considerable experience, I believe I am right in saying that the fact is that, not being barristers or solicitors, they are not subject to the professional control of their professional organisations. I am not saying that I would oppose this, but I would invite my noble and learned friend to comment on it.
I now come to Clause 20, which deals with land registration. This has always seemed to me very curious. If you make a will—and it is a fairly private affair to whom and how much money you have left —this is open to public inspection and can be put in the papers, with both the gross and net estate, showing how successful or unsuccessful you have been in evading estate duty. But who owns a piece of land

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in England has always been a deathly secret. I have never understood why or how, in today's terms, this can be justified in the public interest. Tenants need to know their landlords, just as landlords should be entitled to know who their tenants, sub-tenants or assignees of tenants are, and it may be very much a matter of public question who owns a certain piece of land. Yet the Land Registry is shrouded in mystery and, even to aid the criminal law, we now have a special clause to allow police officers to find out who owns a piece of land.
Finally, there is one Amendment which I may propose at the Committee stage of the Bill and therefore I should perhaps just mention it. It is, I think, a typical Administration of Justice Bill point, because it is quite a small one. It arises in this way. Under the Justices of the Peace Act 1949, where justices are sitting in court, if there is a chairman or a deputy-chairman he or she must take the chair. That seems, on the face of it, a very reasonable provision to make. But it has been found, in practice, that there is this difficulty. I have been told by experienced justices what an extraordinary change it was from being one of a Bench to having to take the chair for the first time. It seems so easy when you are just sitting there and are not the chairman who has to decide what to say or do next, but it is very difficult when you have to do it.
It has been felt that it might be advantageous that those who are likely to be appointed deputy chairmen should have an opportunity of taking the chair in court, while an experienced chairman or deputy chairman is sitting next to them. Then, if he or she suddenly wonders "What on earth am I supposed to do now?" there is somebody there with whom to have a quick word. So it may be that at the Committee stage of the Bill I shall invite the Committee to consider that point. I am told that it is a proposal which has the approval of the Lord Chancellor's Office, the Home Office, the Magistrates' Association and the Justices' Clerks' Society, so perhaps it would not prove to be too controversial.
4.23 p.m.
Lord CLITHEROE: My Lords, may I thank the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack very much indeed for the
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very clear way in which he explained this Bill. I want to refer to only two points. In view of Clause 19, which refers to the jurisdiction of ancient courts—not obsolete courts, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, called them—may I ask the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack who will be responsible for determining how many sheep a commoner may graze on any common on which he has a right to graze sheep at present? A dispute is usually dealt with for the lord of the manor by the steward of the manor, and I should like to ask the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor whether this clause will bring that to an end and, if so, what will replace it and how will the rights of commoners be protected? If the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor does not wish to answer that now, I shall entirely understand, but it is a very practical point which needs an answer.
With regard to what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, said about Clause 20, the greater part of land in England is not registered at all. Therefore, a far more extensive Act of Parliament would have to be passed before we could meet the desire of the noble and learned Lord to be able to find out by looking who is the owner of any piece of land.
4.26 p.m.
Lord DOUGLAS of BARLOCH: My Lords, I should like to take this opportunity of saying a word about the provision which was introduced some years ago by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hail-sham, for solicitors in certain cases to be appointed as circuit judges. The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor has told us that a number have been so appointed, and that it is proposed in this Bill to reduce the kind of probationary period which elapses between the time when they become recorders and the time when they are eligible to be circuit judges. I should like to say how much this has been appreciated by the solicitors' profession. They were grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, at the time when this provision was made, and I am sure that they will be grateful to the present Lord Chancellor for the recognition which he has given to the success of this new development in our law.

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There is one other point which I might make apropos of what my noble and learned friend Lord Gardiner said about the provision allowing legal executives in certain cases to attend to small items of business. It is not entirely true that they would not be subject to any kind of disciplinary procedure, because, after all, the solicitor who employs them is responsible for them and, if he failed to employ people who were suitable for this task, I have no doubt that the Law Society could take steps to reprimand the solicitor for not seeing that his business was properly conducted. I therefore venture to think that there is sufficient safeguard to enable this simple and, in my opinion, highly desirable development to proceed.
4.29 p.m.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I should like to express my gratitude for the welcome that this Bill has received. I am happy to say that the pigeon duly arrived on the Woolsack about five minutes before the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, began his speech, and accordingly I am now in a better position than I feared I would be in when I sent him a note to the contrary effect. He has raised a number of matters of interest, some of which we can consider in detail in the Committee stage. As to the use of deputies, which arises under Clause 6 in relation to the Employment Appeal Tribunal, as I said, that is intended merely as a precautionary measure and I hope that we shall not need it. I am fully aware of the undesirability of the over-use of deputies in that tribunal or, indeed, in any other tribunal; but your Lordships will know of the pressures which the courts and Lord Chancellors have been under for some time in being able to man the courts, in view of the increasing pressures upon them due to the increase in the amount of litigation, both criminal and civil.
The noble Viscount raised first of all a question about the savings in public money which are involved in the provisions of Clause 1 of the Bill. Part of the saving will come from the fact that assisted persons will no longer benefit from the raising of the income limits once they have accepted an offer of legal aid at a certain contribution. That, I fear, will be the case but I am willing to look at the implica-
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tions. It is clear that there is no question of a higher contribution being called for once an offer of legal aid has been accepted. The other part of the saving, and it may well be the substantial part, will arise from the saving in the administrative cost of recalculating contributions when they have already been fixed.
As to the Government annuity tables, it is not thought that there will be any significant savings as a result of the abolition of their publication. In any event, there is no immediate intention to cease their publication. I am advised that some form of annuity table will have to be compiled for the purpose of the Administration of Estates Act to allow the survivor's life interest to continue to be calculated. However, I am very willing to look again at this point.
A point of importance was raised with regard to means of dealing with county court jurisdiction. The County Courts Jurisdiction Order 1977 now covers all jurisdictions except, first, the Admiralty which will in future be included and, secondly, the Inheritance Act and administration orders which do not need Affirmative Resolution. Therefore we have moved towards unification and towards the elimination of the need to have a series of differing orders dealing with different fields of jurisdiction. However, perhaps this is a matter which I can look at again after discussion with the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross.
With regard to the register of county court judgments, I confess that my sympathy was entirely with the noble Viscount. Indeed, initially I proposed to abolish the register because it constitutes an invasion of privacy. The debtor does not know whether or not he is in the list or how reliable the contents and keeping of the list are. However, I am bound to tell noble Lords that I received a flood of complaints about my proposal. In the end I decided—I hope not weakly—to submit, because it was said that I was undermining the commercial arrangements of the country and that the abolition of the register could cause great damage in making it easier to avoid the payment of debts. However, we have raised the figure at which a debt becomes registered from £10, as it has stood since 1852, to the figure of £50 which will be intro-

839
duced by the Bill. In view of the fall in the value of money since 1852, I think that is a reasonable increment.
I recognise the worry of the debtor as to where he stands. As the noble Viscount has said, a debtor is not given notice of being placed on the register, but if he is aware of the rules—and I am afraid that it may be a big "if"—he will know that this happens automatically. He can, however, have a search of the register made in his own name—if necessary, by a request by post for a fee of £1—to find out what is registered against him. It may well be that we ought to give greater publicity to that fact, since it may diminish some of the anxieties which have been expressed.
I was asked a question about that fascinating tribunal, the Maldon Court of Record for Passing the Estates of Married Women. I regret to say that this court performs no judicial role; it has been extinct for years and years. For that reason it was not necessary to curtail its jurisdiction by Statute; the jurisdiction does not exist. That is the explanation of the mystery. I am sorry that it is not more intriguing and fascinating than that, because it conjured up remarkable possibilities. I have explained why the fascinating jurisdiction of the Denbigh and Laxton courts has been maintained, so I will not go into that matter.
I was also asked about mortgage cautions. I am bound to confess that I cannot readily expound upon mortgage cautions, although I do appreciate their importance. I am advised that the procedure is obsolete and that nobody will be prejudiced by the removal of mortgage cautions from the Land Registration Act. However, I will certainly look at the matter with greater care between now and the Committee stage and give due publicity to the change which has been made.
I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, for his support of the measure. I am happy to think that at last I have escaped his reproach of inaction in the field of law reform where, quite rightly, he is always "on the ball". The noble and learned Lord expressed his gratitude, which I certainly repeat, to the Law Commission for their part in
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some of the proposals contained in the Bill. The position is that a solicitor can still refuse to act for a person in respect of legal aid matters, but perhaps I can look into the matter. It is right to say that, by and large, the solicitors have enthusiastically co-operated in the work of legal aid but, as I say, I will have a look at the point.
With regard to the right given to legal executives to appear in the county court in what will really be only formal matters —like informing the court of an agreement made between the parties to adjourn the case—while I appreciate the concern that has been expressed, it is envisaged that in practice I will consult the Council of Circuit Judges, the Bar Council, the Law Society and the Institute of Legal Executives before making a direction. They have been consulted and they welcome the clause, as it enables a direction to be made that a Fellow (as one is now so impressively called) of the Institute who has been conducting the case will not be required to instruct an advocate to conduct a formal procedure such as I have mentioned, which could he the subject of a direction. As there would be a saving in the time of solicitors, there could be a consequential saving in the cost of litigation. As so much of that litigation is financed by legal aid, it will have a useful effect there also.
The noble and learned Lord referred to the techniques of Horatio Bottomley, but they did not avail him in the end. Your Lordships will know of the occasion when somebody called on him in prison where he was sewing mailbags and he was asked, "Sewing, Horatio?" "No", he said, "reaping!" So that was the end of the story.
The noble Lord, Lord Clitheroe, asked me a question to which I regret I do not readily know the answer; namely, how many sheep a commoner may graze on any common.
A noble Lord: Safely!
The LORD CHANCELLOR: Yes, my Lords, safely. I am afraid I do not know the answer to that.
Lord CLITHEROE: My Lords, that was not quite the question. On all commons where various farmers have

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rights to graze sheep each farmer has the right to graze a certain number of sheep. There is sometimes a case where a farmer grazes more sheep than he is entitled to graze, which is to the disadvantage of the other commoners. In those circumstances, the lord of the manor comes into the situation and on his behalf the steward generally determines the matter.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I am most obliged for that elucidation of the question. I will certainly look into the question as to how further protection can be given to the rights of commoners. I do not know the answer readily, but perhaps I may write to the noble Lord about it. He obviously has more expertise in this field than I have.
I was asked both by the noble Lord and by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, about the privacy of the Land Register. There are two views about this matter, but I think the prevalent view appears to be that it ought to be private. I am bound to say that I am not particularly wedded to that proposition, but at the very least we thought this time that facilities and the right should be given to investigate the register in the event of consideration of a criminal prosecution being laid in respect of the resources and money used to acquire the land. My Lords, I apologise if we have taken a little longer than was expected on this Bill. I think it is a useful Bill and I hope your Lordships do not feel that it has been a waste of time.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

CONTROL OF FOOD PREMISES (SCOTLAND) BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a and to be printed.
TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING (AMENDMENT) BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a and to be printed.

