Lords Sitting of 20 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 Worcester.
The Lord Milverton—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his father.

CRUDE OIL SALES: BNOC POLICY
The Earl of LAUDERDALE: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the first Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what is the policy of BNOC regarding the sale overseas of crude oil obtained from 51 per cent. participation in offshore oilfield development operations.
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, in selling the crude oil available to it, whether through participation or from any other source, BNOC proceeds on the basis of its commercial judgment, bearing in mind the national interest.
The Earl of LAUDERDALE: My Lords, in thanking the noble Lord for that reply, may I ask him whether the Government continue to press the oil companies, including BNOC, to maximise their sales of refined spirits and to refine as much crude as possible in this country?
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, BNOC is ensuring the maintenance of delivery of its sales to the United Kingdom refineries. BNOC has been able to increase the sales to the United Kingdom by the renegotiation, where possible, of a limited number of contracts.
The Earl of LAUDERDALE: My Lords, can the noble Lord add to the information which he has been kind enough to give to the House by answering this further question: Is it the case that BNOC has been selling its equity crude taken
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from participation agreements with BP and selling it to Japan, whereas BP, having lost Iranian oil, is that much shorter of oil for use in this country?
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, in 1978 about 60 per cent. of BNOC disposals were to United Kingdom refineries. Further details will be released in the Corporation's annual report, which is due out shortly. With regard to Iran, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State announced on 31st January in another place that the Government would watch the situation carefully and keep in close touch with the International Energy Agency and with other Governments. He is also continuing to keep in close touch with the oil companies about the maintenance of supplies to the United Kingdom and the steps they are taking to secure additional supplies from other sources.
The Earl of LAUDERDALE: My Lords, can the noble Lord say whether the Secretary of State's endeavours in keeping in touch with the companies includes putting British consumers first and Japanese consumers somewhere lower down the scale?
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, I am surprised that someone with the noble Earl's considerable technical knowledge should make a remark like that. It would not be in the best interests of the United Kingdom to use all the North Sea oil directly in the United Kingdom refineries without regard to its value in other markets and to the cost of imported oil. The object of our refinery and disposal policy is to maximise the benefit to this country.
Viscount ST. DAVIDS: My Lords, when my noble friend says that BNOC considers the matter of the national interest can he tell me how it assesses that interest? Is it suggested to it by Her Majesty's Government?
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, the Department of Energy holds regular consultations with BNOC as with all other North Sea oil producers. These consultations include discussion of their disposal plans.

BRITISH PETROLEUM AND BNOC OVERSEAS BUSINESS
2.41 p.m.
The Earl of LAUDERDALE: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether their representatives abroad give equal support to the efforts of BP and of BNOC to do business overseas.
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, all British oil companies including British Petroleum and BNOC receive impartial support from the representatives of Her Majesty's Government overseas in their efforts to do business.
The Earl of LAUDERDALE: My Lords, is it not the case that for very many years BP has been the chosen instrument of British policy in the oil business overseas, and is the noble Lord aware that there have been cases where BP seems to have been treated less well than BNOC by embassies abroad?
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, in overseas markets BNOC receives the same degree of support from our overseas representatives as any other British oil company. If the noble Earl has any cases of alleged discrimination I shall be glad to look into them and to let him know.
The Earl of LAUDERDALE: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that, as always, I am most grateful for his kindness?

MR. J. THOMPSON: UNION EXPULSION
2.42 p.m.
Lord GISBOROUGH: 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 confirm that Mr. Joseph Thompson was recently expelled from a trade union because, 14 years ago at the age of 17, he had worked tem-
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porarily for a firm blacked by the union, and was therefore sacked under a closed shop agreement; and whether they intend to take action to prevent other people from suffering a similar fate.
Lord WALLACE of COSLANY: My Lords, employers are not required to notify the Government of their engagements and dismissals. However, the Question accurately reflects the accounts given in detailed Press coverage of Mr. Thompson's case last year. Mr. Thompson appealed to the TUC's Independent Review Committee set up two years ago at the Government's request to consider this sort of case, and I understand that as a result the union has suspended his expulsion while he considers his appeal to its executive.
Lord GISBOROUGH: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his Answer, but is it not high time that the Government showed, by word and deed through legislation, their support for the right to work and that there should be justice to the private individual citizen rather than to appease the wishes of the unelected, unrepresentative and highly unpopular trade union extremists?
Lord WALLACE of COSLANY: My Lords, that is not quite fair so far as the Government are concerned. First, the Government requested the TUC to consider this matter, and as a result the Independent Review Committee was set up. Furthermore, in the Code of Conduct recently issued we have indicated that we would like a broader approach to aspects of the closed shop. The situation is this, if I may sum it up: should a case arise in any area where a trade unionist is expelled from his union for some reason or another, the proper procedure—which was not necessarily followed in Mr. Thompson's case, might I add—is that he should appeal to the union executive. If the decision goes against him, he should then appeal to the Independent Review Committee, and after that he has his legal rights, of which every member should be fully aware.
Lord ROCHESTER: My Lords, would the noble Lord agree that it would be more equitable if appeals against exclusion from trade union membership

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were heard not by the Review Committee set up by the TUC in 1976 but by a body altogether independent of the trade union movement?
Lord WALLACE of COSLANY: My Lords, the Government do not take that view. The Opposition wanted an appeal tribunal, but we feel, quite rightly in my estimation, that this procedure is far simpler. In view of the membership of the Committee, I think the rights of the individual are fully protected. I think the noble Lord must obviously be aware of the membership of the Independent Review Committee.
Lord MONSON: My Lords, could the noble Lord say why the Government apparently oppose the idea of compensation for the unfortunate victims of the closed shop?
Lord WALLACE of COSLANY: My Lords, after all, the individual having failed to obtain redress has his legal rights, and that is where the question of compensation can arise.
Earl ALEXANDER of TUNIS: My Lords, would this not be a case where the person concerned—in this case Mr. Thompson—can take civil action through the normal court of law?
Lord WALLACE of COSLANY: That is the case, my Lords. In Mr. Thompson's case, I should like to put it this way: It has gone back to the union executive, because in fact he did not approach the union executive in the form of an appeal. If that appeal fails, he can go to the Independent Review Committee, and if that fails he can then take legal steps to obtain redress.
Baroness ELLES: My Lords, the Minister has talked a great deal about legal rights. I wonder whether he would be kind enough to inform the House exactly what legal rights such a person has and under what Act?
Lord WALLACE of COSLANY: My Lords, I cannot give the noble Baroness the full details of that now, but it is a known fact that cases have arisen where an appeal has been made by an individual against wrongful dismissal and he has secured his rights in that case.
Baroness ELLES: My Lords, I think the Minister has not quite answered my question. If he cannot answer it now—and I quite accept that it is a difficult point—I would be most grateful if he would be kind enough to write to me and give me the details of the rights of such a citizen in this kind of case.
Lord WALLACE of COSLANY: My Lords, I will certainly write to the noble Baroness. I have a feeling that she already knows the answer herself.
Baroness EMMET of AMBERLEY: My Lords, could I ask the Minister whether, when he writes this letter, he will include details of the cost of such an appeal.
Lord WALLACE of COSLANY: Not without notice, my Lords.
Baroness SEEAR: My Lords, in this letter, which is now going to be a very long letter, could the Minister include where this man would stand in relation to the European Convention on Human Rights and what prospect he might have if he took his case to the European Court?
Lord WALLACE of COSLANY: My Lords, that could be included. In point of fact, if it were not for taking up the time of the House at Question Time we could answer that at some length, but I do not wish to do that. I will write.

THE LABOUR PARTY'S EUROPEAN MANIFESTO
2.48 p.m.
Lord BETHELL: 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 share the views expressed in the Labour Party's European Manifesto, as published in Labour Weekly on 2nd February 1979.
The MINISTER of STATE, FOREIGN and COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (Lord Goronwy-Roberts): My Lords, the Manifesto has been approved by the National Executive of the Labour Party for the

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use of Labour Party candidates in the elections to the European Assembly to be held on 7th June. There is much in it which coincides with the Government's existing policies, and some points which do not.
Lord BETHELL: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for that schizophrenic reply. Is he now ready, on behalf of the Government, to repudiate outright the paragraph in the Manifesto which threatens that, unless certain conditions are met, his Party will break the Treaty of Rome and withdraw Britain from the European Economic Community?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I am not here today to issue repudiations ahead of the circumstances of the time. This is not the only Party in Britain; nor is this the only country where there are reservations about certain aspects of Community policy and where there are, to a greater or lesser degree, sections of the population who from time to time do not rule out the possibility of taking such action. This is not to say that this country will do anything of the kind. We are in the Common Market by a two-to-one majority of our people to do our best constructively to improve the working of that market so that British interests as well as European interests arc properly served.
Lord PARGITER: My Lords, would my noble friend agree that this is a misrepresentation of what was said in the Manifesto. It did not say anything about breaking the Treaty of Rome, but rather that it would have to be considered if the Government failed to get those objectives.
Baroness ELLES: My Lords, I should like to ask—
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, perhaps I could first respond to the very helpful contribution of my noble friend. The situation is exactly as my noble friend Lord Pargiter has described. It is a long Manifesto and the section which relates to that possible contingency, which is not related solely to British public opinion—I repeat that I move about Europe as much as anybody and I know what I am talking about—contains a statement that that is
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an eventuality or possibility that cannot be ruled out. Indeed, I think that my noble friend quoted it more precisely than I have quoted it. I am sorry that the noble Baroness was interrupted.
Baroness ELLES: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord. I know that the noble Lord is a firm believer in the European Community and has often made that clear in the House. However, I must take issue with him and would be grateful if he could give an indication of which countries or peoples of Europe other than Britain—the British Government and the British people—ever considered coming out of the Community? He knows as well as I—and I also travel around Europe—that there is no other Government than the British Government who have ever considered in recent years, certainly within the last three years, breaking with the European Community. Will the Minister kindly name the countries that he was indicating?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, it appears that the noble Baroness is more fully apprised of the views and intentions of European Governments than she is of her own Government. I have no information as regards what European Governments are thinking or intend to do about this. I was saying—and it is commonsense—that in this country in all Parties, including that of the noble Baroness, there are these contingent thoughts. They are not harmful: they are a part of democratic thinking. The Community is developing and so is opinion and argument about it—we must not be afraid of that—in all Parties of this country and in all countries of Europe, too, to a greater or lesser degree. I do not think that I am required to give a schedule of the degree to which various sections of opinion in other countries of Europe are thinking about these matters.
Lord WIGG: My Lords, before the Minister rises again to that piece of misrepresentation, would he inform himself of what the Manifesto does, in fact, say about breaking? It says:
"The Labour Party would have to consider very seriously whether continued EEC membership was in the best interests of the British people".
Will he give the assurance that Her Majesty's Government will always and

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at all times—unlike the Opposition—put the interests of Britain first and foremost in their thinking?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I must tell my noble friend that I keep myself very fully informed on these matters. I know exactly what the Manifesto says. As I have indicated to the House, I believe—and I see no dichotomy in a democratic country—in a situation of growth, which we hope is economic as well as arguable, we should let these thoughts develop. As to the point that the Government will put the interests of Britain first, I sought to put it that we would seek—and I think that any Government in this country would seek—to improve as well as reform, where necessary, the operations of the Community so that British interests and European interests, and I beg leave to add the interests of Western democracy and world democracy, are better served.
Lord CARRINGTON: My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Lord would let us know a little more of the Government's thinking. He told us that the Government were happy that a great many issues in the Manifesto coincided with the Government's policy. Are the Government happy that in the election the Labour Party should campaign on those issues which do not coincide with the Government's policy?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I am very happy to enlighten the noble Lord—I do not think that I need enlighten my side of the House or many on the Opposition side of the House—that our procedure as a democratic Party in relation to a British General Election is laid down in our constitution, whereby the national executive and the Parliamentary Labour Party, and when we are in office necessarily the Cabinet, are involved. It is a joint production of such a situation that is placed before the people at a General Election. As to the content, I could not offhand issue a general statement. I think that the country as a whole will find that we shall appeal for support for continuation within the Common Market, subject to our pressing forward the points of improvement that I have sought to explain this afternoon.
Lord MACKIE of BENSHIE: My Lords, is the Minister not uneasy about the multitude of pinpricks and complaints which emanate from this country in our European partnership? Is he not aware that we are extremely unpopular in many circles, particularly agricultural ones, and that far from us deciding to leave the Common Market we might well be "put out" by our exasperated partners?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I am not so aware. All I know is that if there are "pinpricks," as the noble Lord calls them, from this country there are quite substantial kicks from outside to this country. It is time that, in the context of European unity—and political unity is even more important than economic uniformity—this country was allowed by its own citizens to put forward what I regard as very reasonable and constructive proposals from time to time, especially with regard to the Common Agricultural Policy.
Lord DUNCAN-SANDYS: My Lords, can the Minister confirm that the Treaty of Rome which we have signed does not contain any provision for withdrawal?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I could not confirm that. Indeed, as Members know, this is a sovereign Parliament and in the most unlikely contingency of our deciding that our interests and, I add, the interests of the Western World, were best served by such an action, I think, speaking personally, that it would lie within the province of this Parliament so to decide. However, that is anticipating a contingency so remote that I suspect we may be doing harm to the European concept, and to the wider, more vital concept of democratic unity throughout the world, simply by speculating on these remote possibilities.
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, can my noble friend enlighten me on an aspect of a matter that has raised a number of questions from the other side of the House? In view of the likelihood of a European Parliament being established alongside a Commission, a Council of Ministers and a House of Commons that will be composed of a number of Select Committees in order to control whichever Government happen to be in office, could he enlighten me as to the future of many

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Members of your Lordships' House including myself? What is our future? What will happen to this Assembly?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, the obvious answer to my noble friend is that, "that is quite a number of other questions!" However, as regards the survival of my noble friend, I can give him an absolute assurance that I myself and I suspect the whole Government, and any successive Government, will bend our best efforts to obtain that objective.
Lord BETHELL: My Lords, will the Minister give us one or two examples of areas in the Manifesto with which the Government do not agree, but which the noble Lord says exist.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, not at Question Time—
Lord BETHELL: Just one!
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS:—not in 30 seconds, or even 30 minutes.

IRAN: CURRENT SITUATION
Baroness LLEWELLYN-DAVIES of HASTOE: My Lords, with the leave of the House, at a convenient moment after 3.30 p.m. my noble friend Lord Goronwy-Roberts will repeat a Statement made in another place on Iran.

STANDING ORDERS OF THE HOUSE
2.58 p.m.
The LORD CHANCELLOR (Lord Elwyn-Jones)The LORD CHANCELLOR (Lord Elwyn-Jones) rose to move, That the Standing Orders relating to public business be amended as follows:—
Standing Order No. 14
At end insert the following new paragraph—
"(3) Notwithstanding any adjournment of the House, the House may meet for judicial business at a time earlier than that appointed if the Lord Chancellor or, in his absence, the senior Lord of Appeal in Ordinary, is satisfied that it should do so and has signified
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that he is so satisfied and has given notice to such Lords as he thinks fit".
The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, the Motion seeks to give effect to a recommendation contained in the First Report of the Procedure Committee to which the House agreed on 31st January. At present there is no provision for the House to meet judicially at a time earlier than that to which it stands adjourned. The Committee were of the opinion that such provision should be made in order to enable the House to despatch unforeseen and urgent judicial business while the House stands adjourned.
The proposed Amendment would make the necessary change in Standing Order No. 14, which already provides for an emergency recall of the House in the case of public business. I am sure that the Amendment is a desirable one, for it is clearly necessary that it should be impossible for the validity of the judicial proceedings of the House to be impugned on the ground that the House, sitting judicially, was doing so without proper authority. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Standing Orders relating to public business be amended as follows:—
Standing Order No. 14
At end insert the following new paragraph—
"(3) Notwithstanding any adjournment of the House, the House may meet for judicial business at a time earlier than that appointed if the Lord Chancellor or, in his absence, the senior Lord of Appeal in Ordinary, is satisfied that it should do so and has signified that he is so satisfied and has given notice to such Lords as he thinks fit".
—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

STANDING ORDERS (PRIVATE BUSINESS)
3 p.m.
The CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES(Lord Aberdare)The CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES(Lord Aberdare) rose to move Amendment No. 1:
Standing Order 83(3)
Line 18, leave out "complaining of a noncompliance with the Standing Orders" and insert "alleging that the Standing Orders are applicable to the Bill and have not been complied with".
The noble Lord said: My Lords, in moving these Amendments to Private Business Standing Orders, I hope to be brief. They are mostly technical Amendments. The first Amendment is to bring our Standing Orders relating to hybrid Bills into line with those of another place. It would enable someone to deposit a Memorial in respect of a Public Bill alleging that certain Private Bill Standing Orders are applicable to the Bill and also that such Standing Orders have not been complied with. It is the consideration of such Memorials by the Examiners which determines whether or not a Bill is hybrid. This is to meet a difficulty which arose at the time of the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill because of this discrepancy between our Standing Orders and those of another place. I beg to move Amendment No. 1.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord ABERDARE Lord ABERDARE moved Amendments Nos. 2 to 6:
Standing Order 113
Leave out lines 13 and 14 and insert "an Unopposed Bill Committee".
Standing Order 121
Leave out Section (2) and insert the following new Section:
(2) "(i) Each Unopposed Bill Committee shall consist of the Chairman of Committees and, should he see fit, such Lords as he may select from the panel of Deputy Chairmen appointed each Session, and no Lord who is not a member of the Committee shall take any part in the proceedings thereof.
(ii) The Committee shall have the assistance of the Counsel to the Chairman of Committees.
(iii) An Unopposed Bill Committee shall in respect of the Bill committed to them make a Special Report on any matter to which they consider that the attention of the House should be drawn".
Standing Order 122
Line 3, at end insert "and in cases where the Committee consists of the Chairman of Committees and any Lord selected from the panel of Deputy Chairmen pursuant to Standing Order 121(2) they shall be entitled to be heard by themselves, their Agents or Counsel.
Standing Order 160
Line 2, leave out "the Chairman of Committees" and insert "an Unopposed Bill Committee".
Standing Order 185(1)(b)
Lines 7 and 8, leave out "the Chairman of Committees" and insert "an Unopposed Bill Committee.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I should like to move Amendments Nos. 2 to 6 en bloc, as they all arise from a recommendation regarding Unopposed Bill Committees contained in the first report from the Procedure Committee for this Session, which was agreed to by the House on 31st January. However, I should like to draw particular attention to Amendment No. 4, as this is additional to the recommendations of the Procedure Committee. It seemed to me that in cases where I sit with other noble Lords from the Panel of Deputy Chairmen to consider an important provision in a Private Bill, or maybe an Instruction agreed to by the House in a Bill that is otherwise unopposed, the promoters should be allowed to appear by counsel if they wish to do so. That is effected by Amendment No. 4. I beg to move Amendments Nos. 2 to 6 en bloc.
On Question, Amendments agreed to.

FILMS BILL
Lord BIRKETT: My Lords, I understand that no Amendments have been set down to this Bill and that no noble Lord has indicated a wish to move a manuscript Amendment or to speak in Committee. Therefore, unless any noble Lord objects, I beg to move that the Order of Commitment be discharged.
Moved, That the Order of Commitment be discharged.—(Lord Birkett.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

COUNTRYSIDE (AMENDMENT) (SCOTLAND) BILL [H.L.]
Lord HUGHES: My Lords, I understand that no Amendments have been set down to this Bill and that no noble Lord has indicated a wish to move a manuscript Amendment or to speak in Committee.

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Therefore, unless any noble Lord objects, I beg to move that the Order of Commitment be discharged.
Moved, That the Order of Commitment be discharged.—(Lord Hughes.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

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

NATIONAL LAND FUND BILL [H.L.]
3.5 p.m.
Lord REIGATE: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Reigate.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD ABERDARE in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [Trustees of the National Land Fund]:
Lord REIGATE Lord REIGATE moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 1, line 7, leave out ("Land") and insert ("Heritage").
The noble Lord said: I beg to move the first Amendment standing in my name on the Marshalled List. It is very simple. It is to remove the word "Land" from the Title of the Bill and from the name of the Fund itself, and insert the word "Heritage". I did not do this at an earlier stage because I sought to amend the existing National Land Fund structure. However, in view of the discussion that continues in the public Press, it seems to
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me better that the Bill and the Fund should now be known as the National Heritage Fund, as that is the name by which it is becoming known in common parlance. I beg to move.
The MINISTER of STATE, DEPARTMENT of EDUCATION and SCIENCE (Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge): I have no objection to this Amendment.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 1, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 2 and 3 agreed to.
Clause 4 [Appointment and dismissal of Trustees]:
Lord REIGATE Lord REIGATE moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 2, line 32, leave out ("Secretary of State") and insert ("Prime Minister").
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 2. This is quite a simple Amendment. At the moment, as the Bill stands the Secretary of State, unspecified, can appoint the Trustees. In view of the fact that several departments are interested, I think it would be far more satisfactory and indicative of the status which I wish to see attached to the office of Trustee that it should be a Prime Minister's appointment. I beg to move.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: I do not wish to argue this case now; we shall have the opportunity to do so when a Government Bill on the same subject comes up. I would only reserve my position on this particular point.
Lord REIGATE: I should be more impressed by that argument if I knew when the Government Bill was coming up.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
[Amendment No. 3 not moved.]
Clause 4, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 5 [Short Title Commencement and Repeals]:
Lord REIGATE Lord REIGATE moved Amendment No. 4:

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Page 3, line 1, leave out ("Land") and insert ("Heritage").
The noble Lord said: This is a consequential Amendment.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 5, as amended, agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported with the Amendments.

