Lords Sitting of 11 May 1977

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

NAVAL PERSONNEL: TAXATION
Baroness VICKERS: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will explain why members of the Royal Navy who work overseas for more than 30 days in a year will not receive tax relief whereas merchant seamen and those manning the Royal Fleet Auxiliary tankers and supply ships who do so will receive tax relief.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, members of the Royal Navy, like other Crown servants, are treated for tax purposes as performing their duties in the United Kingdom wherever they are serving and cannot therefore qualify for tax relief on overseas earnings. Unlike merchant seamen and those manning Royal Fleet Auxiliary vessels, they are entitled to tax-free allowances which represent compensation for the extra cost of having to live outside the United Kingdom.
Baroness VICKERS: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether he will look into this matter again? Does he not consider it rather unfair that the crews of the Admiralty Fleet Auxiliary tankers, civil servants overseas and British merchant seamen should get this credit, which amounts to a great deal of money? For example, merchant seamen have tax relief of between £500 and £1,000 a year; even a cadet in the merchant service gets £200. It is expected, when the Navy goes overseas, that they will visit ports, entertain people and mix with them. At the moment they cannot afford to do this. I understand that only the captain gets a very small entertainment allowance.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, although an apparent unfairness exists, and while it is true that the Merchant Navy has benefited very substantially from this concession, the position is not completely one-sided. The situation of serving soldiers, like other civil servants, brings substantial advantages. Although they have been asked, they are not willing to exchange those advantages for the alternative now offered to those serving in the Royal Fleet Auxiliary tankers.
Lord MOTTISTONE: My Lords, have they been asked whether they would like to have this privilege? If so, what form did the offer take? This is comparatively new. Would the Government look at the situation much more closely and examine whether they are being wholly fair to the servants of the Crown who are not civil servants but serving officers and men?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, I understand that consultations took place prior to the announcement of this new tax concession. It must be remembered that one of the advantages that servants of the Crown possess is that they are not taxed abroad. They receive substantial tax-free foreign service allowances. In a sense, these allowances perform the same purpose as the rebates that are given to merchant seamen.
Lord LEATHERLAND: My Lords, if there is any suggestion of giving sailors, members of the Fleet, a tax rebate because they spend 30 days overseas, will the noble Lord make this scheme retroactive, so that those of us who spent four years overseas in the First World War can put in an application for a tax rebate?
Lord HARMAR-NICHOLLS: My Lords, the noble Lord said that, on the face of it, an apparent unfairness exists. If, as he said later, consultations took place, and those concerned chose not to take up this offer as an alternative, then no apparent unfairness exists. What consultations took place? This is in order to remove the feeling that there was unfairness.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, there were the usual consultations that take place on these occasions.

RUDOLPH HESS
2.42 p.m.
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNESIDE: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what was the result of the recent medical examination of Rudolph Hess and whether further consideration will now be given to his release from Spandau.
The MINISTER of STATE, FOREIGN and COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (Lord Goronwy-Roberts): My Lords, it is not, I am afraid, possible for me to reveal the medical findings, which are confidential. I can, however, assure the noble Baroness that Hess's condition does not at present give cause for concern. The Joint Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Mr. Judd, summoned the Soviet Ambassador on 29th April to ask him to persuade the Soviet Government to agree to Hess's immediate release. The French and United States Governments have recently acted similarly. We await the Soviet response to these latest approaches.
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNESIDE: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for a little encouragement in this matter, may I ask him whether he really thinks that the representations that we make are as firm as they could be? Could we have the representations that we make published in order that it may be absolutely certain that we are supporting —whatever the Russians may say—the release of this old and very ill man?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I can assure the House that our representations are firm and persistent. Of course we must act in concert with our fellow signatories of the Quadripartite Agreement. As to further publicity on what is being done, that is well worth considering; but I would repeat that we act as far as possible in concert with our fellow signatories, the French and the Americans.
Baroness EMMET of AMBERLEY: My Lords, may I ask whether consideration might be given to release on parole
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rather than complete release, to which the Russians would never agree? Would the noble Lord not agree that release on parole might be possible and that we should pursue that side rather than the other?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, we certainly include that possibility in our representations on this matter. We could not, of course, undertake unilateral action in this matter. That would be seen, rightly I think, as an infringement of the Four-Power Agreement.
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNESIDE: My Lords, would not the noble Lord agree that sometimes it might be a good thing to say to the Russians: "If you are not going to help to do what we think is right in this case, we shall oppose you on other matters: tit for tat"?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I can only reply that we shall certainly take seriously the advice given by the noble Baroness.
Baroness ELLES: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether any consideration has been given to the putting of pressure on the Russians to release Hess under the general terms of the Belgrade Meeting in June? Surely that would be a humane act which would be welcomed by all parts of the world, and it might put the Russians in a more favourable perspective on that occasion.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: That, my Lords, is a possible avenue of approach. Of course, there is nothing specifically related to this case in the Final Act; but no possibility of acting in a humane way in regard to this case will be overlooked by Her Majesty's Government.
Lord MONSON: My Lords, could the noble Lord say whether there is any truth in the theory that the real reason why the Russians do not want to release Hess is that he is one of the few surviving individuals to possess embarrassing inside information—possibly about the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact—which the Russians do not wish to be revealed to the world at large?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I think it would be inadvisable for

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me to speculate upon Russian motivation beyond what I have already said to the House as to their attitude.

NAMIBIA: SECURITY COUNCIL NOTE
2.45 p.m.
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether the five Western members of the United Nations Security Council (the United Kingdom, the United States of America, France, West Germany and Canada) have presented a joint note to the Prime Minister of the Republic of South Africa stating their view on the constitutional future of Namibia (South West Africa), and if so, what were the contents of the note.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, the Five Western members of the Security Council delivered a joint démarche on Namibia to the South African Prime Minister on 7th April. The text of this démarche remains confidential, but in general it concentrated on the urgent need to fulfil the requirements for an early and peaceful settlement which will lead to independence for Namibia on a basis which will meet international acceptance.
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, did the note include the proposal that there should be a general election in Namibia before an interim Government is established, with the United Nations given power to supervise? Also, in view of the report of the discussion in Namibia yesterday, is there not now the hope of a solution being reached along those lines?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I would join with my noble friend in the hope expressed towards the end of his supplementary. As to the first part, the requirements laid down in the Security Council Resolution 385 of January 1976 were adopted unanimously. We acted on that basis. They include, as my noble friend reminds us, territory-wide free elections to be carried out under international supervision in which all
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political Parties, including the South-West Africa Peoples Organisation (SWAPO), can participate.

ENVIRONMENTAL AND ENERGY POLICY
2.47 p.m.
Lord HYLTON: 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 when and how they intend to respond to the questions raised in the Sixth Report of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution and the letter from Justice published in The Times on 31st March 1977, having regard in particular to the new policy about plutonium announced by the President of the United States of America on 7th April 1977.
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, the Royal Commission's report raises issues of major national importance on which the Government will give their views as quickly as possible, in the form which then seems most appropriate. A number of subjects raised in the report have international dimensions, and the United Kingdom is continuing to participate positively and constructively in the discussion of such subjects, including those stemming from President Carter's announcement.
Lord HYLTON: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for what she has said. Could she say to what extent the Government understand and appreciate the fears, which are widespread in the country, that irreversible decisions may soon be taken about atomic power? Do the Government realise the extent of the concern felt in certain parts of the United Kingdom, such as the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, which are not directly represented in another place?
Baroness STEDMAN: Yes, my Lords; we realise the extent of those fears, and I am quite sure that when the report is published it will be realised that they have been taken into consideration.
Lord GARDINER: My Lords, is it not a fact that, as stated in the letter to The Times, to which reference was made in the Question the police of the Atomic Energy Authority are armed with machine guns, that they have wide powers of search and that they are not responsible to Parliament or to any Government Department? Does that not raise real questions about civil liberties?
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, the police are special constables who are duly appointed under the Special Constables Act 1923. In the Atomic Energy Authority (Special Constables) Act which was approved by this House in the last Session, there were specific provisions to place special constables in the same position as regular police in relation to the possession and use of firearms, and to allow them to operate more than 15 miles from their station. These police officers are responsible to the Authority, and the Authority answers in Parliament through my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Energy.
Lord AVEBURY: My Lords, is the Minister aware that to say that the Government will respond as quickly as possible to the important recommendations of the Flowers Report is not good enough—bearing in mind that your Lordships' House debated that report before Christmas and there has been plenty of opportunity for the Government to look into these matters? In response to President Carter's initiative, cannot the Government at least request BNFL to withdraw the application which they have made for reprocessing nuclear oxide fuels at Windscale?
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, our report will be published. I cannot say that it will be published in advance of the Windscale inquiry, but it will be published and I cannot commit the Government until that report is available.
Lord WYNNE-JONES: My Lords, will Her Majesty's Government bear in mind that it is very much safer to have the processing of fuel carried out in one or two places under international control than to have proliferation around the world such as has been started in other countries not adhering to the nonproliferation treaty?
Baroness STEDMAN: Yes, my Lords; we agree with my noble friend, and the Government share President Carter's concern about the importance of preventing the spread of nuclear weapons, while enabling civil nuclear power to play its part in meeting world energy needs. We have played an active and constructive part in international discussion; on these matters. We shall continue to do so, and we are re-examining British nonproliferation policy in a way that will give weight to non-proliferation considerations, as well as to commercial considerations.
Lord SANDHURST: My Lords, for those of us who live in the Channel Islands, is there a possibility in the near future of any reassurance on the subject of the large development taking place at Cap de la Hague? We are very much afraid of pollution from both airborne and seaborne sources, and Cap de la Hague is only 15 miles from Alderney.
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, that is a more specific question. I do not have the answer with me, but I will obtain some information and will advise the noble Lord in writing.

RHODESIA
Baroness LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOE: My Lords, with the leave of the House, at a convenient moment after 3.30 p.m. my noble friend Lord Goronwy-Roberts will make a Statement on Rhodesia.

FURTHER EDUCATION AND THE VENABLES REPORT
2.52 p.m.
Baroness LEE of ASHERIDGE Baroness LEE of ASHERIDGE rose to call attention to the present state of further education with special reference to the Venables Report; and to move for Papers. The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I have brought with me not only the final official report of the Venables Committee, but also an interim report which was published almost a year earlier. I have done so, because I am most anxious that the type of misunderstanding which surrounded a Venables Report almost 10 years ago, when the planning

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committee of the Open University was set up, should not be repeated on this occasion. Anyone who looks at the interim report will find the statement that was sent out to the other universities, technical colleges, WEAs, extra-murals and the rest, asking for their views and advice on the proposals in this report on continuing education.
To begin with, I should like to get rid of any idea that the present Venables Report is a bit of empire building on the part of an Open University seeking to belittle or replace the marvellous work that has been done by so many people over the wide field of adult education. That is not its purpose. Indeed, the report clearly states that none of its present funds, which of course are used to promote graduate, post-graduate and research studies, could possibly be diverted to financing continuing education on a lower level. I hope that the Department of Education and Science and the whole educational establishment will consider and accept this Venables Report, which lays down the ground plan for an open college to follow the Open University. It is not even asked that the Open University should do this work itself. It is simply seeking to give the benefit of its experience gained during the last eight years in the techniques of mass communication to those who are working on a less demanding level.
I should also like to clear up another misunderstanding. Many of my own Labour and trade union colleagues were resentful about 10 years ago, because they said "What nonsense this is! Why put the cart before the horse? Why establish a university, when there is a crying need for more money to be given to adult education, to the extra-murals and technical colleges?" I want to say to them, quite frankly: first, that I was not asked to take over the work of other Ministers who were dealing with adult education; and, secondly, that from my experience in dealing with senior civil servants, and with my own senior colleagues, I was quite certain that there could be no real breakthrough if I had surrendered to the very considerable pressures that I was under to lower my standards and abandon the concept of an independent university. I was driven to this conclusion, because we are all the
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prisoners of our early education, our early home life and our early schooling, and there was not the slightest sympathy among senior officials in the Treasury or in the Department of Education and Science for the concept of an Open University—with one wonderful exception.
Almost the only person I did not quote at that time, whom I wanted to involve in the experiment with the Open University, was Sir William Armstrong—as he then was, now Lord Armstrong. Of his own accord, he came along to Belgrave Square, where we had got ourselves into respectable accommodation away from the Curzon Street slum where the Department of Education and Science was then functioning, because he wanted to know whether it might be possible to have some courses related to the work of the Civil Service. It may have been because of his early Salvation Army beginnings—I do not know. But he helped me to shepherd five Parmanent Secretaries around the hospitable dining table of the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, in order that, in that grey twilight, they might appreciate that we were serious people. The main function of that dinner was to try to ensure that as much as possible of the profits, which I was sure would one day be made both at home and abroad from the sale of technical equipment, books and the rest, should go to the University or the Treasury, and only a minimum should go into private pockets. But on the educational side, I must also make an exception of Mr. Ted Short, as he then was, now a Member of your Lordships' House. It may be that he was influenced by the fact that he had been a secondary schoolmaster, and had got his degree by the long and lonely way of the London University external course.
It is very important at this stage that there should not be any renewal of the old resentments between the adult education establishment and the Open University. By its Charter, the Open University is asked not only to give degree courses, but also to help in a wider sense. If I may respectfully ask your Lordships to read this Venables Report and to come to your decisions on what it actually says, not on secondhand or third-hand reports that you may have of what it is supposed to be saying, I hope that you will agree with me that

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we can now make a dramatic advance in continuing education, which has always been called the Cinderella of the education world. Those of us who have any knowledge of the matter know of the inferior accommodation, the badly-paid staff and the heroic work which has been done. I have just had a note from the noble Lord, Lord Fulton, who says that he will be here for a short time but will have to leave, reminding me that he was a member of the original Tawney Committee on Adult Education.
Nobody is trying to take away from dedicated men and women the credit which is their clue. However, the time comes, whether you are dealing with Oxbridge, the red brick universities or with other kinds of adult education, when we have to summon up enough courage and imagination to take a fresh look at what is happening. If noble Lords study the membership of the present Venables Committee on Further Education, they will see that it has upon it representatives from the trade union side, industry and commercial colleges. It is not, in any sense, a group only of Open University people.
I should like to clear up another misunderstanding. The original Venables Committee had upon it representatives from areas of activity far outside those covered by the conventional universities. I was told that I had packed the committee with Vice-Chancellors. It was very useful having Lord Annan, Lord Fulton, and Lord Briggs upon it, as well as a few more of that kind. It was very useful indeed to have the help of some of the leading teachers and administrators in the older universities on the original planning committee of the Open University. But in addition, Sir William Alexander, as he then was, now a Member of your Lordships' House, very gallantly accepted my invitation to be a member of the planning committee, and later on he helped us in many ways. Dr. Roy Shaw, who is now Secretary General of the Arts Council, was the Professor of Adult Education at Keele University. He did a wonderful job. Most of his colleagues were scared stiff, but he and I went around the country speaking to ice cold meetings of university people. They thought that the Open University was going to take away their jobs. Now, of course, we are the greatest of friends. They have dis-
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covered that the Open University needed them and that it has enlarged their opportunities. Indeed, one cannot operate an Open University without the help of the staff of other universities. Therefore we have won our spurs; that is, our academic acceptance. It is from a position of strength that the Open University can now venture to advise and offer to cooperate with others in order to find out whether the techniques which they learned in those years can be applied.
There was a time when the Open University was almost strangled at birth. I want to express my thanks to Mrs. Margaret Thatcher for the rescue job which she did at that time. As Shadow Minister of Education, she went out to Walton Hall, where she saw that she was dealing with serious, responsible people. They had a marvellous argument with one another. She came away not entirely convinced but knowing that this was a serious proposition. That visit stood us in good stead. When there was a change of Government in 1970, Mr. Iain Macleod became Chancellor of the Exchequer. He had the axe ready for execution when Mrs. Thatcher stayed his hand. Regarding the tragic early loss of Mr. Macleod, I want to say how generous he was to my husband when he became Minister of Health. He said, "I can't find anything much here to change", or wows to that effect. They were good friends. Neither of them was of the stuff that good Lobby fodder is made of, and very often they paired. If Mr. Macleod had had more time and could have visited Walton Hall to meet the people who were working there, I feel certain that he would have come around to an acceptance of its value. But, alas! his life was tragically cut off. Mrs. Thatcher was a very good friend indeed at that time, because she knew about it, although did not agree with everything.
As I have mentioned the Leader of the Opposition, may I say a word about the Leader of the Government, Mr. Harold Wilson, as he then was, in the 1964 to 1970 Parliament. However much they may disagree with him on other issues, it is too discreditable for people nowadays to try to take from him his pride in the fact that without his obstinate, steadfast insistence there would have been no Open University.
Several noble Lords: Hear, hear!
Baroness LEE of ASHERIDGE: My Lords, that happens to be the truth. Mr. Wilson, as he then was, had little or no support among his colleagues, although one of the exceptions to the rule who will address your Lordships later is sitting in front of me. It was very cold, windy weather, but Mr. Wilson held out for the Open University and was incredibly generous towards me. He had a few other matters to attend to, so I was given a free hand. He gulped a little when I said that I did not like the consortium idea: that the Open University had to establish its academic credentials as an independent university, taking second place to no other university, otherwise we had no right to ask students to undertake a long, hard road of study.
I should like to continue my roll of honour, but time forbids. Too many are involved. However, again we were fortunate in having Sir Hugh Greene as head of the BBC. I hope that the present good relations between the BBC and the Open University academics will continue. While a College of the Air dealing with people who left school at 15 or 16, people of any age, sex or colour, will not be doing exactly the same work as the Open University or applying the same techniques as the Open University, very much can be learned from the success of the older establishments.
Also it is true that we have technical colleges all over the country, although some parts are better served than others. There are many people who simply cannot leave their homes to go to a central place of education. There can be the intelligent young wife with young children, who simply cannot go out in the evening. There can be the invalids. As noble Lords know, the Open University has done more for invalids, who are natural students, than all of the other universities put together, because it is able to get through to them in their own homes. Then there are people who simply do not want to go out again at the end of a day's work. Also, they would find it very difficult to go out again for reasons of travel, expense, and distance. Instead they have the facilities which the Open University provides. They have their correspondence courses, their counsellors and advisers. Also, they have the oppor-
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tunity of meeting one another now and again at summer schools. There is not a single part of the old, established field of adult education which needs to be left out.
However, we do need to get rid of a certain dowdiness that is caused, if you like, by poverty. If the adult education system has been called the Cinderella of the educational world, I hope that Sir Peter Venables will be regarded as the Prince Charming who is waiting to take her to the ball, because that is what the Open University is seeking to do. We were fortunate beyond words to have Sir Peter Venables, that distinguished teacher and administrator, as chairman of the original planning committee of the Open University. We have been doubly lucky in persuading him to be chairman of this Committee on Continuing Education. If his committee has its way—and I repeat that the committee is not composed solely of Open University people—then I believe we can put fresh currents of enthusiasm and opportunity over this whole field.
I know just how bitterly some people, like my good friend Michael Young, felt when they could not persuade me to abandon my type of university and help with the work they were doing at a lower level. Michael Young is a very distinguished worker in adult education; indeed, he was one of the first to be given an honorary degree by the Open University. But I was not acting out of caprice. I said that senior civil servants and Ministers were prisoners of their early days—I was a prisoner too; I did not quite see myself in that role at the time but, looking back, I realise that I, too, was completely the product of my early youth. Could anyone come to me and tell me that because a man earns his living digging coal, or assembling cars, or running a lorry, or delivering letters, or emptying dustbins, he is intrinsically intellectually inferior to another man who earns his living in a lawyer's office, or in the pulpit, or in a doctor's surgery? Your Lordships cannot tell that to me because I have the advantage of knowing both worlds, and there are the natural students in both worlds and also the natural non-students.
All that we are seeking to do is something that I think any country must do that

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wants to be called civilised. What we are seeking to do is to bring the best in the Arts and the best in education within reach of the entire population. In most fields of government it is laws and regulations and restrictions; but in this magic world you do not have to go to a technical college, you do not have to go to a concert hall, you do not have to go to a theatre, museum or gallery: you are absolutely free to choose—why should you go if you do not want to? But if you have the wish or the need they ought all to be brought within your reach much more so than at present.
So in those early days of the Open University I saw it as a continuation of the work that I was asked to do in promoting the Arts; and, in conclusion, I should like to say that when I was first doing the work as Minister responsible for the Arts I received a great deal more support and encouragement from your Lordships' House than I got from the other place—maybe because more of your Lordships were involved. The noble Earl, Lord Drogheda, came a-courting; he was delighted—we wiped out the debt at Covent Garden, and they were getting more money than they had before. Why should not your Lordships show more interest, with so many people who have the time and opportunity and public concern to help to look after the great museums, galleries, theatres and the rest? Why should you not be delighted? The other House, which is more important —if your Lordships will forgive me—than your Lordships' House because it is the elected Chamber, was overwhelmed with economic and other problems and therefore it had not the same time to give to the Arts. I am appealing to your Lordships to do the same job again over the whole field of adult education. Read the Venables Report; read the Interim Report. I have checked that there are some copies available in the Printed Paper Office. I would also respectfully ask your Lordships to read the book that our distinguished Vice-Chancellor, Sir Walter Perry, has written because this tells in great detail the early story.
So I end as I began, my Lords, by saying that the Open University had a long period of gestation and a difficult birth. There is no reason why the College of the Air should go through all
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those difficulties and misunderstandings again. The Open University now, out of strength, is able to hold out a helping hand to the whole field of adult education, and I hope that hand will be grasped as warmly as is now done in the relationship between the newest of our universities and the oldest. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
3.16 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of DURHAM: My Lords, I am sure all Member!, of your Lordships' House will be grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Lee of Asheridge, for giving us an opportunity to debate this report. I am only sorry that the list of speakers appears to be so thin, not least because this leaves me in a somewhat exposed position. I also greatly welcome the initiative taken by the Open University in commissioning the report. I am afraid I am not able to follow the noble Baroness in commenting on the internal political complexities which lie behind the relationship between the Open University and other bodies, but I should like to take this opportunity of registering satisfaction that the Open University exists, expressing thanks for those who worked so hard to set it up, and also to see this report as evidence of its continuing liveliness.
I wish to make only three brief points, but I believe the first two points go to the heart of the general section of the report, which is about the concept of continuing education rather than about the particular contribution made to it by the Open University. The first point I wish to make is to commend the very broad understanding of the objectives of continuing education which the report spells out. I do not believe that we in this country have yet really latched on to the concept of continuing education or seen its importance, not only for individuals but for the health of our society as a whole.
It is good to see the end of the old distinction between vocational and non-vocational education, particularly since this can so easily lead to bias against so-called non-vocational education in times of financial stringency. I am sure the report is absolutely right when it emphasises the need to help individuals to grow, to widen their experience and to become more responsive to change. I

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should like to quote a few sentences from paragraph 127 of the report, in which I believe this is set out extremely well. That paragraph says:
"Education enables individuals to cope with change and also provides the means to influence and effect change. Continuing education must enable individuals to grow and develop so that they have greater powers of choice, and are able effectively to participate in influencing the course of future changes, which may concern them not only as individuals but also as members of groups, and as part of a social structure. A main purpose of continuing education may thus be seen as enabling individual citizens in a democratic society more freely and constructively to change and sustain that society".
I regard that as an extremely important statement of aims. Perhaps one might sum it up in terms of flexibility, critical awareness, balance, and a broad perspective. These are the qualities needed in a changing society by very many of its citizens—qualities, I dare to say, needed even more than technical expertise. But I also want to add to that list the word "integration". Integration seems to me of fundamental importance in an era of cultural fragmentation. If I dare to put in one piece of jargon from some American philosophers of education, may I slip in the word "synoptics", which, in case noble Lords are mistaken, in this context has nothing to do with the Gospels. "Synoptics" is used of those subjects in the educational curriculum whose aim is to integrate and relate other skills and realms of meaning to one another.
The aim of synoptics, broadly, is to raise the large questions about meaning which can easily be ignored or by-passed in the various specialisms. In terms of the curriculum, typical examples of synoptic subjects are history, philosophy, and, of course, religion. But just because they have this broad function, they can too easily be overlooked in educational programmes geared to more immediate practical concerns. I would say that it is when human beings learn to integrate that they begin to grow. Education is not a straight line progression up a narrow one-way track. It is at its most exciting and productive precisely when different areas of knowledge are brought together, and this can most easily happen in those who are adult or at least relatively mature.
I believe that the qualities of flexibility, balance, breadth of perspective, that I
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have earlier referred to, arise out of this kind of experience. That is why I very much hope that the integrative subjects will not be overlooked in the field of continuing education, and why I was a little disturbed that page 104 of this report, where there is a list of suggested adult concern courses, is rather thin on that kind of topic. For example, even with a very wide selection of problems which adults are supposed to encounter, I see no whisper at all of anything to do with ethics, which seems very odd indeed, but that nevertheless you can, if you like, learn how to run a local pressure group. I suppose it is a sign of the times that we should have the one without the other.
My second point concerns the availability of continuing education, and in particular the difficulty of trying to ensure that the people who most need it are encouraged to make use of it. I think there are some very helpful practical recommendations in the report, which I hope the Government will take note of. In particular I draw attention to the suggestion of positive discrimination in favour of those who have not had a higher education in any form up to the point of wishing to join a course. I also hope that what is said about paid educational leave will be taken extremely seriously. But even recommendations of this kind, I believe, are not going to help very much in the crucial period of two or three years after the 16 year old has left school, when attitudes towards further education are becoming set. It is not uncommon to find 17 or 18 year olds in this category who, tragically, have deeply resented and deliberately wasted their last year at school, who are now ready to see the point of further education and yet do not know how to get back into the educational stream. I believe that much more attention needs to be given to that crucial period. Perhaps we need to think of a much more gradual transition between the world of education and the world of work from the age of 15 onwards. Ideally, I believe, work should become an accepted part of school experience around this time, and, conversely, further education an accepted part of work experience. This, of course, would mean national planning of continuing education as a whole, not hiving it off as something quite separate from what is done through schools.