AGRICULTURAL AND HORTICULTURAL CO-OPERATION (VARIATION) SCHEME 1977
4.43 p.m.
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, I beg to move that the Agricultural and Horticultural Co-operation (Variation) Scheme 1977, a draft of which was laid before this House on 19th April 1977, be approved. Before I describe the effect of this Variation Scheme I should like to remind your Lordships that the Scheme which it varies was made in 1971 and provides for grants to be paid to co-operatives towards formation costs, studies and managerial salaries, and also for capital development. No applications can be accepted under the scheme after 14th May this year when the new order comes into operation, but an Instrument laid in another place has the effect of extending the period for another three years. The effect of the Scheme now before your Lordships is to reduce the amount of grant that can be paid in respect of capital development so that co-operatives and individual farmers are treated equally.
This has been a useful Scheme and has I believe helped the formation of cooperatives although it must be admitted that agricultural co-operation has not developed in the United Kingdom to the extent it has on the Continent. For much of the period during which the 1971 Scheme operated co-operatives had a slightly higher rate of grant than that available to the individual farmer. We thought this would encourage co-operative development but a recent review of the grants shows that the majority of grants go to long-established and successful organisations rather than to those newly established. It was felt moreover that successful co-operation would be most likely to flourish if co-operation was its own reward and while they certainly should not be treated less favourably than individuals it was difficult to justify a higher grant rate simply because of a co-operative constitution. The Instrument now before your Lordships will bring the rates of grant into line with those that can be paid to the generality of farmers and growers. However, the range of items on which co-operatives can receive grants is wider than that for the individual farmer, and, in addition, they have a range of non, capital grants as well.

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It is intended to make some administrative change in the eligibility of non-capital grants. Launching aid for newly formed co-operatives and grants towards salary costs of key staff for the first three years of new ventures will continue to be provided but established co-operatives will be expected to finance costs in the normal way. This is in line with EEC thinking. The conditions for non-capital grants are not set out in the Scheme but are governed by administrative guidelines, and it is our intention to take account of developments in the EEC in any further adjustments that may be necessary.
Before I sit down, I should like to compliment the Central Council for Agricultural and Horticultural Co-operation on its work to encourage co-operation. The Council shares with the agriculture departments the administration of the grant scheme. The annual rate of grant is running at about £1 million and the changes should save about £300,000. This saving is, however, being returned to the industry in the renewal of the funds made available to the Central Council to encourage the development of those aspects of marketing from which agricultural and horticultural co-operative producers can derive most benefit. My Lords, I commend this order to the House. I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft Agricultural and Horticultural Co-operation (Variation) Scheme 1977, laid before the House on 19th April, be approved.—(Lord Strabolgi.)
Viscount LONG: My Lords, I am sure the whole House is most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, for the information he has just given us on this Scheme. It was interesting to hear the noble Lord say that it was intended to bring it into line with the EEC. As I came into the Chamber, I wondered whether such would be the case, but now the noble Lord has mentioned it and obviously in the future alterations may have to be made to it. This particular Scheme has helped a great many people in agricultural and horticultural work and it is only right that it should now he brought into line.
We have little to criticise in regard to this Scheme because of its usefulness, but I should like to ask three or four questions,
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and of course I understand that the noble Lord may not be able to answer them at a moment's notice. First, I should like to ask him what share of the market is now handled by the co-operatives. It seems to me there is probably room for more, but perhaps the noble Lord has more information on that matter than I have. My next point concerns the range of items on which co-operatives can receive grants not available to the individual farmer. I should be grateful if the noble Lord could give me some information about that. I have a feeling that when we are talking of the farmer here it should also include the horticulturist; they are both in need of this type of grant.
The third question I should like to ask the noble Lord, if I may, is what will be the effect on manpower of these changes. I think I am right in saying—I stand to be corrected—there is a reduction now of £300,000; I am wondering whether this scheme is going to affect manpower. I wonder whether he could answer that question. We do not want to hold this up. It has been extremely useful for those in the agricultural and horticultural world to receive a grant for different schemes. It helps them. They are not a very rich body of people. We gladly welcome this Instrument and hope that we will not delay it on its way.
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Viscount for what he has said and for the general welcome he has given this Scheme. He has asked me two or three questions which I will do my best to answer. If I understood him aright, the noble Viscount asked first what share of the market is handled by cooperatives. I could, perhaps, give him some typical figures from the various sectors. For example, the share of the market for wheat and barley is 17 per cent.; for oil seed rape it is over 50 per cent.; for all fruit it is 16 per cent.; for top fruit it is over 50 per cent.; which is very encouraging, and for eggs it is 18 per cent.
The noble Viscount also asked what is the range of items on which co-operatives can receive grants not available to the individual farmer. Of course, he also rightly said that the individual farmer must include the horticulturist as well. Items on which grant is available only to

845
co-operatives are potato graders, equipment in cereal stores, chilling equipment for peas, permanent fencing, and weighing machines for collecting centres for livestock. These items were added last year and grants will continue to be paid, though the rate of grant will be modified to that analogous to comparable investment under the FCGS Scheme. The scale of equipment which can be grant-aided for co-operatives is, of course, much greater than an individual farmer would need. Lastly, I was asked what would be the effect on manpower of these changes. I am glad to say that no increase in either Civil Service or Central Council staff is expected, and we would hope that the streamlining of certain procedures might result in some staff saving.
In conclusion, I should say that to some extent we are entering a transitional stage in producer organisation in which the implementation of Community policy, alluded to by the noble Viscount, is going to be increasingly important. This will present a challenge to the industry, but the Government remain convinced that there is an important place here for the co-operatives.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

EMPLOYMENT AND TRAINING ACT 1973 (TEMPORARY POWERS CONTINUATION) ORDER 1977
4.54 p.m.
Lord WALLACE of COSLANY: My Lords, I beg to move that the draft Employment and Training Act 1973 (Temporary Powers Continuation) Order 1977, laid before the House on 19th April last, be approved.
My Lords, under the Employment and Training Act 1973, as amended by the Employment Protection Act 1975, the Secretary of State has powers to make arrangements, first, to secure a temporary continuation of employment for persons who in his opinion would otherwise be likely to be made redundant (Section 5(1)(b)); and, secondly, to obtain employment for persons who would in his opinion, because of their special circumstances and the high or increasing level of unemployment in Great Britain, otherwise have, or be likely to have, difficulty in obtaining employment (Section 5(1)(c)). The first of these is the statutory cover for
846
the temporary employment subsidy, and the second is the statutory cover for the youth employment subsidy.
Under Schedule 14, paragraph 2, of the Employment Protection Act both these powers would cease to have effect eighteen months after they first commenced unless extended in accordance with the procedure laid down in Schedule 14. This provides that the powers may be extended by the Secretary of State, for periods not exceeding twelve months at a time, by means of a Statutory Instrument subject to the Affirmative Resolution procedure in both Houses of Parliament.
The draft order provides for the extension of the powers of the Secretary of State which came into force on 1st January 1976 and which would expire on 30th June 1977 unless continued by the order. The draft order seeks an extension from the 1st July 1977 to the 30th June 1978, for the maximum period of twelve months permitted by the Act. It would be open to the Secretary of State, if he so wished, to seek a further renewal beyond 30th June 1978. The Government have already announced their intention, subject to the passing of the order, of extending both the temporary employment subsidy and the youth employment subsidy, schemes currently operated under Section 5(1)(b) and (c) of the 1973 Act, beyond 30th June 1977. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Employment and Training Act 1973 (Temporary Powers Continuation) Order 1977, laid before the House on 19th April, be approved.—(Lord Wallace of Coslany.)
4.57 p.m.
Lord LYELL: My Lords, we are again particularly grateful for the very clear way in which the noble Lord has explained this rather complicated order. He has been diving around the Employment Protection Act, to Schedule 14. Nevertheless, he made that appear simple and uncomplicated, and we are very grateful to him for treating the order in that way.
We would, of course, like to give our approval to the Government in continuing for another year the provisions of the Act in this particular respect. There are two, I hope fairly simple, questions that the noble Lord might be able to help me with.

