Lords Sitting of 19 December 1979

Preamble
The House met at half-past two of the clock (Prayers having been read earlier at the Judicial Sitting by the Lord Bishop of London): The LORD CHANCELLOR On the Woolsack.
The Lord Barnetson—Took the Oath.

HELSINKI FINAL ACT: EASTERN BLOC IMPLEMENTATION
Baroness ELLIOT of HARWOOD: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what progress has been made in the implementation by the USSR and East European countries of the provisions of the Helsinki Final Act during 1979.
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, the record of implementation of the Helsinki Final Act by certain of the countries during the year as a whole somewhat deteriorated. The Government have drawn attention to these trends in their detailed report on implementation made in another place on 28th November. I am arranging for a copy of the text of this report to be published in the Official Report.
Following is the report referred to:
"FURTHER REPORT ON SOVIET AND EASTERN EUROPEAN IMPLEMENTATION OF THE HELSINKI FINAL ACT FOR THE PERIOD JUNE TO NOVEMBER 1979
GENERAL
" 1. The record of implementation in the Soviet Union and a number of Eastern European countries has somewhat deteriorated. The denial of certain basic human rights, and of the freedom of the individual to monitor the implementation by governments of the Helsinki Final Act, has become if anything more marked In the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia, while adverse developments in the GDR have, with one important exception, continued. In the same countries relatively little progress has been made in improving the implementation of the human
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contacts provisions of the Final Act. Implementation in other areas of the Final Act has shown no significant change.
" BASKET I (PRINCIPLES GUIDING RELATIONS BETWEEN PARTICIPATING STATES; AND CONFIDENCE-BUILDING MEASURES AND CERTAIN ASPECTS OF SECURITY AND DISARMAMENT
PRINCIPLES
"2. The Soviet Union has continued to call for the conclusion of an agreement on the non first-use of force by CSCE States and, together with its Warsaw Pact Allies, has suggested that there should be a conference at the political level between CSCE States to discuss this and other security matters. This emphasis on the military aspects of security, described as military détente ', has continued in the public statements of the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact Allies, to the virtual exclusion of the human dimension of the Final Act.
"3. Implementation in the area of human rights and fundamental freedoms (Principle VII) has deteriorated in a number of countries since the last report. In the Soviet Union four members of Helsinki Monitoring Groups have been arrested during the period under review, three from the Ukrainian group and one from the Armenian group. A leading Moscow human rights activist, T. Velikanova, who has been active in publicising the repression of religious and national minorities, was arrested earlier this month. Two more members of an unofficial religious seminar, V. Poresh and T. Shchipkova, were arrested and another member of the group received a four-year sentence. Father Yakunin, a leading member of the Christian Committee for the Defence of Believers' Rights in the USSR, was arrested at the beginning of this month. In October another member of the unofficial trade union group, SMOT, N. Nikitin, received an 18-month sentence, becoming the third member to be tried since May this year. There have continued to be disturbing reports about the physical condition of several prisoners of conscience' (including Shcharansky, Ogurtsov and Orlov).
"4. The rate of emigration of Soviet Jews has continued at the level of rather over 4,000 per month established at the end of 1978, though there have been reports of growing numbers of arbitrary delays and refusals, particularly in the Ukraine, often on grounds of alleged insufficient kinship with persons abroad. There have also been reports of pressure being brought upon those responsible for an unofficial journal on Jewish cultural and religious affairs. There has been no indication that the concessions to freer movement from which Jewish applicants and those from a few other minority groups have benefited are to be more generally extended.
"5. In Czechoslovakia, the main event in this period was the trial on 22nd/23rd October on charges of subversion of six of the 10 arrested members of the Committee for the Defence of the Unjustly Prosecuted, VONS. The sentences were for terms of imprisonment from three to five years; the fate of the other arrested members of VONS is still undecided. The trials were completed in two days, without foreign observers being allowed access, and despite appeals from a wide range of public and governmental opinion

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in both East and West. The British Government has made clear to the Czechoslovak authorities on a number of occasions that it deplores the arrests and sentences; the Government of the Republic of Ireland, acting on behalf of the Nine, has also expressed the deep concern of Member States about the Czechoslovak action.
"6. Administrative harassment of political and religious dissenters in Czechoslovakia has continued throughout the period. Reports that individual political activists have been detained in psychiatric establishments could reflect a disturbing new trend. The success of VONS in bringing official abuses to public notice may, in part, account for the determined way in which the authorities have moved against them. The procedure of granting fixed term exit permits to prominent Czechoslovak intellectuals has been used several times as a device to induce emigration: during the period, Pavel Kohout, the play-right, was refused permission to return from Austria and deprived of his citizenship.
"7. In Romania, some negative developments have been noted during the late period. For instance, there have been increased instances of harassment and imprisonment of members of SLOMR, the Free Trade Union of Romanian Working Men. Four members of SLOMR's leadership have been imprisoned and one, Father Calciu, an Orthodox priest, has been jailed for 7½ years on unrevealed charges. At the same time there are indications that a new propaganda campaign is being launched to combat emigration, religious observance and human rights activism.
"8. In the GDR measures have been introduced, as part of a tightening up of existing legislation concerning public order, to make the passing of even unclassified information to foreigners and the publication abroad of criticism of the GDR punishable by periods of imprisonment. The GDR authorities, however, announced an amnesty for certain categories of prisoners in connection with their anniversary celebrations and stated their intention to release 20–25,000 prisoners. While two prominent political prisoners, Bahro and Huebner, have already been freed, it is not known what proportion of the total of those released will be political '.
"9. In Poland there has been some sporadic but unsustained harassment of leading dissidents, including the jailing for two months in September of Adam Wojciechowski, a member of Amnesty International. The Hungarian Government's domestic policies have continued to be the most liberal in Eastern European terms. Bulgarian implementation in this area has shown neither positive nor negative movement.
CONFIDENCE-BUILDING MEASURES
"10. Advance notification was given of the major Soviet exercise NEMAN ', which took place in the Baltic Military District from 23rd to 27th July. On this occasion, observers were invited from NATO and other signatory countries. A number of countries, including the United Kingdom, accepted. In the event, less than four hours of direct observation were permitted. No other notifiable exercises are believed to have taken place in the rest of Western Europe.
"11. In his speech in East Berlin on 6th October, President Brezhnev indicated Soviet
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support for the development of additional confidence-building measures. The new elements he proposed were: a reduction from 25,000 to 20,000 of the ceiling above which ground force exercises must be notified; longer notification times for such exercises; the notification of military movements involving more than 20,000 men, and an upper limit for 40–50.000 men in the size of ground force exercises. The proposals for the lowering of notification ceilings and for a commitment to notify movements are similar to those which Western and neutral and non-aligned countries put forward at Belgrade. (Foreign Ministers of the Nine, meeting in Brussels on 20th November, reaffirmed their view that it was essential to maintain an overall balance between military and other aspects of security in the CSCE process. They agreed, taking into account the proposals made by President Giscard in 1978 for a Conference on Disarmament in Europe, that the Nine should work for the adoption at the Madrid meeting of a mandate for further negotiations within the CSCE framework on militarily significant and verifiable Confidence-Building Measures applicable to the entire European Continent.)
BASKET II (CO-OPERATION IN THE FIELD OF ECONOMICS, OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY AND OF THE ENVIRONMENT
TRADE AND INDUSTRIAL CO-OPERATION
"12. In general there have been no identifiable trends or substantial changes in the period under review. Shortage of hard currency has led to a wider and more restrictive application by certain Eastern European countries of counter trade policies. In Romania, in particular, trade organisations are now demanding 100 per cent. compensation on most contracts. In Hungary and Poland, on the other hand, similar hard currency restrictions have led to an increasing emphasis on the development of co-operation arrangements between Western companies and local producers, both in the countries concerned and in third markets. Despite similar hard currency problems in Czechoslovakia, the latest meeting of the United Kingdom-Czechoslovak Joint Commission was held in a positive atmosphere and the British section of the Czechoslovak Chamber of Commerce has been showing increased interest across the whole field of United Kingdom-Czechoslovak trade. In the GDR a number of major industrial projects are under discussion with Western (including British) firms and in one or two cases contracts could be awarded early in the New Year. In Bulgaria there are encouraging signs of a more flexible attitude towards foreign investment.
BUSINESS CONTRACTS AND FACILITIES.
"13.The overall situation remains as in the last report. The Soviet Ministry of Finance are in the process of negotiating a series of double taxation agreements with Western countries which may resolve some of the uncertainties which currently act as disincentives for companies wishing to establish offices in the Soviet Union. In Poland, where some 30 British companies are now established, a decree was issued in September requiring foreign firms to pay their locally recruited staff not less than 50 per cent. more than equivalent grades employed in Polish foreign

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trade enterprises. The implications of this decree are unclear, and our Embassy is currently investigating with the Polish authorities the bases on which the provisions of the decree are to be applied. Shortages of private and business accommodation for foreign business representatives continue to be a major problem in most Eastern European countries, though efforts arc being made, in a number of countries, to extend the availability of both.
ECONOMIC AND COMMERCIAL INFORMATION.
" 14. The differences in practice noted in the last report have continued. While the availability of commercial information in Bulgaria and the GDR has, if anything, worsened, Hungary issued its 1979 statistics year book in English for the first time.
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY.
"15. Co-operation under bilateral agreements on science and technology and on the environment has continued satisfactorily. Earlier this month a high-level meeting on the environment was held in Geneva under the auspices of the UN Economic Commission for Europe (ECE), at which representatives of the countries of Europe and North America signed a convention on Long Range Trans-Boundary Air Pollution and endorsed a declaration on Low and Non-Waste Technology.
BASKET III (CO-OPERATION IN HUMANITARIAN AND OTHER FIELDS)
HUMAN CONTACTS.
16. There have been indications of some deterioration in the record of certain countries whilst others have maintained their previous level of progress. In the Soviet Union overall implementation under this heading remains disappointing. A list of 23 long-standing personal cases, mainly involving resettlement in the United Kingdom, was submitted to the Soviet authorities in June and a further list, adding one new case, was submitted on 27th September. Only one of these cases has since been satisfactorily resolved. At least two applications for permanent residence in the Soviet Union by British wives have remained outstanding for almost a year.
" 17. In the GDR pensioners are still the main category of citizens normally granted exit visas for family reasons: they account for about 95 per cent. of successful applications. As regards non-pensioners, blood relatives are sometimes allowed to visit the United Kingdom for a family celebration or bereavement but the GDR policy in this respect has continued to be restrictive and arbitrary. In the other direction, a British subject who had previously lived in the GDR has been refused permission to visit her children and grandchildren in the GDR.
" 18. In Czechoslovakia, earlier indications that it would become easier for so-called 'illegal ' emigres to normalise their status and thus facilitate visits from relatives have not so far been borne out. Tourist visits to Western countries are increasingly limited for most Czechoslovaks by the rationing and inflated rate of foreign currency allowances.
" 19. In Romania there has been some improvement since the last report in the granting of
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applications for family meetings. Difficulties and delays at all stages of the exit process remain common. There has also been an improvement in the Romanian performance on bi-national marriages but sustained effort remains necessary to achieve this.
" 20. The performance in this area of Poland and Hungary has been good in most respects. The latest development in Hungary makes it possible for male applicants of military age to obtain exit permits. Hungarian tourism to and from Austria has grown rapidly following a Visa Abolition Agreement. Bulgarian implementation has shown some improvement.
INFORMATION
"21. There has been no change in the general availability of British and other Western non-Communist newspapers and periodicals in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. The only British newspaper commonly available, but in small quantities, is the Morning Star, though a few of the larger tourist hotels have occasional copies of other papers. The major exception to this general rule is Poland, where small quantities of a relatively wide range of Western newspapers and magazines are available at normal points of sale.
"22. One major positive development has been the steady increase in the number of British hooks on sale to Soviet citizens. Altogether 20 bookshops in the Soviet Union now stock Western books, six of them in Moscow.
"23. The GDR authorities continue to impose severe restrictions on the information activities of diplomatic missions. On more than one recent occasion school-children who visited the British Embassy in East Berlin for material for a school project were detained and questioned by GDR police.
WORKING CONDITIONS FOR JOURNALISTS
"24. The harassment of individual foreign journalists in the Soviet Union has continued. The most important case concerning a journalist representing a British newspaper in the period under review involved direct and indirect attempts by the Soviet authorities to cut short the period of the correspondent's accreditation. The restrictions on the activities of foreign correspondents in the GDR introduced in April, together with the latest amendment to the Public Order Law, remain a considerable impediment to the free flow of information about events in the GDR. The facilities provided for British newspaper and television journalists visiting Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania and Poland have continued to improve. On the other hand, the practice of the Czechoslovak authorities on the granting of visas to Western journalists has remained somewhat arbitary.
CULTURE AND EDUCATION
"25. The implementation of the various bilateral cultural, educational and scientific exchange agreements has been generally satisfactory, though possibilities for co-operation remain considerably restricted in some countries. Late cancellation and postponement of some agreed visits from the Soviet Union and certain other countries is a continuing problem.
" In Romania the promotion of educational exchanges has been made more difficult by a new Education Law which prevents anyone with teaching duties, including most researchers, from leaving the country except in the summer vacation.
CONCLUSION
"26. The negative trends in the implementation of the humanitarian provisions of the Final Act identified in this report are viewed with concern by the Government, who continue to believe that the full and balanced implementation of the Final Act is an essential and integral part of genuine détente in Europe. Whilst the Government recognise the importance of the development of the military aspects of security in the context of the Madrid meeting, they cannot stress too strongly that, unless signatory governments are also prepared to fulfil the existing provisions of the Final Act, including its humanitarian dimension, the necessary minimum basis for confidence and trust on which such further measures depend cannot exist. The negative developments cited in this report are unlikely to improve the prospects for the Madrid review meeting in November 1980. The Government, in their regular contacts with other signatories of the Final Act between now and Madrid, will not hesitate to bring these shortcomings to the attention of those concerned in the hope of promoting that progress in implementation which will help ensure a successful outcome to the Madrid meeting."
Baroness ELLIOT of HARWOOD: My Lords, while I thank the noble Lord for that Answer—and I shall read the report with great interest—I hope that Her Majesty's Government will be as successful in trying to get more satisfactory answers out of Russia and the East European countries as they have recently been in negotiations elsewhere that we have been hearing about.

MAIN BATTLE TANK: NATO COLLABORATION
2.32 p.m.
Lord HILL-NORTON: 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 any of our NATO allies intend to adopt the United Kingdom design of the future Main Battle Tank.
The MINISTER of STATE, MINISTRY of AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES and FOOD (Earl Ferrers): My Lords,
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may I be permitted to answer the Question which has just been asked.
We are now engaged in the first stage of development, the project definition phase, of the United Kingdom's new Main Battle Tank (MBT-80), which will start to replace Chieftain in the late 1980s. We believe that our design, mounting Chobham Armour and with a rifled bore gun and a diesel engine, will best match the Warsaw Pact armoured threat into the next century. It has not proved possible to collaborate with any of our NATO allies on the design of a complete tank, but we are continuing to explore the scope for collaboration on components.
Lord HILL-NORTON: My Lords, I thank the noble Earl for his reply. May I ask him whether he will agree that a golden opportunity for standardisation has thereby been lost? Would he also agree that the operational and logistic disadvantages which flow from that loss are serious? Would he further agree that it may not be wise when we and our allies face the same threat on precisely the same ground to accept these disadvantages simply because the Leopard tank was not invented here?
Earl FERRERS: My Lords, the noble Lord has invited me to agree with him on a number of issues. I will take note of the noble Lord's point of view and see that that is directed to the attention of my right honourable friend.

CUTS IN OVERSEAS AID
2.34 p.m.
Lord GRIDLEY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will provide information regarding the latest distribution of cuts in the overseas aid programme to individual territories.
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, planning figures for aid disbursements are based on intentions and assumptions which may not be realised: aid commit-

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ments generally spread over several years and expenditure against such commitments fluctuates from one year to the next. The effect of the £50 million reduction in aid expenditure this year on individual countries varies according to the rate of disbursement of aid on different types of project. It would be misleading to try to break down the £50 million between individual countries.
Lord GRIDLEY: My Lords, while thanking my noble friend for that Answer, and while appreciating that the Government cannot give an exact or precise breakdown of the projects affected by the cuts, may I ask whether an indication can be given of the countries most likely to be affected? Will the Government give an assurance in regard to future years that grants in respect of aid are maintained at the highest level?
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, I am afraid I cannot give an indication of the countries upon which these cuts may fall. As I said in my original Answer, such an indication would be full of ambiguity and would be misleading.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, may I ask whether due consideration has been given to the probable extra needs in Rhodesia? If, as we all hope, things go well on the security and constitutional front, is it not highly desirable that generous aid should be provided in proper circumstances in order to maintain political stability there? Does not this mean that extra money will need to be provided in the aid programme?
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, we are certainly considering what we can do for Rhodesia in these new circumstances. However, it is exactly that type of reason which makes it so difficult to plan ahead accurately and give reliable forecasts of the amount of money that we are going to spend for individual countries when sudden and unforeseen demands upon our resources arise.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: May I ask whether the noble Lord will confirm that the sum of £27 million which he mentioned in the Statement yesterday refers exclusively to the costs of organising the pre-independence arrangements; that
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further sums will be allotted to the reconstruction of Zimbabwe-Rhodesia after independence; and that of course your Lordships' House will have every opportunity of discussing the amount and the purpose of that future sum? Secondly, would he—I am sure he will—confirm that in looking at the problems and possibilities in the future for Rhodesia under independence Her Majesty's Government will also pay close attention to the urgent needs of Zambia and indeed other neighbouring countries?
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, I can certainly give the assurance that we will give urgent attention to the needs of Zambia and the neighbouring countries. With regard to the item of £27 million which was contained in the Statement which I repeated yesterday, I can confirm that that sum is specifically for expenditure incurred during the transitional period and is primarily the cost of the monitoring forces.
Lord HATCH of LUSBY: My Lords, I find it a great pleasure to be able to support the noble Lord opposite in the tone of his Question. May I ask the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, this question: in view of the fact that there are many countries that are allocating aid at a much higher percentage of their gross national product, irrespective of the question of economic status, is it not time that the Government of this country recognised that this is a priority need in the world in which we live? Will they reverse the policy that they have so far taken of cutting overseas aid, despite the low position that we hold in the league table of percentage of GNP?
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, I do not think that we do too badly with our aid programme. We are planning to spend in the current year something like £790 million on our total aid programme, which I do not think is too bad. As the noble Lord reminds me, that is about 0·3 per cent. of our gross national product, which is a lot of money all the same when one actually has to write the cheque for it. We are absolutely determined to keep our aid programme, and all our other expenditure programmes, within our resources.

THE BINGHAM REPORT
2.40 p.m.
Lord DENHAM: My Lords, with the leave of the House, at a convenient moment after 3.30 p.m. my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor will be repeating a Statement that will be made in another place on the Bingham Report.

HOUSE OF LORDS OFFICES
The CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES (Lord Aberdare)The CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES (Lord Aberdare) rose to move, That the Third Report from the Select Committee be agreed to.
The Report was as follows:
PRAYERS
The Committee have considered a proposal to increase the choice of psalms for use at Prayers. The Committee recommended that, for an experimental period of one year, the Bishop reading Prayers should be able to choose from a further ten psalms, or passages from psalms, in addition to the present five.
2. FACILITIES FOR MEMBERS OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT
The Committee have considered a report from a Sub-committee appointed to advise on what facilities of the House might be made available to members of the European Parliament. The Sub-committee consisted of the following Lords:

The Chairman of Committees

L. Ampthill

L. Denham

V. Eccles

L. Edmund-Davies

L. Hayter

B. Hylton-Foster

B. Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe

L. Wigoder

The Sub-committee had recommended that the House of Lords should, subject to any relevant security considerations, issue passes to members of the European Parliament to enable them to gain access to the Peers' Lobby and thence to the Galleries of the House, if there were room. The Sub-committee further recommended that, in granting any other facilities, the House should proceed in step with the House of Commons.
The Committee also considered a memorandum by Viscount Hood proposing the acceptance by the House of a recommendation made by the European Communities Committee in their 44th Report of Session 1977–78 that members of the European Parliament should be invited to use all the facilities of the House and have seats reserved for them below the Bar and in the Members' Gallery.
The Committee are aware of the desirability of fostering a close relationship between members of the House of Lords and members of the European Parliament. It was pointed out,
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however, that there are considerable difficulties in extending to members of the European Parliament an invitation to use many of those amenities of the House currently available to Peers. Pressure in the Library, in the Dining Room and on accommodation generally is such that services to Peers would be restricted if members of the European Parliament were entitled to use these facilities. The view was expressed that there were difficulties of principle in inviting members of the European Parliament to use facilities which are not available even to Members of Parliament.
The Committee share the view of their Subcommittee that, while progress in the direction proposed by the European Communities Committee is desirable, it should be made in step with the House of Commons. They. therefore, recommend that the Chairman of Committees should consult as a matter of urgency with the appropriate authorities of the House of Commons to determine a joint approach to this question.
3. PARLIAMENT OFFICE.
The Committee agreed to an increase in the authorised complement of Clerks to 20, plus one seconded.
The Committee were informed of the promotion of Mr. D. Beamish and Mr. J. Maude to Senior Clerk and of the appointment of Miss Meryll Rowena Dean as Legal Assistant in the Overseas Office in the place of Miss P. M. Smith, resigned.
4. LIBRARY
The Committee agreed to the installation of a Prestel information service television receiver on a permanent basis.
The Committee also agreed that one of the full-time temporary cataloguer posts be made permanent.
5. PARLIAMENTARY DELEGATIONS
The Committee approved provision for the payment of revised subsistence allowances to delegates to European Asssmblies.
6. POLICE
The Committee agreed to an increase in the administration charge under the agreement with the Receiver for the Metropolitan Police District for the supply of police services.
7. REVISED SCALES OF PAY AND ALLOWANCES
The Committee confirmed the application of the following Civil Service Memoranda:—

(a)CM/379—London Weighting

(b)CM/390—Responsibility Allowances

(c)CM/394—Subsistence and meal allowances.

giving revised rates of pay and allowances to applicable staff of the House of Lords.
8. OFFICIAL SHORTHAND WRITER
The Committee sanctioned a revision in the Official Shorthand Writer's scale of fees.
9. HANSARD REPORTING STAFF
The Committee authorised a revision in the fees payable to transcribers and temporary reporters.
10. EXPENSES OF SELECT COMMITTEES
The Committee authorised a revision in the rate of pay of temporary Research Assistants.
11. SUPERANNUATION
The Committee were notified of the following awards:—

(a) Pension and lump sum to Mr. R. J. Skelton, M.B.E., Higher Executive Officer, who retires on 1st January 1980.

(b) Revised pension and lump sum to Mrs. K. H. Allen, Cleaner, who retired on 13th May 1979.

(c) Preserved pension and lump sum to Mr. D. G. Marchant, Executive Officer, who resigned on 12th May 1979.

(d) Preserved pension and lump sum to Miss A. P. Johns, Personal Secretary who resigned on 9th March 1979.

(e) Short service payment to Miss P. M. Smith, Legal Assistant, who resigned on 31st August 1979.

(f) Short service payment to Mrs. E. L. Field, Personal Secretary, who resigned on 7th December 1979.

(g) Short service payment to Mr. K. J. Hayes, Clerical Officer, who resigned on 6th July 1979.

(h) Revised short service payment to Mrs. G. Robertson, née Holland, Senior Personal Secretary, who resigned on 11th May 1979.

(I) Transfer value payment to British Broadcasting Corporation in respect of Mr. M. J. Price, Clerical Officer, who resigned on 22nd December 1978.

