Lords Sitting of 4 May 1977

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

THE QUEEN'S SILVER JUBILEE: ADDRESS TO HER MAJESTY
The LORD PRIVY SEAL (Lord Peart): My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now proceed to Westminster Hall for the purpose of presenting the humble Address which the House ordered yesterday to be presented to Her Majesty, and that thereafter the House do adjourn during pleasure and do meet again in this Chamber at half-past two o'clock.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House proceeded to Westminster Hall accordingly, for the purpose of presenting to Her Majesty an Address of congratulation in accordance with the Resolution of yesterday. The Commons also assembled in the Hall for a similar purpose.
The Address from the House of Lords, read by the Lord Chancellor (Lord Elwyn-Jones), was as follows:
"Most Gracious Majesty,
"It is a great joy to us who are assembled here today in this ancient Westminster Hall, where a decade ago in the presence of Your Majesty we commemorated the 700th Anniversary of the Parliament of Simon de Montfort, to welcome Your Majesty on this historic occasion to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of Your Accession. It is very rare for the three elements of Parliament—Your Majesty, the Lords and the Commons—to meet together in Westminster Hall. There can be no occasion more worthy of doing so than today's.
"Our ceremony launches today a nationwide celebration of Your Majesty's Silver Jubilee. Every city, every town, every village, every hamlet, each in its own way, will be rejoicing
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throughout the summer. For the old and the young, and particularly the children, it will be a Jubilee summer which we feel sure will never be forgotten. Wherever You go, You will be greeted with the feelings of gratitude and love of Your people. We, the Members of the House of Lords, warmly share these feelings and offer You our sincere thanks for a quarter of a century of devoted service.
"We would like to join with these thanks to Your Majesty our warm appreciation also of the unfailing support and creative service given by His Royal Highness Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. I know that the House of Lords would also like me to express our gratitude to Her Majesty the Queen Mother, Their Royal Highnesses Prince Charles, The Prince of Wales, and Princess Anne, and the other Members of the Royal Family.
"These last twenty-five years have seen immense changes. It is not only in our own country but throughout the world that patterns of Government and ways of life have been rapidly changed. No change can be accomplished without serious difficulties. But the new Commonwealth of 36 independent States provides a unique example of a continuing sense of identity and human understanding. How strong the links still are You will have seen for Yourself in the enthusiastic welcome that has been given to You in every country You have recently visited during Your Commonwealth tour and of which we have been able to savour a little from the television pictures of the cheering and happy people who have greeted You.
"We are now a member of the European Communities. Membership may bring many challenges for us in the future and perhaps lead to even greater changes.
"Since Your Majesty came to the Throne, we have at home been through both progress and set-backs. The talents of Your people have manifested themselves in the fields of the Arts and Sciences, of Technology and Engineering, of Medicine, of Education and Social Services, and in all these accomplishments women have come increasingly to play their rightful part.
"Throughout all this challenging quarter of a century Your Majesty has maintained with dignity our links with our historical past. You have provided us with a fine example of integrity and devotion to duty in public life and, in private life, with a model of a loving and united family. Your courage in the face of difficulties, and sometimes dangers, commands our admiration. Your ability cheerfully to adapt to the mood of the time and yet preserve a calm continuity, is a virtue for which everyone assembled here today is grateful. You are thus a continuing inspiration and source of strength to us all. In 1952 we remember that Your Majesty undertook to work, as your father did throughout his reign, to uphold constitutional Government. We all gladly acknowledge how splendidly You have done so and we here today, Lords and Commons, pledge You our full support in the corning years.
"We pray that Your reign, like that of Your Royal namesake, Elizabeth I, may continue long and prosperous. In gratitude and affection we pray God bless Your Majesty'."

HER MAJESTY'S REPLY
Her Majesty's gracious Speech in reply was as follows:
"My Lords and Members of the House of Commons.
"I am deeply grateful for your Loyal Addresses and for the kind and generous words in which the Lord Chancellor and Mr. Speaker have expressed them.
"Thank you also for what you have said about my family and the service they have given over the years. You will understand that for me personally their support has been invaluable.
"It is appropriate that I should come to Westminster at the start of the Jubilee celebrations in the United Kingdom. Here, in a meeting of Sovereign and Parliament, the essence of Constitutional Monarchy is reflected. It is a form of Government in which those who represent the main elements of the community can come together to reconcile conflicting interests and to strive for the hopes and aims we all
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share. It has adapted itself to the changes in our own society and in international relationships, yet it has remained true to its essential role. It has provided the fabric of good order in society and has been the guardian of the liberties of individual citizens.
"These 25 years have seen much change for Britain. By virtue of tolerance and understanding, the Empire has evolved into a Commonwealth of 36 Independent Nations spanning the five continents. No longer an Imperial Power, we have been coming to terms with what this means for ourselves and for our relations with the rest of the world.
"We have forged new links with other countries and in joining the European Economic Community we have taken what is perhaps one of the most significant decisions during my reign.
"At home there are greater opportunities for all sorts and conditions of men and women. Developments in science, technology and in medicine have improved the quality and comfort of life and, of course, there has also been television!
"We in Government and Parliament have to accept the challenges which this progress imposes on us. And they are considerable.
"The problems of progress, the complexities of modern administration, the feeling that Metropolitan Government is too remote from the lives of ordinary men and women, these among other things have helped to revive an awareness of historic national identities in these Islands. They provide the background for the continuing and keen discussion of proposals for devolution to Scotland and Wales within the United Kingdom.
"I number Kings and Queens of England and of Scotland, and Princes of Wales among my ancestors and so can readily understand these aspirations.
"But I cannot forget that I was crowned Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
"Perhaps this Jubilee is a time to remind ourselves of the benefits which union has conferred, at home and in our international dealings, on the inhabitants of all parts of this United Kingdom.
"A Jubilee is also a time to look forward! We should certainly do this with determination and I believe we can also do so with hope. We have so many advantages, the basic stability of our institutions, our traditions of public service and concern for others, our family life and, above all, the freedom which you and your predecessors in Parliament have, through the ages, so fearlessly upheld.
"My Lords, Members of the House of Commons. For me the 25th Anniversary of my Accession is a moving occasion. It is also, I hope, for all of us a joyous one. May it also be a time in which we can all draw closer together.
"Thank you again! I begin these celebrations much encouraged by your good wishes and expressions of loyalty."
House adjourned to the Chamber of Parliament.
House adjourned during pleasure.
House resumed at half-past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.

DES EDUCATION COMMITTEES: WOMEN MEMBERS
Baroness SEEAR: 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 why only one woman was appointed to the three committees established by the DES in December 1976 and February 1977; namely, the New Development Unit for Further Education, the National Consultative Group for Training and Further Education, and the Working Group on the Management of Higher Education in the Maintained Sector.
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science shares the concern of the noble Baroness that there should be no discrimination against women in public life. The membership of the three committees was however very largely determined by nominations from
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outside bodies and the need to select people representative of particular interests. I am sure that the educational and other interests concerned will take note of the views of the noble Baroness in making nominations in future.
Baroness SEEAR: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer, but I am bound to say that I find it totally unsatisfactory. Surely, she must agree that it cannot be true that women cannot be found in more adequate numbers to start these Committees. I regard that as no reply at all.
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, when organisations are asked to make nominations or suggestions, we cannot stipulate that they must do so by sex. We expect those organisations to nominate the people who, in their opinion, are best suited to do the job for which they are being nominated. I regret, as much as does the noble Baroness, that some of these organisations did not nominate women. We can only hope that the organisations in question will take note of this and will look a little harder in the future.
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE: But, my Lords, are not some of these appointments Government appointments?
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, the Further Education Curriculum Review and Development Unit was kept very small for reasons of operational efficiency. There are two senior members of the Department who serve on the board and the Unit's director is a full-time member of the board. As regards the Training and Further Education. Consultative Committee, again, we asked for nominations. The Consultative Group there comprises a chairman and 14 members. My right honourable friend approved the appointment of the chairman and nominated as education members the seven persons who were recommended to her by the education organisations consulted. Again, I regret that none of them was a woman. However, we were a little more fortunate with the Working Group on the Management of Higher Education to which we did at leas get one woman appointed.
Lord BYERS: My Lords, when these nominations come in, would it not be a good idea for the Department or the Minister to send them back for second thoughts if there is this preponderance of men over women?
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, that is very difficult. If we are asking organisations to submit nominations of people who, in their opinion, are suitable to do the job which we want them to do, it is not for us to specifiy that they must be women, though, like the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, I regret that not more women were nominated.
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords, is it not the case that organisations can be asked to put forward more than one name from which the Minister can select?
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, in some cases organisations give us more than one name, but we still do not necessarily get a woman.
Baroness GAITSKELL: My Lords, while I, for once, deplore the answer given by my noble friend, may I ask her why a distinguished woman like the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, has not been put on to any of these committees?
Baroness STEDMAN: Presumably, my Lords, because none of the organisations which we were asked to make recommendations recommended the noble Baroness.
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, so far as the third of these Working Groups is concerned, is it not the case that the Department of Education and Science nominated eight members?
Baroness STEDMAN: As regards the Working Group on the Management of Higher Education, yes, my Lords: but most of the members were nominated or recommended to us by educational organisations which we had consulted about the nominations. These were bodies such as educational authorities, trade union organisations, the higher education bodies and so on.
Baroness BACON: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that there are some women who, while they do not want
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discrimination against women, nevertheless do not want women appointed to anything just because they are women?
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, I could not agree more with my noble friend.
Lord WYNNE-JONES: My Lords, is there not a case here for employing the principle employed in other fields of education; that is, of positive discrimination in favour of those who are not getting the right treatment?
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, I thought that we were against sex discrimination and that we appointed people on their ability to do the job.

WIDOWS' PENSIONS AND ALLOWANCES
2.38 p.m.
Baroness MACLEOD of BORVE: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper, and, in doing so, to ask the leave of the House to alter the first figure in the Question, which should be £1 rather than £1.50.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many people are employed in giving widows with one child a £1.50 weekly child allowance and how many are employed in deducting £1 from the same widows' pension.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Baroness. The number of staff employed in giving widows the extra child benefit of £1 was about 40. No extra staff were used to reduce the payments of widowed mother's allowance because, in general, this was done automatically by computer programme.
Baroness MACLEOD of BORVE: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, for his Answer, which covers the Question, but would he not agree that to pay anybody to give £1 to a widow and take the same £1 away is a waste of Government money, to put it at its very lowest?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, it is sometimes cheaper and easier to apply a measure to a whole group and then, in those cases where sums have to be deducted to do so. I would remind the noble Baroness of the level of the allowances and pensions in respect of the group about which she has asked this Question.
Baroness MACLEOD of BORVE: My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord in his implication that widows get an allowance of £7.45, but is he not aware that they have to pay income tax on that, which leaves them with roughly £5 out of the £7.45?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, let us look at the figures which are involved. A widow, if she is over 50 years old at the time of her husband's death, receives £15.30 per week and £7.45 for each child, including the first. I appreciate that the amount is not as great if the husband's death occurs when the wife is between 40 and 50, but one has to look at the level of the pension.
Baroness MACLEOD of BORVE: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that a widow of that age does not receive a pension anyway?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, she does if she has children.
Baroness MACLEOD of BORVE: My Lords, that is for the child only, not for herself.
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNESIDE: My Lords, will the noble Lord not congratulate my noble friend onlooking into these matters, in view of the fact that it is most important that justice should be done and that the amount of money used in doing administrative work should not be increased? I am sure that the noble Lord will agree that it would be very nice if, on these kinds of occasion, he would thank the noble Baroness for looking into the matter, even if the Answer is not satisfactory.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, it would be very nice if, on occasion, noble Lords on the same side of the House as the noble Baroness congratulated the Government on the increase in the amount and level of pensions.

AERODROME SURFACE MOVEMENT INDICATORS
2.40 p.m.
Lord BRAYE: 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, in view of the heavy loss of life in the recent air disaster, whether Surface Movement Indicators (ground radar) could be installed as soon as possible at our major airports, particularly Gatwick, to add to that already in use at Heathrow.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, this is a matter for the Civil Aviation Authority, who, through the National Air Traffic Services, are responsible for providing air traffic control services and equipment at major United Kingdom airports. I am advised by the chairman of the Authority that the need for Aerodrome Surface Movement Indicator installations at airports other than Heathrow has been fully examined. It was concluded that the facility could probably be justified at Gatwick, and a detailed study relating costs to expected traffic is now in progress. A final decision will depend upon the timing of future developments at Gatwick.
Lord BRAYE: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that Answer. I should like to ask him whether there will be very much delay in installing this at Gatwick, owing to the enormous increase in traffic there?
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I understand that once a decision has been reached, and on the assumption that siting and engineering problems are resolved, it would take about 2½ years for the installation.
Lord SHACKLETON: My Lords, while welcoming the reply of the noble Lord so far as Gatwick is concerned, may I ask whether he agrees that, if it is desirable at Gatwick, it is all the more desirable at airfields with less sophisticated equipment? In the light of a disaster which took place at a less sophisticated airfield, will be noble Lord consider whether this type of installation might be appropriate at other airfields?
Lord ORAM: My Lords, the Authority watch the build-up of air traffic at other airports, but I am not aware of any study being justified at the moment comparable to the situation at Gatwick. Perhaps I should make the point that it is only at the very busy airports, with a complex taxi-way system, that the cost of this equipment, in terms of both safety and maintaining a smooth traffic flow, can be justified
Lord HARMAR-NICHOLLS: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that the words he has used in the answers he has given show a lack of enthusiasm for a matter which is very important in the public mind at the moment? Does he agree that if we want to retain the high reputation that we have in regard to air safety, such matters as these ought to be looked at with a view to putting them into effect rather quicker than the answer of the noble Lord seems to indicate will be the case?
Lord ORAM: My Lords, this matter has been thoroughly gone into, as I explained. But I think that it is important to realise that ground radar is only a monitoring tool, and is not a control facility in itself. It is not something from which we must expect too much.
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, can the noble Lord say what part the British Airports Authority will play in the discussions that are now taking place with regard to Gatwick? Is it not the case that the BAA have some responsibility for the movement of ground traffic at their airports?
Lord ORAM: Yes, my Lords; and of course the Civil Aviation Authority are constantly in touch with that Authority.
Lord BRUCE of DONINGTON: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that although, as he says, the Civil Aviation Authority are the responsible body in the matter, in the final analysis the Authority are responsible to a Minister, and that where public safety is concerned it might be possible that a Minister would find it necessary to intervene on behalf of the Government?
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I think that that would be a possibility; but certainly we have not by any means reached that situation.
Lord MERRIVALE: My Lords, can the Minister say how much it would cost to install ground radar at Gatwick, bearing in mind that already £60 million or £70 million are being spent at Gatwick to improve facilities? Would it not be more important to emphasise the importance of safety, rather than improving the building and so forth?
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I understand that the cost at Gatwick for this installation would be £400,000.
Lord HAWKE: My Lords, are the Government aware that Gatwick is particularly liable to fog, and will this factor be brought into consideration when they are making a decision in this matter?
Lord ORAM: Yes, my Lords, that certainly is a factor. This apparatus can see through fog. I believe that it is defeated by torrential rain, but it would be capable of dealing with the normal, or even the foggy conditions of Gatwick.
The Earl of KIMBERLEY: My Lords, if ground radar costs only £400,000 to install at Gatwick, would the Government consider spending this amount of money on other airports, such as Manchester and Prestwick, which are also fogbound in the winter?
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I have dealt with the question of other airports in my answer to my noble friend Lord Shackleton. They are under review, but there has been no decision to have a detailed study in those cases.

TUBERCULOSIS
2.45 p.m.
Baroness MASHAM of ILTON: 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 they intend to do about the increase of tuberculosis in England.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, the incidence of tuberculosis in England as a whole has been declining, though it is high among various immigrant groups. The Joint Committee on Vaccination and immunisation has recommended that immigrant children should be vaccinated by a substance known as BCG, either as soon as practicable after entry into this country, or at birth if they are in fact born in the country. This advice was circulated to all doctors by the Chief Medical Officer of Health in my Department.
Baroness MASHAM of ILTON: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Minister for that helpful Answer. May I ask him what, if any, screening routines exist for immigrants entering our country?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, there is some difficulty in replying on this matter. I know that the noble Baroness is talking about screening, but my information is that the vaccinating of all immigrants would not be of very great benefit, as it has been found that the majority of adults from countries with high incidence of tuberculosis are already immune from the disease. Children, who can best benefit, would do so most at the place of settlement. In any case the compulsory vaccination of immigrants is not provided for under current legislation, and because of this it is very difficult to do anything in the matter.
Lord SEGAL: My Lords, while obviously compulsory vaccination cannot be insisted upon, can my noble friend give an assurance that where the advice to vaccinate is not complied with after a suitable interval, there will be a follow-up in such cases and further directions issued?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I should have to look into the matter raised by the noble Baroness (which seems to be a valid one) to see to what extent there is any screening, and whether any advice is given, because it seems to me that if there is not, then this is a matter which should be investigated. If screening should take effect and produce what I might call unpleasant information, then obviously something ought to be done to see that vaccination immediately follows.
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But this is a matter that I should like to take back and look into.
The Lord Bishop of SOUTHWARK: My Lords, can the noble Lord give any statistics concerning the number of beds available for patients who are suffering in this way, and of patients who require hospital treatment?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: I am afraid that without notice I cannot give those statistics, my Lords.
Baroness MASHAM of ILTON: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord one further question? What screening or checks are there on kitchen staff working in schools? Perhaps the noble Lord is not aware that in my daughter's school there was a case of TB in the kitchen staff.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I should like to say, with great respect, that that point is very wide of the Question. It is a specific matter which I should have to look into.
Lord PLATT: My Lords, was not the supplementary question of the noble Baroness concerned with screening? I think that has been agreed, and, if so, surely vaccination is not the answer to it. The positive case needs treatment. Is it not the case that with modern treatment the patient can very quickly be put into a state in which he no longer communicates the disease to others, with the public being thus protected?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I accept what the noble Lord has said, and I have already given an undertaking to the House that I will look into the whole question of screening, to see what in fact is being done.
Lord BARNBY: My Lords, is the noble Lord in a position to give any figures as to the extent to which contemporaneously the extension of this disease is caused by non-white immigration?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: No, my Lords, I am not in a position to give any statistics at all. I have not come prepared with any, but I think that I can partially answer the noble Lord by saying that the high incidences of tuberculosis among certain

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immigrants are notably from Pakistan, Bangladesh, India and Africa.
Lord TAYLOR of MANSFIELD: My Lords, can my noble friend say how many sanatoria and hospitals exclusively for the treatment of tuberculosis have been closed recently?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I cannot give information like that; I have not got the statistics. I am just sorry I am not able to do so.

WEST MIDLANDS COUNTY COUNCIL BILL [H.L.]
Read 3ª, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

HUMAN RIGHTS
2.51 p.m.
Lord GLADWYN Lord GLADWYN rose to draw attention to the need for Her Majesty's Government, when considering their relationship with other Governments, to have regard to the extent to which those Governments observe their obligations under the Universal Declaration and the two International Covenants on Human Rights; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, in raising this important question on behalf of my colleagues, I shall not weary your Lordships with any detailed account of what human rights and fundamental freedoms are, or what they may be deemed to be. They have, of course, now been enshrined in many classical treaties, notably the Charter of the United Nations; the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948; the European Statute of Human Rights of 1950, which alone, I think I am right in saying (as we are now noting, perhaps to our disadvantage, in Strasbourg), provides for the legal enforcement of the judgments of a court; the two International Covenants of 1966, with the so-called optional protocol on individual petitions, which so far as we are concerned came into force only at the end of last year; to say nothing of the non-binding but elaborate Declaration of Helsinki of 1975.
There is also, I believe I am right in saying, a Commission of no less than 73 States coming under the general
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jurisdiction of the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations which meets once a year in Geneva, and concerns itself very largely with such matters as minorities and so on. I do not think that we need perhaps pay undue attention to that particular body in the present context.
The fact is that so far as the formulation of legal documents and safeguards is concerned, nothing more can now be done. Every conceivable freedom and right has been solemnly laid down in the documents which I have mentioned, from the right to strike, to leave the country, to receive a fair trial, to assemble freely, to send your child to a school of your own choice—you have merely to think of a right and it is included. The two Covenants were likewise approved unanimously by the General Assembly of the United Nations, though only about half the members have actually signed and only 43 have ratified them up to now, including, it need hardly be said, the Soviet Union and her Satellite States, which, as we know, are always in the vanguard of freedom! Only six—and they are all Western Europeans —have accepted Article 41, which empowers an 18-man committee, charged with the duty of supervising the execution of the Covenants, to consider complaints of violation of their engagements brought by one State party against another State party. In any case, it is only on 43 States that the two Covenants are now legally binding, subject to certain minor reservations, though, as we have seen, on the general principle of human rights all the members of the United Nations agree.
The point, my Lords, is that even if all the gaps were filled and the various treaties and protocols were universally ratified, the position would not necessarily be greatly improved, for it is undeniable that a large number—in fact, the great majority—of States which have, as I say, in principle underwritten the most far-reaching obligations, simply do not carry them out, or at any rate do not carry some of them out. Either the rule of law—for that is what it comes down to—has been abrogated as a result of some revolution involving the suppression of Parliamentary Government and its replacement by a ruthless dictatorship of the Left or the Right—the internal effects of which are often not very distinguishable—or the obligations have been assumed by a Government which pays

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lip-service to, for instance, the right of the individual to free speech, the right of free assembly and so on, but cannot in practice give practical effect to these obligations because they run counter to the whole philosophy on which such régimes have from the outset been based.
In Communist countries, not to put too fine a point on it, any overt opposition to the established authority is in itself something scandalous and intolerable as potentially undermining the whole fabric of the State. The State, so it is felt in those countries, is all-powerful because it is itself the only safeguard of the wellbeing of the population, the alternative being anarchy. More especially is this the case in Russia, where, since the foundation of the Russian power or vlast, as it is called, I think, the very idea of opposition has always had a slightly unpatriotic connotation. Inside the government machine, of course, the opposition does exist, but it must be kept secret. The only way of changing the vlast is thus some kind of internal coup d'etat. The Supreme Soviet, as we all know, is in no way a sovereign body, and there is no such thing as public opinion. So it follows that "human rights" as conceived in the West, at any rate, is something rather incomprehensible to the average Russian mind; that is to say, to the bulk of the people who, for the last 60 years, have been cut off from all real contact with Western thought.
Now, happily, there are some among the Soviet intelligentsia who, as a result of their own efforts or perhaps as a result of contacts made in the pursuit of their studies, do know what human rights really mean and who can appreciate that their denial is really, in the end, the equivalent of slavery. But they are at present very few; and it is unlikely, I am afraid, that they will, for many years at any rate, be able to change the whole nature of the Soviet régime. The great Solzhenitsyn is a voice crying in the wilderness, and he will do no such thing; he will not be able to change the Soviet régime. His role, as I see it, is to put the tolerant and easy-going Western democracies on guard against the very real danger that one day they also may lose their freedom. The brave Sakharov may go on trying, and our hopes and our sympathies all go, I am
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sure, unanimously out towards him. But whatever our hopes may be, there is at present no real likelihood that he will succeed; and, as we know, another intellectual called Medvedev believes that, however brave, his attitude may to some extent be misguided. Anyhow, that is what he thinks.
The bleak fact is that the Soviet system, however inefficient and, in the long run, as I am sure we all think, self-defeating, is clamped down on the Russian people without too much discontent among the masses, and in any case with the approval of the very powerful Armed Forces and what may perhaps be described as general acceptance by the new bourgeoisie; that is to say, the "apparatchiks", the technocrats, the bulk of the dragooned but well-paid artists and writers, the doctors, the scientists and so on. Of course, I do not say that there is not much discontent in the Union—more especially in the so-called "submerged nationalities" —but the chances are, I am afraid, that it will not disrupt the Union, at any rate so far as we can see ahead at the present time.
Just as human rights in the Western sense are something rather incomprehensible to the bulk of the Russians, so are they probably incomprehensible to the bulk of the 800-million Chinese. There, also, anyone who, rightly or wrongly, wants to conduct things differently from what the rulers of the country deem to be right from time to time is a sort of traitor—like the so-called "Gang of Four", who must be firmly suppressed by one means or another if anarchy is to be avoided. It follows that, whatever our hopes may be, the whole basis of the great Helsinki Agreement is questionable. I only say "questionable". If the Communist powers maintain, as they do maintain, that human rights are perfectly acceptable except when their exercise might endanger the totalitarian régime—in which case they are the equivalent of treason—how can we expect them (that is, the Communists) to abide in all respects by the various obligations which, as we see it, they should invariably observe?
In this sphere—I do not know whether I am carrying all noble Lords with me, but I hope so—there is no ground for real understanding. It is useless to think that