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First, would he be able to give us, possibly at a future stage or informally, or perhaps in writing, the total numbers of persons (I think we have to say nowadays) who benefit from the scheme? So far as I have been able to find from the researches I have made, the numbers who have benefited from this scheme have trebled in the four years since it was first instituted. Can the noble Lord confirm that?
The second small point on which the noble Lord may be able to help us is this. Will he give us his estimate of the total cost of implementing the Act, and in particular the increase in cost over the past eighteen months? I hope these are reasonably simple points. They have cropped up, and I wonder whether the noble Lord is able to cover some of the more numerate points, as I would put it. We are very grateful for the way in which he has explained the order, and we are pleased that the Government see fit to continue the powers for another twelve months.
Lord AVEBURY: My Lords, may I ask a brief question. If the noble Lord cannot deal with this at the moment I will perfectly well understand. As I understand it, under these provisions employment is made available by an employer who would not otherwise have been able to take on a particular person to do a job, which, of course, he has to show to be necessary in order to obtain the support. The question I want to ask is this: Could a pressure group or charitable body qualify for assistance under these provisions? I am thinking of bodies such as Shelter, the Child Poverty Action Group, the National Council for Civil Liberties and so on, which have been very severely hit by a drop in their subscriptions by private donors, by the imposition of VAT on the goods that they buy, and by the various overheads which are increasing at a much faster rate than their subscription income. Can the noble Lord tell me whether an organisation of that kind, which is perhaps partly charitable but partly of the nature of a pressure group, could benefit from the provisions of the order?
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNESIDE: My Lords, can the noble Lord say how each region benefits— whether for various reasons some regions receive more
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than others? Can he say how the money is divided, and whether there are difficulties in some regions which do not occur in others? In other words, is it a fair and just distribution? Does the policy cover everyone in each region? It is probably important for the various regions to know that.
Lord WALLACE of COSLANY: My Lords, I cannot at short notice give the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, the full figures but I shall certainly undertake to ensure that the figures are supplied. Since August, 1975, the temporary employment subsidy has been paid in respect of 236,000 workers, and at present some 193,000 are covered by the subsidy. Applications are continuing at a high rate. Unfortunately, I do not have the exact figures. The youth employment subsidy came into operation on 1st October 1976. It has been paid in respect of 16,000 young workers. At present about 13,000 are covered by the scheme. At the start the take-up was slow, but there has recently been a rapid increase in the number of applications. It is now being well used but, again, I do not have the latest figures. However, I shall ensure that the noble Lord receives them.
Offhand, I cannot immediately answer the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, and say that a charitable body would qualify. That is quite an interesting and important matter. I shall have immediate inquiries made and, unless the noble Lord likes to table a Question, I shall write to him in the usual way. The noble Baroness, Lady Ward, asked about the various areas. I do not have details of them to hand at the moment, but the scheme operates in certain selected areas. They were referred to in a recent debate on unemployment a few weeks ago. The scheme is selective in its application. The old development areas are the areas mainly involved.
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNESIDE: My Lords, could the noble Lord give me the figures for the areas which are covered by the scheme? It is important to know whether this important scheme is of use to the areas which need it. I should like to know which areas have received most grant and why. Whatever may have happened in another place, I should like the noble Lord to give me that information, either now or in due course.
Lord WALLACE of COSLANY: My Lords, I shall certainly make arrangements for the noble Baroness to be supplied with the information. It would be interesting to know how many applications have been received and are operating in various areas. That would be of interest to the area in which I know that the noble Baroness has a deep personal interest.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

CONSTRUCTION OF ROADS (TIME LIMIT) BILL [H.L.]
5.5 p.m.
Lord AVEBURY: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. As your Lordships may possibly have observed, the question of motorway and trunk road proposals has been before the House on a number of occasions in the last couple of years. Most recently we had a debate on 15th December 1976, on a Motion tabled by the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, calling attention to the need to reform highway inquiries. That was, in fact, the third debate that we had on a related subject during the course of 1976, but to the surprise and delight of the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, it still excited a great deal of interest. If there are not quite so many noble Lords present this afternoon as there were on that occasion, it may well be because the Bill that I am about to propose is so uncontroversial that your Lordships felt that it would go through with very little difficulty as I believe will be the case.
I believe that the number of debates that your Lordships' House has had on this matter reflect a growing concern among the public as a whole that the Government—and I do not particularly mean this Government but successive Governments—have been committed to a major road programme of an inflexible character, far in excess of what could in the end be justified by the amount of traffic, and which has caused unnecessary disruption to the lives of hundreds of thousands of people living on or adjacent to the lines of these roads.
The motorway programme has been based on a series of forecasts undertaken by the Transport and Road Research Laboratory which were made in 1960,
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1962, 1965, 1969, 1972 and 1974. The remarkable feature which those six forecasts have in common is that in every case if one looks at the estimates for 1975—the most recent year for which complete data are available to me—the actual number of cars and of vehicles in total was lower than the figure predicted by the Transport and Road Research Laboratory. Therefore, in every one of these six forecasts the Laboratory had predicted more vehicles—in particular more cars—than we had during 1975. I believe that in the future its estimates will also prove to be unjustifiably large.
In theory, members of the public who are or may be affected by these road proposals, justified on the basis that I have outlined, have extensive rights. Since 1973 there has been consultation on alternative routes before publication of a formal scheme. The Secretary of State has to publish information about the general effects of a proposed scheme and must allow time for objections to be lodged. After that a public inquiry is generally held. The inspector who has been appointed for the purpose makes his report and finally the Secretary of State accepts the recommendations of the inspector, varies them or turns them down.
However, as one has seen, the contest between the objectors and the transport planners at these inquiries is extremely unequal because the Department has its computers, engineers, statisticians and other experts who are employed full-time solely for the purpose of pushing a scheme along, while the lay objector, who in general cannot afford to employ professional advisers, struggles to formulate his case in his spare time. Therefore, in consequence of this enormous disparity in, if I may use the phrase, "fire power", the objectors have generally been completely overwhelmed in the past at these inquiries and the road schemes have gone through against the opposition of members of the public.
At some of the recent public inquiries there have been more encouraging signs—at any rate to me they are encouraging. I have in mind what happened at the Aire Valley inquiry, the Winchester M.3 scheme and now the Archway inquiry, which has mostly been due to the work of my good friend, the formidable Mr. John Tyme.

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But we are in fact saddled with a number of road projects which had been agreed before Mr. Tyme began his labours and which are unlikely ever to be required.
One such scheme of very great importance to the people living in the area is the extension to the M.23 between Hooley and Mitcham, the proposals for which go back over 10 years. I am informed that the latest estimates of the cost of this scheme total £41 million; that in order to carry it out it would be necessary to demolish no fewer than 500 homes and that an even larger number would be severely affected by the proximity of the motorway. Apart from the destruction of homes, 130 acres of public and private open space, much of it including land in the Green Belt, would be lost. The people in this area got together and formed an action group under the extremely vigorous leadership of a lady called Mrs. Iris Loraine. She is one of these invaluable people in our society who staunchly defend the freedom of the individual and who are prepared to Give almost unlimited amounts of their time to organising in their locality, to writing hundreds of letters, attending meetings up and down the country and, in short, devoting themselves single-mindedly to a cause which is of benefit to many hundreds, if not thousands, of their fellow citizens.
The people of this area under the leadership of Mrs. Loraine decided, I think very wisely, that they were not only going to lobby everyone they could persuade to listen to them about this particular scheme but they were going to think also about the remedies which might be provided in general for householders whose properties had been blighted for many years by schemes of a similar nature.
I should like to quote one other example to show that the M.23 extension is not the only one of its kind. This example relates to the construction of a proposed motorway by-pass through the Moseley and King's Heath areas of Birmingham, which I understand has now been deferred until 1987, no less than 10 years away from now. In the area the county council have allowed it to become known that the scheme has a very low priority and may eventually be scrapped, but in the meanwhile this road, if it was ever built, would cut through a sensitive area of the city
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where there are problems of old housing which are accentuated by the blighting effects of the knowledge that this road might at some time in the future be constructed.
The people up there are unable to sell their houses. They may find great difficulty in raising mortgages. The households in housing action areas are disqualified from receiving loans; there are tenants with landlords reluctant to invest in doomed properties; empty shops: property bought up and left vacant by development speculators. All these problems, I am informed, are now evident in that area, and yet the local authority refuses to accept responsibility for the blight because the scheme is over 10 years distant, and perhaps it may be also because they do not wish to acquire property that they may never in any event have need of. So this Bill would benefit certain other areas apart from the area in the neighbourhood of the M.23 extension for which it was originally desired.
Among those to whom Mrs. Loraine drew the attention of these proposals were a number of national organisations, including Transport 2000, who are fully in support of the Bill. I quote from a letter which I had from them recently:
"Recent events have shown that circumstances can change dramatically due to changes in Government policy, bad traffic forecasting, and/or revised road capacities. A combination of these factors may mean that the construction of a road is no longer justifiable but there is no statutory provision for this to be tested. The matter is left in the hands of the Secretary of State who, if there is no time limit within which work must commence, may defer taking a decision for years. This Transport 2000 believes to be inherently wrong. Property along the route is blighted, landowners can suffer severely financially, and the visual appearance of the authorised alignment deteriorates."
We also have the support of the Council for the Protection of Rural England, with whom Mrs. Loraine and I have had discussions on the Bill, and many other local and national organisations which are too numerous to mention but for whose support I am extremely grateful.
I ought to mention one other supporter, and that is the noble Lord, Lord Carr, who was formerly Mrs. Loraine's Member of Parliament. He has written to me to say that he would very much like to be associated with these proposals, as would also the present Member of Parliament

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for the area, Mr. Nigel Forman. The organisations which have written generally make the point which I have quoted in Transport 2000's letter, that in principle they cannot see any reason why the Secretary of State should be treated differently in respect of road proposals from any other developer under the town and country planning legislation. The principle behind this Bill is to try to assimilate the position of the Secretary of State to that of the other developers by requiring him at least to come back to Parliament after five years and obtain the approval of both Houses for a renewal of the authorisation to build a road, and that the renewal itself would also last for up to five years.
During our discussions on the Bill we agreed that if contracts had been let and works already started at the end of the five years, the Secretary of State should be allowed to proceed and complete those works. I am afraid that in tabling the Bill I put down a slightly earlier version, and if the Bill goes into Committee I shall therefore be seeking to amend Clause 1(8) by replacing the word "completed" by the word "begun"—as I have explained to the noble Baroness who will be answering. Clause 2 makes provision for any land acquired for the road and not used for that purpose to be disposed of by the Secretary of State. Here again it can be a matter for discussion in Committee how far we need to go in safeguarding the rights of the individual, or the original holders of an interest in the land, and just how this should be expressed. I do not pretend that we have got Clause 2 into its final form, and I hope that the Department of Transport will give their invaluable assistance in the drafting. I am not sure whether Clause 3 is necessary or not, but some experts advise that if an order is made under Section 286 in the absence of any provision of this kind it would have to authorise the construction of an alternative road.
This Bill raises the major issue of the rights of the individual whose property may be permanently and substantially downvalued, supposedly in the interests of the community of which he forms a part. Over the country as a whole there must be many thousands of people who have suffered, or are suffering, financial hardship or who have been immoblised by motorway and trunk road
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blight. To ask the Department of Transport either to drop schemes which have been authorised more than five years ago, or at least to obtain Parliamentary authority for their renewal, is a modest demand but one that would give to the victims of blight new hope and very great satisfaction. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Avebury.)
5.20 p.m.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, for the second time in a week we must congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, on his endeavours to raise an important matter of transport policy in your Lordships' House. I fear I shall not please him so much on this occasion as I did last week. There is no doubt that in recent months no single issue in the sphere of transport has raised more controversy than our present system of organising road construction. I have said before that it seems to me that the motives and tactics of those most deeply involved in this controversy can be questioned, to say the least. On the other hand, those tactics would not have been so successful, and the ugly scenes of disruption which have accompanied some recent inquiries would have wholly discredited their perpetrators, had there not been certain widespread public disquiet about the present method of conducting road inquiries.
The review of inquiry procedure which is now taking place under the auspices of the Council on Tribunals will, it is hoped, succeed in restoring public confidence in the inquiry system, but there are undoubtedly problems to be overcome on the way and some of them are of a most fundamental nature, and, with the indulgence of the House, I will review briefly some of these problems before coming to a more detailed consideration of Lord Avebury's Bill. Indeed, I feel it is necessary to do so to give full consideration to the Bill, for it seems to me that the criterion by which we should judge the Bill is the contribution it will make to the solution of these problems.
In our debate on seat belts last Tuesday I expressed the view that we had not yet fully come to terms with the motor car. I was there referring to road safety, but the point could equally apply to road

