Lords Sitting of 18 May 1978

Preamble
The House met at three of the clock (Prayers having been read earlier at the Judicial Sitting by the Lord Bishop of Peterborough):
The LORD CHANCELLOR The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
The Lord Chorley The Lord Chorley—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his father.

TAXATION: PERSONAL INQUIRIES
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNESIDE: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will ask the Inland Revenue to refrain from questioning husbands about the tax liability of their wives; and to address queries about taxation liability directly to the taxpayer concerned whether husband or wife.
The PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY of STATE, DEPARTMENT of the ENVIRONMENT (Baroness Birk): My Lords, since at present a husband is legally responsible for his wife's tax affairs, inquiries about the couple's liability are normally sent to him. However, the Inland Revenue have recently instructed their offices to reply direct to a married woman about her tax affairs. If, exceptionally, the matter raised involves her husband's tax and can be resolved only by writing to him, tax offices have been asked to write to the wife explaining this.
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNESIDE: My Lords, while thanking the noble Baroness for an Answer which I really could not hear because I think there is something wrong with the amplification system, may I say that I hope I received a satisfactory Answer. If not, I shall have to raise the Question again. At any rate, I shall read it in Hansard tomorrow and
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I am sure I cannot do more than that. I thank her and I hope that I have had an effective and good Answer.

MEDICAL INSPECTION OF SCHOOL CHILDREN
3.2 p.m.
The Earl of SWINTON: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government when they intend to introduce compulsory medical inspection for school children as recommended by the Court Committee.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, the comments which we have received on the Court Report did not suggest that there would be universal support for the introduction of new powers for the compulsory medical examination of school children. The Government will reach decisions in the light of consultations now in progress.
The Earl of SWINTON: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for that reply, may I ask whether he is aware that in certain parts of the country there is increasing anxiety among school medical officers at the number of parents who are opting out of this routine medical inspection? I should also like to ask whether the noble Lord thinks it is highly likely that the children of those parents who are opting out are those most at risk in our society?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl for calling my attention to this matter. If he is personally aware of any serious problems in any particular area, I hope that he will not hesitate to write and let me know. The other point that I should like to make is that there is a long-established practice—as I am sure he knows—on the part of the school health service to examine children, either just before they start school or immediately after. This is widespread throughout the country, but there may well be parts where this is not so, to which the noble Earl has referred. In certain circumstances, it may well be

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that parents prefer to take their children to the family doctor, and we would not object to that.
Lord DAVIES of LEEK: My Lords, following the noble Earl's supplementary question, may I ask whether my noble friend is aware that often the reason why children are not taken for the medical examination is not a voluntary one but is because so many parents, including mothers, are now working and it is expensive for them to be absent from their jobs to take children for medical inspection? I am sure that if an analysis were made that would be part of the answer to this problem.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I wonder whether it is really a problem. It has again been long-established practice in this country—I know this from personal experience—that where a mother or a father is unable to take a child to a medical inspection, she or he can usually arrange for either a neighbour or some other member of the family to take the child. This has been going on for years.
Baroness ELLES: My Lords, would the noble Lord agree that most medical inspections of school children take place in schools and that it is not necessary for parents to take children for these medical inspections? Would he not agree that for the child to have the benefit of best education, the school should be aware whether that child has any illness or eyesight defects, so that these may be dealt with speedily? I support my noble friend Lord Swinton in his Question.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I would not disagree with what the noble Baroness has said. It is desirable, when a child is being medically examined in school, that, so far as possible, one or other of the parents should accompany the child. Parents are informed of the date, time and place of the examination. They are asked to complete a very simple form which requests information on what complaints the child has had, inoculations, and so on. If parents can be at the examination, then it is highly desirable that they should do so.
Baroness MASHAM of ILTON: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether
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another recommendation of the Court Committee is being implemented, namely, that all secondary schools should have a school nurse attached to them and all primary schools have a designated nurse which they share with other primary schools?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, as I understand the Court Report, it was suggested that medical examination should be carried out on a selective basis and that all children should have an annual interview with a nurse. The Government do not disagree with this in principle and they are at the present moment preparing a draft on good practice and prevention and child health services, including medical examinations of children. I hope that that will be sent out fairly soon.
Baroness FAITHFULL: My Lords, would the noble Lord agree that when there were routine statutory medical inspections in schools at the age of five, seven, 11 and before leaving school, these were enormously helpful to the child, to the teacher, to the parent and, what is more, to the GPs? Would the noble Lord agree that at the moment there is not sufficient liaison between the GPs, the schools and the school teachers?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I suggest that these routine examinations go on. I said a moment or two ago that there is a long-established practice for children to be examined, either just before they commence school or immediately afterwards. It is a routine matter. What some noble Lords are asking for is that the Government should take steps to make it compulsory, and when one starts introducing the compulsory element it gives rise to a lot of difficulties, often counter-productive.
Lord ALEXANDER of POTTERHILL: My Lords, is it not a fact that the routine to which the noble Lord refers which obtained successfully until 1974, has substantially weakened since the alteration of the arrangements relating to the school medical service? My information is that what previously occurred does not now occur, and this is the problem.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I know this view is held by a number of

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people, but I have no evidence to believe that there has been the marked change that certain noble Lords have indicated.
Lord SEGAL: My Lords, would my noble friend agree that the representations that have been made from all sides of the House present a strong case against any reduction of medical entry for training in the medical schools? May I ask for an answer to that question and add this one: is it contemplated that there should be any reduction in the number of medical students?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, that is rather wide of the Question, but I did say to your Lordships—I cannot remember whether I said it yesterday or the day before—that it is the intention of the Government to see that there are somewhere in the region of 4,000 medical students each year from the early 1980s.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT REVENUE
3.10 p.m.
Lord DAVIES of LEEK: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have seriously explored the conclusion of the Layfield Committee Report (Cmnd. 6453) that the only serious suggestion for a new source of local revenue that could give a substantial yield and at the same time maintain or enhance accountability, is that of a local income tax on personal incomes.
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, as indicated in our Green Paper Local Government Finance (Cmnd. 6813), the Government gave very careful and detailed consideration to the Committee's report and its various proposals and suggestions, including the possibility of establishing a local income tax. We concluded however that the case for the introduction of a local income tax had not been made out for the reasons set out in Chapter 6 of the Green Paper.
Lord DAVIES of LEEK: My Lords, while thanking the noble Baroness for that
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kindly, contralto and ambiguous Answer, may I ask her when the Government made this decision and also whether they made it after both Houses of Parliament had had a chance to discuss this report?— which was on the first thorough investigation of local government finance since 1914. Also, is my noble friend aware that Sweden, Canada, the United States of America and other countries find no difficulty in collecting local income tax? Finally, is my noble friend aware that an income tax rate of 4·5p in the pound would raise a domestic rate of £1,700 million and might bring in some of the yobboes who spoil some of the local property throughout Britain, even in Wales and Scotland? May this House and another place have a chance of discussing this question?
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, to take the last point first, this House can, if it wants to have a longer discussion on the Layfield Report and its proposals, arrange that through the usual channels. I would have thought, however, in view of the time at our disposal, that it might be rather unlikely for such a debate to be held before the end of this Parliamentary Session.
A Statement was made in both Houses when the Layfield Report was received, and from time to time there have been various Statements and Questions about the matter. Also discussions have arisen from passing on various debates and Questions that we have had in this House concerning local government and taxation matters. Referring to a local income tax, there are problems about its collection and how it should work—whether it should be on the pay-as-you-earn system or assessed at the end of a year; who would assess it and how it would be collected; how much it would cost to collect and how many more civil servants or local government officers we would need to administer it. Referring to the noble Lord's statement that it works adequately in Canada, the USA and Sweden, the Layfield Committee did, of course, carry out investigations as to how it worked there. The Government themselves have had no consultations with those countries as to how the tax works, but have relied upon the evidence submitted to them by the Layfield Committee. Both Parties seem to have had reservations about whether we should

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have a local income tax and whether that is the way to deal with the subject which has been raised.
Lord LEATHERLAND: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that one of the great difficulties associated with this proposal, which is one I have had to study in great detail for many years, is the question of which borough shall benefit from the tax collected? Might I ask her whether, if she took the chairmen of Tesco and Marks and Spencer, for instance, the revenue from their businesses would go to the borough where they have a two-roomed flat, perhaps, or whether it would go to the dozens of towns where they have branches?
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, that is precisely the problem that faces anyone who tries to administer a local income tax. Do you collect it at the source where the person works and then pay it into the borough where he or she earns the money? Do you have some system whereby some of it or all of it is transferred to the borough in which the taxpayer lives? All those kinds of complication arise when one tries to administer a local tax.
Lord DAVIES of LEEK: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that that answer is not good enough? The Layfield Committee went into all these questions—many of us over the years have had experience of being on committees and nothing happens with the magnificent work that has been done. They are not insurmountable and at least Parliament should have a chance of a discussion in depth on the financing of local government, because it is getting out of hand.
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, that is a matter for the noble Lord to pursue through the usual channels.

DEVOLUTION: CIVIL SERVANTS
3.15 p.m.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
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To ask Her Majesty's Government why the estimate of additional civil servants required in Wales, given in the Explanatory Memorandum of the Wales Bill, is greater than the estimate of additional civil servants required in Scotland, together with the staff of the proposed Scottish Assembly, predicted in the Explanatory Memorandum of the Scotland Bill.
The LORD CHANCELLOR (Lord Elwyn-Jones): My Lords, many civil servants at present in Scotland and Wales and now employed on work to be devolved will undertake that same work on devolution. But because of the already greater degree of decentralisation of central Government activities to Scotland than is the case in Wales, a greater number of additional staff will be required in Wales. This accounts for the difference in the memoranda.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY: My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord for that reply, which was on the lines I have been expecting. While there are some strange proposals in both Bills, which should cause us no further surprise, is it not very odd that there should be 750 extra civil servants in Scotland and 1,150 in Wales?—considering that the extent of further devolution is supposed to be less in Wales than in Scotland.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I have already given an explanation of the difference. The noble Lord has not taken into account the 240 additional staff which will be needed to serve the Scottish Assembly. I have given the explanation. I can only admire the enthusiasm of the noble Lord—after thirteen days in Committee on the Scotland Bill, having the energy once more to return to it at Question Time.
Lord ELTON: My Lords, in anticipation of a similar performance on the Bill to which the noble Lord has just alluded, may I ask him whether the costing that appears in the same document as this £9 million is correct and, if it is, what is the adult population of Wales and how much per head per week will be needed to pay these people?
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, these are absolutely fascinating

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questions, about which there will be abundant opportunity to give answers during the forthcoming discussions on the Wales Bill.
Lord ELTON: My Lords, may I satisfy the anticipation of the noble and learned Lord by saying that I make it 10p per head per week?
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I do not yet know, not having the information readily before me, whether the noble Lord has exaggerated or underestimated.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY: My Lords, I am again grateful for the compliment which the noble and learned Lord has paid. Of course, he, as a Welshman, is as interested in this matter as I am, as a Scot. May I ask, however, whether the noble and learned Lord noticed that in my original Question I had taken into account in the wording the proposed staff of the new Assembly?

ORKNEY ISLANDS COUNCIL ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
Read 3ª, and passed.

TUVALU BILL [H.L.]
The MINISTER of STATE, FOREIGN and COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (Lord Goronwy-Roberts): My Lords, I understand that no Amendments have been set down to this Bill and that no noble Lord has indicated a wish to move a manuscript Amendment or to speak in Committee. Therefore, unless any noble Lord objects, I beg to move that the Order of Commitment be discharged.
Moved, That the Order of Commitment be discharged.—[Lord Goronwy-Roberts].
On Question, Motion agreed to.

ARMY, AIR FORCE AND NAVAL DISCIPLINE ACTS (CONTINUATION) ORDER 1978
3.19 p.m.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, I beg to move that the draft Army, Air
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Force and Naval Discipline Acts (Continuation) Order 1978, laid before the House on 24th April, be approved. The purpose of this order is to continue in force the Service Acts for a further year; that is, until 31st August 1979. As I explained in moving the continuation order last year, it was decided that in future the order should be taken at this time of year rather than in the autumn so that its consideration could be linked with the general debates on defence matters which normally take place in the spring.
As your Lordships are aware, the Service Discipline Acts—that is, the Army and Air Force Acts of 1955 and the Naval Discipline Act of 1957—provide, among other things, the basis for discipline in the three Services. Although the principal topic for discussion this afternoon is Armed Forces pay, noble Lords may, of course, also wish to take the opportunity of discussing Service discipline. By way of introduction, I should perhaps say a few words about the implementation of the 1976 Armed Forces Act.
As I said last year, the main changes introduced by the 1976 Act were the extension of the powers of summary punishment available to commanding officers in the Army, the Royal Air Force and the Royal Marines; the establishment of standing civilian courts to deal with civilians who are subject to the Army and Air Force Acts while serving overseas; and the introduction of new powers of punishment, primarily intended to deal with juveniles, for civilians under the jurisdiction of all three Service Discipline Acts. I do not think I need repeat all the details again this year.
These new provisions came into force on 1st July 1977, and so far the new arrangements appear to be working smoothly. It was anticipated that the increase in summary powers would lead to a reduction in the number of courts-martial, and during the limited period in which the provisions have been in operation there has, in fact, been a reduction. However, it would be unwise to come to any firm conclusions on the basis of such a short period. So far there have been fewer than 20 cases referred to the standing civilian courts, and we need a good deal

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more experience of their workings before they can be properly evaluated. We should be in a much better position to assess the new arrangements by this time next year.
I now turn to the subject of Services pay. I should like to remind the House briefly of the basis for assessing the pay of the Armed Forces, as it is important to understand the somewhat complicated processes and principles involved. The independent Armed Forces Pay Review Body recommends to the Government what they regard as the appropriate comparable levels of pay for the Armed Forces, up to and including the rank of brigadier or equivalent. To these rates are added the X-factor, to cover the balance of advantages and disadvantages between employment in the Armed Forces and in civilian life. The comparable rates plus the X-factor give the military salary. The Review Body is also responsible for recommending charges for food and accommodation, since the military salary concept requires the Serviceman to pay for food and accommodation, as he would expect to do in civilian life.
The normal arrangements have inevitably been disturbed during the period of pay restraint, as the Review Body itself has emphasised in its Seventh Report (Cmnd. 7177). Although the Armed Forces received the maximum pay increase allowed under Rounds 1 and 2, the Review Body has pointed out that the pay policy has borne more heavily on the Armed Forces than on their civilian comparators. The Review Body has calculated that it would now require a 32 per cent. increase, on average, to restore the military salary to full comparability, although the figures vary from rank to rank. The Government accept their recommendations on the levels of the military salary appropriate to April 1978. The Review Body also emphasised that Servicemen should be treated no less favourably in the current round of pay restraint measures than other members of the community, to ensure that their pay did not fall further behind in the coming 12 months.
The Government have been concerned to ensure that the Armed Forces are given a fair deal, taking into account, on the one hand, the Review Body's recommendations and, on the other, the wider
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national interest reflected in our economic policies. The pay award which the Prime Minister announced on 25th April is exactly that. It gave the Armed Forces an immediate 10 per cent. pay increase, together with an increase in the X-factor within the percentage recommended by the Review Body, which will add a further 3 per cent. in total. This includes a 50 per cent. increase in flying pay, submarine pay, parachute pay, hydrographic pay and diving pay. There were also increases in certain allowances, including a doubling of Northern Ireland pay from 50p to £1 a day, and an increase of about two-thirds in separation pay. Together with a standstill in accommodation charges, the award represents an overall increase of 14 per cent. of the total Forces pay bill.
However, perhaps the most important feature of the award is the firm commitment by the Government to restore the full military salary in two stages by April 1980. I will spell out these two stages carefully, because several noble Lords expressed concern about this in the House on 25th April, and it is important to get it right. On 1st April 1979, the Armed Forces will receive a pay increase which will consist broadly of half the amount required to bring them up to the full military salary for April this year (as detailed in the Review Body's Seventh Report), together—and this is the important point—with whatever amount is required to update the award to April 1979. This will, of course, be the subject of further recommendations in the Review Body's 1979 report.
On 1st April 1980, they will receive the remaining half to bring them up to the full military salary assessed for April this year, together with the appropriate updating between April 1979 and April 1980. The result will be that in April 1980 the Armed Forces will have the full military salary fully updated to the then current levels.
As I have said, this firm forward commitment is perhaps the most important part of the award. But noble Lords should not just dismiss this year's pay increase as trifling, as the following examples will show. Privates will receive from £5.08 to £8.47 extra a week; corporals between £8.10 and £9.45 extra a

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week, and warrant officers between £10.10 and £14.08 a week. The pay of majors will go up by between £673 and £841 a year, and that of colonels will go up by between £1,057 and £1,325 a year. A naval lieutenant with 6 years' seniority, who is a Sea King observer, will receive a total increase in military salary and flying pay of £1,046, which is 17 per cent. A submarine commander with two years' seniority will receive £1,309 extra a year. All these increases must be looked at against the background that accommodation charges—covering married quarters and single accommodation—are not being increased while the Review Body looks at the basis on which they are calculated.
In conclusion, I repeat that the 14 per cent. pay award this year, plus the firm commitment to restore comparability in two equal stages, to the then current levels, on 1st April 1979 and 1st April 1980, represents a very fair deal for the Armed Forces in the current circumstances, and I am sure that the majority of the people in this country, and the Armed Forces themselves, will recognise it as such.
There have, I know, been disturbing trends in the numbers seeking to leave the Services, and the Government recognise that one of the reasons has been dissatisfaction over pay. I hope—and I know that noble Lords will share this hope—that the immediate pay award and the firm commitment for comparability by 1980 will stop and reverse this trend. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft Army, Air Force and Naval Discipline Acts (Continuation) Order 1978, laid before the House on 24th April, be approved.—(Lord Winterbottom.)
3.29 p.m.
Lord ORR-EWING: My Lords, when we are discussing defence, I think that we are specially fortunate in this House in having many Peers who have served as head of our Armed Forces, or even as Chief of the Defence Staff, and many other Peers who have been Ministers of Defence, such as the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, my noble friends Lord Duncan-Sandys, Lord Thorneycroft, Lord Watkinson and Lord Carrington and, of course, until his sad death yesterday, Lord
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Selwyn-Lloyd. I hope that the House will forgive me if I pay a small tribute to a very remarkable man. Because we are discussing defence, I thought that it was appropriate to say a word about a man who has served in almost every high office in political life, not least as a very distinguished Speaker in another place. I am sure that other people will take the opportunity to pay full justice to someone with such an outstanding Parliamentary record.
Several noble Lords: Hear, hear!
Lord ORR-EWING: When we had our defence debate on 20th April, the Prime Minister had not then announced whether the Government accepted the assessment and recommendation of the Armed Forces Pay Review Body. In 1977, the review board seemed to have been leaned on by the Government. The Review Body seemed to have forgotten that their main duty was to report how true comparability might be achieved. On that occasion, the Government gave to the Serviceman something of an Irishman's rise; he had to pay back almost as much in terms of increased rent and food costs as he had received from that rise. This year's report was better and more objective. It recognised that 32 per cent. was now needed to restore full comparability.
In our last debate we asked for an opportunity to debate the award thoroughly and in depth. We have now only five Parliamentary days left before the Whitsun Parliamentary Recess, and there is much legislation still to be considered. This is one of the reasons why we are having a shorter debate today than is justified. On Monday, the Commons will have a vote of censure on the conduct of the Government's defence policy as administered by Mr. Mulley, so our debate today is something of an overture to theirs.
I am sure that noble Lords will agree that a short debate demands short speeches, and a fine example has been set by the Government Front Bench. However, the speeches which are made this afternoon will be hard hitting, because the urgency and seriousness of the subject demand exactly that treatment. We on these Benches will greatly miss the presence of

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the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, who had intended to open the debate. We had even considered putting down a Motion and voting upon it. However, as noble Lords will know, the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, has very close ties with Australia and Sir Robert Menzies. This has meant that he has had to fly to Australia to attend the State funeral of that great man.
In our first debate we pointed out once again that in the face of the growing threat from the USSR and her satellites, the Government were continuing to cut back on defence expenditure, training, equipment and men. We quoted Mr. Mulley—that this year's defence budget was, in real terms, the lowest ever introduced by a Labour Government; these cuts were continuing at a time when our NATO Allies, seeing the same menace, have increased and are increasing their defence expenditure in every field. Now we want to probe, with a series of arguments and questions, why the Government have felt able to give only the 10 per cent. basic, plus 3 per cent. for the X factor and an extra 1 per cent. for rent and food subsidies. To restore fairness, 32 per cent. was needed, but only 14 per cent. has been given. Mr. Callaghan promised that the extra 18 per cent. would be made up by April 1980, in two slices. We have heard today in the opening speech that this is to be made up: presumably by 9 per cent. on 1st April 1979 and the balance on 1st April 1980.
I am still anxious to know, as I think everybody must be, whether the Government will be able fully to honour these plans or whether they have it in mind to find excuses. I should like to know how far behind, unless it is fully indexed—and we have had some assurances about that this afternoon, for which I am grateful—the pay of Servicemen will be by April 1979.
Yesterday it was announced that civilian earnings had increased in the eight months since the start of Phase 3—that is to say, from last August—by 10 per cent. This means that civilian earnings are going up at an annual rate of 15 per cent.; so if one postpones a pay rise for one year, one probably
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sacrifices 15 per cent. If this rise continues at the same rate, by next April the Serviceman will not be 18 per cent. behind; he will then be 33 per cent. behind—just before the award. On those figures, at that stage and before he receives the award, the Serviceman will be 18 per cent. behind, plus the inflation which has happened, and I have suggested that that 15 per cent. rate of inflation will probably continue until next April.
The Serviceman sees this clearly. That is why there are, so far, no signs of the flow from the Services being staunched. We have received some degree of assurance on this matter, and I hope that we shall receive an even firmer assurance in the winding-up speech.
As the review body has said, it is not possible to judge productivity in the Services. But clearly productivity must have increased, since there are about 10,000 fewer Servicemen; and their task is no less so far as the defence of our country and the commitment to our allies is concerned. Therefore, they are working much longer hours to accomplish the same result, which means that their productivity must have increased. It is sad that they cannot be compensated for this extra work. Much longer, unsocial hours are now having to be worked by our Servicemen.
The House will be interested to compare Servicemen's earnings with miners' earnings. The miners received 10 per cent. overall, and individual productivity deals were then negotiated. We now have the figures relating to their increase in earnings. They are 36½ per cent. Overall—that is, 10 per cent. and 26½ per cent. on productivity. The productivity deal is slightly suspect, because the miners reduced their expected output by something like 20 per cent. before starting to earn the productivity bonus. It is rumoured in the Press that when Lord Edmund-Davies's Committee, which is sitting on the pay and other conditions of service in the police force, reports it will recommend a 30 per cent. pay rise for our police. I very much hope that they get it. I hope that they do not also have to wait for an increase which is phased over two or more years.
We believe that the military threat to Western Europe—and, incidentally, to the

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breakdown of law and order in our own land—is such that we should make these two vital services—our Armed Forces and our police—special cases which are worthy of quicker, prompter and fairer treatment than they are currently receiving. May I ask the Minister whether we can be told anything more about these settlements? Are these settlements copper-bottomed and insured against every contingency? Whatever Governments may say, new economic difficulties may arise. There may be new phases of the prices and incomes policy. I recall that after the university teachers were awarded a pay rise in 1975 the incomes policy began and that they were caught by this Government. Only very recently have they been given a 12 per cent. increase, which again is to be phased over a period of time.
Once again, I urge that if this Government do not feel that they can do justice more quickly to the Services they should make way for a Conservative Government which will do it for them. Margaret Thatcher has said that we shall set this matter right. "The Iron Lady", as the USSR call her, will do it, and she will do it more quickly.
3.38 p.m.
Lord MACKIE of BENSHIE: My Lords, I should like to associate myself with the tribute paid by the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, to the noble Lord, Lord Selwyn-Lloyd. One of the most remarkable tributes which has been paid is that of Mrs. Barbara Castle. She pointed out that, after being a controversial Party politician, he became Speaker of the House of Commons, and in a very short space of time became one of the most respected Speakers among many respected Speakers of recent times. This was a remarkable achievement and shows the genuine quality of the man.
If I may turn to the subject of our debate, I shall certainly keep to time because what I have to say can be said very shortly. First, much of the trouble arises from the attitude prevailing in or forced upon the Labour Party. When defence is treated in exactly the same way as everything else, with a Party maintaining that defence must be cut as well as other forms of spending, it seems to me that a fallacy is involved which brings with it great danger. I believe that our defence expenditure should be cut to what
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is necessary and no more. Nevertheless, having fixed the level of expenditure which is necessary for the defence of the Realm, one cannot say that it can withstand cuts along with all other forms of Government spending. Either it is necessary to have that level of defence or it is not.
This egalitarian cutting all round by the Labour Party brings with it immense dangers. There are some things you cannot cut in other fields: you cannot cut the maintenance of the fabric of your transport system in a country—you must keep it up. You cannot buy less raw material for manufacturing. One could give a whole lot of other instances, but the most important of all is that if your defence spending is set at the right level for the defence of the Realm then it cannot be cut without doing tremendous damage. I said in the last debate, but it will bear repeating, that one of the things we must realise is that our defence policy in the West has been very successful. We are certainly not out of danger and we never shall be, but we have had more than 30 years without a major war, without the catastrophe which could have been confidently predicted from the situation which we were in at the end of the last war.
Having said that, one then comes simply to what is the most important factor about defence. The most important thing about defence, without a doubt, is the soldiers, sailors and airmen who will be required to fight and to stand firm in the event of a war, and their morale and their respect for Parliament and the Government is of enormous importance. If they are always treated as the weak, if they are always subjected to cuts when we have a financial crisis, then they will develop a much understood cynicism about the way the Government regard them.
I think the Government are very much at fault in allowing the Forces' pay to fall so far behind. I am not underestimating the danger of inflation to us all. Of course, it is absolutely essential that we overcome the appalling inflation, and the Government deserve great credit for the degree to which they have overcome it. But in this case we have induced in the Service a degree of cynicism and a degree of strife between the senior officers