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While on the subject of availability and motivation, I should just like to add that the voluntary agencies, including the Churches, have an enormous network of contacts, often among the very people who would not spontaneously think of making use of the educational facilities which are available; and it seems to me that there is a very fruitful area of cooperation here between the voluntary and the statutory authorities which ought to be exploited more than it is.
That leads to my final point, a very brief one, which is simply to remind your Lordships' House that the Churches are among the oldest protagonists of continued education, and, within the voluntary sector, are still among the largest agencies in providing it. The British Council of Churches in particular has tried to do some forward thinking on the subject and has recently launched a National Ecumenical Project in Further Education, for which it is hoping to appoint an executive officer. In a way the project reflects the traditional interests of the Churches, investigating the relationship between further education and the 1944 Act, looking critically at some of the values being transmitted through further education, being concerned with the personal and pastoral aspects of the whole educational enterprise; but also, and very significantly—and I have not seen mention of this anywhere else—developing multiracial inter-faith and international awareness in further education. This seems to me a highly important aim in today's society.
The Church of England greatly welcomes the Government's initiative in agreeing to set up a National Advisory Council for Adult and Continuing Education, and I would end by saying that, in view of the Churches' close concern with the subject and the new work which it is hoped to begin, we believe it is important that the Churches should be represented on any such council, at national and at local level, preferably through the British Council of Churches. We also hope that in this and other ways the existing work being done in the voluntary sector will be recognised and supported.
3.29 p.m.
Lord BEAUMONT of WHITLEY: My Lords, I, too, should like to thank
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the noble Baroness for initiating this debate and allowing us to range over the whole field of further education, with special reference to the Venables Report, of course, but looking at further education as a whole. It is about this that I want to make one major point. Before I do so, I should like to thank the right reverend Prelate for his extremely thoughtful, and in some ways provocative, speech, which helps us to think in terms of the wider issues in which this question is set.
In particular, I should like to refer to the question of work experience and the possibility of placing it earlier in the curriculum, which is absolutely right. However, we must aim at something even more far-reaching than that. We must work out a whole system of education in which school and future adult working life are not as divorced as they are at the moment. In the great book The Need for Roots that the French writer and secular martyr, Simone Weill, wrote for France at the request of General de Gaulle's Government in exile, there is a remarkable passage where she tries to sketch out a scheme which involves learning what work is about at a very early age. It starts in the home, as still happens in a great many homes where children start to learn about work by helping their mothers about the house, or in farms, small businesses or workshops. Unfortunately, it cannot be applied to large factories and that was one of Simone Weill's complaints. She worked out, very roughly, a scheme as to how, throughout education, work and schooling can be kept in touch. It would be most difficult in our highly complex and industrialised society but I am sure that we should have it at the back of our minds as a goal at which to aim.
That goes further and wider than the one main point which I wish to make this afternoon—that is, the need in this area for a strategy, and for a machinery to carry out that strategy. We are seeing the beginnings of this with the acceptance of the National Council for Adult and Continuing Education. However, I should like to see a very strong organisation—a very strong machinery—for coordinating a strategy for all education beyond the age of 16. It may be right to make the boundary 18 years, or any other age, but I cannot help feeling—and this is my Party's point of view—that the

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proper moment at which to start pulling all further education together (and I mean "further" with a small "f") is the moment when compulsory schooling finishes.
That strategy, which would deal with all education beyond that stage, should have several guidelines—several words which define our objectives. The first is unity. All these forms of education—vocational and non-vocational, further, higher, permanent, recurrent, whatever we like to call them, down to the sixth form colleges and the colleges for further education—should be treated and looked at as one. Within that unity we must, of course, have diversity. By unity I do not mean by any manner of means that we should look for uniformity. On the contrary, we should look for as many different forms as possible. I think that the merging of the lines between the treatment of vocational and non-vocational training is long overdue. After all, we have always had fairly odd ideas about this. A great deal of the highest of high education is merely vocational training for dons and there is no real dividing line for the future.
That means that we must do our utmost to diversify forms of education, particularly in the country where people can reach it without having to travel too far. Of course, the Open University and an open college are wonderful institutions, but I wonder whether we are right in closing some of our country education colleges, such as those at Hereford and Alnwich, instead of using them as more diversified colleges for further education of different kinds.
The third guideline is mobility. We must try as much as possible to have modular courses and credit systems so that students and staff can cross as easily as possible from one sector to another. There has been far too much watertight departmentalising in the past, and we must work away from that. Fourthly, there is the necessity for communication —for a good advisory careers service. We already have one, but it should go much further back into school life, just as work experience may go further back into school life. It should have an overall strategy for telling people much more and getting across to them all of
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the choices open to them, both in work and in education, at all phases of their careers.
Fifthly, we should aim for universality —that is, we should hope that no one will slip through the net. Of course, after a certain age it must all be voluntary but even before that the question of day release must be considered. I do not think that we have concentrated enough on trying to ensure that every boy or girl who leaves school at the age of 16 can have day release if he or she wishes it. In small firms it is often extremely difficult, and there are various other situations. Of course, it is not uniformly welcomed, even by the pupils themselves, but there is a real problem here which should be tackled and which can best be tackled by an overall view of the whole situation.
More help needs to be given to older students. On previous occasions I have raised in your Lordships' House the question of assistance with travel and the discrimination that seems to exist in favour of students under the age of 26 who can obtain various rebates on this, that and the other, as opposed to older students who may be just as badly off—indeed, if they have given up a job and have several children to support they may be worse off. I fully accept that the answers which I received to my questions are all that one can expect at present and with the present structure. However, we need to take an overall look at this whole area and we need a body which will produce this kind of strategy and machinery.
I am also delighted that there will be a National Council. It will be much better than the welter of nominated advisory committees that we have tended to have in the past. What we really need is what only it can give us and that can be achieved only if it is set up wholeheartedly and given real power to take initiatives and to plan. We have the vast body of the Department of Education and Science, which has often been criticised for lack of strategy. In one sense that is a totally fair criticism: in another sense it is unfair because I am not sure that it is for Government Departments in their Civil Service sense to develop strategy. That is something that must come at the will of politicians. However, in the educational field, it does not necessarily come from politicians. Secretaries of State for Education come and go. Not all that long

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ago we had a period where they came and went rapidly. Let us hope that that is not the case now. We have had good ones and bad ones—I think that now we have a very good one. We have had ones who have known nothing about education whatsoever and some who have known quite a lot—and the present one is one of those. What I am saying is that the system is not geared to producing an overall strategy and producing the machinery which will apply it.
On the one hand, you have a change of Secretaries of State who may, or may not, know something about the subject, and underneath a machinery which is there and ready to be used but which cannot work without political instigation. I think that that is what needs to be produced, and I think that that can be produced only by a national, independent body which is really given power to look at the whole area and to start things moving under way, subject of course to political control. What we need to do is to put a soul and a heart into this great machinery of the DES to produce something to improve and increase all the educational possibilities from the age of 16 on, from the end of compulsory schooling. I cannot think of anything which would be more healthy and more useful to the whole of our national life than that.

RHODESIA
3.41 p.m.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, with the permission of the House, I should like to repeat a Statement on Rhodesia made this afternoon in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. The Statement is as follows:
"With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, I will make a Statement about Rhodesia.
"Discussions of the Rhodesian question have taken place with the US Government over the past three weeks. I met Mr. Vance on 6th May. We were in full agreement on the best way to carry matters forward.
"Both Governments wish to reiterate their determination to work for the independence of Rhodesia under
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majority rule in 1978. They have been encouraged by their contacts so far to believe that detailed consultations about an independence constitution and the necessary transitional arrangements could be a satisfactory way to achieve this. They have therefore agreed that Britian and the United States should now enter into a phase of intensive consultations with the parties.
"For this purpose, Her Majesty's Government have decided to establish a Consultative Group to make contact with the parties, which will visit the area as necessary, including Salisbury. It will be headed by Mr. J. A. N. Graham, Deputy Under-Secretary at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. He will leave for Africa next week.
"Mr. Vance has agreed to appoint a senior United States official to work with the Head of the British Consultative Group."
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
Baroness ELLES: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friends, I should like to thank the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, for this somewhat brief but nevertheless important and constructive Statement. We certainly welcome the realisation by the Government of the advisability and, indeed, the necessity of organising a Consultative Group to visit Rhodesia itself. We hope that this will imply, and at any rate allow for, some resident mission which will be able to stay in Salisbury under the auspices of, or within this particular group. We also welcome the co-operation of the American Government in this initiative; one which we have always regarded as imperative if some peaceful transfer to majority rule is to be achieved.
I wonder whether, when he replies, the Minister would give some assurance that the appointment of Mr. Graham, obviously a very distinguished Foreign Office official and one certainly to whom we wish every success in his task, in no way indicates that the personal involvement of the Foreign Secretary will be reduced in the question of settlement in Rhodesia, particularly of course following on his own visit to Southern Rhodesia which was an initiative that we welcomed on this side of the House.

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We are concerned with the continued delay in reaching a settlement but realise that it is not a question of settling any fixed date. This is one that must work itself out. But we are very concerned with the continuing guerrilla attacks and the horrible destruction by all sides of innocent civilians in reaching a settlement. So, obviously, we hope for as speedy a conclusion as possible, although we do not say that any fixed time must be laid down. On this side of the House we certainly welcome the setting up of this Consultative Group. I wonder whether the Minister could also say in replying if it is possible at this stage to make any comment as to the powers of the Consultative Group, when there is reference to the "necessary transitional arrangements". As the noble Lord will be aware, we on this side of the House, and indeed I believe most noble Lords, are anxious that there should be some form of general consultation with all the peoples of Rhodesia in the setting up of any Government. I would therefore ask whether this Consultative Group would be able to make such a recommendation.
Lord GLADWYN: My Lords, I, too, should like to thank the Minister for repeating this Statement, which undoubtedly is encouraging so far as it goes. I have only two questions to ask. Is it still the objective to reconvene if possible, and when possible, the Geneva Conference? If that is so, is it still the intention, or is it not the intention, that when we convene there should be an American co-chairman, or has that idea been dropped?
Secondly, who exactly would be the parties referred to in the third paragraph of the Statement. It says that there shall be "intensive consultations with the parties". Would that be the so-called front line Presidents, on the one hand, and all political Parties in Rhodesia, including Mr. Mugabe? Or would it be impossible to rope in Mr. Mugabe in view of his attitude? Those are the only two positive questions I should like to ask.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness and to the noble Lord for the support they have given to this Statement and its objectives. In reference to what the noble Baroness said, the possibility of an outpost
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in Salisbury emanating, as it were, from the Consultative Group is one for consideration in the light of the circumstances as they develop during the consultations. We certainly do not rule it out. We shall be glad to consider it. The question at the moment is perhaps somewhat premature, but it certainly has potential value. On the assurance the noble Baroness sought about the continued personal involvement of my right honourable friend, of course I can give that assurance without reservation. Mr. Graham is a high-ranking official of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office who works directly under the Secretary of State.
As to the powers of the Consultative Group, they are of course consultative. They have functions rather than powers. I would say they have the important function of conducting consultations with a wide range of interests so that they can report to my right honourable friend, and equally the American appointee will no doubt report pail passu to his own Minister. Finally, on the question of the transitional arrangements, certainly the consultations will seek to clarify what are the most hopeful bases for the transitional arrangements as well as for the establishment of majority rule in the sense that we have always pursued it.
May I briefly refer to Lord Gladwyn's two points. As to the objective to proceed by conference, whether or not in Geneva, or on the analogy of the Geneva Conference, I think this might wisely be left to the results of the Consultative Group's experience and report. No possibility of a follow-up is ruled out. As he asked which parties would be consulted, perhaps I might put it like this: certainly all parties and interests in Rhodesia, black and white—and by "parties" one does not necessarily restrict the term to political Parties—would be the first tier, as it were, of consultation. But beyond that, as a kind of second tier, there are important interests as I would call them—front line Presidents, Dr. Vorster and others outside Rhodesia—with whom it would be not only useful but necessary to conduct consultations, but in the first instance "parties" refers to those in Rhodesia.
3.50 p.m.
Lord HOME of the HIRSEL: My Lords, I wish to add to the welcome which

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my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, have given to the appointment of this Consultative Group. The lesson of past events, and particularly of the Geneva Conference, has been that we must carry with us the opinion of the various sections inside Rhodesia; if there is to be a settlement, it must be a settlement endorsed by Rhodesians. From my personal knowledge, Mr. Graham will be of great help in these kind of negotiations.
In this context, of course, the co-operation of the United States, which was absent in the past, is an enormous strengthening factor and very much to be welcomed. Obvious questions remain. When will the guerrilla warfare be called off in order to enable any interim Administration which emerges through any agreement that is arrived at, really to take peaceful charge of operations for the future leading to independence? But such matters are not for today, and I should just like to add to the support which has been expressed by my noble friend and Lord Gladwyn.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I wish in turn warmly to thank the noble Lord, Lord Home of the Hirsel, for his contribution, which, as the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, described the other night, is always statesmanlike.
Lord GLADWYN: I certainly did, my Lords!
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: Indeed the noble Lord did, my Lords, and I nodded in warm agreement. I strongly agree that a settlement can only be one endorsed in the first place by the peoples of Rhodesia. The consultative process is designed in the first instance to ensure that basis for settlement. I equally warmly welcome what Lord Home said about the immense value, indeed the necessity, of the fullest United States co-operation, in this as in so many other matters of a constructive character, and I am glad to say to the House that we are assured of their fullest co-operation.
Baroness GAITSKELL: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether, until the African leaders have welcomed both the objective and this committee which is to be set up, it will ever get off the ground?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, my information is that this move, this Consultative Group, will be accepted and even welcomed by the wide range of African opinion. It has indeed been sufficient for my right honourable friend to make the Statement of Intention to set up this group, which will leave next week.

FURTHER EDUCATION AND THE VENABLES REPORT
Debate resumed.
3.54 p.m.
Lord GARDINER: My Lords, returning to the Venables Report, although Chancellor of the Open University, I have never considered myself an expert on education and I shall therefore not detain your Lordships for long.
Sir Peter Venables is a remarkable man —a former Vice-Chancellor of Aston University, Birmingham, and the first chairman of the original planning committee of the Open University. I have never quite understood how that committee sat down and considered this question: Supposing we had a university where students did not attend in lecture halls, but had long-distance teaching—correspondence courses, set books, local counsellors and tutors and a residential summer school. The degree would be at least as difficult to get as at a conventional university and they would have to pay between £500 and £1,000 for it. How many men and women between 21 and 90 would wish to apply?" Today, the present figures of 50,000 students are within the forecasts of the original Venables Committee.
Now he and another committee have turned their attention to continuing education as a whole, asking themselves, "What would be in the national interest in this field, and what can the Open University do to help?" I think rightly that what they called "continuing education" meant education of all kinds after compulsory school leaving age, this embracing the universities, conventional universities, the Open University, the polytechnics, colleges of further education, classes conducted by local education authorities, the WEA and so on.

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I suggest that in the age in which we live continuing education deserves to be met, not only where it is vocational but also where it is not vocational. Owing to the advances of modern knowledge and the speed of change, there are a great many men who had intended to spend their lives in a particular occupation but who are going to have to change that occupation in middle age because of changes in technology. Perhaps even more, there are many whose knowledge was sufficient to qualify them for a professional qualification when they left university but who are now quite out of date unless they bring themselves up to date by further educational courses.
I suppose that any doctor who studied chemistry 20 years ago knows that very few of the number of drugs of which he learnt then exist today, and that he has no knowledge unless he brings himself up to date with the incredible number of new ones. This applies just as much in the field of law as in any other sphere; indeed, the professional organisations themselves conduct courses, quite expensive ones, at least to try to bring the lawyer up to date with his law. Apart from vocational education, I would agree with the right reverend Prelate that there is also a need for further education which is not vocational, and I may cheer him up a little when I say that a new course is shortly starting on the Open University called "Man's Religious Quest", of which I am sure he would approve.
Professor Galbraith recently said, "Democracy is based on education". That, he said, did not mean that everybody should have a degree, but that democracy implied choice and that choice demanded the ability to discriminate. There are many men doing eight-hour shifts in factories who in the course of a day never have to take a decision of any kind at all; but in a democracy education, even if it has to be at a distance, is essential, and this goes on so long as anybody feels that he would better himself as a citizen by further education. At the Open University we have one student who was a miner until he was 65, and for years after he retired he applied himself to 0 and A levels and is now qualified to go to a conventional university, but at 79 he has become a student of the Open University.
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If one seeks to ask what it is the wish of the Venables Committee to see—indeed, this applies to the Russell Committee before it—I thought the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, rightly expressed it when he said that what we want is a Government decision; what is lacking is what he called a "strategy" and "machinery" as a whole. This is the main message of both the Russell Committee and of this committee—there is a lack of direction and a lack of organisation—and what the Russell Committee recommended and what the Venables Committee is recommending have very much in common. After all, the main recommendations of the Russell Committee were the institution of a National Council for Adult and Continuing Education, a National Development Council for Adult Education and similar local councils in every local education authority, while the Venables Committee recommends a National Council for Adult and Continuing Education, a National Education Advisory Council and a national network of resource centres. I shall not go into the details, but I am very grateful to my noble friend Lady Lee of Asheridge for introducing this debate this afternoon because, apart from anything else, we shall very much hope to learn the decisions of the Government and what are their views.
I believe that it was my noble friend Lady White who introduced the debate on the Russell Report. In reply to questions as to what was the Government's decision, the noble Baroness, Lady Young, said for the then Government:
"It is of course essential to discuss with the representatives of the local education authorities and the other main interests concerned how they view the recommendations of the report. Progress is substantial and will continue to be so. An exchange of views about this rate of growth in relation to the terms of the report and in the context of further education generally is a necessary step, and it is to this end that our preparatory work is now going forward."—(Official Report, 23/5/73; col. 1220.)
It is almost exactly four years since that was said. I hope very much that we shall not be told that, after four years, the negotiations are still going on. What, as both the Russell Committee and the Venables Committee thought, is really wanted is will on the part of the Government in the whole field of continuing education, the provision of what the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, called

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a "strategy"—that is, really deciding whether the recommendations of the Russell Committee and the Venables Committee are right—and, if so, the setting up of what the noble Lord called the "machinery"; that is, the organisation to that end.
4.3 p.m.
Lord RITCHIE-CALDER: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Gardiner asked how one set about looking at the problems of something called a university when one was doing it by remote control. In my tribute to Sir Peter Venables, the chairman of the planning committee, I want to point out what a remarkable job he did. I greatly stress his personal role, but I also want to pay tribute to what the planning committee did in stripping the university system down to its chassis, having a look at it and putting all the upholstery and so on aside in case we needed it. Sir Peter's was a remarkable chairmanship—I think that he is the most remarkable chairman I have ever sat under, and I always said that he wrote the minutes of the meetings in advance. He played a most valuable role in the committee and also during the formative years of the university itself, and he has now produced what I think is a major contribution to all our thinking on continuing education.
As my noble friend Lady Lee has pointed out, the status of the report is that it is still very much a consultative document. It is there to he discussed by all the interested parties, including your Lordships, and it was set up by the Council of the Open University because we had to consider the implications of the objects of our Charter, which laid down that:
"The objects of the University shall be the advancement and dissemination of learning and knowledge by teaching and research, by a diversity of means such as broadcasting and technological devices appropriate to higher education, by correspondence tuition, residential courses and seminars and in other relevant ways, and shall provide education of University and professional standards for its students and—
and this is what we are really talking about here—
"to promote the educational well-being of the community generally."
That is the operative phrase in terms of what we are talking about today, because I will go so far as to say that, in terms of the first part of the objectives—the
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setting-up of the University and its functions—the Open University has done a remarkable job.
The success of the Open University undergraduate programme has, without question, been spectacular. The courses and teaching techniques are world famous. Wherever I go in the world, in the advanced countries with their sophisticated university systems and in the less developed countries which are seeking to develop higher education, the Open University of Great Britain is recognised as the outstanding educational experiment of the second half of the 20th century. Indeed, it is no longer an experiment. It has acquired a wealth of experience and has evolved techniques both of learning at a distance and of face-to-face tutorials and has produced teaching materials of I he highest quality which can be adapted elsewhere. I say "adapted" intentionally because I feel that everyone will agree that education is something that must come out of the idiom and the felt needs of the various cultures.
In terms of the countries which are now taking advantage of the Open University's facilities, that is certainly true. We said very firmly that the materials that we were producing were only relevant in so far as they had any constancy; that is to say, we were not trying to develop education for the developing countries—they must develop their education themselves—bui that with all our experience and our facilities and the lessons that we had to teach on methods we were making a big contribution. We certainly are.
My noble friend Lady Lee, in her charge to the planning committee, insisted that the acquired experience should be made available to the Third World, and the consultation services of the Open University are now heavily in demand and are certainly helping to fulfil that requirement. I hope that my noble friend will give us credit for having carried out her instructions.
Beyond the undergraduate programme leading to degrees and beyond the post-experience courses which are available for professional enhancement there is the further commitment—and I quote again from our Charter—
"to promote the educational well-being of the community generally".