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construction. The question is simply how are we on this small island to ensure the maximum personal mobility for all our citizens, and where wanted goods, and yet also ensure the preservation of the countryside and of our ancient towns and villages? By a sad paradox, it is the urban motorist's very flight from the city in search of rural solitude and bucolic tranquility which is contributing so largely to the eradication of those qualities in the countryside. If current projections are even approximately right, there will be 50 per cent. more cars on our roads within 20 years.
It was to deal with that kind of problem that the last Conservative Government set up the Department of the Environment, and I think we were right to do that. However, it is far easier to come up with Ministries than answers and I would not pretend that we got very far in dealing with this problem. Nor do I have an answer to give today. But leaving aside the imponderable and insoluble, there is also a practical day-to-day problem concerning road construction: how are we to reconcile the interests of those who live in the areas directly affected by proposed road schemes with the wider interests of the whole community?
With this problem we come to matters which are directly affected by Lord Avebury's Bill. The noble Lord provided the House with an eloquent description of the problem of blight and the affliction which it can visit on whole communities. Indeed, his account of the travails involved in constructing the M.23 made it sound more like a punishment from God than a new road scheme. However, there is a basic question which the noble Lord did not consider and which in my opinion vitiates his argument.
If a decision in principle is taken on the construction of a new road and a line order is laid, then indeed the given area affected is threatened by blight. I accept that. However, if the powers concerned with the line order lapse due to the passage of time, the blight is in no way removed; if the road is necessary, then sooner or perhaps later it will be built. If one line order lapses, a new one will have to he laid. Therefore instead of the blight being restricted to a specific site—in which case, however long a delay may be
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involved, there is no question of uncertainty —the blight and the threat of a future road scheme is spilt over the whole area through which the proposed road might possibly travel. In other words, whereas previously a given route had been designated so that the persons living along that route might make plans (about which more in a moment), under the system proposed by Lord Avebury half a county might well be affected.
The noble Lord's suggestion in Clause 1 that the powers would lapse in every case after five years unless the Secretary of State laid an Affirmative Order—meaning, I take it, that we should have to have a full-bloodied debate in each House of Parliament—would be surely impracticable. Indeed, it seems to show that the Bill might become, from some of the allies whom the noble Lord mentioned as his friends on the Bill—perhaps not only the inadvertent but the conscious, too—the "No new roads at any price" lobby; those who would claim that Parliament should debate every new line laid. If Ministries had to come to Parliament on every detail which was to be implemented, seekers of greater social welfare spending would, on the same principle, be able to come and question the Defence Department on every new ship, plane and weapon, and the expenditure of every other Ministry would be similarly questionable. I do not think it would be very practicable for Parliament to have to do that.
It is inconceivable in the present economic circumstances that any road should reach the stage of a line order without there being overwhelming justification, indeed necessity, for it. If the road is going to have to be built, it is surely better to arrive at a route after due public consultation—I accept that—to compensate fully those persons whose property will be affected by the new road, and then to build the road in as expeditious a manner as possible, and I will deal with these questions in turn.
Regarding public consultation, I mentioned earlier that it is hoped that the present review will ease these problems. I do not wish to re-open the whole question of road inquiries now; I spoke at some length on the subject in this House last year and my noble friend Lord Colville of Culross spoke again on the subject this year, but it is important that a system of

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road inquiries be devised which does three things. First, it must secure public confidence in its procedure and this should be seen to be fair and impartial; secondly, every step should be taken to ensure that those whose interests are directly affected by any new road are given every opportunity to state their case and that decided efforts be made to redress the balance of forces—as Lord Avebury said recently, so heavily in favour of the big battalions of the Department of the Environment—so they are weighed more in the interests of the private individual; and, thirdly, once these reforms have been put into operation, it is necessary to ensure that future inquiries are able to take place without distruption and undue delay.
As regards compensation, this is perhaps the most important issue raised by the Bill. It is only fair and just that where compensation is due, it should be paid promptly and generously and that where there is doubt the question should be settled in favour of the property holder. The last Conservative Government, in their Town and Country Planning Act 1971, made provision for increased compensation payments and widened the terms under which compensation could be paid; that was in Sections 192 to 207 of that Act. I should be interested to hear from the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, whether she thinks that these compensation arrangements are adequate or whether they need to be improved. If such improvement is necessary, I can assure her that we on this side of the House will give her every support in doing so.
I know, as Lord Avebury said, that my noble friend Lord Carr of Hadley thinks that not enough has been done at the present time. Lord Avebury's friend, Mrs. Loraine, has indeed been extremely hard working, as he said, in drawing the attention of many people to this matter. I, too, have been briefed by her and one thing that she sent me was some Press cuttings in which I noticed that the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration—the Ombudsman—found a Mr. Kelsall (this was reported in The Times on 15th March this year) to have suffered some loss. In this case, it was £1,000, and the Department made some excuse not to do anything about it. In dealing with these large capital sums on road building, I find it slightly upsetting that the
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Ombudsman should be able to say that a person has been unfairly treated and that a Department can make excuses. I did not see what appeared in The Times, but, if that sort of thing is happening, it is wrong.
Having said that, the third point is that there is the actual process of construction itself. There is no doubt that roads take a long time to build. Twelve years is not by any means unusual and what we need to establish is why that should be so. Having seen at first hand some of the problems involved in road construction, I should need to be convinced that negligence or dilatoriness played a significant part in this process. The two most difficult problems faced during road construction are, first, the uncertainties and delays caused by Government cutbacks, and secondly, the need to consult the public at every stage, including the various side road orders. It is very difficult to curtail this process without also curtailing the rights of those affected by new road schemes, which I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, would be reluctant to do. It looks to me to be a kind of Morton's fork: on the one hand, I want more time to make my protest; on the other hand, you have spent too long arguing this, it must now proceed. I do not see how we can have it both ways.
The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, discussed the problem of the M.23, but he should recognise that throughout most of its tortured history this has, for the most part, been a vague proposal. It has only comparatively recently become a definite road scheme with specific proposals for an actual route. In view of the magnitude of the difficulties involved in building the M.23—conflicting local authorities, public disquiet on a large scale—it is not a truly typical road scheme.
Therefore, it seems to me that the most crucial priorities in assuaging public anxiety on the subject of road construction are, first, the form of public inquiries, secondly, the compensation and, thirdly—which the Wallington Motorway Action Group has itself asked for—prompt action one way or the other in building or not building. Incidentally, Governments should beware of putting aside the single big scheme instead of the fifty or so small ones, for probably the one big scheme

