ECC REPORTS: RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT

HL Deb 07 February 1978 vol 388 cc961-1024

4.28 p.m.

Lord ZUCKERMAN rose to move, That this House takes note of the Reports of the European Communities Committee on the EEC Research and Development Policy (R/1659/77) (Sixth Report (HL 37)) and on the Joint Research Centre (R/1203/76) (Tenth Report, Session 1976–77 (HL 46)). The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. The first of the two reports with which this Motion deals is the report which was prepared by Sub-Committee F of your Lordships' Select Committee on the European Communities on the research programme of the Joint Research Centre of the European Community. This document was published about a year ago. The second report is a much more comprehensive account of research and development in the EEC. It is essentially a commentary on the document, recently published by Brussels, which I have before me, which gives an account of the scientific and technological work in progress, with an indication of the Commission's intentions for the years up to 1980; and in addition—this is the important part—it includes a draft resolution and two draft decisions which relate to the Commission's intentions.

Both reports are the collective endeavours of Sub-Committee F. I believe that I am entitled to say that the members of that Committee are not hound by every word, every comma and every full stop in the new report. One thing, however, is certain: I speak for all members of the Committee when I say that we appreciate enormously the skilful and amiable chairmanship of the noble Earl, Lord Lauderdale. He never lost patience in dealing with a very wide range of topics and very wide spread of expert witnesses. Nor did he lose control of his Sub-Committee—a remarkable achievement, if I may say so.

I recall that during the debate on JET the noble Lord, Lord Hinton, whom r do not see in your Lordships' Chamber today, referred to the fact that he was not surprised by the excellent way in which Sub-Committee F operated because it was ruled, as he said, by "a rod of iron"—in other words, a rod of iron held in the hands of the noble Earl, Lord Lauderdale. Let me say that if it was a rod of iron, it was a very slender rod and a very flexible one. We are very grateful to him and to the many witnesses who appealed before us and whose names appear at the end of our report.

A special word of thanks is due to those members of non-EEC international agencies whom we had the privilege of meeting. They are named in the report and so I will not take up your Lordships' time now by referring to them separately. But I feel I must place on record that we are most grateful to the Director-General of the Brussels Research Administration, Dr. Schuster, and his staff for the time they spared to members of the Sub-Committee of the noble Earl, Lord Lauderdale, in the course of a visit to Brussels. Finally, I know that I speak for all members of the Sub-Committee when I express our admiration and deep-felt thanks to the secretariat, which was unsparing in the time it gave to our work and assiduous in its efforts in distilling out of numerous discussions with expert witnesses, and from divergent observations by members of the Sub-Committee, what is in this big report before us.

I propose directing my remarks mainly to this report, because it subsumes our earlier report on EEC research and development policy. May I begin by reminding your Lordships that the Commission of the European Communities is in the research and development business because it is so commanded by two of the three Treaties on which it is based—by the European Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM) and by the European Coal and Steel Community. Your Lordships will no doubt recall that, when EURATOM was established in 1958, it was charged to create—and I quote here— the conditions necessary for the speedy establishment and growth of nuclear industries". In its establishment, pride of place was given to the organisation of a joint research centre, the main component of which is at Ispra in North Italy. That was, of course, the golden age of science—or perhaps I should say the age when the hopes for what science could provide were golden. It has not quite worked out in that way, my Lords.

Our report will, I think, have served a useful purpose even if it is regarded only as a document which provides as concise a picture as any I know of the way in which matters relating to research and development are dealt with by the Council of Ministers and the Commission. But it does very much more than that. First, it describes earlier attempts to clarify the EEC rôle in scientific and technological development. There have been several such attempts, and this is the fourth to appear since 1972. We were very fortunate in having as one of our expert witnesses Professor Aigrain, who, at the time of preparation of one of these reports, was not only Chief Scientific Adviser to the French Government but also a special adviser to Signor Spinelli, who was at the time the Commissioner in Brussels who was concerned with these matters.

The schema on page xii of the report shows a wide network of committees through which the Commission decides on its research and development programmes, and by which it is advised. It also indicates the links between the Commission and the Council of Ministers. It will not surprise me if your Lordships feel absolutely bemused when they look at this table and at the various acronyms used for the advisory and other committees. I still am. Some of the committees appear to have changed their names over the years while retaining roughly the same functions. Do not be surprised, my Lords: the same happens in this country! These schemata frequently hide the reality: science never operates in the tidy way in which it is laid out on the scheme in the report.

There is nothing special about the fact that the EEC has continued to revise its ideas about the way it should discharge its responsibilities in the field of science, in research and development. Indeed, it is to be congratulated on the fact that it has had the courage to go on revising, as opposed to getting stuck in the mud—though I would not suggest for one second that we are stuck in the mud—in the way, let us say, in which some countries occasionally appear to be. We in this country have witnessed several changes in recent years, and I am prepared to bet that we have not seen the last change. I recall a big debate some years ago in your Lordships' House when the Rothschild-Dainton Report was being debated. The Benches were full and for two days everybody listened to the debate as though it was the most important matter which had ever come before your Lordships. What I am not prepared to say is that the organisation that resulted was necessarily the last organisation that we could have because the customer-contractor principle which was enunciated during that debate and in the White Paper which the Government subsequently published is now, in this report from Brussels, put forward as the principle it would like to see applied.

On the other hand, as we have pointed out in our own report, there is already a great deal of dissatisfaction among our own people in our own research institutions over the way in which the principle is operating. It may be that in feeling such dissatisfaction we are a little ahead of the times but, even so, in certain important matters the blue print for the organisation of science in our own country, as debated in your Lordships' House, was not applied in toto because the paper that I assumed had been passed—and I am sure I am not alone here—accepted that there was a need for a central post of scientific adviser in Government. But that post disappeared in the implementation of the report. I shall return to that point later but I am mentioning these facts because, since 1972, the Commission has published four papers, and we have published only one. I trust it will not be long before we have another.

A very important point to be recognised is that the resources available for putting into research and development are relatively very limited. As paragraph 8 of the report points out, the total sum available for EURATOM and EEC-sponsored research amounts to approximately £70 million or 150 million units of account. That sum represents only 1½ per cent. of the combined budgets which Member States spend on research and development outside the field of defence. With that the total could be doubled. About half of that 1½ per cent. is spent at the four establishments which make up the joint research centre, of which the largest is the one at Ispra in Italy. Moreover, about two-thirds of the total devoted to research goes to energy. This emphasis, of course, is a hangover from the EURATOM programme. The Member States together spend ten times as much on energy. The money which is spent in this joint research centre of the Communities goes on what are called "direct action programmes"—programmes for which the Brussels administration is directly responsible.

In addition, through its various advisory committees, the Commission manages what are called "indirect action programmes": programmes of research which are embarked upon after consultation with the various advisory bodies shown in that wonderful acronymic chart and which are contracted out to Member States, the proportions of the budget varying from project to project as between the Commission and the Member State participating. Then there are a variety of projects which are called "concerted action projects", which are co-ordinated by the Commission and in which various Member States have an interest, but where the money for the work is provided by the Member States. It is only the coordination which is paid for by the Commission itself. Your Sub-Committee regards this set of programmes as having been highly successful.

Obviously, because so little money is available, relatively speaking, even though it adds up to about £80 million, it has been necessary—and that is partly the reason why the principles underlying the R and D organisation of the Community have been changed so frequently—to formulate a number of criteria by which projects for co-operation are decided. There were originally five main criteria, and there are still five main ones, which are set out in paragraph 43 of our report, and they are now elaborated in great detail in the latest document which has come from Brussels.

Essentially, they are, first, those projects which are so costly that they cannot be carried out on a national basis. Secondly, there is another category of projects which are so costly in development that, in order to justify the investment costs, it is necessary to be certain of a reasonable market. The third main category is those projects which contribute to the development of sectoral policies of the Communities; for example, in the fields of agriculture or textiles. Fourthly, there are those projects which are by their very nature international; for example, projects in the fields of meteorology or oceanography. Then, lastly, there are those projects which deal with public service requirements.

These criteria are not unique to the Common Market, and essentially the same considerations would apply to international projects, whatever the auspices under which they were carried out. But, even so, they are extremely difficult to implement. For example, the wealthier members of the Community may feel that they have the resources necessary to pursue any project on their own, or bilaterally or with three countries working together and may be reluctant to share their technological expertise, particularly when it may result in commercial advantage. It has always been the case that the promise of new knowledge and a potential commercial gain divides as often as it unites. On the other hand, poorer members of the Community would clearly see an opportunity through co-operative action to benefit from the resources directly available to the Communities, or by way of their richer partners.

As I have said, none of this is unique to the Common Market. Those of your Lordships who have followed the efforts over the past 20 years to bring about standardisation of weapons and co-operation in NATO's research and development will not be surprised. The fact is that frustration rather than success has usually marked Governmental efforts to bring about co-operation in industrial projects, whether in R and D or at the production stage. It has been particularly obvious when these efforts have been made in the absence of some clearly understood policy about the economic purposes of the proposed investment; and I need not remind your Lordships, by way of illustration, about our reluctance to co-operate in projects which have subsequently proved successful.

The five sub-divisions of EEC criteria, which are spelled out, apply only to applied research and development. For co-operation in fundamental research, the Communities look to the European Science Foundation which, while it has very little funds, has already done a useful job in co-ordinating certain programmes of fundamental research, and in providing a platform for discussion. But while it is not the policy of Brussels to promote fundamental research on its own, we must not delude ourselves into supposing that some of the applied projects which it does promote are as separate from the field of fundamental science as one would suppose.

Your Lordships have already debated the matter of JET and its location in this country. Let me remind you that when the subject was debated in your Lordships' House, the noble Lord, Lord Hinton, pointed out that with all the resources now available to them, with all the resources which are being spent nationally in the United States, in the USSR, in Western Germany and elsewhere, there are no scientists working on nuclear fusion who could say that controlled fusion will ever be achieved. In other words, while JET is one of the applied projects of Brussels, it incorporates any amount of fundamental research; and that, I suppose, is why people are sometimes inclined to regard fundamental research as a kind of gamble. It is not a gamble to me. When one is searching for new knowledge on the very fringes of what is already known, one can never pretend that one knows exactly what will emerge.

This new EEC report is shortly to be considered by the Council of Ministers and, as I have said, it puts forward a draft resolution and two draft decisions. The resolution is dealt with in paragraph 74 of our report. Briefly, what it calls for is the formulation of a European research policy; and the resolution on guidelines, with which we deal in paragraph 73 of our report, makes it clear that the Commission intends to prepare and to carry out projects in five principal sectors—in the field of resources, in the field of the environment, in the sociological field and life in society, in the field of services and social infrastructure and in the promotion of industrial projects. It is the promotion of industrial research projects which is the basis of one of the two draft decisions.

While recognising that the Common Market has no agreed and comprehensive industrial policy, and while admitting that this hampers the Commission's efforts to develop an industrial research policy, it is none the less proposed to set up an advisory committee for European industrial research under Commission auspices. This new committee, together with another committee called CREST, which is the main advisory body to both the Commission and the Council of Ministers, would be consulted by the Commission before it put out any new contracts in pursuit of an industrial research policy. The second draft decision relates to the setting up of a forecasting body, under the acronym FAST. This matter is considered in paragraph 87 of our report and will be dealt with by the noble Lord, Lord Ashby, and also, no doubt, by the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, who will be speaking later.

Sub-Committee F fully appreciates the difficult problems with which the Commission has been wrestling in drafting its present report, and the difficulties which it had to overcome in getting out its draft recommendations. It is more than difficult to say what is one Member State's national research policy. I say "difficult" because, while I accept that it is possible to list all research programmes which are being undertaken at any given moment in various institutions in a country, it does not necessarily follow that, once listed, they conform to any clear policy stated in advance. I am sure that noble Lords in this House who have occupied ministerial positions, where they have been responsible for science policy, will know what I mean.

What I mean is that actual programmes of research and development do not necessarily derive a priori from a policy. Most programmes of research and development are extensions of what is already known. A few are embarked upon to eliminate areas of ignorance in some major developmental project, the aim of which is otherwise clearly defined. It is not at all surprising, therefore, that no two countries define their research policies in the same way. Your Lordships' Sub-Committee therefore believe that the discussion of the EEC draft resolution provides a valuable opportunity for an examination of matters such as those laid out in paragraph 94 of our report. For example, what do we envisage by a European science and technology policy, and what would we, or other Member States, expect to gain from it? Are there any particular areas of research and development which derive from the Communities' political aims? Is the Communities' research and development policy dependent upon the prior establishment of Community sectoral policies for industry or agriculture? These are some of the matters which could well be debated by the Council when it comes to consider the EEC report, and I hope that Her Majesty's Government will look favourably upon this proposal. Our own view is quite definite. We think that the draft resolution and guidelines should be approved, and I hope that we shall hear later in the debate what are the Government's intentions.

