Lords Sitting of 17 April 1978

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

KIDNEY TRANSPLANTS: WAITING-LISTS
Lord SEGAL: 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 how many patients were awaiting kidney transplants at the last available date; what was the longest waiting period among this number; how many kidney transplants had been performed in the previous 12 months; and what is the anticipated time at present rate of progress that the waiting-list for kidney transplants is likely to be cleared.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, on 31st January 1978 there were 1,123 patients in the United Kingdom on the waiting-list for a kidney transplant. Over 60 per cent. of the patients now entering the waiting-list may expect to receive a kidney within six months, but the remaining 40 per cent. may have to wait for a significantly longer period before a well-matched kidney becomes available. Due to special circumstances, one patient has been on the waiting-list for over six years. Although, in the year ending 30th June 1977, 788 kidney transplants took place, and the number of kidneys becoming available is steadily increasing, no significant reduction in the waiting-list is expected in the foreseeable future. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Social Services earlier this month launched a publicity campaign to make the public more aware of the importance of kidney donation.
Lord SEGAL: My Lords, I should like to thank my noble friend for that reply, and also his Department for the campaign they are conducting. In approaching
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doctors to assist in this campaign would my noble friend's Department urge them to make a special appeal to persons who may wish to be cremated? Would they also approach the cremation societies to assist in this campaign? Would they not consider the issue of a special certificate to kidney donors, similar to that issued to blood donors, to give wider publicity to the urgent need that still exists for far more kidney donors than are at present available?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, kidney donor cards are now more widely available than ever before. Since 1972 no fewer than 16 million such cards have in fact been issued. They are to be found in general practitioners' premises. chemists' shops, citizens' advice bureaux, and local social security offices. They will shortly be available in unemployment benefit offices. I take the various points that my noble friend has made and, at the risk of being misunderstood (and I hope I shall not be misunderstood), would say that probably the most important single factor contributing to this shortage—and I am referring now to kidney donations—is the failure of doctors to identify potential donors and set in motion the process of organ removal.
Bearing all these things in mind, my right honourable friend has commissioned a market research undertaking which will commence fairly soon. The purpose of it is to explore public attitudes to the carrying of cards with or without endorsing the signature of the next-of-kin. That is a concern so far as some people are concerned. There is also a concern about the difficulties of an opting-out system. This piece of market research will clearly indicate, we hope, what the public think about this whole matter, and we shall then be able to take some action in the matter.
Lord AVEBURY: My Lords, is the Minister aware that one of the minor difficulties people face in donating kidneys and other parts of their bodies after their death is that they have to carry a separate card for each purpose? You have one card for the cornea, another card for the kidneys, and so on. Would it not be of assistance if the Department of Health and Social Security could sponsor a single document which people carried enabling any of their organs to be removed?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, we have this in mind, together with some sort of endorsement on driving licences if this becomes possible, as most people carry them.
Lord CLITHEROE: My Lords, will the noble Lord be good enough to tell us up to what age kidneys are worth anything?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, not being a doctor I should not like to make a pronouncement on this matter, other than to say that kidney transplants in the main are given to persons between the ages of 15 and 60 years of age.
Lord PLATT: My Lords, while being somewhat encouraged by the steps which the Govermnent are at present taking, may I ask whether the noble Lord could tell us how soon we may expect the result of this market research, which I consider to be very important?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I am obliged for what the noble Lord says. Perhaps I ought to inform your Lordships that I, and also my Department, have been under some pressure from the noble Lord on this matter for some considerable time, and I think it has had a significant effect. We are hoping that the research findings will be available some time in the summer.
Lord SEGAL: My Lords, could my noble friend consider issuing something much more substantial than the existing kidney donor card to those public-spirited persons who are willing to serve as kidney donors?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, the whole purpose of the review which my right honourable friend is undertaking, in addition to the market research, is to consider all these possibilities, and he will have been greatly helped by some of the comments that have been made in your Lordships' House this afternoon.

DISCOVERING AFRICA'S PAST
2.44 p.m.
Lord GRIDLEY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what action they propose to take to avoid the damage to race relations which will be done if the book Discovering Africa's Past (edited by Basil Davidson) is used in our schools.
The MINISTER of STATE, DEPARTMENT of EDUCATION and SCIENCE (Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge): My Lords, school curricula and the selection of teaching materials are the responsibility of the local education authorities and school governors, head teachers and their staff. I believe we can rely on their good sense to avoid damage to race relations from any particular book.
Lord GRIDLEY: My Lords, while thanking the Minister for that Answer, may I press the Government to express a view on this matter? What good can come to the fostering of good relations in this country by the statements made in this book that Britain ran her colonies on racial principles and that Britain's interests always came before African interests? If this book got into our schools, what would be the position of an African boy sitting with a British boy studying that book when the African boy in his distress asked the British boy to refute those statements, and the British boy examined the book to see whether he could do so, but then found nothing but repugnance for our former British colonial policy?
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: My Lords, it is not my business to censor books which people write and I am not prepared to get into that position; but I will give something of an answer to the noble Lord. Basil Davidson has been attacking British imperialism since the early 'thirties, when I used to read him. Not a single book that he has ever published has been attacked by the police or banned, or anything else. I think the general view of the British public is that we are proud of our administration of the British Empire in the past, but that there were a number of features in it of which we are not proud. That seems to be an absolutely reasonable position to take up, and though I think Mr. Basil Davidson could be described as biased, he has never

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pretended not to be. I really feel that if the Conservative Party is going to suggest that defensive action should be taken in this way, it is as if they are suggesting that a former Tory Government should have suppressed Macaulay.
Baroness GAITSKELL: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that on 24th March there was an absolutely devastating article in the New Statesman by Basil Davidson about Africa which showed all the mistakes that we and the Europeans made and all the mistakes that the African Nation States made on decolonisation? Is he aware that the African States simply compounded our mistakes by continuing with, and making more irrational, frontiers which have led to all the historical difficulties we have today? Is that not a good reason for teaching our children the proper history of decolonisation?—and in this article Basil Davidson was completely impartial.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: I must confess that I am delighted to hear that, my Lords. I have not read that article, but I notice that, in the documents for further reading, some 59 in this book are by Basil Davidson, so we can all go into the matter in greater detail. I think the noble Lord's Question will have done some good in so far as governors and heads of schools read our Hansard; how far that is the case noble Lords can judge better than I can. When a book has, out of 220 pages, about 20 which are clearly biased—and I admit that—I think it is desirable that classes which are given it to read should be given other books in an opposite sense as well.
Lord ALEXANDER of POTTERHILL: My Lords, is it not probably a matter of the greatest pride that in English education neither central nor local government interfere with the freedom of the teaching profession to select those books which are most appropriate for the education of our children? Would it not be very much more damaging to take any steps to ban a particular book than to leave it to the teaching profession?
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: I am grateful to the noble Lord for that comment, my Lords. I believe that to affect any restriction of the
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kind suggested would damage race relations.
Lord ORR-EWING: My Lords, is the Minister aware that we are grateful as a House that he has alerted local education authorities, governors and the like, who try to see that a balanced and objective view is put forward in our schools, to the fact that this is one side, and a somewhat biased side, of the story? Is it not true that thousands of British colonial servants have helped educate, train and prepare African people for self-government, and that that side of the story should he better known to everyone in this country?
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: My Lords, I am in entire agreement, and if I were the headmaster I should make the class read the first volume of Leonard Woolf's marvellous autobiography which describes the work of a civil servant, the best kind of civil servant, better than anything I have ever read.
Lord WIGG: My Lords, before he comes to the Dispatch Box and charges Basil Davidson with bias, will the Minister hear in mind that Basil Davidson has spent not less than 40 years risking his health, taking grave risks, to understand and to write about the problem which he has brought to the attention of his fellow countrymen? Is it not an abuse of the procedure of this House to hold up a man to obloquy without making it perfectly plain that this is a writer of very great distinction? Never before has anyone who had a reputation to lose ever charged Basil Davidson with bias.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: My Lords, the noble Lord is wrong in saying that nobody has ever charged Basil Davidson with bias. Of course I think he is a writer of great distinction. I think that he is a historian of Africa of great distinction, and I consider that the first 200 pages of his book are a very distinguished history of Africa. But I think that Basil Davidson would be astonished to be cleared of bias—I really do—and I mean no offence at all.
Lord GRIDLEY: My Lords, may I ask one final question? As this book is

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written by a distinguished writer, why has he failed to give an account of the great part played by overseas Administrations in the collection of revenue from taxes and so on, and ploughed back for the development of overseas territories. and the handing over of viable territories to independent Governments when they come into office? He has made no mention of the great contribution made by scientists, engineers, educationalists, and so on. Would it not be better if this distinguished writer, to whom the noble Lord referred, had made mention of that?
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: My Lords, it is not my place to analyse the composition of his book, and I do not propose to do so.

ASBESTOS SUBSTITUTES
2.52 p.m.
Lord HALE: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will state what progress has now been made in the policy of examining and testing and encouraging the use of asbestos substitutes in this country since the scheduling of asbestos as a first classification pollutant within the EEC in 1973.
Lord WALLACE of COSLANY: My Lords, a great deal of progress has been made in developing the use of asbestos substitutes in this country. I am advised that most insulation materials are asbestos free and, in the construction industry, asbestos based products are no longer specified where alternative materials are available. Research into extending the range of safe substitutes is being carried out by industry, universities, and Government laboratories. The Health and Safety Commission's Advisory Committee on Asbestos is paying close regard to this important issue, and in order to give the question of substitutes the detailed examination it requires, has set up a working group to deal with this subject alone. The report of this working group is currently being considered by the Committee.
Lord HALE: My Lords, I am very grateful indeed that the noble Lord, who I know is under some difficulties today, has given such helpful information, and I am grateful for the assistance he has constantly given me on request in the past. He will, I know, realise to some extent that the Question was prompted by the affirmative resolution, the strong resolution, of the European Assembly in January, and by the magnificent publication on this subject by the EEC. The English version was published by the Pergamon Press, for some reason, eight or nine months ago. But the report of the experts of the EEC—
Several noble Lords: Speech!
Lord HALE: I am terribly sorry. The trouble is I have had the whole of the muscles below my ear removed. People turn and shout at me when I am standing, and the hearing aid slips. I will most gladly respond if noble Lords wish me to put this in the form of a question. Is that what your Lordships want?
Several noble Lords: Yes.
Lord HALE: Oh, I should be delighted. Is is true that the noble Lord will—as I know—place at my disposal such further information as he gets, and continuously give me the same assistance as he has so generously given in the past?
Lord WALLACE of COSLANY: My Lords, I am somewhat overcome by those words of praise, but I appreciate the intense interest which my noble friend has displayed, and is displaying, in this very important question. We shall most certainly keep him advised and give him any information he requires as and when it is available, because persistence of this type is very deserving of support from all quarters of the House.
Baroness VICKERS: My Lords, can the noble Lord say whether there has been any improvement in the protective clothing provided for people working with this material?
Lord WALLACE of COSLANY: My Lords, I have no evidence on protective clothing at the moment. The general position is that substitutes are being very closely examined because their effect may

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be just as severe on individuals working with them as those of asbestos. Furthermore, as with brake-linings, for instance, again one has the problem that at the moment the substitute for brake-linings is not efficient, and not only may we have a further danger to workers, but we may even have a greater number of road accidents. I can assure the noble Baroness and the House that the whole question and ramifications as to the effect of asbestos, and the use of protective clothing and so on, are receiving very close and concentrated attention.

OCEAN ISLAND: PROGRESS OF CLAIM
2.56 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 what progress has been made in respect of the claim of the people of Ocean Island:

(1) for a settlement of compensation for damage caused by phosphate extraction; and

(2) for separate status from the Gilbertese Islands and association with the Fijian Islands.

The MINISTER of STATE, FOREIGN and COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (Lord Goronwy-Roberts): My Lords, in a Statement on 27th May 1977, in another place, my right honourable friend announced an ex gratia offer by the British, Australian and New Zealand Governments, of 10 million Australian dollars to establish a fund to help secure the Banabans' economic future. The terms of this offer have not yet been accepted by the Banabans, but it remains open. On the second point, I hope that the recently elected Gilberts Government, and a new Rabi Council of Leaders, will before long be able to hold discussions on matters of mutual interest, including the constitutional future of Banaba. as Ocean Island is now to be called.
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, in thanking the Minister for that information, I should like to ask whether he
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agrees that what has happened to Ocean Island—once beautiful, and now not much more than a desert—is one of the great tragedies of our time. Does he think that a total compensation for damages which amounts to less than £8 million, when over £60 million has been made from phosphate to the profit of Britain, Australia and New Zealand, is adequate compensation for the suffering they have undergone?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I join my noble friend in acknowledging that there have been a number of tragedies in the past, arising from what is variously called colonialism and imperialism—but not exclusively by the British Government or the British people, and not exclusively in the past by any country. However, we recognise that the Banaban community needs to have their economic future assured so far as possible. Therefore, in conjunction with our partners (Australia and New Zealand) we have offered them an ex gratia sum—notwithstanding the fact that the courts found against them in a prolonged action—of 10 million Australian dollars. Added to a sum which has been offered to them on another account, in regard to two other actions, by the phosphates company itself, and the fact that in the last three years at least they have received another 11 million Australian dollars from phosphates, this makes up a very substantial caucus for either investment or development, or both, on the Island.
In addition to the financial provision we have offered, we have also said that we stand totally ready to assist them by way of advice—technical and otherwise—to make the best use of this very considerable sum. I look forward to the time when their Council will have agreed to take up this very substantial sum of money and to accept, also, our offer to assist them by way of constructive advice as to how best to use it.
Lord PAGET of NORTHAMPTON: My Lords, when the noble Lord says that these Islanders lost their litigation, could he also tell us whether Her Majesty's Government were very pleased with the judgment which came? Did it not disclose conduct of almost unbelievable disgracefulness by some officers employed by Her Majesty's Government; and was

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not the sole reason why the court could not find for the Islanders because there was not, in its view, a legal liability, as the Government were protected by the old doctrines?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, my noble friend is himself a lawyer and a distinguished Queen's Counsel. He will understand that when people go to law they are expected to accept the decision at law. This was a prolonged case which took something between 12 and 18 months to be heard. It entailed the most extraordinarily detailed inquiry into a very complicated matter; and the upshot was that, despite a good deal of popular support for the case of the Banabans, which is understandable, the Vice-Chancellor nevertheless found against them. Her Majesty's Government might have stood on that, but we did not. We approached our other two partners—and I wish noble Lords would remember all the time that Britain is not the only Commonwealth country involved in this matter, either in the mistakes of the past or in the attempts at redress in the future—and they agreed (and, from this Box, I pay testimony to the generous statsmanship of both Australia and New Zealand in the in the way they agreed) that, with Britain, they should make available a very substantial sum of money, despite the findings of the court. I think this is the action of countries which, whatever the faults of the past, are anxious to build in the future; and I would hope for united support for what the three Commonwealth Governments are trying to do for this community in the Pacific.
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, returning to the second part of my Question, may I ask whether it is not the case that the Banaban people resist association with the newly-independent Gilbert Islands and desire, instead, association with Fiji, which has very generously given them hospitality while they have been in exile? Should not that wish of the Banaban people be respected?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, the Banaban community removed to Rabi Island at the end of the last war and because of the consequences of the last war—and those, at least, cannot be
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laid at the doors of any allied Government. They confirmed a decision to settle in Rabi Island, with the generous assistance of the Fiji Government; and there they are now. They have a Council, which is now in process of being elected or re-elected, which I hope will join hands with the Gilberts Government—there is a new Assembly, a new Government, in the Gilberts, by the way—so that between them (and they are a naturally friendly people, cognate in many ways with each other) they will arrive at a compromise solution. We have made our own suggestions to them as to how to resolve, on the one hand, the Banaban objection to remaining within the Gilberts' ambit and, on the other hand, the Gilberts' reluctance to surrender any part of what they regard as their territory, supported as that attitude is throughout the whole of the archipelagic Pacific, where everybody is afraid of further fragmentation. I hope that these discussions between the Council and the Gilberts Government will shortly reach agreement. We stand ready to assist in every way. We have made our own suggestions, but they can be no more than suggestions. Our strong advice is on a par with what my noble friend has said: that these two communities, which have so much in common, should themselves put forward a compromise solution.

THE RIDGEWAY: AMENITY PRESERVATION
3.5 p.m.
Lord FOOT rose to call attention to the apparent failure of the present legal and administrative system to preserve the Ridgeway for the quiet enjoyment of walkers and equestrians: and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, some of your Lordships may have seen that the Motion which I have the privilege to move this afternoon was originally on the Order Paper in the name of Lord Kennet. The only reason why I am endeavouring to substitute for him is that he has recently been appointed to the European Parliament, and he thought that if he maintained his name on the ballot list a date might turn up which coincided with some engagement in Europe. Nobody regrets his absence more than I do, because I am afraid