PUBLIC LENDING RIGHT BILL
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD ABERDARE in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [Establishment of public lending right.]:
Viscount ECCLES Viscount ECCLES moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 1, line 18, leave out subsection (3).
The noble Viscount said: In the absence of my noble friend Lady Young, I should like to move her Amendment. Your Lordships may remember that on Second Reading The noble Baroness, Lady Lee of Asheridge, began her speech in these words:
"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 mc that it is a ridiculous Bill".—[Official Report, 12/2/79; col. 1022.1
I am sure we all agreed with The noble Baroness, whose enthusiasm for helping authors is very well known. But why is it ridiculous? Because in the Bill we have this Registrar and all his paraphernalia. There are 40 staff, and if my noble friend Lady Young had been here she would certainly have gone into the cost of this new QUANGO. I had intended not to do it, but as your Lordships will remember
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the Secretary of State estimated the costs in December would rise to £600,000 a year when the scheme was fully in operation. We know that it is two years at least before the scheme could be in operation, and if one puts inflation at 25 per cent. over two years, which I hardly think is an exaggeration, the costs would be some £700,000, perhaps more. That money has to come out of the £2 million limit in the Bill on the fund which the Government put up.
I know that my noble friend felt that at this time, when Government expenditure is already running at thousands of millions of pounds beyond the revenue from the taxes, we really ought not to add more unless the public interest is really served by so doing. That, I think I can show, is not so. Of course, the trouble is that the Government were persuaded by the authors—and they tried to persuade me in the short time that I had responsibility—that there is no way in which they can be rewarded for the undoubted fact that their books are borrowed free of charge, other than by a scheme based on borrowing. If we have a scheme based on borrowing and we are not to charge the borrower each time a book is taken out—and I think that noble Lords and Members of another place are almost unanimous in saying that we cannot charge a borrower—then you are forced to a Registrar, a QUANGO, and all this paraphernalia.
I think that it is a mistake on the part of authors to say that because borrowing is the reason why they do, in justice, deserve more for their books, therefore the method by which they are paid must be based on borrowing. They are very obstinate in this connection. They really remind me of a family whose hearts are set on flying to America by Concorde, and then they find that there is not enough money for all the family to fly by Concorde and, instead of settling for Sir Fred Laker and Skytrain, they say," Father and mother can go, and we leave the children behind. "This really is not sensible, but it is exactly what authors are insisting on doing. Since they cannot get a fair and reasonable scheme based on borrowing, they ought really to look at another principle.
The noble Lord, Lord Willis, if I remember aright, said in his speech on Second Reading that authors only want

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justice; they are not interested in, I think he called them, "handouts." I must say to him that I think that justice when there is so little reward attached to it makes "no noise in the frying pan." Authors are very hard up, and the authors that I know would I think, possibly with certain exceptions among the novelists, far prefer a scheme where as much as possible of the money which the taxpayer is to contribute to increasing their incomes does in fact get to them. That is not going to happen under this Bill.
I would think that the QUANGO which is here set up is in fact going to make handouts. It is going to give authors a sort of Christmas tip; an average of £10 each. If that is not a handout, I really do not know what is. The fact that it is based on some sort of sampling does not get over the fact that the object that we want to achieve is not achieved.
There are other ways. I think that my noble friend was going to base her objection to this subsection that we ask the Committee to leave out simply and solely on the fact that we ought not, in 1979, to put on the Statute Book a scheme so expensive to run that half the beneficiaries get less than the cost of assessing and paying their benefit. That, I think, was her main objection. There is, of course, another one, which is that we might find a better way of doing something more substantial for the authors.
In France I understand that this is done by relieving them of having to pay the National Health contribution. It is perhaps not a way that will recommend itself to Her Majesty's Treasury, but at least it is a neat, clean way of doing it. You are classed as an artist, a writer, and then you do not have to pay the self-employed man's rather heavy charges week by week for National Insurance. It has also the benefit that it has nothing to do with taxation; it is a clear addition to your income for spending. In Eire they give special taxation reliefs to writers. I am not sure that that is a very good system because a lot of the writers whom I should most like to help probably pay little or no taxation anyway, so to tell them they are getting a relief from income tax might not be of any real help. But still, I suppose there could be tax relief of some kind that would help.
The Minister ruled out the alternative, which is that we should have a different principle altogether. Since you cannot be fair in the sense of borrowing because you cannot estimate accurately all the different loans that are made over the whole country, why not have a system, which is also not entirely fair, based on purchases? It is said that that is very hard. The Minister gave a number of reasons against it, but, so far as I can make out in reading Mr. Hugh Jenkins' book, Ministers have always been against it. They have never really cared to have a look at this scheme. I am told by the local authorities, the Association of Metropolitan Authorities, that they could see their way to a scheme which would cost very much less. A large proportion of the books bought by our public libraries come through a wholesale channel—quite a narrow channel—and they say that the calculation would be quite simple to make. This would be of great advantage.
I admit that there will be authors whose books are already on the shelves of libraries who of course would not get anything from a purchase-based scheme because it would have to start at a certain date. Does that really matter? The life of a book in a library is short. So far as I remember, eight years was the figure given by the Libraries' Association—either one or two years more or less than that—and it would not be very long before a purchase-based scheme was in fact being fair to all authors writing books in the future. Of course when a book is renewed, which it often has to be because the demand increases or the book is worn out, then they would get it at that moment too. I have not examined this scheme in detail so I do not know, but I believe it to be capable, as the local authorities say, of being a great improvement.
I see that my noble friend has arrived so I should just like to conclude by saying that there are two reasons why your Lordships should accept this Amendment. The first is because, as Members of Parliament, we are expected to pass laws which make good use of public money, and this Bill does not do so. The second is because the scheme envisaged will help hardly any authors to any significant extent, and therefore we fail in our principal objective. On those two counts

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we should take a little time. After all, nothing can happen in the way of a worked out scheme before the General Election. Let us take a little time and try to devise a more sensible arrangement which will give authors more money and not create one more QUANGO.
Baroness YOUNG: I apologise for not being in my place at the start of the discussion on this Amendment and I thank my noble friend Lord Eccles for stepping in. I tabled the Amendment for reasons slightly different from those adduced by my noble friend, but the principle should be taken very seriously by the Committee.
Last November I introduced in the House a debate on QUANGOs in general, a subject which has attracted a great deal of public interest and concern over what is now a major growth industry in this country. Let me make it clear that I am not against all QUANGOs—that would be quite wrong—but I believe it is the duty of your Lordships' House and Parliament to question the reason for every QUANGO that appears in every piece of legislation, and I give notice that it is my intention to question every QUANGO as it comes up because it is for the Government to say why they are establishing one and why they believe it is the right way of doing something rather than adopting an alternative course.
One alternative has been well explained by Lord Eccles, something which is quite different from the system proposed in the Bill, and it does not seem that the Government have argued the case either against my noble friend or indeed for the QUANGO in the Bill. I therefore take as my starting point the question I raised in November: is this a public function? It is a public function, so the answer to that question is "Yes". Therefore the next question is: how should it be carried out? Should it be carried out, for example, as Lord Eccles said, or is there another way? The first question I would ask The noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge on that point, is whether this QUANGO has been looked at by the Committee on the Machinery of Government and why they have said there must be a Registrar with all the people who go with him at enormous cost.
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From the Second Reading debate, I gather that we shall start off with a Registrar and probably 12 staff. It is expected he will build up to a staff of 30 or 40 and will eventually cost £600,000. That is a great deal, to administer the scheme. Whatever may be said about the merits of whoever is appointed, we are in effect establishing a unit with its own staff which is bound to be less cost effective than something in the Treasury, the Department of Education and Science or, for all I know, the Inland Revenue, where there would be all sorts of other ancillary facilities which could be shared and used. Looked at as a purely administrative matter, therefore, I should have thought it was a very expensive way of carrying out this operation. I do not even know whether it will be the most efficient way.
I can see that it is convenient because the Registrar and his staff will not, I believe, count as civil servants; so if a check of civil servants is being done the Department will not be increasing its size, though it will be getting its administration, and the figures will not show up. I can see that argument, therefore, but I am not sure that it is an argument for having this type of QUANGO. It will be very expensive, it is by no means certain that it will be the most efficient way of doing this particular job and we shall be establishing something which will be very difficult to question, as all QUANGOs are unless there is a regular report to Parliament; whereas if this were under the direct control of a Minister we could put Questions to him and receive either a Written or an Oral Answer on any particular matter.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: I would remind The noble Baroness that the provision that there should be a regular report to Parliament is contained in the Bill.
Baroness YOUNG: I am glad to see that and I take the point, but it always means finding time to debate it. Opportunity must be found to discuss such matters, and those of us who sat here until 10.45 last night on other public business know that finding Parliamentary time to debate all these things is not easy, especially as often what one wants to do is not to have a major debate on, for

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example, how the Public Lending Right Bill is going but simply to ask a question about a particular matter. That is very difficult to do under the QUANGO system because, as in this case, one cannot ask questions of a Registrar. Indeed, if we did so Lord Donaldson would be the first to say, "That is not a matter for me but for the concern in question", and we should all feel sympathetic with the Minister. I can also see, from his point of view, that not only will it not add to his number of civil servants but it will avoid his having to answer a number of awkward questions which Members would no doubt wish to ask. I am sure he would be the first to admit that that is not a good reason for having a QUANGO, especially if one believes in open government and public accountability.
We are therefore left with having to look for some other reason, and I should like to know whether the Committee on the Machinery of Government has looked at this matter, why they decided in favour of a Registrar and a QUANGO, why they did not put the subject within a Department or find some other way of dealing with it and whether they do not feel that this is a very expensive and inefficient way of dealing with the problem. Having said that, let me make my position quite clear; I do not wish in any way to hold up the Bill, though in my view it is a matter of public importance and concern that we should question the reason for establishing yet another QUANGO.
LORD WILLIS: I was delighted to hear The noble Baroness, Lady Young, say that she did not wish to hold up the Bill. I take seriously her point about QUANGOs. I was also delighted to hear her say that she was not opposed to all QUANGOs because I would remind her that the biggest QUANGO of all is the House of Lords; we are all here by virtue of patronage. Some of the patronage may go back a few centuries; nevertheless we are not here by any right other than that, and therefore we must tread carefully.
"QUANGO" is the new "in" word. Some clever Dick invented it 18 months or two years ago, so today every public body has this halter put round its neck, and "QUANGO" is used as though it were some four letter word, which of course it is not if your Lordships can spell.
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To use the analogy of The noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, who spoke about flying to America in Concorde without one's family, what he is proposing by the Amendment is flying on Concorde to America without a navigator. It is as simple as that.
A number of the points made by both Lord Eccles and Lady Young were really Second Reading points; the difference between purchase right and loans right has been argued interminably in both Houses of Parliament. A special Commission of Inquiry was set up to go into it—a special technical investigation group—and it was discovered that the cheapest, best and most efficient way was the loan sampling system proposed in the Bill. Why on earth we have to come back at this stage to this basic issue of principle I do not understand. It has been discussed time and again.
We know that this scheme will be expensive to administer and, as I said on Second Reading, it is expensive only in relation to the total sum of money involved. But if we have a scheme, and if Parliament decides not to "help" writers—a term to which I deeply object—but simply to give writers some kind of justice, the scheme clearly has to be administered. So there are two points. First, we have decided that the loan scheme is the right one, and, secondly, we hope that Parliament will eventually agree that the scheme should be put into operation. Therefore, what do we do? Do we float it on the sea without anything to carry it? We have to have an organisation to administer it.
The noble Baroness quite rightly said that we ought to look at whatever body is set up and make sure that it is efficient. All we have at the moment is a kind of guess. It may be that modern technology, the micro-chip and everything else will in the course of the next two years revolutionise the kind of organisation that we need for the loan-sampling scheme. We just do not know. However, what is certain is that we have to launch it under a navigator, and there has to be some kind of registrar—call him or her what you like; the Bill happens to call him a Registrar—who will draw up and administer the scheme. Parliament will then have the right to debate the scheme, because it is to be laid before both Houses of Parliament.

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We can then argue about whether there are too many people involved, or whether there are not enough, and whether or not the scheme is going to be efficiently operated. One cannot agree that a certain amount of public money should be paid to authors out of justice and then not have anybody at all to administer the scheme. One cannot hang around the organisation this so-called clever word Quango, as if that in itself makes it disreputable.
Therefore I very much hope that the Amendment will not be pressed, but that if it is your Lordships will resist it, because it will only hold up the Bill, dismember it and make it one-legged. The only thing for your Lordships to do is regretfully to say "No" to the Amendment.
Viscount MASSEREENE and FER-RARD: I have some sympathy for the Amendment, though not total sympathy. I ought to declare an interest because I have written books, though only in a small way. I am all for authors, and I consider that they have been extremely badly done by for a hundred years by public lending libraries. I understand that there are 600,000 loans a year from public libraries in this country, which is the greatest number in the world per head of population. I do not want to make a Second Reading speech.—
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: Six hundred million.
Viscount MASSEREENE and FER-RARD: I meant 600 million. I agree that it seems absurd that £600,000 should be needed to administer a grant of £2 million. Presumably it is hoped that the grant will be increased eventually. It may go up to £4 million, to £6 million, to £10 million, or to £12 million, but I do not suppose that the administration costs of £600,000 would really increase considerably if the grant went up. I do not suppose that more staff would be needed to administer the scheme if the grant was £10 million rather than £2 million, but perhaps I am wrong there.
For the life of me I cannot understand why the borrower cannot be charged at least a small fee for fiction, because, after all, fiction is amusement. The public have to pay to go to a cinema; they have
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to pay to go to all places of amusement. I know of the Government's argument that the public can go into museums free of charge, and I quite agree with that, but one cannot visit a museum and run out with a Michelangelo or with the Elgin Marbles. One cannot borrow exhibits from a museum; but a public lending library operates on a completely different basis. I am all for people going into a library and reading the books there without a charge. I am also all for their borrowing free of charge any technical, reference, scientific, or historical books; but I cannot understand why they should take fiction books home free of charge. I cannot think why someone should take out, for instance, three or four Barbara Cartlands, but presumably he is doing so for some form of amusement. Surely such a borrower should be made to pay a small fee.
I imagine that following the huge wage rises we have had the average industrial wage will be about £70 a week, and it would not be such a great hardship for a reader to pay 5p a week to borrow a fiction book. I know that the Government have their hearts set against this idea, but I think it is a great mistake to make everything free to the public, because in doing that we are destroying their self-reliance and their sense of responsibility, while it makes a further charge on the taxpayer. Perhaps I am off the Amendment somewhat, and I apologise for that, I wanted to speak on Second Reading, but unfortunately I was ill. I hope that the Government can devise a scheme in which the borrowers of fiction will have to pay a small sum.
Lord MOYNE: Does not The noble Viscount agree that it is difficult to define where fiction ends and literature begins?
Lord McNAIR: May I have 30 seconds of your Lordships' time? Having taken part in three Second Reading debates on this subject, I naturally intended to be here for the Committee Stage. Owing to my own incompetence, or perhaps due to the expeditious way in which the House conducted its earlier Business, I was not present at the start of this debate and so I apologise to the Minister. I also apologise to The noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, for having not heard the beginning of his speech, so it would be

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very discourteous if I were to comment thereon.
Lord DIGBY: I feel that I must support my noble friends in their concern about the cost of the scheme. The Bill has come to your Lordships again because everyone is worried that the administrative cost is out of proportion. At Second Reading I said that I would table an Amendment to provide for a sales-based rather than a loans-based scheme. I am still of that opinion, but I have not taken that course because your Lordships' House made it quite clear on Second Reading that it wanted the Bill to go through. I have had discussions with people in the Association of County Councils and we feel that at this stage it would be wrong to hold up the Bill. All along the Government and—I point out to The noble Lord, Lord Willis—the authors have been absolutely adamant that it must be a loans-based scheme. We still believe that a sales-based scheme could have been devised, but I do not think that much effort has been made—
LORD WILLIS: I wish to emphasise once more that there was set up, at considerable expense to the taxpayer, a technical investiagtion group which investigated all the possible schemes, and it came up with the loans-based scheme. The noble Lord would be entitled to object if a purchases-based scheme, or a sales-based scheme had been included in the Bill, because they were found to be more expensive and would possibly be more inefficient. There has been included in the Bill the scheme which the investigating group, which was engaged on the matter for a year, decided was the best scheme and which, based on the experience of other countries, has also been proven to be the best. Does The noble Lord really want to go back to the worst?
Lord DIGBY: I think I am right in saying that purchases-based and loans-based schemes were considered, not the sales-based scheme. All along we have been trying to find a way of doing it less expensively. Anyway, I reiterate my point that at this stage we are not pressing that particular line, but I hope that when it comes to consultation about the scheme the Government will take every opportunity to listen to the views of the people
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who are going to administer it; that is, the local authorities and the Library Association.
The Earl of GOWRIE: I should like very briefly to endorse what my noble friend Lord Digby has said. As I made clear on Second Reading, we on these Benches do not think this is the best of all possible Bills in the best of all possible worlds. Nevertheless, we think it is now time, probably, that it saw the Statute Book, and we want to be able to scrutinise the working of the scheme in action on the earliest possible occasion—an occasion, after all, when most likely we shall ourselves be in Government.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: I am grateful to noble Lords for their contributions. I am sorry that The noble Baroness, Lady Young, could not have put her own Amendment, because she would have done it rather more graciously than The noble Viscount, Lord Eccles. The difference between the two speeches was that one was with foils which were tipped and the other was with foils which were not tipped and were meant to kill. But I am grateful to The noble Baroness for saying that she is not trying to kill this Bill, and I can now turn to the arguments.
As to the position about QUANGOS, I think everybody agrees that there are certain occasions when it is not suitable that a Government Department should itself be doing something, and then it is necessary to have something outside it. In this case The noble Baroness will no doubt be aware that, if her Amendment were accepted, we should have to make Amendments right through the Bill, and in effect we should have to have a serving civil servant in my Department who would take over the functions of the Registrar but who would not be formally designated as such. I have said that any proposal to set up a new fringe body is scrutinised very carefully, and I really believe that this is one case where a new body is fully justified. The noble Baroness asked whether this had been scrutinised by the new body which examines Government procedures. I gather that that body is not yet in operation, so it has not. But it has been extremely carefully looked at from all sides of Government. Could we consider for a moment—
Baroness YOUNG: I am sorry to interrupt The noble Lord, but perhaps I might press that point again. I absolutely understand The noble Lord's point about it being looked at, no doubt by his Department and, I presume, the Treasury, but what I am interested in is whether or not it has been looked at by a department of Government which actually looks at the machinery of Government. I understood that this particular committee was in operation, but apparently it is not; but there must be some device within Government for looking at the machinery of Government apart from those Civil Service Departments directly involved.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: I think this is the proper function of the CSD, which has looked at it. Can we consider what the functions of the Registrar will be? He will maintain the register, in accordance with the scheme, and he will make any payments due to authors, also in accordance with the scheme. He will be required to keep accounts and to be responsible as the employer of his staff. The Minister will be required to make an annual report on the working of the scheme. In my mind, this sums up the position of the Registrar. His reponsibilities will be purely executive, and his powers are set firmly within bounds, first by this Bill and, secondly, by the scheme, which, noble Lords will recall from the Second Reading debate, will have to be laid in draft before each House of Parliament and approved by a Resolution, also of each House. I repeat the assurance which I gave at Second Reading, that in the preliminary negotiations and preparation of the scheme there will be a draft scheme which everybody can consider and make their suggestions towards.
Even so far as the employment of the Registrar's staff is concerned, the approval of both the Secretary of State and the Minister for the Civil Service will be required as to the numbers to be employed, and their pay and pensions. There would be no point in keeping these functions within the Government machine where the main reason for so doing is access to Ministers. Once the scheme is in full operation, there should be no call for the Registrar to need to consult Ministers except in the provision of statements of account. It really would
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not be appropriate to a policy-making department, such as the Department of Education and Science, to have a small, purely executive function within its midst. That is the reaction of the Government towards the criticism that this is a new QUANGO. It is a new QUANGO, but it is a QUANGO of an extremely limited kind which we do not think could be adequately replaced from within the Department.
A number of other points have been raised about the purchase-based scheme and the sales-based scheme, and so on. As my noble friend Lord Willis said, this has been gone over again and again. I appreciate the concern of The noble Lord, Lord Digby, and he has never tried to force this in a way which was going to stop the Bill from getting through. I appreciate that. I can only assure him that we have written to the local authorities and to other groups with the detailed arguments against the sales-based scheme as opposed to the loan scheme. I have got them all here and could read them out, but I do not think it would be appropriate this afternoon. We are satisfied, after certainly six years' very careful investigation, that this is the best and only way the thing can be decently done.
I should like to make one further comment. The noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, quoted my noble friend Lady Lee, who opened her speech (rather, I must say, to my surprise) by saying that this was a ridiculous Bill. But she ended her speech (which The noble Viscount, not uncharacteristically, did not tell your Lordships) by saying that she thought your Lordships' House should support it.
Lord STRABOLGI: I suggest to your Lordships that this might be a good moment to hear the Statement on Iran, at present being made in the other place. I beg to move that the House do now resume.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.

IRAN: CURRENT SITUATION
3.48 p.m.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall

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now repeat a Statement being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. The Statement is as follows:
" With permission, Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a Statement about the current situation in Iran and the surrounding region. The people of Iran are determining their own future, and we will respect their right to do so. Iran is a country with a long history, real political and strategical significance and considerable economic potential. By our recognition we made plain our wish to have good, close relations with the new Government.
"As to our commercial relations, the events of the past few weeks have brought Iran's economy near to standstill. This is bound to have its effect on our exports, as well as on employment within the affected industries in this country. It may be some months before we see the full consequences. Nevertheless I believe our trading relations should survive the present difficulties. The greater part involves civilian goods and services of a kind Iran will continue to need once their oil production and economic activity revives.
"So far as defence equipment is concerned, the Iranian authorities indicated some weeks ago that they wanted to cancel some contracts and amend others. All the implications of this are now being examined and we will keep the House informed as to the results.
"The implications of the Iranian situation in the world energy market are potentially serious. The loss of 5 million barrels a day of Iranian crude has only been partially compensated by increased production elsewhere and so stocks everywhere are being reduced.
"We hope that the problems that have arisen will be only temporary. Meanwhile we are discussing with both our industrialised partners and with the oil-producing countries ways of mitigating their effects.
"I had valuable discussions on events in Iran during Her Majesty the Queen's very successful visits to
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Kuwait, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. The Gulf States and Saudi Arabia are already adapting to the new situation and I assured them of our continuing full support.
"The new Iranian Government will wish to determine for itself the future pattern of its security arrangements and I hope they will do so in consultation with their closest neighbours.
"I am glad to say that the British community has not suffered physical harm during recent events. There are now only about 800 British citizens left in Iran. The Royal Air Force has flown out over 600 of our nationals during the past four days and others have left by sea. I am most grateful to the Royal Air Force and to the Royal Navy for their help with this difficult operation.
"Mr. Speaker, the situation is too uncertain for us to be able to make confident predictions about future developments in Iran and in the region. But it will clearly be even more important than hitherto to reach a comprehensive settlement of the Arab/Israeli dispute.
"Finally, Mr. Speaker, these last few months have seen a dramatic change in a country of pivotal importance. We will best maintain our interests and influence by being seen to respect the judgment of peoples of the region and by working with them as they shape their own destiny."
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
Lord CARRINGTON: My Lords, the House will wish to thank The noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, for having repeated that Statement. I think there will be general agreement in this House that the Government had no option but to recognise the new régime. After all, it is the recognition of a fact. We must hope that the new government acquires a stability which it has not yet shown and also the capacity to prevent a take-over by the extreme Left. We in this country and in the West must do everything in our power to help the government to resist that particular fate. I should associate myself with The noble Lord in his tribute to the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy.