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and the War Office and the Government which we have not seen for a long time. We have had unprecedented demands for interviews with the Prime Minister by the Chiefs of Staff, and when we look at the fact that they are 33 per cent. behind comparability with equivalent jobs in industry one can see why this is. I think the question is as much the attitude which the Serviceman feels the Government have as the actual loss of money.
When we consider the settlement which we have had I think it is not really satisfactory. Perhaps we should accept that it is as far as we could expect the Government to go at this moment, with a tricky inflationary situation. It is not enough, but the promise of comparability by the 1st April 1980 is a tremendous step forward. I must remind the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, that in our last debate he indicated that no Government could possibly index Service pay; that it was not a thing that could happen. But that in fact is what the Prime Minister has promised to do at the 1st April 1980. I am very glad to have the assurance that at that date not only will the faults of the past be rectified but any inflation in between will be taken care of and the full award by the Review Body will be implemented.
That is all very well up to 1980, but what we are really talking about is morale in the Services. The Services will view this with considerable misgivings, and in my view what is needed is long-term indexation. The Government must say that Service pay will be treated as being on an exact level, as it has been, with the civilian pay for the equivalent job and it will be indexed in that way. This is totally necessary and I do not think that it is too expensive. The Government are always "that-a-way" the strong, the well unionised miners or power workers, or whoever it may be. They are always in the lead and they do not fall behind. But if you regard the Services as being essentially important then I think this award would be accepted. I think it would restore morale, provided that we say that this policy will be permanent after 1st April 1980.
3.46 p.m.
The Earl of CORK and ORRERY: My Lords, we have lost a towering
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Parliamentary figure in Lord Selwyn-Lloyd, and if he had been the holder of high office while a Member of this House no doubt official tributes would have been paid to him. This not being so, I, for one, would like to associate myself with the remarks made already by the two noble Lords who have preceded me, in sadness at his demise. The House will have noted also with sadness and perhaps a sense of shock the passing of that great statesman, Sir Robert Menzies.
In the matter of the Pay Review Body's report I find coming into my head a story that used to be told in India at one time about a British officer who went on leave to Kashmir with his wife and they took a houseboat on the Dal Lake in Srinagar. It was very romantic and beautiful. At the end of his leave he went down the hill by car, leaving his wife behind. Of course that was the usual thing in India then. Before he had gone very far he found a landslide had washed the road away and so he had to return unexpectedly. He found his wife in the arms of a lover who, with great presence of mind, sprang to his feet, dived head-first out of the window and struck out for the distant Himalayas. Afterwards he complained with some indignation at the unfairness and unsporting conduct of the offended husband of shooting at him with a revolver while he was in the water.
The Government seem to be doing precisely that—saying, "Don't shoot at us. We are in the water". Or perhaps not so much in the water as, "Our hands are tied". What they are tied by is the guidelines. Where did these guidelines and this pay policy come from? Was it whispered into the ear of the Prime Minister out of the stillness of the heart of a whirlwind? Was it handed down from Mount Ararat? Did it come by ouija board, perhaps, or automatic writing into the occult intelligence department of the Cabinet Office? The Government themselves are responsible for this policy and it is an axiom of all law that a grown man of right mind is responsible for his actions and that he can foresee their results.
The result of these actions and this policy must have been foreseen by the Government and the corollary axiom then comes into force that they must have intended the result. There is no accident

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about the fact that the Forces have fallen behind in their pay, and it is a great relief to me, at any rate, and I think to many others, that the Pay Review Body—as has been remarked upon by my noble friend Lord Orr-Ewing—has come out very strongly on this subject; far more strongly than it did a year ago, when it produced a somewhat wishy-washy report. On this occasion it produced words of considerable strength. For example, it referred to its inability to sec any shadow of justification for treating the Armed Forces any less favourably then firemen. It says:
"the Armed Forces find it increasingly difficult—and we do also—to accept a situation in which the shortfall continues to increase during the operation of restraint measures that are intended to apply equally to everyone".
Undoubtedly the Government have taken these strictures somewhat to heart. But how much? If I understood the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, aright, he is of the opinion that they have given a firm promise that in two years' time comparability will have been restored; that the Armed Forces pay will be indexed—the Prime Minister has given that assurance—and that other increases in pay outside the Services will be taken into account in assessing the new rates of pay. Is this really so? I confess that I am a little less than totally convinced. After the Statement on the report, questions were put to the noble Lord the Leader of the House. He was asked, for example, by my noble friend, Lord Drumalbyn, about the question of comparability or equality with other pay rises outside the Services, and he said:
"I have assumed that it will go up in stages. However, if there is any doubt about this I shall certainly look at it carefully, but that is my impression and that is the advice I have been given. I am certain that there should be no worry on this at all".—[Official Report, 25/4/78; col. 1639.]
Lord DRUMALBYN: My Lords, if the noble Earl would forgive me, I feel bound to say that I received a letter subsequently from the noble Lord the Leader of the House confirming that it would be indexed.
The Earl of CORK and ORRERY: My Lords, I am delighted to hear that from my noble friend, and I am delighted not to have to pursue that line any further. But there was another question
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and perhaps I could get a similar reassurance from someone on this. This was a question by my noble friend Lord Hail-sham on the question of indexing. This time the noble Lord, Lord Peart, said:
"I cannot give a firm assurance on that. It will have to take note of this, and this is something which the Review Body, which will still be sitting, will have to consider".—[col. 1640.]
Am I to understand—I hope that I am—from the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, that we ignore it now; that is, it is taken out of the hands of the Review Body and the Prime Minister has in fact given an assurance that the pay will go up to take account not only of pay increases outside the Services but also the rising rate of inflation? If those things are so, I am to some extent reassured, but not entirely, because I know very well that the Armed Forces have been treated in a way in which they would not have been treated if they had had anything like the muscle to deploy which is enjoyed by the trade unions. I do not think anybody on any side of the House will argue with me on that.
I am bound to echo still the words spoken by my noble friend Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal in the debate on the Statement, when he said:
"I can only say that the Statement leaves us, on this side of the House, with a profound sense of alarm and despondency, allied to a feeling of shame that Parliament is failing those from whom it demands both devotion and trust".—[Col. 1635.]
Therefore:
"It's Tommy this, an' Tommy that,
an' Tommy fall be'ind,
But it's 'Please to walk in front, sir',
when there's trouble in the wind.
There's trouble in the wind, my lords,
there is trouble in the wind.
Oh it's Please to walk in front, sir',
when there's trouble in the wind".
My Lords, there is trouble in the wind. It is howling in the radar aerials of all the world.
3.53 p.m.
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, it is my intention in the few observations I have to make to exclude anything in the nature of rhetoric or oratory. Only a few weeks ago, in the course of a defence debate on the normal annual White Paper, the subject of pay in the Forces was raised. That could have been avoided if the proposition I made some time ago had been adopted; that is, that we might have two debates, one on the strategy of

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defence and the other on pay for members of the Forces. However, in the course of the debate to which I have referred the subject of pay was ventilated, and I ventured to make a few observations at that time myself. It is customary when the Forces Discipline Acts come before either House of Parliament, another place and your Lordships' House, to ventilate a variety of topics affecting Servicemen and women. That is hardly necessary nowadays, because substantial changes have occurred as the years have passed by, largely because of the intervention in another place of my noble friend Lord Wigg, who is an authority on that aspect of the subject, and other Members. Very few complaints are made about discipline and the conditions of those in the Services. So we need not trouble very much about that—at least I think not—at this stage.
I have no hesitation in saying—I naturally speak for myself; I wish I could speak for every member of the Party to which I belong—that the utmost effort should be made by the Government of the day, whichever Government of whatever complexion, to provide for our men and women in the Forces the highest range of remuneration and the very best conditions, in accommodation and (this is really a defence observation) equipment. But we have to take into account—we cannot ignore it, much as some people have tried to do —the economic and financial condition in which we find ourselves. Consequently, those of us who are concerned—and I believe that consists of a majority of Members of your Lordships' House and even a majority of those in another place—believe that everything possible should be done, financially and otherwise, to satisfy those in the Forces.
There is another reason why it is essential that this should be done. When we discuss defence in general we have been inclined in recent years, ever since 1957 and the production of the Defence White Paper on that occasion by the noble Lord, Lord Duncan-Sandys, to introduce the subject of the use of nuclear weapons. In my judgment—this may not be accepted by everybody—I consider that manpower is far more important that the possession of nuclear weapons.
The USSR, which is a possible—I will not say probable—enemy capable of
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aggression, has vast manpower at its disposal. The West also has potentially vast numbers of Servicemen and Servicewomen at its disposal. Unfortunately, we have not taken advantage of that, and consequently in the realm of manpower we have to accept inferiority. If unfortunately a conflict occurred in the West or in the Pacific or elsewhere, it is obvious that manpower would be a primary consideration—not the nuclear weapon or the possible use of the nuclear weapon. We have realised recently, from the dissatisfaction among those in the Forces about their remuneration and conditions and because far too many resignations have taken place, that recruitment in the near and the distant future may be adversely affected and we cannot ignore this subject of pay in the Forces.
I agree with almost every word which the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, and the noble Earl, Lord Cork and Orrery, have said. But we have to consider where the money comes from. For example, if we were to accept comparability as between those in the Forces and those in the mining industry or any other section of industry, what is it going to cost—£400 million more? That is a very low estimate. In my opinion to do the job thoroughly and provide satisfaction it would require about £1,000 million. I wish we had the money at our disposal. I must confess that I expressed doubts whether in the course of the next couple of years for which promises have been made we shall be able to afford as large a sum as I have mentioned. I wish we could provide for those in the Forces and guarantee that the money would be available so that they would be satisfied and we should have the requisite manpower in the unfortunate event of some untoward occurrence. So Members of your Lordships' House can understand that as far as I am personally concerned—and I am sure I speak for every member of the Party to which I belong—I am anxious to do the best that is possible for people in the Forces. There can be no question about that.
I come to the machinery at the Government's disposal. If I had my way I would never have appointed a Review Body. When I was at the War Office and at the Ministry of Defence it was brought to my notice that there was some dissatisfaction among those in the Forces. It is true that

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at that time we still had a vast number of National Service men at our disposal. The number of men and women in the Army itself was over 300,000, consisting of regulars and long service men and women and also the National Servicemen. But on that occasion we had no Review Body. It was the responsibility of the Minister, the head of that Department, to decide what could be done for those in the Forces. I remember the occasion. The advice was placed on my desk; I submitted it to the three Chiefs of Staff and asked their opinion; civil servants were also asked to express an opinion, and naturally the Treasury came into the discussion. One could not possibly ignore the Treasury. Eventually a proposition was made to me that £60 million would be required in order to provide what the people in the Forces would regard as satisfactory. That included also an increase in pensions—the two were combined, pay and pensions.
Because of my previous association with the War Office, not only as Secretary for War but as Financial Secretary to the War Office, when it came before me I cut it down by £5 million or £6 million. What remained?—£55 million. When the Treasury got to know about this they complained at once that it was impossible, and I can remember Hugh Gaitskell, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer, coming to see me at the Ministry. Why should the Chancellor of the Exchequer come to see the Minister of Defence? He was of higher rank, but it so happened that previously he had been a Parliamentary Secretary when I was a Cabinet Minister in my Department, and out of courtesy he came to see me instead of asking me to go to see him. He offered £30 million. I had to reject it at once and I suggested that I take the matter to the Cabinet. It was taken to the Cabinet and the Cabinet decided in favour of the £55 million, largely because of the influence in particular of the late Dr. Addison. I believe his son is a member of this Assembly. Anyhow, that was the decision, and the Treasury had to accept it. I believe it to be the responsibility of the Minister to decide. Naturally he must consult.
But what happened? It was thought better to be in possession of a decision by a review board, an independent board. What happens at the end of the day?
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The board comes to a decision—it is called a recommendation. It is sent to the Government and the Government, taking into account all the circumstances, decide that they cannot go beyond a certain figure. That is the situation. I do not suggest that we can return to the previous method of ministerial decision, but I do suggest that if there are some doubts and suspicions, which have already been ventilated by the three noble Lords who have spoken, that the Government may either not be willing to provide comparability or be unable to provide it, what is required? I suggest vigilance on the part of those of us—and I hope a large section of the general public—who believe that it is our duty as well as our responsibility to provide the best possible conditions in remuneration and other matters for those in the Services. I think that is all that can be said.
We have argued this matter over and over again and we could go on arguing about it. I hope there will be no more regulations. I should like to add just this. When we had the Defence Debate I ventured to make a suggestion that we might have to return to National Service. As a result of that I have had a great deal of correspondence, some very critical, some in condemnation, some suggesting that I appear to have changed my mind. I have not changed my mind at all. I have never departed from the view that I have held for many years that defence is essential and obviously manpower is required, and the more we have the better. However, I admit that a return to National Service would be unacceptable.
There is a possible alternative. In addition to the regular forces we could build up our reserves. What do we have? We have 6,000 in the TAVR. We have the regular Servicemen with very inadequate training. It is perfunctory, and we accept that. However, I do not believe that that is enough. I stand by what I have said more than once, and I repeat it this afternoon: we must not trouble too much about the nuclear weapons. I do not believe that the Russians care very much about what we want to do as regards the neutron bomb or any other kind of nuclear weapon. They are concerned about manpower. We in the West must not allow ourselves to be in a condition of inferiority.

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I utter this warning, based on a careful strategic study of the situation. This is not my own view but the view of those who understand this problem thoroughly, and the books on the strategy are there for noble Lords if they want to avail themselves of them. I am convinced that if war broke out it would not be a nuclear war; it would be a conventional war. If such a war should occur, manpower would be of the highest importance. I hope that those in authority will take note of the observations that I have ventured to make this afternoon.
4.12 p.m.
Viscount BRIDGEMAN: My Lords, I begin by resisting two temptations. The first is to take up the remark made by the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, and talk about the connection between discipline and pay. The second is to follow the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, in all the points that he raised, beyond returning the compliment, as I hope I may, and saying that just as he has said that he has agreed with two previous speakers from these Benches, I have found a great measure of agreement, not for the first time, with what the noble Lord himself has said. I should also like to add to the tributes to my noble friend Lord Selwyn-Lloyd and to Sir Robert Menzies, whom I had the privilege of knowing personally.
In the time which I have been allowed I should like to spend a short while trying to see what steps we should take to avoid all of this happening again, because that is really the object that we want to achieve by this debate. After all, it is the last straw that breaks the camel's back, and the last straw is about to break it. However, is it not worth while looking to see what happened when the first straw went on? To do that, we must go back almost to the ages of folklore.
There has always been some idea that the calling of the Serviceman has been as much a vocation as an employment. I heard that view expressed to me in a conversation by so great a man as the late Ernest Bevin. It may have been true at one time, because in the early days when officers did not have to live on their pay and there was no unemployment insurance, troops enlisted just as much to
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get a roof over their heads and a square meal as for the pay, and so there was some substance in it. The troops would sing on line of march:
"We are but little children weak,
We only get seven bob a week,
The more we do the more we may,
It makes no difference to our pay".
However, the whole subject is very complex and in my experience—and for 18 months I held a position in the War Office with responsibility for pay—it is very difficult, not only for the Army staffs connected with matters of this sort but also for Ministers, to keep in touch with the complexities which arise and which only a small group of civil servants in the Departments and the Treasury understand.
One can and does blame Ministers. As the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell said, Ministers are responsible. However, one can also sympathise with them, because it takes a great deal of knowledge and a certain amount of courage to know enough about the job in hand to take the line that they should. There is really no excuse for all of this, because we are just now having the second round of the same trouble with the police. It starts by giving way on small matters. Then, later on, when the small matters become big ones the gap is so great that people say, as the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, did: "What a tremendous bill we have to pay!". It would never have happened if people had watched the small things at the start. The case history of allowances is just as bad, and that is why so much trouble arises when the military salary and the allowances come in.
I wish to refer to the 1957 White Paper which the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, has also mentioned. There were three courses which could have been taken after the decision to do away with voluntary service. One was to do everything one could to see that the demand for manpower was met by inducements. Another was to supplement voluntary manpower by some form of National Service or national training. The third, which has been largely followed by the present Government, was to pretend that we have the manpower, when everyone knows that we have not.
Lord WIGG: My Lords, I must protest at what the noble Viscount has said. If ever there was a criticism to be made

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of the 1957 White Paper—and I have made it—it is that the facts and the figures that were given were phoney. They were not related to the manpower that was needed; they were related to a decision by the civil servants or by the statisticians as regards the numbers they could recruit.
Viscount BRIDGEMAN: I am grateful for that intervention by the noble Lord, Lord Wigg. In fact, I omitted part of my speech, which was to say that I was looking forward with great interest to the remarks that I knew the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, would make.
Time is short and I move on to the military salary and the Pay Review Board. Here again I do not think that the Prices and Incomes Board realised the one major factor why Army pay and Army conditions can never be made comparable with those in civil life. That factor is that the Army and the other Forces might at any moment have to go to war, whereas civilian people do not. That is very largely at the root of the trouble and that is why it is impossible, however hard the Pay Board tries—and it has tried in this last Report—to relate conditions for the Services close enough to conditions in civil life, bearing in mind that those conditions must operate whether we are at peace or at war.
As the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, fairly said, the Pay Board is there to recommend. It is not there to negotiate. Have we not reached the time when the Forces must be allowed to appoint their own negotiators? If we think in terms of the Agricultural Wages Board, what would happen if it were suggested that the National Union of Agricultural Workers should be represented by people appointed by the Government and not by themselves? I shall leave the matter there. It is complex and there is no time to discuss it during this debate. I wish that I knew the answer. It is possible that something might be done by allowing the principal personnel officers to appoint their own people to negotiate, so that they do not have to sit back while people appointed by the Government make recommendations. I will close my remarks now because the clock has struck seven minutes and that was my bargain with the usual channels.
Lord WESTBURY: My Lords, I believe that every man and woman in the Armed Forces is still reeling under the insult given to them by the Prime Minister in declining to see the three Chiefs of Staff of the Navy, Army and Air Force to discuss the report of the Pay Review Body prior to its publication. It seems to me that the Government are actively pursuing a policy designed to weaken our Armed Forces. Successive cuts in defence spending have meant that the Army, Navy and Air Force are now equipped with second-rate weapons, establishments have been reduced, reserves have been virtually eliminated and thousands of highly-trained men are leaving the Services because they have been, and still are underpaid and over-stretched.
It is no good the Prime Minister announcing a pay rise of 14 per cent. when, in the same breath, he concedes that it should be 32 per cent. Until our Servicemen are paid a fair wage they will continue to leave—maybe some people want them to leave. Last week the Government gave them further encouragement to go. The Government announced that from 1st April this year retiring Servicemen will be given a 30 per cent. increase in their pensions. Gratuities will also rise by 30 per cent. Quite clearly, it is now to a Serviceman's advantage to leave. If the Government could afford to increase the pensions of those who are leaving by 30 per cent., why cannot they do the same for the pay of those who continue to serve?
Already too many Servicemen have left the Forces. Reductions in establishments, caused by defence cuts, have seriously undermined the strength of the Services. What is more, while the Forces get smaller, their commitments increase. Strike-breaking has been added to the list of duties which we expect our Servicemen to perform. All this has led to overstretch. It has existed for some years now and is getting worse and worse. Frequent tours in Northern Ireland and the months spent fire-fighting have seriously affected training and, therefore, efficiency. But, even worse, the continual disruptions have put appalling strains on the Serviceman's family. Is it surprising that so many middle-rank officers and non-commissioned officers are leaving? So often these are men with specialist skills, who are difficult to replace but who are sought after by

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industry. Yet the Government's policy encourages them to go.
While we reduce our Forces the threat goes on growing. The Russian Army, Navy and Air Force have never been more powerful then they are today. On the borders of the free world the Soviet Union has massed 20,000 tanks. These tanks are constantly modernised; some are equipped with armour which makes them impervious to anti-tank weapons at present in service in the West. This type of armour was invented in Britain, but it has never been fitted on our tanks. Why not? Chieftains, protected by Chobham armour have been sold abroad.
We should give our Servicemen the best possible equipment that money can buy and we should pay them the wages that the Government themselves admit are fair. To do anything less is to endanger the security of our nation. I cannot believe that the Government wish to undermine our own defences, but they are playing a dangerous game when they try to obtain security so cheaply. I say "God save the Queen and the United Kingdom", because, as sure as day follows night, if the Government continue to pursue this mad policy, our Armed Forces will not be able to.
4.24 p.m.
Lord BOURNE: My Lords, there are two "musts" in the Army, the Navy and the Air Force. One is weapons, which must be of the very best, and the other is morale, which must be high. About a year ago the House of Commons Expenditure Committee reported that our trucks, artillery and that sort of thing were out-of-date. If the RAF do not have the latest machine they will be shot out of the skies; those machines need to be constantly replaced. As regards the Navy, we always say that our naval contribution is the best and the biggest in NATO. I should jolly well hope so. But the fact remains that our building programme includes only two major ships—need I say more?
It is dreadful when married Servicemen of all three Services find their quarters too expensive to live in. I have heard mention of a figure of 18,000 houses being empty because of this. In my opinion, it is dreadful that when a battalion is
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moved back from Northern Ireland to carry out fire duties and protect our homes, it has to work 100 hours or 110 hours for no overtime whatever. A CO—and I happen to have a paper about this—reckoned that a rifleman with a wife and one child was worst off; he only had £30·74, which is impossible to live on. Surely it must be wrong when 35 per cent. of a battalion is drawing a rent rebate.
Those are the simple reasons why the pay of the Forces should be raised. As I said in the recent debate on defence, we have been a bad ally in NATO these last few years. We have not only weakened the flanks of NATO—Supremo General Haig has said so in his many speeches—but we have cut our own forces wickedly to the point of suffering an outflow of skilled men. It is said that as many as 1,000 officers in the Army and 500 in the RAF are leaving—I could not find the figure for the Navy—and possibly 10,000 men altogether are leaving. Therefore, let us see whether the increase of 14 per cent. will do the trick.
I entirely agree with the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, that the report of the Review Body should be more representative of the workers themselves. The report is coloured by paragraph 23 which says:
"We also have to consider the evidence that has been put to us on the application to armed forces' pay of the current guidelines with which the Government has asked us to comply in making our recommendations".
That colours the whole report. I believe that that quotation is very unfair to the Review Board itself. Paragraph 19 of the report says:
"It will be obvious that, whether they are implemented in full … or staged, the levels … will soon become out of date".
Perhaps I should quote paragraph 38, which says that up-to-date rates of pay:
"ought to be introduced with effect from that date",
and the date they refer to is 1st April 1978. No wonder we are still behind the pay in civilian life.
Observing that the TUC is now discussing free collective bargaining, I fear that the pay of the Armed Forces will automatically drop behind. Quite apart from whether the Government do or do not keep their promises—they have already broken them once; I am not saying there were not very good reasons, but

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the fact remains that from the Services' point of view they did so—I believe that the Armed Forces will inevitably drop behind, with bad consequences. We shall see in a few months whether the outflow to which I have referred will be stopped.
The question I should like to ask the Government is this. Will the Government, if the 14 per cent. rise fails to staunch the outflow from the Armed Forces, raise their pay, irrespective of other groups, from 14 per cent. to an average of 32 per cent. on 1st April 1979? I ought to explain that in the Army, Navy, and Air Force you do not get your pay until you have served, so the figures of 1st April 1980 is a phoney figure. If the Government raise the pay it will show that they are interested in the future of the Armed Forces. If they do not, it shows that they are not.
4.31 p.m.
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNESIDE: My Lords, I am very proud indeed to have an opportunity of contributing to this important debate. Many important points have been made by people with real knowledge of the Services and their requirements in relation to equipment, about which I probably know nothing at all. However, I am very glad in particular to support the speech made by my noble friend Lord Orr-Ewing, and also that of my Leader, Mrs. Margaret Thatcher, who has given a very good reply regarding what is required by our Services and what they do so admirably and so nobly to protect our country. Indeed, our country does need protecting.
I should like to pay my own tribute to Selwyn Lloyd. I was very honoured and proud when, in another place, he asked me whether I would move his adoption as Speaker. He was a great man. That he should have died is a terrible loss to this country and to your Lordships' House. I felt that I must enter this tribute to him in the short speech that I have undertaken to make today.
When the noble Lord, Lord Winter-bottom, comes to reply I think that he will be in great difficulty. I am looking forward not so much to what he says today, but, when he has reported to the Cabinet, to finding out whether the Cabinet will alter their views with regard to our Services and their equipment.
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I hope that it will not be too long before we have another debate when we can more forcibly develop the points that we have made.
I promised that I would make a very short speech, and that promise I shall keep. However, there is one thing I really must say. I say thank God! that we have such magnificent Service chiefs, who have the courage to speak out regardless of their own position. I think that they are absolutely magnificent. I support every word they said. I never really like criticising individual people in Parliamentary life, because all of us of course have problems and all of us make mistakes, or have lack of knowledge. But for the Secretary of State for Defence to take the action that he took and say what he said! Well, perhaps I must restrain my language, but honestly, I was simply furious.
I was more furious when I heard that what he said was also supported by the Prime Minister. I have always liked the Prime Minister. I think he is a man of integrity. I do not support his political views, but I think that he is a man of integrity. But on this occasion that he should have supported such a ridiculous speech as was made by the Defence Secretary! Nothing would give me greater pleasure—of course it will not happen because the Government will not do it—than to hear that the Defence Secretary will be asked to resign. If we could get him to resign, we might get on a hit better. Therefore, I hope that it will not be long before we do what we know we ought to do for the Services and, I should like to add, for the police. I am very honoured that this House has listened to me for the short time I have spoken. I look forward to the future when we can do what we ought to do for the Services and for the police.
4.37 p.m.
Earl CATHCART: My Lords, it is especially appropriate that, in debating this Motion to approve the annual Discipline Acts of the three Services, we should discuss in particular the pay and conditions of the Armed Forces, since these important subjects are connected so closely with the morale and well-being of our Servicemen. Indeed, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, that every