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we can somehow or another liberalise the Soviet, or for that matter, the Chinese régime. The only understanding possible is one firmly based on some ascertainable co-incidence of interests. I will repeat that; for it is what I believe. The only understanding possible is one firmly based on some ascertainable co-incidence of interests. We should certainly never give anything away in negotiations without receiving something porportionately valuable in return. That is not to say that by bringing pressure to bear on the Soviet Government—and notably by constantly drawing attention to the difference between its words and its actions, to say nothing perhaps of taking a tough line on credit if things do not improve—Western Governments may not occasionally be able to moderate the illiberal actions of that Government; notably in the case of obtaining exit visas for separated spouses, or even as regards the incarceration of intellectuals, mostly Jewish, I think, in lunatic asylums.
Up to this point, I feel that all or, at least, most of us would agree with the general line taken by President Carter. I think it is absolutely right. This is also what we shall, no doubt, try to achieve in Belgrade where it might not be entirely out of order for us to draw the attention of our host Government to certain apparent lapses regarding human rights. I should be grateful if the Government could give us some assurance that this will be their general attitude in the forthcoming Conference.
My Lords, in the Soviet Satellite States, however, the situation is obviously different. There, for the most part, the governments are maintained in power by Russian bayonets. Yet the people, again, I think, for the most part, have not forgotten what freedom means: a judiciary, for instance, independent of the State; the right to transfer property, free elections, a free Press, uncensored literary activity, freedom to emigrate, and so on. A generation has grown up, it is true, which has not enjoyed any of these things; but the old tradition persists. It is in their blood, so to speak. If ever the Russian occupying armies should withdraw, it would result in régimes only too willing to come to some kind of arrangement or agreement with the Western democracies.
In Eastern Europe, therefore, the real question is this. Do we want positively to encourage such tendencies by our propaganda (notably, of course, in broadcasts) thereby perhaps running the risk of provoking uprisings against the Russian domination which might well be brutally suppressed, as they were in 1953, 1956, 1968 and, I think, subsequently, on one or two occasions also; or do we prefer to let sleeping dogs lie in the belief, or rather in the hope, that some day the rays of freedom emanating from a happy and successful West of "mixed economies" which has emerged from the slump will, by themselves, melt the totalitarian iceberg and produce a revulsion against Communism not only in Eurasia but all over the world?
We should not necessarily be put off, I suggest, by violent Russian objections if we decide to pursue the first course. After all, the Soviet Government feels itself at liberty to denounce what it calls "capitalist" (in other words, free) societies everywhere, so why should we not be at liberty mutatis mutandis to do the same? But I doubt whether it would be wise. If pushed beyond a certain point, it might well result in a rupture of ordinary diplomatic relations, the maintenance of which is probably in our long-term political and economic interests and even in the interests of those whom it should be our main concern to assist.
Besides, morals apart, would it help if there were some fearful internal disturbances in Eastern Europe? Let us, therefore, so to speak, always keep our end up; let us give our moral support—I do not know whether the Government will go as far as this—to the "Charter 77" initiative in Czechoslovakia which simply seeks to induce the Czech Government to abide by Helsinki. But let us not seek actively to disrupt the established order in the satellite countries, however reprehensible we may, ourselves, consider it to be.
So, my Lords, we come to consider the large number of so-called Third World or developing countries in which all liberty has now been ruthlessly suppressed. These range from States such as Cambodia. which probably holds the record for sheer horror, something like one-fifth of the entire nation having been slaughtered for the sole reason that they were people who

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lived in towns and could, for the most part, read and write; but a strong runner-up is the dictatorship of Amin in Uganda where whole tribes have been decimated in beastly fashion. Nor is the position much better, I should imagine, in such countries as Ethiopia or the Central African Republic. Actual genocide apart, no one imagines, indeed, that anything like real respect for human rights, as defined, observed and consecrated in the Covenants, prevails in more than a few black African States at the present time; nor for that matter in many Arab States, as well. Here I may be wrong, but I feel that Islam is somehow, behind the scenes, endeavouring to reform society on lines perhaps differing from those favoured by Western philosophers over the years.
My Lords, passing to Asia, I suppose that the Indian sub-Continent may be considered as a region where the Rule of Law, in principle at any rate, still persists in the sense that it has not actually been suppressed. Indeed, we must all sincerely welcome the return of India to such a régime after its virtual suppression by Mrs. Gandhi; but its application, even there, is pretty tenuous, especially in Pakistan and Ceylon; while still further East, in Burma and Vietnam, tyranny of a totalitarian nature is the order of the day. Nor can freedom in the Western sense be said to prevail in Indonesia where millions of Communists were massacred not long ago, or even in the Philippines where the situation today seems to be grim.
My Lords, almost alone in this vast area, Japan and, to some extent, Malaysia and Thailand, stand out as places where the individual is, to some extent, respected and can, in principle at any rate, have some recourse against the arbitrary power of the State. All this is bad enough, but to those countries where human rights are, in varying degrees, suppressed, we must clearly now add the greater part of Latin America, with, so I am told, the partial exception of Mexico, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Colombia and the West Indies. Cuba apart, these are more or less Right Wing régimes—more especially Chile—and therefore come in for more general condemnation than equally ruthless Governments of a different political complexion. But considered purely objectively, they are for the most part
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no worse than other States which I have mentioned in other continents, and indeed some may he thought to be less barbarous than those in a general way, though the Chilean and perhaps more especially the Argentine Government stand out, I am afraid, as particularly flagrant and brutal offenders.
I have left the most contentious examples to the last: South Africa and Rhodesia. Nobody can maintain that human rights as laid down in the various treaties are observed in the Republic of South Africa. The very essence of apartheid violates all the generous intentions of those who formulated them in the late 1940s or even before the war. Yet it is unjust that South Africa should be the sole object of criticism in the United Nations when no condemnation is apparently made of other countries such as Uganda or Cambodia, whose Governments are by any standards far more horrible than the South African Government. No criticism of them, apparently, is permitted at all. Except when they have become unspeakably frightful and clearly guilty of genocide, we, rightly, maintain diplomatic and trade relations with all Governments which flagrantly violate human rights, and we also condemn interference from outside in their internal affairs, whether it be on the part of Cuba or anybody else, such interference necessarily involving the interference of other interested parties. I think I am reflecting the Government's view on this.
So it should be with South Africa. We shall, I hope, continue to bring such pressure as we can on the Government of the Republic to modify its racial laws and certainly to clear out of Namibia, where its presence now has no legal justification at all. But an armed crusade against South Africa with the clear object not merely of defending human rights, but, in addition, of imposing a series of black Marxist dictatorships in place of rule by a very substantial white minority, is something which could only lead to general war, the outcome of which no one could predict except that everybody would be much the worse off if it happened.
Rhodesia, from the point of view of human rights, seems to me to be rather a special case. The position of the enormous black majority in that country is from that point of view, by and large, much better

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than it is in some other countries. But it is obvious that there must shortly be a transfer of power and there is little doubt that, by one means or another, this will fairly soon take place. Whether human rights will actually be preserved by the successor régime seems, in view of our recent experiences, to be questionable.
Well, my Lords, I have tried in the short time available to indicate what, in this deplorable situation, our general attitude might be. The sad fact is that human rights as laid down in the various treaties are now, to a very large extent, only protected, or fully protected, in the richer and non-Communist nations, or at least those with long Parliamentary traditions—and here we can note with joy that of recent years they have been revived in Spain, Portugal and Greece. But whether we like it or not, in nearly all other countries ideology or tribal rivalries or economic distress or population pressure, or just general misery, has resulted in some form of dictatorship, usually—though not always—maleficent, and this state of affairs is likely to continue at least for so long as the present world recession endures.
I do not know whether I carry all your Lordships with me, but I suggest that human rights are part of the good life; they are a luxury if you will, to which the poorer nations may one day attain, but only if their economic situation should improve materially. True there are one or two countries which have recently become rich very quickly where human rights have also been suppressed, and sometimes brutally suppressed; but this does not alter the fact that extreme poverty is just not compatible with freedom. The nine countries of the E.E.C., where, after all, human rights are not only observed but are legally enforceable, should hence—and this is a major suggestion of mine—co-ordinate their attitude towards violations of these admirable principles in other parts of the world. They should co-ordinate their attitude. Thus if it is thought good—as it might be—to intercede on behalf of any oppressed persons or minorities, whose case may be advanced by such admirable institutions as Amnesty International, such action should, if possible, be taken jointly.
In the United Nations, too, while we shall be unable to get any decision condemning the abuse of human rights elsewhere than in Southern Africa, South America and Israel, we ought also to speak with one voice in condemnation of the "double standard" attitude of the majority and to try to get suitable publicity for our point of view. I should like again to ask the Government to confirm that this is broadly speaking also their general point of view.
Such an attitude, if we adopt it collectively within the Community, will be denounced by a majority in the United Nations as supercilious neo-colonialism, advanced purely as a cover for the basic materialism of Western society. Of course that accusation will be made. Indeed, an effort is, I believe, now being made to establish a new Human Rights Convention based on rival concepts such as the right to eat, the right to share in the standard of living of the richer nations, and so on. How this can be reduced to legal form is not easy to understand. Perhaps the noble and learned Lord who sits on the Woolsack can explain how that can be done. I think it will be rather difficult.
So far as the existing conventions are concerned, in any case the whole issue will no doubt be boiled down, if possible, to the simple one of an assault against the governing white minority in the Republic of South Africa. This, after all, has the merit of keeping an unperceived beam in a great number of national eyes. Here we in the West—and I think this must go also for the United States Government—are caught between our disapproval of apartheid and our certainly not unjustified suspicion that an armed crusade against South Africa would be designed, at least by some—and we know who they are—not so much to "liberate" a few million blacks, as to place them under a dictatorial rule with the chief object of undermining the free societies of the West.
There is no easy way out of this dilemma. We cannot and we should not abandon our efforts to persuade the South African Government to reform their economy so as to bring more and more of the nonwhite members of the Republic into positions of responsibility ending up in a genuinely multiracial society. But neither

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must we subscribe to a popular view that any such progress can be achieved only by the direct application of force.
If we have learned anything in the dreadful wars, nearly always undeclared, that have taken place since the end of World War II, it surely is that the application of force on a national scale in pursuit of any ideology only makes the resulting situation infinitely worse. It is perfectly true, as Machiavelli said, that unarmed prophets cannot be expected to influence the political situation very much one way or the other; but equally the use of arms in our modern world is something incompatible with any ideological success. As Tacitus prophetically remarked, "they create a solitude and call it peace".
As I see it, we shall do well if we preserve human rights as among ourselves here in Europe. If we do, there is at least a chance, as I have said, that they will gradually take root elsewhere, notably in Eastern Europe for a start. If we do not, well that will mean that we ourselves shall gradually be subjected to rival totalitarian influences coming from the East; which is exactly what Solzhenitzyn has been trying to say for so long and which we are so reluctant to believe. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
Lord BOOTHBY: I should like to ask one question of my noble friend, if I may, arising out of his very interesting speech. I am sure he will agree that in Eastern Europe, Czechoslovakia and Hungary were the acid tests. Does he or does he not think that we should have done more than we did in those cases?
Lord GLADWYN: My Lords, I tried to make my attitude clear. I said, particularly with regard to Czechoslovakia, that the Government would be well advised to give moral support to the Charter 77 Movement. I also suggested that if by propaganda we hinted that it would be a good thing for the Czechs to rebel against their Government. then that would be a bad thing.
3.20 p.m.
Baroness ELLES: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, with his very wide experience of diplomacy and knowledge of international affairs, has not only covered
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the world for us this afternoon but has given many of us an opportunity of debating what I believe to be one of the most important issues for our own country, concerning the relationship between ourselves and other Governments. In addition to that, the Government must consider their relationship towards their own citizens if they are going to make a stand on the issue of human rights in the world. It is, of course, an enormous subject and it is only possible, in the comparatively short time available to each speaker, for me to touch on just a few guide-lines and to speak in the broadest of terms.
First of all, I think it should be clarified that under Article 13 of the United Nations Charter all Member States of the United Nations are legally bound to promote and encourage respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms for all. So much importance was laid on that aspect of international obligations to all Member States that it is mentioned no fewer than seven times in the text of the Charter. Organs of the United Nations—some of them successful, some not quite so successful and some which have even been total failures so far—were specifically set up for the purpose of developing and promoting such respect for human rights; so it is not only the Covenants and Declarations to which the noble Lord referred, but also the Charter itself, and it is legally binding on every Member State of the United Nations.
I should like to turn for a few minutes to our own system in this country, because if we are going to take a moral stand and not blame ourselves, as we blame others, for double standards, we should very seriously and clearly look at the many defects which are becoming apparent in our own system in this country with regard to the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms of our own citizens. So great has been the legislation in recent years, and so little have been the corresponding protections in respect of that legislation in the eyes of the citizen, that we are gradually seeing an erosion of our fundamental freedoms as we have always maintained them.
In our society as a whole, in our educational system, in the freedom of expression and in the right to work, to name only a few, the corresponding lack

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of administrative and judicial procedures for the redress of injury to a citizen by any of the public authorities or Government Departments is therefore becoming increasingly serious. We are now having a number of complaints brought against the Government at Strasbourg, not because, I personally believe, we are very much worse than any other country in Western Europe, but because our internal system has not been providing the remedies necessary, with the increasing flow of legislation which has been coming from the Government. What is happening is that the domestic remedies available to the citizen are becoming rapidly exhausted and there are no alternatives but to go to Strasbourg.
Of course, it should be said in our favour—and I firmly believe that it is one of the great stands of the West as opposed to other parts of the world—that we as a country, and our Government in particular, are prepared to go publicly to an international forum to have revealed the patent weaknesses in our system. I believe that is indeed our great strength. With other Western democracies, members of the Council of Europe, we accept the right of the individual to petition in Strasbourg against any action of Government. I would repeat that I believe this is one of the great strengths of our country as well as being at present perhaps one of its weaknesses.
The European attitude and approach to human rights is based on a sharing of common standards and basic values, which I personally would call of a Christian ethic, influenced by the thinking of classical philosophers. We share in Western Europe, as a concept of law, a standard of conduct for our own community. That standard of conduct we are prepared to defend and, with the lacunae I have mentioned, to see it enforced. But the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 was an attempt to set up not only a European standard but a world standard of values. Since that Universal Declaration, the tragedy, however, has been that there is no universal standard of values. It is the absence of that which has led other nations not only to exploit the double standards but consistently to deny and violate human rights themselves, and at the same time to politicise certain issues at the United
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Nations. In that way, as the noble Baroness, Lady Gaitskell, reminded us the other day, the abolition of colonialism, racism, and discrimination was favoured above equally important human rights which have been consistently neglected and overlooked.
One result of that has been that while denying human rights to their own citizens, some countries have supported and maximised these particular issues for political ends. They have directed attacks to specific countries, while claiming for themselves the right of non-interference in their internal affairs. But I am sure that we in this House shall all agree that human rights are of universal and international concern. President Carter has done a great service in turning world attention to that. He recognises that for evil to conquer it is enough for good men to do nothing. He also recognises the duty of his own Government to put their house in order. They have not ratified the major international Covenants such as the International Covenant on Human Rights, the Covenant on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination or the Convention on Genocide. The President, however, has undertaken to ensure that he gets the support of Congress so to do.
One action I should have thought our Government should take in the forum of the United Nations is at all times to press other Governments to ratify these Conventions, because I believe they have a great psychological and moral value. Those countries which have ratified the international Covenants are, of course, under a direct legal obligation to observe and protect the human rights and fundamental freedoms of their citizens. Perhaps it is fair to say that the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Affairs is one which does not lay a direct and immediate obligation on countries; the objectives laid down in the Covenant are to be reached by progressive stages. Therefore, that does not have quite the same immediate and direct effect as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
However, I concur with what the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, said: that those countries which have ratified should be pressed to allow their citizens to petition individually under the optional Protocol, because if they are going to accept the

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legal obligations under the Covenent they should allow their citizens the right to use any implementing machinery available. They should therefore allow themselves to be reported to the Human Rights Committee. If those Governments do not do so, their ratification is meaningless in terms of observance. It acts merely as a sort of front to the world, but does not protect their own citizens, and in fact serves to allow those countries to have representatives on the Human Rights Committee and to condemn others.
It is worth reminding ourselves that the West is now going to allow itself to be judged by East countries and other countries of the world with no reciprocal right so to do, as the situation is at present, unless these other countries are persuaded and encouraged that they should agree to Article 41, which allows State parties to bring before the Human Rights Committee violations in other State party's countries; and also, of course to the optional protocol, to which I have referred, which allows a petition from an individual to the Human Rights Committee. Perhaps the Minister, in replying, will be able to give us a little information on the progress being made by that Committee, which I believe has recently met for the first time in New York. I do not know whether any public statements have been made on its activities or whether any decisions have been come to about the way in which it is to conduct its proceedings, and I should be grateful to have some reply from the Minister on this subject, if that is possible.
But it is in the context of détente and the Helsinki Agreement that we may particularly welcome President Carter's stand for human rights, because he recognises that the initiative must be taken in the West to contest the ideological struggle which continues, not only despite but because of the European concept of détente. We have only to remember those famous words in Pravda of 1973:
"The struggle will continue until the complete and final victory of Communism is achieved".
It is this issue of human rights and fundamental freedoms around which the struggle will evolve because, by definition, no totalitarian State, including a Marxist or Socialist collectivist State, can guarantee the human rights and fundamental freedoms of the individual. Indeed, the
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individual is subordinated to the demands of the State, and his actions and thoughts are controlled by the State for the benefit of the State.
Recognising this in relation to such régimes we must be more selective and intensify our information services, as the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, pointed out, and not decrease them. We must not cut down our overseas services, which are the voice of freedom for millions, but increase them. If I may add a personal note here, the only news service that I heard when I was in China was the news on the BBC, which said that certain activities were taking place in Peking, and I was able to inform our interpreters, who were currently accompanying us around China, of what was going on in their own country. When they asked "Where did you hear it?" and I said that I heard it from London, the effect was electric.
Another action which we must take, and which I hope the Government will continue to take, is to support dissident movements wherever they themselves demand support, knowing the possible consequences. We cannot forget that there are between 1 million and 1½ million political prisoners in an estimated 500 prisons, prison camps and psychiatric prisons in the Soviet Union, and that the dissidents themselves have demanded the maximum publicity for what is going on in their country. Let us remember that in those prisons are not only Jews; not only political prisoners; but Christians, including Baptists, and every kind of individual, regardless of wealth, status or whatever one likes to call it, merely because they have cut across the right to freedom of conscience and freedom of expression in that country.
We have already had the outstanding speeches of Solzhenitsyn referred to. In fact, I do not think that you can consider in global terms the question of human rights without mentioning the names of either Solzhenitsyn or Andrei Sakharov, and we should not be ignoring their voices. Just because they have said the same thing so often does not mean that it is any the less true. We have had only to see what has happened to the group who have been monitoring the observance of the human rights provisions of the Helsinki Agreement. It was announced

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in The Times only the other day that seven more have been imprisoned by the Soviet Union.
Should the Government stand by in silence, while giving vast technological and economic assistance to such a country? These are not normal commercial trade relations, exchanging the products of our countries for mutual benefit. This is an aspect of the subject to which we must be turning our attention. We have economic and other aid agreements with 47 countries, under the Lomé Convention, and it is indeed right for Western industrialised countries to contribute to the raising of economic and social standards in those parts of the world which are underdeveloped. But is it necessarily right to assist, in particular, national liberation movements with economic aid, when the sole aim of these so-called liberation movements is to set up some Marxist puppet government and so aid, once more, the Soviet Union in its imperialist and expansionist programme?
These and similar issues should be considered, not unilaterally or in isolation by ourselves but, as the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, so rightly pointed out, with our partners in the European Community with whom we should consult, co-operate and co-ordinate our strategies; and also, of course, with America and our NATO allies. Interdependence between nations must guide our policies in human rights issues, just as much as it does in economic and monetary fields. It may well be that public action is not always the best method for success. Much can be achieved by diplomatic and private negotiation, and in this case I think that there is a fine balance of judgment when to use the weapon of diplomacy and when to use the words and actions of toughness and decision.
But it is surely in the interests of all of us, not only to encourage friendly relations with Governments throughout the world through our economic, commercial and trade relations, but to be more selective in our aid; to use our political leverage; above all, to use the vast economic strength of the European Community—the largest trading bloc in the world—not as a threat, but as something to be taken account of by those who, according to our standards, consistently and systematically violate human rights and fundamental freedoms.
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I believe that in this way we shall be able to make a positive contribution to the maintenance of peaceful relations, without which, of course, there can be no human rights for anybody.
Lord HANKEY: My Lords, before the noble Baroness sits down, may I ask whether she has anything to add to her most interesting and comprehensive speech about infringements of human rights committed by the various guerrilla movements across the world? I am thinking of the kidnappings in Italy, of the imprisonment of Sir Geoffrey Jackson for six months in Uruguay, and of the guerrillas in the Argentine and even in Northern Ireland.
Baroness ELLES: My Lords, I have no personal information other than that which is, of course, repeatedly put into the Press, and I should be interested to hear what the Government have to say on this subject. Certainly, the increase in violence in internal situations has corresponded to the avoidance of external and intcrnational conflict, and it is one of the great problems of the world. Regrettably, I do not propose to offer the noble Lord a solution.
3.38 p.m.
Lord SOPER: My Lords, I am, not unnaturally, attracted to this Motion, because it is essentially a moral issue, and I am particularly grateful for the quality and comprehensiveness of the introductory speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn. He will not expect me to follow him too diligently in the sketches he gave of Communist ideology and practice. I think that there are many other aspects of the Communist position which would need to be stated in order to get a balanced view. But I most heartily agree with him in his penultimate comment, that force will not provide a solution. In fact, it would prompt me to the further exploration of the possibility of some kind of unilateral action in a very large degree of disarmament, if not of absolute pacifism. But let that be.
I want to say something about this as a moral issue of which we are conscious and which we deplore in its rapacity, in its deprivation of human rights—things which are now so widespread on the earth as to include almost every country, and if