Also we believe that the draft decision on industrial research should be endorsed in principle. I say "in principle" because at the time that we considered the matter we did not have before us all the information that we should have liked. This shortcoming also, I am afraid, affected our discussion of the Commission's proposals on forecasting. However, given that the Commission can bring about a measure of industrial co-operation between Member States, there is not the slightest doubt that it may in time become easier to define an industrial research policy. The two go together. Indeed, if firms in Member States are able to co-operate in any industrial venture, whether in the public or the private sector, it stands to reason that they should be able to co-operate in the related research and development, with the help, if need he—it is not necessary always—of the Commission. But it all depends upon what projects are selected for co-operation.

As we say in paragraph 124, what the Commission calls its concerted action programmes may become significant with the emergence of a new research and development strategy; but at the same time we must be fairly modest about what to expect from all this. May I remind noble Lords once again how limited are the resources of the Community. We must not expect miracles. Neither the draft resolution on guidelines nor the draft decision on industrial research have been spelled out in great detail. I accept, therefore, that we might well have reservations about the projects to be chosen. For example, I do not know now why the Commission has chosen textiles and footwear as areas for co-operative work in preference to other areas which might have been suggested.

I shall say nothing further about the draft decision on forecasting. That is a matter which will be dealt with by other speakers in the debate. However, the subject has already been discussed in your Lordships' House, and on that occasion the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, said that the Government were prepared to support the Commission's proposal on certain conditions. I should like to know why. Is it because the noble Baroness has faith in the kind of forecasting that is envisaged?

Perhaps I may make one last point. We have suggested in paragraph 170 that the office of the President of the Commission might be strengthened so that he can be continuously informed about possible opportunities in the field of research and development which should be explored. On the basis of my own experience, I should have worded that paragraph differently, for it is not just a question of research and development. What it is really important to realise is that today science is the biggest transforming factor in our society. What is necessary at the centre is somebody, or an office, or a group of people who can inform the President of the Commission and his fellow Commissioners of the impact of scientific and technological developments on the unfolding of the human scene, on the politics of the Common Market. This is what is so essential and what is also so conspicuously lacking. This is not the first time that such a suggestion has been made, and it is made without intending any reflection upon the offices of the Directors-General who are now concerned with research and development.

The proposal has, however, been criticised in the pages of a scientific weekly as one which comes oddly, as they put it, from a country which has abolished such a post in its own affairs. Sub-Committee F was not speaking for Her Majesty's Government. It is perfectly true that the post has been abolished or that it has been downgraded. I should like to point out to your Lordships that at the very moment that this was happening here, the United States Government were reinstating the post. These changes are always taking place. It seems to me that the more difficult the task—and it is an immensely difficult task to do what is required in the atmosphere of Brussels—the more necessary it is to have somebody at the very centre who can advise.

In conclusion, may I emphasise that I speak as art absolutely committed European. The comments of Sub-Committee F on the new draft resolution and decisions on a common policy in the field of science and technology have been offered in a constructive spirit. Any critical note in our comments should not be taken as another illustration of what people see as the United Kingdom dragging its feet when it comes to common action in the Communities. Her Majesty's Government may feel that if they approve the guidelines they are committing themselves to every stop and comma in the resolution. I do not believe this to be the case.

More than that, I believe that a positive answer to the guidelines, a welcoming note, would show our partners that we are serious in our commitment to Community efforts, and that we wish to contribute in a positive way to the debate about the resolution on guidelines. We recognise all the difficulties, but it seems to me that we must go on trying to work out how we can use the scientific and technological resources of the Community to the advantage of all. Even if one takes into account national resources, those resources are not unlimited. I believe that the proposals before us are certainly worthy of note, although I am speaking mainly about the resolution on guidelines and the draft directive on industrial policy. We are not so united in our views about FAST forecasting. My Lords, I beg to move.

Moved, That this House takes note of the Reports of the European Communities Committee on the EEC Research and Development Policy (R/1659/77) (Sixth Report (HL 37)) and on the Joint Research Centre (R/1203/76) (Tenth Report, Session 1976–77 (HL 46)).—(Lord Zuckerman.)

4.57 p.m.

Lord O'HAGAN

My Lords, before I attempt the daunting task of making a contribution to this debate about the nature and organisation of research and development within the Community, may I say a brief word about the nature and organisation of this afternoon's debate. During his fascinating survey of the ground that his Sub-Committee had covered, time and time again the noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman, referred to national research policies. Inevitably the noble Lord went back to the days when we were debating Rothschild—week after week, it seemed, when the noble Lord was sitting as an adviser in the Box over there. Later on the noble Lord referred to what has happened since then regarding the implementation of Rothschild and compared what we have done in this country with what has happened in the United States of America.

The red report—if I may call it that so as to distinguish it from the white report—which we are debating this afternoon is a veritable scientific symposium that is worthy of our attention and debate, but it relates to a tiny fraction of both our effort and that of the Community on research and development. Once again I want to ask this question in your Lordships' House: When appropriate, is it not time that we linked debates on the more fundamental and far-reaching reports which come from the excellent Scrutiny Committee which serves the House so well—although perhaps as a member of the committee I should not say that—to our own national preoccupations? Today would have been one of those occasions. We could have asked: Where have we moved to since Rothschild, what has happened, what has the absorption of the Ministry of Science into the Department of Education and Science meant, how has the customer-contractor principle affected the day-to-day work of the research councils? We might have been speaking about science for another three days had this been the occasion for such a debate. We have had no such occasion for some time.

If I may return to the subject of today's debate which my noble colleagues have thrust upon my shoulders, I have found it to be a delightful extra-mural course in instant education, since I am a person who brings to this debate the massive intellectual resources of a rather moderate "O" level in biology. I certainly cannot claim anything like the experience or the expertise of, for example, my noble friend Lord Bessborough, who I am delighted is here today and who should really be speaking from this place instead of me.

But I have had some insight into the workings, or the lack of workings, of Community institutions. Since we are talking about the organisation of science and research and development in its relationship to governmental and other institutions, I think it is extremely important that this afternoon's discussion should not be restricted only to scientists; it is the link between science and the rest of human affairs, expressed through research, on which we must focus this afternoon.

I want to start from a slightly different angle. Many of the works and policies of the Community do not warm the hearts of the citizens in the Member States. But I was struck by an opinion poll conducted across all the national boundaries; even in this country and others, like Denmark, which are not always as wholehearted about the political fact of membership of the Community, there is among the public at large a pretty consistent spread of opinion, shared by nearly three-quarters, that the Community should co-operate more closely on scientific matters. Indeed to the question, "Should the European States get together to pool their scientific research?", there is a favourable answer which is very substantial, 65 per cent. plus. So I think one thing we must remember, when we are looking at this list of acronyms and puzzling over the organograms, is that here is something on which people feel we should be co-operating.

They may hate the Common Agricultural Policy, they may dislike this or that harmonisation regulation, but there is a general feeling that we in the Community should be working together in this area. That is something which should encourage those of us who believe that, whatever the failures and difficulties in the past may have been in the Community's endeavours in research and development, it is still worth persisting, and indeed it becomes more and more important that we should.

I should like to know—and I am sure my noble friends share this inquiry—what is the view of the Government about the Community's place in developing the research and development policy of the Community. Do the Government share the feeling that has been tapped by this poll, and which I believe has come out in other polls, and could the noble and learned Lord who is to reply for the Government give the House some idea of when decisions on the draft resolutions and the draft decisions will be taken? It would be very nice if we could be brought up to date with what is contained in the red report and the white report.

There is another question I should like to put to the noble and learned Lord; this may be an unfair question, so I quite understand if he is not able to answer it except by Written Answer. I understand there were about seven joint projects which were begun in the early 1970s. I will not go into them in detail, but these might well provide some sort of an indicator, a litmus test, of what Community co-operation is capable of. What do the Government think of those? Have they any view? I was reassured by what the noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman, had to say at the close of his remarks, when he said he was speaking as a European and he wanted things to go forward even if he had made various critical comments. It would be very reassuring if the noble Lord, Lord McCluskey, felt able to do the same sort of exercise, to say, "We have doubts about this or that, but fundamentally we believe there is a constructive rôle for the Community in the field of research and development, and we are going to be active in promoting those two aspects of Community action".

I cannot begin to comment competently on the exact pattern of committees, or the precise way in which the organisation of research and development in the Community should be altered or maintained, as the case may be, but I do believe that what we have in this report is a quite remarkable profile, snapshot, of what Community effort has been and is now, with some suggestions, more controversial in some cases than others, as to how matters might be remedied. The only criticism I myself would make—and it is a tiny one—is that the written papers submitted by witnesses were not, so far as I could find, included in the report, so that witnesses' comments on their own papers left one rather hanging in the air.

Looking upon this subject from an experience of the politics of Community institutions rather than scientific politics—I am not making a comparison between the two as to which is better or worse or more or less vicious—it struck me that there seemed to be two poles. At one end there is the sort of total scientific freedom, which seemed to be portrayed by Sir John Kendrew and his experience in the European molecular biology laboratory. There the effort was an international effort that had come about through scientific pressure, so that scientists had been drawn round a particular series of problems, and so far as one could detect from the evidence given by Sir John, there was no political impetus in the fact that they succeeded in coagulating. They managed to attract some money after the scientific community itself had decided that there was a common interest, a common and trans-national interest that overrode all boundaries of States.

But at the other end of the spectrum, where we had the political will without any scientific impetus that was immediately apparent, was the instance of Euratom, and we know what happened as a consequence of that. Professor Aigrain said this in evidence, at paragraph 456. When asked by the noble Lord, Lord Wynne-Jones, about the failure of EURATOM he said: Well, you see, when the Rome Treaty was signed one paragraph was added which created EURATOM. That was done with political enthusiasm. We should do something together'. What was in the news at the time? Nuclear energy was in the news, so they said Let us do something on nuclear energy '. Nobody really looked at defining a common policy of nuclear energy for Europe. It was decided to build a laboratory but not what this laboratory should do". What I hope this debate will lead to is a meeting of minds, far from a recrimination and a casting of blame and aspersions upon those who have not done as well as they might have, or should have, in the past. Now that the Community exists, now that it has Nine Members and now that it has learned some lessons from some of the mistakes of the past, what should the Community aim for in the organisation of its research and development effort in the future, particularly remembering that all the institutions and committees which are referred to in the red report and the white report will be shaken up as soon as we get any new members through enlargement, whether their scientific contribution is small or great?

The European Communities are political and it is a political impetus that is behind the money which the Communities provide for research and development. I hope that when the actual nature and direction of that research and development is being considered, decisions about the purposes and objectives for which that research and development is intended will not be politicised. There is no use in promoting an unreal European unity where it does not exist: a Charlemagne Prize rhetoric about something that we do not share is a danger for the Community rather than a bonus. If there is a common need, then it is time for a common policy.

As regards the programmes that we are debating this afternoon, I wonder whether those devoted to research on life in society are really as serious as some of the other topics which your Lordships will be discussing and which are contained within these documents. I hope that we shall not put the Commission in the dock during this debate. It does not have a spokesman. Let us try to help it in its constructive European endeavours rather than rake over all the mistakes of the past.

I find it very difficult to comment in detail on the proposals of the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, and the sea-changed ideas that have come from the Commission as a result of what he recommended to it. Personally I cannot fully envisage what it would mean if Governments tried to work with the sort of aids that he would like to see the Community have, but that must be a defect in my imagination. However, I am quite certain that something like the Central Policy Review Staff—whether or not it makes an occasional fool of itself, as it has done recently over the diplomatic staffing of Her Majesty's Government—is an integral part of government in a highly complex and interdependent world. If the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, is after a device which will help deep thought and a concentration occasionally on matters that look beyond the time perspective of this afternoon and help a deeper understanding of where the Community is going, then I think that we should not toss this idea away without reflecting that many valid criticisms are made of Brussels for not thinking things through and for not being thorough. However, that is a reflection on the idea, as I see it, behind what the noble Lord has said rather than any official statement of views from this side of the House.