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report of the Armed Forces' Pay Review Body deserves a special debate in your Lordships' House quite separate from our annual debate on Defence Estimates, when we normally discuss strategy, detente, equipment and the like.
The Seventh Report of the Review Body is certainly the most comprehensive that they have so far produced. The report clearly identifies that since 1975 Forces' pay has fallen by 32 per cent. behind equivalent earnings in civilian occupations. The noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, has already acknowledged that point quite clearly. I do not believe that the military salary is well understood by the general public as a whole. Indeed, I am often surprised how many people among friends I am talking to still do not realise that an unmarried soldier is required to pay rent for his barrack room bedspace, and pay for all his meals that he gets in the cookhouse. This was of course an essential part of the military salary when it was introduced, but it is largely overlooked and forgotten.
It was most unfortunate, in my opinion, that within 18 months of the military salary being introduced in 1971, it found itself operating under conditions of raging inflation; the very worst conditions under which to get the military salary established and understood. However, in dealing with the Armed Forces' military salaries since 1974, I believe that this Government have committed three serious errors of judgment. The first was by allowing Forces' pay to fall behind that of their civilian counterparts by as much as 32 per cent.
As a result of the massive wage increases in 1974 and 1975 and the resulting inflationary scramble for more wages, the Government have had to impose a statutory pay policy with rigorously applied restraints. I do not believe that under pay restraint measures, which are designed specifically for an industrial situation, the Armed Forces are ever likely to receive a square deal. The Government should have realised that and should not have allowed Forces pay to lag so far behind during the past three years. In the last 12 months of the life of this Government they have undertaken to put the matter right by 1980.
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The second error, in my opinion, was not to regard the Armed Forces as a special case, and I would include, as did my noble friend Lord Orr-Ewing, our police force in that category too. Of course, a group of wage-earners who, like the Armed Forces, cannot earn overtime and who cannot be awarded productivity deals is bound to fall behind unless the Government of the day protect the fair and just comparability of its take-home pay.
As for the award of 14 per cent. this year, I am afraid it is too little and too late, and I am doubtful if we shall ever catch up with full comparability, even by 1980. And taking into account civilian pay rises and productivity deals, 14 per cent. barely makes any inroads into the 32 per cent. which both the Government and the Pay Review Body acknowledge is required. I should have preferred to see a bigger initial slice into that 32 per cent. made this time as the result of the recommendations in the report, because that would have given a far greater upsurge of that confidence about their pay and conditions which is so badly needed in the Armed Forces.
It means, of course, that if full comparability is to be achieved by 1980, as the Prime Minister has promised, and if at the same time Forces pay is to keep pace with civilian pay rises and inflation between now and then—the indexing which the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, has assured us will take place—the Armed Forces will have to receive rises considerably in excess of 14 per cent. both in 1979 and 1980. But on this occasion, the very day after the Prime Minister had announced the 14 per cent. rise, on 25th April, a certain newspaper splashed the headline, "Armed Forces Shatter Pay Policy"; that showed how completely they had misunderstood the military salary and the position into which the Armed Forces had been put, and how totally that newspaper had misunderstood the X-factor and the part that the X-factor must play in the military salary.
If the Prime Minister's assurance means anything, the Services will, as I said, have to receive considerable pay rises each year for the next two years in order to restore comparability. What worries me is whether this situation will continue to be appreciated by the general public, the trade unions and the Press. I am

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inclined to think that, as we approach 1980, the situation we are discussing today will be forgotten, will lapse, and that unless the Government and the Minister of Defence himself do something about it to keep the need for the restoration of comparability in front of the public, the Government, with the best intentions in the world, will find themselves facing ill-informed opposition.
I have a question for the Minister on a matter which is not the concern of the Pay Review Body and about which I have given him previous notice. My question concerns the local overseas allowance for our Forces in Germany. This is an important allowance which is calculated on the basis of a comparison between the cost of living and the rise in inflation in Germany and that pertaining in this country. It represents 40 per cent. of the take-home pay of a private soldier stationed in Germany; it ensures that while serving in Germany he does not suffer from the very high cost of living in that country and the relatively poor exchange value of the British pound.
At about this time last year it was proposed that because the standards of living of Servicemen in this country, as indeed with all of us, had fallen, Servicemen in Germany should suffer a similar fate, a clear indication of the policy of equal misery for all. The proposal was to reduce the local overseas allowance by 40 per cent. so that it would then represent only 14 per cent. of his take-home pay. Naturally that proposal caused great anxiety to those serving in Germany and in particular to those with hire purchase commitments which they would have to continue paying off for a very considerable period.
As a result of representations, the Minister of Defence undertook that there would be no cut in the local overseas allowance pending further enquiries and discussions. There is still great anxiety on this question in the Services—in the Royal Air Force in Germany and in the British Army of the Rhine—and I should be most grateful if the Minister would say how those enquiries and discussions have proceeded and what is the final decision in this matter.
4.47 p.m.
Lord WIGG: My Lords, I wish at the outset to join with those who have
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paid tribute and expressed their sorrow at the passing of the noble Lord, Lord Selwyn-Lloyd. He was an old opponent of mine but an opponent whom I respected and I am indeed sorry that his life has come to an end.
I was glad that the noble Earl, Lord Cathcart, reminded the House that what we are debating is the Continuation Order for 1978 of the Army, Air Force and Naval Discipline Acts. It might be useful to remind noble Lords of the circumstances in which this procedure was adopted. In 1952—and people may say, "That was a long time ago; forget that and bring yourself up to date", but defence policies and defence procedures take a long time to work out, so 20 years is but the flick of a finger—the situation which then faced the Labour Opposition to the new Conservative Government was the realisation by some of us (certainly by me), that the Army Act, which had to be passed by 1st April each year, presented a first-class opportunity to a vigilant Opposition.
One of the things we had to do, and I certainly played some part in it, was to convince our leaders of the Opposition—which was done by a mixture of a little arm-twisting, a few meetings and some speeches, coupled with the fact that whether they liked it or not it was going to be done—that the occasion presented an opportunity to table large numbers of Amendments. The Act was no less than 100 years out of date. It had survived two wars and it contained such provisions as that making it mandatory for any civilian to take into his home any given number of soldiers, provide them with a couple of pounds of beef, three pounds of bread, four quarts of beer and change the sheets in the morning. That was mandatory under the billeting provisions and there were numerous provisions of that kind. Eventually, the Government succumbed; I remember discussions with the late Mr. Anthony Eden, as he then was, who accepted that the way out was to have a Select Committee.
The Select Committee was born of Party conflict, and it met under the chairmanship of a very wise and good man, who was a Member of this House until his death—the late Lord Spens. As soon as the doors closed, all the Party differences were forgotten. We spent two and half

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years, labouring through all the Recesses. It was quite a job—with no pleasant visits, but only hard graft—to go through the Army Act, and produce another one which your Lordships would debate each year for five years. Then there would be another Select Committee. When the matter came back to the House on the first debate, there was a great discussion.
I was a very humble participant in the discussion, and I put the formula that I had worked out and that I had come to know as a very humble member of the Armed Regular Forces—lance-corporal, or something like that. We had enough "G" problems. We did not want any more "G" scenarios. What the Army needed was discussion of its "A" and "Q" problems, because whenever the Army had failed, it had never done so because it was short of plans; it was short of jerry calls, short of ammunition, and short of grub. That was what had gone wrong. It had gone wrong ill the Crimea, it had gone wrong in the Boer War, and it had gone wrong at Mons. The troops were all right, but they had no barbed wire. They had no HE. There was no mechanical transport. That was what was wrong. The reason for that was that the Army was run by the aristocratic part of the community, who did not think that providing the rations, or getting the washing done, was a job for gentlemen who had been to Eton. That was left to the products of the "secondary mods"—but there were no "secondary mods" in those days. The idea was that on debates of this kind we would discuss "A" and "Q" problems, and there was no truer "A" problem than that of pay.
The Opposition have decided to have this debate. I would not take part in your Lordships' last Defence debate, because the debate was rubbish. The White Paper is rubbish. The whole defence policy is rubbish, because there is no matching needs with means. I shall try to demonstrate that, as well as what the consequences have been in the past. Your Lordships normally take this kind of matter on the nod, but this time it is to be delayed a little. I am quite willing to come on at the end of the queue. I have been working on my speech for a considerable time, and I intend to make it. Having listened to the debate this afternoon, I should like to refer to some words
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of Adlai Stevenson. The trouble is that "I am too old to cry, and it hurts too much to laugh". Most of the speeches should have been prefaced by the words "Once upon a time."
The pay of the Armed Forces cannot be discussed in isolation. I should like to remind your Lordships of one or two very simple facts. Let us start with fact number one, which relates to the problem of expenditure on the Armed Forces. Here I have not relied upon my own researches. I do not ask questions of the Defence Department unless I know, roughly, the answers—I am too old a hand for that. However, I wanted to ascertain what was voted on defence expenditure in accurate figures since the end of the last war. Remember, my Lords, that every single penny spent on defence must, by its very nature, be inflationary—and it is inflationary in a particularly vicious way. If there is enough of this money it preempts on scarce skills, and on scarce raw materials, and if it does not involve the modern products of a technological age the consequences are indeed serious.
What have we spent? The figure is £75,687 million since the end of the war. That kind of figure could make the economic situation look a little healthier, could it not? Consider this in relation to North Sea oil revenues. The total sums realised from North Sea oil, at the maximum, will not equal our defence expenditure. So we are dealing here with vast sums. I should like to give one other basic figure. This, too, is a Ministry of Defence figure; not one of mine. The total number of men in the Armed Forces at at 1st January was 323,600.
Think for a moment of the days when manpower and the conditions of service were planned, and planned ahead; when, for example, the old Regular engagement used to be 12 years, partly with the Colours, partly with the reserve. When one wanted a considerable number of men engagements had low Colour service and long reserve service. For example, in the Guards engagements were three years with the Colours, nine with the reserves. Infantry who were to serve abroad would be seven years with the Colours, and five with the reserves. They could be held for an extra year if necessary. That was where the flexibility was contained, within the terms of service.

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An officer could not marry and get allowances before he was 30. But of course most of the officers did not need the allowances, because the Army in particular was organised on an aristocratic basis. Most of the officers could not live on their pay. There was no attempt whatever that pay for all ranks should in any way comprise an income. It would not be the act of a gentleman to have to live on his pay; to do so he would be an outsider. That situation had another very serious effect. This was worked out by a Conservative Member of Parliament, who gave his life for his country in the last war. He spotted something. Why, he asked, was it that in the First World War it was not until the end that the men of great ability—the Harringtons and their like; or, in the last war, the Montgomeries—got through? Why do we have to start by being commanded by aristocratic nincompoops, whose major ability is to ride horses? Why?—because in the cavalry, and in the Guards, the average age of the commanding officer was of the order of 39. They were men of great wealth, and the thing was to serve for a few years. They were concerned with the aristocratic cliché of having served in or around London at the good stations. They then retired to manage their estates. In the infantry the average age was 43 or 44. So this meant the same situation; namely, that the senior positions were occupied on the basis of the mere application of the age principle. This involved the cavalrymen, the guardsmen, and the artillery men. The infantry men broke through only after a long period.
Let us look not only at the terms of service as they were operating in 1952, but also at the rates of pay, and see the effect. In 1914 the pay of an infantry man was a shilling a day. It had not changed for 60 years. But what had been added was something of very great importance, and I should think that this possibly involved a member of the Liberal Administration. I say that because there was occasionally a Liberal who had great ability: one was Lord Haldane. His ability was marked by his leaving the Liberal Party and joining the Labour Party. He certainly was not a Tory. The Tory Party has an unblemished and unbroken record of failure in all the Service Departments. If noble Lords doubt that, I should say that it was high-lighted by a
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very remarkable experience during the war, when they ran through all the Tory Benches in the House of Commons and they appointed a Permanent Secretary, because there was no one else to appoint.
What had been done in 1914 was to introduce a form of proficiency pay—and a quite high rate of proficiency pay. It was sixpence a day Class 1; threepence a day Class 2. But to qualify one had to have not less than three years' service. One must have had a three-year engagement, and must not have served for less than two years, and one must have been able to shoot. Even lance-corporals and bombardiers had to be marksmen, or first-class shots, to be able to get that extra sixpence a day.
What happened? Do not listen to me, my Lords. Read that remarkable book Old Soldiers Never Die. If noble Lords have not read it, they should. It is written by the only ranker Regular soldier Private Frank Richards, of the second battalion The Royal Welch Fusiliers, who went from Mons hack to Mons again without a scratch. His style is that of an Army signaller. He had the good fortune to serve with Robert Graves; this produced a book of enormous merit. On page after page, Richards says that we outshot the Germans. Alternatively, if one wants a more erudite description, one can turn to Correlli Barnett, one of the greatest military historians. He tells in Britain and Her Army that at Mons when von Kluck attacked piecemeal, it was the musketry of the British infantry that stopped the Germans in their tracks. It was the old proficiency pay. I might say that the boys had not been taught to shoot birds on the wing. They knew nothing about shooting pheasant or partridge, except when they did a bit of poaching. But what they did know is that if they became marksmen or first-class shots they got sixpence a day—and that mattered.
Now, the 1914–18 war had not been going for five minutes before a glaring example became very evident. Of course, our aristocratic Army was wedded to the horse, but horse transport had long since been passed by modern armies which had kept themselves up to date. So what happened? The Liberal Administration produced a remarkable jump in pay. They did a staggering thing. They intro-

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duced pay of six shillings a day for MT drivers; and the effect of this was felt throughout the war. Nothing did more to produce bitterness than that six-bob a day, because there was the ASC driver, living in a comfortable billet with three meals a day and a bed when he got back, driving up to the front line, and the infantry he carried went on and got shot up for a shilling a day. Indeed, there were innumerable law actions after the war by men who thought that they had been "done", who thought they had joined for six shillings a day only to find that they had not.
Then, at the end of the war we had another remarkable occurrence. Again, a Conservative Government had learned a lesson. Army Order 325 was introduced. It introduced a new concept of pay—a tradesman's rate of pay and a non-tradesman's rate of pay. For the non-tradesman, for the first time, proficiency pay was split; that is, the soldier who was dismissed his drill and who had a certificate of education could get threepence a day—therefore the qualification—and he could get another threepence if he became a marksman and was physically efficient. Here, again, there was built into this gift another complete lack of thought. The experience of the First World War and its deficiency of MT drivers caused Army Order 325 to include within it a provision for the giving to a mechanical transport driver of a tradesman's rate of pay. But, of course, in the days when the Army had got few MT drivers and paid six shillings a day, the situation had been transformed. So in fact the mechanisation of the Army was hung up from 1919 onwards because there had been written in this provision for tradesmen, when virtually it meant that any infantrymen who passed an MT test qualified as a tradesman. Again, a form of bitterness because the restrictions were imposed on an establishment basis.
Now we move on. We move on again, if I may say so, to a marvellous happening. All the speakers on the other side of the House talked about equity. In 1925—perhaps we might get the figures exactly right—there was Army Order 367. That was a real red-letter day. What did the Tory Government do? Because of its ossified class nature, the pay of the Armed Forces was linked to that of an
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agricultural labourer. The rates of pay given by Army Order 325 were, to a Government which was returning to the gold standard, impossible to sustain. They were impossible politically to sustain to the diehard, blue-eyed Tories in another place—and I expect there were a few here. So what did they do? They reduced the rates of pay. We have not heard a word of that today, about that reduction in pay. That brought about the introduction into the Armed Forces of another source of intense bitterness, because in the barrack room you had men sleeping bed by bed, one getting 10 per cent. more than the other. So you had exactly two rates of pay introduced by a Tory Government.
Then, as if that was not enough—and here I speak with great personal feeling—there was something else. I noticed some words of the noble Earl, Lord Cork and Orrery, about the Armed Forces and the way a Labour Government treats them. In 1931, those who were on the higher rates of pay—and I was one of them—not only found their pay reduced from the old rate to the new but also found their allowances reduced. Our marriage allowance they reduced; our ration allowance they reduced. What did it do? It caused something to happen which has not happened today. It caused a mutiny in the Navy. Why was it done? Was it because there was a shortage of money in the City of London? Not on your nellie! The reason it was done was because a Conservative Government wanted to stay on the gold standard. And Tories come along today and talk about sacrifice in the interests of the Armed Forces. Here again, you had this in the Army. You had rates of pay for those before 1925, and you had rates of pay for those after 1925. You then combined the joint misery in 1931, then you restored it in two dollops of 10 per cent., and then it came back again. Let me move up to the outbreak of the last war. Again, the mismanagement of this problem was crystal clear, as plain as a pikestaff; because the further you were from danger the more you got. That was the working out of Army Order 325; so after the war was over they introduced a star system. Personally, I think that was a tremendous improvement.
The Marquess of LINLITHGOW: My Lords, I hope the noble Lord will forgive

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my interrupting him. I am very grateful. I have been listening to his speech with great interest. I did not mean to intervene in this debate, and am in fact doing so only as a civilian who fought in the war and many of whose friends, who were not professional soldiers, also fought in the war, a number of them being killed. I think it is most ungenerous of the noble Lord, if I may say so, in the name of those who, like myself, fought in the war—and, as I say, many of them, non-soldiers, were killed and wounded—to try to persuade the House (which, so far as I can see, is what he is trying to do) that the war was won by the noble Lord, the Lance-Corporal Wigg, and his friends and that the Conservatives basically "ducked" the war and had nothing whatsoever to do with helping to win the war. Now, this is not a point that I should like to make in your Lordships' House, but I have in fact been tempted to make it beyond my power to resist by the noble Lord; and it is certainly not a point that I would ever make otherwise. I should like the noble Lord to look up the statistics of the Members of Parliament in the House of Commons between 1945 and 1952 and see who, on the Socialist side, had seen action and who, on the Conservative side, had seen action.
Lord WIGG: I do not mind if the noble Marquess wants to do that piece of research, to bring it out, but what has that to do with the argument? He may be right; he may be absolutely right, and that every single one in the House of Commons was on the Conservative side. Let us take it that that is so. But that is not my case.
The Marquess of LINLITHGOW: My Lords, I am terribly sorry; I have not made my point clear. I really do not think that sacrifice in war is a political point at all and I would just wish that the noble Lord would not make such statements in this House.
Lord WIGG: My Lords, if it is a political point I am going to make it. I do not apologise to anybody for making the speech that I want to make. If anybody does not want to listen, I am sorry; I will go on speaking to myself. I do not mind that; I have not the slightest objection. But I am going to make my speech in my own way, and I am going to
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say that pay and the handling of pay in the Armed Forces is something very much more than a subjective matter. It is linked with the organisation of the Forces; it is linked with their fighting efficiency; it is linked with the total amount that you spend on defence.
I go further, and I say this to the House, that, whether or not they like it, the Armed Forces of any State is an extension of the society it seeks to serve. It is an extension in the sense that it projects, or should project if it is to be efficient, all the forces that are within the State, and it serves the objects of policy that the State may lay down; and if there is any tension or any error in the formulation of the policies framed upon those principles, it will reveal itself. They did for the Americans in Vietnam; they did for the French in Indo-China, they did for the French in Algeria; and for the French and ourselves at Suez. I am quite prepared to be as generous as any human being; and even if I did not want to be generous, the service of Conservatives in the war and all the rest of it is irrelevant to my argument.
What I am saying now is that the money being spent following the introduction of the 1957 White Paper, which Mr. Macmillan introduced as a political document to save him from the consequences of the Suez disaster, carried with it the consequence that the expenditure that has to be undertaken—which takes between 55 per cent. and 60 per cent. of the whole defence Budget—is of such magnitude that, at the end of the day, you cannot afford to pay for and provide the equipment which is essential to the men in all three Services. Those are the facts.
May I remind your Lordships of the recent utterance by the Chief of the Defence Staff in China which received some notice in the Press? The Soviet Government commented upon it and their representative in London was interviewed by the BBC. I never saw a full report in any newspaper. I got a report myself from the BBC on what this gentleman said right at the end. He said:
"All the gentlemen in England can sell their trousers and give it to defence but there is nothing you can do ever again to become a first-class military power".
That is the fact. If you indulge in expenditure of this magnitude without

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regard to the consequences, without seeing that the terms of service are such (or that the money is spent in such a way) as to meet the actual needs, then, sooner or later, the consequence, as sure as night follows day, will be that it is going to end in military defeat. It cannot be otherwise as the failures of policy and the means and overwhelming might of the USA were brought to naught in Vietnam, or, again, I repeat, the strength of the French Empire was brought to nothing in Algeria. The resources, never mind how great, did not match up to the need.
Lord BOOTHBY: My Lords, I ask the noble Lord only one question: does he not realise that between 1925 and 1935 we were operating under what was called the "Ten-year rule"—which said that no war was to be expected for 10 years—laid down by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1925? That was Mr. Churchill. During those 10 years, not only the pay of our Armed Forces but the strength of all the Armed Forces, the Navy, the Air Force and the Army, were steadily reduced.
Lord WIGG: My Lords, I entirely agree. I think I have written to this effect. One of the most disastrous decisions taken was the Churchill doctrine of the 10 years. He himself subsequently built his career around the complaints he made about failure to re-arm; whereas, in fact, our weakness had been brought about by Mr. Churchill himself.
I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, will appreciate the point I am making—and I have made it and passed from it—that the Armed Forces of the Crown of this country as in any society—and it is true of the United States—are and must be an extension of the society they serve. The great tragedy has been that between the two wars—and I think it was probably accidental—Britain was, perhaps, the only example in history where a great industrial power, the most (if I may say so) sophisticated democracy in the world, went into the Second World War after suffering decline as a consequence of the First World War and one million casualties, with an army of peasants led by an aristocratic class whose strength was based on the ownership of land—a concept that was dying at the end of the
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19th century. That is the basic fact. It was a society that valued spurs above sprockets and it was no accident, therefore, that it could not handle the tank when it came up against a society which had renounced the horse and was utterly utilitarian in its concepts and was prepared to dedicate everything in the State to the strength of its Armed Forces. In a democratic society you cannot behave like that. It is one or the strengths and virtues of democracy: that you are accountable for your actions.
I am saying—and this is what I wanted to lead up to—that all my political life I have said, and I repeat it again today most dogmatically, that I believe the demands of this country need conscription. The abolition of conscription was a political act. Only through the imposition of conscription can you have the kind of Armed Forces you want, and for a very special reason: because the Armed Forces are, again I repeat, an extension of the society they serve. They must therefore have access to the scarce skills which they cannot pay for, never mind how much money is on the table. The only way to get access to those scarce skills is through the organisation of (and it is implicit in) national service. In my judgment, it is no accident that all the EEC countries except ourselves have conscription for the very reason that you cannot get balanced forces. If you try to buy them as they are being bought now, you will fail; whether it is Mrs. Thatcher who does it, Sir Ian Gilmour, or whoever you like. This is one of the reasons why I take no active interest in defence. It is absolute nonsense. The more we spend, the weaker we become economically and we do not correspondingly increase our military power.
My Lords, I do not apologise in the least for having kept you. If I bored anyone, I am sorry. What I have in mind is that at some stage in this country's proceedings, somebody ought to say what I have said—even if it is not popular and even if it makes me unpopular. For that I care very little. I am speaking the truth which is in me. I know this to be the truth; I worked over it, I fought over it; I believe it.
5.18 p.m.
Baroness VICKERS: My Lords, no-one can say that one is bored by a speech

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by the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, but on the other hand I think it was inappropriate for him to spend all the time that he has on this. If he really wanted to bring in all this historical knowledge, he could have put down an Unstarred Question and discussed it. And he has been so inaccurate. One must remember 1916, before conscription was brought in, and the number of people who held the front until that time. If he goes on to want conscription now, then he must remember that he has already complained about cost; and conscription is extremely costly, especially with training young people for temporary periods in the very highly delicate equipment of today. When he compares the difference in wages, he will remember that when he and I were in the other place we got only £600 a year. He linked his remarks with the agricultural workers. Frankly, some people in the Services would be very pleased to have their pay linked with that of the agricultural workers at the present time, for the Services get less than many agricultural workers.
I can perhaps take an independent line because I have never been in the Armed Forces and have never been a Minister; so I can speak more frankly than some noble Lords. I am appalled—and I agree with what the noble Baroness, Lady Ward of North Tyneside, said in regard to the attitude of the Government. If you read the SSAFA reports, you will see that it is Service families who are now in the poverty trap. This is very unfortunate. I think that the Chiefs of Staff ought to be thanked for warning the Government and not rebuked. I read the headlines in the Press saying,
"Jim's mischief-makers named";
this was very unfortunate indeed. If he were going to reprove the Chiefs of Staff, surely he could have done so privately and discussed the matter with them. To me that is an unfortunate business and I hope it will not stop the Chiefs of Staffs from speaking their minds, if necessary, in the future.
What I want to discuss is the question of the formation of the Forces Wives' Association. The wives doubt whether Government will keep their promise in regard to pay, and I believe it has been calculated that pay in the Services is 32 per cent. below civilian pay today.
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So when civilian wages go up, Services' wages will again be left behind when the time comes for the last payment. On 6th June there is to be a rally at Speakers' Corner and the wives will then go to the House of Commons to lobby their MPs. The Association is about 30,000 strong. I feel that it is very unfortunate that the wives are being forced to take this action. I must say I support them in doing so. I hope that the Government will treat them with respect and heed their requests.
In regard to what the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, said, I agree with him that the Review Body's hands were tied, but, as the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, said, the Government's hands were not tied and they need not accept the recommendations in their entirety. This Review Body has been active since 1971 and it is now 1978. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, that other methods should be found.
Since the introduction of the military salary, it would appear that the Services are considered as a homogeneous whole. In fact, of course, the Services are very different indeed. At the present time 1,000 Army officers and 500 RAF officers have resigned. What I want to point out in regard to the differences is that the RAF, for example, have to operate very superior and difficult technological equipment. It needs tremendous training and costs over half a million pounds to train a pilot. Some leave after a short time and take up civilian occupations. So what has happened in the RAF? They have put an embargo on some people's leaving and I know that one person has an embargo of eight years. This is not going to make for a happy service. RAF stations are mostly in remote areas and civilian housing is not available. Service families have to move because they cannot afford rents. They are much more willing to pay mortgages—and in some cases the payments are less than rent—and buy a house of their own There are 6,000 empty RAF houses at the present time. This means, unfortunately, that families live apart, because the husbands have to be on call at the RAF stations and there is severe overwork. This would not be allowed if they were civilians because their trade unions would sec that they were not overworked.
The Royal Navy, for example, is having difficulty in manning ships. I should be