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we begin to make a catalogue we should certainly not leave out places such as Iran and Ethiopia. It was in 1895 that a divine of the City Temple was prompted to make an observation about the Armenian massacres. That great divine began his sermon with the exclamatory comment "God damn the Sultan!". That was an electric occasion, but subsequently it was found that the follow-up to this particular invitation was not so clear-cut as the invitation itself. The fact that probably God would need earthly agencies in order to fulfil that particular process was by no means so exactly put to the Churches or to the community as was the initial declamation. This constitutes a perennial and continuing problem.
I am appalled, as this House is appalled, at the widespread denial of human rights: from the Right, from the Left, from the Centre. I am quite sure that something should be done in order to meet this particular enormity in a world which—I will break a gentle lance with the noble Baroness who has just sat down—in general has tended to improve during the years in which I have been acquainted with matters of private and personal liberty. However, in order to face adequately the challenge I am sure that it is imperative to look much more closely at the available means whereby that challenge can be met.
As the noble Lord, Lord Janner, knows, not so long ago it was my privilege to be a delegate at a conference in Brussels about Soviet Jewry. The evidence there was overwhelming, frightening. But there were certain alleviating circumstances, or there were certain elements of comfort and reassurance. As I listened to impassioned speeches and to evidence which was incontrovertible, it was clear to me that when sufficient publicity is given to particular cases there is at least a chance that there will be a cessation of the more brutal forms of the denial of human rights. Also, it was clear to me that there were many individual cases in which such publicity had made a great deal of difference for good. Perhaps, therefore, the first comment I would make is that the widest possible publicity, in a world where communication is much more available than ever it was before, should not be derided as an unimportant contribution to the alleviation of this problem.
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There is another aspect of the problem which initially needs rather closer attention. It was also my privilege the other day to head a deputation to the Soviet Embassy on behalf of Christians who are persecuted in the Soviet Union. It was not an entirely happy occasion because, somewhat uncomfortably for us, the Soviet Ambassador's man spoke to us a good deal about our own problems and about what is happening in Northern Ireland. Although he was not particularly well informed, certainly he was able to raise very difficult and awkward questions.
However, what is important is that we were able to remind him—and in this case I think he had forgotten it or perhaps had never known it—that the condition of the Christian in Russia is determined by two principles. One is freedom of religious observance; the other is freedom of nonreligious propaganda. Nobody would equate this with freedom in the broadest sense of the word. But it is true that in many cases in the Soviet Union those who are punished—and from the standpoint of absolute justice I think incorrectly and wrongly punished—are punished because they have broken a law which is the internal law of the community: a law which represents things which I deplore but which nevertheless is a law that has as its obligation the fulfilment of what the Soviet people themselves believe, or some of them do, to be for the ultimate good of that vast community.
Though I, for one, am quite sure that such liberties now as are enjoyed by Christians, particularly Baptists, in the Soviet Union, are in many cases minimal, yet I believe also that there has been a change. It is to the credit of the Russian Orthodox Church—which, by the way, is now able to export its magazines in English; I receive one about every month—that there is evidence of the way in which the Russian Orthodox Church is able to champion to some extent the freedom at least to distribute Bibles and the freedom at least to hold meetings for religious purposes outside the framework of the Church. I believe once again that the widest possible publicity can have quite appreciable effects even in a so-called totalitarian country which, by the way, is changing and, I believe, is necessarily changing for the better. That is my belief, and I think

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that there are creditable pieces of evidence to support it.
This is no final answer. One is prompted to ask: what more can be done and what activities can be promulgated and carried out by Governments? As I say, I was very glad to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, that he does not advocate the use of force. I want to examine for a moment or two the use of sanctions, as I believe that they are also capable of being wrongly interpreted and, indeed, in some cases wrongly applied. I do not believe that to isolate a community because of the Governmental ferocity of its laws is a justifiable position in terms of the Christian ethics to which the noble Baroness made reference and which she coupled with the classical philosophers. I found her argument fascinating and I should have liked to hear more. But surely it is true that you have a responsibility not only to a Government which may be in fault but also to those who are under its heel.
There are millions of people for whom we still have a responsibility not to isolate them, not to treat them as pariahs and not to withdraw from them. If I may draw an inference here from Holy Writ, the Friend of publicans and sinners believed it possible to exercise the creative activity of justice within a framework in which hospitality and comradeship, even with those who are malefactors, were not excluded. We ought to do, or try to do, something like that. It is an attitude which requires a very close examination of cultural and other activities.
Wherever those cultural and other activities obviously include a principle which we detest, at that point I believe that we should be perfectly justified in withdrawing from them because of the evil impact of their application in the minds at least of those who suffer from them or partake of them. However, when it comes to the application of sanctions, I believe that there ought to be a clear distinction between sanctions concerned to bring a country to its senses and sanctions concerned to bring a country to its knees. I believe that the second of those alternatives must necessarily be a prelude to the very violence which the noble Lord himself detests and which he suggests is quite inapplicable to the problem with which we are confronted.
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I want to take another matter. I believe that there is widespread evidence of a cynicism that is prevalent in the world today, in which human rights are not only denigrated but derided. Those human rights belong to a world society which in large measure is no longer animated by those principles of absolute or eternal justice to which again the noble Baroness made reference. I agree with Mr. Michael Foot who said some time ago that of all the evils which he has had to tackle he believes that cynicism is by far the most dangerous. The lack of any sufficient argument which takes craftiness and turns it into craftmanship, the attitude by which human rights are regarded as pawns in a game—these things are most terribly exploited within the most pestiferous aspect of our modern civilisation: the arms race. Unless something is done to create a spirit at least of credibility, that nation States are concerned not merely to foster their own financial and capitalist interests, how can we expect those nations to be held in regard and to be regarded with credibility when they profess their interest in the wellbeing of those to whom they are prepared to sell the very means of death?
Not so long ago an institution called the Counter-Information Society published some records and was financed, as I understand it, partly by the World Council of Churches, bless them! What they were able to show was the way in which international, multinational industrial organisations cynically disregard any questions of public morality in the self-interest of their own prosperity. This I think is incontestable. In the case of ICI, it is £20 million for the manufacture of armaments, at least in South Africa; Plessey for its contribution to electronic circuits. I am not sure what they are Methodistically. I know what a Methodist circuit is, but I am fairly sure that these particular circuits have nothing to do with piety and are in fact closely associated with the arms industry. It is a sombre reflection that the scout car which initiated in Zimbabwe not so long ago the murder of about 700 Africans was stocked with stuff of lethal nature produced in South Africa under licence from a British firm.
These are facts which belong to the wider concept of what should be done. "Judge not that ye be not judged" is excellent advice: it is excellent advice

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because the credibility of any attempt that we make to prosper the methods and the programmes of social justice and individual freedom ultimately depend on whether, as has been referred to, there is not a beam in our own eye when we are endeavouring to remove motes or larger tree trunks from the eyes of other people.
I should like to conclude by saying how much I admire the initiatory activities of the new President of the United States of America. When he was a candidate I felt he smiled too much and was a bit woolly, but the more I listen to him, and particularly attending, as I did, to what he had to say to three people the other night on a television programme, the more I believe that he has the right end of the stick. Not to be too pompous about it, I believe it is possible within the world at the moment to awaken a sense of common decency in the wake of so many of the things in which humanity in general and great nations in particular have come to be somewhat ashamed. If Mr. Carter can be the spearhead of such an activity, I believe he can do more in creating the climate of social justice than a great many of the resolutions which hitherto have been more or less nugatory. In that regard I believe there must be—and I am sure there will be—a cessation of the incessant programme of armament increase and a general disposition to ratify those Conventions which already have been commonly agreed. To press on with that is of the most tremendous importance, but to press on with it within a new climate, which I believe Mr. Carter and others can begin to induce, is the prospect of its success.
3.53 p.m.
Lord HOME of the HIRSEL: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, could scarcely have put a more challenging Motion on the Order Paper, because he asks us to apply our minds to the most difficult of all questions, the reconciliation of idealism with practice, and that in the international field, which is the most daunting of all. In a well documented and well reasoned speech, which of course we expect of him, the noble Lord has advanced the proposition that the foreign policy of Britain and of other individual nations should have, and should be seen to have, a moral and an ethical content and a moral direction. Few of us who live in
1018
the democracies, and certainly nobody in this House, would quarrel with that; and the particular instrument which he would like to see activated and sustained is a Bill of Human Rights: such a Bill as, for example, my noble friend Lady Elles has reminded us is obligatory on nations under the Charter of the United Nations.
All of us could agree that this could represent the ideal in international living, and as the noble Lord, Lord Soper, has just said, I believe most of us would welcome the fact that President Carter has lately placed the prestige and the authority of the President of the United States behind such an ambition. I agree with him; that is worth a lot. I believe that the declaration was timely in a world which is in danger of becoming totally amoral, and that Governments of all sorts should be reminded at regular intervals that one of the prime responsibilities of Governments is to sustain the dignity of man. We neglect that at our peril.
My Lords, that preface is necessary because one almost feels a sense of guilt in asking the question which must in honesty follow: What happens? How do we conduct ourselves when the incantation ends and the action begins? For the cold hard fact of international life is that there is not only no common interpretation of human rights; as the Speaker of the House of Commons reminded us in Westminster Hall only this morining, there is no common system, no common values. Democracy has one interpretation of human rights; the Communists have another—and they are poles apart. The countries of the Third World, particularly those which have one-Party States, have yet another interpretation.
If, then, as the price of doing business, or as a part of doing business in the foreign field we, as democracies, are to require that countries adopt standards of ethical behaviour of which we approve, some very potent questions will arise and will have to be asked and answered. I shall come to some conclusion on this shortly. But there is one question. Do we, as a deliberate part of our policy, want to use human rights as a bargaining factor in international negotiations in relation to, let us say, advantages in trade or advantages in security; in other words, to make human rights part of a deal?

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I am inclined to think that I interpret the noble Lord, Lord Soper, aright, in that he thinks they stand on their own merits and should not be a matter of horse-trading. I agree. If I may say so with respect, I think there is one element of this equation in which President Carter was completely right. If nations are to be condemned for failure to observe human rights then no exceptions can be made on the plea of political convenience. I take it we shall all hold that General Amin, for example, should be totally condemned, and not least by the African countries who are his neighbours and are part of the Commonwealth of Nations. If South Africa is to be put in the dock for her conduct of apartheid, so should the Soviet Union for her persecution of the Jews and for the fact of the Berlin Wall. If Chile, so, too, Cambodia, and so on. There must be no double standards if human rights are to be required of every nation.
It is necessary at this point to remind ourselves that there is another rule of international living which is agreed as being essential to a peaceful world, and for this reason it was incorporated in the Charter of the United Nations by the authors; that is, non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries. If that rule is broken the peace of the world ends. But let us be clear. In the context of human rights the traffic in accusation and condemnation will not be only one way. It seems to us, and I think we may be excused for so thinking, somewhat ironic that we alone should at present stand accused before the International Court of Justice for cruelty in Northern Ireland, but it is so, my Lords; Southern Ireland has taken us to the Court; they have done just that. As a conscientious democracy, we submit ourselves to the international rules, as has been pointed out just now. Would any other country, Communist or Third World, do likewise? I very much doubt it. I will make one prophecy now with some certainty. We are about to introduce into this Parliament, so I understand, a citizenship Bill. I will bet my bottom dollar that in the context of immigration we shall be challenged by one or more of the countries of the Third World on the grounds that we are going to infringe human rights by the separation of families.
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My Lords, we have to be prepared, if we require human rights from others, to be challenged by other countries who have their own interpretations of human rights which are not ours. So while advocating human rights—and the noble Lord must be right to do so—we have to recognise that the interpretations of human rights are legion, and many have a thinly veiled political content. Yet again—and this always introduces a kind of sense of guilt —we are bound to ask, in so far as we act to secure adoption of human rights and seek to require them of others, how far do we risk turning the world into an arena of bickering animosity, division and danger, to an even greater degree than it is today, even perhaps to incite such a rising in Eastern Europe as took place with such terrible consequences not so very long ago? My Lords, we are always going to be faced, when we are dealing with Communists or when we are dealing with other countries who have an entirely different interpretation of human rights, with dilemmas of this kind.
So how do we proceed, for example, in meetings with Governments whose standards of human rights are, in our view, virtually non-existent, or at any rate totally divergent from our own? Possibly in this matter one ounce of fact and experience can be worth a ton of theory. The Allied experience on the approaches to the Helsinki Conference of two years ago can, I think, give a useful pointer to Belgrade, and it is well worth our consideration in the context of this Motion and in the aftermath of President Carter's declaration—because the Americans will have to decide how they proceed when they, too, come to Belgrade.
In any civilised scenario, and within any interpretation of human rights, the Berlin Wall is obscene. But on the road to Helsinki the Allies had to decide whether, in the face of that situation and in the face of the blatant Russian persecution of the Jews, we should simply refuse to negotiate until these wrongs had been righted. It was a tenable proposition, on any moral count, and it is a tenable proposition now, that you should say to the Soviet Union, "Nothing doing until you put these evils right". But we —and in the term "we" I mean those who were in the Conservative Government and those in the Socialist Government

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who inherited from us the Helsinki Conference—had to weigh in the balance the interests of the Jews in the Soviet Union and the fate of the West and East Berliners; and we had to face the fact that, should we refuse to negotiate at all until these wrongs were righted, that might take years and years with nothing at all being done.
We could not disguise from ourselves that there was this moral dilemma, a dilemma of the kind which is bound to exist in this kind of situation when you deal with the Soviet Union. But, my Lords, we decided, rightly or wrongly, that a week spent in debate on human rights would be an exercise in sterility and frustration from which nothing would emerge, because, let us face it, the Communist dialecticians can make a dog's dinner of any debate on any moral subject at all. So we spent some time in stating our case on human rights. Then we turned to the tried processes of diplomacy to try to gain some concrete advantages under a number of separate headings. Your Lordships will remember they were called "baskets", and they contained items on trade, on social contacts, and a whole number of other things. But what was the result in relation to Berlin, at least the indirect result: 60,000 additional West Berliners have been able to visit East Berlin in the last two years, 60,000 more than were able to visit Berlin before. My Lords, the Helsinki Conference, to my mind, could be said in some ways to be a bad business, but that kind of result, even though it was indirect, was better than nothing.
So for Belgrade, as we come to Belgrade, as very shortly we can, I believe that the preparations are being conducted in NATO and in the Council of Ministers of the Community, and that is well. Again following the pattern of Helsinki, I believe it is necessary that the Russians should be told that they are offending against the basic code of human rights. If they know that we know that they are doing this and yet we remain silent, they will have no respect for us at all. So that should be done. Then we should turn to and resort to the traditional processes of diplomacy, to seek more constructive ways and means of coexistence, giving credit, therefore, to Russia for any concrete achievement that
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has followed Helsinki, but telling the Russians plainly that to add to a long list of unfulfilled promises has no attraction for us whatever. We need détente, but we need détente that can be measured in facts.
My Lords, in conclusion, are there any general conclusions that we can draw from the noble Lord's Motion? I believe that there are. First that the foreign policies of the democracies should be influenced by moral and ethical considerations, and the lead given by the President of the United States should be followed by others; secondly, that all Governments should be constantly reminded that it is an obligation to respect the dignity of man; thirdly, that they should be reminded, all of us should be reminded, that the United Nations Charter, in respect to human rights, puts a legal obligation upon nations.
I believe that we should ask the Secretary-General of the United Nations to review this obligation and to make proposals whereby this obligation should be brought constantly to the notice of the nations who are members. Then when it comes to meetings between peoples who interpret human rights in entirely different values, one must conclude, I believe, that meetings are better than nothing, and that the best way to increase the area of understanding, tolerance and co-operation, is to meet and talk and to exercise the arts of diplomacy. My Lords, the results will come when the dialectics end and the diplomacy begins. I cannot say that I am entirely satisfied with these conclusions, but then this is an unsatisfying international society in which we live. Nevertheless, I think that if we follow these broad rules, it may be, although a long road, the surest road to peace.
4.10 p.m.
Lord AVEBURY: My Lords, I certainly hope that the noble Lord, Lord Home of the Hirsel, was not being prophetic when he said that as a result of the Green Paper on citizenship, which has recently been published by the Government, there would be a chance of dividing the heads of families from their dependants. As I read the Green Paper, no such suggestion is contained in it. If such a suggestion were to be made, many Members of your Lordships' House

1023
would be at the forefront of the ranks of those who would condemn the Government, and such an issue could not wait to be determined by an international tribunal.
The noble Lord said that we are dealing with countries that have an entirely different conception of human rights. Yet, in relation to the forthcoming discussions with the Soviet Union, he rightly said that they are offending against what we consider to be a basic code. Mankind shares certain basic ideas in common, otherwise it is clear that we should never have been able to agree on the wording of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Therefore, although I agree with my noble friend Lord Gladwyn, that except in the very extreme cases we should maintain trade and diplomatic relations with countries that infringe the basic code of human rights, there is something here which is justiciable in an international sense and, therefore, there is some point in a debate such as this.
The noble Lord, Lord Soper, said that we were dealing with a moral issue. I quite agree with him. If one goes back in the history of human rights to the beginning of the 19th century when it first became a subject for discussion, one can see that it has always been treated as a moral issue. The noble Lord may remember the famous letters of Mr. Gladstone to Lord Aberdeen after he had been to see the horrors of the Neapolitan regime visited upon the political prisoners who were incarcerated in their thousands in noisome dungeons. In a letter of incandescent indignation, Mr. Gladstone described the regime of King Ferdinand Bomba as "the negation of God erected into a system of government"—a phrase which would apply to many of the dictatorships about which we have spoken this afternoon, including in particular those of Southern Africa where the dictatorship is based upon differences of colour.
However, we are no longer the top nation that we were in the days of Palmerston and Gladstone. When President Carter takes up human rights as a major theme in the foreign policy of the United States, many countries may possibly have to face the choice between dismantling the machines that they have built up for terrorising their own citizens or losing
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substantial amounts of American assistance. We have no such way—at any rate not on the same scale as the Americans—of penalising the nations that flout what we consider to be recognisable norms of civilised behaviour.
Nations, like individuals, want others to like them and are sensitive to criticism. They do not enjoy being the target of world opprobrium, and occasionally, through the sheer pressures of world opinion, they have been persuaded to remedy particularly glaring abuses. Recently there was the case of M r. Vladimir Bukovsky, on whose behalf very many demonstrations took place in the United Kingdom and elsewhere; a large number of letters were written by ordinary people here to the authorities in the Soviet Union.
May I cite an example of another kind. I was delighted to read an article in The Times last Tuesday about the release of Senator Solari Yrigoyen, a radical Parliamentarian in Argentina, who had been incarcerated without trial for a long time and on whose behalf appeals had been addressed to the Head of State. General Videla, from Parliamentarians in the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada and several countries in Western Europe, as well as from the Human Rights Sub-Committee of the Inter-Parliamentary Union. However, for every person who is released a thousand remain in the dungeons of these dictators, and more are ensnared every day. In the Soviet Union there is, for example, the case of Andrei Tverdokhlebov, a physicist who was a founding member of the Moscow Human Rights Committee and who has been charged with:
"distribution of knowingly false fabrications defaming the Soviet State and social system."
I mention those cases because it is probably easier for us to understand human rights in relation to particular cases rather than to deal with them broadly. The case of Tverdokhlebov is not by any means untypical. The law which I have quoted shows the failure to distinguish between opinion and facts. The noble Lord, Lord Soper, said that at least in the Soviet Union one could say that people were imprisoned for breaking a law which might be said to command general support. However, I do not think that is so in the case of laws which make illegal the expression of an opinion and which prevent

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anyone from successfully using the defence that he or she genuinely held those beliefs to be true, as did Dr. Tverdokhlebov in his defence against that charge. When I wrote to the Soviet Ambassador about that case he replied—through the First Secretary—as I might have expected, that this was a matter entirely within the competence of the Soviet legal system and that he was not prepared to comment on the case.
However, the law under which Dr. Tverdokhlebov was convicted is in conflict with the international obligations into which the Soviet Union had entered, particularly the Helsinki Agreement which allows freedom of expression of opinion. There must be some way of checking whether this agreement is being carried out, otherwise there would have been no point in having it. We cannot accept the argument put to me by the First Secretary that we should read the Helsinki Agreement as a whole, and that because there is provision for non-interference in the internal affairs of the signatory Powers we have no right to say anything about their non-compliance with the sections that deal with individual liberty. Therefore, the rest of the Helsinki Agreement, apart from the non-interference clause, would not be susceptible to any checks from abroad, and naturally neither the Soviet Union nor any other participant will accuse itself of violation. So the Agreement would become a dead letter if one accepted the argument advanced by the First Secretary.
I am also extremely disturbed by the arrest of Professor Yuri Orlov who was, as many of your Lordships know, the chairman of a committee set up in the Soviet Union for the specific purpose of monitoring whether the Soviet Union was observing the terms of that Agreement. That indicates that unwelcome opinions are being stamped on more vigorously than ever, and I hope that the Government will give an undertaking that this repression of those who are trying to voice their free opinions will be taken up at the meetings in Belgrade.
I am glad to have received confirmation from the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, with whom I have corresponded on some of these matters, that he considers the abuse of psychiatry, which was mentioned by my noble friend, to be a matter
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that can be dealt with at the review conference, and also that the interruption of telecommunications in the Soviet Union—which prevents those of us in the West who are interested in these matters from discussing detention without trial and other infringements of liberty with people such as Academician Sakharov—can also be raised at the meetings at Belgrade. It is essential that we make the most of the opportunities presented here to express our abhorrence of the abuse of law in the Soviet Union. Several of your Lordships have also said that we must be careful not to adopt the dual standards of which some of us are accused by Mr. Bernard Levin. I do not know who he is getting at, but there are cold warriors who join in enthusiastically in any criticisms of the Soviet Union and yet resolutely ignore exactly the same evils when they are practised by Right Wing dictatorships, or even may excuse them.
One such gentleman is Mr. Brian Crozier, whose article in the Daily Telegraph yesterday, some of your Lordships may have read without being familiar with his antecedents. He has been for a considerable time the director of an organisation called the Institute for the Study of Conflict. That, in turn, had as one of its parents a body known as Forum World Features, which was a front organisation of the CIA. A good deal of information about the connection between these two bodies, and the way in which both resources and money were transferred from Forum World Features to the Institute for the Study of Conflict when it was first formed, has been published both in Time Out and in The Guardian. But in the article in the Telegraph there is not even so much as a mention of Mr. Crozier's role.
Baroness ELLES: My Lords, would the noble Lord give way? I have met Mr. Brian Crozier only once, so it is not either as a friend or acquaintance that I make this point. Has not the noble Lord made a rather smearing remark about somebody who is not able to defend himself in this place and who cannot refer to the remarks made by the noble Lord outside? We all know what view is taken of the CIA, rightly or wrongly, and I think that the noble Lord has made an unfair remark about somebody who is a patriot of this country.
Lord AVEBURY: My Lords, if the noble Baroness is saying that anything that I have said is untrue, then obviously I withdraw it, but the House is entitled to know about a person's antecedents in evaluating his writings. I am perfectly willing, if the noble Baroness wishes to correct anything in the history of the matter, to look into it further or to withdraw if she cares to make any correction, but I thought that it was important that many of your Lordships who will have seen this article in the Daily Telegraph should know who Mr. Crozier is, because no description is attached to his by-line.
He managed to say something nice about Argentina, Uruguay, and Chile. which in my opinion are three of the most unappetising regimes in the world. In the Soviet Union, as we know, they arrest dissidents, they go through a charade of a trial, and then they shut them up in penal or psychiatric institutions. But in the countries of the Southern cone of Latin America they send out murder gangs to kill people in their own homes, or on the streets, or they assassinate them after they have been taken into custody. Torture is used systematically and mindlessly against those taken prisoner, as we have learnt from unimpeachable witnesses.
I went to Argentina last November and had the opportunity of visiting the women's prison at Villa Devoto. I talked to a number of women, all of whom told me that they had been tortured or raped. Those accounts, of course, were denied by the authorities, but when one looks at them in relation to the evidence of absolutely unimpeachable witnesses who have been in custody and suffered torture themselves —people like Father Patrick Rice, who I know the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, will have heard of—then one cannot question the validity of this evidence. One cannot doubt that torture is endemic in the Argentine prison system. Is it for torturing and murdering their own people that the Generals are to be thanked by the West, as Mr. Crozier recommends in his article?
As for Uruguay, although I have not visited that country personally, it is by all accounts an even more atrocious and loathsome dictatorship than Argentina, because their murder machine reaches outside the boundaries of their own country, and among the nation's most
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distinguished Parliamentarians were Senators Michelini and Gutierrez, who were assassinated by Uruguayan murder squads after they had taken refuge in Argentina.
Another Parliamentarian. Professor Jose Luis Massera, who is an engineer and mathematician, was tortured so badly that he suffered a fractured pelvis and needed a major operation. The Inter-Parliamentary Union made representations on his behalf, but these have been totally ignored by the Uruguayan authorities. Senator Church of the United States has described Uruguay as "the biggest torture chamber in Latin America". There were 22 well authenticated cases in a document published by Amnesty International in January 1976, and the carnage has continued since then. It is no wonder that more than a sixth of the population has fled the country, and that as a sick joke in the departure lounge in Montevideo airport there is a notice saying, "Last one out, please turn off the light".
In that country political parties are banned. The trade unions are not allowed to function; the universities are controlled by the military; theatres and film studios have been closed; all magazines and eight out of the 12 newspapers have shut their doors. And Mr. Crozier says, "It is heartening, even exhilarating" to visit this country. It must be about as heartening, I should imagine, as a trip to Hitler's Germany in the 1930s, and we were not wanting in those clays dupes and fellow-travellers who went to Nazi Germany and came back applauding that régime.
As regards Chile, Mr. Crozier says that there is only one political prisoner left there now, though between 400 and 500 are detained following conviction on charges of murder or illegal possession of arms. If that is so, it means that a large number of the people who have been taken into custody have been murdered as in Argentina. The report, Chile's Secret Prisoners which has just been published, shows that 121 persons were reported to have disappeared in 1976, and some of them after witnesses had actually seen them in official places of detention. Clearly these regimes, which Mr. Crozier claims have saved their people from a fate infinitely worse than anything now happening, find it cheaper