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That was what the Venables Committee was asked to look at—continuing education. I want to emphasise, as my noble friend Lady Lee has done, that this is not—and I repeat that—a take-over bid by the Open University. The Open University does not presume that it can cater for the diversity of interests which constitute the wide field of continuing education. It has never presumed to do so. I recall the misgivings of the Workers' Educational Association, when I was Vice-President and was at the same time on the planning committee of the Open University. The WEA feared that the imperium of the Open University would displace its courses and expropriate the available funds which, in adult education, have never been big enough. However, your Lordships will see from Table 2 of the Report that the WEA now provides over 9,000 classes for an accumulated enrolment of 167,000 students, so, so far from impairing the work of the extra-mural classes of the universities or the voluntary organisations such as the WEA, we have in fact increased the numbers of students and encouraged people to take up these classes.
What the eight triumphal years of the Open University have proved—and this must be a rebuttal of the Jeremiads about the decadent, non-participating British people—is that there is a vast and still unsatisfied hunger for learning in this country. This is not just vocational or wage-packet learning, but there is a desire for a widening of horizons and a concern to know and better to cope with the complexities of our society. This should mean mobilising all the means in our possession in the continuing education field in which, I would remind your Lordships, Britain has been in the lead for over a century—since the early days of the extra-mural courses at Oxford and elsewhere—as in the development of the voluntary organisations, like the Workers' Educational Association. What is being proposed in the report is a collective, extensive and intensive endeavour.
What the Open University has to offer is its demonstration that people who have been deprived of opportunities in the conventional stream of higher education are, through to the University, in fact eminently capable of using their second chance to acquire degrees. But on the planning committee and on the general
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council, I have always felt that the degrees were almost the least important of what we were trying to do. I do not denigrate the degrees—on the contrary—but I still think that what we were doing, and what we will continue to do even more so, has been to see that people have opportunities to find the satisfactions of learning, along the road to the degrees, if that is a recognition that they want. And that is what is meant by continuing education, by creating or encouraging the eternal student.
On the Open University we have always recognised that fact, because we had to establish—and we have done—the genuine currency of our degrees. To make our degrees certainly equitable with degrees anywhere, in our undergraduate programme, in that kind of concentration, we have opened up in the post-career courses and in many other fields. But there is a great opportunity for the University itself, not in its degree giving, or indeed in its university sense, but rather in the sense that we are talking about now: that is, what we can contribute to an open college. It is true that we have now these very remarkable resources of materials. We can recycle for other purposes a great deal of what is being produced for higher learning in university courses. One of the points on which I feel very frustrated in these times is that we are not able to do more for, say, the unemployed, for whom we should be doing more. By the "unemployed" I mean the non-worker section of our community, which will go on being non-worker. I am not just talking about the unemployment figures, but the fact that in our society there will be shorter hours, and longer periods of leisure, as well as, regrettably, unemployment. But I think that either we, or somebody else, should be providing the unemployed, the people who are deprived of work, with the opportunities for developing interests which would be valuable and which we hope might introduce them to the university courses themselves. We certainly could do this.
The Venables Report is spelling out the needs and the opportunities—not the expansion of the domain of the Open University—and is offering the unique insights and resources which the Open University has developed in its eight functional years. As a member of the Open University general council, which

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is still waiting for the reactions and the inputs from all the other interested bodies, I, of course, must keep an open mind. But I, personally, should like to see the National Council for Adult and Continuing Education fulfilling the kind of role which the University Grants Committee has in relation to the conventional universities; namely, seeing that the diversified means of adult education are properly encouraged and safeguarded.
As has been suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, and supported by my noble and learned friend Lord Gardiner, I want to see the strategy developed which will enable us to mobilise the interest and the resources for our continuing education. I also want to see an Educational Advisory Service, which I believe is very necessary when I think of the tens of thousands who apply for admission to the Open University and who, if they cannot get a place—because we are limited to 50,000 students; and we have an application list already for nearly 50,000 again this year, apart from the people going through the university—or cannot afford the costs or meet the exacting demands (and they really are exacting demands) in terms of study-time, might very well be directed into alternative and satisfying courses in other branches of adult education.
I realise that we shall be told that this is scarcely the time to be proposing extensions of our educational services. But, my Lords, this investment in human resources is a real investment. This is the "Fulfilment State" beyond the Welfare State. When material necessities are met there is still the need to release the human personality and to enrich the country with the innate qualities of our people. These qualities, as the Open University has demonstrated beyond a peradventure, are abundant.
We hear moanings about the lack of initiative, the decline of British creativity, the lack of adaptability to change. These are exaggerated complaints and charges but, my Lords, if we want to generate a new national impulse it must be through educational facilities. If we want to avoid the dangers which are ahead of us, we have to educate our people. As H. G. Wells said:
"The race is between education and catastrophe."
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I would say to the Government and to local authorities, in their efforts to economise, that they should not regard grants to continued education as indulgencies, but as an investment which will pay handsome dividends and will equip this country for the challenges of the last quarter of this century, for the technological changes which will be sterile, frustrating and positively dangerous unless we stimulate the imagination, the ingenuity, the cultural satisfactions and the judgments which will make those changes meaningful. That is what the Venables Report asks us to consider.
4.17 p.m.
Lord ANNAN: My Lords, I apologise for not having my name on the list of speakers, but I was not certain that I could be present this afternoon. However I have given the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, warning that I intended to speak, assuming that he was willing to allow me to do so. There are only two points that I want to make. I have always entirely agreed with the noble Baroness about the Open University. The only thing I have disagreed with her about concerns the financing of it. I believe that in the generosity of her heart she has always believed that the Open University could be expanded without cutting anything else, but I have taken a more pessimistic view. I think that probably something has to be cut in education in order to allow the Open University to expand.
Why do I give the Open University this priority? The answer is very simple: I am so old-fashioned and conservative in my views that I believe in examinations. I think that the great thing about the Open University is the way in which it tests whether the people who go in for the courses actually understand what they are being taught—and they have to give proof of this. The noble Baroness will remember that that was a grand old principle in the WEA. I recall that when I was a WEA tutor there was an insistence upon written work. Of course there were no examinations, but written work was insisted upon, and until one actually puts something down on paper one never knows whether or not one has understood the matter in hand. Very often I find that until I have written something I do not realise what nonsense it is. This is

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the way in which one educates people, and this is one of the things for which the Open University is to be applauded.
Now there are other forms of extramural studies; and of course I noted the point of the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie-Calder, that the Open University should expand without affecting these other forms of extra-mural study. Yet I ask myself whether we should not have some retrenchment. The other day I tried to find out how much was spent in the University of London on extra-mural studies. The accounts of the University of London are arranged in such a way that it is impossible for anybody who is not actually concerned with the arrangement of those accounts to understand them. This is a very fine principle in all educational establishments, and keeps a lot of prying eyes out of the way. But when I did get to the bottom of it I found—and I think this is true—that £900,000 is being spent by the University of London on these extra-mural studies. Is it right that such a sum should still be being spent? Of course it was right that the equivalent of that sum, the fall in the value of money having been taken account of, should have been spent in the 1920s and the 1930s, but I ask myself: should such an effort as that really be necessary?
What I should like, of course, is for the noble Baroness and I to have a deal on this. I would say to her, "Look here—you can take half a million for the Open University if you let me keep £450,000 for the things which are being cut in the University of London at the moment". Of course, it is not as simple as that because in fact that £900,000 represents the salaries of the staff in the extra-mural department, and one cannot throw people on the scrap-heap. I am not suggesting for one moment that that should be done, though I should very much like to see transfers to areas which need them from areas in which I think there is less need. You can never plead a case that there is no need where education is concerned. Almost any extra-mural activity is worth while in some sense, but there are some which I think are more worth while than others.
There is another reason why I think it is important that the Open University
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should get some extra financial support, and it is this. The new studio at Milton Keynes is likely to be open very soon, and somehow we must find funds for the numerous television programmes which are going to come out of that studio. I understand from the vice-chancellor that a great deal of the new courses which the Open University hope to offer are in fact dependent upon extra television facilities. I do not want to anticipate the debate which we are to have next week on the report of the Committee on the Future of Broadcasting, but because it may not get a very prominent mention (shall I say?) in the debate on Thursday of next week I should like to draw attention to the fact that we say that one of the areas in which you can expand the television output of the Open University is through having it on a fourth channel, and that unless you keep that fourth channel, or a part of it, at any rate, for such programmes you are in danger of denying the Open University their chance to expand their activities. I hope that that point will be borne in mind; and with that I should like to thank the noble Lord for allowing me to intervene, and conclude by saying how much I hope we shall be able to go ahead on the Venables principles, bearing in mind, however, that we may have to retrench in one area in order that the Open University gets the go-ahead.
4.24 p.m.
Lord SANDFORD: My Lords, I should like to start by congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Lee, on her success in the ballot, giving her another opportunity to put the Parliamentary spotlight, as it were, on her favourite tele-teaching institution once again, and giving us an opportunity to debate this very interesting report on the role that the Open University should play in continuing education. It was helpful to have their definition at the outset, on page 6, of what it was that they were talking about. They exclude (I think properly) education of the 16- and 17-year-olds, and do not regard their present undergraduate programme as forming any part of this. What they choose is to focus attention on education for adults, which is normally resumed after a break or an interruption. That, I think we would all agree, is the right area on which they should concentrate.

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My own view is that we can welcome the proposals in this report for a number of reasons, and I welcome them mainly for one which is almost as old-fashioned as that of the noble Lord, Lord Annan; namely, that the Open University gives us extremely good value for money. I say that because I believe that, by the Open University expanding its contribution from degree work into this field of continuing education, and giving very proper priority, as they say, "to the early stages"—by which I take it they mean quite elementary things like courses on improving your home; that comes from Appendix VII on page 104—more adults, more parents, more householders, more citizens, more neighbours, more workers, employees, technicians, professionals and businessmen of all kinds will be introduced and gain access to more education, training and enlightenment in the areas in which they need it, with the least dislocation, inconvenience and cost to themselves, their friends, their families and their firms.
It seems to me that that hope will certainly be fulfilled if the Open University stick firmly to the economic academic principles which they have followed from the beginning, by which I mean concentrating their tele-teaching expertise—teaching at a distance—on the subject, on the courses and on the methods in which they have such overwhelming advantages over the institutions which must continue, and will continue, conventional methods of face-to-face tutorials, lectures and classroom teaching.
Nevertheless, on page 14 of the report —and the noble Baroness spent some time on this—the Venables Committee mentioned, and mentioned with very proper candour, the sense of threat which some of their correspondents—in fact, many of their correspondents—have expressed in responding to this report and in giving evidence to the committee. Personally, I think "threat" is the wrong word, but I think that the Open University's proposals, which I want to support, pose a challenge—and it is a very proper challenge—to all other institutions working in the broad field of continuing education, to adjust their outlook, to adjust their programmes and to adjust their provision (I think this is what the noble Lord, Lord Annan, has just been saying to us) in ways which acknowledge and, as time goes on, accept more and more the existence
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of the Open University and the very great direct contribution that its courses can make in this field, and in some cases will make to the exclusion of courses hitherto put on locally and put across by conventional means. I think that has to be faced, and we shall not be getting value for money unless we accept it.
However, I very much agree that the proposals also constitute a most interesting and worthwhile offer to other institutions to allow the Open University to export its expertise to them, and that is something which is set out very fully at paragraph 67—this expertise in tele-teaching, so that other regional and local institutions, with other regional and local broadcasting media, can adapt their own resources and their own efforts to meet the needs of their own local clients with the help of the systems which the Open University has pioneered.
Here I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie-Calder, who I think has left us. Why limit this expansion to the regions of this country, of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland? Because, with adaptation, the pioneering work of the Open University can be carried out into the rest of Europe with language adjustments; all over the Commonwealth with adjustments for local climate, and so on: and certainly could be useful in the Third World. It seems to me that the Open University's proposals in this report can also serve to encourage thousands of people who are at present happy to sit beside a radio or in front of a television but who have never before been happy to sit in a classroom to give education another go, first by accepting it into their own sitting room and then, in the light of what we hope may be a happier experience, extending it into a classroom in their own locality.
My Lords, turning to the content of the courses and starting with what they describe as "Adult concern", which is covered in paragraph 63 onwards, I should like to support the welcome for this new broad approach which was first voiced in this debate by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham. I agree with him that some of the greatest possibilities are in this field of integration, integration of a specialist subject in which somebody has already been trained and thoroughly grasped, with other specialist academic subjects which relate to it but

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which were excluded from his initial training; and integration also of continuing education with work experience. The list that is given in Appendix 7 is an interesting one but, I think, hardly broad enough as it stands.
I have said that I welcome things like courses on improving your home—and with both political Parties now dedicated to the idea of a property-owning democracy, that is a useful thing to have. With the great education debate going on, a course on the choice of your child's school is another useful one; but that will be much better if it is adapted to a local situation than if it is put on a national basis. It would be hard to see how you could go very far in helping parents without giving them some insight as to the precise local situation in their own area.
My Lords, "participation" is another interesting group. We could not but agree with the right reverend Prelate that it would be a serious lack if these courses in the technique, for instance, of running a local pressure group did not have something to indicate what was the purpose of it all. One of its purposes is to try to help people contribute to the planning and execution of proposals and schemes for raising the quality of life in their own area, not least in the inner cities—and I hope that Mr. Shore is giving some thoughts to this area.
My Lords, I think that the next significant area is the in-service courses, the scope and possibility of courses either run directly or engineered with the guidance and help of the Open University, covering in-service courses for particular categories of people in the professions, in particular industries, or serving in local government in particular areas. At various stages in people's careers—and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, has just confirmed that this is certainly needed in the profession of the law; but in many others, too—it will be necessary, and it is necessary, if industry is to be efficient and if local government is to be sensitive and if the professions are to be adaptable, that people have the opportunity of receiving further training which they did not get in their degree courses and in their initial professional training. There is need for updating, for integrating and for broadening; and I think that perhaps of all those integration is the most important.
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The other aspect which I believe nobody has yet mentioned but which is covered in this report, is that mentioned in paragraph 89 where the very good point is made that the Open University could do much to supplement courses and programmes put out initially by the main broadcasting companies, ITV and BBC; but with people in mind, particularly families, whose curiosity and interest in a particular subject have been aroused by seeing a programme or a series of programmes and who would then like to pursue it in more detail in their own locality. This is the kind of thing which is particularly valuable, attractive and interesting if it can be put forward in a form which can be pursued by the family as a whole.
Finally, I should like to take up a point that the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, first introduced into this debate; namely, that a strategy and framework for the development of continuing education is still needed—even if there is not much to put in the tank when we have got it. But I venture to think that the decisions that need to be taken will be all the better for having been delayed until, with the help of this report, we can see more clearly how the Open University's pioneering experience in tele-teaching might be best exploited in continuing education. For that we chiefly owe our thanks to this report.
4.36 p.m.
The MINISTER of STATE, DEPARTMENT of EDUCATION and SCIENCE (Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge): My Lords, may I begin by issuing an unqualified apology to the House, and particularly to my noble friend, for being late for the beginning of this debate. I allowed an hour for a journey which takes 20 minutes but I got involved in a demonstration, I regret to say, against educational cuts; and that is why I failed to be in my place at the right moment. I hope that I may be forgiven for it is not something which is acceptable.
My Lords, everybody has said how grateful we are to my noble friend for raising this debate. I am particularly grateful to her for two or three reasons: first, because I think that the Open University is the only great success that this country has had in the educational field in the last 20 years. I think that

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we have been singularly lacking in success in education. We have spread it and we may or may not have improved it; but there is very little certainty that we have had any real success. But that this venture is a great success, everybody will agree. I am also grateful that she mentioned Mr. Macleod, Mrs. Thatcher and my late leader and her late leader Sir Harold Wilson, and gave them credit for the immense power which they, Sir Harold particularly, put behind her arm to get this much-opposed and rather difficult concept going. Of course, basically, as the whole House knows, it was (if I may put it in the crudest possible way) "Jenny's baby", and as such benefited enormously and could never have got off the ground without her.
My Lords, my personal interest in this is not an educational one; it is a social service one. It is the value that it had for the sick, the handicapped and, in my particular field of interest, the prisoners. It is having a remarkable effect within prisons. A large number of prisoners are taking degrees in the Open University who could never have done so otherwise. The noble Baroness said that she hoped that noble Lords would read the Venables Report. I can claim to have read it twice, although there are parts of it that I still find difficult to understand fully. We are grateful for the opportunity of discussing it in detail in this House before decisions are finally made in various directions.
My Lords, the right reverend Prelate struck a chord with me when he looked at the list of "adult concern" ventures. It is a curious term; it is what I might describe as educational jargon. Everything in the world concerns adults. I would understand it to mean those things which concern adults rather than children. Certainly, the absence of ethics is noticeable and regrettable. In fact, this is one of the most agreeable subjects that any adult can study. There is so much marvellous writing obtainable on the subject that I hope that the Open University will make it available to its students.
The right reverend Prelate said something about paid educational leave. We are, and always have been, strongly in favour of paid educational leave. There is a good deal of it already. The Govern-
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ment's attitude is that it should be based on the voluntary principle and collective bargaining between those in Industry, as it always has been. I do not think it is something which requires a direct Government subsidy. I was interested in his suggestion of a multiracial inquiry into faith in general. This seems a difficult thing to do. I was interested that he mentioned it, and I shall read with care in Hansard what he said.
The noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, mentioned day release. The trouble about day release is that to do it on any scale is enormously expensive. Everybody wants to see it done, but it is a question of cash, unless employers will stand it. He spoke also of the overall look required in regard to the whole subject. We can look to the Advisory Council—to which I will refer later—to achieve this. He spoke of putting soul and heart in the Department of Education and Science. This is rather rhetorical. The truth is that the public servants who work on these things have just as much soul and heart as anybody in this House. The difficulty is to get past the financial problems which hold us back. I am all for putting soul and heart into everything but my own feeling is that there is a good deal there already.
Lord BEAUMONT of WHITLEY: My Lords, no strictures were intended on civil servants. An institution can lack soul and heart, whereas all the members in it can have lots of both. I am certain that civil servants have lots of soul and heart. I doubt whether the institution has much.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: My Lords, I think we will leave it there. My noble and learned friend pointed out the technical reasons for the importance of continuing education, and it is just as well to state them: what you learned 20 years ago is completely different from the learning of today; and many people want to change from one kind of occupation to another. This is what continuing education of a vocational kind is about; there are plenty of other kinds of continuing education. He said that what we want is the will. My Lords, I think that what we want is money. The will is there, but the money is not always available.

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My noble friend Lord Ritchie-Calder praised Sir Peter Venables for the only reason that I would not praise him, as a chairman who wrote the minutes in advance. I have worked under chairmen who did that, and that does not involve being a good chairman. Very often it can involve being an extremely bad one. Sir Peter was a brilliant chairman, even though he may have written the minutes in advance. The point which chiefly interested me in my noble friend's speech was his ambition to see the Open University make a contribution to the developing countries. More than one noble Lord has referred to this. This is a very important matter which is clearly mentioned in the report. The fact that the Workers' Educational Association has 167,000 customers shows that the Open University has not worked against it, and in fact works very well with it. He referred, in a phrase that I will refer to later, to the vast unsatisfied hunger for learning, which I believe to be something of which most of us are conscious in this population.
My noble friend Lord Annan brought a very sane and careful view to bear on the cash side of this business. What he said was extremely interesting. I will not get involved in what is spent on his side and what might be spent on the noble Baroness's side, but it is very interesting. It is not only educational reports which try and make their accounts unintelligible; it is true of all accountants, and that is a great pity.
I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, on making an absolutely nonpolitical speech on an absolutely non-political subject. We do not always get this courtesy, and I am very grateful for it. He said that decisions will have to be delayed until the Open University has had time to consider this report, and this of course is true.
My Lords, when the Open University decided to set-up a committee to advise on the University's contribution to continuing education, it was seen first as a contribution to the debate on recurrent education which was going on all over the Western world. This had various terms: "continuing education" or "education permanente", et cetera. But what it meant, and what it means, is the
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relatively new idea—new to me, at any rate—that every citizen should be able to resume his education at different stages of his career—as indeed the present Chairman of the Open University himself has done at an age not far short of 77, and as I am proud to say has my driver, who is now 51 and is learning Russian—and with varying degrees of State assistance. It is an interesting conception. Twenty years ago nobody would have thought that if an individual aged 40, 50, 60 or 70 wished to undergo a course of study, he should get State assistance for it; but today that is what happens and it is very interesting.
The Committee was seen as a timely and necessary measure to ensure the soundness and relevance of the University's own development. In early 1975, when the Committee was set up, the University had only completed four full teaching years, but it had already established the quality and potential of its undergraduate programme. It had also gained an international reputation for research into teaching and learning at a distance. It was admirably fulfilling the hopes of its founders, including my noble friend Lady Lee, and of its many well-wishers. It was thus an appropriate moment for the University to take stock and to turn its attention to the wider issues of the well-being of the community generally. It was able to draw on its experience—which had been so successful—of under-graduate courses and its significant and growing programme of shorter "post-experience" courses at university level, commissioned for certain professions such as teachers and social workers, or to provide for special areas of interest such as courses on "computing and computers" or "industrial relations".
Sir Peter Venables was a brilliant chairman, as has been said already; and we must all be grateful to him and his colleagues, and also to the Open University for commissioning this report. The Committee was asked to make recommendations on the nature and scale of the Open University's future contribution to the national development of continuing education and to suggest the plan, resources and structure required for its implementation.
The Committee approached its task by considering the Open University as

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only one of the many bodies concerned with continuing education. Others included the maintained and non-maintained sectors of higher and further education, libraries, broadcasting authorities and professional institutions. Its thorough working methods and the wide spectrum of opinion taken into account are to be applauded, though one could have wished that a report with such wide implications for the maintained sector of education had included evidence from the local authority associations.
The Venables Report has been widely acclaimed and, while there may be room for differences of opinion on some of its assumptions, I have no doubt that it will be closely studied. The report is primarily a report to the University's Council. While copies of the report have come to my Department for information, they have not as yet been formally submitted with the University Council's own comments. Indeed, the report is still the subject of consultations within the University, nor does the Council expect to complete its consultations on the report until this coming September. Therefore your Lordships will not expect a pronouncement from me today as to what action the Government feel should follow the report.
The interdependence of further and adult education increases as the concept of continuing education grows, and it is no longer easy to make clear-cut distinctions between them. Students attending an evening class in foreign languages, for instance, may have a variety of motives —from pure intellectual satisfaction, through the desire to get more out of holiday travel, to the urgent need to qualify for a better job. And the class itself may meet in a college of further education, a school used as an evening institute or even a village hall.
For all its close interdependence with the wider field of further education, however, adult education does have certain distinguishing features. We must never forget, my Lords, that these students are volunteers, taking part of their own free will, and for a variety of motives, in an enormously varied programme of education, often at their own expense and with no thought of material reward for their efforts.
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For this reason, one must regret the very real difficulties which adult education now faces as a result of the inevitable economies forced on local education authorities by the crucial need to contain public expenditure. This financial pressure has been twofold: a reduction in that part of authorities' budgets earmarked for adult education, and an increase in fee levels which, while in absolute terms it cannot be regarded as unreasonable, in terms of proportionate increases has, in some areas, been severe enough to lead to a marked reduction in student numbers. Our first indications are that numbers, which had climbed steadily over the past few years to nearly 3 million in 1975–76, may have declined by some 10 per cent. in the current academic year. These figures are susceptible of more than one explanation, and it is too early to be dogmatic about a trend. Obviously, any falling off is a pity, but adult education, along with other branches of the education service, cannot be exempt from bearing its share—though I would hope not more than its fair share—of the necessary economies which we are subject to at the moment.
The beginning of our present cycle of economic difficulties coincided with the publication of the Russell Report, and I suppose that there has never been a more unfortunate example of timing for a report drawn up in the latter years of a period of educational expansion, and itself confidently looking forward to similar expansion and development in the field of adult education. But if circumstances have inhibited Government from adopting the Russell Report in toto, they have not prevented some significant developments along the lines recommended.
First, let me take the question of financial support for the adult continuing his education. Older students returning to full-time education after a break are eligible for the mandatory awards which are available for students on first degree and similar courses, just as younger students going straight from school. But there are also special provisions. No parental contribution is required for such students—provided they are either 25 or over or have supported themselves for three years. Moveover, they may qualify for an older student's allowance in recognition of additional commitments which, bearing in mind their age, they may well have taken on in the meantime.