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As is so often the case in so many circumstances, it is, in the end, the Armed Services that bail us out of our difficulties.
This area of the Middle East is absolutely vital to the West, and the consequences to us all of further instability and change in the neighbouring countries would be very grave indeed. I think that the Western powers must make it abundantly plain to all those concerned that, so important are these interests of the West and of the free world, the consequences of overt aggression or of subversion by neighbouring powers would not be tolerated or accepted by the free world. We must also analyse very carefully the reasons for the events of the past few months in Iran and make sure that our friends and allies in the neighbouring countries understand them and learn the lessons.
Lord GLADWYN: My Lords, we, too, should like to thank the Minister for repeating this important Statement. It is obvious that we must make every effort to get on good terms with the new government, if we can; and we can only hope that it endures and does not dissolve in anarchy or, still less, be replaced by some Communist government in close association with the Soviet Union. The Ayatollah is pretty ancient and, I believe, is not in very good health; so that anything may happen. The loss of our defence contracts which was mentioned in the Statement must be very unfortunate to us economically. We must now make every effort to turn our swords into ploughshares, as it were, and try to negotiate new contracts for such things as agricultural machinery, with technical assistance, to enable the country to develop peacefully on new lines, or whatever may be the most hopeful way of approach.
The loss of oil is grave for the Western world as a whole, even if, as is hoped, it may be partially restored within the fairly near future. But it may not be so; and therefore I trust that the Government are taking provisional precautions behind the scenes for action in the case of real emergency. For instance, some kind of petrol rationing in this country might be necessary.
I should like to know whether the Government are satisfied with the measures taken to protect our new Ambassador
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and his staff. One hears ugly rumours of armed bands out of control, roaming the streets of Teheran. We must therefore make a point of pressing that government at least to put effective guards on the Ambassador and the Embassy buildings.
3.57 p.m.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I think it would be difficult to disagree with anything which The noble Lord, Lord Carrington, has said in commenting upon the Secretary of State's Statement. I agree with him that the vital interests of the West coincide with those of Iran and the immediate region. We certainly will be giving careful thought to the task of reassurance and of reinforcing stability in the immediate region. This takes me to the point made by The noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, about one vital interest, the maintenance of oil supplies. The position is that the emergency sharing arrangements in the IEA are automatically triggered to a 7 per cent. fall in the level of supplies. That has not yet been reached. It is not yet within sight; I understand that it is well short of that. But we should beware of thinking that because a full-scale emergency has not yet been triggered there are no problems. There are real problems internationally and, it may be, nationally for a high-consuming country like ourselves; and there are others who are even higher in their consumption. This is well in hand.
As to the safety of our subjects and of our Ambassador in Teheran, I am glad to be able substantially to reassure the House that no physical harm that we know of has befallen British citizens. They have been reduced in number to about 800 but this may be a temporary fall. In due course, perhaps fairly quickly, many of them who have duties, and particularly skilled duties, to perform again in Iran may be able to go back to the country whose development, in the past 20 or 30 years in particular, depended very much upon British expertise. We have been glad to co-operate before and we shall be glad to co-operate with the new government in exactly the same kind of work in the future. On the point about the Ambassador, we have this very much in view. Perhaps it would be reassuring if I told the House that our Ambassador has already been received by the new Prime Minister and by the new

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Foreign Minister and that very useful and amicable talks have proceeded between him and them both.
Lord ROBBINS: My Lords, may I diffidently ask The noble Lord a question which I realise he may not be in a position to answer? My inquiry is not frivolous. In the course of the Statement that he read, he referred to arrangements which were being made by other oil-producing countries to adapt themselves to the new situation. I ask whether The noble Lord is in a position to amplify that ambiguous statement. Are the arrangements contemplated such as to involve an increased output of oil from those certain parts? Are the arrangements such as to affect the existing level of OPEC prices? If I may add this as a footnote to this main question, will The noble Lord inform us that all steps are being taken by Her Majesty's Government, in conjunction with our European and American allies, to meet a situation which in many respects is certainly as dangerous as any situation in the field of oil politics which we have ever confronted?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, of course discussions, not only with our European partners but with others, proceed through IEA. I touched on that in my reply to The noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn. The point is well taken, if I may say so. We are studying this very carefully. As to the ways in which other oil producing countries in that region can adjust and adapt themselves, I certainly can say—and no doubt my right honourable friend will give a more detailed statement later—that these matters came up in discussion during his talks with Ministers of the countries concerned when he was Minister in attendance to Her Majesty last week in that area. He was not there of course just to talk about oil, but rather to review the whole range of issues of common interest with countries with which we have a long, close and constructive relationship, a relationship which has survived political adaptation and which today, economically and otherwise, is as strong as ever. Certainly oil was one of the subjects discussed. I understand that he said that any contribution they felt they could make to offsetting the shortfall in world production arising from the cessation of supplies from Iran would be very welcome. Of
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course, he was not in a position to do more than suggest ways in which they could assist. I am quite sure that his point of view was taken. As to prices, I shall not go into this question at the moment. It is a continuing matter; there have been certain discussions and decisions lately, but I do not think that we have finalised that point yet.
Baroness GAITSKELL: My Lords, may I ask the Minister a very short question? While I thank him for the Statement—a rather reassuring Statement—all the same, is the situation in Iran really, bad as it is, a temporary position? Are the difficulties temporary when every day we have statements from other countries and other bodies telling us how badly they are treated and in what a dangerous situation they are?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, one of course cannot prophesy the course of events, especially immediately after an upheaval of this kind—an upheaval of historic significance and proportions. However, it seems that the new Government are perhaps more in accord with the broad wishes and desires of the Iranian population and will develop into a stable Government. That is all the more reason therefore why we and our friends in the West should recognise such a Government as a matter of fact, as The noble Lord said, promptly and seek to co-operate with them. By co-operation we always mean not only economic and other exchanges, but also friendly exchanges as to what we expect any régime in any part of the world to do in regard to the treatment of minorities and to maintain a basic system of tolerance and fairness.
I take the point raised by The noble Baroness. It is perhaps a little early to be definitive on the situation, but the House can be assured that we shall seek to have with the new Government of Iran the closest possible and friendliest possible relations with a view not only to trade and commerce, but also to exchanges of views and mutually helpful advice on a wide range of topics.
Lord ORR-EWING: My Lords, The noble Lord in his opening statement said that the Iranian authorities had considered amending or cutting arms orders.

1723
Would he bear in mind that the Royal Ordnance factory at Leeds has been equipped with very modern machine tools which have been paid for by Iran? They are now producing a greatly improved Chieftain tank and the orders are very considerable indeed. Would The noble Lord first consider the desirability of not forcing skilled people into the unemployment queue? Secondly—and much more important—will he allow this order to go forward, even if Iran does not want these tanks? The tanks are badly needed, some of them by the British Army; and those not needed by the British Army could be very usefully used by our allies. It would be a shame to cut an order of such tremendous importance to this country and to the safety of the Free World.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I should not care to anticipate the final situation which certain decisions by the previous Government to the present Government in Iran suggest. It is a delicate question and discussions are proceeding. However, I can say that we shall continue to manufacture while we have money in hand. It is of course a matter for my right honourable friend the Minister of Defence to decide whether something will be made available to the United Kingdom Armed Forces or to other forces in countries which are allied or friendly to us.
Lord WIGG: My Lords, will the Minister not realise that this is another chicken which has come home to roost, and a chicken that did not perch yesterday or any time this year? It has been hovering round for 50 years. Is it not another example of the unbroken line of failures that one can attribute to successive British Governments and certainly to the Foreign Office? Will he not now just take note of what was said by The noble Lord, Lord Carrington, and, as a major British interest, repudiate his statement that we should not tolerate a Government in Iran—
Lord CARRINGTON: My Lords, I did not say that.
Several noble Lords: He did not say that.
Lord WIGG: My Lords, he said the West. All right. The West should not tolerate. Will my noble friend be good enough to tell us with what they would not tolerate it? Is it not about time that we recognised here that there is a revolution spreading right the way across the East and South of Asia on which we have, by our successive acts of policy, expressed ourselves and put ourselves in a position which we are powerless to influence and we shall have to sit back and take the consequences?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I am not too sure exactly what I and the Foreign Office as a whole are being accused of, unless it is the entire ills of the world. It is a fact of course that movements, thinking and political developments are going on very fast in many parts of the world, not least in the traditional Islamic world. We are not the only ones not to have anticipated fully the pace and nature of these developments. What we are doing is to recognise fact in the form of Governments which appear to have the support of their people and a stability. On that basis, we hope to re-create and reinforce our traditional friendship with that part of the world.
Lord TAYLOR of GRYFE: My Lords, may I ask the Minister this question: In view of the long-term interest in restoring normal business relationships with Iran, will the Minister urge the international banking community to take no precipitive action in taking over Iranian assets overseas to cover the immediate debt obligations of Iran, as such action would cause a substantial deterioration in the whole confidence relationship between Iran and the Western World?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I certainly take note of what my noble friend has said. Normal life is being restored in Iran itself, which is indicative of what is likely to be the policy in relation to Iran in the circumstances to which he referred. Businesses and banks have re-opened and people are returning to work in gratifying numbers. My noble friend Lady Gaitskell referred to the Statement as being rather reassuring: that is so. I think that on balance the prospects in Iran and our own prospects

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in relation to Iran, including the points raised by my noble friend Lord Taylor, are perhaps more reassuring than we would have anticipated, say, two or three weeks ago.
Lord BRUCE of DONINGTON: My Lords, following on that question, in the event of the new government repudiating contracts on the grounds that they were concluded by the previous imperial government, will my noble friend indicate whether the same facility of repudiation will be open to British banks who have given reciprocal guarantees in respect of the contracts repudiated?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I do not think it would be helpful for me to give a hypothetical answer to a set of hypothetical, though very important, questions. The question of repudiation, I think, does not arise under present circumstances. I have indicated what I believe to be the situation: it is a hopeful situation and one in which action of that kind need not be contemplated at the moment.
Lord CHALFONT: My Lords, referring to the passage in the Statement which The noble Lord has repeated, that Iran is deciding its own future, taking into account the massive flow of arms and weapons into Iran in recent weeks, coupled with the significantly early arrival in Teheran of the leader of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, may I ask whether Her Majesty's Government are really confident that Iran is deciding its own future? May I ask, secondly, if the instability in Iran, which has created a significant and perhaps decisive shift in the balance of strategic power in the Middle East, should spread to the Gulf States, to Saudi Arabia and perhaps even further into the Middle East, will the policy of Her Majesty's Government be determined as a priority upon the future security and safety of the West?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I am sure my right honourable friend would return an affirmative answer to the second point made by my noble friend. As to the genesis of the upheaval, or revolution if you like, in Iran, there will be speculation for some time about that. But it is clear, I think, that it was a popular movement which has created a
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situation in which the new Government is a fact and appears to be a stable fact. On that basis, as my noble friend knows from his experience as a former Minister in my Department, it is both right and sensible that we should recognise that government, whatever its origins. I am not for the moment agreeing or disagreeing with the implications as to the genesis of the revolution. I simply do not know: I do not think anybody knows just yet. All we know is that there is a new government; it is fairly stable and is substantially in control of the country; it is a government with which we can do business, diplomatic and otherwise; we have recognised it and we will work with it.
Lord VERNON: My Lords, can the Minister say whether it is proposed to make any form of protest to the new Iranian government regarding the barbaric execution of no fewer than eight generals who were reportedly machine-gunned to death without any fair trial?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, while I do not think it is a time for protest but one for endeavouring to build bridges as quickly as we can, they are well aware of our views on proceedings of this kind. The noble Lord used the word, "reportedly." This is one of the difficulties of the situation, that is, that while the broad picture is perfectly clear and justifies the action of the Government in recognising the Iranian government, the details, favourable or unfavourable, are not at all clear.

PUBLIC LENDING RIGHT BILL
4.15 p.m.
House again in Committee on Amendment No. 1.
Baroness YOUNG: Perhaps we may now bring ourselves back to the Public Lending Right Bill. I imagine that my noble friend Lord Eccles will wish to reply to the points made by The noble Lord, Lord Donaldson; but may I say for my own part that I make no apology at all for raising this question about the principle of a QUANGO. Could I say to The noble Lord, Lord Willis, who I think made the point during a debate I initiated last November, that the House of Lords

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itself is a QUANGO, and who said by implication that we ought not to be questioning QUANGOS, that, to show my consistency, I am somebody who, though it may sound presumptuous to say so in your Lordships' House, thinks it is a great honour to belong to this House and yet favours the reform of the House and in fact has taken part in the work of the Committee of my noble friend Lord Home, which at least has studied the question in depth. So I would point out that I am not talking about one QUANGO rather than another. I therefore think it is very important, if one is interested in what I believe are major constitutional questions, that one should raise these matters and should not be put off from doing so by the feeling that perhaps one has no right to talk about them at all.
As a matter of fact, on considering what The noble Lord, Lord Willis, had to say, I think that we are in complete agreement because he was saying that the scheme needs to be administered. We all agree on that and what we are discussing is the form of that administration. He is saying that the QUANGO is right and I am saying that that case has to be proved. That is the difference between us, but we are agreed on the point of administration; that I will accept. I was therefore very interested to hear what The noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, had to say because in the Second Reading debate the point was made by The noble Lord, Lord Willis, that the scheme had been looked at by the Technical Investigation Group. That is set out, but we are not told what the group is or why it came to the conclusions it did. It simply says that the Committee did come to those conclusions. I accept that is put out.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: I could send The noble Baroness their report if that would be helpful. I have not brought it with me because it has been over now for some three years, but there is a full report on this, with their reasons.
Baroness YOUNG: Yes, I would be interested to see that because I think this is a key to it. I was about to say that they clearly investigated the matter three years ago and, like everything else in public life, events do not stand still. Presumably it
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is nearly four years later now, if this was 1975, so I do not think that necessarily invalidates the argument at all. Furthermore, to talk of the figures being based on "a kind of guess" is not quite enough on a piece of legislation. I think we need to have much more substantial reasons for committing ourselves to a particular form of administration.
For my part, I shall study very carefully what The noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, has said. I shall consider the matter and see whether this is something to which I should like to return at another stage of the Bill. I indicated to The noble Lord that it is not my intention this afternoon to press this to a Division because I think it would be right to wait and see whether others feel that this is a matter which should be reconsidered. As I say, I should like to study The noble Lord's reply, and I thank him for the information he has given.
Viscount ECCLES: In view of what my noble friend has just said, I should like to support her. So far as I know, the only investigations into a purchases-based scheme which the Minister has are at least two years old. The Association of Metropolitan Authorities inform me that their improved scheme, costing much less, is a very recent discovery. I do not know the details of it, but I, too, should like to have another look at this. Therefore I shall not ask anyone to divide on this Amendment. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 1 agreed to.
Clauses 2 and 3 agreed to.
Clause 4 [The register]:
4.20 p.m.
Viscount ECCLES Viscount ECCLES moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 5, leave out lines 15 to 33.
The noble Viscount said: We now come to what is known as the penalty clause, and it was not in the Bill when we saw it earlier. It has come into this Bill for the first time. I have been asked to raise this subject by the local authorities because, as The noble Lord said on Second Reading,

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they feel very strongly about it. The noble Lord said that these subsections were more or less stock form and they appear in other Acts. I have had a look, and where they appear in four or five Acts that I have looked at the case is not at all parallel. I should briefly like to give your Lordships some examples.
In the Professions Supplementary to Medicine Act there is a penalty of £100 if someone gives false information to get himself on the medical register. I imagine that that is quite a wicked thing to do. In the Agriculture Acts of 1967 and 1970 the penalties are in respect of false statements about goods which a farmer wants to sell. There is a personal interest there and the farmer is trying to make money, so that is something rather different. In the Finance Act 1972 it is a question of a tax fraud through a taxpayer giving false information in his tax return.
If we look at this Bill, we see in sub-section(7) of Clause 4 the words:
"It shall be an offence for any person, in connection with the entry of any matter whatsoever in the register, to make any statement which he knows to be false in a material particular".
Obviously, that is a very wrong thing to do and I know of no librarian who would make a statement which he knew to be false. So far as I have their opinion, I do not think that the librarians object to that. It is the next few words which seem to them unnecessary and which should be taken out. They are:
"or recklessly to make any statement which is false in a material particular".
We have to look at what kind of statements these librarians will be asked to make. The statements that they will be asked to make will be what the computer says—the electronic pencil that is going across the ISBN in the front page of each book. No doubt your Lordships are all familiar with the computerised system which it is proposed to introduce into the 72 samples and thereafter into other libraries. Could a computer recklessly make a false statement? It certainly has done so in my bank account. I think that librarians are fully justified in saying that this is not on all fours with the frauds which would be committed for money under those other Acts.
As The noble Lord knows very well, whatever scheme is brought in, it will not
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work without the goodwill and collaboration of the librarians, and they feel it is unfair, in a novel scheme which nobody has worked before and which could not start if it was not computerised to a degree that is quite strange to them, that they should be under threat of a penalty of £1,000 if, recklessly, they or the computer, or both together, make a small mistake in returning the number of books which have been borrowed, or, I suppose, inventing an author or something of that kind. But this happens with our mechanised forms of information retrieval. I do not want to press this Amendment to a Division, but I would ask The noble Lord whether, between now and the next stage, he could take out the second part, because it is not on all fours with those other Acts of Parliament which he cited on Second Reading as fully justifying its inclusion in this Bill. I beg to move.
LORD WILLIS: I do not follow the reasoning of The noble Viscount on this Amendment, nor do I follow the reasoning of the local authorities. This penalty clause is really aimed at writers. It is writers who will have to register with the Registrar and have their names and particulars and the titles of their books placed on the register, and it is they who will be caught for making any false statement, deliberately or recklessly, I ask your Lordships to note the words, "deliberately or recklessly." In other words, in the unlikely case of The noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, claiming the authorship of all my books, or in the much more likely case of my claiming the authorship of The noble Viscount's books and therefore wanting to draw his public lending right, we should both be guilty of an offence under this Bill; and this is where the Bill would catch people.
So far as the librarians are concerned, the matter is always open to computer error, which can happen in any firm, but no magistrate in the land will convict anybody for what appears to be a genuine mistake. One must have penalties of some kind, and these penalties seem to me to be very eminently fair and reasonable. What is the alternative? Whether one is a librarian or an author, if one deliberately and recklessly makes a false statement to the Registrar and that can be proved, then, if there are not these penalty clauses, one will be liable under

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the criminal law. With these penalty clauses in the Bill, you will come up before a magistrate and the matter will be dealt with reasonably and quickly. Without these penalty clauses you will be liable—it is doubtful—under the criminal law and will have to come up in the High Court, where the consequences would be all the more expensive, time-wasting and serious. Therefore, it seems to me that what The noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, is asking for will rebound to the detriment of local authorities and librarians, and they are the ones who really ought to think again.
Viscount ECCLES: May I just ask The noble Lord whether he is aware that it is not he who will put his name on the register? It is not The noble Lord, Lord Willis, who will tell the Registrar how many times his books have been borrowed; it is the librarian. It is the librarian who has to take the chance of being found to be wrong, not himself. He does not know how many times his books will be borrowed.
LORD WILLIS: It does not work quite like that. Of course, as an author I should have to supply certain information to the Registrar, and if I gave false information I should be liable under this clause.
The librarian is in a slightly different position, because he is required to supply the results of borrowing from his library—and only 70 are to be chosen—to the central sample and the Registrar. We shall have to allow for the possibility of computer error. The noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, cannot possibly tell me that, if there were an accidental error and that could be proved, anybody would be charged or would suffer because of it. If, on the other hand, a librarian were deliberately to falsify the returns in order to benefit some author, or not to benefit some author, then there would of course be an offence, and I hope that nobody in this House is saying that a librarian should not be punished for that. What I am saying is that if you take out this clause, in the unlikely event that one discovers such a dishonest librarian he will be liable under the criminal law to worse penalties.
4.30 p.m.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: My Lords, may I begin by
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saying that The noble Viscount said that these subsections were not in the Bill when it came to the House on the previous occasion. For what it is worth, may I inform him that they were included in the Bill. The important point has, I think, been made by my noble friend Lord Willis. It is, of course, absolutely essential that one should have the goodwill of the people who are going to work this scheme; namely, the librarians. It has been an extremely unhappy period of argument for me, but my legal advice—which is that these clauses are necessary to make the Bill effective and to bring it into line with the other Bills, some of which The noble Viscount has quoted, but I have others in mind as well—leads me to the conclusion that I must insist upon this against their wishes. I have had to do so because the objection is meaningless.
These subsections are included, first and foremost, to protect the interests of those who stand to gain lawfully from the public lending right scheme against those who might attempt to cheat by giving false information to the Registrar. Let me stress that these subsections are aimed at deliberate cheats. It is common knowledge that the Library Association are not happy about this; I had a long discussion with their committee and I thought that I had convinced them, but it appears that in the end I have not. However, I have done the best that I can.
This is not a subject on which one can say a great deal. My noble friend has pointed out that under the common law the procedure for catching a cheat would be much more elaborate and long drawn out and would, in fact, carry heavier penalties. So if you are going to legislate against cheating, it seems to me to be wholly desirable to legislate by having clauses which affect cheating under the new rights created by this Bill. It seems to me that the only case where a librarian could be involved would be one where a librarian would be acting in a way which would be indefensible, and I do not think that any librarian would wish to defend it. I say this advisedly. This is my belief about what the Bill means.
The noble Viscount quoted the question of a mistake being made by a computer, but no judge or magistrate is going to accuse a librarian of being reckless if he copies down something which a computer

