Lords Sitting of 12 February 1979

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

NEWSPAPER WORKERS: TAX ON CASUAL EARNINGS
Lord GRIDLEY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what action they are taking to prevent tax evasion by those who receive payment made notionally to "employees" in the newspaper industry who are retired or deceased or have never existed.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, in the summer of last year, the Inland Revenue began an intensive investigation into the tax arrangements for casual workers in Fleet Street. It is hoped within the next month to introduce new procedures which should eliminate the tax irregularities.
Lord GRIDLEY: My Lords, while I thank the noble Lord for that Answer, may I ask whether it goes deep enough; and may I ask two further specific questions? Has it not been firmly established in Fleet Street that payments to casual labour were the responsibility of the unions or of the chapels who lodged such claims? Secondly, is it not true that in a number of cases claims were lodged and payments made up in respect of a number of claimants who were non-existent? In the circumstances, have investigations been carried out in order to be certain whether offences under the law have been committed, or would seem likely to have been committed, in these instances?
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, it is not always practical to deduct PAYE from casual earnings but there is a statutory duty to provide the Inland Revenue with
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the information that they need in order to follow up the matter. The key is the accuracy of the information; and that is what the new procedures take care of.
Lord PAGET of NORTHAMPTON: My Lords, can the noble Lord tell us in what capacity one taxes a non-existent taxpayer?
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, I have not mentioned non-existent taxpayers.
The Earl of LAUDERDALE: My Lords, can we take it from the noble Lord's reply that the Government admit that there is something going wrong here which they must investigate urgently?
Lord JACQUES: Yes, my Lords. There was perhaps an awareness that things were not quite right but there was nothing that could be said to amount to, say, a conspiracy.
Lord WYNNE-JONES: My Lords, will my noble friend confirm that maintaining by any devious method that others who were at one time on the establishment are kept there has always been a method used in any community to ensure that inadequate rations are brought up to the right level?
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, my experience has been that while methods are used, they are not devious methods. I would resist the use of devious methods if I were an employer.

HONG KONG: ARREST OF PETITIONERS
2.38 p.m.
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will make an inquiry into the arrest in Hong Kong of 76 persons, including 48 women and 10 children, while they were proceeding in two coaches to petition the Governor regarding the need for houses for boat dwellers at Yaumati.
The MINISTER of STATE, FOREIGN and COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (Lord Goronwy-Roberts): My Lords, we have received a full report on the incident from the Governor of Hong Kong. After ignoring two requests by the police to disperse, the 76 people were arrested and charged with unlawful assembly. Their arrests had nothing to do with the fact that they were seeking to petition the Governor. No charges were made against the 10 juveniles, and the adults were released on bail pending trial.
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, is it not the case that the 76 persons walked or marched while they were on the mainland; that they entered coaches to pass through the tunnel to Hong Kong Island, and that they were actually arrested when they were in two coaches?—which, surely, is an extraordinary case of illegal assembly. Is the Minister also aware that they were granted bail in 200 dollars while the wage of the breadwinners is only 1½ dollars?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, residents of Hong Kong have a right to hold public meetings and processions, provided that they first obtain a police licence. Licences must be applied for seven days in advance and are issued by the Commissioner of Police, provided that he is satisfied that the proposed meeting or procession does not represent a threat to public order. Whether such a procession is on foot or in vehicles is considered in the light of the need in this very crowded, very restricted space—5 million people in a very constricted place—to maintain public order. From the reports I have received, I think that the police acted well within the ordinance and acted with considerable restraint after giving more than one warning.
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, these 76 persons were in two coaches and they included a Catholic priest, a doctor, and two social workers in addition to these women and children. Is it really suggested that they were a danger to security or were an illegal assembly when they were travelling in coaches to present this petition?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, there is absolutely no doubt about the basic right of any resident of Hong
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Kong to present a petition to the Governor. What is at issue is whether such a petition should be accompanied by an unauthorised demonstration or procession. This is for the Governor on the spot and his Government to decide, otherwise they would not have introduced the ordinance. This applies to everybody—priests as well as everybody else—and the vast majority of the population of Hong Kong observe the requirements of this ordinance which is very reasonable. One has to apply to the police seven days ahead for the right of procession or demonstration. This is usually granted. In this case that requirement was not observed and the fact that social workers and priests were involved does not mean that that ordinance should have been set aside for that reason.
Lord BOYD-CARPENTER: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that those of us who know the present Governor of Hong Kong have every confidence in his ability to handle these situations with justice and firmness?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I entirely agree. I am grateful to the noble Lord for mentioning this fact. It is not the easiest task in any part of the world to govern a densely populated colony of this size with incursions of up to 70,000, possibly 100,000 a year from outside. That creates a strain, both on social services and on the basic need to preserve essential law and order. The requirements are reasonable; most people in Hong Kong observe them. In this case they did not. I do not see that there was an argument for setting aside the requirements of an ordinance, which is recognised by everybody else, simply because on this occasion social workers and a priest were involved.
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, I give notice that I shall raise this matter again at the earliest opportunity as an Unstarred Question.

LONDON TAXICABS: INCREASED CHARGES
2.45 p.m.
Baroness PHILLIPS: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government when the increase in London taxicab charges will be agreed.
The PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE, DEPARTMENT of HEALTH and SOCIAL SECURITY (Lord Wells-Pestell): My Lords, representatives of the London taxi trade were informed by the Home Office on 3rd January that the Government were prepared to agree to an increase in London taxi fares which takes account of the recommendations of the Price Commission and is based on the increase in cab operating costs, with an allowance for increased earnings consistent with the Government's earnings guidelines. After consideration and further talks with the Home Office, the trade suggested modifications to the Government's proposals. These are now the subject of discussions between them and the Home Office.
Baroness PHILLIPS: My Lords, while thanking the Minister for that reply, may I ask him whether he is aware that there is a great sense of frustration, and indeed injustice, in this trade, which serves London remarkably well, because of the long delay in attempting to deal with their case? May I further ask whether he is aware that they are not able to avail themselves of the opportunity which other workers have to take their case to any independent arbitration, as they should like to do?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, we are not unmindful of the difficulties which are being experienced by the London taxi drivers at this particular stage. I would remind my noble friend that in December 1977 the Government agreed to an increase of 10 per cent. in accordance with guidelines at that time, and then decided to refer the question of taxi costs, prices and margins to the Price Commission. The Price Commission sat early in 1978, published its report as recently as last August and have a number of recommendations at which the Home Office have been looking and have discussed recently with the taxi drivers. We hope the matter will be resolved successfully in the not too distant future.
Baroness PHILLIPS: My Lords, I should like to ask the Minister whether
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he is aware that, unlike most cases of this kind, there cannot be retrospective action; in other words, the money that they have not received cannot be claimed? Therefore the long delay will really cause the workers a great sense of injustice, and I am afraid that for the customer the service will dry up. That we do not want to see.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, if I may say so, that is all the more reason for both sides, and particularly those representing the taxi drivers, to endeavour to come to some satisfatory conclusion of this matter at the earliest possible moment.

PETROLEUM REVENUE TAX
2.48 p.m.
The Earl of LAUDERDALE: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have yet been able to prepare any concessions on petroleum revenue tax to give greater incentives for offshore oil exploration and investment.
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, discussions are continuing with the industry about the Government's proposed charges in petroleum revenue tax. I cannot prejudge the outcome of these discussions.
The Earl of LAUDERDALE: My Lords, in thanking the noble Lord for that not very informative reply, may I ask whether he would not agree that the events in Iran argue very strongly for the greatest possible incentives here for exploration and development of oil, since the Western world is now running short? Could he not say whether there is some gleam of light, some hope, that these impositions can be lightened?
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, my right honourable friend the Chief Secretary announced the Government's proposals last August specifically to allow

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time for discussion with the companies before legislation is introduced in this year's Finance Bill.
The Earl of LAUDERDALE: My Lords, can the noble Lord give us this little bit of encouragement: Will he agree that it is now urgent and that it should be worth while to develop fields which have known reserves of less than 300 million barrels and which are at present quite unremunerative?
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, we have studied with interest the argument of the United Kingdom Offshore Operators' Association that the fiscal system should be changed to reduce the minimum size of a field which it is economic to develop. It should be stressed, I think, that the profitability of a North Sea development is only weakly linked to size. There are protections within the fiscal system for less profitable fields, whether this is due to small size or to some other reason.
Lord BALOGH: My Lords, does my noble friend not agree that the North Sea at the moment is politically and financially much the most attractive place, and that any further concessions would be to the detriment of our balance of payments?
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, the Government came to the conclusion that we could not allow a situation to continue in which large profits were being made from a national resource with an inadequate share being received by the community.
The Earl of LAUDERDALE: My Lords, does the noble Lord not agree that the time has come to take this matter out of the rather crude Party political arguments about profit? Is it not time to consider the national interest in the widest sense, including that of Western Europe generally, and not go harping on about profits as if there were something wicked about them? In fact, they are lovely things to have!
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, the Government believe, after careful study, that there is sufficient protection for the less profitable fields within the fiscal
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régime, even after the proposed changes. Perhaps I might remind the noble Earl that the most important provisions are that companies get full immediate relief on their capital expenditure for both PRT and uplift. The oil allowance, even at its reduced level, gives fields up to 5 million tonnes of production free of PRT. The safeguard provides protection for fields whose revenues are low in comparison to capital expenditure. The companies get immediate corporation tax relief for the cost of developing one field against the profits of another. This is quite different from the loose arrangements made by the previous Administration, when huge international conglomerates were allowed to offset losses in some sectors against profits in the North Sea. Lastly, the Government have discretionary powers to repay royalties in appropriate cases. If the companies wish to prove that these provisions are inadequate, then they must produce figures.
The Earl of LAUDERDALE: My Lords, without wishing to embarrass or bore the House, would not the noble Lord agree that if all these concessions are so wonderful and so effective it is very strange that exploration drilling has collapsed?
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, exploration drilling had collapsed long before my right honourable friend the Chief Secretary announced these PRT changes. As the noble Earl is well aware, there was a decline in drilling following the increased level of drilling following the relinquishment of the fourth round.
Lord WYNNE-JONES: My Lords, would my noble friend accept that very many of us agree wholeheartedly with the noble Earl, Lord Lauderdale, in saying that he supports the Government and does not wish to have this a political issue?
Lord STRABOLGI: Yes, my Lords; I agree with my noble friend and with the noble Earl, and I am sure that the oil companies will agree as well.

DARTMOOR COMMONS BILL [H.L.]
2.54 p.m.
Lord SANDFORD: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a

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second time. Before speaking to the Bill, I should perhaps mention that the speakers list for this Bill seems to have gone awry. After discussion with the Lord Chairman, the usual channels and the participants in this debate, I think that the following sequence would be more convenient: after myself, the noble Lord, Lord Sandys; the noble Viscount, Lord Amory; the noble Lord, Lord Gisborough, the Lord Chairman and then, to wind up, myself.
I have been asked to move the Second Reading of this Bill by the promoters, the Devon County Council. I have agreed very willingly to do so because I consider—and I think that your Lordships will agree—that it is of more than local significance. It is a model of the kind of scheme recommended by the Royal Commission for Commons in 1958. Furthermore, I think the Committee might benefit from some broad expressions of opinion from the House as a whole as the background to their work on the details of the Bill.
I turn now to the broad purpose of the Bill. It sets out to safeguard and enhance the beauty which lies at the heart of the Dartmoor National Park. Furthermore, it improves, or seeks to improve, the health of the largest single piece of stock-rearing land in the South of England. In addition to those two purposes, it sets out to help the 8 million or more people who visit Dartmoor every year to enjoy it without damaging what they set out to visit. This is, as I would put it, the finest large piece of land open to the public in the whole of the South of England. Thus it is a Private Bill of national significance, doubly significant and especially welcome because it is the first attempt to reconcile the conservation of the beauties of the countryside with productive livestock husbandry and massive public access. It does this in a single legal framework for the management of a single large tract of common land. I very much hope this will be a successful attempt and that it will be the forerunner of other similar Bills to deal with similar problems.
When I had the honour to chair a review of the national park some five or six years ago, we saw the need for this kind of thing to be done and caught a vision of how it might be done. The
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Second Reading of this Bill, the Dartmoor Commons Bill, is the first public occasion I have had to welcome our vision into reality; and I do it with great pleasure. I welcome the Bill in its own right, but also I welcome it and commend it to your Lordships because I think it can become a model for many others to follow. It is a model of what goodwill, patience and painstaking care and consultation can achieve. It is a model of how landscape conservation, agricultural production and public access to recreation can all three be reconciled and accommodated together on the same tract of land. It is also a model of the far greater benefits of a patient approach to multipurpose management as against control, compulsion and conflict.
The Bill concerns the 100,000 acres that form the heartland of Dartmoor, which is itself the heartland of Devon. There are involved in it some 50 owners of land in these commons. Half the area is owned by the Duchy of Cornwall and another quarter or a fifth is owned by various public bodies such as the Regional Water Authorities and the Forestry Commission, and the rest is held in smaller private lots. There are a thousand commoners. They occupy land and buildings on the commons; they have rights in grazing cattle on the commons. Both owners and commoners have access to the commons, and so in practice—because fences are not allowed on commons—do the public. As I say, 8 million visitors a year avail themselves of de facto access at present.
All this common land is at present virtually unmanaged: certainly it is not managed in any comprehensive way at all. The surprising thing is that matters have not got much worse much sooner, and it says a great deal for British tolerance and moderation that this should be so. That, of course, is the case because most commoners, most landowners and most visitors are reasonable and responsible people. But some few of each of those are not. Some areas are overstocked. Some areas are scarred by too many walkers, too many riders, too many cars and too many campers. The husbandry of the land is not all that it should be, and the behaviour of some of the public is thoughtless and selfish. They leave litter, they disturb the animals and they cut up and take away the turf.

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Anyway, five years ago, in 1974, the commoners recognised that the time had come on Dartmoor, as elsewhere, to import a fresh, more comprehensive and firmer agreed scheme of management for their commons to match the needs and the heavy pressures of the day. They approached and asked the National Park Authority to help them to provide this scheme of management; not, of course, just for the sake of restraint, but so that the moor can be more productive, carry more and healthier livestock, and so that people can get more pleasure from visiting, riding and walking on it.
I turn briefly to the structure of the Bill. The Bill provides this framework of management that I have been describing by building on the traditional patterns of the past for managing common land. Clause 3 establishes a council for the commoners. Clauses 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 confer duties and powers on that council to manage the commons for rearing livestock. in ways consistent with conserving the beauty of the commons, and also with allowing the public to enjoy it; and reeves—a nice traditional term—are appointed for that purpose. Clauses 9 to 14 give the public statutory formal access to the commons, and confer duties and powers on the Dartmoor National Park Authority to regulate that access, consistent with conserving the beauty of the commons and with the needs of grazing; and wardens are empowered to see to that. I look forward to hearing the views of other noble Lords who are due to speak, and in winding-up the debate I shall say a little about the state of agreement with and disagreement to the Bill. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Sandford.)
3.2 p.m.
Lord SANDYS: My Lords, we are indeed fortunate in having my noble friend Lord Sandford, who is the former chairman of the review body on national parks, to introduce this Bill with such an economy of words and with such a totally lucid form of expression. My remarks will be relatively brief and addressed generally to the substance of the Bill. I read the Bill with interest. As my noble friend said, it is the first of
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what he hopes will be a series, and we have therefore looked at it with great interest. As a forerunner, it contains certain unusual features and my noble friend, in referring to the whole of the 100,000 acres contained within Dartmoor, stressed that it is an area of land which is not managed. This is an expression which is unusual, in the sense that it is certainly owned by groups or individuals, and falls within the care of certain bodies, as well as within the care of the county council at the present moment. But I entirely agree with my noble friend that, as it were, the area is not under a specific management agreement at the moment, and this is what the Dartmoor Commons Bill aims to set out. It is a management and access agreement on a very grand scale. It is a major piece of legislation in this field and it is to be welcomed, because the popularity of Dartmoor is such that it is one of the leading parks of this country and it attracts many millions of visitors.
I should like to refer specifically to a number of points in the Bill. My noble friend referred to the title of "reeve", which struck me at once as unusual, because it does not occur in the interpretation clause and it appears in Clause 6. Because I was a little uncertain, I had to go to the encyclopaedias to find out exactly what is a reeve, and I found that a reeve is:
"An English official who in earlier times was entrusted with the administration of a division of the country. He was the chief magistrate of a town or council, and is the ancestor of a sheriff or a shire reeve".
I think that I understand a little more of what the reeves are supposed to do in regard to enforcement. I am not clear whether they have magisterial powers—I imagine not—and they appear to fall very much within the same category as the verderers of the New Forest. Perhaps in his reply, my noble friend will be able suitably to comment.
The question of overstocking was raised. One of the principal points of the Bill relates to the commoners' rights in association with this matter. There are very specific numbers of animals mentioned. The commoners are entitled, indeed are obliged, to graze a minimum of 50 sheep, 10 cattle and 10 horses. I understand that the by-law-making powers of the county council, which are contained in Clause 10, are quite extensive, but

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Clause 11, in extending the powers of the national park wardens, appears to cut across the powers given to the reeves in Clause 6. I conclude my remarks by repeating how fortunate your Lordships have been to have such very expert advice on this whole subject, and I am sure that Devon County Council were particularly fortunate in getting the agreement of my noble friend Lord Sandford to introduce this Bill.
3.7p.m.
Viscount AMORY: My Lords, this is a sensible Bill which should be supported, as my noble friend Lord Sandford has recommended. Lord Sandford has a name which is honourably linked with our national parks. He knows a great deal about them and has performed great services to them. As a Devonian, I can assure your Lordships that, over many years, the Devon County Council has taken a very close interest in the welfare of Dartmoor, and has also taken a great deal of trouble with it. In the summer months, the public visit Dartmoor in enormous numbers and, quite clearly, derive great pleasure from doing so. I suppose that there will always be some minorities who are dissatisfied with decisions of the kind that have to be made by national parks; one cannot hope to satisfy everybody. But I am sure that the present vigorous Dartmoor Park Committee is running it on the right lines, and with quite exceptional energy and general approval. For instance, I understand that the great majority of the commoners are in favour of the proposals in this Bill.
There is one petition with which, I confess, I have some sympathy and that is the petition from the British Horse Society. I am sure that the promoters of the Bill are right that horsemen—or I suppose one should say horse persons, though it does not sound right; "riders" is perhaps a better term—cannot be regarded in precisely the same way as pedestrians. Horses, particularly in considerable numbers and collectively, such as in riding clubs and so on, can do temporary damage to the grass and the turf and can leave tracks and scars behind them. This makes it reasonable that there should be some restrictions which are not necessary in the case of pedestrians. On the other hand, Dartmoor is a delightful
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place for exercise on horseback. I have ridden over it with extreme pleasure, marred only on one occasion when I was temporarily engulfed in an unsuspected bog, of which I believe there are one or two on Dartmoor—a hazard which, of course, adds a spice of additional exhilaration to the operation.
I am sure that the promoters do not want unnecessarily to discourage access by riders. On the contrary, I think that they would wish to encourage such access. Reading through the Bill as it is now drafted, however, the absence of any welcome for riders seems to be a little discouraging. The British Horse Society feel that the Bill gives to the council the right, in an extreme case, to refuse access to the whole moor to riders, as and when they like. They could close the whole moor to riders without riders being able to object.
I understand that the provisions which the British Horse Society feel are not quite right are Clauses 9 and 12. For instance, they regard Clause 12 as giving a right to rescind the provision of an alternative route—which might close the moor altogether, as I have mentioned. I very much hope that in Committee there will be the introduction of some words which will make it plain that riders as such are welcome, subject only to restraints which are clearly needed to safeguard the moor against avoidable damage. I am sure that such an assurance can be provided by an appropriate Amendment. This would be very welcome both to the British Horse Society and also to many other riders, and it would be entirely in accord with the aims and the spirit of this well administered national park.
3.12 p.m.
Lord GISBOROUGH: My Lords, as a Northerner I rise with some trepidation to speak on the deep South. This is an important Bill for everybody in the country who is involved with national parks, because it is a blueprint for the future. It could well be used for the country as a whole so far as access to commons and so on is concerned.
May I make a few comments on one or two of the clauses. Clause 4 deals with tree planting. The Council may plant an area not exceeding one acre with trees. There is an altogether wrong national

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outlook on the planting of trees. The history of the northern moors—and for all I know this probably applies to Dartmoor—is that they were covered with forest. The trees were cut down so that people could farm on the hills, where they could not be got at by the Danes marauding from the sea, and also avoid the bog in the valleys. Gradually they cut down all the trees so that they could farm, and the result was that the whole area went to waste and became covered with peat and bog.
Had there been environmentalists in those days there would have been an outcry against the cutting down of those forests. Now that there are no forests and it is all bog, there would be an outcry if there were to be any planting of trees. If there is a forest and it is proposed to cut it down there is an outcry, and when one wants to plant trees there is an outcry. There should not necessarily be any limit on the planting of trees in the country. One does not want to see vast Forestry Commission types of forest, planted with one single variety. However, as with towns and their architecture, the countryside must have progress. To say that because an area looks like one thing at the moment it must stay like that for ever is, to my mind, totally wrong.
Turning to the question of access, it is probably right to say that the majority of people who use the countryside are careful. They read the country code and they take the greatest care. Nevertheless, there is a fairly high proportion of people who do not read the country code, who do not worry very much and who are careless. That is most unfortunate. But there is a small percentage of people—it may be 1 per cent., or 0·1 per cent. or 0.01 per cent.—who are actively destructive. This is the element which goes out either to shoot deer, or to poach, or to steal sheep. Hill sheep are now worth £20 to £30, and a cross-bred ewe is worth about £60. So sheep stealing is becoming more and more prevalent. It can drive, and it has driven, farmers out of business.
There is also the question of loose dogs. Again, most people are careful, but many people are not; and a very small percentage of people are trying to kill sheep. With free access, it is very
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difficult to catch these malevolent people. Such people exist, and it is no good denying it. If there is to be public access, it means that the public are able to go everywhere, and good luck to them. I am all for it. But where damage results from public access, then the public have to be prepared to pay compensation. Without compensation, it is going to be extremely difficult to control in particular malicious people. One must not think that such people do not exist.
Turning now to the question of notices, under Clause 9 the county council can put up notices to ban access for a period in certain areas where, for some reason or another, the public are not to go. It may be that they are not allowed to use certain areas for a period because of lambing. But there must also be a requirement that the council should put up notices at the end of an access area. Although it does not apply to this Bill, in the case of footpaths there is a tendency for councils to put up a footpath sign showing the public the way off the road, but once the public are off the road the council does not really mind where they go, or whether they stick to public footpaths or go on to private footpaths. In the case of large access areas, it is only right that at their end the council should be required to put up a notice showing the public that they have come to the end.
I support what was said by the noble Viscount, Lord Amory, regarding horses; therefore I will not go into that question. However, may I comment on Clause 14. This clause does not, I think, include motor cycles. In our part of the world—and I imagine that if the problem has not reached Dartmoor it soon will—we have a motor cycle problem. Many people are very keen on motor cycle scrambling. Very often they join motor cycling clubs, and they ought to be found places where they can carry on their sport.
But there is also a large number of "cowboys" who have no intention of joining motor cycle clubs. They go anywhere. In fact, they killed a horse near to my home by driving it over a ravine. They have also knocked many people off their horses while they have been riding. There is no reason why "cowboys" should put at danger people