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interested to know—and perhaps the noble Lord will tell me when he replies—how HMS "Bulwark", if it is brought out of mothballs, is going to be manned anyhow until they have retired HMS "Ark Royal". It is rumoured in the Navy that it may be necessary to pay off some of the crews of the smaller ships and put them into the larger ones.
I was down in Portsmouth the other day, and previously when I was there I had lunch with the Admiral at the dockyard. This time he said to me, "This is not my house now; we have had to turn it into a naval mess. My wife is allowed to come and sleep with me so many days a month." This is quite absurd. These problems are very unfortunate, because previously wives did a great deal of work for the Navy. There was what was known as a Friendly Wives' Association. They did quite a lot among the Services for charity, ran bazaars and so on. Now this has had to be dropped and so the friendship is disappearing, too. The RAF is the hardest hit at the present time because they cannot get enough pilots or engineers for the next few years. The Royal Navy is not quite so hard hit; it is down 14 per cent. on recruitments, and the Army is down 7 per cent. The Royal Marines come off best with only approximately 20 people fewer than last time. I hope that the noble Lord will look into these points.
May I take this opportunity to thank him for the reply that I have just received following the Defence debate of some months ago. I had inquired about the medical services. He says that categories of personnel have for some time been difficult to recruit into the medical services. This continues to be the case. He adds that it is hoped, however, to see some improvement in the near future. It is over a year since I originally raised this subject, and I should like to know what "the near future" means and what action is actually being taken.
I hope that I have said enough to convince the Government that senior officers will not be debarred by Queen's Regulations from criticising for fear of ruining their own careers. One hopes that after reading this debate the Prime Minister may reconsider and perhaps change his Defence policy. Otherwise
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my Lords, the "Silent Services" will not be able, because of the need to safeguard this country, to be as silent as they have been in the past.
5.27 p.m.
The Earl of AVON: My Lords, I should like to add my own humble tribute to Lord Selwyn-Lloyd. I was happy to couple him and Sir Robert Menzies as personal friends and friends of my family. I shall value that all my life.
The noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, quoted the TAVR figure as being 6,000. He quoted the same figure in the Defence debate. If I may put the record right, it should be 60,000. I remain unconvinced that the Government's implementation of the Review Body's recommendations by 1st April 1980 will halt the flow from the Armed Services and, perhaps more important, will create a climate where people will wish to join the Services. As another noble Lord said, time will tell.
The two facts which interest me in particular are how the present situation was allowed to happen and what steps are being taken to ensure that a similar situation does not occur again. Like the noble Baroness, I would join the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, in querying the use of the Army Forces Pay Review Body. Would the Government be prepared to consider a change in its composition and terms of reference? Their report of 1977 must take some blame for the present situation. The current report makes much better reading.
The problem, as I see it, is that the Review Body have in the past taken into consideration the Government's restraint measures and have adapted their solution to meet Government policy. A pay review body, I believe, should present the case of their protégés to safeguard their protégés. While unions and business communities are twisting and turning in every way to circumvent the restraints—they have increased the "perks", given more overtime, changed their job descriptions, increased their insurance benefits—what happens to the Armed Forces? Their rents have been increased and "ducks and drakes" are played with their ration allowances.
There is an illuminating paragraph in this last review. Paragraph 9 says:

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"The unsatisfactory pay position is made still less tolerable by minor irritations created by the relative deterioration in some of the conditions of service. A simple example illustrates the point: baggage allowances for Servicemen posted overseas on accompanied tours are effectively frozen in cash terms because to increase them would (we have been told) be interpreted as a non-wage benefit which would have to be offset against pay increase".
Cannot the Government do something about this? Who has told the Review Body this? Cannot the Prime Minister be told by the Review Body to reverse this decision?
After all, it has been said that the Government are committed to accept the Review Body's recommendations unless there are "clear and compelling reasons" not to do so. Bearing this in mind, and having said already that the Review Body's 1977 report must take some blame for the present situation, I believe that so too must the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defence take their fair share. The Government, under the present Prime Minister, seem to have drifted into antagonism against the people in uniform: first the police, then the firemen and now the Armed Forces. As for the Minister of Defence, did he not see that the 1977 report was inadequate? Did he make any representation to the Cabinet for some more leeway in pay? Was he not warned that the terms contained in the report would damage morale? Surely here was a clear and compelling reason for a re-think. I suspect that none of this happened and that ministerial responsibility has hidden under the skirts of the Pay Review Body.
For that reason alone, I should like to see the body's terms of reference changed so that the Minister and his Department, who have the responsibility for the Services, can make representations about conditions, recruiting, morale and so on, and even come up with lively suggestions; for example, tax-free bonuses on reenlistment, a new approach to married quarters and help for mortgages for soldiers who buy houses within 10 miles of their depots. We need some lively initiative, not a heavy analysis of equations. How do you equate a luncheon voucher with having a meal of stew in the field? It must be very difficult!
So much for the references. Regarding its composition, the body acknowledged after its 1977 report that the Armed
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Services were "disenchanted" with it. I think that perhaps the Armed Services might have used a stronger word. To give confidence to the Serviceman and to produce some of these lively thoughts, could the Board be joined by, say, eight Service personnel—an equal number—with people drawn from each Service, each representing a different rank, from a married airman to an infantry corporal and a bachelor lieutenant in the Navy, with perhaps an Army pay expert there too? They might not get on and they might even produce a minority report; but I am sure that is a suggestion worth persevering with. The Review Body might then become less independent perhaps, but in my view that would be no bad idea. It is too independent at the moment and it needs a closer relationship with the people it is meant to be safeguarding. I think this is essential if it is to be effective in the future.
5.33 p.m.
Viscount MONCKTON of BRENCHLEY: My Lords, first I must apologise for not having been in your Lordships' House at the start of the debate—I was earning my living—and, secondly, I may not be able to stay until the end, for the same reason. May I revert to the question of the alleged "rocket" received by the Chiefs of Staff for having revealed the number of officers putting in their papers or asking so to do. I think it is a bit unfair, when it had already been tabled as a Question in this House in December—a Question to which the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, gave me the Answer today. As we have had the Answer today, and everybody knows that this was a Question asked in Parliament, it does seem rather hard to blame someone because the information was leaked, if it was; it certainly was not leaked to me by the Chiefs of Staff.
Perhaps I might remind the noble Lord that I did ask another question in the very last debate on this subject—I hope the answer will not be leaked, because I would rather have it before it is leaked; that is, how many officers and soldiers are being deferred in their applications for premature retirement? It is not because I hope there are a lot—I pray there are not—but it is a very unhappy unit if people in it are being deferred when they want to leave. In my day

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there was a system: if you really wanted to keep a key man you went to the Brigadier, and if he was more than "key" you went to the General. Each had the power of delaying his release, but he was not a happy man when his release was delayed.
The points made by my noble friend Lord Avon are extremely relevant on the minor matters of pay, which really hurt people. I do not know whether your Lordships realise that when a soldier goes out into the field on training, the bachelor does not get charged for his rations and, still less, for his accommodation. The married soldier does; and at the same time as there was this minor advance in pay for the Forces the cost of rations went up 20 per cent. I think a lot of people have missed that point: it has gone up from 91 pence to £1.15, but at any rate it is a rise of 20 per cent. And that rise in rations is paid by the married man when he is training in the field. The result is that the single soldier lives for the day he is going to go out on training—as most of us always did—but the married man is no longer so keen or so happy when he is in the field. It is minor irritants of this kind which could easily be put right, I should have thought, without any great hurt being done to the Government's pay policy.
The question of quarters, which was raised by my noble friend Lady Vickers, is also important. The situation referred to is occurring in a very big way, and I hope that the question will be answered. Just take Southern Command. I believe that between 2,000 and 2,500 quarters are empty—I repeat, empty—because it is cheaper for a soldier to take a mortgage, live 200 miles away and commute in to work. This means that men such as the technical quartermaster, the adjutant and the serjeant-major—the key men in a unit—are living well away from barracks and, in the event of an emergency, have to be got in by devious means, because they cannot afford to live in the quarters provided. There are wasted quarters all around the Service stations in the British Isles. Again, I should have thought that was something which could be looked at. Incidentally, they then get paid separation allowance because they are not living, in quarters, so the cost is headed back the other way there.
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The Servicemen really, to be honest, do not think they are going to get a fair deal, now or later. They accept what they have got. They cannot believe they are going to get comparability in one or two years' time because they do not think account will be taken of the inflation which will take place during that one or two years. So I hope that this will be looked at. I do not know whether your Lordships read Private Eye but, if so, you will see there this week a cartoon which is relevant. It shows how genuinely this is felt by the Servicemen. There is a picture of a soldier, with an IRA man next to him, saying: "Short of money? Come and do a bit of part-time in the IRA!" It is a pretty nasty joke, but it does show you what the general public think—or at least what Private Eye thinks—and I suppose it is now part of the Establishment. That is what they think about soldiers' pay.
Other minor things are also happening. The 16-year-olds in the Navy who used to be treated in a rather special way, I am told, and were given extra milk and less physical work to do so that their growing would not be stunted, are now doing the full job of an Able Seaman because of shortages. Technicians in all three Services are leaving to join the Civil Service, to do precisely the same job as they were doing in the Armed Services. This seems a hit of a nonsense, when we want to keep those key technicians.
I have been destructive so far, my Lords. I do not mean to be. I believe we must try to persuade people to stay on now rather than push them out, and I should like to know from my own Front Bench what the Conservative policy is for pay in the Forces. Let us hope that I shall hear next week during the debate in another place. Meanwhile, let all of us do our best to make the Servicemen happy and to keep them happy so that they will stay to serve the Crown.
5.38 p.m.
Lord NEWALL: My Lords, I should like to join in the tributes paid to the noble Lord, Lord Selwyn-Lloyd. He was a very great and kind statesman who will obviously be missed greatly in this House. I did not myself know him but I always had a great admiration for him.

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We have had some very good speeches this afternoon, probably some of the best we ever have are on defence. Part of the discipline that is enacted in this House while we talk about discipline often means that defence debates are fairly brief. Perhaps we did have one exception this afternoon, but in my regiment we have always had good barrack-room lawyers who were lance-corporals or below.
The Armed Forces Pay Review Body Report, in my opinion, was an open door for the Government. They had an opportunity to give the Forces a fair deal and bring their pay into comparability with that of civilians. In this they have failed miserably. The Forces, pay has lagged behind that of their counterparts for several years, but if the Government do what they say they will do by 1980 they may have caught up. But I must say that this lagging behind in pay must never, ever be allowed to happen again. It is quite iniquitous. The flow of Servicemen leaving the Forces is ever-increasing. It is increasing rapidly, but the Government plumber seems to have the wrong tools, the wrong fittings and the wrong knowledge. Their only answer is that they might mend the tap in two years' time. My Lords, it is too little and too late. The Government plumber is obviously only an odd job man who will probably be on welfare before the end of this year.
I should like to ask the Minister whether he thinks we are truly and honestly keeping our promises to NATO. Ask Servicemen at any level in the Services and you will get a very firm answer that we are not and that they cannot do the job properly.
May I continue briefly along the same theme? There are the leaks of information about the numbers leaving the Forces, which were raised by several noble Lords this afternoon. These would never have happened if the Government had been more open and frank in their dealings with the Forces. My noble friend Lord Avon mentioned the word "confidence", and I agree entirely with his views. There is a distinct lack of confidence in the Government by the Services, and I, personally, am very glad indeed that the Service chiefs agreed to release the information—which they had every right to do—about the numbers leaving the Forces. The
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public had a definite right to know. It should not be a matter of politics. As my noble friend Lord Cork and Orrery said, there is something in the wind. My noble friend Lady Ward also made this point. No wonder that, with such a terrific lack of confidence and an inability to get their points across, the bogey of trade unions often arises. Some time ago in your Lordships' House I mentioned what the German Forces do. They have a federation which looks after their interests. It is not a union, and the Services do not want one, but they need something better than the strained relations with the present Minister. The noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, suggested that a remedy was required, and perhaps that should be looked into more deeply.
The confidence that one needs stems from actions taken over a long period of time. The manner of dealing with pay problems is, perhaps, only one matter Lack of equipment, cannibalisation of vehicles and severe restriction on the use of tanks, ships and 'planes certainly never instils confidence in the people who are training to defend their country. Two years ago, I visited our Forces in Germany and I have recently been fortunate enough to visit NATO in order to be updated in their views. I talked to many of the Servicemen, who said then that they felt they were second-class soldiers on NATO exercises, because most of our allies had better equipment and some of it was British made. Obviously, the position is considerably worse now.
It does not help confidence if wives are told not to speak to the Press; and my noble friend Lady Vickers spoke about the part that the wives are playing. It was surely very poor judgment to try to shut them up, which can only incite them to speak out more loudly, as they will do. They are doing an excellent job. The Service chiefs, also, should be able to speak to politicians, and perhaps the House of Lords Defence Study Group has helped to break down the communications barrier in the past two years by getting Army, Navy and Air Force people to speak to politicians. Because of insufficient pay, the men in the Forces are leaving and applying to leave the Services in droves. The Navy is worried about how to man its ships, the Royal Air Force is worried about how to fly and service its 'planes, and the Army is worried

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about how to drive its tanks, so it puts them in mothballs.
The noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, mentioned manpower, and I agree wholeheartedly with what he said. But numbers alone tell only half the story. Many of those leaving are technicians and experts, who have taken many years to train. This is something which the Government should do something about right now. These men can probably earn almost double in civilian life. My noble friend Lord Westbury mentioned the loss of manpower, and my noble friend Lord Monckton of Brenchley talked about the deferments, which is a very worrying point indeed. I wonder who has been advising the Minister of Defence about feelings in the Services. Normally, a wink is as good as a nod on these occasions; that is all that is required. But for all the winking that is being done, the Minister has only nodded. Perhaps he needs a little bell on his hat, so that he will wake up to what is going on in the Forces at the present time.
Look, my Lords, at the 18 per cent. which the power workers are getting. In his opening speech, the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, mentioned the scale of pay of a private soldier. But a private soldier on Scale A, Class 4, Band 1, now gets an increase of only £1·77 a week, which will not stop him from leaving. A captain of two years—a man with considerable experience—will now get an increase of only £5·65 a week. That is ridiculous, and it certainly will not stop him from applying to leave. The latest figures of Servicemen leaving are quite horrific and show a marked increase on the already gloomy figures.
We all know about the productivity deals that are going on in civilian life in order to give workers more money. To my mind, many of them appear to be totally bogus. The Forces cannot get a productivity deal. Perhaps I may give your Lordships an example. In an armoured regiment which has recently been restructured, the old establishment was 47 tanks. The new establishment is 74 tanks. The manpower in that regiment has decreased by one man and, with tank numbers going up by 27, the same men handle 55 per cent. more equipment. This is surely worthy of a productivity
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deal, but they cannot get one; it is not allowed. That kind of thing is not catered for in the new pay deal. My noble friend Lord Cathcart mentioned this, along with the injustices of the local overseas allowance, which is a very sore point in Germany, and I totally ally myself with him in his question to the Government.
Various charges have been mentioned this afternoon. Accommodation charges may have been frozen, but the food charges increased again on 1st May and have gone up 243 per cent. since 1973—a most enormous increase. The recent cost of living figures show that the increase is 10 per cent. over the last eight months, which is equal to 15 per cent. over a year. This immediately wipes out the 14 per cent. increase for the Forces and, once again, they fall way behind until April 1979, when something may happen. The chairman of the Armed Forces Pay Review Body said on 26th April that pay restraint measures designed for industry could not be fairly applied to the Armed Forces, and the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, reiterated this point. Parity with their civilian counterparts in 1980 is ludicrous and much too late, and will not prevent Servicemen from leaving. The final date should be 1979, and a much larger increase should have been given this year. Full parity should be achieved by April 1979.
The Government know that, at best, they may have a 50/50 chance of winning the next Election, but I do not think that they will be governing in 1980. They are passing the buck. No doubt, the Forces will be very glad, but some of them cannot wait and are leaving, and that is what we have to face. Comparability has not been restored and the Government know this. Perhaps I may ask the noble Lord who speaks for the Government whether he agrees that comparability has not been restored, and, if he does agree, will he say why it has not been restored? The Forces all feel that they are being asked to provide their services on the "never-never"—never catch up, and never get a fair deal. The Conservatives will certainly give the Forces a fair deal. They recognise, as the public does, that the Services do a tremendous job, often under great hardship, and they need the backing of their

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leaders in Government. As Mrs. Thatcher has often said, they will get the backing of the Conservative Party.
5.48 p.m.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, I am glad that the House has taken the opportunity of using our annual debate on the Armed Forces Discipline Order to discuss a problem which concerns us all very deeply. Perhaps this annual event provides an opportunity for exercising the vigilance which was mentioned by my noble friend Lord Wigg. I am certain that the debate has been valuable, and it has underlined once again, with the facts available, the fears expressed by noble Lords in our earlier debate in April. This debate is of particular value, because we are not talking on the basis of hypotheses; we are talking on the basis of facts as we know them and as they have been put before us by the Pay Review Body.
Of the speeches that have been made, I think that the speech of the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, really asked the key question in our discussion: how can we avoid this situation arising again? We cannot solve it by fighting a Party war or a class war. We can solve it only by applying our intelligence to the solution of problems which we all know exist and which we all believe must he solved. To that end, today's debate is of substantial value.
Various noble Lords questioned the role and value of the Pay Body. I would not. I think that they have done a remarkable job. In their first report they achieved comparability, but then—I am not making a Party political point but am just stating the problem—inflation and economic difficulties occurred. The Conservative Administration of the day introduced a pay policy and, because of the inflexibility of the system, the pay of the Armed Forces dropped behind, as usual, in 1973–74. Comparability was restored in 1975, but again, because of inflexibility, the pay of the Armed Forces slipped behind civilian pay awards. However, that is not the fault of the Armed Forces Pay Review Body. As the noble Earl, Lord Cathcart, pointed out, the slippage is mainly the result of a combination of inflation and inflexibility as to the way in which the pay of the Armed Forces is calculated, presented and carried out.
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An interesting point was made—again by the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, and touched upon also by the noble Lord, Lord Newall, who spoke from the Conservative Front Bench—as to whether the negotiations should be left to the Government alone. The independent body proposes; the Government disposes. If I understood correctly the point made by the noble Viscount, he suggested that professional negotiators might he appointed.
Viscount BRIDGEMAN: My Lords, I did not suggest that professional negotiators should be appointed, although it is quite likely that that might be the right course. I said that I thought the principal personnel officers might have the task of appointing the negotiators.
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, this is an interesting point: it may be one way whereby greater flexibility could be achieved. It is also another way whereby the minor irritants which were mentioned by the noble Earl, Lord Avon, and other speakers might be more rapidly removed. As was rightly said, compared with the total expenditure the sums of money relating to baggage allowance are so minuscule that a more rapid method to solve these problems ought to be available to us.
Having said that, may I answer one or two of the questions which were put to me, one of the most important relating to the local overseas allowance. As the noble Earl, Lord Cathcart, said, this is causing very severe worry, particularly in BAOR. The position is that speculation existed about a possible reduction in the rates of local overseas allowance payable in Germany, but the Ministry of Defence made it clear in a message to BAOR and the Royal Air Force in Germany last October that there would be no change in the rates payable of LOA, except those arising from fluctuations in the exchange rates, for the next 12 months—that is to say, until October of this year.
The situation is being looked at. Noble Lords may wish to question whoever may be sitting on the Front Bench, as time passes, on this subject. I know that there is a wish that the local overseas allowance should bear a greater similarity to the foreign service allowance of the Foreign Office, but the role of the two allowances is different and I believe that the harmonisation of the two is not easy.

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Although I cannot give a satisfactory answer, may I also refer to the growth in the number of requests for premature voluntary release. It is interesting to note that the number of people requesting release does not bear any relationship to the number of people leaving. Applications for premature voluntary release are made, but they do not tie individuals; and if circumstances improve the request for premature voluntary release is, in many cases, withdrawn. If we look at the figures for 1977–78, which are the best that I can provide today for your Lordships, we see that 334 trained officers in the Royal Navy applied for premature release but that only 265 left; that in the Army, 908 applied for premature release and 689 left; and that in the Royal Air Force, 778 applied for premature release and 414 left. Let us hope that the Government have got their sums right. The suggestion has been made that in response to the Pay Body's proposals we have given too little and too late.
Baroness VICKERS: My Lords, may I ask the Minister how many have had an embargo placed upon them?
Lord WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, if I may, I shall write to the noble Baroness or will deal with this point in a Written Answer. I have put this question today to my advisers, but it has been difficult to obtain figures in such a short time. I know that it is a matter of importance and I shall ensure that the facts are made known to the House. We are in a position to watch what is happening by means of the vigilance which has been mentioned by noble Lords.
All that I can do with firmness is to repeat what I said earlier. On 1st April 1979, the Armed Forces will receive a pay increase which will consist, broadly, of half the amount required to bring them up to the full military salary at April of this year, together with whatever amount is required to update the award to April 1979. This will be subject to the recommendations of the Pay Review Body. On 1st April 1980, again I repeat that the Armed Forces will receive the remaining half to bring them up to the full military salary, assessed for April of this year, together with the appropriate upgradings.
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The noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, suggested that the sums required might be so great that they would not be available. To achieve 14 per cent., the figure for this year is approximately £167 million, which is a substantial sum. When it is compared, however, with the total military budget the sum is not large. Therefore, the fear expressed by at least one noble Lord that the resources will not be available and that the Government's undertakings are therefore suspect is not correct. This is a firm undertaking, and the resources required are not so great that the undertaking will be broken. I am not making a Party political point when I refer to the point made by the noble Viscount, Lord Monckton of Brenchley: that he hopes that his own Party, on the assumption that they win the General Election, will give a clear statement of their policy. I expect that we shall hear what that policy is when a major debate takes place on the subject next week in the other place.
I cannot bring to mind any other major point which has been made by noble Lords. However, if I find that I have missed any important point, naturally I shall write to the noble Lord in question. May I take the opportunity that this debate gives—it is customary to do so but it is no less deeply felt—to pay a tribute to the Armed Forces who, despite the situation which concerns noble Lords, have continued to serve their country with the firmness of purpose which we expect of them. They undertake many diverse and varied rôles—often very dangerous—and I am sure that the House will join with me in recording our gratitude for their professionalism and dedication to duty.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

PROTECTION OF CHILDREN BILL
6 p.m.
Baroness FAITHFULL: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, that the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Baroness Faithfull.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The Baroness WOOTTON of ABINGER in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [Indecent photographs and films of children]:
The MINISTER of STATE, HOME OFFICE (Lord Harris of Greenwich)The MINISTER of STATE, HOME OFFICE (Lord Harris of Greenwich) moved Amendment No. 1:
Leave out Clause 1 and insert the following new clause—
Indecent photographs of children.
("1.—(1) It is an offence for a person—

(a) to take, or permit to be taken, any indecent photograph of a child (meaning in this Act a person under the age of 16); or

(b) to distribute or show such indecent photographs; or

(c) to have in his possession such indecent photographs, with a view to their being distributed or shown by himself or others; or

(d) to publish or cause to be published any advertisement likely to be understood as conveying that the advertiser distributes or shows such indecent photographs, or intends to do so.

(2) For purposes of this Act, a person is to be regarded as distributing an indecent photograph if he parts with possession of it to, or exposes or offers it for acquisition by, another person.
(3) Proceedings for an offence under this Act shall not be instituted except by or with the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions.
(4) Where a person is charged with an offence under subsection (1)(b) or (c), it shall be a defence for him to prove—

(a) that he had a legitimate reason for distributing or showing the photographs or (as the case may be) having them in his possession; or

(b) that he had not himself seen the photographs and did not know, nor had any cause to suspect, them to be indecent.