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which is delayed will cause more uncertainty and consequent blight, not to mention the delayed implementation of long-term strategy, than will the postponement of the lesser schemes. On the other hand, I believe that the noble Lord's Bill, however well intentioned, would only exacerbate this problem by increasing the area of uncertainty.
I therefore reluctantly advise the House not to grant the Bill a Second Reading, on the grounds that it is, frankly, irrelevant to the real problem which we face. When the report of the Council on Tribunals is published, we shall have an occasion to debate the whole matter. In the meantime, I would pay tribute to the good intentions of the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, but would regretfully recommend to the House that we should reject the Bill.
5.35 p.m.
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNESIDE: My Lords, I am sorry that I did not put down my name to speak, but I never really know what will happen on Bills such as this or what will be brought up. I find that it is very difficult in this establishment to know on what occasion one can raise matters. I am not quite certain whether what I intend to raise now falls within the Bill, but I feel that it is quite important.
A very long time ago we in the North of England produced a plan to by-pass Gosforth, which is the place where I live. The project was all gone into. There was no problem about it. It was all settled. There were no arguments. Everybody was happy, really. As regards road building, we always remember what an immense amount of support we had from my noble and learned friend Lord Hailsham when the Conservatives were in office. We did very well indeed. However, here was this piece of road which had not been covered because the matter all had to be gone into. It was gone into and the plan was agreed. There was no argument. There was no need to have the Ombudsman or anything. It was all absolutely agreed. Even Her Majesty's Government gave the project priority. I raised the question once or twice and I was told that the scheme had priority and that it was perfectly all right. I believe
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that that was about two years ago, but nothing at all has happened because of something which is not mentioned in this Bill; the difficulty of finding finance. If one cannot find the finance, I do not see any point in a Bill which says that one must build something within five years, ten years, two years, three years or whatever it may be. If the finance is not available, one cannot build it at all.
I feel that all the points that may or may not have been made about the Bill are worth discussing, but the point here is the situation on this particular bit of the A.1, for this is part of the A.1. It has all been arranged and we are just waiting—having waited for about two years; and whenever I have asked a question, I have been told by Her Majesty's Government that the project has to be financed. In the North of England, we have not the money to finance it. Suppose that all these places which have much more finance than we have get their schemes properly arranged; the priority given to our bit of the A.1 will probably go down to the bottom of the list. So what I want to know is this: If a scheme has all been passed and arranged and nobody is in any state of uncertainty about that scheme except when it is going to be built, we still cannot know when it is to be built because we are told that the Northumberland County Council will have to find the money, which they have not got. What is the use of having gone through all the schemes and made all the arrangements, of having had no arguments and nobody unhappy, except for the fact that they are all waiting for the road to be built? I should like to know from the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, when the road is to he built. I thank the Government for giving it high priority; but what good is having high priority if we still cannot get the road built?
So, arising out of the Bill I should really like to know when we are to get any money and whether the Government mind about road building? What is the good of settling all the things that the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, has brought out in this Bill if we still cannot build the road? I just want to know when we are going to be able to build that road which is part of the A.1 and which has been promised.
5.39 p.m.
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, the House will be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, for providing the occasion for further discussion on this matter, which is of great importance, though it may not be quite so uncontroversial as he had at first supposed.
The noble Lord has expressed his concern at the time taken to carry out road schemes. He was especially concerned at the anxiety and frustration which this causes to private individuals whose homes and property are threatened by major road schemes. I should like to say to the noble Lord, and others who share his view, that I also share their concern. Any suggestion aimed at relieving the anxieties of these people about their homes deserves, in my view at any rate, close and sympathetic consideration.
The suggestion that a time limit should be imposed on the carrying out of a road scheme is not a new one. It has been raised recently, both in this House and in another place, and indeed the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, raised it himself in the debate we had on 15th December last on the subject of highways inquiries. He had particularly in mind on that occasion, as today, the M.23, where, because of exceptional circumstances, plans for building the road already authorised North of Hooley have not yet been put into effect. My noble friend Lady Birk was not able to reply to the noble Lord in the course of that debate, but she wrote to him afterwards giving our views on the suggestion which he had made. This was that so long as the need for a road existed, it would not help people living along the line of the route if a scheme were to lapse after a specified period. The Government have not changed their view since that time.
Lord Avebury's Bill before us today would limit the validity of a road scheme or order to a period of five years from the date that the scheme or order was made and came into effect, with the minor alteration that he has suggested, as a result of getting an earlier draft printed today than he originally intended. I understand and sympathise with the reason why the noble Lord wishes to make this provision. Difficulties have arisen over the termination of the M.23
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where it approaches London, and that scheme has not been proceeded with for many years. But that is a special case. I do not propose to go into detail on the M.23, except to say that decisions on any extension of the motorway Northwards from Hooley must await the completion of the study into the various possibilities for terminating the M.23, and of the subsequent discussions with the local authorities concerned, and these are not yet completed.
I need not remind noble Lords that road planning is, of necessity, a lengthy process. Very large amounts, in terms of capital and resources, are committed in their preparation and construction. It may help the House if I give a brief account of the various stages. Once the requirement for a road has been established, the Department explores the practicable alternative routes and their advantages and disadvantages. When viable routes are established, the views of the public are sought in a public consultation exercise. Such exercises, which are non-statutory, were introduced in 1973. The decision on the preferred route taken by my right honourable friend takes account of the public's views, and of such other matters as engineering, economics, and the environment. Once the preferred route is announced by my right honourable friend, the statutory blight provisions—to which I shall refer later—begin to apply.
When the preferred route can be worked up to the point where it can be clearly defined, a draft scheme is published in the case of a motorway, or a draft order in the case of an all-purpose trunk road. There are then provisions in the Highways Acts for objections by landowners and others, and for all major schemes an inquiry into the objections is invariably held under an independent inspector appointed jointly by my right honourable friends the Secretary of State for Transport and the Secretary of State for the Environment. The inspector's report is then considered and a decision is taken as to whether or not the proposals should be proceeded with, or whether some other route should be chosen. This necessarily takes time, and rightly so if objections are to be given a close and a fair consideration.
When the scheme or order fixing the line of the road is finally made, it is still

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not possible to proceed straightaway to the stage of construction because further orders are normally required. As the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, reminded us, these orders provide for the side road connections to the existing road system, and provide the Secretary of State with the necessary powers of compulsory acquisition of the land needed for the road. There are similar safeguards for objectors, and probably more public inquiries.
I am sure that your Lordships will understand that my right honourable friend is in a dilemma. Ire expressed his concern at the length of time taken up in road planning in a debate on transport policy in another place on 20th January, and at the legitimate worries of those whose homes or businesses are blighted by proposals for a road scheme. But the more one consults, and the more one seeks to carry people along with the proposals—and it is right that the public should be fully consulted—the greater the length both of the planning process and of the time that properties are subject to blight.
The democratic process requires that the rights and interests of the individuals are respected. The road scheme could be put into effect more quickly if the Government acted in an arbitrary way, but that is not the way in which we do business. Nevertheless, if a way could be found of reducing the time taken at one stage—namely, that between the making of the scheme or order fixing the line of the road, and its construction—it would be of great benefit to the owners along the route and would call for support. It is such an objective, I believe, that the present Bill has in mind. But I suggest to your Lordships that it would in fact do little to reduce the uncertainty and, indeed, would, as the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, said, in some cases perhaps even prolong it.
If the proposed five year limitation on the validity of schemes or orders fixing the line of a road were applied, the authority of the Secretary of State to build the road would lapse at that time, and the whole process would have to be gone through again unless the order was renewed by Affirmative Resolution procedure proposed in the Bill. I must in any case ask your Lordships to consider in what way the imposition of a time limit would help those who
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live under the threat of having their homes taken for road construction. Their period of uncertainty could in fact be lengthened and their position would be worsened. The need for the road would not be removed by introducing an arbitrary period after which the statutory powers expire. Nor would the blight be eliminated by these means; indeed, it would last longer.
So long as the underlying need for the road exists, the threat of blight exists. My right honourable friend would almost certainly feel obliged to continue to safeguard the line of the road against new development by exercising his powers of directing the local planning authority to control development, thus giving a clear indication of his intentions, and so blight would therefore continue.
So far as blight is concerned, your Lordships are aware that blight in this context means that the property owner is not able to sell on the open market, except at a price substantially lower than that for which the property might reasonably have been expected to sell. The price at which a property is valued for blight purposes does not take account of the blight caused by the road proposal, and I can reassure your Lordships that the Department will pay the open market price as assessed by the district valuer, as if no proposals for the road existed. It may not, even so, be quite the price that the owner had anticipated getting; when we have property to sell we do not always get quite the price that we anticipate it ought to fetch. But the Department will pay the price agreed by the district valuer that the house or other property would have fetched regardless of the fact that a road was to be constructed there. If the person who is selling is then not satisfied, he has the right of appeal to the Lands Tribunal. Therefore I think that the Department, and the Government through the Department, are acting fairly in these cases.
An analogy has been drawn in the Explanatory Memorandum to the Bill between a scheme or an order authorising the construction of a road and an outline planning permission for development, which is subject to a five year limitation. I do not think that this analogy is helpful. Trunk roads and motorway's are part of the national system of through routes. My Lords, surely the closest analogy is

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with a development plan to which no time limit applies. The scheme or the order is only a first step towards providing the road. There have to be further statutory procedures, with orders subject to public scrutiny, and generally public inquiry. Construction cannot start until my right honourable friend has the right to purchase the land. At this stage there is, rightly, a three-year time limit on the exercise of compulsory purchase powers, and it would be unreasonable to give notice that a particular property was required but to set no limit on the delay before negotiations for entry and compensation must begin.
Your Lordships may wonder why the period of five years should in practice be overrun. Is it not reasonable, it will be asked, that road works should at least have started, even if they are not completed, as this Bill, as it stands, appears to require? Let us look at schemes which were authorised in 1972, and how they have progressed. Looking at 29 line orders made during that year, 19 of the roads concerned are now open; a further seven are under construction; and the work on the remaining three has not yet started. The historic average suggests that this is typical, but, nevertheless, on occasion problems arise which make it impossible even to start construction in five years; and in these cases it is not going to help anybody to have to start the process all over again. Nor is it particularly helpful to anyone to have to continue in uncertainty while Parliament decides whether to approve a proposal by my right honourable friend to extend the period of validity of an order. As I have already explained, the line for the road is likely to continue to be protected whatever the outcome, and the people concerned could find that their rights to demand that their properties should be purchased could he diminished.
My Lords, I have dealt with the principles underlying the Bill. I do not propose to dwell on the technical points where it falls short of meeting its purpose, but I know the noble Lord will forgive me if I mention a few. Clause 1 appears to include the period of construction within the five-year period, and he has advised us that at Committee stage he would want to amend this; but as it stands we could arrive at the absurd position where roads were left partly constructed because the
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period had run out during construction. Again, motorways are included, but all-purpose trunk roads would appear to be excluded as the Bill is drafted. Also, the Bill does not cover local authority roads. There are also deficiencies in the arrangements in Clause 2 for the disposal of properties acquired but not used for the road; and Clause 3 would appear to be unnecessary.
My Lords, the Government do not wish to withhold support for the Bill because of its technical deficiencies. Our argument against it is twofold. In the first place, the Bill's main provisions would not help those they are designed to help. Their difficulties would in fact be increased. The Government will continue to treat road schemes with the urgency they deserve, and my right honourable friend will continue to apply sympathetically the powers given to him by Parliament to relieve hardship where it arises. Secondly, in its present form the Bill would wreck any meaningful roads programme for the foreseeable future, and I am sure that this is not the intention of the noble Lord or of other noble Lords. So far as the noble Baroness, Lady Ward, is concerned, I am not able to give her any information about her road off-the-cuff, but I am prepared to inquire into what is the present position. I am sure her explanation is right: that we are short of money and that we have not the money to do everything we want. But I give the noble Baroness the assurance that I will look into it and will let her know exactly where it stands at the moment. But in the light of what I have said, my Lords, the Government cannot give their support to this Bill.
5.54 p.m.
Lord AVEBURY: My Lords, I am sure that the noble Baroness will not wish me to argue with her across the Floor of the House about the technicalities, which, as I admitted myself when introducing the Bill, would need some tidying up at Committee stage; and I am glad that she does not rest her opposition to the Bill on any defect in its wording, but rather that she concentrates on the principles, which I think are of some importance. After listening very carefully to everything that she has said, I must still beg to disagree with the attitude that she takes. I think that what is really fundamental here is the assumption that both the noble