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has got wrong. I honestly believe, with all my heart, that this is a misconception. If it were not a misconception, I should do everything that I could to get it out, but I believe this to be the most efficient way of protecting the public purse and authors from fraud. I cannot see any reason why one should worry about the technical people who are involved. They are not, generally speaking, making claims at all. The librarian is passing something on. If a librarian said that 100 instead of 10 books had been borrowed and kept the difference, everybody would regard this as fraud which ought to be punished. The clauses in the Bill will deal with that point. I believe it to be no more than that.
I sincerely hope that in the light of what I have said The noble Viscount will feel able to withdraw his Amendment. He has asked me to look at it again, and of course I shall do so. However, I have looked at it so very hard already, with a strong desire to satisfy the librarians, that I cannot anticipate being able to withdraw it. However, I shall certainly have a look at it again.
Lord HALE: I had not intended to intervene. Certainly I do not want to say a word to hold up the Bill, nor do I want to register a protest; but for 50 consecutive years I have been protesting about the disposition, particularly on the part of the party to which I belong, to think that there must be a punishment somewhere and to contemplate enforcing their will by some vague form of judicial discipline in order to prepare for almost nothing in detail, except the possibility of a contravention of their will. It is very much the doctrine of the bereaved mother in Albert and the Lion:
"Mother had got proper blazing
When she thought where her Albert had gone, And said: 'Someone's got to be summonsed', So that was decided upon".
So we go on saying that somebody has got to be summonsed. Even if we make the fine big enough—in this case £1,000—for someone to be put in prison for non-payment, we have been told that for something like 250 years now nobody ever has been put into prison for non-payment but for some vague form of contempt of court. Our prisons, however, still report increased occupancy; we have a large prison population.
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I really cannot see why we want to have manacles or any punitive procedure of any kind, sort or description. If somebody pinches books from a library, as often happens, until now nobody has ever heard of anyone being sent to prison or, indeed, being brought before a tribunal for a minor offence connected with the public supply of books. If one formed a village cricket club, it would be quite easy to make provision for all the petty crimes which might be committed by the members and to say, "How are we ever going to keep discipline on a cricket pitch without making provision for it?" Now we have a situation in which, so far as I know, nobody really knows how the scheme is going to be administered—therefore, nobody really knows in detail how it could be infringed—but there is a passionate desire to have some method of punishment.
In an area in which the sums concerned cannot be large in any event, my own disposition is not to put people in prison, not to bring them up for punishment, not to have too many prosecuting lawyers, not to have a public prosecutor, whose office at the moment is one of the largest, the most expanding and the most various in its applications.
Although this is a very small matter, I have intervened with distaste and reluctance because observations are being made that are very, very far away from any rule of law. We are now discussing, in a House which normally can contain up to five ex-Lord Chancellors, many Law Lords and a vast amount of knowledge on the subject, the petty criminal law at large when the petty criminal law does not seem to be demanded. Therefore I venture to hope that my noble friend will look at the matter again very carefully, put the point to his advisers and realise that he has at his disposal the advice of experts of the greatest possible eminence, both from the Bar and from the Bench.
Baroness YOUNG: I do not wish to follow The noble Lord, Lord Hale, in his argument. There is, however, one question which I should like to put, because I think that the point that was made by my noble friend Lord Eccles is valid; namely, is there any kind of appeals procedure for somebody who has been accused and possibly convicted to appeal against the matter, and is it normal to include some kind of procedure to accompany these clauses?
4.40 p.m.
Lord PAGET of NORTHAMPTON: I should like to follow my noble and very old friend Lord Hale with most cordial agreement. I feel that the tendency to create crimes is one in which Government indulge far too often. The noble Baroness inquired whether there would be an appeal procedure here. I presume that there would be the normal appeal which exists in the case of a criminal offence, but why should we make a new criminal offence when we have a perfectly good old one? The noble Lord said that if somebody deliberately makes a fraudulent statement in order to get money we would all think that it was wrong. I cordially agree with him; so does the criminal law. It is already a criminal offence fraudulently to make a statement for the purpose of obtaining or stealing money. It is contrary to the Larceny Act, and if the object is as stated by the Minister then it is already covered by the criminal law—a criminal law which has been thought out, interpreted and tested in the courts. The offence which he wants to aim at is well covered, so why create another and new offence? The noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, said that he did not intend to divide the Committee on this clause. In view of the extraordinarily unsatisfactory answer which he has received I am inclined to hope that he will change his mind.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: May I say two things: first, under the Bill, if it becomes an Act, offences of this kind would go to the magistrates' court and of course there is appeal against sentence in the normal way; so that the answer to the question put by The noble Baroness, Lady Young. is that there would be appeal. In regard to my noble friend's point about reinforcing with a simpler measure the more complicated measure which of course exists, I have already said that it exists. I have said that I am advised that it would be a very much more efficient system if we were to bring this in and nobody would be worse off for it; but I must point out that the argument used by my noble friend is a general legal one, whereas the argument which the librarians have been using and which The noble Viscount was putting forward, was that in some way it would be unfair to them. I think the second part is clearly not the case. I do not think a librarian would be any worse in this
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connection than any other member of the public who cheated, and I think both would be dealt with in a more efficient way under the clauses as they stand than if we left them out. I do not think I can say more on that.
Viscount ECCLES: What matters is that the librarians should work this Bill, when it becomes an Act, with goodwill, and therefore as I tabled this Amendment on behalf of the local authorities, clearly it would be wrong to divide the Committee until I have heard whether they are swayed by the Minister's argument. They may be—and a good thing too if they are; but I think I must now consult them again. I thought the Minister produced some very strong and interesting arguments. I still think that the Association of Local Authorities know their law pretty well and they know their members pretty well, and if they really are worried then I think it is our duty to find out why they are worried. Having said that, I ask leave to withdraw the Amendment but will possibly come back to it at the next stage of the Bill.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 4 agreed to.
Remaining clause agreed to.
Schedule [The Registrar of Public Lending Right]:
On Question, Whether this shall be the Schedule to the Bill?
Lord DAVIES of LEEK: There are a couple of small questions which I should like to ask in connection with the Schedule. By reading the Schedule carefully one notices that the Registrar can pay out money from the money provided by the Secretary of State, and he can also pay that out to subsidiary persons, because in sub-paragraph (2) the Registrar may direct, in case of persons appointed under this paragraph that money be paid—and I am paraphrasing—to them for pensions, allowances, gratuities et cetera to the number that he thinks are required.
My first point is this: Is the sum of £2 million to be treated similarly to the way in which grants are sometimes made under the National Health Act? Pre-

1737
suming that £2 million is not spent by the libraries in amounts to the authors in a one year period, plus the salaries and gratuities to the Registrar and his subsidiary helpers, will the amount of money go on to another £2 million the following year? What will be the position? Are the Treasury going to reclaim, say, £500,000 if that sum has not been spent? Will The noble Lord be good enough to clarify that point?
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: I can only tell the Committee that if the Registrar fails to spend this extremely small sum of money in relation to the obligations, I think we should change the Registrar. The fact remains that the Treasury usually reserve the right to call back money that is not spent, but also in my experience they can be very reasonable over not very large sums which are not spent for a good reason. If The noble Lord would like me to, I will write to him with a more definite reply, but that is the best I can do at the moment.
Lord DAVIES of LEEK: I am grateful to my noble friend; I do not press it.
On Question, Schedule agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported without amendment: Report received.

ANCIENT MONUMENTS AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL AREAS BILL [H.L.]
4.49 p.m.
The PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE, DEPARTMENT of the ENVIRONMENT (Baroness Stedman): My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Baroness Stedman.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD ALPORT in the Chair.]
Clauses 1 and 2 agreed to.
Clause 3 [Grant of scheduled monument consent by order of the Secretary of State]:
Lord MIDDLETON Lord MIDDLETON moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 5, line 1, after ("Secretary of State") insert ("after consultation with such bodies of persons as appear to him to represent the interests affected by requirements for scheduled monument consent").
The noble Lord said: I think we are all in agreement that as the power of modern agricultural machinery and the depth of working increases there is a danger that some sites may be damaged and that these should be protected. Nevertheless, it is important that the terms of a class consent given by an order made under Clause 3 should not be unnecessarily restrictive. During the Second Reading debate The noble Baroness told us that the Government were aware of the problems and were in touch with the interested organisations and with the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. The noble Baroness has also been most helpful in writing to me on this subject. This is really a probing Amendment to elicit from her such details as she may be able to give at this stage indicating the lines which the order is likely to take; for instance, what cultivations will be allowed under the order, what cultivations will require consent, and whether they are likely to get consent. I beg to move.
Baroness STEDMAN: As The noble Lord has said, I undertook to provide more information at Committee stage on this point which he raised at Second Reading. Quite naturally, the Secretary of State will consult such bodies or persons as he considers appropriate when framing the class consents. So far as the agricultural operations are concerned, the Committee will be interested to know that in recent consultation with the National Farmers' Union and the County Landowners Association, with the help of technical advice from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, it has been agreed that the consent should cover the continued or repeated cultivation of scheduled monuments in a like manner to that in which they have been cultivated during the previous five years and to no greater depth, but that sub-soiling—that is, drainage works and other operations that will affect the subsoil—and other periodic operations, the planting

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and uprooting of trees, shall not be covered by the class consent, even when those operations have been a feature of normal cultivation in the past. Those operations would not necessarily be banned, but they would require a specific consent. The Secretary of" State would consult in this way whenever a proposed class consent involved a specialised field of this kind. We may also wish to give a class consent for things like minor repair works and in such a case consultation may not be necessary.
There is no mandatory requirement to consult before issuing a General Development Order under the Town and Country Planning Act, and I do not think a mandatory requirement would be helpful here. I think it might rather be like saying that you must ask someone what he would like before you give him a Christmas or birthday present: that is not necessarily the sensible thing to do. You may know quite well what he wants anyway and it may sometimes be better to give him a pleasant surprise for Christmas or his birthday. The noble Lord said it was a probing Amendment. In the light of what I have said, I hope he will feel that it is not necessary to come back at a later stage. I hope he will feel we have been co-operative and do have all the necessary consultations.
Lord MIDDLETON: I thank The noble Baroness for the assurance she has given as to the sort of operations that would get deemed consent. If I may say so, I think that after the consultations which have quite rightly taken place the Government are achieving a very good balance between the interests of food production and the interests of preserving our heritage. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 3 agreed to.
Clauses 4 to 6 agreed to.
Clause 7 [Compensation for refusal of scheduled monument consent]:
4.53 p.m.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON moved Amendment No. 2:
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Page 7, line 35, at end insert ("or in consequence of the revocation or modification of such consent.").
The noble Lord said: Before I speak to this Amendment, I should like to apologise to your Lordships in this Committee that 10 new Amendments appeared this morning for the first time. I did take the precaution of letting the Minister concerned have these at midday yesterday, as well as the Printed Paper Office, in order that we may be able to get answers to these Amendments, which are, like my noble friend's Amendment, mostly probing.
In moving this particular Amendment, I should like to ask The noble Baroness whether she does not think that compensation should be provided if in consequence of the operation of the Bill expenditure is rendered abortive or if there is a loss of value or asset. These losses may be incurred and should be compensated for not only in relation to the immediate site but also in relation to adjacent areas, I would suggest. Also, they may be incurred not only as a result of refusal of conditional grant of the scheduled monument consent but also in consequence of the later revocation or modification of that consent. Is it not fair that in such circumstances there should also be a right to compensation? I beg to move.
Baroness STEDMAN: I should like to acknowledge what The noble Lord has said about the Amendments, and we are grateful to him for giving our Department as long as possible to look after them. We appreciate that this Bill has moved far more quickly through the Parliamentary timetable than we initially thought it might. I am grateful to The noble Lord for his co-operation. With regard to this particular Amendment, it is Clause 7 which makes the provision for compensation for the refusal of monument consent or for conditions imposed on the consent.
Then, if we go on to Clause 9, that provides for compensation where consent has been given and has been subsequently revoked or modified. The compensation is meant to cover abortive expenditure and other loss or damage that is directly attributable to the revocation or modification of the consent. This seems to us to cover what The noble Lord is seeking. If there is some peculiar situation in the

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minerals field or elsewhere which he feels that Clauses 7 and 9 together do not cover and which ought to be covered, we will gladly explore it with the representatives of the interests concerned before the next stage of the Bill. But we are reasonably satisfied that the points he has raised are covered by Clauses 7 and 9.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: I thank The noble Baroness for her explanation. Sitting here I cannot think of any case where her words would not give satisfaction. If there is such a case, I will bring it up at a later stage. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 7 agreed to.
Clause 8 agreed to.
Clause 9 [Compensation where work affecting a Scheduled monument]cease to be authorised]:
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON moved Amendment No. 3:
Page 10, line 42, at end insert—
(" ( ) Compensation shall be payable in respect of resources which might reasonably have been expected to be gained or works which might reasonably have been expected to be carried out, had ancient monuments or archaeological areas not been scheduled.").
The noble Lord said: This is slightly similar to my last Amendment. I will put it to The noble Baroness so that she will be able to give her answer, which I am sure will be satisfactory. The point is this. When an ancient monument is scheduled the mineral resources underneath it are going to be sterilised and persons with a genuine interest in these resources would suffer financial loss through no fault of their own. Also, such scheduling might prevent or restrict access to other minerals or other land, so that again losses may be incurred. In such circumstances, perhaps it might seemappro-priate for compensation to be available, and this Amendment is designed for that purpose. I would agree that perhaps a time limit may be necessary for such claims in order that claims in years to come might not appear frivolous. I beg to move.
Baroness STEDMAN: I am afraid The noble Lord is under somewhat of a misconception in so far as this Amendment is concerned, because this relates to the scheduling of a monument and scheduling as such imposes no obligation beyond that to obtain consent for works as defined in Clause 2. Where such consent is refused compensation is payable under Clause 7 to any person with an interest in the monument who incurs expenditure or otherwise sustains loss or damage in consequence of that refusal. This seems to us to be a sufficiently wide description to meet the circumstance The noble Lord has described. We are prepared to look again at the wording in consultation with the interests concerned, but I must say this Amendment as it stands does not serve the purpose, because it is restricted to cases where monument consent has been given and subsequently withdrawn. We will have a look at it with the interests concerned.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: I am most grateful to The noble Baroness for correcting me and informing me of the position. I will look closely at what she has said. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 9 agreed to.
Clauses 10 to 13 agreed to.
Clause 14 [Termination of guardianship]:
Viscount HANWORTH Viscount HANWORTH gave Notice of his intention to move Amendment No. 4:
Page 15, line 20, at end insert ("and with the consent of the Ancient Monuments Board—")
The noble Viscount said: I received a letter this morning from The noble Baroness who assures me that the safeguards which I had in mind in the Amendment are already covered in the Bill. Therefore, I do not wish to move the Amendment.
[Amendment No. 4 not moved.]
5.1 p.m.
Lord AVEBURY Lord AVEBURY moved Amendment No. 5:
Page 15, line 34, at end insert—
("( ) Neither the Secretary of State nor a local authority may enter into any agreement under this section without the consent of the Ancient Monuments Board.").
The noble Lord said: We are dealing here with the provisions of Clause 14 which concern the termination of guardianship and the circumstances in which that can be allowed under the Bill. The noble Baroness has been good enough to write at some length to The noble Lord, Lord Kennet, who, together with myself, raised this matter on Second Reading, to explain what the Government have in mind. The noble Lord, Lord Kennet, has conveyed to me that he would have supported the Amendment had he been able to be present, and I think that his remarks on Second Reading show that he felt strongly about this matter. He said then that the provisions for the termination of guardianship made his hair stand on end! I do not know whether the letter of the Baroness would have satisfied him that the safeguards which are provided in this matter are adequate. In her letter—from which I should like to quote because not all of your Lordships may have seen it—The noble Baroness emphasises that there is
"no power of unilateral termination"
and that:
"even with the necessary agreement, termination may only be effected where either it is a case for transferring the monument to another preserver or it is agreed that preservation is no longer practical".
The noble Lord, Lord Kennet, also asked the Minister on Second Reading what types of monument were envisaged as regards which the power of termination would be used. The noble Baroness has explained that in recent years the Government have been pressed to take into care monuments of a less durable nature than the stone circles, castles, or abbeys envisaged by the Acts of 1882 and 1913. She goes on:
"I well appreciate that the creation of this loophole may be disquieting, but it would be very difficult for the State to accept, for example, monuments of the Industrial Revolution made of aged iron, subject to corrosion and fatigue, on the same basis—that is, an absolute and irrevocable duty to maintain the monument however difficult and costly that might become".
I accept that the arguments of The noble Baroness have some force. But I am still anxious that the power is as unfettered as at present in the Bill.
The noble Lord, Lord Kennet, mentioned that the National Trust takes assets into its ownership and is bound to care for them for all time. I have checked that
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with the National Trust, and I believe that there has never been a case where it has attempted to divest itself of ownership, although of course there may have been involuntary divestment in cases where assets have been required for road schemes or other public purposes. However, I think that The noble Baroness said on Second Reading that the National Trust was not the same as the State because the National Trust—I am paraphrasing what The noble Baroness said—was ruthless in declining to accept assets into its ownership unless it was perfectly satisfied that it could continue to accept the obligation for all time.
I think that I am right in saying that the State is fairly careful about accepting objects for guardianship and I certainly hope that it would be careful and would not assume unlimited obligations that we should regret later on, despite what The noble Baroness has said in her letter. However, of course we would not attempt to provide that the obligation is an unlimited one. The suggestion which I have made in the Amendment is that the Secretary of State or a local authority would be able to enter into an agreement for termination with the consent of the Ancient Monuments Board. I think that that would be a useful safeguard.
Anxieties are still present in my mind after hearing what The noble Baroness had to say on Second Reading and after looking very carefully at the letter which she wrote to The noble Lord, Lord Kennet. First, let us take the case of statutory undertakers who acquire land in the neighbourhood of monuments which are held under guardianship. They may even acquire the land on which the monuments stand. Ultimately, the statutory undertakers may wish to use that land for their own purposes and there would be all sorts of pressures on them to do so for much wider objectives and to satisfy a much wider "constituency", if I may put it that way, than those who are interested in the preservation of ancient monuments.
Let me give an example of what I have in mind. I asked a Question the other day about the planning and construction of reservoirs. The noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, gave me the Government's Answer; namely, that there are nine reservoirs—I shall not recapitulate all of them—costing up to £38·8 million a piece

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planned in England and Wales over the next few years. It is probably an unfair point to put to The noble Baroness, but these reservoirs obviously cover a considerable area of the country, and it may well be that some monuments are held under guardianship in the land which is to be inundated by those reservoirs and that those who propose to construct them will ask for the guardianship of those monuments to be terminated. However, statutory undertakers are subject to all sorts of public pressures and Questions could be asked in the House if it were proposed that an important national monument was to be destroyed or spoilt by works of that kind.
We must also consider the question of private owners. I suggest that it is possible that the picture given by The noble Baroness could be balanced by a contrary one, where an owner who is interested in the preservation of a monument would be ready to enter into an agreement for guardianship. The noble Baroness said that in the overwhelming majority of cases the owner agrees to enter into an agreement and it is done on a voluntary basis. However, it is when the owner is not willing to maintain the monument, but wishes to use it for another purpose or simply to deny access, that he might try to resume possession after a guardianship order has been made. Of course, he would not say that. If, after a guardianship agreement has been made, the owner says that he is willing to take back the responsibility, or his successors in title are willing to take back the responsibility, and what they have in mind is not to maintain and preserve the monument but to use it for some irregular purpose or to deny the public access to it, then obviously he will not tell the Secretary of State that that is what he has in mind. However, the Secretary of State would have no means of knowing that he was not prepared to carry out the undertakings which he was saying he intended to carry out.
The other case that I should like to mention in passing as typical of the type of dangers we want to guard against is what might be referred to as the "Grange case". I am sure that The noble Baroness is aware of the history of the case to which I am referring. In this instance we are talking about termination by reason of the fact
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"that it is no longer practicable to preserve it (whether because of the cost of preserving it or otherwise)".
The Grange is an early 19th century house in Hampshire which I understand was taken into guardianship in about 1973 or 1974 and which has since been allowed to deteriorate very seriously. One suspects that if the Secretary of State had had this power during the last six years there is at least the possibility that it would have been used and that no reference would have had to be made to any other authority, or professional opinion sought, to say whether the Grange should continue in guardianship.
Finally, The noble Baroness is bound to tell me that the Ancient Monuments Board has a specific right to advise when it is proposed to terminate guardianship under Clause 22(7). If that is all we are to be left with in the end and the Ancient Monuments Board does not have a power of veto, I would suggest that we might seek to provide that any such advice should be given in writing by the board and should be published as part of its annual report. However, I would much prefer that the board should have a veto on the termination of guardianship. I beg to move.
Baroness STEDMAN: I shall try to answer the two direct questions which The noble Lord has put to me. May I ask him to accept my assurance that at the moment the matter of the Grange is sub judice. Recommendations have been made to my Secretary of State; consultations and meetings are proceeding. We hope that we shall know the outcome within a few days. I should prefer to say no more than that at this time.
On The noble Lord's point about the reservoirs, having had the question sprung on me, no, I cannot tell him whether or not there are any ancient monuments or scheduled places in them. However, I shall certainly take advice on the matter, and if I find that we are absolutely inundating most of our ancient monuments, I shall come back to The noble Lord.
As regards his Amendment, I explained on Second Reading that the termination of the guardianship deed can be effected only with the agreement of the other party, and even then only in very