(5) References in the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 (except in sections 15 and 99) to the offences mentioned in Schedule 1 to that Act shall include an offence under subsection (1)(a) above.
(6) Offences under this Act shall be included—

(a) in the list of extradition crimes contained in Schedule 1 to the Extradition Act 1870; and

(b) among the descriptions of offences set out in Schedule 1 to the Fugitive Offenders Act 1967;

and sections 17 and 22 of the 1870 Act and sections 16 and 17 of the 1967 Act (application to Channel Islands, Isle of Man and United Kingdom dependencies) extend to this subsection.
(7) In paragraph 1 of the Schedule to the Visiting Forces Act 1952 (offences against the person in the case of which a member of a visiting force is in certain circumstances not liable to be tried by a United Kingdom court), after sub-paragraph (b)(viii) (inserted by the
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Sexual Offences Act 1956) there shall be added—
"(ix) section 1(1)(a) of the Protection of Children Act 1978".").
The noble Lord said: In moving the first Amendment in my name, and indeed that of the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, perhaps I may say a few words about the Government's proposals in relation to this Bill. As the Committee will recall, I dealt with this particular question during our Second Reading debate, when I indicated that the Government accepted the principle of the Bill and did not wish to alter its effect in any significant respect. But we think that the Bill can be improved and made more effective, and to this end we have tabled a series of Amendments which rewrite most of the provisions of the Bill, although very often the words used are virtually the same. We have had a whole series of meetings with the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, who introduced the Bill, and I am glad to say that as a result the Amendments which we have put before the Committee this afternoon are agreed between the Government and the noble Baroness. In fact that is why both our names appear on the Marshalled List. With that substantial measure of agreement about the objectives of the Bill and the means of securing them, I hope that these Amendments will meet with the approval of the Committee.
I should now like to turn to the first Amendment, new Clause 1 which, together with the new clause after Clause 1, replaces Clause 1 of the Bill and presents in slightly different fashion the central provisions of the Bill defining the actions which will amount to an offence and setting out certain supplementary provisions as to the prosecution and the trial of the offence. The basis of the offence remains a photograph or film which is indecent and which is of a person under the age of 16. Although the offences are otherwise expressed in different terms, they cover virtually the same ground as those in the Bill as published.
The clause also contains the requirement for the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions and introduces a defence in more general terms than that of the original Bill. The clause reproduces the test of indecent as the means of deciding whether a photograph or film contravenes the law. Pending the conclusions of the Williams Committee on Obscenity and

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Film Censorship, the Government are prepared to accept that it is a reasonable solution of the widespread desire to deal firmly with those who exploit children for pornographic purposes, that while the test of obscenity is retained for pornography generally, the threshold of criminality should be lowered to indecency where children are involved.
The offences in relation to indecent photographs or films of those under 16 will be of taking them or permitting them to he taken, distributing or showing them (whether or not for gain), possessing them with a view to distributing or showing them, and advertising them. In effect, these offences are practically identical with those in the Bill as published, but their terms more clearly express what they are aimed at. As in the Bill as published, the Government think it desirable, in view of the potential width of the offences and the differing views which may be taken of what is indecent, that a prosecution should be brought only with the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions, and this is secured by subsection (3).
Again, it is necessary to allow for those kinds of distribution or showing, or of possession for such purposes, which are perfectly proper or which are genuinely inadvertent. The Bill as published sought to do this in Clause 4, but the Government were satisfied that the exemptions provided there were in some respects inadequate and subsection (4) of the new clause provides instead a general defence of legitimate reason. This is a matter which has given rise to a certain amount of discussion and some people have expressed misgivings that a defence in these terms might be liable to abuse. But I think that where they are faced with indecent photographs of children, the courts can be relied upon to take a sensible view of what is or is not legitimate, and I am glad that the noble Baroness now feels able to support this provision. The defence, I might add, applies only in respect of the offences of distributing or showing or of possession for such purposes: under the Bill as amended, there could never be a legitimate reason for the taking of an indecent photograph of a child. I beg to move.
The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES (Baroness Wootton of Abinger): There follow a number of Amend-
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ments to this Amendment which we will take before we revert to the original Amendment.
Lord WIGODER Lord WIGODER moved, as an Amendment to Amendment No. 1, Amendment No. 2:
Line 1, after ("person") insert ("without lawful authority or reasonable excuse, the proof whereof shall lie on him").
The noble Lord said: I have tabled altogether some six Amendments to the clause to be proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, but I will indicate straight away that with one possible exception they are intended to be drafting Amendments. I ask nothing more than that the noble Lord and his advisers might look at them in due course and possibly comment upon them either now or at a later stage. I have no intention of pressing any of these Amendments at any time during the course of the proceedings on this Bill.
The other observation that I wish to make particularly to the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, is that, although I was not perhaps the most enthusiastic advocate of this Bill at Second Reading, I indicated then, as I do now, that I am entirely content that it should go on the Statute Book, and the only purpose of the Amendments which I desire to move is that it should go on the Statute Book in the most workable form possible.
In dealing with Amendment No. 2, I wish at the same time to speak to Amendment No. 6. The reason is that Amendment No. 6 seeks to remove the statutory defence in the new Clause 1 at Clause 1(4)(a). Amendment No. 2 seeks to replace it in a slightly different form and at a different place in the Bill. I have no intention whatever of seeking to remove the statutory defence altogether. If I may say so, I am a little surprised that the Daily Telegraph, for example, this morning should have sought to suggest that there should be no statutory defence in this Bill. As I read this Bill, without such a statutory defence the Lord Chief Justice would be committing a criminal offence if, during the course of a trial, he handed indecent photographs to the members of the jury for them to look at. It is therefore perfectly clear that some form of statutory defence is necessary.
Amendment No. 2, in fact, alters the statutory defence proposed by the

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noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, in two respects. First, instead of using the words,
"… that he had a legitimate reason",
I have ventured to suggest that there ought instead to be the words,
"without lawful authority or reasonable excuse, the proof whereof shall lie on him".
In other words, leaving the burden of proof on the defendant, as it would he under the new proposed draft of the noble Lord, Lord Harris. The reasons for preferring the expression "lawful authority or reasonable excuse" to the expression "legitimate reason" is simply that the term "lawful authority or reasonable excuse" is well known to the law; it appears in a number of statutes, for example in the Offensive Weapons Act and various other Acts of Parliament. It is clearly understood, whereas, so far as I know, the defence that is suggested at the moment of a legitimate reason is a new departure in the criminal law.
If one looks in the dictionary, one finds that the word "legitimate" is open to a vast variety of quite different meanings. I am anxious that, in what I think will be the rather limited number of prosecutions that will be brought under this Bill, we should not invite every single defendant to go to the Court of Appeal and then perhaps to the Appellate Committee in order to argue the meaning of the term "legitimate reason" which has not been used on previous occasions. Therefore, I suggest that the term "lawful authority or reasonable excuse" might be preferable for that reason.
The second effect of these two Amendments is to transfer the defence from subsection (4) of the new Clause 1 right to the beginning. Under subsection (4) as it stands, the statutory defence is only made available, as your Lordships will see from lines 19 and 20, "Where a person is charged with an offence under subsection (1)(b) or (c)". I would suggest that it would be much more logical to make the statutory defence available not only in the case of subsections (1)(b) and (1)(c) hut in the case of subsections (1)(a) and (1)(d) as well.
The reason is simply that the new clause begins by saying that "It is an offence for a person" to take an indecent photograph of a child. It cannot be—though it
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would be, without a statutory defence—that a police photographer, for example, who takes a close-up of a child's private parts in order that it may be used as evidence in an indecent assault case in the courts should find himself having apparently committed an offence with no sort of defence available to him. It cannot be that a photographer who takes a picture of a child suffering from some sort of venereal disease for a medical periodical should find he has committed an offence with no possibility of any defence. It cannot be—if I may take a rather more improbable set of circumstances, though the improbable does tend to happen in criminal cases—that if a person on the beach is happily photographing his wife in her bikini, and just as he presses the camera trigger some naked child happens to wander in front of the lens, with the result that what he gets is a photograph of a close-up of a child's private parts, he should then be found guilty of taking an indecent photograph without any sort of defence open to him.
The Earl of LONGFORD: May I ask the noble Lord whether he seriously suggests that in that case the person would be found guilty? We are not talking, after all, of nude photographs; we are talking of indecent photographs. Lady Faithfull quoted Lord Reid on the last occasion as saying that indecency
"includes anything which an ordinary, decent man or woman would find to be shocking, disgusting, and revolting".
Taking that sort of test, the kind of pictures the noble Lord mentions could hardly be found by any jury in their senses to be indecent.
Lord WIGODER: I think it may well be that the jury would find the photograph to be not indecent, but I do not see why a person who in all common sense has not committed a criminal offence at all should be at risk of being charged, as he would be, because it would be a matter for the jury whether the photograph was indecent. There have been observations, as the noble Earl will remember of distinguished judges who have gone so far as to say that any photograph of the naked body is in itself indecent. I, therefore, suggest no more than this, that some form of statutory defence ought to be provided for the person who under subsection (1)(a) takes a photograph which might be regarded as indecent but does so in

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circumstances which make it clear that no person could conceivably say as a matter of common sense that that person had committed an offence. I know, of course, that there is the provision that proceedings shall not be instituted except with the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions, but again I do not think, as a matter of public policy, that it is right that people should be put in the position of finding that they have quite inadvertently and innocently committed criminal offences and should have to rely on the goodwill of the Director of Public Prosecutions in order to avoid prosecution. So much for (1)(a).
So far as Clause 1(1)(d) is concerned, for which at the moment no defence is available, again it seems that, without any form of defence, it does go a little bit far. It makes it an offence,
"to publish or cause to be published any advertisement likely to be understood as conveying that the advertiser distributes … indecent photographs, or intends to do so."
Anybody can without very much difficulty get an indecent advertisement into the personal columns of The Times. It has happened over and over again. One uses certain words which are understood by certain people and which get past the little girl secretary who happens to be taking the advertisement at the other end of the telephone. Is it seriously to be said that not only the publisher of The Times—and that must, I think, include the editor and it must include the proprietor—but every newsagent who happens to sell a copy of The Times (I believe he would be publishing it, too, under these circumstances) should find himself open to prosecution without any form of defence open to him?
I assure noble Lords, and perhaps particularly the noble Earl because he ventured to intervene at an earlier stage, that I am not seeking in any sense unreasonably to extend defences. I am not seeking to create work for the criminal Bar; there is plenty of work available without any assistance in this regard. But I suggest that it is obviously possible that under (1)(a) and (1)(b) a wholly innocent person might find himself in grave jeopardy unless we provide some form of sensible defence which he can put forward in an appropriate case. I therefore beg to move.
Baroness FAITHFULL: I wonder whether the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, will forgive me if I go back for a moment to the opening remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Harris. At this Committee stage of the Bill I hope your Lordships will appreciate the refreshing and not very usual experience of finding Amendments being tabled jointly in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Harris, the Minister for the Home Office on the Government Front Bench in this House, and of myself from the Conservative Back Benches. It is encouraging that these two sides of the House go hand over hand over this Bill.
As your Lordships know, the Government Amendments were not discussed in another place. Since the Second Reading in your Lordships' House on 5th May last there have been discussions between the Home Office advisers and myself and my legal adviser on the Government Amendments. These do not substantially, I would submit, alter the purposes or the principle of the Bill; rather they are a matter of presentation and drafting. I must confess that, in my view, there is no great difference between the Bill as originally presented and the Amendments listed in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Harris, and myself. However, in the interests of a safe, unhurried, but undelayed, Committee stage, agreement has been reached on the Amendments tabled by Lord Harris and myself. I would at this stage like to express my indebtedness to the Home Office officials who have helped me, and to the noble Lord, Lord Harris, for his co-operation.
May I now come on to the Amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder. We have had very real difficulties over the defence clause—subsection (4) of the proposed new clause. If the Amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, were passed, subsection (4)(a) would fall. At first I favoured the Bill and the definition and formula used. In fact I think one might call it the shopping list formula where everything is detailed individually. I then came to think that, good as this was, the circumstances of life and living might change; there might be new inventions, and the words would then not apply. I then moved towards the formula, as has the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, "without lawful authority or reasonable excuse", having read the

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case of Regina v. Jura. It seemed to me that that was rather wide. I then moved on to another case, Wong Pooh Yin, on lawful excuse, and again that seemed rather wide. Then I asked myself whether the formula in the present Amendment was not, after all, the best one. I realise there is a very fine legal point here which some of us lay people may not fully understand. But in all the considerations we have had we have not been able to come up with an alternative. If your Lordships are not in favour of the clause's "legitimate" defence, it would be extremely interesting, either here or in another place, to hear what would be the alternative.
6.20 p.m.
Lord SCARMAN: I would address my remarks solely to the Amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, which suggests that the words "without lawful authority or reasonable excuse" would be better as a statutory defence than the words "a legitimate reason". I wholly agree with the noble Lord that a statutory defence is necessary and I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, that it is really a legal, almost just a drafting, question as to whether one accedes to the suggestion put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, or remains with the draft as proposed in the Government Amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, is absolutely right when he says that the phrase "without lawful excuse or reasonable authority" has a certain familiarity to lawyers. The phrase "a legitimate reason" has a certain originality about it, and it is the originality about it which commends it to my mind.
The danger of using the phrase "without lawful authority or reasonable excuse" as the statutory defence in this Bill is to be found in the words "reasonable excuse". I would suggest, with respect, to the Committee that those words might be construed more widely than would be considered appropriate in a Bill with this object. They are also inappropriate. There will be parents and others who have no lawful authority—if that phrase means anything in that context—to have in their possession indecent photographs, and yet they do have a legitimate reason—one need not speculate what it is—for having them. Is it right that such a
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parent should have to say by way of defence, "I have no lawful authority—I do not even know what those words mean—but I have an excuse and it is reasonable." The parent may say, "I have a legitimate reason for having that photograph of my child in my hands". Why should a parent be forced on to the defensive, talking about excuse, reasonable or otherwise? It is a dignified thing for such a person to say, "I have a legitimate reason".
I think basically that is why I would respectfully suggest to your Lordships' Committee that this new phrase carries with it two advantages. First, it is less wide than "reasonable excuse" and therefore confines the defence to the sort of cases in which I believe your Lordships' House would wish the defence to be available. Secondly, when it is available it is a highly respectable and dignified defence, the sort of defence one would wish to take if one had in one's possession for legitimate reasons an indecent photograph.
Do not be frightened of introducing new and original, but simple and understandable, language into our statute law. Welcome the opportunity. Get away from the old, hackneyed phrases and use a phrase which means something to ordinary people, and bear in mind that this phrase, "a legitimate reason" really embraces a question of fact on which courts and juries are well able to reach a sensible decision in determining the meaning. I therefore would suggest to the Committee that we stand by the Government clause as drafted in this respect. Upon the other Amendments, I think it inappropriate for me to make any comment.
Lord REDESDALE: I shall be very brief. Obviously, as was said on Second Reading, we support this Bill and support the Amendment as put down by the noble Lord. I would just say that there are a number of people who have made representations about their worries on the word "legitimate", mainly on the basis that with a really good barrister the word "legitimate" perhaps could be stretched. I know that the noble Lord covered this point, but perhaps in his reply to the points which have been raised he might also give consideration to the fact that "legitimate" could be construed

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as going a little wide. However, as I hope this Bill will be passed by 1979—which happens to be the Year of the Child, rather appropriately—I think that all the defence should be there. In the original Bill where it was laid down, there was, as the noble Baroness, Lady Faithful], said, a shopping basket list of defences, and this perhaps seemed to the layman rather more neat and tidy than the rather wider sense of "legitimate". I look forward to hearing the noble Lord's views on this point.
The Earl of LONGFORD: I should like to express great concern about the proposed new Clause 1(4)(a). I am not dealing with a narrow legal point but with quite a broad point. Some of your Lordships may have read what Mrs. Whitehouse wrote in The Times this morning. After all, she has some standing in this matter because she and our organisation were the initiators of a campaign against child pornography. She would regard the inclusion of this word "legitimate" as seriously undermining the whole point of the Bill. Your Lordships may or may not agree with Mrs. Whitehouse, but, as I say, she has some standing in this matter and that is the considered view of those who come forward with her. Coming to it quite independently—and I do not take my orders from her though she is a very good friend of mine—I share that opinion. If one takes the arguments we have had today about the need for protecting people who distribute child pornography, one starts, after all, from the assumption that the photographs have done harm to the children. I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Harris, said clearly that the production of child pornography could never be justified, so we can assume that this pornography has come into existence in some deplorable fashion.
In any case it seems that one could argue that there were legitimate reasons, but in anything we have heard yet—and we may have some more reasons spelt out—the only reason given is that those concerned with suppressing it might need to distribute it either in the courts or as police officers. The noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, was fair as always, though I thought he was rather more misguided than usual at a certain point. He was very fair in indicating what had not been said earlier and what I do
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not think even Mrs. Whitehouse has brought out previously—that the Director of Public Prosecutions has to give permission for a prosecution to be launched. So the idea that these people are going to be put at risk, that there might be some slightly erratic judge who took the view that all nude photographs are indecent, is a completely unreal hypothesis.
Where the noble Lord, having brought out that point so well, seemed to depart for a few seconds from his own standard was in suggesting that we should now be dependent on what he called the goodwill of the Director of Public Prosecutions. Surely, we are not dependent on his goodwill—one might almost say his mercy—for the exercise of a reasonable amount of wisdom in the course of his duties. I think we can take it that any police or judges or any such people involved with the suppression of child pornography are never going to be prosecuted because permission is never going to be given by the Director of Public Prosecutions.
I am not seeking to divide the House this afternoon but unless this Bill can be improved in this respect, if I find any substantial body of opinion I shall divide the House on the next occasion. If anyone asks me whether I think there should be any statute of defence I would say that there might be cases where it is necessary but it has to be spelt out a great deal more clearly and cogently. The whole argument for the defence must be put in a much more sensible way than we have heard up till now.
Baroness ELLIOT of HARWOOD: On a previous occasion I said that I had no legal knowledge or experience. Therefore what I say represents the perfectly ordinary reaction of someone who believes very strongly that the Bill is extremely important and that it will stop a disgusting and revolting traffic in pornography which is extremely harmful to children.
Having said that, I wonder which of the two legal opinions to which we have listened with great interest is the strongest or the most powerful. I should like to be sure that the words contained in the Bill could not be misinterpreted in a way which we all know sometimes happens—a way by which someone indulging in this

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horrible traffic would be able to get away with it on some legal grounds on the basis not so much of ordinary common sense, but of the interpretation of a word.
I am much impressed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scarman, who is a great authority on this subject and also by the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, because they both want to do the same thing. They are not in any way opposed to each other but they have been discussing what is the most effective way of dealing with the situation. I agree with the noble Earl, Lord Longford, that if there is any feeling in anyone's mind that the word "legitimate" is not sufficiently strong and powerful then some other phrase should be used.
The Earl of LONGFORD: It is not that I fear that it will not be strong or powerful enough: I fear that it will be too strong and too powerful—indeed, unnecessarily and dangerously strong and powerful.
Baroness ELLIOT of HARWOOD: The noble Earl means from the point of view of the defence?
The Earl of LONGFORD: Yes.
Baroness ELLIOT of HARWOOD: I agree with the noble Earl. I am sorry, it is my fault. I entirely agree with the noble Earl. I do not want to see any way in which any of these offending people can get away with it. However, our two judges seem to have different interpretations and from the point of view of the people who are backing the Bill we want the interpretation which will help to get these people convicted. That is what I should like to see.
Lord SCARMAN: The difference between "excuse" and "legitimate reason" is that an excuse can be put forward by a guilty mind. A "legitimate reason" means a legitimate reason—that is to say that someone has done something which is legitimate. Words as simple as "legitimate" are, as Lord Reid once said in this House, questions of fact which are perfectly well understood by judges and juries.
Baroness ELLIOT of HARWOOD: I feel reassured by what the noble and
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learned Lord, Lord Scarman, has said and I am sure that the Committee will feel the same. I like to think that the matter will be further discussed and considered by the noble Lord, Lord Harris, when the Committee stage has finished. My own view is that I want the Bill made stronger and more powerful. If the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scarman, is right then I think that we should stick to his discipline. I should like to feel that the noble Lord, Lord Harris, would definitely consider the two points of view which have been put forward.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: Before I deal with the actual words which would be changed if the Amendments moved by the noble Lord Lord Wigoder, were to be carried into effect, I should like to refer to the effect of moving the defence provision from subsection (4) of the new Clause I tabled in my name and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, to subsection (1). Subsection (4) is framed so as to refer to offences under paragraphs (b) and (c) of subsection (1), which are those of distributing or showing indecent photographs of children or possessing them with a view to distribution or showing.
The defences do not apply to offences under paragraph (a); namely, those of taking indecent photographs, because we take the view that although there are legitimate reasons for handling indecent photographs—when they are in the possession of the law enforcement agencies, for instance—the same reasons cannot apply to the taking of indecent photographs. I think that there is a distinction to be drawn here. We consider that it would be wrong for Parliament to suggest, in framing this measure, that there are circumstances in which the use of children for the purposes of indecent photography could ever be a proper activity. The exclusion of offences under paragraph (d) from the new clause raises a less substantial issue, but we still consider that a defence of this kind would be inappropriate in relation to the publication of advertisements.
The widening of the defence to cover these other offences is, perhaps, the most important objection to the noble Lord's Amendment. This brings me to the second question to which we have devoted most of our attention in the Committee this

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afternoon. I do not think that the substitution of "lawful authority or reasonable excuse" in place of "legitimate reason" raises considerations of the same substance as the ones which I was endeavouring to advance a few moments ago. It may well be that the courts would interpret the words in very much the same way. Nevertheless, I am bound to say that I suspect that the speech to which we have just listened from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scarman, has had a fairly significant influence on the Committee. It is a difficult question of balance as to precisely what form the words should take. It is, I repeat, possible to argue that whichever form of words we adopt the result will not be all that much different. However, I think that on the balance of the argument it is right to stay where we are.
I repeat that it is a difficult question. I cannot pretend that we feel passionately opposed to every detail of this aspect of the noble Lord's Amendment, because we do not. Nevertheless, on balance we prefer the existing form of words, which brings me to the question of whether there should be a statutory defence at all. It would be very remarkable were we to decide that there should be no statutory defence. The noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, gave one example of the position of judges. What about the position of the police? What about the fact that the police may feel it appropriate, in certain circumstances, to keep certain photographs for training purposes? Those are substantial questions.
With great respect to my noble friend Lord Longford, one cannot deal with this problem by simply saying that the stop-gap of the Director of Public Prosecutions is there. Policemen cannot do things which they know to be unlawful. It is as simple as that. Therefore, I believe that there must be a clear and explicit statutory defence. Of course, there is a statutory defence in the Bill that we are now discussing. It is not as though we are saying that it is necessary to have one while the sponsors of the Bill are in fact resisting it. As we are all well aware, an exemption was provided in Clause 4(b) of the Bill for possession, display or dissemination,
"solely in the course of justice or of scientific or learned study."
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The problem with those particular words was that in some respects they appeared to go too wide, creating exactly the problem to which my noble friend Lord Longford addressed himself a few moments ago when he was discussing the terms of the Government Amendment. For those reasons, we came to the conclusion that it was desirable to tighten the matter up to some degree. That is, in fact, what we have done by the use of the words "legitimate reason".
The Earl of LONGFORD: As the noble Lord referred to me perhaps I could comment. I am not saying that the old wording was perfect; I certainly do not agree that the new words are very good. I believe that some fresh words have to be found, which have not yet been laid before the Committee, no doubt in time for the next stage.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: I hope that I would not be so arrogant as to say that under no circumstances would we look at other forms of words. That would be an absurd proposition. Of course, if any form of words is put down, we shall examine it carefully. But with great respect to my noble friend Lord Longford, I do not believe it is an easy matter, as I am sure he would agree. One has to strike a delicate balance here. One cannot put those involved in the very difficult job of law enforcement at the very best into an extremely ambiguous position when they are carrying out their lawful duties. We cannot possibly put the police in such a situation. I could give many other examples.
I have spoken perhaps a little too long on this matter, but I repeat that at the moment we are certainly of the view—for the reasons which have been so very persuasively put before the Committee this afternoon by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scarman—that the existing form of words is preferable to any alternative about which we have so far heard. Certainly if other forms of words are put before the Committee, we shall, of course examine them.
The Earl of HALSBURY: With the permission of the Committee may I say that I am a little uneasy at the way in which the argument advanced by the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich,

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is developing because of his dichotomy of the defences as between paragraphs (a) and (d) of subsection (1), on the one hand, and paragraphs (b) and (c) on the other. I should like to illustrate this with something taken from medical science. For example, the editor of a journal in which the photograph of a syphilitic child's private parts were published would have two defences: first, that the photograph was not indecent and, alternatively, that he had a legitimate reason for distributing it: to wit, the advancement of medical education. That gives him two defences. However, the photographer who took the photograph has only one defence. To me that seems to be a rather unfortunate state of affairs. I ask the Minister to consider this point before the matter comes up again on Report.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: With great respect to the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, I take the point. This is a difficult matter, which I have in fact been considering this afternoon. At the moment we are not persuaded that it would be right to move in the direction that he suggests, but obviously we shall consider what he has said.
Lord SCARMAN: I should like to support what the noble Earl has just said and suggest that when the Government are considering his point in respect of paragraphs (a) and (d) they should bear in mind that there is a real difference between the (a) offence and the (d) offence; that it might be reasonable to provide a statutory defence, in whatever words are ultimately decided to be appropriate, to subsection (1)(a), without allowing any such defence to subsection (1)(d).
Lord SOMERS: Perhaps I may say a few words, although not much remains to be said. I listened very carefully to the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder. To accept his Amendments would seriously weaken the Bill. One must remember that if the words which he proposes are inserted, the people with whom we are dealing are not fools and will find some means of having a reasonable excuse for having their photographs. Only too often have we found it impossible to prosecute a person who we know perfectly well is guilty, simply
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because of certain wording in the Act which concerns them. I think that this would greatly weaken the Bill.
We must also remember that we are inclined to be very frightened of the fact that unless the defence is there, one is likely to he prosecuted; but people do not carry out accusations of crimes of this sort unless there is some serious expectation that they are true. For instance, if I carry a photograph of my own child naked in my pocketbook, I do not expect someone suddenly to come rushing up to me saying, "Open your pocketbook. Let me see. Oh, you've got a photograph of a naked child. Let me have your name and address". That sort of thing does not happen. It is only if there is a serious supposition that one possesses something that is indecent that that situation arises. I think that it was the noble Earl, Lord Longford, who said that a naked child of itself is not indecent.
Lord WIGODER: Two separate issues have been raised. One is whether "without lawful authority or reasonable excuse" is or is not better wording than "legitimate reason". On that I have no very strong views. I have listened with great interest, particularly to what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scarman, had to say. I slightly prefer a traditional formula; he slightly prefers a new one. If we adhere to the new formula of "legitimate reason", I shall have much pleasure in reminding the noble and learned Lord of his words after the first case has been heard in the Appellate Committee in which four of his colleagues and the noble and learned Lord will have delivered not entirely harmonious judgments as to the meaning of the expression.
Rather more important is the question whether a defence should be extended to subsection (1)(a) and (d). So far the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, has not indicated that he proposes to offer any protection to the police photographer or the officer in charge of the case who asks the photographer to take the photograph. I am sure that he would not want to leave the police in the position in which, prima facie, they might be committing an offence. I also find some difficulty with paragraph (d) as to who exactly is the publisher of the newspaper which contains an advertisement. I am

