Lords Sitting of 24 January 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 Bradford.

SYRINGES AND NEEDLES: NHS PRESCRIPTIONS
Lord WINSTANLEY: 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 accept the current medical view that the use of glass and metal hypodermic syringes, which require sterilisation on each occasion before use, is no longer acceptable for patients requiring regular injections; and whether they will, therefore, arrange for the provision of disposable syringes and needles, on NHS Prescription Form FP10, to patients suffering from diabetes.
The PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE, DEPARTMENT of HEALTH and SOCIAL SECURITY (Lord Wells-Pestell): My Lords, when a patient has a glass and metal syringe for his personal use, and in using it follows good hygienic practice, the syringe does not require sterilisation each time an injection is administered. Her Majesty's Government do not therefore accept the view that these syringes are no longer medically acceptable for patients requiring regular injections. Accordingly, they do not think they would be justified at present in diverting from other National Health Service priorities the additional expenditure that would be required to provide disposable syringes and needles on prescription for diabetic patients.
Lord WINSTANLEY: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for that Answer, so far as it goes, but would he not accept that patients with diabetes—and perhaps more particularly the parents of children with diabetes—already have
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very heavy burdens to bear? If general practitioners, consultants and others play their part, it is accepted that they can get disposable syringes and needles by a circuitous route. But would it not be easier to allow people to have these syringes by means of the ordinary general practitioner prescription forms and thus save all the administrative costs? Can the noble Lord say what cost would be involved if this simple measure were adopted?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I accept that the estimated net additional cost of providing disposable syringes and needles for all diabetic patients in England would be at least £6 million per annum for syringes and £3·3 million for needles, a total of well over £9 million. Having said that, and having regard to what I said earlier, the Government do not feel justified in taking that amount of money out of the National Health Service, an amount which could be used for other purposes and priorities. They remain quite unconvinced that it would serve a useful purpose.
Viscount HANWORTH: My Lords, would the Minister agree that, in the circumstances which we are considering, to keep a hypodermic syringe in methylated spirits is all that is required to provide a great degree of safety?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, the noble Lord is absolutely right.

50p COIN: SPECIFICATIONS
2.40 p.m.
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNE-SIDE: 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, when fresh coinage needs to be issued, the 50p piece can be issued with a gold covering in order to make it easier to distinguish between 50p and l0p.
The MINISTER of STATE, PRIVY COUNCIL OFFICE (Baroness Birk): My Lords, when it becomes necessary to issue new coinage the denominations and

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specifications will be reviewed. But it remains the Government's view that the cost and inconvenience of changing the colour of the 50p piece is likely to outweigh the benefits. The specification of the 50p piece was the subject of considerable research and consultation and the coin in its present form has become generally acceptable to the public.
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNE-S1DE: My Lords, while thanking the noble Baroness for her reply, may I ask her whether she is aware that it would be possible to alter the 50p piece by means of an additional rim? May I also ask her whether the suggestion was put before the Treasury Ministers or whether it was just answered by the Minister's department?
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, with respect, I am a sort of Treasury Minister. In fact, the noble Baroness asked the Government a similar Question, to which I replied in April of last year. That is why I probably jumped up, and I must apologise before she does. In fact, over 30 representative bodies were consulted, including consumer organisations and organisations representing the blind. A tremendous amount of research was carried out by, among others, the Applied Psychology Unit of the Medical Research Council at Cambridge, so it certainly was not an arbitrary Treasury decision.
Baroness SHARPLES: My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that if the 50p coin was changed and had a gold covering, electrolytically I could remove that gold and show myself a considerable profit?
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, that may be one of the reasons why we are not doing it. I do not suppose that the noble Baroness would do such a thing, but it has also been shown that a gold coloured coin very quickly becomes a very nasty, dirty grey.
Lord CLIFFORD of CHUDLEIGH: My Lords, would it not be a better idea to make a ruddy great hole in the middle of it to represent the devaluation of the pound in our pockets by one half since the present Government came into power?
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, you could still get it through the eye of a needle.
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, when the review takes place will the Minister and Her Majesty's Government take into consideration that some of us are colour blind in distinguishing between blue and green and would have great difficulty?
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, 1 cannot tell my noble friend when a review will take place, but the reason for the coin being hectagonal is that it can be recognised by touch, which seems to me to be much more important than the colour.
Lord SOMERS: My Lords, would it not be possible to alter the size of the coin, because so far as I know it is never used for putting into a slot?
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, it is put into some vending machines and if the size were changed—and I do not think any good argument has been put forward for it to be changed—the cost would be enormous because we could not have two kinds of the same denomination of currency at the same time and all the machines would have to be altered.
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNESIDE: My Lords, while once again thanking the noble Baroness for her reply, and referring to her comment that I asked the Question last year, may I ask whether she is aware that, after 38 years in another place, I can go on asking and asking until I win my battle, and probably I shall do that?
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, I am sure the noble Baroness will do that and I shall have great delight in answering. I was only explaining why I rose before she did, because I was ready with the answer before she put the question.

NELSON'S COLUMN: EXPENDITURE
2.44 p.m.
Lord AVEBURY: 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 the expenditure of £945 on the hire of a special crane to make an

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immediate inspection of Nelson's Column following its ascent by Mr. Colin Rowe and Mr. Ed Drummond, and the subsequent expenditure of £500 on "repairs" to the column, were authorised in advance; out of what Vote this expenditure was incurred, and how they reconcile it with their policy of limiting public spending.
The PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY of STATE, DEPARTMENT of the ENVIRONMENT (Baroness Stedman): My Lords, the costs referred to are charged to Class VIII, Vote 2, and were properly authorised before they were incurred. It was considered necessary to ensure immediately that no loose or potentially dangerous objects remained on the Column. A detailed inspection and repairs to the lightning conductor were carried out as soon as possible.
Lord AVEBURY: My Lords, can any Tom, Dick or Harry in the Department of the Environment decide to spend £1,500 of public money because he thinks that something is urgent? Is the noble Baroness not tempted to suppose that political motives might have underlain the immediate incurring of this vast sum and the frivolous prosecution brought against Mr. Drummond when it would have been quite possible to carry out an inspection using binoculars or a camera with a telescopic lens? Will the noble Baroness favourably consider the offer which has been made by Mr. Drummond to carry out inspections, if they are considered to be physically necessary, at a saving to the taxpayer annually of £400?
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, even using binoculars, it was impossible to determine from the ground what, apart from the banner and the ropes, had been left on the Column, and it was important to determine that quickly. The contractors who normally inspect and maintain the Column had no other equipment immediately available. So far as the prosecution is concerned, the Department did not bring the prosecution; it was brought by the police. With regard to the offer that was made, we could not accept that offer because we are advised that the method used for climbing does not comply with the Health and Safety at Work Regulations.
Lord AVEBURY: My Lords, do not the Regulations need to be looked at again in the light of Mr. Drummond's offer? When the noble Baroness said that it was impossible to determine from the ground whether any damage had been caused, is she not aware that photographic evidence was presented in court, and accepted by the magistrates, showing that Mr. Drummond and his colleague had not caused any damage and that therefore photographic evidence could have been taken by the Department of the Environment?
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, this was something in which we had to move fairly quickly; we could not wait for all the photographic evidence. It could not be determined by binoculars what the damage was and we certainly could not have removed the ropes and the banners by using binoculars. We had to have something to bring them down, and the sensible thing to do from the point of view of public safety was to send up the contractors who are used to maintaining and cleaning the Column.

INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES: ESSENTIAL SUPPLIES AND SERVICES
Baroness LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOE: My Lords, with the leave of the House, at a convenient moment after 3.30 p.m. my noble friend the Leader of the House will repeat a Statement on the industrial disputes, essential supplies and services.

COUNTRYSIDE (AMENDMENT) (SCOTLAND) BILL [H.L.]
Lord HUGHES: My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to amend the Countryside (Scotland) Act 1967 by empowering planning authorities to make byelaws in relation to public paths, long distance routes and public rights of way; by allotting to planning authorities carrying out district planning functions certain powers and duties in relation to public rights of way; and by providing a new designation for officers engaged in certain activities; and for connected purposes. I beg to move that this Bill be read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read la—(Lord Hughes.)
On Question, Bill read la, and to be printed.

HOUSE OF LORDS' OFFICES
The CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES (Lord Aberdare): My Lords, I beg to move that the first Report from the Select Committee be agreed to.
Moved, That the First Report from the Select Committee be agreed to.—(Lord Aberdare.)
The report was as follows:
1. APPOINTMENT OF SUB-COMMITTEES
The following members of the Committee were appointed to the Sub-Committees:
(a)Administration Committee

L. Aberdare

L. Darling of Hillsborough

L. Denham

V. Eccles

L. Greenwood of Rossendale

V. Hood

B. Hylton-Foster

B. Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe

L. Nugent of Guildford

L. Westbury

L. Wigoder

With the Clerk of the Parliaments. and the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod. With power to co-opt further Lords.
(b)Library Sub-Committee

L. Darling of Hillsborough

V. Eccles

L. Edmund-Davies

B. Hylton-Foster

L. Lovell-Davis

L. Parry

With the Clerk of the Parliaments.
With power to co-opt further Lords and to appoint their own Chairman.
(c)Refreshment Sub-Committee

L. Ampthill

L. Denham

L. Greenwood of Rossendale

B. Hylton-Foster

B. Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe

L. Nugent of Guildford

L. Sainsbury

L.Westbury

L. Wigoder

With the Clerk of the Parliaments.
With power to co-opt further Lords and to appoint their own Chairman.
(d)Staff of the House Sub-Committee

L. Aberdare

L. Nugent of Guildford

B. White

With the Clerk of the Parliaments and the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod.
With power to co-opt further Lords.
(e)Finance Sub-Committee

L. Aberdare

L. Denham

V. Eccles

E. Ilchester

B. Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe

L. Nugent of Guildford

L. Wigoder

With the Clerk of the Parliaments.
With power to co-opt further Lords.
(f) Works of Art Sub-Committee

M. Cholmondeley

V. Eccles

V. Hood

Bp. London

L. Ponsonby of Shulbrede

With the Clerk of the Parliaments.
With power to co-opt further Lords and to appoint their own Chairman.
(g) Sub-Committee on Computers

L. Darling of Hillsborough

V. Eccles

With the Clerk of the Parliaments.
With power to co-opt further Lords and to appoint their own Chairman.
2. COMPUTER DEVELOPMENTS
The Committee were informed of the appointment of Mr. R. S. Morgan as Computer Development Officer to the Houses of Parliament.
The Committee approved provision for a share of the cost of a detailed study to be commissioned in order to produce an overall plan for computer developments in both Houses.
3. PHOTOGRAPHIC RECORD OF LORDS AND STAFF OF THE HOUSE
The Committee agreed a recommendation from the Administration Committee for the production of a photographic record of Lords and staff of the House.
4. DEPARTMENT OF THE GENTLEMAN USHER OF THE BLACK ROD
The Committee were informed of the impending retirement on medical grounds of Group Captain R. M. B. Duke-Woolley, Yeoman Usher of the Black Rod.
The Committee approved the payment of an allowance to the Staff Superintendent for duties performed on Bank and Public Holidays.
5. PARLIAMENT OFFICE AND LIBRARY
The Committee were informed of the appointment of Peter George Davis, PhD, and Miss Elizabeth Mary McInnes, ALA, as Library Clerks.
6. REVISED SCALES OF PAY AND ALLOWANCES
The Committee approved a revision in the pay of the Chairman and Principal Deputy Chairman of Committees.
The Committee also confirmed the application of the following Civil Service Code Memoranda:

(a)CM/322—Pay of the Higher Civil Service

(b)CM/340—Subsistence Allowances

giving revised rates of pay and meal allowances to applicable Officers and staff of the House of Lords.
7. HANSARD REPORTING STAFF
The Committee authorised revised attendance fees to permanent and temporary staff.
8. UNIFORM ALLOWANCES
The Committee approved revised allowances payable to Clerks at the Table, the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod, the Yeoman Usher and Doorkeepers for the provision and replacement of items of dress clothes.
9. SUPERANNUATION
The Committee were notified of the following awards:

(a)Preserved pension and lump sum to Mrs. S. A. Blackwood, Personal Secretary, who resigned on 31 st December 1977;

(b)Revised pension and lump sum to Mrs. M. I. Haynes, Clerical Officer, who resigned on 1st June 1978;

(c)Preserved pension and lump sum to Mrs. R. L. Whitworth, Personal Secretary, who resigned on 31st May 1978;

(d)Short service gratuity to Mrs. L. E. Rivers, Clerical Officer, who resigned on 31st May 1978;

(e)Short service gratuity to Mr. R. StC. Gainer, Clerical Officer, who resigned on 14th July 1978;

(f)Pension and lump sum to Mrs. J. M. P. McGuinness, Cleaner, who retired on 20th September 1978;

(g)Pension and lump sum to Mrs. R. Heitman, Cleaner, who formally retired on 12th October 1978;

(h)Ill-health gratuity to Mr. T. A. Davitt, Attendant, who retired on 1st November 1978;

(i) Pension and lump sum to Miss P. P. Foreman, Cleaner, who retired on 26th November 1978;

(j) Pension and lump sum to Mr. A. G. Fuke, Senior Attendant, who retired on 30th November 1978.

On Question, Motion agreed to.

COMMITTEE OF SELECTION
Lord ABERDARE: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, on behalf of the Committee of Selection, That the Lord Hale be added to the Select Committee on House of Lords' Offices; and that the Lord Tweeds-muir be appointed to the Select Committee on Practice and Procedure in the place of the Lord Denham.—(Lord Aberdare.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE (ARMED FORCES) BILL [H.L.]
Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

SOCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL POLICY-MAKING
2.50 p.m.
Baroness ROBSON of KIDDINGTON Baroness ROBSON of KIDDINGTON rose to call attention to the need to balance and to reconcile economic and environmental factors in social and industrial policy-making; and to move for Papers. The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I rise to introduce the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. It is a Motion of enormously wide implications and to do it justice would take much more time than your Lordships would graciously allow me. I shall do my best to cover one or two parts of this very wide subject, but I am enormously heartened by the interest indicated by the number of speakers on the list and I look forward to listening to the contributions made by noble Lords, in the hope that at the end of our debate we shall between us have covered most of the important aspects of the subject.
What we are here to discuss today are not merely specific remedies for certain obvious social and environmental ills but the whole of our attitude in the future in the light of our present knowledge of finite resources. It is only 30 generations ago that the iron plough first appeared in this country, and now man is capable of landing on the moon. Ever since the Industrial Revolution, Western civilisation has been dazzled by the irresistible march of technological progress. For as long as most of us can remember, the maxim that nothing can stand in the way of progress has been the mainspring of economic thinking. This concept, I believe, must now be challenged if it means thoughtless exploitation of our resources with no thought for the future and the wellbeing of generations to come. Technology has been responsible for much of the damage done to our society, but this need not be so in the future. It could equally be directed towards enhancing the environment if we so wished. For this to happen we need co-operation, not animosity, between technologists, planners, conservationists and politicians. We should do well to remember that each time a species dies out an imbalance is created and so the bell tolls for man as well.
All industrial, indeed any human activity, is attended with risk, but it is undertaken

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for the satisfaction of social needs, both through the goods produced and through profits and taxes raised. Unfortunately, in the wake of this desire to satisfy social needs, we have created other items which are unwanted. I should like to refer to them as disamenities, such as noise, air and water pollution, technological disasters such as thalidomide and Aberfan, road deaths and industrial accidents, and the destruction of visual amenities, and, if the argument is taken to its logical conclusion, matters like unemployment. As long as society accepts the current economic thinking that growth for its own sake is a good thing, we shall have difficulty in reconciling the views of the economists, who look on consumption as a wholly admirable activity, with those of the ecologists, who believe that human consumption is destroying irreplacable resources.
Economics till now has meant labour costs and material costs. The social costs of production are now mounting so rapidly that they must be taken into account. That means that as far as possible society must try to put a value on them to compare with the value of material production. In other words, society as a whole is presented with a problem of making value judgments with a view to creating a society worth living in, both for ourselves and for future generations.
Of all the finite resources about which society has to make a value judgment energy is probably the best example. I say this because energy is about the only resource which cannot be recycled and of all resources it has the greatest impact on human life. It is a prerequisite for all our industrial activity as well as the basis for our personal comfort. I well remember the heady days of the 'fifties, of virtually uncontrolled industrial and economic growth, when the Herbert inquiry into the electricity industry was given the remit of an expected demand for energy amounting to a doubling of consumption every ten years. That was only in 1950. This resulted in enormous investments being made in the nuclear power industry, with all its attendant dangers for future generations.
Since then, progressively, the estimates for expected energy demands have come down, until today we have before us the
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astonishing report of the International Institute for Environment and Development, the Energy Report, the main conclusions of which are that the United Kingdom could have a future of prosperous material growth and yet use less energy than it does today. It comes to this conclusion despite numerous detailed assumptions about improved living standards, such as the rise in average house temperatures, increased ownership of cars and other domestic energy users such as freezers, dishwashers and colour TV. It does, however, also expect society to make certain value judgments. Are we prepared to accept, for example, the disappearance of the high-powered, high fuel consumption motorcar, and are we prepared to speed up our investment in energy conservation, insulation policies for home, office and industrial building? I have no doubt that the nation would agree if it was asked.
To achieve the energy savings envisaged in the report, some Government intervention would be required, but that would be minimal compared with the intervention given to the supply side of the energy industry. In the report, nuclear power assumes a very minor role in the future, and the fast-breeder reactor is simply not needed and could easily be shelved indefinitely. The whole report emphasises that Britain, with its resources of coal, gas and oil, could set an example to the rest of the world in energy conservation.
Energy, although the most important of finite resources, is only one resource which society has to consider and about which we have to make value judgments. Almost equally important are the considerations necessary for the use of finite resources of certain metals. Here, I believe, the approach must be twofold. First, we must get away from the idea that waste is a measure of society's abundance. Only the rich can afford waste and, although the resources of our earth may seem abundant, we now know that they are finite. Therefore, society must make a value judgment now and choose to end the hitherto deliberate economic policy of production for obsolescence, and demand of industry a return to quality and long lasting production.
Secondly, we must turn our attention to improved methods of recycling the

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waste material which our way of life inevitably creates. Apart from the consideration of finite resources, it is estimated that recovering, for example, metals from waste is 10 to 20 times energy cheaper than the present primary production. One perfect example is the recycling of a bottle. The production of a glass milk bottle involves an energy cost of 1·5 kilowatts. If the bottle is discarded after a single use then the energy cost involved in delivering one pint of milk is 1·5 kilowatts. However, if the same bottle is re-used 15 times then the energy cost is 0·15 kilowatt/pint delivered. If, at the end of its useful life, the glass bottle is crushed and used to make a new bottle then, on the assumptions which I have just put forward, further energy cost savings are made as the raw materials do not have to be mined, graded and delivered. Wherever a material can be recovered in a concentrated form, it provides a cheaper energy cost source for that material than is the case with the natural deposits. It also goes a long way towards preventing the disfigurement of our environment by waste tips and slag heaps.
According to an EEC Energy and Research Committee report one person produces about 550 lb. of waste a year, a great proportion of which is recoverable and valuable material. The Control of Pollution Act 1974 charged local authorities with the duty of producing waste disposal plans. Would the Government be kind enough to inform the House how many councils have produced such plans? Would they also tell us whether there is not a case for greater Government subvention to local authorities to help them fulfil the demands of the Control of Pollution Act 1974?
When we come to the environmental aspects involved in actual industrial production and the kind of environment we expect the working people of this country to enjoy, I believe there is a strong case for calling for a comprehensive review of all environmental legislation, including the Health and Safety at Work Acts, to see quite specifically whether the whole matter could not be drawn together into comprehensive legislation administered by one independent agency, easily identifiable and able to act against strictly defined legal criteria. I personally believe
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that the United States legislation is much tighter than the British legislation in this regard and gives far less discretionary power to the Executive, and therefore, I believe, would be a better model. It would require certain tighter company legislation so that firms must report annually on such matters as the dangerous chemicals they keep, the accidents they have, the industrial relations problems that have occurred, the consumer complaints which end up in the courts, the improvements they have made to working conditions and so on. I believe that that would obviously add certain complications to a company report, but it would go a long way towards improving the environmental aspects of mass production. I also believe that the environmental aspects of working conditions should be part of the collective bargaining point as in Germany and Scandinavia.
There are many other aspects of the environmental problems that 1 should like to mention, but there is one in particular where again I believe that the bringing together of the legislation that we already have would be important. I am referring to the use of land. A very careful balance must be struck between the pollutant effects of intensive modern methods of farming and the desirable necessity to produce food in abundance at reasonable prices. I understand that in Scotland discussions are going ahead to put into practice the principle that conservation and agriculture should not, as at present, be in the care of two separate departments, but that Ministry of Agriculture advisers should be given a totally different remit and training and their job should be to consider environmental, agricultural and economic considerations at the same time, and to balance them where conflict occurs. Where, for example, a man wants to drain wet land, the adviser should be able to judge whether that is justified in terms of increased food production, or whether the land is far more valuable as a wildlife reservoir. I believe that the Government should be equally prepared to pay a man not to grub an important hedge or plough up moorland as they are to pay him to do it.
We should have comprehensive legislation and the power to judge contained in one organisation. I know that this sounds like centralisation, but it is

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impossible for the agriculturist—the farmer—to be given the right advice if at one moment he is offered money to do something which is environmentally wrong and the next moment is told by the environmentalist that he should not have done it. So, it is desperately important that we look at the whole question of the environment and the productivity of our land through one organisation.
In conclusion, I believe that environmental issues should not just be something that are thought of as an optional extra, which is what we have been doing up until now. We have paid lip-service to the environmental aspects of our lives and the lives of future generations. Consideration of environmental issues should be a necessity when all other feasibility studies are done. In economic terms alone, the cost of short-term planning that ignores these issues is enormous. Until there is a general awareness that the end and goal of human life is not mere economic growth for its own sake, there is no real hope of tackling the current political malaise. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
3.10p.m.
Baroness YOUNG: My Lords, I should like to begin by thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Robson of Kiddington, for introducing this debate this afternoon. She has chosen a subject of enormous importance and, like her, I only wish that I had had more notice of it for there is much to say on so many of its aspects. Her Motion calls attention to,
"the need to balance and to reconcile economic and environmental factors in social and industrial policy-making".
I was interested that she should put the verb "to balance" before that of "to reconcile", for I am not quite sure what she means by "balance" in this context. However, I am quite certain that reconciliation in all its aspects is something that we need in this country today.
In my more depressed moments, I believe that it is arguable that over the past five years we have had very little improvement in the environment and equally little economic growth, and that that in itself is a sort of balance. However, is it what we want? Pressed to its logical conclusion, nothing makes this point better than the present state of the country: thousands striking for increased pay for
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which there is no increased productivity, while the rubbish piles up in the streets. One might almost say that the one redeeming feature of the situation is that all is blanketed by snow, and that has produced for us the worst of all possible worlds.
However, if we look at the effects of a no-growth economy, we see what has happened—and I am very glad that the noble Baroness mentioned it—to the workings of the Control of Pollution Act 1974. Noble Lords will recall that this important Act had the support of both political Parties.
Lord WINSTANLEY: My Lords, all three political Parties.
Baroness YOUNG: My Lords, yes. It was a major Act about the environment and it concerned four major areas of policy: waste, water, noise and atmospheric pollution. Last year in the Local Government Chronicle an article was published showing how of much that Act had not been implemented. As I understand it, the fact is that no waste disposal plans have been put forward by county councils, and I am quite certain that the reason is that they cannot afford to do so. By no means have all authorities provided the rubbish tips which were originally asked for under the Civic Amenities Act 1967. Much of Part II of the Control of Pollution Act dealing with the pollution of water has not been implemented. It is encouraging that some parts of Part III on the provision of noise have made progress, and here progress has been made in a quite new area of the environment.
The most progress has been made in Part IV, covering atmospheric pollution. But surely it is not without significance that much of this improvement in atmospheric pollution is the result of the Clean Air Acts of 1956 and 1968, which were passed at a time of economic growth and when, as a country, we not only believed in economic growth but actually achieved it. I make that point because I am not yet convinced that a policy of no economic growth will mean an improved environment. On the contrary, it could lead to a deterioration, as inevitably there will be competing claims for the money available.
No one with any imagination can fail to recognise the agonising decisions which,