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that upon all counts I shall prove an unworthy and poor substitute for him.
I say that, not out of any innate modesty but because of two particular facts. One of them is that the Ridgeway, which is the subject matter of this debate, if not on Lord Kennet's doorstep is at any rate in his back yard. The second reason why he could have spoken here with almost unique authority is that one of the Acts of Parliament which is closely concerned in this discussion of the Ridgeway is the Countryside Act 1968, and, as some of your Lordships will remember, as I remember very clearly, it was Lord Kennet who had the responsibility of piloting this very complicated Act of Parliament through this House at that time. Therefore, on those two counts he could have spoken to your Lordships today with an almost unique authority.
I cannot claim to have any similar familiarity with the Ridgeway. Indeed, I should have been speaking here with more confidence this afternoon on a subject of conservation if the subject matter had been the conservation of Dartmoor. I feel that I should have had a familiarity with that subject which might almost have equalled Lord Kennet's familiarity with the Ridgeway. But I shall try to do my best as a poor substitute. Perhaps I should say at the outset what the Ridgeway is, because it has been indicated to me (indeed, since I came into the Chamber this afternoon) that there are other Ridgeways. I do not think that any of the supporters of this Ridgeway would acknowledge that there is any other Ridgeway of any consequence throughout the length and breadth of the world; but, in order that the matter may be put beyond doubt—and I hope none of your Lordships has come here under false pretences, thinking I was going to talk about some other Ridgeway—let me say that the Ridgeway I am talking about this afternoon is a very ancient driftway or track, dating back to the later Stone Age, which runs from the great stone circle at Avebury eastwards over the Downs and finishes up, if it finishes up at all, at a place called Streatley, on the Thames.
There is there today, for all to see, the same driftway or track over which, in Neolithic times, our ancestors drove their
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flocks and moved from one settlement to another. I do not want to be tempted into hyperbole upon this subject, but is it not a marvellous thing that we should have such historic antiquity in the heart of the South of England? That is the Ridgeway I am talking about. It extends over a total distance of about 40 miles.
There has been some confusion in the use of the word because, back in 1971 or 1972, the Countryside Commission, using their powers under the Countryside Act 1968, designated this Ridgeway and an extended part which goes further to the East and finishes up at a place called Ivinghoe Beacon. They designated a long-distance path all the way from Avebury to this distant place of Ivinghoe Beacon, which is about 83 miles in all. But the Ridgeway with which I am concerned this afternoon is the Ridgeway of a length of about 40 miles of which I have spoken.
In the course of its meandering progress over the Downs of Wiltshire, it passes through three counties, Wiltshire, then Oxfordshire and then into Berkshire. All along the route of this green path—for that is what it is over most of its distance—you have a great wealth of ancient monuments linked together by this drift-way or track. I suppose it would be right to say, and I doubt whether anybody would dispute it, that it would be difficult to find in the length and breadth of the United Kingdom a single place which presents such a series of antiquities and ancient monuments. Indeed, the place itself can be rightly considered a gigantic ancient monument on its own. It traverses what is some of the most beautiful countryside in England. I will not fall into hyperbole; I am steadily resisting that temptation.
May I turn now to what is the status of this track or driftway. In law, it is a public road and, under the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949, it and other similar green paths and green roads were given a new name. They were called roads used as public paths. That definition was designed to cover minor, and usually unmetalled, roads mainly used by pedestrians and equestrians but where in the past there had been vehicular rights and where those rights were acknowledged.
That is the legal status of this track. There are other factors which must be borne in mind in order to understand the situation. The first is that the Ridgeway passes through three counties, Wiltshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire; and the significance and importance of that is that each of those is the highway authority for that part of the track which passes through its area. The second factor is this. The Ridgeway is crossed by a number of ordinary metalled roads running North and South, and the importance of this is that it has the following results. Anybody travelling up and down those crossroads can, without obstacle or obstruction, turn right or left into the Ridgeway and travel as far as his vehicle can safely go in either direction. The fact is that the track is available for motor cars, motorcycles and vehicles of all kinds.
That is the situation which, as I think you will agree, had in it from the beginning the seeds of future serious conflict. It was obvious that there was going to be a potential conflict between the interests of conservation and the interests of the people who want to go on it in their motor cars and motorcycles. That was apparent from the outset. What has happened is, in fact, precisely what one might have expected to happen. In increasing numbers over the years motorists, motor cyclists and drivers of four-wheeled vehicles have taken the opportunity of driving into the Ridgeway and along it, of parking along it on both sides of the track, and there engaging in the lawful occupation of picnicking and using it as an informal playground. The result, in the summer months at least when the invasion is at its height, is that you have on the Ridgeway a whole series of linear car parks, with cars parked on each side of the Ridgeway at all the points at which it is possible to get off the ordinary road. That is the situation which has developed; and, unhappily, as this Motion draws to your Lordships' attention, that inherent conflict is no nearer solution today than it was when the Ridgeway was originally categorised as a road used as a public path.
May I tell your Lordships briefly what has happened since and how this failure to protect the Ridgeway has developed? Under the Countryside Act 1968 it was
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provided, for these roads which had previously been categorised as roads used as public paths, that in the course of time the appropriate authority should introduce two new categories. One category was to include and comprise footpaths and bridleways which, by definition, are available only to people on foot and on horseback; and the other class were called byways open to all traffic—which by their definition clearly indicated that anybody could drive over them. That refinement (if I may call it that) of the categorisation provided no solution to the problem of the Ridgeway. First, it would probably—and almost certainly—have been legally impossible for any authority to have reclassified the Ridgeway as a bridle path because, over centuries of time, it has been used by vehicles, if only waggons, carts or horsedrawn vehicles. Therefore, if a planning authority or county council had sought to try to designate the Ridgeway as a bridle way that attempt probably would have been defeated in law because there was no basis for it.
Secondly, even if it had been possible to reclassify it as a bridleway, there would then have emerged a new peril to the Ridgeway. The new peril was one of ploughing. This is because, as many noble Lords will know, the legal situation is that, under the Highway Act 1959, it is in certain circumstances permissible to plough up a bridleway or a footpath if it crosses agricultural land. What has constantly happened since then is that these bridleways and footpaths have been ploughed up and, although the law requires that they should be restored, in many cases no action is taken to see that the restoration takes place.
In any event, so far as the Ridgeway is concerned, even if it was required that a farmer who ploughed it up should try to reinstate it to the original form, that would have been utterly impossible because the Ridgeway, or many parts of it, has never been ploughed in the last 3,000 years and the character of this ancient driftway would have been totally destroyed. So no solution was to be found for the problem of the Ridgeway under that reclassification of the 1968 Act.
I do not want to be diverted from the immediate matter of the subject of this Motion into a discussion of how the ploughing up of footpaths and bridleways

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was not averted by the Act of 1968. It may suffice to say this: I remember a debate we had, particularly with the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, on this matter. I think everybody wanted this protection against ploughing to be given to footpaths and bridleways, and under the original Bill as it was introduced my understanding is that that would have resulted. However, at a very late stage in the passage of that Bill through this House an Amendment was introduced by the Government which had the effect of allowing the ploughing of these pathways and green paths and so on to be continued. The noble Lord, Lord Brock, at that time protested strongly against the fact that we were being given something at the last possible moment which we had not had the opportunity to digest. Ever since that happened, there has been a series of protests against what at that time was done, and my recollection is that, apart possibly from the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, nobody in this House understood the significance of the Amendment which was being put to us or the dire consequences which would follow.
There is overwhelming evidence that over the last 10 years since that error was made numerous footpaths and bridleways have been ploughed up and not reinstated, and this is a continuing scandal. I hope the day may not he far away when the Government are going to deal with this matter, and that they will reinstate the position which I think everybody hoped would be the situation after the passing of the 1968 Act. However, as I say, I must not be diverted into that which is only peripherally relevant to the matter which I am attempting to discuss.
The next, and equally ineffective, attempt to protect the Ridgeway took place in 1973. Under the Countryside Act of 1968, the Countryside Commission were authorised, when they saw fit, to designate long walking and riding paths as long-distance paths; they have indeed designated a number of paths of that kind, the most celebrated perhaps being the Pennine Way—long stretches of territory through which the walker and the rider can move. In 1971 the Countryside Commission designated the Ridgeway, and that extension beyond Streatley right up to the Ivinghoe Beacon, as a long distance path. It may be of some interest if I quote the terms in which that was reported
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by the Countryside Commission in their Fifth Report of 1971-72. They clearly regarded this as a considerable success and advance. The report reads:
"The Commission's report proposing a line for the Ridgeway path, an 85-mile route over the Marlborough and Berkshire Downs and along the edge of the Chilterns, was approved by the Secretary of State for the Environment in July. Between Overton Hill in Wiltshire and the Goring Gap at Streatley it will be a bridleway"—
of course, it is the Ridgeway which we are talking about—
"for use by riders and cyclists as well as walkers; beyond the Thames and as far as Ivinghoe Beacon the path will continue as a right of way for walkers only".
From that it is perfectly clear that the Countryside Commission had in mind that the part of the Ridgeway which I am talking about would in future be preserved for riders and walkers. But, although that intention was perfectly obvious from the way in which the Countryside Commission reported the matter, it has proved abortive because they did not at that time take the steps which they could have taken to try to ensure that vehicles would in the main be banned from the Ridgeway. Unhappily, the only result has been—as some people suppose and it is only reasonable to think they are right—to exacerbate the problem by giving publicity to the existence of the Ridgeway to which people might go in their motor cars. That is the sorry story of the way in which, by muddle and ineptitude, we have failed to maintain this marvellous place.
What was needed? As a matter of fact, the machinery for protecting the Ridgeway against the invasion of the automobile has always been available. There were two ways in which that object could have been achieved under the legislation which has been in existence for so long. Under the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1967, the highway authority were authorised, where they thought fit, to impose a traffic regulation order. In 1975 they imposed such an order on the grounds that it was for the preservation of nature and the countryside. They were given that authority under the 1968 Act.
In 1975, the Oxford County Council, the authority for a part of the Ridgeway, made an experimental traffic regulation order for a length near a place called

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Uffington and then, possibly rather strangely but of their own violition and not at the instance of the Secretary of State, they set up a non-statutory public inquiry and got an inspector from, I believe, the Department of the Environment. He held an inquiry to which anybody could come and represent their point of view. That proved to be completely ineffective for this reason. The inspector, after he had acquired all this evidence from the parties concerned, came to the conclusion that there was no problem. That may seem somewhat surprising, but it may seem a little less surprising if I quote the words of his own report:
"I cannot see how the presence of motor vehicles can affect the conservation or enhancement of the natural beauty of the area".
If you start from that premise, you have got a man you cannot argue with. I do not think it would be helpful to the House if I were to make any further comment upon it. Faced with that extraordinary report, the Oxford County Council, I believe by a majority of one, decided to abandon the order altogether. That was the end of the saga of the way in which we have failed to protect the Ridgeway.
I said that there were two ways in which the Ridgeway could have been protected. That was one. The other way was this: Under Section 32 of the Countryside Act 1968 it was specially provided that the terms of the regulation Act of 1967 could, in certain circumstances, be applied to long distance groups, of which the Ridgeway is of course one. Under one of the subsections of that section, the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1967 was amended in order to allow a regulation to be imposed where one of the considerations is:
"the purpose of conserving or enhancing the natural beauty of the area".
Under another subsection, the Minister—the Secretary of State today—was enabled to make a regulating order under the general provisions of the regulating Act. Finally, if was provided that the Minister should make such an order only if he had a recommendation for it from the Countryside Commission and, if he thought fit to bring it into effect, that he should do that only after consulting with the highway authorities or the authority involved.
At any time in the past, ever since the passage of the 1968 Act which created the Countryside Commission and gave the
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Secretary of State those additional powers, the Countryside Commission could, if they had wanted to do so, have made a recommendation for the Ridgeway to the Secretary of State, so that the Ridgeway could be banned to all vehicles. Nothing in fact was done until February of this year, since when after constant pressing by all kinds of amenity bodies over the past 10 years, the Countryside Commission have come up with a recommendation which may, and I fear will, prove as ineffective as everything that has gone before.
What the Countryside Commission have now recommended is not that the Minister or Secretary of State should make a regulating order banning vehicles from the Ridgeway, but rather that a field officer should be appointed to work in conjunction with the highway authorities concerned, in particular with the Oxford County Council; that this person should receive his instructions from the Oxford County Council—which failed so dismally in the past to provide a remedy—and that this field officer should make yet another study of the problem. What is there to study? We have had inquiries. I have not wearied your Lordships with this minor history of the matter. All kinds of census have been taken; inquiries made from the user by traffic, and the like. Now the Countryside Commission have come up with this suggestion that it should start all over again and that for a period of at least a year, as I understand it. this field officer should go round accumulating information, information which is obvious to anybody who cares to visit the Ridgeway at all. I suppose that we are stuck with this for the next 12 months.
There are one or two questions upon this new study that I should like to put to the noble Baroness who is going to answer for the Government in this matter. May I say at once that the responsibility for this study does not rest with the Government and the noble Baroness; it rests entirely with the Countryside Commission. Some of the questions I should like her to answer are as follows: May we have an absolute assurance that this new study is not going to be prolonged beyond the period of 12 months? May we have an assurance that once that study has been made and the report has been handed in, there will be a limit of time

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upon the subsequent consultations that the Government may hold with the various interested parties? May we also be told what the terms of reference of that field officer are to be? If he is being asked simply to ascertain the statistics and tell the Government and the Secretary of State what the facts are, that is one thing. It will delay matters but that would be perhaps of no consequence. But is the field officer going to be invited to make the same value judgment on the matter as was made by the inspector at the previous report? I suggest that it would be entirely improper to ask him to be the judge of what is a subjective matter of value.
I am sorry that I have taken up so much of the time of the House; but I am a little fortified by the fact that there are not many speakers to follow. May I say this in conclusion: As I indicated at the beginning of my remarks, I know more about the problem of Dartmoor than I do about the problem of the Ridgeway. But about two years ago the Government were good enough to set up an inquiry, as the noble Baroness will know, which was presided over by the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, to inquire into the matter of the military use of Dartmoor by the Services. The noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, conducted a long inquiry and, in the course of it, the issues which were at stake there began to emerge. One of the things that we in the amenity societies urged upon the noble Baroness was that there was an irreconcilable conflict between the objectives of the national park and the use of the national park as a military training area, as a firing range.
We made the observation that if one tried to combine the two, the net result, if one sought for a compromise, might be a second-rate training area and a degraded national park. That conclusion was, I am glad to say, largely accepted by the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp. She herself used the word "incongruous". She went on to say that she had no doubt whatever that the military use of the park was extremely damaging to the amenities. The reason why I mention that inquiry was that in it there was a clear conflict between two national interests: there was the interest of the nation in preserving our national parks, and there was the interest of course of the Government and the
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nation in the proper training of our defence forces. If it had been possible to discover any place to which the training forces could have been removed without substantial damage to their training facilities, then I have no doubt that that would have been done.
The reason I refer to that is that in the present case there is no clash of two national interests. There is on the one hand the national interest in maintaining this wonderful place running along the Downs in Wiltshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire. That is a national interest. On the other hand, the only curb which is going to be put upon the activities of the nation is to require that motorists and motor cyclists shall put a curb upon the places to which they want to go and, in particular, they shall not turn what is a great museum of living activities into a car park and race track. Those are the issues which I suggest are involved here. I shall listen with the utmost attention to what comfort the noble Baroness may be able to give us. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
3.39 p.m.
Lord LYELL: My Lords, I was particularly pleased to find that the noble Lord, Lord Foot, was speaking this afternoon, and I was even more interested to hear his comments. He has spoken about the Ridgeway, but he also referred to Dartmoor being used as a military training area. I am sure that it will please the noble Lord, Lord Foot, that, 20 years ago, I had the honour of being sent to Dartmoor military training area for expert training in desert warfare, and there was four times the normal average rainfall for that month. So very often the plans of military men go very much the way that the planners of national parks would wish them to go. I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Foot, would accept that all is not lost. Also, when I came into your Lordships' House some colleagues asked me, "Which Ridgeway? Is it the one in North London?" I found that there were 25 localities hearing that name in the Greater London street directory.
The noble Lord, Lord Foot, has explained to us in great detail and most eloquently the subject that is under discussion this afternoon, and I am sure the House owes him an immense debt of

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gratitude. The noble Lord has taken over from the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, on a particularly difficult subject. Not many Members of your Lordships' House would have been able to take on such a task or to carry it out with such panache.
The Motion is concerned with the consideration of how best the quiet enjoyment of the Ridgeway can be continued. We shall, of course, await the reply of the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, and I hope that she will allow me to make several points and to put one or two barbed questions to her. I am sure she will be able to explain to me and to the House the legal differences between byways, footpaths and bridleways, together with byways open to all traffic and indeed roads which are used as public paths. I am sure the law must be enforced and it will indicate which parts of the Ridgeway may or may not be used for different purposes. Of course, it is the legal language which causes so much confusion and difficulty in our minds. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Foot, has taken great care of the phrasing of this Motion.
Some reasons for the continued disturbance of the peace and quiet of the Ridgeway are more easily discovered than others. In the last 30 seconds of his speech, the noble Lord. Lord Foot, mentioned that, in the main, it was motor cycles and motor cars which were responsible. I agree that those may well raise the major problems; but I like to have personal experience of the subjects under discussion when I take part in debates in your Lordships' House, and three winters ago, after one solid week of sitting across the park with the North Atlantic Assembly and because I felt I needed some air, I walked along a 17-mile stretch of the Ridgeway. Perhaps I took the wrong decision, because I took this I7-mile walk and was immediately struck by the quiet and loneliness of the Ridgeway. But at the end of the day my doctor and I were also struck by the size of my ankles and the pain in them.
I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Foot, has been along the Ridgeway, as a pedestrain—I was going to say "on foot"—but I think he will find that it is akin to a ploughed field, though not from ploughing. I do not know whether
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that situation is caused by lorries or other wheeled vehicles, or whether it is the remains of the chariots or the carts of Roman times that he was speaking about. In many cases it was the kind of place where no sane driver of a wheeled vehicle, let alone a car driver, would want to go; and precious few pedestrains would have been able to get through in summer, let alone in the height of a wet autumn, when I went along.
Two points struck me when I had recovered my senses at the end of the day. Two young trail riders on lightweight motorcycles passed us and they were proceeding at what I would regard as a very reasonable pace. They seemed very keen to afford priority to us, the pedestrians. They slowed right down and went away off the Ridgeway. Their vehicles were not noisy: we saw them well before we heard their vehicles. I would accept that this occurred in mid-December 1974 on a fairly damp afternoon and that conditions were very far from those conditions which I understand occurred at Uffington. I believe it was in the main the particular set of circumstances there which led to the public inquiry to which the noble Lord, Lord Foot, referred. I think there was some kind of trail-riders' test or championships or practice, and I believe that the tolerance of other users of the Ridgeway was stretched a little far.
The second point that occurred to me after my walk along the Ridgeway was that it would indeed be a foolhardy driver who would proceed along the Ridgeway in any vehicle, and I wonder whether an order prohibiting motor traffic on any part of the Ridgeway would preclude genuine agricultural traffic or even disabled persons from proceeding a short distance along the path from one of the access roads mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Foot. Indeed, the access that I and my fellow pedestrians gained on to the Ridgeway was that we were driven up from Swindon station to the Ridgeway where it crossed one of the metalled roads that traverse it from North to South.
It has been suggested to me that, should all wheeled motor traffic be banned from the Ridgeway, it would preclude some, if not all, disabled drivers proceeding a short distance along the Ridgeway.