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In addition, there have been a number of changes in recent years which demonstrate this Government's determination to do all they can within the financial resources available to ensure that mature people who wish to continue their education have the financial support necessary to do so. For example, the conditions for mandatory awards relating to previous study have been significantly eased for mature students. Awards for under-graduates are no longer dependent on the possession of two A-level passes. It is left to the academic authorities to decide whether a student has reached the standard necessary to take the course. In addition, as recommended in the Russell Report, adult education bursaries, payable by my Department, have been introduced so as to ensure that students at long-term residential adult education colleges have a grant.
So far as discretionary awards are concerned, the local authority associations recommended to their members over two years ago that discretionary awards made to students taking advanced courses, or to students over 19 taking non-advanced courses, should be payable at the same rates as for mandatory awards.
The Russell Report, as your Lordships will recall, also laid stress on the need to remedy the grave evil of adult illiteracy. The Government are glad to have been able to play a part, together with the National Institute of Adult Education, the BBC and the local education authorities, in the adult literacy campaign. Some £3 million over a three-year period have been provided from Government funds for this and the number of students receiving literacy tuition has risen from less than 10,000 in 1975 to more than 100,000 today. The 45,000 volunteer tutors, as well as full-time tutors and organisers, have played a crucial part in the success of this venture.
In March my right honourable friend announced increased grant and more flexible grant arrangements for the Workers' Educational Association. This will enable the Association to shift the emphasis of its work towards certain priority areas—education for the socially and educationally deprived, work in an industrial context and education in the nature and functioning of our political and social system. I feel sure your
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Lordships would agree on the vital importance of educating people at every level of industry and in all sections of society in the economic and political structure of our industrial and social system. The Government have welcomed the WEA's initiative in this matter, as well as the efforts of the trade unions to increase the provision of education for their members in these, as well as more specialised, industrial fields. It is a measure of my right honourable friend's concern that the initial grant of £400,000 to the TUC (made jointly with my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Employment) is to be continued at a somewhat higher level in the current financial year.
The Russell Committee, like the Venables Committee, also recommended the setting up of a national advisory and development council for adult and continuing education. Only yesterday my honourable friend the Minister of State met representatives of the organisations most closely concerned to discuss the details of the proposal announced by my right honourable friend on 6th April.
The proposed Council, we hope, will provide an effective forum for the collaborative approach to adult education needed in our diverse and decentralised system. It is not, however, as ambitious as that suggested by the Venables Committee, nor will it have at its disposal funds approaching the £20 million per annum which the Committee thinks should be available by 1984—itself a fundamentally different approach from that recommended by the Russell Committee. Indeed, even were funds of that magnitude available—and in present circumstances they could be found only at the expense of existing provision—we, and, I believe, many others, would have grave reservations about channelling all funds for the development of adult and continuing education through one central agency. The Council will advise on matters relating to the provision of education for adults and, in particular, promote co-operation between the various organisations in that field, not only with a view to the best use of the resources now but also to plan a strategy for future development. I think that goes a long way towards meeting the requests made by various noble Lords.
Lord SANDFORD: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord before he leaves that point? He slightly misunderstood what I was saying at the end of my speech. I was hoping that we should hear today whether or not the Government are going to wait until they have formally received this report before coming to their conclusions that he has just mentioned. I know the noble Lord has just said that his right honourable friend had a meeting yesterday to take the first few tentative steps towards setting up this National Council. But I think that those of us who have been taking part in this debate—certainly, the noble Baroness, Lady Lee—would not want to feel that those tentative steps had reached their conclusion until this report had been fully grasped, comprehended and digested by the Department. Can the noble Lord be a little clearer about that?
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: My Lords, my understanding is that my honourable friend the Minister of State is setting up the council. This does not mean that if the Open University's report made a number of recommendations they could not be dealt with at a later stage. But the council will exist, and it is being made to exist now.
There was one passage in the Venables Report which was particularly interesting to me. The provision of public libraries is a field in which I think we have substantial achievements to our credit, and for which I have special responsibility. Even during the past three very difficult years, capital expenditure on libraries has totalled £50 million and although, regrettably, it cannot continue at quite the same rate, it nevertheless represents a major addition to our national resources.
The Venables Committee were concerned that independent students in continuing education should also be able to make use of other library facilities, particularly the libraries of universities, polytechnics and colleges. The report advocates strong support for the integrated development and use of these services, but I must not prejudge the views of the Council of the Open University. Others in recent years, influenced by current financial problems as well as by such matters as the development of the British Library, have called for a re-examination
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of library services and questions of co-ordination are under consideration by a number of national bodies, including the Standing Conference for National and University Libraries, the Library Association and the Library Advisory Council. In other words, something is already happening along these lines.
There is a long tradition in this country of voluntary, and mainly informal, co-operation between libraries; a great deal is already being done to take advantage of such opportunities. The DES has a part to play in this respect through its responsibility for the British Library, for public libraries provided by local authorities and for libraries in educational institutions, but the main effort must come from those who actually provide the service. In going around libraries this year, I visited three brand new ones; I was interested that two of them claimed an increase in borrowings of over 63 per cent. over the past two years, and the third an increase of some 50 per cent. It seems that if new facilities are provided they will be well used, and I think that this applies to the whole background of this debate.
If it were possible to provide the resources envisaged by the report, I can think of no institution better equipped than the Open University, academically and otherwise, to undertake the tasks envisaged by the Venables Committee. Its distinctive team approach to course preparation, involving collaboration with other institutions; its skill in the preparation, presentation and publication of multimedia courses; and its resources for research into both teaching and learning at a distance are all witness to this. Its methods have never been confined to distance teaching: through its summer schools, post-experience courses, and its regional and local tuition centres it practices the conventional teaching arts, including pastoral aid, and has gained a deep knowledge of the needs and problems of the part-time adult student. It should be remembered that most of its 5,000 part-time tutors and counsellors are drawn from other universities and the maintained sector of further and higher education, so that there is a continuing cross-fertilisation between the Open University and the other educational institutions. Some of the recommendations in the Venables Report are, of

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course, within the Open University's capacity without reference. I shall not refer to those. It is the ones which require outside help which will have to be considered most deeply.
If I may say a final word on finance, though the Committee acknowledged that a national policy was first required regarding resources, and appreciated the economic difficulties confronting the Government, their report sets out a phased programme for the commitment of additional public money. No commitment can be given by the Government to an expansion of continuing education on the scale envisaged by Venables, which would involve additional expenditure of over £2 million by 1984 on the Open University alone, and some £20 million overall. However, I would remind your Lordships of the very substantial contribution of this Government to the development of continuing education through their commitment to the Open University to the point where it is now an internationally recognised institution and a major addition to our cultural heritage. In addition, there are the funds already being made available through direct grant to the responsible bodies, the increased grant to the Workers' Educational Association, the widening of the students' award regulations, improvements to the library services, and now the launching of the new Advisory Council on Adult and Continuing Education. All these are evidence of the Government's commitment to the concept of continuing education.
This has been a most helpful discussion. The Venables Report contains many extremely good suggestions, and I look forward to the stimulus which it will certainly provide to further thinking and developments in the whole field of adult and continuing education.
5.6 p.m.
Baroness LEE of ASHERIDGE: My Lords, I am deeply appreciative of the contributions that have been made in this debate. I know that we have other colleagues waiting to take over, so I do not wish to take up more of your Lordships' time other than to thank those who have taken part, and to ask our Minister not to be too cautious on the financial side, because where there is a will, there is a way and one can always find the money
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for some things. What we have to decide is priorities and, obviously, all of us who have taken part in this debate today place the highest possible priority on bringing further educational opportunities within the reach of all. My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

TRADE UNIONS AND THE MEDIA
5.7 p.m.
Lord ORR-EWING Lord ORR-EWING rose to call attention to the role of the trade unions in relation to the freedom of the Press and broadcasting; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. Fourteen months ago, Parliament finally passed the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Amendment) Act. There were several clauses and features which caused grave disquiet, particularly in this House. This led to the use of the Parliamentary Act so that the Bill, originally introduced by Mr. Michael Foot in 1975, took over a year to reach the Statute Book. It finally did so on 25th March 1976.
Your Lordships will remember the considerable contributions made to our debates by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, from the Opposition Front Bench, by the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, from the Liberal Benches, by the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, from the Labour Benches and by the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, from the Cross-Benches. Incidentally, the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, has offered his apologies; he is on his way from Oxford and hopes to join the debate fairly soon. They were all concerned, as were so many of us, with the effect of the closed shop on editorial and journalistic freedom, and the Government strongly hoped that an agreed Press Charter would alleviate many of these fears.
The Bill allowed one year for agreement to be achieved; that year was up on 25th March, 1977. Unfortunately, all these hopes have not been fulfilled. The Committee working on the Press Charter, under the chairmanship of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Pearce, representing all sides of the industry, failed to agree and the noble and learned Lord reported

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to the Minister—now Mr. Albert Booth—a failure to agree. He asked that members of his Committee write within three weeks to the Minister, giving their reasons for dissenting on various clauses. The Minister now has a statutory, difficult and unenviable task, after consulting the Press Council and other interested bodies, of writing his own Charter and then presenting it for approval to both Houses of Parliament.
Meanwhile, things have not stood still and some of the fears expressed have, I think, been justified. I thought that in this sensitive matter of Press and broadcasting freedom, it might be timely to have a short debate in your Lordships' House. It seemed more appropriate to have this debate here, where we are less politically polarised and where there is a wealth of talent with a lifetime of experience in the newspaper industry. I am so glad that the noble Lord, Lord Jacobson, will follow me and that the noble Lord, Lord Gibson, is also to speak. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Briginshaw, has not put his name down, because I should like to hear him make the case of the National Society of Operative Printers, Graphical and Media Personnel—more conveniently known as NATSOPA. When I learned that I had been fortunate in the ballot for Motions and contacted many of the large number of bodies and individuals most closely concerned, I had a tremendous and helpful response. I am deeply grateful to them. If I do not do justice to the wealth of material, about 30 centimetres high, which arrived, it is because I do not want to hog all the time in a relatively short debate.
There are many ways in which direct and indirect pressures can apply a form of censorship to newspapers and also in broadcasting. Today we are reminded that even a Parliamentary democracy can sometimes be gravely affected by the unions, because the printers of HMSO refuse to print our Parliamentary Order Papers and therefore are inconveniencing our working. These pressures, whether they are applied to newspapers, broadcasting or even in Parliament, can be applied at all levels and I shall attempt to deal with some of them.
First, may I deal with the editorial side. I readily concede that there is editorial
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policy. The influence this has is considerable on the balance and importance of items in individual papers. My generation will always remember the Beaverbrook Press in the 1930s. We vividly recall the campaigns against Stanley Baldwin, as he then was, and the brilliant cartoons drawn by David Lowe of Lord Sealed Lips. After the war, there were other targets for the Beaverbrook Press, like the British Council. I think that Lord Mountbatten had his share, too. Provided that enough newspapers remain economically viable and also free, the public can probably absorb and judge for themselves such bias as exists. Nowadays, of course, they have the added advantage of television news on two alternative channels to produce a balance.
Now I turn to the journalists and unions. At present the journalists are dominated by their big union, the National Union of Journalists, and also by the smaller one, the IOJ, which represents a somewhat different sector. In recent years, aided and abetted by recent Labour legislation and, I cannot help suspecting, a certain amount of dogma, the closed shop has in effect had to be acknowledged, certainly in the mass circulation papers like the Mirror, I think the Sun and parts of the Beaverbrook Press. I say "in effect", because not to give way means so much unpleasantness and so much disruption that many people have had to how to the closed shop.
Perhaps in the past journalists have been pushed down the hierarchical ladder of this industry as compared with the powerful monopoly enjoyed by the print unions. This may be the belated cause of the current wave of militancy in journalistic circles. I cannot help feeling that it is ironical that Lord Beaverbrook, who always believed in paying journalists handsomely and giving young men early responsibility, should now be suffering from difficulties with the NUJ. One has only to think of the opportunities given to people like Michael Foot, Tom Driberg, Dick Crossman and many others when they were in their early twenties, to realise how that policy was acting in those days.
There is a powerful and dedicated group in the NUJ which is constantly pressing for a rigid application of the closed shop, and who are testing their strength with attempts at political censorship. At the

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NUJ conference from 19th to 22nd April, typical motions tried to rule that their members should not report on National Front activities, nor on organisations which they judged racist, nor even on the football match between Chile and Scotland. At any time the militant Left might rule that journalists should not report on events in South Africa or Rhodesia; or there could be a conspiracy of silence about the murders in Mozambique or the 1 million people who have been killed by the Marxist regime now ruling in Cambodia. What is disturbing is that all this could happen without we, the public, knowing. Surely clandestine censorship is in some ways the most pernicious censorship of all. Bernard Levin's articles in The Times recently showed just how the Left Wing had worked to control the 2,000 strong freelance branch of the NUJ.
As long ago as 1926—incidentally, at the time of the national rail strike—an agreement was made between the NPA and the unions that there would be no censorship by the unions of the Press. It is fair to state that the number of attempts to circumvent this policy is increasing, for 20 years ago attempts were practically unheard of; 10 years ago they were very rare. Today there is always a potential threat in the background, and such attempts have been made with the Daily Telegraph, the Observer and The Times.
I now turn to a number of instances, in their way each of them small but still significant. I will give examples of actual and potential threats, all of which I suggest are totally contrary to the spirit and letter of the NUJ code of conduct. Some of your Lordships may have seen a letter in The Times of 29th April from Martin Webster of the National Front. Your Lordships will know that I have absolutely no sympathy for that organisation. Like the majority of Members of your Lordships' House, I spent the period from 1939 to 1946 fighting every single thing for which that organisation stands. This letter to The Times quoted from a recommendation to NUJ members of their North London organisation. Here are some of the points concerning journalists reporting on National Front activities. First:
"Feel free to act according to conscience, either by refusing to attend or in deliberately writing a report that is extremely brief or highly critical".
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Secondly:
"Enthusiastically take up issues like immigration and deportation. … Don't shirk confronting your management even if it means taking industrial action".
All genuine democrats will deplore such recommendations.
I remember very vividly in the middle of the war, when we were fighting for our lives against the Fascist threat, that Mr. Herbert Morrison, then Home Secretary, decided to release Oswald Mosley from detention. When there was a storm of protest from the Left Wing, with their traditional intolerance, he pointed out that we were fighting a war specifically to maintain the freedom to express contrary views and, I may say, he stuck to his guns with tremendous guts. Last Friday, for the first time that I can recall, there were NUJ pickets at the entrance as I came into New Palace Yard. I had never seen them there before. I gather that they were in sympathy with the NUJ pressure for a closed shop in the Kettering Evening News, where there has been a strike lasting over 22 weeks because some nine NUJ members want to join the Institute of Journalists. We must be thankful that efforts to spread that strike to the PA and prevent the printing of the local election results were prevented by those who were vigilant and who value democracy and the freedom of the Press.
As I have said, it is true that the NUJ have a code of conduct. I have a copy here. However, this could be changed at any time by the militants now serving on the executive committee. It is always easier for an annual conference to endorse changes than it is to vote against its own executive's actions. Let us remember that if deprived of a union card, a journalist is unemployed and unemployable in his chosen and trained profession. A closed shop in the media is an open invitation, I suggest, to a union to steer newspapers and broadcasting into disseminating the Left Wing views in which the militants currently believe.
A closed shop NUJ will lead to a disturbing position in regard to special reports and special articles in the Press. We see instances of this starting in the sporting field, in which I take a special interest. It so happens that a number of sportsmen are also excellent writers. Your Lordships will remember Peter

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Robbins, that second row rugby forward for England, Ted Dexter, Colin Cowdray and Danny Blanchflower, while others come to mind. It would be a sad day if they were blacked, and that happened to Peter Robbins, a correspondent of the Financial Times. He had tried to join the NUJ but had been rejected on the grounds—and I quote,
"that journalism was not his principal source of income".
Therefore he could not be made a member.
If sportsmen are to be banned as part-time contributors, how serious it will be if the same principle applies to musicians who want to write about music, to artists who want to write about paintings or exhibitions, to actors who want to write about the theatre or films or television, to economists—of whom we have several in this House—who want to write about their theories in regard to the economy, and even politicians who will not be allowed to write because they are certainly part-timers; as it would not be their main source of income they would have to cease writing about politics. Once the principle is established that a man is not going to be given a card unless it is his full-time, main manner of earning his keep, one is on a dangerous slope which can go very far.
I would mention that the advertising side, which is so frightfully important to the economic survival of our newspapers at this time, is not free from some indirect censorship. There have been several examples when print unions have refused to set type or have asked for modifications. Small companies and the self-employed preparing advertisement material—and I am referring to companies with one or three or four people—are having their work blacked unless those individuals immediately join either the NGA or Slade. A recent ballot has shown that 80 per cent. of these people do not want to be unionised, so we are having a very forceful application and your Lordships may notice that occasionally our newspapers are printed with blanks where pictures should have been but they have not been produced by the union concerned. In some ways I prefer to have a blank because at least one knows what has happened whereas if something is substituted in its place one is totally unaware of any form of indirect censorship.
I turn now to the other side of the coin, to the print unions. A form of indirect censorship can also be exercised by those unions. At present this sometimes takes the form of a reluctance to print news of their own quarrels. How many of us know what has happened at the HMSO at the moment? Certainly they seem a little reluctant to publish details of their earnings, the degree of overmanning and the rules of working, and if the editor tries to explain to his readers the reasons why they are not printing or why there has been a short print, censorship prevails and very often the print is stopped.
The Royal Commission on the Press published an interim report in March 1976 which showed very large earnings by the linotype operators of up to £240 a week. Therefore, one can understand their reluctance not to disturb the present arrangements or to publicise them too fully.
Last week on a television programme I saw Percy Roberts, now the chairman and chief executive of the Mirror group, and he said that in one department there were 40 people earning over £10,000 a year. Those are very big wages indeed. He also said that that newspaper had spent no less than £5 million in redundancy pay during the last year in an effort to reduce overmanning. I do not recall those figures being emblazoned in the Press.
New typesetting and printing methods are making tremendous progress all over the world. Their introduction into the United Kingdom unfortunately is well behind the practice of the USA and Canada. We are even behind the prosperous countries of Western Europe and in some cases the London produced papers are, in their methods, behind our provincial Press, where they have made more progress. Year after year the print unions prevent the introduction of modern technology and I regret to say that recently that attitude has also been endorsed by a resolution of the NUJ.
David Astor, in his article published in Index in January 1977, pointed out just how easy it was to delay printing and thus prevent editions catching trains. Incidentally, reports on this article, which talked of "the threat and use of sabotage" by the print unions, were unacceptable

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to the unions and could not be printed and there were serious stoppages and amendments. In a commodity as perishable as news, such tactics are not only a form of censorship but they lead straight and inevitably to financial suicide. Almost all our newspapers are now in serious financial straits, not only because of the unions but—and I want to be absolutely fair here—because of the soaring cost of newsprint, which is a crippling burden. Since 1973 newsprint costs have risen from £77 a ton to £238 a ton. Thirty-five per cent. of total outgoings is spent on raw materials, principally paper, and about the same amount on remuneration. It is difficult to do much about a world commodity like newsprint which is much in demand, but there are actions which can be taken in the field of overmanning and new technology.
Let us consider the depth of the present newspaper financial position. Last week it was published in The Times that they had made a loss for the year; but for profits from other activities within the Thomson group it might have ceased publication. The Daily Telegraph is making such slender profits that if it had been a public company with debts to service it would have been in real financial trouble. The Observer would have gone out of business recently but for the financial assistance of an oil company, Atlantic Richfield. The financial problems of the Beaverbrook Press can be read in the columns of our newspapers almost daily. Associated Newspapers have difficulties with their London newspapers and but for their diversification into other industries they, too, would be financially embarrassed. The Sun is perhaps financially the strongest and a cynic might suggest that is the reason why it is under such strong attack by the unions.
The interim report of the Royal Commission has shown that in this great and vital industry, with a sales turnover in 1974 of £300 million, 17 papers together lost £4 million. The following year, in 1975, with a turnover of £354 million they made a slender profit of £4 million. That is just 1·23 per cent. My Lords, we are near censorship by closure.
In this financial climate, the loss of vast sales through industrial disruption can so easily turn a slender profit into near bankruptcy. In the last six months of
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1976 the Sun lost over 20 million copies; the Daily Mirror over 15 million copies; the Daily Telegraph nearly 5 million copies; the Daily Mail over 2½ million copies and nearly all national newspapers were affected by stoppages. I turn now to broadcasting. Financial difficulties may force the quality and quantity of our newspapers to fall. If costs go on rising each family will increasingly read only one paper. It then becomes even more important to preserve and encourage different television and sound broadcasting sources of news, documentaries, discussion and comment.
So far, in replies I have received from the BBC and the IBA it seems there has been only a limited number of occasions when the unions sought to exert pressure on editorial decisions about programmes. The IBA point out, and I think wisely, that they have a statutory requirement to provide political impartiality and this may be helpful in restraining pressure from the unions, which appreciate that their employers would be in breach of the Act if they gave way to pressure. They report pressure on one or two occasions, one of which was an effort by the Association of Cinematograph, Television and Allied Technicians to prevent their members working in South Africa. The BBC's most recent example was at their local station, Radio Sheffield, when the NUJ objected to a non-journalist sports reporter reporting on football. I think he was either a teacher or a potato merchant; I am not sure which. The strike lasted seven and a half weeks and I am glad to say that reporter is still being used. A few years ago the ACTT tried to stop the BBC filming in Crete for a very popular programme called "The Lotus Eaters". They objected because of the colonels' regime. On that occasion, the BBC obtained an injunction and the filming went ahead. Equity continues to oppose the sale of all BBC television programmes to South Africa.
Peter Hain and his anti-apartheid movement are trying to stop the relay of the England-Australia Test series to that country. There are other examples. Again, it is difficult for the public to appreciate to what extent direct and indirect censorship or pressure is occurring. Clearly, this has to be carefully watched, and I am glad that the BBC seems fully awake to the dangers.
On the other hand, David Astor in his article, after referring to Fleet Street silence about their own methods and difficulties, goes on:
"But what is more surprising is that the BBC and ITN cravenly give the news that so many thousand copies of a newspaper have been 'lost through industrial action' without ever explaining what the industrial action is, i.e. organised sabotage, either active or passive. The reason may be a wish by the broadcasting organisations not to offend the susceptibilities of their own unions; it is difficult to think of any other."
My Lords, to summarise and conclude, Lord Justice Scarman said earlier this year:
"There are certain rights, for example, personal liberty, freedom of speech and thought, equality before the law, which are so fundamental that not even the democratically elected majority should be allowed to destroy them."
Just over a year ago this House reluctantly let through the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act. Mr. Michael Foot had refused our Amendments to build in appeal procedures and sanctions against those who did not keep to the Code. The Government had assured Parliament that a voluntary agreement would be reached on the Charter of Press Freedom. These hopes were ill-founded, unfortunately. Now we await the Minister's own Code, which will be presented for approval to each House. My Lords, we will need to examine this Code most carefully. During the last year numerous pressure groups have continued their efforts to inhibit Press freedom. These pressures on broadcasting may at present be less disturbing, but if the militants gain their goals with the Press, broadcasting is bound to be the next main area to come under attack.
My Lords, I have sought to show that economic pressure can so easily close newspapers and reduce choice. This is indirect censorship, and it is dangerous. Surely in this House we have a special duty to discuss and publicise this insidious effort to inhibit freedom in all forms of media. That is why I am grateful to all those who are here today, and especially to those who are speaking. By doing so I hope we are helping to answer Milton's appeal:
"Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties."
My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
5.33 p.m.
Lord JACOBSON: My Lords, the House will be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, for giving us an opportunity to debate this disturbing and serious matter. I should begin with a statement that I have been throughout my working life a member of the National Union of Journalists; I am a life member still. In my earlier years I was a father of the chapel. I was regarded at that time perhaps as a rather militant father of the chapel, but I think by present-day standards I would probably be described as a reactionary crocodile. As the noble Lord pointed out, it is also true, that until the National Union of Journalists began to act as a militant trade union rather than a professional organisation the salaries and working conditions of journalists fell very far behind. In some newspaper offices they were treated in a niggardly and sometimes a disgraceful fashion compared to the rising wages in other parts of the industry and in industry generally. They had to resort to militant chapel action in the first place, and national action later, to get this put right. I think we should remember this when we deplore, as I do, some of the more extreme activities of the militants nowadays.
Interference with the freedom of the Press is rather like evil; we are all against it, but many of us—some of us—practise it. It does not only come from trade unions; politicians intervene in the freedom of the Press through their attempts at news management—politicians of all Parties. Prime Ministers get first editions of the London dailies delivered to 10 Downing Street or Chequers, and it has not been unknown in the past—I do not think it happens now—for a Prime Minister to ring up the editor or senior executive of a newspaper to complain about something that is in the early editions and to try to get it taken out or amended.
There is the law; the law places restrictions on the freedom of the Press. We have the laws of defamation and the laws on contempt of court. Both, I think, are necessary, for the protection of the individual and the courts, but they are out of date; they remain unreformed despite long and learned inquiries and recommendations that they should be brought up to date. We have the ludicrous Official Secrets Acts, of course, still in force, and we have the D notice system.