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with the background of our present economic difficulties, must be going on in local authorities up and down the country at the moment, trying to decide whether to spend the limited resources that are available on schools, welfare, the elderly or the environment. I share the view of the noble Baroness that the environment is very important, should not be forgotten, if for no other reason than that the effects on the environment are permanent, whereas the effects of other policies may not fall into that same category. Nevertheless, the environment has to compete for the resources available with the other services that also need money.
However, I believe that within this there is a second argument that has been put forward by those who look not so much to the industrial society and economic growth as to a new type of industrial society altogether. This argument has been put forward in a document entitled One Europe, One Environment—a Manifesto. It is a philosophy that has been supported by very many environmentalists, many of whom have joined together under the organisation called the Green Alliance. On reading their view of the new society, I could not help wondering whether this heralded a return to romanticism. Unfortunately, time has not allowed me to look up my Rousseau, but it sounds a little like the philosophical belief in the paradise of man in his natural state, living in perfect harmony with his neighbours and his environment.
I am not one to condemn either ideals or romanticism. The good life, or the simple life, away from the complexities of modern living, has a fascination and charm of its own. But nowadays, for those who support it, it usually means life in the country, certainly with all mod. cons; not a return to a pre-industrial society, with its life of unremitting toil for men and women. That is not something which I would advocate or think either desirable or possible.
Politicians need to keep their ideals, but at the same time they need to face reality and life as it is and is likely to be, at any rate in the foreseeable future. When one considers the complexities of reconciling industry and the environment, I am reminded very much of Adlai Stevenson's dictum about politics:
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"Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists of choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable".
That said, looking at the documents of the environmentalists, there are many points with which I find myself in entire agreement. I very strongly support the belief that individuals can and should do much more for themselves; the belief in self-help and individual responsibility is, above all, a philosophy which we all need to exercise now. I very much support their concern about the centralisation of power and its attendant dangers and the belief that centralisation should be reversed—that more power should be returned to local authorities and to the individuals exercising their rights in society.
Like the Green Alliance and many others, I recognise that we in society are suffering from the belief that bigger is better, whether in industry or in Government. It has had its effect in our cities. There is a need to return to units, not simply of a more manageable size, but of a size that can be understood by everyone who works in them. However, I do not think that this theme should be confused with the belief that we should simply stop economic and industrial growth, for surely we need small businesses and small industries in which everyone working recognises the vital role that he or she has to play. What is this development but industrial growth? Perhaps it is not recognised as such, but it is growth and development none the less. Furthermore, the industries have to go somewhere and will inevitably affect the environment.
In considering the complexities of the society in which we live, we need to make use of all tools at our disposal. One of these is the new science of ecology. It has much to tell us about the social needs of individuals, and I believe it could stop us breaking up communities for redevelopment or building high-rise flats—policies from which we have suffered in the past and mistakes from which we must learn for our future development.
Above all, there is a need to reconcile, and here I very much agree with what the noble Baroness, Lady Robson, says in her Motion. If there is one thing that is needed in our society today, it is reconciliation; and it is needed in the environment where there are always so

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many conflicts. Perhaps, therefore, it would be helpful if I set out where I believe there are wide areas of agreement among us all. I do not believe that a policy of unlimited economic growth is possible even if desirable. However, it is necessary to combine economic growth with the most and the best use of our resources. When I was a child I was brought up very firmly on the adage "Waste not want not", and there is no doubt at all that today we live in a very wasteful society.
We begin by wasting land. As Alice Coleman has reported, after 30 years of planning legislation we are still using up good agricultural land and creating waste land in the inner urban areas. We need therefore to press on with our urban development; to use the land in the city centres and stop using up so much good agricultural land. If it is not possible to build on some of this land immediately, I myself would not be afraid to use it for other quite new schemes such as allotments, and such as urban farms. It would at least have the value of growing food, and it would bring the country into the town.
We need again to look at wherever it is possible to recycle: to recycle waste; to recycle bottles. Incidentally, I live in Oxford where there are now a number of bottle banks where you can take all your empty bottles for recycling. I am sure that this is the kind of project which needs to be taken up by local authorities. There are, however, limits to recycling, and local authorities will tell you that they have had their fingers badly burned when they have had special collections of paper which is suddenly no longer needed. Perhaps when she comes to reply the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, will be able to tell us how much, if any, recycled paper the Government use.
We need always to restore the environment; to make good the ravages of some of our industrial processes. Far from a sense of despair, I think we have cause to pick out some very good examples of reconciliation between industries and the environment. I believe that the new workings of the National Coal Board at Selby are an excellent example of what can be done to restore the land. From private industry I would recommend the
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example of the Amey Roadstone Company at Abingdon, in which they have been able to fill the pits left by quarrying the stone with a mixture of GLC rubbish interlaced with the ash from the Didcot power station. It has then had top soil put on it, and it is able to be returned to agricultural use. This is surely an example of what can happen. I believe there is a far greater understanding on the part of industry about the needs of the environment. I think it would be a great mistake to spend our time condemning industry, which has so many problems at the moment for what it failed to do 100 years ago when we look at what they have done in the light of principles that we have today. Modern industry is playing its part in the environment and I think should be encouraged to do so.
The same need to conserve goes for energy. Energy saving not only buys time; it pays for itself. We need to give all the support that we can to all the campaigns to save energy though, like my noble friend Lord Strathcona, I think the title should be changed not to "Save it" but to "Do yourself a favour". Enlightened self-interest is so much worth promoting and I believe achieves far more effective results. But, in looking at the need to reconcile industry and the environment, we need to look at all the tools at our disposal. At the moment almost certainly the greatest environmental concern is the development of nuclear power stations. I think that this concern has arisen over the whole Wind-scale inquiry. It will inevitably arise again over the whole question of fast breeder reactors, on which I feel certain other noble Lords will speak. Here again I believe that we ought to look at the tools at our disposal. There is, for example, the proposal by Lord Rothschild on what he calls "risk impact analysis". It is valuable for us to compare the risks in different types of energy industries: the numbers who sadly die in the coal mining industry as compared with the other risks in the nuclear industries. We need to look at the facts.
I would be in favour of the use of the technique known as "environmental impact analysis" in certain cases, particularly in cases where there is a need to reconcile a national objective with local objections. Before, however, we take all the cases of the use of this particular

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technique from other countries, we need to remind ourselves that we have had for some considerable time very useful planning laws, and I think these new techniques need to be seen against the background of our planning legislation. We do not need to add anything which will contribute something which we already have. Of course in all these matters we need to look at ways of refining and improving the whole system of public inquiries. That in itself would be a subject for debate, but I think we need to recognise the value of a public inquiry and the opportunity that it gives for the fullest possible discussion of the facts before us.
This is an important debate on a matter which must be of concern not only to ourselves but to future generations. In a debate like this, it is all too easy to generalise; to generalise about a whole mass of very large subjects. What is clear is that we cannot attempt to turn this country into a museum, and to think that everything must stay precisely as it is. Nor indeed can we just go on having unlimited destruction anywhere, which nobody wants. We want to proceed with care. We need to look always at all the facts. We need to use the best tools at our disposal, and we need to proceed with care. If we succeeded in reconciling some of the problems between industry and the environment, we might proceed indeed in reconciling some of the warring factions in our society today.
3.27 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of GUILDFORD: My Lords, I wish first to apologise for any apparent discourtesy if I have to leave before the end of the debate. My father is in hospital following a stroke, and the events of the past few days make it imperative that I should get home in time to visit him this evening. I am very grateful indeed to the noble Baroness, Lady Robson of Kiddington, for raising this issue in the House today, and grateful to her for the general remarks which she presented to us at the beginning of her speech, with which I find myself in entire agreement.
All I want to do is to raise three particular issues in this context. The first is to refer to the criteria by which we judge the excellence of design, or of
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social planning. It is comparatively easy in industrial design to work within a very narrow framework; that marked out, for example, by efficiency or by quality of performance. The trouble is that such design, however brilliant it may be, may in fact be very wasteful of resources, or destructive of human values in those who have to use the designs or who live in the environment where they are used. Examples of the dangers in such design, I think, are found in modern airports and in the noise levels of modern aircraft, and in the conflict between the needs of modern transport and the communities through which modern highways have to pass, whether they be villages or closely built-up urban areas.
A major problem in this area of design is the mismatch between the slow pace at which human society evolves and adapts itself to new conditions, and the speed with which technology can now develop new machines and speed up the means of production. Only three years ago at the Royal Aeronautical Show at Farnborough the commentator mentioned with pride that one particular aircraft had been built directly off the initial designs through computer links with the jigs and the tools which produced it, thus cutting out the drawing-room stage of production. Now the acceleration of design has been greatly heightened by the micro-processors. This shifts the problem away from problems of technical design to the problem of educating society to cope with the changes which this new technology imposes upon society. Incidentally, this places a great onus on the Churches to assist in the discussion of attitudes to work, since it was the Protestant work ethic which played such a part in the emergence of Western Europe.
I suggest that, as the Motion implies, the excellence of any policy, whether in the industrial or social field, must be judged by the total context in which it is to operate. "Design in context" rather than "design" in and for itself is what is important, and I believe people are beginning to appreciate this in the social audit which some firms practice and in the development, in a different context, of intermediate technology which seeks for a technology compatible with the constraints of the society in which that technology is used.

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The Motion speaks of environmental factors, and J suggest that the environment which should be considered is that of the whole community of mankind. We are, I believe, on the threshold of a new era in which the evolution and development of mankind as one community is what we must think about. I am not the disciple of any particular group in this respect but, rather, I have come to the conclusion, in the light of what a wide variety of people tell us about the future of man and his world, that this is one of the most important issues before us today; and it may seem surprising to say that at a time when our country is beset by all sorts of questions.
When one listens to modern prophets like Martin Luther King, to statesmen like the Commonwealth Secretary-General, to economists as diverse as Barbara Ward and the Club of Rome, or even science fiction writers like Arthur Clarke, one comes to the conclusion that one of the great issues today is to plan for mankind as a whole. The economic interdependence of the nations, the spread of travel and the communications explosion have made the achievement of world community a necessity for the welfare of mankind, something which is not only necessary but right and just as well. In his posthumous work, his universal history Mankind and Mother Earth, Arnold Toynbee wrote:
"The inexorable condition for mankind's survival is the unification of the whole of the Oikoumene, and this not only on the technological level but on every plane of life".
In drawing attention to that, I do not want to depreciate in any way the contribution which a particular nation can make to the whole enterprise. Indeed, it is only strong and self-confident nations which will prove themselves able to contribute generously to the development of the whole world community. It is only such nations which will have the necessary courage to determine their national policies in the light of what are the wider needs of the world community—in the sharing of resources and the bringing into being of the world community—and I hope that with our history we will take a lead in doing that. We have made some worthwhile contributions in the past, such as the writing off of aid debts from some of the less developed countries, but can we not afford to be
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more generous at the United Nations conferences on trade and development than we were at the fourth conference at Geneva in 1976? And of what long-term value is the arms trade on which we have made ourselves so dependent and which misuses so much of resources and research?
It is interesting to note that in the book by Arnold Toynbee to which I referred he raised time and again the issue of religion and the need for man to have transcendent goals to help him unify his experience. The Motion speaks of the reconciliation of economic and environmental factors. I would only say in passing that we should not minimise the importance of religious beliefs and sanctions in achieving this reconciliation, a word which seems deliberately to have been inserted in the Motion.
I wish, finally, to emphasise how important the schools are in preparing young people for the world of tomorrow, in which the matters raised by the Motion will press ever more severely on us, and Lady Robson referred to our attitudes to the future. I refer noble Lords to the 1977 Consultative Document Education in Schools, from which I take this quotation which corresponds so closely to the Motion we are debating:
"Nor are our young people sufficiently aware of the international interdependence of modern countries. Many of our most pressing problems can only be solved internationally, for instance environmental pollution"—
which is the subject we are discussing today—
"so our children need to be educated in environmental understanding as well".
One of the eight aims which the Consultative Document set down was:
" … to help children understand the world in which we live, and the interdependence of nations".
The Motion sets out an attitude which will need to prevail in the future if the human community is to cope with the ever-increasing pressure of technological development and the pressure on resources which it will bring. I suggest that the Department of Education and Science needs to give the most serious study to the problem of adjusting our educational system to meet those needs. In particular, the curriculum itself needs examination to see if it is adjusted in two important respects to the future which presses upon us and to which the Motion refers.

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The first is this: are children being helped to see that the national environment is a complex whole in which mankind is a participant and not simply its master? In other words, are they being helped to understand words like "design", "efficiency" and "planning" in terms of the whole context in which we and other humans live our lives? The second is this: are children being taught history, geography and religion in such a way that they see themselves to be citizens not only of our own country but of the world? Much work has been done in this field, particularly in multi-ethnic areas like Birmingham, but it needs to become part of the outlook of all our schools. A recent article in Educational Research said:
"An insular curriculum is unjustifiable in the final quarter of the twentieth century. The curriculum needs to be both international in its choice of content and global in its perspective".
I make no apology for bringing that reference into this debate because I believe the environment is not simply the environment of our own country but the total environment, the whole ecumene, which we share with people of all other races in all other countries across the world, and I hope very much that this dimension will be borne in mind in this debate.
3.38 p.m.
Lord PARRY: My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Robson of Kiddington, has set very high standards both in the terms of her Motion and in her presentation of it. In doing that, she has challenged us to obtain the very best from all those who will be contributing to the debate, and if we fall below her standards we apologise, but we are aiming for them. Those who have spoken since she did have accepted the challenge and the noble Baroness, Lady Young, from the Front Bench opposite, despite the statutory fusillade across the bows, or perhaps the stern, of the Government, also put forward very thoughtful and provocative ideas. The right reverend Prelate, the Bishop of Guildford, set the subject in an international context and within the Christian ethic.
It is extraordinarily important that at a moment when we find ourselves divided naturally and nationally over the way in which we tackle issues that bedevil us as
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a nation, we should take time out from that confrontation and out of the issues which it involves to look both forward and backward. Lady Young will not expect me to leave unexplored those points in human history at which we have made a change for the better. When one considers policies for the future it is always essential to base them upon the solid knowledge of the past.
In the tradition that the right reverend Prelate has laid down, I should like to quote here from a countryman of mine, Richard Llewellyn. At the beginning of a very memorable book, which has also been made into several memorable films, he says, as a young Welshman standing at the window of a cottage:
"I am packing my bag in the old blue cloth that my mother used to tie around her hair when she was cleaning the house, and I am leaving my valley. As I stand at the window and look out over the valley I think of the green grass before the dark fingers of coal had begun to work their way through the roots of the grass of my valley"—
and then there is a reference to the title—
"how green was my valley then".
I think it right that we remember that there was a pre-industrial society. As the noble Baroness has said, it would be incredibly foolish if we were to attempt to return to such a pre-industrial society. The way back is never open to mankind, however difficult the way forward may be. I believe it is essential that, whatever the Party political point of view from which we may speak in the debate, we should isolate this single fact: Great Britain is at this moment in a post-industrial society, and there is no way back from that, either. I say this because for a very long time, almost unnoticed and often unremarked upon, there have not been available to Britain, nor indeed to the Western countries of Europe, the two main things upon which industrial societies are built—namely, cheap labour and cheap raw materials. When these two resources are removed from a nation it ceases to base its politics and its economy purely upon heavy industry. Many of the arguments in which we involve ourselves, and many of the energies which we run to ground and divert from their proper use, are caused by the fact that we do not concentrate upon the lesson that Britain will never again have available to it those heavy industries that built its greatness and in fact founded the British Empire.

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When we sigh for the declining glories of the British Empire we must remember that they died because fuel resources died and because men learnt lessons to the effect that they need no longer work in the bowels of the earth for a pittance, that they need no longer go down to the mill for less money than was rightly theirs to expect. From a non-Party point of view, and in as much as it is possible to me with my tradition, I make the submission that when an individual finds himself challenged by his environment and the evils of it to seek more out of life than he is getting, he is rising to the best challenges within him, rather than responding to the worst. If Western society has a fault—and its faults are many and gross—it is that it has tied its whole working system, and its whole system of motivation, to the pound sterling or to the almighty or shaky dollar, rather than to the true incentives for which man has always worked in order both to provide food, clothing and shelter for himself and his children and to give them a better opportunity to expand than he himself has had.
So I begin from the point that we are at this moment challenged by the difficulties of running a post-industrial society. If, from the position of a new type of industrial-social economy, we attempt the delusions of grandeur that have for too long followed the declining might and spread of the British Empire, we shall run into the same types of error that we have met elsewhere in the world as our Empire has contracted.
I would challenge this House, at its best moment, when it is trying to come to grips with real problems and not imagined ones, to accept that what we now must do is look at the whole issue of environmental planning as though the environment is not additional to society and indeed is not only the context in which society is built, but is part of the whole business of living and, in that sense, can be included in the credit column or the debit column of the business ledger. We must realise that the whole proposed, and expected, boom from the North Sea, the development of North Sea oil and the fuel represented there, has already been overtaken by something that might not have been expected at the moment when Richard Llewellyn, or the character whom he wrote into his book, left the valleys of
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Wales seeking a better environment. It has already been overtaken by the simple fact that men, women and children from other countries in the world are now able to travel across the world to those very valleys, seeking places where they will find human interest and a different environment.
In the doom and gloom of the 'thirties, the Prince of Wales stood in an industrial valley, depressed by what he saw around him in the social conditions of the time—and I apportion no blame here—and said, "Something must be done". Who then would ever have thought that 30 years later Welshmen from the continent of America, from Canada, from all parts of the world, would be returning to those very valleys to see how they were taking on a new look, to see how the scars of industry themselves, because they were part of the emergence of the Welsh people, are now of interest to people who come seeking roots? What a phrase, what an evocative phrase, to put into the debate, because transient humanity is constantly seeking its roots. So Welshmen come back looking to the very scars that were left by a passing industry for some of the inspiration through which they might find themselves.
In case I might be thought here to be dealing in an esoteric way with what is a clearly defined debate, let me accept its disciplines. I believe that the disregarded industries of the past make a contribution even in the present, but I believe also that it is much more important that the green and lovely areas of the world should be preserved and conserved. I so much agree with the contention of the noble Baroness, Lady Young—applauded all around the House—that we cannot make museums out of places in which people live. I believe that some of our ecological planning has suffered from the fact that early planning officers believed that all that had to be done in planning was to say, "No". I believe that the planner who says, "No" is falling far short of the challenge of his time, because the challenge must surely be so to use the environment—and I mean in its best sense—so to conserve it and so to preserve it that it becomes part of the capital stock of a new industrial economy.
I believe that tourism is emerging as a very substantial item in the credit balance

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of this new economy; and here 1 declare my own associations with the Welsh Tourist Board and plead the Addison rules. While we find other sources, while we look for the alternative fuels to empower us to travel, and look to the sources from which we shall get the funding to pay for that travel, we must also be careful that we do not lose the will of the people of the nation to co-operate in the planning experiment.
Anyone who has been brought up in a national park, as 1 have been, will have a knowledge of the beauty of the environment and the quality that it gives to life. He or she will also realise that there are some disadvantages to living in such an area. When a young man and young woman wish to marry and find their first home they have to go to innumerable planning authorities in order to grapple with what might be the biggest single expenditure and the greatest challenge of their life. When the young man seeks to fund the business of living he has to find a job for himself, and because he lives in a national park he may have to travel a very great distance to the job, leaving his young wife and children trapped in a beautiful environment, in their house or bungalow, while he takes the car because there is unlikely to be public rural transport to take him to work. So if we are not careful there could grow up in society a new group of young people who were themselves anti the concept of the conservation and preservation of the very environment that they chose for themselves and their children. Thus it is essential that we look at the negatives, as well as the positives, of the situation.
I believe that one thing has so far, naturally, been missed from the context of this debate. I in fact picked up some words of the noble Baroness, Lady Young, who said that it saddened her that over the last five years so little had been done, in real terms, for the development of the environment. That charge cannot be laid in a House where, only a short while ago, we were discussing the growing importance of bodies which form a new tier of government; bodies which have great and heavy responsibility in developing the environment, in controlling and stimulating industry and in investing in the new economy. It is a fact that there exist, for example, in Wales bodies such as the
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Welsh Tourist Board, the Welsh Development Agency and the Development Board for Rural Wales (and I could name three or four others) which are, and have been over the last five years, indeed over the last 15 years, drawing together all those philosophical decisions taken in this and the other House in order to improve the environment and to develop the economy. It cannot be said that nothing much has happened over the last five years. In fact, a very great deal has happened, and it has now been recognised that this country has to look for new sources to drive its economy forward.
The right reverend Prelate made the point about our contribution to the underdeveloped areas of the world. That is a theme which I, in all my contributions, whatever they might have been, have always emphasised, so he will accept from me I am sure that, in precisely the same way as the people who benefit most from the activities of the conservationists and the preservationists might unconsciously be turned, if we are not careful, into anti-conservation and anti-preservation lobbies, so indeed do the people of Britain sometimes get turned away from their natural and traditional generosity to those areas or spheres of influence because, they say, charity begins at home. So I make the philosophical point that in this debate we have both to assess what is being done by all the bodies that we have set up—and this is firmly, within the terms of the Motion, home—and to see to it that people who live their lives in the areas which are most affected by decisions taken for conservation and preservation are parties to them at every level.
I gladly accepted the invitation to take part in this debate because I felt it gives us the real basis for what we are trying to do in our membership of this House. I believe that I cannot emphasise too strongly the fact that from time to time we feel frustrated that we cannot make a more positive contribution to the thinking, as opposed to the reaction here and there to events that can often be seen to preoccupy us too much. I am not detracting from the difficulties of the times when I say that I believe that this debate does more than offer us a series of mechanistic solutions to problems that have bedevilled us for a very long time. It can in fact stimulate us to a far greater attention to the working of those bodies which, in

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their way, perhaps below the level of Government control, perhaps needing closer control, have worked towards the main aims that your Lordships have laid down in this House. In closing, my Lords, may I be allowed to say that I should like at this time, on my first opportunity in this House, to pay my respects and congratulations to my noble friend who will respond to this debate from her new position as a Minister of State.

INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES: ESSENTIAL SUPPLIES AND SERVICES
3.54 p.m.
The LORD PRIVY SEAL (Lord Peart): My Lords, with the leave of the House, I will now repeat a Statement being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Home Secretary. I am sorry to interrupt this interesting debate, but I hope noble Lords will bear with me. The Statement is as follows:
"With permission, Mr. Speaker, I will make a further report to the House about the effect of the current industrial disputes, in the road haulage industry and elsewhere, on supplies and services, and on the Government's arrangements for ensuring that those supplies and services which are essential continue to be maintained.
"The situation remains broadly as I reported it to the House on Monday. The code of practice is having some effect on the movement of supplies, but there remain severe problems, particularly at the ports. There are still cases where priority supplies continue to be held up.
"While there continue to be difficulties with some essential foodstuffs, the position on food generally is unquestionably getting better. Reports from a number of regions indicate that stock levels are not only being maintained but are rising, and even in the North West some shops are in a position to restock with such goods as sugar, frozen foods and canned foods. The supply of salt has eased, and the slaughterhouses continue to function despite earlier fears that some would have to close.
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"So far as animal feedstuffs are concerned, the level of supply remains adequate, although, as my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Scotland told the House yesterday, the supply of animal feedstuffs to the intensive production sector, particularly in Scotland, has been difficult.
"On the industrial front, the picture is complicated by the effects of the severe weather and the rail dispute, and the movement of goods has not, generally speaking, improved despite a slight relaxation in the effects of picketing. However, production generally is holding up so far, though considerable production losses are being caused in particular industries, including steel, chemicals, glass and packaging, which will, if the situation persists, cause cumulative problems throughout the rest of industry.
"Lay-offs continue to increase, and while any figures must be treated with considerable caution, the present level of lay-offs in Great Britain as a whole is of the order of 200,000. There are growing problems, particularly for small companies, of cash flow as well as supplies. Only a continued easing of picketing and a sustained improvement in the transport situation will prevent a major decline in production in the near future.
"Within the priority categories, the Government are particularly concerned that there should be no delay in moving medical and pharmaceutical supplies and the raw materials, especially chemicals, essential to them. There is evidence of some bottlenecks where supplies are not getting through. This is unacceptable.
"My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Transport, in conjunction with my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Services, has devised new arrangements, which have already begun to operate, so that officials of the Transport and General Workers' Union will know promptly of bottlenecks when they arise and be in no doubt whatsoever that the Government require them to be dealt with immediately. If these arrangements are not quickly effective, and if there is no other way of

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getting these supplies moving, the Government will themselves arrange to have these supplies moved.
"This brings me to the matter of the Ambulance Service. The House will know that the National Health Service ambulancemen are now providing full emergency cover in London following the one-day stoppage at the beginning of the week, during which emergency services were provided by the Army, the police and the voluntary services, to whom the House will wish to pay tribute. At the moment I understand that, in the country as a whole, normal emergency services are being maintained.
"I should tell the House where matters stand on water supply. Despite the agreement reached in the national pay negotiations last Friday, there continue to be local problems in a few districts. The House will, however, be glad to hear that the problem in the Pennine Division has been resolved.
"Finally, as to picketing, the police tell me that reports of physical intimidation, of obstruction and of violence remain extremely rare. They will, of course, uphold the law fully whenever and wherever the need arises.
"My colleagues and I will continue to report on the situation to the House."
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
3.59 p.m.
Lord CARR of HADLEY: My Lords, we are grateful to the noble Lord the Leader of the House for repeating that Statement; and we are also grateful for the concluding words of the Statement, which promise that Parliament will be kept regularly informed about progress. We, too, of course, should like to add our tribute to that of the noble Lord to the voluntary services for the part that they have been playing. Once again, as so often in our history, it shows what the people of this country can do when they are given the chance and the opportunity to do it.
My Lords, we on this side of course welcome all the small improvements in the supply situation which the Statement
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told us about, but I am bound to say to your Lordships that we still sense that the Government are far too complacent about the overall position. They are complacent in two senses. Complacent, first, about the real dangers of the breakdown in supplies and trade and, secondly, complacent about the danger to the fabric of our society of having allowed responsibility for the very essentials of life to have slipped out of their hands. Do the Government not realise how distasteful—indeed, I think I could say, how unacceptable—it is to the great majority of people of this country of all Parties and of none that decisions about the free passage of the very essentials of life should now rest mainly in the hands of local strike committees, many of which do not recognise even the authority of their own unions, let alone the authority of the elected Government of the country?
May I pass to more particular questions? There are many; one could ask questions about every one of the matters raised; and if I mention only two it is not because the others lack importance. First, as I heard the Statement, it appeared to me that the Government ought to be telling us something about what they are going to do about the severe position in the ports which the Statement recorded as being very worrying. It seems to me that, naturally, we are talking about port problems mainly in terms of getting imports into the country; but what about exports? What is to happen to the balance of payments and the strength of sterling on which, among a lot of other things, inflation depends?
Secondly, about picketing. The only reference to picketing, the special section about picketing, is about the peaceful conduct of the picketing. That is important, but it is not only the manner of picketing, which I believe can best be dealt with by a code of practice, but the location of the pickets which, I believe, can be dealt with only by legislation. It is high time for a statement of policy from the Government about what they intend for the future—and I realise that it cannot be done immediately—about controlling the places where picketing can take place, because that is what threatens to throttle the economic and social life of the country. Lastly, may I ask a general question? What are the Government doing about the disputes?

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What is their policy? Are they encouraging the employers to resist the pressure to increase their pay offers in the name of the battle against inflation? Or are they encouraging the employers to offer more in order to bring the disputes to an end? I do not know. I doubt whether many noble Lords know. I am certain that the country does not know, and it is about time that they did.
Lord BYERS: My Lords, from these Benches I should like to join in the tributes paid to the voluntary services, while regretting the fact that they should have had to be brought into play at this stage. I should like to ask the Leader of the House questions on two particular aspects of the situation. First, what is being done by the Government to persuade the trade union leaders to bring the pickets under control, especially at the docks, and to make the code of practice effective? A great deal more will have to be done if the code of practice is to be seen to be working.
Secondly, there is much confusion over the facts in these different industrial disputes which are misleading the public. I should like to ask the Government whether they will do something specific. Some lorry drivers claim that they get only £53 a week, while others say that they take home £120 to £140. Could the Government not issue an authoritative statement on each of these industrial disputes so that the public are properly informed? At the present time, none of us is properly informed. I hope that they would be able to show the present basic wage, the overtime and the bonuses which are available, the gross pay and the possible take-home pay after deductions, so that the public can differentiate between lies, damned lies, and authoritative statistics. I believe that a well-informed public opinion is one of the ways of keeping these industrial disputes in proper perspective.
Lord PEART: My Lords, if I may, I will reply to the noble Lord, Lord Byers, first, and to the noble Lord, Lord Carr, afterwards. May I say on picketing that the code of practice which I reported to the House the other week has I think improved the situation. The Statement of the Home Secretary indicates this. As to the question about the figures regarding the wage negotiations, I will see whether this can be done. I think
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that the noble Lord probably has a valid point here. There is a lot of confusion about this and, particularly, on the question of overtime added to the basic wage. If this can be done, I am sure that an inspired Question or something of that kind will enable us to provide the information.
If I may say so to the noble Lord, there is no complacency. Ministers are continually anxious that we should get all of this settled. I, myself, deplore the whole thing. As I mentioned the other day, I am a former Food Minister. Only on Friday, I went to see how the unit was working, getting information from the ports and from different parts of the country. In that sphere—and particularly that of animal feedstuffs—there has been a marked improvement; and there has been an improvement in the food supplies, which I mentioned. There are still problems. I accept that. The Government have been challenged about picketing et cetera and about doing something about it in the various disputes which have taken place. The Government have had ACAS at work; but, my Lords, there is a strike and we are anxious to see this settled quickly without all the bad feeling that we know can exist in a period like this. There is no complacency. The Prime Minister is anxious. He, himself, made a Statement the other day. I hope that noble Lords will appreciate that I feel it my duty to come here in this way. A noble Lord complained that I was bringing Statements to the House. The noble Lord, Lord Harmar-Nicholls, thought that I should not bring Statements to the House and I had to rebuke him—nicely, because he is a very good Parliamentarian. I believe that the House should be kept informed and I hope the situation will improve.
Lord ROBBINS: My Lords, may I ask a simple, non-Party supplementary question? What rate of growth is necessary in the gross national product in the next 12 months to leave no inflationary gap with the wage settlements that we hear are being made or are being demanded?
Lord PEART: My Lords, I am always suspicious of simple questions. The noble Lord as a distinguished economist will understand why I say that. I cannot answer that. I wish I could; then I would be a "prof."
Lord WIGG: My Lords, would the noble Lord realise that the plea made by the noble Lord, Lord Byers, is extremely welcome because on every occasion last week I made exactly the same plea. I pointed out that this wonderful media of ours, which costs the country a lot of money, with the marked exception not of the Sporting Life but of the Financial Times, had made an effort to spell this out in a simple form. I can help the noble Lord the Leader of the Liberal Party by telling him that it was a week ago, last Thursday. What was brought out very clearly was that the problems which faced the road haulage industry are extremely complex and would not be solved by propaganda, however justified that propaganda may be. Is the noble Lord aware, for instance, that a week ago it was forecast with great authority that there would be massive shortages, unemployment amounting to a million and he himself defended an obviously overwrought statement by the Home Secretary? The truth is that the people of this country are behaving signally well in what is, after all, an industrial dispute. Would he not agree that the law on picketing is at least 50 years old and, provided that intimidation is not used, pickets can picket where they like, provided that the picket lines can be crossed without causing a breach of the peace? That is essential. Whether it is Mrs. Thatcher or anybody else who thinks they are going to "buck" this, they are certainly not going to do it, because——
Several noble Lords: Speech!
Lord WIGG: My Lords, let me finish. What we must make up our minds about at the end of the day is on whose side we are in terms of wanting this strike settled.
Lord PEART: My Lords, I have noted my noble friend Lord Wigg's advice to me. I have even read, since he recommended it, the Sporting Life. On other matters, I accept what has been said about picketing, 73 years and the law. I accept it has been a long time and so we have to bear this in mind.
Lord CARR of HADLEY: My Lords, I must press the noble Lord on two specific questions that I asked to which he did not even refer. One, what are the Government going to do about the
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ports' position, bearing in mind exports as well as imports? What is their policy? Are they encouraging employers to settle or to resist?
Lord PEART: My Lords, I cannot answer that. Where there is a negotiation I cannot say that the Government will favour one side or the other. All I have stated is that there are difficulties in the ports. They are affecting many ports: London, Hull, Liverpool and Glasgow. This is a very serious matter, and we are giving it top priority.
The Earl of LAUDERDALE: My Lords, could the noble Lord help the House a little more? He will remember that last week, after his Statement, I suggested to him that it might be valuable if cases of physical intimidation were monitored. He was good enough to say that that was a constructive suggestion and that he would pass it on. Can he tell us what it means when he says that physical intimidation cases are extremely rare? Are they as rare as a bank robbery or are they as rare as a mugging? When he says that the police will uphold the law, does it mean that they have not done so up to date? If they have, what have they done about physical intimidation when it has occurred?
Lord PEART: My Lords, the report comes from the Home Office. What they have said is that this is what the police in particular areas have reported to them. As I said on picketing, I have nothing to add to what I have already said and made clear to the House. The police will ensure that the law is upheld.
Lord CARRINGTON: My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Lord would be good enough to clear up some confusion in my mind as a result of what he has said. When my noble friend who sits behind me asked what side the Government were taking about this issue, the noble Lord replied that they were taking no sides in the course of the dispute. Does this mean that the Government are no longer seeking to maintain the 5 per cent. limit?
Lord PEART: My Lords, we take the view that the 5 per cent. was essential to recovery and to the battle against inflation.

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But it is obvious that in certain sections negotiations have led to different results. I am saddened by this. This is why I have always taken a firm view that the 5 per cent. was right for this country. But I am afraid that we have been knocked off course.
Lord BYERS: My Lords, surely the Government would like to go further on that and say that in any event they wish employers to resist giving in to excessive wage demands?
Lord PEART: Yes, in principle of course, my Lords. That is absolutely right.
Lord GORE-BOOTH: My Lords, I have already asked questions about hospitals. I do not wish to embarrass the noble Lord or the Government in any way, but what has horrified the public most, I feel sure, is some of the actions which have been taken by a minority of the ambulance people, a small minority but there it is none the less. May I ask the Leader of the House whether he can assure us that accelerated consideration is being given in the Government to certain changes in the rules governing the behaviour of that profession which will make it impossible for this kind of thing to happen again?
Lord PEART: My Lords, we have, as you know, acted quickly on the ambulance services. I deplored the situation myself, last week. We are now providing full emergency cover. Statements which were made by one or two people on this matter should never have been made. It has created unhappiness and uneasiness. I accept what the noble Lord has said; but the full service is now there.
Lord NUGENT of GUILDFORD: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that one of the points about picketing which is particularly worrying the general public is the report of threats by the pickets to a driver, that if he goes through the picket line—he being a member of the union—he will be "blacked"; that he will lose his union card and his job? Will the noble Lord tell us what he can do to protect a driver who wishes to carry on his job and make his deliveries against such dangers, and to what extent this is a typical instance?
Lord PEART: My Lords, the code of practice is partly aimed to deal with matters of that kind.
Lord NUGENT of GUILDFORD: But, my Lords, is it doing so?
Lord PEART: My Lords, from reports that we have received from the police, yes. There have been very few incidents of voilence or intimidation. I know that there have been arguments about people paying money out, et cetera. It is not easy to prove that; but it has been relatively peaceful in that sense.
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARY-LEBONE: My Lords, is it not the case that the threat to "black" a man is neither violence nor intimidation? Therefore it is not intimidation for the purposes of the Statement which has just been made. Does not then my noble friend's question deserve very careful consideration? The Prime Minister has said that a man is entitled to cross a picket line if he wishes. Is it not an unjustifiable threat that he will lose his livelihood if he does so?
Lord PEART: My Lords, I agree with the noble and learned Lord, who has put the matter very clearly. I have the Prime Minister's Statement here on picketing. Noble Lords will have seen this in Hansard. So I take the view of the noble and learned Lord.
Viscount ROCHDALE: My Lords, are the Government prepared, in the interests of national unity, to consult immediately with Opposition Parties to see whether any agreement can be reached concerning the need to enforce or amend existing legislation so as to alleviate secondary picketing, which in the North West (from where I come) is still particularly severe and intimidating in the ports?
Lord PEART: My Lords, the concept of national unity is a very noble one. I take the view, as Leader of the House, that it is my duty and right to inform colleagues on both sides of what is happening. We are to have a major debate tomorrow on this matter and 1 think some of these issues might well be brought up then. I do not want to spoil the debate today; I think the House has a very good debate and I must not monopolise this. I do not mind answering

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questions all afternoon, but I feel that is the type of question which should be raised in the debate tomorrow. My Lords, may we proceed now?

SOCIAL SECURITY BILL
Brought from the Commons; read la, and to be printed.

SOCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL POLICY-MAKING
4.19 p.m.
Debate resumed.
Lord HINTON of BANKSIDE: My Lords, the discussion which we are having on the Motion which we are debating this afternoon is long overdue. There is a danger that we are in some respects losing our sense of proportion and I am extremely grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Robson of Kiddington, for introducing the debate. I find it difficult to agree with some of the things that she said about energy, but I am not going to cross swords with her over this this afternoon. It seems to me that that is a matter which we can—and perhaps should—debate at some later stage.
I have tried to point out on earlier occasions in this House that amenity has many forms. Broadly, one could divide it into environmental amenity and material amenity. But those broad areas can be considerably subdivided. For the enjoyment of environmental amenity, we try to preserve the landscape or indeed improve it. We try to ensure that our rivers and the atmosphere are unpolluted, and so on. For material amenity—and material amenity is highly valued by a very large number of people in this country—we try to ensure that there are good housing, cheap energy, pure potable water, freedom from accidents, and an endless list of other things. Our troubles start, as the noble Baroness, Lady Young, said, because the provision of material amenities often conflicts with the preservation of environmental amenities and, what is more, the provision of some material amenities may conflict with other environmental amenities. There is no simple solution to that problem because it is impossible to put a money
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value on environmental amenity and it is difficult in some cases to put comparative money values on material amenities.
I had, over many years, constant and bitter experience of this when I was Chairman of the Central Electricity Generating Board. I think it is not unfair, from many scores of cases, to select one particular case as an example of the difficulty. We had to strengthen the transmission system across the Pennines and we proposed to do that by way of a high voltage overhead transmission line which, for most of its length, was to run alongside the main arterial road, along which thunders the heavy lorry traffic which carries goods between Lancashire and Yorkshire. The Parks Commission objected to that scheme. We pointed out that it was not a particularly high amenity area and they said, "No, but there is a rock-face not far from the road which is used by climbers."
I am no rock climber myself, but I should have thought that rock climbing was best done when one paid close attention to the rock-face and did not look over one's shoulder at the traffic thundering along the road behind. However, I appreciated their argument. I pointed out to the Parks Commission that we both got our money from the same source—from the taxpayer—and I said to them, "It will cost us £3 million more" (and, my Lords, I am talking in terms of 1963 money values; it would be a great deal more than that today) "to underground the line than to run an overhead line across the Pennines. Supposing I was in a position to hand you £3 million, would you give it back to me and ask me to underground that line, or would you, short of money as you are, use it for improving the facilities of the National Parks?" I did not get an answer to that question, nor did I expect one: but that case, was typical of scores of others that I dealt with. When I left the Generating Board at the end of 1964 because I wanted to do work in developing countries, I think I can be forgiven if one of the thoughts which was uppermost in my mind was that I should no longer be constantly engaged in arguments with people who wanted to enjoy every available technological amenity provided that somebody else would pay for it.
In a lecture I gave to the Royal Society of Arts in 1959 I spoke about this problem.

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The lecture was written at a time when we were having to strengthen the transmission network in the country and we were being pressed to underground the lines. I showed that the extra cost—and I would ask your Lordships to remember, again, that I am talking in terms of 1959 money values—would be equal to sixpence in the pound on the income tax. I find it difficult to believe that if people were told that sixpence in the pound was to be added to income tax in order to underground our lines they would have been very unwilling to accept that increase. But the additional cost in fact would have been far more than that, because if we had been made to underground those lines we should have had to rethink the whole electricity system of the country and instead of building the large, cheaper and much more economical power stations that we were building we should have to have built smaller, scattered power stations which would have been a lot less economical.
I have given those cases as examples of the way in which demands for environmental preservation can be made by people who are, I am quite sure, well-meaning but who are imperfectly informed. Perhaps it is our fault that they are imperfectly informed. Having said that, I should like to say most emphatically that careful thought can minimise the impact of the new works which must be built in this country and can make them not merely acceptable but also perhaps exciting new features of the landscape. Is any unbiased person prepared to tell me that stations such as Sizewell, Oldbury, or even Didcot, are really eye-sores? When I look at Didcot and remember what was at Didcot before the station was built there, I think that an improvement has been made. As for the nuclear station at Trawsfynydd, I remember on one occasion saying to the matron of the little hospital at Ffestiniog, "Do you object to it?" She answered me in her beautiful, musical Welsh voice which I would not attempt to imitate: "No indeed, and in the evening light when the sun sets behind it, it looks to me like a fairy castle!" We did not, of course, set out to build fairy castles, but that was her unbiased opinion.
Satisfactory results can be obtained only if from the very inception of a scheme
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a team of engineers, architects and landscape architects is built up and the people are made to work harmoniously together. Unfortunately, it is quite rarely that this happens and I am bound to say that some of the most unfortunate examples of buildings where it has not happened, are those put up by Government Departments, and, in particular, by the Service Departments. I could give several examples but I will give only one. The Atomic Energy Establishment at Dounreay was well laid out on a well-chosen site and it was designed, I think, so that it added rather than detracted from the grandeur of that Caithness coastline. After I had left the Atomic Energy Authority, the Admiralty were allowed to have part of this site to build the prototype submarine reactor which they were going to use for training their crews. I am quite sure it is a good reactor and has been very useful to them. I have not seen it but I do know that it was housed in a building which would have disgraced a get-rich-quick Victorian entrepreneur, operating in the most misused area of Smethwick.
I think that I have said enough about the preservation of visual amenity, and I should like for a few minutes to talk about the pollution problems that arise from new industrial installations and to show that, so often, industries are left with the problem of proving a negative. When consent for the station at Bradwell was sought and there were objections to it, it was said that it would damage the oyster beds in the estuary. In fact, not merely have those oyster beds thrived, but they were the only oyster beds on the East coast which survived unharmed the hard winter of 1963. It is interesting to remember that a very promising oyster bed is growing up in Southampton Water, near the outfall from Fawley power station.
So far as air pollution is concerned, the CEGB were accused, and were rightly accused, of causing objectionable pollution in the neighbourhood of their power stations. They proposed to build higher chimneys, and were told that eddy dispersion might instantaneously cause undesirable levels of sulphur dioxide.They went on, expensively, to build very high 800 ft. chimneys at their power stations. Now they find that they are accused of causing acidity in rivers in the South of