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and more convenient to rub out their dissidents rather than to go through a charade of a trial as in the Soviet Union.
May I say one word in conclusion about what we in Great Britain can do. First, I think we ought to speak out against the prostitution of our free Press by the apologists for these inhuman dictators. Secondly, we should seize every opportunity for accusing régimes such as those I have described who are guilty of horrible crimes against their people. We should certainly refuse to sell arms to any of these dictators and persuade our Allies, and particularly our Allies in Europe, to do likewise. We should adopt a positive strategy for dealing with refugees, particularly in the educational field, as recommended in the report which has just been published by the World University Service. We should support initiatives to strengthen the human rights machinery of the United Nations. Finally, we should, as the noble Baroness, Lady Elles, has said, give every possible encouragement in resources to the overseas services of the BBC.
4.29 p.m.
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, I do not think that it is necessary to express thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, for initiating this debate. The whole series of speeches which has followed is an expression of that appreciation. We have had in this House today contributions of a fundamental character which may even be historic. This has been a short debate, with only a few speakers; therefore, I propose to make a synopsis of a speech rather than a speech itself.
We are apt to limit our thought about human rights. The first human right of all is life, yet according to a recent survey by the United Nations, one out of eight of the population on earth is starving and half the world's population is suffering from malnutrition. A child born in the third world is 15 times more likely to die before reaching one year old than a child born in the industrialised West. There are 300 million unemployed people in the developing countries, yet for the millions in the industrialised West the right to work is a human right. The world over, nations are concentrating on instruments of death rather than on
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instruments of life. All of these are denials of human rights which we should have in our minds.
I agree emphatically with those who in this debate have urged that we should do everything possible to secure all over the world the right of freedom of thought, of speech, of writing, to hold religious views, to worship, and the freedom of movement. Through the ages dissidents—pursuing the right to oppose the establishment of the time—have been the instrument of progress, and the dissidents of one age have become the statesmen of the next. If those freedoms are crushed, no progress will be made in the world.
Some noble Lords have also expressed the view that, although there is so much concentration on the denial of these liberties in the Soviet Union and the Communist world, the denial of these freedoms—imprisonment for political purposes, torture, suppression, and so on —is almost universal in the world today. The United Nations has said that 80 countries are now denying liberties of this kind. Therefore, while we are making our protest about what is happening in the Soviet Union, we must not get the picture out of balance. It is something that is happening in South America, in the Republic of South Africa and, unhappily, in many independent African countries as well, and in Asia. Our assertion of human rights must not be biased because we have a particular ideological opposition to a few of the countries which are practising it.
The Soviet Union has protested against President Carter's stand on this issue. I take the view that it was a little unwise of him to receive certain individuals, but there can be no doubt that he has the right as President of the United States to assert the principles of human rights. The Soviet Union urges that there should be the right in the world to continue ideological confrontation—the discussion of ideas—even when the confrontation of arms is lessened. If the Soviet Union claims that right for its ideology, it cannot repudiate it when we are urging that human rights should be supported.
Despite our depth of feeling on these issues, we must not allow controversy about them to destroy the hopeful tendencies towards détente and peace in the world. Peace is the first priority.

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A nuclear war would destroy more life than anything of which we can think, so we must be careful to maintain a balance; while we stand for human rights, we must not allow that stand to deter the movements towards peace in the world.
I have a few suggestions to make to Her Majesty's Government about what we could do. First, I urge the Government to give the greatest moral support to organisations such as Amnesty which are doing so much to expose the denial of human rights in the world. Secondly, the Government should use the United Nations not only to draw attention to Governments who do not carry out the Charter in respect of human rights but also to urge Governments who have not yet ratified the Conventions dealing with human rights to do so. Thirdly, we should be eager to provide asylum to the refugees from countries where human rights are denied; not merely allow them to enter but provide facilities for education, work and housing. Fourthly, while we should maintain mutual trade to continue detente, I suggest that we should withhold military aid and even economic aid to countries which are denying human rights. Fifthly, within the European Community, I hope that the Government will seek to influence the other Governments of the Community to make proposals similar to those which have been made in this matter. I am sure that Her Majesty's Government will consider these suggestions sympathetically.
4.38 p.m.
Viscount MONTGOMERY of ALAMEIN: My Lords, after the very erudite and wide-ranging speech of the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, I rise with some diffidence. This is a most important subject and, as my noble friend Lord Home of the Hirsel said, we must be careful how we proceed internationally if we are to avoid conflicting double standards. I wish to move from the general to the particular, since recently there has been a good deal of criticism about human rights in Latin America. At the present time Argentina appears to be leading the castigation league and receives a great deal of abuse, including some from noble Lords.
In this respect I find myself at some variance with the noble Lord, Lord
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Avebury, as I wish in particular to comment on Argentina to redress the balance and to give a somewhat different perspective from that which generally features in the British Press. One could easily get the impression from the British Press that only Left Wing intellectuals and urban guerrillas are entitled to benefit from human rights, although these are intended to be universal.
To understand the present Argentine situation, it is necessary to examine the history of subversion, which goes back to the Presidency of Arturo Illia between 1964 and 1966, when, as is well known to noble Lords, Cuba was endeavouring to export its armed revolution and penetrate Latin America. By the time General Ongania assumed the Presidency in 1966, several different guerrillas groups were in existence. However, during the period from 1966 to 1976, the armed forces did not participate at all in the suppression of terrorism. This was left entirely to the police and to the "due process of law" as applied by the Judiciary. The next important date is the election in 1973 of Peron's nominee, Hector Cámpora, who immediately declared an amnesty. Hundreds of prisoners, including guerrillas who had been convicted under due process of law, together with a number of common criminals, assassins, drug traffickers and so on, were released and rapidly found their way back and joined the terrorist ranks.
In this context, it is worth mentioning that Peron maintained contact with subversive organisations during his long exile in Spain and, indeed, even encouraged the formation of groups which were quite definitely in opposition to each other. These various groups were allowed by Peron to believe that when he returned they would be his chosen people. It was this manoeuvre which gave rise to the extraordinary battle scene which took place at the airport on the day of his return in 1973, when competing groups clashed with much loss of life.
The Presidency of Peron and his widow, covering the years 1973–1976, was the most crucial period since, between them, they frustrated the existing due process of law by replacing the Judiciary with their own nominees, many of whom were already known to be from subversive elements. As a result, the important aspect of an independent Judiciary, to

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which the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, referred, ceased to exist. As a result, the police and the Judiciary, without the backing of the armed forces, were powerless to do anything about the rapid increase in terrorism. It was also during this period that the most iniquitous and dangerous Triple A emerged under the guidance of the sinister Lopez Rega. The result was that the situation in Argentina deteriorated with constant kidnapping and indiscriminate killing of the police and security forces, so that, by March 1976, the country was in a state of total economic and political chaos.
Contrary to what is generally thought, the resumption of power by the armed forces in March 1976 had as its stated intention the preservation of human rights. The armed forces have undoubtedly undertaken very strong measures, some of which may have been more extreme than was necessary, but it is essential to understand the gravity of the situation in the latter part of 1975 before the military returned. In considering the extreme nature of the action, it is also important to remember the degree of provocation. Armed forces of any nationality tend to get somewhat irate when members of their family are blown up in cinemas, policemen are shot while on point duty and other acts of terrorism take place. In Northern Ireland even the God-fearing British soldiers have been subject to similar strain and put to humiliation at Strasbourg.
In this very short analysis, I have tried to explain the history leading up to the resumption of power by the armed forces in Argentina just over a year ago. What has happened since has been the very rapid restoration of law and order for almost the entire population. This is not the reign of terror indicated in the second leader of The Times on Monday. At the same time, I feel that it is worth mentioning that I take a slightly different view to the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, of the article by Brian Crozier in yesterday's Daily Telegraph. However, there is no doubt whatever that the re-establishment of the rule of law, as defined in this debate, has been at the expense of a very small activist minority group, which, by its very actions, has put itself outside the law. It may be that some of the methods used have been strong, but the errors have been small, and the benefits large.
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I am quite certain that the military Government of Argentina do not intend to remain in power, but plan first to establish order and then to proceed in an orderly manner to normal civil government. As an instance of this, there is and, indeed, always has been—and this is not the case in many other countries—an entirely free Press in Argentina. At the same time, a properly constituted independent Judiciary such as existed prior to 1973 is being rapidly re-established.
Lord AVEBURY: My Lords, I do not want to interrupt the noble Viscount too many times—he has said much that I disagree with —but would he care to comment on the case of Mr. Rodolfo Walsh, the Argentine journalist who published an open letter of criticism of the Government on 14th March, 1977, and who was abducted and disappeared without trace on 15th March, 1977?
Viscount MONTGOMERY of ALAMEIN: My Lords, I saw that report, but I am not informed on the case, I regret to say. I shall be delighted to discuss the matter with the noble Lord when I have further information.
My Lords, it would be possible to apply a similar analysis to that which I have given of what has happened in Argentina, to many Latin American countries. However, time is short and Argentina has been very much in our thoughts lately. It is also important to adopt a balanced view about Argentina, since the Government will very shortly he negotiating with this important and friendly country on the subject of the Falkland Islands and, hopefully, the joint economic development of the South West Atlantic basin, which was recently debated in your Lordships' House. I hope that what I have said will enable the House to view Argentina more objectively and to realise that the Argentinians, along with many others in Latin America, believe in human rights and in the democratic way of life which exists in the Western World.
4.49 p.m.
Lord JANNER: My Lords, I should like to add my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, for having set down this Motion for discussion and for the excellent way in which he inaugurated this debate. As my noble friend Lord

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Soper explained an hour or so ago, I believe that it is highly important from the point of view of the observance of human rights to remember, in relation to those who commit flagrant offences against human rights, that in many cases these people have declared that they abide by the Declaration, and to make it clear to them, and also that their own laws indicate that they are committing unpardonable crimes. I therefore believe that this debate, apart from the general discussion that has taken place, in bringing out instances of violations as the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, and others have done, has done something of value so that those States which want the world to believe that they are civilised shall see that the world does not agree.
I hope—and I have often expressed this view in the House—that the Government will use their good offices as strongly as they can with other civilised Governments to suppress the continuance of malicious practices in violation of human rights. I know that my noble friend Lord Goronwy-Roberts has done so on many occasions, and we are grateful to him. We hope that he and our Government will continue to do so. Unfortunately, during my own lifetime I have known and witnessed such agonising, vicious and so often planned attacks by so-called human beings upon their human victims that it is almost impossible to believe they could be perpetrated.
In our short debate today I believe that none of us could possibly deal with even a fraction of the information and views we have relating to this urgent problem, and I shall confine myself to some aspects concerning which I have had many years of particular experience and which have caused, and are causing, me, and innumerable other human beings throughout the world, anxiety and anguish. Thus the actions, in so many cases brutal, of the USSR, in contravention of the Declaration of Human Rights, to which it is a party, and in contravention of its own laws, is a matter of concern to the civilised world and should, in my view, be constantly strongly pointed out to them. The horrific actions of the Nazis, who tortured and killed by cold-blooded murder, millions of men, women and children, including six million Jews, surely
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brought home as never before the necessity of intervening when human rights are at stake.
I should like to remind the House that at an international conference held in London, in September 1974, in which more than 40 eminent jurists from 20 countries participated, including two of our own extremely well-informed colleagues, a statement on Soviet Jewry and the rule of law was issued. I should like to draw your Lordships' attention to some of the passages in that statement. It was stated:
"The Conference of Jurists assembled in London … to examine the question of Soviet Jewry and the Rule of Law, having studied and discussed evidence and papers submitted to them by legal experts, make the following statement which represents the consensus of our colloquium:
'The Rule of Law provides minimum standards which any civilised legal system must conform to. It implies at the very least that legal and administrative procedure should be applied in a regular, systematic and nondiscriminatory fashion … Soviet Jews wishing to leave the Soviet Union have been consistently subjected to harassment and other forms of maltreatment'."
I am not saying that the Soviet Jews are the only ones involved—but, unfortunately, they are placed in an even much more serious position than others who express their desire to leave the USSR. The statement also reads:
"Oppressive and unlawful measures have been taken against Jewish applicants for exit visas, such as dismissals from employment, arbitrary arrests and detentions, unreasonable searches, false criminal charges and unwarranted military call-ups. Moreover, there is overwhelming evidence of a complete lack or disregard of regular and prescribed administrative processes in dealing with such applications. Furthermore in trials of Soviet Jews (from which neutral observers have been excluded) human rights have been denied, Soviet law and procedure infringed, and unwarranted punishments inflicted.
"As lawyers vitally concerned with the human right of the individual not to be discriminated against on racial, ethnic, or religious grounds, we are deeply disturbed by certain manifestations of antisemitism in the Soviet Union. All these repressive measures against Jews are acute symptoms of a wider pattern of repression: and they militate against the détente which all people of goodwill must favour. We recall the recommendations and proposals submitted to international bodies in respect of fundamental human rights and we urge the end of these repressive measures".
The horrific and bestial actions of the Nazis was something which the world ought never to forget. Jewish citizens in

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Russia are not permitted to lead independent, cultural, national and religious lives. The two and a half million Soviet Jews do not have a single Jewish school, newspaper or theatre. I point this out particularly because that does not apply to any of the other sections. Some kind of permission is available to others, but for the Jewish community there is none. They are not allowed to study their own language and their own history. Any attempt to revive Jewish national culture is immediately severely repressed. They are allowed practically no community rights. The only Jewish activity which exists is attendance at synagogues. However, the number of synagogues has been very greatly reduced, and there are, I repeat, for two and a half million Jews, only about 50 synagogues left now in the whole of Russia. Recent legislation forbids private gatherings for prayer without a special permit for each such occasion.
I am saying this and the other relevant comments because I think it should be placed on record, so that the Russian authorities will know that at least among British people and in our Parliament there is knowledge of what they are doing, and strong resentment against it. The situation of those Jews who apply for visas and are turned down is a wretched and miserable one. After being deprived of their jobs they are accused of "parasitism" They are often attacked by hooligans in the streets, and then accused of hooliganism. They are arrested and accused on trumped-up charges. Under the guise of anti-Zionism there is a great deal of anti-Semitic propaganda in the newspapers. Ugly cartoons are shown of Jews in Russia and in Israel, and Jewish children are tormented and insulted in the schools. Jews are cursed and insulted in the streets and in public places. Jewish cemeteries are desecrated, and tombstones destroyed and removed. Many of those who have been refused visas have their telephones disconnected—which is contrary to international law. There are now 24 Jewish prisoners of conscience in Soviet prisons, in labour camps and in exile. They are the victims of the cynical manipulation of Soviet law. Charges are being fabricated against them. They have been condemned on false evidence. The principles of justice were twisted behind closed doors to obtain predetermined convictions. In the prison camps they are often given near-starvation
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rations, and criminal inmates are encouraged to assault them. I referred to the Nazi régime, and perhaps the world ought to think once again what the result of that kind of réegime was in so far as the treatment of others in the world in addition to the Jewish community was concerned.
Those Russian Jews who manage to get their visas and leave for Israel are often compelled to leave one or more members of their families behind. Sometimes children are kept back while their parents leave without them, and wives leave without their husbands. We had a visitor in this country recently. Mrs. Scharansky, whose husband is at present charged and accused, in the kind of action which so many of us remember was the sort of treatment that, years ago, was perpetrated against Jews by Stalin. On Friday, 4th March, there was an attack in the Government newspaper Izvestia on seven Soviet Jews named as spies and CIA agents. Without proper investigation or warnings, Izvestia charged Professor Alexander Lerner, Mr. Vladimir Slepak and Mr. Anatoly Scharansky. His wife was here and had the backing of between 5,000 and 6,000 British citizens in a demonstration led by very eminent people, Jews and non-Jews, protesting against abuse of human rights by the USSR. They attempted to serve a petition on the Russian Ambassador but it was refused at the Russian Embassy.
The charge I have referred to accused the victims of,
"…providing assistance to the CIA in 'obtaining intelligence information on scientific-technical and military subject-matter and on political questions'".
Of course, it is absurd as the USSR authorities know. This is not the first occasion on which I have addressed Members of Parliament on similar actions. I remember the early days when the Nazis began to gain power. The information that I had at that time from people who came to me, and which I imparted to the House of Commons, was so horrible as to be unbelievable to the Members. In fact, when one Member of Parliament asked me for the source of my information, I could not tell him openly because it happened to be from a German Jew who had been sent over here especially by the Nazis in order to cover up the actions that they were perpetrating against the Jewish

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people, and they had kept his family there as hostages. Here we have something which, I fear, unless very strong action is taken, is likely to lead to further vicious perpetrations on members of the Jewish community in the USSR.
I ought to add that Izvestia published its charges to which I referred in three columns in the form of an open letter of denunciation by a candidate of medical sciences, a man called Lipaysky, and added an editorial postscript endorsing the allegations. On the same day, the KGB raided the flats of the men named, ripped open pillows, tore the backs off photographs and turned everything upside down, presumably looking for spying materials. The publication of such articles in the past has been used to prepare public opinion for the arrest and trial of those named.
This is the latest development in an intensified anti-Jewish campaign inaugurated with a peak-hour nationwide TV programme from Moscow on 22nd January, "Traders of Souls", which named four Soviet Jews of very high repute in the scientific world as "soldiers of Zionism inside the Soviet Union". Flagrantly pandering to crude antisemitism, the programme showed a fat Soviet actor smoking a cigar impersonating a rich Jew handing out £5 notes to a number of Soviet extras playing the part of a British "rentacrowd" at Zionist anti-Soviet demonstrations in London. It showed extracts from KGB cine film of named Jewish activists.
My Lords, I could go on further, but I think everybody here will realise what a menace this is to people who are at present in the USSR, and why so many Jewish people want to leave, even those who are Communists. Here, it is not a question of the political ideology of the USSR; it is a question of the type of action that the Russians are taking against fellow human beings. Consequently, I believe that a debate of the nature of that in which we are taking part today is of very considerable value.
My Lords, I should like for a few moments to speak about another subject. A few days ago in your Lordships' House I raised the question of the Arab boycott.
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I think that in a debate of this kind—where interference with trade is also known to be a part of the declarations in respect of human rights—there is perhaps no better example that I can quote to expose the Arab boycott campaign than a letter which appeared in The Times from the Reverend Jackson. This is what he wrote:
"I have today, for the second time, issued a baptism certificate to a man who wanted it to prove he was not a Jew. He needed such a certificate to get a visa for an Arab country".
I think that letter is full of significance on the question of the treatment of a group of British citizens, and I would say just one or two words more on this particular aspect.
While the Arab boycott officials repeatedly claim that their quarrel is with Zionists and not with Jews, the fact is that they repeatedly refuse entry to British, American and other business men who are Jews. They have discriminated against companies which are owned or managed by Jews, or which have Jews as major shareholders. They have even imposed a tertiary boycott on Jewish firms. Much of this is carried on under the disguise of anti-zionism; but, of course, the disguise is transparent. Discrimination of this sort is contrary to human rights principles, of course. It is an unwarranted, and even illegal, pressure put on British businessmen by the agents of foreign Powers or by foreign Governments. It is a violation of the rights of such individuals.
Further, the boycott is, of course, an integral part of the Arab war against the State of Israel, and as war in itself is a violation of the United Nations Charter, so is the economic war being waged in its support. Indeed, the General Assembly of the United Nations, as your Lordships will know, has interpreted Article 2 of the United Nations Charter (which condemns "the threat or use of force" against any State) as including "military, political—and, I emphasise—economic and any other form of coercion". And as the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights is a part of the UN Charter, such economic coercion as the boycott represents is in violation of that.
My Lords, there is one further, important point I wish to refer to. I shall not detain the House at this late hour for

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longer than is necessary. A lot of propaganda is made in regard to the position of Palestinians who, instead of taking the advice of those who are following the United Nations resolution for establishing the Jewish State, were persuaded by Arab opponents to leave the country because they said the Jews will be "driven into the sea". Very few people realise that the Arab States themselves violated human rights in a very serious way; 700,000 Jews are today in Israel who were persecuted and had to leave Arab States without their being allowed to take out any of their property and leaving behind their assets. They went to Israel. I think that that is something which our Government should also look into, with a view to their being compensated for the losses which they sustained by the Arab States.
The civilised world can only exist if human rights are observed. It is true that in some respects the approaches to human rights are different; but the illustrations I have given are certainly not excusable or permissible in so far as the breach of human rights by any civilised nation is concerned. Your Lordships will forgive me, but I just cannot help emphasising these important matters that I have raised time after time in this House. I, myself, was extremely anxious to see the Human Rights Charter and the original Charter of the United Nations brought into effect; but today political actions are being enforced in the United Nations by pressurised majorities to bring into effect political wrongs. I think our best plan today would be for our Government, in the first instance, to see to it that the EEC and other civilised countries throughout the world should work to induce the offending nations to stop their actions against human rights.
5.15 p.m.
Baroness SEEAR: My Lords, I must first apologise for the fact that my attendance at this debate has been extremely erratic due to reasons over which I have little control. The speeches I have heard have dealt so comprehensively and impressively with this subject that there is very little more that I would wish to add. Along with all the other speakers this afternoon that I have had the privilege to hear, I would wish to urge our Government to take advantage of the Belgrade
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meeting to point out that the infringement of the Helsinki Agreement is something which we in the West do not accept. I would ask the Government to use what powers they have, economic or otherwise, to try to improve the situation regarding human rights in countries in which those rights are flagrantly disregarded.
I would only wish to make two points in addition to those already made. Like the noble Lord, Lord Soper, I have been privileged from time to time to meet people in other Parliaments who have been working in this field of human rights. The point that has impressed me enormously is the extent to which it is not only a matter of Governments bringing pressure to bear on other Governments but that it is possible for individuals, working through non-governmental organisations of one kind or another with which they are associated, to have some effect on Governments in these other countries and on public opinion which, however muted, still exists in many of the countries we are discussing today.
I am not, therefore, speaking primarily to urge the Government to do this or that, for that has already been done by other speakers. I am urging those Members of this House who individually have many connections with many organisations with which they are associated to use their influence through those organisations in the whole human rights field.
One may feel, as one listens to the appalling catalogue of countries in which human rights are flagrantly denied which my noble friend Lord Gladwyn gave us earlier this afternoon, that this problem is so vast and so overwhelming that there is very little that individual men and women can do. But, in fact, this is not so. May I here pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Janner, and his family for the remarkable work that they have been doing in keeping in touch particularly with Soviet Jewry, with Jews to whom they have been able to give hope and encouragement and who have come here on occasions to tell us what it has meant that individuals have established contact and have kept in contact. When one meets poeple like Mrs. Scharansky, who came here only a week or two ago, and who was bravely attempting to tell us through