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The noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, spoke a great deal about trade union interference with the freedom of the Press, but he had less to say about proprietorial and managerial interference. I think that politicians and the public sometimes exaggerate the extent to which proprietors, publishers, chairmen, interfere with the editorial running of their papers. But that there is such interference in some places on some newspapers is absolutely clear to all working journalists. It exists in the power of a newspaper proprietor or a chairman arbitrarily to dismiss the editor with whose political judgment he disagrees. I see my noble friend Lord Castle is sitting there. He and I well remember the abrupt and unjust dismissal of the editor of Picture Post, Mr. Tom Hopkinson, by Sir Edward Hulton because he disagreed with an article about the atrocities being committed in South Korea during the Korean war. There have been other instances. So when we talk about trade union interference let us not imagine that this is the only form of interference, or even the most dangerous form.
There is another form of interference with the Press, which is the steady pressure of managements, understandably, for more profits, higher sales, more space for advertising, particularly in the present economic climate. This sometimesmakes it very difficult for editors to resist lowering the standards of their paper, perhaps giving less space, cutting editorial costs, and in my experience this is something harder to fight than outright attempts at intervention in content either by politicians or trade unions. So let us keep this matter in perspective.
Lord Orr-Ewing quoted a number of instances. I agree with him that many of them are disturbing and some of them are quite deplorable. So let us ask ourselves how do these arise in the day-to-day working of the newspaper and what should be done about it. In my experience, interference by trade unions within the newspaper industry in the contents of a newspaper is very seldom directly political. It does not arise out of conflict over policies, the policies of publishers of newspapers or the policies of the Government or anything like that. It arises out of an industrial situation within that
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particular newspaper or within the newspaper industry in general.
What happens, in my experience, is this: someone on the paper, a chapel official or a member of the chapel, reads a proof or sees a piece of copy in which he thinks the attitude of his union, the views of his union or the views of his members, are not being fairly or accurately reported. He goes to see the editor about this. On daily newspapers, of course, this tends to happen rather late at night. The editor or the night editor has to deal with it at once, and he has to deal with it quickly because he has to get the paper to press. He cannot rely on branch officials of the union or the National Executive officers of the union, he cannot rely on the Newspaper Publishers' Association, he cannot rely on the Press Council. These gentlemen are probably at home in bed by then. He has to make up his mind and he has to make up his mind quickly. What the chapel officials, again in my experience, usually ask for is either that the piece should be left out while the matter is sorted out or that a statement on their side of the case should be published simultaneously in the same edition. The argument on which they base this is that, as they are part of the newspaper, they have a greater right than readers to put their side of the case before the paper is published.
In other words, if a newspaper reader reads something with which he disagrees, he sees it only the next day; these people see it that night. It is an understandable argument but I do not think it is a valid one. There is only one way in which editors can deal with such a situation. They must say, "If your union wishes to write or make a statement tomorrow putting its side of the case and correcting what it thinks is an unfairness, then of course we shall consider it and if we think it is fair to the union to do so we shall publish it, but we cannot do so tonight and we shall not take the article about which you complain out of the paper".
In my experience that nearly always works. In the end the chapel officials agree and work continues. However, if they do not agree, if they say that they will not print the paper with that article in it, there is only one thing for the editor to do and that is to say, "Right, we shall close down the paper rather than

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take the piece out". It is very hard for an editor to say that. No journalist or editor likes to lose an issue of his newspaper, particularly in these hard, competitive times. However, I believe that that is the right thing to do.
The noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, quoted the Observer and mentioned its editor, Mr. David Astor. I know Mr. Astor and have great admiration for his long and brilliant editing of that newspaper. However, there have been occasions on the Observer when this robust attitude of closing down the paper rather than giving way to what is considered to be an unreasonable demand has not been carried out.
Before I mention the matter of the closed shop I should like to deal with one or two points raised by the noble Lord. He reported the motion of the annual conference of the National Union of Journalists instructing members not to report National Front activities, football matches and so on. I believe that in fact that motion was defeated. There is now a growing reaction against extreme militancy within the union. It is strong in the freelance branch and in the central London branch. I believe that the National Union of Journalists can eventually he left to sort this out for itself. I do not entertain some of the worst fears that the noble Lord expressed.
I do not believe that the noble Lord was quite right in his view of sports journalists. There is no objection to a full-time former sportsman who is now working full-time as a journalist writing for a paper, such as Denis Compton or Baxter, who writes for the Sunday Mirror. The objection was—and this was a fight that went on for a long time—that papers began to be filled with articles allegedly written by football managers or football professionals which were in fact, ghosted for them by members of the staff. As an interim measure the National Union insisted that in small type at the end of such articles the phrase "As told to …" or "As narrated to a member of the staff" should be included. This seemed to be quite a ludicrous state of affairs, particularly as any intelligent follower of football would far rather read what a professional journalist had to say about a match than what a football manager had to say about it. I sympathised with the NUJ when it stopped this practice. There is no objection in the
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NUJ to former sportsmen who have become full-time sports journalists. Why do they have an NUJ card when I believe that the earnings rule no longer exists?
Lord ORR-EWING: My Lords, I could quote an incident where that has occurred within the last month. Therefore, it certainly exists in some areas.
Lord JACOBSON: My Lords, possibly; but I think I am right in saying that it is NUJ policy as a whole and that in most newspaper offices these relations work perfectly amicably. Such people are regarded as working journalists.
I do not want to comment too much on the Kettering dispute—it is an unhappy situation. It began as an argument about a house agreement; it has developed into a closed shop dispute. The nub of the matter now seems to be that the nine journalists who left the NUJ and joined the Institute of Journalists are regarded as having broken the union rules by leaving in the course of a dispute. It is on that that some eventual settlement may arise, as I hope will be the case soon.
I turn to the closed shop. It is no secret that many ex-newspaper people on this side of the House had great pangs of conscience during the debates to which the noble Lord referred. In the end I voted reluctantly for the Government because it seemed that we could not deny the National Union of Journalists rights which were being granted to other unions and which, in effect, existed in most newspaper offices anyway. The noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, is quite right in saying that there is a de facto closed shop, a post-entry closed shop, whereby people who join the paper are expected to join the union.
I very much regret the bitterness that has grown up between the National Union of Journalists and the Institute of Journalists. I hope that when the present troubles are over they may be able to restore amicable relations and perhaps even get back, as they did some years ago, to talking about an eventual amalgamation, which would be healthy for the profession.
I regret the breakdown of the talks on the Press charter and I certainly do not envy the Minister of Employment his task of now drawing one up. But I

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warn the House not to expect too much from any Press charter, however it is arrived at. It is worth having something on paper, but what matters in the end are the relations between the editor and his staff. That is the only way in which the situation will work properly. Where the relations between the editor and his editorial staff are good, I prophesy that there will be no trouble because both sides are genuinely concerned to maintain the freedom of the Press, on which so much depends.
5.48 p.m.
Lord ROCHESTER: My Lords, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, will not think me discourteous if I confess that the more I have reflected on the terms of the Motion he has introduced in your Lordships' House this afternoon, the less happy I have felt about speaking on it. This is partly because its terms are drawn so widely as to mean that it is very difficult, in what is necessarily a short debate, adequately to cover all the issues that it raises. But it is also because Motions of this kind can so easily be perceived to be—and I certainly do not accuse the noble Lord of having any intention of this kind—contentious, selective, and even partisan in their treatment of problems, that I am sure he will be the first to agree they are of a highly complex kind. In my experience, at best they then fail to solve the problem to which they call attention, and at worst they actually prove to be counter-productive.
However, it would clearly be inappropriate in a debate of this kind if there was no contribution from these Benches, and I am therefore speaking on this Motion. I shall do so briefly. I shall do so in what might, I think, be called a low key and with even more diffidence than usual, because although I have some practical experience of negotiating with trade unions, even to a small extent with printing unions, I have little or none of broadcasting, journalism, or the law. I feel even more reluctant after listening to the speech which has just been made by the noble Lord, Lord Jacobson, with all his evident knowledge and first-hand experience of the newspaper industry.
As has already been said, in the last few weeks there have been a number of events which are significant in the context
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of this Motion, and like the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, I should like to make some reference to two or three of them. There was first the report which he mentioned of the Press Charter Group published towards the end of March. He has reminded your Lordships that that group, representative of employers, editors, and trade unions representing journalists, failed to reach agreement as to a Press charter and on some pretty fundamental points, including the freedom of trade unions to negotiate post-entry closed shops, the disciplining of journalists, and the definition of editors.
As the noble Lord, Lord Jacobson, has just said, it now falls to the Secretary of State to draft his own charter, as it were. We, on these Benches, take some comfort from the fact that that charter has to be presented to both Houses of Parliament for approval before it can take effect. But in a political situation which is now very different from that in which the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, first made the proposal, I think in your Lordships' House, that there should be a Press charter, like the noble Lord, Lord Jacobson, I do not suppose that the Secretary of State views this prospect with any great relish.
I should make our position clear (and certainly this is how I myself feel about it) as to the charter. We remain determined, as my noble friend Lord Wigoder put it when the matter was last discussed in this House rather more than a year ago, that any charter should give adequate protection to the rights of individual journalists, of editors, and of outside contributors, and to the rights of the Institute of Journalists to retain a separate existence. Speaking for myself, but again like the noble Lord, Lord Jacobson, I note, I now wonder more than ever if the existence of such a charter might not do more harm than good. But I do not think that that is a sufficient reason to refrain from asking the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Coslany, when he comes to wind up the debate, whether he can tell us anything more as to the Government's intentions on this point.
No doubt many of your Lordships would now agree that, so far as possible, it is best that the law and codes of practice, or charters, which depend for their approval on Parliament and are admissible in

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evidence, should be kept out of industrial relations. We have had too many unhappy experiences of the reverse in recent years. Our differences in this House, as I recall them, a year or two ago centred round the question of whether, in the case of the Press, there were one or two basic liberties, such as the right of an individual not to join a union at all on grounds of conscience and the need to maintain complete freedom of expression, that were of such overriding importance as to mean that they should be safeguarded in some way by statutory sanctions.
This leads me to the second recent series of events on which I should like to comment briefly, and which is relevant to this Motion; that is, the strike by the Kettering journalists. I think it has now lasted for five months. As the noble Lord, Lord Jacobson, said, it has now become a dispute involving the closed shop principle. It culminated last week in the instruction from the National Union of Journalists to its members that they should black newscopy and pictures emanating from the Press Association at just the time when the local election results were being published.
In my experience, it is usually unhelpful for people not having close knowledge of the precise circumstances surrounding such disputes to air their views upon them; but in this case I would go so far as to offer the opinion that a hopeful sign for the future was the widespread interest and the active expression of conflicting opinions which that instruction evoked among journalists throughout the country. In my view, and I think there was some general support for this feeling of optimism in the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Jacobson, the more widely there is discussion of this difficult problem of the closed shop the more likely it is that the problem will eventually be resolved in practice in a moderate, level-headed and democratic way, without recourse to Parliamentary intervention. Certainly that is my sincere hope, and I would leave it at that.
The third and last point to which I think I must refer in a debate of this kind is the future of the newspaper industry, and particularly that of Associated Newspapers and the Beaverbrook Press. In my limited experience of it, overmanning and restrictive practices
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are more prevalent in the printing industry than in almost any other. On the face of it, this reflects poorly on the unions concerned. However, doubtless equally critical remarks could be made of employers, and especially in the case of the negotiations affecting the London Evening News and Evening Standard regarding the apparent failure of newspaper employers in that case adequately to inform in a sufficiently timely way their own employees about what was going on before they learned of it from other sources.
Nevertheless, it is to the role of trade unions that this Motion calls attention, and whether the attitudes of the printing unions stem primarily from habit, fear, or sheer short-sighted selfishness, on the one hand, or reflect, primarily, bad management, on the other, they certainly afford evidence of considerable lack of trust and of failure of communication between the unions and the employers concerned. As the annual report of the Thomson Organisation published only last week underlines, unless progress is made—in this case unless computer technology is introduced—the future even of The Times could be in jeopardy and the loss of that newspaper would indeed be a national tragedy.
Whatever the underlying causes of these problems, it seems to me that the basic point is that management and unions should come together to identify the problems more closely and, indeed, to solve them if newspapers are to survive in their present numbers; for we must not forget—on this point I agree very much with Lord Orr-Ewing—that the fewer newspapers there are the less freedom there will be for views to be expressed which are truly representative of all shades of opinion among us.
6.2 p.m.
Lord GIBSON: My Lords, I join other noble Lords in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, for raising this subject at this time. It is, as he said, about a year since we last discussed this matter in your Lordships' House and during that year there have been the discussions on the charter which have broken down, and the matter now rests with the Secretary of State for Employment. It is in my view an appalling situation that a Government Minister should be required

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to draft a charter of Press freedom. I do not rate very highly his chances of producing a charter which will be acceptable to either House, and I take the view that it is likely to do more harm than good, if it is finally approved, but one must wait and see what he comes up with.
I must declare an interest in that I am chairman of a publishing group which includes the Financial Times, of which paper I am also chairman. Before I had anything to do with the Financial Times I worked on the Westminster Press, which is a group of provincial newspapers, for some 15 years after the war. I have had the opportunity therefore of observing some of the trends which have led to the present situation and I shall confine myself to the issue of the closed shop, because in my view that is the overwhelmingly important one.
I remember very well that during the 'fifties and early 'sixties there was a very different attitude among journalists from that which has gained some ground today and I have the utmost sympathy with them in the change which has in many ways been forced on them. They saw their colleagues in the production unions obtaining advantages through solidarity which they were unable to obtain for themselves and they saw their own standard of living fall in relation to that of their colleagues; the differential was eroded.
There was of course another reason why they did not always push their strength as far as they might have, and that was because of a genuine professional approach to their work. There is a great disinclination on the part of journalists to see the paper not come out, and I believe that had something to do with the fact that it was not until 10 years ago, or even less, that militancy began to gain ground, and it was only through militancy that ground was made up. Therefore, I have great sympathy with them in this change of approach, although I deplore it. They have this in common with other professional groups—doctors, teachers, nurses—all of whom are reluctant to use the weapon of withholding their labour because of their professional attitude to their work.
It would be wrong to underestimate the present bargaining strength of the NUJ; I do not think it is possible to imagine a
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large newspaper coming out for any length of time without their consent. Situations such as that which, sadly, obtain at Kettering would I think be impossible on a large scale; it must be a very exceptional editor who can bring out 100 issues without any of his NUJ members' assistance. Whatever the rights and wrongs of it may be, the fact is that journalists attribute the fact that they fell behind in their living standards to weakness, and this is the reason for their support of the closed shop. Thus, while I am saddened by their change in approach, the reasons for it are not far to seek.
It is easy if one wants power for a litigimate purpose, such as industrial bargaining, to convince oneself that it will not be used for an illegitimate purpose, but neither journalists nor anyone else should fall into that obvious trap, as I think it to be, in the case of the Press. If the militant minority persuade their fellow journalists that this power is necessary for industrial bargaining purposes, that militant minority will certainly contain some who are determined to use it for political purposes. In the hands of such people, if they obtain power on the Executive of the NUJ, this power will amount to a power to determine that some ideas shall find expression and some shall not if a closed shop is established.
If one ever thought it was fanciful to imagine that this might happen, the case of the North London area branch of the NUJ, which was quoted by Lord Orr-Ewing, shows that it can happen. I do not think it has been denied, following the letter to The Times which he quoted, that it did happen; to recommend the distortion or suppression of fact in pursuit of what they call a constructive policy on race reporting is a concept which entirely subverts the idea of a free Press. The idea that power over a union with a closed shop should pass to people who might use it in this way will be abhorrent to your Lordships, and certainly will be abhorrent to the vast majority of journalists; yet that is the power which a closed shop would certainly confer if newspaper managements were weak enough to concede it to a central body like the NUJ.
If they were to concede it, possession of the NUJ card would amount to a licence to write in the Press; we should

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have a licensed Press with the NUJ issuing the licences. In my view we have to conclude that the NUJ's need for a closed shop for bargaining strength—I have already said that I have great sympathy for the reasons—must yield to the greater public need of free access to the Press. It is no good saying that in practice the power to affect Press freedom conferred by the closed shop would not be abused. The danger would be there and it must not be tolerated.
The noble Lord, Lord Jacobson, is right to say that the danger is equally there and has indeed been much more frequently used in the past by proprietors. What he said was absolutely fair. I thought his speech was a model of good sense, and I was very interested and glad to hear his advice to editors to be robust in refusing pressures from workers who, because they are part of the production process, feel they should have some influence on the contents and have a right to have their views represented before the paper comes out. Weakness on the part of editors on occasions has been deplorable.
Of course it is true that proprietors have exerted this influence in the past, but the basic difference is that there is a variety of proprietors. Furthermore, the supply of those willing to serve as proprietors does not appear to be drying up. As The Economist said last week—and I think it hit the nail on the head—
"Only rich men, it seems, are foolish enough to keep as many newspapers going as a democratic country deserves. They distort news and comment, but keep a greater variety of both. So long as there are enough newspapers around, the distortion does not matter too much. The Beaver himself discovered that propaganda and manipulation of news in a free market for ideas can be counter-productive".
Proprietors have misused their power in the past and they will do so in the future, but experience shows—and we should take some comfort from this—that it is much harder for proprietors to put pressure on editors today than it used to be, especially if a paper is successful. It is much easier if it is not a successful paper, but then there is perhaps some excuse for it. A successful editor need not and will not tolerate interference, and the proprietor fortunate enough to have a successful editor in charge of his paper would be foolish to put his good fortune at risk by intervening.
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Perhaps I may be permitted to assure your Lordships, if such an assurance is needed, that Pearsons have not in 20 years' ownership of the Financial Times ever attempted to put pressure on the editor in any way. I am glad to see the noble Earl, Lord Drogheda, in his place, for I think that he would confirm that. I am not sure that we can claim any great virtue. The fact is that the Financial Times is a very successful paper and we should have been foolish to try to influence it in any way. However, whatever the sins, actual or potential, of proprietors there are several of the latter. They do not monopolise the Press, whereas a powerful union without whose good will or licence no one can write for the Press regularly, if at all, could do so and this seems potentially 10 times more harmful than any individual proprietor.
That brings me to the last point that I want to make. There can be no freedom without diversity. We need mere newspapers, more outlets for points of view, not fewer. More newspapers are perfectly possible if the costs of production can be reduced, as they can be if the technology now available is introduced at economic manning levels. As your Lordships know, a joint committee of the employers and trade union leaders in the newspaper industry has worked out proposals for the introduction of new technical processes in a way which it was hoped was both realistic and generous, taking full account of the social and human factors, no less than the economic. I am sorry to say that the proposals were voted down by the membership of most of the unions concerned, though not by the NUJ. The NUJ voted for it, even if not by a very large majority.
One can sympathise only too well with the anxieties of people whose existing interests are threatened. We all tend to react in exactly the same way when our interests are threatened. I have great sympathy with the people who voted down these proposals, but the plain fact is that the threat of unemployment is not averted by saving old jobs which are uneconomic. It is averted by creating new ones. This truth will ultimately force us to change. I have complete confidence in that outcome; I am sure that resistance to change will be overcome with understanding and after a lot of hard bargaining, and that we shall eventually get a larger number

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of newspapers in both Fleet Street and elsewhere. I believe that the trends towards closing down will be reversed, but we have a long way to go before that process matures.
That is the prescription for a free Press and, let me emphasise, for the prosperity of journalists. The imposition of a closed shop is not. I conclude by assuring your Lordships that I believe this issue to be so important that, though I am not particularly anxious for the assistance of the law—that is another matter—no management with which I am connected will concede that principle. If it were conceded in principle, I should cease to have anything to do with it.
6.15 p.m.
Lord RITCHIE-CALDER: My Lords, I have to declare an interest because, like my noble friend Lord Jacobson, I am a card-carrying NUJ member and have been all my adult life. In fact, I think that I was the 350th member of the Central London branch, which puts me way back with Adam and Eve.
I am intervening today not from any strong purpose except that I was waiting to hear what on earth the debate was all about. I suspected that it would take the form that it has taken. We have had the repetition of most of the things that we have heard before from both sides, and we are still no clearer as to what should be the answers to this problem. I suspect that, like my other colleagues—and I may say that the NUJ is probably the strongest union in the House of Lords—I have regarded a job as a profession. I certainly did not regard myself as part of an industry until quite late in my career. Then, you realise that, in the editorial or journalistic side, you are a quite insignificant part of an industry and that the whole of your capacity for expression, which is what most journalists want, apart from salary—they want to read themselves in the newspapers and they want people to know what they think—can be cut off by the man who ties the string on the parcels at the despatch point. We are all part of a very cumbrous system and I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Gibson, that we are a long way behind the technological capacity which could make this industry of ours effective and prosperous.
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I remember in 1929 the editor of the Daily News asking me to write an article on the future of newspapers. I described the fatuous situation that existed as a result of which I wrote something on a piece of paper, handed it to a sub-editor, who put a heading on it, the heading was approved and so on; it then went to the compositors, who set the type and handed it to the "mat" maker, who handed it to the stereo man. Ultimately, it got to the point where it was tied up by the gentleman with the piece of string, thrown into a van and taken to a railway station, put on a train, thrown off the train at Grantham or wherever it might be, dismantled by a wholesaler and rewrapped for the retailer, unwrapped by the retailer and handed to the newsboy who even today brings it to me up 75 stairs in the city of Edinburgh.
That was a newspaper. To me, it was completely and utterly nonsensical, and we realised that. In fact, I did a description of how one could deliver a newspaper directly into the home. In those days, we only had telephoto, but I made the most of that and assumed that we could deliver straight into the home. NATSOPA refused to print the article. That was in 1929. They have now been overtaken by events in the shape of all the potential technological changes that exist and that are highly efficient, as we can see elsewhere. Therefore, what we are struggling for and talking about is not just the closed shop or how we are to work out a charter for editors or journalists; it is the survival of an industry, the survival of the printed word. This is one of the tragic things that I see happening all over the world. There is the possibility that we shall rely on our ears and eyes and forget how to read or forget what we ought to read. So we are really struggling for even more than just the relationships of journalists or the question of a charter.
On the question of the charter, I agree with my noble friend Lord Jacobson and the noble Lord, Lord Gibson; I cannot imagine anything more futile than for the Minister to sit down and try to work out a charter of this kind. Such a matter shows a great unreality about our discussions. I think that this was felt by us journalists in this House, and no doubt those in another place. I welcomed the valiant efforts of my noble friend Lord Houghton of