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sure that the noble Lord would be willing to look at these points in the light of the debate. In those circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw this Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
6.47 p.m.
Lord WIGODER Lord WIGODER moved, as an Amendment to Amendment No. 1, Amendment No. 3:
Line 3, after ("person") insert ("who is or appears to be").
The noble Lord said: Amendment No. 3 goes with Amendment No. 8 and is, I hope a very much less controversial matter. As your Lordships will see, Amendment No. 8 seeks to leave out the five lines that appear just before Amendment No. 8 on the Marshalled List; and Amendment No. 3 seeks to replace them in a slightly different form. My objections to what is, in fact, subsection (3) of the new clause which is proposed in the five lines at the bottom of page 3 on the Marshalled List are really twofold.
They are simply that the wording is somewhat inelegant and unhelpful. They read:
"On a charge of an offence … the defendant may be convicted without proof that a person photographed, or shown in a photograph, was under the age of 16 at any time, if it appears to the court from the evidence as a whole that he was then under that age.").
I venture to think that to put into an Act of Parliament the words:
"the defendant may be convicted without proof"
on the face of it is a little strange and may be liable to give rise to some misunderstanding, particularly when one is directing a jury that it is, of course, for the prosecution to prove its case in one way or another.
I should like to mention one very small point. In the same subsection the words,
"a person photographed … was under the age of 16 at any time"
strike me as being a little odd and as being an irrebutable presumption that all of us were at some time. I venture to suggest to the noble Lord two purely drafting alternatives. One is in the form of Amendment No. 3, and would simply go right back to the beginning of Clause 1, to the bracket in Clause 1(1)(a) where a child is defined as:
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"meaning in this Act a person under the age of 16".
I have suggested that it might be possible to achieve the same effect as the clause to which I am objecting by saying:
"a child (meaning in this Act a person who is or appears to be under the age of 16)".
I hope that that would have the same effect, but it would do it in a form which if I may say so, is a little more elegant. One would then be able to direct a jury that it is sufficient, if it is proved to them that the child is under the age of 16 or appeared to be under the age of 16.
I should like to make another alternative suggestion, which is that if that does not meet the approval of the noble Lord and his advisers, the wording of Section 80 of the Criminal Justice Act 1948 should be followed, suitable adapted; and it should simply read then that:
"the age at the material time of a person photographed shall be deemed to be that which appears to the court after considering any available evidence to have been his age".
That would then keep it in line with similar legislation that is already on the Statute Book, rather than to depart in the way that is at the moment proposed in subsection (3) of the new clause. In those circumstances, I beg to move this Amendment.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: The noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, has moved this Amendment and spoken to Amendment No. 8; and they are, as he recognises, largely, though not exclusively, on drafting points. I should like to have a look at the particular proposals that he has made. If he would care to withdraw this Amendment I shall look at them both before the next stage of the Bill.
Lord WIGODER: In those circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment No. 3.
Amendment to the Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
6.51 p.m.
Lord WIGODER Lord WIGODER moved, as an Amendment to Amendment No. 1, Amendment No. 4:
Line 10, leave out ("likely to be understood as").
The noble Lord said: Amendment No. 4 is again a short point. In new

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Clause 1(1)(d) at the moment there appear the words:
"to publish or cause to be published any advertisement likely to be understood as conveying that the advertiser distributes …"
and so forth. I wondered what the significance was of the words "likely to be understood as", and whether the subsection would read just as well if it was "to publish or cause to be published any advertisement conveying that …". If the words remain in, there is a yet further ingredient about which a jury have to be directed—namely, they have to be directed not only that it was published, not only that it conveyed, but that it was likely to be understood as conveying. This would give rise to all sorts of questions as to what is meant by "likely", who is to do the understanding, and so forth. It might be possible to miss out that stage without in any way affecting the substance of the subsection. I beg to move.
Lord MONSON: I should like to support this Amendment. It seems to me that the words "likely to be understood as" are far too sweeping and all-embracing particularly as there is to be no statutory defence so far as Clause 1 (1)(d) is concerned. It would cause great difficulty for newspapers who already have to spend quite enough time worrying about whether they ought to substitute the word "person" for "man" or "woman" in job advertisements, without having this further burden heaped on their shoulders.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: The noble Lord's short intervention reminded me of many pleasant exchanges we had during the passage of the Sex Discrimination Act. I shall look at these points, if I may, between now and the next stage of the Bill.
Lord WIGODER: I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment to the Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
6.53 p.m.
Lord BEAUMONT of WHITLEY Lord BEAUMONT of WHITLEY moved, as an Amendment to Amendment No. 1, Amendment No. 5:
Line 15, at end insert—
("(2A) For purposes of this Act, a photograph or film shall not be considered indecent—
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(a) by reason only that one or more of the persons appearing in it is in a state of undress (whether complete or partial); or

(b) unless it is proved or is to be inferred from the photograph or film that the making of the photograph or film caused or might reasonably be expected to have caused any child appearing therein physical harm or psychological or emotional disorder.").

The noble Lord said: The more one looks at this Bill, the more one sees that it is difficult to produce anything by Amendment, or indeed by leaving it as it is, which is highly satisfactory. We are taking an enormous hammer to crack what everyone who has spoken at Second Reading and who knows anything about sexual legislation admits is a very small nut. As a result, we are all led into a number of illogicalities. I am not casting any blame on the people who drew up this Bill, and particularly not the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, whose handling of it at Second Reading and now is beyond praise.
I am sure that the object of the Bill is right, and that it should be achieved, but for some reason, which it would take too long to go into now, I suspect that this is very unamenable to the processes of law. It is by its nature a very big hammer that we are using for the nut; on the other hand, in all sorts of ways the proponents of this Bill have, quite rightly, left out some things which would logically fit in with what they are trying to do.
For instance, a matter which I shall come to in a moment is that it will be illegal after this Bill to publish an indecent photograph of a child, but it will not be illegal to publish an indecent painting of a child, even if the child has had to go through the same processes of posing—and indeed probably for longer than for a photograph. I am not complaining about this, and I know what the proponents are trying to do. I understand and I sympathise with them. They are relying heavily on the DPP clause. I put it to your Lordships that if the DPP clause was not there, we should none of us let this Bill go through at all. It is only because it is there that we can.
I think we can rely on the DPP. I entirely agree with the noble Earl that we shall be able to rely on the DPP; nevertheless, as much as possible we should not put people into the position of breaking

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the law and relying on the DPP not prosecuting. Law breaking, as such, is neither to be encouraged or made much more rampant in totally innocent cases by Acts of Parliament.
The whole area is a very complex one, as we know. Obscenity is a very difficult concept indeed. If there is one thing about which I should think almost everyone in this House is united, it is that the present law on obscenity is a muddle. There are people who want to change it in one way, and there are people who want to change it in other ways. People occasionally get up and say. "Well, one knows what is obscene; one can define it in certain ways". One cannot. May I take one narrow example before passing on to the main point, which is indecency, and that is the example of bestiality. You would think that it would be easy to say "Reproductions of bestiality are obscene", but it is not so. Probably 98 per cent. or 99 per cent. of reproductions of bestiality are obscene, but noble Lords, noble Baronesses, even right reverend Prelates, pass pictures of Leda and the Swan I should think once or twice a year without batting an eyelid and without a blush rising to the cheek. It is difficult to decide this matter.
When you get into indecency, it becomes even more difficult. We have the concept of indecency in the Post Office Act, and the Customs and Excise legislation. I do not think that we can say that the results of this legislation have been entirely satisfactory. We had the famous occasion of Sir Dingle Foot—a former and highly respected Solicitor-General of the British Government—buying a copy of the Kama Sutra at the bookstall at Heathrow Airport on his way out of the country, and having it confiscated by the Customs and Excise at Heathrow Airport when he returned. This is the kind of nonsense you can have when you bring indecency into the field.
The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines "indecent" among its definitions as "obscene and unbecoming"—and how wide a spread can you get in that? In the Oz trial, where Lord Parker gave some definition of "indecent", he said:
"Indecent means unbecoming and immodest, and indecent is at the bottom end of the scale. If you are on the beach with your children and a woman takes off her clothes, that is indecent."
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Lord Parker continued:
"We just do not do that sort of thing in this country."
Well, there might be various arguments about that, but nevertheless one understands what he means. It was doing something which was not fitting at that particular point.
But, if that is an indecent act, then indeed a photograph of it is presumably an indecent photograph; and it is an indecent photograph with children on it, because Lord Parker said that it was a case where there were children on the beach. Presumably that comes within the purview of this Bill, which, I submit to your Lordships, is absurd.
However, it is not just that we are straying on to very difficult ground on the question of indecency; there is a step further about which I fear I must trespass on your Lordships' patience because it is at the heart of my Amendment. We are attempting to use a court definition of "indecency" to stop damage, psychological and otherwise, to children. That is admitted and that is the purpose of the Bill; it is not a Bill to extend censorship in any way. It is a Bill to protect children.
However, we are doing it by a judgment of what judges and juries think is indecent in the pictures they see, and there are pictures taken of children which undoubtedly may have done psychological harm and damage to them but which are in no sense of the word indecent; say, pictures of children in absurd situations, spread through their schools, could do harm to children. There are also pictures which may be thought to be indecent which probably do no psychological harm to the child at all. Thus, the main object of the Amendment is to try to narrow down the guilt to something which has actually caused or could be thought to have caused harm to the child.
I do not think that will be difficult to prove. If the noble Lords who are sponsoring the Bill have the evidence which they say they have—and I do not doubt that for one second—about psychological damage done to children taking part in poses of this nature, then it will be quite easy to show that certain kinds of picture, photograph or film are likely to cause psychological damage to the child.
The second aspect with which the Amendment tries to deal is the area of artists—painting, depicting or photographing—and there is no real borderline here, as we all now know in the realms of art, but it is quite obvious in this case. Pubescent or pre-pubescent children are, in a way which they think, right for their art without doing the children much harm, it would seem to me. There are today in this country in a great many shops which sell postcard—I refer to the respectable ones and the highly respectable ones as well as the others—photographs by David Hamilton. As noble Lords no doubt know, David Hamiltion is a very well-known photographer of young girls, probably many of whom fall into the category of 14 to 16 about whom we are particularly talking. No obscenity of any kind comes into it, but that there is a real sensuality, a real eroticism, nobody can possibly doubt; nor, frankly, can their sales be ascribed to anything else.
There are other artists who I will not name but who are dealing with the same situation, and I will take two examples from the past because the Victorian age, and the most respectable parts of that age, were absolutely rampant with this awareness of the sexuality and eroticism of children. If one looks at photographs by Lewis Carroll, the Reverend Charles Dodgson, of small girls, whom he preferred photographing naked, there can be absolutely no doubt whatever that, whether or not he realised it, they were strongly erotic actions. There is no evidence, so far as I know, that it ever did any of the children any harm, although one or two mammas got alarmed and suggested that the children were getting a little old for that, but that was all right because, when they got too old for that, Lewis Carroll thought they had got too old for that, too. Then Henry Tuke, a noted RA, who painted and exhibited in the Royal Academy every year; he painted naked boys bathing in practically every one of his pictures, and again they contain a strong eroticism.
There may be Members of your Lordships' House (there probably are) who would like to catch that kind of picture, who think it is indecent and who think that if it went to the DPP—and I suggest that it might well pass some DPPs, because this is an area of considerable
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doubt—it would be right for such pictures to be caught under this measure. I do not believe that, and I believe that my Amendment would, on the one side, protect the legitimate artist and photographer who nevertheless is aware, as all your Lordships may be aware, of the sexuality of young children; and at the same time it would put the attack, the prosecution, into the position of really prosecuting what matters, which is whether the children are likely to be harmed. It is not whether this or that picture looks indecent to you or to me or to noble and learned Lords or to members of a jury. What this Bill is about, as its proponents have said, is the protection of children, and that is what my Amendment is geared to do.
My Amendment may be extremely imperfect and I am prepared to believe it is. I am certainly not going to pursue the matter any further beyond this stage, but I believe it is a matter worth putting before your Lordships in case the Committee should see fit to accept the Amendment. But even if that is not the case, it is worth putting on the record because it seems to me that this is very much a stop-gap of a Bill and that at some time within the next five, six or seven years we shall have to do a major job on legislation dealing with obscenity and indecency. Perhaps it is not a bad thing to face up to some of the problems as we go along.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: The Amendment raises two issues about the present effect of the Government's new clause, indeed of the original Bill, and about the effect of the legislation if the Amendment were carried. I will deal with both issues in turn. As the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, said, indecency is the test in various existing parts of the law. In none of the provisions is the word defined or qualified or limited in any way, in a similar manner to what is proposed here.
"Indecent" or "obscene" is the test laid down under the Customs legislation for prohibited imports, and under the Post Office Act 1953 for prohibited matter in the post. Public displays and advertisements are illegal if they are indecent under various 19th century enactments, and indecency is also the test under certain offences at common law, such as that of

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indecent exhibition which applied to the exhibition of films until the autumn of last year. There is, therefore, nothing new in the concept so far as the courts are concerned and, as has been said, it has been held that indecency refers to matter which offends against recognised standards of propriety.
The concept of indecency is, accordingly, linked to contemporary public standards and is a matter to be decided by the court in each case in the light of what those standards are perceived to be. What is indecent is a matter of fact, rather than a matter of law, and even if an observation of a former Lord Chief Justice a number of years ago can be taken as an indication of a view that the naked human body is indecent, that in no way binds a present-day court, or indeed affects the way in which it reaches its decision.
There is indeed much evidence that the courts do not follow such a view. Let me cite one particular example. It concerns a decision in the High Court in a customs case; that of The Commissioners of Customs and Excise v. Sun and Health Ltd., in 1973. In that case the judge specifically said that photographs of naked boys as such would not offend against recognised standards of propriety. Some of the photographs before him were, he said, patently inoffensive, and he went on to consider in relation to the remainder, whether there were ingredients besides simple nakedness which would make them indecent. That is exactly how I would expect the issue under the Bill to be decided. What this amounts to is that, taking account of the age in which we live, and evidence of the decisions of the courts in cases involving the meaning of indecency, I think, frankly, that there is no danger that ordinary family snapshots, or legitimate sex education material, would be caught by the terms of the Bill.
I should now like to turn to the effect of the second part of the Amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont. I must say that it seems to place an altogether unreasonable burden upon the prosecution. If the Amendment were to be carried, a prosecution would succeed only if the court was satisfied that a child was harmed physically or mentally by the photography; and this seems to leave to the courts a broad area of policy
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which I think should more properly be decided by the Legislature. Although the Amendment would preserve the word "indecency"—it certainly does that—the issue before the court would in effect no longer be the simple one of indecency at all, but an altogether more difficult one of actual, or presumed, effects upon the child. In effect, Parliament would be saying to the courts, by passing the Amendment, that child pornography may or may not be a bad thing, depending on whether proof of harm can be adduced.
I am sure that this is not the intention of the noble Lord, but I believe that it would be an invitation to those who think that children are unlikely to be harmed by indecent photography to come forward to argue their case in court. There would clearly be difficulties for the prosecuting authorities in producing evidence of harm; and one obvious example here would be where the material concerned is imported from abroad. That in itself seems to be a fatal defect in the Amendment. There is the difficulty that when we have indications of the problems being experienced by some young people who have become involved in pornography, it would surely only add to those problems to have the effects on the particular individual as an issue to be discussed at length, and argued about, in a court. That seems to me to be going altogether too far. It appears to be a trauma that we should do our very best to spare children. I recognise that what I mention here is not the intention of the noble Lord, but it would I believe be the consequence of carrying the Amendment. For the reasons I have given I would not commend the Amendment to the Committee—
Lord NORTHFIELD: I wonder whether my noble friend, before sitting down, could go a little further in giving a reassurance to the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley. He said that, given the background of current standards in these matters, the interpretation of the clause by the courts would not in any sense do harm to the family photograph. That was the term he used and I think he used another example, too. Can he not go at least one stage further—I believe that it would be true to say this—and say that in this context the work of, for example, David Hamilton, as well as some photo-

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graphs, drawings and paintings which showed sexuality to a reasonable extent, and eroticism to a certain extent, would not be harmed? I hope that my noble friend will go that much further, otherwise he would not be doing justice to the case put forward by the noble Lord.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: I have dealt with this issue—which has constantly been argued—in relation to what is known as the family snapshot argument. It was a central feature of the debate on Second Reading. It has been argued by some, indeed by many—and it has been argued in the Press—that there is a real risk here. What I am saying is that I do not believe that this is a serious problem; indeed, I do not believe that it is a problem at all. With regard to the other matter, I believe that only the indecent photograph will be caught. Obviously that is my position. I made it quite clear when I spoke on the Amendment.
Lord HALE: I do not think that it is necessary for me to say, "Before the noble Lord sits down"—and certainly I shall sit down myself in one or two minutes. I agree with almost every word of the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley. I passionately agree with him in many of the things he said, hut I also agree with almost every word that the noble Lord, Lord Harris, said about the Amendment. I do not think that there can be a test of active harm. I recall what has happened in many cases of indecent assaults on young children. I realise that, strictly speaking, we are not talking about assaults—yet by implication we are. In such cases, children's officers of great experience have told me that serious psychological symptoms can develop after a fairly long interval. I think that that is generally borne out by medicine. At any rate, this is not the kind of criterion that can be applied as a test.
We have been facing the force of public opinion. The noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, with a degree of either low cunning or high statesmanship, has, with the Home Office, amalgamated an eminently sensible procedure. I consider that the results are eminently desirable, and this is greatly to her credit. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont,
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that we are taking rather more risks than one likes to take in a criminal case. On the other hand, I do not feel any passion for people who really want defending on these matters. I agree also with what has been said regarding the proposal relating to the Director of Public Prosecutions. This is an excellent proposal; it is the kind of thing which may enable the Bill to go through. I was thinking of opening a debate in the near future on the Director of Public Prosecutions, and to say that his power is growing and expanding, developing and spreading, almost like a tentacle. One would like to know how many people there are to make decisions, and how many decisions the Director of Public Prosecutions himself can possibly make. It cannot be many.
I believe that all of this falls into perspective. The noble Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord Harris, have tried their best to define the matter. I dislike very much the word "indecent". The noble Lord, Lord Harris, slipped a little lightly over the ice of advertisements and so on. If I remember rightly, in the Indecent Advertisements Act 1889 advertisements about cures for gonorrhea and other veneral diseases are specifically cited as the definition of indecent advertisements which are prohibited from being exhibited over a vast terrain—that sounds almost like the Department of the Environment.
Everyone has done his very best, and I think that we ought to be grateful to the noble Baroness who has made so many efforts in relation to the Bill. I had my pocket picked about 12 months ago, and had I had in my pocket any photographs of a certain kind I might have got into trouble from the chap who picked my pocket. A noble Lord said that these things never happen, but the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, thinks that they do. Only the truth can teach us on that, and the future may show.
I myself suspect there may not be any prosecutions under this Bill. I know people used to thunder and say, "You should not pass laws unless you intend to enforce them or expect to enforce them". I have long held the view, and have often expressed it, that in these matters there is a great deal to be said for passing a law which will act as a strong deterrent against the publication of photographs of this kind, against the publication of what

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for the moment we are calling indecent photographs of young children, which is a highly disagreeable activity. I can say that I have been to the Royal Academy this morning, and although I saw quite a number of nudes I do not think Britain is in grave moral danger from that source.
Viscount HANWORTH: I think we might consider just for one moment why people wish to view these sort of photographs when they are produced. To some, obviously, it gives a certain satisfaction in itself, and that may be sufficient; but I think that one must conclude that to a number of others it is fuel to the fire, and we might as well consider the possibility that by producing these photographs freely one will in fact increase the danger of sexual assault and undesirable sexual practices on the young.
I think this is a very important point when considering this Amendment, and I am sure that one really ought to take a line where it is possible to enforce the law. The old, old story that if you cannot enforce a law you therefore should not make it is simply not true. A vast majority of our laws are only partially enforceable. What matters, I submit, is that the law should be what people want. It is no good producing a law which people do not want and which they despise. That has absolutely nothing to do with enforcement.
Lord MONSON: I have considerable sympathy with paragraph (a) of the Amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, but I believe there is a great flaw in paragraph (b), quite apart from that cited by the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich. Suppose an unscrupulous individual were to take a conventional photograph of a baby or small child lying naked on a rug, but were then later to retouch it or overprint it so as to turn it into an obscene photograph. Would it not cause great psychological harm to the parents of the child concerned if it fell into their hands, and are not the feelings of the parents also important?
Lord DE CLIFFORD: May I say that I am, as I was on Second Reading, getting slightly confused. The difficulty which faces me is this. There appears to
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be an enormous amount of legal argument going backwards and forwards. I know that ultimately the matter will have to end up in the courts, but there are two things that I want to happen. The parents of children must have a very clear understanding of what the noble Baroness is trying to do to protect their children, and we must not confuse this more than we have to. The second thing which strikes my mind very strongly is the question of intent. What is the intent of people publishing these things and offering them around? Somebody who takes a family photograph and offers it around has no intention of being indecent, but somebody who takes a family photograph, touches it up and then offers it around for money has a grave intent of indecency. Could we not, somewhere here, get this matter of intent quite clearly into this Bill?
Lord ROBERTSON of OAKRIDGE: I feel that the Committee should indeed be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, for emphasising the pitfalls which we could fall into by making the Bill too restrictive. On the other hand, I am reassured by the answer given by the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, and I hope that this is indeed not the case. On the question of pitfalls, I believe that the 1959 Act gives us warning of one particular pitfall, which is the danger of defining a particular term too closely. Having defined what is obscene in a particular way, we have, I believe, caused an unsatisfactory sitution in regard to that law, and I hope we shall not repeat the mistake in connection with this Bill.
I have one other brief point on the second part of the Amendment, where it refers to the making of a film causing harm. I should like to put it on record that one of the objects of the Bill as I see it is to prevent distress being caused to children and their families by the publication of indecent photographs that may have been taken, possibly even without their knowledge.
Baroness FAITHFULL: I, too, should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, because I think it is right and proper that an opposite point of view, or an extended point of view, should be expressed; and I think your Lordships' Committee is indeed grateful to the noble Lord for having put forward this point of view. At the same time, I think that at

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Report stage in another place we tried to say that there is a difference in the case of such photographs taken of children. I accept the point of view of the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont: we are a human race, and in everything there is a sense of eroticism, but it is the level at which that eroticism takes place that matters. If I can be very ordinary, if one takes a photograph of the person one loves it means that one has a sense of feeling towards that person. This Bill is not intended to cover anything involving the normal feelings in normal families which indicate love, feeling and affection. What this Bill is intended to cover is anything which an ordinary man or woman would find to be shocking, disgusting or revolting. I really think that there is a difference, that that difference can be seen and that it will he understood by both the police and the courts. Therefore, while I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, I am afraid I cannot agree with his Amendment.
Lord BEAUMONT of WHITLEY: I am most grateful for the way in which the Committee has received and discussed this Amendment, and I freely admit that there are major flaws in it. The point about material from abroad, I entirely accept; the point about the effects on the child of the matter having to be tested in court, I grant to be an overwhelming reason against the Amendment as it is drafted. I entirely accept the point made by the noble Lord who spoke from the Benches opposite about the effect on the child, not only of the making of the film but also of the showing and the publishing of it, and it is an absolutely worthy part of the Bill that it is trying to stop that harm.
Nevertheless, I still have my doubts in two areas. One of them is in what I might call "the David Hamilton syndrome", which the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, raised. I am still not at all clear what the situation would be there, for, as I say, there is no doubt that in the products of a number of respectable artists and respectable photographers there is a sensuality which a great many people, particularly those who repress their own sexuality, find intensely disturbing—not disgusting or depraved but disturbing. I do not know whether the products of such people, such professional photographers, are covered by
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this Bill. Nor, I suspect, does anyone else. I think this is a very bad situation. It could he decided only by a jury. We could only make an intelligent guess as to what a jury would decide. I do not know in these circumstances what juries would decide. But I think we ought to be fairly clear in our own minds as to what we are actually saying and doing and whether some of these cases come within the ambit or not. This is quite apart from the peculiar anomaly that, for instance, some of Graham Ovenden's paintings could not possibly be subject to prosecution under this Bill because they are paintings; but if someone photographed them, they could be. That seems a weird situation to find ourselves in, and one which is difficult to deal with.
I do not intend to take up the time of your Lordships any further except to make one last comment. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Harris, skated a little quickly over the difficulty of a definition of indecency. I have no doubt that he, too, has been reminding himself of the proceedings of the Committee stage in another place of the Cinematograph and Indecent Displays Bill and the thorough knots that they tied themselves into as to how one could or could not define "indecency", and of the fact that at the end it was considered right to abandon the whole enterprise. It is very complex and full of hazards, quite often for reasonably innocent people. I agree entirely that the whole thing is saved by our having in the Director of Public Prosecutions clause; although I still maintain that that is not totally satisfactory. I thank noble Lords for the consideration that has been given to what I have said, and beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment to the Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment 6 (as an Amendment to Amendment No. 1) not moved.]
On Question, Amendment (No. 1) agreed to.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH moved Amendment No. 7:
After Clause 1, insert the following new clause— Evidence.
(".—(1) On a charge of an offence under section 1(1)(a) of this Act, the wife or husband

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of the accused shall be competent to give evidence at every stage of the proceedings, whether for the defence or for the prosecution, and whether the accused is charged solely or jointly with any other person:
Provided that—

(a) the wife or husband shall not be compellable either to give evidence or, in giving evidence, to disclose any communication made to her or him during the marriage by the accused; and

(b) the failure of a wife or husband of the accused to give evidence shall not be made the subject of any comment by the prosecution.