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who are enjoying their own chosen sport. Very often these "cowboys" do not license their motor cycles, or carry number plates, and they are extremely difficult to stop. I think that an area should be found for motor cyclists where they can practise their sport and that elsewhere they should be banned, because they are downright dangerous in places where they are not expected.
Next there is the question of warden arrest, and also the question of other people helping wardens to arrest people who are disobeying the laws of the common—that is to say, the real "baddies". Miscreants who intend to steal sheep tend not to try when wardens are watching. If they are seen at all, it is more likely that they will be seen by one of the commoners, or by other people. Any powers of arrest which are given to a warden should also be given to commoners. We are speaking about a vast area. The reeves are highly unlikely to be able adequately to cover the whole area, even when there is just a small number of "baddies" about.
The Bill is an interesting experiment and I hope it succeeds. I am glad that this access area is being carried on in an experimental area like Dartmoor rather than over the whole country. I think it will produce a number of lessons which will be of great use when the Bill is extended elsewhere. It is important to foresee the problems now so that the experiment can be successful and it can be emulated elsewhere in the country.
3.20 p.m.
The CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES (Lord Aberdare): My Lords, in view of what has been said, I doubt whether there is anything that I can add to this debate. I was not going to enter into the merits of the Bill and no one has suggested anything as extreme as not giving it a Second Reading. Therefore I think that any comments I might make would be superfluous. All I should like to say is that if your Lordships do give it a Second Reading, which will be the normal thing, it will then go to a Select Committee and surely that is the best forum in which the kinds of remarks and suggestions which have been made in this debate can be thrashed out. The
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promoters can put their case, the petitioners can put their case and they can be heard before the Select Committee. In this particular instance, there are no fewer than 14 petitions against the Bill, so that the views of those who have grievances towards the provisions of the Bill will certainly be heard. I will also ensure that the Members of the Select Committee will receive a copy of today's debate so that your Lordships' remarks are fully considered.
3.22 p.m.
Lord SANDFORD: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lords who have taken part in this debate and to the noble Lord the Lord Chairman for his explanation of what happens next. I hope the Select Committee will find this short debate useful. In answer to my noble friend about the reeve, for the last 879 years the reeve has been annually elected by the Manor Courts to enforce the decision of the court. The only change which we are making is that from this year onward, if the Bill is enacted, the reeve will be appointed by the Commoner's Council that is created by the Bill.
I am sure that the Select Committee will consider carefully and weigh up the need for the Bill, the aim of the Bill and the way the promoters have chosen to achieve that aim. I am sure they will also attend carefully to those 16 bodies and persons who, after this very thorough, patient and painstaking five-year process of discussion and consultation still have misconceptions, suspicions, fears and objections about the Bill. I am certain that all these, and not least those about the horse riders, will be fully considered, the misconceptions (if there are such) corrected, suspicions allayed and fears laid to rest and, if necessary, some objections may be met by amendments.
To put the matter in perspective, I can assure your Lordships that, although there are 16 petitioners on the one hand, this Private Bill has the support of the National Farmers Union, the Country Land-owners Association, the Association of County Councils, the Countryside Commission and the Council for the Protection of Rural England. Of the commoners who object there are 70 out of 1,000; of the parishes that object there are two out of 41. In these matters, I think it

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is right to be thoroughly painstaking in our consultations, but there comes a moment when a decision has to be taken to present a Bill to Parliament, and I think that moment has arrived. I hope that at the end of the day the Committee will recognise as paramount the great good to be gained by our people as a whole when private rights over land, the need for farm husbandry and the public right of access for recreation enjoyment can be positively reconciled in the countryside. I believe that they have been so reconciled under the agreed scheme that has been incorporated in this Bill, and for that reason I would commend the Bill warmly to your Lordships both in its own right and as a model for the future, which can be followed in other cases where the management of large tracts of common has to be undertaken.
On Question, Bill read 2a and committed to a Select Committee.

TAMAR BRIDGE BILL
3.25p.m.
Read 3a, with the Amendments.
Clause 13 [Tolls]:
Lord ABERDARE Lord ABERDARE moved Amendment No.1:
Page 6, line 16, leave out from ("the") to ("and") in line 19 and insert—
("Tamar Bridge and Torpoint Ferry Tolls (Revision of Charges) Order 1971, subject to any further orders made under section 6 of the Transport Charges, amp:c. (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1954,").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I apologise to the House for having produced these two Amendments to this Bill at this late stage, but I do so at the request of the promoters and they seem to me to be thoroughly good Amendments to which I think your Lordships will agree. They are in fact the same Amendment which has to be made twice, once to the Bill itself and once to the reproduced parent Act—that is, the Tamar Bridge Act 1957—which is reprinted as a Schedule to this Bill as amended by the Bill, so that this Amendment will have to be made in that Schedule as well. The object is simply to clarify the wording of Clause 13 in two respects: by defining clearly the order
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of 1971 which fixes the maximum tolls and, secondly, by defining exactly the Act under which these maximum tolls may be increased by the Secretary of State. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
In the Schedule:
Lord ABERDARE Lord ABERDARE moved Amendment No.2:
Page 27, line 2, leave out from ("the") to ("and") in line 4 and insert—
("Tamar Bridge and Torpoint Ferry Tolls (Revision of Charges) Order 1971, subject to any further orders made under section 6 of the Transport Charges, amp;c. (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1954,").
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
On Question, Bill passed, and returned to the Commons.

PUBLIC LENDING RIGHT BILL
3.28 p.m.
The MINISTER of STATE, DEPARTMENT of EDUCATION and SCIENCE (Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge): My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be read a second time. I must first declare an interest in that I am the husband of an authoress and certainly hope to stand to gain from the passing of this Bill.
That is not however my only reason for commending it. The principle which the Bill enshrines has been stated and restated many times. It is that the Government believe it to be an act of simple justice to provide some recompense out of public funds for those authors whose books are lent out under the public library service. We have an excellent public library service—without doubt the best and most intensively used in the world—but the authors are the fundamental part of it, and yet the only payment they get, however many times their books are borrowed, is the amount they receive from the original purchase of the book by the library. The Bill provides that authors should receive a payment out of public funds which is based on the number of times their books are actually lent out by local authority libraries.
Noble Lords will have had a sense of dejà vu when they saw that this Bill was

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to be considered yet again in your Lordships' House. We have been here before. But there are some subtle differences. On the first occasion, in 1976, as I well remember, I was plunged into the deep end by having to take on the Committee stage of the Bill within two or three days of being appointed Minister for the Arts. On the second occasion, in 1977, my noble friend Lord Willis reintroduced the Bill. On both occasions the Bill came to us before it had run the gauntlet of another place. On the first occasion, in 1976, it ran into exceptional difficulty in the other place when a small minority of opponents of the Bill insisted on very prolonged debate at all stages, which I regard as a faintly polite way of putting it. On the second occasion, in 1977, the Government simply could not find the time for the Bill in a very crowded legislative programme dominated by the Bills on devolution.
The Bill has indeed, as my right honourable friend the Secretary of State said in another place, been star-crossed. On this occasion, however, the Bill has already run the gauntlet of another place. It has been subjected to prolonged and exhaustive debate yet again. I should like to congratulate my honourable friend and colleague, the Minister of State, who handled the Bill in another place, for piloting it so skilfully there and bringing it to us in its present form. The Bill benefited there from the co-operation of the Opposition. Indeed, the Bill was welcomed by all parties represented in another place. I venture to suggest to your Lordships that with this spirit of goodwill towards the principle of the Bill, and the rigorous examination it has already undergone, little further scrutiny should be required from this House. We have, after all, put it through twice already. But I do not think I can skip my introduction, speaking too shortly, as not everyone will remember the details accurately. There are in any case some subtle changes in this Bill from the versions we have previously considered, and I will deal with these as I go through the text.
First, I think I must briefly recall to your Lordships' House how the scheme is intended to work. I will then go on to describe the detailed provisions in the Bill and deal with some of the points of controversy which have been raised by
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critics of the Bill. We propose that there should be a set sum in a kitty or central fund and that authors should be paid out of that fund pro rata according to the borrowing of their books from local authority libraries. Authors will have to register their books with a Registrar of Public Lending Right, and in particular they will have to advise him of the International Standard Book Numbers which apply to their books. These ISBNs are a set of unique reference numbers which identify each edition of each book published and enable the scheme to be computerised. A sample of about 72 local authority libraries throughout the United Kingdom will be drawn randomly but with reference to the need to cover different types and areas. These libraries will have inserted in the books in their stock a machine readable coded form of the ISBN. Each time a book is borrowed from the sample it will be recorded by the library, and periodically a return of the data of borrowings will be sent to the Registrar. At the end of a stipulated period, probably 12 months, the Registrar will run the tapes of lendings against the computer file of books registered by authors, and so he will be able to compute the entitlement of payment per author for the period in question.
Turning to the text of the Bill itself, Clause 1 establishes the public lending right as the right of authors to be paid out of a central fund in respect of certain books lent out of public libraries in the United Kingdom. The books in question are those which will have been registered with a Registrar who will be appointed by the Secretary of State to operate the scheme. He will help to prepare the scheme in detail and play a part in the consultation of those likely to be affected by the scheme. I repeat the undertaking given on previous occasions, that we shall publish a consultation document on the scheme.
Clause 2 establishes the central fund out of which payments will be made to authors in respect of the public lending right. This is where the first and most important difference arises between this and previous versions of the Bill.
Clause 2(2) places an upper limit of £2 million on the annual liabilities of the fund. The previous Bill had a limit of £1 million. We must have a ceiling on the

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fund to ensure that there is parliamentary control over the total resources devoted to the scheme. But there is provision in Clause 2(3) for my right honourable friend the Secretary of State, with the consent of the Treasury, to increase the limit by order, subject to an Affirmative Resolution in another place.
Clause 2(4) provides that the expenses of administering the scheme, including the expenses of the library authorities involved, will be a first charge on the central fund. In the Explanatory Memorandum these expenses are estimated at £100,000 in the first 12 months, rising to £400,000 in the second 12 months, of the planning period, which will precede the introduction of the scheme. When the scheme is introduced and in full operation the running costs will be higher than in the planning period, and the provisional estimate is that these costs could be about £600,000. All these estimates are based on the original work of the Technical Investigation Group, which was set up by my predecessor as Minister for the Arts. Costs have risen since that group completed its work in 1975, and the estimates include an adjustment for that to present-day prices. But there could be some offsetting savings, too, since 1975. In particular, since the group reported more public libraries have installed computer equipment of their own and if that is compatible with the requirements of the scheme there will be lower costs on libraries in the sample and so there will be less to be reimbursed to them out of the central fund. This will, of course, mean that there will be more for authors. As it stands, the estimated benefit to authors has improved from £600,000 out of a £1 million fund to £1·4 million out of a £2 million fund, a very considerable improvement.
Lord HAWKE: My Lords, if the noble Lord will allow me to intervene, could he at that stage tell us what the individual authors are expected to get? Presumably the very prolific author will get a large sum out of which he will pay a large amount of tax, but the poor struggling author will get a much smaller sum. Has the noble Lord any idea how much these people are going to get?
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: My Lords, I deal with both
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these points in the remarks I have prepared. I would like to let it run and if the noble Lord is not satisfied I will answer him afterwards. I think I shall deal with both points fairly fully.
Clauses 2(5) and 2(6) are standard financial and accounting provisions.
Clause 3 requires the Secretary of State to prepare a draft of a scheme for the administration of public lending right and to lay it before Parliament. This draft can be the subject of debate in each House and is subject to the Affirmative Resolution procedure. The scheme will reflect the consultations foreshadowed in Clause 1, and will deal, for example, with the selection of the sample of libraries, the reimbursement of the expenses of the libraries in the sample, and the classes of book eligible for the right. If there are to be maximum and minimum cut-off limits in the scale of payments—the point the noble Lord was asking about—these will also be dealt with in the scheme. The clause provides for the scheme to be altered from time to time but only after due consultation. I should also draw your Lordships' attention to Clause 3(8), which provides for an annual report to be laid before both Houses of Parliament. This was an Amendment accepted by the Government at Report stage in another place. In partial answer, therefore, to the noble Lord, the question of cut-offs will be discussed in the discussion paper, and then put into the scheme which will come before both Houses of Parliament in the ordinary way.
Clause 4 provides for the register, which will constitute evidence whether a particular book shall be entitled to the right and to whom any payment is due. The Registrar has the duty of establishing and maintaining the register in accordance with the scheme. The onus of proving a claim to the satisfication of the Registrar falls on the applicant. Clauses 4(7) and 4(8) contain standard provisions as to the making of false statements knowingly and recklessly in connection with the entry of any matter whatsoever in the register. The Library Association have been very much exercised by these provisions, and after our meeting I was left with the impression that they were content with the explanation they had been given, but I now understand that I was over-sanguine.

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I understand that they have now reaffirmed their opposition to these provisions, so at least the misunderstanding about their attitude has been removed. I ought, therefore, to remove any doubt as to the Government attitude. It is that a provision of this kind, which appears in many other statutes, is desirable in this case. It makes the law clearer and easier to apply. It is extremely unlikely that a librarian would ever commit the offence, but there seems no reason why librarians alone should be specially exempted from a provision which must apply generally to any individual member of the public or body corporate that deliberately attempts to mislead the Registrar as to a material fact relevant to the authorship of a book, or its ISBN, or the entitlement of anyone to the payment of sums due. If one states the case in this way, I find the librarians' objection difficult to understand.
Clause 5 contains interpretation provisions. It also provides for the Bill to be brought into force on an appointed day. The Government are not yet in a position to announce that they are assured of the resources for public lending right and until they are it would be premature to start the preliminary processes set out in the Bill.
The Schedule sets out in the usual form the provisions for the Registrar and his staff, who will not be civil servants. The provisions have been amended to make it clear that it is for the Registrar, as the employer, to set the pay and conditions of his staff, subject to the approval of the Secretary of State and the Minister for the Civil Service. It is estimated that the Registrar will need about a dozen staff at first during the preparatory stages, when the computer system is being designed, the Register is being compiled and arrangements are being made with the libraries in the sample; and when the scheme is in full operation he will need about 35 to 40 staff. The Schedule has also been amended to provide that the Registrar shall be a Corporation Sole; that will ensure that any legal business is executed by him in his capacity as office holder and not in a personal capacity, so there will be no hiatus whenever there is a change in the holder of the office.
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There are a number of technical points which noble Lords may wish to raise and I shall endeavour to answer a few of them at the end of this debate. Some may be so detailed or technical that I may have to suggest that they are left over to the Committee stage. However, there are some points which I think I should deal with now.
Let me start with an article in the County Council Gazette for December of last year. The article was entitled "Public Lending Wrong" and it contrasted the loan-based principle in the Bill unfavourably with the so-called sales-based scheme preferred by some local authorities. I ought to explain that under a sales-based scheme, the public lending right payments would be calculated on the basis of sales by book-sellers and publishers to libraries, and not on actual loans of books by libraries.
First of all, the article says:
"The interests of novelists and biographers are being promoted to the detriment of writers and editors of reference books".
The Government have publicly undertaken to give priority to bringing books in reference sections within the scheme when that is practicable. I repeat that undertaking now. The Government fully recognise the merits of reference books and acknowledge that the general principle on which the Bill is founded ought to apply to authors of reference books. But we must face the fact that it is not practicable, within the resources that are likely to be available, and without an unacceptable degree of disruption of reference libraries, to apply PLR to books in reference sections. I say "books in reference sections" rather than "reference books" incidentally, because the distinction is not between reference books and other books but between those books which are lent out and those which are not.
The same article in the County Council Gazette goes on to say
"A PLR of this kind"—
they mean the loan-based kind—
"cannot accommodate multiple authors".
It can accommodate them and in the fullness of time I hope that it will. But the objections to taking on multiple authors apply equally to a sales-based scheme. The problem lies not in the

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collection of the data, whether this is done in libraries under the loan-based scheme or in publishers' and booksellers' premises under a sales-based scheme; the problem lies in the Registrar's office when he has to decide how much to allocate to each fraction of the authorship of a multi-author book. I do not rule out the possibility that a solution to this problem will be found during the consultation phase before the scheme is introduced. If so, splendid.
The article then says:
"A sales-based scheme offers greater justice to all authors".
It does nothing of the sort. It takes no account of books already in library stocks and books which are out of print but still borrowed by library users. It ignores the fluctuations in the market shares of booksellers and the specialist publishers, which would make it very difficult, if not impossible, to devise a statistically acceptable sample. And since a sales-based scheme would be based on the single act of sale of the book, it would take no account of the different extent to which books are borrowed. Some are lent out by libraries 40 times or more before they are replaced or rebound.
Finally, the article comments on the proposal to have a cut-off limit—this is the point which the noble Lord, Lord Hawke raised—to prevent very popular authors scooping the pool. It says:
"Where now is the precious principle of rewarding by level of use?".
Well, my Lords, of course any limitation on actual payment by number of times lent is a technical breach of the principle. But it is not one for which I propose to apologise. You might as well object in principle to the tie-break at Wimbledon. With the exception of the writer of the article under discussion, this proposal has met with universal approval. In all the discussions that we have had, we have been asked, as the noble Lord asked, what plans we had for a cut-off. We have always said that we thought that there ought to be one, but that it must be settled in the consultation paper and eventually in the scheme, and would not be included in the Bill.
Most of these arguments also apply to the so-called purchase-based scheme,
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which was considered by the Technical Investigation Group which studied PLR in 1974–75. As that group found, a purchase-based scheme would have to take data on purchases of books from all public library authorities to produce a reasonable set of statistics; but it would then be still no cheaper than, and statistically not as satisfactory as, a loan-based scheme which used a small sample of 72 library points.
My honourable friend the Minister of State undertook in another place that we would examine the possibility of excluding some foreign authors from the scheme, though with reciprocity to those countries which offered a public lending right to British authors. He also said—and I would re-emphasise the point—that this bristles with difficulties. We have examined this and we are continuing to do so, since we acknowledge that there may be a case in equity. But leaving aside the question whether there is scope for something on those lines within the powers given to the scheme under the Bill, there is the major difficulty that the savings which might be achieved in reducing the number of applications to register and the number of paying out transactions, could very well be very much less than the cost of the work which the Registrar—and the authors concerned—might incur if we tried to operate an exclusion which was fair and just, properly controlled and consistent with our international obligations. Further, I undertake to the House that we shall keep this under review and see if it is possible to operate a defensible distinction under the scheme. But I cannot promise at this stage that we shall be able to do so.
Some noble Lords were very keen on a previous occasion to extend the scope of the Bill beyond "books" to "works". But I am afraid that this would be quite impracticable. First of all, there is no standard unique numbering system for other articles lent out by libraries, such as records, cassettes, paintings and so forth, that would correspond to the International Standard Book Number for books. Without such a unique reference number it would be impossible to apply a computer to the calculation of the entitlement to the right. Secondly, the pattern of lending of articles other than books varies tremendously from library

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to library. This is another instance where it would not be possible to devise a sample that was statistically acceptable. So we should have to devise and apply a unique number system to these objects just for PLR and we should have to record all loans by all libraries, because a sample was impossible.
In addition to that, we should have the multi-author problem. Virtually all cassettes and records contain more than one performer. And then, over and above all those technical problems, there is the point that, while there is substantial lending of these items by libraries, it is nothing like the scale of lending of books which is, I think, something like 600 million a year. The case, however strong in principle, is numerically much weaker than it is with books and authors. This Bill is not framed to cope with lending of articles other than books and the state of technology is such that it will be some time before we could hope to devise a scheme that could cope with them.
There are two other fundamental issues of principle which I know worry some people about this Bill. The first is the suspicion that some people have that sooner or later libraries will be asked to bear some of the costs of the scheme. I think that that is really behind almost all the serious opposition to this scheme which comes largely from the librarians. Perhaps they will not get back their full administrative costs; perhaps they will be asked to impose a charge on borrowers; perhaps money will be allocated to the central fund which might otherwise have been allocated to the libraries to purchase books or help with their running costs. Categorical assurances have been given by the Government on all these points, both by me and by my right honourable friends in another place, and I gladly reaffirm those assurances. There is no question of a net final burden of this scheme being shifted on to libraries, either directly through inadequate compensation or indirectly through the diversion of resources which they would otherwise have had. In Clause 3(6) the Bill contains a specific provision as to reimbursement of libraries.
The second objection of principle is advanced by those who question whether this is a cost-effective way of helping authors. Is it really worth it to provide a
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payment which on average—and here, again, I give some answer to the question of the noble Lord, Lord Hawke—will amount to about £14 a year, ranging from a minimal sum for many to quite a useful maximum for others? Quite apart from the probability that a number of authors at the lower end will not bother to register—so the average sum may be higher than that, and there is the prospect that in the fullness of time the total sum available for distribution may indeed be increased—no one has ever claimed that this scheme will provide a new source of substantial income for authors. Very few authors expect to make a living from their books anyway. This Bill sets out to remedy an injustice as a matter of principle. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge.)
3.52 p.m.
The Earl of GOWRIE: My Lords, Members participating in this discussion on this Bill in another place were enjoined fairly severely by the Chair to declare their interests, as it seems that another place is swarming with authors who might benefit under the present Bill. I am afraid that in declaring my interest I must confess that I have to borrow a phrase which the noble Lord used towards the end of his speech and describe myself as an author "at the lower end", because I do not think that any great augmentation of my income will ensue from the passage of this Bill. However, I am the author of one book and the co-author of two other works.
As the Minister for the Arts told us, the Bill has had a star-crossed career. It has been in your Lordships' House twice before, and I think that that alone provides me with an excuse for being brief about it: we have been over the ground before. The noble Lord reminded us that on the two occasions when the Bill came to us, it came to us before it had to run the gauntlet of another place—we introduced it. It came to grief the first time because opponents of the Bill in another place insisted on prolonged debate at all stages; and the second time because the Government were in considerable difficulties, due to what is to my mind another costly and irrelevant measure, the legislation on devolution.