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an interpreter about the position of her husband, it makes it clear to any impartial listener that the attitude in Russia today is moving backwards as far as the rights of Soviet Jews are concerned. Then one meets people who have been able to get out because of the work that individuals combined with Governments have been able to do, and one realises that this is not a mass problem as such but a mass problem made up of thousands of individual human beings and that if one can do something for one or two human beings, one is still contributing something of enormous help to solve the problem as a whole.
My Lords, it can be done. May I add to what the noble Lord, Lord Janner, has said in regard to personal cases that have come to this country. One case impressed me immensely. That was the son of a Jewish scientist who came here and I was able to meet him. The point that was so astonishing was that this boy, who had been brought up totally in the Soviet environment with all the pressures of propaganda upon him, none the less had an understanding of what we mean by human rights which would not be matched by anybody brought up in the freest of western environments. That spark is alive and it can be cherished and made to grow by every single case that is helped, and every single person that is got out. The noble Lord, Lord Janner, can tell of many cases of this kind.
My Lords, I am using this debate to appeal to you, who have much influence in many spheres, to use that influence on all the individual cases and all the influences where you have a chance so to do. The second point I should like to make, echoing what other noble Lords have said, is that if we want to be influential in this country with other countries through our Governments and through individuals, then we must be ourselves an example of true human rights. It is slipping even in this country. We find it too easy to make excuses for the gradual infringement of human rights which goes on here.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Soper, that in some directions there have been real advances and that many people are more truly free today in many spheres than they were 50 years ago. But while we
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have advanced in some directions, we have gone back in others. I do not consider that it is a proper recognition of human rights when a man who has worked for many years in a nationalised industry loses his job, pay, pension and all prospects of some kind of future employment, because he has refused to join a trade union. I know that this is controversial. I know that people do not like it said that the denial of the right to work in this way is an infringement of human rights; but to my mind it is and we should not gloss it over. There are other examples where the freedom of speech and the freedom of the Press is limited, directly or indirectly, and we know that this is happening. So I say let us look to our own State here at home. I echo the noble Lord, Lord Soper, when he says that beneath this decline in human rights in this country is the cynicism which to so large an extent pervades the intellectual atmosphere today.
It is the most unintellectual of all attitudes. We need more scepticism; but cynicism is, after all, the lazy man's scepticism. We are surrounded and enveloped in cynicism at all levels. I am horrified at the amount of cynicism I find among the young: the extent to which an unfavourable interpretation is put on people's intentions rather than a search to find why they are doing what they are doing. It is too easy to decry cheaply all defence of human rights, all activities which appear to have some altruistic aim, and to find a cynical reason to explain away why people are saying or doing what they do.
A prime offender here— I know they are a common target for attack—is the media. Can we not protest against the innumerable cases? One has only to switch on the BBC two or three times a week to have examples in which a cynical interpretation is put on what may well be a perfectly genuine intention of right-minded people. We on these Benches have been saying for some time that if we are to be an example of human rights in this country—and it is no good campaigning for human rights in the world unless we are determined to do that—then we need a Bill of Rights for this country. I do not propose to argue that case today. I believe it is part of the case of human rights in the world as a whole.
5.25 p.m.
The MINISTER of STATE, FOREIGN and COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (Lord Goronwy-Roberts): My Lords, I am sure that the entire House will be extremely grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, for making it possible for us to debate this extremely important matter and is appreciative of the admirable speech with which he opened the debate. There are a number of things that he said which I wish I had the time to discuss in some depth. I will quote only one very impactive sentence which I wrote down while he was speaking. He said something which is basic to all our hopes of progress in this field when he said that the only agreement possible is one based on ascertainable coincident interest. How true that is! I hope that I have quoted the noble Lord precisely.
Lord GLADWYN: Only on the basis of an ascertainable coincidence of interests.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: "Coincidence of interests". I accept the amendment and incorporate it in the Statute! My Lords, on behalf of Her Majesty's Government, I warmly welcome this Motion. The Covenants to which the noble Lord referred, on which he gave such a full description, reflect our basic values in this country and in a number of other, like-minded countries. I do not need to remind the noble Lord (whose own role in the process was noteworthy) that Britain was at the centre of the United Nations founding effort. Since the framing of the UN Charter in 1945, Britain has played a leading part in the preparation of many international Instruments. Many of them are designed to implement rights proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which, with the two International Covenants on Human Rights, constitute an international Bill of Rights. I refer to the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Seear.
If we do come to the point of having a Bill of Rights for this country, we might well adopt from an international Bill of Rights at least a model if not the complete form of a national Bill of Rights. It is of course the Declaration, above all, that, in its own words, forms a
"…common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations".
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That reinforces a number of speeches which have been made today calling for, so far as possible, a basic and equal attitude by this country and others to countries which are demonstrably in default of the implementation of basic freedoms and rights. I accept that entirely.
I would refer the House to the characteristically cogent and powerful speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Home of the Hirsel, when he gave examples of how we must, if we are to achieve a workable system of human rights in the world, endeavour to strike an attitude of equal condemnation and commendation of performance in different countries with different types of régimes and practice. As he said, this will not be easy.
But we do have an international framework, which the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, described, and therefore international fora in which it should be possible for us increasingly to achieve consistent approaches in this matter. I will come later to other ways of influencing affairs in the proper direction, but I want to make that point that we must use the international fora to call on those who have agreed to international Covenants to implement the contents of the Instruments to which they have affixed their signatures and which they have ratified.
I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, for what she said, and also to my noble friend Lord Soper, whose contribution will, I know, have been listened to with great respect by the whole House. He and my noble friend Lord Brockway render invaluable service in calling us consistently back to the moral basis of all we are trying to do in this difficult and important field. The noble Lord, Lord Soper, as well as the noble Baroness and a number of other speakers, including the noble Baroness, Lady Elles, stressed how important it is, while scrutinising the performance of other countries in this field, to be ever-vigilant about our own performance at home. Of course that is true. At the same time, it should be said that this country, for some centuries now, has been something of a pacemaker in promoting human rights at home and abroad; and to look at the list of rights quoted in the document mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, is to be reminded of the role that Britain has undoubtedly

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played up to now in the development of the corpus of agreement and the possibility of implementation globally as well as internally.
A number of speakers also urged that this country should continue to persuade other countries to ratify these vital Covenants. We ratified last year. I can give the assurance, for which the noble Baroness asked, that it will be part of our international action to urge all those who have indicated agreement to ratify, because on ratification turns the possibility of representation as to implementation. There are now 43 countries who are parties to the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and 45 who are parties to the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Remarkably, as we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Home, they include all the Eastern European States and regrettably few Western States. Thus a minority of United Nations Member States have ratified these Covenants which between them cover, in the implementation sense, the whole field of the Declaration. But only a minority of the United Nations Member States have ratified those two Covenants, and only a minority within that minority have good human rights records. It is unfortunately true that even ratification of such Instruments is not always undertaken as solemnly and judiciously as is our custom. By ratifying, this country signified its commitment both to maintaining and improving upon the standards of our own domestic achievements in the protection of human rights and its commitment to the promotion of similar or, if possible, even better standards in the international community at large. It could fairly be said that through the action of successive Governments we are now well placed to encourage other countries to ratify the Covenants and to do our best to see them develop into effective instruments of political and moral pressure.
Baroness ELLES: My Lords, before the noble Lord leaves that point, would he also take on board the point I made about urging those States which have ratified the international Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to make a declaration under Article 41, so that they too can be brought before the Human Rights Committee on which they have the right to sit?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: Yes, indeed, my Lords; we would not wish to perform ourselves what we do not urge upon others, if I may invert a famous aphorism. We are, of course, "up for grabs" in Strasbourg—perhaps I should say "up for gabs"—where we are the subject of an action. This we knew when we ratified; and in urging other countries similarly to ratify we would urge them at least to do what we have done. Of course, I know that applies to the European field, but it is a substantial beginning that we should present ourselves in Strasbourg in connection with a legal action to defend and, indeed, to defer to a decision.
The most pressing need today is for the effective enforcement of standards which have been laid down in international Instruments. In Europe, as I say, we already have this. The European Convention on Human Rights, drawn up under the aegis of the Council of Europe more than 25 years ago, covers the most important of the civil and political rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration; but, more important, by creating a working system of international judicial guarantee with effective remedies and a machinery of implementation, the Council of Europe countries, 19 in total, have succeeded in transforming the general principles of the the Universal Declaration into enforceable legal obligations.
The European Commission of Human Rights and the European Court of Human Rights established under the Convention, together with the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, which is an important aspect of the operation of the European system, continue to safeguard the rights defined in the Convention. As we have heard, this country has accepted one of the European Convention's most important provisions: the right of an individual to seek redress in Strasbourg if a British Government infringe his rights. That is setting a good example, and we shall continue to enjoin it on others. We should like to see similar effective structures established more widely in the world and, as a step towards that, we hope that the Committee on Human Rights, which began its work of supervising the work of the United Nations Covenant on Civil and Political Rights earlier this year, will live up to our expectations.

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The noble Baroness asked me about the progress of that new Committee. I have a note here to which I shall briefly refer and give to the noble Baroness after the debate. The Committee met in New York from 21st March to 11th April. Its first task was to draw up its rules of procedure. It meets next in Geneva on 20th August, I believe, and will then begin examining the reports of States' parties on how they are observing the Covenant. Mid-August, obviously, is the crucial date here. That is when it really begins work. The United Kingdom report is due by 20th August this year and will be examined probably next year. As I say, I will give a full note to the noble Baroness, because I know she is extremely interested in this matter. As she will know, one of our most prominent jurists, Sir Vincent Evans, is an elected member of the Committee, not of course as a British representative, but as a member of an international body, with our complete and full support. The noble Lord, Lord Home, led us into an extremely interesting and indeed vital aspect of this matter. How, and in what ways, should we in Britain seek to promote human rights? The obvious answers are not the conclusive ones in this regard. We are dealing with a vast variety of countries with a wide variety of practices and of philosophies. Indeed, one country's philosophy may very well be another country's poison, and vice versa.
I was very glad to hear what I would call a fearless examination of this basic problem of the interpretation of human rights. My noble friend Lord Brockway gave his definition, with which we would all enthusiastically agree. Others have commented on what human rights really consist of, resting originally, I think, on the late President Roosevelt's definition which has been expanded since. The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, said—and I agree with him—that there certainly are basic human rights. The first difficulty that arises is to agree what they are, and the second is to agree what they are in practice.
For instance, what precisely is democracy? I must confess that whenever I see the word "democracy" modified in any way by an adjective, I instantly suspect the democracy of the system, whether it is a "people's" democracy, a
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"popular" democracy or any adjectivalised democracy. That immediately puts it under suspicion. Democracy is democracy. It means freedom; freedom of opinion, of expression and of access to other people's opinions and the expression of them. However, there are a great many people in the world today who would not agree with us as to what democracy is, or would add to it or subtract from it, according to their circumstances in their own country, and indeed their own understanding of the basic philosophy. So I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Home, that one of the tasks to which we have to address ourselves is getting inside the problem of interpretation of what are human rights, to try to get a common interpretation.
There are some who say that this cannot be done; that there are basic philosophies and systems which are mutually antagonistic. I do not agree. I agree with my noble friend Lord Soper. There is a movement. There may be a movement both ways. We in the West do not stand on any static system. I am not referring to any Party programme at the moment. I think it is fairly generally agreed that we in this country, and countries like ours in the West, are prepared to examine and to move, and have moved in directions —in economic and social management—which a mere generation ago might not have been thought possible. Similarly, I think that there is probably a movement East-West, as well as West-East. If there is not, then the problem is indeed insoluble. But I think that in the long-term the movement is there.
The question is: How does one encourage common interpretation, mutual respect and trust? As I said, there are many ways in which we can try to achieve those ends—through the United Nations machinery, certainly; through other multilateral international mechanisms (we all agree on that) where we can speak very frankly, although with judicious thought before we do speak; because agreements have been ratified and have become the subject of discussion in international fora. Then it is open to everybody taking part to speak frankly and fully.
It is when one comes to the question of bilateral representations that the question of technique inserts itself. It is, of course, possible bilaterally to speak loudly and

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consistently about the infringement of human rights, even in regard to specific cases. But it is not always the best way of helping the subjects of those cases. Sometimes it is the best way; often it is not. While I agree with those who have said that if we do not speak out, and say internationally where we stand, then we will forfeit respect, I equally say that democratic Governments must be allowed a certain margin of resilience, of variable technique, in dealing with bilateral questions, especially those which affect individuals.
There are a number of us, Ministers and others, in this House and in the other place, who have experience of having achieved something for a number of families, by resisting the temptation to thump the table and by using a little patience in more quiet representations. So I would say that, while agreeing that with like-minded countries we should in the international fora make absolutely clear where we stand on these matters, there is a certain margin of judicious procedure that Governments need to have in bilateral matters.
But we are not alone in stating clearly where we stand. A number of noble Lords and Ladies asked whether we are cooperating with, for instance, our friends and allies in Europe. I can give a full assurance on that point. Indeed, it is one of the encouraging features of our membership of the Community that political cooperation, as defined, and also co-operation, ad hoc, on issues as they arise has increased and is increasing, and shows every sign of developing further. So it is a heartening development that Europe is becoming more and more a reality of democratic purpose and, if we achieve an advance on that front, who knows?— perhaps certain reservations about the economics of Europe may fall into place as well. There are regular and detailed consultations in the political co-operation machinery of the Nine, which are designed to improve our effectiveness by consolidating effort in a joint enterprise.
In this struggle it is necessary to advance on all fronts with every weapon to hand. I particularly liked the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, about individuals, groups, organisations, trade unions and professional and employers'
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associations. If I may expand a little on what I know she had in mind—she was rationing her time—it was a very constructive suggestion. A good deal is already being done in this way. Governments are not the only instruments of international persuasion and international co-operation—not by a long way. A tremendous amount is being done by individuals and groups, and we hope that this will increase.
This brings me to the Helsinki Final Act, and to the way in which we are approaching the Belgrade review meeting. Of course, the Final Act was an agreement but not a binding obligation. Nevertheless, it is of immense importance. I agree entirely with the noble Lord, Lord Home of the Hirsel, who had a great deal to do with it, that this can prove to be helpful not only to stability in Europe but also, by example and influence, to other parts of the world. The publication of the full text of the CSE Final Act in August 1975 by the Soviet Union and their East European allies provided a written basis for the claims of their peoples for improvements in human rights and fundamental freedoms. This fact is one of the big results of Helsinki. I am glad to say that the countries of Eastern Europe, including the Soviet Union, have been at least as active in disseminating the contents of the Final Act as the Western signatories.
It may well be that the dissent which has been more obvious in the last few months —I prefer to call it dissent rather than dissidence, for dissent has a very respectable pedigree in this country; the more dissenters there are, the better—has been given a fillip in these countries. It is absolutely right that we should state clearly and publicly that these countries have a right to dissent. We should be careful not to state that we agree with everything that the dissentients say. That perhaps is the point at which one moves from proper comment—condemnation, if you like—to intervention or interference within the confines of a country. It is very difficult to define this, but there is a broad line of definition as between the two operations about which we might well think.
On 15th June representatives of the 35 signatory States at the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe will

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meet in Belgrade to discuss the organisational details and the agenda in preparation for the first formal follow-up meeting which is due to take place later in the year. It is likely that the review meeting itself—with both plenary and no public meetings; there is room and a purpose for both types of meeting in any international conference—will be convened in the middle of September.
We must be careful not to expect more from Belgrade than it is designated to deliver. The CSE is essentially a longterm process. Nobody ought to expect that its provisions can be implemented fully in a matter of two years. We must aim to encourage all countries to review consistently their performance. Those who are lagging behind in performance should be encouraged progressively to extend the margin of tolerance, the expansion of human rights, until they are complying fully with all the provisions of the Final Act.
It has always been a concern of our diplomacy to bring what pressure we can to bear on countries to improve their human rights records and, indeed, to represent abroad frankly the values, as we see them, of British society. We have played our part in encouraging the current emphasis on human rights. We welcome the new life that has been breathed into the debate by the Final Act and what has happened since. My right honourable friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary said recently in another place that Her Majesty's Government:
"… will systematically take human rights considerations into account and give a high priority to them as part of the many factors that have to be considered when making foreign policy decisions".
Our aim will be to protect and enhance human rights everywhere and we shall take whatever action, private or public, that we consider will be effective.
Violations of human rights must, of course, be judged by the same standard, wherever they occur. Our response, however, will have to vary, certainly bilaterally, according to circumstances. Economic and political relations are increasingly complex and interdependent. There is also the point made by my noble friend Lord Brockway that in our pursuit of human rights we must not inadvertently imperil the achievement of the greatest
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prize of all, the maintenance of peace. I know that Patrick Henry said, "Give me liberty or give me death", but I think there is much in what my noble friend Lord Brockway has said about the importance of pursuing this aspect of international co-operation as part of the overriding purpose of ensuring the peace of the world.
Maintaining contact and promoting the interchange of people and ideas is often a better way to undermine oppression and tyranny than the severing of links, although sometimes the latter approach, too, has its place. The maintenance of diplomatic relations and contacts can provide a useful channel through which influence for good can be exerted. We shall continue to avail ourselves of opportunities open to us to continue such valuable but necessarily quiet activity.
Our aims are necessarily long term. We believe that we can prevail by seeking persistently and insistently to create a climate of international opinion that will make violations of human rights politically and socially unacceptable. I believe this policy—which is common, I know, to all parties of the State—represents the highest idealism and the best practicality. We shall use every means possible to promote human rights and fundamental freedoms. In this promotion, we shall seek to associate ourselves increasingly with friends and allies and, indeed, with all like-minded States. We shall speak out, certainly in international fora, and we shall speak out in bilateral contacts. In the latter, naturally we shall have to take great care that the bilateral representation does not prove to be counter-productive in respect of the people whom we are assisting.
This, my Lords, is a debate which will continue. I think it has been a very valuable contribution to a discussion which will be prolonged beyond Belgrade—and, indeed, beyond the next Session of the United Nations—for a number of years. Once more I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, for raising the matter and particularly for the admirable way in which he opened the debate.
6 p.m.
Lord GLADWYN: My Lords, I would not wish to detain your Lordships for

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more than a few minutes but I should like to make a few observations on the debate as a whole. I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, thinks it has been useful. I hope it has been. I think all the speeches have been constructive and I trust that the Government may derive some benefit from them in the appallingly difficult problems confronting them, notably in what is going to happen in Belgrade shortly.
I think the noble Baroness, Lady Elles, rather hinted that I might have mentioned the possible erosion of human rights in this country. That point was also backed up by my noble friend Lady Seear. I agree with that although it was not in my Motion. I agree that it is a point, but I think we might also agree that even if our freedoms are being eroded to some extent in this country, which is regrettable if it is so, nevertheless we are much freer than is almost any country in the world. With the possible exception of Switzerland and a Nordic country or two we are the home of freedom, and long may it be so. That is merely my general reflection on that proposition.
The noble Baroness, Lady Elles, also had some words of praise for the initiative of President Carter, who most of us saw on television last night. I think there is no dissent in this House that President Carter has well defined what he was trying to do, within reasonable limits, in regard to human rights. We can only wish him luck and back him up and say that his sentiments are our sentiments. I think those sentiments are reflected generally in the House and I am sure the Government agree. I asked them whether they did and I think they do. I see the noble Lord, Lord GoronwyRoberts, is nodding his head.
Lord AVEBURY: My Lords, would not my noble friend agree that it might be an idea for the Government to transmit a copy of today's Hansard to President Carter for his information?
Lord GLADWYN: Yes, my Lords, if President Carter has the time to read our debates. Possibly his attention could be drawn to one or two points when he arrives here, and perhaps on his way in
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the aeroplane to Washington in County Durham he might read our Hansard It is quite a good suggestion from my noble friend. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, would consider it.
Another point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Elles, was that the United States of America had not yet ratified the Covenants. It is quite true that they have not ratified them, and I very much hope that they will. One of the first things President Carter might do in his campaign on human rights is to induce Congress to take such action. Perhaps I was wrong in suggesting that even if there was universal ratification, it would not necessarily affect the practical application of human rights throughout the world. That may have been rather too pessimistic. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Elles, that if the United States ratified the Covenants and had a campaign to insist on the universal application of human rights, it would be a good thing and might have a good influence.
I should now like to take the speeches of the noble Lords, Lord Soper and Lord Brockway, together. I think I may say that they speak with one voice on moral issues. They are our "heavenly twins": a preacher and a lay preacher, if I may put it that way. I do not always agree with them, as both noble Lords will know, but on this occasion I agree wholeheartedly with almost everything they said, and they have said it much more eloquently than I. Of course it is a moral issue; we all agree on that.
The noble Lord, Lord Soper, made a point about Soviet law. We may think that Soviet law is deplorable; but it is a law, and it is better than having no law. It is certainly better than anarchy. He also hinted that the Church was not being suppressed in Russia and there were, happily, a great many religious manifestations in Russia. On the other hand, I think I may say without being cynical—and I agree that we should not be cynical at all, which was another point made by my noble friend Lady Seear and others—that possibly the inference is to be drawn that the Soviet Government now have come to the conclusion that religion is the opium of the people, but that this is not a bad thing but a very good thing.