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Norway, and it is only as a result of long-drawn out and careful research that it is coming to be accepted that only a minimal amount of the acidity in those rivers is caused by sulphur dioxide carried over either from this country or from the Continent. The bulk of it is caused by what is called the fall-through of rain through forest trees, and the seepage of the water through granitic rock and through peat. Constant care is necessary, but industry is, as I have already said, far too often left with the problem of proving a negative.
Lastly, I should like to speak about physical safety and, by way of example, to talk about nuclear safety. In yesterday's debate, I spoke about the need for nuclear power and, because of the danger of a uranium famine towards the end of this century, of the need for fast reactors. Now, I understand that a two-stage inquiry is thought to be necessary. The first stage is to inform the public of the need for and the safety of fast reactors, and the second stage is to consider siting. When the first nuclear power programme was announced in 1955, the public had already been kept fully informed. You have only to look back on BBC records, on articles in magazines and in daily papers to convince yourself of this. Now, a public inquiry, which is highly remunerative to barristers and perhaps a very good shop window for the environmental organisations, is thought to be necessary. The hearings are held before a body appointed by the Minister, but, of course, no member of that body may be a man who has practical experience of atomic energy factories, because such a man is bound to be prejudiced. It is on the recommendation of a body which contains no one with practical experience that the Minister makes his decision.
Of course, there are risks in atomic energy factories. There is a risk everywhere in life. But, as the chairman of the Canadian Atomic Energy Authority pointed out in a recent lecture, the men who work at his nuclear power stations are far safer when they are at work than when they are at home. It does not help a nervous public when escapes of radio-activity which give an exposure which is comparable to that which one would have got from wearing an expensive, old—
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not new—luminous watch, have to be reported to London and so find column inches in the papers.
Has anyone worked out how much the restrictive legislation in the Health and Safety at Work Act is costing the country? It is costing a very great deal. Those costs must fall ultimately on the consumer and the restrictions which are imposed may hamper progress. Some of those restrictions are necessary or desirable, but some of them safeguard men against risks to which those men—perhaps unconsciously—willingly and light-heartedly expose their wives every day of the week in their homes. Let us remember that the number of home accidents is very nearly at the top of the table.
We are more than usually vulnerable to restrictive amenity legislation at the present time because the EEC is putting forward proposals. Our legislative control over the environment started well over 100 years ago. Many other countries gave very little thought to the environment until recently, and then they found that they were doing serious damage to it. Those countries are now rather like the reformed prostitute, than whom no one is more virtuous. But, in addition, modern science has given us more sophisticated methods of analysis which can reveal remote dangers of which we were previously happily unconscious.
Examination of hot spring water in other parts of the world showed that it contained an amoeba. Following this discovery, the spa waters at Bath were examined, and it was found that there was an amoeba in them. That water had been bathed in and had been drunk for 2,000 years. Now the Roman baths at Bath are drained and, while you can get a drink of water from the faucets in the Pump Room, you will get from those faucets exactly the same water that you could get from any kitchen sink in Bath. Really, I think that we are getting to the stage where we are running away from our own shadows.
What ought we to learn from this? In the first place, I think that we should remind ourselves, if we are foolish enough to think of death as a hazard and not simply as an incident, that the greatest risk we run is that of dying from natural causes, and we ought to remember that

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man-made risks are very small as compared with that risk. Secondly, we ought to remember that we are not far removed from those early men who lived by taking risks. We are not removed by so many generations from the men who lived only by taking risks. I wonder whether, if we try to shield men from every conceivable risk—though I do not think that we should expose them to unnecessary risks—we may overstrain their ethological adaptability, and, if we get to that stage, may they not seek to adjust to ancestral habits by creating risks for themselves, sometimes in a way which is socially undesirable? We are, I think, reaching the stage when we are frightened of our own shadows.
Thirdly, I suggest that we should learn to think lovingly of the environment as something that is constantly changing and which, like ourselves, has always changed. Fourthly, we should learn that most men and women want to live in a technologically progressive world and that the man who demands technological progress but who at the same time distrusts all technologists is going to be both unhappy and dissatisfied.
4.40 p.m.
Lord DULVERTON: My Lords, if in following so eminent a speaker as the noble Lord, Lord Hinton of Bankside, I seem to take a somewhat different line from him, I should like to say how much I have enjoyed his words of wisdom and the thoughts which he has just given to us. With so many of them one must agree, but may I offer to noble Lords one of two thoughts from a person who is involved in the conservation movement—as a trustee in this country of the World Wildlife Fund and as a member in Scotland of the Nature Conservancy Council.
I shall start by reminding noble Lords that we live at a time when, mercifully, there is a growing awareness that our abundant and, in some senses, successful species, homo sapiens, is on a headlong course towards destroying the only planet that we have. If you go to the Wild-fowl Trust at Slimbridge, you will find among the display models devised by one of the world's greatest leaders in conservation, Sir Peter Scott, a prominent notice proclaiming,
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"This particular panel portrays the most destructive and dangerous animal the world has ever known".
When, with aroused curiosity, you approach closer to peer, you are regaled with your own reflection, framed in a mirror, and of course your reaction is, "Not me, but all the other thousands of millions of us".
Today this House takes cognisance of our responsibilities as modern-day humans, and considers and weighs the balance of the demands of human comforts and conflicts against the practical difficulties of pursuing these interests without destroying ultimately the finite resources which make life itself possible. What other forum is there in the wide world of the ancients, which we now know to be a tiny harbour for life in the infinity, better able to discuss such problems with dispassionate but diversely informed experience than your Lordships' House? It is not easy to think of one. The noble Baroness, Lady Robson of Kiddington, deserves the thanks of all of us here and of the human animal everywhere for introducing this debate. I am particularly glad that the noble Baroness mentioned the problem of the farmer, who on the one hand is being advised by the Ministry of Agriculture to drain his fields but who, on the other, is being advised by the Department of the Environment not to drain them. I hope that that problem will be noted because the giving of advice and, indeed, the giving of grants needs to be co-ordinated.
To balance and reconcile economic and environmental needs and demands is not an easy exercise. Assuming that the human race, with its internecine tendencies and enormous destructive power, acquired through science, does not destroy itself—which is apt to be nature's way with lemmings and other imbalances between population and resources—wisdom and common sense will need to be harnessed to the wider knowledge of environmental factors if the wheels are to be kept turning in manners that can be reconciled with conservation. The recruits to the conservation awareness, which happily has come about recently, are sometimes led into an excess of zeal which, by exceeding the bounds of commonsense, endangers the very causes which they espouse. Do not let us be blinded by this to the cogency of the conservation cause.

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The land, the sea, the freshwater rivers, the gaseous atmosphere itself which we not only breathe but which regulates, in delicate balance, the influence of the sun's radiation reaching the earth are all being influenced measurably, if not devastatingly, by human activity and devices. The wildlife, from the whales and the elephants to the microscopic organisms, or the giants of the tropical rain forests to the most humble of the vegetable world, are being destroyed by the sophisticated means of exploitation now available and/or by the constriction and destruction of the habitat on which they depend.
I wonder how much the Book of Genesis is responsible for this. Despite the corrective messages of 2,000 years ago, our civilisation has developed largely remembering the Judaeo-theology which we seem to have acted upon. Verse 28 of Genesis, Chapter 1, reads:
"Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air and over every living thing that moveth upon earth".
My goodness, have we done that? But we on this side of the House certainly have a saying that rights and privileges carry their responsibilities, and on both sides of the House we must agree that we have not exercised these responsibilities well.
We have harried to extinction 200 species of animals in the last 300 years; and 300 years is a moment in time in terms of evolution. We have a longish list of others under dire threat. There is the same sort of story in the vegetable world; and our fellow beings are destroying, right now, the tropical forests with their immense influence—note this, my Lords—not only on a vast population of wildlife but on the climatology of the world. We are demolishing it at a rate of 75 acres a minute.
We in our own island are still allowing the brick and concrete jungles to sprawl over precious acres of rich and scarce alluvial land, while leaving the peri-urban wasteland, as other noble Lords have pointed out, to become a useless eyesore. We are polluting our rivers and streams while extracting water from their sources and springs. We pride ourselves on clearing up the Thames and the Severn,
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while ignoring the damage to their feeder streams. We are over-fishing the oceans, from whales to whitebait; and goodness knows what we are doing to the plankton by upsetting the balance of nature, spilling oil all over the place from colossal and careless tankers and filling the oceans with the insidious poison of heavy metals and man-made toxic chemicals.
This is especially dangerous because we are also filling the atmosphere with carbon dioxide at a rate higher than that at which natural agencies are able to break it down again into its constituent elements and release the life-giving oxygen. This, which stems from our enormously increased burning of fuels, together with the almost incredible damage to the ozone in the upper atmosphere through the use of aerosol sprays—which surely ought to be banned, although they are one of life's quite nice conveniences—could, so the scientists tell us, destroy the atmosphere's capacity to filter the solar rays in such a way as to make the earth a place incapable of supporting life.
Lord ZUCKERMAN: My Lords, if I may interrupt the noble Lord on a question of fact, is he quite certain that what he has just said about the ozone layer is the current view of the majority of those scientists who can speak with authority on the subject?
Lord DULVERTON: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman, for his intervention. The sea is also of enormous importance in the job of breaking down the carbon dioxide. As the noble Lord will know, the billions of plankton in the sea have an important part to play in that process.
On land the trees and the forests are an efficient agency in performing this task of converting carbon dioxide back into its constituent elements. Man has been destroying the trees for thousands of years, which partly accounts for the deserts of the world. At the same time, man continues to need timber in ever increasing quantities and the national forests of the world cannot keep up with his mechanised inroads on them. To this, plantation forestry is the only answer, and some of your Lordships may not be surprised to hear me take the opportunity of repeating the message that we, in our

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tiny island, must take the global view and do all we can to expand our forestry effort, whatever our critics may have to say. The forestry industry is aware of its responsibilities towards environmental interests. At the present time I am involved as a member of NCC's Scottish Committee in the exercise of working out their policy paper on nature conservation and forestry, and I hope it is not inappropriate for me to give what is purely a personal expression of belief, that these two interests can, with a little give and take, advance purposefully together.
Before I sit down I should like to say how glad I was to hear the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Guildford mention the need for environmental education in the young. J very much hope that my noble friend and colleague on the World Wildlife Fund, Lord Craigton, may be saying something about that later, so, I will not do so now.
4.52 p.m.
Lord AVEBURY: My Lords, we have just listened to an interesting contrast between the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Hinton of Bankside, speaking for the technologists and that of the noble Lord, Lord Dulverton, speaking for the environmentalists. At some points one could hardly have imagined that they were taking part in the same debate. This may be partly due to the wide terms in which the Motion is couched, but I suspect that it also has some bearing on the fact that the mutual incomprehension between technologists and environmentalists has proved extremely difficult to break down and we have not yet learned how to get them to speak each other's language.
The noble Lord, Lord Parry, made the comment that we were taking time out from confrontation this afternoon and I think it is very difficult, while Britain is in the grip of such severe economic and industrial troubles, to generate interest in the questions of conservation and the environment. Perhaps we can take consolation in the fact that so many noble Lords are taking part in the debate this afternoon, although of course this is not a reflection of the interest outside. People may be inclined to say that the restoration of industrial and economic stability should be our first priority and that we can return to the matters which we are discus-
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sing this afternoon when we have some order on the economic front. I would quarrel with that view because I think the two subjects are connected in one important respect. People want to increase their material consumption because that is held up to them as the only worthwhile objective for the human race and that perhaps is the one question on which all the voices of authority are agreed. We find that the shop steward and the big businessman, the Marxist and the capitalist all say the same thing—that we must increase our material consumption without limit; and the vast and powerful resources of the advertising industry are devoted to persuading everybody to consume more, even of products which are harmful to them, such as tobacco and alcohol.
So, when large groups of workers go on strike for higher wages which can only give them greater purchasing power at the expense of the rest of the community, why should we be surprised? I do not think that the root cause of this phenomenon is excessive trade union power or—with great respect to the right reverend Prelate—technological progress. I think mass greed is the answer because that is being stimulated and encouraged by the most powerful forces in our society. The Bible calls it "pleonexia", sometimes translated, I believe, as "ruthless greed." It has become almost axiomatic that material growth will continue as far ahead in time as we can foresee and that means of course that everybody will grab for himself as large a slice of the loot as he can. Unfortunately, even those who are most successful in this selfish struggle do not find that they enjoy greater contentment or satisfaction. The gold which they strive for rapidly turns to dross, and yet we are subject to such a barrage of propaganda in favour of growth that I believe we have no free choice and, if I may say so, I think that is the answer to the noble Baroness, Lady Young, who asked whether people really wanted zero growth or whether that was something which they would reject if they were given the opportunity of making a choice.
I think it is possible to make some fairly general predictions about the kind of society we can foresee for the 21st century if growth remains our overriding objective. There will be periodic eruptions of extreme social unrest caused by the failure of the economic system to

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satisfy the unrealistic expectations of groups of workers. There will be enormous man-made disasters where mistakes are made on the frontiers of technology. As examples which have already occurred I might mention the explosions in large tankers, such as the appalling tragedy which occurred the other day in Bantry Bay, in which 50 lives were lost; the collapse of box girder bridges; the explosion at the Flixborough Caprolactam plant; the thalidomide disaster, which my noble friend Lady Robson mentioned; the Turkish airlines DC 10 crash; the destruction of Ronan Point; and the spillage of 2,000 tons of oil the other day in Sullom Voe.
It is possible that we shall become so used to these catastrophes that they will drop out of the news altogether but meanwhile we tend to treat them as isolated events which are followed as a matter of course by public inquiries. Some mention has been made of the value of public inquiries this afternoon as though that was really the answer to the catastrophes and as though, so long as one had a public inquiry afterwards, it did not matter if the catastrophe occurred. These identify the causes and they sometimes lead to their elimination by further advances in technology, which in turn carry their own risks.
I believe there will also be large-scale adverse health effects caused by the release of harmful industrial materials into the biosphere. I shall give one example of that in a moment, to show that we have been dangerously complacent about a particular material. Finally, I believe there will be interruptions of supply and discontinuities of price in essential raw materials, such as we saw in the case of crude oil in 1973. These will occur particularly in oil, natural gas, uranium—and the noble Lord Lord Hinton spoke about the possibility of a uranium famine towards the end of the century—but also very likely in certain essential industrial metals such as copper. I think this will be a really uncomfortable world to live in and yet no alternative is ever presented to us, and it seems virtually impossible to get official agencies to consider the ingredients of a non-growth strategy.
When the noble Baroness, Lady Young, was attacking the latter-day disciples of
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Rousseau, I think she was tilting at an insignificant target because the number of people who advocate a total return to nature is, of course, infinitesimal. No one is really suggesting that we should do that. But, on the question of a nil growth economy, I have on several occasions asked the Department of Energy to consider the implications of zero growth. When I first raised the matter, following the publication of the Department's paper, Energy R and D in the United Kingdom, at a symposium at the Royal Society of Arts in June 1976, the then chief scientist of the Department of Energy, Dr. Walter Marshall, said that my suggestions would be examined.
What I proposed was taking the low growth scenario we were offered in the Department's paper and feeding into that the energy conservation effects from the high growth model and the coal and renewable resources contribution from the non-nuclear model. The chief scientist said that would be examined. Nothing happened. So I repeated the proposal in the debate we had in this House on the Flowers Report in December 1976 and again in the debate on energy policy in May 1977, when I also said that it was absurd to suppose, as the Department's Energy Policy Review, just published, did say, that oil prices would rise in real terms by only 50 to 100 per cent. by the end of the century. In October 1977, I referred to the proposal yet again at the Royal Institution Forum on Nuclear Power and the Energy Future which was attended by Dr. John Cunningham, the Under-Secretary of State in the Department of Energy. I am sorry to say that none of these initiatives elicited any response.
Now, however, we have for study the very interesting paper of the IIED, A Low Energy Strategy for the United Kingdom, which was referred to by my noble friend Lady Robson in her brilliant and thoughtful speech. I very much hope that the Department will take this paper as seriously as it deserves, because the authors claim to show that we could be self-sufficient in North Sea oil and gas to the end of the century; that coal production could be maintained at 120 million tonnes a year; that—with great respect to the noble Lord, Lord Hinton—no more than 30 gigawatts of new nuclear plant should be required

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by the year 2000, compared with the 83 gigawatts in the Department's reference forecast; that the fast breeder reactor could be shelved indefinitely, and that all this could be achieved with the same kind of economic growth as the Government postulate. That last claim I must say I take with a pinch of salt, because it would mean that certain activities would be responsible for a much higher output to balance the savings which are claimed in the energy sector. But I entirely accept the broad conclusion of this paper that we could use much less energy than we use today without going in for what one might call a hairshirt economy.
I believe that the Government ought now to follow up this excellent work of the NED. As Mr. Gerald Leach, one of the authors of the paper, pointed out in New Scientist, the Government have to set standards for energy consumption in building through the building regulations, and Government-led industrial agreement is needed to secure economies in other uses such as road vehicles, cookers and electrical white goods. Fie also says that determined efforts have to be made to provide consumers of all kinds with information about better practices, technologies and techniques. While the Department of Energy has made a start with its official list of fuel consumption tests on passenger cars, and the Advertising Standards Authority has made an important contribution in recently issuing new guidance to the heating fuel industries on the claims that they make in their advertisements, I believe that a lot more has to be done before we can be satisfied that the public has adequate information on which to make proper choices.
I mentioned the risk of adverse effects on public health of industrial materials. Asbestos is an example of a substance which had been very widely used as a construction material before it was discovered that it could give rise to extremely unpleasant diseases such as mesothelioma and asbestosis. I think we are more conscious of these risks now, but the asbestos industry did fight a very powerful rearguard action against the imposition of more stringent precautions and much remains to be done.
However, asbestos is not the only substance. Take one other example the hazards of which are not yet so clearly
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recognised, airborne lead. The conservation society of which I have the honour to be president took a deputation to see Mr. Denis Howell, the Minister of State responsible for this problem, on 12th April last year. At that meeting, there was a Department of Health and Social Security adviser who dismissed every reference to evidence of harm caused by airborne lead as unscientific. At the conclusion of the meeting the Minister suggested that we, the conservation society, with our very limited resources, should submit a paper, which could be examined by the experts in the Department, on the health effects. We as a society, of course, are not in a position to carry out widescale scientific studies of that kind and original research of our own, but we scanned through the literature of the previous 18 months and were able to quote no fewer than 63 references entirely supporting the conclusion reached by the US Environmental Protection Agency, for example, that
"Lead particle emissions from motor vehicles present a significant risk of harm to the health of urban populations, particularly to the health of city children".
In Britain a study by the UK Atomic Energy Authority at Harwell published last November showed that blood lead levels are twice as high as previously thought for a given concentration in the atmosphere; at the highest exposure, for example, in the neighbourhood of a busy motorway, people can take in about the same amount of lead from the air as they can in the diet. The Government's response to this alarming state of affairs has been to publish regulations bringing the lead content of petrol down to a maximum of 0·4 grams per litre by 1981. We shall still then be three times as high as the Federal Republic of Germany has achieved already. The Department has also set up a working party to review the overall health effect of environmental lead from all sources, which includes several persons who are strongly and publicly committed to the view that lead poisoning is a myth. Ultimately I dare say the public may wake up to the damage that lead may be causing, particularly to children.
The point I want to make in going through this in some detail is that lead poisoning is only one of a very large number of unwanted side effects of the continued growth of material consumption. What we should be aiming at, I believe,

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instead is a world in which everybody's need for shelter, clothing, warmth, food and transport is met at the lowest possible cost in resources and that the endless multiplication of wants is curtailed. I think we should be living in a healthier, safer, more contented and satisfying place if that was our objective.
5.8 p.m.
Lord AUCKLAND: My Lords, I join in the tributes paid to the noble Baroness, Lady Robson, both for the subject she has chosen to debate today and for the very clear way in which she presented her case. The word "environment" has really only come into our national dictionary to any great extent over perhaps the past 20 years. It was possibly the great smog in 1952 which blanketed London—I was then living in London and felt the effects quite considerably, as no doubt did many of your Lordships—which caused many deaths and much discomfort, which really alerted the nation to the extent that pollution in the air, due to chimneys belching out smoke and so on, was really affecting the environment. Since then much has been done in this country, particularly through the creation of smokeless zones and so on, to make the air fit to breathe, although there are a number of hazards, for example, the emission of exhaust from motor vehicles and so on, notably on motorways on occasions, which do still tend to pollute the atmosphere.
About eight years ago my wife and I were in Los Angeles for a few days en route to New Zealand. We stayed with charming hosts in Burbank. As twilight was falling we looked down upon a lovely view of the city and I saw something which was blue. In my innocence I said to my hostess, "Is that the sea?". She said, "No, honey, it's the smog". I think that that is perhaps an indication of how we in this country do not really recognise how much pollution exists in other countries. As a corollary to that, I must admit that during my visit to Los Angeles the amount of smog which I personally saw was far less than I had been led to believe from my researches about that very fine city. I understand that in the past several years much has been done to alleviate the nickname of "the city of smog",
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as well as other rather unkind things which are said about it.
We in this country are very proud of our environment and countryside. Even this morning as I walked some of the way towards London from my home near Leatherhead in Surrey—I did so for the obvious reason of the shortage of trains—I noticed, despite the hazards of the ice and snow, how very beautiful the countryside looked, covered with the snow and frost, even though I was only 20 miles from London. Perhaps that is some consolation in these rather grave times. However, there is a great row in my area about the extension of the M25; this is causing a great deal of discussion, debate and argument in many parts of Surrey. People want faster traffic. They want to get through a town like Leatherhead, for example, which has a bypass which tends to slow up traffic even more. We can only enable people to get through such towns faster by, perhaps, building a new road, but in doing that the environment is polluted by the various machines used. It is the old, old story about progress and power, but perhaps that is oversimplifying matters to some extent.
There are two areas that I should like to mention. One is in North Wales, at Bar-mouth which used to be in Merioneth—I am not sure what it is called now, perhaps Dyfed or one of the other new names—which I visited several years ago and where Rio Tinto is, or has been, exploiting tin. There has been a great row from those who wish to preserve that very lovely area, particularly the famous panorama walk. Then there is Dartmoor, which the noble Barones, Lady Seear, has sought to protect from the ravages, as she calls it, of those who try to mine Cornish china clay.
One can also use the Services as an example. During my service in the Territorial Army I was sent to camp on the Norfolk/Suffolk border, near Thetford, to a place called Stamford Training Camp—a name known to many of your Lordships. In order to turn that area into a tank training ground a great deal of beautiful agricultural and scenic land and a particularly lovely church had to be uprooted. One is faced with the dilemma: which is the more important; that the Territorial Army should have a tank training centre, or that we should preserve some very lovely rural countryside? I have seen talking about