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The noble Lord might have added that substantially the same Bill secured Cabinet agreement under the last Conservative Government, thanks to the efforts of my honourable friend Mr. St. John-Stevas.
We may at least start, therefore, with the assumption that there is a measure of bipartisan agreement that the Bill should reach the Statute Book. However, as is so often the case where there is a measure of bipartisan agreement, individuals on both sides take exception to many of the provisions contained in the Bill. It is no secret that the most informed and formidable opposition to the Bill in another place was mounted by my honourable friends, Messrs. Sproat, Moate and Ridley. Incidentally, I must pay tribute to the command of English of my honourable friend Mr. Ridley. I thoroughly recommend noble Lords to read his objections to the Bill during the Commons Committee stage, for their style and wit. Your Lordships may guess from my own tone that I share some of the misgivings expressed.
The official Opposition welcomes the Bill and believes that it is time it reached the Statute Book. Yet many of us— myelf not least—find it highly unsatisfactory in many respects. Being in this ambiguous position, I am consoled a little, in that I detected that the noble Lord himself found it a less than perfect Bill in every way.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: My Lords, I did not wish to give any such impression.
The Earl of GOWRIE: My Lords, I am sure that the noble Lord did not wish to, but these psychological intuitions have ways of making themselves felt. Perhaps the principal objection to the Bill is that its stated aim—that of providing recompense to authors whose books are borrowed by the public—could have been achieved by simpler and less costly ways. Nor is this a simple disagreement about methods of administration; such have been taken up by various interested bodies including the librarians' associations and the like.
As we know so well in this country, the best laid plans of mice and men are filed away in a cabinet somewhere, and the high
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costs of administration of the scheme are surely in direct proportion to the low benefits which will accrue to the authors whom it is designed to benefit. The noble Lord the Minister mentioned the figure of £14. When we last debated this Bill, it was thought that it would be £12 per author.
A noble Lord: My Lords, inflation!
The Earl of GOWRIE: My Lords, exactly. It should be rather more than £14 if inflation is being allowed for. Let me elaborate these objections just a little. As the noble Lord told us, the present Bill determines payment to authors on samples of loans of books collected from approximately 70 public libraries. This information would be collected from computerised records in the same sample libraries—and I understand that that is a technology which has only recently become available—the cost of which would be reimbursed from the PLR fund. The scheme, including payments to authors, would be entirely financed from central Government funds, channelled through this new body—if you like, this new Quango—to the Registrar.
There are serious misgivings here. Participation by local authorities in the scheme would surely be patchy, and the results could therefore be so unrepresentative as to provide a rather unreliable basis for the distribution of payments to authors. Everyone admits that the comparatively small amount of money which the Government would be able to allocate to the scheme in the foreseeable future—and the noble Lord was very honest with us as to what was possible at any given time—would have to be used to a very considerable degree upon administration. The amount, therefore, remaining for distribution to most authors would be derisory.
The intention to base the whole scheme upon public libraries is unfair and unrepresentative. Millions of books are issued each year from school and university libraries, Government libraries, even a Library in your Lordships' House, industrial libraries and other institutions. If the principle of an author's right is to exist, why should it be restricted to public libraries? To base payments upon issue figures is unlikely—and this point has been made many times—to reward the

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authors who are most in need of payment. Even with a ceiling placed upon the amount any given author can receive—and I understand that that has not yet been agreed—the highest payments will be made to the best known and most popular authors. Although this might be regarded as justified, there is surely a stronger case for using public funds to supplement the income of newer or more experimental writers, or those who base their books upon long and expensive research.
We should also remember that there are many creators of thoroughly worthy books which are extremely infrequently borrowed from libraries, and it is obvious that such authors—perhaps even the majority of authors—would reap greater benefits from the principle, for example, that they should be rewarded to the extent to which libraries stock their books. Certain types of book—for example, those of a highly specialised nature—are purchased predominately by non-public libraries, by specialist institutions. Authors of such books would benefit under an alternative proposal, but under the present Government's proposals they benefit not at all. Again, the authors and compilers of reference books would receive no benefit under the proposals to date and many believe that this is thoroughly inequitable and unfair.
I follow the Minister entirely in saying that we cannot always make perfect provisions for every interested group, but the noble Lord did say that the main point of this Bill was to establish a principle of equity. So one of our objections is that the principle itself is not very fully drawn up within the Bill.
To these practical and detailed objections we can, and I personally believe we should, add a philosophical objection, though I think it is philosophical only in the sense of commanding us to think something through with precision, not in the sense of being impractical or airy-fairy.
The logic of current events, and I think the trend of informed comment upon them, is that you cannot run a welfare or service economy without high taxation, high productivity, a high degree of centralised planning and control over prices and incomes, and a high level of political consent. You could, of course,
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obtain the latter by force. Now in Britain none of these forces is working in a smooth, propulsive way—pushing our ship of state through choppy seas, as it were. We have high taxation, low productivity, high centralised planning, and low control over prices and incomes: a thoroughly combustible mixture; an explosion indeed of incompatible forces; and the spark is provided by our adversary party political system, and a very low degree of political consent.
So we can either go in the direction of greater centralised control over the whole economy, which must include the standard of life and to some extent the cultural habits and choices of people, or we must severely restrict the role of Government in the economy and cease to enjoy the damaging fallacy that the interests of the State and the interests of the people are the same. At present we suffer the worst of both worlds and the effects are everywhere apparent.
I make no apology for making the rather philosophical point because the present Bill is a perfect example of the worst of both worlds. Authors by universal agreement will benefit very little, and such benefit as they do receive could be augmented by direct reimbursement of the Government at much less administrative cost than the present scheme. The chief beneficiaries will be authors who are already very rich, or foreign, or both. The public will not benefit. The Treasury will not benefit. A new Quango will benefit. However impeccably administered, however responsible are its tetrahedrons, if these are the limbs that Quangos have, the Quango will benefit.
In sum, the Bill is a perfect mish-mash of muddled good intentions; a perfect little microcosm of the muddied and muddled compromises which characterise our mixed economy. The Government are committed to it because they have alread lost it twice and they are anxious not to look too foolish in the eyes of authors and intellectuals who are often assumed, I do not quite know why, to be vocal supporters of Labour. The Opposition are committed to it because we too wanted to cut a dash in authors' eyes when we were last in Government and because, to be fair, we do not wish now to renege on an earlier commitment.

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When the authors themselves have experienced the practical effects of this legislation, they will, I am sure, feel cheated and aggrieved. The position is therefore deeply unsatisfactory, and having to commend something to your Lordships in which I have so little confidence is one of the less pleasant tasks that I have had since working in Parliament. I am, however, consoled in the task by two considerations. One is that the Government, the promoters, after all, of the Bill, share at least some of my misgivings. In Standing Committee in another place the Minister of State said—and I think our rules allow me to quote a Minister—
"What the Government are saying on this Public Lending Right Bill is that we have to learn to crawl before we walk. This is a crawling attempt to do justice to a section of the community which has provided a great deal of interest and entertainment and has received no money for its pains in the past. It is not perfect. There are inequitable matters in the scheme. There is no doubt about that".
My Lords, it is my intention—I cannot of course speak for my noble friends behind me—not to make Amendments at Committee stage. As the noble Lord the Minister said, we have in substance been over this ground before. The Opposition believes that the Bill should reach the Statute Book this Session, and because this Session is, thank goodness, constitutionally limited in duration the best thing would be for us to hurry it through fairly quickly. The best thing would be to let the Bill operate for sufficient time for the principle of equitable treatment of authors to be accepted—and that principle I endorse—in order that the inequities in practice which I have mentioned can be thoroughly shown up.
Lord DAVIES of LEEK: My Lords, will the noble Earl allow me to intervene? It has been an interesting macrocosmic analysis of a microcosmic problem. I am grateful that at the end he admitted that it is a pragmatic thing, and, after we pass it, time and trial will find an answer from both sides of the House. Why take so long over it?
The Earl of GOWRIE: My Lords, I am not taking very long over it. I have been 12 minutes, and I would have been finished by now if the noble Lord had not inter-rupted me. The difficulty that both sides find themselves in here is that they have
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accepted a principle of equity which in my contention is inequitable in practice. I have mentioned one consolation. The other consolation is that under the provisions of the Bill the practical workings-out fall within the scheme. In my view this scheme will not work very effectively, but we will at least, on another day, and no doubt under another Government, be able to come back and modify it.
4.6 p.m.
Lord McNAIR: My Lords, it is a pleasure to thank the Minister for shepherding us through the complexities of this matter, which I thought he did with tremendous clarity. I must repeat the declaration of interest which I made on an earlier occasion, although the more time passes the smaller my interest seems to become. It is nice to see one or two new names on the speakers' list, but most of us have indeed been here before. What is quite new, and what I shall chiefly concentrate on for a few minutes, is the different tactical context of the changed parliamentary situation. This time it has passed through all its stages in the other place. It slipped through that other place as smoothly as an overgrown camel negotiating the eye of a rusty needle, but it did get through and I pay my tribute to those who saw it through. They had to display a degree of patience which even in this House would have been remarkable.
If my understanding of the legislative process is correct this means that we only have to pass it through this House unamended to be certain of its enactment. "Unamended" is the key word, and perhaps the only thing in the speech of the noble Earl which I really liked was his statement that he was not going to move any Amendments; perhaps not the only thing—that is unfair—but the thing I liked best. If the Bill were perfect, this desirability of passing it unamended would present no problems, but of course it is not perfect. It is extremely unsatisfactory, for example, that all the more interesting and debatable issues remain to be settled in the scheme which the Secretary of State will prepare and which, as I understand it, we will have no chance to alter. Is that correct?
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: My Lords, with respect, not quite. The scheme will be set out in the

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form of a consultative document, which will have no powers in it, for discussion. Anybody who wishes can discuss this wherever they want, and that includes your Lordships' House. If you like to discuss the consultative document before it becomes a scheme, we have the right to do so through the usual channels. Once it has become a scheme, it then has to be either agreed or rejected in the ordinary course of Statutory Instruments.
Lord McNAIR: My Lords, I am grateful, and I apologise for my misunderstanding. These matters are the most interesting things: reference books; multiple authorships; translations; posthumous registration; and the cut-off point above which the most borrowed authors will get no more.
The Earl of GOWRIE: My Lords, just before the noble Lord leaves that point, may I say that I do not think that the Minister answered him quite correctly. Is it not the case that the scheme can be dealt with only by the House of Commons and not by your Lordships' House?
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: Absolutely not, my Lords.
The Earl of GOWRIE: It says so in the Bill, my Lords, I refer the Minister to page 3.
Lord McNAIR: Perhaps I had better get on, my Lords. I was talking about the cut-off points—the maximum which the most-borrowed authors will be able to take and the minimum below which payment would be considered uneconomic—in other words, those who will bang their heads on the lintel and those who will stub their toes on the threshold. All those and other arguable points I hope we shall have a chance to discuss in this House, otherwise there will be nothing for it for authors but to trust their chosen, elected representatives, and that, as a member of the Society of Authors, I certainly do. I would make one suggestion, namely that it might be no bad thing if the Society and other bodies concerned were to circulate a questionnaire covering a few of the problems which are a matter of principle rather than of technicalities to discover the views of their members.
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I say once more that we have only to pass the Bill, such as it is, unamended, and we shall have it; to parody the language of the more depraved journalists, we face a half-a-loaf-is-better-than-no-bread situation. If any of our opponents—I think there are one or two—try to frighten your Lordships with the argument that this is just the thin end of a wedge, my answer would be, yes, it is a very thin end of a wedge, but a wedge which we intend to drive home with all the strength which our knowledge of the justice of our cause gives us. Let us get this enacted now, and then, when we have the scheme, we can settle down to a long campaign to persuade future Secretaries of State, perhaps yet unborn, to vary it and to vary it for the better.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: My Lords, perhaps I may clarify the answer which I gave the noble Lord, Lord NcNair, indirectly. I have now found the place in the Bill; it is under Clause 3(1), where it is made quite clear that the scheme must receive the Affirmative Resolution of both Houses.
4.12p.m.
Lord SNOW: My Lords, I must apologise for not being in my place at the beginning of the debate. That was not entirely my fault; it was a failure in communication which I shall not retail. I came here feeling rather more cheerful than I normally do, since I thought that just for once a tiny piece of useful work was going to be done, admittedly imperfectly, on a problem which is not going to affect much of the nation but which, nevertheless, will give some mild satisfaction and relief to a few not particularly harmful citizens.
However, when I came in in the middle of the speech of the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, I found that that was very far from the case, and I must say that my spirits became about the same colour as the sky outside. In fact, I would remind the noble Earl of Bleak House, because I felt he would have made an admirable participant in the proceedings of Jarndyce v Jarndyce. If he were the only villain in this piece I should feel inclined to weary him with a long speech—a speech about the same length as the proceedings in Jarndyce v Jarndyce—just to show him

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how ingenious men can be in avoiding any kind of conclusion to any kind of activity. But that would be unfair, he is only one among so many, and let us leave it at that. I shall have some words with him privately.
I wish to be much more brutal and businesslike and for once I want to talk to your Lordships like someone with some experience of what literary life is like. The economics of literary life are very curious; as the Americans say, it is either feast or famine. A certain number of people in modern conditions make enormous incomes, incomes larger than major industrialists. The majority of writers, however, including good writers, make rather less than a dustman. That is the position. I cannot grumble; I make more than a dustman. Some writers, some good and some very good, make incomes of enormous size, and obviously they do not need help. The whole purpose, I take it, of an imperfect Bill with all kinds of unsatisfactory features is simply to do a little for the people, worthy professional people, often talented, for whom we cannot provide in any other way.
The reason for this accentuation of the difference between the extremely prosperous and the unprosperous is due to various technical developments of the last 40 or 50 years. These are not really technological, although that comes into it, but relate more to the skills in organisation and marketing which make it possible to distribute millions of books if one can find a market for them. That is where some people obtain a great public and a great income.
Whatever one does, for a certain number of writers all that apparatus is absolutely useless. In my life I have met, I think, four people who were all of really high talent. about my own age, plus or minus three or four years either way, and who never made more than £400 or £500 a year—and remember that income has not altered much with inflation. It is rather like the income of high ecclesiastics; almost the only income which has not to some extent been compensated for to meet inflation. Unsuccessful writers are therefore still getting about the same number of pounds they would have got 30 or 40
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years ago. That is one reason why a number of us are really deeply concerned, if it is remotely possible, to do something to give them a faint chance of standing themselves an occasional drink.
All methods of distributing money to writers are totally unsatisfactory. This has been gone into time and again. They can be given grants, but that is highly subjective and is nearly always very unsuccessful in cost-effective terms, and it is subject to all kinds of personal animosities and so on. They can be given prizes and they can be given advances; publishers often do that and they have lost a lot of money in the process.
We are considering the only way, to the best of my knowledge, that anyone has been able to discover which is reasonably objective, which is not subject to any of the difficulties of personality and which has some faint relationship to common sense. Noble Lords need not worry about the statistical arguments; we should know by now that we are very good at sampling, something which has improved immensely over the last 20 or 30 years.
Hence, I recommend the Bill to your Lordships with some violence, as noble Lords can see from my unaccustomed tone. I think it will do a little good. It will certainly not do any harm. It will give a little cheer to people who, unless one thinks writers should be exterminated, deserve what cheer we can give them. As for the Jarndyce v.Jarndyce arguments, I confess they do not seem to be worthy of the occasion. This matter has been going on for more than 30 years, which is a fairly long time even for a Chancery case in the 19th century. Good and generous men tried to represent the case, patiently arguing with everyone they could find. The father of one of the persons who has been most actively concerned in the contemporary campaign was a leading figure 30 years ago; A. P. Herbert was another leading figure. Many people have given the matter time and thought—not for their own ends because it did not matter much to them but it mattered quite a lot to the people whom they were trying, in vain, to help. As I say, it has been going on for 30 years. Thirty years is a long time, my Lords, and it is time that we did something now and put a stop to the present situation.
4.21 p.m.
Viscount ECCLES: My Lords, I have a small interest to declare. The royalties from my books kept me in tea and coffee— nothing more—and if the Bill is passed, I might receive an extra pound or two. As noble Lords have already said, we are back again discussing how we can put authors in the way of earning a better reward for their labours, and I quite agree with the noble Lord, Lord Snow, that this is a very old and important problem. We need good books as much as we need the best work of all artists and craftsmen, and the present poverty of many good writers hurts. It hurts because it is relative, and it hurts because it is real. It is high time to do something about it, but, as my noble friend hinted, the Bill does not provide a respectable solution—far from it! It is an unfair, humiliating and ridiculously expensive mouse.
Why did the other place send us such a bad Bill? First, it was because honourable and right honourable Members are tired of looking for a respectable solution; and, secondly, as there is a General Election in the offing, they were anxious to keep authors quiet. It is easier for us in this House to protest against the bad features of a temporary political Bill, and I intend to do so and to offer your Lordships one or two suggestions as to how we might get the authors a better deal at less expense to the taxpayer.
No one really knows whether authors were ever adequately paid. What we do know is that English literature is the richest and most profound in the world, and we want to keep it that way. In the great days, standards were high and far fewer books were published, but it is very different now. There are many more authors and many more books. One reason for this is that universities used to be geared to teaching and the dons produced a few books by way of a hobby. But it is the other way round now: producing books is their main business, and teaching suffers—how much I do not know, but probably quite a good deal. Before the war, about 10,000 titles were published a year, and the statistics show what has happened since. In 1978 (last year), 38,700 titles were published—2,500 more than in the previous year, which was itself a record. Sales are
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equally buoyant. In 1977, total book sales at £450 million were 18per cent. above 1976, and sales in the first half of 1978 were 10 per cent. above the first half of 1977. Paperbacks, as your Lordships know, have triumphantly broken through the £1 barrier.
Yet, despite this real boom and bearing in mind the handful of exceptions to which the noble Lord, Lord Snow, referred, most authors' royalties are said not to amount to £1,000 a year; and you cannot live on £1,000 a year. On the other hand, this is not a new situation. In the past, very few authors whose works we still read lived only on the proceeds of writing. They had another bread and butter job, or a rich spouse, or private means, and some of them still do today. But since the expansion of higher education there are far more authors who wish to live only by writing, and their relative poverty is a hard, inescapable fact. They have lost out in the financial scramble. In three months a lorry driver earns as much as many of the best known non-fiction writers earn in a year or more, and these self-employed authors have no Transport and General Workers' Union to bully the publishers or blackmail the public. Their legitimate hope seemed to lie in a public lending right calculated on the borrowings of their books from libraries. But, when a method of implementing this right is brought to Parliament, let us remember that authors want money as well as justice; and the Bill does not give them a fair measure of either.
The right now proposed is a mutilated right. It is one which is not going to be fairly assessed, as I shall show in a moment; nor is it capable of producing for the average author annual payments sufficient to buy his family one good Sunday lunch. This is thin justice indeed. The right does not extend to all mono-graphs, reference books, articles, et cetera; nor does it cover all the libraries from which books can be borrowed. A genuine public lending right, paid for by the taxpayer, would be unacceptably expensive. We all know that. But are the costs of even this truncated right acceptable to your Lordships? As the Minister has already said, when the Secretary of State introduced the Bill, she increased the estimate for the Quango when it is

1011
in full blast to £600,000 a year. What will the figure be when the scheme is operating, when we have this Quango with its large staff and with its obligation to repay the local authorities all expenses that they can properly attribute to the scheme? I think that if we put the figure at three-quarters of a million pounds we shall not be far wrong—in which case the average payment works out at between £10 and £12 a year subject to tax. My Lords, it is—
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: If the noble Viscount is to speak in opposition to our statement, which has been extremely carefully worked out, that we think the cost will be about £600,000, I think that he ought to say more than that it had better be put at £150,000 higher.
Viscount ECCLES: I should be delighted to do that, my Lords; I am simply taking the existing claims of local authority staff and workpeople, and am bearing in mind that the cost of everything that everyone uses—paper, telephones, and everything else—is going up. Does the Minister not think that in two years—which will be the period from when the figure of £600,000 was calculated—we shall have a figure of £750,000? If he prefers £700,000, I really do not mind; but there is bound to be a very large increase on the Secretary of State's estimate. It is shameful to put on the Statute Book a scheme under which half the beneficiaries will receive less than the cost of assessing and paying their benefits; and that is what your Lordships are asked to do.
I must say a few words about the method of assessment, because here I do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Snow. In the public library system in the United Kingdom, books can be borrowed from 13,500 points of issue, and the fair way to translate into cash for the authors all the loans from that enormous network is to charge the borrower 1p, 2p or 3p every time he or she takes out a book. That was Miss Brophy's first idea—and a very good idea, too—but it could never be a starter so long as all the political Parties were dead against charges for borrowing. So a scheme based on a different principle had to be hatched; and the Government now
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propose to sample 72 points of issue out of the 13,500—roughly one in 200. Yet, my Lords, we all know that libraries are different: their stocks are different; some keep one author's books, some keep another author's books, and in different quantities; and their readers' tastes differ according to the special interest of the region in which they live and the quality of the library service in that particular region.
The Government, knowing full well, whatever the Minister may say, how inaccurate this sample is going to be, tell us that they will frequently change the composition of the sample. Very well; your Lordships will observe that it will take 200 years to include once only every point of issue in a sample of 72, and we may suppose that in half that time most authors and their copyrights will be dead. Be that as it may, this hit-or-miss performance must favour the most popular fiction writers, whose novels are widely distributed, but they may not be the people who are really in need of money. Many serious and local authors will either be missed out altogether in the first dozen samples, let us say, or the number of their borrowings will be seriously under-estimated. Justice is sacrificed to expediency in a manner which I hope does not commend itself to your Lordships.
Now I have to say a word about the libraries. The libraries are not looking forward to this sampling procedure. They can see the trouble coming from authors who have been badly treated because they are not included in the first dozen samples—that is 12 years. They also want one or two Amendments made, but I am not sure we should try to amend this Bill. However, I ask your Lordships to understand the feelings of librarians and local authorities. Our public libraries are easily the best in the world. Their buildings, their stocks and, above all, their staff can stand comparison anywhere; and the librarians have every right to be proud of the service which they give to the public and, in consequence, to the writers of books whose works are on their shelves. But we have to act realising that their great success is both an advantage and a disadvantage to authors.
The number of copies of a new book which libraries will buy has become

1013
predictable. Publishers have a good idea when institutional buying will cover the costs of a hard-back edition, which is one big reason why publishers have been able recently to raise the price of hard-back books so much. Given this predictable market, publishers have accepted and are accepting many manuscripts which would otherwise never see the light of day. Library purchases have therefore been of incalculable value to a growing number of authors.
Then comes the disadvantage, however. Once the book is the property of the library, it can be borrowed free of charge. The author has no right to tell the library what to do with its own property, but the author feels that in justice he should be paid something when it is borrowed—and we here agree with that view of the author. That is our problem, because it is a fact that the system of publication, book-selling and book-borrowing, taken as a whole, results in very low rewards for authors of undoubted merit. Looking at their situation in perspective, we see that authors are a section of the self-employed, who in recent years have fared so badly alongside professional and industrial groups. Authors, I think, are usually in that stratum of society which has been pulverised by inflation, by socialist taxation and by organised labour. Our society is not going to remain healthy and creative unless we deliberately discriminate in favour of the self-employed.
Some countries are doing this already, by means of tax reliefs. For authors, we also have the choice of several other methods. First, and by far the simplest thing to do, borrowers could be charged when they take out a book.
Lord DAVIES of LEEK: My Lords, may I interrupt for one second? I find this very hard, remembering my student days and other people in the same situation. The librarians were sometimes so kind to us when, being in the sixth form, we wanted to borrow advanced textbooks, and things like that. If students are to be expected to pay, it will be against all the educational aims of both sides of the House, I should think.
Viscount ECCLES: My Lords, I have had something to do with education, and
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I have always supported no charges for borrowing; but if you take that view you are in great difficulty in finding a satisfactory way to help authors. If it were not so, we should have had this Bill or another Bill years ago.
The second thing, which has already been mentioned, is that authors could be paid a bonus on the purchases by libraries of their books. That has the benefit that the booksellers and the publishers could keep the accounts, and that would save the taxpayer a lot of money, That is, as a matter of fact, what the Association of Metropolitan Authorities are now asking us to do. Thirdly, the Government could provide a fund out of which an independent body could make grants to authors.
Lord PAGET of NORTHAMPTON: My Lords, perhaps the noble Viscount would permit me to interrupt him, because I feel it is of interest. If an author does not want a library to lend his book, he does not have to sell it to the library. Equally, he can sell it with conditions. I have a book here with this condition of sale:
"This book is sold subject to the condition it shall not by way of trade or otherwise be lent".
Why should you reward an author for entering into a perfectly free bargain when the person to whom he sells it uses it for the purpose for which it was sold?
Viscount ECCLES: My Lords, I must tell the noble Lord that I have not met many authors who do not want their books to be read, and borrowing means reading. If he has met some, then he has had more experience than I have had.
I was just saying that, in relation to a fund of this kind the public interest is not to have more books—we really have a mass of titles published today—but to have good books. It is quite possible that a fund which helped young authors, and authors whose research takes a very long time, would do a considerable amount of good. Any of those three methods, either singly or in combination, would in my opinion be a lot better than that proposed in this spendthrift Bill. If the Government care about public expenditure—and in present circumstances they must care about public expenditure—they ought