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They might have to abandon their vehicles in these extremely narrow lanes which climb up to the Downs, and so would not be able to enjoy the peace and quiet of the Ridgeway which we all desire so much.
However, I believe that the law cannot achieve what the noble Lord, Lord Foot, and the rest of us desire—namely, the preservation of peace and quiet on the Ridgeway—because the problem seems to exist mainly West of the Thames at Streatley and, as the noble Lord pointed out, is the common responsibility of the Oxfordshire and Wiltshire County Councils. It seems that the Ridgeway has been classified by Oxfordshire as,
"a road used as a public path".
I wonder whether the noble Baroness would confirm that the Countryside Act lays down the possibility of a review not merely of the general amenities but also the possibility of defining the class of a path, a by-road, a bridleway or a footpath in practice. If it is possible to classify a road which is used mainly for other purposes, what would be the fate of the Ridgeway under any such reclassification? At present it seems that trail riders and certain other vehicle drivers use the Ridgeway, in some instances for a long distance and in other instances for an extremely short distance.
The House will equally await the reply from the noble Baroness regarding the Countryside Commission; it was their recommendation which provided some basis for the confusion referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Foot, as he himself mentioned, in July 1972. The Commission deliberately avoided recommending the exclusion of motor vehicles so that the Secretary of State could study what might be involved in banning them from part or perhaps the whole of the Ridgeway. I believe that study is continuing, but after six years the Commission should at last have focused attention on one or two of the more contentious areas and indeed on one or two of the more contentious geographical areas.
The noble Lord told us in great detail about the public inquiry which was held in 1976. That enabled objectors and supporters of the traffic regulation order to be heard. I understand the order would have made permanent during the months of July and August in each year,
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starting from 1977, a review of traffic up to and along the Ridgeway. I understand that an outright ban was not envisaged. Nevertheless, the public inquiry was held and we heard of one or two of the comments made by the chief inspector. He mentioned that he had heard the evidence and had found that it would not be expedient for the Oxford County Council to proceed with the order. I am sure the word, "expedient" will ring a bell in the mind of the noble Lord, Lord Foot, as it does in mine, in as much as both he and I were involved in a similar planning Bill last July. So far as I can understand it, it is a very useful catchword which is let loose at laymen like myself. The noble Lord, Lord Foot, is a member of the legal profession and may understand it, but the word tends to dazzle me. However, the word, "expedient" was used by the chief inspector and, indeed, as the noble Lord, Lord Foot, pointed out, the Oxfordshire County Council voted by, I believe, a majority of one that they should not proceed with their order.
It would seem that, with the failure of the council to obtain even this limited control over some uses of the Ridgeway, peace and quiet are qualities which are still not always in evidence, especially at weekends. I should feel far from gloomy were I to be in the walking shoes or riding hoots of the noble Lord. Lord Foot. But the Countryside Commission is continuing to work with all the councils involved along the Ridgeway, and, as I understand the case, the Secretary of State will take the next and necessary steps to approve any designation of a by-road as a bridleway or a footpath. I wonder whether the noble Baroness can enlighten me about what has to he done in order to obtain such a designation. She may have the answer in her notes, but, if not, perhaps she can answer me later.
However, there is one major point that worries me. Once an order has been made, which bans or restricts motor traffic, especially trail riders, from certain parts or from the whole length of the Ridgeway, who will enforce that order and how will it be enforced? I think that the noble Lord, Lord Foot, will certainly agree with me that such reasonable laws are normally easily enforceable, but perhaps he or the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, can enlighten me on this

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problem. Does this problem exist in other national parks, or in similar areas of outstanding attraction? I cannot see traffic wardens controlling car parking at the many large and small metalled roads which cross the Ridgeway, nor can I see traffic police pursuing young trail riders, who have by design, or by error, joined the Ridgeway. The House may consider this to be a somewhat mischievious scenario, but I assure noble Lords that I wish such an order to be accepted and, above all, respected and enforced.
Trail riding on motorcycles, which I have mentioned—and it comes into the report of the public inquiry—is hugely popular, both in this country and in the United States of America, especially in the State of California where there is far more room than there is on the Ridgeway or elsewhere in England. But it is self-discipline which prevails, as well as education, not to mention the fines levied by the forest patrol, owing to the ever-present risk of fire. I should be worried that, if an order which banned trail riders from one short stretch of the path were to be passed and made permanent, those riders would merely be able to move along to the next section and, perhaps, practice for their competitions or try interesting little jumps, and thereby cause equal annoyance. I hope that education and discussion will go a long way to remedy this problem, but I appreciate how difficult it is for the Government and local councils to find a method of enforcing what is both an acceptable and a sensible order.
The noble Lord, Lord Foot, has done a great service to the users of the Ridgeway in moving for Papers on this subject, and it is very heartening to find that he has been so careful and precise in wording his Motion. Quiet enjoyment is sought by those who use the path, for whatever purposes, and it is extraordinarily difficult to understand what obstacles prevent the enjoyment of those desirable objectives of tranquillity, safety and pleasure, until a full study can be made, with the Countryside Commission, of the workings of the Countryside Act. To those of your Lordships who are unaware of the many faces of legal and administrative life, the continual nuisance caused to others by some users of the Ridgeway should be examined.
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The noble Lord, Lord Foot, pointed out to us that the Ridgeway is one aspect of the English countryside and history which should be guarded and kept, but, I hope and believe with a lightness of touch engendered by education, persuasion and co-operation. I am happy to have an interest in both sides of the problem, both as a walker—and not just along the Ridgeway—when my ankles arc healed, and also as a trail rider. It seems very strange to me, wearing both crash helmet and walking shoes—separately, or at the same time—and very sad that some users of such a locality simply cannot, or will not, respect the wishes or pleas of others. But, if the law has to be invoked in order to enforce respect for the rights of others, then, at least, that law must be capable of enforcement, and with the help of the Government and of the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, I think that a start will be made to settle this problem. After thanking the noble Lord, Lord Foot. for taking so much trouble, we all look forward to hearing what the noble Baroness has to say in reply.
3.55 p.m.
Earl HOWE: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Foot, who I believe is a lawyer or is, at least, a member of the legal profession, spoke for over half an hour and I do not think that that will improve his case. However, I should like to congratulate him on his research, which has obviously been lengthy, and on the fact that he gave us a very interesting history of the Ridgeway, which many of us do not know, or have not had an opportunity of walking along or of riding a motorcycle along. I shall not refer again to the history, and my intervention in this short debate is simply to point out, and to ask for confirmation, that there has never been any question of the Ridgeway being closed to vehicular traffic.
The noble Lord, Lord Foot, calls,
"…attention to the apparent failure…to preserve"—
those are the key words in his Motion—
"the Ridgeway for…walkers",
giving the impression to me that this trackway over the Chilterns was once free from traffic. To my knowledge, it has never been closed to traffic, but I must admit that it has been debated for a very long time. The possibility of closure to the public of certain sections has caused

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considerable concern to motorcyclists and others. I might add that I have heard mention of the Trail Riders' Fellowship, and I happen to be a patron of that organisation. I know the riders, and I also know quite a bit about it. The very fact that closure of the Ridgeway has been considered has caused some concern to motorcyclists and others who would like to use it, although infrequently. The two large motorcycle organisations are the TRF—the Trail Riders' Fellowship—and the British Motorcyclists' Federation, while there is also the organisation of the RAC. In all of them I have a close interest, and they are adamant that vehicles should be allowed to use the Ridgeway for peaceful purposes.
That does not mean that they will tear along in leather jackets, like two-wheeled cowboys, on screaming Japanese machines. Admittedly, there are many who behave in that rather anti-social fashion, but the vast majority do not behave like that and very much object to the way in which some of their fellow riders behave. That is always interesting to know. The vast majority of motorcyclists who today would use this track are extremely skilful in the manner in which they use their machines and arc very proud of them. Furthermore, owing to the high cost of petrol, more and more young people are taking to riding motorcycles. They have no wish to see their image spoiled when using the Ridgeway. To my way of thinking, it would be unfair and unjust to single out a section of the public, and deprive them of use of the Ridgeway. I also fail to see why we should make pedestrians or equestrians into a privileged class of people using the Ridgeway.
That is all that I want to say. I hope that a certain section of the public is never prevented from using the Ridgeway. I know that this may not be liked by everybody, but, when you think of it, a motorcycle is a machine which is controllable. But I am sorry to say that a horse is not always controllable, and the thought of a bolting horse facing a pedestrian is not very pleasant.
3.59 p.m.
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, we have had a very interesting debate today, but I, too, am sorry that my noble friend Lord Kennet is not able to be present. I know that he is concerned about the future
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of the Ridgeway and I am sure that he would have had a valuable contribution to make to our debate this afternoon. But, like other noble Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Foot, for giving the House a brief opportunity of discussing this subject, and no doubt, in due course, we shall also come to debate in more detail the problems of Dartmoor.
As the noble Lord, Lord Foot, has reminded us, the Ridgeway is not only an ancient route but also a part of our highway network; it is one of our best known "green lanes" and it is believed that a right for vehicles to use the Ridgeway has existed for many centuries. Since the Ridgeway is a highway, its maintenance is the responsibility of the appropriate highway authorities: in this case, the three county councils of Oxfordshire, Wiltshire and Berkshire through whose area it passes. As the Ridgeway has also been designated by the Countryside Commission as a long distance route, they are also concerned with its management in that connection. The Department of the Environment has no direct responsibility, except that it is involved in the procedure for reviewing the definitive maps of rights of way.
I must say at the outset that although I know the hills, fells and dales of Northern England and have walked them for many long days and even longer miles, I have no such intimate knowledge, I regret, of the Ridgeway. I hope that this is something which time can put right and that I shall be able to find time away from my Parliamentary duties to explore the Ridgeway in more detail. Obviously it will be useful if I explain the procedure, as asked for by the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, as to how rights of way are now classified. Under the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949, local authorities were required to draw up definitive maps of the rights of way on which they had to show three different categories of path: footpaths, bridleways and a third category to be known as "roads used as public paths". The councils concerned classified the length of the Ridgeway about which we are concerned today in this third class because of the historical evidence of vehicular rights.
In making his reference to the classifications, the noble Lord, Lord Foot, was perhaps more helpful than my initial

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brief. When I was faced with RUPPs and BOATs and had to sort out what they were, I discovered that RUPPs are roads used as public paths and that BOATs are byways open to all traffic. Therefore, one learns something every day if one is doing something in this House.
This type of classification, however, did not prove satisfactory in practice, because of uncertainty as to what rights existed in particular cases. The matter was reviewed by the Gosling Committee on Footpaths which was set up in 1967. It recommended that "roads used as public paths"—my famous RUPPs—should be reclassified, either as footpaths or bridleways or as "byways open to all traffic", which was to be a new designation. This recommendation was incorporated into the Countryside Act 1968, which required all county councils to conduct a special review for the purpose of carrying out this reclassification. The Wiltshire and the Berkshire County Councils have published a draft map for their reviews, proposing that their parts of the Ridgeway be designated a "byway open to all traffic". In Oxfordshire, an earlier review is still being completed. In each of the three, therefore, the Ridgeway remains classified as a "road used as a public path". Where it has been or is proposed to be reclassified, this is because of the evidence of vehicular rights.
These draft maps are now before the Department for the determination of objections. Noble Lords will appreciate, therefore, that I cannot comment on the merits of the reclassification that has been made. I should make clear, however, that where paths are reclassified as "byways open to all traffic", it does not follow that the path has been "opened" to vehicles or that vehicular traffic has acquired rights as a result of the reclassification. This classification is applied because the county councils are satisfied that such rights already exist. I might also point out that the Countryside Act provided that where a path was reclassified as a byway, the council are not then obliged to provide the path with a metalled surface or by other means a surace for the passage of vehicles.
The 1949 Act also made provision for the establishment of long distance routes over which the public could make extensive
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journeys either on foot or on horseback, or on a bicycle along routes which for the whole or the greater part of their length did not pass along roads mainly used by motor vehicles. Such a designation does not necessarily convey any suggestion that vehicular rights will be extinguished. The Act does not preclude the use of roads or other ways which are used by vehicles. The proposal to make a long distance route which for part of its length follows the ancient line of the Ridgeway was approved, as the noble Lord, Lord Foot, reminded us, by the Secretary of State for the Environment in 1972 and the route was opened the following year. The noble Earl, Lord Howe, referred to the fact that he did not think that it had been suggested at any time that the Ridgeway should be closed to vehicular traffic. As I have said, the Ridgeway is a highway of historical usage.
The 1949 Act provides that when a report proposing the establishment of a long distance route is submitted, the Countryside Commission may recommend the restriction of traffic on existing highways along which the route passes. I understand that when the 1949 Act was debated in your Lordships' House there was some discussion of this provision and that it was proposed to write in a requirement that the Commission should consult associations representing the users of vehicles before proposing any traffic restrictions. The Government accepted:
"that it is important, and indeed necessary, that the big associations representing the road users should be consulted".
An assurance was given that
"the extreme importance of doing so"
would be pressed upon the Commission. The proposal was not proceeded with on this understanding. I mention this to show that the Government have a longstanding commitment to take account of the views not only of walkers and riders but also of users of vehicles in considering traffic restrictions on long distance routes.
Having said this much as background, I should like to turn to the present problem and possible remedies. For centuries the various users of the Ridgeway have continued in harmony with one another, but in recent years, as we have heard this afternoon, a conflict has arisen between

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the use of the route by walkers and riders, on the one hand, and by vehicles, on the other, and it manifests itself in two ways. In the first place, a more intensive use by vehicles has a detrimental effect on the surface, as the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, found out to his cost, particularly in periods of prolonged dry or wet weather, making passage extremely difficult for walkers and horse riders and probably impossible even for cyclists. But these conditions are attractive for trail riders, and the noise and danger generated by this use greatly detracts from the enjoyment of other users.
The possibility of resolving this problem by excluding vehicular traffic has been widely canvassed. The Countryside Act empowers councils to make road traffic regulation orders for the purpose of conserving or enhancing natural beauty or affording better opportunities for public recreation in relation, among other things, to long distance routes. The Act also provides for orders to be made by the Department of Transport in connection with long distance routes if the Countryside Commission recommend it.
As the noble Lord, Lord Foot, has said, in 1976 Oxfordshire County Council made a draft order to restrict traffic on a section of the route and, in order to have the views of all interested parties, arranged a public inquiry. This order was not proposed to apply to agricultural and contractors' vehicles or to public service and disabled persons' vehicles. The inspector who conducted that inquiry recommended that the order should not be made and this recommendation was accepted. It was considered that the evidence did not support the case that the main difficulties were created by vehicles other than agricultural vehicles, nor did it indicate a substantial increase in vehicular traffic since designation as a long distance route was proposed.
In the event of an order now being made by the council or proposed by the Commission, the findings of the inspector who carried out the previous public inquiry would no doubt still carry weight. Since it was his view that there was insufficient evidence to justify an order, it is desirable that more detailed evidence should be collected before a further order is put forward. It is also possible that a fresh study might show that techniques
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for managing the route might be introduced which would overcome the present problem, without recourse to restrictions. The Countryside Commission are therefore proposing to sponsor the employment of a field officer by Oxfordshire County Council to investigate the use of a 40-mile section of the route West of Streatley. He will be required to assemble information on the use and condition of the Ridgeway, to make contact and develop close liaison with all the major interested parties to assess their competing claims and identify particular problems. It is proposed that the initial appointment will be for one year, during which time a full report will be prepared on the future management of the route. The officer may also be called upon to undertake experimental projects to establish the merits of proposed solutions. I understand that Oxfordshire County Council have agreed to co-operate in this initiative and it is hoped also to involve Berkshire and Wiltshire Councils.
I was asked by the noble Lord, Lord Foot, whether there will be any publicity from the field officer's report and what sort of time-scale we have in mind. The study itself is scheduled to last for one year, with a report to be finished at the end of that period. As to the findings of the report, at this stage I should not like to say that they will be published, but they will certainly be publicised. That is something on which the Countryside Commission have to decide. They have certainly got to consult with the other bodies and organisations concerned, but I would be prepared to give the noble Lord an assurance on my own behalf that once the report is available I will endeavour to give the pushes that are necessary along the way in order to get some sort of speedy action from it.
I should like to pay tribute to the help given by the Oxfordshire County Council in welcoming the initiative of the Countryside Commission and in co-operating in this study. It is desirable that the highway authority should be involved in an exercise of this kind, since if restrictions are to be imposed then the county councils as the highway authorities will have the extremely difficult job, as the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, reminded us, of seeing how they enforce such restrictions.
When the field officer's report has been received the Commission will be in a

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position to consult all the parties on the action that should be taken and it may be that a fresh road traffic regulation order should be made. The Commission could ask the Department of Transport to make such an order, although I believe it would be very much better if such a proposal had the support of the county council as the highway authority. Alternatively it seems to us that the problems might be resolved by management work on the route and it may be decided to extend the field officer's appointment so that this work can be carried out.
I hope that, with the co-operation of all those who are concerned about the Ridgeway, it will be possible to solve this dilemma. The adoption of traffic restrictions is not an easy answer. Those whose rights will be restricted are bound to feel aggrieved and there will be difficulties with enforcement. If the restriction is not applied to agricultural vehicles—and it is difficult to see how it can be without causing problems for people going about their daily work—there is evidence to show that the damage to the surface of the path will still not be prevented. I would like to think that this proposal would he implemented only as a last resort. Like other noble Lords, I hope that a solution can be found that will be reasonably acceptable to all concerned. The Countryside Commission have done a tremendous job on their long distance footpaths, and I am sure we all hope that one day the Ridgeway will become as famous and as popular and as pleasant to walk down as the Pennine Way or Offa's Dyke.
4.15 p.m.
Lord FOOT: My Lords, I will not detain the House for more than a minute or two now. First, I should like to thank all those who have taken part in this short debate, not excluding the noble Earl, Lord Howe, because, as I shall try to point out in a moment, I think he has made a valuable contribution. r should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, for his kind remarks about me and for what he had to say about this proposition. At the end of it, I was not quite sure whether he was on my side or the other side; but giving him the benefit of the doubt I think he must be on the side of the angels.
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The noble Lord expressed the hope that there might be a way of resolving this conflict by a process of persuasion and education, because if you try to ban vehicles from going on to the Ridgeway, it will then be very difficult to enforce that ban. I should like to remind the noble Lord that over the last 50 years—and I think this clause was introduced into one of the earliest Road Traffic Acts, probably the Act of 1932—a provision has been laid down which prohibited cars from going more than 15 yards off a public road without the permission of the owner of the land. That provision has been in existence for something like 30 or 40 years. It could be argued, just as the noble Lord has argued, that some of these provisions are difficult to enforce. That is so. But, if I may refer again to Dartmoor, the experience that we have had and I am sure it must apply to other national parks—is that if you bring to people's attention that they are prohibited by law from going more than 15 yards from the road that has an extremely beneficial result. Most people are law-abiding and they want to comply with the law. I cannot remember an occasion when anybody was prosecuted for that offence; it may have happened, but I have no recollection of it.
How can the noble Lord say that we can persuade people by education and persuasion not to go on to places like the Ridgeway if the law lays down that they are perfectly entitled to do so? I am afraid this conflict will not be solved by compromise. It has to be recognised that there is an irreconcilable conflict in places of this kind between the interests of those who want to enjoy nature quietly and those people who want to drive their vehicles over it.
Lord LYELL: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, as he has made a reference to me I should like to make a comment. He said that he found it hard to understand how I equate persuasion and education and respecting the law, but I should like to quote the analogy of seat belt legislation. We will not go into it here, but I believe that is a perfect analogy of a case of trying to use the law to persuade people to do something that is not strictly legal or illegal but which is sensible. I would continue to stress that, in my opinion, on this particular stretch of the

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country, persuasion and education would be the best method of obtaining a satisfactory result.
Lord FOOT: My Lords, I will not continue the argument with the noble Lord, except to say that there is a difference between the example he gives and what we are speaking about here today. The Government and many local authorities have taken enormous measures to try to convince people that they ought to wear the seat belt; but what method is there of impressing on somebody who wants to go to the Ridgeway that it is undesirable, even though it is perfectly legal, for them to drive on to these open spaces? I cannot believe the two cases are comparable.
I should like to make just one remark in regard to the comments made by the noble Earl, Lord Howe. He has come here today, as he so often does, to express the view of the motoring community. He concluded by saying that he did not see why pedestrians and equestrians should be treated as a privileged class. Apparently, if you exclude motor cars from any part of the countryside you are then elevating the pedestrian and the equestrian into a special and privileged class. What about the privileges that the motorcar driver has to drive along the motorways, from which pedestrians are excluded? In what sense are they not a privileged class if they can go to places where pedestrians cannot go? I am afraid I do not believe that the noble Earl has the support of the motoring community in the views which he has advanced.
Indeed, at the Uffington inquiry set up by the Oxfordshire County Council the fact was that the Automobile Association (who may be a much more enlightened body than the RAC) expressed the view that they did not see any reason why motor cars should go on to the Ridgeway. As a matter of fact, in a census that was taken at the time of the Uffington Inquiry, a number of people who had actually gone to the Ridgeway in their cars were asked whether in their view it would be right to exclude cars from the Ridgeway, and the majority said, Yes. So I do not believe that motorists are quite so selfish as the noble Earl has gone out of his way to suggest.
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My Lords, may I thank the noble Baroness for the little comfort that she has been able to give me. I have no doubt where her heart lies, and I am sure if she gets any opportunity of giving the machinery a push she will indeed carry out the promise she has given to us today. I am afraid that those who think as I do will still be very disappointed that the Government have not been able to go further. But I appreciate the difficulties. Under the legislation it is for the Countryside Commission to take the initiative, and unless they do it and unless they eventually come up with a recommendation to the Secretary of State that lie shall impose a traffic regulation order, the Secretary of State is bound hand and foot and has no authority. I think it is wrong, but I understand nevertheless that that is the situation. I can only hope that in the fullness of time—and I hope it is not going to be too full—we shall be meeting together in the knowledge that steps have at last been taken, before it is too late, to maintain the wonderful area of the Ridgeway for the nation. I beg leave to withdraw my Motion for Papers.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