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the early 1950s; but that training ground still exists and I believe, albeit reluctantly, that it is necessary that it should exist despite the fact that some very lovely country has had to be impaired so that that situation can be achieved.
As regards Scotland, where I lived for many years, I recall the great rows which ensued when the hydro-electric schemes came into operation. There was a great dilemma as regards the protection of the environment and some particularly lovely country against alleged despoliation through the erection of pylons, the flooding of farms and so on. Some of your Lordships may know the dam at Loch Faskally near Pitlochry. By some very fine architecture a dam was constructed which made the area even more attractive and, indeed, the fishing has been substantially improved. The same can be said of many of these schemes. But at the time, quite understandably, those who lived in the area were highly suspicious about what might happen.
As regards recycling, of course we throw away an enormous number of bottles and other things. Glass is a very expensive product to manufacture, and I wonder whether the Ministry has any figures about how much glass is lost through being thrown in the dustbin instead of being recycled. As a country we have to import—I do not know the exact figure—something like £800 million worth of minerals per year. If that is an exaggeration, I stand be to corrected. However, whether or not it is true, the figure is substantial.
Our economy would improve to an enormous extent if we could make ourselves far more self-sufficient with the mineral resources we have, even though on occasion we need to clash with the environmentalists who consider that the protection of our countryside is the more vital. Indeed, vital it is. There is no doubt whatever that many of the tourists who come to England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, come to see not only Westminster Abbey, Stratford-on-Avon, and so on, but the Lake District and our hills, mountains and countryside.
The debate which we have had today has thrown out a real challenge to both sides. It can only be hoped that as we go into the 1990s, and with scientific progress moving ahead as it is, the
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problems involved in keeping our lovely countryside and at the same time making more use of our mineral wealth in order to solve some of our economic problems, can be resolved.
5.20 p.m.
Lord HATCH of LUSBY: My Lords, I join with previous speakers in thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Robson of Kiddington, for introducing this debate which, after all, is a debate concerning the whole future of the human race. Some noble Lords have confined themselves to the definition of the environment as it applies to this country; others have extended it further to the planet as a whole. I propose to take the latter course.
The debate has also highlighted one of the highest handicaps of our democratic system. A number of the speeches so far—and I include the speech which I am about to make—would never be included in the manifestos of any of our political Parties for the simple reason that if they were, they would lose votes. In the absence of the noble Baroness, Lady Young, I ask one of her colleagues to pass on to her this challenge. The noble Baroness spoke of the dangers—indeed, I believe she spoke of the impossibility—of a nil-growth economy. But she then added "Of course, there are limits to growth". I should like to know when that limit is reached. Has it been reached? What does the noble Baroness mean and what do noble Lords opposite mean by reaching the limit of growth?
I shall suggest that although the test for national growth, as usually taken by the GNP, is often very inaccurate and needs to be changed, it may well be that at least we should consider whether in the industrialised world—indeed, including the East of Europe—that form of growth has not reached its reasonable limit. This is a matter of some political dispute. I was glad to hear the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, point out how materialistic general public opinion in this country has become, starting from infancy and going through the educational system. So long as political leaders in this country talk about the advantage of gaining £1 million by the age of 30, or talk about the necessity of increased rewards for high skills, so

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long shall we continue to measure our population, our people, our neighbours by their wealth and affluence.
I make that point because I want to challenge the whole concept which seems to have bedazzled the eyes of politicians of all Parties in this country that economic growth is an essential first priority in our political system. If, as I think most Members of this House would agree, it has now been established that the basic resources of mankind are finite—that is, energy, raw materials and foodstuffs—surely we must look at how they will be distributed in the 21st century. I say "in the 21st century" because it is no good starting in the year 2000. Unless we start to look at the prospect for our children and our grand-children now, it will certainly be too late by the time they are adults.
When one considers that without any question we now know that the population of the world will double in the next 30 years, whatever form and however successful policies of birth control may be, and when we know that therefore there will be 8,000 million people living on this planet who have to be fed and who have to find shelter and clothes, then this is an appalling cataclysmic legacy that we are leaving to future generations.
I should like to give one example from the environmental field which illustrates the kind of global problem which we now face and which shows how that will be multiplied exponentially by the next century. I refer your Lordships to the most revealing report published by the World Bank last August and to the division it makes between the various forms of wealth of different countries in the world. I shall encapsulate this simply in the generality that among the poorest countries of the world—that is, those with an average annual per capita income of no more than 150 dollars—the unit of energy used was 52. If any noble Lord wishes, I can explain the unit, but I simply use this as a matter of comparison. Fifty-two units per year were used by countries with an average annual per capita income of 150 dollars. For those of us in the industrial world with an average annual per capita income of over 6,000 dollars a year, the use of energy was almost exactly 100 times greater—over 5,000 units per year.
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I am told by those who support the concept of essential economic growth that the only way in which the poor people of the world can be brought up to modern standards is by increasing their growth by pulling them along in the wake of the growth of the industrial countries. That theory has now been totally exploded. We have seen that it just does not happen. Again, from the report of the World Bank I shall take the years from 1960 to 1976. During that period, the poor countries of which I spoke had a growth of 0·9 per cent. per year. The rich countries had a growth of 3·4 per cent. per year. What does that mean in terms of the 21st century? Surely it is an inevitable scenario that here we face the prospect of the two worlds getting wider and wider apart, with the poor world increasing rapidly in numbers—much more rapidly than the rich world—with resources becoming scarcer, and therefore inevitably social and political disorder. Therefore, inevitably a scramble for those resources, and a scramble in which our children and our grandchildren will suffer the dangers of the kind of war that is already being projected, as uranium spreads around this planet.
I have said that those who believe in material rewards as the test of the worth of the individual are aggravating this attitude of materialism which has spread throughout the industrial world. I think they have already shown just what happens when materialism is a first priority. We heard from the noble Lord who spoke last about the beauties of the Surrey countryside. I should like to take him to Lord Parry's area of South Wales, and to the industrial areas of Scotland. I should like to take him to where I was brought up in the coal and textile areas of Lancashire, or to the North-East, or to any of the industrial areas where there are empty factories and scarred hillsides. This is what materialism as a first priority has done to this country.
But what is it doing to the part that this country plays in the world as a whole? I am happy to follow the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Guildford in what he said about the responsibility of this country to the inhabitants of the planet as a whole. Unless we in this country can use our inventive skills and experience in innovation, the imagination and the intelligence that distinguishes the

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human being from all other animal species, in looking ahead and planning ahead, then we are leaving a desperately dangerous legacy to future generations.
May I say that everything that has been said in this debate points clearly to that central issue of modern politics, indeed of politics for the last 3,000 years; the balance between the responsibility of the community and the rights of the individual. But in this case unless the community, through its elected members, through its institutions, is prepared to prevent those market forces of the individual and the collection of powerful individuals from carrying out their work undisturbed, then we are going to see the 21st generation leave behind the depredations, the rape of the environment, that we saw in the 19th century. We are going to see the danger to future generations of that scramble for scarce resources, that destruction of our natural environment, to which previous speakers have referred, that can endanger the future of the human race itself.
May I finally make one specific proposal to my noble friend who will wind up. 1 have made it clear that so far as I am concerned this is an ideological issue. It is only by the principles of Socialism, as I see them, that the environment of the future can be preserved. It cannot be left to the market forces. It cannot be left to the individual entrepreneur. It cannot be left to the person who is urged to gain his million by the age of 30, or to seek the highest rewards that his organisation can provide. Above all, it cannot be left to the multinational companies that flit from country to country according to where they find it most useful, and most convenient, to escape from local taxes.
I believe that there are members of all Parties, and of no Party, who are concerned about the future of the human race, as I have tried to outline it. I should like to suggest to my noble friend that she considers and responds to the setting up of a committee or a council composed of members of all, and no, Parties, plus members of the public particularly concerned with conservation, with the environment; people who have spent many years in this work. I know that no Party dare go out with this as a high priority in its manifesto, but such a committee could
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advise Governments of any nature on new legislation that is coming out. They could make proposals to Governments as to how the environment can be protected in a whole manner of different ways.
I would suggest that on the experience that we have had in a similar committee in the Ministry of Overseas Development, it would be possible to have a watchdog that would report to the Ministry of the Environment, of any Party of any Government, to ensure that there are those people committed to the future of the human race on this planet who can give some leadership and some advice to the contribution of Britain to the preservation of humanity.
5.37 p.m.
Lord CRAIGTON: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Hatch of Lusby, like the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, has given us the ideals and theories which, put together, form the basis of the right policies that we have to pursue in conservation in the future. I must bring your Lordships down to some of the practicalities of the way we have to tackle these policies. My noble friend Lord Dulverton goaded me into saying something about environmental agitation, which the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Guildford mentioned. I must shortly do what he has asked.
We had a symposium about environmental education in schools, universities, and colleges, just the other day at the Royal Society of Arts. The noble Lord, Lord Sandford, I think is the chairman of the Council for Environmental Education. Speaking personally, the kindest thing 1 can say is that I was amazed, horrified, to realise how far we had to go in this country before there would be proper and adequate environmental education in schools for our growing children. Two years ago, as chairman of CoEnCo—the Committee for Environmental Conservation—I had asked for a report on out of school environmental education. It is now known as the Witherington Report. It covered some 2½ million boys and girls who were members of active youth clubs. What were they doing about environmental education. The answer came loud and clear; together they were doing nothing. Some were of themselves doing nothing at all. Where anything was

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being done it was completely uncoordinated. Without the assistance of my noble friend Lord Dulverton this would not have happened; we in CoEnCo started a youth unit to co-ordinate out of school environmental education, something that had not been done before, and we are amazed and excited at how much there is to be done and how successfully one can do it. I realise that unless we deal with environmental education as a priority, the next generation will not know what they have to face.
In the Motion, Lady Robson calls attention to the need to reconcile economic and environmental factors in social and industrial policy-making, and I wish to speak about industrial policy-making. The difficulty here is that so many of those responsible for the policies of their firms and organisations—policies that affect the environment—are not always aware of what all the factors are. Some, such as smoke and effluent pollution, are obvious, but some, such as industrial noise, energy conservation, nature conservation, wildlife protection and so on, might not yet be perceived as environmental factors at all. That is not surprising because all the factors cover nearly the whole spectrum of industrial endeavour. That is the situation I had to face when, as chairman of CoEnCo, I set out to co-ordinate all the industrial, environmental knowledge and experience of my distinguished member bodies to produce, especially for the smaller firms, a book of reference under the title Industry and the Environment. It was a sort of senior executive's guide to the conservation policies that might be practised by his firm. In the end we came to the conclusion that the most useful and constructive method was to draw attention in each chapter to one of the broad sectors into which all these factors are grouped, and we have to cover the whole field: air pollution, water pollution, waste disposal and reclamation, the preservation of land and landscapes, the siting of buildings and so on. In each such chapter the book describes the factors in general terms and, if that particular subject could apply to his own business, tells the executive where he can apply for further information.
The factors, we found, are far too many and varied to be dealt with in any
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other way in one book, but there is so much help and information available to those who seek it, and not only from the specialist voluntary organisations; it is also available from the Government Departments concerned. The Departments have built up a considerable volume of constructive and helpful literature. They can now offer a large amount of advice and a welcome, but not so large, amount of financial help. If, as a result of this debate, the Government do no more than increase their already substantial efforts to publicise the services they can now provide, this debate will have been worth while.
So far, therefore, one problem as yet not overcome is that every industrialist, every industry, that has environmental problems and possibilities of improvement, should know what those problems and possibilities are. At present that can be said of only a few. A growing number of our major industries have their own environment departments; that is for them an essential part of their operations. Other industries have an environment officer working alone or doing duty also as a safety or fire precaution officer, or both. Here, there seems to be a need for some organised basic training courses to which such environment officers could be sent. I know of none, though I understand that the Department of Energy supports a scheme for identifying energy managers. Of course, energy conservation is, as the noble Baroness said, only one important part of the whole problem. I look forward to the time—and we shall get real results when it arrives—when the environment officer, reporting to a senior executive or working director, will be as much a recognised part of the organisation as are safety and fire officers today. Only then will environment be seen as an essential aspect of management and not a cover-up or conflict-avoiding operation.
As with fire and safety, the environment officer has available environmental consultancy services. These have increased in number in the last decade. They provide a service that may be quite beyond the capability of the firm concerned, who must have scientific and technical advice if they are to find the best solution to a pollution or similar problem. But in so many fields, once a firm realises that something should be

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done they will find their own way to do it. Our job is to try to point out to them what should be done.
Looked at from another angle, the Motion refers to the need "to balance and to reconcile", and that falls into two separate categories; the construction of new buildings and plant and necessary or desirable changes in existing structures and installations. In the field of new construction, great credit must be given to the Financial Times' Industrial Architecture Award and to the Business and Industry Panel for the Environment under the presidency of Sir Peter Parker, an organisation in which my noble friend Lord Sandford plays so important a part. These annual awards—and there are others—are stimulating a new awareness of exactly how well an industry, even a normally unsightly one, can be fitted into without offence, and can sometimes enhance both the scenery and the surroundings of people living in the neighbourhood. Of course some schemes have more than aesthetic considerations. There will always be major projects that require extremely detailed consideration. We in Britain, in common with the rest of Europe, are aware that before some major projects are started there should be a total evaluation of the proposals; that is, there should be an environmental impact assessment.
There is room for widely divergent views on the sort of projects and exactly how this costly and time-consuming assessment should be made. Meanwhile, the Secretary of State for the Environment, on 13th September, suggested a practical treatment of planning inquiries for the National Coal Board's proposed new coalfield at the Vale of Belvoir and the construction of a commercial fast breeder reactor, first elucidating the facts, then a public inquiry and finally, in the latter case, a Parliamentary debate. These proposals seem just about right at this time, when final decisions on environmental impact assessments have yet to be made. But in major or local public inquiries in which concervation measures are a factor, there is one other difficulty still to be met. In a typical case, a charitable organisation with perhaps a body of local people has to put forward its objections against a proposer who can afford to spend all that is necessary to prepare and speak for his side of the case. The
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objectors have not, and cannot be expected to have, the funds to fight such powerful interests on equal terms. There is already legal aid for citizens who show need. Is the time not overdue when financial aid to help present their case should be available to limited objectors who object to proposals which do not, in their view—and in the words of the Motion—reconcile the "economic and environmental factors" involved? That is a matter about which we must continue to press the Government.
So much for new buildings. The alterations to existing structures of course present a much greater variation. Whether the problem is effluent, fume cleansing, or waste disposal, it must be the polluter who pays. But there can be a bright side. I refer to the story of the North British Distilleries Company, as reported last October by Environmental Data Service Limited. The distillers were faced with an ultimatum: clean up, or shut down. They were discharging unacceptably polluting wash from their stills. The company decided to evaporate the wash and spent over £½ million a year on capital and processing charges. They sold the dried wash at £60 per ton for animal feed—it has probably gone up now—and they drew in £1,200,000 a year. So the result of eliminating that particular pollution was an annual profit of over £½ million.
But whether the anti-pollution measure is profitable, as in that case, or costly, as in most cases, there is good news from the Department of the Environment's Digest of Pollution Statistics; namely, that there has been in the last decade marked improvement in the quality of air and fresh water. But, my Lords, there is also bad news: there has been an increase in the complaints about noise. Moreover, there are as yet no satisfactory statistics. I feel that the Government and all concerned in this growing problem are taking far too leisurely a view of aircraft noise. They pay no more than lip-service to the majority of complaints, however legitimate, and seem to rely on the day some time in the late 1980s when quieter aircraft will be available. It simply is not good enough.
Aircraft noise pollution will soon be joined by another offender. The Noise Advisory Council was set up in 1970 to advise Ministers. The council's latest

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forecast is that by 1980 six million people in England will be living in houses where the road traffic noise levels exceed 68dB(A) which is the level used to assess eligibility for insulation grants. Need I say more?
I have tried to show the need to create, especially in the smaller industries, a greater awareness of their environmental harmony possibilities and dangers, and for an environment officer to become an accepted department in every firm. I have drawn attention to the need for Government help for objectors in environmental inquiries, and Government action, rather than lip-service, over aircraft noise, and perhaps later over traffic noise.
I wish that there were no other problems, but there are many, and I shall mention only two on which I have no constructive suggestions to offer. There is the difficulty of harmonising our island practices with those of the mainland Common Market countries. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Hinton of Bankside, has left the Chamber. Those of your Lordships who heard his magnificent speech will remember that he said he was happy to be abroad and not worried about amenity considerations. There is the danger of other nations saying to our heavily polluting industries, "Build here and you can pollute as much as you like." But I do not despair. We win some battles, we lose others, but we are making progress all the time.
5.54 p.m.
Lord NATHAN: My Lords, I greatly regret that I was not present at the commencement of the debate due to difficulties with the trains, and I therefore apologise to the noble Baroness, Lady Robson of Kiddington, for not having heard her speech, although I was fortunate enough to hear the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Young. I much look forward to reading the report of the speech of Lady Robson. I was particularly interested in the terms of the Motion which has been put down, and for which we are all very grateful, which refers (if I may abbreviate it) to the need to reconcile and balance industry and the environment; and that is the particular area on which I wish to speak.
It seems to me that the environmental interests in which I have long shared have
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been greatly harmed by those extremists to whom the noble Lord, Lord Dulverton, referred, who seem to have put it about that in all circumstances industry is an evil—a necessary enemy perhaps, but evil all the same. I think it is as foolish to make that point on the environmental side as it is for the industrialist to scorn all interest in the environment as being of no concern to him. These extreme views, which possibly came to the fore most of all in the 1960s, have now to a large extent fallen away; and fallen away perhaps precisely because of the oil crisis in 1973 and the recognition that we depend for our lives on industry, and indeed that the environment depends on industry.
I should like to confine my few remarks not to the opposition between environment and industry, but to the contribution of industry to the environment, and, secondly, to the point that in many cases industry is the environment. Of course one turns to thoughts of the countryside. If I speak in terms of energy representing industry it is because I was chairman of a working party on energy and the environment whose report was published some years ago. With regard to agriculture, the input of energy is enormous. It is represented by the energy expended in the manufacture of tractors. I think I am right in saying that someone has calculated that the equivalent of 46,000 kilowatt hours of energy goes into the manufacture of a 50 horsepower tractor. Fertilisers require energy for their creation. Someone has calculated that one kilogram of nitrogen fertiliser requires 2·2 kilowatt hours of energy to produce it. The figures are certainly not within my knowledge, although I have read them, but I believe the point is clear; namely, that agriculture as practised in this country demands enormous industrial resources.
Therefore, when one gazes down from the hills of Devon upon the rich fields beneath, or when travelling back from the Continent one looks out of the window on to the patchwork fields of Sussex, and says, "How glorious this environment is", it must be remembered that the environment is in part made by, and certainly enhanced by, industry. I believe that this point is not sufficiently often taken. This point struck me very much while listening to the very interesting speech of the noble Lord, Lord Hatch of Lusby,

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who I am sorry is not in his place at the moment. He referred to the underdeveloped countries and to their needs.
It is not sufficiently often recognised that quite shortly there will be very large numbers of cities of 10 million or more inhabitants, and these will be not in the developed world, but in the underdeveloped world. They constitute now, and will continue to constitute, perhaps the most uncivilised, the most terrible environment that man has ever endured. In so far as we have any power to take action at all, one is entitled to ask whether we are to leave the situation as it is, or are we at least to envisage that energy shall be introduced there in order to alleviate that position? When you think of the houses, the alleyways, the stinking sewers, the untreated water, the high-rise buildings—flats and offices—the warehouses and the factories, and when you think of the teeming millions going to and fro every day, are they to be unserved by those elements of civilisation to which we are so readily accustomed? Are we to say that industry is of no consequence to them to improve their environment by light, heat and the facilities to which I have referred? This seems to me unthinkable.
That brings me to a point which I think is relevant to this debate, and I am very sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Hinton, is not here to correct me, because he is the person, above all, who will keep one on the right lines when talking about energy. I think that one of the great political difficulties we are up against, and are increasingly going to be up against, is the question of the provision of energy for the under-developed countries. If they go for nuclear energy, they are going to become almost wholly politically dependent upon the developed world, because only the developed world has the technology and the highly skilled manpower, not only to make these machines but also to maintain them and service them; and this is a political element, it seems to me, in the whole of this energy complex. Is it desirable, in the interests of the under-developed countries, that they should become so dependent for energy, which is so vital to them, on the developed world? It is a question to which I think there will have to be an answer.
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The second point, which was raised indirectly, I think, by the noble Lord, Lord Hatch, related to agriculture and the population. If the population is going to increase—and my information of projections is exactly the same as his—to the level that he envisages, an enormous explosion of population, that population will have to be fed, and the food can be produced only by land and skills with the assistance of industrial products. This will have to be foreseen, and the problems with regard to energy consumption will have to be dealt with. I am afraid that was a diversion, but I was prompted to it by the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Hatch.
My Lords, may I turn for just one moment to another topic? Of course, the contribution which industry can and does make to the environment, both rural and urban, is unfortunately complemented by the damage that it can and does do to the environment in both rural areas and the cities, and I think it is worth considering one aspect which has not, I think, been touched upon today in this very interesting debate. That relates to the size and location of factories, because their size and location do and must affect the environment. Not only do they affect it by way of the bricks and mortar, the noise and pollution and all the disagreeable elements; they also draw people to work there from great distances, disturb the local community and generate a traffic problem, as we all know.
One experiment in Devon which came to my notice seems to have worked well is the creation of a satellite factory employing 150 or so people, semi-skilled workers, to make components, which are shipped by one lorry a day to the assembly plant in a nearby town. The factory is built within an old mill, which had become derelict, in the village. Employment is thereby provided in the village. It enhances, not disrupts, the community; and traffic is reduced by moving the goods, not the people. It is perhaps an example which might be followed in the revival of inner cities. It is said that London is a collection of villages. The reinforcement of the existing village community in this way might do more than any number of grandiose schemes to improve the environment in the inner cities and, of course, reduce the traffic flow, which stifles the roads.