1015
to take this Bill away and bring in another based on a sounder principle, but I fear they are too apprehensive about the coming Election; and I do not suppose that any noble Lord will divide the House on Second Reading. If he did, I would support him in the Lobby.
I do not think the Bill is very easy to amend because we have not got in the Bill those details which the noble Lord, Lord McNair, and other noble Lords spoke about, which are precisely the things which one would want to amend. If, as seems quite possible, the scheme should come back to your Lordships' House in a form in which we must say "Yes" or "No", and if the form of that scheme is as we must envisage it today, then I think your Lordships should throw it out.
Lord KILMARNOCK: My Lords, I made my maiden speech on the Second Reading of Lord Willis' Public Lending Rights Bill almost exactly two years ago, on 15th February, 1977. That, of course, in itself is not a good reason for making another Second Reading speech on the same subject, but during those two years I have joined the "Short Speeches Club" and shall not be detaining your Lordships for very long. My position on the principle of the Bill is quite clear. I am grateful to the Government for taking it back under their wing and for finding time for it. I hope that it will receive a Second Reading this afternoon and pass rapidly through its remaining stages. The Bill, as the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, has told us, will when it becomes an Act be only the precursor of the scheme which the Secretary of State is enjoined to lay before Parliament under Clause 3(1). Without the scheme, the Act will be a mere husk. The noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, has been good enough to promise us a consultative document and this is the last chance, as I understand it, that we shall have for influencing the draft scheme—which we shall then simply either have to accept or reject.
On these grounds, I do not think it is inappropriate this afternoon to refer briefly to the scheme. The Department of Education and Science commissioned an investigation of the technical and cost aspects which was published in 1975.
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In Appendix D of their report, the technical investigation group described a pilot survey for the loan-based scheme. Using a broad sample of authors, this yielded a top payment per £1 million available for distribution of £1,261. This sum would have gone to an author coming under the heading "Adult fiction, Popular, Current". The highest score under books for children stood at £385 and, under "Adult, non-fiction", at £113. These figures might have given some of the answers that the noble Lord, Lord Hawke, was seeking; but I see he is not in his place.
In its final report in paragraph 16 the technical investigation group summed up as follows:
"A small proportion of authors would be entitled to relatively large payments and a relatively large share of the amount available for distribution, a large proportion of authors would receive modest payments and another large proportion would have small or zero entitlements".
A good deal of play was made in another place with the absurdity of paying out over £1,000 to authors who did not need it and a derisory £2 or £3 to others to whom such minute sums would make no difference at all. But there are remedies for this.
The report tells us in paragraph 63 that there is no technical difficulty in limiting the maximum entitlement; and the prescribed maximum entitlement could be altered at will. If a best-selling author gets £1,000 he will pay United Kingdom tax on it at a very high rate—so that, to this extent, the scheme would be partly self-financing—or he will export it to a tax haven. Surely it cannot be the Government's intention to use the fund for either of these purposes! We are also told in paragraph 64:
"The cost of making very small payments could exceed the costs of the payment itself".
This, I think, was one of the points touched on by the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles.
I said that there were remedies. The first type is voluntary. In the Second Reading debate in another place on 10th November last year, Mr. Clement Freud suggested that those—like himself—who wrote books that sold might consider returning their PLR entitlement to the fund for the encouragement of new authors. I would reciprocate from the

1017
other end of the scale. If I became entitled to £2 or £3 for the couple of books of mine that are in print, I would prefer to plough back my entitlement into the fund so that somebody else might get enough to buy a much-needed reference book or even a new typewriter or a camera. Authors need tools for their trade.
But, my Lords, there is an even better remedy which is that this principle should be embodied in the scheme. I, therefore, feel that there should be a lower limit below which the Registrar would not be required to make payments. It could be £5, it could be £10. I think it should be somewhere in that region. It is partly a question of administrative convenience. And I do not think that he should be required to carry such sums forward; they should be ploughed back. Also it is my firm conviction that there should be an upper limit. So long as the whole fund is limited to £2 million—from which at least £600,000 (and the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, has made a higher calculation) must, it seems, be deducted for operational costs—I believe that £500 is the correct figure for the upper limit. Of course, it can be argued that inflation is likely to make serious inroads into such a sum by the time it becomes payable. But I am still convinced that the aim must be to benefit the hard-working author in the middle rank, so far as earnings go, and not to fritter away money where it is surplus to need or where the sums are too small to be worth distributing. The upper limits can always be increased if experience shows this to be desirable and the fund allows. It will be much more difficult to reduce the maximum once it has been set.
With a fund of the size that we are talking about, entitlement should be contained within a lower limit of £5 or £10 and an upper limit of £500. I urge the Government to take these considerations very seriously into account when drafting their scheme. I conclude by stressing that nothing I have said is at variance with the Bill as drafted and I hope that your Lordships will give it a Second Reading this afternoon.
4.48 p.m.
Lord HUTCHINSON of LULLING-TON: My Lords, I think I am the first
1018
noble Lord to take part in this debate who cannot find an interest to declare. In my humble opinion, this is an historic day not only for authors, not only for literature, but also for the noble Lord, the Minister. Eight previous Bills have foundered in the rough seas of hostility or the calm eddies of calculated in-difference. Somehow my noble friend the Minister for the Arts has launched this Bill, has kept it afloat; and now it is for noble Lords to see it safely into harbour. As an old sailor, I appreciate the special, sensitive skill with which the Minister has carried out this operation. Some of his predecessors revealed certain obtuse "land-lubbernesses" in conducting previous attempts to get this Bill on to the Statute Book—and perhaps that was the cause of some of them going on the rocks. But to enshrine the principle of public lending rights in legislation is, in my opinion, to erect a milestone on the road to Society's recognition of the role of the writer in its midst. It is (is it not?) an extraordinary fact that for over 100 years local authorities have recognised and accepted the obligation to provide literature free to the ratepayers. The free library service has provided an outlet for thousands of books of every kind and the free library service is, indeed, the manifestation of that part of the chartered duty of the Arts Council of Great Britain to increase the accessibility of the arts to the public.
Yet, in the second part of that duty, to develop the understanding and the practice of the arts, there the support of local authorities, with a very few notable exceptions, is still so weak as to be blocking the explosion in the arts which could now happen any day and which could provide the ordinary ratepayer with the excitement and the pleasures that the arts can provide. Perhaps the passage of this Bill will go some way to convincing local authorities that if it was not for the genius and talents of the author—talents and genius unique to him or her—there would be no volumes on the shelves of the libraries which they administer.
The noble Lord, Lord Redcliffe-Maud, in his report in 1976, pointed out that the sum spent on the free library service exceeded the total central Government support for the arts. Yet it has taken a

1019
quarter of a century of unremitting effort for central Government to recognise and acknowledge the simple justice of the author's right to a modest financial reward for his own creation on which the whole of the service depends. The opposition to this Bill has come hitherto mostly from the libraries and from the AMA at their behest.
Speaking for myself, what was said this afternoon in opposition by the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, and the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, seemed to me—if I may use the phrase—somewhat jaundiced and ungenerous. Surely, here is at last an attempt, as has already been pointed out, to begin to give some recognition to the author. The £2 million of course in the future can always be increased. Does it really matter that the rewards will be reasonably low, that no doubt the greater rewards will go to the more successful writers? What does it matter if the principle can be established? Surely one will acquit the Minister and the Government of having brought this Bill in at this moment because of their fear that the authors might not be on their side at a General Election. If that is really so, then indeed it is a compliment to the power of the written word, the power and position that authors now hold in society—and I must say that it has given me a great deal of pleasure to see those views coming from the other side of this House.
The importance of this Bill is not only as an act of justice to authors, but public recognition of the fact that in the patronage of the arts, whether it is the great national companies or whether it is the arts centres, orchestras, theatres or galleries, that it is ultimately the artist who underpins the whole operation. In welcoming this Bill, I should like to pay tribute to those who have led this battle over the past 25 years: John Brophy, Alan Herbert—who has already been mentioned—Brigid Brophy, Maureen Duffy, my noble friend Lord Willis, the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, and, in another place, Mr. Norman St. John Stevas and also, in a modest way, to the Arts Council of Great Britain. It is a great day, as I said when I opened these few words that I wish to contribute to this debate, for literature, and it is a great day, in my submission, for the
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Minister who is the first Minister, we all hope, successfully to bring a Public Lending Right Bill on to the Statute Book.
4.55 p.m.
Lord DIGBY: My Lords, I speak with some slight knowledge of libraries as I was a chairman of a county councillibraries committee for some years, and I am now a member of the committee of the Association of County Councils which deals with libraries. They are the people who will have to operate this scheme. I must tell you, my Lords, the Association of County Councils and the librarians do, as you have heard already, have some reservations about the scheme, particularly about the manpower requirement and the costs. I know that we are assured that the Exchequer will reimburse all costs, but the country are still paying these and we want to get good value for money.
This must be the fourth Public Lending Right Bill to be presented to Parliament. I must congratulate the sponsors on their tenacity. They have obviously learnt the lesson: "If at first you don't succeed try, try again." That is a principle we forget too much in our modern, compassionate world; so concerned are we with the under-privileged that we often forget to teach them how to help themselves. The authors have certainly fought. It is lucky for the authors that the present minority Government, being incapable of passing major legislation, has time for many less controversial Bills, but this is the luck that rewards determination. However, we must look at the reasons why this measure has had such a difficult passage when a large majority of both Houses are agreed that it is desirable.
Of course the reason is that this Bill provides so little for authors for so much cost. In the last Bill the taxpayers were finding £1 million and the authors getting £600,000. This Bill doubles the cost to the taxpayer and the authors will get £1,400,000. That is better for the authors but is not so good for the taxpayers. But the total expenses are 30 per cent.—
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: My Lords, just for accuracy, it did not double the cost to the taxpayers, it put it up by 50 per cent., from £400,000 to £600,000.
Lord DIGBY: My Lords, that is the cost of the administration. The total cost to the taxpayer is £2 million rather than £1 million. That is what I meant and I think is what the Chancellor of the Exchequer will understand. What I was going to say was that if I had to subscribe to a charity where 30 per cent. was going on expenses, I would think very hard and I am wondering whether the taxpayers feel the same. Cost-effectiveness must be the key to considering this Bill. The ACC in the past had advocated a purchase-based scheme rather than a loan-based one. This idea was demolished by the working party which assured us that it would cost just as much.
Therefore the Association have dropped this plan but we have been investigating a sales-based scheme. We are suggesting a scheme based on the records of the small number of firms which sell books mainly to public libraries. By concentrating data collection from those few points of sale which account for the major sales to the library market, this scheme would be the fairest method yet devised of rewarding authors and the most economic in administrative costs. It would also bring in the multiple use of reference works. It could easily be done in this way. The firms concerned are very large and in the main computerised. Therefore the information required could be obtained very cheaply. The noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, suggested that a sales-based scheme would not help authors of existing books. If books are lent a lot they have to be replaced and therefore existing authors would benefit that way. Records are there and there is no reason why these matters should not be backdated to the date of the passing of the Bill rather than the date of the scheme to bring in books that have been published recently. I gather from the tone of the House that they are hoping there will not be Amendments at Committee stage, but I hope to table Amendments on these lines in order to elaborate what could be done in the hope that, even at this late hour, we could get a rather cheaper way of administering this scheme.
Of course, the present scheme is not intended to deal with reference books: that is because of expediency and due to the difficulty of obtaining data. It is
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hardly fair, but when this Bill reaches the Statute Book I am sure there will be pressures to include reference libraries. It will be very difficult to resist them and the case made would be fair: but if they were included it would of course, further increase the costs and dilute the rewards.
I should like to turn now to another aspect of the Bill. In another place there was much discussion about payment of PLR to authors who reside abroad in order to escape our penal taxation, or perhaps even to get away from the sort of winter we are having at the moment. The Government indicated they would give further thought to this, and I note that the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, is still thinking. I must confess I am in two minds over this. It would be very unfair to discriminate, but it is quite likely that large amounts will go to authors whose incomes are already so large that they have great reasons to go to some sunny tax haven. I note that the noble Lord, Lord Snow, has resisted that temptation, but I think his reward is in the privilege of living in this country, which despite all our problems is still the most civilised in the world, rather than in any gain from this Bill. Certainly if I am sensible I shall in future swell the incomes of authors by borrowing more books from libraries rather than reading all the stuff provided for us by the Printed Paper Office.
5.3 p.m.
Baroness LEE of ASHERIDGE: My Lords, this is a ridiculous Bill, and from the general tenor of the debate in this House I think that the great majority of Members on all sides agree with me that it is a ridiculous Bill. Nevertheless, I shall vote for it and I was glad to hear that Her Majesty's Opposition will not move Amendments; so we can look forward to a poor little mouse of a Bill going back to the other place unamended because, small though it is, it is a flag in the wind—such a very small flag—and it does mean that we are beginning to establish certain very essential principles.
It is 15 years after the first occasion on which I had to look at the possibility of authors' rights. At that time, or shortly afterwards, the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, was chairman of the Arts Council and I was Minister for the Arts. In the teeth of total opposition from the

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senior staff in the Ministry of Education and Science, we worked out a scheme and we took that scheme to our Ministers, particularly to the Treasury Ministers. But it began with asking the Government to contribute £5 million—not £1 million or £2 million—and, bearing in mind all those changing money values, if it is assumed that for administration purposes the present scheme will cost £600,000, then I think I can safely say that about 15 years ago the administrative cost would have been about a quarter of a million. That would have been one-twentieth of the money; so the whole thing would have begun to be accepted. But, alas! we failed to convince the Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time that it was really worth while finding that £5 million, although he himself was an author—and I may say I get a useful little cheque now and again through the post, but nobody knew very much about that.
There it is. After all those years we are bringing in a scheme which we know will do practically nothing for the great majority of authors and yet, in spite of that, it is worth bringing it in so that Governments of the future will have something to amend and something to build upon. I cannot understand anyone who imagines that those of us who are in favour of royalties for authors are in any way hostile to libraries. Ultimately, if I thought that by passing this Bill, or future amended Bills which would be more substantial, I would be in any way injuring libraries, I would be against it. Our wonderful libraries not only supply books free of charge but, in my experience, when you are trying to build up an interest in the arts locally, your best friend in most constituencies—and certainly in my old constituency—would be the libraries. They were willing to take on amateur painting shows, concerts and photographic shows. When we had nowhere else to go we had friendship from our libraries and the librarians in furthering the broader work of the arts.
I would just say this, if I may, to the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles. I hope he will be as unsuccessful in the future in pressing for charges for books borrowed from libraries as he has been in the past in pressing for charges to museums and galleries. We have a lot of problems in this country and lot of anxieties, but we
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have also a great deal to be proud of. One thing we can be immensely proud of is that people can go into our great museums and galleries free of charge and that they can go into our great libraries free of charge. If we are concerned to see some justice done to others—and I am not going into all this business of cutting off at the top end and building up at the bottom end, because there will be many more occasions when those matters will be discussed—and if we are concerned about the quality of life in this country, let us please hold on to those good things that we have done and, however trivial this Bill may be, for God's sake! let it pass.
5.8 p.m.
Lord KILBRACKEN: My Lords, in rising to give the Bill a welcome which is about as warm as that of my noble friend who has just sat down, I wish, like so many other noble Lords, to declare an interest in having published several books which are all out of print. I shall be publishing another in September: I will not name it or the publisher. I certainly hope that I may benefit to the munificent extent of the average of £12 a year, less 10 per cent. for my literary agent, for the rest of my life, unless the scheme to be announced excludes those who are domiciled outside the United Kingdom—in which case I shall have no interest to declare.
My main objection to the Bill is that which has already been hinted at, both by the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, and by the noble Lord, Lord McNair—that so many of the interesting details that we should like to know about are not included in the Bill. It was just the same when my noble friend Lord Donaldson was at Stormont, and was introducing Bills giving wide powers to the Secretary of State which we knew nothing about, but we had to vote on the Bills just the same. It is the same here today, because we have a scheme that is to be prepared by the Secretary of State and is to come before this House and another place, and, although we can say whether or not we like it, we cannot amend it and we cannot go into detail on it. What happens if we do not like it? We can chuck it out.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: My Lords, may I make the position clear? I have said repeatedly that there will be a consultation document which will not be a scheme; it will be a document on which a scheme is to be based. The consultation document can be altered in any way that anybody likes, providing that the Government can be convinced that it is correct. The final scheme cannot be altered when it comes to Parliament—it can be only accepted or rejected—but the chance to deal with the consultation document is an absolutely real one.
Lord KILBRACKEN: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for that intervention. I was, of course, going by Clause 3(2) which states:
"If the draft scheme is approved by a resolution of each House, the Secretary of State shall bring the scheme into force … by means of an order in a statutory instrument".
I am merely saying that it will be very difficult for us to bring about any changes, as we could by amending a Bill in Committee, if there are certain features of the scheme or the draft that we do not like.
For example, under Clause 1(2), the scheme has to determine the classes, descriptions and categories of books in respect of which public lending right is to subsist. We know that, unfortunately, reference books cannot be included, because such books are not normally taken out. But I, for one, cannot see what other books that are borrowed are likely to be excluded under this Bill. It seems to me that any book that is borrowed from a lending library ought to qualify for the right.
Then, right through the debates in another place, it was stated as more or less an accepted fact that there is to be a cut-out point at about £1,000 and that no author will receive more than that amount. That is something that is to be in the scheme, but I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, that a lower ceiling than that would be preferable, because what matters is to help a struggling author who needs some addition to his income. I worked it out that an author will get one-quarter of a penny each time one of his books is taken out from a public library. But anybody who, on that basis, earns £1,000 or more from the public lending right is already a very rich author;
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85 per cent. of what he gets will go in tax anyway, and he does not need it. I should therefore like to see a much lower ceiling, so that more of the £1.4 million is available to authors who are not already extremely well-off.
There is only one other point that I want to make, and that is about the provision that the money from the public lending right should continue to be paid to the heirs and assigns of dead authors for a period of 50 years after their death. This will not have any effect at present, because authors who are already dead cannot go on the register. This is very unfortunate for a recently dead author, because if he had lived for another year he would have been able to get on to the register and there would have been some benefit from that for the next 50 years.
However, it will, of course, increasingly affect the amount of money that is due to living authors, and in another place in Committee the Government seemed at one point to give the impression that they were prepared to cut this period to 20 years, but, in the event, the Amendment in question never saw the light of day. So long as it remains at 50 years, this will surely mean that in 30 or 40 years' time a very sizeable percentage of whatever sum the £2 million has grown to by then will be going to sons or grandsons of deceased authors, who will have done nothing to earn that money. So I think that it is very much preferable that deceased authors should be cut out altogether, in order that poor, young, living authors can benefit to the greatest possible extent.
5.16 p.m.
Lord HALE: My Lords, I did not understand the observation of the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, whose speech I heard with respect and regard, when he said that the best laid schemes of mice and men were locked up in the Cabinet Office, because surely the reason for that is the simple one that they do not go out to play. However, I think that I understood clearly his next observation, which I believe was to the effect that this Bill is here in its hollow shape, without any filling. Many conferences have taken place over the years, and I was concerned with some of the earlier ones when I could afford to pay my subscription to literary societies and others.