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Possibly they are encouraging people to have innocent services and to sing beautifully and to pursue their religious vocation, provided of course that they have no influence on anything at all. if that is the attitude of the Soviet Government towards the manifestation of religion, people who take religion more seriously, possibly like the Baptists, may not have much freedom to worship in the Soviet Union, although I may he wrong about that.
Lord SOPER: My Lords, they have perfect freedom to worship; they have no freedom for propaganda. They would regard a great deal of their worship as a preliminary to propaganda, and that does offend the law. The other point that I might make briefly is that whereas some people will regard that Kingsley phrase "the opium of the people" as part of the definition of religion, Khrushchev defined it as "an active and dangerous heresy based on a superstition". I believe that to be still the official position.
Lord GLADWYN: My Lords, whether Kingsley is right or Khrushchev is rightly quoted I hesitate to say, but I am afraid I think they are making a certain use of religion, although I may be wrong.
We now come to the noble Lord, Lord Home of the Hirsel, who, if I may respectfully say so, spoke as a statesman, which he is. He dealt with the essential point when he formulated the reconciliation of ideals and practice, and he also said—and as an ex-diplomatist I could not agree with him more—that this is one of the more difficult operations in the whole sphere of foreign relations. Of course I agree with him entirely. He said it very well.
The noble Lord also said—and I am not sure that I agree with him on this—that the Charter is binding. In a sense the Charter, and indeed its formulation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and, more specifically, in the two Covenants of 1966, are all binding morally, but unfortunately they are not binding legally. The only ones that are binding legally are the two Covenants in respect of the 43 countries out of 150 which have actually ratified them. I regret to say that nobody else is legally bound by them. I wish they were. Of course the moral obligation is something.
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The noble Lord then tackled the awkward question of how far you should, if at all, use human rights as a bargaining factor. That is the essential point. I think he agreed with the noble Lord, Lord Soper, that there should be no horse-trading; but I think he would admit that in certain circumstances it might be legitimate to put pressure on certain countries, and notably the Soviet Union, to abide by what we should regard as obligations, whether moral or legal—not legal but moral under Helsinki, and legal under the Covenants. So, as I believe the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, said, a very nice balance has to be struck as to when, if at all, to apply pressure, and that of course is where, as the noble Lord, Lord Home of the Hirsel, said, diplomacy comes in. I believe he used the phrase that at one stage you have to reconcile ideals with practicalities, and that is the difficulty in the whole question of human rights. We are, as I think he said, in a dilemma. Perhaps he, and the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, were both a little optimistic as to the possible result of the follow-up to Helsinki at Belgrade. I think I should be rather more pessimistic than they seem to be, but we can only hope; and I think the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, accepted my general presentation of the case that we might put forward in Belgrade.
There is one very large point which was not altogether dealt with in the very fine summing-up speech by the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts. The point raised by my noble friend Lord Avebury, was: How far are human rights now universally valid? The noble Lord, Lord Brockway, rather tended to agree with me that if a country is on the verge of starvation it cannot really have any human rights at all. I see the noble Lord is nodding his head. My thesis was, and I am not sure that it has been accepted by the Government, that it really comes down to a question of material possibilities. If a country is below a certain level, is sunk in misery and gloom and under dictatorship—and it is under dictatorship perhaps because it is sunk in misery and people have not got enough to eat, and so on—how can these rather high-falutin' and splendid ideals apply at all? They cannot apply in practice and it is no good expecting that they would.
The way to eventually get something like human rights as we conceive it agreed

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all over the world is by first of all getting such countries out of their economic misery, giving them enough to eat, and avoiding war. I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, and the noble Lord, Lord Soper, who said this was the essential point. Of course it is. If we are at war there is no point in having human rights; we are all blown up, anyway, and most of us will die. We must realise that human rights cannot apply to three-quarters of the world as we know it, and it will not apply until we tackle it by economic, social, or whatever means, in the long run.
I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Janner, in what he said about the treatment of the Jews in the Soviet Union. It is absolutely scandalous. I have no reason to doubt what he said about the treatment of the Jews there, which is, of course, a sheer violation of all the obligations of the Soviet Union under Helsinki or the Charter or anything else. It is appalling that such treatment is meted out to perfectly innocent citizens, apparently on the sole grounds that they are a suspect minority susceptible to Western ideas of freedom. That is what it comes down to. We must go on protesting against this, and we hope that President Carter will take up the cause and do his best. He will have much more influence on the Soviet Union than we could. We hope that he will go on protesting and doing his best to assist the unfortunate Jews in the Soviet Union.
On the Arab boycott, of course, I agree with the noble Lord entirely. The Arabs say that they are at war with Israel, and therefore apparently they boycott any firm which employs any Jew in any kind of commercial operation with them, which, of course, is fantastic. They may be at war with Israel, but they are not at war with Jews all over the world. It is a ludicrous suggestion and totally unsustainable, and we should protest against it to the limit of our powers.
I think that is really all I have to say. The noble Viscount, Lord Montgomery of Alamein, made excuses for the Argentine. I understand perhaps some of the reasons why they have arrived at this situation; politically speaking, it is
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possible to understand what he says. But I do not think their present action can be excused. Incidentally, I apologise to my noble friend Lord Avebury that I did not make any reference to the appalling Government in Uruguay, which is, so far as I can make out at present, almost worse than any Government, except possibly that in Cambodia.
I am very grateful to noble Lords for listening to my own speech and for taking part in this debate. I hope it will be useful. I think it may be. I think perhaps we have done something. Even if President Carter does not read every word of what we have said tonight, nevertheless in Government circles it may have a certain utility. I therefore beg leave to withdraw my Motion for Papers.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

PUBLIC ART COLLECTIONS: CONSERVATION
6.13 p.m.
Lord COTTESLOE Lord COTTESLOE rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what progress is being made on the problems of ensuring the adequate conservation of objects in public collections. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. Not long ago we were discussing, in the context of Mcntmore, the control over the export of our national heritage of works of art, the danger that the excessively high levels of taxation that in this country we labour under will force private owners of prime works of art —many of which are already on loan in public galleries or otherwise accessible to the public—to put them on the market. The tip of that iceberg was seen last year when five highly important pictures from the Sutherland Collection, all of them on loan to public galleries, were sold at auction.
Certainly if the threat of a wealth tax again rears its ugly head—mercifully, it seems at the present time to be dormant —that iceberg will, so to speak, surface in a flood of sales with which the export control is quite unable to compete. Even if it were able to compete, our public galleries could not begin to find the space to display these things, let alone to look after their conservation. They

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are for the most part, as I shall explain to your Lordships, quite unable properly to display or look after much of what they already have. There is not much sense in bursting ourselves to keep things here if we cannot look after them when we do succeed in keeping them.
I do not want to go over the ground of our last debate again, except to deplore very deeply the great dispersal from Mentmore that is to take place this month. Although I am delighted to read that the Treasury will be accepting four particular items of the greatest importance in satisfaction of duties, that dispersal will inevitably place severe strains on the whole mechanism for maintaining our national heritage, strains that it is quite unable to bear. That dispersal is, I am bound to say, in my view, totally unnecessary. The National Land Fund, which is said to be either a mythical fund or a mere book entry, is of course, nothing of the sort, The £60 million that Hugh Dalton set aside from the sale of surplus war stores specifically for the preservation of our heritage was not a myth; it was hard cash. Successive Governments of different complexions have been too weak-kneed, and too half-hearted in any real desire to preserve the heritage, to stand up to the Treasury. They have allowed themselves to be hoodwinked and have allowed the Treasury effectively to stultify Hugh Dalton's admirable purpose. However, I will not pursue that further today.
No less important than the control over the export from our heritage of works of art, though much less publicised and much less generally known and understood, are the inadequacies of the facilities for the display and for the care and conservation of what is already in public hands or available to public access. It is, I think, common ground that the space for display is quite inadequate, that any great influx into public hands of works of art, thrown on the market as a result of taxation, retained in this country by the provision of adequate funds to hack the export control and enable it to function effectively, would create for our galleries and museums, more particularly in the provinces, immense problems of space for display, let alone care and conservation.
It is, at any rate, healthy that in the last few years a great deal of searching
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thought has been applied to these problems. We have had, in 1972, a report by the Gulbenkian Foundation, a report of the Committee on Training in the Conservation of Paintings, with proposals for the establishment of an institute for that purpose; then in the following year, 1973, a report of the Paymaster General's Committee on Provincial Museums and Galleries—the Wright Report as it is generally called; in 1974 there was a survey of great importance and value on the facilities for conservation in museums and galleries in this country by the United Kingdom Group of the International Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works; and last year, in 1976, a paper by Dr. Cannon Brookes, the Director of the Birmingham City Museums and Art Gallery, on the training of conservators and curators—it is called after Gulbenkian. We have had these, and others, too.
If I may quote from the Foreword, by the Director of the Tate Gallery, Sir Norman Reid, to the last of these documents, he says:
"Nothing so far published has convinced any of the five or more Ministers with special responsibility for the arts who have held office during this period that here was a need which could be put to rights with comparatively small expenditure of Government money and which could save many works of art for the enjoyment of future generations".
I should like very strongly to endorse what he said.
The deplorable state of affairs existing in the field of conservation is admirably analysed in the survey by the United Kingdom Group of the International Institute. I shall return to that in a moment. First, I want to refer to the inadequate facilities for display—the acute shortage of space—especially in the provincial museums and galleries. Indeed, that shortage of space is not confined to the provincial museums. The British Museum suffers from some limitations of space and conditions that prevent it from showing parts of its collections, but I am delighted to see that the noble Lord, Lord Trevelyan, the chairman of the trustees of the British Museum, is due to speak. I hope that he will be able to tell us some more about the Museum's problems.
The National Gallery has recently opened extensions that have done much

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to relieve its problems of space for display. The Tate Gallery notoriously has a great deal in store that it cannot show, although much is on loan in Government buildings at home and abroad and in provincial galleries. However, it is even now extending its space by its long-overdue completion of the building on its existing site, and we hope that at some future time there will be a major enlargement in the form of a new building on the site of the Military Hospital next door. In his reply I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, will be able to tell us when that long-awaited building is likely to materialise.
The National Portrait Gallery is necessarily and inevitably bursting at the seams. It has eased its problems a little by an excellent additional gallery in one of the houses in Carlton House Terrace and by such loans as the portraits that embellish Montacute and indeed the many portraits that now hang in this building. In particular I commend to your Lordships the row of portraits by G. F. Watts that have recently appeared in the corridor on the north side of the Dining Room. All that is excellent but the National Portrait Gallery needs its new gallery on the Hampton site in Cockspur Street which will, in its turn, enable the National Gallery to obtain further space from the existing National Portrait Gallery site. Perhaps the Minister can give us some information about that prospect.
Then there is the prospect, which we await with anxious impatience, of the South rooms in Somerset House—which, if I am not mistaken, housed the Royal Academy in the time of Reynolds—being used to display some 60 or 70 paintings by Turner that are for the most part otherwise not available to the public. Perhaps the noble Lord can tell us how soon that prospect is likely to materialise. There are, of course, such matters as the grossly inadequate arrangements in Leighton House for the National Theatre Museum. When is that likely to go to Covent Garden? There are the deplorable inadequacies of the National Musical Museum which is most unsuitably housed in an old church in Brentford and prevented by a monstrous breach of trust—I am told that it is perfectly legal but it is none the less monstrous—from occupying
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its natural habitat in the David Salomons Theatre at Broomhill. Your Lordships will recollect discussing that some little time ago.
Of course, there is the appalling scandal of the Burrell collection in Glasgow—an unrivalled collection covering a wide field of pictures, textiles, silver, wood carvings and much else, left by Sir William Burrell to the City of Glasgow more than 30 years ago, with an endowment of about £500,000 to provide a gallery for its display—the gallery to be more than ten miles from the centre of the city to avoid the dirt and murk of the Glasgow atmosphere. That gallery has not yet been built and nor has the whole collection ever yet been exhibited, though parts of it have sometimes been shown. I believe that there are at last some plans for building a gallery in the grounds of Pollock House—not indeed more than 10 miles from the centre of Glasgow as directed by Sir William Burrell's will, but I shall let that pass. I recognise that the Minister is not in any way guilty of the sins of the City Fathers of Glasgow, which are quite unforgivable, but perhaps he can give us some information about the prospects there, for I have a nasty feeling that the Glasgow Corporation will even now take advantage of inflation to defer indefinitely any action in building the gallery.
Those are only a small sample of the deficiencies of space for display which in general in the municipal and provincial galleries and museums are so extreme that they have at times to refuse highly desirable gifts which are offered to them. Those deficiencies are, of course, aggravated by financial stringencies that in some cities necessitate the closing of rooms in municipal galleries owing to staff shortages and so on. For example, in Birmingham I am told that since 1919 the closure of galleries for various reasons has reduced the space available for the display of paintings by nearly 50 per cent.
I need not tell your Lordships that these matters are very relevant to the problems of conservation, not only because lack of space for display is accompanied by lack of space needed for conservation services, and the shortage of staff for invigilation accompanied by a quite inadequate establishment for conservation, but also because when works of arts of many kinds have to be kept in store they

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are in general kept under conditions that increase the risks of deterioration and lack the constant supervision that brings promptly to light the need for urgent conservation of works that are always on view.
I should now like to turn to the particular problems of care and conservation. The report of the United Kingdom Group of the International Institute reveals a very serious position indeed. I am advised that the position has not materially improved since the publication of the report in 1974. The report tells us that about one-third of the 461 museums and galleries included in the Group's survey have a growing backlog of material awaiting conservation treatment; and that after allowing for the material that might never need treatment, more than half the contents of present collections still await conservation treatment. It tells us that a significant proportion of potential acquisitions are being turned away because of recognition of the shortcomings of the conservation facilities. It also tells us that the most urgent need is for more trained conservatorial staff in the fields of fine art, archaeology and ethnography, industrial archaeology, science and technology and natural history.
The report tells us that only about one-half—in fact, 51 per cent.—of the museums and galleries have any conservation facilities at all; that in the provincial institutions there is an almost complete lack of trained conservatorial staff and that 60 per cent. of them do not have enough equipment for the work that they have to undertake. It tells us—glimpses of the obvious—that the most effective way in which to reduce the load on conservation services is to improve environmental control in storage and display areas; but that monitoring of environmental conditions is carried out in only 13 per cent. of the institutions; that only 9 per cent. of exhibition areas and 2 per cent. of showcases throughout the country have any relative humidity control; and that, respectively, only 10 per cent. and 2 per cent. have any air filtration control. I need not tell your Lordships that it is variations of relative humidity and insufficiency or absence of air filtration that do the worst damage. It tells us that there is a national shortage of trained conservators, and also of facilities for training, so
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that out of some 200 practising conservators at the time of the report only 80 had received proper training, and that a high proportion of those 80 have to spend a good deal of their time on non-conservation duties.
Such is the nakedness of the land, and although the number of galleries that are air conditioned has increased in recent years, air conditioning is almost confined to the national collections, and is still not by any means universal even in them. The result is of course a progressive deterioration in the condition of the material held in public collections. And, after all, there is not much sense in exerting ourselves to keep things in this country if we cannot look after them properly.
I hope profoundly that the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, when he comes to reply may be able to assure us that the Government have a programme for steadily improving all these matters, and to give us some particulars of that programme. The great efforts that are made by our museums and galleries, and by private individuals and also through the medium of export control, to prevent the dispersal of our heritage of works of art and of history, must be largely stultified unless they are matched by the facilities for display and the care and conservation of items of that heritage that are retained in this country.
6.32 p.m.
Lord HALE: My Lords, I find myself, as I nearly always do, in a slightly embarrassing situation even for one who at one time never gave way to embarrassment. I put my name on the list of speakers largely because I had taken up this question with the noble Lord on the Front Bench, who is always extremely courteous to me and who sent me what information he could, and because he also said that further steps were being taken and he would be able to report a little later. Therefore, it seemed to me, as I had not spoken for a long time, that it would give me an opportunity of speaking briefly on a subject about which, of course, I know nothing at all except that I make extensive use of museums and libraries, and so on.
I also anticipated that I should have the privilege of hearing the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, speaking with great learning

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and authority about the British Library and its reorganisation, and as still, I think, a trustee of the British Museum. This, unhappily, put me in some great difficulty when the noble Lord, Lord Cottesloe, opened his extremely informative, knowledgeable, and useful speech, because my interpretation of the words on the Order Paper is not quite the same as his.
When we started with Mentmore, for which I have some sympathy, I was rather afraid that when I got round to the problems of Oldham I should seem rather a long way away from the subject. Oldham, after all, is one of the centres of civilisation, and I am able, with the utmost courtesy, at once to score a devastating point against the last speaker, by saying that, once again, so far as I know, in having surveyed the progress, he has omitted Lancashire altogether: that great centre of the arts, great home of poetry, and indeed the industrial town which, at the moment, has as living members, Sir William Walton, Mr. James Fitton, one of the best known of the Royal Academicians, and Miss Eva Turner. So Lancashire makes no little contribution.
I do not want to trespass at all on theology, but it was said recently in this House that the Lord is responsible for the meteorological conditions, and so on; and the grant which a beneficent Providence gave Oldham as a foundation of its prosperity, and which enabled us to spin cotton in conditions and on terms which no other country could match for many years, is also responsible for the fact that we have a severe burden of bronchitis and of buildings suffering from dry rot and every form of wood infestation, and so on, the normal accompaniment of damp. I have personal experience of that. I only mentioned Oldham as representative of the urban conurbation because Oldham has not got too bad a problem, as I understand it, but it is a serious difficulty which is affecting the maintenance of collections in Lancashire.
When Members opposite went amok and indulged in the most astonishing series of local government measures, we reached the stage that for one thing, Oldham is now part of Manchester, yet is nothing to do with Manchester for another; and that there is no means of finding out without much more research
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than I am capable of at 75, as to who is responsible to whom and for what. What we do know is that, entirely to its credit, Oldham embarked on a literary and museum development in the quite recent past. It acquired a director of museums and libraries of considerable ability and great enthusiasm. With a very old and almost unusable building and some modest developments it was enabled to open a new, what they call, social history museum.
Although, historically, I know nothing about it, and indeed being colour blind—I believe most art critics are, but it is a very common complaint—I would merely say, on recent information, that it would be a great mistake to think that Mr. Keating would be available to replace all the masterpieces that are destroyed by damp or by any other means. Indeed, last night half-way through the programme on television I went to bed.
My only acquired piece of information was that the art racket has become really something of a public disgrace everywhere, that fraud is rampant in almost every part of it, and of course that the preservation of works of art is not going to be a matter either of the reproduction of that delightful word "pastiche"—how I wish I had had that at my disposal in some of my own cases, where defending persons charged with forging shares and so on—but that the gangland criminal is making the transport of art treasures a matter of the very greatest difficulty, and that the cost of insurance has now reached the position of being almost wholly prohibitive.
I do not want to upset noble Lords who are about to have their dinner, but from personal experience I know that one gets a letter from one's insurance company asking one to double the amount of insurance cover to match inflation, and when that has been done they promptly double the rates they charge for that insurance. I do not blame them for that because where I live people just walk in and take things out; I do not have much and most of the stuff of the slightest value that I have is bulky. The amount of housebreaking that goes on in the area of Dulwich is really something of a tragedy and something almost of a burlesque. Having got one to increase the insurance cover to match inflation they promptly double the rates of insurance because they say one lives in a dangerous area from

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the insurance point of view. Then one is advised to keep up the increased insurance figure because, now that one has valued the objects for them, they warn that they will reimburse only a proportion of the amount under claim.
Dulwich College Museum and Art Gallery, which is one of the loveliest of the smaller museums in the metropolis with a valuable and diverse collection including some remarkable examples of British art of the early 19th Century, faces a quite special problem in view of two recent and well-publicised experiences. In one, priceless pictures were removed and, in the other, by one of those mistakes which seem to occur in the best run institutions—and this is a very well-run institution beyond peradventure—a gentleman was seem riding off on a bicycle with a very valuable picture, but fortunately the picture was recovered with the slightest possible damage.
The problem of preservation has greatly increased. It is no doubt a very good thing that the British public do not take the advice of Degas—that pictures are not painted to be seen—and are acquiring the habit of wanting to see good pictures, and they have had ample encouragement to do so from that brilliant organisation, the British Museum, and of course from the Royal Academy, which seems to me to be one of the most civilised organisations on earth. It almost destroys my theory that civilisation begins North of the Trent. There is a unique demand by the public; the Turner exhibition, which I believe called attention to some very natural and obvious deterioration in some examples of that vast collection, much of which had never been put on view, was a spiritual experience of the greatest possible value.
Of course in Paris, which I have not been able to visit for a good many years, they have recently had that famous exhibition from the time of Francis I—from the time when Leonardo was in the Castle of Amboise to the time, 50 years later, when Benvenuto Cellini was there under Henry III. That showed pictures in a quite miraculous state of preservation, including many pastels—not of course technically pastels because the term had not been used; chalks perhaps—such as "Dust Upon A Bee's Wing".
We in Oldham have our problems in this respect. The noble Lord, Lord
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Donaldson, said that we were getting assistance over a large area out of a £770,000 fund. I do not know how many museums that includes. Of course, a 100 year old building in the North is something that frequently cannot be repaired; the Castle of Amboise endures but not the building on the Seven Hills of Oldham or elsewhere in the North. I know that these things have been considered before. Nothing I can say can add to human knowledge about them, but perhaps my words can add to human urgency. We spend a great deal of time opening charming branch libraries and developing the book service; the present Government had spent quite a lot of time closing them down on the ground of financial stringency, and we must satisfy our artistic aspirations with a view of an £80 million ship of considerable beauty which was launched yesterday.
Tastes, we are told, are changing. They are changing to such an extent that pre-Raphaelites have to be kept in the cellar almost permanently, and I have no doubt that the general taste of many people would support that. However, tastes are apt to change very rapidly indeed and noble Lords will notice that the man who is an expressionist one day is an impressionist the next, and a year or two later he is something else. Let us remember that down in the bowels of the museums is a good deal of the social history of the people. There is a good deal of local history in painting and a good deal of the things one's parents loved and one's children and grandchildren may love again. They are not really there to be kept, at considerable expense, without being shown.
I hope Lord Donaldson will be able to tell us that something has been achieved, at least to see that we can be sure of the safety and future of these treasures. Perhaps, by the amalgamation of the general organisation of the many museums and art galleries in the conurbations of the North, we can make use of the common services of all in the location, distribution, exhibition and preservation of these immensely valuable resources.
6.49 p.m.
Lord TREVELYAN: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Cottesloe, both for raising a very im-

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portant practical Question and for making it unnecessary for me to declare my interests. Among the main objectives of museums are, of course, the acquisition of significant objects and the exhibition of a fair proportion of them. I feel that the noble Lord has virtually challenged me to say why we do not exhibit more of the objects that we possess in the British Museum. There are many reasons: on one or two occasions, it is a question of the fact that we cannot get the right conditions for exhibition. For instance, we have had to take the Chinese lacquer out of the King Edward VIIth Gallery because we cannot assure the proper temperature and humidity. In the same way, we cannot put out many of the objects destined for our new Japanese Gallery because we have not yet achieved the correct temperature and humidity. I am not blaming anybody for that and I believe that we shall get it right. Of course, it is perfectly true that we have not enough space, but it is no good our acquiring large buildings elsewhere at the moment because, as soon as the British Library has taken away its books, we shall have a great deal of space. We are starting to plan for that.
There are many other reasons for not exhibiting particular items. For instance, prints and old drawings cannot be exposed to light for more than a certain period and therefore we cannot exhibit more than a few at a time. Then again, there is the question of modern methods of exhibition which demand less objects on view. This is to be seen in the new presentation of the Graeco-Roman objects in the British Museum and, to see what should not be done, one has only to look upstairs in the Vase Room and see rows and rows of vases, which are rather shattering except for the real expert.
Then again, objects must be generously lent. We do that. We have in fact started a new programme of lending objects to provincial museums for indefinite periods. Then we have to make the objects available to scholars on the Museum's staff and to scholars and students from outside and to use the objects as an aid to general education. In each case, the focus is on the objects. A primary responsibility of the trustees and staff is to preserve the condition of those objects while they are exhibited, stored,
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handled or moved about. Conservation is an essential part of museum work, including the need to control the conditions of exhibition, the handling of objects and their preservation from the ravages of time.
The problem of conservation in museums has been made more urgent by the large quantity of material newly found by excavation in this country and abroad and by the belated recognition that the environment of storage and display in many musuems is detrimental to the objects. In the British Museum, which is the largest conservation centre in the United Kingdom, we have many experienced conservators working to good effect, but we were not wholly satisfied with either our organisation or our achievements. On the initiative of the late Director. Sir John Pope-Hennessey, we instituted measures of reform. The keepers of the departments must retain full responsibility for the condition of the objects in their charge but the conservators working in the departments have been organised into a self-contained service under its own keeper. By this means we have begun to rationalise conservation work by materials so that all important work on a specific material can be concentrated in one place in charge of experts in that material. Though each department still has its conservation officers working in it, some of our staff have found it a little difficult to get used to the new system, but I believe that they have now begun to recognise its advantages, among which will, I hope, be improvement in the status and career prospects of the members of the conservation service.
As yet, we have not been able to put the new system fully into effect because our main difficulty lies in finding enough centrally located space for workshops or experiments. We are very fortunate in having the advantage of the facilities of our laboratory which, having been built up by Dr. Werner, we regard, with justification, as one of the finest museum laboratories in existence. However, we still have to extend our experiments in conservation methods.
I believe that the proper training of conservators is only in its infancy. We hold very strongly to the belief that the prime requisite for conservation officers is skill with the hands. That must never