The noble Lord said: My Lords, in moving that the Third Report from the Select Committee of the House of Lords Offices Committee be agreed to, I think I should draw your Lordships' attention in particular to item 2 of the report: facilities for Members of the European Parliament. That raises questions of fundamental importance to this House. When it was considered in the Committee, differing views were expressed. There were those who supported a memorandum which had been submitted by the noble Viscount, Lord Hood, which advocated that Members of the European Parliament should be invited to use all the facilities of this House and have seats reserved for them below the Bar and in the Members' Gallery.
There were others who preferred the view that had been taken by a subcommittee of the Offices Committee which, while extremely sympathetic to the wish to keep a good liaison with Members of the European Parliament, took the view that facilities of this House are already under heavy pressure and that it would be unwise to undertake further and as yet unknown commitments. However, that sub-committee recommended that we might consider a special system of passes for the Members of the European Parlia-
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ment, which would give them access to the Peers' Lobby and thence into the Galleries.
I think I should also point out that the sub-committee, when it deliberated, had available decisions made by the Library Committee and the Refreshment Subcommittee. In the event, the Offices Committee made no decision, but I was invited to consult with appropriate authorities in another place in order that we could co-ordinate our approach to this matter. This I have done, and I have every hope that I shall be invited to attend a meeting next month at which these matters will be discussed. Finally, I should like to say that in my opinion it is of extreme importance that we keep in step on this matter with another place. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Third Report from the Select Committee be agreed to.—(Lord Aberdare.)
Lord PEART: My Lords, may I say that in an odd way I am wearing two hats. I was once Leader of your Lordships' House and also I know the difficulties from the point of view of the other place. However, I think the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, has put it correctly: we must be very careful about this. We do not have the accommodation here, or certain facilities. This applies even to another place. Therefore, I welcome what he has said and I support him wholeheartedly.
Viscount HOOD: My Lords, I had the opportunity of airing the differences between my view and that of the subcommittee of the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, in the Offices Committee last week, and I do not intend to go over the same ground today. However, there is one comment I should like to make on the final paragraphs of section 2 of the report. I am sure it is desirable to keep in step, if we possibly can, with the House of Commons. A joint approach, if it can be contrived, is, I am sure, the better solution, and not least for the Members of the European Parliament. But all that depends on the willingness of the House of Commons to move positively in the desired direction and to move soon, because our whole relationship with the Members of the European

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Parliament is liable to go sour if the problem is not tackled positively and quickly. I hope, therefore, that the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, will find the House of Commons authorities receptive and constructive; but if, in, say, two months' time, he is unable to report progress, then I think your Lordships should seriously consider taking independent action.
Lord GREENWOOD of ROSSENDALE: My Lords, it is perhaps appropriate that my last appearance as Chairman of the European Select Committee should be in a short debate on the report of the Offices Committee. I have spoken on this subject in your Lordships' House on two occasions and, more numerously, on sub-committees. I would hesitate to run the risk of tiring your Lordships yet again by repeating arguments I have put in the past. However, I was yesterday instructed by the Select Committee, without dissent, to speak in this debate and to put their points of view. When one recalls that the European Committee and its sub-committees muster, above all, the support of over 100 noble Lords, one realises that this is a body of opinion which must be taken into account when important matters are under consideration.
Therefore, I comply with the request of the committee and put my point of view. First, I should like very much indeed to thank the Chairman of Committees, not only for his personal kindness to me but also for the magnificent way in which he serves the interests of the House, and not least in chairing the Offices Committee.
I thank the Committee for the report that he has brought to us. In many respects it is disappointing, but the noble Lords on the Select Committee appreciate the difficulties which have to be overcome and they welcome the fact that the Lord President has stressed the urgency of further discussions with another place. I think it is difficult to exaggerate the tragedy it would be if we got out of touch with our fellow legislators in Strasbourg. They can be of the most tremendous help to us, not least as a channel of information about European thinking and the pressures we are about to be put under by
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actions of the European Community. To deny ourselves the contact that would be provided if the report of the European Select Committee had been accepted would be a great disappointment. We have done everything that we can in this House to help European Members of Parliament. They are most grateful for the help they have had from us, but there is nevertheless a feeling of alienation on their part which nobody who has talked to the European Members could fail to detect. I think it would be a very great pity if this alienation continued.
I should like to remind members of Her Majesty's Government that so long as there is no direct personal contact, as there tends nowadays not to be, we are going to see more and more occasions such as the one recently when Parliament and the Council of Ministers fell out with each other. I think that would be a very great pity indeed. We believe in the Select Committee that a sense of shared responsibility, created in an atmosphere of easy informality in the Palace of Westminster, is of the greatest importance. It transcends the various physical difficulties which we appreciate do exist but which nevertheless we do not believe are insuperable. So, my Lords, 1 would thank the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, for having instilled this note of urgency into our consideration of the problem, and express the hope that the practical results will be not too long delayed, because I believe that the European Parliament and this Parliament would both benefit from closer contact than we have at the present time.
Lord NUGENT of GUILDFORD: My Lords, I should like to add just a brief word in support of what has been said by the noble Viscount, Lord Hood, and the noble Lord, Lord Greenwood. I do not think we should be too embarrassed if we are in some respects a little ahead of the Commons. In fact, the work that is being done by the Committee of the noble Lord, Lord Greenwood, and by the sub-committees in studying the regulations and proposals of the Commission—the reports that have been made in this House—in their content and interest have really been outstanding. This House has absolutely made the pace. I have not noticed any resentment in the Commons. I think that Members

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of the Commons who are interested will be very grateful to your Lordships for the tremendous job that has been done in this respect.
Of course, the fact is that it is common knowledge that there is a great deal of personal political opposition in the Commons to the European Commission and the general concept of the Common Market, which is undoubtedly gumming-up the wheels in all these structures outside the House, and possibly inside the House as well. Therefore, it is not in the nature of things to expect the House of Commons to move quickly on this matter. I very much support what the noble Viscount, Lord Hood, has said, that of course, in principle, we wish to see the House of Commons take a lead in these matters. But if it appears that they really just are not capable of doing so, I feel it is in the interests of Britain and of Parliament as a whole that we should push discreetly on ourselves.
What could be done? Let me briefly say a word. I have had a lot of experience of the Refreshment Committee; and what could be done there quite easily, without inconvenience to ourselves, is to invite MEPs to use the single Peers' side of the Dining Room. There is a very quick turnover. After all, all 61 of them are not coming at once. There probably would not be more than a handful of them at any time. So they could come in, have a meal, rub shoulders with us, and use the guest room and have a drink, on the understanding that they cannot bring in guests because our facilities are too limited.
In the Library, why should they not ask for a book or for information if they want it, provided that they do not try to sit down in the Library, which would be very difficult to do, and are restricted to using the common room upstairs? This is a facility which we could offer them. It seems to me that if we want to do something for them, we can find a way of doing it by giving them some facilities which will make them feel that we want to be friends with them, we want to have contact with them and we see benefit in it for us and for them, as the noble Lord, Lord Greenwood, has said. So I hope that my noble friend Lord Aberdare, having listened to these cogent words from noble Lords and myself, will
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be willing, as his last paragraph indicates, to continue to look at this with a view to seeing whether we could do something to make these people feel that we want to have a friendly relationship with them, and are prepared to go to the absolute ultimate to do it.
Lord WIGG: My Lords, I should not feel honest if I sat here and did not raise my voice. I am glad to learn that there is political opposition in another place to this proposal. I certainly oppose it, but I am not going to speak for any length of time. I did not vote in the European election. I used all the influence I had to dissuade other people from voting. I am opposed to the Common Market. I think that entry to the Common Market was fatal to this country, and I shall do all I can to take us out. Therefore, I want at least one voice to say, "I am opposed".
Lord BETHELL: My Lords, having just returned from a committee meeting at the European Parliament, I should like to say how much I agree with the three speakers, my noble friend Lord Nugent, the noble Viscount, Lord Hood, and the noble Lord, Lord Greenwood, who expressed their disappointment that the House of Lords Offices Committee was not able to go a little further in providing facilities for my colleagues in the European Parliament. I think I can safely say that among my colleagues there is very great admiration for your Lordships' House, and for the work that has been done over Europe since the Lord Maybray-King Committee of 1972. The reports of our Scrutiny Committee are some of the wonders of Strasbourg and have been studied with great care by all the Community institutions. Many of my colleagues hoped that the House of Lords would take a lead over this matter, and were encouraged to believe this by the Forty-Fourth Report of 1977–78.
It is a fact, whatever other noble Lords have said, that our facilities in this House are less stretched than those of another place, and I agree with my noble friend Lord Nugent that if there was a real will to find some place for them in this House a way could be found. But I am afraid that there is more to this than meets the eye. I have been observing the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition during

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this short debate. He said very little about the report, but he has been making some noises of disagreement to the previous speakers. I wish that we could have heard a little more about them, because it seems to me that the reasons that have been advocated may be due not entirely to a lack of facilities in your Lordships' House, but to a political disagreement among noble Lords opposite and their honourable friends in another place.
Lord PEART: My Lords, may I intervene? I believe that the noble Lord has got it wrong. I am not at all anti-Europe in any way. What I was saying was that I think the report of the Select Committee is sensible. It explains how, even now, we lack accommodation facilities for noble Lords. The facilities are dreadful. With noble Lords sharing desks, the position is disgraceful. I believe that even in the Commons there is still a shortage of accommodation. All I am saying is that if you do this you must go very cautiously, but I think that the report is very sensible.
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords
Lord BETHELL: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I had not quite finished my speech. I am very glad that the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition has given that further explanation. I trust that that is the only reason why he advocates caution in this matter, and that it is not because of any opposition to the idea of the European Community on behalf of some of his noble and honourable friends.
I should like to conclude by saying that I thoroughly agree with my noble friend Lord Nugent, that if we are unable to make any further substantial progress during the next few weeks or two or three months, we must seriously consider taking the lead on this matter. We must seriously consider what facilities we can provide for Members of the European Parliament, because if we do nothing, if we wait too long, then this mood of alienation, to which the noble Lord, Lord Greenwood, referred, will grow, further misunderstandings will happen, similar to the one that happened three weeks ago, and the national interest will suffer.
2.57 p.m.
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, to ensure that my noble friend Lord Wigg will not be completely isolated, I want to endorse his remarks 100 per cent. I, too, am opposed to this proposal which I think is a lot of damned nonsense. It certainly is irrelevant. What would we gain by it? So far as I can understand, the European Members of Parliament are going to be able to come and sit alongside us in the Peers' Dining Room and have a meal at somewhat lower cost than they would have to pay outside. I do not see why we should provide them with benefits of that character. Besides, this so-called liaison is a bit of a farce. The other week I read in the newspapers—those organs of unimpeachable veracity, which always tell the truth—that they voted against the EEC budget. Did they consult us before doing so? Are they likely to consult us in future, before taking action of that kind? Are we to understand that "liaison" means that they will ask for instructions before they take action against the Council of Ministers and the Commission? These are very pertinent questions. They may be regarded as impertinent, but I do not mind either. It will suit me.
This kind of thing will not do. After all, what shall we gain by this liaison? What is going to happen? Does it mean that we shall be able to exercise a measure of control over the activities and transactions of the European Parliament? Of course not. They would not agree to that. If we said to them, "Before you do anything come and consult us, take instructions from us. We had something to do with your election, however minimal it might have been. Therefore, take no action before you ascertain the opinion of your superiors—we are the superiors ", would that happen? Of course not. So I suggest that we do not allow this to pass. We should refer it back to the Select Committee and the Select Committee should consider whether this kind of liaison will be effective. Is it going to be relevant? Is it going to produce beneficial results? We are entitled to ask these questions.
Finally, I just want to say this. I fully appreciate that the majority of Members of your Lordships' House are in favour of the Common Market. I deplore it. Many, many years ago I

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said in another place that it would prove to be disastrous. If the Common Market has not proved disastrous, it is very near it. Certainly it has not proved to be very effective. I have said much the same in your Lordships' House. I have been against the Common Market from the start. The whole thing has proved to be a farce and of no benefit to us.
I do not suggest, because of my opinion about it, that we should withdraw from the Common Market. Once you have joined it is very difficult to withdraw. We should have thought about that beforehand and also about all the things which have happened since we joined—the high cost of living and the disputes with France. Not a word has been said about that. If we want liaison, that is the kind of liasion to have so that we and our colleagues in the Common Market act consistently and work towards what are supposed to be the beneficial results to be derived from the Treaty of Accession. None of this has happened. I think the time has come to speak out; so I speak out, along with my noble friend Lord Wigg. If there is to be liaison, let it be effective liaison. Let us decide what action should be taken, but before any action is taken the Members of the European Parliament should consider what are our views on this particular subject.
Lord ROBERTHALL: My Lords, I, like the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, have had the privilege of serving on one of the sub-committees of the European Communities Committee. From the picture which the noble Lord gave to us, I did not recognise what goes on in those sub-committees. My own feeling and experience is that both the Select Committee representing your Lordships' House and the Members of the European Parliament are trying to make something work and that it is enormously helpful to both sides to be able to put some colour into what otherwise are rather difficult and stodgy documents. I have not the slightest doubt that we, and therefore, to the extent that we serve your Lordships' House, your Lordships' House, have benefited a great deal from these contacts. A good many Members of this House were Members of the European Parliament, though unfortunately there are not so many of them now. I
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have not the slightest doubt that they and therefore the Parliament that they were helping to try to work, benefited from being able to talk things over in a friendly, sensible atmosphere. Both sides were trying to make an obviously difficult and experimental institution work.
Lord BLYTON: My Lords, I hope that your Lordships will discuss this matter dispassionately. Nobody can accuse me of being a Common Marketeer. I have always been opposed to it. However, when we look at this report, in which it is suggested that Euro-Members of Parliament should invade this place from their own Parliament abroad, I think it is carrying things far too far. If you are a Euro-MP your Parliament is in Strasbourg; it is not here. If Euro-MPs want access to this place, their friends can bring them in as visitors. They can have their contacts in exactly the same way as any Member of Parliament here can bring in a visitor. When all is said and done, we cannot allow Members of the European Parliament to enjoy the privileges of this place after they have been elected to sit in the European Parliament. A terrible fight went on in the House of Commons about this issue and a big fight is still going on. I agree with the Select Committee that we should keep in step with the House of Commons on this big issue.
I think there ought to be a Select Committee made up of representatives of the two Houses to determine what the position ought to be. But I do not think that Euro-MPs should be allowed to come into the House of Lords for, by God!, the facilities are bad enough as it is without making them worse. So I suggest to the Government that they should set up a Select Committee, made up of Members of the two Houses, who could then have a go at this problem. But, by God!, we must not let the European Parliament control either the House of Commons or the House of Lords.
Viscount ECCLES: My Lords, because it has been suggested that those who have facilities to offer may not really want to offer them I feel that I must say something as chairman of the Library Committee. That is not true of the Library Committee. We were very sympathetic to the idea that Members of the European Parliament should be allowed to use some

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of our facilities, but we had to take into account facts which your Lordships know very well; namely, that the services offered today by the Library are steadily coming into greater demand. It is not as though we can measure the burden on the staff of the Library by what is happening now, because the trend is very definitely upwards. That being the case, and because we are confined on the one hand by accommodation—we have no further accommodation into which to expand—and on the other by the number of our staff, we felt that it was not right at present to throw open the doors of the Library. One of the things which it would be impossible to do would be to allow Members of the European Parliament to come in and ask questions but not to sit down. I do not know what scenes would then take place! My opinion is that, if we could admit them, we could offer certain resources—European documents and so on—which no doubt would be useful. At any rate, we could offer to let them have a terminal link-up with our data base on European affairs. They could have this in a building which I understand they are to have quite close to hand.
I have one other point to make to your Lordships. It is very difficult to envisage going far ahead of the Commons. This is not because I would not wish your Lordships from time to time to take the initiative. But this is only one building. If we were to admit Members of the European Parliament into our part of the Palace of Westminster, who could keep them out of the other part? It would be very difficult. I should like your Lordships to take a lead—and if the other place were to be deeply intransigent perhaps your Lordships should do so—but it is as well to be aware of the fact that we live in one Palace and that this will make difference of treatment very difficult.
Lord INGLEWOOD: My Lords, while supporting those who would like to see greater facilities for Members of the European Parliament, may I ask a short and simple question regarding another paragraph of this report, because there is more than paragraph 2 to this report. Paragraph 6 refers to the increase in the administration charge under the agreement
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with the Receiver for the Metropolitan Police District. May I ask what the present charge is and what the future charge is likely to be? It is common talk among police officers of all ranks that this building and its surroundings are more extravagantly staffed with police officers than any other place in London and that it is very hard to justify.
3.10 p.m.
Lord WALSTON: My Lords, may I very briefly—because many remarks have already been made on this important matter—support the noble Viscount, Lord Hood, and my noble friend Lord Greenwood in the remarks which they have made and answer one or two of the points which were raised by my noble friend Lord Shinwell. This morning I was at a meeting of Sub-Committee D of your Lordships' European Select Committee and there we had evidence from two United Kingdom Members of the European Parliament. They were vehement in supporting any suggestion which would increase the contacts between them and us. They believed that it would add enormously to the effectiveness of their work and make them—not represent our views; they would not, as my noble friend Lord Shinwell suggested, take instructions from us but they would find it very much easier to understand what was going on in our minds and they paid us the compliment of saying that because of the work of your Lordships' Select Committee we were in a good position to advise them concerning that. Simply coming once or twice a year in order to give evidence, while valuable in itself was no substitute for a much more frequent and informal contact of the sort which could exist if they had certain facilities within the Palace of Westminster. That seems to me to be very strong evidence in favour of taking some positive steps to enable this to be done.
I do not think it is vitally important that they should have access to the Library facilities. They have as good, probably even in some respects better, library and information facilities at their own disposal. I do not think there is any need whatsoever for them to have offices here or to have desks or chairs of their own or anything of that kind, but it is of enormous importance and value that they should feel free to come at least into

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our end of the Palace of Westminster—because after all that is all we are concerned with here—not as visitors and asking for cards to be filled in but of their own right, so that they may have at least one place (the Peers' guest room) where they may drink with us and one place where they can have a meal or a cup of tea. There are no great numbers involved. I am ashamed to say that I cannot remember the total number of European Members of Parliament. I believe it is 80 or so.
A noble Lord: Seventy-two without the dual mandate.
Lord WALSTON: My Lords, we must remember that it is only on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays that these facilities are of any significance, and on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays for at least three weeks in every month the European Members of Parliament are engaged elsewhere and would never use it: there are very few occasions when more than half a dozen of them would be here at the same time, and to say that we do not have enough room at our bar to allow those half dozen people to have drinks is either a complete misapprehension of the facts or is suggesting that your Lordships are even more alcoholically prone than I think you are. The same goes for the facilities in the dining room.
As to the question of keeping in step with another place, I think there is a lot to be said for keeping in step with all one's partners, but there is no point in keeping in step if the steps which your partners are proposing to take are stationary steps. If they are going to take a step forward, let us step forward with them; if they are going to do no more than mark time, I myself do not wish to hold their hands while we mark time and do nothing. So, while I think it is very reasonable and diplomatic for the noble Lord the Lord Chairman of Committees to talk with them, I think we should take no action until we re-assemble in January. If by that time no agreement has been reached to enable us to make some modest progress along the lines I have outlined, then I suggest that we should forget about keeping in step and should march forward on our own.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY: My Lords, being a member of the Select
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Committee on the European Communities, I should like to make two points very briefly. First, I hope that my noble friend the acting Leader of the House will, as well as the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, take into account and consider carefully what was said by the chairman of the Select Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Greenwood of Rossendale. Secondly, as it is the occasion of his last utterance in that capacity, I should like to say how much I, and I think other members of the Committee, have appreciated his chairmanship. I am sure they would agree with me that it has been characterised by his wisdom and his dedication to the effective working of the Committee.
3.15 p.m.
Earl FERRERS: My Lords, I wonder whether I might be permitted to add my remarks of thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Greenwood of Rossendale, for what he has done on the European Committees, because he has guided them through very difficult, controversial and extremely complicated legislation, and indeed he has guided the whole House. I think the House owes him a great debt of gratitude for what he has done. I agree so much with what he said, that the House—and indeed Parliament—should not get out of touch with the European Members of Parliament. I think he is absolutely right in that: Westminster should not get out of touch with what goes on in Europe, and the European Members should not get out of touch with what goes on in Westminster. I believe everyone will agree with that, with the possible exceptions of the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, and the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, who feel that they do not like the thing anyhow and want to be shot of it. But to most people the European Parliament is there and we have to make a success of it. It would he a great pity if we could not keep in step.
The difficulty arises as to exactly how we get into step and how we can keep in contact. Some of us, like my noble friend Lord Bethell, have the advantage of being able to keep in contact by coming here, but that does not apply to everyone, and the proposal made by the Offices Committee is clearly one which does not achieve a unanimity of view. That is the reason why I suggest that it is undesirable to proceed too far along the line suggested this afternoon while there is a substantial

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section of opinion within the House with serious doubts about offering access to European Members and their using facilities such as the Library and the Dining Room. I can understand the arguments which have been put forward about the Library, but I am bound to say that I thought my noble friend Lord Nugent made an extraordinary suggestion for one who is so generous, namely, to invite them into the Library but to tell them that they cannot sit down. I should always be hesitant if my noble friend were to invite me out to a meal—which I do not expect he would—
Lord NUGENT of GUILDFORD: My Lords, is my noble friend the Leader of the House aware that there arc many occasions when I go to the Library to ask for something but when it is impossible to sit down? That must be a common experience for all your Lordships because the accommodation is so limited. So the European Members would be doing no more than anyone else has to do.
Earl FERRERS: My Lords, I hope my noble friend will not have any hesitation in routing me out of a chair if I am occupying it when he wishes to go to the Library.
It is difficult to proceed with this suggestion when there are a number of people who have serious reservations. The noble Lord, Lord Walston, said that if necessary we should go step by step with the House of Commons provided they are moving forwards, but he did not want to be a party to it if they were going to stand still. There again we have the problem mentioned by my noble friend Lord Eccles, that if you give people access to one part of the House how are you going to prevent them from going into another part of the House? If we wish to do this in your Lordships' House we have the problem of thinking how we are to control the situation if those in another place do not wish to take the same action. That is why I think there is much to be said for trying to do this in step with another place.
After all, my Lords, this particular report is not the end of the matter. The noble Lord the Lord Chairman has been asked by the Committee to consult the
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appropriate authorities in another place with a view to trying to determine a joint approach to the question. I should have thought that that was really the better way to proceed, to have these joint discussions, and that the Offices Committee might then be able to suggest a further step forward. But as it stands at the moment I hope the House may feel that the best thing to do is to accept the report as it is and to see what transpires after that.
Lord WIGG: My Lords, before the noble Earl the Leader of the House sits down I must ask this question. In considering these facilities will he also bear in mind that there are two of us who do not wish to mix with the Members of the European Parliament; and therefore can we be provided with facilities so that we do not have to mix with them?
Earl FERRERS: My Lords, that, of course, is a matter for the whole House, and no doubt the whole House will consider the noble Lord's view.
Lord ABERDARE: My Lords, I think I should just thank all those of your Lordships who have taken part in this short debate. I ought to thank the noble Lord, Lord Greenwood of Rossendale, for his kind remarks to me, but I think it much more appropriate on this occasion that we should be joining with my noble friend the Leader of the House and others who have thanked him for the very able way in which he has done his duties and for the very balanced speech he made today.
I would just say to the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, that there certainly was no political implication in the consideration given by the Select Committee. If he looks at the membership of the subcommittee he will see that there are people there from all shades of opinion. All that this debate has done is to underline the same differences of opinion as there were in the committee. Obviously these will eventually have to be resolved. The noble Lord, Lord Nugent, seemed to think that I was responsible for the report. This is the report of the Select Committee; I am in their hands and eventually in the hands of the House as to what decision we make. I would suggest that the advice given by the Leader of the House on this occasion is wise advice, to

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accept the report for the moment; it does not commit your Lordships in any way. I will continue to see whether I can initially mark time and perhaps later on move forward in step with another place.
Perhaps I may say to the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, who raised the subject of police costs, under paragraph 6, that I have not the figures here at the moment but I shall be delighted to show them to him afterwards if he wishes. This item was gone into very carefully by the Finance Sub-Committee. Of course police costs in this building are very high; this is a very difficult building to protect and it is greatly exposed to possible threats at the moment. I would myself think that the police do an extremely good job in protecting this very difficult place.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

CONSOLIDATED FUND BILL
Brought from the Commons endorsed with the certificate from the Speaker that the Bill is a Money Bill within the meaning of the Parliament Act 1911; read la.

TRAINING IN INDUSTRY
3.22 p.m.
Lord MOTTISTONE Lord MOTTISTONE rose to call attention to the present statutory arrangements for encouraging training in industry; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I have pleasure in introducing the Motion standing in my name. I only hope that this debate can be as enlightened as the one we have just had, which was unscheduled. There were more speakers in that debate than there are going to be in ours. I am going to confine my remarks—because there is so much one could say on this subject —to the question of the industrial training boards which were established under the 1964 Industrial Training Act. I am limiting my remarks to those boards for reasons which will become obvious, and partly because it is those boards which are concerned with the training of the majority of people in employment in this country. It is those boards which have pioneered in this field in a remarkable way.
In an earlier speech, to which I shall be referring, I described the 1964 Act as one of the most enlightened Acts in the previous 10 years. It was remarkable in that it brought together representatives of the employers and the employees and the educational clement for the first time to study the problem of training in industry. In this role they did a first-class job. Apart from those training boards, I will not say very much about the 1973 Act, because in my humble opinion that was a bit of a disaster. It was unfortunate for the training boards that that Act had to come before Parliament at all. It came about only as a result of pressures from outside Parliament by people who were offended at any sort of interference in their activities and who made these complaints before the training boards had had time to get going. One might even say, from the point of view of the training boards but of course not from any other, that it was unfortunate that my noble friends and I got into power in 1970; it would have been much better if we had got into power in 1974. At that stage the boards were established and attitudes to them would have been much more balanced and sensible.
My Lords, having said that by way of introduction, I should now like to make some reference to a speech I made in your Lordships' House on 21st January 1970. That is nearly 10 years ago, and, most surprisingly—because I am sure most noble Lords, like myself, often regret what we have said 10 years before—in this particular case I do not regret it one little bit. In fact, I think that that speech represents my views very well now, though there are some remarks which I have made on this subject in the intervening years of which I am not so proud.
In this particular case there were three points I made which I am going to ask the Government to consider once again. Your Lordships must remember that this speech was made before there was any thought of a Manpower Services Commission. I suggested that it would take 10 to 15 years before we could tell whether the training board concept was a good one. It is now roughly 15 years since the Act was passed and the first boards were being set up, and it is just about 10 years since the board on which I had the honour to serve, the Distributive Industry

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Training Board, was set up in 1969. For that reason, this is an appropriate time to have this debate. That is why I put down this Motion and hoped to have an opportunity of presenting the argument to your Lordships.
Another point that I made in my speech at that time was that I recommended that boards should be inspected at intervals of five or six years. I thought that they should be left alone to get on with the job in the meantime but that there should be an inspectorate set up to examine them and to see whether they were doing the job properly. I shall return later to consider what the inspectorate should do. I also suggested in that speech that perhaps some 20 years after their establishment the boards might well be reorganised; some of them might be merged, some of them might be closed down. I shall return to that later. The reason why I chose time intervals of that sort was because training boards are in the attitude changing business and attitudes change very slowly. I am sure that any of your Lordships who have had occasion to try to persuade people to change their attitudes on a large scale, or even on a small one for that matter, will have found that it takes a long time for it to come about. Fifteen years is roughly half a generation, and it is roughly that sort of time that is required for what I call essential truths to sink in.
My Lords, I should like to invite the Government to consider two special measures. I should hope—though I am fearful that it is not the case—that they could do this without primary legislation. If not, I can see that it may take time, and I do not think that we have much time. We must get on with what has to be done in this area.
The first matter that I would request the Government to consider is relaxing what I call the "iron grip" of the Manpower Services Commission on the industrial training boards. I shall consider later how that iron grip is, in my opinion, misplaced and should not have come about. I should also like to suggest to the Government that the Department of Employment should resume responsibility for the money, and that the money should be controlled by the Department of State concerned and not through an extra outstanding commission.
I should like to invite the Government, in taking responsibility for the money, to take account of industrial training boards' net income from levy in deciding on a variable block grant to them. The problem is that some training boards have a great deal of money from the levy —indeed, it is still flowing in—while others do not have nearly enough. There is an imbalance. There are complications in what I suggest, because what I am effectively saying is that the amount of money from the Exchequer, if any, should be given to the boards which need it, but not to the ones which do not. It might be thought unfair by industries if Government money was given to some boards but not to others. However, the present situation is a nonsense.
I suggest that there should be a block grant for the money, rather than the very carefully controlled system that presently applies, because I believe that the boards would do a very much better job—and certainly would get on much better with the industries which they are trying to persuade to do good training—if they were freed from too much organisational control from above. So, let there be a block grant and then let them get on with the job.
Finally, as regards money, if there are any restraints perhaps they could be removed. However, there is quite a lot of evidence that many of the people who have the services of the training boards would be very happy to pay for them. If that is the case, I suggest that it is wholly sensible and suitable that those services should be paid for. The problem as regards allocating the services of the boards satisfactorily is that the people who really need the services—that is, the smaller companies—cannot afford to pay for them, but in many cases the bigger ones can and would do so.
I turn to the Manpower Services Commission. I suggest to the Government that it would be better employed getting on with the jobs which are not connected with industrial training boards, rather than spending an enormous amount of its time trying to direct training boards which are very well equipped and in all cases have very capable staff and do not require the backseat driving that they receive. The Manpower Services Commission, after all, has very important jobs