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I have wondered whether opposition on environmental grounds to the establishment in a rural area of industry, or the development of coal mining, requiring large numbers of specialist workers, is perhaps motivated, at least in part, by the disturbance of local community life more than by what are generally regarded as pure environmental factors. I think this is a very important matter when considering the environment and industry. Industry clearly needs the help of all those concerned for the environment in its widest sense, and some of its leaders, at any rate, have shown how enthusiastic they are to respond. Nowadays almost everyone is both a pedestrian and a motorist. In each capacity we know and respond to the other. Our objective should be to create the same relationship between the environmentalist and the industrialist.
6.7 p.m.
Lord SANDFORD: My Lords, I, too, must apologise to the noble Baroness for not having been here at the beginning of this debate, and I hope that in my remarks it will be seen that I have interpreted the purpose and the nature of it correctly. I am sure, if I may say so, the noble Baroness chose aright when she chose the words "to balance and to reconcile", and that is the theme I shall try to pursue. I think she is right, too, to concentrate upon industry because, after all, industry has very powerful impacts upon the environment. It occupies space in it, and the noble Lord, Lord Nathan, has just reminded us that the agricultural industry occupies the whole of the countryside. It also derives a tremendous number of its raw materials from the environment; it uses the environment to collect them, and to distribute its products; it puts all its waste materials into or onto the environment, either as liquid effluents, as emissions to the air or as solid wastes; and many of its products, when discarded, are left to be dealt with in the environment, like plastic containers, glass bottles and so on. So there is certainly need for industry to exercise a particular responsibility in the environment.
When there is plenty of room, as there was in this country 100 or 200 years ago, and when the amount of power and energy being used is slight—manpower, horse-
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power, waterpower or windpower—the factors that I have just mentioned are of little more than academic interest; but, as many speakers have said, and Lord Hatch with some anxiety, we are reaching the limits of growth, and in many cases we have reached the limits of growth. By that, I do not mean limits to all growth of any kind, but limits to any growth but of the right kind. From now on there are many fields in which, if there is growth, it can be only of a certain quality. I could perhaps now mention a little parable. I hope it has not been used in the debate already, and I apologise to noble Lords who have heard it before, because it is used frequently in these sort of discussions. It is the parable known as the tragedy of the commons, which I think illustrates what happens when the limits of growth are reached.
Take, my Lords, the situation where we have a common with, say, a grazing capacity of 65 cows and there are currently four herdsmen, each grazing 10 cows on it. Herdsman A, if the price on demand for milk goes up, can readily increase his herd to 20 and prosper—prosper better than he was prospering before—and herdsman B can do the same. Herdsman C, seeing how well A and B have been doing, would not have any difficulty in being persuaded by his accountant and by his solicitor that there is no reason why he should not double his herd. If he does, the grazing capacity of the commons will be exceeded and no one—no cow, at any rate—will be doing as well after that as before. If herdsman D increases his herd as well and we have 80 cows grazing on a commons with a capacity of 65, then I suggest that they will all go under. Notice what has happened. While there was plenty of room, it was possible to grow and to consider only the economic factors and, possibly, some legal ones. Once the limit of growth is reached then other factors come in and can only be disregarded at everybody's peril. At that point, it is no good appealing to people to act responsibly, because there is no frame-work against which to behave responsibly. At that point, therefore, the law, or some fiscal measure, needs to be introduced in order that people can go on acting responsibly and not be left with a choice between going under or surviving.
Then the question is: What kind of law and what kind of taxes or subsidies are

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needed to keep the whole machinery operating once the limits of growth have been reached. We have 100 years experience at least in this field. We have pioneered and led the world in the Industrial Revolution and we have made a number of mistakes; and the noble Lord, Lord Hatch, has rightly reminded us that there are signs of these still littering our industrial areas. But we have learned our lessons. There is on the Statute Book a mass of legislation controlling pollution and protecting the environment in this country. My noble friend Lord Craigton in his capacity as chairman of CoEnCo has produced, in the booklet that he mentioned, as compact and serviceable a collection of this material as I think it is possible to get between two covers—and very useful that will be. But what we need to remember is that it is not just a question of piling on the legislation but choosing the legislation with very considerable care and applying it with very considerable skill. We have to remember, despite our mistakes, that the environment is very resilient; it can safely absorb a considerable amount of pollution and waste material and recover quite successfully. There is no occasion, therefore, to go into a great panic and to start lumbering ourselves with anti-pollution legislation and protective legislation beyond what is needed by the environment as a whole and by particular parts of it.
Lord HATCH of LUSBY: My Lords, will the noble Lord allow me? In his analogy, would he not agree that, if the four herdsmen were working together cooperatively rather than in competition with each other, they would be able to avoid the necessity for that legislation which most of us have agreed comes from a centralised body that is frequently resented in the locality?
Lord SANDFORD: My Lords, the noble Lord must not press the analogy too far. Parables have their uses, but you cannot use them for everything. When there are 10 herdsmen, one would hope that the idea of getting into a co-operative or a collective might occur to one of them. But, if you are dealing with whole nations and, particularly, whole continents, I think you must have recourse to proper legislation and use all the democratic machinery to get the legislation right. Some of my noble
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friends might not like my saying this, but I think that at the limits of growth you reach a point where you cannot rely on market forces alone to get the right answer: you must have legislation and fiscal arrangements as well. I think we found that in our experience.
We also found that it is no good applying legislation which is more rigorous than it need be; for that is burdening industry with unnecessary cost. I serve on Sub-Committee G of the Select Committee on the European Communities and we find ourselves engaged in a more or less continuous battle—which the noble Lord, Lord Hinton of Bankside, knows well and to which he has referred—with our Continental colleagues to help them to see the value of the lessons that we have learned over the last 100 years: that you have to choose the legislation very carefully and then to enforce it by the best practical means, because the object of the exercise is not to make every industry suffer the same burden of constraint but to protect the environment to the degree that is required at the least possible cost.
I think that we are making headway. It is very slow, but we shall have to keep pressing on and getting this right. There is no point in requiring the same standard of effluent control into the sunny waters of the warm non-tidal Mediterranean as you impose upon a plant which is discharging effluent into storm-tossed, tidal, cold waters of the Atlantic. The environmental situation is entirely different and the legislation, if you have it, should be designed so that it bears to a different degree on different situations.
The points that I hope I have made so far are that at the limits of growth you need legislation and fiscal control but that the kind of law you have must be specially adapted and enforced to deal with the environmental situation that the particular plant is in. But I would go on to say that that is by no means all. There is a great deal more that industry can do, and should do, for their own benefit in making the most of the environment than merely complying with the law which is necessarily being imposed upon them. The chief aim behind all that they should be doing is seeking to reduce the weight of impact on the environment and the demands that they are making in the

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things that have to be got out of it—their raw material and energy, all of which come out of it. And this is reducing the weight of impact on the environment for a given quantity of production. This is more a question of catching the spirit of the game than of complying strictly with legislation; although that is necessary, too. This is something which is much harder to define, but not too difficult to exemplify.
The noble Lord, Lord Nathan, has already taken one of the four examples that I was going to give and I am grateful to him for leaving the other three. But all are worth using. These are taken from the last awards of the Business and Industry Panel which it was my honour to present at the Royal Society of Arts about a fortnight ago, awards which were given by H.R.H. the Duke of Gloucester. The other three of these awards have useful lessons. These awards have been given for the last four years and each of them points up a different lesson, a different example, of an enlightened approach by industry towards the environment.
I shall go through the three quickly. They are all the premier awards for this year. The first was by the factory of Vickers, in Newcastle, which makes marine thrust bearings. They had been there for perhaps 70 years, and the question was how they were going to modernise. Much the simplest thing for them to have done would have been to take a green field site outside Newcastle and build a new factory at their leisure, as it were, while continuing production at the old factory. That would have taken up a considerable acreage of land which could otherwise be growing crops. It would have involved considerable transport problems for the staff who decided to live where they were or demands for housing on a new site if staff had to be recruited from elsewhere. In any case, they would have lost their ties with the area where they were.
Furthermore, when they went they would have left another large gaping hole in the inner areas of Newcastle which had already got more than enough problems. Greatly to their credit, they decided to rebuild on Scotswood Road, where they were, an incredibly intricate building operation if they were to remain in full
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production. They carried it through; they chose excellent builders—Shepherds of York—and they completed the contract six months ahead of time. By good co-operation with the planners they completed their planning procedures in three weeks. That shows what can be done when a firm takes the right environmental decision and sees it through with pride and imagination.
My second example is different but is also urban, and was by Simons, builders of Lincoln, who recycled a tumbled down 14th century building up on the hill, lying between the castle and the cathedral, and turned it into a thriving pub purveying real ale. It was opened by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lincoln and was entitled the Wig and Mitre. Recycling a 14th century building is a difficult operation. Many builders would much prefer to pull it down and start with a clear site. They did not take the easy course; they decided to rehabilitate it and show off the extraordinarily interesting architectural features in it. But they had to find an activity which would yield a return on their money. Their minds in the end rather naturally turned to the purveying of real ale because there are tourists, judges and the close of Lincoln Cathedral all at hand. I am glad to say that they are thriving splendidly.
The third example is the one which the noble Lord, Lord Nathan, has given; and the fourth is a particularly praiseworthy effort by the National Coal Board who have a colliery in the South Notting-hamshire coalfield, Bentinck, which has been there now for many years. In about 1950 they had to apply for a fresh planning permission to tip their waste adjacent to the pithead. At that time the planning requirements for colliery tips were not very exacting. There was an altitude limit to the height of the tip and the requirement that when it was finished—the date of which was not specified—it had to be planted up with shrubs and bushes. Nothing more was required.
In actual fact, they stockpiled the top-soil and the subsoil. They are now using the new form of tipping which superseded conical tipping. Conical tipping does not allow one to do anything at all on the tip until the whole thing is finished. The other method allows one

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to reclaim the tip progressively, and work goes on. In this particular case, it has now been restored with the help of the stockpiled subsoil and topsoil. So while it is not possible now just to plant bushes or even graze cattle, there have now been two seasons where a full arable crop of barley up to the local standard has been secured off the top of the tip while the tipping proceeds. That is another development which is worthy of a prize. These things cannot be done by an industry which is doing no more than seeking to comply with the legislation.
The point that I am making is that we really must find more ways of bringing the standards of the rest of industry up to the levels of the best such as I have been describing. Here, I agree, albeit on a rare occasion with the noble Lord, Lord Avebury. I do not often agree with the noble Lord, but here I do in saying that it is high time we succeeded in bringing together into some better and more fruitful relationship the hardheaded businessman and the long-haired environmentalist who have so much to offer each other but who find themselves so often one in the red corner and one in the blue corner, confronting each other at public local inquiries, wasting their resources in paying very large fees to barristers from the planning Bar.
There are really better ways of working together. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Craigton, and one or two other noble Lords who said that those of us who are engaged in environmental education—and I preside over a number of bodies in this field—may one day bring these two forces into some fruitful relationship together. At the present moment we have the situation where far too many industrialists in the blue corner think that they have done all that needs to be done when they have measured the various factors that can be measured in these issues and found that the things they have measured are pointing in their direction and in their favour. There are certain things that can be measured in these issues, but they are not the whole thing. Environmentalists believe that there is more to life on this planet than can be demonstrated by cost benefit analysis. In that they are right, too. The important thing is to put both these conclusions together and then we could make some
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progress—put them together in common studies rather than in confrontation.
In that connection—and this is where I should like to end—I am particularly glad to know, as the noble Lord, Lord Craigton, has already noted, that the planners of Leicestershire and the National Coal Board are doing just what 1 have been recommending as a preliminary to the Belvoir planning inquiry. Their joint study is not likely to preclude totally the need for a public inquiry. That would be expecting too much. But it means at this stage that some of the parties involved are spending their energies co-operatively on a common cause—namely, to see how to get at the energy we need under the Vale of Belvoir at the least cost and at the least damage to the environment. That seems to be the object of the exercise.
6.28 p.m.
Lord BEAUMONT of WHITLEY: My Lords, we approach the gap on the speakers' list. This has been a first-class debate. We owe it to the noble Baroness, Lady Robson of Kiddington, whose expertise and interest in this field over a long period of time and long before it started to hit the headlines is known to some of us. I was a little disappointed when I saw the terms of the Motion. I thought that this question, balancing and reconciling economic and environmental factors, might lead us into a discussion on environmental matters alone. The phraseology was such that it can and has been used by those who are producing an ambivalent reply for people pressing for the simplest of environmental claims.
I seem to remember some three years ago, when I asked the noble Baroness who is to reply to this debate a question about whether in European Wetlands Year the Government were going to stand idly by and see the rape of Seal Sands, Teesside, I received almost exactly that reply: that we must indeed balance the environmental and economic answers. I am ashamed to say that I cannot remember whether we won or lost that battle in the end, or whether it was merely a sort of "semi-rape and indecent assault." In fact, the noble Baroness, Lady Robson, drew us firmly into the whole of the ecological area, wider than that of the environment. Perhaps, since I shall use these two terms during the rest of my speech, I might explain how I see them.

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I am well aware that there is considerable dispute about the true meaning of these two terms and that in different academic disciplines they are used in different ways; but I have found over the past year or so and in my experience in the politics of the environment and the ecology that in fact there now seems to be fairly general agreement that when you are talking about environmental matters you tend to be talking about keeping the fields green, stopping Westminster Abbey falling down and stopping the Thames getting dirty. But when you talk about ecology you are talking much more in terms of what we have learnt to call the "ecological perspective." Is it the idea that care of the environment is not an optional extra or one department among others, but that in fact one should be looking at the whole of our national life, and indeed the life of the world, from the point of view of the entire ecology of the world as a whole. It is in that sense that I shall be using it in this debate.
In this idea of ecology, it seems to me that there are three strands which might well be called the past, the present and the future, without too much manipulation of categories. The past is really what we do when we stop beautiful and ancient buildings being pulled down, when we stop the countryside being ruined and preserve what has been handed down to us for future generations. Although I know that a number of people will be very angry with me for saying this, I think that that war has been more or less won. There are still lots and lots of battles to fight, I know, but in our national life, certainly, the site of the battlegrounds has changed, and the people who are trying to despoil in any way are themselves driven to arguing on ecological grounds.
The people who try to dig up bits of our national parks produce the argument firmly that in fact they are going to make those parks even more beautiful than they were before. The people who wish to go on culling grey seals do so on sound ecological grounds, or on what they put forward as sound ecological grounds, concerning the ecology of the fish as well as the ecology of the seal and of the fisherman, too. There may sometimes be an element of hypocrisy on one side or the other, or even on both; but this is
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where the arguments are being fought now and we should be profoundly thankful for that.
The second of the strands is the future—when we look at the resources we shall have and at our rate of using them up and wonder whether our appetite is far too great for our resources or our future excretion far too great for the beauty, the wealth or the health of the world—and it is on this matter that the noble Lord, Lord Hatch, touched so admirably. I think it was the noble Baroness, Lady Jackson, whom we are extremely sorry not to see here today, who also referred to that point, for which she coined the phrase "rules for the care and maintenance of a small planet". That idea, "rules for the care and maintenance of a small planet", is something which is beginning to get hold and a number of noble Lords in this House today have made admirable speeches on this subject.
However, there is a third strand, and one which we have really only just touched on, although the noble Lords who have talked about the relationship between the environmentalists and industry have touched the border of it. That is what I call the importance of the actual present—the actual importance of man's relationship to man as he finds it now and the fact that we are trying to build a better world by co-operation and that we see, even in today's events and the events of the last week, signs of an alienation from society which can be cured only by a totally different approach to economics and the world at large. This is one of the places where the tragedy of the commons comes in. It is also very rightly the point that the noble Lord, Lord Hatch, made when he asked that very pertinent question of the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, about co-operation.
I entirely take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, that this is difficult as yet on an international or continental scale. Nevertheless, I think that in our country it is the way forward. I was very interested to see Mr. Pardoe, in a letter to the Guardian recently, bringing forward the idea that we must follow the way so ably outlined in a pamphlet not so long ago by Mr. Peter Jay before he departed for the United States, of trying to move ahead into turning our industry and our economy into groups of

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small and middle-sized co-operatives. It is through co-operatives that the third strand we are talking about can best be found. Here I think that Mr. Grimond, too, has made a significant step forward with his setting up of an organisation to help co-operatives. On another side, the Lucas shop stewards have shown a possible way forward for industry.
I have not got the time, nor I imagine have your Lordships the patience, for me to go through what I think are some of the answers to these matters. Indeed, at least two-thirds of them have been dealt with very fully and much more ably than I could possibly do in this debate today. The only thing I would say is that zero growth, as such, is not the answer, and I think that very few people believe it is. When they talk about zero growth they tend to mean zero growth in economics only, as it is at present measured in economics. To take the measurement first, we all know—at least I hope we do—how totally lunatic the measurement is. A juicy crash on the M. 1 causes a lovely rise in GNP as at present measured, what with the cost of replacing the vehicles and their parts, the work given to insurance companies, the services of doctors and hospitals and the luck of boosting the undertaking business as well. Young mothers, at the other extreme, may do their best for their country by giving up breast feeding as soon as possible. Breast milk does not count in GNP, but Cow and Gate does.
This is madness in measurement, but it is a different way of growth that we are looking for. I think the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, was so right when he said we only now have space and opportunity to grow in the right way. I think that Mr. James Robertson got the way in which we should approach it right when he said in The Sane Alternatives:
"We want growth, but such growth will be part of a shift from the present emphasis on less tangible personal quantative possessions and achievements to a new emphasis on less tangible personal qualitative capabilities and activities, from economic growth to personal and social growth".
Of course, in the right way of measuring this will be economic growth, too. It is that kind of growth that we want, rather than to go on, as many speakers have said, with the idea that growth is in itself good. In certain circumstances and in certain ways it is not.
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I cannot sit down without saying a word about the Green Alliance, which was mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Young. I am sorry to see that she is not in her place, because I wanted to answer one or two of the points she made. Nevertheless, I want to mention it because I want to tell your Lordships about it; partly because I must declare my interest in that I am a paid employee of it. I do not need to tell your Lordships that this has not altered in any way the content of my speech. It also enables me to urge the corollary, that what I am saying must not be taken as the view of the Green Alliance as such.
The Green Alliance is a body which is in the process of being formed, consisting of a number of individuals who believe that the whole of the ecological perspective, as I have described it, should be put much more into the centre of democratic politics. That is basically all the views it has. That is the sole reason for which we are there. Obviously it consists very largely of environmentalists. Practically every environmental body has leading members in our membership. Your Lordships' House has Members in our membership. 1 do not know from what draft document the noble Baroness was reading, because we have not yet got as far as publishing a complete document. I hope that it was one of the later ones; some of the earlier ones were not as good, and that is putting it mildly.
She said that she seemed to detect romanticism in it. There is a place for romanticism. It might be thought that some of the most attractive figures in the history of the Tory Party were romantics, and they were rather more attractive than some of its other leading members. It might be thought that to say that we should not be striving for a paradise situation, as I understood the noble Baroness to be hinting, comes ill from a Party which periodically, wholeheartedly and full-throatedly declares its intention to build Jerusalem in this green and pleasant land. We all need to have romantics. But in the Green Alliance we do not have only romantics. Leading members of the International Institute for Environment and Development, which has already been praised today, are members of the Green Alliance, and their document encourages growth as well as environmentalism. I can assure your

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Lordships that, although we may have the occasional slightly fanatical member—and there are some in your Lordships' House on all subjects—the Green Alliance is, on the whole, a very down to earth body, whose job it is to try to put more firmly in the political field the ideas that we are discussing today.
This debate is one of the most serious in Parliament, in going as far as it has. Your Lordships' House contains a number of Members who take this matter extremely seriously. If you go out into society and move among people who think seriously about ideas, you will find that people understand and are prepared to argue about the full rigours of ecology, because it is a sensible subject. They may not agree with you—they do not necessarily agree with each other—but it is a subject that can be discussed. In the corridors of power, in Brussels, in Whitehall, and among civil servants, it is accepted that intellectually valid arguments are involved, and for that a lot of the credit must go to CoEnCo, of which the noble Lord, Lord Craigton, is chairman. But it is very difficult to find anyone taking this matter very seriously either in another place or in the Party organisations.
There, is of course, the tiny Ecology Party which is growing in capacity as well as in numbers, but it has only a small handful of local councillors. There is the Liberal Party which, by instigating this debate today, and by the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, has shown its great interest in this matter. But, as I see it, the Liberal Party is in the middle of an internal debate. It is almost schizophrenic between, on the one hand, Manchester economics and free trade, and, on the other, the environmental and ecological issues which it takes so seriously. I hope that it is the latter which wins, but it is a serious internal debate and it is to the credit of the Liberal Party that it is taking this attitude.
In the Labour Party, we have the admirable Socialist Energy and Resources Association, with more people really interested in this subject in another place than any other Party has, and they are doing splendid work. They even had a very far-reaching statement carried at the Assembly this year. The report from the NEC was carried overwhelmingly—probably unanimously—and it commits them
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very far. Unfortunately, there is a possibility that the Labour Party as such may treat it as they treat a number of other, less welcome, matters which are passed by the Party Conference, and they are still fighting an uphill battle.
The Conservative Party—in spite of the extremely good speeches that we have had from the noble Lords, Lord Craigton, Lord Sandford and Lord Dulverton—and also in spite of a very brave and good effort on the part of the small Conservative ecology group, shows no sign of having taken this matter aboard. This is a tragedy, because deep in the Conservative psyche, as the noble Lord, Lord Dulverton, showed us, is, or should be, great care for conservatism and for conservation taken to its logical conclusion, which is ecology. I hope that the Conservative Party, too, will be moving in that direction, because the future that we see as possible in an ecological world is inevitable. It will be forced on us by shortages, by limits and by the fact that if we do not get it we shall get disaster. There are two ways by which we can get it. One is through disasters—through the kind of scenario that the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, foresaw, forebodingly, in the future. The other way is through co-operation. It is between co-operation and cash that we must make a choice in all the democracies of the West, as well as throughout the whole world.
I close with a quotation from Christopher Hollis, who said:
"And the job of practical politicians is, as all practical politicians know, to give names to the things that are happening and to persuade people to vote for the inevitable".
I think that that is partly our job, and I hope that we do it.
6.49 p.m.
Lord HOWIE of TROON: My Lords, this has been a most interesting debate and we are all indebted to the noble Baroness, Lady Robson, for putting down the Motion which has made it possible. Like many other Members of the House, I was most impressed, as usual, by the admirable and lucid speech of the noble Lord, Lord Hinton, who has already said more or less everything that needs to be said on this subject. He reminded us, especially engineers and technologists among us, of the duty to preserve the

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visual amenities of the environment. In saying that, it is worth remembering that the environment that we are talking about is virtually entirely man-made. It was made by civil engineers—I confess to being one of them myself—by architects, by builders and by farmers, and the rest is wilderness. Sometimes, in their activities, the engineers and architects have been clumsy, inept even, sometimes apparently malevolent, but, more often than not, the hand of man has improved the wilderness, has improved it practically and has improved it visually. "Back to the wilderness" seems to me to be a very poor rallying call for civilisation at this late date.
It is interesting, of course, that what is thought to be nature in the environment changes from time to time. When conservationists attack motorways, as they do, it appears that the railways have become part of nature. It was not always so. When the railways were being built 100 or 150 years ago, they were attacked by the environmentalists and the conservationists of the day. When George Stephenson was surveying the line of the Liverpool/Manchester Railway in 1825 or thereabouts, his survey parties were threatened, even shot at and sometimes driven off the land by people who did not wish change and improvement to be made. Although they were opposed, the railways have now become part of nature, and it may well be that other artefacts which are now opposed will in due course take their place as part of what we might call nature.
In her opening address, the noble Baroness, Lady Robson of Kiddington, mentioned energy. Energy is important both in itself and for the part which the artefacts of energy play in the environment in terms of the problems and the dangers which they pose. Just before Christmas, speaking to the British Nuclear Engineering Society, Mr. Allday, the managing director of British Nuclear Fuels, remarked that he thought that nuclear power should be expanded as of right rather than to fill the forthcoming projected energy gap. I agree with him. 1 think that nuclear energy should be the major source of energy both in this country and in the industrialised countries of the world.
I say this because it is still the cheapest source of energy; it is the most efficient,
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in the sense that one obtains a higher proportion of useful energy from it than from any other form of energy. It is also the safest. A zebra crossing is more dangerous than a nuclear power station. That has been so until now, and there is no reason to suppose that the position will change in the future. Incidentally, nuclear power strikes me as offering the best opportunity to provide the power which the Third World needs. This matter is very close to the heart of the noble Lord, Lord Hatch of Lusby, who sits in front of me.
Coal and oil are too valuable substances to be burned. They are much more useful to society as sources of chemicals than as highly inefficient fuels. It would be much more sensible to utilise coal and oil as the source of chemicals than to burn them up ineffectively. Alternative forms of energy have been projected and all of them are desirable. The sun, the wind and the waves are sources of apparently limitless and free energy. No man in his right mind would oppose the development of these sources of energy, and it is absolutely essential that ways of using them should be found. They are not yet, however, quite through the threshold of practicability, and they might not be for some time yet.
A year or two ago I made some very simple, rule-of-thumb calculations in an attempt to see whether Pembroke power station, a 2,000 megawatt station which is well known to the noble Lord, Lord Parry, could be replaced by windmills. On the information available to me then, Pembroke power station could be replaced by windmills. Four thousand of these windmills would be needed, each of them 100 metres high and each of them with a propeller of about 75 metres in diameter. If they were spaced out neatly in a line around the coast of Wales and if they were 100 metres apart so that the propellers could not foul one another, they would stretch from somewhere near Cardiff to not quite Liverpool. The impact of those windmills upon the visual amenities has only to be thought of to be imagined. Of course, windmills will be developed; these are primitive machines. In due course, Pembroke power station may be replaced not by 4,000 windmills but by three or four dozen, each of them perhaps half the size of the Post Office Tower and occupying no more than a few square