This subsection shall not affect section 1 of the Criminal Evidence Act 1898 (competency of witnesses in criminal cases), or any case where the wife or husband of the accused may at common law be called as a witness without the consent of the accused.
(2) In section 27(4) of the Children and Young Persons Act 1963 (definition of "sexual offence" for purposes of provisions of that section about calling children's evidence) after "the Indecency with Children Act 1960" there shall be inserted "or section 1(1)(a) of the Protection of Children Act 1978".
(3) On a charge of an offence under section 1(1)(a), (b) or (c) of this Act, the defendant may be convicted without proof that a person photographed, or shown in a photograph, was under the age of 16 at any time, if it appears to the court from the evidence as a whole that he was then under that age.")
The noble Lord said: Of the three subsections of the second new clause, which deals with various aspects of evidence concerning the offences in new Clause 1, the first two are common form which treat the offence of taking indecent photographs of children as akin to other kinds of sexual misbehaviour with children. Subsection (3), on the other hand, is important to one of the central problems of this legislation, which is of determining whether an indecent photograph is of someone under or over the age of sixteen. The provision we are proposing adopts a more straightforward approach to this problem than the version it replaces.
[Amendment No. 8 (as an amendment to Amendment No. 7) not moved.]
On Question, Amendment (No. 7) agreed to.
Clause 2 agreed to.
Clause 3 [Powers of seizure and destruction]:
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH moved Amendment No. 9:
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Leave out Clause 3 and insert the following new clause:
Entry, search and seizure.
(" 3.—(1) The following applies where a justice of the peace is satisfied by information on oath, laid by or on behalf of the Director of Public Prosecutions or by a constable, that there is reasonable ground for suspecting that, in any premises in the petty sessions area for which he acts, there are indecent photographs of children and that such photographs—

(a) are or have been taken there; or

(b) are or have been shown there, or are kept there with a view to their being distributed or shown.

(2) The justice may issue a warrant under his hand authorising any constable to enter (if need be by force) and search the premises within fourteen days from the date of the warrant, and to seize and remove any articles which he believes (with reasonable cause) to be or include indecent photographs of children taken or shown on the premises, or kept there with a view to their being distributed or shown.
(3) Articles seized under the authority of the warrant, and not returned to the occupier of the premises, shall be brought before a justice of the peace acting for the same petty sessions area as the justice who issued the warrant.
(4) This section and section (Forfeiture) below apply in relation to any stall or vehicle, as they apply in relation to premises, with the necessary modifications of references to premises and the substitution of references to use for references to occupation.")
The noble Lord said: Clause 3 of the Bill as introduced raised a number of questions about how it was intended to work, and new Clause 3 which, together with new Clause 4, is intended to replace it, offers instead a more detailed scheme for search, seizure and forfeiture in which the police and the courts will be able to draw on experience of the familiar procedures already adopted under the Obscene Publications Acts. I beg to move.
Lord DE CLIFFORD: May I suggest one question to the noble Lord, Lord Harris? Under Clause 3(4) the search area is confined to a "stall or vehicle". Might I ask why this will not apply to boats and also perhaps to aircraft and hovercraft? In the Rabies Act, this area was covered in exactly the same way so that the powers of search when required would apply to these areas.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: The noble Lord will not be astonished to hear that I have not the faintest idea of what is the answer to that question. I will

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endeavour to find the answer before we get to the next stage of the Bill.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 3, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 4 [Defence]:
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH moved Amendment No. 10:
Leave out Clause 4 and insert the following new clause:
Forfeiture
("4.—(1) The justice before whom any articles are brought in pursuance of section (Entry, search and seizure) above may issue a summons to the occupier of the premises to appear on a day specified in the summons before a magistrates' court for that petty sessions area to show cause why they should not be forfeited.
(2) If the court is satisfied that the articles are in fact indecent photographs of children, taken on the premises or shown there or kept there with a view to their being distributed or shown, the court shall order them to be forfeited; but if the person summoned does not appear, the court shall not make an order unless service of the summons is proved.
(3) In addition to the persons summoned, any other person being the owner of the articles brought before the court, or the persons who made them, or any other person through whose hands they had passed before being seized, shall be entitled to appear before the court on the day specified in the summons to show cause why they should not be forfeited.
(4) Where any of the articles are ordered to he forfeited under subsection (2), any person who appears, or was entitled to appear, to show cause against the making of the order may appeal to the Crown Court.
(5) If as respects any articles brought before it the court does not order forfeiture, the court may if it thinks fit order the person on whose information the warrant for their seizure was issued to pay such costs as the court thinks reasonable to any person who has appeared before it to show cause why the photographs should not be forfeited; and costs ordered to be paid under this subsection shall be recoverable as a civil debt.
(6) Where indecent photographs of children are seized under section (Entry, search and seizure) above, and a person is convicted under section 1(1) of offences in respect of those photographs, the court shall order them to be forfeited.
(7) An order made under subsection (4) or (6) above (including an order made on appeal) shall not take effect until the expiration of the ordinary time within which an appeal may be instituted or, where such an appeal is duly instituted, until the appeal is finally decided or abandoned; and for this purpose—

(a) an application for a case to be stated or for leave to appeal shall be treated as the institution of an appeal; and

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(b) where a decision on appeal is subject to a further appeal, the appeal is not finally decided until the expiration of the ordinary time within which a further appeal may be instituted or, where a further appeal is duly instituted, until the further appeal is finally decided or abandoned.")

The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 10. This Amendment first deletes the clause of the Bill which contained the defence provisions, since they are now included in subsection (4) of the first new clause that we considered. The new clause to be inserted in place of Clause 4 is not related to it, but instead completes the procedure in respect of articles seized under new Clause 3, which I referred to a moment ago.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 5 [Restriction on proceedings]:
On Question, Whether Clause 5 shall stand part of the Bill?
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: This clause falls in view of the similar provision requiring the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions which we have inserted in the Bill in new Clause 1(3) and, therefore, we should reject this clause.
Clause 5 disagreed to.
Clause 6 [Punishments]:
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH moved Amendment No. 11:
Page 4, line 15, leave out from ("to") to ("or") in line 16, and insert ("imprisonment for a term of not more than three years, or to a fine").
The noble Lord said: I beg to move this Amendment which simply provides that instead of the limit of £10,000 on the amount of the fine which may be imposed on conviction on indictment, the fine shall be without limit. The Amendment secures that the provision conforms to normal modern practice and I hope that it will commend itself to the Committee.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 6, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 7 [Interpretation]:
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH moved Amendment No. 12:

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Leave out Clause 7 and insert the following new clause—
Interpretation.
("7.—(1) The following subsections apply for the interpretation of this Act.
(2) References to an indecent photograph include an indecent film, a copy of an indecent photograph or film, and an indecent photograph comprised in a film.
(3) Photographs (including those comprised in a film) shall, if they show children and are indecent, be treated for all purposes of this Act as indecent photographs of children.
(4) References to a photograph include the negative as well as the positive version.
(5) "Film" includes video-tape.").
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 12. New Clause 7 contains various provisions which help to remove possible doubts about the scope of the word "photograph". In particular, films, negatives, videotape and reproductions of photographs are all brought clearly within the application of the Bill. The other terms defined in the original Clause 7 are either defined elsewhere in the revised clauses or no longer need to be defined.
7.40 p.m.
Lord BEAUMONT of WHITLEY Lord BEAUMONT of WHITLEY moved, as an Amendment to the Amendment, Amendment No. 13:
Line 6, leave out subsection (3).
The noble Lord said: My noble friend and I put this Amendment down on the Marshalled List because we are not entirely happy about the phraseology of subsection (3). Again, we have no intention of pressing this in any way. The only object of the exercise is to ask the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, and the noble Baroness if they will take this away and look at one or two of the problems that we see arising. There can be photographs which are of an indecent nature and which have children in them where the two are totally unconnected. It is obviously not the intention of this Act to catch them. We go back to saying that it is not the intention of this Act to spread the law of indecency further just by itself.
Two cases come to mind. My noble friend Lord Wigoder, if he had not unfortunately had to leave the Committee, was going to put the case to your Lordships of where a couple are photographed. In these days of Polaroid cameras people
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may photograph themselves making love —in no way probably obscene but certainly indecent within the meanings of the word—and with a sleeping infant in a cot behind. There can be medical and Freudian arguments about whether that should happen, but that is not what concerns us; what concerns us is the photograph itself.
Another example can stem from the point that I raised earlier about the indecent act on the beach. If there is a photograph of an indecent act on the beach, and in the background there are a large number of children playing happily and, so far as they are concerned, unable to witness in any way what is going on, it is clear that a photograph of this kind should not he included in the scope of the Bill. We entirely recognise the real purpose behind this: that what you must do is exclude photographs which just have the child witnessing indecent acts by others. That may well be more indecent in a way than some of the other things that we have been considering. Therefore, in moving that we leave out this subsection I am merely asking the noble Lord if he will consider this problem and see if there is any way where we can exclude what is not meant to be included, and include what is. I beg to move.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: The purpose of subsection (3) of new Clause 7 is to extend the protection of the Bill to the case where a child is involved in indecent photography but where the resulting photograph might not be held to be an indecent photograph of a child. This might happen if the child is only one of a group, otherwise adults, and where the photograph might therefore be held to be not "of a child". More particularly, it might be that the child himself is not photographed in any kind of indecent pose—he might perhaps be fully dressed—but he is shown in the presence of indecent acts between adults.
From the point of view of the mischief at which the Bill is aimed, it seems equally undesirable that children should be involved in this kind of photography. Indeed, it was the kind of photography touched upon by the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley. Subsection (3) therefore makes it clear that if a photograph shows a child and is indecent it is

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for the purposes of the Bill an indecent photograph of a child. I think it would be undesirable for there to be any doubt about this, and I hope that the Committee will agree that the subsection should be retained in the new clause. I will gladly look at the particular point put to me by the noble Lord. To be absolutely frank, I am not at the moment persuaded that it is going to be very easy to find a way out of this particular difficulty.
Lord BEAUMONT of WHITLEY: That is why I was leaving it to the noble Lord. With that assurance, I am more than content and I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
On Question, Amendment to the Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 7, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 8 [Short title, extent and commencement]:
7.45 p.m.
Baroness ELLIOT of HARWOOD Baroness ELLIOT of HARWOOD moved Amendment No. 14:
Page 5, line 7, leave out subsection (2).
The noble Baroness said: This is a simple Amendment to make this Bill applicable throughout the United Kingdom to both Scotland and Northern Ireland. I have had some communications with the Chief Constables of Edinburgh, the Lothians and Glasgow to find out whether they knew of any behaviour which came within this Bill. I have had interesting letters from them. I asked in my letter whether they would agree that the Bill should apply to the United Kingdom? In the replies I received from two important people engaged in protection from crime, they made the same point. In the case of the Lothian and Borders police, they said:
"Should the proposed Bill not apply to Scotland, persons indulging in this practice for personal gratification might he encouraged to enter this field on a professional basis and persons from other parts of the United Kingdom might also use Scotland as a base for the production of such articles. I would therefore strongly support your recommendation that the proposed Bill should also apply to Scotland."
From the Chief Constable of the Strathclyde police, the letter said:
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"The existing legal powers available could certainly be extended under the Scottish system but I would consider it preferable to have the legislation made applicable to the United Kingdom as a whole, provided the parliamentary draughtsmen take note of existing Scottish aspects and terminology."
It is therefore important that this Bill should apply to the whole of the United Kingdom. The reasons are obvious. One would be very disappointed and sad if the people whom we are trying to stop carrying on this disgusting business found it possible to carry on in some other part of the United Kingdom; I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, will agree about this. I hope very much that he will agree to this Amendment. I beg to move.
The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES (Viscount Simon): I have to inform the Committee that, if this Amendment is agreed to, I shall not be able to call Amendment No. 15.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: May I deal with Scotland first—appropriately in view of the fact that the noble Baroness moved this Amendment—and then I will come to the situation in Northern Ireland. The two cases are different for reasons which I will explain. I am advised that the law in Scotland is already different and I am assured by my right honourable friends the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Lord Advocate that there is no need for legislation to outlaw the production and distribution of pornographic material in Scotland. There is no abuse at which this Bill strikes which is not already an offence under the Scottish criminal law. Indeed, the common law of Scotland and the powers of the courts under it are more extensive than the provision made by the Bill. That is the situation so far as Scotland is concerned. I will gladly draw the attention of my right honourable friend to what the noble Baroness has said.
May I now come to the situation in Northern Ireland, which is a different matter for a number of fairly obvious reasons. So far as this Bill is concerned, the Governenmt's view remains that as described by my honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Northern Ireland Office in another place on 21st April; namely, that it is our intention that the law in Northern Ireland

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should provide equal protection for the children of Northern Ireland, and that it should also provide no less assistance to the police than does the law in England and Wales. However, the Northern Ireland law, on both obscenity and child protection, differs very considerably from that in England and Wales. There would in consequence be serious difficulties in extending this Bill to Northern Ireland by the means proposed by the noble Baroness.
For example, a number of further Amendments to the Bill would be necessary if confusion was not to be introduced into the criminal law in the Province. Moreover, Northern Ireland law relating to pornography and child protection is all contained at present in the Northern Ireland Statute Book. This would no longer be the case if the Bill were to be simply extended in the way which has been suggested. In the view of the Government, therefore, the simple extension of the Bill would lead to a variety of unnecessary complications and would do nothing whatever to serve the interests of the children of the Province. We therefore propose to ensure that equivalent provision for Northern Ireland is made by an Order in Council, which would be free from the kinds of difficulties I have just mentioned. I hope that in the light of what I have said the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her Amendment.
Baroness ELLIOT of HARWOOD: I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Harris, for giving us that information and also very glad that my fears have been calmed on this one matter. I think it is important that the people in Scotland should know, although their name does not appear in the Bill, that it applies to them, and no doubt the Secretary of State will see to it that this does happen. I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH moved Amendment No. 15:
Page 5, line 7, after ("Act") insert ("except section (Indecent photographs of children) (6)").
The noble Lord said: I beg to move this Amendment, which is a minor technical one. It extends to Scotland and Northern Ireland the application of the provisions making offences under the Bill extraditable. The Extradition Act of 1870 and the
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Fugitive Offenders Act 1967 both apply throughout the United Kingdom and therefore that subsection of this Bill which amends those Acts must itself extend throughout the United Kingdom.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 8, as amended, agreed to.
In the Title
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH moved Amendment No. 16:
Line 1, leave out from ("by") to end of line 3 and insert ("making indecent photographs of them; and to penalise the distribution, showing and advertisement of such indecent photographs")
The noble Lord said: I beg to move this Amendment, which changes the Long Title of the Bill to reflect more closely what the effect of the legislation will be. The Title at present refers only to production and material of an obscene or pornographic character. The new form of words refers instead to the making, distribution, showing and advertisement of indecent photographs of children. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Title, as amended, agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported, with the Amendments.

THE NUCLEAR DETERRENT
7.53 p.m.
The Earl of KIMBERLEY The Earl of KIMBERLEY rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have for the future of the British nuclear deterrent. The noble Earl said: My Lords, the Question that I am raising tonight is not one about which I am optimistic of getting an answer one way or the other, but if it could serve as a starter towards reaching a decision at some time in the near future, so much the better. I fully realise that the decision which has to be made does not have to be made immediately; nevertheless, it is a decision, or a problem, which is not going to disappear. It will have to be faced by us at some time in the comparatively near future—perhaps in something like 18 months.
No matter how much the present Government or any future Government

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may wish, this problem will remain and will not go away. Without a crystal ball it is very difficult to foresee what the situation of the world, and indeed of Europe, may be in the 1990s. However, one can make various assumptions. They may not necessarily be correct, but that does not really matter. For instance, NATO may not exist or it may exist in a modified form. The United States may no longer be in Europe. It is even possible that there will be some form of federal European defence. But there is one thing that I think is reasonably certain, and that is that France will still have its own nuclear deterrent. In the likely, or unlikely, event that the SALT talks will have achieved nuclear disarmament, on a smaller or larger scale, all well and good—though I myself very much doubt whether the Russians really will ever agree to that sort of thing.
So, if the situation is rather uncertain, where does the United Kingdom stand? I think we should be prepared for the worst, and therefore we need to be in a position where France certainly will not be the undisputed leader in the defence of Europe. Therefore it follows that we probably should have our own nuclear deterrent, because if we do not look after ourselves nobody else is going to bother to.
Again, there is the possibility—Heaven forbid it!—that we shall have an extreme Left-Wing Government in the United Kingdom; and if that should be the case then the question we are discussing tonight really will not arise because we shall have lost all the things that we, as freedom-loving people, believe in. However, if we assume that this unhappy state of affairs does not arise, I think we must be in a position of strength, because it is only from a position of strength that we can establish our leadership of European defence and, simultaneously, be a voice which is not only heard but listened to and which is capable of exerting much influence on world politics.
I have said in this Chamber on numerous occasions that it is quite impossible to have detente unless you have reasonable parity of strength between the opposing sides. My noble friend Lord Gladwyn raised this question of the British nuclear deterrent in our Defence debate on 20th April and I am very happy to know
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that he is going to take part in this Unstarred Question tonight. I know that the answer he received—which was not in the debate itself—was not at all satisfactory: at least not to my way of thinking. I was going to read out the Answer but it would probably be better if my noble friend did that. The basis of it was that there are no plans for a successor to Polaris. My Lords, I do not think that that is a good enough Answer. I believe that at this time our present Polaris force is still very largely dependent on the United States for testing, for the material for the propulsion unit reactors, for the missiles themselves and for the propellants of the missiles. These propellants, even with refrigerated storage, have a limited shelf-life. Our present force is also largely, if not entirely, dependent on United States satellites and beacons for its navigational fixes, which are, of course, absolutely vital to the launching of a missile.
I should like briefly to mention the communications that we have. I am led to understand that these are carried out by very low frequency radio and that the British transmitter is at Rugby. There are, or were, two other transmitters: one at Halifax in Canada and the other at Simonstown in South Africa. I should very much like to know whether those other two transmitters are still in operation because, if the worse came to the worst, Rugby is extremly vulnerable and virtually indefensible against a first nuclear strike from an adversary. So I should very much like to be assured by the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, that if, by chance, the United States decided to pull out of Europe, our Polaris force would still be completely effective for the next 10 years.
I shall not go into details as to what type, or types, of future nuclear deterrent we should have, whether it be gravity bombs, Cruise missiles or ballistic missiles. I shall similarly not go into the type of launching platform that there should be, whether land, air, surface ships or submarines. I am sure that one of the questions that would be raised by Her Majesty's Government, if we were to go ahead with our own deterrent, is the cost. But I have always been a firm believer that where there is a will, there is a way. For instance, we had a small discussion yesterday about exporting more defence

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equipment to friendly countries, and such exports could help to pay for our deterrent; and, of course, if we chose a submarine force it would provide a lot of extra work, which is sorely needed in our shipyards.
I shall conclude by stating that, even with the most optimistic assumptions, a new force of submarines—which, on the face of it, seems most suitable—armed with Cruise missiles would probably not be ready till 1993, even if it was started in 1980, and that is only 18 months away. While an equivalent submarine force, fitted with a Polaris type of ballistic missile, would be in service very little earlier. So I should like tonight to try to get not a promise, but a consideration that this Government, or any future Government—whether it changes in the immediate future, or in the distant future—will, for the sake of the British people, and to keep them in the picture and informed, produce a Green Paper on the subject, because we do not have very much time in which to decide.
8.2 p.m.
Lord NEWALL: My Lords, we are indeed very grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Kimberley, for giving us an opportunity to discuss this very important question this evening. We have now had our own effective nuclear deterrent, in the shape of the Polaris submarines, for just under 10 years. But for 30 years, British Governments of both major political Parties have continuously taken the view that a strategic nuclear deterrent is an essential part of Britain's defences. As Ian Smart put it recently, in a report from the Royal Institute of International Affairs:
"There is now approaching one of these rare moments at which that view must either be positively reaffirmed or drastically revised. Inertia alone will not suffice."
Our nuclear deterrent serves a very useful purpose not because it provides a minor element in the array of nuclear devices open to NATO, but because it is a totally independent one and a British one. We can justifiably feel very proud of the part that many of our scientists have played in the development, at various stages, of our nuclear deterrent. It must be maintained and the Conservative Party's conviction was very clearly expressed by my right honourable friend
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Sir Ian Gilmour, at the Kiel Security Forum in West Germany in January this year.
There is no doubt that replacement of Britain's Polaris missile will be one of the most urgent decisions to be taken by the next Conservative Government. Because of President Carter's rather weak and dangerous see-sawing act in postponing the manufacture of the neutron bomb, and a continuing massive Soviet build-up of their military strength, Britain cannot possibly renege on her commitment to NATO. Western civilisation is threatened by the highly intolerant eye of the Kremlin which can, in the end, recognise only strength and power.
NATO is certainly a more than useful group of fighting forces, supported by their respective Governments, and without it those countries would have to form other, and probably more complicated, alliances. With good management, NATO will go on for years, with or without any hiccoughs or indigestion from consuming such things as Turkish delight. But different countries are bound to have occasional internal problems, and we hope that none of them is sufficient to lead to the break-up of NATO. Nevertheless, like good Boy Scouts we must be prepared for all eventualities and plan to see what would happen if NATO became weak or ineffective.
In this, I hope, unlikely instance an independent nuclear deterrent would stand us in very good stead. But when we think of whether to replace some of our ageing equipment, there are many different aspects to consider. One is the cost and our ability to pay for replacements that we want, and that is a prime factor which has to be carefully weighed up. Without a good defence force, all else that we strive for can be lost all too quickly, as history has shown many times. We can certainly kiss goodbye to all our welfare services, holidays and other trappings of material life if an invader overpowers us.
As a Party, the Conservatives have always believed in spending money on defence, but a replacement for Polaris would certainly not be cheap and any large expenditure such as this would have to be very carefully costed, as it would inevitably place a strain on our resources.