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Sowerby to try to find a meaningful solution, but at the same time I, and I believe all of us, realise that this is not the way things work in newspapers. There is no way—a long way short of stopping a paper altogether—in which to achieve the effective production of a newspaper that does not involve a strict and genuine relationship between the editor on the job and the people who produce the paper.
Never in my experience did I find myself in such great disagreement with my editor that we could not come to some agreement as to how we should behave like grown-ups. I am not talking now of Party politics. Further, I cannot remember any time in my experience of the NUJ chapels when we did not come to settlements and agreements. We had our disputes with the editor, but I assure your Lordships that these were never on a Party political line, but rather they basically and genuinely involved the concern of professional people engaged in a professional job— producing what is called a newspaper. We had considerable feelings about the kind of newspaper for which we ought to be working, but that did not lead to confrontation or the kind of troubles which we are talking about now.
To me it is absolutely inconceivable ever to have a legal charter which would simply determine what sensible people ought to do and how they ought to think in the fairly drastic and fierce business of producing a newspaper on time. As has been pointed out, one of the weak points of our craft or our industry is this urgency of beating the clock, which gives so many opportunities for putting a spanner in the works. Let us be quite clear about that.
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, for having raised this question. At least it reminds us that there is a body of people—my profession, journalism—who are genuinely concerned to produce the kind of newspapers which should be a credit to this country. The people who are degrading—and I use that word deliberately—our newspapers are not the journalists who are writing for them, but the people who are commercialising them in the way that is happening now, and which I find quite indefensible. We are not producing newspapers nowadays; we are producing magazines with as much sex as can possibly be packed into them.
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We get very hot around the collar about freedom of speech and defence of liberty. I am all for this. But the fact is that the people who will help to maintain this freedom and liberty, and justify it, are the working journalists. I assure your Lordships that the working journalists are most concerned about the freedom of speech and the freedom to write and to be read. It is their job; and it is their hope and their aspiration to be read. I can assure your Lordships that the journalists are not the people in this bogy which has been built up and which we are talking about this evening.
6.24 p.m.
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, I do not think it possible to overstate the importance of the matter raised by my noble friend, Lord Orr-Ewing, and the speeches of all noble Lords who have spoken so far this evening in this debate have reinforced that view. The House will therefore be particularly grateful to my noble friend for raising this matter tonight. The noble Lord, Lord Ritchie-Calder, who has just spoken, complained about the commercialism of modern, latter-day newspaper proprietors. But given the commercial circumstances in which we live, do you wonder at it, my Lords? I was particularly impressed, as I think we all were, by the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Jacobson, who gave views which clearly were based on sound and long experience. The noble Lord, Lord Rochester, complained that the Press charter might do more harm than good. When the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, was pressing his Amendments a year or so ago we all, certainly on this side of the House, wondered about the effect that the charter would have; but that was the best solution that we could get, and even that we were not very happy about, and indeed the Government were obliged to use the Parliament Act to bring that solution into force. But at the time it was advanced, at least in some quarters, as a compromise.
Owing to the fact that this is a short debate I do not propose to embark upon a long philosophical dissertation, but rather to consider some of the more practical risks to which we are exposed by allowing unions the licence end freedom which has been so aptly described already by so many noble Lords. I

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should like to start by saying that I believe that the role of the trade unions, whether in the newspaper business or in the broadcasting industry, or indeed in any other, is to promote and foster the wellbeing of their members—all of their members. I think that, on the whole, they do that task very well. Many noble Lords tonight have claimed membership of the National Union of Journalists. I cannot claim membership of that union, but I am a member of another union. Of course it is right that in pursuit of these aims the unions should be entitled to consult management or Government, or indeed among themselves, but in the media industries which concern us tonight the alarm bells have begun to ring because it is said that the unions are now stepping beyond the bounds of what we regard as acceptable.
Is this a false alarm, my Lords, or can the problems be handled by the industry itself? First, the National Union of Journalists is now actively enforcing a closed shop throughout almost all the national and provincial newspapers. That alone would have caused hardly a ripple, for closed shops exist in many industries, both public and private. As I have said previously, this topic was exhaustively discussed when we were considering the Trade Union and Labour Relations Bill a few months ago. But the burden of our complaint tonight is not the simple desire of the NUJ to achieve a closed shop, but rather the lengths to which that union will go to enforce it, and, above all, the regime which is implemented once a closed shop has been created.
My noble friend Lord Orr-Ewing has given us some very serious examples of the action of the NUJ taken to enforce a closed shop; but grave though these are, I myself attach even greater importance to the actions taken on instructions issued by the union members as to the line that they should take when reporting matters on which the union has a particular view. Clearly this is to be deplored. I hope and believe that the examples described by my noble friend Lord Orr-Ewing, particularly those stories about the National Front, are merely cases of over-enthusiasm by local officials, rather than the considered view of the union itself.
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I do not yet think that we have reached the point where the unions, in particular the NUJ and the printing unions, are exercising a totally unreasonable control over the editorial prerogative, but the NUJ themselves are certainly influencing, if not controlling, the selection of those who contribute to our papers and broadcasts, and I believe this is unhealthy. It is to be hoped that the Minister's Press charter, when it appears, will nip this undesirable trend in the bud.
Many of your Lordships have spoken about the closed shop, and I think it right that I should state quite clearly where we on this side of the House stand on the closed shop, not only in the printing and newspaper industries but really right across the spectrum. First of all, we believe that closed shops should not be created without the consent of the workforce involved. We secondly believe that existing employees should not be forced to join a union against their will. Thirdly, individuals who have strong personal convictions, perhaps of a religious nature, which make it impossible for them to join a union should be exempted. It is also important that any closed shop agreement should protect the rights of members of professions whose codes of conduct forbid them to take part in industrial action. Finally, we believe that an independent tribunal ought to be available to consider the cases of people who have strong personal convictions against trade union membership, or who are arbitrarily excluded or expelled from particular unions.
My Lords, there is another area where there is considerable cause for concern. It is widely believed that the financial straits in which the newspaper industry, particularly the national newspaper industry, now finds itself is the result of chronic overmanning which has continued for a good many years. The lengths to which the printing uions are prepared to go, in particular, to preserve the number of jobs, often very highly paid jobs, is really a scandal. It is no exaggeration to say that the impending (as we believe) reduction in the number of London evening newspapers from two to one is an indirect but clear result of this problem. The unions do not seem to understand that by forcing uneconomic manning levels on newspapers, closures I will result and the total number of jobs

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available will be reduced. I should have thought that that was as clear as a pikestaff, but it has not appprently dawned on the men themselves.
The industrial muscle available to unions in all spheres is also a matter giving cause for concern. I refer in particular to their power to influence matters quite divorced from their own sphere of activities. My noble friend Lord Ferrier, who had hoped to speak tonight but who unfortunately has been called away, reminds me of how the reporting of Parliamentary matters has declined in quantity, in particular, over the years, to the point where nowadays only two, or at most three, national dailies include any appreciable coverage of our proceedings—and that, too, is sometimes very sketchy. As pressure mounts upon editors to include only commercial copy, it is not inconceivable that papers will begin to edit political views with which they do not agree even more sharply than hitherto. I believe that my noble friend Lord Orr-Ewing has introduced an important and vital topic this evening, and we are grateful to him for it. I am looking forward to hearing the Minister's reply.
6.34 p.m.
Lord GOODMAN: My Lords, I must apologise to the House for a tardy arrival and for the disadvantage of not having heard most of the previous speakers, but I want to make only two relatively brief points and I think they are probably points unlikely to have been affected by observations previously made because of their essential character. The first point I should like to make is this. I think it is important to review the situation since the very protracted and corrosive battle we had last year and the year before on this issue, but I think it would be unfortunate, in some ways, to reopen it in all its aspects at this moment. I think that at this moment, when efforts are being made to determine what a Press Charter ought to be, and when, if I may venture to say so, the electoral situation must leave it uncertain whether there will be a Press Charter at all, detailed discussion on the matters of dispute between us cannot, probably, be very helpful.
I can bring to the House a report of the current situation in so far as your Lordships may not have received it, because I
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participated in the Press Charter discussions; and I think that, if it has not already been done (and even if it has been done it would be right to repeat it), a tribute should be paid to Lord Pearce for the way in which he struggled to achieve an agreement against impossible odds. It was evident from the outset that to attain an agreement where there was such a deep cleavage of opinion on the matter would require powers even exceeding his, but his efforts were so wise, so tenacious and really so perceptive that one felt one almost owed it to him to reach an agreement, and it was certainly a personal sadness to me that the negotiations collapsed, as I thought they would have to collapse, in circumstances where he did not get his reward of having achieved such an agreement. I think it is right that we should send a tribute to him from this House for the efforts that he made, and, on the whole, for the extraordinarily conciliatory atmosphere that he contrived to provide, which I think will reap benefits in the future. I think he did remove some of the heat, some of the corrosion, some of the elements of distrust that have made the position more difficult and which, removed, will make it easier.
My Lords, the second point I should like to make is on the question of a closed shop. What do we mean by a closed shop? On the question of a closed shop designed to protect the industrial negotiations of people to maintain the proper wage level, to ensure that no single member can jettison the negotiations or damage them so that they cannot earn a proper wage, I think there would be very little disagreement in this House that that was by no means an improper thing; that no single person should have the power to disrupt and destroy negotiations being conducted by other people which related purely to industrial considerations. But that was not what this was about. What this was about was that some of us, in an increasing number, recognised that industrial considerations had no place in relation to creative activity; and one has to accept that there are certain aspects of human behaviour, certain activities, where it is impossible to permit the fullest and freest industrial negotiation because that is impairing freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom to produce what a man has a right to produce in the way of an intellectual exercise.

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That really was the cleavage, and I said time and time again that if someone would come forward with a proposal for allowing the fullest and freest industrial negotiation unimpaired or undamaged by questions of a closed shop, I am quite sure that a method could have been found for dealing with it. But what had to be dealt with was that this legislation permitted and permits the possibility that once a closed shop is introduced a man may not be able to write for a newspaper, and ultimately write for a publisher, because he can be excluded from a union or expelled from a union without any appropriate legal redress. That was what the issue was about and that is what it is about. It is not about anything else; and it is to restore that situation that I hope this House and the other place will one day set their minds with the knowledge of what the real issue is: not in order to provoke industrial discord, not in order to attack trade unions—because one of the things that needs to be said here really relates to the terms of this Motion. I think we ought to be very indebted to Lord Orr-Ewing for having brought the matter to the attention of the House at a moment, I think, when it is quite useful that there should be a discussion, if perhaps not too protracted a discussion; and his Motion talks about "the trade unions".
On the whole, this is a matter which relates to journalists. I do not think, with very few exceptions, that one has to excite oneself about the possibility of the print unions in this connection. It is of course the case that the print unions have occasionally misbehaved, that they have sought to intervene and to prevent something being published; but, on the whole their concern is purely with industrial matters. Over recent months when I have had dealings with them—I have had dealings with them over the years—I do not think anyone need sense a danger to freedom of speech or to liberty from their activities, although obviously there are small elements in all the unions who seek to turn to advantage any kind of legislation which enables them to disrupt the sort of society that we want, that we enjoy and that we think is right. That is quite a different question. It is how we deal with those elements in unions, small but powerful,
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which can take command and do irreparable damage if allowed to take command. But that is a different question.
On the question of the problem of free speech, this is something which relates almost entirely to journalists. It also relates to a relatively limited number of journalists. I agreed with the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie-Calder, when he said that most journalists are as concerned about the freedom of speech as I am and as your Lordships are. But that is not the point. The point is that, led by industrial considerations, led, I think, by advice and recommendations which did not bring the real issue into relief, they have failed to see a danger which other people perceive only too clearly: that if you allow any union the right to say who shall be a member of that union, in circumstances where if a man is not a member of the union he may not write, he may not express his thoughts, he may not express his opinions or divulge what he has learned, that is the end of true democracy if it is permitted to happen without restraint and control.
My Lords, we discussed this subject at very great length. The situation has now been reached where the important thing is to see what sort of Press charter will be brought before Parliament for consideration. I have deep misgivings that the sort of Press charter that we might possibly have negotiated, with a slightly more conciliatory attitude on all sides, and certainly through no fault of the distinguished judge who presided, will not be the charter that will now emerge from the Minister. I think that one should repeat how obnoxious is the notion of a Press charter which is imposed upon a free Press by a governmental Minister in circumstances where, so far as I know, there is no parallel in the Free World for such a thing having been done. I think it is unfortunate that such a charter should emerge in this way but I think that, equally, we should not prejudge it. It may be that some of the dangers and problems that we have apprehended and are concerned about will be dealt with in a liberal and even a constructive fashion. One hopes that this may be so. One must wait and see.
I think that it is important to emphasise that what we are concerned with is not in any way to trammel upon or restrict the

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trade unions activities in regard to industrial negotiations or the right of a man to demand the best possible wage that he can. That is not the issue. It has never been the issue. Time and time again it has been alleged against me and against the publishers that our concern is to tread into the dust the faces of these poor, infirm, weak workers, having no industrial power and with no muscle, in order to ensure that they receive minimum wages. This is a burlesque in the way that I am presenting it; but it is also a burlesque of the facts to any extent at all. It is not the desire, nor has it ever been the desire, of anyone I represent or for whom I speak to become involved in any way in any curtailment of the right of the workers to earn the best wages that they can. But in so far as the possibility of doing this involves the concession of a right to exclude a man from the practice and profession of writing, that is totally unacceptable. I hope that it will remain so and that it will be the subject of revising legislation at the earliest possible opportunity.
This brings me—and I do not intend to keep your Lordships for very long—to the very important question of what is to be done to preserve a free Press where papers are endangered, as they are today, by financial threats and similar curtailments operating on all fronts. The observation was made by the last speaker, and rightly made, that new technology might enable new papers to appear and might remove some of the grave economic threats that prevent the publication of newspapers because of costs. It may be so.
This will not be easily negotiated unless there is determined intervention on the part of the Government. I do not think that this matter can he dealt with by private negotiation. I know that my colleagues in the Newspaper Proprietors' Association, almost without exception, viewed with horror and repugnance any suggestion that there might be governmental assistance in relation to the publication of newspapers. This is not a horror or a repugnance that I share. I think that it behoves a free society to see that newspapers are published, free of control and free of interference, but in a fashion to enable as many as possible to appear; and that where the financial necessity involves some governmental assistance,
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then, under proper circumstances and under proper control, it should be given.
I was for seven years Chairman of the Arts Council of Great Britain. I may say that I am perhaps better able than most to judge the likelihood of a man who writes anything regarding himself beholden to a Government grant or Government subsidy. I have never met greater alacrity or enthusiam in biting the hand that feeds them than I found among the people that we supported with subsidies. And I think that it is right and proper that it should be so.
It is a fanciful apprehension that you cannot devise a way to subsidise newsprint or to provide some independent organisation to ensure that papers in great trouble can have some governmental assistance. I can suggest one way in which it might be done at no cost to the public purse. The Annan Report, about which I may say one word in a moment, recommends that there should be a single programme journal published throughout the country and containing both sets of programmes. This is so wise and so overdue that it requires no comment. If the copyright in that journal can be vested in some independent body, for the proceeds to be used to sustain newspapers which are threatened by television, that would be a wise move. It would enable money to come in without further encroaching on the taxpayers' pocket and would enable independent-minded people to decide how much should be allocated. This is too big a question to be opened or discussed at this hour; but it is right that it should be touched upon.
When I consider the tragic consequences of there being no form of Government assistance when I think of the vital nature of newspapers in a modern society and, really, its total disregard in so many areas by people who ought to realise its vital nature, what are we to do if we had no newspapers containing, for example, theatrical criticisms, film criticism, or art and literary criticism; where would we find that adequately dealt with in television? I would not utter a word of criticism against television programmes unless very slightly provoked; but, as things are, it must be clear to those people concerned with the welfare of our society that newspapers must be preserved. There is so much they supply which is not supplied by any other means.

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The preservation of our newspapers is crucial and vital yet we accept with composure the possibility that they can disappear one after the other—and, may I say, nobody is more concerned about the disappearance of good and important newspapers than I am and nobody is more concerned about the disappearance of bad, unimportant and vulgar newspapers than I am. To have a free Press you must have newspapers with opinions right across the board. You must have every kind of newspaper to supply every kind of need. This is not an élitist conception; you do not want newspapers dealing only with matters of artistic or literary criticism; you need newspapers to cater for every taste. It is an intellectual, constitutional and democratic disaster when those newspapers disappear—as they will unless something is done.
I hesitate to refer to the Royal Commission on the Press because it would be difficult to refer to it without seeming to be impolite to it; and this I would not want to do at all. But the fact remains that this Commission has now been sitting for a very long time. I do not know what report will emerge from it. It may possibly produce recommendations that will save us all and perhaps we shall go down on our knees in gratitude for the wonderful, imaginative devices that they have suggested to save newspapers and to keep them in publication.
What I do know is that they did produce an interim report, and produced it at a time when I was chairman of the Newspaper Proprietors' Association. They came to us in advance and they said, "We are going to publish an interim report. Will you associate yourselves with it?" We answered, "Certainly. If there is any prospect of getting any relief, we will do so, with enthusiasm" One question we asked, to which we got an honourable reply, was, "Are you sure that if you make recommendations of financial character that are moderate and reasonable these will be implemented by the Government?" The answer was an emphatic, "Yes" I do not believe that they or anyone deceived us but I can only say that, literally within minutes of the recommendation they made to provide very modest assistance in the way of lower-interest loans, those proposals were rejected by the Government; or for
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practical purposes rejected because they said, "We will allow them to come into operation when total agreement has been reached in Fleet Street; we will allow them to come into operation with the introduction of agreed tariffs," or, "We will allow them to come into operation when the Messiah comes!" That, in effect, was what they said.
It was a very unfortunate approach to all of us that we should have been asked to co-operate in this situation with an outcome of the sort that eventuated. Nothing was done, and an enormous amount of time was wasted. I do not know what they are doing at the moment. I do not know what they are deliberating; they are burrowing away and, no doubt, will produce recommendations of the most startling and valuable character. So far as I am concerned, I can only say that I will view those recommendations against the background and the context of their interim report. They will have to be very effective recommendations indeed to atone for the total failure of that interim report and the sad waste of time and money it involved.
I would conclude by saying this: I believe a free Press means the widest possible distribution of newspapers that can be achieved. I have never believed the free Press is some abstract conception; it is the publication of as many papers as can be contrived, having the right to say what the man who controls, owns or has the say in the paper wishes to say. The only way in which there is an effective free Press is that there should be enough of these each contradicting, each commenting on, each interpolating what the others are saying. That can only be done by having enough newspapers to make it a possibility. If we do not have enough newspapers to make it a possibility, we shall be in appalling danger from the point of view of communications to the public at large and the right of people to know what is happening.
A man is astonishingly loyal to his newspapers. I remember in my home we first started by buying the Daily News, then we went over to the News Chronicle. We did not go over, I hasten to say, to the —Daily Mail. We then went to the.Daily Telegraph. We remained with each paper while it was in publication. The loyalty of people to their newspapers is one

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of the most remarkable phenomena in this country. On the whole, a man who buys the Daily Whatever-it-is, at birth—assuming that he can buy it at birth—will probably have the same newspaper, if it survives, on the day of his death. He reads it and he trusts it. He likes it; he is not wholly affected by it. The degree of propaganda that newspapers can achieve is strictly limited, as people acquainted with political matters well know.
But what it does is to enable the man to receive news through a medium that he trusts, respects and likes, using an idiom that is familiar to him, which he regards as honourable and in which he has faith. If we curtail this, if we create a situation where a man will know that what he is reading is being edited by unions, edited by an editor in the sense that he is not allowing a particular newspaper to appear, that there is no free passage of news, if he knows that there is a reduction in the number of newspapers to the point where the truth cannot emerge, we are living in a lesser society; we are living in a society where there is great danger to the things that we value.
I personally am very indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, that he has made this debate a possibility. It is an interim debate; it is a debate that needs to be renewed, and renewed in extenso when we know what the Press charter is designed to contain, and when we have an opportunity of discussing that in detail. We cannot assert the proposition too often that in the society in which we want to live we must enable everyone to publish and express their views free from interference from any quarter whatsoever, except that quarter where it contrives to be some infraction of the law. Except where it is an infraction of the law, people must be entitled to publish what they want to say. Any artificial restriction relating to industrial negotiations or anything else is in our view—and in the view of all of us, if we think about it—an abomination.
Baroness GAITSKELL: My Lords, before my noble friend replies, would he allow me to add two sentences to this interesting debate? Several speakers have been outraged that the NUJ tried to stop the coverage about the National Front. I think that there is much too much
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coverage about the National Front, both on radio, television and even in the Press. My Lords, that is all I wish to say.
6.54 p.m.
Lord WALLACE of COSLANY: My Lords, I and my right honourable friend the Minister are grateful for the opportunity afforded to us by Lord Orr-Ewing's Motion today. I can assure all noble Lords that the speeches will be carefully considered by my right honourable friend. As has been indicated, he has the tremendous task of getting the negotiations about the charter, for which he is now responsible, into operation. It is not easy, as has been rightly indicated. The noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, overdid a little the sinister approach, in many directions. On the other hand, I thank him for his extreme courtesy in giving me a very comprehensive indication of what his speech would contain. I deeply appreciate that.
Many noble Lords have referred to the various industrial disputes that are taking place at the present time, particularly the Kettering dispute. I do not think that any right-minded noble Lord would expect me to make any contribution or express a point of view on these industrial disputes. So far as the Kettering dispute is concerned, I understand that certain negotiations are going on at the present moment which might possibly lead to an agreement. In those circumstances, it would be very wrong indeed to pass any comment. Noble Lords have also referred to what is a difficult question to some people regarding outside contributors—sporting personalities—being barred from making contributions to the Press. This is a matter for the Press charter. This will be negotiated along with other matters.
Praise has already been given to my noble friend Lord Jacobson; but I do not think that it is any exaggeration to say that all noble Lords, whether they are present or read the debate in Hansard, should pay close attention to the remarks made by somebody who has had a definite, positive, personal and distinguished career in the Press over many years. He brought the debate into its proper perspective and balance. The noble Lord, Lord Rochester, made a similar contribution. I note his insistence on the Liberal attitude and the