It would be rash if I were to tempt your Lordships' patience for much longer. This debate should be extremely valuable and should provide Her Majesty's Government with the opportunity of stating here what they seek to achieve when these matters are discussed in the Council of Ministers and how they view the research and development side of our activities in the Community. I do not believe that we need to wait for common policies on industry or energy. They may come if they are needed. Meanwhile, let us continue what we have begun in research and development. I should like to thank all those who have participated in the preparation of these reports, which are themselves a great tribute to the persistence and industry of Sub-Committee F. Whatever the results of this debate outside the House and in the Community at large, I am grateful for having been forced to think about this subject for the past few weeks.

5.16 p.m.

Lord LLOYD of KILGERRAN

My Lords, first I should like to pay my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman, for the fascinating and comprehensive address he has given to your Lordships. I also have the honour to be a member of Sub-Committee F, presided over, as the noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman, indicated, by the tolerant noble Earl, Lord Lauderdale, who has so much insight in these matters, and also served, as we have been so loyally, by the secretariat to that Committee. I should also like to say how much I have enjoyed hearing, during the Committee's discussions the observations of the noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman, expressed with that vast experience that he has of scientific matters. Also, I was delighted to hear the tactful way in which he asked questions of the many witnesses who came before the Committee.

Of course, it is easy to be critical of the results arising from the vast amount of work which the Commission has given itself in these fields. I hope that I shall not be too critical. Like the two previous noble Lords, I am a committed European and fully conscious of the political implications of such an attitude and the desirability of always endeavouring to be helpful and constructive. The noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, referred to part of his education. May I presume to mention to your Lordships that I have spent most of my working life dealing with the results of organised scientific research and development in industry—results which are now usually referred to generically and perhaps inappropriately as intellectual or industrial property, to include innovation, invention and know-how. In my view, that kind of material is vital to the aspects of life in any community.

As the noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman, said, the results of science are the biggest transforming influences in our society today. However, one defect that I see in the Commission's attitude is that in the Directive under consideration it has failed to consider whether commercial competitiveness may or may not apply in the sectors of research and development with which the Commission may be concerned. I have in my hand a volume over an inch thick which indicates and sets out the contracts for the energy research and development programme from 1975 to 1976 and the names of the companies who have been parties to the contracts. When so much public money can be doled out by the Commission on research and development—again I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman, that it is not enough money—it seems to me that in those circumstances the Commission should have a clearer industrial policy, at least in some sectors, to prevent, for example, unfair competition between firms. Also, the adoption of an industrial policy would seem to me to help sectors to strengthen the economy of the EEC by making it more competitive with the industries of the United States of America.

In my view—and I am sure I shall be echoing some of the words of the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan—and as is stated in this report, this EEC Directive shows a lack of adequate political authority and insight. Indeed, in my view basically the Committee's report tells the Commission: "Your work over the years has been unproductive. Take back this Directive and clothe the useful guidelines you have suggested with much more political commonsense. Break up your work into more defined sectors. You, the Commission, have spent too much time on unfruitful discussions of your theoretical role. Operation and management of research and development are difficult but with a greater sense of political reality in the context of the economy of the EEC as a whole better progress could be made." I believe that that is a fair paraphrase of paragraph 118 and paragraphs 171 to 179 of the Committee's report. In my paraphrase I have quoted phrases from those paragraphs of the Committee's report.

Sub-Committee F have tried to bring some light on these complex problems by examining many witnesses. But as we have stated in the report we find that no simple conclusions can be drawn from the differing and contradictory experiences of many of the distinguished witnesses. As we say in paragraph 176 what is required is new administration backed by strong political authority. There may be instances in our economy and in the scientific research in this country where my criticism of a lack of political authority of the Commission is not fair.

Thus the Secretary of State for Education and Science is reported as stating in the other place on 3rd February last that as a result of international collaboration some programmes of the Science Research Council relating to particle physics and some programmes relating to satellites have been closed or phased out. It may be that when the noble and learned Lord, Lord McCluskey, replies he will be able to give information as to the kind of international collaboration which has taken place and whether it is in the political context of the EEC. If that is so then I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, will welcome it as a considerable step forward.

I should like to refer for a few moments to a part of this report which I had the honour to draft; namely, paragraphs 128 to 132 on page xxxi dealing with patent rights. The Directive, R1659/77, refers to only one form of property rights arising out of research and development, and makes little or no reference to property rights in knowhow, innovation, inventions, designs and copyright—results which all arise from research and development. As I have mentioned before, the reason appears clear. The Commission's Directive does not appear to consider whether commercial competitiveness in relation to its industrial programmes may or may not apply in the sectors of research and development which it has under consideration.

As I have indicated before, where public money can be doled out to firms by the Commission, it seems to me that the Commission should have a clearer policy on intellectual property rights than has so far been enunciated by the Commission and set out in Appendix 1 on page 123. Some of the terms of the Commission's policy on intellectual property rights, as stated there, are themselves contradictory. At least one witness told us in paragraph 289 that the practice when contracts are placed by the Commission for research and development programmes was for intellectual property rights to belong to the Commission. That seems to be fair way. When public money is disbursed there should be some public control over the results of such an investment.

But the Director General of DG xiii on the Commission is recorded on page 123 as saying exactly the opposite of what the witness told us. I do not think it would be helpful for me to take up your Lordships' time in developing, as I could, the conclusions embodied in paragraphs 128 to 132 of this report about the failure of the Commission so far to deal coherently with complex and sometimes vital questions as to ownership and division of the results of research and development. The present somewhat ill-defined policy of the Commission in this field when doling out funds to firms of their choice can lead to unfair competition and discrimination among those competing firms who have not shared in the largesse of the Commission.

I think that the position can be summed up in the answer of one witness to my questions at page 81 of this report. He was Mr. Beverton of the National Environment Research Council. He recognised in his answer that inventions arise from the public money disbursed by the Commission and that as public money is involved, there should be an opportunity for the public purse to benefit. I strongly endorse his view that, so far as the United Kingdom is concerned, there is a need to try to hammer out better guidelines as to ownership and use of inventions—the results of the Commission's industrial programmes—arising out of payments by the Commission for research and development.

Of course, I realise—as we were told by Sir Brian Flowers, the President of the European Science Foundation, in his admirable presentation—that these questions may not arise in wide sectors such as research and development in meteorology and the recovery of strategic materials like manganese and cobalt. However, I urge the Government that, particularly in view of the recent European Conventions on Intellectual Property and the new United Kingdom's Patents Act, early consideration should be given to these questions involving industrial or intellectual property rights in the context of the EEC. They could be vital in strengthening the economy of the EEC, particularly in competition with the industries of the United States of America, many of which are now able to take commercial advantage of the lack of an industrial policy in the EEC backed by political authority.

I should like to conclude by quoting a few lines from page 13 of the European Parliament's Working Document 454/77, dated 5th January 1978 in a report of its Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs. I am glad to see the noble Earl, Lord Bessborough, in his place because he had already been closely associated with the observations that I now propose to quote. The quotation, which seems to me to be so apt in the circumstances of this debate, is as follows: It needs to be continually stressed that the best basis for research and development policy is an overall system of objectives for industrial research programmes". I shall presume to add only one more factor. As a committed European, it seems to me that all this must be backed by a strong political authority, as is stated in paragraph 174 of this, the Sixth Report of Sub-Committee F.

5.30 p.m.

Lord ASHBY

My Lords, my comments on this debate are really a footnote to the comprehensive and scholarly summary which the noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman, gave at the beginning. I should like also to testify to the fact, as other noble Lords have done, that I am a committed European. I believe that committed Europeans should be willing both to enjoy being Europeans and to be prepared to criticise the organisation of the Community. May I say also how glad I am that the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, has widened the area of this debate to include political considerations. I join with him in hoping that the outcome of the debate will be positive comments to the Commission and to the Council which will help to bring together the countries of the Community rather than divide them by controversy.

My comments concern the project called Europe + 30, and I am making them because I do not believe that they have received from the Commission the attention they deserve. They were in the form of a feasibility study which was commissioned, and they have been circulated only in roneo form, not properly published. The volume weighs one kilogram and has been very little read. But it is not necessary to read the volume because fortunately the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, who was chairman of the group which did this work, has himself edited for the Commission a book which has been published called, Futures of Europe, where the whole of the views of this group are set out in a much more felicitous style than one is accustomed to find in official documents, either from this Government or from the Community.

The noble Lord, Lord Kennet, might be embarrassed if he were to recommend to your Lordships that you read the book, but I should like on his behalf, though without his permission, to recommend that it is read. It sets out very clearly the case for forecasting in order to advise those who have to make decisions about European policy, and it sets out equally clearly the difficulties in making forecasts. My sole reason for talking about Europe + 30 in the presence of the chairman of the group who did the work is that I am able to say some things which the noble Lord may not be able to say, and also on certain points I differ from him in his views.

Europe + 30 proposes what is called a "forecasting instrument", which in America would be called a futurology unit, and its business, which would be conducted by at least 30 people—this is regarded as the minimum number to make it viable over a 10-year period—would be to advise, to put before the Council and the Commission and Parliament the policy options open to them and the consequences of following these policies. It is emphasised that it certainly would not recommend policies. It would merely say that if such-and-such a policy is followed then certain consequences—social, political, economic—may follow. Europe + 30 was very courteously received by the Commission, and when it was briefly discussed in this House in November the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, described it as "an important landmark in Community thought". Then after these compliments nothing was done to implement the recommendations made in Europe + 30. In its place the Commission has proposed a much more modest pilot-scale experiment—a group of 10 people working for five years with a more restricted remit. The remit, which I quote in full is: forecasting and assessment in the fields of science and technology", to which of course is attached the inevitable acronym FAST. In describing this decision Dr. Schuster, the Director General of the Commission department where FAST would reside, has written this, which I think is important should go on the record: Europe + 30 has not been rejected and FAST should be regarded not as a substitute but as a first step. FAST in any case would have a much narrower remit than the original Europe + 30. It would be concerned primarily with forecasting social, economic and political consequences of policy decisions in science and technology. In other words, it would do what in the United States would be called technology assessment. The estimated cost of FAST is 4.4 million units over five years. The estimated cost to Her Majesty's Government would be a subscription of the order of £80,000 per year. So the matter which is at issue is whether this proposal is worth supporting. Is FAST better than nothing?

The present state of play for FAST is that it was approved by the Commission last June. It has been through various other committees of the Community, and has been approved, and is now due to go before the Council. I have great sympathy with the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, at what I think can only be called the rather cavalier dismissal of his scheme by the Commission; and I can share some of his misgivings about FAST; but at the same time I believe that there is one important job which FAST might do and which perhaps no other body of this kind could do. It could do something to resolve the serious dilemma in the whole problem of using forecasts for political decision-making.

This is the dilemma: on the one hand, prophecy, divination, forecasting, have been endemic in human societies throughout the whole of history. It is significant that even today, even in Britain, more people earn their living through the practice of astrology than through the practice of astronomy, so it would be futile to suppose that people, groups and Governments, in the Community are going to cease making forecasts. On the other hand—and this is the other side of the dilemma—forecasting and technology assessment have the most dismal track record. Except in a few narrow sectors forecasting within industries—like steel and electricity—can be useful and sometimes reliable. Short-term demographic forecasts, such as how many children will go to school in the 1980s, are more or less reliable, and actuarial forecasting by insurance companies is obviously reliable. We can see that from the profits they make. On a wider scale, although computers are now used in forecasting it has to be admitted by people who have studied technological assessment that, even with computers, results are conspicuously not much more successful than they were when animal entrails were used instead.

If I might digress for a moment, I ask your Lordships to take your minds from Europe + 30 and think for a moment of Europe minus 50. In 1928 predictions were being made as to what would happen to the motor-car industry. At no time was any prediction made that by 1970 one of the social consequences of the motor-car industry would be over 7,000 people killed and 350,000 injured every year on the roads of Britain. In the United States there have been similar experiences. In the 1930s there was being developed in the United States the mechanical cotton picker, and again there were forecasts of what it would do for the cotton industry. No one forecast that one of the secondary effects of that invention would be the migration of over 4 million blacks from the Southern States to the North—one of the great migrations of human history. There is one consequence of that which I think is of particular significance for this debate. Suppose those forecasts had been made; suppose it had been possible to forecast in 1928 the carnage on the roads of Britain due to our motor cars and roads. Would that have made any difference to policy decisions about transport in Whitehall or Westminster? I doubt it very much.