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to do that are not connected with training boards. For example, something like 25 per cent. of employees in this country are in nationalised industries or Government bodies of one sort or another and they need to be encouraged more definitely to introduce good training practices themselves. Some of them are good, but some are not so good.
There is the problem of the unemployed, which is part of the Manpower Services Commission's responsibility. That is a matter to which one would have thought it ought to devote its most important and capable employees. In another debate on this subject I suggested that it was time we stopped looking upon the unemployed as just statistics—which sadly they are—and turned them into names and involved the local authorities in feeling responsible for reducing the unemployment problem. That sort of situation could well be encouraged by the Manpower Services Commission if it devoted its main efforts in that direction.
The commission also runs the skill centres and the TOPS schemes, and that kind of thing, for people who are not employed in training boards, and it could give its efforts in that direction. It could also give encouragement to schools to prepare children for work—that is a whole area which again brings it into contact with the local authorities in which it could well do development work. As regards the industrial training boards, its role should be a liaison one rather than a controlling one. Of course, there is much they they can do together, but in partnership, not in the role of master and servant.
It might be thought that this debate is mistimed because the Manpower Services Commission is at this moment conducting an inquiry into the whole future of the national training problem or some similar subject. I would beg to differ with that view for two reasons. One reason is that I should have thought that this was the time to air the subject in your Lordships' House. The other reason is that with the best possible will in the world I do not think it quite appropriate for a body to conduct its own inquiry into itself. I should have thought it would have been wiser—and perhaps my noble friend on the Front Bench will take note of this—if some external body could have reviewed
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the situation, or the Government themselves, but not a party to the process which will presumably come down in its own favour. Indeed, it would be very surprising if it did not do so.
I should like to pass on to what l call "lessons". Some of these lessons may not sound too good, but I shall start with one which might sound better to everyone. I think that we can take a lesson from the organisation of the Manpower Services Commission and its currently subordinate bodies. It is excessively over-organised. Similar bodies which were set up or reorganised at roughly the same time—and sadly they were all done by my noble and right honourable friends—were the Health Service and local government. In all three cases they were over-organised. I am certain that noble Lords opposite, if they found themselves in the same situation, would have made the same mistake in the early 1970s. It was done in what I call the age of the "management consultancy wizards ", who had the answers to every problem. They persuaded my noble and right honourable friends that if we had to have a new Health Service we had to have tons of administrators in all the right slots. They did much the same with the Manpower Services Commission, and that is part of the problem.
Another lesson which is parallel. but which might not be quite so palatable to noble Lords opposite, is what I call the Rolls-Royce and NEB situation. Rolls-Royce says that it does not want to have this body between it and the Government. Why should it not say that? It has perfectly capable people. I am saying the same about the training boards. There can be too many levels of command, and the more levels of command we have the further are the people who ultimately pay the money from those who know what is going on. Intermediate bodies like the Manpower Services Commission, worthy people though they are, are not capable of understanding all the problems at the working level of training in industry.
I turn to action. I would not expect my noble friend to make an immediate comment on what I have to say. Indeed, I would rather that he did not do so, because his remarks would be very much off the cuff. However. I hope that

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he will give very serious consideration to it.
I should like to see introduced an inspectorate of State-aided training organisations which would inspect the training boards and the Manpower Services Commission at about five-yearly intervals and in the meantime leave them to get on with their work. The present system, with a rolling budget or whatever it is called, means that the Manpower Services Commission is breathing down the necks of the training boards all the time, particularly twice a year. The members of the training boards are all very competent—they were even more competent when they were freer—and should be allowed to get on with their work in the meantime.
This inspectorate would probably best be housed—born for victuals, as one would say in the Navy—in the NEDO organisation so that it was independent. It would strictly be independent and, of course, have a very small staff. I should be happy to tell any noble Lord later how it would conduct its business, but I do not want to waste the time of the House now. Having been set up, in its first inspection its main task would be to assess whether or not boards have done their job and can be wound up. I believe that some boards have, or have jolly nearly, done so, and can be wound up with grateful thanks for a job well done.
The inspectorate should also look at whether some boards might be combined with other boards of roughly similar responsibility, so as to economise in the total effort. For example, in some boards of which I have a knowledge over half the firms that should pay the levy to them are totally exempted from paying it because they train well enough. There is every reason to suppose that they will continue to do so. But there would probably have to be some means of dragging them back if the board was wound up altogether. A possibility would perhaps be a merger. That would be the first thing to be done. It cannot be done by the Manpower Services Commission because it is too bossy. We need an external agency to do that job.
A third point, which would be a continuing one for every inspection—so would the other points but they would
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become less important as the years went by—is whether the operation of the boards was efficiently carried out. I fear that it is not always. Here I draw the attention of noble Lords to what I thought was a very inspiring article by my right honourable friend Mr. Michael Heseltine published in last Sunday's Sunday Times. He was putting on paper a talk which he gave to the Westminster branch of the British Institute of Management about three weeks ago. In it he drew attention to the fact that it is extremely difficult to find out whether a public body is efficiently run. Where a body does not have the discipline of the market forces, it is extremely difficult to make the right judgment. I commend to your Lordships—and this has nothing to do with politics—the article of my right honourable friend published in last Sunday's Sunday Times, because it sets problems to which he admits he does not have the answer, but to which we must collectively find the answers in dealing with this large number of bodies, which include central Government, local government and what people perhaps unfairly call Quangos.
Finally—and I am sorry that I am taking quite so long—I should like to conclude my remarks by setting out the basic points. We must have flexibility in administration, particularly in relation to the financing of the training boards. We must lessen the levels of authority between the boards and their ultimate paymasters, the Government. We must—and this is very important—restore the boards to their industries. The fact that they have been under the Manpower Services Commission for the last five years has meant that they have had two masters and all too frequently the master who has paid the money—the Commission—has taken more of their loyalties than have the industries which they were set up to serve. That is a fatal, divided control which must be removed. In conclusion, we must grapple with the problem of orderly control of bodies not subject to the market disciplines. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.

BINGHAM REPORT: DDP's DECISION
3.45 p.m.
The LORD CHANCELLOR (Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone): My

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Lords, with the leave of the House, it might be convenient if I now repeat a Statement which has been made in another place, or is being made at this moment. The Statement reads as follows:
" In 1978 the then Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs referred the Bingham Report to the Director of Public Prosecutions to consider whether further inquiries should be undertaken with a view to possible criminal proceedings for breaches of the Southern Rhodesia Sanctions Order. Shortly thereafter leading and junior counsel were instructed by the Director to advise him whether, in the circumstances disclosed by the report, criminal offences appeared to have been committed and, if so, by whom. It will be appreciated that the Bingham inquiry was neither a police investigation nor a trial, and it was not therefore, conducted within the constraints of the rules of evidence or procedure applicable in a court of law.
" In February 1968 and again in February 1969 meetings took place between Her Majesty's Government and senior officers of Shell and BP. The outcome of those meetings (described extensively in the Bingham Report) appeared to have been interpreted by the oil companies, rightly or wrongly, as giving them tacit, if not express, approval to operate what has become known as the "exchange" scheme whereby oil and petroleum reached Southern Rhodesia.
" It was by no means clear whether and, if so, for precisely what length of time the so-called "exchange" scheme was operated thereafter.
" Against this background, the Director of Public Prosecutions appreciated that much more factual information and research into the legal problems were required in order to particularise offences, to identify the principal persons acting on behalf of the oil companies and to collect the admissible evidence. Accordingly a team of senior police officers was instructed to make further detailed inquiries, while counsel continued to review the material already available.
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" Steps were taken in April 1979 under Schedule I to the 1938 Sanctions Order to require the oil companies to produce all the relevant documents in their possession or under their control.
" It seems that there are over 20,000 files of which at least 14,000 are likely to be relevant. Bearing in mind the substantial amount of time and public money likely to be involved in analysing this mass of paper and investigating the evidentiary material available overseas, counsel were asked to give the Director of Public Prosecutions further advice.
" By the beginning of November 1979 in an Opinion running to almost 50 pages counsel advised the Director of Public Prosecutions of the great difficulties in the way of a successful prosecution.
"The Director of Public Prosecutions had to consider the following matters. "(1) The material disclosed by the Bingham investigation was wholly insufficient for the purposes of a criminal trial. Direct evidence by witnesses or from proved documents would be needed.
"(2) There was abundant material in the report which showed that, in the period following the meetings in 1968 and 1969, oil and petroleum products had been supplied direct by railway wagon to Southern Rhodesia. The question which arose in an acute form, however, was whether it could be proved by the strict rules of evidence applied in the Criminal Courts of this country:

(a) which companies had in fact made these supplies; and

(b) who, if any, among the officers, agents or employees of the companies during the relevant period were knowing parties to such supply.

It was also necessary to seek to determine whether these supplies had been made in contravention of the alleged understanding' with Her Majesty's Government.
" (3) Furthermore, it was material to have regard to the fact (emphasised in the Bingham Report) that many of the companies and their officials were sub-

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ject to the laws of States deeply hostile to the sanctions policy and were liable to penalties for any refusal or failure to supply oil on demand. There is no power to compel the attendance of witnesses from abroad.
"(4) The available material disclosed (and, indeed, the Bingham investigation found) that many of the principal officials concerned in the contraventions of the Sanctions Orders were not amenable to our jurisdiction. Some who appear to have been at the very centre of the operations had since died and others had retired. It was likely to prove difficult in the extreme to establish the complicity and knowledge of their successors.
"(5) Whilst the prosecution might confine criminal charges to the years 1971–77, the defence would investigate the entire history of events from 1966 onwards. Those events would cast their shadow over the whole case and this important factor would have a serious bearing on its outcome. Counsel were of the opinion that a jury might well be reluctant to convict if there appeared to be substance in the defence that those charged had acted in the belief that their conduct had the express or ostensible consent of the authorities.
"(6) Finally, it was apparent that as complex and prolonged an investigation as this would probably not reach the stage of a jury's trial in less than four years from now, particularly as the defence would be entitled to require full committal for trial proceedings and strict proof of the essential ingredients of the offences. Also the trial itself might occupy a jury for as long as 12 months with all the risks that attend such an extended hearing.
"(7) The Director has therefore reached the conclusion that further investigations and public expenditure would not be justified and the matter should proceed no further".
Then my right honourable and learned friend replies at the end, "T agree".
My Lords, I am afraid that I have to add certain words of my own, which I hope the House will indulge. I am
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particularly relieved to see sitting on the Front Opposition Bench the noble and learned Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones, who not only occupied my present position but also occupied my right honourable and learned friend's position in the House of Commons in the past. When I was told that this Statement was going to be repeated in your Lordships' House, it was called a "Statement about the Bingham Report ", and no anxieties filled my mind. However, when I read the Statement very shortly before I sat on the Woolsack this afternoon it occurred to me that it was nothing of the kind. It was, in fact, a Statement by the Attorney-General on the exercise of his quasi-judicial—I think the phrase is—responsibility as to whether to prosecute or not.
As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones, who knows it far better than I, will confirm, this probably circumscribes the extent to which I, in this House, am free to reply on behalf of the Government. I hope that when he makes his comments he will help me about this because I feel real difficulty about it. I invite him to do so consequently in the experience of two offices. I made certain preliminary researches into Professor Edward's book on the Law Officers of the Crown and have certain material here for the information of the House. At any rate, that is the Statement, and that is the note of warning which I now sound, with a plea for assistance from the noble and learned Lord.
3.54 p.m.
Lord ELWYN-JONES: My Lords, I am sure that the House will be grateful to the noble and learned Lord for repeating the Statement of his right honourable friend the Attorney-General in another place, but I am not at all grateful to the Lord Chancellor for seeking to pass the buck to me, as he has apparently sought to do. It presents both this House and another place with difficulties. The decision of the Attorney-General is clearly a quasi-judicial decision, but that, however, does not mean that, certainly in another place, he may not be questioned about it. I am bound to say that in my time I did what I could to discourage any such probing of the decision of the Attorney-General in regard to criminal proceedings in respect of which he was expected to take—and I have no doubt

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the present Attorney-General is taking—a quasi-judicial attitude. I think, however embarrassing it may be for me to ask the questions or for the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor to answer them, that we are entitled to probe a little into this Statement.
The fact is that a large number of prosecutions were brought in respect of breaches of sanctions. Indeed, the record of this country in that respect has been as good as any. It is this particular area of oil sanctions breaches that has presented the special difficulty in which we have been placed. What has troubled me a little about the Statement is that it seems that the factors which have determined the decision not to go any further even with the continuance of investigation of inquiry seem to lie more in the domain of expense, time and convenience than in an examination of the merits and prospects of a possible success in prosecution at the end of the day.
Of course we cannot see the 50-pages opinion of learned counsel. I happen to know who those counsel were, and they are men of standing and distinction. I should have been a little happier if there had been an indication at some point that they themselves, in advising the Director, had considered the crucial question whether there was a prospect of a successful prosecution at the end of the day, however long it might take to arrive at a decision from the court or however great the expense. Noble Lords will be aware that in great fraud cases, for instance, a great deal of time is taken. The public interest in seeing that our own national honour is maintained is very great.
If the noble and learned Lord can help us a little more in the examination of this matter by giving an assurance that it is not merely the question of convenience and expense that has determined this decision, I think both the House and the country will be grateful to him, if he is in a position to answer the question. I appreciate his difficulty. One of the startling statements in the course of the Statement is that it is thought that it would take four years to continue the investigation. Well, really, why? Four years? Is it the position that there would be inadequate backing by way of support to those carrying out the inquiry?
Lord BYERS: It is the length of a Parliament, my Lords.
Lord ELWYN-JONES: The length of a Parliament. Well, I do not think that that governs criminal proceedings, fortunately or unfortunately as the case may be. But it is something that I think the public will want a little reassurance about. Is the four-year period due to the log jam in the courts, for which I myself did my best to seek remedies? In other words, are we here grappling with practical problems or is the case frankly that in all the circumstances there is no real prospect of getting a conviction here, and in those circumstances, bearing in mind additionally the element of expense and the time involved, is it right, therefore, that the case should be taken no further?
May I ask a question which is not confined now to the field of criminal prosecutions? If this decision is maintained, does it mean the end of any further examination of the Bingham story? Is it now to be left to historians and no one else, and is nothing further to be done? Noble Lords will remember that this House differed from the views of another place as to whether there should be another inquiry, and did so by a large majority.
The House is also aware that continuing public concern is expressed and that the media are still pressing for further steps to be taken by way of inquiry of some kind, so that perhaps the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, might be less embarrassed in answering that part of my inquiry than in regard to the first part. However, I can only advise him, if I may do so without impertinence, that as for the first part, too, he must do his best.
Lord WIGODER: My Lords, I expected this afternoon when I heard that there was to be a Statement on the Bingham Report to be able to criticise the Government on behalf of my noble friends for announcing, as I had assumed they would, that they had abandoned all further investigation into what we regard as the quite disgraceful matters disclosed in that report and subsequently. But I accept that this Statement does not deal specifically with that matter but deals only with a quasi-judicial decision taken by the Attorney-General.

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In those circumstances I do not wish to pursue the other matter at all, but I would ask the noble and learned Lord three questions about the Statement. First, it states in paragraph 1:
" …leading and junior counsel were instructed by the Director to advise him whether, in the circumstances disclosed by the report, criminal offences appeared to have been committed and, if so, by whom".
May we know what was the advice that was given? Was the advice given—because it does not appear in the Statement—that criminal offences did or did not appear to have been disclosed?
Secondly, am I right in assuming from paragraph 4 of the Statement that much of the relevant evidence in this case—namely, the files—has simply not been examined at all? If that is right, is the position, as appears to be the case from this Statement, that the Attorney-General has come to a conclusion as to whether or not to prosecute without in fact investigating some of the most material evidence?
Thirdly, may I ask—really endorsing what was said by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones—whether this Statement comes to very much more than this; that the decision has now been taken not to prosecute because the matter is stale, because the trial may take a long time, because it would be expensive, because there are some witnesses from abroad and because the outcome of the case may be in doubt? If that is the position, those considerations would apply to at least half of the long fraud cases brought at the Central Criminal Court, and I ask the noble and learned Lord to consider with care whether this is really a satisfactory basis in this particular case for abandoning the matter.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones, and the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, for their comments. I should begin by accepting the final advice of Lord Elwyn-Jones —namely, to do my best—and I think the best thing I can do is to tell the House what the results of my own researches into the matter have been. They are naturally preliminary. When I saw the body of the Statement I naturally saw that this House, though not the House of Commons, was put in a slightly difficult
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position, constitutionally and I do not think the noble and learned Lord intended in any way to cast doubt on that preliminary conclusion which I formed.
Of course the first thing I did when I received these papers was to consult Professor Edwards' book on the Law Officers of the Crown as being the most ready source of available learning. He gives two crucial quotations, one from Sir Hartley Shawcross, as he then was, and the other from my father, as he then was, as to the functions of the Attorney-General in this matter. The Hartley Shawcross quotation, to be found in Commons debates Vol. 483, cols. 683–4, is:
" The responsibility for the eventual decision rests with the Attorney-General and he is not to be put, and is not put, under pressure by his colleagues in that matter ".
That is to say, in deciding whether or not to authorise a prosecution,
" It is the Attorney-General applying his judicial mind who has to be the sole judge of those considerations ".
My father seems to have gone even further, because he said in Commons debates Vol. 177 cols. 686–7:
" I never took advice or counsel or brooked interference from any Minister or anybody else in the question whether it should be withdrawn ".
That is, a prosecution and of course that was in the context of the Campbell case, as the noble and learned Lord will realise.
" That was a matter which, rightly or wrongly, I regarded as my duty and a duty which I ought to exercise judicially and uninfluenced by any outside person ".
In commenting on this and a great deal of other matter, the learned professor writing on the Law Officers of the Crown, Professor Edwards, cites two principles. The first, on page 224 of the edition of his book in the Library, which I think is a later edition, is:
" Any practice savouring of political pressure, either by the Executive or Parliament, when reaching a decision ".
That is, whether or not to prosecute—
" in any particular case is unconstitutional and to be avoided at all costs ".
He goes on to say that there is a second principle, which might also be applicable in this particular Statement:
" After the termination of the particular proceedings "—
Of course these have not started, but I take it that that might include the present

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case (the author emphasises this by using italics in the book)—
" the Attorney-General may be subject to questioning by Members of the House".
He says" the House", which in the context I think means the House of Commons. This I think circumscribes, although of course my right honourable and learned friend can as part of the privilege of the House of Commons, have questions directed to him in his office as Attorney-General, as to the reasons which underlay his judgment. I think I should be extremely circumspect, not out of any desire to withhold information from the House—partly through inability to do so but partly for a good constitutional reason, for I speak on behalf of the executive Government, which is the only role I can play speaking from where I am and in this House. With that in mind, I shall now revert to the various questions put to me by Lord Elwyn-Jones and Lord Wigoder.
I do not read—and I am simply taking the document as I find it—the document as relying solely on questions of delay, expense and complication. On the contrary, I read it as being a professional judgment as to whether or not to prosecute entered into by the Director of Public Prosecutions taking into account all the factors which the Director normally takes into account in deciding whether or not to prosecute. One is the chance of conviction, another is the availability of admissible evidence, and of course one takes into account other factors too, as the noble and learned Lord knows better than I because I have never been in that responsible position.
I take it as a mixed professional decision by the Director in which the Attorney concurs, and therefore not merely time, not merely complication, not merely delay, not merely expense, but the whole merits of the whole case he as a responsible Director should have undertaken. However, that is simply reading the document personally and not for any other reason. I cannot answer the question as to why four years; that was the advice of counsel and I think the noble and learned Lord will realise that I must take the advice as I found it in the document. In this connection the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, asked a question about what was the earlier advice of the leading and junior
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counsel. I am afraid that I cannot answer that; but the second part of the second principle given by the professor was this —about how the Attorney would be expected to answer questions of that kind. It says here—and I am now quoting from the hook:
" The extent to which a law officer may feel prepared to give specific reasons for, and to disclose the evidence and other factors which led to his making, his decision in the individual case will obviously vary according to the particular circumstances."
What I can do for the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, is to draw the Attorney-General's attention to the question which the noble Lord has asked, and I will ask him to write direct to the noble Lord in accordance with the principles stated in the book, if that is the correct principle.
Has all the relevant evidence been examined? I thought myself from the Statement that it probably had, but I have no knowledge at all outside the Statement. I had inferred from a 50-page opinion that there had been a fairly extensive investigation into particular documents, but I cannot give any personal assurance apart from that.
Is this the end of the story? That is outside the field of this Statement. If either noble Lord, or any other noble Lord, desires to put down a Question about that, possibly after the Government have had time to reflect upon the Attorney-General's decision, no doubt it will be answered in the ordinary way. But as I said the other day to the noble Lord, Lord Hatch of Lusby, I do not think that the question of whether or not to prosecute ought to be linked with the question of whether or not there is a further inquiry, because they seem to me to be separate questions. That is my best.
Lord HATCH of LUSBY: My Lords, is the noble and learned Lord aware that three times I have asked this question about the follow-up to the Bingham Report and on each occasion, from both Administrations, the answer has been that the papers are with the Director of Public Prosecutions. So may I ask the noble and learned Lord, in pressing the second question asked by my noble and learned friend Lord Elwyn-Jones, is there not inevitably a link, which has already been given to me three times, between the Statement that has just been made to the

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House and the question of some form of parliamentary inquiry as a follow-up? Is it not the case that the Bingham Report revealed the admitted cognisance of British Ministers of breaches of the law which were again admittedly secreted from Parlaiment? Does this not call into question the whole integrity of the British parlaimentary and governmental system, and does the Government's apparent reluctance to pursue an inquiry frustrate the will as expressed in another place earlier this year? If the noble and learned Lord cannot answer this afternoon, will he convey to his noble, learned, right honourable and honourable friends the necessity of clearing the slur upon our parliamentary system by some further inquiry following this Statement?
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I was of course aware that the noble Lord had asked the question at least once before because he asked it of me the other day. I was not aware of the number of times he had asked it, but I was aware that he had asked it on previous occasions as well. That is the answer to the first point. I do not think that it follows from that that there is a link between the question of whether or not to prosecute and the question of whether a further inquiry is desirable. On the contrary, I have already expressed the view that they are separate questions and ought not to be linked.
I note that the noble Lord reiterates the Statement which I believe came originally from a Conservative source—that the whole integrity of the British parliamentary institution depends upon an answer to the non-linked question. I venture to think that as we have been in business for 700 years it is unlikely that the entire integrity of the British parliamentary system rests upon the matter with which the noble Lord is so preoccupied. I do not know whether 1 can really add to that at present.
The events which took place took place mainly under the Government of which the noble Lord was such a noticeable supporter, and so far as 1 remember, at the time I knew nothing whatever about them. Why the noble Lord should insinuate that the present Administration wants to cover up what mainly took place
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under the Administration of their opponents I do not know. I know only that we shall be considering the question, and if a Question is put down in the ordinary way, it will be answered with courtesy in the ordinary way.
Lord MORRIS: My Lords, may I ask the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor whether he sees any inconsistency between the recent Zimbabwe Bill, passed only the other day, which contains amnesty clauses for acts perpetrated during the illegal régime, and the proposal to prosecute under the Bingham Report?
The LORD CHANCELLOR: No, my Lords, I do not think that I do. On Second Reading of the Zimbabwe Bill I explained very clearly that the power of granting an amnesty in respect of sanctions breaking offences was already granted to the Government by the Act of 1979 and not by the Bill which we passed through this House the other day. That Bill related to offences against the law of the United Kingdom, and I made an announcement, which I think will be followed by a Statement, about an amnesty for offences under Rhodesian law. The question of sanctions breaking offences was dealt with by a specific subsection which I quoted in detail, but which I do not have with me at the moment, and will be found in the Hansard report of my Second Reading speech. The question of prosecuting for those offences is the subject of separate provision in the other Act.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, may I ask the noble and learned Lord, in terms of any future consideration which may be given by the Government to any further inquiry into this matter, whether he is aware that many of us who have spoken against an inquiry by a Joint Select Committee of both Houses would be just as firmly and unequivocally opposed to such a procedure in the future, following this Statement, as we were when the issue was raised earlier this year?
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I note what the noble Lord says, and bearing in mind that it comes from a former Minister of a former Administration, I think that great weight ought to be attached to it. For myself I can say only that I do not think that the two questions

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should be linked. Now that the noble Lord has said what he has to say his views will be taken into account. This is evidently a contentious question.