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rights of the individual. He made reference also to the Kettering dispute.
The noble Lord, Lord Gibson, said emphatically that he will not accept the closed shop and will depart from the Financial Times if that occurs. I am not going to pass any comment about that. Personally, I am not a regular reader of the Financial Times; my financial situation does not warrant me doing so. The noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, made a constructive speech for which I thank him. Manning and other issues are matters for unions and management. The Royal Commission on the Press and the negotiations on the charter no doubt will ensure discussion on this matter.
My Lords, let us face the fact—this goes back a long time—that naturally, men in employment want to preserve their jobs, that is only human nature. We need to have a little understanding before we start so readily to condemn. The noble Lord, Lord Goodman, made his usual brilliant contribution, firing words of wisdom at me at a machine gun rate. I fully appreciate them, particularly as noble Lords may not know that he has made a long journey to make his contribution to the debate. The House expresses gratitude to him for his attendance. I am grateful for his attitude towards the negotiations now being undertaken on the charter. He is prepared to wait and see and make a contribution. That is fair and reasonable.
We have had a debate of this character before, and at some length. The final outcome of the lengthy debate we had on the Trade Union and Labour Relations Bill, which was eventually agreed by both Houses of Parliament, was the inclusion in the Bill of provision for the preparation of a voluntary charter on Press freedom to cover the issues of particular concern which have been identified. That provision is now firmly on the Statute Book and I do not wish to enter into what inevitably would be a fruitless debate about its merits. Parliament has agreed that a charter on the lines provided for under the Act is the most suitable way of meeting the concerns that have been expressed about Press freedom. We must give those provisions a fair trial before considering whether anything further is required, and I fervently hope that noble Lords will accept this.
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Nevertheless, a number of concerns were expressed in the original discussions on the charter, and they have been repeated today. I do not complain about that, but before I talk specifically about the present state of play as regards the charter I feel I should revert to the general issues which the House debated at some length, and to explain again the general view expressed by Government spokesmen during the course of the debates. It is a view which I may say, has not changed significantly in the intervening period.
Clearly, the independence and freedom of the Press must be a matter of continuing concern to all Members of both Houses of Parliament. There was no disagreement about that when the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act was debated, and there is none now. The debate about the charter was, in the first place, not about whether Press freedom should be safeguarded but rather about the nature of the dangers to the Press that might arise and the best means of safeguarding its freedom. Moreover, a variety of people and factors in certain circumstances can pose a threat to the diversity of opinion and freedom of speech which, I am sure, we all want our Press to be able to continue to reflect. It should not be assumed that the actions of trade unions pose the only, and even the main, potential threat to the freedom of the Press. It remains the case that proprietors and editors still exercise the main control over who has access to the Press and what is printed. In their hands rests the greatest power to censor and distort and, therefore, the greatest responsibility for ensuring that there is no censorship and distortion. Who is prepared to assert in this Chamber tonight that they have always exercised that responsibility fairly and wisely?
Lord GOODMAN: My Lords, I hesitate to interrupt the noble Lord, but I think it is quite wrong that this assertion should continue to be made day after day and year after year. An editor or proprietor controls one newspaper. He can say what he likes or be told what he likes in one newspaper. Another editor and another proprietor control another; and so we have in this country 1,500 newspapers, most of them under different control. It is quite wrong that encouragement should be given to the

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nation that, because there is an alleged censorship of this kind, the type of censorship to which this debate has been addressed can in any way be tolerable.
Lord WALLACE of COSLANY: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, should have been here—of course understand the reason for his absence—to listen to what the noble Lord, Lord Jacobson, said on this subject. In any case, we must accept that, as trade unions and members of trade unions have responsibility, so editors and proprietors have a greater degree of responsibility, because they can close a newspaper, they can negotiate its sale to somebody else, and, consequently, have the paper closed down with a threat of unemployment to the workers involved. I would say quite definitely—I am not expressing the Government's view, but I do not think they would disagree—that this question of the death or departure of newspapers is not new. I could go back many years. I would list to the House the papers I used to read and for which I had great affection—and, indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, and others have stated that one can feel affection for a newspaper —the News Chronicle the Star (for which I had a deep affection), the Daily Herald, Reynolds News and others.
In fact, the political viewpoint of papers today in this country is almost like the representation in your Lordships' House: it is rather overwhelming on the part of the Opposition. Your Lordships' House, of course, can be adjusted no doubt by common agreement, but I am not going to get involved in the adjustment of the Press in this debate. But it is a fact that over the years newspapers have tended to disappear, and gradually and surely one particular broad Right Wing approach has developed. And where are the others who have interests? Many people, of course, take the Guardian, but I am not going to advertise the Guardian tonight. And, of course, there are the Party papers. The Conservative Party own a paper, but on this side of the House Party members own a paper in Labour Weekly, an excellent journal. Having got that free commercial in, may I turn to the activities of trade unions, the principal topic of today's debate. There is something of a dilemma. Trade unions
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representing those who work in the newspaper industry clearly have the power to restrict the flow of information if they so wish, as transport workers have the power to restrict the flow of goods. However, Parliament has accepted that trade union action aimed at securing better terms and conditions of employment and over such matters, for example, as union membership, is generally legitimate and that the law should not attempt to interfere.
The question is, therefore, whether the law and the general freedom that the law permits to trade unions generally poses such a threat to Press freedom that a particular group of trade unions operating in the newspaper industry should be denied certain rights available to all other trade unions. Of course, the issue of Press freedom extends well outside the traditional ambit of industrial relations, but industrial relations issues which bear on Press freedom cannot altogether be extracted from the industrial relations situation in which they arise, and be dealt with on a basis which ignores industrial relations realities.
The Government have consistently said that they did not believe that the threat to Press freedom was such as to justify any statutory special prohibitions relating to the Press alone. The retention of something along the lines of certain provisions of the Industrial Relations Act, complete with penal sanctions, perhaps, for a small group of unions would be anomalous and would prove unenforceable. So far as I know, there have been few recent suggestions that other laws affecting the operations of other elements in the newspaper industry should in any way be modified or extended because of the particular importance of Press freedom and independence.
In assessing the potential threat that the activities of trade unions are alleged to pose to freedom of the Press, I think that this House ought to take into account several further points. First, since much of the debate has centred inevitably on the implications of closed shop agreements, it is worth noting that such agreements have existed in the production areas of most newspapers for many years and that, at least on some newspapers, a de facto closed shop appears to exist for journalists now without apparently any harmful consequences. Secondly, the law relating

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to the closed shop and other matters of concern that have been raised is now broadly the same as that which existed before 1971. In fact, closed shops are now lawful again. Thirdly, although of course industrial action on the part of trade unions in the newspaper industry may result in the temporary disruption in the flow of information, there have been few examples that I can find of actions taken by trade unions primarily designed to distort or suppress information, though interference with the flow of information as an industrial tactic has, of course, been employed on several occasions.
Against that background, the Government's view was and is that only something acceptable to all the parties concerned in the industry provides an effective means of protecting the freedom of the Press. The Government, therefore, encouraged talks within the industry on this subject and were eventually prepared, in the context of the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act, to give their support to the idea of a voluntary charter for Press freedom. We had hoped, of course, that the industry would be able to agree such a charter itself in the period, without outside involvement or assistance. We are therefore extremely sorry that, at the end of the 12 months' period provided under the Act, no such agreed charter has emerged.
Nevertheless, I should like at this point to pay tribute, both on my own behalf and on behalf of the Secretary of State, to the effort of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Pearce, who chaired the talks with the industry, to try to secure an agreed charter. As the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, has already indicated, the whole House must be very grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Pearce, for the great efforts that he has made—efforts which have not so far been completely successful. But we may hope that when the Minister negotiates with the noble and learned Lord, the Royal Commission on the Press and many others, we shall achieve something which we all desire.
But we must remember that agreement was reached on a number of points; in particular, the definition of what constitutes "improper pressure", and an agreement both not to exert such improper pressure and to resist it when exerted by others. Agreement was also reached that
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newspaper editors should be excluded from the provisions of any union membership agreements—a matter of particular concern in the original Parliamentary discussion of the charter. But I must remind your Lordships that there remains some disagreement as to the exact definition of an "editor". No definite agreement was reached on the question of access for outside contributors, which has been referred to in this debate, and on the vexed question of the application to journalists of closed shop agreements. That, more or less, summarises the attitude taken in this debate by most speakers.
Therefore, the task falls to the Secretary of State for Employment to draft the charter. He will in due course be undertaking extensive further consultations with those concerned within the industry, and with others, to see whether further progress can be made towards securing an agreed charter on the lines required under the terms of the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act. He and his Department have, in the meantime, been considering the report submitted by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Pearce, and the further submissions from individual parties on points of disagreement, which Lord Pearce himself requested. As a first step, I understand that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State will shortly be meeting Lord Pearce to discuss his report and plans for future consultations.
Naturally, however, the Secretary of State will not wish to embark on a programme of further consultations until he has received the report of the Royal Commission on the Press, which is due in the early summer, since the Commission will, as we understand it, quite properly be commenting on the issues relevant to the charter. The Secretary of State wishes to have a chance to consider the Royal Commission's views carefully before taking any steps towards preparing a draft charter for submission to Parliament. Naturally, this House will not expect me to say anything this evening about the contents of the charter. It would, of course, be undesirable for me in any way to prejudice or pre-empt the outcome of the delicate consultations which the Secretary of State will have to set in train.
There were, when the charter provisions were drawn up, certain criticisms of the

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role of the Secretary of State in this exercise. In this context, there are two points that I should like to make. First, the Secretary of State is required, under the terms of the legislation, to incorporate any points that have been agreed between the parties in any charter which he submits to Parliament, and to consult all those concerned before he submits such a draft charter. He will thus be required to hear and take note of the views of the industry itself. Secondly, the approval of the charter is, of course, ultimately not a matter for the Secretary of State but for Parliament. Both Houses of Parliament will have an opportunity to express their views on the merits of the charter in which they have taken such an interest, and they will have the final say.
I have not referred to broadcasting. As has been stated, the BBC have a Charter and, by and large, they are safeguarded. So far, we have had no real grounds for serious concern over the issue. They will have an opportunity, through the Annan Report, together with other opportunities, to make a contribution on the Press charter if they so wish. I should like to express the view that, so far as news broadcasting is concerned—and I include radio: most of your Lordships have referred to television—it is of a standard which is equal to, if not better than, that anywhere else in the world. I think that we should recognise that fact and be grateful for it; other countries are not so fortunate.
Finally, I should like to say a few words specifically about the NUJ, although I do not want to cause trouble. I had originally thought that it was better to avoid commenting on the activities of the NUJ—which I should explain stands for the National Union of Journalists—and of other organisations in the newspaper industry. However, so much has been said about the NUJ this afternoon, some of it slightly exaggerated, that I feel I must correct some misconceptions. I hold no brief for the NUJ. From time to time, like many other democratic bodies, they have taken decisions which were unwise and ill-considered. I recall that on at least one occasion Ministers of the present Administration saw fit to express the view that a particular decision of the union had implications for Press freedom which the union ought to have considered before acting. However, I cannot believe
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that the NUJ pose the kind of threat to Press freedom that has been suggested in one or two quarters of this House today.
I know that the NUJ remain committed to the principle of Press freedom. The NUJ's own Code of Professional Conduct, to which reference has been made, reads as follows:
"Freedom in the honest collection and publication of news facts and the rights of fair comment and criticism are principles which every journalist should defend. Journalists should strive to eliminate distortion, news suppression and censorship."
Although they may not always be able to live up to that very high standard, it seems to me to be a most commendable objective to which I should have thought everyone here and outside could willingly subscribe.
Of course, we all wish to ensure the freedom and independence of the British Press which we value so much, and that freedom is not threatened from any quarter. But I think noble Lords should not be so pessimistic about the ability of the kind of voluntary and non-enforceable charter envisaged in the legislation to counter threats to the freedom of the Press from the unions or from any other quarter. Although the fact that the various parties represented at the talks on the Press charter were not able to reach agreement, and this represents a set-back to such hopes, the Government still hope that it will nevertheless be possible for a charter to be produced which can be accepted and adhered to by all sides, and which will ensure that the threats to Press freedom which many noble Lords foresee do not, in fact, materialise. In the event that such a measure does not prove adequate, then I am sure that Parliament, and indeed the Government themselves, will wish to consider further action. But that time has not yet come.
7.19 p.m.
Lord ORR-EWING: My Lords, I think that it has, inadvertently, been my privilege to act as a catalyst. As a result of this debate, we have heard some outstanding speeches from all parts of the House by many of those who have spent all their working lives in the newspaper industry. This is typical of the type of debate when your Lordships' House is

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at its very best. Certainly, in my 20 years' service in the House of Commons I never heard such a well-informed debate, with so much experience behind each speech.
I have sought to outline how our free Press might be endangered, and of course I admit that the examples which I gave, where the NUJ fell below the high standards of their code of conduct, were generated by the small but dedicated minority, and not of course by the tolerant majority of the NUJ who set very high standards indeed. However, we know what a dedicated minority can produce these days. It can produce quite alarming results. The best safeguard, as the noble Lord, Lord Gibson, and the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, have so wisely said, is a multiplication of sources of information —national papers, local papers, weekly papers, television and radio stations—all contributing so that one may choose and obtain a balanced view.
I have some knowledge of new computer technology. I believe that for the first time for several decades newspaper production could again become economically viable and profitable. The task is not to hold on to old and outdated jobs but to create new papers and new jobs. If this is done, the industry thereby will help to preserve the democracy which we all try to serve. My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

SOCIAL WORKERS: TRAINING BUDGET
7.20 p.m.
Baroness FAITHFULL Baroness FAITHFULL rose to ask Her Majesty's Government by what method it is proposed to fund the training of social workers. The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Unstarred Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. This Unstarred Question has been set down, first because there is an immediate crisis over the lack of funding of those who are seeking to train as social workers on the one- and two-year courses at universities and polytechnics in the academic year starting October 1977. Secondly, there is a need for long-term planning, either with a method
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different from the present method of funding social work students or with a different attitude to the present method. Thirdly, only 40 per cent. of field social workers are qualified, and only 4 per cent. of residential workers are qualified. The present unsatisfactory condition is highlighted by inflation and the necessary cutbacks in local government expenditure.
In order to understand the present crisis and complex system, may I touch briefly on the immediate past history and the present structure. Prior to the reorganisation of the local authority social services departments in 1970, following the Seebohm Committee Report, there were three bodies responsible for the organisation of the training of social workers. First, there was the Central Training Council in Child Care, an independent body based on the Home Office. This council dealt with both the organisation and funding of those wishing to take the two year course leading to the certificate in child care or the residential certificate in child care. This work was funded centrally by the Home Office.
The Social Work Training Council, set up as a result of the Younghusband Report, was the second council for the training of social workers in the health and welfare departments of local authorities dealing with the needs of the elderly, the mentally ill and the physically and mentally handicapped. This course led to the certificate in social work and the certificate in residential social work and was funded by local authorities. The Home Office were responsible for the training of probation officers who were seconded on their salaries. No overall provision was made at that time for the training of those who were then termed education welfare officers—the old school attendance officers—who are now called, I believe, school social workers. Their salaries have been negotiated on social work salary scales. Many of the big voluntary organisations had their own training schemes.
After 1970, these various bodies were amalgamated to form the present Council for Education and Training in Social Work, with Sir Dermon Christophersen, the Vice-Chancellor of Durham University, as chairman. The Council is an independent body whose offices are situated in Derbyshire House, St. Chad's Street,

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London. The different, varying qualifications have been amalgamated into the certificate of qualification in social work, a two year course at a polytechnic or university. Indeed, some courses provide not only for field workers but, rightly, for residential social workers.
In 1972 a committee was set up to consider the funding of social work students. The then exceptional and diverse arrangements were not in line with the funding of other types of training which were conducted by local education authorities. Eventually, in July 1973 a circular was issued outlining the following arrangements, which obtain today. I was present at these discussions, and at the time it was stated that if the arrangements proved to be unsatisfactory they would be reviewed.
Under the new system which appertains today. probation officers continue, as before, to be seconded on salary. Postgraduate social work students are funded through the Department of Health and Social Security. Non-graduate students on the one- and two-year courses either are given a discretionary grant by their local education authority or are seconded on salary from their social services departments. And therein lies the rub. As a result of the cutback in expenditure, local authority social services departments and their councils either must choose to curtail their services to those in need—the elderly, the handicapped, children in trouble and in need—or must cut back on grants to untrained staff, enabling them to be seconded to courses. It is a cruel dilemma which faces the social services departments, committees and directors. Education departments likewise must cut back and are economising in the making of discretionary grants to social work students.
The position of the social work service is different from that of education and medicine where 100 per cent. of the personnel are trained; indeed, they cannot be appointed without training. As I said earlier, only 40 per cent. of field social workers are qualified, while only 4 per cent. of social workers in residential establishments are qualified, yet they are offering a service to the most vulnerable in society, particularly to delinquents. The Department of Health and Social Security's Manpower and Training Board recommended that one member of staff
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with a certificate of qualification in social work should he available to each residential establishment.
There are 140 two-year social work courses in universities and polytechnics, with an available intake of 4,000 students per year. There has been a drop of 36 per cent. in intake, which means a loss of 600 places in the area of local authority social services departments secondments. However, the Association of Directors estimate a drop of 1,000 places, as 400 students in England and Wales may well not be given discretionary grants by their local education departments in the next academic year. A drop of 1,000 represents 25 per cent, of the total intake of students in an already low-trained service.
Current courses are on target. The crisis arises next October. The drop of between 600 to 1,000 social work students will mean, first, that more mature, older, untrained staff now working in departments or, indeed, not yet working in departments but wanting to take up social work, may not be able to obtain a discretionary grant or be seconded. Senior staff working in residential work may not be able to be seconded on a discretionary grant. Thirdly, governing bodies of polytechnics and universities will not be able to sustain the under-subscribed course. There are also difficulties in re-establishing courses once they have closed down, staff dispersed and accommodation is taken up by other activities. Representation has been made to the Minister in another place and it is reported that a grant of £500,000 has been made as an emergency measure to fund 300 graduate students, their grants being paid through the Department of Health and Social Security. This means, therefore, that there is still a short-fall of 300 to 700. Therefore a minimum of £500,000 is required for the funding of non-graduate students on the one- or two-year courses.
My own experience in local authority social services departments leads me to value the mix of graduate and non-graduate social workers. Social workers with knowledge and skill acquired through training and experience can offer a more effective service and can work as colleagues with teachers, doctors, nurses and other trained personnel. Furthermore, both adult and juvenile courts have a right to expect social work service from trained

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and, as far as possible, mature staff. Statutory duties are laid on the local authority social services departments by Parliament to offer a service to the disabled in need under the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act, to the elderly in need under the Public Health Act, to the mentally handicapped, and all in the community under the Mental Health Act and to children in trouble and in need and to their families under the various Children Acts and Children and Young Persons Acts. To offer a skilled service in the field of adoption is also part of their duties. Many non-statutory duties inevitably come the way of the departments. Both the probation and social service departments work in partnership with voluntary organisations and many departments use volunteers where that is appropriate. Furthermore, communities are encouraged to assist and help their own neighbours.
A word should be said about the social workers in schools. The staff that used to be called the education welfare officers are now entitled to apply for training as social workers and a few have already done so, but the figures that I have given have not included the school social workers.
I thank noble Lords who have agreed to take part in this debate on an Unstarred Question today, and I should like to ask the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, whether concern is experienced by Her Majesty's Government over the estimated future lack of funding for social work students and to speak on the cases which will arise in October 1977 when grants will not be available and what long-term plans are envisaged by his right honourable friend the Minister in another place concerning the long-term funding of social work students.
7.34 p.m.
Lord BANKS: My Lords, I am sure the House will be grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, for raising this important question this evening of the way in which we are to find the money for the training of social workers. She has explained very thoroughly the background to the problem and the nature of the problem itself. In recent years there has been an unprecedented growth in the personal social services, a growth of about
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10 per cent. per annum, but the Government have decreed that this rate of expansion cannot continue in present economic conditions. The Consultative Document Priorities for Health and Personal Social Services in England, which was published last year by the Government, spoke of a growth rate of 2 per cent. for the personal social services. I am not quite sure whether that still remains as the Government's target, or whether we are now faced with a nil growth rate. But the need to expand staff to cope with the demands made by the social service departments and local authorities established under the 1970 Act has resulted in a large proportion of today's staff being unqualified.
The noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, has pointed out the figures: that 40 per cent. of those engaged in field work are qualified and the remainder are not, and that only 4 per cent. to 5 per cent. of those in the field of residential care are qualified. Clearly there is a crying need for trained staff, even with the proposed reduction in the rate of growth. The Central Council for Education and Training in Social Work have said that they believe that a growth rate in training of 5 per cent. could be achieved. Even so, they point out that it will be the mid-1980s before half the substantive grade staff hold either the CQSW or the CCSS qualification, and that is on the basis of a nil growth rate in the personal social services. The date will be the late 1980s if in fact we have the 2 per cent. expansion in the personal and social services which was mentioned in the Consultative Document.
That document said, at page 14:
"It would be a false economy to make any general cutback in training programmes"
It said on page 15:
"For social workers and other social services personnel an expansion of training is a particularly important priority as is recognised in the Report of the Working Party on Manpower and Training."
At page 72 it said:
"We propose that a key element in the general strategy for personal social services should be to increase the level of training and to improve the use made of skilled manpower."
The White Paper on Public Expenditure 1979–80 said that there should also be room for some expenditure on the training recommendations of the Working Party; that is, the Working Party on Manpower and Training.