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For years now, I have not been to a place of entertainment; but I still have books, and so long as I have books life is worth living. I would therefore say that it appears to me that the best help I can give to those who worked so long on this Bill is to keep my mouth shut, and not voice some of the apprehensions which I have. That I propose to do. It may be, if this Bill get through, that some further questions on museums, books and libraries will occupy the Minister's attention, if he is still there, in the earliest practicable future.
5.18 p.m.
Viscount AMORY: My Lords, I have never written a book and I have no intention of ever writing one. Therefore, I feel that I have no beneficial interest to declare. Indeed, when I visit bookshops, which I frequently do in search of improving literature, the volume of what I would judge to be second or third-rate current products there exposed for sale makes me sometimes conclude that there may be a production surplus of books today, rather like the mountains of butter and milk in the EEC.
I am intervening for only a moment in a debate which is not quite up my street, because I understand that the two associations representing the counties, the Association of County Councils and the Association of Metropolitan Authorities, which have had the responsibility of administering by far the greater proportion of lending libraries in the country, are not happy with the present Bill, and I think that their views should be on record. I am sure that they do not dispute the aim of ensuring a fairer remuneration for authors whose works are read and used by the public. It is the method which has been chosen about which they have serious doubts. Two of their objections, to which I wish to refer very briefly, are, first, their belief that the administration of the loan scheme contained in this Bill will prove needlessly expensive to public funds. Too high a proportion of the funds allotted are likely to be consumed in administration. I think my noble friend Lord Eccles dealt with that point. Of course, the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, gave us some estimates. My recollection, however, is that estimates which are made at the time that Bills are
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introduced are always too low, as a result of inflation or the growth of administration. I believe that one must take those figures with a pinch of salt.
The Association believe that the alternative of a sales tax scheme, which they have put to the Minister, is much to be preferred. There is no doubt, from what the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, has said, that he does not agree. He referred to one drawback, which I acknowledge must be a drawback of such a scheme: it cannot deal with existing stocks of books in libraries. I am told that the turnover of books in public libraries is much faster than I had thought. Although this would be a temporary drawback, it would soon be cleared by the effluxion of time.
Secondly, the Association believe that the proposal to exclude reference books—as the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, made clear, that means books which are not lent but which are much used by the public—is entirely unfair to authors and should be corrected. They hold that a sales based scheme would deal with both of these objections and would, as I have said, be considerably cheaper to administer. They believe that it would be fairer to authors because it would include much-used books in reference libraries.
Your Lordships will agree, I think, that the considered views of these authorities who have the main responsibility for running public libraries should carry weight and that they merit the fullest consideration. The reception of this Bill seems to me to be marked by an astonishing lack of enthusiasm. The general attitude seems to be one of fatigue with the issue and a feeling that the present Bill had better be accepted, for the very little that it is worth. If that is the general attitude, I suggest that it does not augur well for the future success of the Bill. My Lords, if I continue any longer, I may develop an interest in this subject which, in the course of time, may lead me to write a book. This is an eventuality which I know your Lordships would unite unanimously in deploring.
5.23 p.m.
Lady KINLOSS: My Lords, yet once again I welcome a Public Lending Right Bill, but hope that this time it may have a

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speedy passage through your Lordships' House and receive the Royal Assent as soon as possible. We have so frequently traversed the matter of a Public Lending Right Bill that there really is very little that one can usefully say. It is cheering to know that it has the blessing not only of the Government but also of the Opposition.
I notice with interest that Clause 3(4)(b) says:
"includes any such collection (of books) which is taken about from place to place".
I take it that the reference is to the admirable county mobile libraries, of which one stops 200 yards from my house every week. Perhaps the Minister could explain how it is proposed to keep an account of the loans, because the computer counting system that one finds in ordinary public libraries is not easily portable and there is only limited space in the mobile vans. Again, these mobile libraries have shelves for reference books, from which I have been given to understand the public are able to borrow. So we reach the curious anomaly that a reference book may be loaned out of a mobile library, whereas it cannot be borrowed, shall I say, from a static one. Thus, under the proposed Bill the reference authors—and I must declare an interest, that my husband is one—may benefit from loans from mobile libraries but not from the ordinary public lending libraries.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: My Lords, I wonder whether I may be allowed to make it clear that the definition which I gave of a reference book is "a book which is not lent out".
Lady KINLOSS: My Lords, could the Minister say what is the position regarding a reference book that is lent out from a mobile library?
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: My Lords, if it is lent out it is not a reference book.
Lady KINLOSS: My Lords, all right. I accept that it is not a reference book.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: My Lords, that was my definition, and I stick to it.
Lady KINLOSS: My Lords, I shall accept it, but I do not think that it is practical to include encyclopaedias or books of multiple authorship beyond perhaps two authors. However, a great many reference books are by single authors, and I hope that efforts will continue to be made to find some way around the present difficulties. Would it not be possible, when a reference book is purchased by a public library, to make a single, once-and-for-all payment to the author? Alternatively, presumably a lesser sum could be paid annually for a limited period of, say, 10 years. Clause 3(1) says that:
"As soon as may be after this Act comes into force, the Secretary of State shall prepare the draft of a scheme for its purposes…".
Can the Minister who is to reply give any indication of how soon "soon" may be? Is it to be like the plumstones one counted as a child: This year, next year, some time—but I shall avoid saying "never" by taking an extra plum! I can only hope that this Bill will be brought into effect with as little delay as possible.
5.27 p.m.
Lord WILLIS: My Lords, I, too, like the noble Lord, Lord Snow, felt a certain glow as I came along this afternoon for the Second Reading debate on this long-running saga. However, having listened to some of the speeches which have been made I must say that I feel rather like the gentleman who went out to dinner. When he came home his friend asked him what it was like and he said, "Well, if the soup had been as warm as the white wine, and the white wine had been as old as the chicken, and the chicken had been as tender as the waitress, and the waitress had been as willing as my hostess, I should have had a good time". Having listened to the speeches, I feel rather like that! A little of the enthusiasm that I felt for what, I agree with my noble friend Lord Hutchinson, is a great occasion has evaporated. Indeed, going back over the many years of this debate—not in this House particularly but in other places outside Parliament—and having listened to some of the speeches which have been made against the Bill and against the proposal of a public lending right, some of the people who have spoken seem to me to bear about the same relationship to British literature as the

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Boston Strangler does to door-to-door salesmanship.
It seems to me that many of the points of opposition to this Bill centre around one thing. Therefore, I want to anchor my argument on that one thing, and that one thing alone. First, I must declare an interest as an author of books in libraries. The anchor of my argument is that authors are not asking for handouts. Authors are not asking for charity. The noble Lord, Lord Snow, spoke about prizes and grants as an alternative. I know that these suggestions have come up from time to time from various directions, but we are not looking for those. If some great publising or newspaper firm wants to put up a prize for authorship in a certain area, yes, we would welcome it, but that has got nothing to do with the principle of this Bill.
We are simply saying that a public library consists of a building, that it consists of the people who operate that public library, that it consists of shelves of books and that at present we pay everybody, except the people who supply the shelves of books. That is the basic anchor of the argument. It does not matter, therefore, whether an author is rich or poor, whether he is part-time or full-time, whether he is much borrowed or whether he is little borrowed. So long as the country wants a free public library system it must pay for it, and it must pay everybody for it. It must therefore pay the authors. We are not asking for help. We are asking, indeed, simply for justice.
The Bill as at present phrased will of course benefit those authors who are more successful than others. We hope that in the scheme there will be an upper limit and indeed I believe there should be one—but even that does not matter. If an author's book is only borrowed two or three times and he only gets a fiver or £1 out of this scheme, that is not the point and it should not worry Parliament. The point is that he is being paid for the use of his book and if another author's book is borrowed 500 times and therefore he gets a great deal more, that is perfectly equitable and just. Nobody should worry about it and that is the central point. If your Lordships and the country can grasp that, then most of the
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arguments of opposition fall by the wayside.
It may be that in future years the amount may have to be increased to account for inflation. It may be that in future years various other points may have to be altered. Certainly, I hope that we shall come back to the subject of reference books and do something about them and it may be that in relation to reference books it will be necessary, as the noble Lady, Lady Kinloss, said, to have a slightly different kind of scheme—a purchase scheme for reference books. I do not know, but certainly modern technology may help us to solve the problems with which we are confronted at the moment in dealing with reference books. But because we cannot deal with reference books and because we cannot deal with certain other things like gramophone records and cassettes, it does not mean that we should hold back in giving justice in an area where we can solve the problem. Modern technology tells us that we can solve the problem in relation to books that are borrowed and therefore I think we should seize the opportunity with both hands.
The arguments seem to me to be so transparently simple that I really cannot see the line of the opposition. If you were to apply it to cars rather than to books you would of course have the manufacturers of motor cars up in arms, but for 100 years or more the authors of this country have subsidised the free public library system and all the talk about giving the poor authors assistance has nothing to do with it. We do not ask for that. If an author's books do not sell he will not make any money. That is the law of life and that is the law of literature and I am afraid that is how it works. We are not in the market for handouts and grants and I hope I have said enough to put that over to your Lordships.
The other argument that has been raised quite frequently is the argument that libraries actually help authors. There is a great deal in this as I have said in previous debates. It is true that the purchase by libraries of certain books enables publishers to publish those books and there is a certain gain to authors in that area. But let us not exaggerate it. The existence of a first-class free

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public lending library system in this country has meant that fewer people buy books than would normally be the case. Take, for instance, the example of West Germany where it is undoubtedly true that they have a much smaller public library system than we have in this country and they have many times more bookshops than we have. It is true that you can go for vast distances in this country without finding a bookshop. Bookshops find it difficult to exist because of the very perfection of our free lending library system. This must have an effect on sales.
No one has done any active work on this but one little sample came to us last week from Sheffield where, quite off his own bat, a professor went out and questioned 46 people coming out of the public library. The figures were rather like this: out of those 46 people, not one single person ever bought a hard-backed book—not one—but they borrowed them frequently and, of the 46 people, 21 bought up to—but not more than—five paperbacks every year. I am not pretending to your Lordships that that is any kind of authoritative figure but it is a sample of the way the wind blows. I am quite sure that there are thousands of people in this country who read hardbacks five, six or 10 times a year but who never buy one. That is a loss to authors and we have to make it up somehow in the measures which are being introduced in this Bill.
Again, the rather hoary argument has been raised that the loan system suggested in this Bill is too expensive to administer. We will admit that it is expensive to administer but it is only expensive in relation to the total amount—£600,000 out of £2 million. If in fact the figure were £10 million the expenses of administration would be little less than £600,000. It is a question of the relationship between the total amount of money that is made available by central Government. There would not be a substantial increase in administration costs if the total amount went up. But we are not asking for the total amount to go up at this moment; we are simply pointing out that the estimate of £600,000 is in a sense a relative figure. Certainly, it is true that the Ministry set up a technical investigation group and other investigations were made and it was quite clear that the
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loan sampling scheme that we suggested and which has been incorporated in this Bill is as cheap, if not cheaper than any other comparable method of paying authors.
That is all I really want to say. I have said it all on previous occasions in various debates and I do not want to repeat myself. I join with those noble Lords who have said, "Let us get it through without amendment" so that this time at least we can say that the long saga has ended.
5.37 p.m.
Lord PAGET of NORTHAMPTON: My Lords, it has always appeared to me that this Bill is based on a misconception—an idea about a public lending right which does not exist and never has existed; the idea that by passing this Bill we provide authors with a new right that they did not have before. We do nothing of the sort; in fact we limit their existing rights. The right of an author is a property right conveyed upon him by the copyright Acts. He is protected in his property; he is protected from reproduction and he can put such terms as he wishes upon his licence to reproduce his work. I have here a book published by Fontana, The Life of Engels. The author has put this condition on the book; it is printed on the flyleaf:
"Conditions of sale. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent without the publishers' prior consent".
Anybody who does not want his books to be lent can put on that condition. If he sells to libraries he sells because he wants his book to be lent and he thinks that it will pay him if his book is lent. Therefore, why should public funds be introduced to finance a contract which he is free to make or not to make, and which he deems to be to his advantage or he does not make it at all?
The second aspect which is put forward is (maybe unkindly) described as the charitable one: "If it is not right, well the author is a poor, hard-done-by chap who does not get a living wage and we ought to do something for him." I wholly disagree with that. I cannot see where the right to a living wage comes in for an artist. I would venture to say that probably most of the great books have not been written by full-time writers and have

1035
been written with little idea of reward. The same goes for painting. The vast majority of paintings are produced by amateurs who are delighted if their pictures get selected for an exhibition and who certainly do not feel they have a secrecy right and that payment should be made to them by everybody who goes to the exhibition.
I believe that exactly the same applies to writing. The vast majority of books are produced by part-time writers who get great pleasure from what they do. May I declare an interest? I have written a couple of books on which I occasionally get a royalty. I have got another one coming out next month. I have experienced the joy of getting a book accepted and seeing it in print. That is the pleasure one gets. It probably would not be accepted and probably would not be in print but for the lending libraries. The lending libraries give a certain prospect of sale which the publisher can rely on that enables him to publish far more books than he would otherwise, and that enables us very much lesser writers to have the joy of seeing our work in print. Really, to go into all this nonsense in order to make life more difficult for libraries—which all the libraries tell me it certainly will—does not seem to me to make sense.
If we want to help authors, I think there is a very good case for having a fund which can provide money to enable authors with a really worthwhile idea to carry out a research programme. If we have £2 million which we are trying to throw about, £2 million available which we want to get rid of in a charitable way, I think that could be a very useful way to use it. But to have it divided up almost entirely among the authors who require it least in a form in which the great majority of it will probably come back in taxation, at an administrative cost of £600,000, seems to me quite ludicrous. I believe this Bill has resulted from a meandering obsession based on a quite non-realistic view of rights which has been held for far too long. I would like to see it stopped, and if anybody does divide against this Second Reading I will certainly be in their Lobby.
5.43 p.m.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: My Lords, I think I must
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begin by saying that a great friend of mine, Sir George Solti, who is a Hungarian, once said to me, "If you have a Hungarian friend you require no enemies". I must say the support from the Front Bench opposite was very Hungarian this afternoon. I hope and think that the right honourable gentleman Mr. St. John-Stevas, who spoke so ably, and incidentally extremely wittily, in favour of this Bill at Second Reading, will be shocked by what the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, had to say. It was the most grudging support I have ever received on anything I have ever been connected with; but it was support, and for that I am grateful. I hope very much that this rather curmudgeonly lead will not be followed by the noble Earl's colleagues. However, there is no ill-feeling in this.
There is one point which was made very well by my noble friend Lord Willis, which he wants to be specifically corrected, which is the suggestion that you can help people more in other ways. We would like to repeat that the objective of this Bill is not to ask for charity; this is why we call it a right. The noble Lords, Lord McNair and Lord Snow, spoke so agree-ably for me and I agreed so much with what they had to say that I will not comment on it. I suppose I got the greatest pleasure from the support of my noble friend Lady Lee of Asheridge, who, with the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, did the first run here and on terms which were both to me and to most of us more acceptable. We have failed to bring them into this Bill; the terms are less good. But it was a great help to me to feel that she and her colleague, who came here for a few minutes, were still behind us even in the form of this Bill, which we know not to be entirely satisfactory. My noble friend Lord Hutchinson said it will be a great day for us in the Department. The noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, said much the same, and made a suggestion about the top cut-out price, which was followed by my noble friend Lord Kilbracken. So much for my supporters.
There have only been three critics of importance, I think. One was the noble Viscount. Lord Eccles, who is always interesting but sometimes wrong. The second was the noble Lord, Lord Paget, who is sometimes interesting, and I was going to say always wrong; but I will not

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go so far as to say that, but certainly he is hopelessly wrong in this case. Then there were the local authority critics, the noble Viscount, Lord Amory, and the noble Lord, Lord Digby, who I will deal with in a minute.
First of all, I put a point for the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles. He seemed to think that our statistics were unsound. I do not know where he got this idea from; it is not true at all, It has been the most careful scheme. It has a technical name which is a "random stratified sample". The chairman of the group was a professional statistician and the margins of error in the sample are discussed in detail in the report which he put in. I have not got it with me, so I cannot quote it, but if the noble Viscount is interested I can let him have it. It is a perfectly respectable statistical sample which any agency anywhere would be perfectly content to use.
The noble Lord, Lord Paget, takes a point of view which has been taken all through history by a number of people interested in the arts. It has always been, I think, absurdly wrong. But the idea is that money has nothing to do with this, that people who are any good will be any good whether you pay them or not. And there is some truth in this. You cannot stop great talent by not rewarding it. But you can create in-justice, and that is what we are trying to avoid. I do not think you would have had anything like so many volumes from Proust if there had never been any question of money. I do not think either Beethoven or Mozart would have written as much music if they had not had the stimulus of wanting the cash; and in Beethoven's case wanting it very badly and in rather a hurry. To me the whole conception is so completely wide of the facts of life that I shall not go on with the discussion. The noble Lord will forgive me for disagreeing, which we have often done before and look forward to doing again.
The local authority argument is, of course, a more difficult one to deal with. The local authorities, prompted by their librarians—and not by 100 per cent. of their librarians by a long chalk; there are a certain number of librarians who do not take this view—have been convinced that
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this thing is going to be a nuisance to them and they have been looking at simpler ways to do it. They have come up with a way that has a certain plausibility. I looked at this scheme very carefully when they first told me about it; I put my staff on to it and discussed it with a lot of different people. We came to the conclusion that the sales-based scheme was not as good as the scheme we are putting forward. They both have a number of inconsistencies, but, we thought that, on the whole, ours was the better.
There was an additional reason why ours was the better; namely, that that was what the authors were demanding. The whole of this movement has come from the authors themselves. Since A. P. Herbert—to whom the noble Lord, Lord Snow, referred—they have been saying all the time that they want to be paid each time their book is used. The Government felt that if a scheme which would do that could be produced, a scheme which was at least as good as any other, we should try to give it to them. If the noble Lord wants me to go into further detail I shall but, in fact, I have written about this again and again to local authorities and, sooner or later, somebody must make up their mind. I have made up mine as regards this particular matter: I think that our scheme is better. If the noble Lord wants a long letter explaining exactly why I take that view I shall give it to him, but I shall not go through it here this evening.
We have had a very useful debate. The noble Lady, Lady Kinloss, raised a matter to which I had already referred in my opening remarks. We have always said that if we could find a way which was not too expensive, of honouring the writers of reference books, and indeed joint authors, with the funds which we thought we were going to have to distribute, we would do so. That offer still stands. I think that there are approximately a couple of years in which we can look at the matter before there is any very serious chance of this beginning to roll.
I am full of hope that the majority of your Lordships who have supported me so fully will carry the day in Committee, and if that happens then we shall have the Bill. Let us hope that after all this time we get it.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

COUNTRYSIDE (AMENDMENT) (SCOTLAND) BILL [H.L.]
5.53 p.m.
Lord HUGHES: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. The Bill is short. I believe that it is uncontroversial and it makes modest improvements to the Countryside (Scotland) Act which has remained virtually unamended since its enactment 12 years ago. That gives me a certain amount of pleasure because I had the responsibility of taking the original Act through your Lordships' House in 1967. The Bill does not make all the changes to the Countryside (Scotland) Act that might be desirable at present. As befits a measure introduced as a Private Member's Bill, it is confined to those provisions which are known to enjoy general support north of the Border. There may well be others which should be introduced, but I do not know whether they would be equally uncontroversial and, in any case, there has not been consultation about them in Scotland.
The contents of this Bill can, I think, be welcomed by all interests and will make a worthwhile contribution to the preservation and enjoyment of the Scottish countryside. Your Lordships will notice that the Bill is largely taken up with public paths and public rights of way. Those have an increasing significance not only in enabling citizens to get from one point to another in an unobstructed fashion, but also for wider leisure and recreation purposes.
The legal concepts are a little tricky, but a public path established by statutory process under the 1967 Act, is a physical entity, whereas a right of way is what it purports to be—a right of passage. Rights of way can be established if certain conditions are satisfied and they may also go out of use. There is a history of celebrated court cases in which the rights of the citizen became gradually clarified and there is now little doubt as to the nature of the facts which must be established before a right of way is recognised.
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The Scottish public owes a debt to the Scottish Rights of Way Society Limited which has been active in this area for many years. However, it does not follow that, because the concept of the right of way is clearly established, nothing more needs to be done to promote its enjoyment by the public. In Scotland, unlike England and Wales, statutory lists of maps of rights of way are not maintained by local authorities. This is a matter of deliberate policy because it is thought that, in Scottish circumstances, by maintaining such lists one might cast doubt on the efficacy of a right of way which was not listed. However, that does have the effect that, where no case has been brought before a court, a right of way can be disputed by a landowner, and there needs to be someone to assert the public's rights. Equally, even if a right of way is undisputed, it may be physically obstructed or impassable and therefore of no practical use.
Parliament has therefore placed upon local authorities certain statutory functions relating to rights of way. They are required, in the first place, to
"assert, protect and keep open and free from obstruction or encroachment"
any public right of way in their area, including taking legal proceedings or any other steps that they may consider necessary. Authorities also have been given powers to repair and maintain public rights of way. They have a function too in relation to authorising erection of guideposts, direction notices, stiles, gates and so on. Unfortunately, those functions were not laid clearly on one particular type of local authority and, following the reorganisation of Scottish local government in 1975, the responsibility was even further diffused. A working party on walks and footpaths for recreation, formed by the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities—and that includes all types of authority in Scotland— and the Countryside Commission for Scotland, heard evidence from all the interests and concluded that the various duties and powers concerned with rights of way were not being discharged as well as they might because of the divided responsibility. They therefore recommended that functions connected with rights of way should be the responsibility of a single authority in each area. That is what Clause 1 seeks to achieve.

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The other main purpose of the Bill is to enable local authorities to make by-laws to control the conduct of the public on footpaths, long distance routes and public rights of way and so to enable wardens to operate on such paths. A warden's job is, of course, mainly one of giving advice and information to the public. But, it is valuable if he has some backing in law for his presence if members of the public are misusing the facility or challenging his right to advise them. The presence of a duly appointed warden with a duty to enforce by-laws is likely to be an encouragement to landowners to conclude new footpath agreements with local authorities in the knowledge that there will be provision against abuse of their property by the public.
Finally, the Bill changes the title of "warden" to "ranger". That has become the preferred term in Scotland although I understand that on this side of the Border the term "warden" remains acceptable. This is obviously a very limited Bill, but I trust that your Lordships will agree that it is a useful one. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Hughes.)
5.59 p.m.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY: My Lords, I should like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, for sponsoring the Bill, and to thank him for having so clearly explained its purposes to your Lordships. The changes before us which he described as modest are generally welcome in Scotland. They do not seek to transform the 1967 Act, but they would adjust it appropriately to present-day circumstances.
I simply have two particular points which I should like to raise. The first is on the future progress of the Bill, because, in welcoming it, I hope that it will reach the Statute Book. When it reaches the Commons, given that there is enough time and that this Session is not interrupted by a General Election, I presume that the noble Lord is relying on the special Scottish Committee on Scottish Private Members' Bills. If the Bill does not go to that committee, it would seem that it would join the end of a considerable queue of Private Members' United Kingdom Bills, for which there
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really is no chance of a passage through Parliament this Session, because they have to wait their turn for the United Kingdom Committee and the only alternative is for them to be passed in another place without any debate at all at any stage.
If that assumption is correct, of course, there would be the opportunity of a debate on the Bill—at least at the Committee Stage—in another place, and one would hope that the other stages would then go through on the nod, as they say. At least there would have been a debate. But it requires that the Bill can be certified by Mr. Speaker as applying to Scotland only. Therefore, that is a very important point and I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, will be able to tell us quite definitely that the Bill applies only to Scotland and, therefore, can be certified for the special Scottish Private Members' Bills Committee. For myself, I hope that the way will be clear at all stages for the Bill to pass through both Houses.
My second point concerns fire risk. This arises because under Section 19 of the 1967 parent Act the Secretary of State for Scotland is given powers to suspend public access to the countryside areas which are dealt with in that Act at times of danger of fire; Section 19 actually speaks of weather conditions being such as to cause "danger of fire". I do not think that I need remind noble Lords who come from Scotland that Scotland's forestry industry goes through very anxious times when there are droughts or when the woods are very dry; and during those periods visitors can throw cigarette ash or pieces of glass about and cause very serious forest fires simply because they themselves are not familiar with the countryside or the dangers in certain conditions.
This Bill extends the powers of local authorities to cover public paths, long-distance routes and rights of way. Therefore, one would hope that the fire precaution power would be extended also to cover these to the extent that they cover the areas concerned which are already in the 1967 Act. I understand that both the Countryside Commission for Scotland and the Scottish Landowners' Federation consider that this is an important point, but that no one has been able to find a way of satisfactorily amending this Bill to this

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effect. Therefore, I am drawing attention to this matter now because the best solution which those two bodies have suggested is that provision for suspension of access—probably by the Secretary of State again, as in Section 19—in times of high fire risk should be incorporated in the agreements between the local authorities and the landowners. These agreements are to be found in the original Act and, of course, would not be extended to these public paths and long-distance routes. I hope that the local authorities in particular will recognise this requirements and will be prepared to include it in their proposed agreements.
I should like to raise a general point before closing. I have presumed that the structure and format of this Bill are in the best form for making the suggested alterations. The form of the Bill is to make specific changes and additions in pages and line numbers in the 1967 Act. I assume that the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, has had some expert advice on parliamentary drafting here and I therefore accept the form in which the Bill is presented to us. But, again, it is important that at a later stage we should not have eminent parliamentary counsel finding some objection to the way in which the Bill is being presented to Parliament. I wish the Bill well and hope that it will survive the uncertainties of the coming months.
6.6 p.m.
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, it gives me great pleasure to welcome this Bill on behalf of the Government. The Government have given assistance with its preparation, and I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Hughes, who is a former Minister, for introducing it. My noble friend has made the point that this Bill is uncontroversial and useful. I am glad that it has also found favour with the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, a former Secretary of State. With them I agree, and I hope that your Lordships will also agree.
Long-distance routes and various kinds of footpaths for the public's enjoyment are a much more important part of the scene both North and South of the Border than they were when the Countryside Bills were enacted over 10 years ago. It is right that we should want to ensure
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that there are more of these footpaths, that they are readily accessible and that they are well-maintained and supervised. In the belief that my noble friend's Bill will make a distinct contribution to these ends, I venture to predict that the Bill will prove more significant than its modest size might lead one to expect.
Perhaps your Lordships may be wondering why, with a Countyside Bill for England and Wales proceeding in another place, the opportunity could not have been taken to bring in more substantial countryside legislation for Scotland. Perhaps I might dwell for a moment on that point. Few here will need reminding, however, that the requirements North and South of the Border rarely march in step with one another. There are undoubtedly new countryside issues arising in Scotland which demand attention, and the Government are looking at these in conjunction with the Countryside Commission for Scotland, whose concern for the well-being of the countryside over the years we should all applaud. But they are not always the same issues as occur in the South, and still less is it appropriate always to tackle them in an identical fashion in both countries. To take a relevant example, the law and practice relating to rights of way is different in Scotland from that in England and Wales, and though there is a recognition that wardens or rangers are needed to operate on rights of way and footpaths throughout the country, the method of achieving this in my noble friend's Bill is not the same as that which is in mind for England and Wales.
If I may, I should like to draw your Lordships' attention to a point in the Explanatory and Financial Memorandum on the Bill. In describing the financial effects of the Bill, the Memorandum mentions that:
"expenditure will count as relevant for the purposes of rate support grant".
but it fails to state that expenditure will be eligible also for direct grant under the Countryside (Scotland) Act 1967. It was the Scottish Office which provided this particular piece of wording and so on its behalf I express apologies to the House for the omission. As the Memorandum says:
"Any increase in expenditure arising from the Bill is expected to be very small".