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be forgotten, since a man given only an academic training course will not by that means be made a successful conservation officer. Of course, some knowledge of elementary chemistry from 0-level up to a degree is desirable, and we give special facilities to our conservators to acquire the requisite theoretical background. On the other hand, we do not lose sight of the need to emphasise that conservation is, in essence, a practical job.
We run an in-service training course of two years, which, with a further three years of intensive supervision, makes a versatile and competent worker in this field. We should like to extend this service to outsiders when our own immediate needs are satisfied, but that depends on our having the space and money to do it. I also hope that, in due course, we shall be able to provide training for museum staffs in the developing world as part of a system of general co-operation which we are now trying to start with its museums and archaeologists.
I do not wish to use this opportunity to criticise in detail the Report of the International Institute for Conservation, though I think it in some respects unsatisfactory. In particular, I suggest that the proposal to establish a national conservation centre is impractical. Surely, the right way to develop a body of expert conservators is to enable the museums and libraries, which have a vast quantity of objects needing expert treatment and a trained body of conservators, to extend their knowledge and skills to external students.
Emphasis has recently been given to the serious situation arising from the fact that the Department of the Environment provides adequate funds for rescue archaeology in this country but not for the conservation of the resulting finds. I trust that both the central Departments and the local authorities responsible for the excavations concerned will take on some financial responsibility for the treatment of the objects found.
Finally, may I repeat that the problem of conservation is urgent and important. Acquisition of objects for public collections is not the end of the problem. The authorities concerned—Government, local authorities and museums—have the absolute responsibility for the objects in their charge. I should like to end by
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giving one or two instances of present conditions in the British Museum. The first is a field in which that responsibility has been admirably carried out by cooperation between the Department of the Environment and the British Museum. It is the storage and study centre for ethnographic objects in Orsman Road, where the most favourable conditions have been realised for the preservation of the notoriously delicate objects of ethnographic interest. Another very good job of conservation which has been done has been the stabilisation of the Amaravati sculptures which are now in a specially air-conditioned and properly treated room in the basement. Unfortunately, it is impossible to put them on public show, though people who ask can always see them. They were in a dangerous condition, having originally been cut the wrong way. They were very friable and extremely liable to damage. However, I believe that they arc now stabilised and in good condition. On the other hand, we have one part of the museum where everything has been put ready for the air-conditioning, including removal of all the natural sources of ventilation, but the air-conditioning machines are not there. The need is not only for treatment of an object by a skilled man but also for the provision of suitable conditions for the display of delicate objects.
Much has been done and we are most grateful to the Department of the Environment and for the personal interest that has been shown in our affairs by the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Birk. We look forward to their further co-operation and, when funds are available, to receiving the money which we so badly need for this very important purpose.
7 p.m.
Viscount ECCLES: My Lords, I, too, am very grateful to my noble friend Lord Cottesloe for raising the topic of conservation. It is a subject in which I have been interested for a long time, and from time to time I have had some opportunity to forward action in this field. I should like to say that I agree with all that the noble Lord, Lord Trevelyan, has said about the British Museum. I think that the work done there is splendid and is going forward every year with more success. I want to

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call your Lordships' attention to the conservation of only one particular class of objects; namely, books and manuscripts. Your Lordships have a direct interest in this problem. In our Library, as has happened in almost all collections open to constant use, the number of books requiring attention has been allowed to increase year by year. We are not exceptional. The aggregate of arrears awaiting treatment in all British public libraries must run into millions, and each volume will, if it is not cared for, deteriorate still further.
The life of a book is unpredictable. It depends on the quality of the paper and the binding, on the conditions in which the book is kept, on the frequency and care with which it is handled, and on the regular procedures, if there are any, for refurbishing minor defects as they appear. Books are like people: they develop serious complaints when the first signs of wear and tear are neglected.
Out of the 70,000 books in your Lordships' Library, some 5,000 require skilled attention, and many of those 5,000 would not have become "hospital patients" if there had been a vigorous programme of refurbishing. The position is much worse in the British Library, in which I must declare my interest as chairman of the hoard. There, out of approximately 9 million books, almost 1 million volumes require a repair of some kind; and your Lordships would be given equally horrifying figures if you consulted any old, established library in this country and abroad. I suppose that the decay has been so gradual that those responsible did not notice what was happening.
So the conservation of books is a large national problem. It will always be with us. Nothing can stop the accumulation of the fruit of man's intellect, so much of which will always be made available in printed form. I want to confine my remarks to two areas in which there is much to be done if the results of' past neglect are to be reversed. These areas are research into the methods of conservation, and, secondly, the recruitment, training, and organisation of many more skilled bookbinders and repairers than we have at present. I think that this is
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a typical case and could be applied to other crafts.
Books have always been made out of a small group of materials: paper, vellum. leather, cloth, and so on; and the chemistry of these materials has been well researched. We know why they deteriorate, and in what conditions deterioration can be slowed down. The first necessity is an air-conditioned building—something very different from the National Library of India in Calcutta, which has no air-conditioning, and where the books are exposed to extremes of heat and humidity, and dreadful damage is done to the books. But here, even in London, nobody thinks —and we have just heard an excellent discourse on this point from the noble Lord, Lord Trevelyan—that the old British Museum building was satisfactory for the conservation of books. Fortunately the Government have at last agreed to a new building where the conditions can be scientifically controlled. Until we can transfer all the books from Bloomsbury to this new building we have to go on fighting against dust, draughts, damp and fluctuating temperatures.
There is also the question of how often the books are handled, and under what conditions. Careless handling is certainly the book's greatest enemy, and each library has to make its own rules about that, and the rules ought to be very strict. On the other hand, research into the materials that go to the making of a book and into the methods of using the result of that research benefits everyone. So such research should be organised between libraries, and internationally. I was glad to hear the noble Lord, Lord Trevelyan, speak of Dr. Werner and the laboratory at the British Museum. The work which was done on leather bindings attracted worldwide attention. I know that several of your Lordships make use of the British Museum's techniques in your own libraries. I have myself given to three or four noble Lords the magic liquid in two bottles, and the printed instructions. I hope that they use them.
The British Library, as a successor to the British Museum Library, carries on with, and is developing, this research. We are hoping, for example, to collaborate with the Association of Leather Manufacturers in the preparation of leathers likely to have much longer lives, and we

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are devoting particular attention to the processes by which the knowledge of book materials can be translated into the effective treatment of the books themselves.
I should like to give your Lordships just one example. The paper on which books have been printed differs very much in quality. Some papers remain white and robust for centuries; others very quickly go brown and brittle as a dead leaf. Over time the quality of paper used in books has fluctuated up, and down again, and, sad to say, today publishers are rapidly reducing the quality of the paper that they are using because they are trying to cut costs by every possible means. As your Lordships know, quality is a certain casualty in an egalitarian and inflationary age. It does not matter how clever the scientists and technologists may be—all around you, you will see that the quality of goods and services is deteriorating.
Therefore research is very important, and research has told us how to take the acid from paper, but we can do it only page by page. That is too expensive. I was asked £35 for the washing of a small book—admittedly it was foxed throughout —which describes a raid on Quebec in 1775 by a band of United States guerrillas. They were thoroughly defeated. We cannot afford sums like £35 a book when we have hundreds of thousands of books that need to be washed. Therefore, we must discover a process for treating a book in one operation, not page by page. The chemical research having been excellently done by the Library of Congress, the British Library are commissioning research into the process by which this chemistry is applied to the books. That, I think, is a good example of the international co-operation which will have to grow in this sector.
Now I turn to the training, recruitment and organisation of the skilled labour needed to expand the facilities for the conservation of books and manuscripts, and I think that the story that I am going to tell your Lordships is matched by similar experiences in other conservation crafts. It is right, as the noble Lord, Lord Trevelyan, said, that we must have more skilled curators, but they have to be backed up by technicians, and the fact of the matter is that in many of the
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conservation sectors there are not enough skilled craftsmen to do the job.
Lord TREVELYAN: My Lords, if the noble Viscount will forgive my interrupting him, I meant to say that we must have more skilled conservationists, otherwise, the technicians.
Viscount ECCLES: I beg the noble Lord's pardon. It is because of my connection with books, where we want so many more, that technicians bulk very large in my mind. Your Lordships will see that there are practical steps which we should be taking, but which will be difficult to take unless old restrictions and prejudices have been swept away. In the field of books, we can distinguish three types of demand for which adequate facilities do not exist at present—and, for two of them, the facilities are very far from adequate. There is, first, the straightforward binding of books, journals and papers as they come into a library. The Official Report of your Lordships' proceedings or the Commons Hansard are good examples. Also, we must rebind run-of-the-mill books which are falling to pieces through age and use. This is a routine operation, fairly mechanical and well performed by Her Majesty's Stationery Office binderies; and when the capacity of those binderies is not sufficient the Stationery Office is co-operative in helping us to contract out to private binders. What we do not yet know is whether the capacity of the private binderies is adequate to take all the orders with which the Stationery Office itself cannot deal.
Secondly, because after a time use always shows up in wear and tear, a regular system of refurbishing is essential. In most libraries known to me the amount of refurbishing has never been satisfactory, or, I may say, even nearly satisfactory. Yet the training of a refurbisher is not difficult; it does not take much time. But there can be obstacles placed in the way of recruitment by those whose interest is in rebinding and major repairs. This would he like doctors rationing vaccinations for fear that there would be empty beds in fever hospitals. It makes no sense at all when the volume of work on major repairs so vastly exceeds present facilities. Thirdly come the major repairs. This is by far the most difficult category to deal

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with because a book may have to be taken apart, the pages washed or laminated one by one and the precious binding restored with utmost skill. This is handwork which cannot be mechanised. The skills take some time to learn, but, in these days of a vigorous revival in the crafts, men and women wishing to learn, and young people coming from school or college, are not now difficult to find.
So we have to ask some questions. How many skilled craftsmen are there capable of doing this work? How many more are needed, and what are the obstacles to their recruitment and training? Are the binderies, big and small, well equipped and well organised; and is the pay structure attractive? We do not yet know all he answers to these questions. The Stationery Office bindery, which does this special work for the British Library, is situated on the British Museum site. There is another at Colindale; and another upstairs in your Lordships' House, which does as much as it can, but the arrears continue to grow, of this quality of work for your Lordships' Library. The quality of work they do is first-class, and we are very proud of it, but their output is far below what we need. I have taken some trouble to find out: other big libraries are in the same critical difficulty, unable to cope with their growing backlog of major repairs. We must therefore ask the help of everybody—Government, employers and unions—to achieve a large expansion in this essential conservation craft. I should add, my Lords, that there are very important export orders, especially from the United States, which now have to be turned down because the delivery dates are so uncertain. Just to check this I rang up what I consider to be the best binder in London, and he said, "I cannot take anything in under 15 months. "For an American library which has, in the past, constantly used our facilities, that, of course, is rather a long time to wait; and we are losing good export orders.
Now let me have a look at the trade. First of all there are the smallest units. In Britain today we lead the world in individual artist bookbinders. I cannot remember a time when that was so—at least, not over the last hundred years—but it is so today. Work on this craft can be done at home. It has a great
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appeal, especially to women; and there could be a large increase in the number of self-employed binders and repairers if the flow of work was well organised—it would need someone like the British Library to organise it and if the powers that be were more sympathetic to the self-employed. Either to become self-employed in this craft or to work in a bindery, a boy or girl often needs financial help for a year or two before they are capable of earning their living by this skilled trade. They have to learn alongside a skilled craftsman. The Government are offering training grants, but the offer will not do much good unless the pay structure is attractive to trained craftsmen, and unless the unions put no restrictions on new recruitment.
I have to say that up to quite recently the restrictions imposed by the unions did great harm to this trade. The number of apprentices was severely limited—one to four craftsmen. Parents brought a boy, eager to start and with a good report on his talents from his school, and the bindery wanted to take him, but they were not allowed to take him because their quota was full; or, if their quota had allowed them to take him, they would have been permitted only to pay him less money than he could earn if he went delivering newspapers. Then, my Lords, there was a severe discrimination against girls. The men allowed girls to repair books; the men refused to allow girls to bind books. We have 1·4 million unemployed, and when the demand for bookbinders and repairers so vastly exceeds the capacity of the trade, let us hope that all those restrictions can be over and done with.
As a matter of fact, things are now better than they were, and I am very glad to be able to report that. But the damage has been done because the number of craftsmen has decreased. Your Lordships will remember, perhaps, that I told your Lordships on another occasion that we lost one of our best craftsmen from our bindery when he went to Fleet Street to earn 50 per cent. more in tying up newspapers with string. It is that which has done the damage, and it is going to he very difficult to expand this craft when those in it now are too few and, on the whole, rather old. The right honourable gentleman the Secretary of State for Employment must come and help us here.

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I must end by reminding your Lordships of three basic facts. The backlog of books requiring skilled attention is enormous, and is growing all the time. Many millions of pounds will be required to get rid of it. The number of skilled craftsmen in the binding business is far below the demand for their services; and the organisation of research into methods by which books can be conserved is a major aim of the British Library, to be developed in co-operation with other libraries.
I want to add a word of gratitude to Her Majesty's Government for understanding the urgency of the requirement in the British Library and for giving us a grant which has enabled us to allocate in our budget the sum which I think we can usefully spend on the programme of conservation while it is getting under way. But the British Library is exceptionally fortunate. What the nation needs is a new attitude towards the conservation crafts and wholehearted co-operation between employers, unions and Government to expand their numbers and to ensure a good living for those who take up such satisfying work.
7.20 p.m.
Lord VAIZEY: My Lords, I should like to join with other noble Lords in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Cottesloe, for raising this important and interesting Unstarred Question. Twenty years ago the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, started the drive to technical education and I am pleased that he is maintaining his interest and enthusiasm in this particularly important sphere. I am chiefly interested in the preservation of pictures, drawings and paintings, and I should like to draw your Lordships' attention to certain developments which are taking place in that field and to certain needs which I hope my noble friend will take into account in his reply.
I was fortunate enough to be a member of the advisory committee of the Gulbenkian Foundation which received the report presented by Sir Colin Anderson and his colleagues on training and the conservation of paintings. This important and valuable document, which the noble Lord, Lord Cottesloe, referred to, takes its part in years of interesting and important study of this very complex and difficult question. Broadly speaking, as I understand it, at
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the moment there is a good course for practical people at Gateshead Technical College in the North of England and I hope this work will be encouraged and stimulated. The Courtauld Institute also produces important people who will work in the conservation of paintings and drawings; and the national collections themselves are very essential parts of the training process of people engaged in this fundamental work of conservation.
There are, as has already been pointed out, remarkably few people in this business. There are, all told, something like 200 people in this country doing the conservation of art objects on a professional basis and, as has already been mentioned, some of them are not employed full-time and have to do other jobs as well. Consequently the number of people trained each year is relatively small and there is not much point in training many more because the jobs are not there for them to take up. The reason why the jobs ate not there is that the museums and galleries, public and private, do not have the funds to pay the salaries of large numbers of people; and this is why so many of the galleries which should be available to the public are, in fact, closed—because nobody is there to open them.
Sir Colin Anderson and his colleagues on this committee, who worked very hard, proposed an "Institution of Conservation" in London, in a building which would be well equipped and would serve not only the national collections but also the great private collections, such as those of Her Majesty the Queen, the National Trust, and others which are scattered up and down the land.
My Lords, conservation in this country is a remarkably recent thing. I think that only just over 30 paintings were treated in the National Gallery between 1900 and the time when the noble Lord, Lord Clark, took office as Director of the National Gallery. The noble Lord, Lord Clark, was one of the people who gave a great push to the nation on conservation. Up to then, unless I am mistaken—and the point which the noble Lord, Lord Hale, made is important—conservation was rather subsumed under the heading of restoration which, in certain stages, had gone almost to the point of repainting or imagining what the painter might have

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done originally had he been wishing to sell to certain rich clients in the late 19th century.
The number of people engaged in conservation, therefore, is exceedingly small. It is very difficult work. It requires craftsmanship, it requires a deep knowledge of the arts and, increasingly, a knowledge of the sciences. I particularly strongly support the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, in his plea for the development of technological research in the whole field of the preservation of art objects and books. Interestingly enough, because the Secretary of State has been most interested in that particular aspect, as was the noble Viscount, Mrs. Thatcher, who was trained as a chemist, took a particular interest in the work of the national museums in this particular field. As has been pointed out, the obligations for restoration are extraordinarily large. Rather than the couple of hundred people who are already working here, many thousands of people could be employed in conserving what we have already got. There really is an enormous difficulty.
When this report was published by the Gulbenkian Foundation in 1972, while their work was, broadly speaking, greatly welcomed, their recommendation for a large institute was not generally acceptable to the people who were chiefly concerned with the preservation of our national collections. What the Foundation did, wisely, I think, was to give some support to the valuable work being done by the Courtauld Institute in this field, and also to come to the help of the University of Cambridge, which had been fortunate enough to receive a handsome benefaction from Sir Hamilton Kerr, the late Member of Parliament for the City of Cambridge, who on his death left his beautiful house, South of the city, and half a million pounds to the university. Together with the grant made by the Gulbenkian Foundation, the university have now started, under the auspices of its magnificent museum, a very small, nevertheless potentially important, process of producing people who will be able to take part in the work of conservation.
In my view, looking at all the work done by the various committees and talking to people interested in this particular field, we need now a consistent view which
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goes right across the public sector (those galleries and museums which fall within the responsibility of my noble friend on the Front Bench and of my noble friend Lady Birk and other Ministers,) and also the private collections. I was glad to hear what the noble Lord, Lord Trevelyan, had to say about the generous intentions of the trustees of the British Museum in this respect who are going to play such an important part ultimately in helping generally to train people in this field. That is exceedingly sensible and helpful and I am sure that other noble Lords will be grateful for that news.
There are two levels of the problem. One is that the job of taking part in conservation is, on the whole, not very well paid and is not one which leads to great careers. I echo strongly the words of the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, in this particular field. It is something where in the long run we must look at some kind of upgrading of the salaries and conditions of work. It is interesting work; and people who are prepared to undertake interesting work often get very badly paid in consequence. It is also the kind of work which is ideally suited to people who work part-time, to people who have. perhaps, some disability and who want to work at home, and to people who are elderly and so on; for it requires time and skill but it does not require an eight hours' stint as does work in a factory.
The other problem is not just, I think, the question of paying the rate to those engaged in the work but the question of whether or not the nation as a whole can afford to pay for the conservation of the works of art we have in our possession. I must honestly say that in my view the country does not so much need more art objects, as to look after the ones that we have. I was particularly struck by what the noble Lord, Lord Hale, said about the problems of the provincial museums, echoing the words of the noble Lord, Lord Cottesloe. Candidly, it would be a pity if a lot of the objects likely to be exported as a result of various auctions that are to take place were exported, but we can hardly complain if that happens when we are not really looking after or displaying much of what we already have.
It would be very unfair indeed to the public service not to draw attention to how much is already being done. Most

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of your Lordships will have seen the great Montagnas at Hampton Court which have been so beautifully restored. Near where I live, Chiswick House is in the process of being magnificently restored by the Department of the Environment. The grounds are being restored to their original 18th century plan. It would greatly help if the citizens of Chiswick would give up taking dogs into those beautiful grounds. One place which excludes dogs is Kew Gardens, which is why, generally speaking, it is much nicer to walk in Kew Gardens rather than other parks. Kew Palace has been restored in a splendid way by the Department of the Environment. We can honestly say that the last 20-odd years have seen some of the most remarkable rehabilitation work that the country has ever seen. We should pay tribute to the people who have done the work and organised it under Governments of different complexions.
The real difficulty which faces any Government who are going to be responsible for this is that there is pressure to spend money on objects which we think are good, while, in general, we all want to cut public expenditure. On the whole, what we would argue for is a slight switch of emphasis to conserving what we have rather than acquiring too much more. Unless I am greatly mistaken that has, generally, been the policy of the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kings-bridge, and the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, in this particular respect.
If I may venture a slight way outside the terms of the Question which the noble Lord, Lord Cottesloe, asked, I would also like to draw the attention of the Minister to the fact that the two committees of the Gulbenkian Foundation I have had the privilege of chairing—the committee on training for drama, and the committee on training for music—not only do not propose any increase in public expenditure, but in one case propose a substantial reduction. I hope that that very welcome and unusual series of recommendations will commend the two reports to the noble Lord on the Front Bench.
7.23 p.m.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, I must apologise for not having put down my name to speak. I have told
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the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, and he kindly said that he did not mind my speaking. I intervene simply because my noble friend Lord Cottesloe was a member of a committee of which I was made chairman by my right honourable friend Mr. Geoffrey Rippon, who was then Secretary of State for the Department of the Environment. This committee bought pictures for British collections in Embassies, Legations, Ministries, Consulates, and so on. It was a Government collection for public purposes. I was very proud to serve in this office and my noble friend Lord Cottesloe was one of the more distinguished people on that committee.
I became interested in the way that what had been the Public Building and Works Department operated. One forgets that palaces like Hampton Court, where the Montagnas are on view in the Orangery, have been splendidly restored by what is now the Department of the Environment. This work has been going on the whole time. When in office, I also had the great honour on occasions to deputise and speak for the Minister of State for Scotland. The Department of Public Building and Works in Edinburgh (it is now in Argyll House, and owes half allegiance to the Secretary of State for the Environment and half allegiance to the Secretary of State for Scotland) runs a splendid late-16th/early-17th century building in South West Edinburgh, where it has 60 or 70 people repairing and lending works of art-everything in the charge of that Department; it may be a fresco on a wall, a painting on a ceiling or a Viking tomb.
This development started with the Scottish National Trust, but they found themselves unable financially to continue a few years ago. The Public Building and Works Department took that over. I should like to pay tribute to the Department for its work which has not been publicised. The work going on in the great banqueting hall at Stirling Castle is encouraging more stonemasons. This does not involve a collection, but nevertheless it is one of the more historic buildings in Scotland. That building is being restored and is the means of training more stonemasons.
This sub-department of the Scottish Office and the Department of the Environment is doing so much good. Those

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concerned do not say, "This is not within our permit"; they tackle nearly everything. I congratulate the Government on having such people and pay tribute to the Departments concerned for the work they are doing. The Department of the Environment has under its control many buildings which are not normally considered as part of public collections. This work is going on so well. The Montagnas at Hampton Court are perhaps the greatest example of what has been done. in Scotland there are many others. My Lords, I should like to apologise for intervening.
7.38 p.m.
The Earl of PERTH: My Lords, I, too, apologise for not having put down my name to speak. I will be brief. I thought it would be of use to your Lordships to know more about what is happening in Scotland. The noble Lord who has just sat down referred to the work done at Stenhouse—and very fine it is too. It extends to all types of objects, not only for public works but it also gives advice to private organisations. Last winter I was asked to chair a seminar which we had at Hopetoun House. Its terms of reference were to discuss a national conservation centre and the form which it should take. The interesting aspect was who was present at the seminar. We had all the various museums and galleries represented, some from Scotland and some from England. As secretary to the seminar we had a representative of the Scottish Civic Trust. There were also representatives from the Scottish Tourist Board, the Lothian Regional Council; local authorities were involved. There was the small business department of the Scottish Development Agency, the National Trust for Scotland, and so on.
The point I am trying to make is that for us in Scotland there is an awareness of all public bodies, which is not restricted to museums and galleries, that this question of conservation is one which affects many and is also something which might be described as a useful small business, a useful place of employment for all the various craftsmen about whom we have heard so much from the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, who himself did a great deal when he set up a Craftsmen's Advisory Committee in 1971.
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It is not for me to anticipate the outcome of the report which is being drawn up as a result of our seminar by two young ladies who were specially charged to do the research with an endowment from a private trust. But I think one point came out clearly from our discussions; namely, that one cannot isolate the public collections from the private ones. One cannot isolate the work done by public restorers from that done by the trade; nor should you, my Lords. There should be an interchange of experience and work. That is a vital point. It is my guess that one of the points which will be developed as a result of the study I have mentioned is the recognition that very often what is needed is a kind of information centre to which anybody can go to find out where they may have their particular object best preserved and who are the right type of craftsmen to do the work which is required. So, although we are deeply indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Cottesloe, for asking this Question and enabling us to talk about public collections, I do not think we should forget the inter-relationship between private and public, and we should do all that we can to encourage it on all sides.
7.42 p.m.
Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, when I first saw that this Question was down on the Order Paper, I wondered whether the noble Lord, Lord Cottesloe, was going to discuss the reorganisation of the House of Lords under the heading of "The Conservation of Objects in Public Collections"! There was also a moment during the speech by the noble Lord, Lord Hale, when I thought he said he was going to be kept in a cellar. Then I also remembered that the last Conservative Government passed a Bill which I believe covered the preservation of ancient wrecks, or something of that kind. Clearly, this has been a subject of some interest to us over the years.
My particular interest in the conservation of objects in public collections has been confined to 3,000 tons of iron sitting in a dock in Bristol, in the shape of the steamship "Great Britain". I also have to declare an interest, in that I sit on the Maritime Trust, which is interested in old ships. I was, of course, very grateful for