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limited circumstances where the Secretary of State is satisfied that other arrangements of a satisfactory nature have been made for the preservation of the monument, or where the monument in question is no longer capable of being preserved.
I accept that the Ancient Monuments Board is our expert advisory committee, and its advice will always be sought before any action is taken on any attempts to terminate guardianship. The board has the specific power to advise us under Clause 22(7) (d); but, as The noble Lord has admitted, the Ancient Monuments Board is an advisory board. It is not elected; it is not answerable to Parliament. Nor is it equipped to weigh up the conflicting consideration of cost as against retaining an ancient monument in quite the same way as perhaps a political Secretary of State might have to in the light of circumstances. The ultimate decision in any matter of this sort must rest with the Secretary of State, who is answerable to Parliament and the elected House. Therefore, on those grounds I must advise the Committee not to accept The noble Lord's Amendment.
Lord AVEBURY: Can The noble Baroness offer the Committee any thoughts about the publication of the advice given by the Ancient Monuments Board in these circumstances? Although I accept that she has a powerful argument when she tells the Committee that ultimately this is a political responsibility and that the Secretary of State, who is answerable to Parliament, should be the one to take the responsibility rather than a non-elected body such as the Ancient Monuments Board, I think that when the Secretary of State's decision is examined by the public, by your Lordships and by another place, we are entitled to know what advice has been given. Although the technical opinions of the Ancient Monuments Board may not be paramount and other considerations may have been uppermost in the Secretary of State's mind when he or she reached that decision, nevertheless the aesthetic, technical and historical arguments—which presumably have determined the advice given by the Ancient Monuments Board—should be available to all and sundry so that they can be used in evaluating the decision. Therefore, before I withdraw the Amend-
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ment I should like to know whether The noble Baroness is prepared to consider my alternative suggestion that this should be written into the Bill, perhaps at the Report stage. If she will give me an undertaking to look at that, I certainly shall not press my Amendment.
Lord CRAIGTON: I should like to support that argument. I see that in the clause to which The noble Baroness referred the advice "may be" given, not "shall" be given. I appreciate why it may be given. But because it is only "may" in Clause 22(7) on page 26, it would be helpful to have it in writing that that advice should be printed.
Baroness STEDMAN: It is certainly the intention of my right honourable friend the Secretary of State that that advice shall be available to him on the very rare occasions when it would be needed. We do not see this happening day by day or month by month. It may happen only once every seven or eight years, or perhaps at even longer intervals. The Ancient Monuments Board submits its annual report to Parliament. If this happened and this was the advice it had to give, if it was of such moment I see no reason why it could not justify it in every report. However, if The noble Lord is happy, I shall certainly check on the administrative possibilities. If my reading of the situation is wrong, I shall be in touch with The noble Lord before the next stage.
Lord AVEBURY: I am grateful to The noble Baroness for her accommodating answer, and therefore beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 14 agreed to.
Clause 15 [Acquisition and guardianship of land in the vicinity of an ancient monument]:
5.15 p.m.
Lord MIDDLETON Lord MIDDLETON moved Amendment No. 6:
Page 16, line 12, leave out ("10 to 12") and insert ("11 and 12").
The noble Lord said: During the Second Reading debate The noble Baroness told us—and I accept it—of cases where the

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present power of the Secretary of State to make compulsory guardianship orders has proved inadequate to secure satisfactory protection of an ancient monument, although The noble Baroness did say that these were few in number. Therefore, the Government have replaced the existing powers by providing in Clause 10 a power for the Secretary of State to acquire compulsorily:
"any ancient monument for the purpose of securing its preservation".
The noble Baroness stressed at Second Reading—and she has since confirmed it to me in a letter, for which I am most grateful—that this power would not be exercised for any other purpose.
One is always reluctant to see a Government giving to themselves or to another body further powers of compulsory acquisition. But I suppose that there might be a few cases where compulsion provided the only means of preserving an ancient monument. I am not clear whether the absence of this power has ever resulted in irreparable damage to a monument or to its destruction, but at any rate the Government believe that the extension of compulsory purchase is essential in respect of the site or the monument itself, and that I accept.
However, what I do not accept is that there are substantial reasons for further extending the power of compulsory acquisition given to the Secretary of State by Clause 10 to the compulsory acquisition of land in the vicinity of an ancient monument. That is what Clause 15 does. The noble Baroness has said that the scale of visiting of certain monuments and the provision of facilities has raised serious problems. One can think of several examples that bear that out. What is not immediately obvious is the extent of the problem when land has to be acquired for such facilities. Have there been sufficient cases to justify this further extension of the power of compulsory acquisition, or is this merely a precautionary measure? If it is, despite the assurance of The noble Baroness that this power would be used only in the last resort, I believe that this extension of compulsory acquisition to outlying land should be resisted. The effect of this Amendment would be to restrict the acquisition of land in the vicinity of an ancient monument to acquisition by
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agreement. I should be most interested to hear why The noble Baroness thinks this procedure would be inadequate. I beg to move.
Baroness STEDMAN: As I said on Second Reading, we seek a compulsory power to acquire land required for the management for the monuments in State care, because the changing circumstances of today have shown that there is a need for it. As The noble Lord said, there is, fortunately, an increasing number of visitors to our monuments. Most of them come in motor vehicles, so it is essential to be able to make some proper provision for them. Very often the pressure for the provision of car parks and lavatories for visitors arises from the community where the monument is situated, because they are the people who suffer if these facilities are not available. The sites for such facilities must be carefully chosen in relation to the setting of the monument and the amenities of the locality. There may be other constraints such as damage from traffic, or danger from traffic, or damage to drains, and experience has shown us that very occasionally only one site is the suitable site for this. So there is, accordingly, a very real risk that what is needed in the public interest may be frustrated by just one individual.
Naturally his interests and his point of view must be taken into account and must be weighed against the public interest, and we must strike the right balance. But at present there is no balance, and where agreement is not attainable then the public interest is completely impotent. It is not a situation which Parliament thought acceptable in comparable situations. The facilities in the national parks, or in the provision of country parks, make it possible for them by compulsory purchase to buy land for these particular purposes, and my understanding is that there is about one instance in every 12 or more years in so far as the national parks and country parks are concerned, and in those situations of course quite often the suitable sites, or the choice of them, is less restricted as to where they can go in the national parks.
The power we seek in respect of the State monuments will only be used where it is clearly necessary after every other

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possibility has been explored, and after we have not been able to reach voluntary agreement with the owner but feel that there is a crying demand for these facilities for the visitors to the monument in order to placate even the local residents in the site as well. I hope that The noble Lord will not feel that he ought to push this Amendment.
Lord MIDDLETON: The noble Baroness has confirmed that this is in fact a precautionary measure. In view of the assurance that she gave at the end of her statement I think we can be assured that this power will be very sparingly used. It is, as she says, absolutely essential that these popular sites should be properly serviced. In view of the fact that she said that it will only be used in the last resort, I think I am reassured. I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 15 agreed to.
Clause 16 agreed to.
Clause 17 [Agreements concerning ancient monuments and land in their vicinity]:
5.22 p.m.
Baroness STEDMAN Baroness STEDMAN moved Amendment No. 7:
Page 20, line 11, after ("State") insert ("or (as the case may be) by the local authority").
The noble Baroness said: With the leave of the Committee, I should like to speak to Amendments Nos. 7 and 8 together. There is no reason why a local authority should not have identical powers to that of a Secretary of State in relation to agreements made with the occupier of an ancient monument or of any land adjoining or in the vicinity of the monument. This was our intention. We felt that it was not quite clear in the Bill as it stood at Second Reading, and these are the drafting Amendments in order to make that quite plain. I beg to move.
On Question. Amendment agreed to.
Baroness STEDMAN Baroness STEDMAN moved Amendment No. 8:
Page 20, line 18, after ("State") insert ("or (as the case may be) to the local authority").
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 17, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 18 to 23 agreed to.
5.24 p.m.
Lord AVEBURY Lord AVEBURY moved Amendment No. 9:
After Clause 23, insert the following new clause:
(".—(1) The Secretary of State shall appoint one or more inspectors of ancient monuments and it shall be among the duties of those inspectors to report to the Secretary of State on the historical, architectural and archaeological importance of ancient monuments and areas of archaeological importance and on the best mode of preserving, recording or excavating them.
(2) Without prejudice to the generality of subsection (1) above, it shall be the duty of such inspectors to report to the Secretary of State on the historical, architectural and archaeological importance of ancient monuments, historic buildings, and areas of archaeological importance which are for the time being Crown land, and on the best mode of preserving, recording or excavating them.").
The noble Lord said: I wonder whether it would be for the convenience of the Committee if, with Amendment No. 9, we were to take my Amendment No. 33 which concerns the question of Crown land and which is dealt with in subsection (2) of my new clause. I think I see The noble Baroness nodding her head, and so I shall proceed to develop my argument on that basis.
The main point at issue in this new clause is whether there are to be statutory advisers whom the Secretary of State is obliged to consult, or whether they are to be simply professional civil servants whose existence and whose duties depend on continuing ministerial discretion. It is still the opinion of many of those who have looked at this matter that without a statutory role for the Inspectorate the way might be open for interference by administrative officers to suit administrative convenience, or by Ministers to suit political expediency.
I know that The noble Baroness gave the House assurances on Second Reading and has repeated them in correspondence with several noble Lords who spoke on Second Reading. I am sure that they are most valuable statements. May I recapitulate some of the points that she mentioned in her letter to The noble Lord, Lord Kennet, because that is the fullest reply that she made to any of your Lordships.
She assures him that the Inspectorate is not to be abolished, and she explains that the reason why Section 16 of the 1913 Act is not to be re-enacted—and that is really what we are talking about here—is that in any consolidation Bill it is necessary to examine all the existing provisions to consider whether they have become out of date or unnecessary, and in the opinion of the Government Section 16 is both of these. She says that the definition of the advisory duties of the Inspectorate to report on the condition of ancient monuments and on the best mode of preserving them is inadequate and misleading. The provision is unnecessary because it has for a long time been accepted that Ministers are entitled to employ whatever kind of officials may be needed to enable them to carry out their statutory functions.
That is so, but there are other examples of particular kinds of experts who are employed to advise the Government. One thinks of the health and safety at work inspectors, for example, who are mentioned in the legislation. In any case, it is the opinion of many people that the specific mention of inspectors in the legislation ever since the 1881 Act has had a value in maintaining their role and their importance.
I do not make too much of this, but a comparison may be looked at with the investigators of historic buildings. In the Town and Country Planning Act 1971 there was a provision—I think it was Section 64(3)—which required the Secretary of State to consult such persons or bodies as appear to him to be appropriate, having knowledge of or interest in buildings of architectural or historic interest, in preparing the list of historic buildings. There was a similar provision in the legislation before 1971.
Since the war it has been the practice of the Secretary of State to list any threatened buildings recommended as listable by the investigators. In the last three years there has been a new interpretation of that provision and there have been several instances where the advice of the investigators has not been taken. It may be partly because the investigators are not a statutory body, but their status and their position as advisers has been eroded. I am sure that that is not the full story because the inspectors have also been downgraded in the post-war period,
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and thus then The noble Baroness says, "We are maintaining the Inspectorate", there is no guarantee that this process of downgrading may not continue, nor of course, as we remarked on Second Reading, has The noble Baroness got any power to bind her successors.
The noble Baroness said on Second Reading, and repeated in the correspondence, that Ministers employ whoever is needed to carry out their functions. In the ancient monuments field architects are necessary in carrying out these functions just as much as the inspectors are. It is necessary for the architect to work closely with the inspectors, but the difference between the two is that the Secretary of State could not possibly operate without the advice of the architects. But he, or she, could do so without inspectors, though the buildings might be wrecked or demolished as a result. Very unfortunate consequences might flow from only taking the advice of architects and not that of the inspectors.
It may be of interest to noble Lords if I went into the history of the matter. I will be as brief as possible. Between the wars the chief inspector who advised in accordance with the 1913 Act and who remained in office until 1933 was the distinguished Sir Charles Peers. He brought standing buildings and ruins within the scope of the Inspectorate under the 1931 Act, and it was of him that Sir Mortimer Wheeler said:
"He laid down the principles which have governed architectural conservation in the United Kingdom and have served as a model in other parts of the world".
As chief inspector, he reported only to the secretary of the Board of Works and that was the equivalent, if one puts it in modern terms, of reporting to the Permanent Secretary of the Department of the Environment. He was a very distinguished scholar, a president and gold medallist of the Society of Antiquaries and was loaded with honours. Under him the Inspectorate advised on all historic Crown buildings in the charge of the Board of Works.
During the Second World War the responsibilities of the Ministry of Works were enlarged so that the Inspectorate became also concerned with what was termed "rescue archaeology". That meant as I understand it, archaeology

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in advance of a construction threat, and that particularly arose in connection with the building of airfields and other wartime works of construction. It was extremely enlightened of our predecessors to have had regard to ancient monuments even when the very survival of the nation was under threat. The credit for that probably goes to O'Neill, who was chief inspector between 1945 and 1954, and who was the driving spirit during the war, and it is from that era that Part II of the Bill stems.
In 1954 O'Neill died and that seems to have been the turning point, because after 1955 the secretaryship of the Ancient Monuments Board was transferred from the principal inspector in each country to administrative officers. In 1970 the chief inspector was placed under the management of the Director of Ancient Monuments and Historic Buildings, which is not a professional appointment, and at some date after the Department of the Environment came into existence a deputy secretary also came into the chain of command above the director, and he too is non-professional and has many other functions.
We can see from that that the role of the chief inspector has been considerably downgraded in importance in the 25 years that have elapsed since O'Neill's death. In 1972 the Property Services Agency came into existence, which in administrative practice meant that the inspectors were even more remote from those who took the decisions in respect of Crown property, other of course than the properties which were already directly administered by the Director of Ancient Monuments and Historic Buildings.
I should mention that among the buildings administered by the Property Services Agency are included all the Government offices in Whitehall and Somerset House, so they are not an insignificant owner of ancient buildings and monuments. Against that background, assurances that the position of the Inspectorate will be maintained cannot be viewed with any confidence, and the deletion of any reference to the inspectors is seen as another step in the process of the diminution of their role and importance.
Turning to the second part of my new clause, the inspector's function was defined in 1931 as, among other things, advising on all questions in connection with the treatment, maintenance, repair and so on of all ancient monuments or historic buildings in the Commissioner's charge, including Crown property. Although the exercise of that function has, as I have said, been eroded by the creation of the Property Services Agency, the definition has not, I think, ever been officially superseded and it constitutes the only protection for Crown buildings apart from the non-statutory custom of consulting local authorities for a listed building consent.
However, there have been plenty of examples of works which might have been carried out by the Property Services Agency without seeking the advice of inspectors. One example was the case of the brass foundry at Woolwich Arsenal. A scheme was first produced without advice and afterwards, when the inspectors were brought into the matter, that scheme was substantially amended and it finally won The Times RIBA conservation award. Hence, if we do not have a provision such as I propose there will be grave danger that regarding Crown property—not under the existing Administration but at some future date—things may happen that we could regret.
I should point out before concluding that there is nothing in what I have said which should be taken as a criticism of the relationship between the inspectors and others in the Department, particularly the architects, with whom they work closely and harmoniously. What I am considering is the fact that this largely consolidating measure will probably, like the 1913 and 1931 Acts before it, have to rest on the Statute Book without substantial amendment for 20 or 25 years, and that what we do now is therefore of extreme importance not for the present Administration but in terms of public development and the pressures on land that can be foreseen towards the end of the century.
Baroness STEDMAN: The noble Lords, Lord Avebury and Lord Kennet, raised this matter previously and expressed concern about the position of inspectors both under this measure and those which have gone before. I have looked at the

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matter again and I still feel that the proposed new clause is unnecessary. Ministers are able to appoint whatever officials they think are needed to enable them to carry out their statutory duties. We feel it is undesirable to specify the classes of official in statute, since that might be limiting; we might want to employ other people who are not so specified. If the inspectors are to be specified, we must then ask ourselves why not the architects or the engineers, or even the field monument wardens who have just been appointed and who are also necessary for the protection and preservation of ancient monuments; or indeed the scientists of the Ancient Monuments Laboratory, whose pioneering work rightly enjoys an extremely high reputation.
Equally, it is undesirable to define their duties, since they change as circumstances change, and I suspect that their duties, what they are doing today, may be different in some respects from what they were doing in 1882 or even in 1931. If we consider Section 16 of the 1913 Act, it would be no answer to say that as a definition becomes out of date it should be progressively disregarded.
It is equally unnecessary, we feel, to require a special duty in respect of monuments on Crown land. The Crown does not need statutory powers to enable its officers to carry out their functions in respect of Crown property, and I am assured in the Department that in so far as any of the Government Departments are concerned, there are no problems; that our inspectors are welcome and that our inspectors have the right to go in and look at things in so far as they are able to do so without prejudicing perhaps national defence or something of that sort.
I have been in the Department for only six weeks, but in that time, while I have been involved with this Bill, I have come to have a very healthy respect for the work that our chief inspector and his colleagues do, and a high regard for them as individuals. I do not accept that they have been downgraded by not being specified in the Bill. The Inspectorate of Ancient Monuments is held in very high regard both inside and outside the Government, and their standing within the community, the Department and the ancient monuments field depends not on
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a statutory reference to them in any Bill or Act of Parliament, but on the way they have repeatedly discharged their duties over a long number of years.
I am happy to give noble Lords an assurance that the duty of the inspectors to report on the care of monuments will continue unimpaired. I would certainly wish to continue the practice of seeking direct advice from my inspectors and of ensuring that they were free to report to Ministers on matters within their professional competence. This is as it should be. This is how we want to use them, and we want them to feel free to come to my Secretary of State or to me as Ministers if they feel that something is not right or is not being done correctly within another Government Department. We must have the administrative line within the Department; we must have the specialist line; and they have to work together. As recently as this morning I had some discussions about the Inspectorate and its operations under the new Act, and I should like to endorse what The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, has said. There is no inter-professional jealousy or animosity on this matter. There is no feeling between our inspectors, the architects, the surveyors and other people. They all want to do the best job that they can, and do it to the best of their ability.
With regard to the second Amendment to which The noble Lord referred, which is dependent upon whether his new clause is accepted, I do not think there is any reason to override the provisions in question, which are normal so far as Crown land is concerned. There is no reason to suppose that any of the appropriate Crown authorities are likely to resist entry for any purposes that our inspectors require, and the assumption must be that the co-operation that we know today will continue. The second Amendment is defective as it stands, referring as it does to Clause 23, because I am advised that if the new clause were accepted, it might not even be Clause 23; but we take the Amendment in the spirit in which it has been tabled.
The noble Lord made some comments about the investigators so far as the Historic Buildings Council is concerned. There is not really any comparison with the 1971 Town and Country Planning Act responsibilities of the Secretary of