TRAINING IN INDUSTRY
4.18 p.m.
Debate resumed.
Lord BROWN: My Lords, we on this side of the House are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, for giving us the opportunity to debate the subject of industrial training. In the presence of what one might call current Government euphoria for levying cuts in expenditure without any apparent consideration of priorities we are indeed very alarmed that the axe may well fall on industrial training. Indeed, the debate last week in this House on the indiscriminating treatment being handed out to the universities gives us justifiable cause for alarm. This debate is therefore an opportunity of finding out what the immediate future holds for the industrial training boards, and I am sure that we are very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, for the information that he has given us about their operations and for his proposals for, if I may put it this way, amelioration of their situation. I found myself largely in agreement with his remarks so far as they related to the industrial training boards.
It is, and has been, an extraordinary aspect of our country that, whatever the level of unemployment, we are always short of skilled people. One would have thought that the obvious security of employment which, through the years, has resulted from the possession of trained capability would have resulted in an overcrowding of all the institutions of further education, but of course that has not happened.
I propose to tackle the subject of this debate from an unusual and, perhaps, a surprising angle. I want to deal with the subject very broadly indeed, because industrial training is, I think, a fairly narrow facet of something much bigger that of fitting people at all levels, in all walks of life, for creative ability at work. Industrial training is the tip of an iceberg, and what lies beneath is the attitude of parents, school experience, apprenticeship,
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what happens in Government training centres, in technical colleges, in polytechnics and in universities themselves. The fact is that a large sector of our society has literally turned its back on education itself, because it has not had what I would call education for capability.
My Lords, a group of people met last year—and I must declare my own interest, for I chaired their meetings—and they produced the following statement on this issue:
" We …believe that there is a serious imbalance in Britain today in the full process which is described by the two words ' education ' and ' training '. Thus, the idea of the ' educated man ' is that of a scholarly, leisured individual who has been neither educated nor trained to exercise useful skills. Those who study in secondary schools or higher education increasingly specialise; and normally in a way which means that they are taught to practise only the skills of scholarship and science; to understand but not to act. They gain knowledge of a particular area of study; but not ways of thinking and working which are appropriate for use outside the education system.
" We believe that this imbalance is harmful to individuals, to industry and to society. Individual satisfaction stems from doing a job well through the exercise of personal capability. Acquisition of this capability is inhibited by the present system of education which stresses the importance of analysis, criticism and the acquisition of knowledge and neglects the formulation and solution of problems, doing, making and organising, the constructive and creative activity of all sorts.
" The resolution of this problem in Britain has been vitiated by discussing it in terms of two cultures: the arts and the sciences. It is significant that we have no word for the culture that the Germans describe as 'Technik' or the mode of working that the French describe as a 'Metier'.
" We consider that there exists in its own right a culture which is concerned with doing, making and organising. This culture emphasises craftmanship and the making of useful artefacts; the design, manufacture and marketing of goods and services; specialist occupations with an active mode of work; and the creative arts; and the day-to-day management of affairs.
" We believe that education should spend more time in teaching people skills and preparing them for life outside the education system; and that the country would benefit significantly in economic terms from this rebalancing towards education for capability ".
That statement was offered to 400 people for their signatures in support. My Lords, 170 signed. They included 20 professors, 8 heads of polytechnics, 7 vice-chancellors of universities, 6 local authority directors of education, 47 chairmen or chief executives of our very large industrial companies and 22 noble Lords from this House. Since then, the Royal Society of Arts has taken over this initiative and is now planning publicity and

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awards for schemes which meet the aims set out in the manifesto which I have quoted.
Education for capability is one of the pillars which support the future wellbeing and wealth of our society: yet millions of people are alienated from education and, through that process, from daily work itself. In Germany, Switzerland, Holland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark, and in other countries, education tends to be regarded by most as the route to interesting, creative work and promotion. This difference between our country and some others is one of the sources of our own decline. For two decades politicians and Governments have been debating education largely in terms of its structure—comprehensive education or not comprehensive education. I have taken little part in that debate, but I have been amazed at the stubborn defence by the Conservative Party of a system of privilege which was largely abandoned by our competitor countries more than 50 years ago. Have they suffered as a result? I think not. But, leaving all that argument aside, I think we should have been concentrating on overcoming the deadening effect of much education at all levels (excepting, perhaps, at primary school level) on the minds of so many young people.
My Lords, how we can go on teaching, say, French to tens of thousands (it may be hundreds of thousands) of our children, largely in terms of French grammar, when we know perfectly well that not 5 per cent. will be able to converse in that language when they leave school, I do not know. Are we not all aware, from our own experience, that the moment when some item of important knowledge becomes fixed in our minds is when we discover its importance by usage? What I have said could too easily be construed as advocacy of narrow vocational training, but that is not the case. It is neither desirable nor, indeed, I think possible to prepare people to carry out specific work jobs either in school or in technical college, in polytechnic or in university. That is the task of Government training centres, apprenticeships and training courses run by employing institutions. But if we fail in education to stimulate that thirst for knowledge and its creative application to work, then training itself largely fails.
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I have here a quotation from Sir Alec Smith, who is head of the Manchester Polytechnic. I quote it to your Lordships:
" It seems to me that there are real educators in the primary schools. Thereafter, the process changes. The emphasis shifts so that it becomes more a process of teaching subjects. There are fewer educators in the upper reaches of education: they are mostly teachers of subjects. Within this process of the teaching of subjects, there is a very debilitating hierarchy of esteem of subjects which stands to the discredit of education. Subjects which are really valuable in the development of the young—subjects like moral education, health education, practical education—are more likely to come their way if they are deemed to be less able, the more able being fully committed to the classical academic subjects of high prestige ".
That is what I have been trying to say, but, having found that quotation, I think Sir Alec Smith says it much better than I have said it.
If one looks at the history of Government training centres one sees that by 1951 the number had fallen to 23, and by 1962 there were only 13 left. Then, under the stimulus of unemployment, the figures rose to 52 in 1972 and 64 in 1975. I have no later figures, but I hope that the Government spokesman will, if possible, tell your Lordships what the figures are today. These figures suggest that there is too little endemic thirst for training at all levels of employment—yes, in the boardroom, also. It means that too many are relying on the strength of their trade unions in bargaining to increase their material standards of living, instead of opening up fresh careers at higher levels by further education and training.
In a very small Scottish town in which I spend a few weeks every year, there is a dearth of joiners, electricians and mechanics; but the young unemployed reject grants which would take them to training centres. This is largely because their school education failed to excite them into learning and doing. I do not know how many noble Lords have read the report of Professor Archer of the Royal College of Art, a report which he made to the Department of Education and Science on the status of and the time spent on doing and making and creating in schools. It covers the theme which I am pursuing much better than I can. He points to the excitement created in children by allowing them to formulate their own problems and to seek solutions to them instead of always working on

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problems formulated for them in the creation of artefacts, drama, music and projects. He points out that this sort of activity takes much too small a part in our schools and that the teachers or those who instruct in these more practical arts are of lower status.
Another indication of the way we are heading is that, in the Department of Industry's design award scheme for schools, which is an excellent arrangement, out of 6,000 schools pupils from only 200 entered exhibits for this year's awards by His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales. They were magnificent and inventive exhibits but there were only 200 school entries out of 6,000 schools. This is to some extent a commentary on our schools. Many of the pupils who entered stated that their own headmasters and other staff were not interested in the pupils' contributions. For many years I have been associated with a small university whose four-year courses are based on the condition that every post-graduate spends three periods of five months in full-time employment during the course, whatever the discipline he studies. This year 72 per cent. of its graduates immediately entered employment—and largely into industry. That 72 per cent. is a higher figure than for any other university. I think that this is because they have experience of the application of knowledge as well as of absorbing it.
About a year ago it was reported in The Times that the Association of Teachers of Engineering in Universities had come to the conclusion that too much time was spent in teaching the theory of engineering and too little on its application to work. I merely comment: At last!—would that those involved in every discipline in our polytechnics and universities would come to a similar conclusion. Perhaps we are overcoming, at last, the widely-held but false view that practice in design or in devising solutions to problems of manufacture is a lowering of the level of university education. My view is that only by offering what the medical profession calls clinical experience can the level of education in universities and polytechnics be raised. Only by doing that will we attract into industry-orientated courses a higher proportion of the brighter school leavers.
I want to raise a special problem and to plead with the Government to take note
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of it. I need not dwell on the immense need for re-education and training of industrial specialists, as well as managers, already in employment, The growth in the field of micro-electronics alone is sufficient to point to its necessity. One of the ways in which this re-education need can be met is by post-graduate courses at universities and polytechnics. Such courses take two forms: full time and part time. Full-time courses usually involve a grant from one of the science research councils of about £2,000 a year as support for the student and something like £600 a year to meet the university fees. It also means release from employment, usually without cost to the employer. Part-time courses involve the student in paying his own fees—which the universities have to keep at a very low level, for otherwise there would be no part-time students. These fees generally come out at something between £150 and £200 a year. There is no recognised route by which the candidate or the employer can recover from the science research councils, from the Government or from local education authorities, even part of the cost of study of part-time students. Nor do the industrial training boards support post-graduate education as part of their function.
But that is not the end of the story, for the number of part-time graduate student enrolments are not taken into account by the University Grants Committee in determining the sums of money to be provided to each university each year. Thus, in the case of a university which has a large number of part-time students, the amount of money it gets per full-time student educated in the university is lowered by that amount, and it becomes poverty stricken. So the full-time candidates cost the Exchequer (by all the round-about routes through which you reach the Exchequer) about £2,600 a year; while those highly-motivated employees who are able to persuade their employers to release them for one day a week and who are willing to pay their own fees will cost the Exchequer nothing, except for some trifling expenses on travel and cost of books.
One of the courses at the university with which I am associated, just one of them, on digital micro-electronics—a field in which there is a desperate need for retraining managers—has about 400 student applications each year for this course of

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30 places. They can take only 30 students because the university is in enough financial problems already without taking more of these people who cost them money. It is already clear that we must rely on the universities for part of this vast re-education which is now so necessary and, if this is so, greater funds must be routed via the research councils; and their terms of support will have to be changed if we are to use this particular route of part-time students to meet the crucial necessity. I commend this to the Minister who will respond to the debate. It is interesting as a last comment on this that the performance of part-time graduates in these post-graduate courses is, on average, better than those who attend full time.
I turn to industry itself. Some pretty discreditable instances have recently been reported in the Press of people who take to their beds on night shift and so on. There has been constant comment for years about over-manning in industry. These and other apparently intractable problems have much to do with the subject of shop-floor management—yes, and of office management, too. In too many British factories one finds a plethora of roles variously called charge-hands, leading hands, supervisors, assistant foremen and foremen. In short, there is an organisational mess and it is very widespread in British factories.
Two years ago I was invited to run separate seminars for five Irish industries. I defined the term "manager" in terms of the minimum authority with which he must be endowed if he is to be able to be held accountable for the work carried out by his subordinates on the shop floor. All agreed that the definition of managerial authority was strictly logical. All agreed that, in those terms, real managers were too far removed from the shop floor; that there were not any shop floor managers in immediate contact with the rank and file. But all said it was impossible to institute shopfloor managers with real control because the Irish unions would never allow it. I conducted a similar seminar for about 40 Irish trade union officials and shop stewards and went through the same argument. They all agreed that it was logical; they said that it was about time that this mess on the shop floor was cleared up; but they added, "You will
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never do it in Ireland because Irish managers will never undertake to accept it."
That is the situation. It is a matter of training. If one looks, for example, at the German situation, one finds that the brightest of the apprentices are selected to go through special training courses and are set special examinations which they must pass before becoming craftsmen for short periods and eventually being appointed to the post of "Meister ". That is a very significant word. As a consequence, shop floor management really exists in most German factories and is a potent factor in productivity and in quality. It would be salutary if the trade unions, CBI and Government got together to tackle this. No doubt the Government in their present frame of mind will respond by saying that it is not their problem. But such an attitude is entirely inconsistent with their other stance that they are reliant on the improvement of dynamism and productivity in industry for the whole of their policies. If they reject the right to stimulate training of this sort, then they are willing the ends but abdicating from helping to achieve the means.
I now return to the somewhat narrower topic conveyed by the terms of the Motion before us by asking a number of questions of the Minister. What is the current number of places available in Government training centres? If these cannot be given in this debate, I shall quite understand; but I should like to have these figures later. What is the current number of trainees? What is the target number of places for next year? From the speech of my noble friend Lord Wallace of Coslany in April 1978 in this House I learned that the then Government had spent £135 million to maintain apprentice intake into industry. Maintaining apprentice intake is vital. What is probably happening at the moment is that the reduction of demand and the stringency which industry is feeling is probably resulting in next year's intake of apprentices being reduced by most industries. If this happens, it will be a tragedy. Maintenance of that intake to me seems very important indeed. Are the Government going to maintain a similar or expanded rate of expenditure? I hope so.

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The industrial training boards are now, I understand, generally very worried about Government plans. I did not hear the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, refer to this, but I am told that there has already been a cut of £9·8 million made in the budget of the Manpower Services Commission which the industrial training boards fear may be a cut for them. What are the plans of the Government regarding the finances of the Manpower Services Commission and the future financing, apart from the levy, of the industrial training boards? Their establishment was a Conservative initiative, as has already been pointed out, and an excellent initiative too.
My last subject is this. One investigating body after another has called for Government action which would ensure that all young persons in employment should have the opportunity for day release to attend technical college or other institutions for training. I regret that the Labour Government did not introduce legislation on this matter while in office. The fact is that something like one-third of those approximately 700,000 school-leavers who enter employment each year do not get day release. A large proportion of these youngsters are employed in the services industries and do not get day release. Industrial practice with regard to day release is more enlightened than is the case in regard to distribution and office work.
Great changes in methods are now hit ting this service sector of our economy. The case for more training in that sector will get stronger every year from now on. For example, I have heard it stated that we already require 20,000 computer operators and analysts each year. That is one example of the need for training in that sector. Have the Government a policy about increasing day release? Will they do better than the Government of my own party in this respect? The prospect before the country today is a ghastly rise in unemployment stimulated by the Government's ideological commitment to the theories of Professor Friedman and Hayeck.
Out of that sad situation there does nevertheless arise the opportunity for a scale of training that has never before occurred in our country because of these
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unemployed. This opportunity coincides with a bigger need for training and retraining because of the acceleration of technological change which is upon us. Taking these two factors together, opportunity and need, makes the case for much increased Government support for training in industry today. Indeed, the present Administration's expressed reliance on the revival of industrial efficiency makes it totally illogical if they fail to give that increased support. But the question is: Are they going to follow the logic of their own expressed policy?
4.46 p.m.
Viscount SIMON: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, for his Motion. We have heard two most interesting speeches from him and the noble Lord, Lord Brown. I have to confess that both noble Lords are very much closer to this problem than I am. Any suggestions that I can make will be only of a minor nature. It is particularly disappointing to me that my noble friend Baroness Seear is unable to be present, because, as your Lordships know, she has taken a tremendous interest in this subject over the years. I am also sorry that we are not having a contribution in this debate from the noble Lord, Lord Bowden. I do not know how many of your Lordships will remember the spendid maiden speech that he made on the occasion of the Second Reading of the Industrial Training Bill in about 1968. I am sure he will not mind my saying this in his absence: it was not an ideal maiden speech. It had quite a bit of controversy in it and it lasted for 28 minutes. But it was a really spendid speech. T recalled it and refreshed my memory by reading it again last night. I recommend it to anybody who wants to read about that.
He doubted the adequacy of proposals that were then before Parliament. That was the Industrial Training Bill. He felt that it was not going far enough. Yet at that time the Government of the day were aiming for a four per cent. growth in the economy. Even with that great figure he did not think that it was going far enough to meet what the need would be. It is hard, looking back, to believe that such a figure was being considered at that time, about 15 years ago.

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As the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, reminded us, the Employment and Training Act came along in 1973. The noble Lord seemed to consider that this perhaps was something which put an undue brake upon the work of the industrial training boards by interposing the Manpower Services Commission. He may well be right in that point. The Manpower Services Commission, as he says, has other duties as well. It has the two executive arms, if I remember rightly: the Employment Services Agency and the Training Services Agency. Perhaps the noble Lord's view is that it would be better to take the Training Services Agency out altogether. At any rate, we are entitled to say that, as today, with unemployment at the horrific level that it has reached, there are still reported to be shortages for skilled workers. In that condition, I am led to the inescapable conclusion that our present arrangements are inadequate. If we are short of trained manpower now, what desperate position are we going to be in when business revives? The machinery is there. It may be that it is not working correctly. At any rate it is not delivering the goods.
I may say that I have joined in this debate more to listen than to speak, because I want to hear the combined wisdom expressed by those who are speaking in this debate, so that I can find out what lies behind this failure to get enough skilled workpeople. I liked very much the phrase used by the noble Lord, Lord Brown: no thirst for training."
What has caused the situation? I feel we must not overlook one fact—and I think this was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Lee of Newton, in a recent debate—which is the effect of the erosion of differentials. Many people perhaps do not think it is worth while going in for training which involves extra work and, generally speaking, also a drop in earnings while it is going on, in order to qualify for what they think are inadequate awards. One reason for that which always occurs to me—and I have never been engaged in manufacturing industry—is the arrangement which is very fundamental to the thinking in the trade union movement: namely, that once a man is a qualified tradesman he gets the rate for the job, and that is that. But
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surely a man who has acquired the necessary skills through an apprenticeship and has qualified as a skilled worker will increase his skills with experience.
While I recognise that it must be very difficult to pay people entirely according to the extent to which their skills has developed, it seems to me that justice done would be slightly less rough if the skilled tradesman were paid a little less than the going rate in his first five years and perhaps a little more than the going rate after 10 years. After all, in management that is what happens. A manager, if he shows himself especially skilful, will be able to earn himself an increase; and if he does not get it from his present employer he will find another employer who will give it to him. They get a certain gradation as they gain experience and prove that they can use the skill they have acquired. It has always seemed to me that it would be much more intelligent for people to go in for skilled work on the shopfloor if there were some gradation in the rewards they got as they gained experience and hopefully improved their performance.
Another factor which undoubtedly has affected people, though not so much at the present time, I am afraid, is the fact that until recently young people have had opportunities to earn good money to a much greater extent than they would ever have dreamed of, doing unskilled jobs without any difficulty. Then their friends of the same age, who perhaps have some ambition to go further, have to show great strength of mind and a maturely balanced judgement to undertake any apprenticeship, with its low earnings over quite a long period for the sake of the skills to be reached later. I recalled this when I read the debate on the 1968 Bill: it was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Diamond. The noble Lord, Lord Brown, spoke about the school-leavers and the desire which he had, with many others, that there should be an absolute right for people in first employment for day release. This is a matter of which I know my noble friends are very much in favour, and I strongly support what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Brown, on that subject.
Then again—this is all part of the same picture—I should like to ask, what is the current attitude of the trade union movement and of individual trade unionists to

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maturer workers gaining skills? At one time I think I am right in saying that this was very much frowned upon. Unless a young man went through an apprenticeship at an early age and qualified, it was impossible for someone who had been working for five or 10 or 15 years to acquire those skills and to be recognised as a tradesman. Is not this rather like the very much criticised 11-plus system? Why should it be impossible for someone, once he has been on the shop floor for 12 or 75 years, to qualify as a tradesman? As I said earlier, I know so little about this subject that I do not want to detain your Lordships. Instead, I want to listen to the combined wisdom of those who are going to speak after me.
It is a vitally important subject. It is one where clearly we have gone wrong. I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, would think it is all due to bad organisation: he seemed to speak rather in that way. If the organisation of the training boards can be improved, well and good; but I am sure there are other and much more deep-seated questions. Indeed, I think we must all have been fascinated by the noble Lord, Lord Brown, who really criticised our whole education system. The unhappy thing about approaching it from that direction is that it will take a tremendously long time to get it altered. Nevertheless, it is something which could be the subject of a debate itself on one occasion, and no doubt your Lordships will have the opportunity to discuss it.
4.57 p.m.
Baroness GAITSKELL: My Lords, I should first like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, for introducing this debate and for his excellent speech, which made me understand the working of the industrial training boards, which I could not understand when I read about it. So I speak on this subject from a certain amount of ignorance, though with much interest, and I wish to make some rather general remarks.
There have been several debates recently bearing on this subject, and I shall confine my opening remarks to the effects of the education cuts, which I think have had an enormous effect. The short, sharp, shock slogan—presumably to kill all known economic germs—cannot deal with such
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issues as encouraging training in industry. The cuts, in real terms, in Government expenditure on education, including the universities, are very large indeed. The proposals to cut the number of teachers, despite the falling numbers of pupils, are not good; but some of the most serious cuts concern non-advanced further education for the 16 to 18-year-olds, on vocational courses. The possibilities for training opportunities depend, I believe, on the availability of resources, the response of employers, the trade unions and the ability of the industrial training boards, and on the whole of the further education system to develop and provide trainee-ships.
When we learn that each year 200,000 young people are leaving school at 16 and taking jobs where further education is not available, and when we know that they do not receive or have access to any vocational training preparation, that is a sad reflection on a free, advanced country like ours. Many workers in this country are not as well trained or educated as workers in Sweden or Germany. So it seems to me that in this debate we have to establish ideas on a universal scheme for education and training opportunities.
Whatever I have read on this subject has stressed the voluntary approach, and I noted that the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, did not think so much of the voluntary approach alone. Is there no place for Government planning or intervention in industrial training? Of course there is, and it should be larger than it is at the moment. There is a great place for Government action to give help in education and industrial training to young people who are taking up jobs for the first time. Surely the personal development of our young people is crucial for our economy.
We know that schools are not equipped or adequate to meet the needs of young people starting work in life. Here we need the co-operation of both the employers and the trade unions. We know that the 16 to 18-year-old group, who continue in full-time education after 16, benefit by this longer period of personal development before they take up their greater responsibility. Apprentices in craft industries have been shown to benefit greatly from training support. But I believe that we could upgrade our

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polytechnics in this field and give them far greater possibilities for training in industries, thus benefiting them and ourselves.
Our education system makes little provision for those young people whose confidence is undermined by lack of success at school and lack of academic qualifications. Their job prospects are not rosy. Too many of them become unemployed, and all of them could be helped by vocational preparation in all kinds of ways which we have not thought about enough. These young people are our social responsibility and it makes hard practical sense to expand their opportunities, especially in this technical and scientific age when new courses in education and skills are increasingly needed. So I deplore Dr. Rhodes Boy-son's remark that not many new courses will be approved. Why not? They are not outrageously expensive. This is a defeatist attitude, especially for the polytechnics. New courses are in the hands of local authorities and here, again, all the cuts which local authorities have to bear have a bad effect on education, too. Cuts in education expenditure will have a severe effect on our young people, and the divisive effects of these cuts will leave deep wounds on the next generation—the worst effects on our country for the 'eighties.
5.4 p.m.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, on having introduced this important subject and for giving us an opportunity of discussing it. I want to speak briefly on one aspect alone—the shortage of skilled workers on the workshop floor. I am confining myself to that aspect, because it is second in importance only to the need for improved industrial relations.
This problem has persisted during the whole of the post-war period and we have had it in depression as well as in boom. We have it at the present time, with 1.3 million unemployed. For example, in the City of Portsmouth which, persistently, has an unemployment percentage higher than the regional average and somewhere near the national average, and which has a very high proportion of skilled labour because of the excellent apprenticeship
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scheme in the dockyards, we have a Government training centre which has no problem whatever in finding places for all that it can train. That is the extent of the shortage of skilled labour.
While the problem is primarily in engineering, it is not confined to that industry. Even though we are supposed to have a depression in construction, in various parts of the country there are shortages of plumbers, electricians and joiners. I can speak from practical experience in retailing, where there has been a shortage in such skills as butchery during almost the whole of the post-war period. It is almost impossible to get skilled butchers.
I should like, first, to look at some of the reasons for this shortage and to suggest possible remedies. Some of the reasons we can probably do something about, but there are others which perhaps we can do very little about, although it is just as well that we should know them. First, there are employers who regard apprenticeship as too costly or too troublesome, and they are quite content merely to poach when they want skilled labour. That is an accepted fact. Secondly, a shortage tends to perpetuate shortage. When there is a shortage of skilled labour, the employer is reluctant to allow that skilled labour to be used for training. He wants to use it to solve his immediate problems of production. He takes the short-term view rather than the long-term view. Consequently, a shortage perpetuates shortage.
Thirdly, the employer is very often afraid that he will be unable to absorb the apprentice when he reaches the journeyman stage. He believes that he may have trouble with the trade union if he wants to discharge an apprentice as being redundant. Another problem is that in the past—but I think the fairly distant past—the trade unions took a very considerable interest in apprenticeships, because they wanted to safeguard their members' cocupations. They limited the number of apprentices to the number of what they called journeymen, with some good reason. But I am advised by those on the side of management who should know something about this problem, that so far as the trade unions are concerned they have no great difficulty. I can say to the noble Viscount, Lord

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Simon, that earlier this year I visited the Government training centre in Portsmouth, where they can find places for all that they can train. They have no problem whatever with the trade unions; and I was relieved to hear that.
On the supply side, there is the problem that, although there may be youngsters who want to train for a certain occupation, there may be an absence of facilities or of a particular kind of employment in the area and, as we know, parents are reluctant to allow their children to leave home at a tender age. It has been suggested that, whenever the demand justifies it, there should be a training centre which trains on condition that after a certain period, probably two or three years, a youngster will be prepared to leave home and go to employment a reasonable distance away—perhaps within 100 miles—from which he will be able to get home quite easily at week-ends.
Next, we live in an era in which the great majority of our youngsters prefer labouring or monotonous repetition to learning a skill. That is largely because of the rise in the standard of living. The standard of living has increased, so people can get sufficient money for their needs without the mental trouble of learning a skill. That is the core of the problem.
Also, we live in an era in which employment is changed frequently, sometimes for the slightest reason—not because people do not like the master or the immediate supervisor, but because they do not get on with the person they are working next to. For the slightest reason there can be a change of employment. When that is the practice, people leave employment when they have only partly completed their training, and they may be lost completely. Next, I believe that the differentials for training have been completely eroded by the incomes policies of successive Governments—Conservative as well as Labour.
Next, we have important industries—the car industry is a good example—in which, although there is a great need for skilled workers, the vast majority do not need to have a skill. They are on the assembly belt; they are the majority. So they are in a position to use their representatives in the negotiations to favour the wishes of the unskilled majority against the wishes of the skilled minority. I believe that the un-
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skilled majority help to keep down the wages of the skilled minority. Those who leave their skilled occupation and go elsewhere because of redundancy or because they want a change of employment, very often do not go back to it; they find that they can have an easier life elsewhere with little or no loss of money.
I come now to a reason which is generally overlooked. I think it is a major reason why we have a skilled labour problem. During the last 50 years there have been vast improvements in educational opportunities. I have fought all my life for that and I shall continue to do so. I am glad that educational opportunities have improved. I am pleased, for example, that my children have had better opportunities than I had. But they have created problems and we should not overlook them; we should be prepared to face up to them. We should bear in mind that the strata of young people from which we used to get the best apprentices for manufacturing industry now go to university and completely bypass manufacturing industry. They are now to be found in service industries of all kinds. That is the major problem, and it is one which we have to live with and face up to.
How would I face up to that problem? I should do four things. Some of them are, in part at least, already being done. I think that it should be accepted, if it is not already accepted, that we cannot afford to leave training entirely to the individual employer. We know that this has failed in the past and we have to do something about it. It is not peculiar to this country; it has happened in all Western countries. It does not happen in Eastern countries because they have dictatorships and they can direct.
In every industry there should be a central authority which keeps a check on training, an authority which has a continuous record of apprenticeships and can make an estimate of the number of apprentices who are needed and the locations of that work, and, having made that estimate and having determined that there is a deficiency, can do something about that deficiency. I suggest that in any industry the best body for doing that is the training board. I believe that our training boards should give top priority to what I call real skills—that is, the