WIDOWS: PROBLEMS
4.22 p.m.
Baroness MACLEOD of BORVE roseto call attention to the problems of widows; and to move for Papers. The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper on the problems of widows. Widows come in all shapes and sizes and ages; they come from age 16 to the end of life, which might well be 100 plus. There are very rich widows, albeit very few of them, and there are a great number of very poor widows. In all, there are 3 million widows; 200,000 women become widows every year. Fifteen out of every 100 women are widows, but only 4 out of every 100 men are widowers.
When you ask somebody what they think of widows or the state of widowhood, it is, in my view, quite understandable that nobody wants to know. It is one of those words, in fact the word, the connotation of which nobody wants to take any notice. Therefore, when I was lucky enough to have my name drawn

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out of the hat for this Short Debate, I asked some noble Lords whether they would help me in the debate. A few who are here today—and I am very grateful to them all—said that they would, but others said: "We do not know; it has nothing to do with us". That is absolutely understandable because anyone who has formed a partnership, one female and one male together in marriage, does not want to contemplate the fact that, except in very unusual cases, one of them will die before the other. It is, luckily, very unusual for both to die together.
My Lords, my experience, the reason why I have initiated this debate today, is not only because the people of this country do not know the problems of widows, but also because, if I might say so, I have been widowed twice, once when I was I think 23, and the second time in my fifties. Also I have the privilege of being the National President of the National Association of Widows. It was formed in 1971 by one specific widow in Stafford called June Hemer who realised from all her experience that the widow, shall we say, on the ground was not really catered for, and that there was no way in which widows were able to talk to each other. So she formed the National Association of Widows in 1971.
I have called this debate "The Problems of Widows"; not the needs but the problems—they are different. We had a small survey done throughout the country—because we have 75 branches—and we asked 248 individual people to answer a questionnaire. Seventy-eight per cent. of those 248 put first among their problems that of loneliness. I am sure every noble Lord who has come across a woman living by herself, having lost her spouse, will agree that that is the most difficult problem to overcome. The next problem—which might be a surprise to your Lordships—was coping with house maintenance; 60 per cent. of the widows put that second.
The reason, I gather, is this, that when something needed doing in the house, be it mending a fuse or digging out a drain or seeing that the house has to be painted, the husband had been able to do it for the family, and when he died there was nobody to do it. But it goes deeper than that. If there is just a woman alone in
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the house, I am sorry to have to say that there are many people in this country, trade people, who will take advantage of the fact that she does not know as much about digging out a drain, or even painting a house, as does the man of the house. I know this from my own personal experience. I am an avid car driver, but occasionally my car goes wrong. Although I should not like to say specifically that, because I am a woman alone, I am charged more; but this does happen to widows. That is why widows put house maintenance as one of the priorities of difficulty.
One-third of all the women interviewed had financial problems, and it was estimated that well over 70 per cent. of widows would be found to have incomes below the supplementary benefit level. One-third had also moved house without really thinking it through in depth and then had deeply regretted it. I am sure your Lordships will realise, too, that one of the problems of being a widow is the income tax situation. I am fortunate today in having my noble friend Lord Cullen to tackle as best he may the problems of income tax and child benefit. If any noble Lord would like further information, an excellent book came out eight weeks ago dealing with this specific problem.
Another problem, one which perhaps does not stand out, is that of overlapping benefits. Anyone who has tried to get two benefits from the State will realise that he cannot, and certainly a widow cannot. A widow cannot draw anything other than her widow's pension. For example, let us take the case of two houses next door to each other, one occupied by a married couple with growing children and the other by a widow with equally growing children. Let us suppose that both women decide to take a retraining course for teaching or any other subject that they have done in the past. If the widow asks for a grant for that course she will be unable to get it unless she gives up part or all of her widow's pension. However, the wife next door who is supported by her husband can get a grant for the retraining course. That must be unfair.
The same applies to invalidity pensions. I must point out that in all the cases that I am quoting both the husband and the wife have always worked and have always

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contributed fully to the National Insurance scheme. However, as regards the invalidity pension, if a wife, for example is taken ill and is put on an invalidity pension, and the husband then dies leaving the wife still ill, she cannot draw the invalidity pension as well as the widow's pension, despite the fact that she has to send in quarterly medical certificates to say that she is still an invalid. The same applies to industrial injuries. A working widow has to contribute a stamp towards industrial injuries benefits, but she cannot draw any benefit because that would be an overlapping benefit.
Another problem is pensions. I shall not dwell very long on pensions, but I have a certain amount of up-to-date knowledge about pensions on the Continent. Last week the National Association of Widows was invited by Germany and France to attend an international conference at Stuttgart. It was the first conference to be held and we were very pleased to be asked to represent Great Britain. It was necessarily a small conference, because at the time there were only three countries taking part. However, as one can imagine, one of the subjects put forward for discussion was pensions. In Germany 60 per cent. of the husband's earnings are given to the widow as a pension. We think that it is about 20 or perhaps 25 per cent. in this country. In Germany widows are encouraged to remarry, to such an extent that they give a widow two years' pension as a lump sum—one might perhaps call it a dowry—when she remarries.
Pensions can be lost so easily in this country. One does need to have great knowledge of the subject to know about the way that the social security people have been known to sit outside a widow's house hoping—and I am afraid it is hoping—that they can catch a widow having a man in her house. Men have been known to go into widows' houses, and sometimes a widow will encourage or invite a man to stay as a lodger in her house. In such circumstances it is very difficult for a widow to persuade the social services that nothing untoward is taking place and that the man is just a financial lodger. As your Lordships will imagine, it is very difficult to prove that to be the case. I have it on the authority of those who have done research into this matter that the normal reason for taking a man
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into a house is one of finance and also the extremely difficult problem of companionship.
We also realise that a woman, when a widow, is much more likely to be a drain on the Health Service. There are a great number of mental breakdowns among widows. There are a great number of attempted, and sometimes more than attempted, suicides. Dr. Colin Parks, who is the chairman of Cruse, reported in the British Medical Journal in 1964 that:
Patients who had lost a spouse shortly before the onset of mental illness were five times more frequent among admissions to the Bethlem and Maudsley Hospitals than would have been expected if bereavement had not been a cause of the admission."
Dr. Lynch, slightly more up to date, in 1977 wrote that the evidence was startling in linking heart and other diseases with the need for human companionship. Dr. Phylis Silverman of Harvard Medical School initiated, established and monitored a widow-to-widow programme in America. She found that neither clergy, doctors nor family were able to give to a widow the sort of support that was needed.
We in the National Association of Widows have found the same thing; that is why we have set out to try to remedy the situation. We now have 75 branches and six voluntarily staffed widow-to-widow advisory services. We desperately need to increase that number because we realise, as Dr. Silverman realised, that the widow-to-widow service is the way to help a woman deal with these problems. Of the 254 people asked about whether they thought that the widow-to-widow service was helpful, 67 per cent. said that it was invaluable and 75·8 per cent. said that they had asked all sorts of other organisations for help including the Churches, but had preferred to come to a widow.
At the end of our Short Debate it may well be that some people will say: "There are a great number of these women around but we cannot recognise them. They do not go along with a white stick or with two sticks. They are a quite unrecognisable block of our society. What can we do to help?" I shall put forward one or two thing that I think we can all do to help. First of all, companionship. Anyone who can help by offering friendship; by talking to some

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body, who they know lives alone, perhaps in the shops, in the streets, when coming out of church or at any time; or who can draw these people into meetings or involve them in going to places where other people meet, will be of great service, because widows need to be wanted.
I hope that the Churches will do more than I have reason to believe they have done in the past few years, and that the voluntary organisations will also reach out and draw widows in. I also hope that the families of widows will help. The other day I was in a train when a man who was very distressed got into the carriage. As is my wont, I said; "What is the problem?". He said, "I am sorry, but I have just buried my father: and my real problem is that I don't know what to do for my mother". I said: "Is she on the telephone?". He said: "Yes". I said: "The thing that you can do for your mother is to telephone her at the same time once a week. That will keep her in touch. I assure you that she will derive more benefit from you ringing her up once a week than from almost anything else".
As I have said, this voluntary service for the widows needs to be encouraged and enlarged. We hope that in the foreseeable future the Government will be able to help us with a very small amount of finance. We have received a little from the Voluntary Services Unit, which helped us to produce this book, and a report that we have now sent to the Government. But needless to say, telephones, occasionally the hiring of a room, fares, et cetera, need to be paid for.
I was trying to think how to wind up my few remarks this afternoon. All I could think of was to say that we are all mortal. Even in the happiest of marriages someone has to go first. At the end of the day perhaps those who have not decided to take a partner in life are the best off. However, I am sure that after this debate anyone who realises the deep troubles that those living alone experience will do all he or she can to help such people. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
4.42 p.m.
Earl GREY: My Lords, may I from these Benches thank the noble Baroness,
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Lady Macleod of Borve, for raising this important subject. The unfortunate position of widows has always aroused sympathy and a need for understanding. Any measures taken by the Government to improve the financial position of widows must be welcomed, but despite what is being done, I believe that their position needs improving.
Before the recent Budget measures, a widow received £17·50 per week, which after tax came to £15·73, and war widows received 30 per cent. more. The fact that that is taxed surely is a totally unfair measure. I believe that the threshold is much too low. By comparison, a Service widow whose husband died after 1973 receives £38 per week. Why is there one rule for one and a different rule for someone in exactly the same position?
I realise that there are benefits, such as child allowance, and that claims can be made for rent and rates rebates. But I put it to your Lordships' House that, even under the new proposals outlined in the Budget, the position still puts the widow at a level far below that which any one of us would think satisfactory. Under the new scheme a widow with one child receives £28·85 per week, with a taxable allowance of £18·94. Within the EEC the situation is more realistic. In Germany a widow claims 60 per cent. of her husband's income, which is not taxed. I think that it should also be noted that the new basic figure of £19·50 is applicable only to women over 50 years of age. A widow who is younger than that receives a smaller pension as the sum is age-related.
Another anomaly is the fact that a widow is classed as a single person and is taxed as such. The widows to whom I have spoken feel very strongly about this and are angry. They point out to me that, having been married and, in the majority of cases, having borne children, as soon as they are widowed they have to revert to their single status due to the tax laws. I should like to ask the Government whether this change in the tax laws could be rectified. Would not that be a fairer measure Surely the cost of doing that would not be such a drain on the Budget figure when one compares the amount spent in other areas.
The question of parity between Service widows and other widows has been raised many times, both in this House and in

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another place. The noble Earl, Lord Cathcart, in a debate on 30th June 1977 said:
"The time has come to tidy up Service widows' pension schemes by levelling the whole scheme step by step until eventually parity or equality is reached".—[Official Report; col. 1285.]
I agree with the noble Earl in principle, but I do not know how long the phrase, "step by step until eventually", means. I hope that it means sooner rather than later. My noble friend Lord Banks in the same debate said that he supported the principle of parity for war widows' pensions and would continue to press for its establishment at the earliest possible date. In conclusion, we welcome the increases in widows' pensions and the child allowances outlined in the Budget last week, but with the reservations that I have stated.
4.46 p.m.
Lord CULLEN of ASHBOURNE: My Lords, the House will be grateful to my noble friend Lady Macleod of Borve for initiating this debate. So, too, will be the large number of widows in this country who represent over 5 per cent. of the population. I am sure that all noble Lords will have sympathy with the problems to which my noble friend has drawn attention, particularly with the way in which she did so.
The question is: what can central or local government do to help solve the widow's problems, and what can be done by voluntary organisations? It has been suggested that we have forgotten the widows, as men do not accept that they are likely to pre-decease their wives—which, of course, they are. It is well known that generally women live longer than men, as is shown by the fact that there are four times as many widows as there are widowers.
I do not believe that the widows have been forgotten, but rather that it may be difficult to provide special Government assistance for people in many different circumstances, of different ages, varying from teenagers to centenarians, without inviting criticism from other groups, such as single women, that widows, who have enjoyed the support of husbands, are receiving unduly favourable treatment. Unfortunately, there is no shortage of groups or categories of people who have problems today. With 1½million un
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employed, a rate of inflation which is still at a level which would have seemed inconceivable not many years ago, and with industrial output no higher than it was during the three-day week, problems abound for nearly everybody.
But great strides have been made by Governments in the last 30 years in helping the disadvantaged and a plethora of social benefits has been made available. The task of Government is to be fair as between different groups. It is a matter of perspective and judgment. Have we been too concerned over other groups, such as the handicapped, and not concerned enough over widows? I suspect that we have, but I do not think it is possible to answer this question without having an encyclopaedic knowledge of the social benefits, tax allowances, and so on, that exist today—and that I do not possess.
Quite apart from the natural sympathy that we all have for women who lose their husbands—or, for that matter, vice-versa—I am inclined to believe that to some extent we have the balance wrong. The noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, who is a mine of information on these matters, will help us in our judgment today and I look forward to hearing what he has to say. No doubt he will remind us that several of the proposals in last week's Budget will be helpful to widows. The tax allowance for single persons has been increased by £40 to £985 a year, and a widow with a child will receive an £80 increase to £1,535 a year. The reduced band of tax will help widows on low incomes. Widows' pensions are to be increased from £17·50 to £19·50 per week next November, and child support has been substantially raised. But I see nothing here that recognises the disadvantaged circumstances of widows as the increased benefits are in conformity with those increases given to others. Furthermore, not all these improvements are quite as good as they look, as I shall try to show.
All parents, including many widows, will welcome the Budget proposal to increase child support, and it is certainly welcome on these Benches as we have been pressing for this for some time. There is, however, a snag. This will mainly benefit those who arc not in receipt of National Insurance benefits since any increase in child benefit is matched by a reduction in the National Insurance widows' child

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allowance. So as I understand the position all widows with children who are receiving their widows' allowance will fail to benefit by the higher rate of child support. Incidentally, I wonder why the child benefit has not been inflation proofed in the same way as tax allowances and most social benefits. Perhaps this anomaly will be remedied during the passage of the Finance Bill.
There is also a catch over the increase in the single persons' allowance. A childless widow aged 50 to 65 with no income except her pension plus a pound a week from savings, making £1,000 per annum altogether, will be liable to income tax as her tax allowance will be £985. The reason for this absurd situation is that the single tax allowance has fallen short of the present equivalent of the rate ruling in 1973-74. At that time the rate was £595; the present equivalent is £1,260, so that there is a shortfall of no less than £275. The amount of tax payable will of course be small, but this is no encouragement to save. In parenthesis, it is noteworthy that the shortfall of the married tax allowance is lower at £118. This is perhaps owing to an overdue recognition of the importance of the family, and I suppose there is no justification for treating childless widows better than single women who have never had the advantage of a husband's support.
In view of this shortfall in the single tax allowance it is a little surprising that tax thresholds are proposed in the Budget to be increased by only 4 per cent. to 5½ per cent., while social security benefit levels are to he raised by 11·4 per cent. In 1977-78 there was a reasonable headroom between adult tax thresholds and social security benefits, but this has now been seriously eroded. In 1977-78 there was a difference of £249 between the single income tax allowance of £940 and the social security benefit of £696. This difference has now fallen to £198. Returning to the example of the childless widow of 50 to 65, her tax threshold in 1978-79 will be only £35 above her pensionsable income, while in 1977-78 it would have been £70 higher at £105, so last year she could have had £105 of income from savings tax free while this year the figure will be only £35.
I have tried to show that there is nothing in the Budget proposals to make the
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widows feel that they are receiving any special consideration. Rightly or wrongly they feel that they are harshly treated by Governments. "Is it fair", they ask, "that a widow who receives either the full rate of widow's allowance, widow's pension or widowed mother's allowance, is not entitled to sickness or unemployment benefits owing to the overlapping benefits rule? Is it fair that a widow takes home less pay than a married woman doing exactly the same job? Why does a widow under 40 receive no pension? If she is over 40, she does not have a male friend without risk to her pension". These are some of the things that the widow finds hard to understand.
Quite a good example of the difficulties comes in a letter to the Daily Mail of 4th April, where a girl writes:
"My mother, who was widowed nearly six months ago, was away ill from work for a week. Having worked full-time for more than 30 years and paid a full National Insurance stamp all that time, she expected to be paid sickness benefit. She received a letter from the Department of Health and Social Security informing her that, as she was already receiving a widow's pension she was not entitled to two payments, so no sickness payment was due to her. As a National Insurance stamp is something she has been paying for in her own right, I do not see how it can be related to a widow's benefit which, after all, has been paid in by my father, in a country that can pay men large amounts of money a week for not doing a day's work"—
and so on.
Alternative methods of alleviating the position of widows have, I am told, been submitted to the Chancellor to no avail, as follows: (a) granting to widows an additional personal allowance similar to that given to single retirement pensioners and subject to the same income limits; (b) exempting a proportion of the widow's pension from tax, as was decided by Parliament in respect of war widows; (c) granting additional relief to widows who work in a similar way to the treatment afforded to married women even though their husbands receive higher personal allowance. These suggestions were made by the National Association for Widows and the Parliamentary Committee for Widows and One Parent Families. The National Association for Widows not only pursues the cause of widows, so well championed today by my noble friend Lady Macleod; it also provides an advisory service which has been of inestimable help to many thousands of widows.