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As your Lordships know, the Explanatory and Financial Memorandum has no statutory authority and is merely put in for the convenience of the House, but I do apologise for that omission.
The noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, in his speech, I was glad to see, welcomed the Bill, and he raised two points. First of all he asked, very rightly, about the future progress of the Bill in another place. I hope that another place will look on the Bill with equal favour to that of your Lordships, but I will certainly draw what the noble Lord has said to the attention of the usual channels and my right honourable friend the Chief Whip. I can say that the intention would be to have the Bill considered by the Special Scottish Committee on Private Members' Bills.
The noble Lord also raised the question of fire risk, and the need to be able to restrict access to public paths in exceptional circumstances. I may say that I have great sympathy with the point made by the noble Lord. I can assure him, however, that it will be possible to impose suitable conditions regarding access through the by-laws which, under the Bill, can be made by local authorities applying to public paths, and the presence of wardens on paths will be another safeguard in exceptional fire-risk conditions. I shall, however, bring what the noble Lord has said, and his suggestion, to the notice of my right honourable friend the Secretary of State with a view to his recommending to local authorities that specific provisions should be made in the by-laws. In conclusion, it gives me great pleasure to commend the Bill to the House.
6.11 p.m.
Lord STRATHCLYDE: My Lords, I hope I may be forgiven for intruding very shortly in this debate. I listened with great care to what my noble friend who introduced the Bill had to say. I only wish that I had the same facility for finding my way about a Bill that he obviously has, and which I know from past experience with him. But I had not got him at hand when I spotted this Bill and I wondered what it was all about, and so I read the Explanatory and Financial Memorandum. I saw that it mentioned a couple of previous Acts of Parliament, and that led me to go further
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and look at the Bill itself. There I found, at the beginning of Clause 1, "In section 46 of the Act of 1967". So I got the Act of 1967 and I looked at Section 46. I did not get much further on that, but I found in a later line that it spoke of the Act of 1973. So I got that one too. That Act referred to an Act of 1972, and so it goes on. I waded through these various Acts. It is an impossible thing to do, The noble Lord, of course, is a wizard at this kind of game, but it took me hours to find out what this Bill was all about.
I ask any of your Lordships who wish to know more about it just to turn to Section 54 of the Act of 1967 to start with. It runs to 14 lines, and it begins,
"A local authority may…"
et cetera, and it goes on. Then if you look at a simple little amendment here dealing with Section 54 of the 1967 Act, it says:
"for subsection (1) there shall be substituted …"
Of course this is quite simple, is it not? Then you get down to the bottom of the page, 44 lines on, and turn over the page and you find that there are 58 lines to be digested before you discover anything about it.
That is only one example. The Act teems with examples of that kind. The other Act referred to is just as bad. You go on turning page after page, and you are given in one place a reference to Part IX of the Act of 1967—I think that is right, but it may be the other one for all I remember. It is a terrible business to find out what that means. You go on turning over page after page. It is high time that draftsmen were able to do something better than this. It is a perfect farce. There are about five different Acts of Parliament mentioned in connection with this little Bill. If you want to find out about it you have to wade through the whole lot of them, and it will take an hour or two to do so.
My plea to Her Majesty's Government is to get the people who write these things to produce something a little simpler. When you read the thing, at first you say: "This is easy". But it does not mean just what one gathers from the Explanatory Memorandum, it means a lot more; and the amendments you have to deal with are legion. I say these words in protest, because it is ridiculous that we in this House who are fairly busy have to wade

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through this kind of thing in a simple little Bill of this nature.
6.15 p.m.
Lord HUGHES: My Lords, I have noticed before that sometimes the debate on one Bill seems, to a certain extent, to carry on the proceedings of the previous one. My noble friend Lord Donaldson quoted a friend of his as saying, "If you have a Hungarian for a friend you don't need an enemy", and I noticed that the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, started his remarks in his usual way, by referring to me as his noble friend. I hope that I shall not be here long enough to reach the day when he decides that he really wants to attack me. But I think he rather over-stated the case, because what he has omitted in all his researches, which appear to have been extensive, was that the Section 54 in the 1967 Act to which he referred is in fact removed by these amendments. If we had not amended in this particular way, if the draftsmen had not done a thorough job of looking at all the Acts affected, we would not be accomplishing the purpose of this simple Bill.
The trouble was that when the previous Government amended local government, of necessity the Act made references to previous legislation, which included the 1967 Act. I am quite sure, however justified Lord Strathclyde is in his criticisms of the way the draftsmen have to go about their job, he would have used—not necessarily in your Lordships' House, but certainly along in the Library—the sort of naval language of which he is a master if, by omission, they had made a mess of the job; and if they had omitted all these references, that is what they would have done. They could have made a total mess of the job in one paragraph. It has taken all these lines to do the job properly.
One of the advantages of introducing a Bill of this kind, as the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, suspected, is that I did have technical assistance in drafting it; and I must admit to the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, that I could not. by my own skill, have accomplished all these things to which he has objected. In fact, I would add that very little in this Bill is due to any skill on my part at all.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. He has in fact replied to me as I had hoped. My noble friend Lord Strathclyde raised some of the difficulties about the way in which the Bill is drafted but, as I said, I prefer that it should be drafted in an expert way. Perhaps the noble Lord would agree, that what really matters is how soon the consolidations can be carried out, because then it will be much easier to find one's way round the legislation.
Lord HUGHES: My Lords, all I can say is that it will not be consolidated in this Session, but given the continued co-operation of my noble friend Lord Strabolgi in the next Parliament, he can look after the consolidation. It has been a pleasure to have had the Bill welcomed so much by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, and I confirm what he has asked, and as my noble friend Lord Strabolgi has said, that it applies only to Scotland. I am grateful to the noble Lord for describing the procedure that can be followed in another place. Perhaps he and I, with my noble friend Lord Strabolgi, can exercise a certain coalition in these matters to ensure that we get the right procedure in another place. I never had the misfortune to be a Member of the other place, so I was not aware of those procedures.
I need not say more on the fine point. It was a great advantage to find that the Government were approving the Bill, so the tricky work of replying to difficult points was undertaken by my noble friend Lord Strabolgi. I am in total agreement with him and I am grateful to him for having removed that task from my shoulders. Like Lord Campbell, I hope that the Bill may achieve speedy passage through the House. I could not possibly argue that the Bill is an argument against having a General Election, but if we do not have one for sufficiently long a time to enable the Bill to go through, that will be one modest gain from its continuation.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

CARAVAN SITES BILL [H.L.]
6.21 p.m.
The PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE, DEPARTMENT of the ENVIRONMENT (Baroness Stedman): My Lords, I beg to move that the Caravan Sites Bill be now read a second time. I have had the pleasure of being involved in debate in this House on many aspects of our urban and rural environment, but today I rise to discuss a problem entailed in providing accommodation for gipsies. These are problems at the margins of our society, but they make a very obvious impact on both rural and urban environments. The Bill now before us seeks to make alterations and amendments to the existing legislative framework for dealing with this problem.
A decade ago, the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, when in another place, introduced a Private Member's Bill which became the Caravan Sites Act 1968. I take this somewhat belated and tardy opportunity to compliment him on having thrown the lifeline to gipsies that Part II of that Act represents. Previously, under the Act of 1960, local authorities had the power to provide camping sites for gipsies; now, in the 1968 Act, which came into operation in April 1970, a duty was placed on local authorities in England and Wales to make adequate provision for accommodation for gipsies in or resorting to their areas. For the first time, gipsies were given a right to expect that some provision would be made for them where efforts of self-help failed, an expectation which has been held by house-dwellers for a considerable period. In Scotland, the numbers are small and therefore it has always been appropriate to adopt a general policy of persuasion rather than place statutory duties upon local authorities.
It is perhaps difficult to imagine the euphoria that this Act caused among gipsies. Our house-dwelling society inevitably fails to appreciate the immense effect on gipsies of rapid post-war economic changes and the massive increase of planning and licensing controls which have become an essential part of life on this crowded island in recent decades. Traditional seasonal sources of income, such as agriculture, forestry and horse-dealing,
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brought their own pattern of travel and camping, but in many areas mechanisation has forced new generations of the same gipsy stock to rely on the recovery of scrap-metal, laying of tarmacadam, carpet and furniture dealing and the sale of second-hand cars, with a consequently closer relationship to urban areas.
As traditional stopping places have disappeared and urban areas have been visited more frequently, life has become a perpetual search for any form of unoccupied land for the vast majority of gipsies. But a rational analysis of cause and effect is of no use to the gipsy. He only sees the harsh effect of such changes and must spend his energies in coping with these pressures in a struggle for survival. He has adapted to new work, but for camping sites he can only hope that eviction from muddy roadside verges will not become too frequent. Mistrustful, even violent, attitudes towards house-dwellers are hardly surprising and such behaviour brings similar responses from house-dwellers themselves.
I am not seeking to condone or excuse anti-social behaviour or to ignore the rights of house-dwellers and landowners to have their property and amenity properly protected. But we must understand two things very clearly. The first is that the majority of gipsies do not want to be anything other than gipsies, living in caravans and free to stay or to move on as they wish. They do not want, in the main, to be absorbed into the house-dwelling community, although it is difficult to know if this comes from an innate desire for the nomadic way of life or a simple fear of the unknown, which they might overcome in time. The second is that the gipsy families who sort scrap metal by the roadside really are the same families that in pre-war years lived tucked away in the countryside and sold clothes pegs and paper flowers.
The enactment of Part II of the 1968 Act has always been seen as a sensible move to resolve the animosity between gipsies and house-dwellers through adequate provision of permanent sites. Many also saw it as the basis for eventual transition for gipsies from life on the road to a conventional pattern of house-dwelling. I believe current thinking is now more divided about the nature of social bridges

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wanted or needed by gipsies, but all remain convinced of the absolute need for an adequate spread of sites to provide stability but also to permit gipsies to continue a nomadic way of life if they wish.
Sadly, the elation and great expectations arising from the 1968 Act have been deflated. The pressures on the gipsy way of life have continued and even increased in intensity, but local government has been extremely slow in fulfilling its statutory duties under the 1968 Act, and there are obvious reasons for this. Most house-dwellers are prepared to accept a need for such sites but do not want to see them in their particular locality. The competing demands for expenditure land and that face local authorities have further induced them to give a very low level of priority to gipsy sites. At present, it is generally estimated that there are authorised sites in England, Scotland and Wales for little over 2,500 families, but the gipsy population is estimated at some 9,000 families, thus leaving 6,500 families with no option but to camp illegally. With no services and no management, these encampments rapidly become squalid and unsightly, miserable for the gipsies themselves and a constant source of worry and annoyance for nearby house-dwellers.
Efforts to remedy this situation by the provision of sites are thwarted by local opposition, and county councils are therefore faced with difficult decisions if they are to use limited funds for gipsies in preference to more popular projects. But this local opposition is based mainly on experience of the appalling conditions on the illegal sites that can be eradicated only by the establishment of well-managed authorised sites. Evidence has shown that opposition then dies down. Clearly, there is urgent need for proper sites in the interests of house-dwellers and as a basic human right—in the words of the Cripps Report, "the right of legal abode.'
The situation has given successive Governments cause for concern and in February 1976 this Administration asked Sir John Cripps to carry out a study to consider the effectiveness of the arrangements to secure adequate accommodation for gipsies, as required by Part II of the 1968 Act. In April 1977 his report,
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entitled Accommodation for Gypsies, was published and I must add my own commendation to those of many others on the close anaylsis and precise recommendations for future action presented by Sir John.
After very full consultations with all those interested in the contents of the report, the Government announced their response to the report's recommendations on 19th July 1978. The majority of the recommendations in the Cripps Report were accepted, but some of these required legislation and it was promised to introduce this as soon as possible.
Sir John Cripps stressed the urgency of the need to accelerate the rate of site provision if the present distress and misery were not to persist, or even increase as the conflict between house-holders and gipsies heightened. He drew attention to the very small size of the problem in relation to the trouble and expense which it caused, and which he felt arose, in part at least, from the mistaken policies of local authorities. However, he rejected the idea that gipsy site provision should be carried out by a Government Department or a national agency; the proper provision of sites required local knowledge. But he recommended a more active role for central Government.
Perhaps the most significant recommendations contained in his report was for 100 per cent. Government grants to be paid to local authorities to cover the capital costs of site provision for a 5-year period. He saw a need for quotas for site provision to be allocated to counties and to the Greater London area administratively after discussion with county councils and the London Boroughs Association, and for agreed time-related programmes for the implementation. Sir John perceived the need for flexibility in attitudes towards standards and a movement away from total concentration on high-standard long-stay sites. As a basis for further discussion of such quotas, he also recommended the removal of the limitation of the duty of metropolitan county councils and London borough councils to the accommodation of 15 caravans in each district and borough.
He also suggested the removal of the power to grant exemption from the duty to provide sites and cancellation of all

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existing exemptions. Originally Section 6 of the 1968 Act empowered exemption of county boroughs or London boroughs if there was no suitable land, or of a county borough if it had had no significant gipsy population from 1963 to 1968. Twenty-six county boroughs were exempted on the second basis. After local government reorganisation and consequent amendments to the 1968 Act, there is now the anomalous position that only metropolitan district or London borough areas may be exempted, and then only if there is no suitable land; but eight metropolitan district areas enjoy exemption on other grounds as previous county boroughs. Furthermore, the areas of 18 previous county boroughs retain exemption, but are in the main only part of their relevant district areas. The intention seems to have been to restrict as undesirable the influx of gipsies to urban areas but, of course, this is now proving unrealistic. In order to assist in imparting a fresh impetus to the provision of sites, Sir John Cripps also recommended the appointment of a national advisory body, including gipsy representatives.
Sir John made a number of recommendations about the future of designation. Under Section 12 of the 1968 Act as it now stands, once the Secretary of State is satisfied that a county council or London borough has made adequate site provision in its area, he may designate that council under the Act, thereby bringing into operation Sections 10 and 11 of the Act, which give the council additional powers for removing gipsies from unauthorised encampments. Much is made by local government of designation as the reward for the extensive expenditure of time and effort often entailed in providing official sites. Sir John rejected the idea that designation should be granted on anything other than a county basis, but he considered that it ought to be with-held or withdrawn from any council unwilling to accept a quota and agree a programme of site provision. He also recommended that limitations ought to be imposed on the circumstances in which the powers conferred by designation might be used. As a further general point in designation, he felt that suggestions for strengthening the consequent enforcement powers of Sections 10 and 11 might be considered.
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Sir John's report dealt separately with the special problems of London. He recommended that designation be granted to any Inner London borough where provision had been made for 15 caravans, or where it appeared to the Secretary of State that provision of a site was unnecessary or inexpedient. In dealing with the Outer London boroughs, he recommended that previous designations ought to be withdrawn unless, or until, any such borough could show that adequate provision had been made.
My Lords, many of the recommendations in the Cripps Report could be implemented administratively, and that work has started as a direct result of the report. The Department of the Environment and the Welsh Office have already begun discussions with local authorities about site quotas to fulfil their statutory obligation under the 1968 Act. In Scotland, the Secretary of State's Advisory Committee will continue to encourage action by local government, but the numbers involved do not require a quota system, which would in any case be inconsistent with the Scottish policy of persuasion. A number of other administrative measures, such as improved collection of information, consideration of possible research needs, and improved arrangements for discussion and consultation with all interested parties, are already in progress. So the Bill before us is only a part of the steps that we are now taking to supply the necessary impetus.
I turn now to the Bill itself. It differs in certain respects from the recommendations contained in the Cripps Report, and I shall explain the reasons for this as I go through the Bill. Clause 1 provides for Government grant to local authorities in respect of the capital costs of providing caravan sites for gipsies under Section 24 of the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960. Sir John Cripps was convinced that satisfactory progress would not be made with site provision, unless it was recognised that the problem was a national one requiring provision of a substantial specific Government grant at the rate of 100 per cent. to cover the capital cost of site provision. We have accepted this recommendation. The procedures for claiming and paying grant have now been worked out with the Treasury

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and with local authority associations, and details will be published in a Departmental circular soon. Meanwhile, to ensure the quickest possible progress, the Appropriation Act will be used as a basis for making grant payments in this financial year. Proposals for new sites and upgrading works initiated since 19th July 1978 will qualify for the grant. The grant provisions will also cover Scotland. Grants have been available since 1971 for local authorities in Scotland, but at a 75 per cent. rate, and the increased rate will, we hope, provide greater impetus.
Clause 2 of the Bill provides for grant aid to voluntary organisations working in the interests of gipsies, and such grants will be on terms and conditions specified by the Secretary of State. As part of the Department's small grants programme, an annual grant has been made to the National Gipsy Council over recent years, but with no commitment to future years. We seek a specific basis for such grants, as there is a continuing need for this expenditure, together with further possible small grants to other organisations working in the interests of gipsies. However, I can assure your Lordships that the sums involved will always be modest, and that the Department will always take care to avoid duplication of effort and will require suitable evidence of financial responsibility. This clause will also apply to Scotland.
In Clause 3 it is proposed to repeal the present limit on the duty of metropolitan county councils and London boroughs to provide for only 15 caravans in each district or borough, and to repeal the Secretary of State's power to grant exemptions from the duty to provide any sites on the grounds of lack of suitable land. It is also proposed to repeal the exemptions that were granted to 26 previous county borough areas because they had no gipsy population, but to delay that repeal for a further 12 months so that quota discussions with local authorities, to determine the level of adequate provision, can take place without the immediate assumption that sites must be found in such areas. Sir John Cripps recommended that no Inner London borough should be asked to make provision for more than 15 gipsy caravans, or to provide a transit site or stopping place, but that the 15-pitch limitation should be removed for Outer London.
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We have agreed generally with his recommendations, but we have chosen not to differentiate on the face of the Bill between inner and outer London boroughs. We think it preferable to have no statutory limitations. So we have provided simply for an outright repeal of the 15-pitch limit, but we have expressed our intention to work on that basis administratively in Inner London. We recognise that the Inner London authorities have very many serious social and other problems, although we do not think it right to ban gipsies entirely from Inner London. We are therefore asking these boroughs to make a small contribution to the overall need for sites by each providing a site for up to 15 pitches. This will not solve the problem of provision in London as a whole, and that in turn interacts with the position in the surrounding counties. We have therefore sought the joint view of the London Boroughs Association and the Standing Conference on South-East Regional Planning.
Clause 4 provides for the designation under Section 12 of the 1968 Act of a district or group of districts. As I explained earlier, when they have provided enough sites, county councils and London boroughs may seek designation under Section 12, and so secure the additional powers of eviction contained in Sections 10 and 11. The Cripps Report recommended that designation should continue to be granted only on a county basis. However, local authorities are virtually unanimous in wanting designation on a district basis. In consultation on the Cripps Report, they argued that district councils are deterred from co-operating in programmes of site provision: no district council wants to have a site ahead of its neighbours because it fears the magnet effect of such provision will attract yet more gipsies into its district. In the view of these authorities, the prospect of "partial designation" could restore the immediate incentive to these councils.
The Government have argued that the magnet effect would tend to diminish as a significant factor as there was an increasing spread of adequate site provision, but we have been impressed by the strength of feeling in this matter, and we have decided to deviate from the Cripps Report in this respect. However, I must make it clear that future applications for designation

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will not be considered lightly; they must follow the implementation of a programme of adequate site provision agreed with the Departments, and, once given, will have to be kept under continuing review. Clearly, there will be a need for further guidance about this, probably by departmental circular and also in discussion of county quotas.
I turn now to the two clauses in the Bill in which we seek to rationalise the procedures involved in the provision of sites by county councils. In Clause 5, we seek to enable a county council to provide a site on its own land without having to seek a licence from the district council. Originally, we proposed to follow the recommendation in the Cripps Report and amend the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960 to enable county councils to grant themselves site licences for sites under their own occupation. At present, the county council has to apply to the district council, which may use this stage to frustrate provision by the imposition of unreasonable conditions. However, we now prefer the simpler approach of exempting the county council from site licence requirements, which is consistent with the exemption already given in paragraph 11 of the First Schedule to the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960 to district councils which occupy land in their own area for use as a caravan site.
Clause 6 seeks to revoke Section 8 of the 1968 Act, which requires that a proposal for a gipsy caravan site which is opposed by the district council must be referred to the Secretary of State. He may then direct that the proposal should be abandoned, or that the county council should go ahead with it under normal statutory proceedings, or that planning application should be made to him. It is the Departments' experience over a very long period that this section in effect duplicates planning procedures and causes delay without adding any useful powers. The issues raised in sustaining such objections are invariably planning issues, and, in any event, the Secretary of State's ultimate recourse, if he should consider any objection might have validity, will be to call in the application under planning law. This recourse is open to him without going through the hoops set out in Section 8 of the 1968 Act.
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Your Lordships will be interested to note, I am sure, that Clause 7 provides for the devolution of these matters to the Scottish and Welsh Assemblies. I should like to crave your Lordships' indulgence for a little longer to quickly refer to several issues which are not covered by the Bill, although they were referred to in the Cripps Report.
Your Lordships may recall my earlier reference to Sir John Cripps' recommendation that consideration might be given to the strengthening of the powers contained in Sections 10 and 11 of the 1968 Act, which themselves flow from designation under Section 12 of that Act. We remain in consultation with the interested parties on this aspect, but we are not yet able to formulate proposals to bring before this House. Indeed, it is not clear at this stage exactly what form, if any, additional provisions might take.
Another item absent from the Bill is an amendment to Section 127 of the Highways Act 1959 in order to remove the words "or a gipsy" and thus to leave it as an offence for a hawker or street-trader to set up a stall or encamp on the highway. This specific reference to a gipsy has been much criticised as being discriminatory in comparison with other caravan-users. We have agreed to seek an opportunity to remove the phrase, but we require further time to consider the practical implications for police powers in general.
I referred earlier to the recommendation by Sir John Cripps that a national advisory body should be appointed. In response to that suggestion, we accepted the need to improve arrangements for exchanging views and for discussing proposals and ideas, but we felt that the recommendation itself required further consideration. The relevant Departments are concentrating on improved arrangements for discussion and consultation, and it is likely that this is all that will be needed.
The gipsy problem has many facets. Some of these require national consideration, but many are local problems requiring careful and considerate attention to the interests of gipsies and house-dwellers by local government. The proposals in this Bill are designed to provide a better basis for the adequate provision of sites, which we see as the cornerstone of local policies. The highest possible priority