Even when one comes much nearer home and deals with much simpler things, like the half-dozen or so forecasts which are made every year and appear in our newspapers on the prospects of the British economy by bodies such as the Institute for Economic and Social Research or the Henley Centre, or the London Business School, one finds again that not only do they differ from one another—sometimes even contradicting one another—but they are often very wrong. I know why they differ. It is simply because the people who make the forecasts make different assumptions. But it is just this building of sound logic on top of highly questionable assumptions which makes all technology assessment and forecasting so dangerous in the hands of political decision-makers.

I do not want to trouble your Lordships with figures, but let me give one example. Six highly professional bodies made predictions, forecasts, in 1975 of the percentage change in the gross domestic product between 1975 and 1976. The forecasts ranged from 1.3 per cent. to 3.3 per cent. The actual percentage change was 0.9. Something unanticipated always intervenes: strikes; unexpected wage settlements; an OPEC meeting; a failure of the Brazilian coffee crop. There is always something. However, there never seems to be any embarrassment that these forecasts may vary from what actually happens by anything up to 300 per cent. This is something which I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman, and I would agree that scientists do not tolerate in the work that they do.

The point I have been trying to make is that if such simple forecasts lead so often to results which one cannot rely upon, we must expect the prospect of scenarios for the political State of Europe + 30 to be even less reliable and not to be credible enough for ordinary decision-making. This is why there is a dilemma. Several years ago in a book on the sources of invention the distinguished economist, John Jewkes, wrote this: Peering into the future is a popular and agreeable pastime which, so long as it is not taken seriously, is comparatively innocuous". The problem is that peering into the future is being taken seriously, and the faster things change the more earnestly people will peer into the future. The forecasts and scenarios, despite their unreliability, will continue to be laid on the desks of Ministers and politicians. Therefore—I now come to the point at last—it is of great importance that the Community should know what weight to attach to forecasting. It is precisely here that I think that FAST could make a useful contribution to policy making in Europe.

In paragraph 160 of the Select Committee's report they make the point that there is no lack of data about forecasts. The problem is how to use the data. But there is a grave lack of public knowledge about how forecasts have gone wrong. Doubtless when forecasts go wrong there are people who do post-mortems, and in the learned journals one can find those post-mortems analysed; but ii never becomes public knowledge and therefore never becomes part of the political will to do post-mortems and check how these forecasts might be improved from the many mistakes which are obviously made when they go wrong.

It is not only in economics; it is in the secondary social effects of many technologies. How did it come about, for instance, that 800,000 tons of fluorocarbons from aerosols were allowed to escape into the upper atmosphere for nearly a quarter of a century before it occurred to some people in 1974 that there might be some danger to the climate of the world and to its health? One could go on multiplying examples like this for a long time.

It is significant that in America the importance of this has been recognised. The National Science Foundation is putting massive funding into four studies of retrospective technology assessment to discover where the mistakes were made in the hope that this will improve technology assessment and forecasting in the future. One of the declared intentions for FAST is that it should monitor forecasts rather than carry them out itself, so I see here a possibly important function for it. Much good might be done if there were to be public knowledge about how some forecasts have gone wrong. By "public knowledge", I do not mean articles in economic and engineering journals; I mean the kinds of material which can be appreciated by the man in the street.

Then there is the second weakness of technology assessments: it is that, even when they are credible enough to be used as a basis for political decision-making, the machinery of government is far too sluggish to respond to them. This was a point which the Commission noticed in their communication about Europe + 30. They say: The effectiveness of long-term forecasts depends upon their practical introduction into the decision-making process". Now FAST has declared—if it is set up—that it hopes to deal (among other things) with the social consequences of new agricultural techniques, new communications systems like the video-telephone, new technologies of employment, and so on. I just do not believe that these social consequences can be foreseen with any confidence whatever until they begin to be visible over the horizon. It is one of the very early lessons that a biologist learns, and unfortunately it seems to apply to human beings as well as to plants and animals, that is, that they do not adapt to a change in the environment in anticipation of the change—they only respond when it begins to hurt.

I believe, therefore, that what is most urgently needed—and FAST could inquire seriously into this—is to devise some machinery of government which responds quickly and efficiently as soon as there is some sign of social feedback in some technological development. In other words, the time for decisions to be made about the effects of technological innovation is when you begin to see the effects diffusing, as in fact the video-telephone is already diffusing in the United States. How could this be done? The noble Lord, Lord Kennet, suggested a way in which this might be done in an appendix to the book, Futures of Europe. It is to bring the forecasters and decision-makers together to discuss how far forecasts can be used; what each side should expect and require of the other. This was done just three years ago at a meeting in Hanover.

Finally, I should like to comment on two objections which can be raised to having FAST instead of nothing—and that seems to be the alternative at present before the Commission and Her Majesty's Government. One is that FAST is too small to be viable. I do no agree with this. The few forecasts that really have influenced public opinion have been works of creative imagination written by individuals. The noble Lord, Lord Kennet, in his book quotes the effect which de Tocqueville's social forecast for America has had on American thought, and we all know that Orwell's 1984 has had a similar effect on the thought of my generation.

It is quality of imagination, not size of team, which will matter in this. I must confess that if I myself had any responsibility for deploying the £80,000 which Her Majesty's Government would subscribe to this, I would spend it on purchasing two Orwells with a small staff to back them up, and leave them to do something creative. This may have a major effect on the problems which the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, with the rest of us, so anxiously wishes to see tackled.

The second objection to FAST is that it is set up inside the Commission—inside, in fact, one Directorate of the Commission—and it would not have enough status or independence to be able to act with the autonomy which is absolutely necessary. I entirely agree with that criticism, and I wonder whether the noble and learned Lord in his reply could, either then or later in an Answer to a Written Question, give some assurance that, if Her Majesty's Government agree that the experiment of FAST shall be tried—with the proviso which Dr. Schuster has put on record and which I have put on the record in Hansard—people of sufficiently high standing will be attracted to do the work. This means not only salary but status within the Commission. Secondly, will this group have sufficient independence and autonomy to be able to say and publish what it likes without having what might be unpalatable views snuffed? I believe that if those two assurances could be given, it would be worth giving FAST a try.

5.51 p.m.

Lord KENNET

My Lords, if we could be certain of finding even one Orwell and putting him on the Commission payroll, how fortunate we should be. The thought of finding two at the current rate of appearance of the species is, I am afraid, a hopeless task, and it is because of despair about that that we went so far in this work towards the other extreme of recommending having 30 not Orwells but simply honest intellectual inquirers.

I wish at the outset to agree with noble Lords who have said what a valuable document the red paper is; I shall confine my remarks to the red report from the Committee. It most admirably sees the wood in spite of the trees, something which can perhaps more readily be done from a certain distance from Brussels; that is why our Sub-Committee was able to see the wood. There are passages, particularly towards the beginning of the report, where the wood is seen more clearly than it has ever been seen by the Commission itself, and the presence of such passages can only make this document very valuable in Brussels and around the Community.

I find that the report falls very sharply into two halves, the factual account of what goes on together with a certain amount of analysis of it and an implied view of it, and then, in the second half, the views of the Committee and its recommendations about what should be done. I am bound to say that I think these two halves differ in merit. The first half is quite excellent; but it seems to me that the second half carries, in certain places and in certain places only, the marks of a lack of consideration. I am not really qualified to go into any details about that, except on the one question of forecasting, about which the noble Lord, Lord Ashby, has already spoken so embarrassingly generously about my part in the history of it so far, and so very justly about the choice which is before the Council of Ministers in considering whether or not to do FAST.

Perhaps I can add some facts about all this to those I was able to give the House at an inconveniently late hour, more or less in the middle of the night, on 29th November when there were very few people present. One of the excitements of this House is that one never knows who will be on the Front Bench. On the last occasion when we devoted ourselves to forecasting future strategies for the European Community we had the Parliamentary Under-Secretary to the Department of the Environment, who replied very ably, whereas today we have the Solicitor-General for Scotland, who I have no doubt will also reply very ably. But one wonders who it will be next and whether there may be in time some agreement on a Minister for the Co-ordination of Research Policy at a less exalted level than the unfortunate but much beloved and respected panjandrum who at the moment must combine that with all his other duties.

The SOLICITOR-GENERAL for SCOTLAND (Lord McCluskey)

My Lords, perhaps I may be permitted to comment that if one cannot predict with accuracy who will reply oil behalf of the Government, that does not say very much for predicting what will happen in 30 years' time.

Lord KENNET

I wish to make one criticism of the report, my Lords, a criticism which I think should be made and one which I hope the members of the Sub-Committee will take in good part. When I was giving evidence to the Sub-Committee about forecasting I was acutely aware that there was not round the table one member of the Committee who had read our report or the book which is based on it. I understand that when the Committee came to deliberate and formulate its opinion on that report, once again there was not one member present who had read the report or the book based on it.

There was, it is true, a summary available to the Committee 28 pages long, but a 28 page summary of a 415 page report is bound to gloss over many important matters and I find in the passages on forecasting in our Sub-Committee's report the marks of a lack of consideration. It is, for instance, the only subject which makes no appearance in the factual part of the report; it makes its first appearance when it comes to the section headed "Opinion of the Committee". The reader is therefore deprived of that lucid factual analysis on this matter with which he is supplied on all other matters treated in this report. A small point, but it is still indicative: a footnote says that the opinion of the Committee is based on the evidence I gave it and not on the report. In fact, that is not the case. There are things in the opinion of the Committee which were not in the evidence which I gave it but which were in the summary of the report. The details could be multiplied and they are boring, but I think the Committee went a little fast over some of this in dismissing it.

The result of the Committee's treatment of the question of forecasting is that it says, in effect, that nothing should be done. It says that FAST should not be done—that the Government and the Council of Ministers should reject FAST—and it says that the larger Europe + 30 should be rejected. Perhaps I should correct a marginal error which has crept in. The choice, if anything were to be done, would be between a unit of 30 graduates—that is Europe + 30 freestanding between the Commission and Parliament and reporting to both. If FAST were done, it would be a unit not of 10 graduates but of 10 people of whom six would be graduates. So with the 30 we must compare not 10 but only six; this would be 10 people inside one of the directorates-general of the Commission and part of the bureaucracy of the Commission. It would be limited to the single sector of science and technology and it would not, like the alternative Europe + 30, be covering the 16 sectors described in the Europe + 30 report.

I do not know whether the Committee is right to say that the Government should reject FAST; I find it impossible to make up my mind. I do not know whether FAST would be a first step towards something bigger or whether, on the other hand, because of the manifest difficulties of making any meaningful contribution to such a vast subject with only six people, it would turn people against the study of the future by adding yet more to the long list of failures. However, I think the red book Committee report is wrong in recommending so forthrightly that nothing whatever should be done. That, in my view, is unjustifiable. I find it a hard choice to know which should be done, but I am sure that something should be done. We cannot leave the Commission any longer unprovided with that basic tool of policy-making which is so readily provided to all its Member Governments severally, to other major Governments in the world, to every major corporation in the world and to many trade unions and other interests in the world. How can we tolerate, as this red report would, a continuation of a situation where the Community organs alone are left without?

May I once again compare the two projects? The smaller one, the small bureaucrat FAST, we are told, would cost 4.4 million units of account over its five years of life. The very much larger Europe + 30 would cost about the same, or a little bit more: about 5 million or 5½ million units of account, over its first five years of life. This is for two reasons. The first is that we do not think it would be safe to hire 30 people and set them to work at once on Monday week. We think that to get people and to try out the method of work it would be necessary to build up a team of 30 over a five-year period, and the cost would therefore be low during its initial years. That is one reason. The second reason is that FAST is evidently to spend a great deal of money on outside contracts, paying people hundreds of miles away to do the work which they have defined for them. Europe + 30, while it would do this, would not spend so high a proportion of its budget on that; it would spend more on paying people to work together, meeting everyday and all day, in-house.

I should like to go a little further than I did last time we debated this, if I may, in telling the House, and my noble and learned friend who is to answer, some of the history of this project. In the middle of the night on 29th November my noble friend Lady Birk said that she would take the points I had made into account before the Government took up a final position on FAST. I should emphasise that the points I had made were not made by me personally. They were made by the 40 persons in the team which I had the honour to conduct, and I think it is enough to look at that list to judge the weight of those persons. I certainly should not like to give them an avoirdupois myself, but noble Lords who are interested will find the list in the relevant publications.