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I would ask your Lordships to imagine for a moment or two the position of a woman who has just lost her husband. Let us assume that she has, in the normal way, never had anything to do with the family finances, taxation, et cetera, apart from doing her best with her housekeeping allowance. She is suddenly alone with a numbing sense of loss. She may have friends to help her, or she may not. She knows that there are a great many things to be done, but where to start? If she knows about the National Association for Widows she will he wise to obtain the green handbook which my noble friend has shown the House. Here she will read what to do immediately—obtaining the death certificate; registering the death; making the funeral arrangements; applying for a death grant; claiming widow's allowance, and perhaps supplementary benefit; possibly applying for rent and rate rebates, and so on. The handbook explains how to do all these things.
Next comes the situation after the funeral. Simple information is given about wills, probate and intestacy, and the various widows' and other social security benefits are explained. This is very helpful, but it is pretty complicated to anybody who has given no previous study to the subject, as I have discovered over the last few days. Included is information on the widow's allowance; widow's pension; child benefit; sickness and unemployment benefit; family incomes supplement; maternity allowance; maternity grant, and much else. And this is when the Widows' Advisory Service is so welcome. She will be able to visit one of the 67 branches in the country where she can learn to which benefits she is entitled. Thus, widows have formed their own national association and I have a feeling that they will continue to press for better treatment from Government, and this is not the last time we shall be debating this subject.
The problems need careful consideration and I think that what we have been told already about the treatment in Germany—and I believe to a lesser extent in France—provides at any rate prima facie support for the widows' arguments. No doubt the Government are aware of the position in other countries, and if it is a fact that they are treated better there than they are here,
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now that we are a Member of the EEC perhaps this is a sphere in which there could be some harmonisation.
More should be done to help widows and I hope something will be done. I realise that social benefits have to be paid for out of taxation and that a limit is imposed by the sluggishness of our economy. I hope, however, that the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, will make it clear that the Government are fully alive to the problems of widows, that they have not been forgotten and that they can look forward to some amelioration in the future.
5.2. p.m.
The Lord Bishop of DERBY: My Lords, in thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Macleod of Borve, for raising this matter, I must apologise to her and the House for being late; I was caught out by the shortness of the last debate. My experience of pastoral work as a clergyman and a bishop suggests to me that in this matter there are two particular areas of need, one personal and the other financial, and that they are closely linked together. On the personal level, there are many essential things at a time of bereavement which need to be done by relatives, friends and the community. Shock and grief are present and there is a need to express bereavement, yet society at the present time is not particularly helpful over that; it tends to say, "Conceal your bereavement", and many widows and others who are bereaved are often forced into an unnatural position of being unable to express their bereavement naturally.
The time varies in this respect, but a return to social life is particularly necessary. Here again, there are problems with our present society and the churches are partly at fault. We stress so much the family as the natural unit that those who do not fit into the family are easily left out, and this happens a great deal to widows. To begin with, they were related to others and now they seem to be cut off from others. This thinking of human beings just in pairs or in the small families that mostly exist now is a great hindrance to those who face bereavement, and particularly to widows.
There are different groups who come to my notice, first women at work with

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arrangements already made for their children. Comparatively speaking, things are easier for them than for some others. Secondly, there are the older women without possibilities of work; perhaps their husbands retired and they themselves have retired from such work as they may have had. In this situation, others need to give the greatest possible encouragement to the widows to be active, to be involved in life. As one of them said to me recently, "We need the companionship of men, women and children. We need to be encouraged to use our own initiative, to accept and give invitations". Doing this is easier in rural than in urban communities, but always there is the question: How can life be shared with others when financial resources are very restricted indeed? Here is a particular part of the problem of older widows.
Then there is a third group, women with dependent children who cannot, unaided, get themselves to work, and this is where they need real help. It has been suggested to me that the most essential thing is that women in this situation should find or be given work to do because this is the way in which their morale is restored, the way in which they recover a personal identity which previously has been so much bound up with the identity of their husbands. Often they need work to gain a fresh self-approval and confidence, and often they need work to bring the world outside into the home; if they are tied to the home, so many opportunities of recovering from loneliness and distress are removed
This can be achieved only by going back to work or training for new work. This demands a change in the outlook of society which is prepared to accept the fact that widows in this situation need the opportunities of work and the opportunities of training or retraining. But this also demands Government help because so many of them are without the resources they need to do the training, and indeed to go out to work at all. The principle of this has been accepted by successive Prime Ministers and leaders of other Parties in this country who have enhanced the dignity and usefulness of this House, and at the same time given a new role and new work to widows of public figures, by inviting some of them
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to accept Life Peerages. This has given a new opportunity to many and we and others have benefited from it, and this expresses a principle which needs to be put into operation much more widely.
How are widows with dependent children to be put in the position of going back to work or being trained? In many instances this will be possible only if there is a grant for a housekeeper to be employed, and this plea has come very strongly to me. If retraining is to be done, it needs to be done in the area where the widow and her family live. Long journeys can impose a great strain on them and their children, and while local authorities have discretion over the giving of training grants, along with the widowed mother's allowance which is given, in some instances there seem to be on the part of local authorities very serious restrictions on this. It is almost as though the widowed mother's allowance is treated as a disqualification for the receiving of a grant for training.
A point which may have been mentioned already is that the threshold of tax for widows, particularly those with families, should be nearer to that of a married man than to a single person. The present position has been described to me as being very wrong indeed. There is a sense of grievance among some widows that so often their benefits are subject to tax. This may be strictly fair in a fiscal sense, but one must remember that most widows have enjoyed a standard of living attained through their husband's earnings and in a sense a widow's benefit is given to replace something of a husband's earning capacity.
Similarly, a widow does not profit by an increase in child benefit because her widow's benefit is reduced accordingly. Of the 96,000 widows who receive a widowed mother's allowance, some 18,000 widows with dependent children receive a reduced benefit because their late husbands had not paid sufficient contributions, while 6,000 receive no widows' benefit at all but receive supplementary benefit. There is, therefore, a case for making widows' benefit a noncontributory right to ease these cases when hardship may well be suffered. One point in this connection which has caused a lot of pain is that many widows have only discovered later that their first

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26 weeks of widow's allowance is subject to tax. I am asked whether it would be possible for Post Office books to be stamped to this effect.
Here of course we come across the great problem of communication of information which vexes so many of us for a great part of the time. I know something of the efforts that this Government, like their predecessors, have made to spread information through clergymen—information of value to people in society who are open to receive allowances of one kind and another. I wonder whether the Government could do more to spread information more freely to widows through the various voluntary organisations that exist.
The noble Lord, Lord Cullen of Ash-bourne, made reference to the imparting of knowledge about various allowances and to the various financial responsibilities that come to widows so severely on bereavement. There is literature, but one problem is that there are so many people who do not read even pamphlets, and their opportunities and rights need to be interpreted to them in other ways. This is something which cannot be done by Government alone. It is something in which we are all involved, and there is a need that, somehow, through our society, we should create a much greater awareness of widows' needs and problems and set ourselves individually, and through the various organisations to which we belong, to give the kind of information and the kind of counselling which are needed. This brings me back to the point at which I began: the personal and the financial needs go closely together. The Government can help so far, but they cannot by any means do all that is required. Here is something for our society as a whole; something which, as a community, we should grasp.
5.13 p.m.
The Marquess of TWEEDDALE: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Baroness for allowing me to take part in the debate, and to thank your Lordships for listening to it with your customary sympathy and attention. The noble Baroness must, by sheer misfortune, be the most suitable person in this House to speak on this subject. She has suffered the tragical double misfortune, of being
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widowed twice, once during the war, and a second time on the death of her brilliant husband, whom we all admired.
When a woman is suddenly widowed a stigma is placed on her. In addition to this, she is most likely to be at her weakest and less able to cope with any day-to-day situation. That is why I feel that the whole machinery for widows' pensions, whether they be Service or civilian, should be thoroughly re-examined and clarified, and a serious attempt should be made to iron out certain anomalies which appear to be biased against, if not totally unfair to, a widow.
On the death of her husband, when the widow is in a state of distress and shock, she has to apply for, or go and obtain, the following forms, and leaflets, if she is to receive her full entitlements to benefits. Some of the forms and leaflets overlap, and some have financial variations. They are as follows: CHIB, FB1, NI.13, NI.51, NI.146, NI.196, NP.30, NP.31 and NP.34. These are nine in number, and I have been told that there are a further four, which I have not been able to obtain. How on earth a bereaved woman is expected to understand the phraseology of even one of these pamphlets is beyond me, and yet apparently she is expected to read through, and comprehend, no less, and probably more than, 13. My Lords, is this fair? I think that it makes out a very good case for what was mentioned by my noble friend; namely, the handbook for widows, which has been printed by the National Association for Widows and which apparently takes in nearly all these subjects.
Other major points which would appear to be unfair are as follows. Very few, if any, women can expect to be in a normal state of efficiency after the death of their husbands, yet it is categorically stated in leaflet NI.13, clause 8, paragraph 1, that the widow may lose her benefit if she does not claim within three months after her husband's death. I am sure that your Lordships' House would be interested to know how often this harsh treatment has been meted out. Clause 10, on the same page, emphasises that the standard rate of widow's benefits are payable only if the late husband had fully satisfied the contribution conditions. Why should the widow be held responsible for what her late husband did or did not do?

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In other words, the widow's pension appears to depend upon her late husband's National Insurance contributions, and her own contributions carry no weight at all.
One also wonders whether, if a woman is divorced or her marriage is annulled through no fault of her own, it is just that, should her previous husband die almost immediately she is not entitled to any benefit at all. It also seems to me to be unfair that the entire scale of the widow's benefit is originally based on the husband's National Insurance contributions, and on the age at which he dies. For example, if he dies at the age of 50, or over, and has fully contributed to National Insurance, the widow will receive 100 per cent. of her weekly pension. If, however, he dies at the age of 40, she will receive only 30 per cent. These percentages are drastically reduced if her husband has not paid full National Health contributions. This information is contained in pamphlet NI.13, and there is further information on this on page 3, Schedule 1.
We now come to the one-parent families, of which widows must form a fairly substantial part. Leaflet CHIB—that is, on child interim benefit—lays out how to apply for assistance. This is where it becomes extremely hard on the widow to decide which is the better course. She can claim for the child benefit through form CH.501, or she can stick to her widow's allowance, as stated on the same form at clause 2, paragraph 2(b). She cannot have both.
Another anomaly which I fail to understand—and I am unable to find in any of these documents an answer that may clarify the situation—is the fact that a widow loses her pension if she is found to be living with a man as his wife. Your Lordships' House is not a court of morals, but it sounds completely contradictory if, as I understand it, this situation does not apply to the single woman who is drawing benefits for a single-parent family. Why is there this discrimination against the widow? Leaflet CHIB is the one relating to this situation.
Lastly, but of no less importance, is the situation of Service widows. The same dreadful mental situation affects them as much as, if not more than, the civilian widow, as their widowhood might be more
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brutal and sudden. They are immediately hurled into the humiliating experience of almost having to grovel for pensions and supplementary benefits, and, like their civilian sisters, are too dazed to understand or appreciate these unnecessarily complicated pamphlets. Their treatment is in many cases doubly insulting. Not only have, their husbands been killed fighting for the Establishment, but they then have to go begging back to the same people. Like her civilian counterpart, the Serviceman's wife is used to her husband taking charge of the finances and the paperwork. I should like to add, too, that I was informed over the weekend that in Germany, regarding rank for rank, the Service widow's pension is very nearly four times what it is in this country. I have not had that confirmed in writing, but was merely told verbally.
However, thanks to the work of the Officers' Association in the year 1946, there has been some improvement and a little more compassion. A Service widow no longer has to write every six months about her pension starting with,"I beg to be allowed". I think it is an excellent thing that that habit has been stopped. What could be of great benefit to the Service widows in particular and to the civilian widows in general would be if the adjustments to the pensions and benefits were back-dated and not promised for the future, as is the present practice.
There is, however, yet another disadvantage to some widows. There are some widows who have managed to save up and who have a small amount of private money. With the new pension adjustments they find, so I am told, that because they go into a different tax bracket they are now slightly worse off than they were before. Some widows are so badly off that even a matter of two or three weeks can make a substantial difference to their comfort and wellbeing.
5.22 p.m.
Earl CATHCART: My Lords, I should like to add my gratitude to my noble friend Lady Macleod of Borve for giving us the chance this afternoon to consider the problems of widows. As she herself stressed in her opening speech, it is an important subject, and she brought that home to us by telling us that the group

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we are discussing today is 3 million strong. Much has already been done, both at Westminster and in local communities, not only to ensure that the sudden and often unexpected reduction in the widow's living standards on the death of her husband is mitigated, but also to help her to continue to take her full part in the life of the community. They are what the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby described as the personal and the financial elements. On the financial side, it must also be acknowledged that the recent Budget has given a welcome increase in the widow's pension; and it is well appreciated, I think, that one of the greatest causes of anxiety to widows centres on the amount of spendable income they receive and the purchasing power of their income.
On the personal side, also, a great deal has been done in local communities. I am going to give only one example, but I think it is a good one. It is the scheme initiated by the Women's Royal Voluntary Service, the WRVS, called Meals-on-Wheels, by which the elderly widow living by herself is enabled to have a regular hot meal she might otherwise not be able to provide; and, of course, there are many other similar schemes in the community to deal with the personal element. Now it must be acknowledged that, in spite of the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, which aimed to minimise the differences between the rights and privileges of the sexes, it is still the case, and is unlikely to change, that the standard of living of a married woman is firmly linked to the skill and hard work of her husband, and to his success at this trade or profession. But—and this is the point I want to make—this link is again further emphasised in the pension which his widow receives when he dies.
However, not all the problems of widows are financial. Many are what I would call administrative, and many are social. I should like to say that a widow suddenly finds herself having to cope with matters which she barely understands and with which her husband has always dealt; and this has been referred to by a number of speakers already. Rather surprisingly, Lady Macleod mentioned house maintenance, which I am inclined to think belongs to another department, at least in my household. Also, there are the problems of dealing with the Department
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of Health and Social Security. Certainly the first time you do it, if you do not know your way around, it is a rather alarming experience; as are, perhaps, even the problems of claiming a TV licence or of insuring the car, although it is quite likely that these two last luxuries may have to go on widowhood.
I should like to give three examples of what I mean. One is an administrative example; one is an example in which I recommend a tax concession; and one is an example requiring a pension increase, albeit to a very few and, at that, the most elderly. Your Lordships will understand if at least two of my three examples are concerned with war widows and Service widows, because my connection with ex-Service organisations gives me more chance to draw examples from this quarter, although I think they are exactly paralleled by their civilian counterparts. Indeed, one of them, I think, is an exact parallel. My first example concerns the case of a woman widowed while her husband is still serving in the Armed Forces. Let us say, for this example, that this couple have been constantly moving from station to station, both in this country and overseas, since they got married. Let us say, too, that they have two young children. They have no home of their own, and at the moment they are in married quarters in the South of England, let us say, remote from botn his and her parents' home. He dies suddenly and unexpectedly.
The Services are as generous and sympathetic as they can be in this situation, but the married quarter provided by the Defence funds is urgently needed by other married families on that station; and, of course, inevitably, there is a waiting list. Now the widow will not be covered by the Rent Act 1977, although I must say that that Act itself produced as many problems as it solved. She will be allowed to remain in the married quarter for a reasonable time, but eventually she will have to go. Not only will she find herself, at that moment of her loneliness, cut off from the very close-knit. Service community in which she has lived during her married life, but she will have to start searching for a home.
Although there are notable exceptions—and I am certainly not saying it is general—it is well-known that most local authorities

927
are reluctant to add a Service widow to their housing list. They do not turn her down because she is a widow, but they have rules of residence and employment within the area before housing can be considered, and these provide a very serious problem and mitigate against her at the time she needs help most. This is just one example of what I mean by the need for understanding and consideration by officials and authorities who have to play a part in our daily lives. I should add that, if the married quarter had been abroad, of course, her problems would have been even greater.
My second example has been well covered by my noble friend Lady Macleod of Borve. It is the need for a widow's earned income allowance. If you take the case of a widow working alongside a married colleague, she is made to realise at once that her married colleague also has the benefit of her husband's pay packet and tax allowances which are not available to her. In the case of the married couple, we know he gets his married personal tax allowance and his wife, if she is working, gets the earned income allowance. The widow gets a personal tax allowance, but I am proposing that she should also get a widow's earned income allowance, thus equating the two situations more fairly.
My third example proposes a more generous pension rate for the most senior widows. By "most senior widows", I mean those who have been widowed the longest. Service and war widows' pensions are a jungle of incomprehensible anomalies, and pensions are based not only on the rank and length of service of the husband (as in the case of all occupational pensions) but also regulated by a series of cut-off dates which are applied by the date on which the husband died.
At the Second Reading in June last year of the pensions Bill introduced by my noble friend Lady Vickers, which has been referred to by the noble Earl, Lord Grey, in his speech this afternoon, I proposed that we should start now moving towards parity. I suggest that as a first step we should level forward the pensions of the most senior war widows; that is, those widowed in the 19 I 4-18 War and during the 1920s, so that as a first step parity is achieved at, let us say, the 1929 level. In that Second Reading debate, the noble
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Lord, Lord Winterbottom, was good enough to acknowledge that my proposal to achieve retrospection by, as he called it, "jogging forward rather than jogging backward", was an important point and one that should be considered. The point that I want to stress now is that nobody should look with envy if the more elderly, more senior widows are treated with a measure of generosity. I hope that the Government can consider my scheme of levelling pensions forward from the past until a degree of equality is reached.
Finally, my Lords, there is considerable anxiety that the word "war" has recently been removed from the cover of the pension books. War widows are immensely proud of that title. There is a special anxiety in the War Widow's Association of Great Britain, which is a strong association and which watches the interests of war widows. There is also some anxiety that this step of deleting the word "war" from their pension books may become the thin end of the wedge to abolish war preference. In a debate in your Lordships' House, I once described the war preference element of a war widow's pension as a memorial to her husband for his sacrifice for our country at a time of need. And that is what it is. I hope that the noble Lord who is going to reply can tell us whether it was an act of policy or of omission that the word "war" has been removed from these pension books.
5.34 p.m.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I welcome for two reasons this opportunity of being able to reply to noble Lords who have spoken in the debate. One is that I should like to make it perfectly clear that, when a Government are responsible—regardless of the Party responsible for the Government—for fixing pension rates over a very wide area covering a number of quite separate groups I think it is almost impossible to be able to do this in an acceptable way to all the groups concerned.
I think that our pension schemes must, of necessity, be like a ready-made suit. It fits (if you like) where it touches and does not look too had when it is on. I doubt very much whether it can ever be a made-to-measure garment that will measure up adequately and properly to every