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skills which can be acquired only after years of training, not the skills which can be obtained after a few weeks of training. Those can be left to the employer. The training boards should concentrate on the real skills, which are largely apprenticeships.
Where the employer is willing, has the facilities and accepts the programme of training, including day release, he should be subsidised according to the number of apprentices he is prepared to train. And if need be, the levy upon the industry should be increased in order to meet that subsidy. So far as the Government contribute to that subsidy, this expenditure should be a priority. It is of so much importance to our economy. It is even more important than education itself.
When that method of increasing the number of apprentices is sufficient, well and good. When it is not, we should use the existing Government training centres and, where need be, we should have additional training centres. From past experience we know that the unproductive part of the training of apprentices is the initial stage, the first year or the first two years. After they have done a year or two, they are able to practise the skills they have already learned and can do productive work. Consequently, if one has apprentices in Government training centres it is possible after a very short period—say, after one year—for them to go into part-time employment and practise the skills they have already learned, but for the rest of the week to be in the training centres learning new skills. In due course, it would not be difficult to find them full-time employment within the factories, outside the training centres altogether. This kind of training, partly in the training centre and partly in the factory, is wholly practicable and is welcomed by many employers. It is already being followed in some of the training centres.
Secondly, I should like polytechnics to give more attention to the needs of industry and less attention to their desire to be universities. We have universities. In their desire to be universities, the polytechnics offer university courses. I have no objection to their doing so, provided university courses are not their first priority. The first priority of poly
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technics should be the training of people for manufacturing industry.
Thirdly, if we want an adequate pool of skilled labour in this country to service any boom, we have to be prepared to pay for it. The present differential between monotonous work and skilled work is not sufficient. In fact, there is evidence that we are prepared to pay for monotony but that we are not prepared to pay for skill. I am advised that people on the assembly belt in the motor car industry can earn far more money than the skilled men. I am advised that the toolmakers at British Leyland have a very strong case, despite their militancy.
If we are to get skilled labour, we have to be prepared to pay for it. If the trade unions, because the majority of workers are unskilled, are using their bargaining power against the skilled and in favour of the unskilled, then it is up to management, in its own interests, to use its influence to correct the balance and make sure that skilled people are paid an adequate differential. That is the only way in which we shall get an adequate supply of skilled labour.
Finally, so far as the development areas arc concerned, I agree that our first priority should be to take industries to the development areas. That is the best way of tackling the problem because it saves a great deal of social capital. But I do not believe that we should concentrate on that. I believe that the time has come to give more emphasis to the movement of skilled labour from the development areas into the areas where the skilled can get employment. I believe that can be done by facilitating interviews; I believe it can be done by making offers of housing to rent. It is much better that skilled people should be working in a prosperous area than that they should be wasting their time and their skills by remaining in a development area and being paid the dole. That is the kind of programme which I should like to see from any Government, whether it is a Tory Government or a Labour Government. It is a programme which we need regardless of politics.
5.21 p.m.
Lord LUCAS of CHILWORTH: My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, and if I

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had no single contribution of my own to make this afternoon I could do no better in fact than to repeat what he has said to us. The noble Lord, together with other noble Lords, has emphasised the differential between craftsmen with skills and those without, and certainly in the industry about which I wish to speak this afternoon this is very much evident. If one is going to encourage youngsters, either boys or girls, to take up skilful employment as distinct from just getting a job somehow when they leave school, one must get them to see right at the start what the opportunities are for acquiring skills which will last them and benefit them in the years ahead and not only in the immediate future. I believe that many of our young people give this matter some thought at 15 or 16 years of age, and where they cannot see an advantage they give up and say, "I will take a job "—or not, as the case may be.
Perhaps in the road transport industry, with which I have had some little dealing over the years, I could point to another failure. I think the failure has been adequately described in the road transport industry training board's publication of last year which they entitled Managers in road transport: a study of who they are and the jobs they do. Out of this 240-page document there came a mass of statistics, only a very few of which I wish to put before your Lordships. In my view they were absolutely staggering, in an industry which is so important.
This study showed that of all the companies in the scope of the board there were 52,850 managers. Incidentally, there were only 1,585 women among that number. I think that is rather a shame and I would remind your Lordships, and particularly my noble friend on the Front Bench, of the great difficulty which was fairly widely reported, that the young lady at school had in taking up a metal work course. It must be a devastating failure on the part of the education system that an opportunity cannot be found for a girl to take up this kind of training. There must be some place within a mile or two from where she goes to school—or one could be found. Out of the 52,850 managers only 25 per cent. belong to any kind of professional body. Thirty-three-and-a-half per cent. of them had no qualifications whatsoever and only 6.2 per
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cent. had a qualification above HNC. So the vast bulk of managers really had an appallingly low qualification.
How does one really expect to attract into the industry skilled, well-qualified people when management itself is unqualified? If in fact the training boards can identify this need and persuade managers and their employers to release them, not for the statutory holidays, whether two, three, four or five weeks, but for four or five weeks' educational leave to get qualified, these young people will make better employees, and the rest follows. Indeed, my experience in industry is that much of the trouble comes not from the shop floor, who are, in terms of 50 years ago, better educated and less afraid; there is a demand for higher and better skills of their masters also, and unless the industries and the employers make due provision we shall not get that. I think it is a condemnation that in 1980—in a couple of weeks' time—we shall arrive at a major industry in which there are so few managers who are reasonably qualified.
Turning to the point which the noble Lord, Lord Brown, and my noble friend Lord Mottistone both made, speaking about the intervention of the MSC, I may say that I noted in the industry training board's report and statement of accounts for 1978 that they say in their introduction:
" Apprentice intake was encouraged by a further special measure scheme and an all-time record of over 13,000 recruits was achieved by the industry. Unfortunately the board was unable to obtain approval for schemes similar to that for 1976–77, and the final scheme offered by the MSC, supported by £4·65 million from public funds, led to an excessive demand for places which could not be satisfied ".
It seems to me, my Lords, that there is a difference of view and possibly a difference of approach between the MSC, through its two arms, and the industrial training board, and I should think that it is fairly reasonable to suppose that that difference follows through other industrial training boards. Their record since 1966 has been very good. When they started out they were opposed by employers, largely because of the levy. Now most employers derive greater benefit, both by grant and the return of trained personnel, than they do in paying the levy. So it would seem to me that in any review of the activities

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of the training boards there should be some emphasis, or some re-emphasis, on their role within their own industries, which they seem to serve better than by the intervention of a central body such as the MSC. I think it is quite reasonable that the employers invited to pay the levy should know more directly how their levy is going to be spent so that it comes back into the industry which they serve.
My Lords, there is only one other point which I should like to make, and it arises out of the very telling point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Brown, on education for capability. I paraphrase what he said. Under that heading he spoke of the thirst for training and the thirst for training from the boardrooms, and the part trade unions could play in this. I do him an injustice by embracing all these together. If education in the earlier stages is to play any important part then there has to be a much greater dialogue between industry, whether manufacturing or service industry, and the teachers. It is sad, to my mind, that there are so many teachers who have no idea, no experience of practice, and certainly no conception of what it is that industry wants or what it is like to be in industry.
Furthermore, the boards of companies for whom I have worked are, alas, singularly ineffective in selling their own employment opportunities; that is, via apprenticeship or other skills. They do not seem to mind; they seem to leave it to a personnel officer, who sets out a job specification and that is that. It is not that at all. They should be going to the schools, as indeed the banks do, and the accountants and other professions; they are always to be found at careers afternoons and evenings. They know so much better what it is they want than do, unhappily, very many of the careers teachers.
So far as the trade unions are concerned, many boards in the smaller service industries are afraid of trade unions. I believe that they are afraid of them as a result of their own ignorance. It would be better if the trade unions would encourage higher skills, not only through trades and craftsmen but through management personnel accepting that there are to be greater rewards, accepting that throughout a company those who have qualifications which offer the opportunity to enter
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the institutes and associations and societies of the trades should be and could be rewarded better. I do not see this problem as being at all one-sided. There are three arms to it; there is the governmental agency, there are the employers and there are the employed, as represented in most cases by trade unions, and there should be a body that can identify the needs and work together to achieve them.
5.33 p.m.
Lord KALDOR: My Lords, I was not intending to intervene in this debate, but some of the speeches I have heard I have found highly stimulating, and I should like to refer to one or two aspects of this problem which I do not think have received adequate consideration. There is a shortage of skilled labour in this country. I believe that the shortage is by no means confined to this country; I have heard much the same complaint in other countries of Europe, despite the fact that in these other countries the systems of vocational training through education were traditionally much more highly developed than they were in this country, where we relied mainly on apprenticeship for the training of skilled workers. Moreover, the shortage is not confined to skilled workers. There is also a shortage of workers willing to do dirty jobs, unpleasant jobs. I believe most of these shortages may have a common cause which is not always realised, and it is not an easy one to see.
The traditional doctrine of Economists dating back to John Stuart Mill had been that earnings differentials must reflect the net advantages of different types of work. These net advantages offer a complex idea; it includes pleasantness, unpleasantness, danger, hazards, et cetera; it includes also loss of earnings during the years of training and the effort involved in training and so on—what the Americans call investment in human capital which should be rewarded by additional income in later years. When we look back on the pre-war world, one thing is clear, the earnings differentials were not in accordance with the net advantages of different types of work. It may be that in some cases these differentials have been eroded since the war—I am not saying that they have not—but clearly even before the war it is true to say that the least pleasant jobs were not the best rewarded but the worst rewarded, and that

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people did not choose between skilled and unskilled work or between this and that occupation freely according to where they expected the highest net advantage relative to rewards.
The answer to this problem is, I think, that up to the Second World War we had except in wartime, an unemployment economy. In an unemployment economy it is generally difficult to get jobs of any kind. A youngster's problem is mainly where he can find work; and this business of finding work or of securing a livelihood is a primary one and an oppressive one. Under that system net advantages, or earnings differentials in relation to net advantages, do not matter, or do not matter very much, because people automatically sort themselves out in different types of jobs according to the demand for labour. You get enough skilled workers because if you train yourself you know you will get a job in the end, whilst without the training you get no job. You get enough navvies or people who have to work very hard in dirty surroundings because you know that unless you take that work you get no work at all.
So in economy with mass unemployment there is a far more primitive form of market selection, shat some economists call the stock adjustment mechanism, which means that stocks get automatically replenished from a pool. That ensures that skilled and unskilled workers, navvies, assembly line workers or building workers or engineering workers, sort themselves out in the proportion in which they are required in the economy. It was not relative earnings which did that job; it was a far more primitive mechanism of selection; that is, they had to take the job where they could find it. So long as the demand for labour overall is so much less than the supply, or the potential supply, this mechanism works. In a full employment economy it does not work, or it works much less well. Therefore, earnings differentials become much more important. Therefore I would put less emphasis on the fact that earnings differentials are eroded, and more emphasis on the fact that the pre-war differentials which were sufficient in an unemployment economy, may be quite insufficient in a full employment economy.
Let us look at another aspect. Since 1973 there has been considerable unemploy
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ment in a number of countries—not only our own. There are 1.5 million unemployed in France, which is a unique phenomenon in French history; it has never happened before. There are 1 million unemployed in Germany. Despite this fact, they did not, by any manner of means, send home all their foreign guest workers. I believe that there are still 2 million guest workers working in Germany, and at least as many or more foreign workers working in France.
The reason is—and I am sorry to say that this is equally true in our own country although people do not like to speak about it—that the post-war foreign immigrants took over the dirty jobs which the local people were no longer willing to take when they had other, more pleasant employment opportunities which had not existed previously. I mention that last fact as an example, showing that in a full employment economy we are up against the problem of how to secure adequate numbers for jobs requiring different degrees of skill and different types of labour, which does not arise in an economy where jobs are hard to find so that people automatically take the jobs they can get.
5.42 p.m.
The MINISTER of STATE, DEPARTMENT of EMPLOYMENT (The Earl of Gowrie): My Lords, I think that when my noble friend Lord Mottistone looked at the list of speakers for his debate today, he might initially have had some feeling of disappointment at there not being rather more speakers on what is obviously an immensely important topic. He may have thought to himself that the proximity to Christmas and so on would account for that fact. My noble friend need not be in the slightest bit disappointed, because, as is very often the way in your Lordships' House, the shorter debates are more succinct in material as well.
We have had extremely good, acute, analytical speeches about the whole range of training across the economy at this time, at the end of the 1970s, and I, as a Minister, with direct responsibility here, have found it extraordinarily interesting and useful. I have not found it pleasurable for one reason only; namely, that the normal course of events is that the Minister makes a general statement on the Government's position, and then later he, or an associate, winds up and tries to

1727
deal with the individual points made in the debate. I now somehow have to concertina the two together at what is a reasonably late hour, with other business to come, and I shall therefore have to go at a bit of a gallop and somewhat "transistorise ", if I may put it that way, my remarks.
I should like to try to get out of the way one misapprehension that was expressed most clearly by the noble Baroness, Lady Gaitskell, when she spoke about cuts and also gave, in her courteous and subtle way, the air that in some way matters of training were to be left to the free market, voluntarism, this, that or the other.
The Government are in some considerable economic difficulties—as your Lordships know—because they have not, in fact, cut public expenditure in this year: they have increased it. They have succeeded with considerable skill and courage in stabilising it over the programmes that were planned for last year, and it is an essential part of their counter-inflationary policy that there should be progressive stabilisation of public expenditure.
When we look, as the noble Baroness drew our attention, to the world of education which is, of course, intimately involved—and we should all like it to be even more involved—with the world of training, we find that the cuts taking place even adjusted for rates of inflation, are simply not there. What has happened is that we are not adjusting expenditure to take account of this year's or the next year's round of pay claims, and that is why there is a conflct between people's claims as regards wages, particularly in local authorities, and the services that can be given. That is an inevitable consequence of any counter-inflationary activity and would be a consequence even if alternative methods involving, say, a pay policy, were involved.
I am happy to give way to noble Lords, but it would be better if, having made that general counter-inflationary point, I went on and perhaps later in my speech the noble Lord or the noble Baroness would like to intervene.
Lord BROWN: My Lords, I wish to ask just one question. Is the noble
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Earl's claim to have increased public expenditure in real terms or in money terms?
The Earl of GOWRIE: In real terms, my Lords. The noble Lord has touched on the exact point. It has actually been increased in real terms and that is why we are in such thundering trouble.
Baroness GAITSKELL: My Lords, has it really been increased in education?
The Earl of GOWRIE: My Lords, as the noble Baroness is well aware the educational budget comes out of the local authorities' rate support grant. The rate support grant has been stabilised—in fact, it has marginally increased in real terms and not in inflationary terms. What has not been built into it is provision for increased wages on anything like the scale which looks like happening. That is where the money crunch and the wage crunch will be felt. That is an inevitable consequence, as I say, of any counter-inflationary policy. It does not matter whether it was the counter-inflationary policy of the last Government or of this Government.
The noble Lord, Lord Brown, quite fairly—because his general remarks, as was appropriate to this subject and this debate, were very bipartisan and very sensible in the main, and I shall come to them in a moment—teased me about Milton Friedman or Hayek in these counter-inflationary matters. As I have made clear to noble Lords during many debates on the economy, the people I follow in counter-inflationary policies are not Dr. Friedman or Mr. Hayek, but Mr. Healey, the noble Lord, Lord Lever, and Mr. Joel Barnett during the one period of their tenure of office when we felt that they met with considerable success. But pressures of another kind unfortunately from their point of view and also from the point of view of the economy—led them to abandon those policies. With that out of the way, I should like to say that I welcome very much the subject chosen for today's debate and am most grateful to my noble friend.
In the manpower field few issues are more important than the development of adequate arrangements for industrial training—important because of the need

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for a system able to respond rapidly to changing needs at a time of great technological change; and because of the need to tackle skill shortages which can stand in the way of industrial growth. I say can ", but I should say which" are "standing in the way of industrial growth. They are also important because training enables individuals to improve their employment opportunities and develop their talents to the full and find fulfilment in the world of work.
I should like quickly to explain how our present statutory arrangements for encouraging training in industry have developed, and to outline the work that the Manpower Services Commission has in hand at the moment to improve the effectiveness of the arrangements. To put this in context I must first say a word about the labour market and the role of training policies generally.
It is the labour market which brings together the diverse needs of enterprises and employees' needs to have their skills used and rewarded. Good policies can help to reconcile those two sets of needs, but the question of what skills are required or are in demand at any time is decided by the interplay of many factors, most of which are not under the control of the Government, but which include technology and the supply of labour in areas where jobs are available.
At any time there are in the labour market imbalances between supply and demand for skills. This is a cry that has gone up continually since the start of the Industrial Revolution. Indeed, one could say that it was a sine qua non of an industrial society. Nevertheless, the labour market is in a constant state of adjustment through the action of employers in bringing their labour force size and structure into line with production requirements, and workers who move as their work needs change. As a result, most labour force imbalances are temporary and easily accommodated and have no substantial effect on production.
But some imbalances can persist more generally and, when they do, they impose a heavy cost on the economy and on individual firms. One example is, of course, in the jargon of the employment trade, geographical mismatch between people and jobs. Everyone knows by
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simply looking around that there are more skill shortages in the South-East than in the rest of the country. There are indeed a few other areas where a relatively low level of unemployment co-exists with a substantial munber of unfilled vacancies. Yet worrying rates of unemployment show no signs of easing in places like Merseyside, Glasgow and Wearside.
Another example is occupational mismatch, and these areas were touched on by several noble Lords, including the noble Viscount, Lord Simon. Skill shortages persist in spite of high unemployment and some skills are in short supply even in unprosperous areas like the North-West. These shortages can result in low output or quality, higher costs and a lower rate of economic expansion because the "bottleneck" effect can seriously constrain production.
The reasons for skill imbalances are numerous, often interrelated and not always to do with training. For example, the reasons may be poor employment policies, inflexible use of labour, outdated or rigid manning practices, employment legislation, protective demarcation practices and immobility of labour. It is too late to get into a lengthy debate about housing issues in this country, but the nature of housing in this country has, in my view, been a profound disincentive to the mobility of labour. Over the last few years successive pay policies, whatever their other virtues—and your Lordships are well aware of my scepticism there—have hit the skilled man by squeezing pay differentials. I acknowledge that the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, who is a doughty champion of pay policies, was good enough to admit that defect at least. Small wonder that many craftsmen have left skilled occupations for equally lucrative but less demanding jobs. Now that employers can pay craftsmen according to their market value or according to what wages are agreed through collective bargaining, differentials are beginning to widen again and we can expect rather less wastage of skilled men looking for greater pay elsewhere.
I should like to say a few words about the 1964 Act. The Act had three main objectives: to ensure an adequate supply of trained men and women at all levels of industry; to secure an improvement in the

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quality and efficiency of industrial training; and to share the cost of training more evenly between firms. Industrial Training Boards—ITBs—were set up to look after the training activities of particular industries. Today there are 24 ITBs covering about half the employed population. Therefore, they are very extensive in their coverage. It was quite right of my noble friend Lord Mottistone to direct the main thrust of his speech and of this debate towards them. In my own ministerial capacity I have visited a number, notably the Construction Industry Training Board's activity at Kings Lynn, which is a magnificent and marvellously equipped centre; in my capacity as your Lordships' energy spokesman as well as an employment Minister, I have also visited the Petroleum Industry Training Board's fire-fighting establishment in Montrose, Scotland. Your Lordships will be aware that if one works on an oil rig and something goes wrong in that highly volatile and dangerous atmosphere, one cannot call out a marine fire brigade, so every single man jack on a rig has to be highly trained in firefighting. I was most impressed by what I saw there.
I should like to direct a few remarks to the impact of these boards. They have important achievements to their credit. They include a much greater awareness of the importance of training, new thinking and new initiatives in many areas of training, and more specialist training of officers and instructors employed in industry. Systematic off-the-job training has also increased substantially, and senior management now recognises more widely the value of training. Whatever the occasional grumbles to which it gives rise, broadly speaking, the levy system has settled down well. Group training schemes of particular benefit to small firms have also been promoted by the boards and we wish to see this continue. But some weaknesses-and irritants in the system did become apparent which generated pressure for further change, and after a review and consultations we had more legislation in 1973. My noble friend spoke about his criticisms of the Employment and Training Act 1973.
That Act brought about a number of changes in the way in which boards operated—mainly related, of course, to
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levy—but confirmed the authority and responsibility of individual ITBs for securing adequate training within their industries. But as far as the institutions set up by the 1964 Act were concerned, the 1973 Act represented adjustment rather than any radical change. It also established, as the House is well aware, the Manpower Services Commission to take over responsibility for the manpower services, including the training services which were previously administered by the Department of Employment.
I say to my noble friend that it is open to argument whether, with the benefits of hindsight, one would have hived off so much activity if one was starting again now. However, it would be the height of folly for any Government faced with our agreed needs in training, and also with the present economic situation and the need to reduce inflation, now to start looking again at rather massive across-the-board structural changes.
The MSC has done a magnificent job in most areas of its activity. Inevitably there are areas of disagreement between aspects of its work and the views of those who pay for the work. Nevertheless, it is important that the system should continue to settle down in new and often harder circumstances, and I am most anxious to give my support to it.
The first of the MCS's key training programmes was, and remains, to help meet the direct training needs of industry. The main instrument for advancing this programme, as I said, has been the ITBs. The challenge to the Commission has been to co-ordinate the work of the ITBs and at the same time ensure that the boards continued to have the automony necessary to retain authority in their industries, which my noble friend found most important, and to pursue policies suited to the varying needs and circumstances of those industries.
A moment ago I referred to the impact which the 1964 legislation had had and to the improvements which it had set in motion throughout the system. The 1973 Act removed some of the most obvious weaknesses and created a better climate in which improvements already evident could be strengthened. Over the last 15 years much has been accomplished. Perhaps the main advance has been the almost

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universal acceptance of the need for planned industrial training. Senior management is far more committed to formal training plans and consequently there is far greater acceptance among employees at all levels of the need for training.
In addition, new approaches to training problems have been developed by various Governments and the MSC in co-operation with the ITBs and other training organisations. As time is passing, let me give just two quick examples. First, there are the Special Training Measures. The advent of recession in 1975 once again threatened a severe cut-back in the training opportunities for young people, especially in those occupations requiring long and costly training. The future supply of those skills needed by industry was at risk. The MSC, in co-operation with the boards and other organisations, therefore, introduced a scheme of Special Training Measures to safeguard the intake of young people and to ensure that industry would not be subsequently deprived of the skills it needed. Of course, such a scheme could not ensure that there would be no skill shortages today, but the special measures, which have cost over £120 million in total since 1975, have helped to provide training opportunities for some 140,000 young people, some three-quarters of whom are in craft or technician occupations.
Then there is the Training for Skills Programme. In 1977 a task group, which comprised eminent experts representing the ITBs, employers, unions and the education service, considered a more permanent approach to the problem of skill shortages and the extent to which training measures could alleviate them. The groups' report and recommendations form the basis of the publication Training for Skills, and these recommendations are now being implemented through and with the support of the ITBs and also through other organisations in the non-board sectors.
The essential feature of the programme which has the backing of the present Government is that the ITBs and other training organisations in all parts of industry and commerce, in both the private and the public sectors, should draw up realistic assessments of manpower needs and take appropriate action to prevent
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shortages. MSC's financial support in obtaining these objectives is provided where needed, but is conditional on the strategies and plans of industry moving—and of course this can only move voluntarily—towards meeting certain criteria. For instance, the need for schemes to take account of how they can be applied both to young people and to adults; what the standards should be; how recruitment for young people should proceed; the length of craft and technician training; the flexibility of age and entry into training, and negotiations with the unions about that; and that there should be opportunities for the later acquisition or updating of skills.
May I now come quickly to some of the individual points made to me during the debate. I would say to my noble friend Lord Mottistone, that it was the view of the Government in 1973 that the users of the employment and training services should be involved in the development of policies and programmes, and so the Commission was primarily set up to provide such a focus by appointing CBI, TUC, and local authority commissioners. Of course, the funding of the MSC is through public money sponsored through my department, and that is where Ministers are daily and intimately involved.
The 25 per cent. of the labour force in nationalised industries and other sectors are not in the scope of the industrial training boards, and that is a matter of concern to us as well as to the commission. The proportion is now about 40 per cent., and the MSC has positively encouraged liaison and co-operation with the organisations in these sectors. It has also encouraged some of the sectors to set up voluntary training boards. For example, in the last 18 months a voluntary training council has been set up in the fishing industry and also in the freight forwarding industry, and I would expect to see that continue.
The noble Lord made several points about the present industrial training system, including the role of the commission in relation to the ITBs. He said that we must relax the iron grip of the MSC there. We do not have closed minds on any of these issues. In setting up the review of arrangements for promoting training under the 1973 Act, the MSC recognised that the time was ripe for a fundamental review of