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State, under which he has to consult the Historic Buildings Council on the criteria that is applied. In the case of listed buildings the investigators, who are also part of the Inspectorate, make recommendations to the Secretary of State, and again acting on criteria that is already recommended by the Historic Buildings Council, they are the ones who are consulted in the special cases. The investigators are not specifically mentioned in the Act. They might say that they ought to be represented as well as the inspectors. I am advised that the chief inspector has been upgraded in recent years.
I feel that The noble Lord is a little apprehensive about this matter, and I do not think that he ought to be. I have given assurances this morning to some of the inspectors that it is my view that we rely upon them for their advice. We shall continue to expect to receive their advice. We shall expect them to be asked to go out and undertake their investigations in Government Departments and in Crown property in the same way as in other places. Furthermore, we shall expect that if they see anything happening which they think ought not to happen, they will feel free to come to my Secretary of State or to me. I hope that in view of those assurances The noble Lord will feel a little more satisfied.
Lord AVEBURY: I am very grateful to The noble Baroness for what she has said, and I was glad to hear that she had had a productive discussion with the inspectors—
Baroness STEDMAN: With their representatives—
Lord AVEBURY: With their representatives this morning. I am also pleased that she has been able to give me from the Dispatch Box today assurances which go some way towards meeting the anxieties which I expressed and which The noble Lord, Lord Kennet, similarly expressed on Second Reading. I was pleased to hear The noble Baroness say that the Inspectorate is held in high regard—that is certainly the impression that I have—and that we have a reputation which depends on the work of the inspectors, not merely on a national basis but also throughout the world. I should
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still prefer that the inspectors were mentioned by name in the Bill, but I accept that my view is unlikely to prevail. Therefore, in the hope that the undertakings that have been given by The noble Baroness will be honoured not only by her colleagues in this Government but also during the lifetime of the Bill after it becomes an Act, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clauses 24 to 32 agreed to.
Clause 33 [Designation of areas of archaeological importance.]:
On Question, Whether Clause 33 shall stand part of the Bill?
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: I wish to draw your Lordships' attention to the question of the treatment of comments received as a result of the notice required under Schedule 2, paragraph 3, on page 64 of the Bill. Schedule 2 does not lay upon the Secretary of State any specific obligation to acknowledge these comments, still less to take them into account, and I wish to suggest that this omission ought to be remedied if possible.
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, I can assure The noble Lord that the comments and representations will of course be acknowledged and will be taken into account before the designation order is made. There would be no other purpose in publishing the proposal, if we were not willing to go to those lengths. It is not considered necessary to include a statutory provision to this effect. I advise the Committee that that is our feeling, and I hope that The noble Lord will accept this answer as being his feelings as well.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: I am grateful to The noble Baroness, and I willingly accept her assurances.
Clause 33 agreed to.
Clause 34 [Investigating authorities for areas of archaeological importance.]:
5.46 p.m.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON moved Amendment No. 10:
Page 31, line 13, leave out subsection (5).
The noble Lord said: The Amendment is designed purely to ascertain the precise circumstances in which the Government feel that an investigating authority should be able to delegate its functions. I should have thought that the authorisation seriously detracts from the control implicit in the Secretary of State's own power of delegation in Clause 34(1), and does not seem to be justifiable. I shall be most grateful if The noble Baroness will explain this apparent anomaly. I beg to move.
Baroness STEDMAN: If the Amendment were accepted it would remove the power of an investigating authority to authorise another to act on its behalf in dealing with operations notices and conducting investigations in a designated area. The purpose of the provisions of sub-section (5) is to enable an investigating authority to employ another archaeological body to act on its behalf. The need for this could arise if the staff of the investigating authority were fully occupied and an important additional opportunity arose in its area. In such circumstances an archaeological body from a neighbouring area might have to be authorised to act. However, this body would be the agent of the investigating authority, which would remain responsible. So, perhaps the anxieties of The noble Lord are a little exaggerated. The provision is a desirable means of ensuring that all the archaeological resources are deployed where the need for them is greatest, and they would be used only in circumstances where there was much work to be done within an area, and the archaeological section which was brought in to help would work as agents of the authority which had the responsibility for the area.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: I am grateful to The noble Baroness for her explanation, and I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 34 agreed to.
Clause 35 [Notice required of operations in areas of archaeological importance]:
[Amendment No. 11 not moved.]
On Question, Whether Clause 35 shall stand part of the Bill?
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: I should be most grateful if The noble Baroness can give me a definition of "operations which disturb the ground", and perhaps an Amendment should be made to subsection (2) to clarify this point. I have in mind cases where underground mining has been authorised. Are the ancillary works carried out at the surface included in the definition, and at what depth of mining can disturbance of the ground be regarded as sufficiently minimal to be outside the scope of the provision? The answers to these questions need to be clearly established to avoid future problems in mining practice.
Baroness STEDMAN: I am grateful to The noble Lord for having given me advance notice that he wanted some more information on this particular clause; and, as he says, the purpose of it is to seek a definition of "operations which disturb the ground", with particular reference to deep-mining operations. It is in fact doubtful whether mining operations at great depth could be held to require the service of an operations notice; nor would we wish to catch such operations needlessly. We have at present agreed with the National Coal Board that there should be an exemption for deep-mining operations, but an amendment to the definition of "operations which disturb the ground" may be preferable.
The purpose of the provision in Part II of the Bill is to provide opportunities for archaeological investigation prior to operations which will disturb or destroy archaeological strata, which are normally found down to 15 feet from the surface. We have no wish to catch in this machinery operations deep below ground which will have no perceptible effect on the surface levels. My Department has already had consultations with the National Coal Board. We will consider further whether any amendment of the definition of operations or an exemption under Clause 37 is necessary to achieve our purpose. I must stress that such exemption would not extend to surface operations, which fall within the definition in Clause 35(2); but we will have a look at the definition under Clause 37 before we come to the next stage.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: I am most grateful.
Clause 35 agreed to.
Clause 36 [Certificate to accompany operations notice under section 35]:
5.52 p.m.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON moved Amendment No. 12:
Page 33, line 20, after ("has") insert ("or can reasonably expect to have").
The noble Lord said: With your Lordships' consent, in moving this Amendment I should like to speak to Amendment No. 13 as well. The purpose of these two Amendments is to allow the archaeological operations to be undertaken at the earliest practicable stage, and thus to avoid unnecessary, costly delays. It is sometimes necessary to open quarries, particularly gravel quarries, at short notice to provide raw materials; for example, for road construction and maintenance, where unexpected engineering problems arise. The clause as drafted relates only to persons with an established interest in the site, and perhaps needs to be widened to include those expected to have such an interest. I beg to move.
Baroness STEDMAN: Like The noble Lord, Lord Mowbray, we hope that rescue archaeology will not ever be subject to any undue delay, and it will always be our aim to secure opportunities for rescue archaeology by voluntary agreement rather than depending always on the strict terms of the statute. So, in the situation envisaged by The noble Lord, if a prospective purchaser and a vendor approach the investigating authority asking them to enter before the formalities of a purchase are completed, the investigating authority will always be happy to co-operate in any case where development is indeed likely to ensue. Without the owner's agreement it would surely be unworkable to give the statutory right to someone who had not yet purchased the land, to enable archaeologists to be brought on to that land for various purposes, including, possibly, excavation. Therefore, with that proviso, I ask your Lordships not to accept the Amendment moved by The noble Lord.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: Once again I am very grateful to The noble Baroness, and I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 36 agreed to.
Clause 37 [Exemptions from offence under section 35]:
Lord MIDDLETON Lord MIDDLETON moved Amendment No. 14:
Page 34, line 16, after ("Secretary of State") insert ("after consultation with such bodies of persons as appear to him to represent the interests affected by requirements for scheduled monument consent").
The noble Lord said: Clause 35 provides that anyone who intends to carry out operations which disturb the ground in a designated archaeological area must first serve notice giving precise particulars in a prescribed form, and he must produce a certificate to comply with Clause 36. I take it that an archaeological area would usually be in an urban environment or where there are proposed roadworks, gravel works or opencast mining. However, it could be in a rural area, and include land which is being farmed. Presumably the archaeologists would not want farming and forestry operations to go ahead with out notice being served under Clause 35. On the other hand, agricultural interests would not want to have to give notice for every and any act of husbandry or forestry. Farmers would hardly seem to fall into the category of what Clause 35 calls "the developer".
The purpose of this Amendment is similar to that of the Amendment proposed to Clause 3. The noble Baroness has already given assurances with regard to a class consent under Clause 3. Would she tell the Committee—and in her letter to me she has already indicated her willingness to do this—whether the exemption rules which are to be made under Clause 37 will take full account of agricultural requirements, and will make exemptions for ordinary acts of cultivation? I beg to move.
Baroness STEDMAN: As The noble Lord has said, I gave certain assurances and undertakings when we were discussing the first Amendment before us this afternoon, and the comments which I made on

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that Amendment apply, if anything even more strongly, to this one. The Secretary of State will consult wherever it would be helpful to do so; and the Department is actively engaged in consultation now with the Confederation of British Industry and others about the proposed exemption for mineral extraction. But it will also be necessary to grant exemption to allow everyday life to continue; the ordinary continued cultivation of gardens, for example, or the continued use of existing burial grounds, even. A mandatory requirement to consult in every case is unnecessary, but I think The noble Lord can be satisfied that consultation will take place wherever it is necessary.
Lord MIDDLETON: The noble Baroness, as she did in the case of Clause 3, has given me assurances that satisfy me, and I therefore beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON moved Amendment No. 15:
Page 34, line 22, at end insert—
("( ) Without prejudice to the powers conferred by the previous subsection 2, the Secretary of State shall, not later than the coming into force of section 35 of this Act, direct that section 35 shall not apply to the carrying out of any operations for the extraction of minerals which are conducted in accordance with a specified Code of Practice: and the said Code of Practice shall be drawn up after consultations with representatives of the operators concerned.").
The noble Lord said: When we were on Second Reading The noble Baroness said (it is in column 461 of the Official Report, if your Lordships want to see it) that the Government had
"undertaken to exempt such [mineral extraction] operations by order in return for adherence by the industry to an agreed code of practice which is now being prepared".
The purpose of this Amendment is to incorporate in the Bill the declared intention of the Government. While I am on this subject, perhaps I may say that I hear rumours that the first draft of the code of practice is not at the moment particularly pleasing to the industry. I beg to move.
Baroness STEDMAN: On Second Reading I gave the undertaking that the Government would exempt mineral
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operations by order in return for adherence to an agreed code of practice. This was not a concession which was wrung from us: the proposal was made on the Department's initiative because we saw this route as the best one for both parties to take. As The noble Lord has said—and my understanding is the same as his—the first draft has been found somewhat alarming (shall we put it no higher than that?). This surprises us, because the requirements are in general terms in order to encourage agreements by negotiation where the archaeologists seek opportunities. We supposed this to be in accordance with the attitude of the industry; we now know that it was not. But that draft is only the beginning of a dialogue, and no inflexible positions have been adopted by either party. With all the goodwill in the world, it does not seem reasonable to bind the Secretary of State to grant exemption on the basis of a hoped-for but not yet certain agreement about a code of practice. We think that that would tilt the scales too much to one side. The consultations have been initiated, they have not broken down, we arc both looking at it again and we hope that negotiations will continue and a satisfactory code of practice will ensue from them.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: I am grateful to The noble Baroness. I should like to consider exactly what she has said. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 37 agreed to.
Clause 38 agreed to.
Clause 39 [Power of investigating authority to investigate in advance of operations notice any site which may be acquired compulsorily]:
6 p.m.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON moved Amendment No. 16:
Page 37, line 20, leave out from ("Where") to("an") in line 21.
The noble Lord said: In moving this Amendment, I should like to speak also to Amendment No. 17. The sole purpose of these Amendments is to ensure that

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the investigatory authority exercises a right of entry only when there is a real prospect of the purchasing authority's proposals being inplemented. Otherwise the power seems to be somewhat open-ended. I beg to move.
Baroness STEDMAN: I am grateful to The noble Lord for putting down this Amendment. I am in sympathy with its purpose and accept that there was a chance, albeit a slim one, that an investigating authority might have sought to exercise its right of entry otherwise than at the behest of the purchasing authority. The Amendment needs further study. I undertake to give this and will move a Government Amendment to achieve the desired purpose at Report stage.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: I am grateful to The noble Baroness and I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 17 not moved.]
Clause 39 agreed to.
Clause 40 [Other powers of entry on site of operations covered by an operations notice]:
Baroness STEDMAN Baroness STEDMAN moved Amendment No. 18:
Page 38, line 25, leave out ("for") and insert ("on").
The noble Baroness said: This is a very short drafting Amendment. It corrects an error in the current print of the Bill. The title of the Royal Commission is the "Royal Commission on Historical Monuments". We had better have the record straight.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 40, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 41 and 42 agreed to.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON moved Amendment No. 19:
After Clause 42, insert the following new clause:
Trespassing while using metal detector
(".—(1) If a person enters or is on any land as a trespasser while he has a metal detector with him he shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction or, in Scotland,
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on conviction before a court of summary jurisdiction, to a fine not exceeding £200.
(2)In this section—
"Metal detector" has the same meaning as in section 42(2) above; and
"Land" includes land covered with water.
(3)In any proceedings for an offence under subsection (1) above, it shall be a defence for the accused to prove any matter which would have been a defence to an action at law for such trespass save and except that the leave or licence of the occupier of the land so trespassed upon shall not be a sufficient defence in any case where the landlord lessor or other person shall have the right of ownership of objects of archaeological or historical interest on such land by virtue of any reservation or otherwise, and that the lord or steward of the Crown of any manor lordship or royalty or reputed manor lordship or royalty shall be deemed to be the legal occupier of the land of the wastes or commons within such manor lordship or royalty or reputed manor lordship or royalty.").
The noble Lord said: We here come to a fairly substantial Amendment for which I make no apology, and I shall be grateful if The noble Baroness is able to help me on it. During the Second Reading I commended the Government very much on Clause 42 of the Bill which deals with metal detectors. The noble Baroness was kind enough to write me a letter since then agreeing that there were things which could still go wrong and the Bill obviously cannot, as it stands, take care of all the offences which we could think of. We left it with good intentions on Second Reading. This is an attempt to try to put a few more teeth in the good intentions of curbing the dangers of metal detectors. There are still grounds for fairly serious concern.
In particular, it has been brought to my attention that Clause 42(6), which deals with metal detectors, says:
"In any proceedings…it shall be a defence for the accused to prove…that he used the metal detectors for a purpose other than detecting or locating objects of archaeological or historical interest…".
This would seem to offer a cast-iron defence to any metal detector user who is caught red-handed on a scheduled site or even on a designated archaeological area but who has not actually started digging. He need only argue that he was looking for modern coins, rings and so on which might have been dropped by visitors to the monument, and not for antiquities: and he would then be home and dry.
The present law on causing damage to ancient monuments has proved somewhat

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hard to enforce. It is thought that law officers are somewhat unwilling to initiate prosecutions because of the difficulty of proving damage other than the actual destruction of monuments by excavations, et cetera. I think that this long-awaited and welcome improvement to the law is slightly wide. On the matter of the actual metal detector user on private land and causing a trespass, one could argue for and against the case for allowing the metal detector to operate with the land owner's permission on land that is not scheduled or otherwise protected. But is it not indefensible that, without the permission of the owner or the occupier of the land, a detector user can produce substantial financial rewards for himself?
I agree that normally the rewards will not be very high. Nevertheless, the offence is still there. I should have thought it to be in the interests of everyone (except, perhaps, the private metal detector users and the manufacturers) to outlaw trespass on private land with metal detectors. Many kinds of trespass are already a criminal offence; and from the legislation it is possible, surely, to work out an appropriate form of words. The most obvious example is the trespass provisions of the Firearms Act 1968, Section 20(2), where a person commits an offence if while he has a firearm with him he enters or is on any land as a trespasser and without reasonable excuse, the proof whereof lies on him. There is an even better parallel in Section 30 of the Game Act 1831 which deals with trespass in search of wild animals and birds which are not subject to any clear legal ownership—as is the case with many archaeological finds of the sort that the metal detector users are seeking. This section also covers the question of reserve game rights, which can be paralleled in the land owner's reservation of any right in respect of antiquities in tenanted land.
The terms of the draft of my Amendment which is before the Committee will, I believe, go far to deal with this matter. It would be not only to the archaeological interest but also to that of many landowners and tenant farmers in many parts of the country who are becoming heartily sick of the antics of the misguided and greedy individuals who trample without permission over agricultural and other land with their metal detectors and, in the great majority of cases, without intention
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to hand over their finds to the landowners. There have been cases, of which I have given The noble Baroness notice, where particular damage has been done without one's being able to enforce the law. I suggest that this addition to Clause 42 a good one and I commend it to your Lordships. I beg to move.
Lord MONTAGU of BEAULIEU: I should like strongly to support this Amendment moved by my noble friend. I speak on behalf of the English Museums Association of which I have the honour to be vice-president. They are concerned; and they welcome this Bill and the proposed penalties. My noble friend has described their main concern, which has been the question of the accused person's proving intent. It is very easy for him to say that he is looking for his fiancee's engagement ring or a dog collar and so on and he would have a cast-iron defence. There is great concern felt by the museums that many valuable archaeological objects are being found, not reported and are being sold out of the country. The museums not only do not know about them but do not have the opportunity of purchasing them if they are available. The Association would like the Government to take this Amendment very seriously. It is important that this Bill has these penalties for private land as well as for scheduled land.
Baroness STEDMAN: The purpose of this part of the Bill is to prohibit the use of metal detectors on the sites of protected monuments. The new clause put so plausibly by The noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, seeks to create a new criminal offence of trespass while in possession of a metal detector. That is taking it rather wide. I think it goes beyond the main purpose of this Bill. There may be a case for doing something about metal detectors over land "full stop"; but this Bill is concerned with the protection of the sites of our monuments and scheduled works and not over land in general. It is outside the purpose of this Bill and goes beyond the clause that we have put forward; because it relates to trespass on any land and not just on land where there are scheduled monuments. It raises wide issues and perhaps ones we ought to consider at some time. I do not think it is right to try to deal with it in

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the context of this Bill which is concerned with archaeological sites and ancient monuments.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: Would not The noble Baroness look at what I have put down to see whether she and her advisers can tinker with it in such a way that it would be helpful in dealing with the points in this Bill? I still think there might be room for it, even if she removed the bits where it is too wide and left in the bits which concern this Bill. I still think that there might be scope for improvement to this Bill.
Baroness STEDMAN: I am always willing to look at things and to try to find a way round any difficulties that we may run into. I do not think we are going to have very much success in that; but do not let that prevent me from saying that we will take it back and look at it. However, I cannot hold out a great deal of hope against coming back and saying it is still completely outside the scope of this Bill.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: Bearing in mind we have further time to consider this Bill at another stage and that The noble Baroness has assured us she will look at the Amendment, albeit without much hope, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 43 agreed to.
Clause 44 [Supplementary provisions with respect to powers of entry]:
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON moved Amendment No. 20:
Page 41, line 37, at end insert—
("( ) Any person exercising powers of entry under this Act who does not comply with reasonable requirements or conditions imposed in accordance with the previous subsection shall not be entitled to any statutory protection afforded by the Mines and Quarries Act 1954 or the Health and Safety at Work Etc. Act 1974. He shall be liable for any damage to persons or property which may result from his acts or omissions when he has so entered.").
The noble Lord said: In this Amendment I am trying to bring some fairness to the operators who have onerous obli-
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gations to their employees and even to invitees. The invitee will not be familiar with the premises upon which he enters and it is therefore reasonable that he complies with the safety requirements of the occupier/owners. If he fails to do so, he should not enjoy, I suggest, the statutory protection afforded to the workforce and, moreover, should be liable for any damage he might cause or dangers he might create. I beg to move.
Baroness STEDMAN: Again, The noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, was good enough to provide me with a note of this particular point. We have consulted the Health and Safety at Work Executive during the drafting of the Bill and the particular points covered by this Amendment have been considered. We were advised that no reference to these points was necessary in the Bill since a person who disregards any reasonable steps taken by an employer to discharge his general responsibilities under the safety legislation will do so at his own risk, and the employer will not be responsible for the consequences. Likewise, any person who causes damage to persons or property would be responsible under general provisions of law. Therefore, in those circumstances, with that advice from the Health and Safety at Work Executive I must ask The noble Lord to withdraw his Amendment or not to press it.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: I am most grateful to The noble Baroness for that information. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 44 agreed to.
Clauses 45 to 47 agreed to.
Clause 48 [Recovery of grants for expenditure in conservation areas and on historic buildings]:
6.14 p.m.
Baroness STEDMAN Baroness STEDMAN moved Amendments Nos. 21 to 24:
Page 43, line 28, at beginning insert—
("(1A) This section applies to any grant under section 10 above made on terms that it

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shall be recoverable under this section; but any such grant shall only be regarded for the purposes of this section as so made if before or on making the grant the Secretary of State gives to the grantee notice in writing—

(a) summarising the effect of this section; and

(b) specifying the period during which the grant is to be recoverable in accordance with subsection (3) below in the case of a grant made for the purpose mentioned in subsection (2) below.

(1B) The period specified under subsection (1 A) (b) above in the case of any grant shall be a period beginning with the day on which the grant is made and ending not more than ten years after that day.")
Page 43, line 29, leave out ("was made under section 10 above") and insert ("to which this section applies was made")
Page 43, line 33, leave out from ("section") to ("for") in line 35 and insert ("have effect where a grant to which this section applies is made to any person")
Page 43, line 41, leave out from ("period") to third ("the") in line 42 and insert ("specified for the purposes of this subsection under subsection (1A) (b) above").
The noble Baroness said: I hope it may be of some help to the Committee if I may say that the Amendments standing in my name on Clause 48 are for the most part drafting, technical Amendments in order to clarify the position. Lord Mowbray and Stourton's Amendments Nos. 25 and 29 are also in this clause and it may be helpful if I formally move my Amendments as drafting Amendments at this stage so that The noble Lords, Lord Mowbray and Lord Montagu, can make their points about the five and 10 years periods. Then we can reply in the light of their remarks. I beg to move.
The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES (The Earl of Listowel): The noble Baroness has moved Amendments Nos. 21 to 24 en bloc. I should point out to the Committee that if Amendment No. 24 is agreed to I cannot call Amendment No. 25.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: As The noble Lord the Deputy Chairman of Committees has just pointed out, if Amendment No. 24 were passed it would kill my Amendment No. 25. Perhaps on Amendments Nos. 21 to 24 I might speak to my Amendments Nos. 25 and 29. My Amendment No. 29 would similarly be killed by The noble Baroness's Amendment No. 28. I am most grateful to the
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noble Baroness for dealing with the Amendments in this way. It makes it very much easier for me. It will probably be best if I also speak now to Amendments Nos. 24 and 28. From what I have heard The noble Baroness say previously, the Government have some sympathy with the view that a rigid 10 years is too long a period. The phrase "not more than 10 years" certainly implies a lesser period, as I see The noble Baroness has put down in her Amendment No. 21. Where a grant has been received by a private individual for repairs to his house, or more particularly for maintenance, it is all too likely that the value arising from these repairs or maintenance will have been absorbed in the value of the house well within 10 years, and that the sale proceeds would not reflect the additional value of the grant.
In these circumstances, I suggest that a period of five years would provide a satisfactory compromise between the need to prevent abuse and the need to encourage individuals to make the maximum use of the grant aid system for repairing and maintaining historic properties. Also in the post-war housing financial provisions Acts grants for improvement of houses could be repayable if there were a breach of condition, including an occupation condition, within 10 years of payment of the grants. The period was reduced from time to time by statute and abolished altogether in 1969. However, the present position is that grants are repayable for breach of occupation condition within five years. Is not the situation analogous? I suggest 10 years, even though qualified, seems somewhat onerous, especially where no question of any speculative development or large sums of public money is involved. I hope that The noble Baroness will be able to tell us that the Minister concerned will allow the grant to be written off in five rather than 10 years in the cases that I have enumerated. I beg to move.
Lord SKELMERSDALE: I should like to support my noble friend in this Amendment. I would point out that it is my understanding that the average length of occupation of houses between moves is three years, and therefore would it not be more satisfactory for all concerned if my noble friend's figure of five years was reduced to three years?
Baroness STEDMAN: What we have tried to do in amending this clause is not, as some may believe, to make a comparatively simple clause inordinately complicated, but because doubts were raised as to whether the clause as drafted in the original print of the Bill was perhaps too restrictive. It had been suggested that the original clause would not have given the Secretary of State a discretionary power and that he would have had to impose a condition on each and every grant insisting that, if the building be sold within 10 years, the grant be repaid. That was not the intention of the Government. We are simply concerned to ensure that it is possible to ask for a grant to be repaid if circumstances, at the time when a grant aided building is sold, demand it. Obviously each case must be treated on its merits and it may well be appropriate to insert the full 10 year clause only in the more exceptional cases.
The case where I could envisage that it might be useful is where a property developer buys an old and large house at a time when property values are low, converts it, possibly into flats, doing much of the restoration work with the help of substantial grant aid, completes the work and lets the flats on short leases and, when property prices rise again, is able to sell the property at a substantial profit. At present in this sort of case, the Historic Buildings Council is most unwilling to recommend a grant, because it knows that whatever the profit eventually made there is no certainty that that grant can be recovered, or even if a recommendation is made the Government feel obliged not to act upon it. This clause will enable grants to be made to such schemes—most of which are very worthy—in the knowledge that there is now a full recovery power, if we want to use it; and this is the reason why the Government feel that they must insist on the 10-year provision.
I have listened with interest to The noble Lord and others who have argued since Second Reading for a reduction in the term to five years, but I do not believe, in the circumstances that I have outlined, that that would be enough. The noble Lord can be assured that we should expect to accept the advice of the Historic Buildings Council on the appropriate period, if any, during which repayment could be asked in each individual case. Furthermore, I can assure The noble Lord
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that even where this condition exists it can still be waived at the discretion of the Secretary of State. I can give further assurance that we should always wish to consult with the Historic Buildings Council s before any decision to demand repayment was finally taken.
Thus, to sum up briefly, while we appreciate The noble Lord's concern, I believe that this clause, if amended in this way, would encourage the Historic Buildings Councils to recommend grants for important buildings—particularly ones which might be converted to an alternative use at quite considerable expense—and that it would not, in fact, discourage anyone from taking up a grant, nor would it provide an unduly onerous burden upon the owners. Grant aid from public money to buildings remaining in private hands is a difficult and emotive question. I believe that up till now we have managed to keep it out of the arena of public controversy and I think that this clause, as we propose it shall be amended, will enable the scope of grant aid to be extended whilst still ensuring that it remains uncontroversial. Therefore, I hope that The noble Lord will see fit not to move his two Amendments and that your Lordships will accept my Amendments.
Lord MIDDLETON: I have listened most carefully to The noble Baroness and I understand that the effect of her Amendment is to give discretion to the Secretary of State as to the period (which shall be not more than ten years) within which a grant for preservation shall be recovered if the grant-aided disposes of his interests in the property. It also ensures that the grantee knows at the time the grant is made the exact period during which the grant may be recovered. This seems to me to be an improvement on the rigidity of Clause 48, as unamended. Nevertheless, the period of ten years, if that be the period of the condition imposed, is, as some of my noble friends have suggested, rather long, if one compares it with other similar legislation. It is, for example, well beyond the time limit imposed in respect of grants made under Section 2 of the Local Authorities (Historic Buildings) Act 1962. Those are repayable if there is a disposal within three years. And, as my noble friend Lord Mowbray has reminded us, under the Housing Act 1974 grants are repayable for the

1777
breach of an occupation condition within five years of the payment of grant. I accept the point made by The noble Baroness about certain cases where property is to be sold for a profit, but it is to be hoped that the period will normally be less than ten years; and in this I support my noble friends.
Lord MONTAGU of BEAULIEU: I put down my name in support of this Amendment before having the opportunity of seeing the Amendment of The noble Baroness, and I should like to say that the Historic Houses Association certainly do not quarrel with the principle of repayment of grants. There have been many precedents, and this particularly makes sense where property developers are concerned. When I originally looked at the Bill it appeared, at its face value, that ten years was a little too long and the period too rigidly imposed. However, having listened to The noble Baroness, I am personally satisfied with her statement in Hansard that we shall have the flexibility that we wish to have. So far as I am concerned, I am happy not to move the Amendment, if my noble friend agrees.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: I, too, am grateful to The noble Baroness. I understood her words to mean that the Minister would consider a term possibly down to five years or even less. I agree with my noble friend Lord Montagu of Beaulieu.
On Question, Amendments Nos. 21 to 24 agreed to en bloc.
[Amendment No. 25 not moved.]
Baroness STEDMAN Baroness STEDMAN moved Amendment No. 26:
Page 44, line 29, at beginning insert—
("(1A) This section applies to any grant under section 4 of this Act made on terms that it shall be recoverable under this section; but any such grant shall only be regarded for the purposes of this section as so made if before or on making the grant the Secretary of State gives to the grantee notice in writing—

(a) summarising the effect of this section; and

(b) specifying the period during which the grant is to be recoverable in accordance with subsection (2) below in the case of a grant made for the purpose there mentioned.