929
group in the community. I also welcome this opportunity because, if I may say so, I rather got the idea that perhaps some noble Lords were not really aware of what is happening so far as widows are concerned at the present time.
Since the beginning of the present National Insurance scheme, successive Governments—and I mean successive Governments—have recognised the special problems of widowhood; and the present Government, as I think everybody will concede, have given very special consideration to those problems since 1974. There is a limit to the kind of help that a State scheme can give to the widow, faced as she is with all the difficulties of adjusting to a new way of life, as was spelled out very clearly by the right reverend Prelate and the noble Earl, Lord Cathcart. The benefits provided by the National Insurance scheme are specifically designed to recognise these difficulties and to help widows of different ages and in different circumstances. The benefits paid to widows include the widows' allowance. Let me say that this is an allowance of £24.50 per week for the first 26 weeks to help them face the added expense, the added difficulties and the amount of money which one has to spend to meet that. The noble Baroness shakes her head. I do not know why she does so.
Baroness MACLEOD of BORVE: My Lords, I was shaking my head only because it is all fully taxed. If it were untaxed, it would be of more help.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, is it not better than the £17.50 that she gets at the end of the 26 weeks? Is not £24.50 a recognition of the extra money that she needs? I will come to taxation in a moment. I think that the noble Baroness ought to look at the picture as a whole and recognise that a good deal is being done for widows at the present time—which, as I say, is intended as a resettlement benefit in the early days of widowhood and the widowed mothers' allowance which compensates a widow with young children for her inability to go out to work.
Then there is a pension payable on a sliding scale to the woman without dependent children who is aged between 40 and 50 when her husband dies or her children have grown up. The noble
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Marquess, Lord Tweeddale, was in error. I may have misunderstood him. If I did so, I apologise. I understood him to say that when a husband dies under the age of 40, his widow gets nothing at all. I think that the noble Marquess has confused the positions of the husband and the widow.
If a widow is under 40 when her husband dies, it is perfectly true that she does not get a widow's pension because it is assumed, rightly or wrongly—and this has been the assumption of successive Governments since 1945—that she is more able to follow her previous occupation or to get a job than if she is over 40. If she is over 40-41 years of age to be precise—when her husband dies, it is true that she gets only 30 per cent. of the widows' pension, but it is her age when the husband dies and not the husband's age which counts. I think the noble Marquess got it the wrong way round. I think he wanted to say something and I gladly give way.
The Marquess of TWEEDDALE: My Lords, the noble Lord has explained it.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, because we realise the pariicular difficulties and anxiety which widows have to face, procedures are designed to give priority to claims for widows' benefits and to cut out as many complications as possible. Again, I think it was the noble Marquess who said that a widow would be required to fill in something like 13 forms. This is not so. There are different forms for different circumstances and different ages, and not all of those forms have to he filled in.
The Marquess of TWEEDDALE: My Lords, she has to read through 13 forms if she wants to acquire the full benefit she is entitled to—not to fill in 13 forms.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, there is no need for her to read a single form. When a wife becomes a widow all she need do is to go to her local DHSS office and say, "I am widowed and I wish to make an application for my widows' pension". They will advise her, guide her and select the appropriate form or forms and help her to fill them in. There is a DHSS office fairly accessible to most people. Failing that there are two widows' organisations; failing that, there are the

931
CABs and there is no reason why she should feel at a great disadvantage in the sense that she does not know how to do it.
Since this Government came into office in 1974, widows' benefits along with other National Insurance benefits and supplementary benefits have increased five times. The most recent increase was last November. The effect of these increases is that, since October 1973, when the previous Government last raised benefits, widows' benefits have more than doubled in cash terms. The widows' allowance has increased from £10·85 in October 1973 to £24·50: the widowed mothers' allowance for a widow with one child has gone up from £11·55 to £23·60, £25·90 including child benefit. The widows' pension paid to a woman who is over 50 when her widowed mothers' allowance ends has increased from £7·75 in 1973 to £17·50. Increases on the same scale have been made in each of the rates of pension payable on a sliding scale to widows without dependent children who are between 40 and 50 years of age when they were widowed or when their children grew up. Even allowing for the great increases in prices, the actual purchasing power of a widow's pension is now some 14 per cent. higher than when the Government took office. It has been said—or it has been implied—that very little is being done for the widow. I wonder how many other pensions that we pay, in cash terms, in actual purchasing power, are 14 per cent. higher than when the Government took office.
I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Cullen, who was critical. I hope he is listening; I am making criticisms of the noble Lord and I should like him to hear what I say rather than read it. I think the noble Lord, Lord Cullen, was a bit sceptical about what the Government were doing for widows. But one of the first things that this Government did when they came in in 1964—I know it is ancient history—was to abolish for all widows the earnings rule. Nobody else has had the earnings rule abolished for them. Everybody else who is in receipt of a pension. a retirement pension, has a clawback if they earn, as from this coming November, more than £45 a week. But for 13, nearly 14 years, the earnings rule in relation to widows has been abolished.
932
As evidence of the Government's concern to protect the most vulnerable sections of our community from the ravages of inflation, we can point to the massive increase in public spending on pensions and other benefits in the last four years, amounting to something like £1,000 million in real terms. The noble Lord, Lord Cullen, said it may well be that we are going too far in one direction and not far enough in the other, and he instanced the two directions in which he felt we may be going too far and paying too much. He mentioned the physically handicapped. The physically handicapped would not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Cullen. They would say, "The Government are not doing enough for us". But then every group in the community is complaining that the Government are not doing enough. It really is a very difficult task to think out a system of pensions and benefits that is going to be acceptable to every group.
Since October 1973—I am sorry to go on mentioning 1973 but the noble Lord, Lord Cullen, and others are so anxious to take the beam out of my eye and now I want to take the beam out of theirs—widows' benefits have gone up by 125·8 per cent., while average earnings have risen by only 85 per cent. Now think of that. The pensions have risen almost 50 per cent. more than average earnings, and it has been our deliberate policy to keep public spending cuts away from the social security area. We are determined to go on protecting the interests of widows, which is why we have amended the law so that their pensions as well as retirement pensions and other long-term benefits are increased in line with net earnings or prices, whichever is the more beneficial to them.
I want to say a word about the new pension scheme. While we have been protecting the interests of widows in the present situation, we have also been considering how their position can be improved in the future. Under the new pension scheme which began in April 1978—namely, this month—employed people will be able to build up rights to earnings-related pensions over the following 20 years.
This new scheme will bring many improvements for widows. In the first place, women widowed over 50 and

933
widowed mothers will be able to inherit the whole of any rights to the new earnings-related pension which their husbands have built up. For the widow whose husband had average earnings of about £75 a week, this will mean, in current values, about an extra 75p a week for each year her husband had contributed to the new scheme. This means that, after the full 20 years' contribution to the scheme, this would come to about an extra £15 a week. Then there is the woman who is widowed between 40 and 50 or whose widowed mothers' allowance ends between 40 and 50. At present she receives a proportion of the full widow's pension depending on her age when her husband died or when her children grew up. Under the new scheme, she will also receive a proportion of the full amount of the new earnings-related pension.
Then, when a widow reaches 60 and retires, there is a new provision to allow her to combine the widow's pension on her husband's contributions with any retirement pension she has earned by paying contributions herself up to the maximum that one person could have earned by paying contributions. If I may give an example, it is this: if her husband earned about £75 a week and she earned £30 a week, she could qualify, when she retired, for the additional pension related to both sets of earnings for each year that they both contributed to the new scheme. At present, if a widow has more than one entitlement, she can receive only the most favourable. Under the new pension scheme, she will get the benefit of £105 a week which they earned jointly.
Baroness MACLEOD of BORVE: I wonder whether I may interrupt. I hope that people listening to the noble Lord—and I am listening very sincerely to him—realise that this is not coming about for 20 years, and for some people that is a long time to wait.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I thought that I had given your Lordships abundant evidence that over the past 20 years Governments—particularly this Government—have considerably improved the pensions of widows. I agree that a lot of this is probably long-term; but the fact is that this is a progression going from the point that we have reached now to a point in the future, indicating that widows have
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not been forgotten. On the contrary, very adequate provision is being made for them.
Another new provision which will help the younger widow is this: If she cannot go out to work because of the responsibilities at home, such as bringing up children or caring for a sick relative, her basic pension rights can be protected. It means that for all the years that she has been looking after children or a sick relative, these will give her some credit towards—shall I say?—an enhanced widow's pension, provided of course that she, at some stage or other, either before she did this or after the children had grown up, has a number of years of insured contributions in her own right.
I should like to try to answer some of the questions which have been put to me. The noble Baroness, Lady Macleod of Borve, said that a number—I thought she said 70 per cent., but I may be wrong —of widows have a standard of living below supplementary benefit level. If she said 70 per cent., then that staggers me. The point I want to make is not whether it is that percentage but that there is nothing to prevent—in fact there is everything to encourage—widows, as well as other members in the community, from applying for supplementary benefit.
The noble Baroness also referred to a widow living with a man. Another noble Lord accused the Government, and my Department in particular, of making a moral judgment. This is just not so. Widow's benefit is not payable for any period during which a widow is living with a man as his wife. The purpose of this provision is not to make a moral judgment but simply to ensure that a widow in these circumstances is not at any advantage over the widow who remarries and who, as a consequence, ceases to be entitled to a widow's benefit. One cannot have it both ways.
It seems to me to be perfectly reasonable in the circumstances that when a widow is living with a man, as husband and wife, she cannot really be regarded as a widow in the sense whereby she can go on drawing that benefit. It puts her at an advantage over other women who are not doing so. If she ceases to live with the man, that is another matter entirely. The matter of a full-time Government sponsored training

935
course was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Cullen of Ashbourne, and certainly by the noble Baroness. The position in law is this: A widow who takes one of these courses can forfeit her National Insurance widow's pension and rely on training allowances if she prefers to do so; or she can keep her pension and allowance for children and get the abated training allowance.
If a widow takes the second of these options, she will receive first her personal widowed mother's allowance at the current weekly rate of £17·50, secondly, an abated training allowance of £8·20—the balance needed to bring her benefit up to the standard personal rate of training allowance; namely, £25·70. So it does mean that there is nothing to prevent her from applying for and undertaking a full-time Government sponsored training course; but she does not get the £25·70. She only gets £25·70 after it has been made up by the addition of £8·20 abated training allowance. Furthermore, the National Insurance allowances for her dependant children at the higher rate of £8·40, including normal benefit, continue. Those children's allowances normally paid for training allowances are at the lower rate of £4·50, including child benefit.
The point was made also about overlapping benefits. The restriction on a widow receiving both her widow's pension and the full amount of the training allowances stems from a long-established overlapping benefits principle which does right throughout our social security scheme. It would not be fair to make an exception for widows, because it is a long-established principle—and, as I say, goes right throughout our social security scheme—that a person who qualifies for two or more benefits provided for his or her maintenance at the same time, cannot have them both. Thus a widow who becomes unemployed cannot receive unemployment benefit in addition to her widow's pension, since she is already receiving through her pension a maintenance allowance of the kind which unemployment benefit is intended to provide. The same argument applies to the training allowance and also to a whole range of benefits.
The noble Lord, Lord Cullen of Ashbourne, and others raised the question
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of widows' tax as single persons. Our tax system has to apply to many millions of people and it is impracticable to attempt to reflect in detail personal circumstances or expenses. The system therefore tries to distinguish between people's ability to pay according to certain broad categories of family responsibility. This is the basis of the structure of personal allowances The personal allowances are fixed amounts and do not pretend to cover the actual living costs of those for whom they are given. It would not be feasible to do so, but they do provide some general measure of how much tax a person should pay in relation to his family and other commitments. This is why there is a single person's allowance, a married man's allowance and allowances for children and certain other dependants. Under this system, a widow is given a single person's allowance, like a widower, like a separated or divorced person or someone who has never married. There is nothing unfair to widows in this. After all, many divorced or unmarried people often have equally heavy living costs, their own homes to maintain or lodgings to pay for. To single out one group of single people for a special tax allowance could well be seen as unfair to others. Not only would it be wrong in principle, but it would give rise to considerable difficulties among other groups.
The only other matters I need deal with are those which were raised by the noble Earl, Lord Cathcart. What I want to do is to read very carefully in Hansard what he has said. I shall consult my colleagues on these matters and, if there is anything I can say that is likely to be helpful, I shall write to him and let him know. But I want to make the point that the Government are not unmindful of the needs not only of widows but of all sections of the community, and of necessity must try to maintain a balance.
The noble Baroness, Lady Macleod, mentioned the need for a good deal of information and help. We in the Department are alive to the quite magnificent effort which the organisation known as Cruse is making at the present time. We know that the National Association for Widows is also wanting to do something similar, though perhaps in a different field; and may I say that the Association has published a marvellously informative booklet. The noble Baroness said she

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hoped that the Government would make them a grant. The Voluntary Services Unit at the Home Office did make a grant to the National Association for Widows for two years. Whether it will be possible for the Government to make a further grant through my own Department, I cannot say at this stage. However, I think I must say that, while we recognise—the right reverend Prelate drew our attention to this—that there is a growing need for help in the community that in many ways can best be done by voluntary organisations, they must remember that they are voluntary organisations. The whole point, purpose and principle behind a voluntary organisation is that they themselves find the money to do the work that they want to do.
It is perfectly true that Governments make grants, but I do not think any organisation that suddenly springs up because it sees the need to do something should automatically expect that a Government Department is going to provide all the money for it. I would say, rather facetiously, to the noble Baroness, who reminded us on more than one occasion that there are 3 million widows in the country, that if she could get 5p a year for each of them she would get £150,000, and she would have more money than she would know what to do with. What I am saying is that voluntary organisations must realise that they themselves must raise a good deal of the money they want, because I do not think it would be reasonable to expect a Government Department to maintain, either wholly or mainly, the voluntary organisations in this country. What is more, I am sure the voluntary organisations would not want to be under such an obligation to a Government Department.
6.4 p.m.
Baroness MACLEOD of BORVE: My Lords, it comes to me to thank everybody who has taken the trouble to be present at this debate this afternoon and also to thank those who have spoken. I am not worried, but I am amazed, that I am the only woman taking part in a debate on the problems of widows. I had hoped for more help from my female colleagues in this House, but I feel that perhaps most of them were not able to he here. So I am all the more grateful to those noble Lords who have taken the trouble to be
938
here, and should like to thank them for their sympathy and for their understanding—except perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, to whom I will come in a moment—for their encouragement, and certainly for the fact that they have taken the trouble to learn about the problems of the 3 million widows in this country.
I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Grey, and to the noble Lord, Lord Cullen, who in a few minutes both gave us more knowledge of the problems of taxation than certainly I knew before. I am grateful to the right reverend Prelate, who was not able to be here at the beginning but who gave us a great deal to think about. I should also like to thank the noble Marquess, Lord Tweed-dale. He mentioned the Sex Discrimination Act and the fact that it has not worked at all to the advantage of widows; and I agree completely with him. The noble Earl, Lord Cathcart, has always known a very great deal about the Services and he drew our attention to the problems of widows there.
In winding up, the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, said that with 3 million widows, of course, we should be able to help each other ourselves; but I believe another noble Lord also said that it costs money not only perhaps to get to a meeting but to pick up the telephone and talk to people. This all costs a great deal of money. As the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, knows very well, the National Association for Widows has been helped for two years to produce this book. I and other members of the Association are most grateful for the complimentary remarks that he made about the book. I know they will go a long way to encourage us to help others in the future.
His remarks about financing perhaps will not be received quite so happily as his other remarks, because we see this as a social need and a social service that can be equated with many of the other social services that his Department deals with so adequately. I am sure we shall have long discussions in the future about that aspect, and I hope that he will perhaps give us a more hopeful answer when we talk outside this Chamber. But I am grateful to him for the understanding that he has given to this debate. He is

939
known in this House as one of the most understanding of all the Ministers, and I am grateful to him. I am, as I said also deeply grateful to all the speakers—all of them male—who have taken the trouble to talk about widows today. My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw my Motion for Papers.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

INTERNATIONALLY PROTECTED PERSONS BILL
Brought from the Commons; read la, and to be printed.

THE CHILDREN AND YOUNG PERSONS ACT 1969
6.8 p.m.
Baroness PHILLIPS Baroness PHILLIPS rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will consider a review of the Children and Young Persons Act 1969. The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. As I shall not get an opportunity later, unlike the procedure in the previous debate, I should like to express my appreciation to the noble Baronesses—this time we have a switch—who are to take part in this debate. We seem to have quite a good selection. There is a good assortment of widows and wives: no single ones. I am sure the right reverend Prelate did not mean to sound slightly patronising earlier, but I should like to remind him that I hope we are here in our own right because we can make a contribution and not because this is a haven for widows following the deaths of their husbands.
I put forward this Question—which no doubt the Minister who is to reply will have noticed is delightfully ambiguous—not because I expect to get a direct answer, though one is always hopeful, but because I have been asked to do so by the magistrates. On several occasions I have had the opportunity to pay my tribute to the lay magistrates. I have had the privilege of being one of them for a number of years and over the last seven months I have been addressing various groups of magistrates literally from Land's End to John O'Groats,
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talking with them about the way they have to administer the Acts of Parliament that we pass in the two Houses within the Palace of Westminster. Not unreasonably, they came back at me and said that often Acts of Parliament are laid down which in some ways make their job more difficult and, in other ways, frustrate them.
The Act which we are discussing this afternoon embodies the very splendid idea that offences are caused by social conditions, and that they should not be dealt with by punishment or carry any stigma. It removed certain powers from the magistrates and, unfortunately, as your Lordships will recall, coincided with a changeover, due to the restructuring of local government, of the functions of many social workers. In addition, there were other pieces of legislation which, I believe, have slightly complicated the successful operation of the Act.
Throughout the years, magistrates have sought, consistently and constantly, to make the Act workable, but I find that they have become increasingly frustrated and saddened. We must see the working of this Act against the background of juvenile crime. It is a little unfortunate that we always refer to this as the Children and Young Persons Act. Children, Yes, but the young person may well be a very large boy of 16 years of age, six feet tall, weighing 14 stones and carrying a very unpleasant flick knife. He is a "young person" within the meaning of the Act. He will commit, and does commit, many crimes with which we are all familiar—the newly known auto crime of taking away and stealing someone else's car; the criminal attack on a person, very often an elderly woman; the vandalism which not only brings about vast deserts of sprawling ugly walls but in many cases causes danger and inconvenience to the law abiding; the hooliganism of which last weekend, yet again, we had evidence; the intimidation and the violence that now go with theft.
I should not like to over-emphasise this, but I happen to have a letter which was sent last week by a chain of stores employing almost wholly female labour. The writer described the kind of incident that is increasingly taking place in such shops. He said that a couple of girl friends go in, select items—usually ex

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pensive—go to the fitting rooms, choose what they want, and, at the time of paying, say that they would like to be allowed to try them at home. Then a number of youths come in, who are the bully-boy boy friends. The staff, bless them, are powerless and there is little that authority can do after the event, assuming that it wants to do something.
The writer went on to say that, on one occasion, one of the young manageresses stood up to a gang. This was on a Saturday and when she went to leave at 7.20 p.m. some 14 youths, aged between 16 and 17, were waiting outside. Not surprisingly, the staff were too frightened to leave the stores. He attributes this to the way in which we deal with these cases and says,
"No doubt, the psychologists would find a good excuse for this sort of behaviour and would try to persuade us to try and help these poor unfortunates. I know how I would like to help them, and I would feel more confident if authority felt the same way."
I give your Lordships these examples of the kind of climate in which we are discussing this subject this afternoon.
Mr. Justice Buchanan said recently, when talking to young new magistrates:
"One hears of burglary so often that it is common place, and some may well regard it as almost a trivial offence. You ask the lady whose house has been contaminated by the burglar, and ask her how long it took her to get the foul taste out of her mouth and the fear out of her heart."
Broadly, the Act sought to substitute care and treatment for the punishment of young offenders. I believe that, for most of them, it has worked quite well, but for a minority of tough, sophisticated young criminals and youths of 15 and 16, who are strong young men, it has been disastrous. They prey on the community, and they will do so even after the courts have placed them in care. They deride the powerlessness of the courts to do anything effective.
I recently had the pleasure of discussing this problem with Professor Cavenagh, who is Professor of Social Administration and Criminology at Birmingham University, and is also a justice of the peace and chairman of the juvenile bench. She said,
"Many of the boys convicted had good reason to believe that no one would do anything to them, what ever they did. The victims arc socially too insignificant and the community does not care. What are such boys to consider from the fact
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that sign posts tell you that what you do will not be tolerated, when the signposts are being removed or allowed to fall down? I think we have to accept that it is possible for these boys to make a rational choice of a criminal career."
My noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor said that the Government fully share the concern expressed by magistrates about the level of juvenile crime, and the operation of our treatment system, particularly the control of the serious recidivist offenders in local authority care and under supervision. It was a little unfortunate that he went on to say that this is, of course, a result of the society in which we live, and I feel that he more or less suggested that the remedies do not lie entirely with the courts. I should be the last to dispute that that is not the case, but what I am suggesting is that the remedies that should be there are not being fully operated or are, indeed, being frustrated.
I would select but a few examples. The first is the attendance centres. Your Lordships will remember that these have been an effective way of dealing with young hooligans. They are required to go to attendance centres for so many hours, usually on a Saturday afternoon, for a period and this remedy has proved extraordinarily effective. But there have recently been many requests for girls to have attendance centres. I am very sorry to say that the female sex also appears to be coming into the courts in great numbers. I am not sure whether this is the effect of equal opportunities, but they also wish to commit crime. But what is significant is that the Home Office, replying to a group of magistrates as recently as December 1977, said, in relation to the provision of attendance centres for girls, that this involved a question of policy and it is still under consideration by the Department. I think we are entitled to ask that there should be some speeding up in the discussion of this policy.
Let us look at the question of remands. Here there has been a very serious effect, on two counts. If a young person has an interim order placing him in the care of the local authority, he is directly under the care of the social workers. In some curious way, there have been far too many cases where social workers have sent a young person back to the very home which was often the cause of his appearance