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the whole industrial training system, and since taking office again we have indicated our concern that arrangements in this field need to be related closely to the present and prospective skill needs of industry, and to be cost-effective.
To this end we have set in motion a review, and the commission are aiming to report to us in the summer of 1980 with their recommendations following the review, so that we can then decide with them the future of the training arrangements, including the ITB system. Since I shall myself be involved in this review I shall of course put into it the points raised by the noble Lord.
Apart from his brief and teasing remarks about Dr. Hayek and Dr. Freidman, I found myself in considerable agreement with what the noble Lord, Lord Brown, had to say. Indeed, one of the reasons that I stand here at this Box and work in your Lordships' House is that I was for 10 years a university lecturer, and though I enjoyed that period of my career I found that what I was teaching and, above all, the qualifications that I was, as it were, handing out to the students concerned were increasingly irrelevant and not adaptable to the world of work in which they would find themselves. That is why, with some reluctance, I left that particular and rather enjoyable career and entered a new one. So I am in wholehearted agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Brown, and with the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, that we have to rethink this at the school and educational level. I, even in a difficult atmosphere, have given all the backing I can to the work of the careers service in this context, which provides an admirable link between industry and local authorities, and we are doing all we can in a difficult and restrictive atmosphere to help them. My noble friend Lord Lucas also had things to say about where our educational system might have gone wrong in that context.
The noble Lord, Lord Brown, asked me a particular question concerning figures. At the end of March 1979 there were 69 skill centres and 32 annexes with altogether 22,738 places. In addition, 37,000 or rather more places have been used in colleges of further education, and nearly 10,000 in employers' training establishments. With regard to the noble
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Baroness, I have to some degree tried to meet the point at the beginning about education cuts, but one of the things that we have maintained and indeed increased in terms of its provision is the youth opportunities programme, which is trying to provide some training and a link with the world of work for particularly disadvantaged or the unemployed young people. I must say to her that of course the Government are massively involved in this area.
About a quarter of a million 16 or 18 year olds in employment receive day or block release. Both the noble Lord, Lord Brown, and the noble Viscount asked me about day release. Most of them come from the engineering and construction industries, which are of course vital to our general industrial regeneration. I am rather sad that the noble Lord, Lord Scanlon, did not use this debate as an opportunity to make his maiden speech because he is so experienced in this area. But most young people in employment are in occupations where organised education and training is not common. This situation, I agree with all noble Lords who made the point, contrasts unfavourably with most of our main competitors abroad.
Our manifesto committed us to a review of the relationship between schools, further education and training. No decisions have yet been reached on the extent of the review, but aspects of it will he undertaken in the MSC's review of the Employment Act and in the recently established Department of Education Joint Working Group chaired by my honourable friend Mr. Macfarlane. This group, which first met on 1st November, and which I have attended, will consider, within the wider context of education, training and employment of young people, those aspects of educational provision for the 16s to 19s for which the Education Department and LEAs are jointly responsible. But anyone who has been involved in the world of education will know that Governments have to tread extremely delicately in questions of syllabus or what is taught. We are going to tread delicately but firmly because the commitment is as strong there as it could possibly he.
May I look forward quickly and finally to the future, and to the skills needed in

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this next decade. The Government, the ITBs and others involved in training cannot, and must not, be concerned solely with traditional skills. We must all pay attention to the skills demanded by new and changing technologies which will be the key to the wealth-making performance of British industry. In its current plans the commission is giving high priority to training in these areas where shortages are most likely to damage the economy, and these include all skilled computing occupations and training needs for the commercial exploitation of microelectronics. It has been announced that I have become intimately involved in this, because I have been given my own department's remit to look into the application and employment effects of micro-technology.
May I say to the noble Lord, Lord Brown, that I understand a few ITBs support some postgraduate training appropriate to their industry. I had in mind particularly the EITB, which provides support to the advanced technology courses for professional engineers, and these are relevant of course to applications of micro-electronics.
Lord BROWN: My Lords, I assure the Minister that they do not support postgraduate part-time MSC students in universities. The ITBs have stated that it is not in their function to do so.
The Earl of GOWRIE: I was in fact answering another point which the noble Lord has made, my Lords. I recognise he is concerned about postgraduate training and, if I may, I will look into that and see what we can do there.
Last May the MSC launched a three-year programme to boost computer training and help overcome shortages of skilled staff. The programme will provide up to 3,000 training places in each of the next three years; and this is in an atmosphere of considerable financial stringency —so that is quite an achievement. It includes extra computer training under TOPS, the Training Opportunities Scheme. and training under the Threshold Scheme which is administered by the National Computing Centre on the MSC's behalf for unemployed young people.
The bulk of the MSC's programmes were concerned originally with the training
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needs of industry, but no less important are the training needs of the individual, and that is catered for under TOPS. The scheme provides opportunities for adults who are unemployed or who wish to change their occupations, and that change of occupational training is particularly relevant to the needs of women, which my noble friend Lord Lucas of Chilworth mentioned.
Some 70,000 adults completed training under TOPS last year. Of these, about 18,500 were trained in engineering and automotive skills. Following recommendations of the review, training in the important technician and computer related fields has as I said, been expanded and will continue to expand despite some cuts in the overall programme. Again, when we talk about cuts we are talking about cuts in planned expenditure, not cuts in absolute terms this year. We welcome the MSC's efforts to strengthen TOPS' contribution to immediate skill needs and generally to increase the cost-effectiveness of the scheme.
I come quickly to public expenditure cuts and the training services. Some cuts were made in the MSC's planned expenditure on training in 1979–80, both on TOPS and on expenditure in the running costs and grant expenditure to ITBs. This does not mean any lessening in our concern to achieve an efficient training service. We did consider, however, that the MSC's programmes, which have expanded so rapidly in recent years, could not be exempt from the expenditure reductions we were determined to find in relation to our fiscal and counter-inflationary problems, and indeed pumping more and more public expenditure into the training system is not the answer to the problem of skill shortages. Within the training programmes the cuts were applied selectively. For example, under TOPS the main reductions were centred on courses in commercial and clerical subjects while plans for training for technicians, the main computer-related occupations and the main craft occupations in skill centres, were largely unaffected.
My own view is that what is needed at the moment is not so much money but a revitalising of attitudes which gets more people out of the service sectors, to which the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, and others have referred, and into the manufacturing

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sectors, which originally made us wealthy and which we would hope, given the new technologies and given getting inflation down, will turn the economy round and, we hope, help us again.
I hope I have been able to indicate the importance the Government attach to making sure we have an industrial training system which is geared to meeting current and prospective demands for skills and which enables individuals to make the most of their talents. Much has been achieved in recent years but much remains to be done, not least to avoid the bottlenecks of shortages of skills which we seem to run into even at times of relatively high unemployment. This is a well-timed debate, as I said at the beginning, enabling me to bring to the attention of the Commission's Review Body the points made in the debate today and to bear them in mind when we receive the commission's recommendations.
Lord MOTTISTONE: My Lords, it only remains for me to thank very much those who have taken part. As I had hoped, their contributions were complementary, wide-ranging and covered the subject as fully as they could in a short afternoon. I thank my noble friend Lord Gowrie for his reply and for undertaking to look at some of the points I made to him. It is perhaps unfortunate that he is still leaving the Manpower Services Commission in the position of examining its own affairs, which is slightly unfair for it, and perhaps he would give another thought to that. On other points, I should be grateful if at some time he would let me know which ones he would particularly like not to do, so enabling me to know which to plug the hardest. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

FURSKINS BILL [H.L.]
6.15 p.m.
Lord PAGET of NORTHAMPTON: 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.—(Lord Paget of Northampton.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [Prohibition of export of furskins]:
Lord SKELMERSDALE Lord SKELMERSDALE had given Notice of his intention to move Amendment No. 1:
Page 1, line 6, after (" article ") insert (" derived from any animal captured by any of the means specified in Schedule 2 to this Act ").
The noble Lord said: When I had recovered from the body blow inflicted on me and those of like views as a result of the Division on Second Reading, I looked around and felt that the correct stance I should take was to try to improve it as much as I could according to my likes. With that end in view, I approached my noble friend Lord de Clifford and the noble Lord, Lord Wynne-Jones, who unfortunately cannot be with us tonight, and they agreed with me in principle. I then went ahead and wrote my amendments and, perhaps a little too enthusiastically and exuberantly, they agreed with the amendments I had drafted.
However, none of us in our thoughts examined what I might describe as the acid test, which of course in your Lordships' House as elsewhere is the question, "Do you believe that once the amendments have been discussed and, hopefully, agreed to, the Bill will be improved to your satisfaction?" That was brought to my attention only this morning and, in view of the vast number of amendments appearing on the Marshalled List, I had in all honesty to say to those noble Lords with whom I had spoken privately and to members of the public outside that I really did not think that that would in fact be the case. Therefore, with the agreement again of the noble Lords, Lord de Clifford and Lord Wynne-Jones, I do not propose to move any of the amendments standing in any of our names on the Marshalled List.
[Amendments Nos. 1 to 5 not moved.]
Lord PAGET of NORTHAMPTON Lord PAGET of NORTHAMPTON had given Notice of his intention to move Amendment No. 6:
Page 1, line 10, at end insert—
("(3) Where any furskin or any piece or cutting of any furskin is being exported, or has been brought to any place for the purpose of being exported, a person commissioned by the Commissioners of Customs and Excise or a person authorised by them may require any person possessing or having control of the furskin or piece or cutting to furnish proof that its exportation is not unlawful by virtue of this section; and if such proof is not furnished to the satisfaction of the said Commissioners the furskin or piece or cutting shall be liable to forfeiture under the Customs and Excise Act 1952.").
The noble Lord said: T thank the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, for the line he has taken, and I intend to follow his example; like him, I do not propose to move an amendment. When the Bill leaves your Lordships' House it either dies or gets accepted by the department. Its acceptance by the department will be the job of my friends in another place; they will have to do their thing and then, if the department accepts it, the department will then put in any amendments it considers desirable. The noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, suggested on Second Reading an amendment on these lines. The draftsmen who helped me with this matter drafted this amendment, and if and when the Department come to consider it, it will decide whether this is a suitable form or whether another form would be suitable; but so far as I am concerned I do not feel that it is at all necessary for the purpose of my Bill. My Bill is a very narrow one and a very short one. It is intended quite simply to prevent our wildlife from being upset and to prevent poaching from being encouraged on a large scale to comply with a temporary European fashion. If it is illegal to export these skins, one will have the full co-operation of the fur trade in not exporting them, and without the fur trade's participation I am sure that they will not be exported. If anybody tried to do so, I think the fur trade would very soon see that nobody "horned in on their racket ", if T may put it that way. So I am quite confident that this will be a self-policing Bill, and therefore I do not move my amendment.
Clause 1 agreed to.
[Amendments Nos. 7 to 9 not moved.]
Clauses 2 to 5 agreed to.
Clause 6 [Citation, commencement and extent]:
On Question, Whether Clause 6 shall stand part of the Bill?
Lord DE CLIFFORD: May I say at this stage that my noble friend Lord Skelmersdale and I felt very strongly about the Bill, and I must confess that I still do, but I totally appreciate the reason why it is inappropriate that we should go on with it. There are certain basic points in the Bill that I do not like. One point which made me very reluctant to agree with my noble friend was the fact that one of the propositions that we wanted to include here related to the method by which these wild animals were taken. I considered this matter rather carefully and I thought that in view of the fact that the Government were not immediately producing a wildlife Bill this would be a moment when we could perhaps put a little pressure on them. I fully appreciate what my noble friend has said and I do not propose to go any further with it. However, I trust that the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, will consider that we might advance a little in the protection of our wildlife and give more haste to the new wildlife Bill that is coming.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON I had intended to speak on the Question, that the House do now resume, but as my noble friend has started a discussion perhaps I should come in at this juncture. We all recognise the work that my noble friend Lord Skelmersdale has done in preparing amendments designed to give the Bill a clearer aim and a semblance of enforcability, and to cure some of its many other defects. I appreciate also what the noble Lord, Lord Paget of Northampton, has said about his amendment. I must say to him, rather briefly, that any proposal that enforcement of this export prohibition should be undertaken by Her Majesty's Customs and Excise must be considered against the background of the need for economy in both expenditure and manpower in the public services. However, I am grateful that he has not moved the amendment because, as I see it, there is little future in trying to turn this measure, which we consider is a bad measure and is not needed, into something quite different,

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dealing with a matter which is already adequately covered by existing legislation or with points which we have already indicated will be covered by our wildlife and countryside Bill. We see little point in trying to convert this defective Bill into anything else, so I welcome wholeheartedly the decisions of noble Lords not to move their amendments.
Lord PAGET of NORTHAMPTON: I am most grateful to the noble Lord for agreeing with me that the Bill does not need to be altered into anything else. I certainly do not want it altered into anything else, and when close discussions later take place in the noble Lord's Ministry it will be found that the Bill makes no real charge on expenditure in regard to enforcement. I am most grateful to the noble Lord.
Clause 6 agreed to.
[Amendments Nos. 10 to 12 not moved.]
House resumed: Bill reported without amendment.

THE BRITISH COUNCIL: GOVERNMENT'S FUTURE POLICY
6.26 p.m.
Lord HATCH of LUSBY Lord HATCH of LUSBY rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what is their future policy in regard to the functions and responsibilities of the British Council in view of the cuts in public expenditure. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper. We are meeting tonight and discussing this question under a cloud of sadness. I am sure that all Members of the House will join me in expressing our deep shock at the disaster which has befallen the noble Lord, Lord Ballantrae, a former chairman of the British Council, and in hoping that in the expressed affection of his colleagues here he will find some little comfort in his great loss.
In discussing the future of the British Council and asking the Government to state their plans I intend to begin by reverting to a theme which is now almost hackneyed, at least from these Benches, when asking the Government about their future plans. We understand that the
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Government's central policy is to increase trade, particularly overseas trade, and thereby to inspire an industrial revival. But, my Lords, there are times when it appears as though the Government, in their determination, and obsession regarding cutting public expenditure, are throwing away the seed with the chaff. I believe that one of these instances is to be found in the subject that we are discussing tonight.
After all, overseas trade depends essentially upon communication—communication in all its aspects—and British trade depends upon British communication with overseas peoples. In this respect surely the British Council has played an outstanding part, and should have a crucial role to play in the industrial and economic plans of the Government; and at this stage I am speaking specifically on the industrial, economic and trading aspects of the council.
The British Council is today represented in 82 countries. It is a specialist in the teaching of the English language. It engages in and facilitates the interchange of personnel; it organises training programmes; it recruits teachers from overseas; it is responsible for the organisation of advisory visits; and, not least, it takes throughout the world the drama, the music and the exhibitions of the people of this country. This is communication, and it is communication in all its aspects—a vital foundation on which to build our overseas trading programme. It creates a climate for the sale of British goods and for the sale of British services abroad; and, incidentally, it is specifically engaged in exporting educational materials, not least books from our publishers, as all the educational publishers will assure the Government if they are asked.
Now we are told that in the next financial year, 1980–81, the budget of the British Council is to be cut by 11·5 per cent.; but because of redundancies in addition, this means that in effect the real cut next year will be in the order of 14 per cent. What does this mean? It means that the services of the British Council will be reduced, that our educational exports will be reduced—and I understand it is estimated that, in the case of books, this means a reduction in book exports by the British Council of 15 per cent.—and that in the case of books

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supplied to British Council libraries overseas the cut will be as much as 48 per cent. It means that the advisory tours, which can so oil the wheels of communication in the industrial world, arc to be cut by 15 per cent.; and that British Council scholarships may very well be harmed. It means, at the same time, that the felowships provided by the British Council will be terminated; and, surely, fellowships, with all the resources of research and knowledge which they both bring to this country and take abroad from this country, are one of the foundations of our cultural exchange overseas. It also means that the Council of Europe scholarships will come to an end, that the Commonwealth university interchanges will have to be brought to an end, and that the academic interchange between this country and Europe will be terminated. I understand that three specific schemes for scientific and university interchange with the sub-continent of India are already marked down for termination.
In this country, the United Kingdom regional network is to be reduced; and that most important institution, the London Students' Centre, will have its services reduced and possibly will have finally to close. The promotion of arts will have to be cut by 25 per cent. I know it is fashionable in certain circles to decry the British Council's support of the export of arts overseas. I repudiate that charge entirely; but I would say to the Government—because I usually find it is better to talk to the Government in business terms—that the idea that the export of arts costs this country something is really quite untrue. To give your Lordships just one instance, in the last financial year for which we have figures, 1977–78, the British Council spent £650,000 on music, drama and exhibitions overseas. The actual cost of those performances was something over £2 million; and that brought back to this country and added to our balance of payments £l¼ million. So even applying a business test the export of arts was profitable. But, of course, it means a great deal more than this, and I have no doubt that when I have sat down other noble Lords will expand on the value of taking the art of Britain to the rest of the world.
I am particularly concerned about the effect within the Commonwealth of the cuts on the British Council, because it
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seems to me that at this time, when the Commonwealth has played such a vital part in our political history and when it has such potential for increased influence in the world and for an increase in British influence in the world, this is a particular disaster. There are planned withdrawals in a whole range of Commonwealth countries, from Australia to Bangladesh, from Nigeria to India, from Sri Lanka to Malaysia, and elsewhere. I particularly deplore the need to cut down the activities of the British Council within the Commonwealth.
Then there is its special role in the teaching and promotion of the English language, about which the noble Lord, Lord Home of the Hirsel, spoke so eloquently in the debate on the report that we had two years ago, in November 1977. Surely the teaching of the English language —an international language, the language of technology and of science, the language of the future—is in itself an investment for the British Isles. I have listed some of the effects that have already been foreseen of the cuts which the Government have imposed upon the British Council, but there is a further danger. We know that there is an inter-departmental review. There are fears that this inter-departmental review will increase, exacerbate and deepen those cuts. If it does, then they will have (as indeed the present cuts will have on an organisation like the British Council, as I am sure the noble Lord the Minister will recognise) and exponential effect; and further cuts can quite seriously endanger the future of the British Council itself as the kind of organisation we have known.
So much, then, for the business, economic, materialistic effects of the cuts on the British Council. But before I sit down there is an aspect of this subject which, to me, is of even more profound importance. We are, after all, in this rapidly shrinking world, seeking a world culture, and we believe that we have a part to play in that world culture. It will not be one culture; it will be a complex within one unit. We have every reason to be proud of the contribution we have made, but we have no reason to bring that contribution to an end.
I am not one of those who chauvinistically considers British culture as the finest culture the world has ever known, but we have a contribution to make to the present

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and the future of international cultural contacts. I believe that the British Council is one of the principal agencies capable of doing so. We have seen many previous cultures reduced to the dead, archeological tourist spectacle. There is a danger that if we allow the present-day inward-looking trends in this country to overcome what has been for the past three centuries an outward-looking concept, the British culture itself will follow along those lines.
But modern technology has given us much greater opportunity than in the past. Modern technology makes communication swifter, information better known and wider known. We have this opportunity. We have no longer the opportunity of sending our gunboats to enforce our will in other parts of the world; but our ideas are wanted; knowledge of our institutions is valuable and our language is international. If we are concerned about the heritage which we pass on to our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, surely it must be a heritage which is based upon our self-confidence that we have a part—only a part, but an important, crucial part—to play in the development of the international community of the 21st century.
So I ask this of the Government tonight. What are their plans as far as the British Council is concerned in the functions which I have outlined? Not, let me add, what can we afford? As I pointed out, what I am asking is this. What are the Government sowing for the future, and how do they see the British Council within their plans for expansion in the future; expansion in the field of trade, of economic activity and of the exchange of goods? Above all, what are their plans for the contribution which Britain can make, through the British Council, to the development of a British aspect of a world culture?
6.42 p.m.
Lord GLADWYN: My Lords, I must first apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Hatch of Lusby, and to the House for not having been in my place for the first minute or two of the noble Lord's speech. I am afraid that I did not realise that the previous debate was to be over so soon. I had been assured that it would go on
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longer. I am sorry. I hasten to thank the noble Lord, Lord Hatch of Lusby, for drawing attention to the very substantial cuts which the Government are making in the budget of the British Council. Unlike other organisations, the British Council is not in itself, as we know, presided over by some powerful Minister and it has no lobby which can be easily mobilised on its behalf. Nor has it gone out of its way to publicise itself. Perhaps, for that very reason, its superb work all over the world, though much envied by our rivals, is largely unappreciated by the British public.
It has, however, one great friend who has always stood up for it, the noble Lord, Lord Ballantrae. I join with the noble Lord in saying that we must share the grief of one of our most lovable Members at the tragic accident which resulted in the death of his wife. Had it not been for his sudden bereavement, he would have been here this evening pleading, at least, for a stay of execution, as it were—as he did with marked success two years ago when the House debated the famous Bell Report.
Your Lordships will remember that that report recommended for consideration two options. Option "A" involved the complete abolition of the Council and the taking over of some of its duties by Government departments and agencies, notably the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the ODM. But the report itself recognised—and I refresh my memory on this—that there were, to say the least, considerable disadvantages in following the course of total abolition. Option" B" involved the retention of a separate Council of the United Kingdom undertaking all educational recruitment and placement for the ODM and the Crown Agents. However, the Council's representation overseas under this scheme would, for the most part have been, incorporated in diplomatic posts. In any case, there would have been a considerable reduction in the staff employed overseas and in London.
Your Lordships, or such as those who took part in the debate on the "Think Tank "report, rejected with horror Option " A " and did not approve either of Option " B ". Nevertheless, I think that it is rather in this direction—or perhaps in the direction of something even more undesirable than Option " B "

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—that the Government seem to be tending at the moment, if rumours which reach us are reliable. They may not be envisaging the actual winding up of the Council; they are rather preferring to apply over the next two or three years the old Chinese torture of the thousand cuts. If the noble Lord, Lord Ballantrae, were present today he would be pointing out that, at the least, such a policy would be counter-productive. It may be necessary to save money and make economies in every Budget; I do not deny that. When arguing against the policy of the Government on overseas students, it is true, I rejected the whole proposal for what the Government called economies because they simply were not economies and could be shown to the contrary (even from the strictly financial point of view) to be simply suggestions for cutting off our collective nose to spite our collective face.
In the case of the British Council, it is different. If you are going to reduce their budget by the equivalent of, as I believe the noble Lord, Lord Hatch of Lusby, said, 11·5 per cent.—for that is what it apparently in reality would amount to—it would save the taxpayer only £10 million. But the consequences of such an economy would be very severe, as the noble Lord has said, resulting, for various reasons, in a reduction of some 14 per cent. of the general activities of the Council everywhere. Already the Council has had to trim its expenditure on books. I do not remember the percentage; but it has had to trim already £600,000 off that part of its budget. This means that all over the world, the thousands who flock into the libraries of the Council to find out what is happening in Britain, from the scientific, literary, technological and political point of view, will be disappointed and, no doubt, will drift elsewhere to find out what is happening in Paris, Moscow or Bonn. The sale of British educational goods will suffer a heavy blow, particularly in the Gulf States, which is a very good market; and the teaching of English, one of the chief functions of the British Council, will be very severely affected. Most damaging of all, I believe, is the effect on the amount of scholarships financed by the Council. These will drop—I do not know how much; but I believe about a half—to the disadvantage, above all, of the poorer
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countries which I believe it is our bounden duty to support.
Is it really necessary for us to undergo as a nation such deprivations? Is it not thought that the more money we can spend for propagating the English language and British political conceptions is money well spent, however broke we find ourselves to be? Do we not recognise that before the present cuts—and if I am wrong perhaps the Government spokesman will correct me—the French were spending on educational and cultural projects over three times as much as we are, or were spending? In the case of the Germans it is no fewer than four times what we spent. We may take the view that the rich Germans can afford to do this; but the French are, like ourselves, in financial difficulties. Yet the last thing they will cut will be funds devoted to the spread of French culture and the use of the French language.
More generally, it should be noted that the Council has been "reviewed" no fewer than 12 times since the war. No organisation can stand being perpetually torn up by the roots in order to see how it is getting on. All sense of purpose will be lost if this process continues. Though battered, it may yet, I suppose, survive the existing cuts of 11 per cent, or whatever they are. It can hardly survive if it is proposed to subject it to further cuts of unknown size year after year. If that happens, we shall wilfully destroy the best instrument we have—apart from the Overseas Services of the BBC—of getting, as it were, into intimate touch with those nations which we must, if we can, keep in the democratic fold in the company of those who appreciate the Western way of life in some association of the free.
As the slump continues, the clouds of totalitarian philosophies are gathering fast over many countries in Africa, South America, the Caribbean, South East Asia and the Middle East. Now is emphatically not the time to weaken our efforts to counter such tendencies by demonstrating that freedom is still preferable to dictatorship, that Communism simply does not pay. It is for these broader reasons that I beg the Government at least to stay their hand and in the forthcoming departmental review not insist on any further cuts in the Council's

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budget other than those already in application.
6.52 p.m.
Lord HOME of the HIRSEL: My Lords, I should like to associate myself with the words spoken by the noble Lords, Lord Hatch of Lusby and Lord Gladwyn, in the message of sympathy they sent from this House to the noble Lord, Lord Ballantrae. Lady Ballantrae was a person who was very talented, a personality in her own right. Many in this country and in New Zealand will remember her with respect, admiration and affection. Our thoughts go out to the noble Lord very much this evening.
Some two years ago in a debate in this House, as the noble Lord, Lord Hatch of Lusby, recalled, we talked about the British Council and the Overseas Services of the BBC. The value to this country of both of these was strongly underlined. I was one of those, together with the noble Lord, Lord Ballantrae, who asked the Government of the day to avoid cutting their budgets. I had not anticipated then—no one could have done who had not seen the national books—the extent of our over-commitment of expenditure in the public service sector which was in fact later revealed. That entailed an outlay far in excess of anything that Britain could earn at the present day at the present rate of productivity.
In these circumstances, I cannot see how any responsible Government could have avoided the cuts across the board which they have asked of all Government departments. When such an operation is conducted—and we have seen these operations before—no Government activity can claim an alibi. Anybody—civil servants or Ministers—is very good at pleading his own special case; but it is impossible in a cut across the board to allow any of those claims in whole. Therefore some services, in themselves desirable and meritorious, have to be curtailed and clipped. It is very unwelcome.
This matter is not for debate today, but one must say that the remedy for this situation is in our own hands. More and more it is seen to concentrate in the word "productivity" which I have mentioned. If we increase productivity, then we can
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spread our wings again, but not until then. So I conclude as a matter of hard realism in the present circumstances that the defeat of inflation has to take priority and that the British Council will have to acquiesce in the reduction of its budget in phase 1 in the programme of economy. I hope, however, that the Council, together with my noble friend the Foreign Secretary, will have another look at phases 2 and 3.
No one at the moment can foresee with any certainty the economic prospects ahead. We trust they will improve. Even if they did not, and the economy was to remain tight, I have no doubt which of the services of the British Council I would strain every nerve to keep intact. It is the teaching of English. English is destined to be the language of science, technology and business. The more people who speak English, the more people who think in English; and when they begin to speak in English the spin-off—if I may use one of the modern technical phrases—in terms of banking, insurance, trade and commerce is of course very great and very profitable. The common language of English, by and large, is better taught by Englishmen, and it is good business when English is taught overseas in our Commonwealth and other countries.
We might mark, because it is rather satisfying, that English is becoming the second language in a lot of countries where it was not so before. Therefore, I hope that the Council and my noble friend will be able to consult and find ways and means so that the British Council can fulfil its purposes overseas. I believe they pay to this country a handsome dividend. They should be preserved in future years. I hope, therefore, that in due course—and one cannot expect an answer from the Government today about phrases 2 and 3—some modifications in these stringent requirements will be made so that we can have the benefit of these services in future years.
6.58 p.m.
Lord RITCHIE-CALDER: My Lords, I should like to join noble Lords who have spoken in their sympathy with the noble Lord, Lord Ballantrae, in the loss of his wife—a very distinguished woman in her own right. I want to follow the noble Lord, Lord Home, regarding how far by dedication to the English language we can