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Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray, make that if an order lapses in respect of a particular road it does not remove the threat of blight because the underlying growth of traffic will still continue and, therefore, sooner or later a new order will have to be made; and if it is not made by Affirmative Resolution at the end of the five years, the noble Baroness and the noble Lord on the Opposition Front Bench can envisage (although they did not put it into these words) that the Department of Transport would have to go through the whole caboodle of procedures again, from scratch, as traffic built up in the area and it became necessary to revive the scheme.
My Lords, I do not believe that, and at the risk of harping too much on the M.23 I will quote, if I may, some other views which have been expressed, particularly by Mrs. Lilian Gilles, who is the chairman of the Southern Area Region of the Greater London Council. Mrs. Gilles is quoted as having said that she was writing to the Department asking for this road to be dropped altogether. That is the view of the Greater London Council as a whole, and they have been in communication, I understand, with the noble Baroness's Department. Surely, they would not have taken this view if they had not decided that there was no possibility in the foreseeable future of the proposals for the M.23 extensions being revived. Otherwise, as the noble Baroness said, it would have precisely the effect that she had in mind; in other words, although there was no scheme waiting to be implemented, people purchasing houses in the area would say to themselves: "All right; the order has been withdrawn, but at any moment the Department of Transport might descend on the area and revive it, so we will be jolly careful not to pay the going rate for the property". But if, as I say, the GLC, in its wisdom, is asking the Department to withdraw the scheme, it must be absolutely certain that there is no possibility of reviving it in the foreseeable future.
I think one must say that the attitude of the noble Baroness and of the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray, rests on what I believe to be the false assumption that traffic goes on increasing for ever. Even the Transport and Road Research Laboratory (which, asI have said, has made some
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rather ridiculous forecasts over the years) do not believe that. They think there is what is called a saturation limit, above which the number of cars per person will not continue to rise because everybody who wants to have a car will have been able to purchase one, and that that peak will have been reached, I think, speaking from memory—it has been discussed in other debates, like the one on December 15—in about the year 2020 at 0·45 cars per person. When everybody who wants a car has got one and roads have been constructed to cater for that volume of traffic, then it will not be necessary to build any more roads; the matter is as simple as that. So there comes a point when the motorway system and the trunk road system is complete, and in the opinion of the experts of the GLC the M.23 extension will not form part of that system.
Here we have a fundamental disagreement, I am afraid, which we cannot very easily resolve by argument on a Second Reading debate. It would be necessary, I think, to go into the matter in a great deal of detail, and that could be a possibility only if the Bill is allowed to go into Committee. So I would suggest, with great respect to the noble Baroness and to the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray, that this is not the right moment for us to test the opinion of your Lordships' House. I think we ought to see what happens with the Bill in Committee, get rid of the technical defects of which the noble Baroness has spoken and then bring it back for a more thorough discussion on Third Reading. If at that stage, with a fuller House than we have at the moment, I cannot convince noble Lords on either side that my proposals are correct, then I should be willing to admit defeat; but at the moment I think it would be far better if your Lordships would allow this discussion to proceed, and it can do so only in Committee.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

SOUTHERN RHODESIA (UNITED NATIONS SANCTIONS) ORDER 1977
6 p.m.
The MINISTER of STATE, FOREIGN and COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (Lord Goronwy-Roberts): My Lords, I beg to move that the Southern Rhodesia (UN Sanctions) Order 1977, a draft of which was laid before this House on 5th April 1977, be approved. This order provides for the implementation of parts of Security Council Resolution 388 which was passed last year (on 6th April) and which we cosponsored, along with all other members of the Security Council.
The principal objective of that resolution was to remove the benefits of insurance cover, to the extent that it was being provided by member-States, from a wide range of transactions including the insurance of commercial and industrial property in Southern Rhodesia and the movement of all goods and produce to and from Southern Rhodesia. Where effective means of enforcing sanctions voluntarily are possible, this is obviously preferable to statutory methods. In the case of insurance, the existence of two highly reputable bodies covering the whole industry enabled us to adopt this course. Since the passing of the UN resolution, therefore, discussions have been held with the Corporation of Lloyds and the British Insurance Association and I am pleased to be able to inform the House that both these associations willingly agreed to implement voluntarily the relevant sections of the UN resolution and these have been operative for some time.
What we are left with in this order, therefore, is a tidying-up operation to make effective the remaining operative clauses of the UN resolution and to bring our domestic legislation into line with our international obligations. These clauses are aimed at clearing up any anomalies that may exist in the areas of trade marks and registered designs. A trade name is a name by which a design is known and which may be used to confer on to the products of that design the hallmark of distinction. Over a period of time many of these names acquire considerable commercial value; other enterprises become interested in negotiating the rights to use them and very considerable sums are paid for these rights. A trade mark has similar properties.
No one believes that British companies are about to start licensing their trade marks to enterprises in Rhodesia at this time. Nevertheless, it has been possible under the existing Sanctions Order and
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while it would not have been possible under exchange control regulations for payments for their use to have been transferred from Rhodesia, there might be companies who would have been prepared to see the payments accumulate in Southern Rhodesia against the day of a settlement. Such a procedure, after all, would not cost the owner of the trade name anything.
A trade design, by definition, refers to a design; it may be for a textile fabric or a piece of machinery, which has been produced and registered by a particular manufacturer. This is a field of considerably more importance to the illegal regime, since it could enable it to obtain access to designs which might help it to alleviate the growing difficulty it has in importing machinery and other pieces of equipment designed outside Rhodesia. Again, this kind of transaction was not covered by existing legislation and the same exchange control considerations as to payment apply. It is right, therefore, that we should close these loopholes, and we expect other countries that have not yet done so to take whatever action may be appropriate in this regard.
The order is not retrospective and is completely comprehensive; nor does it do anything about trade names already in use in Rhodesia. There is, of course, no way that we can enforce compliance in Rhodesia and it would be unfair and unavailing to proceed against the British owner of the name for agreements made, many perhaps before UDI, and prior to this order. The same considerations apply to the unauthorised use by a Rhodesian firm of a trade mark.
The order, I hope it will be agreed, is completely in line with our approach to sanctions. We have, on the one hand, resisted, and will continue to resist, pressure in the United Nations for measures which we regard as unrealistic and counterproductive, such as the full implementation of Article 41 covering the fields of postal and other communications. On the other hand, we have supported and even, as in the case of the resolution we are discussing today, co-sponsored resolutions which extend sanctions in a practical way.
There is no particular significance in the timing of this order. Our line—and it was a line which was agreed by

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this House as recently as October of last year when the main Sanctions Order was renewed—has remained consistent throughout. It is that we favour the speedy lifting of sanctions if and when a satisfactory settlement is reached and Rhodesia is irrevocably on the path to majority rule. Until that time, we believe that the full rigour of our sanctions policy must be maintained and that any suggestion of a trade-off on sanctions at this stage would be positively harmful to our efforts to reach a settlement. Mr. Smith is in no doubt about our attitude on this.
There should he no illusions that any of these pressures can be eased in advance of a settlement. On the sanctions front, the repeal of the Byrd Amendment and the associated testing procedures which those countries wishing to sell chrome, ferrochrome and special steels to the US will have to introduce, will strike harder than ever before at Rhodesia's major foreign exchange earner. Your Lordships are already aware of the investigations into the vital imports of oil into Rhodesia which my right honourable friend the Secretary of State has already announced and on which a further announcement may he expected shortly. These measures and the general tightening of sanctions to which I have already referred will, I believe, emphasise still further the international isolation of the réegime and have an important psychological as well as economic effect.
My Lords, it is sometimes the practice in debates of this kind to deal at some length with developments, if any, towards a settlement. I would remind your Lordships that a full Statement was, however, made in another place by right honourable friend the Secretary of State, and repeated in this House, following his visit to Africa. He indicated on 19th April that we would be working in close consultation with the US Government and would hope soon to be able to say whether the Americans feel it would be worth while to co-sponsor a conference. Discussions have been taking place with the Americans at official level and my right honourable friend will be seeing Mr. Vance in London at the end of this week. I hope therefore that your Lordships will not press me on these points on this occasion, but will assist me in addressing ourselves to the content and purpose of this order. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Southern Rhodesia (United Nations Sanctions) Order 1977, laid before the House on 5th April, be approved.—(Lord Goronwy-Roberts.)
6.9 p.m.
Baroness ELLES: My Lords, the Minister has explained the purpose and objectives of the order before the House, an order which enables the Government to enforce the second paragraph of Security Council Resolution 388 of 6th April last year. Under Chapter 7 of the United Nations Charter we are, of course, committed to implement Security Council resolutions. That we accept. It is also accepted that we must fulfil our international obligations by bringing our domestic legislation into line. However, I think that it is fair to point out to Her Majesty's Government that, with regard to this particular order, it is not the fact that we are bringing our domestic legislation into line with international law as such—because, after all, the British Government were co-sponsors of that particular resolution; so that they voluntarily participated in the creation of this particular piece of international legislation—and it is not so much a case of tagging along because we have to do so, but of making ourselves involved in this particular decision. So, rightly or wrongly, the Government played a positive role in extending the scope of sanctions which are being imposed on Southern Rhodesia. I wanted to bring out that point.
It is however surprising—although the Minister has said that there is no significance in the timing—that the Government made no reference to this particular resolution or to the order which would have to be introduced when the Sanctions Order extension was debated last autumn. It is rather surprising that the Government made no reference to this particular order at that particular time. Although there is apparently no reason for the delay, we should like a slightly fuller explanation. Was it due merely to administrative oversight? Was it thought that the trade marks could be negotiated in the same way—obviously satisfactory for the Government—as the negotiations on the first paragraph of the resolution with the two insurance companies? Is it because pressure has been brought on the Government by anti-apartheid movements to deal with some particular individual