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miles of the Pembroke countryside. There would still be a considerable visual impact if these windmills were erected, but I am not saying that for that reason attempts to harness the potential power of the wind should be abandoned.
I want to speak about participation in the decision-taking which precedes these projects, whether they be windmills, power stations, motorways, or whatever. I think that the participation of the public is one means of attaining the balance and the reconciliation for which the noble Baroness, Lady Robson of Kiddington, asked. A very lengthy, time-consuming process of argument and inquiry is involved at present, a process which I believe needs to be speeded up and streamlined. It depends very largely upon information. The more information that is made available about what is in the mind both of the Government and of the nationalised industries when they are considering projects, the better it will be.
The noble Baroness, Lady Young, mentioned in her speech—I am sorry to see that she is not present at the moment—environmental impact analysis as one way of spreading information. Analysis, however, is only one part of a system which is now widely used in the United States for bringing in the public and determining the effect of a project upon the community. Environmental impact analysis is part of an environmental impact statement, and that statement includes hearings, discussions, debates and also exchanges of information not unlike those which take place under our inquiry system. The American system is different, but it is analogous to ours in the sense that hearings take place.
Analysis, however, has to be used with a certain amount of caution. It suffers from the same defect as that from which cost benefit analysis suffered a few years ago; namely, it is an attempt to put a quantity value on something which might not be quantifiable. In the case of the cost-benefit analysis, a money value was imposed. Noble Lords will remember that cost-benefit received a very severe blow during the Roskill investigations when somebody—I believe it was Colin Buchanan—asked who could put a money value on Stukeley Church. Of course, nobody could do that. The question of
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Stukeley Church had to be decided not by a cost-benefit consideration but by some other consideration—by a different set of values altogether.
The same is true of the environmental impact. Instead of measuring the environmental impact in terms of money, you measure it on a scale ranging from one to 10. It is very hard to say whether Stukeley Church lies between one and 10 on that scale; indeed, it is just as impossible, and a political decision outside the analysis would have to be made. Nevertheless, this kind of quantification is a valuable and useful tool and one which should be used. However, the idea of the statement going beyond the analysis is well worth looking at in this country, and it might be just as useful to us as our present system. A few years ago, the Bulgarian artist, Christo, set out to run a nylon screen across part of California for about 25 miles. It was a nylon screen which was about 15 to 20 feet high and, as I say, about 25 miles long. He called this the running fence. It was not so much a piece of art; it was a happening and as such, because it had an impact on the environment it was subject to an environmental impact statement, with all the machinery of consultation and of hearings that that implied.
What was interesting in this use of the environmental statement was that not only were the quantifiable effects measured to the extent that they could be, but a large number of opinions were gathered and assessed and in the course of gathering together the assessment it became clear to people that Christo's running fence, whether it was a happening or a piece of art, was none the less fun and more and more people as they became embroiled in this curious enterprise began to realise that it was fun and that it lightened their lives. Reading the environmental assessment is extremely interesting because what can be seen through it is not merely the impact of that running fence, an artefact which only lasted three weeks, but also its impact on people's lives, which I think was wholly beneficial.
Last week Robin Wilson, who is a partner in Travers Morgan, a well-known firm of consulting engineers, published an article in a civil engineering periodical in which he was discussing the present planning procedures for roads

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(in which he is particularly concerned) and he made one or two interesting comments. He claims—and he has long experience of public inquiries and the like—that the Minister comes into the decision-taking far too quickly. Wilson argues that the Minister decides on a road proposal before the issues surrounding the proposal have been properly ventilated and debated. He has a very limited choice under the present procedures. It may well be that there are two or three different road lines which are perfectly suitable and acceptable to the Minister; it may well be that there are other alternatives which could be considered but under the present procedures the alternatives cannot be considered at this stage but must be brought in at a later date, reopening the whole inquiry.
Wilson suggests that there should be one inquiry only and that that should be as near to the feasibility study stage as possible, really so that the feasibility study does not get out of date, as can happen rather easily. He adds an interesting idea; namely, that the inspector should be an investigating inspector, rather like (if I understand it correctly) the Procurator Fiscal in Scotland. If there are any lawyers present they might tell me whether I am right in thinking that in Scotland the Procurator Fiscal has investigating powers not unlike those of the French examining magistrate. The value of this would be to give the inspector the right to widen the inquiry so that alternatives could be introduced during the inquiry, considered, debated, and in fullness of time he would report upon them. Then after the inquiry the Minister would make his first decision, not his last one.
There is one other interesting innovation which Travers Morgan have tried out and which should interest the House. They now believe that at the earliest stage in our feasibility study the public should be drawn in. Faced with a road project early last year in Leicester they opened a shop near the centre of the town, invited the public to come in to examine the problem and to present their proposals and also any objections—in fact, to discuss the project and to put a public input into the system before they had even come to any conclusions, while they were still at the beginning of the feasibility study. In that way the ideas
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and feelings of the public about the project came into the consideration right at the beginning. That strikes me as being an innovation which could reasonably be adopted.
I believe Wilson's proposals are not out of sympathy with those suggested by the Secretary of State for the Environment last year when he was speaking about the fast-breeder and other big projects. I think they could with advantage be extended along Wilson's lines on much smaller projects than the Secretary of State was thinking of. I end by asking my noble friend who is to reply to the debate if she will consider Wilson's ideas, not necessarily today but at some later date, to see whether they can be adapted to public use.
7.6 p.m.
Lord RITCHIE-CALDER: My Lords, I apologise for intervening in this debate without having put my name down, and particularly at this late hour. My excuse is quite simple, that last night at this hour I was in what the noble Lord, Lord Howie of Troon, described as a "wilderness" on the Equator, wrestling with the very problems that we are discussing here tonight and I did not get back until this afternoon. That equatorial discussion was very appropriate to your Lordships' deliberations and was concerned with one of the major problems connected with the whole ecological and environmental question—the question of the future of our last resource, the oceans themselves. This meeting brought together in the Cameroons the men of affairs of the black African countries to discuss precisely what we can do about the wilderness, in my noble friend's term, before we start wrecking their resources as we have done fairly considerably in our own land, by industrial development, but how to prevent the catastrophes in the oceans.
This is important because it is part of the major problem, not just the sentimental—I hate using the word "sentimental"—not just the sympathetic view of the fact that we want to prevent the developing countries of the world from making the atrocious mistakes—and I repeat the word "atrocious"—which we have made in our searching after purely material wealth, and indeed converting people's ambitions,

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and so on, into the demand for material wealth which as we have seen, certainly in the reaction of our younger generation, gives no satisfaction whatever; it simply breeds in them disenchantment and frustration with what money can buy in material terms.
In this conference at which I was present, where we were dealing with what they could do about the sea and what the sea could yield for them, we were talking about what we in this country and in the whole of the developed industrial countries have completely ignored in the past. We have completely ignored the social cost of industry. This generation is now picking up the cost of the devastations of the last century, and most of the cost we cannot pick up because the people are in their graves and indeed died of the effects of the exploitation of industry. "Where there's muck, there's brass," was the text: You were prosperous when you showed it demonstrably in failing to consume 90 per cent. of coal and to discharge it as soot.
This is something which, not only in your Lordships' terms but in every other type of term, we have to try to see it does not reflect itself any further in our own society and something which we should at least be prepared to avoid, together with the peoples of the developing countries. I assure your Lordships that they are highly sensitive to this question, partly because they feel this is in fact something which the industrialised countries are likely to impose—and I can assure your Lordships they are already imposing.
One of the most important debates was on the exporting of polluting industries. Whenever your Lordships in this country or politicians anywhere else start to impose regulations on industries those industries shift somewhere else where the ordinances do not apply, or corporations will shift, as we found in many cases in West Africa, the obsolete industries; they are simply taking what they were prepared to discard and sending it out to pollute the developing countries. The incidental pollution caused by oil development, whether indeed it is refineries or super-tankers spilling oil along the coastline, are other things which are the contribution we are making to the potential
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harm of the developing countries, simply because we are pursuing as fast as we can something which our conscience no longer lets us contemplate here. Here we have moved further than merely hard cash principles, but it does not stop the industrial thinking about how these things could be profitable somewhere else.
This is something of which the developing countries are aware and about which the men of affairs are highly sensitive. What they do about it is a more debatable point; how they put their profound misgivings into action is a more debatable point. When we say "Do not have polluting industries", they can turn round and say, "Look what pollution did for you. It made Britain the most wealthy, prosperous, dominating country in the world". It took the countries over in the process. How are we going to prevent them, before they discover that they have been taken in, as it were, from laying themselves open to the type of cash persuasions which would mean the dissemination of this pollution throughout the world?
I follow the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, and others in thinking that we are making very considerable progress, not just in the well-doing sense of the word. We have, as my noble friend Lord Parry pointed out, at least a recognition that we are moving out of an industrial society into a post-industrial society. Look at the strikes and upheavals that arc going on at the moment. What we are failing to come to terms with is what is going to be the nature of that post-industrial society. The machine itself can deliver whatever goods we want. What we feed it with is another matter, but the machine as such can produce the material environment which we need. In the post-industrial society we will have to recognise that the quality of life is more important than the material side of life. The noble Lord, Lord Sandford, was pointing out that some very enlightened brewery has discovered how to make a contribution to the quality of life by giving us real beer for a change instead of synthetic-beer.
My statement is quite simple. We are passing into the post-industrial society. We have the Welfare State, or at least we have lashed the raft and are holding it together, and we are now looking for

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what I have already called the fulfilment stage. That is where we can measure what we want for ourselves, for our families, for our children and our childrens' children, in terms of the true nature of the world in which we live. This is what we are talking about when we are seeking to find a balance to reconcile economic and environmental factors in social and industrial policy. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Robson, for having introduced the subject, and I thank your Lordships for having done what I think is the function of your Lordships' House if it is to survive; I hope that your Lordships' House will be, as in this case, the House of the future and not the House of the past.
7.15 p.m.
Lord WINSTANLEY: My Lords, it falls to me to try, on behalf of my noble friends on these Benches, to draw this fascinating debate towards a conclusion. In doing so, 1 think I would be right in congratulating my noble friends on selecting a Motion which has enabled the House to debate a matter of the utmost gravity and importance, and perhaps also in congratulating them on framing our Motion so widely as to allow anybody to say almost anything. Be that as it may, I am absolutely certain I would be right to congratulate my noble friend Lady Robson for the masterly—should it be "mistressly"; I do not know—way in which she opened this debate with a speech which was broad-ranging and comprehensive, but which nevertheless focussed our attention narrowly on the most crucial issues concerned in this whole area. I am deeply grateful to her for so doing.
In attempting to draw together the various threads of this fascinating conversation today, I find myself entwined in at least three of those threads. First, as an individual citizen and as a parent I am as concerned as any about the prospects of our preserving or otherwise an environment in which our children and our children's children will be able to lead fruitful and satisfying lives. I am bound to say that at times, in that capacity, I begin to wonder whether the human experiment has really been an outstanding success; one wonders whether it is perhaps grinding slowly to a halt. Secondly, as a doctor I have spent much of my life doing a job which frankly is assisting people to adapt
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to the environment in which they find themselves, an environment which sometimes can be pretty hostile. My third involvement is as a person connected with politics; I suppose a former Liberal Member of Parliament can be regarded as having some faint connection with politics. I have always taken the view that the aim of politics is to try to provide the environment most suited to man's aims and aspirations. Really that means that the whole business of politics is, surely, the predicting of the future consequences of present happenings and modiyfing those happenings so as in some helpful way to affect those future consequences. That, I think, is what we are trying to do here today.
In those three capacities I find that I have constantly come up against three parallel but related trends, trends which have been commented on by most noble Lords who have spoken today, and two in particular have been stressed very much. These three trends are, first, an increasing depletion of the basic materials upon which we depend for our very lives; secondly, and in parallel, an increasing pollution and contamination in one way or another of the environment in which we live; and, thirdly—one which has not been mentioned very much in this debate—an increasing world population, which itself adds to both the rate of depletion of materials and perhaps also the rate of pollution of the environment. It will be sufficient at this late hour if I give the briefest examples of these. So far as depletion of resources is concerned, 1 think almost every speaker in this debate has focussed attention on energy, and what better example could there be.
It would be fruitless for us to pursue arguments about whether coal will last 50 or 60 years, or whether oil will run out in 2010 or whatever. Surely what is clear is that our resources are finite, which means that sooner or later they will run out. That must surely mean that we must give ourselves as long as possible to pioneer and to develop acceptable alternatives. In that connection, it seems to me so far as growth is concerned—a matter referred to by so many speakers in this debate—that it would surely be madness to seek salvation in a total preoccupation with growth. I cannot feel very happy about an economy based on encouraging us all to consume more and more of what we

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have less and less of. Nor am I very happy with an advertising industry which seems bent on persuading each and every one of us that today we cannot do without what we had never heard of yesterday.
I accept, as has been said by so many speakers, that we must have growth. Indeed, I very much take the view taken by the noble Lord, Lord Sandford. We must have growth; but surely we must aim to have growth in socially acceptable and economically desirable areas. We must try to use the fruits of that growth for necessary and socially desirable purposes. Then we must couple growth with extreme care in nurturing and husbanding scarce resources. Is that what we are doing? Are we really likely to see the chairman of British Leyland appear on television and say to us all: "You don't need another car this year. If you look after your Mini or whatever it is, it may last you another three years or even another four. If you do not use it much your health will improve, your tyres will last longer. You could make your car last six years"? Is that the kind of thing we are likely to hear? But it really is the way in which we must think. Shall we proceed that way? I doubt it.
I turn briefly to the profit motive and in a sense to some of the words spoken by the noble Lord, Lord Hatch of Lusby. I have nothing against profit, especially if I happen to make it. But, sooner or later we must come to realise that what is profitable in the short term can sometimes be immensely damaging in the long term. 1 am gratified to find that an increasing number of industrialists of one kind or another, and other people, are coming to realise that and to act accordingly.
The second trend which I mentioned was pollution of which we have examples everywhere. We must accept that we have demonstrated already that man excels all animals in his ability to foul his own nest. Everywhere we have contaminates of one kind or another—some unfortunately necessary and unavoidable, for example, the food additives about which so many people become so excited. We must understand that if we are to feed a growing world population, certain food additives are necessary to prolong storage life, to restore nutrient where that has been destroyed by manufacturing processes and
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so on. Nevertheless, the presence of increasing numbers of these additives requires increasing vigilance.
I would merely take one example in the area of pollution, and I take one as regards which I believe we have triumphed. This example has been mentioned by many people and it is air and polluted atmosphere. The noble Lord, Lord Auckland, referred to the great smog of 1952 in which, if my memory serves me correctly, 8,000 people perished from the inhalation of noxious fumes in a period of three days. We have worked wonders in this country as regard cleaning up our atmosphere. When I was a boy I used to expect to walk to school in Manchester every day in November and walk home again because there would be no trains or buses, not because of strikes but because of fog. Our clean air measures have removed what was a major menace and have pointed the way to the answers to many of the problems raised in this debate. We can solve most problems if we are prepared to pay the price. There is always a price. People will only begin to be prepared to pay the price when it can be demonstrated that it is worth paying and that there are advantages to be gained therefrom. As regards cleaning up the air the advantages were of course very obvious—for example, life rather than illness and so on. As regards some of the other matters about which we are concerned, the advantages are not quite so obvious or so immediate.
I move to the third of the trends which I mentioned; namely, population, which has hardly been mentioned in this debate. There is a danger now that our own population in this country has levelled—probably temporarily—for us all to become immune to the idea that population growth is still a problem. It is still a problem! If we accept what is now happening, namely, that world population is at present growing by 8,000 every hour—every hour there are 14,000 births and 6,000 deaths, leaving a growth of 8,000 every hour—and realise that of the world population today something like 50 per cent. are aged 15 years and under, we must realise the potential explosive growth of population with which we are possibly confronted. I merely say that the dilemma facing us at present with these three trends is that there are conflicts to be resolved, and there are prices to be paid

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in order to resolve those conflicts. But I believe that we can solve most of those problems if we recognise that they exist and if we give ourselves time. As regards population, we shall give ourselves more time if we keep our eyes open to the dangers of world population growth and if we act accordingly. I go no further than that on this occasion.
Conflict has been demonstrated over and over again in the speeches this evening. Conflict is apparent everywhere we look. For example, the perfectly natural desire for cheap and plentiful goods and the equally natural desire for clean air are, to a point, in conflict. One can have clean air if one pays the price, but the price sometimes is an increase in the cost of the goods. I should like to point out here—and I think that this is important—that when I talk about conflicts, I am not talking just about resolving conflicts between competing groups of people. Often we have to do so and it can be very difficult to try and steer a course which is broadly satisfactory to this group or that. But we must not forget that many of these conflicts exist within ourselves at one and the same time.
I am often reminded of an experience which I had in another place. I have kept two letters which I received from the same constituent. The first one complained bitterly of the intolerable nuisance of aircraft noise from Manchester Ringway Airport which disturbed him—he could not do his work, his wife was ill and his children were failing their ' O ' or ' A ' levels. He asked when the Government were going to do something about the intolerable nuisance of aircraft noise. I said, when indeed! But it costs money to pioneer and develop quieter aircraft engines. It costs even more money to site major international airports away from major centres of population. But if and when enough people demonstrate that they are willing to pay that price it is possible that the Government would act, and I would give my support
However, some months later I received a letter from the same chap, written I am sure sincerely and not with tongue in cheek. This time it came from his business address in Stockport and he was complaining bitterly about the inadequacy of the flight schedules from Manchester to Dusseldorf which were providing a
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serious obstacle to his important export business. He was right both times. He was perfectly right to demand peace and quiet and equally right to demand regular, reasonably cheap, aircraft travel. That is the problem. We must resolve conflicts which sometimes exist within ourselves. In my view we can solve many of the problems if we recognise them in time; if we understand that there is a price to be paid; and if we encourage people and educate them to understand that it is worth paying the price for benefits which are perhaps not immediate but which are sometimes a little more remote.
I do not want to speak for much longer, but before I sit down I should like to say a few words wearing another hat. I should declare an interest as the Chairman of the Countryside Commission, a body which has the statutory duty to advise Government on all matters to do with the countryside: the preservation of its natural beauty, access to the countryside and open air recreational activity within the countryside. I think it goes without saying that our countryside is a resource which is under threat and, indeed, is pretty scarce.
I wish to say at once that as chairman of the Countryside Commission, I am under no illusion that our countryside simply fell out of the skies. The country-side which we have in Britain is very largely the product of centuries of cultivation of the land. Further—and here I rather echo some words spoken by the noble Lord, Lord Parry—I have no desire to preserve fossilised areas of sterile land as some kind of museum of what once existed in the past. In order to be worth preserving the countryside must have its own dynamism and life, and inevitably that life must be based on or closely linked to agriculture.
Make no mistake, my Lords, our countryside in general and our agricultural land in particular is under threat, as are many of our other scarce resources. Nowhere is that more true than in our urban fringes—a point which has been made over and over again in this debate—where agricultural land is being nibbled away in small pieces; it is being threatened by fragmentation of land holdings, by planning blight and other uncertainties, by the activities of local councils depositing waste, by industry or by statutory undertakers seeking out the countryside or

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agricultural land for their developments of one kind or another.
I turn very briefly to yet another threat to our countryside. We are on the brink of an undreamed of explosion in leisure, the magnitude of which has not yet been fully comprehended by those who are likely to be on the receiving end; namely, all those of us who are concerned with the countryside and its preservation. I am not talking about enforced leisure through unemployment or even voluntary leisure through striking, or anything of that kind; I am talking about the leisure which must come about as the result of new technology to which the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie-Calder, has referred. I do not think that we shall accept the view of what I might describe as the Luddite element of the trade union movement, which seems bent on preserving useless jobs for the sake of creating employment or creating unnecessary work for the sake of employment. Is "employment" really the word with which to describe 20 people working 40 hours a week in doing what two could do in a morning? No; we must accept this challenge, and we must accept that it is a benefit if the burden of work—often boring, unnecessary, routine and monotonous work—could be lifted from man's shoulders. Surely, that is something which we should welcome. However, in welcoming it we must take the consequential steps. That means that we must provide for the increasing leisure due to earlier retirement, a shorter working week and more and more public and other holidays.
Here a final and very important factor arises which I want to mention. The Countryside Commission has recently undertaken a detailed survey—in fact, National Opinion Polls have carried it out on our behalf (they are usually right, although I know that on one occasion they were not entirely right)—into the recreational habits of our households. It was conducted on a sound statistical basis and revealed some astonishing, perhaps even worrying, but I think encouraging facts. It showed that 63 per cent. of our population today, of all ages and of all social groups, irrespective of their origins, opt as of choice to spend their open air leisure time in informal recreational activity, in the countryside. When we compare that figure of 63 per cent. of the population who, according to the survey, spend at
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least one day a month in our countryside in some form of informal recreational activity—such as a long walk, a short walk, a picnic or whatever—with the 17 per cent. who ever choose to watch any kind of professional sports, then noble Lords can see what is possibly in store with an explosion in leisure.
I would merely say that we must provide for it and not resist it. Somehow we must introduce techniques which will enable these people who pour into our country-side—a very scarce resource—to do so with the kind of knowledge necessary to enjoy it without destroying it. Here I return to a point made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Guildford about education. I come to a point on which I must take issue with the noble Lord, Lord Hatch of Lusby, who I think referred to us today as materialistic society; in fact, so did the noble Lord, Lord Avebury. Up to a point they are right. But everywhere I see extraordinary evidence of a new attitude on the part of young people who now opt, not for material things, but for different kinds of spiritual satisfaction. When we advertise for wardens in the countryside or for project officers to do jobs at very low pay and with very long hours we are inundated with applicants—many of whom are people who could earn a great deal more in the material sense. I believe that there has been a change of heart.
As a result of education, the activities of the media and so on, more and more of our young people are opting for the countryside, although as the noble Lord, Lord Craigton, said, perhaps it has not gone far enough. If that is happening, we must provide for it, and provide for it carefully. If we are to preserve the countryside, we must do what we can to preserve viable agriculture throughout our country. It means much more vigorous protection of agricultural land in planning machinery; one way and another it means many more steps. It means encouraging people to realise that it is worthwhile; in fact, it means paying the price. Sometimes it means asking farmers on the urban fringe whether they really want to farm. As the farmer affably shows me out at the front door after I have discussed interesting plans about tree planting or footpath management I sometimes have the feeling that he is hastening to open the back door to the gravel extractor. I make no complaint; it is understandable.