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maintain the principles of the British Council. One can teach people the English language and still miss the whole meaning of English culture. We had the great battle—some here are old enough to remember it—at the end of the war when there was again an assault on the British Council. We managed, in the terms of Lord Home's contention, at least to demonstrate that in fact we were replacing with English what was then the vacuum in the scientific, academic and other fields of the German language. At the moment we must persist in the British Council activities. The Germans are moving in in great force all over the world. As has been said, the French will never give up their claim to promote French as the cultural language of the world. Also, if I may say so—nobody has mentioned it, thank goodness! because we are not looking for "Reds under the beds in this debate—the Russian language can assert itself by our default. We are talking now about scientific and cultural inputs into the Third World, and that vacuum will be filled by others.
I want to say categorically, and I am sure that every one of your Lordships will agree with me, that you cannot "moth ball "culture; you cannot wrap up culture and put it away for another day. It is a continuous and living thing and the goodwill we have established through the British Council in all these countries has been to the envy of other governments all over the world. The Americans have never succeeded, even with the English language, in establishing the objective authority of the British Council.
I say this with some feeling. The point is that the British Council is a presence. It is an identification with everything we are supposed to stand for; but it is not an aggressive presence. It is not trying to promote or over-sell Britain. It is demonstrating what Britain really is and not just boasting about what we think we are. This is tremendously important. I speak as one who has seen in situ a good deal of the British Council, and in most cases the British Council's activities, centres, institutions an so on, are a rendezvous for people who are Anglophiles. Not only that, but they are a rendezvous, as for example in Warsaw, of people who identify with and believe in the kind of things Britain stands for.
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This is not a question of going in as a "Trojan horse" to promote British interests. We are there to promote the ideals for which Britain stands and we can demonstrate what they are. This is something we cannot afford to neglect: we certainly cannot afford to lose it. If the Government cut even 11½ per cent.—and we could go into all the details, as my noble friend Lord Hatch has done—we must ask: what is the effect of those cuts on the activities of the British Council? As I have said on a previous occasion, we are not now cutting branches but we are cutting the roots of our influence.
This is a fatal thing for Britain to do. As has been demonstrated by my noble friend Lord Hatch, commercially, economically and in every other way the British Council works to our advantage. It is even more important, as he pointed out, that we arc there demonstrating our real, genuine contribution to world culture. We cannot allow that to be taken away. So we are here in a very contradictory position, if I may say so, where my noble friend Lord Hatch and I, who have been talking all these years about colonial freedom, and so on, are now standing here and saying: "If we withdraw the British Council and what it stands for from our old colonies and dominions, we are betraying our subjects (because that is what they were) because we are suggesting that somehow the culture we represented is demoded and no longer worth while. In fact we have lost our self-confidence as a country and as a nation ".
The British Council demonstrates our self confidence, our confidence in our arts, our science, our ways of living and our attitudes to life. This is something of which we arc now going to say: "Take it away: let it go. It is cheaper not to have it ". It is the most expensive sacrifice to make and I commiserate once again with noble Lords sitting opposite. This is the fourth time we have been round this course. We have fought the Government about the world services of the BBC; we have fought them over the Ministry for Overseas Development, we have fought them over students' fees and we are now fighting them on the British Council. This is really a shameful thing: that—no matter how desperate our situation is—we have lost not just the money values but the real values of what we stand for and what we represent, which no money can replace.

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We are talking about something which countries in the rest of the world are trying to buy, to build on and to find the accesses to: we have got them. The British Council is in living terms within the communities where it works with its identification with people; face to face with the people; and in terms of the people they bring to Britain, in terms of the students they educate, the science that is transmitted to them and the books we sell to them by creating a demand—these are the things which the British Council represents. It is not something which is a cost to this country; it is an actual, genuine asset. It has great returns which we are ignoring. My Lords, we cannot afford to do it.
7.7 p.m.
Viscount ECCLES: My Lords, I should also like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Hatch, for having introduced what has been already a very interesting debate and one which I am sure will continue to be interesting. I should like also to associate myself with the messages of sympathy that have been extended to the noble Lord, Lord Ballantrae. I had the great pleasure of staying with him in New Zealand and I think it is true, without question, that he and his wife were more loved by the New Zealanders than any other Governor General and his wife since the war.
I agree completely with Her Majesty's Government that public expenditure has to be cut again, and cut severely. A family with an income of £100 a week and which is spending £120 a week must economise or get into debt and finally go bust. The question, therefore, is: what share, if any, of the cuts in Government expenditure should be borne by the British Council? No family that I know would reduce its spending evenly over its whole budget. Some items they would preserve and others they would slash or even cut out altogether. The Government are in that position, with due respect to my noble friend Lord Home; otherwise we should not have spent more on the police and on defence. We are not spreading the cuts exactly evenly even now.
Therefore, what is the standing of the British Council as a candidate for the
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"chopper"? I think that to answer the question one has to ask a prior one, namely: are we in a period of major and irreversible decline, with no hope of recovering our manufacturing strength and our influence overseas? If that were true, there would be some sense in reducing our overseas information and cultural services, because we should have less reason to talk about ourselves to foreigners. However, I am quite sure that your Lordships will not accept that we are in a period of permanent decline. The Prime Minister's speech last night in New York completely refutes such an idea. If, then, our difficulties are only temporary, it must be wise to show the maximum confidence in our recovery. Therefore, how do we do that in our Overseas Services? Should we mute our voices at this point in time, or speak out even louder and clearer?
I think that I could take an example from private life. Some of your Lordships may have had occasion to negotiate an overdraft, and in preparing for the visit to your banker did you discard your best clothes and put on your oldest suit, reach for your battered hat and shuffle out in shoes which anyone could see required mending? Of course not. You took care to look prosperous, even if for the moment you were not making both ends meet. The common sense decision when in temporary trouble is to keep up appearances, and that holds good for a country just as much as it does for an individual. It is the role of the BBC and the British Council to reflect our long-term confidence in our future, and how can they do this if their budgets are cut?
Some rearrangements of where and how the Council spends its money is always worthwhile thinking about, and I should like to remind your Lordships that in the promotion of our culture, which is a kind of fairy godmother to our trade, we have this enormous asset, which has been mentioned by several noble Lords, in the English language. I certainly agree with my noble friend Lord Home, that more of the Council's resources should be given to this side of its work.
We recognise that it is the power and pre-eminence of the United States that have consolidated English as the world language. But a great part of the world wants to learn English English, rather than

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American English. Not that we find anything objectionable in the American accent. From personal experience, your Lordships will no doubt agree that the Americans pronounce the word "darling" in a totally beguiling manner. To express a dramatic situation, they also choose words more economically and often with much more bite than we do ourselves. Nevertheless, there are countless people in the developed and developing countries who instinctively prefer not to be too closely identified with the most powerful nation in the world, and they are asking to be taught English English.
In spreading the knowledge of our language, the Council has the great advantage that in most countries-I wish I could say in all—it is not looked upon as a branch of the British Embassy or the British Government. It is seen to represent our culture, free of pressure to put across this or that political doctrine and. like the BBC, the British Council is often a lighthouse in conditions dark with local censorship and restrictions upon personal freedom. In such circumstances, the political independence of the Council is of the greatest value, and not long ago I saw it for myself in Poland.
In this field, it seems to me that the Council could do more to cover part of its expenditure with earnings. For too long, it has fought shy of engaging in the direct teaching of English—that is, inviting pupils to come to classes and charging them fees—and to meet the ever-increasing demand for this kind of English teaching private agencies have taken on the work. I suggest—and I should be glad if my noble friend would give us his opinion on the suggestion—that the Council should either itself engage more widely in the direct teaching of English, or go into partnership with the private agencies such as International House. I am envious when I see packaged courses in English—almost all American sponsored —making profits running into millions of dollars, while our chosen instrument stays outside this lucrative market.
The Council's business is to make known the treasures of our heritage, our language and our contemporary culture. Because of our temporary difficulties in this country, I consider it more than ever important that it should do this and do it with ample resources. But there is another
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reason that is beginning to make itself known, why this is so much more important than in the past. As secondary and university education begins to spread among the people of the developing countries, they need more than ever to hear what are the values by which the Western democracies stand.
Look, my Lords, at what is happening in Teheran. The Americans did more than any other country could conceivably have done to build up Iran's industry and defence, but they failed to make the Iranian people, especially those who are newly educated, understand what are the values which they, the Americans, and we hold, and by which they and we stand or fall. There is a lesson to be learned from what has been happening in Iran. It is that as education spreads across the world we have to do more, not less, to make our values open to those people who are so easily influenced by other trains of thought and doctrine. Therefore, I ask the Government to reassure us this evening that whatever cuts they have decided to make —I do not know what they are—will be extremely short-lived, because this is an instrument which they simply cannot afford to cut down.
7.18 p.m.
Lord HILL of LUTON: My Lords, may I join with other noble Lords in expressing sympathy to the noble Lord, Lord Ballantrae, on the sudden and tragic event which is responsible for his not being here tonight. The noble Lord, Lord Hatch, to whom we are indebted for this debate, described in considerable detail the effect of the cut of rather more than 11 per cent. which the Government have decided upon. It really is a substantial cut, as noble Lords will recall, in the teaching of English, trade promotion activities, the supply of books to Council libraries—there is a cut of 48 per cent., incidentally—professional and academic exchanges and the promotion of the arts. That 11 per cent. cut has already involved a reduction in the London-based staff of 368 persons and in the locally-engaged staff of 179.
I suppose that that cut of 11 per cent. must, in the circumstances, be reluctantly accepted. If that be so—and I assume it with reluctance—the consideration is:

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what more will there be? I understand that a departmental committee has completed its study and reported to Ministers, but as yet Ministers have not decided on what action should he taken. It seems to me that the crucial question is this: Should there be a cut greater than the 11 or 11½per cent. already determined? I wonder whether the departments represented on that inter-departmental committee have agreed to cuts of 11½per cent. in their expenditure?
The item upon which I want to concentrate, because I have some experience of it, is the work of the British Council relating to books. For four years I was responsible for the co-ordination of overseas information. During those four years, I saw British Council activity in at least 20 countries, as well as in Europe, and I recall that in India and Pakistan two important problems stood out regarding the availability of books. The first stemmed from the fact that the Russians and the Chinese were pouring into India and Pakistan books in English, beautifully got up, at subsidised prices. I recall that they began with Dickens, no doubt to develop the theme of poverty in capitalist countries, and with Gals-worthy, no doubt because of the property association with his name and work. But they were beginning to pour in technical books of all kinds, and we were not competing.
The Americans, it is true, were providing at subsidised rates some books in English but, naturally enough, they were concerned with the interests of America. I remember going into the American Library in Mogadishu and a young, shining American asking me to name a book; he was sure he could find it. I asked for the works of William Skakespeare. His reply was prompt. William Shakespeare was not an American. They were concerned, naturally enough, with their own products in the English language.
The second problem was that students were able to borrow books from British Council libraries and other libraries, but only for a relatively short time. You could borrow a book for a fortnight or a month, but what you needed to do was to be able to borrow a textbook for a term, or even for a year. Because technical books were not available, the result was
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that tatty lecture notes were being sold at high prices. The second of those two problems was not difficult to solve, provided additional money was made available for a greater number of books in British libraries. Then books could be loaned to university students and others with a limitation on the number of hooks borrowed but not on the time during which borrowing was permitted. That was relatively easy.
The other problem was that of competing with the Russians and the Chinese. We had opened the door with the teaching of English and they were going through it for propaganda purposes. The larger problem was how we were to compete. It seemed obvious that we should need the co-operation of the publishers and of the Government in making available subsidies and that a great effort would be needed to introduce a low-priced book scheme. I recall that the publishers were most co-operative in the negotiations. An advisory committee was set up. Government resources were made available and the Govermnent of the day approved the scheme. It was successful. If I may give the figure, over 21 million textbooks have been sold under the cheap book scheme since its inception and they have been sold, in the main, to university students. We now supply under that scheme the bulk of the textbooks used by students in many countries.
The effects, whether they be cultural, commercial or technical, must be enormous. Is this scheme—for it is now funded by the ODA—to be preserved from future cuts? I shall be grateful if the noble Lord who is to reply will answer that question. Quite apart from the returns to this country, it seems to me that the scheme has been of immense value when we consider the contribution it has made to education, particularly in India and Pakistan but also in a large number of other countries.
If I may turn to the libraries, in 1978–79 there were 6·7 million book issues from 2·3 million books. Over a third of a million people are members of and borrowers from British Council libraries. May I ask the Minister whether there are to be cuts in British Council libraries—or, to he more accurate, may I ask him whether there are to be further cuts in British Council libraries? It would be

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tragic if the provision of more books to solve problem 2 and the low priced book scheme, which has made such an enormous contribution, were in any way to be affected by Part 2. They have been affected enough by Part 1. I hope that we shall be reassured that there is no question of any further cuts being made under that particular heading.
Other noble Lords have referred to the teaching of English and to the advantages, both to those who learn English as a second language and to ourselves from that teaching. The question which naturally arises is whether it would matter if there were to be fewer English textbooks and if the number of students of English were to fall. In my view, that would be a disaster, too. The trouble with the British Council is that it is impossible precisely to calculate the results of so much of what it does. Indeed, many people cannot, in the nature of things, know about the work of the British Council, as seen from overseas. When I first took on the co-ordination of information services I knew nothing about the British Council. Indeed, I suspect that I had been contaminated by the Beaverbrook Press of the day who wrote about Morris dancing in Madagascar, and so on. I came to be immensely impressed, and that was expressed by the fact that during my four years Government provision for the British Council was doubled. I have no doubt whatever that, however intangible and incalculable the effects are, they are very real indeed.
Other noble Lords have spoken of the general doctrine which lies behind this work, and I should like to emphasise a point that was made by the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie-Calder. Despite our capacity for criticising ourselves, if we go abroad we realise the esteem in which this country is held. We need a little more pride. The fact is that we are no longer a military power of much consequence. Indeed, we are no longer an economic power, compared with what we were. But there are very many things in this country which the world envies. Whether it be a capacity to make democracy work, of serenity and respect for the law—call it what you will—it is this kind of attitude of mind to this country which has been so brilliantly developed by the activities of the British Council.
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I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, for heaven's sake tell us that enough is enough, at 11½per cent., with the consequences of which we have heard. It really is a nonsense further to cut this maybe invisible but immensely important work to this country. Let us have a bit of pride and at least continue substantially to support a body which is concerned with presenting this country to the world, not through propaganda but through creating a picture of what it really is. I hope the noble Lord who is to reply will tell us that there will be no phase two or phase three: phase one of 11½per cent. has been enough, and more than enough, and I hope we can be reassured that there will be nothing else to come.
7.32 p.m.
Lord ARDWICK: My Lords, I, too, would like to associate myself with the words of sympathy to the noble Lord, Lord Ballantrae. I, like many others, have always regarded him as one of the most endearing and gallant men in this House.
The very drastic cuts which the Government intend to impose on the British Council are perhaps being imposed because they are the kind of cuts which will be received with the least public indignation. For a long time the Council has had a poor image in Britain—but only in Britain, not elsewhere. For a long time it has been the butt of the cheap satirist and the intellectual snob, and of the little Englander who fears that his patriotism would be diluted if he allowed it out of this country. Of course the most powerful enemy, as the noble Lord said a moment ago, was Lord Beaverbrook. One side of him was a shrewd, sophisticated politician; the other side, a small-town Canadian of the last century. When I worked for him I never knew whether he hated the British Council because it was led by Lord Lloyd, or whether he hated Lord Lloyd because he was then the head of the British Council!
At this moment I should like to say how glad I am that this debate has been started from this side of the House by the noble Lord, Lord Hatch of Lusby, because my party, too, for many years was sceptical about the British Council and that scepticism had a great deal to do with Lord Lloyd, whose concept of

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imperialism was too high even for the Conservative Government of his day. One of the results of the Express campaign has been that journalists on other newspapers, always looking for some kind of worthy cause to knock, have taken their cue and have attacked the British Council.
I wonder whether the Government looked at this cut in the Council in isolation or in conjunction with the cuts in the BBC Overseas Service and the fees charged to students from overseas. All three are concerned with one thing; namely, the sharing of our British culture. By that I mean our high culture and also our social culture, our technological culture—our sharing of all that culture with people of other lands. All three of these bodies are concerned mostly with the young, with tomorrow's men and women of power and influence. Whatever stream of culture these younger people pursue, they do it through the English language. This, as we know, the Council teaches in a style that is known to be admirable, and the BBC teaching of English in the World Service fortifies rather than supplants what the British Council does.
One question that I should like to ask the Government is: What are their proposals for the British Council in countries like Greece, where they earn money by the teaching of English? As the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, suggested, we are behaving not just as if we were caught in a lean year, but as if we, in this country, were permanently impoverished. If we take our propaganda for an excellent cause, for the unfair size of our net contribution to the European Community, nevertheless there is a danger that we shall take too seriously the propaganda side of it and this will mean that we may finish up with a miser's mentality. We may seem poor in comparision with Western Germany, but to many of the people who are the recipients of the good works of the British Council we look to be a very prosperous country indeed and our pose as ragged trouser philanthropists is not very convincing. Again, as the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, said, why do we not have the confidence that the French have—and always have had—in their own culture, and indeed that the Germans are developing? In this House we have benefited from the good work of the Goethe Institute.
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From time to time statesmen of both parties think that it might be necessary to emulate General de Gaulle. But if they must do this, let it not be his petty side, not his selfish, narrow, nationalist aims which he had from time to time, but his European pride and his grander vision—the de Gaulle who, among other things, appointed that fine man André Malraux to be his Minister of Culture. We tend to shrink from the word "culture ". We did it in this Chamber in a debate only a few weeks ago, either because we are philistines or because there is a kind of snobbish Oxford pose based on a dread of appearing to be earnest or too zealous.
The British Council has had a lot to put up with, including the Think Tank report, which I am glad to hear has been repudiated tonight. It reminds me of the homespun wisdom of the wayside pulpit—the people who know the price of everything and the value of nothing. Of course the Government have put themselves into a difficult situation. I do not want to be political in any way whatsoever, but when the Government impose cuts, such as on children's meals, which excite maximum indignation, it is very difficult to defend other cuts on something which arouses less indignation. That is the situation which I think we are in. One of the arguments which is being made is that if we cut all these things every other cut can be justified, even if it is not a very wise or prudent cut.
Finally, I should like to say that I sympathise with the staff of the British Council in all the investigations which they have had and in facing now a dark, uncertain future. I hope the Government will say something definite and that they will really see a future—and a considerable future—for the British Council and give this reassurance, because this kind of work can only be done if the staff are full of enthusiasm and if the whole of the Council has a high morale.
7.39 p.m.
Lord MORRIS: My Lords, I wish to join all other noble Lords in saying how my heart went out to the noble Lord, Lord Ballantrae, when I learned of his bitter tragedy. It was especially poignant for me as a pupil Member of your Lordships' House because I recall so vividly the way in which he opened the debate on the Berrill

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Report, so brilliantly, so wittily and with such laudable passion. That such a tragedy should befall the great and the good makes it no easier to bear.
I believe it would be difficult, if not impossible, to put the underlying point behind the Question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Hatch of Lusby, any better than did the noble Lord, Lord Saint Brides, in his memorable maiden speech on the Berrill Report. I make no apologies for quoting his wise words, for I believe that one should never tire of quoting the classics. He stated:
" To my mind, a country which can no longer achieve all its ends by sheer weight of military and economic power needs to put more, not less, into the protection of its interests by other means. Britain's position in the international community has certainly changed since 1945. But the means of maintaining and developing influence in the world have changed, too. They have become less palpable. They require more intellectual and imaginative effort and less brute force. In the new, much more open, situation which has resulted, we can more than hold our own if we wish, and provided that we continue to manifest a will to excellence and the desire to compete, and if possible to lead, which goes with it.
" Given the wealth of human talent and originality that exists in this country, we have much still to do in the world, and it is not least with the help of such proven instruments of communication and dissemination as the BBC, the British Council and the Diplomatic Service, as they now stand, that we can do it, provided that as a country we have the vision and good sense to use them as we could, and to give them the backing which they need ".—[Official Report, 23/11/77; cols. 885–6.]
With your Lordships' permission, I wish to broaden the Question a little in order to illustrate the pitiable support and backing which this country gives to these essential services, of which the British Council is only one. Using the figures of the Government's Expenditire Plans for 1980, our overseas expenditure, other than direct aid and other than our contribution to the EEC Budget, will amount to a miserable 0·6 per cent. of the total public expenditure. Putting it another way, in 1974–75 our overseas expenditure, as above defined, amounted to 1 per cent. of the total. By 1980–81 it will have been nearly halved to 0.6 per cent. In 1974–75 the outturn was, to the nearest, £700 million; currently it runs at £400 million only. It is a sobering thought that we spend more on the London Borough of Wandsworth than we do on the whole of our diplomatic and consular services.
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I keep asking myself, does this state of affairs really reflect Conservative stated policy and thinking? Has this Administration got the national priorities right? I believe most strongly that in this respect it has not. What I find most difficult to reconcile is a policy to increase expenditure on defence and yet decrease expenditure on foreign relations, for foreign relations are nothing other than the peaceful demonstration of a national defence strategy.
Referring specifically to the British Council, it is interesting to note that every single one of the front-line Presidents, excepting the Portuguese front-line President, and including Messrs. Mugabe, Sithole and Nkomo, owe some of their education to the efforts of the British Council. One can but wonder whether our noble friend the Foreign Secretary would have enjoyed the remarkable success he has were it not for the influence of the British Council, however small it may appear to have been. My Lords, I beseech the Government, not to spend more, but solely to get their priorities in order. I fear that otherwise our country's influence, and thus its power and authority, will be eroded, permanently.
7.46 p.m.
Lord GOODMAN: My Lords, may I at the outset declare an interest. I have been on the executive of the British Council since 1966 and I have for some years been deputy chairman. I am not here to speak formally on their behalf, but I have been asked to speak and I do so with great willingness, because if there is one thing which is very necessary it is that some words should be spoken by someone officially associated with the Council to improve the morale, to which these proposed cuts have obviously done damage, as far as the staff is concerned.
May I first say how much we feel for Lord Ballantrae on this occasion. I have been supplied with the text of the speech that he would have made, and with your Lordships' permission I would venture to make a short quotation from it, because it illustrates that exceptional colloquial elegance of which he is such a master and of which he has such an exceptional command. The opening paragraph of the speech which he would have delivered

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but for the tragic circumstance which prevented him reads as follows:
"I realise the danger of banging on …"
—a characteristic phrase, if I may say so—
"…too long and too often about the British Council and its future, with the consequent risk of alienating your Lordships' collective sympathy. At one time in the war in Burma veterinary surgeons removed the vocal chords of mules to stop them braying. I do not want to tempt anybody to cite that as a precedent in my own case. But at least this time the Council is actually the subject of the debate, whereas the last time I referred to it a month ago we were supposed to be discussing something quite different, the abuse of the English language, mixed metaphors and so on. Since then I have spotted a beauty: a headline in a Scots newspaper which read 'Cuts beginning to Bite'.
That was the opening, and with your Lordships' permission I should like to quote the final words:
" My last word is to implore your Lordships to toss your weight into that scale, which will reprieve the British Council, free it from all sense of doom, and enable it to carry on with its work all over the world".
If I may venture to say so, that encapsulates precisely what everyone who supports the Council wanted to say this evening.
I think I might be permitted to make a general observation about cuts. We have been invited to say that it is a sensible and heroic attitude to accept cuts across the board, and the noble Lord, Lord Home, whose authority is immensely high in this House, made that suggestion. I venture, with great trepidation, to disagree. I think that cuts across the board imply that one would have confidence in the people making them that would invest them with an absolutely phenomenal infallibility. If they were superhuman beings it might be possible to say that they could determine cuts of this character without any attempt at a scientific assessment. I should be much more confident of cuts which suggested five per cent. in one direction, three per cent. in another, no cuts in another and some minute increase in another. This would show at least that a very relevant attention had been given to the matter, which seems otherwise to be dealt with in a very haphazard and slapdash fashion.
So far as the British Council is concerned, it will continue to operate—I think I can say this, and I have heard it said within the Council by more informed
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and authoritative voices—whatever cuts may be administered. But that any institution can survive the treatment that the Council has received is almost miraculous. It is to he remembered that the staff of the Council are enlisted over the years by suggestions that they have a long time and a safe and secure career. They enlist in the Council largely people with very few materialistic aspirations. They are people who join because they want to do a job of public service divorced from the general rat race, because they think they have something to bring to the national interest, which makes it possible to carry on life on reduced returns and rewards so far as material considerations are concerned. This is an exceptional feature of the Council.
I have not travelled so extensively that I am familiar with every Council station, but I have visited a good few. I have always noticed that the people serving in those stations are people of very high human quality, and often people of quite exceptional intellectual and academic distinction. I remember when arriving in Australia I discovered the Council representative in Australia had recently written a book about Holbein, establishing, I am sure to the satisfaction of few, that most Holbeins were in fact forgeries. But, however authentic his view may be, it indicates the sort of person who serves and the sort of interest he has, and why the Council is, on the whole, able to compete with the similar institutions established by the French and the Americans, which are much more lavishly endowed. We may not have the money but we have people of such moral and intellectual qualities and such transparent integrity that they more than compensate for the money which is lacking.
I would cordially invite the Government spokesman here tonight to say something generous and kindly to the Council that can be conveyed to the staff. I think it is very important that they should realise that, whatever these cuts may be and however arbitrary, this is an organisation which is wanted, in which they can have confidence, and in so far as they are not going to be axed, can continue to serve, not with the heavy heart which at the moment actuates so many of them.
I should like to hear from the Government something that is sufficiently