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needs to be given to such provision, and consequently we seek to provide local government with the necessary financial support and suitable consultative machinery. The rest is then up to them if ever they are to resolve communal conflict between gipsies and house-dwellers, which brings with it local distress and misery. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Baroness Stedman.)
6.48 p.m.
Baroness YOUNG: My Lords, I should like to begin by thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, for introducing this Bill to us this evening and for explaining its contents so clearly and so very fully. We shall all study what she has said with great interest, because although it is a short Bill it is no doubt an important one. As I understand it, the Bill follows the report of Sir John Cripps, which in its turn was a report on the working of the Caravan Sites Act 1968. I have no doubt that in the course of the passage of this Bill, much will be said about the problems of gipsies, and it seems to me that if we were to put the problem into a nutshell it would be that it is always difficult for a non-conforming minority to find its place in a fundamentally conforming society. The aims and needs of each community are diametrically opposed. I well remember one of the last meetings I attended when I was in local government, which was one with local residents over a proposed gipsy caravan site under the 1968 Act. I would only say to the House that this is not an experience that I would care to repeat.
I sympathise greatly with the problem, of local authorities in trying to find sites, and this no doubt explains the low growth in the number of sites provided since the passage of the 1968 Act. This said, I fully accept that a policy of ignoring the difficulties of gipsies, or, indeed, the right of people to be non-conformers, will not make the problem go away, and that something more needs to be done. This becomes particularly important when one considers the growth of the gipsy population.
I read with interest the report of Sir John Cripps and I must say that I should
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like to add my congratulations on it because it sets out the workings of the Act and the whole problem of the gipsies so clearly. As he states, the Census of 1965 disclosed a population of 3,400 families, or approximately 15,000 persons. This is now thought to be a great under-estimate, because it is now thought that there are, as the noble Baroness indicated, some 9,000 families, or probably 40,000 persons. So we are talking about a population of a small town. So far, 133 sites have been provided, whereas it is estimated that over 300 are needed.
The problem is made more difficult as most of the families are in the South-East, including East Anglia, and the problem is further compounded by the fact that, whereas gipsies were largely agricultural workers, they are now scrap metal dealers and move from the country into the towns. They remain largely around the towns in the South-East. This is where the problem has been concentrated. It would be helpful if at some stage in the course of our deliberations the Government were to give more accurate figures or an indication of how we might find out more accurate figures, because I think that one of the ways in which the public is disquieted is to feel that there is no limit to the problem because we do not know quite about whom we are speaking. I can appreciate that the Bill before the House is an attempt to answer these problems but, like all the local authority associations, I and my colleagues on this side of the House can give it only a qualified welcome. There will be a number of matters to which we will have to return in detail when we reach the Committee stage of the Bill.
Clause 1, I think, must be welcomed. Local authorities will be glad to know that they will be fully reimbursed for the capital cost of establishing a caravan site. No one can doubt that the amount of money proposed—£30 million—even when spread over six years, is generous. I make this point—and it is an unusual one to make at the start of any Bill—because so many other aspects of public expenditure, particularly local government expenditure, are starved of funds. Although it is no part of this debate, it has been very noticeable, having debated the International Year of the Child only last week, that the number of instances of legislation

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that has not been fully implemented although it has been on the Statute Book for some time is quite striking; and the reason why so much legislation has not been fully implemented is that local authorities have been starved of funds. We must recognise that the Government are making a priority of giving this help to settle the gipsy problem and that this, in their opinion, is more important than many other aspects of local authorities' work. However, although local authorities will be encouraged to know that they will be reimbursed for the capital costs of gipsy sites, this money will come from proposed housing expenditure so that it is a transfer of funds. I believe that the noble Baroness's right honourable friend in another place has indicated that it will make a difference of one house in a thousand. In effect, the money means that we are transferring resources from, as it were, the conforming part of the population to the non-conforming. Perhaps that is what the Government wish at this time.
Clause 2 provides grants to voluntary organisations dealing with gipsies. I listened with care to what the noble Baroness said on this clause. I wonder whether it would not be better to channel all this money through the National Gipsy Council. This is an organisation which, I believe, is well known both to the Baroness's own Department and to local government. It would reassure those who would be responsible at local authority level for managing the sites and for funding the revenue costs to know that when grants are given they are being given through a recognised authority that speaks on behalf of the gipsies.
Where, I think, local authorities are rightly concerned is over the whole matter of enforcement. As I understand it, the 1968 Act is really based on an agreement between local authorities and the gipsies in the sense that the local authorities under-took to provide sites but, at the same time, they were given a guarantee that they would have the powers to remove unauthorised caravan users. The fact of the matter is that those provisions of the 1968 Act (particularly those of Clauses 10 and 11) have proved to be very difficult to enforce. The local authorities feel that, having made a great effort—and it was a great effort—to provide sites, they have never been given adequate powers to
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enforce the illegal parking of caravans by others within their area. Therefore, they seek stonger enforcement powers and would hope that these were to be forth-coming in the Bill. It is disappointing to hear the noble Baroness say that, although the Government are considering this matter, they have been unable to include relevant provisions in the Bill. This is something to which we shall certainly return at Committee stage. I believe it would be a great encouragement to local authorities to provide more sites were the enforcement powers stronger,
The second point I should like to make is that, under this Bill, the powers and duties of counties and districts are particularly set out in Clauses 5 and 6. I wonder whether the Government have quite got the balance right. Clause 6, in particular, repeals Section 8 of the Caravan Sites Act 1968, requiring county councils to consult district councils before adopting proposals to acquire or appropriate land for gipsy caravan sites. This, combined with the proposal in Clause 5 removing the need for a county council to seek a site licence and that under Clause 3(2)(b) (the exemptions from site provisions currently extended to a number of former county boroughs) does give rise to a great deal of concern from the Association of District Councils. This is a very detailed matter to explore at Second Reading, but it is certainly something we shall want to look at at the Committee stage.
I have no doubt we shall have a great deal of discussion about gipsies and their way of life and I should like to offer, in conclusion, what I hope will be thought to be a constructive suggestion. As I have already indicated, there is a very real problem in the relationship between gipsies and residents. I wonder if it would not be worth while looking at sites on the edge of industrial estates. Most towns now have such estates on their outskirts. As many gipsies are, in any event, scrap metal dealers, it seems that it would be more sensible to find a place for them where they could work. If it were possible to find a place for them to work, it might be easier to find a place for them to live. Looking at it from that point of view might be a more profitable exercise than some of the difficult negotiations which local authorities have had to go into when they have tried

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to find a site for gipsies very near or adjacent to residential accommodation.
To conclude, my Lords, we on this side of the House give a qualified welcome to this Bill. We recognise the very real problems and the attempts to put them right. I would only say that there are many points of detail to which we shall wish to return at the Committee stage, and we shall seek assurances particularly on the point I have raised about enforcement.
6.59 p.m.
Lord AVEBURY: My Lords, I should like to join the noble Baroness, Lady Young, in welcoming the way in which the Minister has so thoroughly explained the provisions of this Bill. I should like also to welcome the moderate tones in which the noble Baroness herself replied to the opening speech and the encouraging words she has given of general approval of the provisions of the Bill, although there may be some details which the Opposition may wish to amend in Committee stage. As the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, reminded me, it is nearly 11 years since I introduced the Caravan Sites Bill in 1968 and it is almost nine years since it was brought into operation some two years later in 1970.
I think it is a good opportunity now for us to examine what lessons there are to be learned from the experience over these years and how we can be certain that this Bill, which is based, as both noble Baronesses have said, on the excellent recommendations in the report of Sir John Cripps, will be more successful than was the previous legislation. The 1968 Act was an attempt at a comprehensive solution to the so-called gipsy problem, based, as the noble Baroness, Lady Young, said, on a compromise between the interests of local authorities and those of the gipsy community. What we were attempting to do was to ensure that the authorities provided a network of sites on a scale large enough to accommodate the whole of the gipsy population and, in return, the gipsies were prepared to accept stricter control of the unauthorised encampments which, as the noble Baroness said, are the bane of suburban residents and parish councils.
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Unfortunately, the local authorities failed dismally to carry out their side of the bargain. The Minister herself said that they have been extremely slow. I must say that endless difficulties have been discovered or manufactured with the result that according to my calculations, about three out of five gipsy families are still living on unauthorised sites. That is according to the figures collected in the census of last July. There seems to be some discrepancy between those figures and the ones that the noble Baroness gave us this evening. She said there were 2,500 families on authorised sites out of a total of 9,000. If my calculations are correct, the 1978 survey shows that there were 3,500 caravans on authorised sites out of a total of 8,540. Admittedly, you cannot exactly correlate caravans with families, the survey only referred to England and the noble Baroness may have been giving us England and Wales. But there seems to be a need, as the noble Baroness, Lady Young, remarked, for greater accuracy in the figures. The Department will be the first to admit that the first census had some defects and that these can be remedied in later attempts. The true picture is almost certainly worse than was shown by the survey, because there were some local authorities which refused to take part altogether, and those are likely to be the culprits who have not provided any sites; but some who took part gave inflated totals of the number of caravans that they had on authorised sites.
The 1968 Act gave the Minister the power to step in and direct the local authority to provide sites on a scale that he would determine, and to enforce that direction with a writ of mandamus, where necessary. The Government have never invoked these powers but have continued to rely on persuasion. It may be that with the benefit of hindsight it is possible to see many effects in the 1968 Act. I believe the main reasons why it has not been more effective have been, first, the skilful evasion by local authorities of the obligations which of course they assume are voluntary; and, secondly, the inexplicable reluctance of successive Ministers to use that weapon of direction. I am not going to try and claim that comprehensive provision of sites all over the country would have been achieved by now had there been greater determination,

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because obviously other factors have been at work over the past decade and, in particular, there have been restraints on local government spending. But those restraints in some cases provided an additional excuse for what the local authorities intended to do anyway, which was to shelve schemes for gipsy sites which their councillors might think would be unpopular with the voters.
At the same time, local authorities have been spending enormous sums on housing gipsies and preventing them from occupying vacant land or the verges of highways. For example, Mr. Tim Jones in The Times of 24th October last mentioned Swansea, which has spent over £27,000 in blocking off vacant land so that gipsies cannot camp on it. Mr. Bill Forrester of the Minority Rights Group was quoted in Labour Weekly of 21st July last as saying that in Rotherham £35,000 was spent on anti-gipsy activities in 1977 alone—and I think this was for labour and materials only. Mr. Forrester estimated that throughout the country as a whole as much as £4 million a year was being wasted in this way.
One example with which I am familiar is in the London borough of Bromley. I drive along the A.21 road most days and see an enormous concrete and steel fence—a most unsightly fence—which has been erected there along the A.21 and also along part of Court Road which runs parallel to it, the cost of which I understand has been £35,000. Presumably, in the end this "Maginot line" will run all the way along to the edges of the borough so that the gipsies will be driven back into the county of Kent, where, needless to say, there are no sites where they can legally stop. I was not at all surprised that the London Boroughs Association reacted negatively when the Bill was published and they saw that the 15-pitch limit was to be removed in accordance with the recommendation of Sir John Cripps.
Mr. Bowness, chairman of the London Boroughs Association, said on 15th January:
"There must be a realistic appraisal of what London can provide, which must be linked with new, speedy and effective enforcement provisions".
The July 1978 survey figures appeared to show that many of the London boroughs
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had already done more than was required of them, but these figures must be treated with great caution, as I know the Department itself recognises. For instance, the London Borough of Bromley is listed as having 51 pitches on authorised sites, when the actual number—and I believe this has been corrected in the most recent survey undertaken in January—is 21. I think it is going to be very difficult for the Government to arrive at any agreement with the LBA on increased provision in Greater London, so the removal of limits which the noble Baroness mentioned is going to make very little difference in practice.
With regard to the cancellation of exemptions in the former county boroughs, again the effect may be marginal. We have had exemptions in 26 of the county boroughs, all on the grounds that there were no gipsies residing in their areas in the five years up to 1st April 1968. If all those areas did provide one 15-pitch site each, there would be another 390 pitches in total, and that represents less than 8 per cent. of the need. But even that assumes that the quota discussions which the noble Baroness mentioned, and which are now proceeding with the local authorities will be uniformly successful and that all the district councils concerned have gipsies resorting to their areas so as to make a site in those areas necessary. On this latter point, the effect of Clause 3(2)(b) is delayed for 12 months so that discussions on quotas may proceed without any immediate presumption that sites ought to be found in these areas.
On the wider question of agreement on quotas and a timetable, as recommended in paragraph 4.40 of the Cripps Report, I have to say that, potentially, this is more important than anything that is actually contained in the Bill, yet there are signs that some local authorities will do their best to sabotage any agreement made between the Government and the Associations that are meant to be representing them. I say this because of remarks made by some councillors, many of them chairmen of committees, on the question of accommodation for gipsies. Councillor Ron Watkiss, leader of the Cardiff City Council, has told officers to keep on harassing the gipsies until they realise that they are not wanted in the city. The South Wales Echo of 18th October

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1978 said in its leading article that Mr. Watkiss was right. Save the Children, in a report to the DHSS by Ms. Anne Bagehot, their national gipsy liaison officer, referred to "massive evictions" in Cardiff, and she went on to say that, with opposition so strong, it would be a long time before adequate space was provided in Cardiff.
In Wiltshire, at a meeting between the county and districts held on 11th May last, it was resolved to take "strong action" against people who stationed caravans on the Droves, Salisbury, on the grounds that they were neither gipsies nor the district council's responsibility. If they were really not gipsies they would still be the responsibility of the local authority under the Housing (Homeless Persons) Act 1977. In Sheffield, Councillor George Wilson, leader of the council, said on BBC Radio Sheffield on 14th December last year:
"I wish you'd stop calling them gipsies… they're cannibals, they're parasites on society".
Councillor Reg Glinn of the Plymouth City Council was quoted in Labour Weekly—my favourite reading—of 10th June 1977 as saying of gipsies:
"These people should be shot, first in the leg, and if necessary killed".
Councillor Paddy Cane of Sutton has suggested bringing in tanks to remove gipsies. In the London Borough of Hillingdon there were plans for another site, but after the elections of 1978, the new council made a policy decision not to continue with the scheme. There have been evictions in the Borough of Hillingdon since then, and it has even been alleged that some gipsies have been forced across the boundary of the borough into the neighbouring county immediately before the 1978 count, with the obvious intention of reducing the borough's liability when the 15-pitch limit is removed.
At Cardiff, similarly, families were evicted from the Trowbridge site on the actual morning of the second count, on 17th January this year. It would be interesting to know whether they were included in the total. In Oxfordshire, a leading article in the Oxford Times, which was kindly sent to me by my noble friend Lord Stanley of Alderley, suggested that local authorities should not be obliged to provide sites for itinerants.
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So with these attitudes as widespread as this, what chance have we of getting enough accommodation by voluntary agreement? If it was as easy as all that, we should have solved this problem in the last 10 years. The only inducement the Government have to offer is designation. Under the Bill they will be able to hold out the possibility of extending those powers to districts or groups of districts instead of to whole counties. I can sell understand that local authorities were vociferous in demanding this weakening of the 1968 Act; but in giving way to that pressure I think that the Government have reneged on a commitment which was given to me by the late Arthur Skeffington and subsequently embodied in Circular 49 of 1968, where Ministers said that they intended:
"to exercise their powers to designate in such a way as to avoid creating a patchwork of relatively small areas where it could be an offence for a gipsy to camp. Such a pattern would create a difficult position for the councils of adjoining areas and a confused one for the gipsies themselves".
That is precisely what could happen with a partial designation being included under this Bill.
The argument is, as the noble Baroness explained, that no district council wants to have a site ahead of its neighbours for fear of the "magnet effect", as she put it. That may well be so, but if the Department and the local authorities really mean business, then voluntary quotas can be agreed and the timetable decided, so that the work proceeds throughout the whole of the county in a co-ordinated manner and completion can be synchronised roughly as between the districts. To accept the need for partial designation implies a lack of confidence in our ability to formulate and manage such a programme. It also relies on the argument we have heard this afternoon, that designation in one area is an incentive to neighbouring authorities to get on with the job.
I say we can now see that this proposition is manifestly false, as I predicted when your Lordships discussed the first designation order as long ago as 14th November 1972. I pointed out then that the gipsies who could not get on to the site at St. Helens, where there were 12 pitches—St. Helens being one of the three county boroughs then designated—would

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simply be decanted into the surrounding county of Lancashire, which had already scaled down what they were prepared to do from 100 pitches to 75 since the 1968 circular. I said then that even that "miserably inadequate target", as I called it, seemed likely to be reduced still further. According to the July 1978 survey, there were at that time only 57 pitches on official sites in Lancashire, compared with 162 on unauthorised sites. The county therefore has done even less than the national average to meet its own requirements.
The noble Lord, Lord Sandford, who was the Minister replying to that debate, said that he expected designation to stimulate the provision of more sites. I ventured to remark that that was nothing but a pious hope and that it would never happen. We are in a position to judge which of us was right, and I say that if one looks at the experience of Lancashire and the other authorities which were designated at that time, experience shows that it was a mistake to designate those county boroughs in the expectation that it would encourage the neighbours to do more. Therefore, I say that partial designation is the wrong policy.
Before leaving this question of designation, perhaps I should mention the case of Dorset, which I believe to be still the only county to have been granted designation. There were two planning applications by gipsies pending at the time of designation. I understand that one of those was subsequently turned down and the other was accepted. It obviously creates serious difficulty for the gipsies who were in the process of making a planning application at the time of designation, because if they lose that application then they are going to have to move out of the county altogether. I think that this point perhaps ought to be considered in Committee.
Similarly, I say that the strengthening of enforcement powers such as the noble Baroness, Lady Young, suggested we ought to look at, would be counter-productive. The Cripps Report suggested that Sections 10 and 11 of the 1968 Act should be confined to unoccupied land, and then only when the land was required immediately for some other purpose. Sir John did concede that the various suggestions made for strengthening Section 11 ought to be examined, but he
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said they should be acted upon only if the previously mentioned proposal were implemented first. Since that condition is not to be fulfilled, I think it is a pity that the Government have nevertheless agreed to re-examine Section 11. But as they have done so, it is not altogether satisfactory for the Minister to say this evening that she could not give us any information about the progress of those consultations.
My own view is that it is for the local authorities to show first that they can deliver the goods, and after that to ask Parliament for the new powers. If there is agreement on quotas and the time-tables, there must also be penalties for non-achievement. The Government say it is very unlikely that any local authority would be unwilling to accept its quota and to agree a programme, but that they might consider the use of default powers appropriate in those exceptional circumstances. I think it would be much better for all concerned if Parliament laid down clearly when directions should be given by the Secretary of State, and that this should happen not only if a local authority declined to accept its quota by the end of, say, 1979, but also if, having accepted the quota, it fails to meet an agreed timetable.
It has become fashionable to criticise the 1968 Act, and no doubt it had the limitations which are inseparable from the need to satisfy as many conflicting interests as possible; but, when I come to examine this Bill, all it is proposed to do in terms of legislation is to give the councils a bit more money, to remove exemptions from a handful of authorities, to abolish the 15-pitch limit, which has been exceeded voluntarily anyway by many authorities, and to make it slightly easier for counties to obtain a site licence.
What really matters is whether there will be a new spirit of determination by the local authorities and national Government in dealing with this tiny problem—and it is a tiny problem, as Sir John Cripps said, and as the noble Baroness has re-emphasised this evening. When you think that 800 families could be accommodated in comparative luxury for the same amount of money that one London borough is thinking of spending on its town hall, and when you consider that the whole of the money required to complete the national site network—£30 million,

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which is going to be provided under this Bill—is the equivalent of less than four of those town halls, you can only wonder that it has taken us so long. But the gipsies are not themselves a powerful lobby and their cause is thought to be a loser for anyone taking it up. When New Society examined a list of unpopular causes in its issue of 6th July 1978, it included alcoholics, ex-prisoners, tramps and drug users: gipsies were at the bottom of the list.
I think it still has not dawned on the public, because the so-called leaders of opinion do not often say so, that officially-run sites, kept tidy and properly supervised, are infinitely preferable to the squalor and filth which is inseparable from unauthorised encampments. Nor is it realised that by continuing to harry the gipsies from pillar to post and thus preventing their children from attending school, we have stored up trouble for yet another generation. However belatedly, I hope your Lordships can join with Ministers, councillors and friends of the gipsy community in spelling out these truths.
7.20 p.m.
Lord MOTTISTONE: My Lords, it gives me great pleasure, also, to congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, on introducing this Bill so very ably. I am pleased to contribute briefly to this debate, because the 1968 Act of the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, was the very first Bill which I ever took part in debating in your Lordships' House, though I admit that at that time I concentrated rather more on Parts I and III than on Part II of the Bill.
It seems to me that we are facing a tougher problem than the rather dictatorial approach, which the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, has suggested, can cope with. If one looks at the statistics, it appears that it was thought in 1965 that there were 3,400 families, and it is now believed that there are 9,000. As my noble friend Lady Young said, we must get the figures more accurate, because if there were 3,400 families then 2,500 sites would be a much better achievement than it now appears to be. It is very important to quote—and it requires quotation—one paragraph from the excellent report of Sir John Cripps, which, though we may
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not entirely agree with what he recommended, I think we all feel is very thorough and is as good a chance of getting the facts right as one would believe possible. He says in paragraph 3.19:
"A councillor who fails to oppose a site in his ward immediately feels that his seat is in jeopardy. Courageous men and women have, none the less, tried conscientiously to support their council's officers in the selection of sites, and some have retained the confidence of the electors for doing so. It is not possible, however, to overstate the intensity of feeling, bordering on the frenetic, aroused by the proposal to establish a site for gipsies in almost any reasonable location".
That is a fact of life. I only touched upon it when living in Cheshire, not that anybody sought to put a site close to where I was living, but a not too far distant neighbour of mine, about two miles away, found some gipsies outside his main entrance and the rows that developed from that were something that staggered me. There is a fundamental feeling here, and I wonder whether it is not so much the genuine gipsies, the Romany folk, who are under criticism, but the people who go under the banner of the gipsies and who are not really gipsies. Sir John Cripps talked about tinkers, but there are many other kinds of groups.
If it is true that there are now 9,000 families and 14 years ago we thought there were only 3,400, is it the case that by providing the sites we have encouraged to be nomads people who are not naturally so? Is there room to tighten up the definition, to talk about people whose tradition was nomadic, rather than follow the precise wording of the 1968 Act? I know that it is very difficult to get a definition which stands up in law, but I suggest to the noble Baroness that this might be worth looking at, because we must think of realities.
It is all very well telling councils that they must do this, that or the other and they will be penalised if they do not do precisely what central Government think is right, or, at least, what the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, thinks is right, which might not be quite the same. You cannot do that against the background of this almost gut feeling—if I may use such an unparliamentary term—in the populace.
I should now like to turn to the question of whether it is right to encourage people to come near towns, because they have turned into scrap dealers from being