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cases? The Minister has referred quite rightly to the Committee of Inquiry which has been set up under Mr. Bingham. Obviously, we must ask whether this particular order has any connection with that committee.
It should be clarified that the order falls within the statutory period because many people have been asking: Why did this order come into effect on 1st May when we are debating it in this House on 2nd May? I understand however that this debate falls within the statutory period and does not affect in any way the enforcement of the order. I am glad to see that the Minister is moving his head in agreement. This particular order—let us be frank about it—is not, so far as one can tell, going to have very much effect within Rhodesia itself. Neither do I think that, at a time when this Government are having to realise more and more that they must bring all parties involved in the Southern Rhodesian settlement together, this kind of exacerbation and pinpricking is a particularly helpful contribution towards a peaceful settlement.
If the Africans were to find this was so important and to think this was such an important contribution to bringing Smith to agree, then it might have been worth it. The Africans, who are neither fools nor so small-minded as to think that this is going to play a major role in the changing of the situation in Southern Rhodesia, do not consider it in this light—if indeed one can speak of the Africans as a whole, which one cannot because there are very many views and shades of opinion among the Africans themselves as well as among other sections of the community of Southern Rhodesia.
The continuation of sanctions is a problem which many in my Party do not view with favour. We, in all parts of the House, look forward to the eventual removal of sanctions on Southern Rhodesia. Above all, we look forward to the Government taking the practical steps necessary to move from the present situation of uncertainty, bloodshed and potential chaos, to a general election in Southern Rhodesia for all the citizens of all colours to declare their preference in the form of Government for their own country.
The present régime will not be removed by this type of action. If it was to lead to a peaceful solution, we would have wel-
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comed this order. However, we realise that at this particular stage of proceedings it would be harmful to take any counteraction to the Government's proposals. We recognise the initiative that the Foreign Secretary made in going himself to Southern Rhodesia and discussing events with all the relevant parties. For the time being, therefore, we on this side of the House merely note the passing of this order. We very much hope that this is the last time we shall have to discuss either the extent or the timing of sanctions against that country.
6.14 p.m.
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, I do not think that I need say that I support this order. I am glad that the noble Baroness has emphasised the point that the Government are not merely endorsing an international document but that they themselves took the initiative in securing its international adoption. I welcome the fact that our Government took that positive attitude. I do not want to enter into any detail because it would be unwise at this moment to make a comment on the present negotiations which are taking place regarding the future of Zimbabwe. I will say only that all of us ought to welcome and congratulate the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs on the initiative which he has taken in this matter.
The alternatives are appalling. If this initiative does not bring about a settlement in Zimbabwe, we may have to look forward to a bloodshed in Southern Africa which may only repeat the appalling disaster which took place over the years in Vietnam. All who want to avoid this will wish the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs success in his endeavours.
I want to put one question to the Government. It may arise out of this order; it may arise out of orders already in force; it certainly arises from the later remarks which the Minister made in introducing this order. There has recently been presented to the Government a very convincing document by Runnymede and the anti-apartheid movement, to which the noble Baroness referred, regarding the supply of oil to Zimbabwe by Shell and BP. I am not going to ask for an answer to that problem today because a Commission has been appointed to investigate the

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evidence which has been provided to the Government. I want to ask one question incidental to that situation.
The Government have a majority share in BP and two representatives on its board. Those representatives have the power of veto on that board. But it has been made clear by successive Governments that that power of veto would be exerted only on specific issues, and those include foreign affairs. Clearly, the future of Zimbabwe is covered by that specification of foreign affairs. I want to ask Her Majesty's Government, quite apart from any decision which the Commission may reach, whether they would instruct the two British representatives on the BP board to insist that there shall be no supply of oil to Zimbabwe, either by BP itself or by its subsidiaries in South Africa. This is an issue immediate and not involving a report of the Commission.
I believe at the meeting of the BP board on 3rd March this year, Mr. Tom Jackson (who is one of our two representatives on the board) raised this issue. I hope that Her Majesty's Government will give support to him in taking that stand, and will seek that our representatives on the BP board prevent oil from reaching Zimbabwe either directly from BP or through its subsidiaries.
6.17 p.m.
Lord BARNBY: My Lords, I should like to remind the noble Lord, the Minister, that there exists in this country and, indeed, elsewhere, a large body of opinion which feels that in regard to Southern Africa at the present moment there are two clearcut trends. One is the aim of Communism, master-minded by Russia, to dominate Southern Africa. The other is the feeling that every action, policy and aim should supersede in that consideration for the purpose of opposing Communism.
That policy of opposing Communism caused me, by courtesy from the Minister, to have the assurance that it was wrong to feel that the Russian Communist danger was so dominant in Southern Africa. I would remind the House of an earlier era, when there were those who constantly reminded the country of the danger of Hitler and were reviled and ridiculed. Appeasement was the policy that was then followed, and it brought about the disaster which cost so many lives in World War II.
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I would ask: What is the need for this order and for its being brought forward at this particular juncture? Surely, as has been expressed, there is no haste. It has been under consideration, apparently, for quite a long time and it would seem that this is entirely the wrong moment to bring it forward. Of course, it may be that vindictiveness and harassment are the aims: that is understandable. But to bring it forward at this time really reduces the inclination of the moderates to take courage, avoid intimidation and support a moderate view generally in Rhodesia and, in that way, to support alleged aims of bringing about a peaceful solution such as we all hope for. But if it be not harassment, perhaps the aim would be, when food production is so necessary in Rhodesia, to make it more difficult for the African farmer—and indeed the white farmer, too—to obtain spare parts for his tractor. How improbable is any effective result as regards piracy of textile designs and patents. Heavens! it is difficult enough to avoid piracy on designs and patents in this country, let alone attempting to do any good in Rhodesia, where this country has no power of enforcement.
The visit of the Foreign Secretary to South Africa recently was indeed to be commended. But what did we see? A first visit—shades of Palmerston, Disraeli, or Curzon—by the Foreign Secretary to a totally self-avowed Marxist State. And for what purpose—to get advice about a British territory? I am among those who believe that British prestige and pride have sunk to the nadir of ignominy. Perhaps now we are to see a visit to Russia so that we may get advice on how to overcome terrorism in Northern Ireland. Indeed, that might well produce a more successful result than the present Government have achieved to date with these constant murders and disorders. Mozambique, forsooth!—a country where Press reports indicate, without denial, that there are some 30,000 to 40,000 people held in detention camps, many of them probably without trial.
We have seen the curious position of negotiations recently going on with the intention of bringing about a settlement, without arrangements being made at the same time for the fulfilment of a truce to the fighting. That is a most unusual course, but understandable, because the

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so-called African leaders did not have, as leaders should have, authority to control what they like to call their troops in the field. My Lords, by all assessments and measurements of propriety, this order should not attract assent today.
6.28 p.m.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I am most grateful for the tone and the temper of this discussion. No one wants to engage in sanctions. If, however, by international obligation it is necessary to act in this way, then this country must honour its word and its bond. I happen to be one of those who look to the time when possibly economic sanctions may supplement the arbitrament of physical warfare. We are a long way from that and, on those grounds, I would make a plea for sanctions, looking hopefully and perhaps idealistically ahead.
As to the points raised in the debate, the noble Baroness stressed that we were a co-sponsor of the resolution. That is true, and I give that assurance to my noble friend Lord Brockway, that we took a full part with the other members of the Security Council—we were unanimous on it—to promote this tidying up operation which is, nevertheless, vital to the consistency of our policy and that of the world authority in this case. I would hope that the noble Lord, Lord Barnby, would agree with me that it really would be counter-productive to present efforts to mobilise a consensus based on moderate opinion in Africa if the United Kingdom were the only one of the members of the Security Council not to sponsor this order: that is quite apart from the merits of the order, in which I believe. There is the overwhelming argument that we, of all countries, should not be seen to be the ones not to support or to co-sponsor an order of this kind.
The noble Baroness, Lady Elles, and my noble friend Lord Brockway also mentioned the question of oil and referred to the inquiry in which the Government have engaged. Perhaps I should say this. Assurances of a substantial character from the highest level have been given us that no oil from British companies, including BP, finds its way directly or indirectly to Rhodesia. This will, of course, be one of the questions investigated by
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Mr. Bingham as chairman of the inquiry. The question of the nature of the veto which members of the board can exercise will no doubt, especially after my noble friend has raised the matter in the debate today, be part of the consideration of this committee.
As to the question of timing, raised by both Members of the Opposition Benches, it is a fact that the talks on the insurance part of this order—the most important part—certainly took time. I said in my opening speech that it is preferable to have these arrangements agreed to voluntarily, rather than statutorily—they are less likely to be subject to breach, either by misinterpretation or by misapplication—and these two world-respected insurance organisations talked this over with us and decided that they would apply these sanctions voluntarily. That is a great gain, but it took some time.
As to the remainder of the order, Ministers decided to delay the rest pending the results of the Geneva Conference. I think that that is a wise step to take. But once the Geneva Conference had completed its course, and clearly was not going to issue a decision, then we had to resume consideration of the rest of the resolution, and embody it in an order as other countries were already doing, including some of our friends in the Community. I should like to give the assurance, for which the noble Baroness asked, that there has been no external pressure. The timetable has been on the basis of what I have just put to the House.
Before I sit down, may I join the noble Baroness in looking forward to the removal of sanctions on the terms which I set out in my speech in moving this order. I think that they are the terms which practically all of us see to be necessary; that when a new life, based on majority rule, is clearly and irrevocably available to the people of Southern Rhodesia, sanctions will be discontinued just as soon as we can dismantle the operation.
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, before the Minister sits down, may I ask him this? He has said that assurances have been given by British companies that they are not supplying oil to Zimbabwe. Have assurances been given by them that their subsidiaries in South Africa are not supplying that oil?
Lord GORONWY-R0BERTS: My Lords, I cannot, and should not, in this context add to what I have imparted to the House. I have chosen my words fairly cautiously—I almost said "conservatively," but then I was replying to my noble friend. If he will be content with what I have said tonight, perhaps Mr. Bingham and his committee will follow up what is already a hopeful situation, and even satisfy my noble friend when the committee reports.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