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generous. The Council is, in my view, an extremely valuable organisation. It is an organisation that works on the most economical basis. I visited Council institutions and Council stations in many parts of the world and, although perhaps it was because they knew I was teetotal, I was never offered a drink and I never saw any evidence of a drink that could be offered to others who were less abstemiously inclined than I.
The Council conducts its affairs on the basis of exemplary economy. I do not think that a penny is wasted. I doubt whether any organisation in the world could conduct the number of stations that the Council conducts on that sort of budget. It is, if I may say so, extremely unwise. It is a remarkable indication of penny wise pound foolish that the Council should be subjected to economies of this kind. The Council does a job of work which is immensely valuable in terms of trade and in terms of the income that it generates, so far as publishing is concerned; so far as the propagation of British books is concerned; so far as the sale of British educational equipment is concerned and the establishment of schemes for universities and schools. The Council's work cannot be over-valued. To economise on that is, in my view, a really awful mistake. It is an awful mistake, based on the belief that one has to demonstrate that everyone is being similarly sacrificed. It is rather—and I speak in the presence of a very eminent doctor—as though I were to say that, having been so advised, as I often have, to reduce my intake, I propose to reduce by 10 per cent. all nourishment, including my pills. That is the type of logic that attaches to this kind of economy. It is a totally false, mistaken logic.
1 beg your Lordships to remember, when talking about phases 2 and 3, that the present phase is a lethal one. It involves an economy of 14 per cent by the time we take into account the expenditure on redundancies. Fourteen per cent. is a massive sum of money and for an institution to have to make economies of that kind it might well be fatal if it were not an institution of remarkable resilience and courage. A message should go out to the staff that they are wanted; that the institution is wanted; and that the Government are adopting a policy which, right or wrong, is one that they think appropriate
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in the present circumstances of desperate economic necessity, but that when the day comes the Council will still continue to operate as effectively as it ever did and that so soon as possible the resources taken away from it will be restored.
It must be remembered, as the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, said, that we appear to be budgeting for permanent poverty, permanent indigence. That is a very poor policy if we arc to encourage the country to return to prosperity. We cannot restore stations that are closed. We cannot replace the enthusiasm and goodwill of people who have been "axed" and removed from their jobs. However, what we can do is to instil in those who remain a sense that, on the whole, it is a temporary setback and that, if they soldier on, the position will be restored. At this time of night I have kept your Lordships too long. I would only like to say that the Council would be grateful for any expression of confidence and goodwill that may be uttered here this evening.
7.53 p.m.
Lord PERRY of WALTON: My Lords, I speak not on behalf of the Council, but as perhaps a very large-scale user of the services of the British Council. For 10 years the Open University has been a focus of interest for the educational authorities of well over 50 nations. There has been a tremendous surge of interest in distance-learning systems of which the Open University is a prototype. So, we have been called upon to provide advice, materials and know-how in many lands. Sometimes the initial contact has been made through the activities of the British Council. Sometimes direct contact has been made and the follow-up has been channelled through the British Council. In all cases we have found the offices and representatives of the Council helpful, and often we have found them quite invaluable. Their knowledge—political and demographic—of the local educational scene has made our task much easier. However, perhaps more important than that is that we have tried to provide those services—that advice and those materials—on a commercial basis.
In 1977 and 1978 our total earnings in overseas currencies were well over £1 million. That may be small money, but the cuts that are being proposed are not

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all that much bigger. The existence of the British Council representatives was undoubtedly effective in helping to achieve this; but the British Council will get absolutely no credit for that.
I should also say that I have noticed, and welcomed over the last decade, an increased awareness on the part of representatives of the Council of the need for this country not only to exert cultural influence overseas, but to make economic progress. Many people have said tonight that it would be a retrograde step, both culturally and economically, if further cuts in the Council's budget were to be made. I can only echo that and ask that the Government use discrimination in making cuts and do not make cuts across the board.
7.56 p.m.
Lord PITT of HAMPSTEAD: My Lords, I must apologise for not putting my name down on the list of speakers. However, as three noble Lords whose names were down have been scratched from the list I think that I can safely take some of the minutes that they would have taken. I wish to support my noble friend Lord Hatch of Lusby in his plea to the Government on behalf of the British Council. The Council is a goodwill organisation, but it has a quite open, selfish motive. It is in British interests to promote personal exchanges with other countries and that is something that we should face. It is partly a matter of getting a showing overseas for British achievements, but even more, a way of assisting harmonious relations, and that is in the interests of world peace which must be a major British interest. In addition, it creates an atmosphere which is sympathetic to British trade.
The Council has the great advantage—and my noble friend Lord Ritchie-Calder in fact contrasted the American situation—that it has no responsibility for representing Her Majesty's Government in their current policies: the information services do that. The Council's mandate is long-term cultural relations and its staff can usually go on beavering away at, for example, medical and educational exchanges and English teaching even when political relations are strained.
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A noble friend earlier mentioned Poland as a good example. The British Council has been working in Poland ever since the war. It has not been affected at all by the fact that the ideological situation in Poland is different from that in this country. The Council has just opened an office in China. I am quite sure that again the type of work that it will do in China will have the same sort of effect. The Commonwealth is another example of the value of the Council. When independence approaches the Council plays a valuable role when the United Kingdom, as ruler, is about to disappear and when a new relationship is about to be established.
We have a current example in Zimbabwe. The Council has, in fact, been enabling 1,400 Zimbabweans to be trained. This year it is hoped that there will be an increase to 2,000; and, of course, with Zimbabwe becoming independent, in effect it will probably have to provide help and training for many more. At present the same holds good for Zambia, because the Council has been carrying on technical co-operation with Zambia, which I have no doubt will become more and more important now that, as we hope, the bombing of Zambia has ceased and the people of Zambia are able to develop their country without that sort of disturbance. Those are examples of what happens in the Commonwealth.
But what distinguishes the Council's work from aid programmes as such is that it is essentially concerned with individual people. I have made some notes on this. In 1978–79—and I saw the annual report—the Council helped 300,000 people come to Britain from 160 countries; 17,000 people went abroad to 120 countries; 23,000 young people took part in youth exchanges; 750 people worked abroad on educational contracts; 1,600 people went abroad as lecturers, advisers and tutors; 1,000 academics received grants to attend conferences or to take part in interchange schemes. That is the sort of work that the Council does, people-to-people. It is of the utmost importance.
For more than 40 years the Council has been concerned with making friends, and in more than 80 or so countries in which it has had staff there are many individuals for whom it has made efficient and happy arrangements when they have come to the

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United Kingdom as students or as specialist visitors and/or with whom it has become friendly through its activities. At a time of acute crisis—and the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, mentioned what was happening in Iran—I am sure one would think that all this work was not worthwhile. But that is not true; it is the other way round, because storms pass and when there are signs of calm it can be very useful to have people around who are in the professions, in administration and even in the arts, who have the habit of working with Britain through the British Council.
That, briefly, is why I think the taxpayer should be very pleased to spend money on the Council. Of course, some cuts can be supported, tolerated and accommodated. The danger is of heavier cuts next year which will mean withdrawals from certain countries. I am most worried that cuts will cause redundancy and may seriously damage the Council's ability to recruit and retain staff of the high quality which is essential. The noble Lord, Lord Ardwick, referred to the period of the Beaverbrook campaign against the British Council. The consequence of that campaign was that between 1949 and 1956 it was not possible to have any career recruitment in the British Council. What was worse was that the universities used to advise graduates against the British Council.
In the late 1950s and in the 1960s there was a transformation in thinking, and Her Majesty's Government, through the Foreign Office and the Commonwealth Relations Office, urged the British Council vehemently to open up in many places and develop its work. The Council had difficulty in doing so. My fear is that the pendulum will swing again, and that again the Council will have to say to Her Majesty's Government that it is not possible to recruit the trained staff required. In 1956 the Foreign Secretary had to write to every vice-chancellor in the United Kingdom giving reassurances about the Council. The Council then resumed career recruitment, and it has built up an excellent service which is the envy of other nations. Had the noble Lord, Lord Ballantrae, been here he would have told us how highly he esteemed the staff of the Council, because he has visited a great many of its overseas posts. I wish to join other noble Lords in
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expressing my sympathy to him in his recent bereavement, to tell him how sad we feel for him and how we all grieve for him on this occasion.
That is the situation. Unfortunately, although envied abroad, the British Council is not known at home and there is no political steam behind it. I should like to suggest that we had better give it some. The British Council serves British interests very well and serious cuts to it are damaging to British interests. I should like to conclude on a personal note. The new Director-General of the British Council, John Burgh, was my colleague in the Community Relations Commission—we were joint deputy chairmen. I merely beg the Government not to let him start his job with his hands tied behind his back.
8.7 p.m.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: My Lords, may I begin by joining my sympathies with those of other noble Lords for the appalling tragedy which the noble Lord, Lord Ballantrae, has suffered. If the middle of his speech was as good as the beginning and the end, we have missed something very good. We miss him here and we send him our sympathy from the bottom of our hearts.
My noble friend Lord Hatch of Lusby has achieved the remarkable success of having the whole House behind him. It is not something that happens every day of the week. I hope that in due course the Minister will not be totally opposed to what my noble friend has said. Noble Lords opposite are slightly more in favour of general cuts than we, and, indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, are. Basically speaking, however, we say and many other speakers say that the proposed cuts are too hard. But what everyone says is that the Government must stop there. That is the point. We hope that we shall be given something constructive from the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, because until we are, the Government's position needs a good deal of explanation.
The British Council was founded 45 years ago and was given a Royal Charter in 1940 in which it was told:
" To promote a wider knowledge of Britain and the English language, and to develop closer cultural relations with other countries ".

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Over the years it has worked out various means of doing that, all of which have proved fairly effective. But as has been mentioned by a number of noble Lords, it has been constantly sniped at, often, 1 fear, as a result of Treasury scepticism; and perhaps because it is an outstation of the Foreign Office it has hardly ever had the departmental defence which it was entitled to expect. As has already been said, there have been no fewer than seven inquiries in the last l3 years, and one is just reporting at the moment. The Government must decide whether they want to reverse the Royal Charter or to continue it. After all, the Council will go on spending £40 million of the taxpayers' money, even after the cuts. If this is £40 million well spent, then the Government must show their confidence in the job which, under the Charter, the British Council is doing and which, in my opinion, and in the opinion of 12 speakers from all sides of the House today, it is doing extremely well.
I can only find the present attitude of the Government—and that is before the noble Lord the Minister has clarified it—somewhat half-baked. I hope very much that he will be able to convince us that he knows what he is trying to do, and explain the reasoning behind these severe cuts. Do the Government, for example, think that some of the things which the British Council is doing are not worth doing at all, and can be dispensed with? If so, which? Or that some of them are done too well today, and can afford to be done less well? Or that some of them are too wide in scope and should be reduced? If so, which and why?
The Berrill Report, as a number of noble Lords have reminded us, took the line that most of what the Council does is not worth doing at all and should be scrapped. My Government rejected that view, and I think the Opposition agreed with us. Are the present Government taking a different view and supporting the Think Tank's thinking? Let me list once again—my noble friend Lord Hatch did it originally but it is some time ago—the main functions so that the Minister can tell us what he is prepared to do without. The most important, everybody has agreed, is direct teaching of the English language abroad, com-
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bined with running the libraries of English books. We know that this is being cut severely. Is it the intention to reduce this, or is it something that has just happened by default? Then there are the interchange of professional people, academics and students; in particular helping foreign students on their arrival here for study; training programmes and recruitment of teachers for overseas posts; advisory visits in response to overseas needs; and presenting the best in British art in drama, music, and the visual arts.
May I add a gloss to the last two headings. In 1974 I went on a British Council sponsored visit to Thailand at the request of the Thais to help them in one particular thing in which they were interested and which I happened to know something about, and I was followed by the chief officer of the Inner London probation service. As a result of these two visits they have set up a probation officers' training course, an after-care service has been created, and a central probation bureau established. This is one tiny thing that I happen to know about. I do not know to what extent England is helped by looking after a certain number of Thais, but this is part of the whole approach which the speakers here have been trying to impress on the Government has to be made.
As to the arts, I went to enough functions abroad when I was Minister for the Arts to know personally at least what the effects seemed to be of the Scottish National Opera at Aix, the Prospect Company's Hamlet in Teheran. Incidentally, one noble Lord—I think it was the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles—suggested that if we had done more selling ourselves in Persia we might have eased things there. I believe in fact that this is one of those rare cases where the opposite is the fact. I think there is a real resentment on the part of the religious fanatics of Western culture and Western art. I think that to have done it better might not have been the best thing to do, but this is a side issue. I am perfectly sure that, as a result of seeing the marvellous Chinese acrobats and jugglers, I take far more interest in the Chinese than I would have if I had not.
Quite honestly, nobody can put figures on this sort of thing. We all know that. But there is not the slightest doubt that

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it is important. As various noble Lords have said, the Germans, who after all are so much more successful than we are in all commercial matters, have no doubt at all of the value of exporting their art. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, said that they spend four times —my figure is five times, but we shall not quarrel about that—as much as we do. They issued a formal statement saying:
" The Federal Republic of Germany's position and reputation in the world do not depend solely on this country's political weight and economic capability, but just as much on the legitimacy of our claim to represent a civilised country. Therefore the Government considers cultural exchange, along with political and economic relations as equally ranking aspects of foreign policy ".
Really these activities need no defence in this House.
May I quote further from The Times leader when it was attacking the Berrill Report.
" The values by which a country lives, or strives imperfectly to live, are simultaneously a contribution to the world as a whole, a justification of that country's own existence, and a measure of its own sense of worth and purpose. In this area it is not possible to separate giving from receiving. Britain's ' values ' have been formed by centuries of international traffic in culture and information. If Britain ceases to attach high importance to continuing participation in this traffic, loses faith in the contribution she makes to it, and fails to respond to the demand which her excellence generates abroad, her own cultural bloodstream will become that much poorer, her self-respect that much lower, and in the long run her international influence that much smaller ".
That is, roughly speaking, what every noble Lord has said.
May I ask the Minister again: Do the Government think that these activities are important and desirable, or do they take the purely negative view of the Berrill Report? Incidentally, even that negative and, in our opinion, wrong-headed report made one useful suggestion which I pass on to the Minister with urgency; namely, that the Foreign Office should lay down a clear policy, and clear guidelines, on which the British Council should in future act. And, may I add, having done so, should leave the Council to get on with it. Can he allay my fears, and those of the Council's employees, whose morale is as low as it could be, and tell us that, having imposed these drastic cuts of 11½ per cent. involving the loss of 368 posts in London and 179 overseas, the Government will now call a halt? This was the message which nearly every speaker brought out.
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May we look at the cuts as no more than a temporary economy, a contribution to solving the nation's problems? Are the Government content and happy to spend, and go on spending, £40 million or so a year on this important work? And will they lay down policy and guidelines and then leave the Council to lick its wounds and go ahead with the work it has developed over the last 25 years without further cuts, inquiries or hindrances? Nothing else, nothing less than this assurance, will restore its morale; and I very much hope that the noble Lord will be able to say something encouraging.
8.18 p.m.
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, I desire at the outset on behalf of the Government to be associated with the remarks made about the awful tragedy that has befallen the noble Lord, Lord Ballantrae, and to join with other noble Lords who have extended their sympathy to him.
I am particularly glad to have the opportunity to answer this Question tonight because, in addition to enabling me to take up some of the points made by noble Lords, it also enables me to make three major points about the British Council which I hope will help your Lordships: first, because the British Council's work is not as understood or appreciated as widely as it should be; and secondly, because I shall have the opportunity of restating and emphasising the value which the Government attach to this work. I find myself able to agree with many, indeed most, of the things which noble Lords have said about the Council in the course of the debate tonight. The Council deserves the support it has received from so many worthy protagonists. The third major point is that it gives me the opportunity to explain the implications of the reductions that have recently been agreed.
The Council is our main instrument of cultural diplomacy. If there are some of your Lordships who find that a bit woolly, perhaps I can put it in other words. We live in times when the projection of British excellence abroad is of special importance, an importance which your Lordships may think increases as our capacity to influence events by other means diminishes. It is the Council's

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responsibility to ensure that British intellectual and artistic achievements, past and present, receive the international recognition which they deserve. It is their job to ensure that the English language maintains its unique position in the world and that the highest standards of tuition are maintained in its continued expansion, and I shall say more about that in a moment. It is the Council's task to administer an important and varied system of exchanges covering academic, educational, scientific and artistic activity. These must be tailored to fit the requirements of particular countries abroad, but they are also designed to meet the overall interest of Britain.
Apart from the not inconsiderable revenue which the Council derives from English language teaching and educational projects, the overall value of these activities cannot be quantified; the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, said that and knows it from wide experience. The Council plays the major role in the projection abroad of Britain's achievements in the arts at a time when their reputation stands higher then ever. In many parts of the world modest support from Council sources produces a contribution some ten times greater from the host country. The Council's worth is fully recognised by those concerned with the promotion of British interests abroad and I am happy to underline this point on behalf of the Government this evening.
Another whole area of the Council's activity is its work in administering major aspects of the ODA's programme of aid to education in developing countries. The Council has considerable expertise and experience in this field. It has built up an extensive network of professional contacts in Britain and abroad. It is therefore a most valuable source of professional advice both to Government departments and to our missions overseas. We also look to the Council for specialised services in a number of other fields in which its skills are universally acknowledged, above all in English language teaching, which is a major priority of the aid programme as well as an activity which serves our national interest in its widest sense.
On a personal note, a few months ago I was in Ecuador on Government business and I there visited the British Council's
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school in Quito for the teaching of English. I remember meeting the director of the school, Mr. John Foley, and I recall being particularly impressed by the efficiency of the school and the enthusiasm of its staff. This was emphasised by the fact that they were fully occupied and were, I believe, turning away students for whom space could not at that time be found. I remember noticing particularly how efficiently it was run and how much of the equipment—they had some recording and electronic equipment as part of the language laboratory—had been made by the staff locally, a very laudable example indeed.
Then there are a number of schemes of technical co-operation on behalf of and under the policy control of Ministers. The largest of these is the ODA's training programme under which students are brought to the United Kingdom from developing countries. The Council administers this and other training programmes, including the placing of students at United Kingdom institutions under government to government schemes. Other programmes which the Council manages for the ODA are concerned with filling key overseas posts to develop local capacity for the teaching of the English language, particularly "English for specific purposes "; in-country seminars for teachers; provision for educational books and development of libraries; and educational technology. All these activities are conducted within the framework of the Government's aid policy. We highly value the work which the Council has done and continues to do in the execution of this policy.
I turn to the question of cuts in expenditure. The spending plans which the Government inherited were based on assumptions about economic performance and growth which have proved to be unrealistic. To meet the overriding need to set our economic house in order, some very painful decisions have had to be made in many areas of the economy. The Government decided that as a State financed organisation, for that is what it is, the British Council could not be exempt from this exercise. As a result, a reduction of some £5 million in the Council's budget for 1980–81 has been decided on and accepted by the Council. Like the Civil Service, the Council has also had to reduce its staff costs by 3 per cent. from this year

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and is subject to cash limits. No one can deny that these reductions were painful, but Her Majesty's Government considered that the wider need to restore our national economic well being must in present circumstances be the first priority.
In finding savings for 1980–81, there were close consultations between the Council and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The aim of both was to maintain the Council's overall capabilities and to avoid as far as possible the closure of the Council's overseas representations, and that answers one question asked by Lord Donaldson. This has meant that a greater share of the reductions for 1980–81 has had to fall on such things as the Council's capital works programme, supplies and services, and home based activities including the Council's various functional programmes. The decisions of detail—I emphasise this—have been taken by the Council itself, because it is an independent body under Royal Charter.
Before I leave the 1980–81 savings, I would emphasise two things. First, conscious of the national need to which I have referred, the Council co-operated with admirable public spirit in identifying the areas in which savings might be made, an attitude, sadly, not always evident elsewhere. Secondly, they did so in the knowledge of the regrettable but unavoidable effect which the reductions agreed would have on the morale of their staff. I should not like to let this occasion pass without paying them all a tribute and have been asked to do so by several noble Lords. They are in the very front line of our diplomacy, often quite literally. The difficulties and dangers they face in the field are considerable—their library in Islamabad was sacked by a mob only days ago—and their spirit cannot be too highly praised. I wish to emphasise that the Government share the high opinions expressed of the quality, loyalty and integrity of the British Council's staff, and, within the limits of our resources, we shall capitalise on this asset.
I now take up some of the specific points that have been put to me in the debate. My noble friend Lord Home of the Hirsel asked me about the English language teaching programmes. These are, by and large, self-supporting because fees are in general charged to the students. Many of them take some time to reach
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that point and have to be supported in the interim, and sometimes local conditions make it difficult for these courses to reach self-sufficiency as soon as we should like, but we shall continue to support them within the limits of our resources. Regarding the English language teaching in Greece, which was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Ardwick, I can assure him that no reduction is planned in that area.
The noble Lord, Lord Ritchie-Calder, in a typically colourful and emphatic speech, used words like "shameful" and expressed regret at what he referred to as our loss of self-confidence; but I would suggest to him that there is nothing shameful in declining to draw cheques when there is no cash in the bank. Continuing that analogy, my noble friend Lord Eccles explained how one always put on one's best suit and polished one's shoes before going to see the bank manager about increasing the overdraft. But we are not trying to increase the overdraft; we are trying to reduce the one we have.
The noble Lord, Lord Hill of Luton, asked me specifically about the various book programmes. I know that there is concern about these schemes, which make valuable contributions to education in developing countries by bringing the cost of text books within the reach of students. In the year 1979–80 (the current year) we are spending £1.7 million on the English Language Book Society scheme, as compared with £1.5 million in the previous year, but I am afraid that a modest reduction is inevitable for next year. There is another scheme called the Book Presentation Programme, which I think the noble Lord knows about. This, too, is a valuable programme, but I am afraid that it must bear a share of the cuts in bilateral aid. Spending this year is expected to be just under £1 million. Nevertheless, we expect to fulfil existing commitments and to continue the programme at a substantial level.
The noble Lord, Lord Morris, in a typically thoughtful speech, reminded us of some of the famous and not so famous people who have had the benefit of British Council schemes. I do not think that I should want to swap names with him tonight, but I shall certainly study what he has said and keep it in my memory bank of useful information for the future.

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The noble Lord, Lord Goodman, referred to the philosophy of cuts and he explained—I think quite rightly—that a policy of even percentage cuts across the board is not necessarily always the best way to do it. I should say to him that in the situation in which we found ourselves when we came into office recently, when cuts of some kind were vitally and urgently necessary, there really was not then time to make a detailed critique of every area of Government expenditure and discover those areas where more than a fixed percentage could be allowed and some other areas where nothing could be cut.
I am not privy to what my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has in store for us for the future, but I should expect cuts in the future to be more selective. There must be some areas of Government expenditure—and I am certainly not specifically referring to the British Council here—where the Government have no business to be at all. Those kind of areas can be cut not by 5 or 10 per cent., but by 100 per cent. There are other areas where the Government do have business to be and which ought not to be cut further at all; and we have already said that defence is one of those areas.
There is one other point I want to deal with before moving on to the future. It was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Pitt of Hampstead, who referred to the training programme that we have for Rhodesian personnel. Yes, my Lords, that is the largest single programme operated by the British Council at present. I have no doubt that it will remain so, and we look forward to setting up further schemes with the new Zimbabwe Government when they come into being in the near future.
I am also reminded by my noble friend Lord Mowbray and Stourton (who spoke to me sotto voce just now) that recently there was a most important exhibition of pictures in Munich—it is still going on—sponsored by the British Council. That exhibition, which has enjoyed wide success, contains 360 British pictures, including some lent by Her Majesty the Queen; and the fact that it is such a huge success is of course due to the fact that it was opened by my noble friend.
Now to the future, my Lords. The level at which the Council will be enabled to
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discharge its aid functions will clearly depend in part on future decisions relating to the aid programme itself. But we expect the British Council to continue to play a significant part in our aid to education in developing countries. Meanwhile, the overriding national need to seek further economies over a wide field, where-ever these are possible, remains; and it was with this need in mind that the Government decided to set up an interdepartmental review of the British Council to consider the position in succeeding years. The British Council has been closely involved in the work of the review, and its staff side has been able to make its views known to it. The review committee has now completed its task and has reported to Ministers. The decisions taken in the light of the report will be made public.
In reaching their decisions, the Government will take into account the views of those outside, both in this country and overseas, who are, or have been, involved in the British Council's affairs. We have received representations from many important academic and cultural organisations and individuals, as well as from industrialists and exporters, which testify to the value that they attach to the work of the Council. May I mention one example of how we have also taken into account the views of the staff. My noble friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary received a delegation from the staff at the height of the Lancaster House Conference last week and expressed to them his support and appreciation of their work.
We will also take into account the British Council's own views. We shall pay full regard to their own estimate of the continued importance of the Council's work, to which I have already devoted some necessary, and I hope emphatic, words. Above all, we will take careful note of the views heard in your Lordships' House tonight.
Lord HATCH of LUSBY: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, will he answer the main economic issue that I put to him? Do the Government consider that the work of the British Council is an agent for economic, commercial and industrial revival, which should be fostered for that purpose, or do they discard that role entirely?
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, we accept all these important roles for the British Council. The difficulty is that we cannot write cheques when there is no money in the bank.
Lord GOODMAN: My Lords, I hope that the noble Lord will not think it discourteous to the very courteous and detailed reply that he has given if I ask to be permitted to correct one impression that might be very unfortunate. He gave the impression that the Council had co-operated in relation to the cuts with a degree of enthusiasm that might he described as almost masochistic. I hope he will allow me to say that the Council, which regards itself as a law-abiding body, of course conformed to the directions that it received, but at all times made dignified and strong protests against what it believed to be unjustifiable cuts.