About halfway through our work there was a perceptible change of opinion within the Commission bureaucracy. Whereas, when we started our work, minds had been quite open about what the right answer was to be, about halfway through it was twice put to my group of 40 people that the right answer would be precisely what is now called FAST. On two separate occasions Commission officials came to our group, as it were to give evidence, and very strongly urged on us that we should say, "Only six people; inside the Commission bureaucracy; no reporting to Parliament; and limited to technology assessment and science and technology forecasting only". On both occasions the 40 people of Europe + 30 discussed this very fully, and on both occasions they quite decisively rejected it, saying that it was below the critical mass and would be unsafe to do because people might believe something valid was being done when, in the nature of things, it could not be with such a small number of people.

On the second of the two occasions the group—I was not in the chair at that time—rejected it with some vehemence. Nevertheless, that is what is now proposed, so I should like to disabuse the Government, particularly, of any view that the Commission considered our large proposal and said, "This is too big" and then proposed something smaller. Not at all: they had already decided to go for something smaller before they read our report.

Another thing which my noble friend Lady Birk said last time we discussed this was that I would know there was very strong opposition from our European partners to the proposals in the Europe + 30 report. Not so, my Lords. I did not know it, and I do not now. I have heard some doubts expressed in CREST, the committee which has already been discussed this afternoon, made up of national scientific administrators. On the occasion when they discussed Europe + 30 they were meeting at, I believe, rather a low level (because, like other committees, they can meet at different levels; by no means was the top man of each country present) and doubts were expressed. One might expect that at national bureaucratic level. Let us now look at the non-national level, and I refer here to CERD, the Committee on European Research and Development, which consists of distinguished individuals, not appointed by Governments and having nothing to do with forecasting or the Europe + 30 project. This group of high-level people considered the Europe + 30 report and endorsed it. I think it is not surprising that they should have done that.

Let us look further and consider the matter at national and international political level, as opposed to administrative level. I think of a speech made by Heinz Oscar Vetter, the President of the European Trades Union Conference, who welcomed and endorsed the Europe + 30 proposals; I think of the fact that the responsible Ministers in Italy, Ireland and Belgium at that time were simply waiting for a Commission proposal in order to back it in the Council and put it into effect; and I think of the fact that the President of the Council of Ministers at the relevant time—the late Anthony Crosland, our own Foreign Minister—in a speech before the European Parliament, called on the Commission for immediate and positive proposals based on the Europe + 30 report.

No, my Lords, I do not find evidence of very strong opposition from our European partners at the relevant levels; only lower down the heap. The point about the Europe + 30 proposal is that it has not been put to the European Parliament; it has not been put to the relevant committees of the European Parliament; it has not been put to the Council of Ministers; it has been pushed aside in its cradle, and has been superseded by the very much smaller alternative which was discussed and rejected in the original operation.

One last word, if I may, about the credibility of forecasting. In these proposals we made a very firm distinction between forecasting and prediction. Prediction says that something will be the case; and even Lord Ashby, in his admirably objective account of the matter just now, seemed to be envisaging that a European forecasting team might place scenarios before the Council of Ministers or the decision makers at the Commission, saying, "Here is what will happen", and that in the event such scenarios would probably be proved inaccurate. It is very far from the proposal as originally envisaged that one scenario should be placed before the decision makers saying, "Here is what will happen", or even, "Here is what will happen unless you do something about it". What we most explicitly proposed was that there should always be a handful, a portfolio, a fan, of five or three or eight alternative scenarios, saying, "Here is what is more likely to happen than the others on certain premises; and here, on the other hand, is what is more likely to happen than the others on certain other premises"; and that never in any circumstances should the forecasting body say, "The following will happen"—this cannot logically be said—or, on the other hand, "The following ought to happen", which cannot politically be said by such a body but can be said only by the elected of the people.

My Lords, that concludes what I want to say. I have one final remark about the red report. In its concluding observations it says that the Commission has been most successful when it has sought to co-ordinate national research and development, and not to "colonise" it. The noble Earl, Lord Lauderdale, I see with pleasure, is going to speak, and I wonder whether he could give the House a short definition of the word "colonise" in this context. I have never been quite clear about it, and it is not defined anywhere in the report. It makes its first appearance, not in the analytical part but only in the hortatory part, at the end. If I say to myself, "The Commission must not colonise national research", I have two pictures in my mind; that is, of the French colonising Algeria and having to decolonise it again, or of a colony of ants colonising a stump of rotton wood, which may or may not be a good plan ecologically. What is the picture in the minds of the Committee when they use this word "colonise"?

6.10 p.m.

The EARL of BESSBOROUGH

My Lords, first, like other noble Lords, I should like to congratulate my noble friend on the Cross-Benches—if I may describe him as "my noble friend", which I think I may—on his introduction to this debate and on the very comprehensive report which the Committee has produced. I was glad that the noble Lord, like other noble Lords here, said that he was a committed European. This gave me great reassurance. I am sure from knowing him personally that he is and that, therefore, whatever criticisms may have been made of the report, they must be considered in that light. Although, perhaps, there has been a little misunderstanding among members of the Commission in Brussels on this point, I am sure that his speech will be read with the greatest of interest there and, indeed, happiness that he should have declared himself, as did the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, today, in this way.

This red book gives us, as others have said, a very clear exposition of Community documents, clearer I think, as the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, has said, then some of the multilingual documents themselves. But let me say now that I should also like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman, on his latest book Apes and War Lords. I do not know which I am in this particular debate—I suppose more "ape" than "war lord". But I think it is going to be well worth reading and I hope that he has already placed a copy in your Lordships' Library.

But I should like to tell him that I regret not having been able to attend meetings of this Committee except on one occasion, briefly. This illustrates the difficulty, as the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, knows, of exercising the dual mandate, even for a Member of Your Lordships' House. It is impossible to attend meetings on the Continent and in London at the same time. The noble Lord, Lord Kennet, who, I understand has now accepted to be a Member of the European Parliament, will learn this, too; and I congratulate him on his appointment because I am certain that he will be a very great asset to us. I hope that one of the earliest debates that we have will be on his report which has not yet been debated.

My Lords, what in my view emerges from the evidence of selected witnesses is the need for a stronger political will in the Community and more sensitive arrangements for a scientific talking shop than is afforded by CREST, which has already been mentioned. The first might be provided by the directly-elected European Parliament to which CREST might be answerable. The chairman of CREST often now attends our committee meetings in our research committee. The second, by a committee, say, of the Chief Scientists of Member States plus, possibly, a Commission Committee of Chief Scientists, one from each DG where such an appointment is required. These would advise the relevant European Parliamentary committees.

My Lords, the approach taken in this Sixth Report appears to favour, as I see it, a loose, non-commital co-ordination of national research at Community level, rather than a significant own-research activity by the Community itself with substantial financial and personnel resources. In my view, this position does not really reflect the role of the Community as defined in the Euratom Treaty and generally established since the 1972 Paris Summit.

The common policy in science and technology should, I believe, if we can truly achieve it, not only try to co-ordinate national research but also define and put into effect common research actions. That is the philosophy and it is not an easy thing to put into practice. For the first objective the Commission is, as we know, endeavouring to co-ordinate national science policies in certain specific sectors. Specific efforts are under way in energy research and medical research. First steps in the nature of data collection are also being taken in the area of social research and scientific co-operation with the developing countries, the Lomé countries, whom we should not forget.

On the action side, the common research programmes aim at supporting sectoral Community policies. The relevant monies allocation under the Community budget—and I am on that committee—are, of course, very modest, as had already been indicated. Nevertheless, through selection and concentration, they can and do have more, I believe, than a catalytic effect. The field of fusion research is only one example. The research activity of the Joint Research Centre created by the Euratom Treaty is of a central character which does not duplicate work in national laboratories. The JRC provides, for example, an independent assessment for the benefit of all on highly-sensitive and controversial issues like nuclear safety or environmental standards. Direct and indirect community research action therefore should remain, in the view of many Europeans concerned, the mainstay of a common research policy.

As regards concerted action, which I know the report seems to favour, this type of action is fairly new in Community terms, in Community practice, and results will, I think, only be known over a period of time. It is only this year that the Council will approve the first set of concerted actions in the field of medical research. It seems to me that the Commission has a central role to play in co-ordination and dissemination of results. I think it is unrealistic to suppose that concerted action works more successfully in the absence of committed Commission leadership.

I hope that what I have said will show that there is no question, in my view, of the Commission trying to evolve a sort of dirigiste approach which would (in the word that has been already mentioned in quotation marks) "colonise" national research systems from Brussels; and, like the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, I shall be glad to hear a definition of that word. The aim of a common policy on science and technology is the improved efficiency of the European research system and the focusing of the European scientific and technical potential on problems of common interest.

Speaking of research action, the Commission intends to devote a great deal of effort this year, and in coming years, to the evaluation of the results of this research. A first, technical workshop comparing national methods and experiences will be heard in Denmark at the end of June. The Commission is, I assure your Lordships—and I am not a member of that Commission and I am not their spokesman—attempting seriously and critically to examine the effectiveness of their own research actions.

Furthermore, as a former Minister and "Shadow" concerned in these matters, I think we should bear in mind that shaping a common research and development policy for nine widely different countries is a complex and long-term task which cannot be judged by the same standards as similar, largely-national work. I would plead, therefore, for more understanding on the part of your Lordships, although there has been some understanding already, of the Community's problems.

Then, just in regard to structures and procedures—Chapter 7 of the report—the setting up of CREST in 1974, I think can be seen as a serious attempt at improving the Community's decision-making machinery. By discussing with responsible national decision-makers their idea for co-ordination and action, the Commission services can come up with more realistic and more acceptable proposals. At the same time, mutatis mutandis, national delegates to CREST can better perceive the common interest of proposed Community actions.

Now, just one further word on the Joint Research Centre. Contrary to the view expressed in the report, it seems to me that a central staff unit of the JRC in Brussels has proved useful in order to co-ordinate the four establishments at Geel, Ispra, Karlsruhe and Petten, and in order to ensure close liaison with the other services of the Commission. The idea that the director at Ispra should be directly answerable to CREST would not only impinge on the prerogatives of the Director General of the JRC, but also would be contrary to the advisory and managing structure as foreseen in the Euratom Treaty. We have no written Constitution in the United Kingdom and therefore are not too familiar with the problems of abiding by this kind of treaty, be they good provisions in the treaty or not. It is difficult to avoid not doing so now that we are in fact signatories of that treaty.

While praising the Commission's coordinative work, the Select Committee seeks changes in the JRC that might, in my view—as perhaps I have already indicated—to some extent undermine their continued existence, unless of course these centres are given worthy objectives so that their qualified staff feel that they really have a vocation. This is an important point. The Select Committee did not, it appears, examine witnesses from other Member States—at least not as I see it from the red book, apart of course from a former chief scientist in France. I know that they also visited Brussels. Italy and Denmark, for instance, as much as Holland, Belgium, Ireland and Luxembourg, desire new technology for their own added-value industries. They, too, need to "grow" technology, if I may use that term. They benefit from co-ordinated programmes now. They need to benefit from the work of the JRC. They can only do so in so far as they can make the inputs for R and D work, pure and applied, which for one reason or another they cannot undertake domestically.

In order to pave the way for improved co-ordination and to assist the identification of appropriate R and D work for the JRC, Member States should urgently draw up a budgetary classification for R and D. This is of the greatest importance: we need to know the extent of duplication, triplication and quadruplication that exists at the moment. This would greatly assist the control process by Parliaments, both national and European. I believe that it would be a cost-effective decision if Member States would but take it. I should like to ask the Government whether they would consider that seriously. For example, how much of the £655 million spent by Her Majesty's Government on non-defence R and D in 1975–76 was repeated in other Member States? If it is possible to find those figures, they would be very useful.

Now I come to forecasting and assessment, in which the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, is interested. I know that the Commission very much appreciated the work of the Europe — 30 project under his leadership. The Commission felt that their recommendations constituted a valuable, if perhaps somewhat optimistic, blueprint for the future. However, in the light of the economic and social climate prevailing in our society today, and taking into account the existence of several separate projects of a long-term nature, which the noble Lord probably knows about—the energy modelling programme, the Dublin Institute for the improvement of living and working conditions and the Berlin Vocational Training Institute—the Commission, quite rightly, thought it advisable to postpone the problem of whether or not to follow the totality of the proposals of the noble Lord and his highly distinguished Committee. They did, none the less, agree that it was desirable to gather in the meantime more specific experience in the area of forecasting and assessment, and therefore they produced the FAST programme. How "fast" it will get under way, I do not know. But personally, like the noble Lords, Lord Ashby, and Lord Kennet, I do not think it should be rejected altogether.