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I am confident that the next Conservative Government will boost the economy sufficiently to provide greater individual stimulus, so that the general wellbeing of this country improves radically. It therefore stands to reason that a Conservative Government would have an easier task than the present Government in finding money for useful purposes and avoiding needless waste. Some facts relating to this were put quite well in Monday's debate in your Lordships' House, on international arbitration. While talking of needless waste, I must admit that I wish I had been paid to stay on at school.
But in financial terms, it is reasonable to suppose that there would be a ceiling on what could be spent, so that we can almost certainly afford only one technical option; an option on our current nuclear deterrent, which is known publicly to be four submarines, which is probably the absolute minimum needed to keep a permanent and consistent ability to use these weapons at any time. Let us hope that they never have to be used, but their life of usefulness is estimated at 20 to 25 years, and the time estimated to build up a replacement could easily be 13 years.
If we say that 1993 will be the last year in which we can keep our present submarines going, as the noble Earl, Lord Kimberley, suggested, we have only one clear year before we have to make a major decision on the Polaris replacement. It is not very far away, so what should we choose and do we buy from a friend or make our own? Do we need more submarines or manned aircraft or surface ships or, perhaps, land-based weapons? We can afford only one type, so which will be the most reliable and the most accurate?
I certainly hope that all those who are privy to the highly secret information, upon which a decision is to be based, will take the very best advice and will take it in time; not only that, but do what is difficult for a Government, which is to implement its decision so that future generations and leaders are left with a good and worthy inheritance, and not a millstone around their necks. I can only treat with great scorn the answer given by the Government on 8th November in both Houses, that they have no plans for a successor to the Polaris force,
"which has many years of effective life ahead of it."—[Official Report, 8/11/77; col. 27.]
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As I have just tried to explain, it may take 13 years to provide a replacement, so it is madness to make a statement like that. The Government's attitude leaves an enormous vacuum and does not show any leadership whatsoever. Who knows what will be happening in 13 years' time? Crystal gazing, as the noble Earl also said, has been described as having a 50–50 chance of being right or wrong. Correct forecasting should be easier with the marvels of modern science in this computer-linked age. But so much for the financial aspect.
There is also a political argument which has very strong implications. Our contribution to NATO is partly our deterrent, and any decision on its replacement must be in keeping with our existing commitment to NATO. We have also had a bilateral agreement with the United States. These relations will be affected by our decision. Our relationship with Europe will also be affected on a political plane, but there is one fact that we must never forget: that the essential purpose of a nuclear deterrent is not to fight a war but to provide a permanent political message. We must never forget the factor of wider international collaboration in achieving a replacement for Polaris and the even wider issue of arms control throughout the world. If we as a country give up all ideas of having our own nuclear deterrent, as the Labour Party would have us do, the decision would undoubtedly affect NATO —perhaps only marginally, but it would certainly leave us open to the ultimate threat from a potential enemy.
Here I must pour some cold water on all the fuss about the recent comments which were made by the Chief of the Defence Staff. Of course, we must try to sort out our political differences with the Warsaw Pact. From that, we may, if we are successful, reduce any military tension. However, of all the critics of Sir Neil Cameron I would ask only this: who have all their nuclear missiles pointing at the Western world, and what targets do they think our own weapons are pointed at? There is no argument about this, so why do we have to try to play charades all the time?
Facts are facts. My Leader, Mrs. Thatcher, has always made it clear that the Conservative Party regards the relentless growth in Russian military strength

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as more significant than any purely verbal gestures in favour of détente on the part of Mr. Brezhnev or other leaders. In an era of so-called détente, the whole emphasis of the Soviets' enormous military expansion has shifted to attack rather than defence. On land, on the sea and in the air, their forces are certainly geared for offensive action. Military Balance, which was published by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, concludes:
"In general, the pattern is one of military balance having moved steadily against the West. In tanks, combat aircraft and artillery, the Warsaw Pact has an advantage of two or three to one".
I shall not labour this point, but it is a rather major point which has been frequently missed recently.
If we were to give up our Polaris missiles, we would still have other weapons, such as those carried in aircraft. If we gave up all our nuclear weapons, we would still have the technical knowledge to take up a nuclear programme at any time that we wanted. We have got the know-how and the skill, but there are many questions still to be answered regarding the SALT talks and the nonproliferation treaty. If agreement on limiting the range of weapons is reached, then our new generation of nuclear weapons would have to be in line with these agreements. If we decided not to go ahead with replacements for Polaris, there is no doubt that this would almost certainly not influence France, as she would then be the only strategic nuclear power in Western Europe.
One thing, however, is certain: that the Government of the day must by 1980 have looked most carefully into all the aspects, consulted all the right people and had enough time to discuss all the relevant issues about the replacement of our Polaris fleet. But let us ensure that, when the decision is made, it is made in good time and for the right reasons. It must not be a political football but a careful judgment after intense deliberation which should be started very soon indeed.
I think that the people of this country will refuse to pay the price of this Government's slavish reliance upon appeasement and the pacifist pleadings of their Left wing. The next Conservative Government
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will honour the British people's determined commitment to safeguard the freedom for which so many have died, and we shall certainly maintain Britain's nuclear deterrent.
8.14 p.m.
Lord NOEL-BAKER: My Lords, I cannot rise to speak in this debate without paying my respectful tribute to the memory of the late and much lamented Lord Selwyn-Lloyd. He had an astonishing career of public office. What I remember are the signal services which he rendered by acts of high courage and high statesmanship to the United Nations. If the Special Session of the United Nation's General Assembly on Disarmament, which is to meet next week, reaches a practical result, it will be not least because of break-throughs which Lord Selwyn-Lloyd achieved in the long drawn debate which will be resumed on Tuesday next.
I do not follow the noble Lords who have spoken. They will forgive me; they will think that what I say is irrelevant to the purpose which they have in mind. I believe, with all respect, that it goes to the very heart of the problem they have raised. No one respects more than I the independence of the BBC. They take orders from no one, not even from the Government themselves, and that is why they have a position of unique prestige throughout the world. The fact that they take no orders from the Government does not mean that the Government cannot make suggestions to the Director-General and his colleagues.
I am going to ask the noble Lord who will reply to this debate to suggest to the Director-General that the Government would view with favour a showing of the film, "The War Game". "The War Game" was commissioned by the BBC 10 years ago for general showing. It depicts what would happen if a nuclear bomb, one megaton in yield, should fall in Kent. It was commissioned for general showing, but when it was completed the BBC decided not to use it. When I asked them why, they told me it was because if fathers saw it on their screens they would kill their children, mothers would commit suicide by jumping out of windows, and other horrible things would happen. If nuclear war is really like that, I believe that the more the British people

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know about it the better for all concerned. The BBC were adamant that it should not be shown. They released it, however, for private showing. There are three films extant, booked up for three months to come. After 10 years the film is still making a great impact upon the audiences which see it.
I believe that the Government should now suggest to the BBC that on the eve of the Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly it would be appropriate that, at long last, the British public should see this film. Why do I say this? Twenty years and 20 weeks ago Doctor Isidor Rabi, the Chairman of President Eisenhower's Committee of Scientists on Nuclear War, said, in a speech which he thought was unreported, that
"the facts of atomic warfare have just not penetrated. That goes for the Heads of States; otherwise they would ponder these facts every day as their number one daily problem".
In the same year, Mr. Gordon Dean, a former Chairman of the United States Atomic Energy Commission, wrote a book, Report on the Atom. He had produced vast stocks of weapons for the United States Army, Navy and Air Force, but he lost his job because he had asked the question, "When is enough enough?" In his book, Mr. Gordon Dean said as follows:
"Atomic energy has brought something new in international affairs. Hitherto the question was always peace or war but now the question is peace or oblivion"—
and by "oblivion" he meant the final disappearance of the human race. He said,
"Men have not yet decided for peace or for oblivion and they seem to think that they can go on indefinitely without deciding for the one or for the other. Perhaps they can, but the risks are enormous".
He proposed in his book—it was the purpose of the book—a vast, worldwide campaign by every organ of every Government to make the peoples understand what nuclear war would mean.
Some years later, our colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman, wrote a book, Scientists and War, in which he poured scorn on the writings of the so-called strategic analysts of the United States of America. He said that the only yardstick by which we could measure the effects of a nuclear war was our actual
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experience of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. His words sent me to Hiroshima to find out, if I could, what the bomb had really meant to the people of that city and to the people of Japan. Four times I have made the journey; four times I have seen the pictures of the city as it was on the day the bomb was dropped, the mutilated victims, the hideous mutilations of the victims who were present on that occasion but who remained alive.
Last August I stood with a vast concourse of the citizens of Hiroshima beside the cenotaph in the Peace Park and I relived with them what had happened so many years before. Greatly daring, I want to make your Lordships relive it, too.
Sixth August, 1945, 8.15 a.m. A lovely summer day, sunshine, gentle breezes, blue sky. Blue sky is for happiness in Japan. The streets are full of people: people going to work, people going to shop, people—smaller people, going to school. The air raid siren sounds. No one pays attention; no-one goes to shelter. In this enemy raid there is only a single aircraft in the sky. The aircraft steers a course across the city. Above the centre, something falls. It looks very small but in fact it weighs four tons. The weight is in the iron casing; the bomb itself is tiny —2 kg or less than five lb. in weight—a little larger than a cricket ball.
It falls—and falls—and falls. Ten seconds, 20, 25. Then there is a sudden searing flash of light, brighter and hotter than a thousand suns. Those who are looking directly at it have their eyes burnt in their sockets. They will never look on men or things again. There are people walking in the open street below. A business man in charge of great affairs, a lady as beautiful as she is elegant, a brilliant student—the leader of his class, a little girl laughing as she runs. They are in the open street below. And then suddenly they are not there. They have simply vanished from the surface of the earth, utterly consumed by the furnace of the flash. Nothing of them remains. There is no dust even on the pavement, no ashes. Only their black shadows on the stones.
Then comes the blast. Blast like nothing ever known before. Thousands of miles an hour. For two kilometres

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every house and every structure is levelled to the ground. Lorries, cars, men and women, babies; prams are picked up and hurled like lethal projectiles through the sky, a hundred metres before they fall. The blast piles up its victims in heaps of bodies in the corners of the streets. I know a man and woman whose little boy was going to school when the bomb exploded. For seven days they hunted for him in the city. At last they found him —one layer down in a heap of corpses; he was still breathing, but not all the doctors in Hiroshima could save his life.
Then the fire ball of the bomb touched the earth. Scores of conflagrations fanned by tornado winds were swept into a single fire storm. Countless thousands of men and women and children, trapped on every side by walls of flame, swiftly or in longer agony were burned to death. Then everything went black. The mushroom cloud rose to 40,000 feet, blotting out the sun. It was the writing on the wall of Heaven; "by this the race of men may die". It carried with it the poison dust, the deadly fall-out. The fall-out came back to earth and covered everything in Hiroshima not already rendered lethal with its poison dust. So those who escaped the flash, the river, the blast, the fire, would die of radioactive sickness in a shorter or a longer time.
"On that fatal morning 30 years ago",
wrote the Science Editor of The Times on 6th August 1975,
"the immediate death of 240,000 people was only the first scene in the tragedy of the original atomic bomb. Thousands of others were severely injured by the heat, the blast, the radiation of an explosion equivalent to 12,000 tons of TNT"—
by today's standards a nuclear midget. And the Science Editor went on:
"Thirty years later the incidence of leukaemia among young adults who were only embryos in their mothers' wombs when the bomb exploded is very high".
He also said:
"The nuclear powers have in their missile and bomb silos enough destructive might to wipe all life from earth many times over".
The Science Editor gave his article the title, "Why does nobody take the growing nuclear peril seriously?" Why does no one understand that a bomb of little less than Sibs in weight, a little larger than a cricket ball in size, killed a quarter of a
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million people 30 years ago and is still killing them in Hiroshima today? Why does nobody understand this? Because, as Rabi said so long ago, the facts of nuclear war have just not penetrated. They have not penetrated yet. But I believe, my Lords, that the first of all the duties of the Government is to make it certain that they do.
The Marquess of TWEEDDALE: My Lords, with due respect, there is one thing the noble Lord has forgotten in that speech. That is the fact that that bomb saved a quarter of a million lives of American, British and Commonwealth prisoners of war.
8.33 p.m.
Lord RITCHIE-CALDER: My Lords, it is very difficult to follow my noble friend Lord Noel-Baker. It is a moving picture which he gave us. I should like to reply to the last intervention. I think noble Lords will find, if they look at history, that it is not quite true, and the debate in history is not on the basis of that argument. That is an argument that is used, but it is not sustainable. The fact was that the war was over before Hiroshima. I cannot, even with all my admiration and devotion to Philip Noel-Baker, achieve anything like his eloquence on this subject. I might have anticipated what the noble Earl, Lord Kimberley, was going to raise, but I did hope when I read the Question—
"To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have for the future of the British nuclear deterrent"—
that perhaps from my noble friends on the Front Bench we might have got the proper answer, which is "None".
I had hoped, and I still hope, that when the British delegation, the Prime Minister of this country and my noble friend Lord Noel-Baker, go to the Disarmament Conference which is coming on, we, Britain, at last would say, "We at least know and understand what Lord Noel-Baker has been talking about." We might have done, and we might still do, what we should have done 25 years ago. We should have disowned the bomb and never had any part of it. It was a cheat, a snare and a delusion. When Britain got itself into the whole bomb situation I personally was a reporter at a Press Conference after

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the Prime Minister of Great Britain went for his discussions in Washington with President Truman and Mackenzie King. They were to settle the sacred trust by which they were to take responsibility for what had been released in atomic energy. When he came back he had in fact recovered for Britain the right to go ahead with the peaceful uses, which in fact Mr. Winston Churchill—and this is historical truth—ceded to the Americans in the Hyde Park agreement; at least we had the right to develop, if we wanted to, the peaceful uses.
But we were assured—I assure your Lordships here and now, as one who was present—by the Government at that time that we were not embarking on a nuclear bomb programme. Mr. Churchill, when he became Prime Minister, expressed his gratitude to Mr. Attlee for having presented him with the bomb; nobody, certainly not the House of Commons or the Select Committee on Expenditure or anyone else, had ever known what was going on. That is a burden which I, as a member of my Party, carry with, I hope, the rest of the people in my Party. We are not denying that we went ahead and created this. But we did try, some of us at least, to make the people realise, as my noble friend Lord Noel-Baker has been telling us, what this meant. We did try.
I personally, and many of my colleagues, some of them in this House, were very active in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmanent. What were we trying to do? We could not in fact disarm the world. We might hope to have some influence, and indeed we did, on American thinking. We might hope that we might even discourage the Russians from going ahead, as they eventually did. The one thing we did know was that we had a right and a duty to influence our own people and our own Government. At least we were going to ask and require that we would abandon the nuclear bomb.
Since then we have gone on and on. Four years ago I was with two very distinguished friends, Gunnar Myrdal, the Nobel Prize Winner, and Mrs.Alva Myrdal, the Chairman of the United Nations Disarmament Conference, at a time when the British Government, the Labour Government, was in sore distress, terrible
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distress, economically and looking for savings. We sent a message to the Prime Minister suggesting that obviously and manifestly the cheapest thing and the proper thing to do was at least to get rid of our British deterrent. It is not worth what we are committing to it and what is being proposed. It is unbelievable that we should be talking this way.
What are we going to throw into the kitty? As Lord Noel-Baker was saying, the first bomb was no bigger than a cricket ball, and what we have got in terms of the nuclear deployment is in fact like a small boy with a ball saying, "If I have a ball can I join the game, and can I use your bat?"—the U.S. bat, because that is the important point. We are not independent. Whatever the French may think, their force de frappe is not a significant thing in deterrence. How can it be? What we are talking about is a fantastic situation, a situation which is unbelievable when we listen to the noble Lord, Lord Noel-Baker, explaining what this means.
There is now deployed in the world 8,500 U.S. strategic weapons. We have got worse than that; we have a nuclear minefield in Europe. We have 10,000 tactical nuclear weapons deployed in Europe, and my friends—and I sympathise with them—who are concerned about radiation risks and the Windscale inquiry, are worried about the radiation risks from the refinery. We have already 10,000 fabricated—ready to use—nuclear weapons in Europe. What are we going to contribute to that? I am talking in hard terms. The question about the cost was raised by noble Lords opposite. The cost is not significant because it does not mean anything. It is not even a contribution. What we are facing here is an absurdity.
If 25 years ago we had said, "We are not going to have any part in this", we could have said, "and we can do it". We would have set an example which would have been more important in nonproliferation than anything anyone can suggest now. We could have set an example. We might have set an example when we realised we could not afford it. It would not have been very strong; some people might have suspected that we could not afford it. Today everybody knows that we cannot afford it. Everybody knows that what we have in the kitty is a

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pittance and meaningless. Cannot we now at this hour, before the disarmament conference, persuade the Government to make a gesture which might still enhance us? We could say now that we are abandoning the so-called nuclear deterrent, and I hope my noble friend will assure us that there is a possibility of doing so.
8.42 p.m.
Lord GLADWYN: My Lords, first I should like to add my own modest tribute to the late Lord Selwyn-Lloyd with whom I worked very closely in the United Nations and the Foreign Office. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Noel-Baker, that he was a very great influence for good on all disarmament matters. Certainly he was effective at the United Nations. For instance, at the time of Suez, if he had been left to himself perhaps he might even have produced a United Nations solution for that awful problem which might have saved us from a disastrous war. Therefore, again I pay tribute to his memory.
I am sure we have all been deeply moved by the description given by the noble Lord, Lord Noel-Baker, of the horrors of nuclear war. I think we all realise what these horrors are—at least I hope we do. If there was general war today it would not be like Hiroshima; it would be tens of thousands times worse and it might well be the end of the human race as we know it. There is no doubt about that. The question is what we do about it. I am not sure but I rather think that the moral of the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Noel-Baker, was that we could not go on like this and that we might ourselves make an example by not having any nuclear deterrent, in fact that we might go in for what is ordinarily called unilateral disarmament. That is always a possibility, but even if we did that it is very doubtful whether it would end the great future struggle between the two super Powers and it is questionable therefore whether it would be desirable to do as the noble Lord seems to suggest.
I intervene at the end of this little debate to make a very few remarks. Your Lordships may remember that I asked a few questions in the speech which I made when we had a debate on defence generally, which were not answered at the time by the Government but the
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noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, has very kindly now given me answers in writing. I do not think they are very satisfactory but, still, he has replied. On this particular matter which we are now discussing I am sure your Lordships will not mind if I read out the short answer which the noble Lord gave me. It is labelled "The Future of Polaris", and reads:
"As you are aware, all our Forces are dedicated to NATO, including the Polaris Force, which is a valuable contribution to NATO's strategic forces. Nothing has happened to make us change our policy on Polaris, which has been stated many times. We shall maintain the effectiveness of the Polaris force along with our other Forces.
"Some commentators are talking about the need to decide on a successor to Polaris; but it has many years of effective life ahead of it. There is no doubt that it will remain a potent deterrent for many years to come, and there is no occasion for a decision to be taken about what may or may not happen thereafter. We have no plans for a successor to Polaris ".
In just a few minutes I should like to comment briefly on that statement. First, the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, says that the Polaris force is a valuable contribution to NATO's strategic Forces. At the risk of appearing to be defeatist I would ask—and I think the question was implicit in the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie-Calder—how valuable is this contribution in practice? Surely the huge nuclear forces, strategic and tactical, of the United States are a sufficient deterrent in themselves. What can our own rather small, though no doubt very efficient, deterrent in Europe add to this general deterrent? Could our own deterrent ever be used or even threatened individually? I am sure that if your Lordships ponder over this question at all you will come to the conclusion that that is in practice impossible.
Short, therefore, of general disarmament, nuclear disarmament particularly, which we are all anxious to achieve if we possibly can, NATO is our only defence and of course NATO in practice depends entirely on the so-called nuclear shield of the United States. Surely, therefore, if you accept that thesis, and I think you cannot reject it, our so-called deterrent is only valuable in case we are left without United States support in Europe and France therefore, not necessarily but possibly, becomes the only European nuclear Power. That would be a rather grim situation for all of us.

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The idea that we could effectively defend Europe by setting up some joint Franco-British nuclear deterrent is, I suppose, conceivable but most unlikely. It could probably be done only with the Germans but you must consider the effect of doing that with the Germans or the possibility of general nuclear war.
The next point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, was:
"There is no doubt that it [our force] will remain a potent deterrent for many years to come".
Even if its power to inflict great damage on the Soviet Union continues to exist in some form, some experts—and they are not negligible experts—maintain that by 1990 in all probability we shall only he able to maintain one submarine on duty, if that. So, if we are going to remain a nuclear Power at all, a decision as to possible renewal must come up quite soon.
The Government cannot go on burying their head in the sand. They must face this in the near future. Perhaps they will not be in power very much longer and in that case it will be for the Tory Party to face this decision. It is a very difficult decision to take. Why therefore cannot we have in the near future, as I think was suggested by the noble Earl, Lord Kimberley, a Green Paper discussing the whole matter quite dispassionately and integrating a possible alternative? It could include the possibility—some people might think it a real alternative—of letting our nuclear deterrent be phased out and, pending an end to the confrontation which is still going on in Central Europe, using the money saved on any replacement to strengthen our conventional forces in Europe, which would among other things please our American allies more than anything else in the world?
Anyhow, whatever the Government may say, efficient though our nuclear deterrent is at the moment, it will be phased out quite soon—effectively, in the next few years. There is therefore a real decision that the Government must contemplate taking. Why, I repeat, cannot they let us have a paper plainly setting out the alternatives? It is surely not too much to ask.
Lord NOEL-BAKER: My Lords, I hesitate to inflict myself again on your Lordships, but in view of what the noble
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Lord, Lord Gladwyn has just said I should like to clarify my position. I believe that, at present, in the circumstances in which we find ourselves the case for unilateral nuclear disarmament is extremely strong.
Many years ago in another place the Secretary of State for Defence confirmed the suggestion I made that with our stock of nuclear weapons as it then was we could inflict enormous damage on the Soviet Union. However, I do not readily conceive the circumstances in which a British Government—any British Government—would decide to make first use of nuclear weapons.
The plan in which I believe is the plan which Lord Attlee put to the First Assembly of the United Nations as its first Resolution taken here in London. It proposed the abolition of all nuclear weapons, the elimination of atomic weapons from national armouries and the use of nuclear energy for pacific purposes alone. That seems Utopian to many noble Lords, but our Government have advocated that course and still stand by it. Moreover, with President Carter himself a nuclear engineer who understands better than any other statesman in the world what a nuclear war would mean, I believe that the chances for success are better now than they have ever been.
8.52 p.m.
Lord W1NTERBOTTOM: My Lords, like other noble Lords I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Kimberley, for putting down this Question as it now enables me to state the Government's policy on this issue, for I did not have time to cover this topic during the debate on the Statement on the Defence Estimates on 20th April.
Nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence are subjects of the highest importance. Discussion of them tends to generate a good deal of heat as well as light, as the long debate over the proposal to introduce the enhanced radiation warhead—the so-called neutron bomb—showed. But that issue encouraged many people to examine the doctrines of deterrence and the issues which affect our security, which all too often are left to a small circle of professional strategists. Debate on these matters is much to be welcomed. But although I welcome a debate of this kind, your Lordships will appreciate the constraints

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the Government must observe in responding to it. We are dealing with the ultimate level of our defences. We must inevitably he guarded about what we say both on security grounds and because of the obvious sensitivities for our relations with other countries. I hope, therefore, I shall be forgiven for not dealing point by point with all the issues raised—much as I would like to have done; nor can I give undertakings.
I should, first, like to examine briefly how the rôle of our strategic nuclear weapons has changed over the last two decades, in order to help us to maintain the deterrent effect of our forces as a whole. In the 1950s and early 1960s, we, with the Alliance, relied on the tripwire strategy. This policy clearly stated that any aggression would be met with immediate retaliation on a massive scale from strategic nuclear weapons. Today the drawbacks of such a policy appear obvious, in that minor incidents or accidents could precipitate a nuclear attack; such a prospect is horrifying. Further, this policy became untenable as the strategic arsenals of the nuclear super Powers grew and achieved rough equivalence, with the ability to inflict massive retaliation after a first strike—the chilling spectre of mutually assured destruction.
As the drawbacks of the tripwire strategy became more marked, the Alliance moved to its present strategy of flexible response. I have no need to explain this concept in any detail to your Lordships; we debated the question of strategy at length some months ago. There is no alternative to this strategy of flexible response. The Atlantic Alliance needs to maintain a spectrum of defensive options to demonstrate its ability to respond to aggression at whatever level it could occur. We must maintain robust conventional forces, but we do not attempt to match the ever-growing conventional forces of the Warsaw Pact. To do so we should have to devote so many more of our resources to defence, subordinating many other needs, that our society would no longer be the one we know today.
The Alliance also needs theatre nuclear weapons to deter the use of these weapons by the other side, while in addition they support the conventional defence, and provide the link to strategic forces. The
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strategic forces, while also serving to deter a strategic nuclear attack, remain the ultimate threat to deter any aggression. We are talking of a policy of deterrence.
Yet we cannot single out any category of forces for special consideration; it is necessary to strike the right balance between the types of forces—the conventional, theatre nuclear and strategic nuclear forces. None of these forces can stand on their own; they all strengthen and support each other. The Question tabled by the noble Earl speaks of the "British nuclear deterrent". But the Polaris force is committed to the Alliance as a whole. This is an important point. The fundamental principle of the North Atlantic Treaty is that an attack on any member of the Alliance is an attack on all. Although the Polaris submarines, like all our neclear forces, are assigned to NATO, they remain under the ultimate control of the British Government. Nothing detracts from this authority over their use. The Polaris force forms part of NATO's strategic forces, and deterrence extends to cover the whole Alliance; nuclear Powers and non-nuclear Powers alike. This principle strengthens the Alliance and in the past has helped limit nuclear proliferation.
Polaris makes a valuable contribution to NATO's nuclear forces, and there is a continuing need for this contribution into the foreseeable future. It is for these reasons that the Government intend to maintain the effectiveness of the Polaris force. The system will remain fully operational into the 1990s. We are taking appropriate steps to ensure that the system can be satisfactorily maintained once the United States Navy phases out its Polaris submarines. We are also taking steps to ensure that the system continues to represent an effective deterrent. There has been a good deal of speculation about what these steps might be, much of it inaccurate. We are concerned to maintain the effectiveness of an existing capability, not to replace it with a new system.
Some commentators have been talking about the urgent necessity of beginning to discuss how Polaris might be replaced when it is ultimately taken out of service, and that was one of the themes of our debate. I believe that this heightened discussion stems in part from interesting papers produced by the Royal United

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Services Institute and the Royal Institute for International Affairs, which reviewed the issue. We must keep this matter in perspective. As I said earlier, the Polaris fleet has many years of effective life ahead of it. There is no need for a decision to be taken about what may happen thereafter, there are no plans for a successor to Polaris; that is, no plans for any new generation of strategic nuclear weapons.
There has been great interest in the Cruise missile which is currently under development in the United States. As has been said in the past, we are conducting limited studies on the defence potential of this weapon. There is nothing sinister in this. We would conduct studies on any weapon system which had such significant potential applications. In the case of Cruise missiles there is also the important point that they are a matter of great concern in that they have implications for arms control. We need to inform ourselves so as to play an appropriate part in Alliance discussion on this subject. Our studies, which are limited research studies and which do not involve any development at all, have been seen as indicating an interest in a new strategic system. This is perhaps because the United States propose to develop Cruise missiles for use in a strategic nuclear role. There are, however, a number of possible uses for which these versatile systems could be developed, and our own studies should be seen in terms of the potential range of applications of these missiles for the Alliance as a whole.
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I have dealt at length with abstract ideas and hypothetical concepts. I should like to end by coming back to reality. Twenty-four hours a day, every day of the year, in our Polaris submarines there are men of the Royal Navy. There are generally two, and there is at all times at least one submarine on patrol to provide continuous deterrent coverage. These submarines, with their crews, remain submerged for most of their patrol. Such operating conditions demand a special dedication which is perhaps insufficiently recognised. I think that we should pay tribute to that dedication shown by past and present crews of the Polaris force throughout the years. That is my contribution to this evening's discussion.

COUNTY OF MERSEYSIDE BILL [H.L.]
Petition against, from the Right Honourable Edward John, Earl of Derby, withdrawn.

WEST MIDLANDS COUNTY COUNCIL BILL [H.L.]
Petition against, from the British Hotels, Restaurants and Caterers Association, the Camping Club of Great Britain and Ireland Limited, the Caravan Club Limited and the National Caravan Council, withdrawn.
House adjourned at one minute past nine o'clock.