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the mention made by the noble Lord, Lord Cottesloe, to the matter of housing the piano museum in that splendid building, the Science Theatre, in Kent. Last year, the noble Lord, Lord WellsPestell, turned about as deaf an ear as I have ever heard the Government turn to the monstrous behaviour, as I would term it, of his Department and others, who have totally disregarded the wishes of the Salomons family, who gave the Theatre to the nation, and continued to use it for the training of cooks instead of for the preservation of music in this country. I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, could save the Department of the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, a little money if he could persuade him to allow the museum to be sent down there. It now seems that I have declared another interest I had no thought of when I started this afternoon.
As usual, we have produced the predictable number of experts in this House in a debate which I am sure has been very well worth while, even if this appears to be an inappropriate time for us to be discussing services which inevitably demand more money, when we have to spend so much of our time bewailing our impecunious plight as a nation and exhorting everybody except ourselves personally to tighten the belt. I think we can confidently predict it will not always be so, and indeed I have to say that some of us feel we could possibly accelerate the process towards recovery in this country if we could only get on with advancing the date of a General Election—but perhaps that is not the kind of point one should be making in this House at this hour of the night. Let me say that it in no way detracts from the personal regard we all have for the present Minister for the Arts who is to reply to this debate.
I believe that, in spite of our present financial constraints, we should not fall into the kind of Catch 22 situation which always seems to bedevil road construction for example. When money is scarce, all development stops. Then, when money becomes a little more available, there seems to be endless delay before anything can be done because of all the planning procedures we have to go through. So perhaps it will be useful for us at this time to get on with sorting out our priorities
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and making plans, in the hope that they will not be bedevilled by a total sense of unreality. And, of course, a tight money situation puts particular emphasis on the effective use of such money as is available.
I was very interested in talking to somebody in the National Trust the other day, who made the point that on occasion too much money has damaged almost as many works of art as too little. He put it this way, that many over-cleaned and restored paintings might perhaps have been better still left on the walls of the house of a banker or Peer. The point was made by the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, and it surely emphasises the need for proper training of conservators and the dissemination of the techniques which are presumably continually evolving and being improved. That is certainly true of the problem of ship preservation; and the point has been made a number of times this evening, notably by the noble Lord, Lord Trevelyan, and the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, of the need for a research unit, with particular reference to the need for chemical expertise.
I am happy to say that it was our Government which, under the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, in 1972 made a rapid advance in providing money for the Area Museum Councils. It was founded half by the Department of Education and Science, and half by the local authorities, and much of that money was specifically intended for conservation. Here, again, I thought it was interesting that the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, referred to Mrs. Thatcher's part in that. Perhaps that gives us a little reassurance for what might happen one day.
I find some difficulty about the word, "conservation", which is one of my "un-favourite" words because it is used by about four different groups of people in totally different connections. For example, to an oil man it means something totally different from what it means to an environmentalist. My understanding of what we are talking about here is that it is mainly the consolidation of what is there. Possibly in the case of paintings we are talking about restoration, but I believe that current thinking is very frequently not in favour of over-restoration of archaeological and other objects. Here, too, perhaps one could refer to the

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curious anomaly that I believe was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Trevelyan, that the Department of the Environment backs the excavation, but neither it nor the Department of Education and Science gives equivalent backing to the preservation of the objects once they have been found. So perhaps I may ask the Minister: could he dig something out of his fellow Department in this connection?
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: With great respect, my Lords, may I ask whether my noble friend Lord Strathcona heard my noble friend Lord Perth or myself say that at Stenhouse a lot of people are completely occupied in restoring things like Viking tombs which have been found, and not in just looking for them?
Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, I am not going to engage in an argument with my noble friend, and of course I am delighted to hear that; but it was not the information which I was given when I was preparing for this debate. It will be interesting if the Minister can put us right as to exactly what is the situation. What has been said time and again this evening is that the greatest lack still lies in proper training facilities. I believe that the Institute of Archaeology takes, principally, students from abroad. I have also heard an alarming report that there is a very severe brain drain to Canada of those few conservationists who are being trained in this country. This points up the need that was referred to by several noble Lords, to make sure that if there is a training course there are adequately paid jobs waiting for the people whom you train; otherwise, you will not get the entry, and if you do get the entry then, once they have trained, they will all go off to work somewhere else. Perhaps the answer lies principally in the encouragement of the national museums to help with training for the Provinces.
It was encouraging to hear what the noble Lord, Lord Trevelyan, said about What is going on in the British Museum; he mentioned that many experienced conservationists are being produced. But the question is: Will these conservationists be made available to the Provinces and, indeed, to other outside organisations; and, again, as the noble Earl, Lord Perth,
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said, to the private collections which, as the noble Lord, Lord Cottesloe, mentioned, are available to the public and to that extent can be considered public collections so far as this argument is concerned? But this also raises something which I know used to worry the Arts Council very much in the days of the noble Lord, Lord Goodman; that is, the strong centripetal force which we have in all these areas—everything tends to come to London.
I hear that those who have been trained in Gateshead all come to London; and one of the great problems, unquestionably, is to try to fan out some of the expertise and make sure that it ends up in the Provinces. I do not believe that the problem is very serious for the great central national collections, in the way that it is for the smaller collections and museums out in the Provinces. It is a w hole philosophical area on which I will not expand, because I think that the point is generally accepted. May I ask the noble Lord one specific question: Am I right in understanding that it is not considered that this kind of training is suitable to give under the job creation scheme? If that is so, can he tell us why, because it seems rather a pity. In a modest way, the job creation scheme has been one of the recent success stories for which the Government should be given proper credit.
There is one other point which puts me in some difficulty, as I shall explain. There seems to be something of a disparity between the money made available through the Arts Council, and the money made available through the Department of Education and Science to the area museum councils. For example, I gather that in the North-West something like 15 times as much money is being distributed through the Arts Council as is being distributed through the area museum council grants.
The MINISTER of STATE, DEPARTMENT of EDUCATION and SCIENCE (Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge): My Lords, may I deal with this question now? The sum of approximately £770,000 which goes to the area museums is paid by the Standing Commission, and it is their decision as to where they think it can best be used. There is no connection at all with the Arts Council.
Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, I suppose that the connection ultimately comes back to the Department of Education and Science, which decides how much the Arts Council and the area museum councils will get. Is that not true?
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: Yes, my Lords.
Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL: But in any case, my Lords, as an erstwhile chairman of an arts festival, it ill becomes me to suggest that the under-nourished arts should be starved more than they are. However, it seems fair to make the point that there appears to be something of a disparity in the grants being made to the rather evanescent performing arts, whereas we must remember that we are dealing with the irreversible nature of the decay of works of arts and of archaeologial objects and treasures.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt again, but there is some confusion here. The responsibility for all these non-national museums is local authority or private, so there is no question of the Department of Education and Science dealing with them direct. All that the Department of Education and Science does, which is quite new and has multiplied by about seven times in the past four or five years, is to give some money to the Standing Commission to use where they like. But this is at least half a local authority problem.
Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, that goes some way to clearing up a certain amount of confusion in my mind. I am fully aware that if you are giving this much to the performing arts through the Arts Council, there is obviously a pressing case to do the same thing through the Standing Commission and the area museum grants for the other activities. But the point I am making is that we are dealing with an irreversible process, in many cases, as the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, said. Once an object deteriorates beyond a certain point, then very often much of its interest and value cannot be recovered. Furthermore, to try to catch up again is a much more
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expensive operation than preventing it happening in the first place. It is genuinely a case of saying that prevention is better than cure. We should be in the business of prophylaxis. But, of course, the effort is very tiny, and I think that that merely tends to emphasise how great a value we can obtain by comparatively modest injections of money in this area.
One further and final point is that lively museums and collections, where cherished objects are imaginatively displayed, are subject to increasing public interest and esteem and they can, indeed, be made to pay. Also, as the noble Earl, Lord Perth, said, there is a good spin-off in terms of the demand for the craftsmanship which we create. I believe that this is a good investment, as well as an act of faith and a demonstration of our belief in the future, and that it would be showing a sense of responsibility towards those who come after us. Therefore, I hope that the noble Lord will be able to tell us that some of our aspirations are not daydreams, and that we can usefully be employed in setting out guidelines for the more prosperous years which we hope are not too far away.
8 p.m.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: My Lords, I am very pleased with the course this debate has taken. I hoped that we would focus public attention, in so far as anything said in this House is respected by the public, on the difficulties which confront the country relating to conservation. I wanted the difficulties to be clearly stated. I do not have a great deal of comfort to give, but I think I have some. After spending about 13 months in this position and paying between 35 and 40 visits to places outside London, I have become aware that there are very serious problems. However, I must say—and I know that the noble Lord, Lord Cottesloe, will not mind my saying so—that the impression I have gained from these tours is very different from that which he gave to your Lordships' House. There are great problems and disappointments, but I have been enormously struck by the quality of objects, the skill of display, the dedication of the people concerned in the museums and galleries and the excitement which is generated among them by the treasures which they have. Quite honestly, if we

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allow the noble Lord's picture to stand, including some adjectives which I rather wish he had not used, we get a very false impression. This is not to say that there are not very serious worries. There are, and this is why I was so pleased to have the subject ventilated.
The noble Lord, and other noble Lords —it is not an absolutely unknown precedent here—have spoken about a number of matters other than conservation. I want to speak about conservation, so I shall deal only very briefly and peremptorily with the points which were made, most of which were made by the noble Lord, Lord Cottesloe, in his most interesting opening speech. The noble Lord spent 14 out of his 18 minutes on the capital programme, a matter which I have not come here prepared to discuss. It is absolutely no use discussing the capital programme at the moment. However keen anybody in this House may be to take off the brake, it is not coming off at the moment and it is probably not coming off for several months, if then. Therefore, it is not very helpful to say too much in defence of what has been stopped.
There are one or two pieces of information which I can give the noble Lord. The Burrell Gallery is nothing to do with me; it is to do with my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Scotland. I am informed that he has offered the Glasgow City District Council a grant of up to half the net cost of the proposed gallery. The City District Council have been asked to reply by 30th June and they are now considering the matter, in consultation with the Strathclyde Region. Discussions on various aspects of the project are taking place between officials of the Scottish Office and the Glasgow City District Council. Therefore, whether it is 9, 10 or 11 miles away for which they are planning it is not a dead duck, as so many projects are.
Turning to the National Theatre Museum, I announced in this House that the museum would go ahead in the basement of the Flower Market at Covent Garden as soon as designs were complete. The money required from the various people concerned, including my own Department, is now available, and, unless
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anything goes wrong, the National Theatre Museum should go ahead. When I went around the National Railway Museum a couple of days ago I was pleased to find that they have bought a very large extension, which it will take them a couple of years to use properly. This was very encouraging. The Musical Instruments Museum is a private collection belonging to a private individual. Although I know a certain amount about it, and there have been difficulties, I am not going to say that this private individual has or has not been properly treated by somebody who is in no way connected with me. It is not a matter about which I should be asked to answer in today's debate.
The National Portrait Gallery and the Tate Gallery are different matters. The Tate extension is "on", but undated. The National Portrait Gallery is uncertain as yet as to exactly what it wants to do. When the National Portrait Gallery is certain, it does not mean that it will get the money to do what it wants to do immediately. It means that a plan will then be accepted, and in due course it will get the money. However, as the noble Lord knows, there are two plans and there is some doubt as to which will be accepted. I have very clear views about it, but I shall not disclose to the House which plan I think ought to be accepted.
I cannot help my noble friend Lord Hale very much about Oldham. It is not one of the places that I visited. However. I shall certainly do so and make the most intense inquiries about it. I was glad that my noble friend referred to Dulwich. I suppose that that Soane building is one of the most beautiful in London. Indeed, it is one of the most perfect galleries to be found anywhere. It is a private gallery and its chairman and trustees are perfectly prepared to discuss anything, but it is more difficult to tell them anything than it is a local district council. I cannot say more than that! They are doing what they think they ought to do. Their suggestion of making certain sales is before the Charity Commissioners, and I do not know what the result will be. However, it is a situation which it is very difficult for any Minister to interfere with.
I think we were all fascinated by the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Trevelyan. It was tremendously reassuring

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—not that I needed to be reassured, but other noble Lords will be reassured—to hear how well our major institutions are being run, despite the difficulties. I am particularly pleased about two matters. I am pleased, first, by the noble Lord's modest—not refutation but feeling that we should not accept the whole of the 1974 report as absolute gospel; namely, the report of the United Kingdom group of the International Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works. Many people in the museum world were very annoyed about the report. Also, it is three years old and many things like Whittlesford and Courtauld have happened since then. I am all for making a case. On the other hand, I think that one noble Lord overmade that case. Secondly, I am delighted with the promise made by the noble Lord, Lord Trevelyan—perhaps it was not quite a promise but the noble Lord, Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal, referred to it—that in due course he may be able to train conservators for outside as well as inside his institution.
The question of books, about which the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, spoke, is absolutely terrifying. It is so large. The suggestion of doing work at home seems to me to be absolutely sound. If there is any way in which I can help or get my colleagues in the Department of Employment to help, under the aegis of the British Library, we shall he absolutely delighted to do so.
I should like to point out two matters about which I do not suppose noble Lords know. First, an admirable small bindery is attached to the Exeter Public Library. It is doing really beautiful work and is getting ready to accept orders from London, if necessary! Secondly—this is only a very small matter, but it will interest the noble Lord because it is supported by the Crafts Advisory Centre—the late Dick Crossman's widow is starting a binding system down at his farm, which I am going to open in about a fortnight's time. It is very interesting. Things are happening.
Lord SANDYS: My Lords, however welcome all these matters are, my noble friend Lord Eccles referred especially to the situation in which the self-employed find themselves. Any pressure which the
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noble Lord could bring to bear on the Treasury regarding the self-employed would be particularly welcome.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: My Lords, I have said that if the noble Viscount likes to consult me I will do what I can to help. My pressures on the Treasury are not always very effective, but they are easily available.
The noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, praised us, which is always nice, and so did the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, about what has been done; and I think Chiswick, Osterley, Kew, Somerset House, Temple Newsom—which I saw the other day, done not by us but in Leeds — Hampton Court and the rest of it is something which again does not ring absolutely the same note as the noble Lord's opening speech. A good deal has been extremely well done and some of it is brand new. I think we should remember that. The noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, and the noble Earl, Lord Perth, both said how splendid is the situation in Scotland and I am very glad to hear it. That is not my responsibility so I can rejoice with your Lordships.
The noble Lord, Lord Strathcona, said one thing which I think no longer applies, namely, that as many objects are spoilt by too much money as by too little. This has been true, but I do not think it is now. I believe there is enough information easily available about how to do things properly to prevent that.
With regard to job creation, I am informed that trainees in conservation would not normally be eligible for assistance under the job creation programme, as the object is to assist employers to create new jobs and not to provide support for trainees or facilities for training. It is expected that persons taking up the newly created jobs will have sufficient skills or experience to carry them out with a minimum of training. But I must confess that, having been round the country, I have seen quite a number of job creation people working in museums. At the Railway Museum the other day, they had a group clearing an area, and I should have thought that a little deft work could produce a good deal of training as well. This is something

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which might be worth taking up, to see whether or not it could be extended; but of course job creation is not really concerned with training.
So much for the various points raised. There are a number of things I want to say and I will say them as quickly as I can. I want to begin by saying that conservation is not about finding or collecting or restoring; nor is it about displaying, hanging or even cataloguing. It is concerned with the prevention of deterioration in objects which have been found and collected so that they can be catalogued and displayed. It involves many different techniques for the many categories of objects involved. This point has not been brought out this evening. Modern science has helped to make some of these techniques very complicated indeed: easel paintings, watercolours, prints, statuary, sculpture, textiles, ceramics, woodwork, metalwork, books, papers, manuscripts, musical instruments, clocks, industrial and agricultural machinery, the findings of archaeology and, in a different category, of marine archaeology. The list really is almost endless and each category requires a different technique. So we are speaking about a very elaborate and difficult subject.
Lord TREVELYAN: My Lords, I hope the noble Lord will remember that I spoke to him about the rationalisation of conservation in the British Museum on precisely those lines, by specific materials.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: My Lords, I do remember and I am most grateful for the reminder. But as the field of human endeavour and knowledge extends, so will the list of objects to be conserved extend and new techniques will be required. For example, the Science Museum is now faced with the problem of conserving the new alloys and metals used in thin sheets in various space applications —rockets, satellites and so on. This is a new, difficult and entirely different area from what has been going on before in metal preservation. But human curiosity continues to find, to unearth, to collect and to deposit, by sale or by gift, its treasure trove with museums for safe keeping.
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In this debate we are being asked to estimate to what extent our arrangements for carrying out these tasks are adequate. I suppose the difficulties really are twofold, and this has been brought out in the debate. Many museums and galleries have a vast backlog of material awaiting treatment and this is coupled with a shortage of trained conservators. What ought we to do about this? The Government's immediate responsibilities are to the national museums and galleries. So far as these institutions are concerned, it has been Government policy over a number of years to give priority to meeting their needs for the conservation of their collections and for their security. In the last financial year, out of a total Government expenditure of £18 million on the national institutions more than 5 per cent., or £900,000 was being spent by those institutions.
A recent survey by the Museums Association has shown that in 1975 about 5 per cent. of the local museum salaries bill went to conservators. This sounds not very different from the national figure; but is it enough—not in percentage, but in absolute terms? What may be adequate for the national institutions, which in general have kept up their expenditure through the years, may not be adequate for other institutions, where in some cases very serious backlogs have accumulated. I think we must take a long look at this whole question. It is not at all certain that the owners, whether private—and, after all, I suppose the greatest part of the national heritage in this country is still privately owned—or local authority, or university or Government directed, or any of us are paying enough attention to this or spending enough money on it. The difficulty is to provide the money. But having done so, it is also very difficult to find the highly skilled conservators. That is why such things as the noble Lord, Lord Trevelyan, has told us as regards what he is doing in the British Museum, are so encouraging. My noble friend Lord Vaizey referred to Whittlesford and the Courtauld Institute, and I believe to Gateshead; but there are a good many other university courses and such things, although these are the most important ones. However, we have to be very careful not to train a lot of people when there is no money to employ them. This is a double problem.

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At the moment my feeling is that the training of experts in the fine arts—that is to say, in easel pictures and possibly even in watercolours—is adequate for the number of posts that this nation is going to be able to afford for the moment, which is not to say that it ought not to be able to afford more, and that is something. In some of the other disciplines, and particularly archaeology, that is not the case and we want to do more. We asked 15 institutions to look at this. The answer came back that there was a shortage in ideal conditions of something like 50 posts in all disciplines over the 15 institutions, but particularly in archaeology. To show how difficult it is to make sense here, the list included nine additional posts in archaeology alone at one museum where there is no space for them at present even if their salaries could be paid.
So these calculations are very difficult. In fact, for a long time I have been convinced that the way to meet the present needs for training is to develop an employer-based system, and I think in general that that has been the verdict of noble Lords who have spoken today. This means that the prospective employers—that is, the public collections—must have a hand in planning the training and education involved, and there must be an arrangement under which the training part of the course is carried out in close collaboration with the collections. There is a wide variety of ways in which this can be done. Clearly, a field exists for the training of those who are already in employment by secondment, by day release, by leisure-time courses, or by private study. Then there is the arrangement arrived at between an educational institution and the collection, or a professional body and the collection, to provide a course of education and training jointly. There are "sandwiches" of education and training of many kinds.
I think this is developing and it has developed a good deal since the report which the noble Lord particularly quoted was made. But we have all the time to have regard to the capacity of the public collections as a whole to provide subsequent employment. We have already seen that courses for museum curators can produce candidates in excess of the numbers likely to gain employment here. It is all too easy for training and educa
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tional institutions to diverge from what the employing organisations think is needed. We have to match the supply to the demand both in terms of quality and of quantity.
If I may turn from this question of training, I referred earlier to the Government's part in financing help to the local collections. It has been possible to substantially increase help for the conservation of local collections through the services of the area museum councils, which I spoke about earlier. Their resources in England have risen from £241,000 in 1973–4 to an estimated £1.8 million in the current year, one-half of which is paid for by Government grants; the rest is put up by local authorities. The estimated expenditure by the councils on conservation in 1976–77 was £600,000. This is a notable contribution to the care of the objects themselves and to raising standards generally. The area councils also make a significant contribution to the training of conservators through joint arrangements whereby the cost of training is shared with local museums or local authorities.
I have drawn the attention of interested bodies to the report by the Crafts Advisory Committee, which was not one of the reports mentioned by other noble Lords but which is an extremely interesting one; we have circulated it and drawn the attention of interested bodies to it. The Crafts Advisory Committee is very active in this field. Grants to £3,000 per annum for each of two years towards the setting up of pilot schemes for conservation training in local museums have been made to Brighton and Lincoln to encourage particular craft conservation skills. The Committee also assists conservation activities generally over a wide field. Notable examples are £16,000 towards the equipment of the textile conservation centre at Hampton Court run by Karen Finch, which most noble Lords will have visited, and other significant amounts towards several textile seminars; workshop training grants towards a wide variety of activities in the conservation of textiles, books and bindings, clocks, music boxes and musical instruments, et cetera. In addition, a new textile conservation workshop, which seemed to me quite excellent, has recently been opened as part of the museum building programme in converted

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premises belonging to the V and A at Osterley. Again, if noble Lords have not seen it, it is well worth looking at. So there is a good deal going on here.
I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Strathcona, who raised the question about ways in which more help can be given towards the conservation of archaeological finds, the suggestion being, not entirely inaccurate, that money is provided for digging up the material and then not enough money is provided for keeping it safe. The Department of the Environment is responsible for digging it up, and, broadly, for stabilising the condition of the material uncovered so that it can be accurately reported on. I am fully aware of the need to conserve objects brought to light in this way. In fact, a couple of days ago in York I saw those digging on the Viking site there, and I saw the level of conservation undertaken so that what they found could be passed on. This is happening to some extent. We are aware of the problem and my Department is having discussions with the Department of the Environment to see whether we cannot work out something to bring together resources available to the two of us or to that department and the area museum councils to whom some of the material was going with a view to conservation of these objects. It is early days, but we are working along those lines.
My Lords, the Government have been criticised in the past for not encouraging a centralised institute for conservation, but I think every noble Lord—certainly the noble Lord, Lord Trevelyan, and the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey—who has spoken, has concluded that the recommendation in the Gulbenkian Report is not suitable to our conditions, and that the way we are going ahead now is probably the better way. We agree with my noble friend that concentration of the very varied arrangements needed for conservation is not the best course for us to pursue. We have a decentralised system, where conservation is carried out, as we think it should be, under the control of those who are responsible for our great collections. It would make no sense to take the experts away from those collections and set them up, at some consider-
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able cost, in a new institution. In fact, the money which the Gulbenkian Foundation were prepared to give to a new institution has been admirably spent with the Courtauld and at Whittlesford.
We believe that the present dispersed arrangements at the national institutions are right and that, so far as our restricted resources permit, we must go on giving priority to the present arrangements. We welcome similar arrangements made for local and private collections and believe that all other owners of works of art should ask themselves whether they are giving conservation the priority it deserves. This is in their own interests as much as the nation's; the value of a work of art must depend on the extent to which, and the skill with which, it has been conserved. We have shown the way with our own collections and others should follow.
My Lords, I am only nervous that what I have said may sound a little complacent. I can assure your Lordships that neither I, nor my Department, nor my noble friend Lady Birk and her Department, are at all complacent. We are fully aware of the very serious problems which confront us and we are quite determined to make some progress in dealing with them. I think that what I have said shows that rather more than nothing has been done since that report in 1974. I repeat my gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Cottesloe, for raising this matter tonight.
Lord COTTESLOE: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, may I thank him very much for the reply that he has given to a number of well-known key questions. I think we all appreciate the difficulties of this subject from the point of view of the noble Lord and his Department, and we appreciate the work that he is doing. May I also say that, if he feels that I used language that was too strong at times, I was not speaking in any way as a reflection on the enthusiasm and ability of individuals concerned or of the quality of the work that they do, for which I have the highest admiration. I was speaking of quantity rather than quality. Perhaps I may also thank all noble Lords who have taken part in what I think has been a very useful discussion of a subject on which public attention is perhaps not sufficiently focussed.