Just to refer once again to the report on the multi-annual JRC programme, I recognise only too well that the JRC has had difficulties. But after these difficulties—certainly not all attributable to the JRC or to the Commission itself—the situation has shown considerable improvement under the new management. On the role of the Advisory Committees on Programme Management, the ACPMs, I would say this: the Commission has, I know, taken into account the criticism of the Select Committee about the imbalance in the attention paid by these Committees to direct and indirect actions. That is good.

As time is getting short, my Lords, I will conclude by saying this: If the Community is to establish conditions for a political, cultural and moral renaissance in Europe, then the conditions in which scientific and technological frontiers are pushed back must be established and supported. Scientists and technologists have a great role to play in this. I know that science and technology is not bounded by the frontiers of Europe, nor even by the world itself; but Europe has a part to play here, and as there are a number of committed Europeans here, I am sure that they will agree. To this end, there might be merit in establishing a European university for science and technology, perhaps based at Ispra on the JRC, starting on the model of the European University at Florence. Industry might be invited to fund the creation of professional chairs; Parliamentarians, too, should find the means and the method to regenerate the JRC so that they do not become a dustbin for the less spectacular items of research. New industries will, during the coming centuries, grow out of new technologies. It is my hope that the JRC may find their role either in giving birth to these new technologies or in the development of their application.

There is also a need for a working interface between the European Space Agency and the European Commission, a subject which I have gone into. For instance, the Community might fund an air traffic control satellite, or radio and television re-transmission satellites for the Lomé Convention States, as part of the development and co-operation programme. I believe that the Community should be a Council member of the European Space Agency. I think that the Community would gain expertise, too, from learning the project management skills of the ESA which are considerable and have been noted in the report.

In conclusion, I would judge that the Commission is already implementing some of the recommendations of the report and remedying some of the criticisms voiced in it. This should reduce the causes of scepticism which, to my mind, still appear to surface in the report. I was certainly very sceptical myself of the JRC during the first two years out of the last five, on joining the Community; but I think that under new direction there has been this improvement and I believe that we in Europe should do everything possible to support not only indirect action and concerted research but also direct action, and do it as effectively as possible.

I hope that, so far as co-ordination is concerned, at Culham Britain may make the lead in the most important long-term research on fusion on which the Community is engaged. I hope that we shall take the lead in other disciplines, too, and in other multinational research establishments, as we do in CERN. I certainly think that all noble "apes" so far, and all noble Lords present this evening, have made valuable contributions towards improving the work of the Community in science and technology; but, as other noble Lords have said, we need the political will and the political authority to implement our more important aims.

6.31 p.m.

Lord HINTON of BANKSIDE

My Lords, late speakers in a debate of this sort are always faced with the problem of knowing how much to what they intended to say they should leave out because their points have been made already, and probably better made, by earlier speakers. But I think it is appropriate for me to remind your Lordships that over the last several years we have received a whole sequence of EEC reports on proposed policies for the coordination of science and technology. Not all those reports have been consistent in the proposals they made and, indeed, the only consistency one finds in them is that they clearly show that in many areas it cannot be claimed that there is a Community policy for research and development.

It was one of those reports which alerted your Sub-Committee to the fact that it was proposed to publish still another report at the beginning of 1977, and it was in the hope that we could quickly respond to that report that the Committee chaired by the noble Earl, Lord Lauderdale, started work at the end of 1976. Unfortunately, the report was not available until the late summer of 1977; if it has been in our hands at the time when we were holding our meeting I think that perhaps we might have taken a slightly different, though perhaps not very different, line in our investigations.

I hope I shall not weary your Lordships if I review very briefly the history of research in the EEC. One of the parents of the Community was the European Steel and Coal Commission. The Treaty establishing the ESCC entitled that organisation to carry out a concerted research and development programme. Your Sub-Committee knows very little about the collaborative research on iron and steel although it happens that I, as an individual, do know that there is reasonably close collaboration except in the field of new alloy steels, where competitive research is natural and desirable. Your Committee is only now starting to learn something about research on coal, but there again, from other work that I do, I know there is good collaboration.

The other parent, besides the ESCC, of the Community was Euratom; and Euratom also had power to do research. It brought into the EEC the ill-fated Ispra, about which there has been so much talk that I intend to say nothing, except that distinguished scientists for whom I have great respect are trying to salvage the sinking ship, and I can only wish them good luck in doing that. However, as we look back we find that collaborative arrangements for research and development have, according to my information, been successful in the large and important areas of iron, steel and coal, but not in nuclear power; and although the iron, steel and coal industries are large and important I think we should remember that those industries represent less than 10 per cent. of the Community's trade.

It was only, I believe, after some hesitation that the EEC decided that it was entitled to do research work in a wider field, and I think it is worth while looking at the research work which it has done following that decision. It seems to me that what I like to call "curiosity-oriented research "—other people call it "basic", "fundamental" or "pure", but I shall not waste time on semantics—is being well looked after by the European Science Foundation under the chairmanship of Sir Brian Flowers. So far as we know—we can only judge from verbal evidence given to your Sub-Committee—the European Space Agency is working extremely well and the Community organisation which co-ordinates work in the medical field is also satisfactory. I do not know whether it is fair for me to judge the research work done in the more general fields such as the environment. Some of the draft directives that are examined by Sub-Committee "G" suggest that any research which is done on the environment has been purist rather than practical.

What I want to do is to move on and speak about industrial research and development work outside the areas covered by the old ESCC. But, before I do that, may I associate myself with what the noble Lord, Lord Ashby, said about Europe + 30. It is, I think, a pity that Europe + 30 was not a little shorter, but if one distilled the essence from that report, that essence was valuable and I do not think it should be lost. I have yet to be convinced that FAST does exactly what was envisaged in Europe + 30. However, you have already heard a great deal about Europe + 30; so let me get back to general research and development in the industrial field. It is clear from their own document that the Commission themselves are unhappy about this, and, indeed, what is there for them to be happy about? All they have to show, so far as I can see, is research on projects concerning the rather shabby subjects of textiles and shoes. Are those ailing industries the stuff on which Europe's industrial future depends? It is here that my real worry starts. How can you have a general industrial research programme without having a general industrial policy?

Whether one likes it or not, the EEC is a confederation of nations and it has declared that it has no industrial policy. I am an engineer and no more than an amateur historian, but what little I know about history suggests to me that confederations of nations have been held together in the past only in one of three ways. The first is by force of arms; the second is when confederation gives safety in defence, and the third, as with the Hanseatic League, is when confederation gives commercial and industrial strength.

In the case of the EEC, the first of these three alternatives is unthinkable. The second alternative would be fatuous, because NATO overlies countries which, individually, are greater than any of those in the EEC. So we are left only with the third alternative, and I suggest that the EEC can be held together only if it gives industrial strength to Europe.

It was Hegel who said: What experience and history teach us is this—that people and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it. If we fail to develop a well co-ordinated industrial policy for the EEC, are we proving that Hegel is still as right today as he was 170 years ago when he wrote those words? If we do learn the lesson which I think history teaches us, and if we do develop a well co-ordinated industrial policy for the Community, there will be no difficulty in evolving an industrial research programme to support it. If we do not learn from history, then it seems to me that it might be wisest to drop all attempts to do or to sponsor general industrial research in the Community.

I have already said that I am an engineer and not a historian. I am certainly not a politician, and the last thing I would wish is to enter the political field. I have from the outset been an advocate and a supporter of the Community, but I am sad to have to confess that I am forced to think that, unless the Community—that is the Governments of the Member States—can sink whatever interests divide them and develop a Community industrial policy, then the Community will in the long run collapse.

6.44 p.m.

The Earl of LAUDERDALE

My Lords, the House will be greatly indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman, for being good enough to open this debate and perhaps 1, as chairman of the Committee on which he served, can say how indebted we are as a Committee for his opening of the debate, as also for his service on it. I should, as chairman, also like to record my own thanks to the Committee members who worked so hard; to the secretariat who were confronted with difficulties exceptional in this case, and not generally known to your Lordships' House; to witnesses of great standing and eminence, and indeed, also, to Dr. Schuster. The noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman, was good enough to say a word or two about my chairmanship. I can only say that most of the time I could not understand what was happening: O rather give me commentators plain, Who with no deep researches vex the brain, Who from the dark and doubtful lose to run, And hold their glimmering tapers to the sun". It is a great disappointment to all of your Lordships that one member of our Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Ironside, cannot be here tonight. He suffered severely in a nasty motor accident some weeks ago, but I am happy to be able to tell your Lordships that I have just had a message from Lady Ironside saying that he is considerably better and it is now only a matter of time. All of your Lordships will wish him a quick recovery and early return. We very much miss, particularly, his contributions in the area of computers—and may I say that he has a brain just like a computer—and his contributions on the technical level. I also know—and I have words to this effect—that one other member of our Committee—namely, the noble Lord, Lord Bowden—hoped to be able to stay long enough to join in, but he has had to go away. Another attender of our Committee, His Grace the Duke of Argyll, who is valiant for truth with us, but cannot come as often as he would like, has sent a special message to say that he was sorry that he, too, could not be with us today.

Perhaps it will be for the convenience of the House and, I hope, a proper courtesy to the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, if I say just a word or two about some of his very moderate and very modest remarks on a work to which I believe he gave some three years of his life. In the chair, when he was good enough to give us evidence, I consider that I did push him harder than I should have done, or harder than was strictly courteous from the chair. I have told him that privately, and I think it is well that I should say it also to your Lordships' House. I may say that he played with a straight bat throughout and it did not seem to worry him a bit, but I felt afterwards that I had, as chairman, not been altogether fair.

However, I think that one must correct the record in one or two respects. Our report does refer to Europe + 30 in the earlier part, and the references are paragraphs 41, 86 and 87. I think he felt slightly aggrieved that, among those noble Lords who were present when he gave evidence, there was none who could put his hand on his heart and say that he had himself read his kilogram of paper which had not been published, but which by devious means did become available. The fact is that we got hold of copies of the full report. Two of our number read it from cover to cover, and I believe that one read it twice over. Our questioning of the noble Lord was based on questions posed by their reading of it. Several other noble Lords had read his book. As a Committee, we had to interpret his evidence as best we could and, I may add, draft our report while he was largely abroad on other matters. It is only fair to add that he did have the opportunity of vetting the text on points of fact, on his return.

The noble Lord has taken me up, and so has my noble friend Lord Bessborough, on the word "colonise". I put the word "colonise" into the first draft and, when others wiser than myself added inverted commas, I struck them out. What I mean by "colonise" is empire-building. I thought that the analogy was fairly close. I had in mind a preference on the Commission's part to push for direct action type of operations such as ISPRA rather than the kind of operations which are concerted or co-ordinated.

I was also asked by the noble Earl, Lord Bessborough, why we did not examine witnesses from the other EEC countries. The reason was time. Once the Commission's updated document became available, we were assured that the matter would come before the Council last December. Therefore we had a very serious rush to get out our report and there was not time to take further evidence.

Having, I hope, made a profound genuflection toward the noble Lords who raised these points, may I say that I, too, count myself a committed European. But just as some are High Church and some are Low Church, may I say that in this context I reckon myself to be a Low Churchman. However, like a Low Churchman once said in reference to my "High Churchery", he was not so flat as a Dover sole. I have never been anti-European, although I have criticised, and still do in certain respects, the concept of the Community as we know it. However, as an ecumenist I try to seek common ground, and we have the common ground that we all seek a world role for the Community. That is one objective that is common to us all. As the noble Lord, Lord Hinton of Bankside, made very clear in his powerful speech, industry is the key to strength. I would say, perhaps differently, that knowledge is itself power indeed, but that if knowledge makes one laugh, wealth makes one dance.