INTERNATIONAL FUND FOR AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT (IMMUNITIES AND PRIVILEGES) ORDER 1977
6.35 p.m.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS rose to move, That the draft International Fund for Agricultural Development (Immunities and Privileges) Order 1977, laid before the House on 20th April, be approved. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the first Motion standing in my name, the International Fund concerning immunities and privileges. I think it will be convenient if I speak at the same time to the International Monetary Fund (Immunities and Privileges) Order, as set out on the Order Paper.
These orders, which will be made under the International Organisations Act 1968, were laid before the House on 20th April. The order relating to the International Fund for Agricultural Development is required to enable us to ratify the Agreement establishing the International Fund for Agricultural Development. The purpose of the Fund, as noble Lords will know, is to finance agricultural development projects, primarily for food production in developing countries, by making resources available on concessional terms. The Fund will conduct its operations mainly through existing international and regional organisations and agencies, and so will not need a large professional staff.
The Fund's financial target of 1,000 million dollars was reached in December 1976. The United Kingdom's contribution is to be £18 million (about 30 million dollars) for which provision has been made in the International Finance, Trade and Aid Act which received Royal Assent on
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31st March. It is intended that the Fund shall be constituted as a Specialised Agency of the United Nations. In the negotiations on the Agreement, however, we were able to secure the incorporation of a provision which allows Member States, in applying the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the Specialised Agencies to the International Fund for Agricultural Development, to make such modifications as they consider appropriate.
The International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the International Development Association and the International Finance Corporation are Specialised Agencies of the United Nations, but the privileges and immunities we accord to them are more limited in scale than those laid down in the Specialised Agencies Convention. We consider it appropriate that the International Fund for Agricultural Development should be accorded a similar scale of privileges and immunities to that of these and other financial institutions, and we therefore propose on ratification to make a declaration, as permitted by the terms of the Articles of Agreement, which will have the effect of tailoring the Specialised Agencies Convention to correspond with the Agreements regulating the privileges and immunities of these institutions. The draft order gives effect to these limited provisions. In particular, I would point out that the immunity accorded to both representatives to the Fund and to officials is limited to official acts and specifically excludes motoring offences of any kind.
Initially, the headquarters of the Fund is being set up in Rome, but until a decision is taken by the governing council it is not certain whether it will remain there or be permanently installed in another country. The Fund is not expected to have an office here and the application of the order is therefore likely to be very limited. I hope that the House will approve this order, and thus demonstrate its support for the Fund in its aim of increasing food production in the poorest countries of the world.
I now turn to the order relating to the International Monetary Fund, which I shall move separately. This is required to give effect to the second amendment to the Articles of Agreement of the International Monetary Fund. The House will be familiar with much of the back-

881
ground on this subject from the discussion of the International Finance, Trade and Aid Act to which I have already referred and which was extensively debated.
One of the results of the discussions on international monetary reform of the past few years—in which the United Kingdom played a prominent part—was the agreement to revise, for only the second time in the 30 years of its existence, the Articles of Agreement of the International Monetary Fund. The United Kingdom supported these changes, and the International Finance, Trade and Aid Act 1977 makes most of the amendments to United Kingdom legislation necessary to allow the United Kingdom to ratify the second amendment.
The original Articles of Agreement, to which effect was given in the United Kingdom by the Bretton Woods Agreement Act 1945 and the Bretton Woods Agreement Order in Council 1946, provided that immunity from legal process in respect of official acts be accorded to three categories of person, namely, the governors of the Fund, the executive directors, and the staff. The amended Articles include three further categories: members of Fund committees, representatives sent to attend executive board meetings by member countries who do not have the right to appoint an executive director, and advisers. The status of these people of course varies, but they will generally be of ministerial or equivalent rank or senior policy advisers.
The amended Articles also give the governors power to set up a council. This would be a permanent successor to the interim committee, which maintains high level political control over the deliberations of the IMF. Should the council be established, the order would confer immunity in respect of official acts on councillors and others in accordance with Schedule D to the amended Articles of Agreement. My Lords, I beg to move, in the first place, the first order on the Order Paper of this noble House. At the appropriate time, I shall move separately the second order.
Moved, That the draft International Fund for Agricultural Development (Immunities and Privileges) Order 1977, laid before the House on 20th April, be approved.—(Lord Goronwy-Roberts.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
6.43 p.m.
Baroness ELLES: My Lords, may I thank the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, for giving us such a clear and lucid explanation of the two draft orders. I will not go in detail into the subject matter of the orders. The noble Lord has expounded very clearly the reasons for and the meaning of these orders and the purposes for which they are presented. Certainly my noble friends on this side of the House very much welcome the setting up of the International Fund for Agricultural Development. First, we believe that this is one of the best ways of helping underdeveloped nations. Means will be given to people throughout the world to grow enough food to feed themselves and so create their own areas of self-sufficiency. This is an objective which everybody shares; nobody questions the merits of such an organisation.
Secondly, we on this side of the House believe that the most effective means of using money from the West is through this kind of international effort, using the international agencies which are already available or which will be created by a body such as the United Nations. It is absolutely essential that those who are engaged in international affairs and who are working for international organisations should be protected in the way that they are under the Vienna Convention and should be accorded the diplomatic privileges for which other international officers are eligible. Therefore we agree with the noble Lord that these orders should pass.
There is just one question that I should like to ask. It arises from the fact that the Seventeenth Report of the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments is not in print today. Although the four orders which are before your Lordships' House have all been considered by the Joint Committee, their report is not available. Thanks to the good offices of the staff, we have a photostat extract from the Seventeenth Report. In paragraph 2—I do not know whether it is paragraph 2 of the whole report or whether it is paragraph 2 of this part of the report—there appears to be doubt as to whether the draft order relating to the International Fund for Agricultural Development is intra vires. Quite a long explanation is given in the extract. Evidence was also received from

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the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. I am quite certain that the draft order is intra vires, but perhaps the noble Lord the Minister will comment upon this matter in order to set people's minds at rest, should this report of the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments fall, when it is printed, into the hands of those who might still have doubts about the matter.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER (Lord Derwent): My Lords, may I point out to the House that the second Motion has been neither called nor moved.

INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND (IMMUNITIES AND PRIVILEGES) ORDER 1977
6.46 p.m.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS rose to move, That the draft International Monetary Fund (Immunities and Privileges) Order 1977, laid before the House on 20th April, be approved. The noble Lord said: My Lords, in moving the draft order, perhaps it would be in order for me to reply to the remarks of the noble Baroness, which once again I welcome. The noble Baroness raised the question of the Joint Committee having questioned the vires of Articles 11 and 12 of the order. It is a fact that the Joint Committee's report on the draft order questions the vires of Articles 11 and 12, on the ground that the privileges granted are greater in extent than those which will be required to be conferred in accordance with the agreement establishing the Fund.
Our own legal advisers consider that the draft order, which follows a number of precedents—I think that obliquely I referred to those precedents in my opening speech—is intra vires. I have here a note on both articles which sets out the position as we see it. I hesitate to truncate a legal judgment, but I do not wish to appear to be in the least discourteous by not making this note available to the House. If the noble Baroness and, indeed, noble Lords agree, I will make available, side by side with the statements of the Joint Committee, the fairly long and, as we think, conclusive counter-statements which we have prepared after looking into this question with our own legal advisers. I am in the hands of the House, of course, but if that course is agreeable—and I discern
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that agreement is charmingly indicated by the noble Baroness—I will take it. I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft International Monetary Fund (Immunities and Privileges) Order 1977, laid before the House on 20th April, be approved.—(Lord Goronwy-Roberts.)
Baroness ELLES: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord the Minister for his explanation. I should be grateful if this document could be made available to the House, as the noble Lord suggests.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

SOCIAL SECURITY (MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS) (NORTHERN IRELAND) ORDER 1977
6.49 p.m.
Lord MELCHETT Lord MELCHETT rose to move, That the Social Security (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Northern Ireland) Order 1977, laid before the House on 7th April, be approved. The noble Lord said: My Lords, because of the urgency involved, this order has been made without a draft having been approved by a Resolution of each House of Parliament. If it is to continue to have effect, the order must now be approved. The order maintains the principle that there should be exact parity between cash social services in Northern Ireland and those in Great Britain. The order has two main purposes. First, it enacts for Northern Ireland provisions corresponding to those recently enacted for the rest of the United Kingdom in the Social Security (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act.
Among other matters, that order dealt with the earnings rule for pensioners, the extension of mobility allowance to beneficiaries under the former vehicle scheme and the treatment of claims to supplementary benefit by students during short vacations. As noble Lords are no doubt familiar with the contents of this Act from its recent passage through this House, I will not detain your Lordships by spelling out any of the provisions in detail.
The second purpose of the order is to make further minor amendments to the Northern Ireland social security legislation

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to bring the law into line with that in Great Britain. These amendments include the repeal of Section 27 of the Supplementary Benefits Act (Northern Ireland) 1966, under which the Supplementary Benefits Commission was empowered to establish advisory committees to secure advice and help both on general questions and on difficult individual cases. The equivalent provision in the Great Britain legislation was repealed in 1971 and the committees disbanded on the grounds that they had outlived their usefulness. The Northern Ireland committees were allowed to lapse last September when their appointments expired.
Also included is an amendment to the Social Security Pensions (Northern Ireland) Order 1975 relating to pension schemes of certain bodies in the public service. The order provides that the power to make the regulations and the duty to consult with the bodies representing the interests of the employers and earners concerned lies with the responsible Government Department, not only with the Department of Health and Social Services in Northern Ireland.
Finally, the order contains a further amendment which has no equivalent in the Great Britain Act. It provides for a right of appeal on a point of law from a appeal tribunal to the Court of Appeal and will enable the Department of Health and Social Services to give effect to improvements in the supplementary benefit appeal tribunal system recently announced by my honourable friend the Minister of State for Social Security. The provision of a similar right of appeal in Great Britain can be achieved by making an order under the Tribunals and Inquiries Act 1971. Although the change is being provided for now in this order as far as Northern Ireland is concerned, it will not be brought into force until the date from which the change takes effect in Great Britain.
As I have said, the order was made under the urgent procedure without a draft having been approved as it was imperative that the amendment relating to the earnings rule for pensioners became law before 4th April. The corresponding provision in the Great Britain Act came into operation on the passing of that Act. My Lords, I hope that I have dealt with the main points of interest in this order, which, of course, maintains the important principle of parity between cash social services in Northern Ireland and in Great Britain. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Social Security (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Northern Ireland) Order 1977, laid before the House on 7th April, be approved.—(Lord Melchett.)
Viscount LONG: My Lords, I am sure that all of us in your Lordships' House are most grateful for the information and the report which the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, has just given us on this new order. I quite understand its urgency and we certainly do not question that. In fact, the noble Lord may well be relieved to know that I am not going to question his order at all because the legislation has been through your Lordships' House and most of it is already known. It is really a matter of correcting, amending and up-dating part of the Act, so I feel that there is no need for us to cross-examine the noble Lord. He has further worries and duties with his right honourable friend in Ireland at the moment, and I should not like to detain him for one moment longer.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House adjourned at six minutes before seven o'clock.