(1B) The period specified under subsection (1A) (b) above in the case of any grant shall be a
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period beginning with the day on which the grant is made and ending not more than ten years after that day.").
The noble Baroness said: This is part of the same Amendment to the clause, to make it, we hope, more amenable and understandable. I spoke to it in my general remarks, and I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Baroness STEDMAN Baroness STEDMAN moved Amendments Nos. 27 and 28:
Page 44, line 30, leave out from beginning to ("is") and insert ("to which this section applies was made")
Page 44, line 34, leave out from ("period") to ("person") in line 36 and insert ("specified under subsection (1A) (b) above in the case of a grant to which this section applies made to any").
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
[Amendment No. 29 not moved.]
Baroness STEDMAN Baroness STEDMAN moved Amendment No. 30:
Page 44, line 41, leave out ("that day") and insert ("the day on which the grant is made").
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
On Question, Whether Clause 48, as amended, shall stand part of the Bill?
Lord SKELMERSDALE: I do not know whether this is the right moment to ask The noble Baroness a question, of which I am afraid I have not given her notice because it has only recently occurred to me. I notice that this clause refers to the recovery of grants. My question is about the original payment of grants, before any question of whether they are recoverable or not is considered. I see that my noble friend Lord Craigton has tabled an Amendment later relating to parks and gardens. My question is whether grants are in fact payable for parks and gardens, whether or not they are scheduled.
Baroness STEDMAN: They are payable towards the upkeep of parks and gardens when they are part of a listed building or a scheduled building, but we shall no doubt have a very interesting discussion when we get to the Amendment of The noble Lord, Lord Craigton.
Clause 48, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 49 agreed to.
[Amendments Nos. 31–33 not moved.]
Clause 50 agreed to.
Clauses 51 to 60 agreed to.
Clause 61 [Interpretation]:
Lord AVEBURY Lord AVEBURY moved Amendment No. 34:
Page 55, line 17, leave out ("and") and insert—
("(c) any area of archaeological importance; and").
The noble Lord said: The definition of "monument" is of some considerable importance, because the protections given to a scheduled monument in Clause 2 will apply only to those entities which are defined in subsection (7) of Clause 61. These entities may not include work to which your Lordships would wish the protections of Clause 2 to be extended. May I just give one or two examples? First, one might consider a pond which contains sedimentary organic material identifiable as seeds, leaves or insects, which can be dated by various scientific techniques such as radio-carbon dating and thus give scientists important insights into pre-history. That pond could not be scheduled under Clause 2, as the Bill stands, but it could be declared an area of archaeological importance. Thus if "monument" was defined as including an area of archaeological importance, it would enable such an entity to be scheduled. Another example would be what is known as flint scatter, which means the remains or pieces of scrap in an area where artefacts have been made out of flint.
A third example might be a ridge which was left at the edge of a field which had been ploughed, and which would thereby constitute surviving evidence of man's agricultural activity in pre-history, which would not be "work" within subsection (7) (a) of the definition, because it would be only a by-product of the agricultural work which had been carried out by our ancestors on that field. Of course, I should emphasise that if these powers were exercised on agricultural land it would obviously be only in the most exceptional cases and the Secretary of State would have to pay compensation.
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Having explained the meaning of the Amendment, I hope that the Government will be able to accept this extension of the definition of "monument". I beg to move.
Baroness STEDMAN: I must confess that when I first read the Amendment was a little baffled as to just what The noble Lord was getting at. I now understand perfectly what it is about. Some members of our inspectorate are concerned that the definition of "monument" may not be wide enough to allow for the kind of things which The noble Lord has mentioned, including the scheduling of works such as a "ridge and furrow" field system, or prehistoric ponds and so on. If we embraced those within the definition of "monument", it would mean that there was no limit to what might be scheduled, no matter how inappropriate it may be to ancient monuments legislation. We share The noble Lord's concern. We do not think that he has got it Iright in his Amendment, as it stands. But if he would like to make specific suggestions to me and to my officials, then we can try to get it right at the next stage in a proper definition.
Lord AVEBURY: I am most grateful to the Minister for her accommodating reply. I look forward to the discussion which she kindly offers, and with that I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
6.33 p.m.
Lord CRAIGTON Lord CRAIGTON moved Amendment No. 35:
Page 55, line 22, at end insert—
("(d) any garden or other land which is not contiguous or adjacent to a building.").
The noble Lord said: My Amendment closes a small loophole in the Minister's powers to list ancient monuments. It was brought to my attention at CoEnCo in 1977 by Mr. J. St. Bodfan Gruffyd in his publication, which the Minister has had, entitled Protecting Historic Landscapes, and this is the first opportunity that we have had to close this very small gap. What is missing from this Bill is power to list as an ancient monument a garden or landscape that is not part of the site of the monument. Under subsection (9) on page 55, a site is defined as

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not only the land in or on which the monument is situated but also any land comprising or adjacent to it. This effectively limits the definition of "monument" in subsection (7) simply to the land comprising or adjoining the monument itself. So that if the garden is not comprised in or adjoining the monument, the Minister cannot schedule it even if he should, or wants to.
Mr. Bodfan Gruffyd has given me two examples of the kind of garden to which my Amendment could, or would, give protection. In Surrey, at Painshill—that is, beyond Esher on the Guildford road—there is a famous 18th century garden which ought to be listed, but it has been created so far away from the house that it would not be protected by this Bill. Again, at Deepdene in Surrey, there is a famous 17th century garden. It is relict, but it is well documented. The old mansion has been replaced by an office block and an application for further office building is threatened. Surely, there should be power to resist expansion such as this, if resistance proves to be justified.
So far, this is a good case on its own merits, but there is another very important factor. The Minister can already—believe it or not—make grants for the upkeep of such separated gardens, though apparently he cannot list them. I refer to Section 12 of the Town and Country Amenities Act 1974. It is very short and worth reading. At the end of Section 4(1) of the Historic Buildings and Ancient Monuments Act 1953, which is headed "Grants for preservation of historic buildings, their contents and adjoining land", it states:
"or for the upkeep of the garden or other land which appears to the Secretary of State to be of outstanding historic interest, but which is not contiguous or adjacent to a building which appears to him to be of outstanding or historic architectural importance".
My Amendment follows exactly the wording of that section. I propose that a monument should also be,
"any garden or other land which is not contiguous or adjacent to a building".
I hope that the Minister will accept this Amendment, as I cannot find the substance of it anywhere else in this Bill. The Minister should not have to use these powers if financial stringency prevents it at the moment. But, as has been said before, this is the kind of Bill that goes
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through only once in a lifetime and it would be quite monstrous to let this golden opportunity go at this point. I beg to move.
Baroness STEDMAN: As The noble Lord has said, historic gardens and parks play a very important part in our heritage, but proposals to protect them statutorily inevitably raise difficult questions for us. Assistance is already available for the upkeep of historic gardens, whether or not associated with an historic house, and that is done on the advice of the Historic Buildings Councils. Garden buildings and other structures or remains can be listed as buildings of special interest or scheduled as ancient monuments. Local planning authorities can, and should, consider the preservation of historic gardens and other historic lands-scapes in carrying out their functions under the Planning Acts, both in the making of plans and in exercising development control. We are not quite sure why The noble Lord thinks we need to do more about historic gardens and landscapes, because the means are there now to help them.
I have explained some of the objections to applying the ancient monuments code to parks and gardens. Some of them would not apply to the compiling of a non-statutory list, but that remains quite a major undertaking, and I must make it clear at this stage that there is no prospect of the Government being able to provide the inspectors of ancient monuments or other civil servants to take up such a task.
But the House may be interested to learn that, as a pilot project, the Manpower Services Commission have agreed to fund a preliminary listing of historic gardens and parks in the Bristol region—in Avon, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire. It will be carried out by five graduates in landscape design, planning or management or landscape art history, under the supervision of Mr. Bodfan Gruffyd—I hope that I have pronounced his name correctly; he told me on Friday to call him "Bod" as that would be easier. He is in the Landscape Practice Office in Gloucestershire College of Art and Design, at Cheltenham. This pilot scheme may very well clarify the criteria which ought to govern the selection of historical gardens and parks, and help us to assess what

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benefits might be derived from a national list.
Of course, we are as a Government in no way committed to following up the pilot project, but we are certainly interested to see what comes out of it and would be willing to examine its results, in the same way as I should be very happy to have further talks with The noble Lord, Lord Craighton, to see whether we can work what he wants into the Bill, or satisfy him that the Bill already covers what he needs to do.
Lord CRAIGTON: I am afraid that I cannot be satisfied that the Bill already covers what I want to do. If Mr. Bodfan Gruffyd is listing these gardens, and he lists separated gardens, then the list will be valueless, because the Minister cannot list them. I am saying that this should be included in the Bill, even if the Minister does not at this time use the powers given to him. After all, large chunks of the Control of Pollution Act of two or three years ago still have not been implemented. Nevertheless, let us include the powers in the Bill, even if the Minister says that he does not want to use them, or cannot afford to use them immediately. Therefore, I should like to continue to press this matter. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment. Later on, I hope to have a word with The noble Baroness about the matter. I beg leave to withdraw.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 61 agreed to.
Clause 62 [Special provision for Scotland]:
6.41 p.m.
Baroness STEDMAN Baroness STEDMAN moved Amendment No. 36:
Page 57, leave out lines 5 to 8 and insert—

("The Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979.

The function under section 44(9) in respect of land held by excepted statutory undertakers and the power of the Treasury to determine questions under section 50(4) are not included.")

The noble Baroness said: Part III of Schedule 10 to the Scotland Act 1978 lists matters in enactments which are devolved or non-devolved. As ancient monuments are a devolved matter, most of the provisions of the Bill are accordingly devolved. Clause 62(3), as introduced, reserves to the Treasury the power in Clause 50(4) to determine questions as to what authority is the appropriate authority in relation to Crown land. The object of the Amendment is to reserve to the Secretary of State—that is, to a Westminster Minister—part of the function under Clause 44(9) of the Bill. Clause 43(3) provides that the power to survey shall include a power to search and bore for the purpose of ascertaining the nature of the subsoil or the presence of minerals. Clause 44(9) provides that this power to search and bore shall, in the case of statutory undertakers who object to the use of this power, on the ground that it would be seriously detrimental to the carrying on of their undertaking, not be exercised except with the authority of the Secretary of State. In the case of statutory undertakers in the devolved fields—for example, the Scottish Transport Group—it is right that decisions should be taken by a Scottish Secretary: that is, an Assembly Minister. But in the case of statutory undertakers in non-devolved fields such as electricity, the decision should be taken by a Secretary of State of the Westminster Government. This is the effect of the Amendment. There are likely to be very few cases where a ministerial decision will be required, but it is desirable that that responsibility should rest with the Minister of the Scottish Assembly or of the Westminister Parliament, as appropriate. I am sorry to raise again the question of devolution but it comes into all of our legislation now. I beg to move.
Baroness WHITE: Can my noble friend assure me that the position in Wales is unaffected?
Baroness STEDMAN: Yes, it is.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 62 agreed to.
Remaining clauses agreed to.
Schedule 1 [Control of works affecting scheduled monuments]:
Baroness STEDMAN Baroness STEDMAN moved Amendment No. 37:
Page 63, line 40, leave out ("(3)") and insert ("(2)").
The noble Baroness said: This is a pure drafting Amendment. It changes an incorrect reference to subsections (3) to (8) of Section 210 of the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 to subsections (2) to (8). I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Schedule 1 agreed to.
Schedule 2 [Designation orders]:
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON moved Amendment No. 38:
Page 64, line 9, after ("concerned") insert—
("( ) give notice of his proposal to such persons as appear to him to be representative of the owners, occupiers or users of the land concerned;").
The noble Lord said: Apart from giving specific notice to the local authorities, it seems to be only right that specific reference should also be made to those with a genuine interest and a particular economic stake in the land which is likely to be designated. This is common procedure in legislation concerning certain sections of the community which are affected: for example, the Control of Pollution Act 1974. Therefore, it should be incorporated here. I beg to move.
Baroness STEDMAN: The Secretary of State must consult the local authorities and must advertise his proposals in the London Gazette and in the local papers. Any response to this publicity will, of course, be duly taken into account and, as a matter of good administration, we shall consult much more widely than that. However, I do not think I can accept that it would be right to bind the Secretary of State to give notice of his proposals to those who, in the words of The noble Lord,
"appear to him to be representative of the owners, occupiers or users of the land concerned".
This is too vague to enable him ever to be sure that he has completely fulfilled the statutory requirement. I am sympathetic with the principle of the Amendment. I
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can give The noble Lord the assurance that we shall have the widest possible consultations but we think that the Amendment, as at present drafted, is rather too vague to be able to operate on satisfactorily.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: I must confess that I am not very happy with that answer. It seems to me to be a minimal requirement that the owners should be consulted. The occupiers or users are the alternatives. I suggested that the owners are on one side and that the occupiers or users are on the other. As I say, I am not totally happy with the answer which has been given by The noble Baroness, but perhaps I could think about it and have a word with her later on. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Baroness STEDMAN Baroness STEDMAN moved Amendment No. 39:
Page 64, line 38, leave out ("with or without modifications") and insert ("either without modifications or with such modification only as consists in reducing the area affected").
The noble Baroness said: With permission, I shall speak to Amendments Nos. 39 and 40. The purpose of these Amendments is to prevent the Secretary of State, when making a designation order designating an area as being one of archaeological importance, from modifying the draft order otherwise than by reducing the area proposed to be designated. This brings paragraphs 6 and 12 of the Schedule into line with paragraph 13, which is the confirmation by the Secretary of State of a designation order made by a local authority, and also Clause 33(4) of the Bill: that he can reduce an area but not extend an area. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Baroness STEDMAN Baroness STEDMAN moved Amendment No. 40:
Page 65, line 38, leave out ("with or without modifications") and insert ("either without modifications or with such modification only as consists in reducing the area affected").
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Baroness STEDMAN Baroness STEDMAN moved Amendment No. 41:
Page 66, line 27, leave out ("affected") and insert ("made").
The noble Baroness said: This is a pure drafting Amendment. A reduction is "made", and not "affected".
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Schedule 2 agreed to.
Schedules 3 and 4 agreed to.
Schedule 5 [Enactments repealed]:
Baroness STEDMAN Baroness STEDMAN moved Amendment No. 42:
Page 74, line 7, at end insert—

("1974 c. 32.

The Town and Country Amenities Act 1974.

In section 13(1) paragraph (c) and the word "and" immediately preceding that paragraph.")

The noble Baroness said: This repeals an incorrect collective title which treats the Act as part of the legislation relating to ancient monuments. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Schedule 5 agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported with the Amendments.

SALT II: WESTERN GOVERNMENT LIAISON
6.50 p.m.
Lord CHALFONT Lord CHALFONT rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what consultations they have had with Western European Governments and what representations they have made to the Government of the United States regarding the content of the treaty on Strategic Arms Limitation (SALT II). The noble Lord said: My Lords, I rise to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In asking this Question may I first say that I ask it in no spirit of hostility or provocation, and indeed I should like to express my apologies to The noble Lord who will answer from the Government Front Bench for keeping him late at night in the House when I know that he has a very heavy and busy schedule. I ask this Question because I believe it to be a matter of some urgency in international affairs and because I believe it is a very com-
1788
plicated question. It is a Question that addresses itself to a very complicated subject, and although I know that in most Western Governments there are a number of experts who are closely involved with, and experienced in, these matters, it seems to me that it is possible that busy Ministers who have a great number of other things to think about may not have been able to address their minds to some of the technicalities and some of the important matters which lie behind the negotiations on a Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty.
Before I ask the Minister a series of specific questions perhaps I ought to say that I am in no way questioning the value of serious and constructive arms control agreements and agreements of other kinds with the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. It is my strong view that real arms control and disarmament agreements are of great value, but I would make one condition and one reservation. It is this: arms control and disarmament are only one facet of security, and in the West we should not engage with the Soviet Union in any arms control agreements or any international agreements of any kind unless it can be demonstrated that these agreements either improve the security of the West or at least do not damage it. The questions that I have to ask this evening—and I shall keep my remarks as brief as possible—are made in the context of my fear that the current negotiations on strategic arms limitations and the draft treaty, as I understand it to be considered at this moment, in fact in some ways create potential dangers for the West.
I framed the Question very carefully in the sense that I have brought together the twin concepts of negotiations of a multilateral kind, that is to say consultations with our allies in Western Europe and representations to the Government of the United States of America; and I have framed the Question in this way because I believe it to be terribly important that a European voice should be heard, and heard clearly and taken note of, in these negotiations between the Soviet Union and the United States of America.
Although the strategic arms limitation talks are, by their nature, bilateral talks between the two super Powers, this is not a matter that can in fact be left to the two

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super-Powers. This is a matter that affects the security—indeed the survival—of all of us. It is a matter which affects, in a very direct way, the security of Western Europe and the survival of the Western political system, because if this treaty is, as I think it may well be, something which damages the security and the strategic position of the United States of America, then it damages our security in Western Europe as well.
My recent travels in Europe and in the United States of America lead me to believe that there are people in positions of very considerable importance and authority in Western Europe who are very worried and concerned indeed about the strategic arms limitation talks as they are at present proceeding, and there are a great many people who are expert in this subject who are very unhappy indeed about the draft treaty as we understand that it exists at the moment.
I know that The noble Lord who is to reply to this Question is perhaps not in a position to endorse—to agree with—anything that I say may exist in the draft treaty, and I would assure him that I am not expecting him this evening in his reply to my Question to give any confidential or secret information at all; and I shall quite understand if he feels unable to confirm what I understand to be the contents of the present draft treaty on strategic arms limitation. But he will know, I think, that the information which I have and which has prompted this Question is not information which has been gained from unreliable, superficial or frivolous sources.
As I have said, I believe that we need now to examine this draft treaty before it is signed and before it is ratified by the United States Congress, because if this treaty is signed by President Carter on behalf of the United States Administration, and if it is subsequently ratified by the United States Congress and if it subsequently comes into force, it will then be too late for us to do anything about it. It will incidentally—and I think this is a matter of some importance—not be too late for us and our friends in Europe to do something in between the signature of the treaty and its ratification, because whatever may be said to the contrary, if this treaty is signed by President Carter and is not ratified by the United States Congress it will be very difficult indeed
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to conceive that that treaty may come into force. I understand it is theoretically possible that the President could make it an executive act not requiring the ratification of Congress, but I find it difficult to believe that, in a matter of such importance as this, that would be the case. Therefore, what I am asking now is that Her Majesty's Government should consult, or should continue whatever consultations they are having with our Western European allies and should represent with the utmost strength to the United States Government any reservations or fears they may have about this treaty and about the effect that it may have on the security of the West.
I should like to put to the Minister four specific questions, three of which are of a detailed kind to do with the provisions of the treaty and the fourth a general question to do with the general desirability of such a treaty as this in the current state of international relations. The first question is this: having regard to the consultations which Her Majesty's Government presumably have had with their allies and with the United States Government, are the Government really happy about the way in which it will be possible to verify this treaty? "Verify" may be a piece of rather arcane arms control jargon. What I mean is, if this treaty is signed have we in the West and have the United States any way of ensuring that the Soviet Union will in fact observe the conditions of the treaty? Without being in any way, I hope, abrasive or disobliging I think it possible to point out that there have been occasions in the past upon which the Soviet Union has entered into solemn international agreements and has subsequently broken them.
I should like to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are happy that if this treaty is signed and ratified, there are ways of ensuring that the Soviet Union will not subsequently break the provisions of the agreement. As The noble Lord knows because I have discussed this with him on other occasions, frankly it will be no good telling the House that this treaty can be verified by use of reconnaissance satellites, because, as I have said before and I repeat, reconnaissance satellites can photograph a missile but cannot tell you how far that missile can travel, what its degree of