The issues with regard to science and technology relate ultimately to wealth and power but immediately they relate to brain. Of this high road to power we said in the Tenth Report of the 1976–77 Session that because the Council has no agreed policy against which to test Commission proposals it tends to react by trading this national interest against that, of which the squalid negotiation over JET was a vivid example. Of this high road to power, we now say that the Commission's main difficulty is the lack of political will in the Council which seldom does more than invite the Commission to submit yet more vague proposals. If the Council be at fault, as we declare, then we must locate the trouble. Apart from its political divergencies, the Council depends on CREST, and CREST can be no better than its members. So the first message that I should like to add to those which have already been spread abroad this evening is this one, to the members of the Council: it is that they should send their top men to CREST and not their second- or third-raters.

Then, apart from the quality of CREST, no science or technology policy can do more than reflect the interplay of national preferences within a framework of Une Europe des Patries. There is a vertical conciliar division here between the Big Three who want the limited funds to be disposed to best advantage and the smaller Six who want as much money to be spent as possible. Additionally, there is also a now traditional divergence of view between the Commission as champion and guardian of the Treaties and, therefore, of a Europe of fixed objectives, on the one hand, and the Council members who might be described as having a taste for Europe à la carte, on the other. This is reflected in a tug of war over funds, as we have seen, between the colonising operation of direct action and the coordination work of indirect and concerted action. In the report, therefore, we are forced to say at paragraph 152 that as much research and development as possible should be done by existing national laboratories, albeit with co-ordination from the Commission. Secondly, in paragraph 125 we say that the best concerted action programmes are those with the least help from the Commission.

After all this, is there a role for the EEC in research and development after all? I believe that several facts now stand out. The EEC offers a useful legal and financial framework for co-ordinating national efforts. It also offers an administrative machine and a useful focus for the European dimension in research and development. There seem to be two schools of thought regarding this, but both of them accept it. There are the advocates of the so-called European scientific community on the one hand, and the advocates of a European spirit in science and technology on the other. Those devotees of the European scientific community, who seek a structure where less common skills can be pooled at centres of excellence and who also seek a court of appeal on questions of unfashionable research, find that CREST is very much more useful than, for example, UNESCO or the World Health Organisation.

Questions 364 to 369 refer to that belief. Those who believe in the European spirit in science and technology, who want to get the right organisations set up for particular tasks, such as the European Space Agency and the European Science Foundation, find that CREST is an excellent club, a most useful kind of talking shop. So without doubt there is a use for the EEC in relation to research, provided, however, as I re-read our report, that the Commission does not try to hog it all by direct action programmes and also by excluding non-Members, and provided, too, that Council members will "beef-up" CREST with the best people and then, on their advice, provided that the Council takes some serious political decisions.

The noble Lord, Lord Hinton of Bankside, drew attention to a fundamental need in the Council of a serious, concerted approach to industrial problems as the basis for world influence for the Community. He said that textiles end shoe leather do not really inspire the imagination; at any rate, they hardly make it boggle in the way that steel, shipbuilding and energy do.

With regard to energy, the Council still has not grasped the nettle. It still does not know how it is going to get the Community to reduce its dependence on imported energy. It has not yet decided to recommend that coal be given anything like the importance given to nuclear power. In one of many pregnant phrases, the noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman, remarked that today science is the biggest transforming factor in our society. Surely it is the ingredient of science as the kernel of power tomorrow that we are looking at here. And so much depends upon the President himself.

Perhaps noble Lords do not appreciate how important is the President of the Commission. He is much more important than he sounds or than one would gather from meeting his modest person. So much depends upon him and the leadership that he gives that surely in regard to science and technology he needs better advice than the Commission is now fitted to give him—this so that it may be said of him: Turn him to any cause of policy The gordian knot in it he will unloose. We are looking forward to hearing in the winding-up speech what is the Government's attitude to all this. When will the Council debate the matter? Having done so, will the Government come to this House and tell us the next day in full what has happened? I am one of a number of your Lordships who are increasingly restless because the usual channels tend to get these Council Statements fobbed off in another place on a Monday and not repeated here at all, or, if they are, they are in such a condensed form as to be highly uninformative. We would like to hear from the Government tonight that when the Council does debate the matter—and we want to know when that is going to happen—we will be told in this House next day what has happened, or for that matter if nothing has happened.

Then, we look forward to hearing what is the Commission's view. Of course, the Commission, ably chased, at our instance, by a Member of another place, has down on the Order Paper of the European Parliament for 14th February this Question: Has the Commission studied the report from the British House of Lords Select Committee on the European Communities, entitled, Research and Development in the EEC, published on 18th January 1978; does it accept the criticism contained in the report, and, if so, what action does it intend to take?". In case the news has not reached your Lordships, I think it is only fair to say that that Question has been put down by Mr. Willie Hamilton. We look forward to hearing the Commission's answer in due course, for knowledge, my Lords, is indeed power.

7.2 p.m.

Lord McCLUSKEY

My Lords, may I first of all join with what has been said by so many other noble Lords in the course of this debate and thank the Committee for this report—indeed both reports on both documents. Not much has been said about the first report, but it, like the second, is comprehensive and lucid, and I should like to pay tribute to the members of the Committee. I should like also to thank the noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman, for giving us this opportunity to consider a field which rarely receives attention. In response to him, may I say that the Government do indeed welcome open and informed debate upon all the matters covered by these reports. I am certainly delighted, but not at all surprised, that the opportunity has been taken in this House with such considerable distinction. The noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman, in paying tribute to those who had assisted the Committee, did not in fact mention British civil servants, but I am sure that that was an omission which he will repair. In reading the evidence, as noble Lords will have done, it is clear that they gave the Committee very considerable assistance indeed. I see noble Lords nodding their agreement.

The Commission's document R/1659/77, if I may refer to it shortly—that is the document which is the subject of the red report—is indeed an interesting one, and the Government welcome the stimulus it has given to wide-ranging discussion. I hope that, in response to what the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, said, and to what the noble Earl, Lord Lauderdale, said, I can explain the Government view, not just in relation to what has been said in the debate this afternoon and this evening but also in response to what has appeared and been highlighted in the report. I hope that in that respect I can satisfy even the committed Europeans of whatever denomination, even those who in these terms are something of free-Presbyterians.

The Committee, and some of your Lordships who have spoken in this debate, are concerned with what the Community as such has to offer in the field of international scientific collaboration. Whatever else may be possible or desirable, I would agree particularly with what the noble Earl has just said. The Community can make two important contributions: first, through the treaties, it provides a legal and financial framework for research in support of its objectives; and second, through the Commission, it furnishes a permanent administrative machinery for initiating and supporting co-operation in research projects. These contributions can surely help to bring suitable projects to fruition.

I acknowledge, of course, that these are essentially pragmatic reasons for welcoming Community involvement; I do not suggest that they stem from some imperative in its status or constitution. Accordingly, as noble Lords have acknowledged, a Community policy for science and technology in general is a matter of choice, and must be judged useful to the extent that it helps the agreed objectives of the Community to be attained, to the extent that it enables Member States to deploy their scientific resources to greater effect, fills significant gaps in national programmes, and takes fully into account the activities of other international bodies.

We have heard of some of the practical shortcomings of the Community's involvement hitherto in research and development. I think the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, used the word "unproductive". The noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, spoke of not raking over the mistakes of the past. But it would do the Community less than justice if I did not seek to redress these criticisms and perhaps redress the balance a little. It is not altogether surprising in the light of the modest relative size of its budget, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman, that the Community research and development may seem unimportant to some scientists of international eminence, especially when one remembers that such eminence is often won by contributions to basic or pure rather than applied research.

I want particularly to qualify the Committee's assertion that the Commission has no means (and I am quoting) of judging to what extent the Council is likely to approve or act upon policy proposals. In fact, Member States can and do advise the Commission, through its consultative machinery, including CREST, very ably assisted by its sub-committees, and in some sectors, though I am bound to say not in all, the Commission regularly formulates research and development proposals that the Council is able to approve without difficulty. The Advisory Committees on Programme Management, which I shall come to later, can also play a useful role in advising on new proposals, and the Government are generally satisfied with this aspect of their performance.

Again, Community programmes also serve to bring together responsible officials from the Member States in a constructive climate, out of which can grow the pragmatic kind of co-ordination that our Committee wisely distinguishes from "colonisation", to use the noble Earl's word. I have in mind the development in this way, and sector by sector, of an overview of research within the Nine Member States, which we, like other Governments, can use as a tool to help us in distributing our own national resources most effectively. This could prove beneficial and need not result in any lessening of the control of Member States over their own national programmes.

The noble Earl, Lord Bessborough, asked whether I would be in a position to give some indication of figures about the duplication of research and development. Of course, I cannot do that; I think it would be impossible to do so, because it involves difficulties of definition, of disclosure and of evaluation.

The Government certainly welcome the Commission's recognition of the importance of wide collaboration. Since 1971, as the report makes clear, the 19 or so European States drawn together, at Community initiative, into the organisation known as COST have set an example of flexible and effective co-operation. The Committee describes COST in paragraphs 29 to 34. The Government look forward to the further development of this forum and acknowledge the Community's support of it. It is particularly heartening that concerted action, used so successfully within COST, is now being taken up by the Community itself, though I fear some possible loss of flexibility.

In that context I should perhaps reply to the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, who spoke of the seven joint projects. I think perhaps what he had in mind was that there are 19 COST projects, so far divided among seven main subject areas. But I do not think this is the occasion to go into the COST projects in any detail. If he would like to write to me, I would be happy to reply to him.

Several witnesses before the Committee saw room for what has been described in paragraph 104, and mentioned again tonight, as the European Scientific Community. I am not absolutely clear as to precisely what the witnesses there had in mind, but at the very least this concept seems to reflect recognition of a need, in some fields at least, for a joint approach and this the Government are sure is right. However, I go further and say that in a number of areas of applied research the Community is, in fact, well placed to provide the necessary framework. In others, however, it is not. And I am surely on firm ground in suggesting that the successful development of a Community science and technology policy depends crucially on making wise choices of the fields for common action. I agree with the Committee that the Commission's criteria for the selection of new projects are not the best and soundest basis for such decisions. They seem to the Government to be rather too broad-brush to focus choice effectively.

This brings me properly, I think, to the way in which the Commission, on behalf of the Community, manages research and development; the way in which it seeks advice in formulating new proposals, and the way in which it uses and disseminates the results of its work. These are matters that lie at the very heart of Community activity and by their success or failure influence national attitudes.

Responsibility for the management of projects lies clearly with the Commission, but a vital part is played by bodies such as Advisory Committees on Programme Management (ACPM). Our Committee has, in paragraph 141, drawn attention to several criticisms of these ACPMs; it also discusses some improvements which have been made. The Government consider that in some areas these have, in fact, done a good job, though I do not believe that anybody is satisfied with the Community's performance so far in the dissemination of the results of its research, and in their guidelines the Commission draw attention to the need for improvement. The Government accordingly welcome this recognition of a problem, and look forward to an early Commission initiative on it.

Another criticism which was made in the report, although it has not been mentioned in the course of the debate, is the relatively low representation of industry among ACPM members, both generally and from the United Kingdom in particular. But as our Committee has pointed out, the closer Community research and development comes to the immediate innovative and commercial interests of industry, the greater become the practical difficulties. So a balance has to be struck. If Members of the House want perhaps a fuller answer in relation to this point, I would refer them to the first of these reports—the 10th Report, No. 46—where the fuller answer is given on page 23 in the course of the evidence.

It is essential that British industry should play its part in guiding Community research and development, and ACPM membership is one of many ways in which it can do this. Another way, for example, is through the advice which the Government receive on proposed Community programmes from the Department of Industry's Research and Development Requirements Boards which are, of course, largely composed of industralists. Membership of ACPMs continually changes and the claims of industry are always an important factor when the Government nominate new United Kingdom members.

May I mention another aspect which the Government consider to be of real importance. Evidence was given by the European Space Agency. That evidence properly draws attention to the importance of an "end-user" for the results of new research. This is a principle underlying the Government's approach to their own research and development and is equally relevant to the Community. In part, this is a re-statement of the importance of dissemination, but it is more than that. For the Government are firmly of the view that applied research—and the emphasis is on "applied"—should not be undertaken unless it can be foreseen, with reasonable certainty, that it will yield results, results that can, and will, be applied in a manner consonant with economic or other policy objectives. This important criterion is, I regret, missing from the Commission's list.

Another area that has caused some concern is the manner in which the Commission secures specialist advice while it is framing proposals for new work. Of course it is the Commission's prerogative to seek advice from whom it will and so draw upon a wide and representative spectrum of views. However, among the sources of advice are CREST and its valuable sub-committees which, with less than four years' work behind them, have surely made a useful start. The Government look forward to a further strengthening of the dialogue—again to use a European word—between CREST and the Commission as the common policy is consolidated and refined.

The noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman, made mention of a matter which was discussed in the report in paragraph 168; that is, the suggestion that the Office of President of the Commission should be strengthened by a new high-level source of advice on research and development matters. But the House should know and understand that, as well as its own permanent staff, among whom there are many experts, the Commission already has access to the advice of distinguished and independent experts through the 19 members of the European Committee for Research and Development, and the Government are not persuaded that additional arrangements of the kind discussed in the report would be of clear advantage.

The Committee has very properly drawn conclusions about the three draft Council Instruments put forward by the Commission and which form the subject matter of the reports. The Government have, of course, given these Instruments careful consideration and their conclusions differ in some respects from those of the Committee of the House.

I should make clear what is the Government's view. First, the guidelines are an interesting and also very detailed compilation. But to approve them would imply more than a general recognition of their value in broad terms. The Government wish to contribute in a positive way—I am responding to what the noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman, said. The Government want to be positive, but on the other hand they have a duty to try to say responsibly what they really think. They think that the Commission's approach here is insufficiently selective and unlikely to focus action effectively on a sensibly limited number of goals. Accordingly, the Government do not see it as being in the true interests of Community science and technology.

Lord O'HAGAN

My Lords, may I interrupt the noble and learned Lord, Lord McCluskey, on that point? I am not clear about the Government's attitude to these guidelines when these matters are discussed in the Council. Do they seek to amend them or project them?

Lord McCLUSKEY

My Lords, the Government take the attitude that these guidelines should not be approved. Approval of the guidelines would, in the Government's view, simply be going too far.

The Earl of LAUDERDALE

My Lords, will the noble and learned Lord, Lord McCluskey, indicate the kind of areas on which the Government think the guidelines might focus with advantage?

Lord McCLUSKEY

My Lords, the noble Earl, Lord Lauderdale, will appreciate that the guidelines are extremely detailed and cover some pages in the document. I do not think that I could give him a satisfactory reply in detail at this stage in the debate.

Lord ZUCKERMAN

My Lords, in view of the answer of the noble and learned Lord, Lord McCluskey, I shall not put my question because I, too, was going to ask for a detailed explanation of what in these guidelines is so—dare use the word?—" objectionable "that they need to be rejected out of hand by the Government.

Lord McCLUSKEY

My Lords, I can only repeat what I said—that the compilation is extremely detailed. One can say only that they have value in broad terms, but one does not want to give them the stamp of approval.

The Earl of BESSBOROUGH

My Lords, I should like to ask the noble and learned Lord, Lord McCluskey, whether he realises—this is perhaps a legal point which he will appreciate and which is not always appreciated by all noble Lords—that the Council does not in Fact ever reject Commission proposals. It refers them back to the Commission. Therefore, I hope that it will only be a question of it saying to the Commission: "Perhaps you might make these revisions here or there". However, I must say that the way in which the noble and learned Lord, Lord McCluskey, stated the Government's view was certainly distressing, especially in view of the Committee's own recommendation in that respect.

Lord McCLUSKEY

My Lords, I am sorry if the noble Earl, Lord Bessborough, finds it distressing. I think that it would be wrong for me at this stage to attempt to elaborate on it further. My words were carefully chosen and I think that I must allow them to stand.

The Earl of LAUDERDALE

My Lords, granted that at this stage we have bowled rather a fast ball at the noble and learned Lord—and this commonly happens in the last stages of a debate and at this time of night—sometimes the Government spokesman undertakes to write to Members who have raised a matter. Perhaps it would be possible for the noble and learned Lord in a week or two to write to those of us who have shown an interest in or who have spoken in the debate, stating more clearly the Government's view on the matter, without of course disclosing the Government's negotiating hand?

Lord McCLUSKEY

My Lords, I shall not make a promise, but I shall certainly consider that proposal very favourably and hope to be able to write to noble Lords who have expressed an interest, including the noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman, who kindly did not press me further.

One other initiative mentioned in the report and document is the Commission's proposal to aid smaller firms which are keen to collaborate in research and development across national frontiers. That is regarded as a most interesting initiative. But, like the Committee itself, the Government feel that the Commission's ideas are not yet sufficiently developed. It seems better to begin with an experimental approach, making use of existing research programmes to try out ways and means of providing the kind of assistance that the Commission have in mind.

I shall deal in a moment with forecasting, but at this stage I should perhaps deal with a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, and repeated by the noble Earl, Lord Lauderdale. I was asked whether I could say when decisions would be taken on these matters. I cannot say with any accuracy. A Research Council meeting has to be fixed. The date may be chosen by the Danish Government within the next six months, and accordingly it may be in May of this year. Alternatively, if not then, it would be likely to be in November when the Germans have the Presidency. So noble Lords can be reasonably sure that there will be advance notice that this matter is to be discussed. No doubt the noble Earl could table a Question when he knows that the Research Council is to meet; I should be delighted to supply him with the results of it.

On the matter of forecasting, I do not want to follow noble Lords into any rather long debate upon the matter of Europe + 30. That does not, in fact, form the subject matter of the EEC documents that we are discussing. On FAST the Government's attitude was stated by my noble friend in this House on 29th November 1977 and I do not want to say anything further in response to the debate. However, I would acknowledge that the noble Lord, Lord Ashby, and others, including my noble friend Lord Kennet, have seen some value in the proposal for FAST, although they are cautious. The Government take very much the same view and regard this as a worthwhile operation on a fairly small scale. Both the United Kingdom and others will be reviewing its value in the light of how it does its work. Any decision about some possible extension will depend upon the appraisals made.

I do not want to deal in any detail with the Joint Research Centre, but it was mentioned in the debate and it forms the subject of the earlier report to which I have referred. At the time that the first report was published the proposal for a new programme had not been adopted and the decisions had yet to be taken. But the programme was, in fact, agreed in June 1977, and agreement has been reached. That agreement is one which has regard to the extent of the JRC's involvement in research on thermo-nuclear fusion and also to other Community activity in the field, including the very important JET project, which, again, has been mentioned.

The new programme, as has been pointed out, continues the trend towards diversification which started—and, indeed, which perhaps had to start—with the first four-year programme. I do not think that I need take up your Lordships' time on that because it has been mentioned by noble Lords in the course of the debate. The Committee points out and we acknowledge that there have been improvements in the administrative arrangements at the JRC, and the engagement of research staff on fixed-term contracts and other measures should lead to greater staff mobility in the future. Indeed, there is no doubt that the Commission have made significant efforts in recent years to improve the management of the JRC. But, again, these are well-known to those who read the report and to your Lordships, and I need not detail them further.

I should perhaps say that, in fact, the negotiations resulted in some changes in the programme which was before your Lordships when this matter was considered. The financial ceiling for the programme was reduced and I believe that the figures are known. The staff totals are also to be reduced and all individual programme costs have been reduced with the exception of that on thermo-nuclear fusion technology, where the relatively minor early programme has been expanded.

It has been the United Kingdom objective in the negotiations to which I have referred that the programme of work should be as relevant as possible to the JRC's central Community role, that it should represent value for money and that there should be adequate provision for Member States to monitor progress as programmes proceed. It is also important for the JRC to identify areas of work which do not duplicate work already in progress in other research establishments. Of course, different States have different requirements for research. As has been said, some of the smaller Community countries with less extensive research facilities of their own may place a greater emphasis upon the JRC than does the United Kingdom, or indeed the other large Members of the Community. In the circumstances agreement is not easy. However, it is the Government's view that the new programme as finally agreed represents a realistic and satisfactory result which, with the improved management and reporting arrangements, should help to establish a better future for the JRC.

The noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, was kind enough to give me notice of his intention to ask about the international collaboration. He referred me to a Written Answer by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science in Hansard of the other place on 3rd February 1978, at column 348. The international collaboration referred to there in the first two instances—that is to say, in relation to the particle physics accelerator at Daresbury and the accelerator at the Rutherford Laboratory—is collaboration through CERN, the Geneva-based body. In relation to the Skylark rocket programme, that is a reference to international collaboration between the British, the Germans and three Scandinavian countries in the European Incoherent Scatter Project. The words, "Incoherent Scatter" have a deep significance for me as I look at some of the terms used in the report.

The other matter that the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, mentioned specifically was the whole concept of intellectual property. The Government will certainly study with care the observations which he made. They are certainly very pertinent matters which must be clarified before significant progress can be made in one particular field of research and development. In concluding, may I repeat my thanks both to the Committee and to all those who have taken part in the debate. This House invariably brings great distinction to debates of this kind and today has been no exception.

Lord O'HAGAN

My Lords, once again, with regard to the guidelines, may I ask the noble and learned Lord to consider his previous answer, or non-answer, to my noble friend Lord Lauderdale? On 12th September last year the Government issued a memorandum about the proposal, including the guidelines, in which they said at paragraph 5: There are no new policy implications in the Commission's proposals for co-ordination since the underlying principle was accepted in The Council Resolution on 14th January 1974". Unless I have the wrong reference, surely that represents a change in the Government's attitude to these guidelines? Can the noble Lord clarify the Government's attitude to the guidelines?

Lord McCLUSKEY

My Lords, the noble Lord has certainly got the right reference and I shall be delighted to include him as one of those who receive a letter from me.

Lord O'HAGAN

My Lords, may I have it in the form of an Answer to a Written Question, because it should be on the record?

Lord McCLUSKEY

My Lords, if the noble Lord will put down a Question, I shall be glad to give the information in the form of a Written Answer.

7.30 p.m.

Lord ZUCKERMAN

My Lords, the debate this afternoon has indicated quite plainly that interest in the subject of the organisation of scientific activity has certainly continued in your Lordships' House. It has not been dissipated, even though the attendance, quite naturally, at this hour is slightly less than it was at the beginning of the day. I do not want, and obviously cannot at this late hour, to go over the main points that have been given. I should like, particularly in the light of the indications of Her Majesty's Government's attitude to the main recommendation and the first directive, but not the last directive, just to indicate certain general points which perhaps have not been made before. The words "European Scientific Community" have been mentioned. Since the war we have chalked up many victories which have brought the conception of a European Scientific Community much closer to reality than it ever was in the 'twenties or 'thirties when I was a young scientist. CERN, the research activities in the iron and steel organisation and the European Space Agency have all done a great deal to bring about some cohesion, some sense of political identity between scientists of different countries of Europe and particularly the Common Market—much more, if I may say so, than have the national academies founded in past centuries. This is something I must stress from part of the evidence that was given to indicate what can be done by the Community.

When I was cross-examining Sir John Gray, then Secretary of the Medical Research Council, I asked him whether he had been talking before about the useful co-operation that had been going on in recent years between the Medical Research Council and the Continent. I said, Was nothing achieved between 1968 [when this sort of co-operation started] and 1972 when the EEC Committee was set up? His answer was, "Of course things have happened before." I then asked him if the progress since 1972 had been greater than it would have been if there had been no EEC behind the bush. In the light of our national attitudes, his answer is a revelation. He said, I would also like to state my faith, put it that way, that by doing what we have done within a quite specific political framework we have laid the foundations of what could be a tighter scientific community within the nine than would ever have been possible under WHO or one of these bodies". I asked him finally, "Where did the initiative come from in order to start this new body, from the medical research committees?". He said, "No, it came from Brussels".

My Lords, I have no doubt at all that what my noble friend Lord Bessborough said about the leadership which could be taken up by the Community in this field, is real. I have no doubt whatever that if we spoke with a Community voice, as opposed to a "big brother" voice, we would be doing more good than I, with my past mistakes, have done. I have missed opportunities. When, as chief scientific adviser, I was responsible for bringing about scientific co-operation within a political framework we lost the boat time and again, and I am nervous lest by any lukewarm response now Her Majesty's Government will perhaps lose another boat. I think we should help take a lead here. We should not behave like one of the countries to which I referred before, where it is believed that everything should be done by ourselves with our own muscle; that we do not need any help. There is duplication. It will be years before the different countries of the European Economic Community give up their road research laboratories, their pure water laboratories. We are all the same human beings; we get killed the same way on the roads. But we all have to do that kind of work separately. Why, I do not know. It is the sort of field where we could get together.

My Lords, I will say no more except to thank your Lordships for the attention you have given in this debate. I have learned a great deal from all the contributions and I sincerely trust that the matters will be debated again. I look forward to getting some further information.

On Question, Motion agreed to.