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before the court, and justices of the peace have been taunted by the very people who were said to he in safe keeping. Equally, where there has not been a suitable place for the child to be kept in remand, he has been remanded in an adult prison which is even more disastrous.
On the question of fines, the Act removed the previous ultimate sanction for nonpayment of fines or compensation, in the case of anyone under the age of 17. This is very important in the operation of the Act. I think it unreasonable to empower juvenile courts to impose fines and to order the payment of compensation, but at the same time to deprive them of the means of enforcement. It seems that this is very typical of the method of operation and something about which magistrates feel very strongly.
We come next to the question of care orders. If a young person is in need of care, the court can make an order placing him in the care of a local authority. Again the social workers will decide where he goes. Now that we are in 1978, I think that we are entitled to ask what has happened to all of the community homes that we were promised and which formed an important part of the structure of the 1969 Act.
Turning to the question of detention centres, noble Lords will remember that these are available for boys of at least 14 years who have not already been referred to borstal. There is a set number of detention centres. I have here a series of circulars from the Home Office. I realise that I am being a little hard on the Minister who is to reply, since nearly all that I am saying is directed at another Department. However, I know that he will not mind, because I know that he is very compassionate and knowledgeable about this matter.
These circulars show that, going back to 1970, the number of detention centres has not increased and there has been a curious shuffling around of places in an attempt to meet the situation. Rather like traffic, we simply move it round and round, but at the end of the day there are just as many cars and moving vehicles as there were at the beginning. I have a 1970 circular from the Home Office which states that detention centres in Surrey for
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boys between the ages of 14 and 17 years would cease to be available; they would have to be converted into senior detention centres. In other words, more senior detention centres were needed.
We learn that in 1971 there were to be more detention centres in order to implement the Act. We learn also that in 1972 four junior detention centres were under serious pressure because of overcrowding but that an increase would be provided only within the existing accommodation. In other words, there would be no additional accommodation; the increase would have to be provided from another section. In 1974, the numbers were again increased but the increase came from the senior detention centres. Then we learn from the 1976 circular that:
"There will he occasions when the wardens will have to inform the courts that there are no vacancies."
This did not take any account of the fact that less people need detention centres. The feeling of magistrates was put rather interestingly by one magistrate when she said:
"I find it personally impossible to accept that a juvenile's whole attitude to life will become warped because someone in authority states quite categorically that he has been dishonest or that he has failed to adhere to accepted codes of moral behaviour."
It would be wrong and unjust to say that the Act has not worked. Like Christianity or, dare I say it?, Socialism, it has not been tried. However, it is true to say that a number of groups have looked at the working of the Act. The House of Commons Expenditure Committee looked at it quite recently, and I should he interested to know how many of the suggestions contained in their report have been accepted and acted upon.
I am asking this afternoon that the Government should appreciate that very serious concern is felt by those people who have to try to implement the Act. May I quote finally the comments of one group of magistrates who say:
"Is it not a reasonable demand to be made of the Executive that they carry out the wishes of the Government to provide for the courts the appropriate powers of sentencing which are otherwise denied them and the lack of which is not understood by the general public who criticise the courts?".
6.25p.m.
Baroness YOUNG: My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, has raised a very large issue in her Unstarred Question. Although she has asked only about the working of the Children and Young Persons Act 1969, no doubt everybody who is to take part in the debate knows that it opens up the whole question of law and order about which there is rightly so much public concern today. Much of that concern centres around the lawlessness of the young. Not surprisingly, the public are very worried about the increase in crime, vandalism, hooliganism, mugging and so on, especially in the inner city areas. It is on this issue that I believe that the debate will inevitably centre.
Before continuing with my remarks, I should like to give to the House the apologies of my noble friend Baroness Faithfull, who is very sorry that she cannot be in her place this evening. However, she has had a long-standing engagement to take the chair at a meeting of those who are concerned with children who have learning difficulties, and my noble friend felt that she could not miss that meeting in order to be here tonight. Although many of the women Members of the House of Lords are taking part in this debate, may I say that 1 have already given my apologies to the noble Baroness, Lady Macleod of Borve, for being unable to speak in her debate on widows.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, has said, the nub of the question before the House this evening is whether or not magistrates should have returned to them the right to make secure or residential care orders, a right which they had prior to the 1969 Act. At present, they are simply empowered to make a care order, which leaves the decision as to where the child should go to the discretion of the local authority—which in effect means the social service department of that authority. It is this particular issue about which there has been so much criticism, and magistrates believe that it is one of the causes of the increased amount of lawlessness among the young that we see today. I believe that the argument also centres on what has been called the permissive philosophy that underlies the Act and about which many people are very concerned.
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It might be helpful to set out the background to the debate. One reason, I believe, for the difficulties over the 1969 Act is that it is yet another example of legislation being passed for which no proper financial provision has been made —or at least nothing like enough to make it work. It has been estimated that it costs £10,000 to provide a secure place for one child. Not only is the cost of provision high but the time between the original decision to do something and the completion of the accommodation can be up to five years. Time is money and, in a period of inflation, costs escalate.
Many local authorities—and, I have no doubt, the Government also—hesitate before they spend large amounts of money on what is effectively, although not prison accommodation, secure accommodation for young offenders. Not only is there the capital cost of new buildings; if there is to be more secure accommodation, then those who are responsible for looking after the young people in that accommodation have to be trained. As anybody who is at all familiar with social service departments knows, those responsible for residential care work—either within social service departments or, indeed, within any other system—usually have, regrettably, fewer qualifications. Also, as a proportion of the whole, fewer trained people are involved in this work.
This training requires very considerable amounts of money; but they have not been put into it, and as a result I believe that we are suffering. Not only do we not have anything like enough trained people for this residential work but we have created a system in which no adequate career structure is available for those who decide to go into it. I believe that in many instances the pay is not adequate for the very important and responsible job that the people who work in residential accommodation are called upon to do.
I was astonished to see a letter dated 4th April which refers to a circular issued by the National Joint Council for Local Authorities that makes the work of residential staff even more difficult and is likely to encourage fewer people to go into residential work. The circular says, in effect, that from 1st April 1978 Her Majesty's Customs and Excise have decided that resident staff are to be charged VAT on the supply of catering

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and laundry services. It seems quite extraordinary that those working in residential accommodation should have to pay this extra charge for what are obviously their meals and their laundry services which naturally have to be provided for them.
I quote this only as an instance of the difficulties that we are putting in the way of people going into this work. In my view, it is one of the things that need to be considered against the whole background of more secure accommodation. It is not that I am against that, necessarily, but I am pointing out what I believe to be a major difficulty of the working of the 1969 Act and one which we are unlikely to overcome unless we decide to spend a lot more money on it.
Not surprisingly as a result of this situation many people—not only magistrates—have become very disillusioned with the 1969 Act. Not only has there not been enough money to implement it but the Act was introduced at a time when local authority social service departments were under great strain. It coincided with the Seebohm reorganisation, that is, the reorganisation of the social services department following on the report of the noble Lord, Lord Seebohm. It was followed three years later by local government reorganisation, which in turn was followed two years later by the reorganisation of the Hospital Service, which also affected social service departments.
Perhaps I may add, in parenthesis, that those who are so keen to see a further change in local authority functions between counties and districts should ponder carefully the further demoralising effect that any such change could have on local authority social service departments. Not only were there all these many administrative changes but the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act also placed an enormous burden on those same departments and undoubtedly raised public expectations about what could be achieved by already overworked individuals.
Of course it would be absurd to pretend that no mistakes have been made by social service departments. But, before condemning them out of hand, I think that in fairness the other side of the case
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should be put. For the cause of the increase in crime cannot simply be laid either on social workers or indeed on the 1969 Act. It is a subject which is too large to go into in a short debate this evening, but there are many obvious causes, such as the undermanning of the police forces which leads to a very low detection rate of crime. I think it is worth looking at all those who have to share the responsibility for the upbringing of the young and who therefore share the responsibility for the situation that we have today.
First, there are parents. I believe that as a country we need family-orientated policies, whether of tax, housing or education. Then we need to look at the increase in divorce. In 1951 there were 30,900 divorces; in 1971, there were 79,600 divorces and in 1976, 136,000 divorces, having a terrible effect on all the children involved. Then there are the teachers. It is not helpful to children for there to be such a high truancy rate, and for children in effect to be excluded from school because they are unruly. We can all sympathise with the teacher in a dreadul situation, but no one can seriously believe that it is right to turn a blind eye to the truanting child because it is easier to have the child out of the school rather than in it. Doctors and social workers also have their roles and the closest co-operation is needed between education and social service departments. All those responsible for the care and upbringing of children need to have a common philosophy, and it is the divisions between the adults which are so confusing to the child. It is not just whether the philosophy which underlies the 1969 Act is right or wrong or whether we need a proper philosophy; it seems to me that what is needed is both discipline and compassion and the recognition that discipline is love, not its opposite.
The noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, is asking for a review of the 1969 Act. There are certainly many in my Party who would echo what she has to say and believe that there should be a review of that Act; that is, to look not only at the question of whether or not the magistrates should have back the rights that they had before that Act was passed but to look again at the whole question of fines, at the working of detention centres, and so on. I hope that, when

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the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, replies, he will help us all by giving us some of the figures as to what is happening, because I have looked at them and found them somewhat difficult to interpret.
First, there are the criminal statistics, which seem to show that there is a drop in the number of crimes being committed by those up to the age of 14, certainly in 1975–76. I do not know if we have any figures for the next year, but it would be helpful to have it confirmed as to whether or not this is true. There is an increase in crime for those aged between 14 and 17 apparently, and it would be useful to have that confirmed at the same time. Furthermore, it would be helpful for the noble Lord to confirm whether or not the information which I have been given is agreed by the Government; namely, that there has been a decrease in the number of supervision orders made by courts, despite an overall increase in the numbers appearing before the courts, and there has been an increase in detention centre orders and commitals to Crown Courts for borstal sentencing. And, so far as the local authority sector is concerned, there is now more secure accommodation for children on care orders than there has ever been before, and more children accommodated in community homes.
It would be useful to know whether these figures are correct and whether the noble Lord can say what the position is, because if we are going for more secure accommodation it would be helpful to know the base from which we would start to make that assumption. Finally, it would be helpful if the noble Lord could say whether he has any knowledge of, or whether the Government are monitoring the effects of, the fostering schemes such as that carried out by Kent County Council. Many people believe that the fostering of these difficult children is perhaps one of the most constructive ways of helping them. I believe that we need secure accommodation for that small number of children who need it, but for others there should be a variety of treatment. It would be helpful to know whether the Government can confirm these figures about numbers and about treatment, because when we have the figures it will be more helpful and will enable us all to make a judgment about the future.
6.38 p.m.
Baroness ROBSON of KIDDINGTON: My Lords, I, too, am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, for asking this Question. I am personally deeply interested as a JP of a great number of years standing, although I am no longer a member of my juvenile bench. I agree with her statement that it is perhaps true that social conditions within a nation are largely responsible for the juvenile crime rate within our country, but I would say only "largely responsible" because there has been a change in the type of crime and the type of young person who has taken it up. It is no longer the case that only people from the socially deprived areas take part in the crimes that we have heard described. On the contrary, there is an increase in crime among juveniles who come from very good backgrounds. So that is something that we should look at.
I am aware that the British Association of Social Workers feel that it is premature to have a review of the Children and Young Persons Act at this stage. I think it is essential that we should look at it now. It was introduced in 1969 and this is 1978. We have had a long time to try to introduce this Act as part of our penal system in this country. We have not got very far. There are large sections of the Act that have never really been tried, largely because of lack of funds, as mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Young. Therefore I should have thought that this was an ideal moment to look at the problems before once again we arrive at a point where our ways are so set along one path that it is difficult to adjust. I believe that there are certain powers which we shall have to return to the juvenile courts.
When I heard that this Question was being raised today I looked up the Children and Young Persons Act. Section 7 of that Act envisages that at some time. at the discretion of the Secretary of State, detention and attendance centre orders would no longer be open to magistrates. As we know, they still are. My reason for saying that it is important that we look at the working of the Act now is that I have just been informed that in my area an attendance centre is being opened on 6th May. I gather from that that the Home Office and the Government

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have changed their minds about attendance centres. If they have, it is right that we should look at that part of the Act at this moment.
As the noble Baroness described, we still have detention centres and they fluctuate in the purpose for which they are used, either for young offenders or for the older offenders, depending on the need. I was for many years a governor of one of the junior detention centres called Camps-field. I was there more or less from the very beginning. Originally the detention centre served a very useful purpose. It had the power to pull young people up short and make them think about what they had done. I resigned as a governor of that detention centre basically because I disapproved of the change that has taken place. With a remission of half the sentence at the moment, it means that young people are in the detention centre for six weeks. It takes about two weeks to orientate them, to get them into the structure; they then have perhaps two weeks of some intensive educational process, and then they begin to think, during the last two weeks, about going out again.
The idea at the back of that is that the emphasis should be on education I believe it is right that the emphasis should be on education, but in trying to implement a system of that kind, which is going to have an impact on a youngster in six weeks are we spending our money properly? It is different if the detention centre is there to pull him up by his shoestrings and make him realise there is something called discipline If we are going to use it as an educational establishment, it must be altered in many ways.
The other tragic thing about the detention centre is that increasingly the young people who are there are already in care, so that it is not quite the deterrent that it used to be. I think it is right that we should look again at this Act. and think about what we do with these two forms of punishment. I should particularly like more guidance on attendance centres because they vary around the country. It was my understanding that an attendance centre should be open on Saturday afternoons. I am now told that they were not only built for football hooligans; but there is a great problem in football hooliganism,
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and if we have an attendance centre I would certainly think it much better that it is open in the afternoon rather than in the morning.
The other problem that faces the magistrate at the moment is the use of assessment centres. The security of assessment centres varies all over the country. There are some in the hard core crime areas which are really secure places, but the majority of them are open assessment centres. I think that is right. They have a small secure unit within them; I think that is probably right. But, as magistrates, we experience an enormous amount of absconding from these open centres. The superintendent has power to put a young person in a secure position for a period of 24 hours. I believe that we should return to the courts the right, when sending someone to an assessment centre, also to assess whether that young person should go into a secure unit or whether he could be trusted to attend an assessment centre in an open position. I believe that this is something the courts should have the power to do.
The noble Baroness, Lady Young, has already referred to the fact that supervision orders have become fewer and fewer and that orders for detention centre sentences have increased enormously since the Act was introduced. I believe that the supervision order is probably impossible to implement however willing the social worker is. There is absolutely no sanction in a supervision order. To a great extent it is different from the old probation order, because with the probation order the offence remained and the young person knew that he could always be brought back to court for the offence. There is no such choice for the social worker, except to take the youngster back to court and recommend a care order. What concerns me about that is that the social worker actually becomes the judge of the person of whom he or she is in charge. I would therefore expect it to be more difficult to create the right kind of relationship between the young offender and the social worker.
Also, we have been lacking in intermediate treatment, again because this costs a lot of money. I am told by the British Association that a 35 per cent. increase in expenditure on intermediate treatment has taken place. But that does

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not tell me anything. It depends on what one started with; 35 per cent. could still be a drop in the ocean of what we want. On the question of returning some of the powers to the juvenile court, I think one study is most interesting. It was a study on truancy published in The Magistrate in February this year. The study has been made by the Leeds juvenile bench. They took a group of children, all of whom had spent 143 days out of 190 possible days as truants, and they divided them into two groups so that they had a comparison. They made an adjourned order in relation to half of them and a supervision order as to the other half. The ones who were under adjournment treatment fared very much better. Their performance dropped to 67 half days, whereas the supervision order children had 97 half days as truants. One must ask oneself whether the fact that the adjournment children have to turn up in court again is something—I am sure it is—which impresses itself on the child and makes it realise that it has done something wrong and has to answer for it. The same thing does not necessarily apply under a supervision order.
Much has been said about the impossibility that faces the social services departments all over the country. I should like to pay a tribute to what they are trying to do. But as a nation we have now given them an impossible job, if you add up all the responsibilities they have been handed over the last few years, with a budget for training, which is the most important part of their expenditure, which is wholly inadequate, having to spread their resources to such an extent that the fully qualified, fully trained social workers are too thinly spread and there are too many not fully qualified people trying to do a job which, after all, is one of the most important jobs if we hope to solve the juvenile crime problem in this country.
6.50p.m.
Baroness MACLEOD of BORVE: My Lords, I shall be brief because the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, and I have been sitting on our respective Benches for a long time. However, I am particularly interested in the Question that has been asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips. I certainly support her request for a review of the Children and Young Persons Act as soon as possible because,
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as one of those who try to implement that Act every Wednesday of the year, I believe that it is high time that some note was taken of the fact that, certainly in my view and—according to the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips—in the view of other juvenile court magistrates, not all of the Act is working. We never thought that it would. However, at the same time we thought that it was not a good Act.
One of the reasons that we knew it would not work was that the provisions that were made when the Bill became an Act and law were not sufficient at the time. They were not sufficient primarily because there was not enough money, but also because insufficient notice had been taken of the vast amount of extra manpower that would be needed to implement the Act.
The noble Baroness, Lady Young, is absolutely right when she says that truancy is very much at the back of a great deal of the increase in juvenile crime. Every week I am amazed at the numbers of parents who come before me with their children who have no idea, or who profess to have no idea, that their child is not attending school. Of course, they have gone out to work and presumed that the child attended school. Even if one takes the parents to the adult court for not obeying the law by ensuring that their child attends school there seems to be very little effect.
Another problem is that it seems to me that now there is no deterrent. Children can commit a crime and mostly get away with it. Even if they do not get away with it they know that there is very little that a magistrate in a juvenile court can do to them. I believe that we should have secure, perhaps rather tough, accommodation—I am thinking of the suggestion put forward by my right honourable friend, Mr. Whitelaw—with short, sharp sentences. By that, I mean one month, and it would be something that young people would never want to experience again, so it might be a deterrent. However, at present, they seem to know, without fear of contradiction, that crime pays. Crime pays over and over again.
Last week I had before me a child of 14 who had mugged a very elderly lady. He asked for 36 other offences to be