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accuracy is, what its degree of penetration is and how many warheads lie inside the missile. Therefore, I should like as a first question to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are perfectly happy, perfectly confident, if this treaty is signed, that we have clear unequivocal and foolproof ways of ensuring that the Soviet Union abides by the provisions of the treaty?
My second question is a somewhat more technical one and it concerns the balance of strategic power between the United States and the Soviet Union. Anyone who has studied the development of the nuclear striking power of the two super-Powers over recent years will know that the Russians and the Americans have built up and developed their nuclear armoury in entirely different ways and based upon entirely different strategic concepts. The American concept has been that nuclear war is unthinkable and they have based the build-up of their nuclear striking force upon what is called the principle of mutual assured destruction; that is, if you can face your potential enemy with such a devastating fear of reprisal he will never attack you with nuclear weapons. And this has caused the Americans to build up their nuclear weapons in a certain easily identifiable and clearly verifiable way. The Soviet Union, on the other hand, has never—and this is very clear to anyone who has studied the literature of Soviet strategy—believed in the principle of mutual assured destruction. It has always believed in the possibility of fighting a nuclear war and it has most recently come to believe that it can not only fight but win a nuclear war.
I do not wish to develop this argument at great length at this time in the evening, but I would ask Her Majesty's Government this question. Are Her Majesty's Government satisfied with the proposals in the present draft of the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty? To remind your Lordships of the basic provisions, the proposals are that both sides should have 2,400 strategic launch vehicles, later to be reduced to 2,250. Are Her Majesty's Government absolutely confident that within that ceiling there are not ways in which the Soviet Union could—by, for example, having a greater number of individual warheads in their missiles than
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the United States, by having a greater degree of penetration, a greater degree of accuracy, all of which can be done unless there is adequate verification of this treaty—gain under this treaty an unacceptable degree of nuclear superiority?
I ask this question not because I believe that we are going to engage in a nuclear war, but for a very different reason, and it is this: that nuclear superiority is not simply a question of whether you can or cannot win a nuclear war; but if you have that superiority, and you have superiority in other military fields as well, you can do almost anything in the certain knowledge that your adversaries will never confront you because they know that you have strategic superiority. This is a psychological problem almost as much as a military one. I ask Her Majesty's Government to assure the House that they are confident that within the confines and the restrictions of this treaty the Soviet Union cannot achieve and maintain—because the treaty will place a ceiling on nuclear development—a position of strategic superiority.
My third specific question concerns some weapons which are left out of this treaty and some which are included in it. The noble Lord will know, I think, although he may not be able to confirm this, that as the treaty is at present drafted the Soviet strategic bomber known as the Backfire, which has the capacity to devastate any city in Western Europe and given certain conditions also to devastate cities in the United States, is excluded from the treaty. There is no restriction upon the Soviet Union in the development of this bomber. There is no restriction in the treaty which prevents the Soviet Union from deploying the mobile missiles; the specific one I have in mind is called the SS20, which is a mobile missile which again is targeted on and capable of destroying the whole of Western Europe; there is no restriction in the treaty which prevents the Soviet Union from developing and deploying that weapon.
On the other hand, so far as the West is concerned, as I understand it there is a protocol in the treaty which restricts the range of a proposed allied missile, the Cruise missile, in such a way that for the period of the protocol the range of that weapon is restricted, and it is restricted simply because by restricting its range

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the Soviet Union ensures that the missile cannot strike, from the United States or from United States launching platforms, at the Soviet Union. I ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are happy at this deal. Why should it be that the two major weapons of the Soviet Union which can devastate Western Europe are excluded from the treaty, while the one weapon which the West propose to develop which might redress that balance is restricted by the terms of the treaty? Those are the three specific questions I would ask.
The fourth and last question is this. Are the Government really content that a treaty of this kind should be signed at a time when we seem to be faced all over the world with the evidence of an aggressive and expansionist Soviet foreign policy, at a time when the Soviet Union is spending 15 per cent. of its gross national product on its military establishment, at a time when Soviet foreign policy in its most aggressive and expansionist form is evident in Africa, in the Middle East, in South-East Asia. Are we really justified in engaging in an arms control treaty of this kind without some kind of what is called in the jargon "linkage"? Should we not be making it absolutely clear to the Soviet Union that we will not engage in agreements of this kind unless they are prepared to show some change of direction in their foreign policy?
I am not suggesting for one moment that the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty, as imperfect and defective as I think it may be, is a bad thing. No arms control treaty in itself is bad. But what I say is this. Can Her Majesty's Government assure the House, first, that this treaty will in no way diminish the security of the West by the provisions which I understand are contained in it; and, secondly, are they really happy, having consulted their allies in Western Europe and having had consultations with the Government of the United States of America, that a treaty of this kind should be signed at a time when the Soviet Union seems bent upon pursuing an aggressive foreign policy and attacking the interests of the West all over the world?
As I said at the beginning, I ask these questions in no hostile spirit because I know that Her Majesty's Government are deeply committed to arms control and
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disarmament and I welcome that and applaud it. However, I ask the Minister when he answers to assure the House that we are not allowing the United States to engage in a treaty with the Soviet Union which may diminish, and which certainly will not increase, the security of the West, without making the voice of this country and the voice of Western Europe heard very clearly indeed in the White House and the State Department.
7.11 p.m.
Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, The noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, has predictably asked the right penetrating questions against the kind of authoritative background that we should expect of him. That, I hope, enables me to be brief, which is just as well as I am sorry to say that I am inflicting upon your Lordships a rather shaky voice box. I noticed that throughout his speech The noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, asked whether the Government "were happy", which I thought was a nice expression although it is one that is not often used in defence matters. I often think that the Government, certainly as represented in this House, are seldom happy in defence matters. In any event, such matters are extraordinarily difficult.
The first point to be made is that it is perfectly true, as The noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, has said, that this country is not directly involved in the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks. As I understand it, those are essentially very protracted and unbelievably complicated negotiations between the two super-Powers: the US on the one side and the USSR on the other. As The noble Lord has pointed out, one of the most difficult features of these negotiations has been the apparently simple one of defining just what are strategic arms in this sense. I do not think that I need repeat at great length what we have said so often in defence debates—namely, that we share with the United States a distrust and a dismay at Russian intentions as evidenced by the capabilities which they choose to create for themselves. Clearly it would be desirable, if some means could be found to make it possible, for both sides to reduce the investment that they fee! it necessary to make in that capability.
I had planned to ask The noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, much the same

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Question, while not putting it so well, as The noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, asked: namely, the question of verification. Is it not inevitable that our suspicions are far from being allayed by any nation which so resolutely refuses to allow the type of verification which one would wish to see? Does it not immediately raise questions in one's mind about the good faith of the negotiator on the other side? Are we satisfied that satellite surveillance really is an adequate substitute for on-the-ground inspection to ensure that the agreements are being honoured?
The required reading for this debate has been Henry Kissinger's interviews in the Economist newspaper—the one two weeks ago was the critical one for this debate—where he very wisely said that the treaty should not be judged solely in the terms of its own provisions. Here again The noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, put the situation very well. The fear must be that, once the USSR is ahead in nuclear weaponry—and all the indications are that they will be—any small restraint which there now is and which may have been exercised since the end of the last war upon their meddling in international situations and fishing in troubled waters (indeed, in the last few days a neighbouring State has become very unstable) will be removed.
I should like to put two other questions to The noble Lord the Minister. In fact, I think it is the same question put in another way. First, can we obtain any assurance that Europe will have something to counter the SS.20 missile, which is excluded from the talks because it is classed as an Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM) as opposed to an Intercontinental Range Ballistic Missile (ICRBM) and as such does not come into the SALT negotiations? However, it does have the whole of Europe within its range. Furthermore, I think I am right in saying that that same weapon is also excluded from the Mutual and Balanced Force Reductions negotiations which are taking place in Vienna. Therefore, it seems to fall uncomfortably outside either of the negotiations which are taking place. That leaves us with the feeling that we may be talking about two cowboys agreeing to throw down their rifles when we know perfectly well that one of them has a shotgun in the other hand. That is
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an unhappy situation in which to find ourselves.
Secondly, and perhaps most importantly from the point of view of this country, can we be assured that the SALT negotiations will not preclude the United States from being in a position to exchange with this country nuclear technology? That is of particular importance to those of us who sit on this side of the House, because we have gone on record as saying that we believe that the nuclear submarines—the Polaris weapons—will need to be replaced. Therefore we shall need to keep open all the options as to how those weapons might be replaced, be it by some other nuclear weapon or by the Cruise missile to which The noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, referred.
Finally, one goes back to the more general question that we believe that if the outcome of the SALT negotiations is to be considered successful, they must achieve a satisfactory strategic balance for the future. For, as I have tried to say, as The noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, has said, and as has generally been recognised through history, if we have a strategic imbalance we create an inherently unstable situation in the world. I sincerely hope that The noble Lord will be able to reassure us that that is not envisaged in this treaty and that there will be a satisfactory answer to the problem of the counter-prevailing force to the SS.20 missile, and confidence that we can obtain the necessary technology to replace the Polaris missiles when they will be needed.
7.20 p.m.
Lord GLADWYN: My Lords, I rise with reluctance to take part in this short debate because, frankly, before I came to the House I did not realise that I was to speak. I thought that my noble friend Lord Kimberley was going to bear the burden and heat of the day, but I gather that he is otherwise engaged, so I have had no time to prepare anything formal. I merely speak from my inadequate knowledge gained from the Press about what has apparently been going on.
To say the least, I think that something rather disconcerting has been going on. It certainly gives me a feeling of acute unease. I am concerned about what might be called the ponderous manoeuvres of these two brontosauruses, each capable

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of knocking each other out, even on a second strike, to the extent of eliminating at least many millions of people, especially when apparently the object is to achieve some advantage over the other,—at least on paper—when, as has been pointed out by noble Lords who have spoken, what with MIRVed warheads and so on, it is quite possible that no agreement will be capable of being supervised that will ensure that no one is cheating. That is perhaps not a question which The noble Lord can answer. Nevertheless, we must all hope that in one way or another the SALT negotiations will be successful.
Part of the trouble surely is that as soon as agreement on the production and deployment of any particular frightful weapon seems likely, another comes along which appears likely to render that weapon obsolete or out of date. So the argument goes on. All the argument about anti-force and anti-city weapons seems to me to be largely academic. For if nuclear war really does begin, there is every chance of its becoming general, or at least of its becoming general in the area in which the first shots are fired; that is to say, general in Europe. As I see it, the only hope seems to lie in the presumptive reluctance of any Power to have first recourse to nuclear weapons of any kind whatever. Of course, I recognise that if NATO were to make a declaration to that effect, it might well encourage the Soviet Union to initiate some offensive with conventional weapons where, of course, as we all know, they have an overwhelming advantage.
On the theory of the thing and on the assumption that some kind of deal will nevertheless be made between the two super/Powers, does it really matter whether one of them possesses more apparent power to damage the other, so long as the latter still has enough power—even on a second strike—to cause unacceptable damage? But, of course, that does not solve the problem of the security of Western Europe—to which The noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, referred—if we believe that neither is willing to accept any considerable damage to its own homeland: That brings us to the whole question of the defence of Western Europe and the so-called grey areas. I very much hope that the Minister will be able to give a satisfactory reply to the four very pertinent questions put by the noble
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Lord, Lord Chalfont, and more or less backed up by The noble Lord, Lord Strathcona.
It seems very difficult to imagine that there can be any system of real verification in the present unfortunate conditions. The Government must decide whether or not that is a real impediment to the conclusion of any SALT treaty. On the different development, I entirely agree with The noble Lord, Lord Chalfont. It may be that, owing to this difference of approach and philosophy, the Soviet Union will end up with some considerable strategic advantage. However, I think it is on the so-called grey areas that we must be most apprehensive. The noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, mentioned the Backfire Bomber which could do incredible damage to the West and, it is possible, I suppose, to the United States. Then, of course, there is the famous SS.20 mobile missile. Both those weapons are unrestricted. Is it right that they should be unrestricted when the SALT treaty is to be signed? Is it in the interests of the West that they should be? Apparently, although we know that there is to be some restriction, The noble Lord cannot say whether that is so. Nevertheless, we know that the cruise missile, which would to some extent be the answer to these two horrible weapons directed at Europe, will be restricted. Indeed, as we understand it, the USA will be under an obligation not to communicate to its allies any information about its construction.
On the last question concerning whether or not we should sign the treaty at all in view of the fact that the Soviet Union is being so aggressive all over the world, if we can reach a satisfactory agreement—and I think it will be extremely difficult—on the control of these strategic weapons in general, then I should be inclined to say "For heaven's sake, sign it," whether or not the Soviet Union's political ambitions are satisfied. My impression is that the one thing does not really affect the other. I hope that The noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, will be able to give satisfactory answers, even if he is not happy, to the four questions formulated by The noble Lord, Lord Chalfont.
7.27 p.m.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, this debate has been short and

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pointed because The noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, deployed his thoughts and questions more pointedly perhaps than he would had the occasion been slightly more elaborate. Therefore, I shall confine myself to attempting to answer as well as I can the three, perhaps four, questions which formed the bulk of his speech. I have no doubt that he and others here who are interested in this aspect of arms control and security will return to this matter possibly against a background of a more elaborate debate. I well understand The noble Lord's decision to approach this matter tonight a little more restrictedly than he might otherwise have done. Similarly, The noble Lord, Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal, took his cue from The noble Lord. I understand his approach to it well. I hope that I can respond in kind.
The first of the four questions that were put to me by all three speakers—not necessarily in the same order—was that of verification. This is a natural condition of disarmament. There is no disarmament without security and there is no security without proper verification. In this field in particular, when there are naturally questions about the continued validity of, for instance, satellite observance, it is necessary to raise this kind of question. On this point I can do no better than to draw your Lordships' attention to the statement of President Carter in his recent State of the Union message. He said:
"We have very sophisticated proven means—including our satellites—to determine for ourselves whether the Soviet Union is meeting its treaty obligations. I will sign no agreement that cannot be verified".
In terms of verification SALT II marks an advance on the arrangements in SALT I. It confirms the principles of SALT I, in particular the idea that neither side will interfere with the other's national technical means, and includes new provisions drawing on experience with SALT I. I think that that is a substantial answer to the point on verification which was raised in this short debate.
The second question which I think all three speakers emphasised relates to the question of balance, or what is sometimes called, "equivalence". It is of particular importance to us in Europe that we are not left in a position where the equivalence
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of deterrence is not of such a kind as, in the event, to place Europe at a disadvantage. This is a complicated but perfectly valid point to make. It is possible, for instance—and I am sure that we would all have wished to hear The noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, develop this; he has written on it with great cogency—or it might be possible to achieve an agreement between the super-Powers which, because of the various categories of agreements on missiles in particular ensured the immunity of a part of the territorial alliance (for instance, the United States), but, on the other hand, worked out so that the part of the Alliance closest to the Soviet Union was put at risk.
I have no doubt myself, neither have the British Government, that President Carter, and indeed nobody in authority or influence in the United States, would agree to an agreement which did that, but it is necessary of course to look at the technical facts. Among the provisions of particular interest to us and our European allies, the United States Government has indeed accepted arranged limits on sea and ground launched cruise missiles, although there are no restrictions on the Soviet SS.20. I come to the question of whether there is a counterpart to the SS.20 available, or going to be available, in the West in a moment. There are no restrictions on the Soviet SS.20, the range of which is close to that envisaged for some types of cruise missiles. The United States Government has agreed that aircraft carrying long-range cruise missiles are to be counted as strategic systems and come within the sub-ceiling for ICBMs, SLBMs and cruise missile carriers.
That is one part of the agreement affecting one side, but major concessions have been made on the Soviet side too. For example, the overall ceiling on delivery systems, as we have heard, will oblige the Soviet Union to dismantle over 250 existing systems. Moreover, the agreement will hold down the total number of Soviet warheads and the throw-weight of their strategic forces to a level well below what is estimated they would have in the absence of an agreement.
We believe that there is overall a fair balance of concessions. It is impossible to count categories or systems, or indeed to match system for system. What counts is what The noble Lord, Lord Chalfont,

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emphasised: will SALT II leave the United States, and therefore the Alliance, at least as strong in relation to the Soviet Union as they would have been without the agreement. This is the central question, and it is well that we have somebody in this House who can put it in the way that he did. We believe that this is so.
Lord CHALFONT: My Lords, before The noble Lord leaves that point—and I ask him to accept that I am asking these questions in a constructive spirit—would he not accept that the fact that the Soviet Union has, under the agreement, to destroy a number of strategic launch vehicles, should be taken in the context of the fact that they have about that number of obsolete strategic launch vehicles anyway which would be going out of service? Would he also agree that the restriction on warheads is only valid if the number of warheads can be verified? It is no good placing a restriction on the number of warheads if we have no way of knowing how many warheads the Soviet Union has.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I take the point on the obsolete category, and certainly I would agree with The noble Lord on the question of the number of warheads. Indeed, as he knows, there will be limits on the total number of warheads per missile, and national verification means will therefore be enough to check both on launchers and on warheads. The point that The noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, made on obsolete categories is one of great importance, and I can assure him that that has been taken into account and will be taken into account in the computation—I believe I follow him in this—which affects the achievement of an effective balance.
The third question that was asked related to Backfire and the SS.20, which I said I would come to in a moment. There is of course nothing new in the existence of such strategical systems of this kind. The SS.4, the MRBM, first appeared in 1959, but the Alliance has for some time been seriously discussing the implications of these weapons in the Soviet theatre nuclear weapons, and the options for the Alliance in terms both of arms control and future weapons systems. The time for a decision has not been reached, but I
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can assure the House that this is a priority topic in the Alliance. Indeed, the United States Secretary for Defence has said publicly,
"We have a wide range of options, including various forms of cruise missiles, a new version of the Pershing, and others".
I hope I have said enough on that point to indicate that there is a balance of acquisition, certainly of development, in this field, if I may put it like this, on the answer, or the potential answer, to the SS.20.
The fourth point I wrote down in this way—but possibly I may be corrected—related to the question of the Backfire and the SS.20. Possibly I should include in what I have to say on that matter that it is true that some critics of SALT II have argued that the temporary restrictions in the protocol—that is, the document attending the treaty—will in practice become permanent because it will be part of the background to SALT III. They also maintain that the protocol limits systems which could be vital to Western security—the point I made earlier on—mobile ICBMs, which are a possible answer to the problem of the vulnerability of the United States' Minuteman missiles, and ground and sea launch missiles which some see as the answer to the build-up of Soviet theatre nuclear weapons. The important point is that the United States administration is in no way obliged to extend these limitations after the protocol expires.
I know there is considerable questioning, particularly in the United States, as to what happens during the operation of the protocol, because it is for a considerable period, and I agree that is a valid point. The Administration have made it clear that their position at the time—I take this to be at the end of the period of the protocol—will be determined in consultation with their allies in the light of all the circumstances. It is worth noting that according to the State Department, any future limitations on issues covered in the protocol will require United States agreement and Congressional approval.
The noble Lord mentioned that the result of the SALT II discussions could be adopted by the United States by Executive order. It is the President himself, I believe, who has indicated that it shall be by treaty to be ratified by the

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Senate, requiring, as he knows, a two-thirds majority. There is a confidence there that what is proposed—I suppose we know most of the details now—will commend itself not only to the Executive of the United States (to the President and his immediate departmental executive staff) but to the elected Congress.
Meanwhile, the United States Government have kept their options wide open by continuing research and development on both mobile ICBMs and the Cruise missile systems covered in the protocol. They are also continuing to improve their existing systems within the terms of SALT II by modernising their Minuteman force, pressing on with the Trident programme and deploying air launched Cruise missiles. I know The noble Lord would have mentioned all three categories if he had chosen to deploy his argument tonight. I think it is reassuring that there is provision in the United States policy, which neither the treaty nor the protocol prevent, of modernising the ICBM force, the Minuteman force, pressing on with the Trident programme, which had been held back previously, and deploying air launched Cruise missiles.
The noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, raised, I thought satisfactorily, the point that there is a new speculation as to whether arms control and disarmament are in fact always the answer to problems of stability and the maintenance of peace. It is a remarkable fact that this question has been raised, but it is a respectable argument. It is the argument that the maintenance of peace depends primarily on deterrence—on actual and assumed deterrence—and not on rather chancy, not always verifiable and sometimes rather dangerous, technical discussions leading to an imbalance of security.
Naturally, I come down, as I know Lord Chalfont does, in favour of doing everything we can with our allies and in consultation with the United States within the Alliance—a constant effort in the strategic air limitation sphere as well as in the mutual force reduction talks relating to more conventional weapons—to effect a limitation, a reduction of arms. However, I join with noble Lords in saying that this must be done on the basis of the utmost possible verification of the implementation of agreements, otherwise agreements which are carried out by one side and not by the
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other—even in certain directions, in certain particulars—can only lead to destabilisation and to a direct threat to the peace.
I am sure I can give the House the undertaking that in all our discussions on arms limitation and disarmament—and I believe we can take this as being the American attitude in their own specialised discussions as well as those they join the rest of the Alliance in conducting—our approach is one of realistic technical assessment, particularly in regard to the essential question of verification.
The noble Lord asked how close the consultation was. He asked whether we were fully in consultation, in the first place, with our European allies and, secondly, in representation to our American allies. I believe we are. I believe there is a new spirit of political co-operation in Europe and a new assessment of the importance of a European representation to the Americans, and that within NATO there is a growing feeling, perhaps based on urgency prompted by political developments—these things go together—that we really must cohere our ideas, broadly as Europeans, and then achieve the utmost consultation with the United States.
It is debates like this—sometimes short but very much to the point and sometimes perhaps enlarged in certain connections—that should now, here and across the Atlantic, be proceeding. There is every reason why we and they, Europe and America, as two major composite democracies, should not fight shy of discussion. There is considerable discussion in the United States, in North America as a whole, and those of us who keep up with reports, not only with what Mr. Kissinger has been saying but with what others have been saying and with what is being speculated and talked about in Europe, can only welcome this.
It must not however lead us on to panic stations, and my noble friend is the last to do that. We must avoid both complacency and undue panic, and the basis for it, as he rightly said, is close consultation and co-operation with our immediate neighbours and allies, and, on that basis, very close consultation and cooperation with our American friends. I am substantially satisfied that the answers to the questions put to me tonight are satisfactory from our and from the West's point of view.