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people who helped on the farms. That might be a good thing, particularly if the suggestion of my noble friend Lady Young was followed up of putting sites close to industrial areas. But in the Cripps Report one reads that one cannot altogether trust some of these people who come under the heading of gipsies. I remember that at an industrial estate in Manchester, where I had a computer housed, we kept on getting raided by small boys, particularly over weekends, because the industrial estate was relatively remote and there was no one there. So you get that kind of problem. The idea is a good one and it needs studying, but it has those snags which must be watched.
I should have thought that a genuine nomadic person would not be very contented with living in a town, or around the edge of a town. I should have thought it was better to encourage such people to be in the wider country, rather than in the towns. Therefore, I wonder whether it is right, in Clause 3(1) of the Bill, to cut out the limitation of numbers in the London boroughs at this stage. It is true to say that the London boroughs have been quicker than the Home Counties around them to meet the reasonable quota, which they have been asked to do. That may, in its turn, have acted as a magnet to attract people to London, when they ought to be near the slightly smaller—but really very large—towns in the periphery in the Home Counties. Therefore, I wonder whether this is the right time to encourage London to become more of a magnet than it already is. I suspect that the same rules might apply to any other very large city and that, on the whole, we do not want to encourage that. Those are the points that I would throw out for consideration, some of which may be worthy of an Amendment to be discussed in Committee.
It will be most interesting to see what the Government have in the way of Amendments. The noble Baroness did not mention any, but I understand that the Government have told organisations which are interested that they are considering some Amendments. I, for one, will watch carefully to see what they do, and I hope that we may tighten up this Bill in some respects and get it into a shape which can take us through the next decade, so that the very good staff
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work of the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, can be improved still further into the 1980s.
7.27 p.m.
Lord GISBOROUGH: My Lords, as we know, the county councils can determine the sites of gipsy encampments and the district councils have to administer them. Under the designation system, the Secretary of State virtually says to a county council, "You provide alternative sites for gipsies and have the powers for removing them from unauthorised sites, or use the law of trespass"—which has proved inadequate. Some counties have provided sites but very few have done so—certainly, mine has not. As a result, the county is not designated. My own district, which I am sure is typical, has a great problem, one which we have already heard about, of caravans, with scrap metal dealers, old cars being broken up and tyres being burned near people's houses, which has led to a lot of angry residents who have obviously objected enormously.
These families go where there are pickings. They do not like going out into the countryside, because they have no affinity with the rural scene. I do not think that they are gipsies at all. I believe that most of them are simply scrap dealers who take to the road, perhaps only at certain times of the year. When they have been ejected, they have simply gone to another spot in the same county or district. My own district has taken out injunctions against named itinerants, but has failed at the court to get them moved from its land because those people had nowhere else to go.
The district would prefer—and no doubt the district is not alone—to be able to provide the site itself rather than rely on the county council, and also to arrange the designation of its own borough. The Secretary of State has accepted this principle of the district area being designated. As I understand it, that is in Clause 4, but it still leaves the county providing the site for the gipsies. Surely, however, designation is closely linked with site provision. It is not much good being able to have designation if you do not have the sites with which you can get your designation. Thus, the districts will be able to designate but they will have few powers as to where the sites will go.

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Yet the county council—and this county council is not alone—continues to delay, even after four years, producing sites.
Therefore, the point is that the provision of sites should become a concurrent function with the county council so that both the county council and the district are able to acquire land, provide the sites and obtain the 100 per cent. grant. Speaking for my own district, I understand that they would be prepared to grasp the nettle, even in the face of the unpopularity that would come to them, and provide a site.
Turning to Clause 6, whereas in the past county councils had to consult the districts with regard to the provision of sites, under this clause they will no longer have to consult the districts. This will make the position worse. I realise that there are arguments against concurrency. One of them is that it would create strife between districts and county councils, but I believe that concurrency would certainly cause no more strife, and possibly less. The fact that there will be no consultation will certainly contribute towards causing strife. Furthermore, if the districts were able to provide sites, many of them would perhaps do so.
7.31 p.m.
The Earl of CAITHNESS: My Lords, we are grateful to the noble Baroness and Her Majesty's Government for presenting the Bill which we are now discussing. When the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, opened the debate on the Countryside (Amendment) (Scotland) Bill, he said that it was short and uncontroversial. This is also a short Bill but it is highly controversial.
The problems of gipsies, whether maligned or not, the desirability, location and nature of sites, the responsibility for and management of the same, are matters which we could discuss for a prolonged period of time. We have heard about some of the results of people's attitudes, in particular from the noble Lord, Lord Avebury. He did not, however, put forward any solution to ease the problem. As I believe that this Bill, or something similar to it, will reach the Statute Book, I shall confine most of my remarks to what I consider to be a major omission from the Bill, which is only a partial solution.
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Turning first to the Bill itself, I am concerned about Clause 6 but will say no more about it at the moment as two noble Lords have already spoken on the subject. I turn, therefore, to my main point. Although persons in my profession do come into contact with gipsies, I have never encountered them in a professional capacity. My suggestions are not therefore put forward as the result of a personal grievance but in an endeavour to seek a workable solution to a very tricky problem. The main omission is that a local resident, as yet, cannot obtain compensation from local authorities for injurious affection or damage to his or her property as a result of the siting of a gipsy caravan site or the action of the inhabitants. As I understand it, under the present law there are two courses of action available to an aggrieved party. One is to sue a gipsy, or gipsies, on the same basis as one can sue a third party, but due to their very nature this action would not reach a satisfactory conclusion. The second is to sue the local authority which manages the site, but this would be expensive, time-consuming and unlikely to succeed to an extent that would be beneficial.
The present laws are therefore inadequate to protect any local resident where damage occurs due to gipsies or a gipsy site. The moral obligation has already been accepted in similar circumstances where land is taken or used for public works. There are precedents in the Land Compensation Acts, in particular in the 1973 Act. It is therefore disappointing that Sir John Cripps did not comment upon this in his report.
One of the practical effects of a gipsy site is damage to land and property, and there are two forms of compensation which can help to resolve this problem. One is injurious affection to a persons premises, but this is difficult to ascertain in many circumstances, and it takes a long time to prove it and then agree a settlement. In my experience, it would not be satisfactory in these circumstances. A better form, and the one that I would recommend to your Lordships, is one where an aggrieved local resident can receive a monetary sum in compensation where damage can be proved to have been caused to his or her property by gipsies.
In order to pay such monies, I believe that a local authority should be required to enter into a bond from which it could

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draw sums to compensate for such damage, and, if necessary, such monies would be 100 per cent. grant-aided by central Government. In essence, it would be a type of insurance policy. The idea of a bond is not a new one. Indeed, the County Council of Tyne and Wear, and others, seek a similar type of bond in Clause 5 of the Tyne and Wear Bill which your Lordships will be discussing in the near future.
Let us therefore consider an example of the problem. Imagine that a gipsy site has been established for, say, three years and has not given rise to any claims for damage by local residents. Unfortunately, there is internal strife on the site which results in part of a nearby farmer's fence being destroyed, part of the field he has shut off for hay being made unworkable and the garden of an adjacent house-occupier being damaged. Both parties can prove that the damage was done by the gipsies but, under present legislation, there is, in effect, nothing they can do about it. Under my proposal, an independent aribtrator would be appointed, the damage assessed, and the amount of compensation calculated and then paid out of the appropriate managing authority's bond. All affected parties are then put back as close as can be to the situation that existed prior to the damage being done. Incidents such as this are not unknown and in many cases can be directly attributed to gipsies. Their frequency, and the extent of the damage, will, of course, vary. It may be an unpalatable fact in this day and age, but we must face it and try to make it as inconvenient as possible for all parties concerned.
Here, a word may be appropriate on the appointment of an arbitrator. I feel the easiest and most satisfactory system is that which is already well used in agriculture. It is efficient and quick. The method is for a single arbitrator to be appointed by both parties, but, failing that, either by the president of the Central Association of Agricultural Valuers or by the President of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. The arbitrator should then be required to decide his award within a set period of time and the council should be required to pay the award within four weeks of the arbitrator's decision. The matter would then be disposed of and settled in a minimum period.
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The advantages of my proposals are numerous, but are mainly these. First, we fulfil the moral obligation to compensate a person whose land is injuriously affected or damaged by a third party. Second, local residents near gipsy sites will not be, as it were, out of pocket where such damage occurs. Third, if compensation is payable, then some of the barriers which exist against gipsies will be removed, though I would not venture to suggest that it could altogether dispel what Sir John Cripps calls "the widespread fear of gipsies among house dwellers." Fourth, the appropriate authorities will find it easier to acquire and appropriate land for gipsy caravan sites. Fifth, there will be an incentive for local authorities to manage their sites properly to minimise any damage claim, as they are accountable for their expenditure. Also, they would not have to pay for any damage, unless it occurs and unless it is substantiated. Last but not least, gipsies and local residents would get on better together and become more compatible neighbours.
To take up the point which was made by the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, I could not agree more that we should let gipsies be gipsies, but I would qualify that by saying: let true gipsies be true gipsies. I am sure that everybody would want that.
With regard to disadvantages, there appear to be only two. The Government will find it very difficult to assess the overall cost of finance. However, the sums involved will be small in comparison with the advantages to be gained. When better relationships have been established, funds could be saved by reducing the grants available to voluntary organisations. What exactly these organisations are, and what they have to do to receive a grant from central Government, we are not told in detail. Surely my proposals will mean that at least some money is better spent on compensation rather than giving it to some organisations which can, as Sir John Cripps states, "command intermediate and variable followings".
A further disadvantage from a local authority viewpoint is that the compensation scheme as proposed might be considered to be too widely drawn. This, I think, is a matter for further discussion at a later stage. At this stage I hope the noble Baroness will accept the principle involved. If further powers and financial

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aid are to be given to local authorities, without solving a major practical problem, so that the number of sites can be increased by approximately an additional 230 per cent. then I fear that the attitudes of many people, and particularly those of local residents, will not change but will even harden.
7.40 p.m.
Lord STANLEY of ALDERLEY: My Lords, I fear that I cannot agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, or the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, that gipsies are a tiny problem. I fear that they are a very difficult problem and I am thankful that the noble Baroness will have to solve that problem and not me. I have to declare an interest in that the Oxford-shire County Council are discussing a proposal tomorrow to move a non-Romany gipsy site from Oxford City to my farm. Perhaps I might preface my remarks by saying how much I agree with my noble friend Lord Mottistone on what is a gipsy, and I should like to say that, despite the fact that the Cripps Report groups them all together, I believe there is a very big difference between Romany gipsies and what I would call tinkers. The site in question was originally sited away from housing, but due to development the site now adjoins a residential area and the residents have complained of the behaviour of the tinkers to such an extent that the council have been asked to move them. It is reported that approximately £70,000 worth of damage and vandalism has been done to the site over the past few years, apart from considerable nuisance to neighbours.
I need hardly add that I am not particularly anxious to have the site on my farm. I would have to give up sheep and potato growing and I know not whether I should be entitled to compensation, although I am particularly interested in the remarks made by my noble friend Lord Caithness as to the possibility. But of much more importance is the fact that the residents nearby—and I am not one—are up in arms over the tinker site. Indeed, it has caused, and is causing, an unholy village protest, the like of which, I suggest, your Lordships know only too well. I should add that there are three other possible sites proposed by the county council, and in each case the
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distaste expressed by the residents nearby is equal to, if not worse than, ours. Not a Christian characteristic, maybe, but human—and not, I suggest, a good environment for legislation.
I raise this incident as a perfect example of what is likely to happen should this Bill become law and county councils are forced to provide approximately three times the number of sites that they have already. In the particular case I have just mentioned, Mr. Hugh Farrant, the leader of Oxfordshire County Council, has received well over 400 letters protesting against the site; and the mention of gipsy sites to any Oxfordshire county councillors today makes them scurry away like frightened deer.
It may be that your Lordships will say that my story is disgracefully selfish and unmindful of the tinkers, but my impression is that not enough thought is given to the residents who will be near the proposed sites. There are, according to the Cripps Report, 8,000 odd tinker families and gipsy families that, maybe, are asking for help—and I am just wondering whether the word should be "maybe". But there are many more millions of ordinary citizens also asking for help and I wonder if we are not once again kowtowing (if I may use that word) to a minority. The picture of the provision of tinker sites as portrayed by the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, in the comfort of your Lordships' House, is seen in a very different light by those members of the public who will be near those proposed sites. I think my noble friend Lady Young has a valid and interesting point that perhaps they should be sited near industrial estates.
Despite a search of D of E directives and also the Cripps Report, I can find no mention of how the existing sites are working, although one can see how they are not working from pages 11, 12 and 13 of the Cripps Report, which say some pretty disturbing and distressing things. I regret to introduce a note of bitterness, but I have come to the conclusion that a great deal of recent legislation has been based on the principle of "let's find a failure and try to help it, and let's find a success"—such as, I suggest, my own industry—"and try to ruin it". Before I beat my sword into a ploughshare I was taught something about reinforcing success and I greatly fear that this Bill may be

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doing exactly the opposite; namely, reinforcing failure.
So I ask the noble Baroness two questions. Can she convince me, as a run of the mill farmer and not, I fear, a high-minded noble Lord like my noble kinsman Lord Avebury, that the existing sites are working as satisfactorily as envisaged by the 1968 Act and that future sites as suggested in this Bill will be managed in such a way as to allay the fears I have expressed in my example? Secondly, can the Government convince me that the expenditure of £30 million, which no doubt will turn out to be £60 million, and asking the county councils to employ extra people, is in keeping with today's economic situation and not throwing good money after bad? Finally, my Lords, should you accuse me of being destructive—which no doubt I am—and ask me what I would do, faced with the tinker problem, I would repeat that fortunately it is the Government's job to make plans, but I would not reinforce failure, as I think this Bill may do. I would consider some means of compensation to residents near tinker sites, and if this cannot be given today because of the economic situation then I would do nothing at all.
7.47 p.m.
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, I am most grateful to all the noble Lords who have taken part in the debate and for the constructive criticism—if I may put it that way—that they have made, which we shall obviously have to face at the Committee stage and later stages.
The noble Baroness, Lady Young, queried, as did the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, our figures. We have now introduced six-monthly counts since January—they will now be held in January and July of each year—and we hope that that will bring some sort of uniformity with the counts which the local authorities are carrying out. Of course, with the movement of population and the fluidity in the situation of the gipsy encampments, the figures will never be completely accurate; but we think it will be a great advance on the past uncertainties and we shall have a much more realistic figure of the number of families with which we are coping.
The noble Baroness referred to the fact that the grant which we were giving
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we were really taking from the housing money. She said it was equivalent to one house in a thousand. Perhaps it is better expressed as 0·1 per cent. of the housing allocation; it comes to the same thing, but I think it puts it a little more in perspective. Also, of course, the present housing allocation is underspent by something like 8 per cent., so the grant is hardly likely to affect the housing programme of the local authorities while it is being given for this purpose.
The noble Baroness also raised the point that the grant ought perhaps only to be given to the National Gipsy Council. There are other voluntary organisations which are doing a lot of work on behalf of gipsies. The National Gipsy Council is certainly a commendable, efficient and reputable body, but there are other organisations which have a special expertise. It is certainly something that we will look at, but I think we would want to feel free to give help to some of the other, minor organisations which are helping, as well as to the National Gipsy Council.
On the question of the enforcement powers, we are investigating possible changes that might be introduced in this Bill so that we can get the best use of our official sites, including the need to guard against intruders who might put at risk those travellers for whom the sites have been provided. That is something which happens. We are looking at the position and, if possible, we will introduce the necessary Amendments, either in this House or in the other place when the Bill gets there, and when we have finished consultations with the other Departments.
The noble Baroness referred to the fact that it might be sensible to try to direct the provision of sites on to the edge of industrial areas. I am sure that the local authorities will bear that in mind. I can only speak from experience in my own city. There we have got our gipsy encampment, the permanent one, on the edge of our industrial area. I might also say that after a few teething troubles at the start it is now working reasonably satisfactorily.
The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, again queried the accuracy of the figures. I hope I have helped to put this mind at rest in saying that we are having a slightly better census done at the moment. He

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referred to the waste of resources on the anti-gipsy activities. I agree with the noble Lord that it is a pointless waste of resources, and that it would be better to employ these in a proper determination of the need and in the provision of properly equipped sites in compliance with the statutory requirements on the authorities. On the quota discussions, these are under way at the moment in all parts of the country.
The noble Lord queried the patchwork effect of the partial designation. Designation, whether for part or whole of the county, will only be granted once agreement has been reached over the county programme as a whole, and we are satisfied that the implementation of partial designation, where one district or group of districts has completed its provision, would not have any detrimental effect by forcing other gipsies on to further illegal sites. In regard to Dorset, there the designation was granted on the basis of adequate but flexible proposals. This is almost always going to be the case, because we are dealing with travelling people and the numbers fluctuate.
Lord AVEBURY: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Baroness. My point was that if planning applications by gipsies were under consideration at the time of designation by the county and they were subsequently unsuccessful, it would mean that the gipsy who lost his appeal, to the council or the Minister as the case may be, would have to move wholly outside the county. I was thinking that perhaps there should be some co-ordination between the planning machinery and the designation.
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, I take the noble Lord's point. I will have a look at it and write to him. On the question of the powers of direction, we think that these powers should be used only in exceptional circumstances. We hope there is going to be a much greater rate of progress without any formal coercion on behalf of the Secretary of State.
The noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, and others, raised the question of the definition of "gipsies". This is a difficult one. John Cripps tried it and could not come up with anything else which stood the test of time and was able to describe them
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better. I think we have to recognise that the 1965 count of the so-called gipsy families was probably a substantial under-count, and although the gipsy population is expanding by natural increase this is unlikely to be at the rate apparent from the quoted figures. There has been a lot of discussion about definition. We have not got a satisfactory alternative yet. If noble Lords in their wisdom can come up with a better one please let us have it; we will look at it and see whether it meets the criteria and makes more sense to everyone in their dealings with gipsies. The noble Lord also raised the question of the London boroughs not being deprived of their 15 pitch limit. We appreciate the contribution that the London boroughs have made in providing sites and we well recognise the special problems of the inner London boroughs because we are working administratively even now on keeping the 15 site limit in inner London.
The noble Lord, Lord Gisborough, referred to the county councils and district councils having concurrent powers in this. It is the duty of site provision that rests on the county councils, but the districts also have all the powers to provide sites, and either council under the Bill will be able to claim the grant on capital works. They are not quite concurrent powers, as the noble Lord was thinking, but if the districts are willing to go ahead and if there is agreement between the two authorities, then either the district or the county can claim the 100 per cent. grant on this.
The noble Earl, Lord Caithness, was good enough to give me notice of his point about compensation. It was something we had not looked at in the Bill and we had not covered. I have taken advice and I am told that local authorities would not normally seek special insurance arrangements beyond their normal insurance cover or take out any special bonds of surety in poviding gipsy caravan sites. I think we have to accept that there are good and bad gipsies, as there are good and bad in any walk of life, and no special measures are needed for gipsies alone. Experience has shown us that the majority of gipsies welcome the availability of an official site and they do their utmost to preserve their good name in the locality. I think the noble Earl is judging a possible situation at the authorised sites from experience of conditions at unauthorised sites and the illegal ones, which are bound

1085
to be squalid and unsightly, bound to have a spread of litter and rubbish and even encroachment of further caravans on to the land. Most problems of this nature arise because we have not at this point of time got enough official sites. I am advised that the Department are prepared to look further at the problems which he has raised tonight in claiming and assessing any compensation for damage. I hope to be able to get in touch with the noble Earl before the Committee stage.
Baroness YOUNG: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Baroness, but I think my noble friend has raised a very interesting point. Could she let us know—not necessarily this evening but in the course of the proceedings—those sites which, in her opinion and that of her advisers, are model sites that anyone could go and have a look at? This might be reassuring to some people who have so far failed to find one that meets this qualification. It might be interesting to see what is regarded as a model site.
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, I hope to meet the noble Baroness's request and let her have a list of sites which she could go and see; I will undertake to make it possible for her to see them, if necessary.
The noble Lord, Lord Stanley of Alderley, also raised the question about the existing sites; he wanted to know whether they were working satisfactorily, and said in effect, "Convince me that they are". I always hope I might convince the noble Lord; I have not always been successful. Generally the sites do work reasonably satisfactorily, and of course they are very much better than any of the illegal encampments that spring up on the roadside around the country. As I said, there are good and bad gipsies just as there are good and bad of other groups, such as those on housing estates, where we have good and bad tenants. We are certain that as the authorities provide an increasing number of sites and have experience in management the conditions are going to improve further. I am sure that the future sites will be well managed. I am satisfied that the expense is justified, because we had this duty laid on the local authorities way back 10 years ago and nothing has been done about it. We are now making it financially possible for them to build and equip proper caravan sites to provide for the gipsies.
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The noble Lord said that he was glad that the buck did not stop with him but that it stopped with me. I am happy to accept that buck because we want to make this a workable proposition. We want to make the provision that we are supposed to have been doing for the last 10 years. We want to make it become something of a reality for the many hundreds and thousands of families who want that sort of a home. I am grateful to noble Lords for their contributions. I am sure we are going to have a most interesting Committee stage, and I look forward to it.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

NURSES, MIDWIVES AND HEALTH VISITORS BILL
Brought from the Commons, read 1a, and to be printed.

ROYAL ASSENT
7.58 p.m.
The LORD CHANCELLOR (Lord Elwyn-Jones): My Lords, I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that the Queen has signified her Royal Assent to the following Acts:
Price Commission (Amendment) Act, Tyne and Wear Passenger Transport Act.

SHEFFIELD GENERAL CEMETERY BILL
Re-committed to the Committee on Unopposed Bills.