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So the need is recognised, the priority is established and financial assistance is committed. In view of that it is alarming to read the predictions—predictions which were referred to by the noble Baroness—that next year there could be up to 1,000 training places out of 4,000 unfilled; to learn also that training on secondment is said to be down by 36 per cent. Discretionary grants are cut, Home Office support is cut and tuition fees are up. The system for student finance appears to be breaking down as different providing bodies seek to restrict expenditure.
I welcome the fact that extra funds have been made available by the Government for students on post-graduate courses. These will provide some 300 places, but it is clearly not enough and it is for one year only. On that basis there will still be a shortfall of at least 700 places. Yet there is no shortage of people wanting to become qualified social workers, nor of social workers seeking qualification. What is missing is the money to enable them to do so.
So I join with the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, in asking how the Government propose to meet the shortfall. Will the Government consider making the local authority grants for training in social work mandatory instead of discretionary? The Working Party on Manpower and Training for the Social Services recommended a central fund drawn from both central and local sources to underwrite certain key aspects of training. Can the Government adopt this concept of a central fund to provide funds to he channelled partly through the local authorities in order to meet the shortfall—funds which would be used to provide grants, whether discretionary or mandatory, and to help the poorer authorities to afford secondments? After all, we are only asking the Government to act up to their own statement, when they said in the Consultative Document:
"The expansion of training is a particularly important priority".
7.40 p.m.
Baroness YOUNG: My Lords, I am sure the whole House is grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Faithful', for raising this evening this matter of the funding of the training of social workers. It is a matter which she has raised before in
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your Lordships' House during the Committee stage of the passage of the Education Act. On rereading what was said on that occasion, I think it is a great relief that none of us is going to have to argue for the need for training, and I think there will be a great deal of agreement among us on what the problem is.
One of the important reasons for having this debate this evening is that it is timely. There has been, I think, considerable concern among the social work profession, whose members often feel under threat today. A great deal has been asked of the social work profession, and very great public expectations have been raised about the fulfilment of social work departments. When something goes wrong, as inevitably it will in any human institution, social workers are blamed. It is in their interests that they should be trained to do a job which requires very great skills. They are asked to do highly responsible work, and it is grossly unfair to them to send them into it untrained to do it effectively.
The second reason why this debate is timely is that, in the present economic climate, it is far more difficult than it has been for a very long time to make out a case for any form of public expenditure. It is, therefore, all the more important that, as a case for expending money on training, it should not go by default. I was very grateful indeed to hear the evidence given by the noble Lord, Lord Banks, from the Government's own paper on priorities for the health and personal social services and their White Paper, that they, too, remain committed to find money for training.
Nothing, I believe, could be more damaging than that the present low proportion of qualified social workers should fall further still. The figures have already been given; only 40 per cent. of field workers are at present qualified, and, I believe, between 4 and 5 per cent. only of those in residential homes. Indeed, if there is to be nil growth of social service departments, or at any rate a very much slower rate of expansion, it seems to me all the more important that those social workers we do have should be qualified.
The noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, has set out most clearly the different courses that are available for students, both for young students entering the

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profession, and, I believe even more important, for those mature students who enter the profession and wish to become qualified. She has also explained the complexity facing those who wish to qualify themselves. It seems to me important above all—and I hope the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, will be able to say something about this when he replies—that those Government Departments that are responsible for social work training should get together for discussions, and I hope decisions, about the future of the funding of social work students. It would appear that the DHSS is involved, the Department of Education and Science is involved, the Home Office is involved and the local authorities are involved. The consequence seems to be that, because so many Government Departments are concerned about this, it is very difficult to ensure that adequate funding of training is available.
It seems to me a tragedy that the number of students seconded for training from local authorities is down, or will be down, by about 36 per cent. next year. Although this is understandable, because secondment is a very expensive form of training and local authorities are required to cut hack, it means, however, that there will be fewer qualified students. It is sad that discretionary grants have been cut and that Home Office grants have been cut, so that, as the noble Baroness said, perhaps up to 1,000 places out of the total of 4,000 available for training could remain unfilled. I cannot believe that it is impossible to work out some system of co-ordination between the different Departments. I am interested to see that the noble Lord, Lord Redcliffe-Maud, is to speak in this debate, because he will know far better than I the pressures that were put on local authorities about corporate planning. I sometimes think that the idea of corporate planning ought to apply much more to Government Departments, just as local authorities are constantly asked to apply this principle to themselves. I can think of no better time to start it than on the subject of the funding for social workers.
Let us look at the problems which confront us in the future. In the first place, there has been a substantial rise in the number of children in care. Mr. Roland Moyle, the Minister, gave the
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following statistics in another place: in 1973 there were 88,000 children in care; in 1974 it had risen to just over 91,000; in 1975 to 94,000 children, and in 1976 to nearly 96,000 children in care. These statistics show a steady increase in the numbers of children in care, and yet, as I say, the number of qualified social workers is not increasing. Then we can see for ourselves the very large rise in the figures for delinquency, of which we are all very well aware. Whatever happens the problem of delinquency is not just going to disappear. It will only be solved, I believe, if all the professions involved, the doctors, the teachers, the social workers, not least, of course, the parents, act together. But, so far as the professionals are concerned, it is very hard that those professions, the medical profession, the teachers, should all be qualified, but not the social workers; it makes it more difficult for them to talk on terms of equality.
If we go on to look at the figures given of the number of children in community homes, it is clear that they, too, are increasing. The figures given in reply to the same Parliamentary Question indicate that in 1973 approximately 25 per cent. of the children in care were in community homes, and this proportion has remained approximately the same. But it means that the total number has increased. Probably the most demanding and most important work is the care of these difficult and disturbed children. Yet in residential work, unfortunately, the proportion of qualified staff is only between four and five per cent.
There has been very considerable pressure, often coming from the Magistrates' Association, to make sure that there is more residential accommodation available for children brought before the courts and thought to be in need of this particular kind of treatment. But it is very difficult to see that such treatment would be likely to be effective if so few of the staff are qualified.
Lastly, of course, we have the increasing proportion of the elderly, and, as we are all well aware, the figure of future projected population indicate that those over 75 are the fastest growing group in the population. For all these reasons, the demand for social workers is unlikely to decline. Although it may be asked that

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more volunteers should be used—and I think quite rightly, because I am very much in favour of the use of volunteers—there must always be a core of professionals. I believe very strongly that volunteers need always to be underpinned by the professionals if they are to work effectively.
It seems to me a tragedy that when the other caring professions, doctors, nurses, health visitors, are all qualified, social workers alone are singled out as having so small a proportion of them qualified. The caring professions meet frequently to work together. The social workers frequently have to go to court and report on their cases. It seems to me that they are often asked to do highly responsible and very difficult work. The very least that we can do is to make sure that they are qualified. This evening I shall not argue for mandatory grants which may well be an economic impossibility, although I should like to sec them. However, the Government should get together with the Department of Health and Social Security and other Departments to see whether they cannot work out a scheme whereby a certain number of social workers are trained consistently each year, so that there is some stability and security in the system. To economise on this would be a very short-sighted policy and we might well find that because we have so few qualified staff we have far more, and far more expensive and tragic problems to deal with in the future.
7.51 p.m.
Lord REDCLIFFE-MAUD: My Lords, all of us know that in the noble Lord who will reply to the debate we have someone who is on our side. I pay tribute both to him and his colleagues for the effort that they have made since 1970 to put the social worker in a position to do the immensely important work which we all so respect in the social workers whom we know. I say with pride that two of my children have qualified in that particular area.
None of us doubts that the Government meant what they said in their various White Papers, but of course they have been overtaken by the need for economy and various considerations which we all accept as valid. I salute, in particular, the success in getting 4,000 places made available this coming September for
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trainees in social work both from the universities, through the University Grants Committee, and through the local authority colleges, the polytechnics and the rest. It is an achievement already to have deployed places for 4,000 trainees in social work of one kind or another.
Furthermore, we should congratulate ourselves on knowing that there are 4,000 first-rate candidates for those places if they can be funded. They have been selected from some 8,000 applicants who, through the excellent pooling scheme, have been interviewed and are known to be the kind of people who would admirably serve the purpose of these training courses if they can be funded. That makes it all the more tragic—and one must use the word—that there is at least a possibility that up to, say, 1,000 of those 4,000 places may be removed. I very much hope that, through the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, and his colleagues and the little time that remains between now and September-October this year, possible tragedy can be averted. Let us be optimistic and say that, thanks to the excellent £500,000 that has recently been found by the Secretary of State, an additional 300 places will be taken care of. Therefore, we have to find funds only for the remaining 700. It would be an absolute tragedy if the tap, which has been so skilfully turned on in terms of universities and colleges which are ready to train social workers in September, had to be turned off because 500 or 600 places could not be filled.
We all know that universities are very slow to respond even to the most powerful challenge. Polytechnics are better, but even they will not deploy resources if they have no candidates to use those resources. In other words, the tap will be turned off. It is extraordinarily difficult to move back into the action position the following year or the year after that. We are not so concerned tonight with the longer-term question. The excellent Christopherson Council is at work with all the Government Departments concerned. I am quite sure that, for the longer term, ways will be found to solve the problem of the new funding since 1970, whether in graduate or in non-graduate courses.
However, for the moment there is the simple problem of filling the places that will be available in September. That

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involves finding money for them. That can be done in two ways. It can be done through the local authorities seconding unqualified persons on their staff to take these courses. That is expensive, but obviously in the interests of the social services. There is also the possibility that the educational side of the same local authority can deal with this. We cannot blame the 1972 Act in this regard. Under the 1972 Act there is one authority which acts both for social services and for education and, therefore, there is no excuse for those two Departments and the directors and the chairmen of the committees thereof not putting their heads together and regarding this as one problem in each local authority area. They must ensure that these discretionary grants are found for those persons who will be trained, if the places for the courses can be funded by September.
Therefore, I endorse the remarks made by all noble Lords who have spoken so far and say how grateful I am for the chance of having this brief discussion this evening. Central and local government must get together. There is no doubt that the Government have that in mind, and I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, has it in mind. The various Departments in Whitehall face the challenge of putting their heads together so that there is no slip between cup and lip. They must also put their heads together not only with the Christopherson Council but with the local authorities and their associations. I have no doubt that that is also in hand. The noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, would be the first to encourage that partnership—that combined operation—which is at stake here between central and local government.
I hope that, whatever is done in the longer run, we shall somehow beat the clock and ensure that the full 1,000 places, which until now are at risk, are taken up in the 100 or so courses that have been arranged by the polytechnics and the universities. We must press forward—and I know that the Government want this as much as anyone—with what I regard as one of the finest things that has happened in my lifetime, namely, the coming of the social worker, the recognition of the professional social worker and all the volunteers, and the fact that at
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least 40 per cent. of them are at present qualified, compared with 100 per cent. of the teachers and the medical profession. However, I hope that the 5 per cent. who are doing the most difficult job in residential work will receive some kind of special priority, even if that means the Government finding further funds—whether from the local government training board, or perhaps the £500,000 that Mr. Ennals managed to get could be increased. By one means or another, we must not renege on these social workers who are already doing the work at great risk to their own reputations and to those of everyone else because they are not qualified—they are anxious to be qualified. There are universities and polytechnics willing to provide the courses to help them qualify.
7.59 p.m.
The Countess of LOUDOUN: My Lords, as I am the last speaker in this debate, most of what I have to say has already been said, but I think it will stand repetition and I hope that your Lordships will bear with me for a few moments. At the moment, the arrangements for funding social work students are unsatisfactory and vary from area to area. Although qualified social workers are desperately needed, there is no shortage of candidates coming forward for training. But my own area of Hastings had to go to America recently to get two qualified social workers.
The basic and qualifying course for social work provides the certificate of qualification in social work, and the new clearing house for these courses has been dealing with applications for the first time this year. So far nearly 8,000 applicants have registered for some 3,500 places. In 1976, out of approximately 3,500 social work students, 212 were unable to take up places through lack of funds. The Minister of State has agreed recently that the Department of Health and Social Security will make available £500,000 which will fund 300 graduate student social workers. This is welcome and may help to keep going several university based CQSW courses which might otherwise have been terminated.
At present, there are four sources of funding available and the source to which students apply depends very much on the course they propose to take. First, under-

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graduates taking a four-year course leading to a degree and certificate of qualification of social work are entitled to a mandatory grant from the local education authority. Secondly, graduates taking one- or two-year post-graduate CQSW courses apply to the Department of Health and Social Security and receive a grant; and until this year all those who obtained a place have received a grant. But a shortfall is anticipated in 1977. The British Association of Social Workers are already receiving many letters from students having difficulties in finding sources of finance.
Then, thirdly, the Home Office sponsors students on one year post-graduate courses, but this year, because of an anticipated reduction in the wastage rates for the Probation Service in the future, it has cut the number of students which it intends to sponsor in 1977, although there does seem to be some expectation that the numbers will return to their former level in 1978. One appreciates that the Home Office may not wish to use its resources to fund students who may then not be employed as probation officers but who may be employed in or change to another setting, such as a local authority social services department. But surely it is in the interests of the personal social services that funds made available from the public purse should allow for, if not encourage, the transferability of knowledge and skill as between the different branches of the Service.
Lastly, there are discretionary awards from local education authorities and secondment from social services departments. The policy varies quite considerably throughout the country both in the availability of discretionary awards and in the elements which are covered in the award as well as the amount. Where a student has been employed in a social work agency, but usually in a social services department, his employer may be willing to second him on salary during the period of training, but in the present climate most social services departments are fighting hard to retain their trainee schemes or secondment budget, not always successfully.
However, all this does nothing to help the mature would-be students who are not graduates. Many of these are already employed as unqualified social workers whom their local authorities cannot afford
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to second to CQSW training because of pressure on the authorities' finances. Others will be older people in other forms of employment who wish to train as social workers; for example, housewives whose children are growing up and who wish to acquire a professional training and competence. Many of these are considered by some to be more appropriately qualified, by reason of their experience and maturity, to be social workers than are young graduates.
In the short run, the in-service training is the only way in which unqualified social workers now in post can be helped to improve their practice. But social workers' education should not stop at the qualifying level. Additional training is essential for those students who wish to work with special groups; with the mentally ill and the mentally handicapped, for example. Here, in-service and further training would be a relatively inexpensive method of providing better equipped social workers who would, in their turn, help to provide a better service for this seriously neglected group and their families. It would also help to close the alarming gap between hospital and community services, which exists at the moment. My Lords, let us endeavour to ensure that ail available funds are used to optimum effect and that no long-term damage is caused by any short-term economies. If we can do this, we shall provide a social service second to none.
8.6 p.m.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I find myself in a difficult situation tonight because I cannot disagree with a single word that has been said by any of the speakers this evening. This is perhaps a good thing because the subject which the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, has put down for the debate tonight is a matter of supreme importance. Do not let us disguise the fact that it is a matter of supreme importance and one which must exercise the minds of everybody who is even remotely concerned with the needs of the community. It is a frightening thing—let me be quite frank about it—to those of us who are more intimately concerned with the field of professional social work. It does not make my task any easier when every speaker who has participated in the debate tonight speaks from a width and depth of knowledge, and has done so in

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such a delightful, mature way without being aggressive. It always makes life rather more difficult when people do things like that.
I wanted to say something about the present system for funding the training of social work because I wanted those Members of your Lordships' House who have expressed considerable concern to me personally and who cannot be here tonight to read it, as many of them told me they would do, in Hansard tomorrow. But it is quite pointless because the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, dealt with it piece by piece and set it out so clearly that if people are going to read Hansard they will find that information by reading her speech; and so I want to pass over that.
I want to come to some of the problems which face the Government at the present moment. They are problems which are known to most people—certainly those who have spoken this evening. Reference has been made to the Working Party on Manpower and Training for the Social Services, and they noted that fewer than 40 per cent. of field social workers in England and Wales were qualified, and that very few in the residential field held any qualification at all. The Working Party, which issued its report last year, recommended a substantial increase in the number of social workers to he trained with the aim that about half of all the social workers should be qualified by the late 1980s.
I think we have to face the fact that that may not be possible. Let us also face the fact that this is not by any stretch of imagination a new situation. I am sure that the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, and the noble Baroness, Lady Young, years ago said that only 37 per cent. of professional social workers are properly trained. Unfortunately, this situation has been with us—
Baroness FAITHFULL: My Lords, I agree with what the Minister is saying, but may I say that there was beginning to be a growth towards implementation of training which has now suddenly stopped, and I think that this is what is worrying us.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: I will come to that shortly, my Lords. But let us
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get the matter into perspective. This situation has gone on almost unchanged for many years, and I think it was Lady Young who pointed to the figure of 4 per cent. as being those properly trained in residential care. This has been the figure for a long time, and while I take no comfort from the fact that the position is no worse and has remained the same, we must keep the matter in perspective.
It was unfortunate that the issue of the Working Party's report coincided with hard economic times so that authorities have not been in a position to embark on a major expansion of training. Indeed, far from being able to expand training, I have to admit that the present inadequate level is threatened. I acknowledge that secondment is expensive, and ninny social services authorities are having to reduce the number of employees whom they send for training. I was not present, but I know that Lady Faithfull drew attention to this on 8th October last when she participated in the Education Bill debate. I have made a note of the figures, and she rightly pointed out that it costs local authorities about £2,300 a year to allow one person to go for training.
Local education authorities are also under great pressure and are reducing the number of discretionary grants they make to those accepted for non-graduate courses. Many graduates who had hoped for secondment are now looking to my Department for a grant instead, and despite a 60 per cent. increase over the last two years in the number of grants we give, we are under even greater pressure this year.
My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Social Services is very concerned about the situation. He has a number of people round him who have been worrying him on the matter and who will continue to worry him. Estimates made by the Central Council for Education and Training and Social Work and the local authority associations have indicated that a substantial number of the 4,000 places on courses starting in September this year might be left unfilled. The figure of about 1,000 has been given. The noble Lord, Lord Banks, pointed out that the grant which the Secretary of State made quite recently will reduce that to 700, but I am not persuaded that the deficiency will be as large as 700. I take

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no comfort from that; it is bad if it is 600 or 500. Nevertheless, we must face the fact that the £500,000 which has been given has at least made a tremendous improvement, although we recognise the seriousness of the situation, as the noble Lord, Lord Redcliffe-Maud, said, not only for the present but for the future; it is bad for this year, but of course it is also bad for the future.
I have seen it argued that social workers need no training—that all that is needed is a heart in the right place and plenty of enthusiasm, and, as noble Lords will be aware, there has been a long correspondence in the Press recently on the subject—but I do not accept that, and I have said so on more than one occasion. It may have been so in the 19th century, but it is certainly not true today in our complex society. Many of those in need—those who cannot cope with the pressures of society—require expert social help, and that expertise—I know I am preaching to the converted—can come not only as a result of thorough training, but there must be going on the whole of the time in-service and further training. I am not decrying the essential part played by other local authority staff or by the volunteer, but the volunteer needs to work under the supervision of a trained social worker, a point which Lord Redcliffe-Maud made. There is a wide and varied area in which the volunteer can play a vital role and, as Lady Young said, we need more of them, but they must work under the supervision of qualified social workers.
There are those who say that if Government place such emphasis on training they should make additional resources available, and on the face of it that does not seem an unreasonable argument. Training is, however, basically the responsibility of the employer, in this case the local authority. The help that Government can give to local authorities through the rate support grant is, we all recognise, strictly limited. Within that help it is for each authority to determine its own priorities, and I was interested to read the following in a recent bulletin issued by the Personal Social Services Council:
"Faced with the stark choice of committing all their resources to meeting increasing demands for service or of deliberately setting aside funds for planned improvement in training, statutory and voluntary agencies should make conscious decisions about the type and quality of the services they aim to provide".
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I say in no sense of criticism that that must be done in some measure by local authorities. In the present economic climate it may not be possible for the social services departments of local authorities to embark on certain schemes at the expense of the sort of work that social workers do in the face-to-face relationship. Thai may, in the last analysis, be much more important than embarking on certain schemes for perhaps a more limited section of the community.
Always assuming that the Government could make additional money available, the Government are in the situation that there would be many competing demands; if one did it for one, one must do it for everybody else, and there immediately comes to mind, say, education, the police, industry and the Armed Forces. I wonder whether we could in all honesty argue in this period that social work training, however important, must have precedence over every other responsibility of central and local government. I do not think we could. In a sense it hurts me to say that because, unashamedly, I have a bias, but one must look at it from the point of view of the Government. The Government must preserve a balance and if they make a grant in this direction, what about the other competing demands? I am surprised that they have got away with £500,000 without anybody questioning that it should have gone in some other direction.
Baroness FAITHFULL: My Lords, as to nobody having queried the £500,000, that shows how much they thought it was the right thing to do, although we feel that perhaps it was not quite enough. When the noble Lord refers to other competing fields, I would point out that in education, health and other caring professions all are trained and are working towards being a trained profession. I know that in teaching and medicine they have had a long struggle. It is therefore natural that the social worker should continue to struggle to be skilled in the ways needed to give a good service.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, the noble Baroness has no need to convince me of that. That is perfectly true, but the Government are always in an invidious position and, when they give money in one direction, how are they to

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answer the demands from other directions?
After consulting the local authority associations and the Central Council for Education and Training for Social Work, my right honourable friend has done everything to safeguard training for this year. He has, with some difficulty—and I know this to be the case—prized out £500,000 from existing services in order to increase the number of grants given by my Department to graduate students. As I said, this will provide an additional 300 grants this year, which could well completely safeguard the position of graduate CQSW courses. The increase of grants to 300 people means that the proportion of post-graduate CQSW places in England and Wales which will be grant-aided by the DHSS and the Welsh Office has increased the number for graduates from about 37 per cent. to about 56 per cent. That is a substantial increase.
This injection of money will also help in other ways, in that some authorities may consider seconding non-graduates in the place of graduates whom they intend to second and who can now obtain a grant, so this may provide an opening for non-graduates. We are also considering whether some support would he possible to enable certain Certificates for Social Service schemes to get started, and my right honourable friend has urged local authorities to do their best to maintain their support for non-graduates.
So much for this year. What is the situation in the future? Our ultimate aim must be to ensure that, within the requirements of the social services, anyone needing support for training will get it. But, for the present, we are constrained by the resources available. We cannot expect additional resources specifically for training. But we can look at how we can use those that we have to see whether we can employ them to greater effect. To that end, my right honourable friend has already had discussions with the local authority associations, the Association of Metropolitan Areas and the Association of County Councils, and there will be further meetings in the foreseeable future to see whether anything further can be done to ease the present situation.
There is one way in which much better
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use might be made of training resources. The manpower Working Party noted that the practice of seconding staff was generous and suggested that staff under the age of 25 might receive grants instead. This in itself would increase the number of students who could be supported for a given sum of money. It would require the transfer of some funds earmarked by social services authorities for secondment to local education authorities for disbursement as grants, and we hope that the local authorities will consider this. It is part of the present discussions.
There are several ways in which the present system of support for training might be reorganised, and this matter has been touched on by a number of speakers this evening. Again, if I remember correctly, the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, raised the matter of mandatory grants last October. There has been pressure for the grants provided by local education authorities to be mandatory. When the noble Baroness raised the matter, I thought that she was given a reasonable, fair and adequate answer. My right honourable friend has discussed this since then with my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science. The introduction of mandatory grants would require primary legislation, but I do not think that that is at all important. One could deal with that, other things being equal. However, this could not be regarded as a short term solution. Mandatory grants for non-graduate CQSW courses present some difficulties, not the least being that, in practice, it would be very difficult to resist demands to extend the scope of mandatory awards to virtually all students on advanced or special courses, so that we should be back again where we started. Give mandatory grants to a certain group of social workers and immediately one will have a demand that mandatory grants should be given to students for advanced courses in other fields and other disciplines, or some sort of special courses in other disciplines. This, again, is a problem that we cannot at the moment overcome, although it is a matter that will be allowed to lie on the table.
We have also considered the possibility of my Department taking over the provision of grants for non-graduates as it does for graduates. Apart from the administrative problems—and, again I do

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not attach a great deal of importance to those—it would do nothing to resolve the problem of finding the money now, and it is money now that we are concerned with. The formation by local authorities of a central pool of training funds has been suggested and there are a number of ways in which this could be done. However, I think it is a very remote possibility that it could be done in time for next October. On the other hand, it may well be that, as a result of the present crisis, we can come up with something that will take effect in 1978.
I cannot say which of these measures will he found feasible, or whether we can improve upon the present system. I realise that this cannot be much of a comfort to those Members of your Lordships' House who are as deeply concerned about the present position as I am, but this is also a matter which my right honourable friend will be discussing with the various bodies concerned. We recognise that concern and, although I have not been particularly helpful this evening, I do not want your Lordships to go away feeling we are not really concerned about the adequate training of social workers or that we are quite content to leave the situation as it is.
There is a good deal going on behind the scenes at present, and I know that my right honourable friend hopes that something can be done to improve the position beyond what it is at the present moment. For my part, I hope that something can be done, and I know that there are many people who will be constantly pressing my right honourable friend the Secretary of State to do something. I feel that—and this is where I came in—this discussion tonight, by informed people who clearly have not only conviction but a really deep concern for what is happening at present, can only serve a useful purpose and show my right honourable friend the Secretary of State that this is a matter of deep concern to people who are fully informed of the situation and who have some experience in this rather remarkable field of professional social work.

COMMITTEE OF SELECTION
Third Report from the Select Committee made, and to be printed.