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taken into consideration. I was amazed and so, I am afraid, was everyone else, but perhaps that is the way that he had been brought up. It transpired that both his parents had been against the law—I shall not say criminals because I do not like that word, but they had not been obeying the law—and had allowed the child to think that disobeying the law was part of life.
One of the excesses that children get up to in my part of the world is taking other people's cars. It is not one or 12 but 25 or 35 cars and they are taken by young children some of whom I can hardly believe can reach the steering wheel. When I ask them whether they can touch it they say that they put a cushion underneath them.
We must get to the base of talking again about the Children and Young Persons Act. I am very worried that, when a child is put into the care of the local authority, magistrates very often think that that child must not be further punished by sending him to a detention centre or to borstal. However, it is when in the care of the local authority that he has reoffended. I fail to see why that child should not be sent to a detention centre or to borstal if the court considers that the right punishment.
I also believe that, if a child has burgled another person's dwelling—I deal with many instances of that kind—when he is in the care of a local authority and if the person burgled asks for compensation, it is right that the local authority should pay compensation just as a private person would if the child was living at home, because in those circumstances the compensation would be levied on the parents of that child. If that were so and if the child was in the care of the local authority I believe that that local authority would perhaps do more to ensure that the child did not steal again.
The other day I had to deal with three little boys and the next door court had another three little boys. They all came from the same children's hostel in which they were in care. They had broken out in the middle of the night. It transpired that there were only two little boys asleep: all the others had broken out and were burgling. I strongly support the request
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of the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, for a review and I hope that the Government will accede to it.
6.57 p.m.
The Countess of LOUDOUN: My Lords, I should like to suggest that a review of the Act at this time may he premature, for two reasons. First of all, crucial sections of the Act have not yet been implemented, which means that some of the proposed new procedures and some of the proposed new methods of intervention have either not become law or have received only marginal implementation. I shall give your Lordships one example. As Sections 4 and 5 have not yet been brought into effect, the age of prosecutability has not yet been raised to 14 years, the police are not required to inform local authorities about juvenile offenders whom they arrest, and the local authority is not required to investigate those children. That means that two systems of juvenile criminal justice are operating simultaneously, inevitably leading to confusion and to loss of effectiveness. Is the Minister able to give us any indication as to when the Act is likely to be fully implemented?
Secondly, there has not yet been sufficient time for any proper evaluation to he made of those changes which have been introduced. This Act came into operation at a particularly inopportune moment. It depended very largely on the skills situated in the children's departments for its hope of success. Yet, within three months of the statute becoming operative those same departments were dissolved and the personnel absorbed into the much larger social services departments. The creation of those new departments, with responsibility for providing an extremely wide range of services, inevitably caused strain on staff and concentrated attention on internal departmental matters.
At the same time, we had the introduction of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act, the Health Service and Public Health Acts and the White Paper on Better Services for the Mentally-Handicapped and the Mentally-Ill, which promised yet more and better services. On top of that there was the major upheaval of local government reorganisation in 1974.

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Those major structural changes, with expansion on a previously unparalleled scale, created an acute shortage of experienced staff, with the result that services generally for juvenile offenders were woefully deficient. But this position is improving as the departments recover from the changes, and much greater attention is being given to children at odds with society. I believe that some criticisms levelled at the Act are ill-founded. For example, it is alleged that it provides insufficient powers to deal with persistent offenders. Courts not only have extensive powers but they are using them; and far from becoming softer, juvenile justice has been toughened appreciably since 1969.
There has been an overall decrease in the number of supervision orders made by courts, despite an increase in the number of children appearing before the courts, while detention centre orders and committals to Crown Courts for borstal sentencing have increased by 158 per cent. and 167 per cent. respectively. Within the local authority sector there is now more secure accommodation for children under care orders than there has ever been, and more children accommodated in community homes. Another misconception is that magistrates and social workers take differing views about the disposal of juveniles subject to care orders. In fact, very few disagreements arise.
That local authorities are using their extensive powers to the full is demonstrated by the unprecedented number of children and young persons currently in residential care. But residential care and custodial sentences are expensive and ineffectual methods of dealing with juvenile offenders: reconviction rates are in the region of 80 per cent.
Baroness PHILLIPS: My Lords, perhaps I might be forgiven for interrupting the noble Countess, but as what she says is going on the record, it is a little unfortunate that she used the word "misconception". She may have some evidence, the source of which she has not actually quoted, hut I am afraid that others of us have other evidence.
The Countess of LOUDOUN: My Lords, I am sorry; 1 did not mean to upset the noble Baroness. The main
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issue of concern at the moment should surely be how best to develop more effective, and possibly less costly, alternatives to the existing and largely discredited methods of dealing with juvenile offenders. Within this context, discussion about amending the legislation is not only irrelevant but, regrettably, tends to take the focus away from the more important issues.
Techniques are being developed in working with young offenders through intermediate treatment and community service. A range of facilities providing intensive day care, evening care and weekend care are being developed, as well as professional fostering schemes, which would appear to be far more effective in dealing with the majority of juvenile offenders than residential care, borstal or detention centres.
To further these developments there needs to be a concentration upon developing the manpower skills required and the growth of training, specialisation and career opportunities for those working with young offenders, which should be seen as a top priority. Better liaison between all concerned would be of enormous help. Clearly, there are some resource implications, but primarily these relate to the allocation of resources rather than to the acquisition of new resources. A fundamental and comprehensive review of the whole juvenile justice system, including a review of the experience of other countries, may be appropriate, but only if it looked at the whole question. The roots of juvenile crime lie mainly in the families and the communities in which the offenders live. This is where a genuine war on crime should start.
7.4 p.m.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I think that it is perfectly true to say that the Children and Young Persons Act 1969 has been the subject of controversy ever since its major provisions were put into operation in 1971. As the major legislation concerned with children in trouble, it is both inevitable and essential that its provisions and their workings should be under, not only close scrutiny, but l would go further and say, continuous scrutiny. In fact, noble Lords will recall that it figured largely in our debate on disruptive children in June last year. It is because I feel—as do a number of noble

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Lords present—a little unhappy about a number of things that are happening in our society today, that it is a good thing that we look at this from time to time. The fact that we want to discuss it—I was going to say almost every six months, but that is an exaggeration—is a measure of our own frustration. it is because we do not like what is happening; we are not consciously facing it, but we are saying that we do not know what to do about it.
A great deal of research has been carried out over the years into delinquency—mainly juvenile delinquency—and certainly since the passing of the Children and Young Persons Act. The extraordinary thing is that it does not matter what we do for the delinquent or to the delinquent, it makes no difference. Many different schemes and different forms of treatment have been introduced, but it does not seem to make any difference at all. Perhaps the most significant fact—and I think that it is still true—is that once they have reached the age of 21 or about the age of 21, they cease to offend. It is extraordinary that we get this tremendous wave of anti-social behaviour up until that age and then, after that age, somehow they seem to settle down and turn into decent citizens.
Although it is essential that the legal procedures and facilities we provide for dealing with these unfortunate but often difficult children are kept under review, the Government find it difficult to accept the need for an immediate Government review of the 1969 Act of the kind which is called for in the Question before your Lordships. Few Acts in the field of social legislation can have been subject to more frequent inquiry than this one. I would remind noble Lords that the Act was the subject of an inquiry by an all-Party Expenditure Committee in another place from 1973 to 1975, which reported in July of that year.
Lord HARMAR-NICHOLLS: My Lords, I was rather interested in the point which the noble Lord just made. He said that at the age of 21 such people settle down, recover their equilibrium and are no longer troublesome. Are there figures to show that? I should have thought that it was because they were not settling down that there is good reason to have another look at the Act to see whether it is operating properly. I must accept that if the noble Lord said it, but this settling down at the age of 21 is new to my experience.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, that is certainly the outcome of several pieces of sociological research that have been carried out. The view often put forward is that it is largely due to the fact that such people get married. I am dependent upon other people's finding: I am simply a pedlar of their results. I was asked about the recommendations of the Expenditure Committee which, as I said, sat in another place from 1973 to 1975 and which reported in July of that year. I am told that, of the 40 recommendations made by the Expenditure Committee, over half of them have been implemented by the Government along the lines recommended. Another 12 fell within the sphere of local authorities or the Central Council for Education and Training for Social Work. So far as I could see, that means that about eight of their recommendations have not yet been implemented. However, it means that the bulk of them have.
Towards the latter part of the same period, the Government themselves reviewed the working of the Act and their conclusions were published in a White Paper in May 1976 in the form of a response to the Expenditure Committee's proposals. The broad conclusion of these inquiries was, as the 1976 White Paper stated:
"that though much remains to be done to make the Act fully operative and although a small number of highly publicised cases have given cause for concern, the framework provided by the Act for dealing constructively and humanely with children in trouble remains a fundamentally sound one".
Other bodies, as your Lordships have been told, have recently reviewed the Act. Some eight highly thought of, highly competent and highly specialised bodies have reviewed the Act. I mention four of them: the British Association of Social Workers: the National Association of Probation Officers; the Residential Care Association, and the Association of Directors of Social Services. In this field they have issued a joint report on the operation of the Act which concluded that after a difficult start there are signs that things are beginning to move forward.
Baroness MACLEOD of BORVE: My Lords, before the noble Lord finishes with his list, may I ask whether the magistrates were consulted?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I am rather doubtful about that. The other four are the Association of Professional Advisers to Children's Regional Planning Committees, the Association of Community Homes Schools, the National Association of Heads and Matrons of Observation Assessment Centres, the National Council for Voluntary Child Care Organisations. They were consulting the people who were actually responsible for dealing with the delinquents from a treatment point of view.
While the Government feel that there is no need at this stage to undertake a further review of the Act, this is not to suggest that the Government are in any way complacent about the present position, or are unwilling to make to the Act amendments which are shown to be useful. We recognise that we cannot ignore the seriousness of a situation where the total number of young people under 21 found guilty of, or cautioned for, criminal offences has increased three-fold since 1956. However, this was not disproportionate to the general level of offending, and I have to stress that there is no statistical evidence to suggest that the passing of the 1969 Act or its implementation in 1971 have in any way affected the rate of increase in juvenile crime. Moreover, there are some hopeful indications for the future in that nationally the number of juvenile offenders dropped by 9 per cent. between 1974 and 1976, the last year for which national crime statistics are available, though I think it would be over-optimistic of me to suggest that too much should be read into these figures at the moment.
I was asked about the figures of juveniles, boys and girls, found guilty of, and cautioned for, indictable offences, which fell in 1975 and again in 1976 for both the 10 to 14 year-olds and the 14 to 17 yearolds—all juveniles. This is offences per 100,000 of the population of the age group. In 1974 those found guilty of, or cautioned for, indictable offences amounted to 3,434 per 100,000 of the population. That figure fell to 3,272 per 100,000 of the population in 1975, and to 3,130 per 100,000 of the population in 1976.
Something has been said about the fall in supervision orders, and that is perfectly true.In 1971 there were
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18,231, and in 1976 17,722. This could suggest all kinds of things. It could suggest that the powers are not being used. It could be that perhaps the courts feel that there is no point in making supervision orders. It could also indicate—and I believe this to be true from my own personal observation in this field and my connection with it—that it is because courts are making supervision orders in those cases where there is an obvious opportunity of doing something really tangible and concrete for the delinquent involved.
I can remember not many years ago that if you were a first offender you were automatically put on probation whether there was anything to supervise or not. Some of my colleagues in the Probation Service used to say to me that some of my probationers lived a far more organised existence than I did myself, and that there was nothing I could do for them. I think courts, and those who are responsible for making these decisions, are giving careful thought to whether a supervision order in this instance is going to serve a useful purpose. To make a supervision order willy-nilly is not helpful at all. I do not attach too much importance to the fact that there was a fall in the making of supervision orders.
Detention centre orders were up from over 2,000 in 1969 to over 3,000 in 1972, to nearly 4,500 in 1974, and in 1976 to 5,388. It is much the same story so far as borstal orders were concerned. In 1969 there were just over 800, in 1972 just over 1,300, in 1974 1,645, and in 1976 just over 2,000.
Baroness PHILLIPS: My Lords, before the Minister leaves this point, may I say that there is a danger in taking overall figures, which we all do from time to time. But of course the juvenile offenders' numbers are rising in the vast conurbations, so that although in total there may be a drop, and I must say that this surprises me, the increase in the figures in the cities is quite serious.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I would not dispute that for one moment, but, on the other hand, when one is asked for a figure one has to give it as it really is. I am not in a position (I wish I were) to be able to say whether this particular

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area, or this conurbation, was more highly productive of juvenile crime than the others. I cannot do this.
It is often agreed that one of the reasons for the difficulties experienced in operating the Act is lack of resources. I would fully acknowledge the problems local authorities have had to contend with since the Act came into operation in 1971. There can be no doubt that local authorities continue to need extra resources, and as the 1976 White Paper admitted, constraints on resources must, in the present circumstances, constitute an obstacle to rapid implementation of many desirable projects. It should not however be thought that the picture is entirely black. Revenue expenditure in England and Wales on children's services has increased between 1973–4 and 1976–7 from £77·3 million to £150·8 million, and capital projects from £6·9 million to £9·9 million over the same period. These are not insignificant increases, especially during a period of severe financial constraint, although I should make clear that even if additional resources were available the Government would be opposed to a massive programme for further residential provision. Priority in the future must be given to developing forms of non-residential care.
The Expenditure Committee made a large number of recommendations for amending and improving the working of the Act and, as I have already said and given the exact figures, many of these were accepted and implemented by the Government. I shall refer briefly to perhaps the three most important of these. First, the 1969 Act was amended by the Criminal Law Act 1977 to improve the arrangements for dealing with children subject to supervision orders and intermediate treatment requirements. The Act gave the courts new powers to insert conditions in the orders and to impose sanctions, if these were ignored. Fines are to be increased from £10 to £50 for the under 14's and from £50 to £200 for 14 to 16-year-olds, and the Act also gave the courts powers to deal with those youngsters who failed to pay the fines imposed on them, including, subject to safeguards, the power to transfer the fine to a parent or guardian. These provisions are expected to be implemented in the near future.
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Secondly, the Government fully accepted the recommendation of the Expenditure Committee that urgent attention should be given to non-residential forms of care, including intermediate treatment and fostering. We very much welcome, and have encouraged, the development of specialised fostering schemes for the most disturbed children, which are being established on a pilot basis by a number of local authorities. In the field of intermediate treatment, my Department and the Welsh Office have held a number of conferences, seminars and workshops and in 1977 issued circulars of guidance on the subject. These activities are leading to a substantial increase in the number of imaginative schemes arranged by local authorities and voluntary organisations. The Government have also established an Intermediate Treatment Fund to make financial assistance available to individuals or organisations willing to provide intermediate treatment facilities which local authorities will use.
Thirdly, the Government recognised the difficulties posed to the community by the offences of a small minority of serious and persistent juvenile offenders. Both local authorities and magistrates recognise the need for an expansion of secure facilities in community homes. While, therefore, the Government do not believe that the correct solution to juvenile crime is to confine ever-increasing numbers of children to institutions, they cannot accept the recommendation of the Expenditure Committee for a secure care order because they take the view that the court is not the appropriate body to make decisions about long-term care of children or young people; clearly local authorities require more specialised and costly facilities within community homes to contain this minority.
We recognise that that does not meet the opinion of everybody; there is certainly a real measure of disagreement as to who should make these decisions. Consequently, the Government have used to the full, powers in the Children Act 1975 to pay grants to local authorities who provide secure accommodation for children in their care. As a result, the number of long-term secure places in community homes is expected to increase from 143 at present to about 260 in 1980. In addition, my Department is itself providing 87 places in youth treatment centres,

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of which 66 are secure, to accommodate particularly disturbed young people.
I do not wish to concentrate exclusively on those aspects of that Act which deal with delinquents, important though they are. The Children Act 1975 gave this House an opportunity of considering a number of important new provisions in the 1969 Act to provide better care and protection for children, though as yet it has not proved possible fully to implement all the new provisions.
I do not want to take up the time of the House unnecessarily and I think that at this stage it might be more helpful if I were to try to deal with some of the points which have arisen during the debate. We cannot implement all the provisions of the Act because of the constraints on local authority resources. The immediate priority must be the development of intermediate treatment and the ending of remands of juveniles to prison establishments.
One noble Lord referred to the detention centre and the proposal for a short, sharp shock. When the Advisory Council on the Penal System looked at detention centres, they took the view that to deprive an offender of his liberty was of itself a sufficient punishment. The deprivation of liberty and the enforcement of community living are of themselves a very definite and ever-present reminder that one of the main purposes of any sentence is punitive and the Government believe that any increased emphasis on punishment rather than on the rehabilitative side of the treatment of young offenders can be nothing but retrogressive.
I do not want to go into the history of the attendance centres and what they were originally set up to do, other than to say that no attendance centre order can be made in the case of a person who was previously sentenced to imprisonment, to borstal training or to detention in a detention centre, or who has been subject to an approved school order. Thus, one is very limited in that way. The Home Secretary is responsible for providing attendance centres in England and Wales. There are at present 62 junior centres for boys between 10 and 16 covering major areas of population in England and Wales. The Home Secretary uses agents to run the centres on his behalf and in
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59 centres the Home Secretary's agent is the chief constable; in the remaining three centres the agent is the local authority. Most centres are held in schools by arrangement with the local education authority and the sessions are held on Saturday afternoons.
Baroness ROBSON of KIDDINGTON: My Lords, I mentioned the matter because I had just received a notice from the newly opened attendance centre in Oxford—in fact, it opens in May—and my information was that it would be open in the mornings.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: We shall have to look into that, my Lords, and I am grateful to the noble Baroness for raising it because many of us see the wisdom of holding these sessions on Saturday afternoons rather than on Saturday mornings, particularly in Oxford, where I live. I will say no more about that, save to mention that there is a football team there too.
In regard to orders available in respect of juveniles, it is sometimes suggested that courts no longer have adequate sanctions available to them to deal with offences by juveniles. In addition to fines, courts can still send boys aged 10 and over to junior attendance centres; boys aged 14 to 16 to detention centres; and, as noble Lords will know, can commit young people over 15 to the Crown Court with a view to borstal training. These orders are in addition to the supervision orders and care orders under the Children and Young Persons Act 1969.
The Home Office is now looking at the possibility of providing new attendance centres in areas where it is likely that full use would be made of them and where suitable premises and staff can be found. Two new centres have been opened and four more will be opened by the end of May, giving six in all. In addition, the Home Office is looking at the possibility of opening a few experimental centres for girls.
I do not feel justified in keeping your Lordships any longer. One could go on trying to indicate not only what has been done but what is about to be done, and what is the Government's view. This is a matter with which I myself am very con

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cerned. I remember the Act going through your Lordships' House in 1969. We will keep it under continuous review. In the White Paper the Government undertook to set up at national level interdepartmental machinery to monitor its working. This machinery has been established, and has been operating effectively for 18 months. Because of that, and because the Government feel that they have their finger on the pulse, they do not consider that any useful purpose would be served at this time by having a review of the 1969 Act.