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If we wish people to co-operate in this area, we must pay a price, and we must make it worthwhile. That is what this debate is all about. The noble Lord, Lord Hatch of Lusby, whose speech I greatly admired despite the fact that I take issue with him on these points, said that there were no votes in this. 1 am not entirely in agreement with him on that. We, in the Countryside Commission, have launched our new urban fringe experiment whereby, with Government help from the Department of the Environment and the Ministry of Agriculture, we seek to revitalise the countryside round the whole urban fringe of one of our major cities. We have been flooded with applicants from different cities up and down the country, from councillors who have begun to learn that votes do not consist in never spending any money, but that there really are votes in spending a minuscule amount on the kind of investment in countryside reclamation and restoration which can show quite extraordinary benefits for a very small investment. Again, I see a change of heart here, a recognition that there are votes to be won in this kind of posture.
I do not accept the view that we must appoint more committees. I think that we shall obtain results in this area by changing peoples' views and attitudes. When enough people throughout our country recognise the problems and the needs, and demonstrate their willingness to pay the prices, often in terms of personal sacrifices and in other cases in terms of money, I think that there is hope that Governments of whatever flavour or whatever Party will take the necessary action.
Finally, I am not pessimistic, 1 am optimistic. I have recently seen a number of things which have immensely encouraged me. The Minister of State for the Department of the Environment, Mr. Howell, wrote a letter to public bodies, like the Treasury and the Ministry of Defence, owning land in national parks, urging them to take proper cognisance of the kind of recommendations which are in the report of the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, and urging them most forcefully to heed conservation measures and matters of that kind in their management of that land. To me that is a change of heart. Looking at the statutory undertakers,
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the Coal Board has not exactly enhanced the countryside in the area in which I live. But I am fascinated to see the kind of work that has recently been done in restoration by the Coal Board. Our attention has been drawn to an area in Nottingham which was previously despoiled by opencast mining and has now been so restored that it is now "in work" and is classified as Grade II agricultural land, when prior to coal mining, it was Grade IV. If that can be done, anything can be done. But it will only be done if enough people really want it to be done.
I merely say that this has been an important debate. I thank everybody on behalf of my noble friends for taking part in it. I hope that the excellent speeches we have heard from noble Lords will not be the end of the matter. I hope that they will go away and spread the message elsewhere, because the more this message gets home to more people, and the more people show that they are willing to do the kind of things we have been talking about, the more certain it is that in the end we shall move in the right direction.
7.41 p.m.
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, I hope you will not all go away and spread the message before I have had a chance to say my few words. I join with everyone else in thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Robson, for initiating this debate. The wording was of course wide enough to encompass a great deal, or take in very little. There has been a wide-ranging debate, it has been extremely good humoured, and an interesting seminar and discussion for everybody here. I hope that the Hansard of this debate will be read not only by Members of this House but read outside as well.
I do not take the pessimistic view of the noble Baroness, Lady Young, who was concerned about little economic growth and very little improvement in the environment. I do not accept that that is so. I am one of the people who feels that we have always got to push ahead. I am what I would call one of the world's nudgers. Nevertheless, in the last decade or so we have become much more aware of how important it is to conserve the environment by improving the rural and urban scene and controlling pollution.

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There are some who feel that the pendulum has swung too far in the environmental direction. I think that possibly the noble Lord, Lord Hinton, is among those. There are others like the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, who probably consider that it has not swung far enough. Difficult judgments have to be made, and these have to be made against the background of a highly-developed and geographically small country with limited economic resources, and concerned to improve its standard of living. There are bound to be differing views on where the balance should be struck, because there are no absolute answers to these questions, especially in a democracy where orders do not come down from on high and where there is constant argument and discussion going on all the time. This means that often decisions have to be taken with inadequate knowledge. For example, we know very little about the long-term health effects of low concentrations of even the most common pollutants, so how far should we adopt restrictive precautions in advance of firm scientific evidence? This is one example of the problems with which we are all faced every day.
The noble Baroness, Lady Young, and the noble Lord, Lord Hinton, referred to risk assessment. The noble Lord, Lord Hinton, with his scientific experience, considers that too much attention is being paid to some risks. Again, this is an area where acceptability varies considerably. Lord Rothschild's recent Richard Dimbleby lecture provided a useful stimulus for this debate and a wider discussion, even though I think, probably with other people, in some areas maybe there was a certain amount of over-simplification.
The issue which faces us now is not whether the environment should be protected: The question is what resources can we put into anticipating and preventing future environmental degradation, and how do we achieve the quality of life we want and that we can afford. In stressing the need to balance the economic and environmental factors, which we have to do, and the need for a suitably pragmatic approach, I know it is all too easy to sound complacent. I am far from complacent about this. I think we have a long way to go, and until such time as environmental hazards have been accur-
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ately assessed, and until such time as the cost and efficiency of remedial measures have been closely measured, we must remain concerned, but also thoughtfully sceptical of alarmist statements about either the hazards, on the one hand, or the costs, on the other.
In this country we have traditionally adopted this pragmatic approach. I think I would call it a Fabian approach. It has probably been more persuasive and effective than trying to set ideal standards and then failing to meet them, which is a depressing process. It is for this reason, for the way we have approached things and for the successes we have achieved, that I have doubts about Lady Robson's suggestion for a single independent agency. First, I have an immediate allergy to setting up any more agencies, or committees of any sort, if we can avoid it. Secondly, I believe that the range of aspects and expertise are so wide that it is difficult to conceive that they could all be controlled by one body. I also feel that so many bodies start as a free-flowing consensus of ideas, or forums for thought and discussion, and then quickly turn themselves into a sort of bureaucratic adjunct of the establishment, that one has to be careful.
Similarly, I thought that my noble friend Lord Hatch's conception of a watchdog committee was also an attractive one, but again it is something that needs more thought to see whether it would fall into the same problems as the one proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Robson. The Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution has already done a good deal of valuable work, not only in the work it has done itself but the offsprings that have arisen from it.
Other countries have similar pollution problems to ours and, because air and marine pollution are by definition international, it is important that we do not take an insular attitude to our environment. I was grateful for the contributions made by my noble friends Lord Hatch and Lord Ritchie-Calder, because there is very little time for me to go in any depth into the international aspects of the environment; but it would be absolutely wrong if, in a debate of this sort, it was not referred to, and referred to, as it was by both my noble friends, with force and passion.

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There are a number of international organisations, in particular the United Nations Environment Programme, in which the global problems referred to by noble Lords are discussed. But in international discussions and law we must always take account of local circumstances and culture. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, endorsed this view when he referred to the resilience of the environment.
In our approach to EEC environment legislation we have maintained the view that member States should be able to apply quality objectives which take account of their own particular environmental circumstances, rather than harmonise to arbitrary uniform standards. I think some of the best and most effective debates on the Directives have taken place in your Lordships' House. If we did agree, if we harmonised to arbitrary uniform standards, this would impose unnecessary burdens on both pollution control authorities and industry, and be very costly to the country as well.
There are a large number of fields in which this approach is applied. The noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, pointed out that when we are talking about the environment we are also talking in the widest sense about ecology as well. I entirely agree with him. A very basic way in which we have to find the right balance, or reconciliation, is between the competing claims for the use of land. This has been mentioned by many noble Lords, but it is seldom easy. Britain has a flexible but comprehensive planning system which enables us, or it should enable us, to ensure that all development (homes, industry, transport, leisure activity) accords as far as possible with the general environment. Obviously there is conflict and tension here from time to time—indeed, all the time—and it is natural that there should be.
Public inquiries provide a forum for the open discussion of development problems and, as we know well, public inquiries raise their own problems. My noble friend Lord Howie of Troon made some suggestions about inquiries into road proposals and I will draw those to the attention of my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Transport. The noble Lord, Lord Hinton of Bankside, highlighted some of these problems with
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his story about the overhead electricity line. Here is a clear case where one must try to find a balance and make a decision as between the strength of amenity considerations, on the one hand, and the high cost of providing underground cable, on the other. Although I do not go along with him in all he said on other matters, on this issue I think the noble Lord is right to say that people want to enjoy every amenity so long as somebody else pays for it. There is a great deal of truth in that.
Our planning system must constantly adapt to dealing with new problems, for example the urban fringe, and although we have not had much chance to go into that, I thought the noble Lord, Lord Nathan, made some interesting comments about the way in which the inner cities might be enhanced in a way which would not only energise industry and activity in them but also deal with the quality of life, with derelict land and buildings and so on.
The conservation of old buildings also involves making difficult decisions between conflicting interests, as I know well from my work at the Department of the Environment. Like my noble friend Lord Parry, I am familiar with, and absolutely wedded to, industrial archeology and have watched with great delight the growing esteem for those parts of the environment which were, as he pointed out, recently deplored as monstrous relics of the industrial revolution. As the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, emphasised, there is need to provide not just for leisure activities but for increased leisure activities, and I was glad he developed that theme. There are also the developing activities of the Countryside Commission, of which he is chairman. Of course, we would like to spend more money on activities of this kind, but the resources available are limited, a central point to which, I am afraid, one must keep returning.
One of contemporary society's great problems is air pollution. The concept of requiring "the best practicable means" to prevent and abate potentially dangerous or offensive emissions provides a flexible system; it may not be perfect but it is flexible and it works. It takes account of local conditions and circumstances, current technology and financial implications; in other words, it tries to sort out the

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environmental desirability with the realistic facts of finance and technology. It is also a dynamic system, allowing requirements to be made progressively more stringent as circumstances change and as one takes people along with one, which is extremely important. This system, which has been endorsed by the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, has helped to ensure an acceptable standard of air quality while at the same time not penalising industry unnecessarily, a point made by several noble Lords.
A considerable improvement in the quality of our non-tidal rivers has been achieved. In England and Wales, in 1975, nearly 80 per cent. of non-tidal rivers were generally free of pollution. And the improvement of the River Thames has meant a considerable increase in the number of species of fish inhabiting the tidal reaches, and the number of boats along the river has increased as well. We hope this improvement will continue at a realistic cost and we have also strongly supported the National Water Council and the water authorities in a major revision of the whole basis of water pollution control policy, which will coincide with the introduction of Part II of the Control of Pollution Act 1974, which will be implemented at the end of this year.
Like Lady Young and Lady Robson, I deplore the unfortunate delay in complete implementation of this Act, but due to financial considerations this has had to be put off. However, virtually all the provisions are now under way and, although only two authorities (Northumberland and Durham) have prepared waste disposal plans, most of the others are well on the way and, now that a date is in sight, more will be coming along and will be prepared by the time it is introduced. In 1979–80 an extra £50 million of current expenditure will be provided for local authorities' environmental services to help councils deal with their waste disposal. This means that, for the first time, comprehensive quality objectives will be set not only in water but on land. This will give us a proper yardstick to judge where improvements in river quality and on land are urgently needed and how the limited funds can be spent to the best effect.
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Sometimes a pollution problem needs to be looked at across a number of sectors and is not easy of solution, and here I come to the question of lead, not only in air and water but also in food. This was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, although he spoke primarily about lead in petrol. Policy on lead is based on a comprehensive review published in 1974. In his foreword, the late Anthony Crosland said that the objective must be:
" … to ensure that, while the proper use of lead is not unnecessarily curtailed, the health of all sections of the Community is not put at risk, and that every practicable measure is taken to reduce exposure".
Since then a great deal has been done to reduce lead exposure—for example, from food and paint—or to ensure that there is no increase in exposure, for example by holding steady the total emissions of lead from cars by reducing the lead content of petrol in step with the increase of traffic, and further measures are in hand on a number of fronts. It is true that some of us would like to be going more rapidly along this road. However, our policy in this matter is flexible and takes account of new evidence as it appears.
Lord Avebury referred to recent studies, particularly in the United States and Germany, on danger to young children. Our present advice on these studies is that their conclusions are "not proven", but that does not mean they are not being taken seriously. Nor does it mean that the noble Lord should not go on prodding the Government in this matter. The whole question of the effect of lead on young children is currently being reviewed by an expert working group set up by the Secretary of State for Social Services. They will also be assessing the paper which the Conservation Society, of which Lord Avebury is president, has produced. To help the Secretary of State for Transport take action, if necessary, when the results of the health survey are available, he has set in hand a thorough review of the options and costs of further reducing or abolishing lead in petrol.
There are so many other examples or areas where things have been or need to be done that it is impossible for me to mention them all, but perhaps I should mention the question of asbestosis, a horrendous story which has now come into

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the open. In this story I am afraid that industry, nobody, comes out of it with very great credit, but at least it is now in the open and while that will not bring back those who died from asbestosis, we all hope that such a thing will never happen again.
On the other side of that particular coin, the up-to-date story on cadmium is very interesting. The soil at Shipham was found to have a higher level of zinc than it should have had. This was discovered from a survey carried out by Imperial College. As I am sure noble Lords will have seen on television or read in the newspapers, the people in that village are very angry at what is now happening to them. They are insisting that they are living to a ripe old age, and that they have not been at all affected by what has been discovered.
There is also the question of noise, which was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Craigton, and there are many other elements in our sophisticated, complex and technological society against which the comfort and quality of life for the people living here have to be measured. Again we have here a matter which is terribly difficult to assess, and more resources are involved, too. If we are to have the benefits of Concorde—I was going to say the dubious benefits, but perhaps I should not say that from the Box—then there is the question of how we deal with the noise and the environmental problems that it brings. The noble Lord, Lord Dulverton, referred to layers in the ozone.
We must also keep a close eye on the range of new chemicals which are being introduced. Here again the point arises of a society in which a great many innovations and discoveries are taking place and in which scientific work is going on and is on the increase. Innovation is important, and we simply must not stunt it unnecessarily, but at the same time as new chemicals are developed we must ensure, so far as we can, that they will not create hazards for those producing or using them, or to the general environment. In order to assess possible hazards the Health and Safety Executive is developing a notification scheme for new chemicals before they are put into general use. This should help to avoid major environmental problems. This action shows that the precautionary
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measures that are being taken are on the increase.
Many noble Lords have referred to energy policy. Any strategy for meeting it must have environmental implications, as is the case with any of our energy problems. We must see that our plans for future energy supplies are adequate, and indeed generous, for there are not many who would willingly sacrifice the benefits of civilisation, most of which depend to a greater or lesser degree on an adequate supply of energy. Of course we must continue to press for energy conservation, and we welcome the Low Energy Strategy document to which the noble Baroness, Lady Robson of Kidding-ton, referred. I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, that the Department of Energy is closely studying this matter and the other low energy futures, including their implications for research and development strategy work, and this will take about two years to produce.
Estimated energy savings are already the equivalent of 20 million tons of coal a year, and we shall keep up the pressure. However, we cannot afford to base our policy on assumptions which might turn out to be over-optimistic. To do this would be to gamble with our living standards, or levels of employment, and our balance of payments. When we are speaking about a materialistic society, we must also accept that people who would certainly not consider themselves anywhere near the materialistic top brackets have become accustomed to a standard of comfort which, compared with that of not so many years ago, would appear to be luxurious, and which is now accepted as normal. People would now be very unwilling to give it up. Whatever energy strategy we have it must cover all the available sources. This comprises not only existing sources, including nuclear energy, which we believe still has a part to play, but also possible new sources. The Green Paper on energy policy has set out the Government's approach, and therefore I shall not linger on that matter.
There was a lengthy debate on the Royal Commission's report on nuclear energy in which the noble Lord, Lord Hinton of Bankside, took part and in which I replied for the Government, and one saw very clearly the difference of opinion between what I would call the

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highly environmentalist approach and the nuclear energy approach. In developing our energy strategy we must always not only take into account, but make absolutely sure that we do not ignore, environmental issues at every stage. The Government have undertaken to see that any decision to build on a commercial scale a fast breeder reactor in this country will be subject to a wide-ranging public inquiry. Here I should say to the noble Lord, Lord Hinton, that nowadays we live not only in a democratic society but also in a consultative society.
A major development in this area was the setting up last March of the Commission on Energy and the Environment under the chairmanship of Sir Brian Flowers, whom we shall shortly be welcoming as a Member of your Lordships' House. The commission has cross-membership with the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution on the one hand, and with the Energy Commission on the other, which should lead to a useful cross-fertilisation of ideas. I also think that it will give confidence to both sides involved in this particular debate. It will advise on the interaction between energy policy and the environment. So in this field at least we are precisely meeting the terms of the Motion of the noble Baroness.
So far I have been talking mainly about the role of the Government and those bodies which have been given statutory powers to protect the environment. But a great responsibility rests with industry. While the Government can guide and encourage industry, industry must respond to local and national needs. We have already had examples in this connection. From my own work I know of what is being done by some of the nationalised industries, including British Rail, the coal industry, and now by the steel industry. I was extremely pleased to hear what the noble Lord, Lord Craigton, had to say in this connection. I believe that the greatest progress is achieved by working as far as possible in co-operation with industry. Here the Press has played a very valuable part in the awards that it has made, the competitions it has arranged, and the publicity it has given.
It is also true that while some companies comply with controls reluctantly—and
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one cannot merely slide over that fact—enlightened companies have actually gone ahead of regulations in a number of fields; for example, in reducing water and air pollution, and in restoring landscapes spoilt by the dereliction of early factories or by mining and quarrying, to a standard which is not yet statutorily required. The gas industry has reduced noise from its in-shore installations. The majority of companies operating furnaces are ahead of the standards for grit and dust emissions. But today it must be the job of good managers to recognise the importance of the environment, as well as the importance of all the other factors that they must take into account in running their businesses.
I had intended to say something about the need for environmental education and the start that has been made in that direction, because this is a matter close to my heart, but this was extremely well covered by the noble Lords, Lord Craigton, Lord Sandford, and Lord Dulverton, as well as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Guildford. So all I shall say is that I welcome the work that is already being done nationally and internationally both by professional educational organisations and by other groups. I also wish to pay tribute to the work of the Council of Environmental Education, which owes so much to the noble Lord, Lord Sandford.
The Department of Education and Science has produced a useful set of notes entitled Environmental Education in the UK 1977, which show the way in which environmental education can be included in the school curriculum. However, I agree that we have a long way to go down that road in terms of education for both youngsters and adults. When I was at the Department of the Environment I set up a Heritage Education Group under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Briggs. We arranged for the Daily Mirror to sponsor a competition, and this is now to be done for the third year running. It is a competition for schools and it is intended to encourage children to look around and use their eyes. It is called the "Wide Awake Trail". The impact which the competition has made has been quite amazing, and it involved not only the teachers but the parents, too. If people do not look around their own environment where they live and work,

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it will be difficult for them to demand a higher quality of life, if they have nothing against which to measure it.
In the time available it has not been possible to deal comprehensively with, or to do justice to, this enormous and vitally important subject. I have outlined very superficially the Government's approach and attempted to give some practical examples of how we try to achieve this balance and reconciliation. There are bound to be difficult decisions, but it would be wrong to suggest that technological advance must always be in conflict with the environment. To a large extent we rely on technological advance to reduce or eliminate the adverse effect of earlier industrial methods on the environment.
I see our debate today, in a sense, as a continuation of the debate we had last Wednesday on the conditions favourable to the creation of wealth and industrial growth. I suggested then that wealth in its widest sense means social improvement as well as economic development. We need to create the conditions for industrial growth in order to achieve real improvements in the social environment. Today we have been discussing the physical environment, and we have to recognise that here, too, we need to promote industrial growth in order to create the wealth that will enable us to raise our environmental and ecological standards. There need be no conflict between those objectives, provided that we realise that they are interrelated and can be reconciled.
8.11 p.m.
Baroness ROBSON of KIDDINGTON: My Lords, at the end of a long and fascinating debate I shall confine myself to a very few words. First of all, on behalf of all of us I should like to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, for the very full reply she has given us on behalf of the Government; we are very grateful to her. At the opening of the debate I expressed a hope that as many aspects of the problem as possible would be covered during the debate. I am therefore also extremely grateful to all the noble Lords who have taken part and who have spoken so constructively and with such deep knowledge of their subjects. It has become obvious during the debate that we all share the same concern for the
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future, but we do not necessarily all see exactly the same answers. This is really the value of a debate of this kind—we can quietly and thoughtfully discuss a subject which has no easy answer, and because of that it is necessary that every contribution should be listened to carefully.
During the whole of the debate there was only one remark which made me feel very sad. It was made by the noble Lord, Lord Hatch, and it has already been referred to by my noble friend Lord Winstanley. He said that no political Party would include the subject discussed today in its manifesto because it would lose votes. We may disagree about whether or not it would lose votes, but to me that statement is frighteningly cynical. Is it not perhaps because political Parties have stood away from putting in their manifestoes what should be put in them that we have some of the problems we have today? I believe it is essential for the political Parties of this country to put these problems in front of the nation so as to enable the nation as a whole to make an informed judgment. In the hope that the wisdom that has been expressed in this House today will have an influence on a far wider circle than the House itself, I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

HEATHROW/GATWICK PROPOSED FLIGHT TRANSFERS
8.14 p.m.
Baroness BURTON of COVENTRY Baroness BURTON of COVENTRY rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are aware of the immediate problems arising for passengers and airlines as a result of the proposed transfer of flights from Heathrow to Gatwick on 1st April next. The noble Baroness said: My Lords, tonight I am making two assumptions: first, that everyone concerned in these problems, facing both passengers and airlines, wishes to be helpful; and, secondly, that the Government, in response to the Question asked, will deal with the immediate problem arising and not with what is planned for the more distant future, which is something to which I hope and expect we can return at a later date. Dealing with the second assumption first, the House will recall that we are told a good deal about the Gatwick

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of the future, but not about the Gatwick of 1st April next, which is my immediate concern; and, in an effort to be helpful, I have told the Minister the points J intend raising and the questions I intend asking.
My Lords, apart from this, though, the Question we are debating tonight deals with airlines as well as with passengers, and a few words must be said on the general approach to the airlines before we come to the passengers. This whole matter has been handled very badly, and I think this is now generally realised. A considerable amount of factual information has come my way, and Spain must be mentioned. As I understand matters, it was on 18th August last that the British Government, without prior consultation or agreement, advised the Spanish Government that Iberia services were to be transferred from Heathrow to Gatwick on 1st April 1979. It was on 22nd August that the Department of Trade, without prior notice or discussion, directed Iberia to transfer services on 1st April 1979. If true, such procedure seems to me neither courteous nor flexible, nor even sensible. Iberia objected. Without going into detail—which, I repeat, I hope is something we can do on a later occasion—it seems to me that the Spanish airline makes a valid point which cannot be just swept under the carpet. It was one of the first six airlines to commence operations from Heathrow in 1946. Over the past 32 years, 68 airlines have been allowed to commence operations from Heathrow, when it must have been obvious to the authorities that they could not meet their requirements in the future.
As this whole affair surfaced over the Iberian Peninsular, it must be added that TAP, the airline of Portugal, tell me a similar story. The decision was conveyed to them, without prior notice, on 23rd August. This decision was put forward as a directive, with no logical supporting reasons and no suggestion of further discussions. TAP started operations at Heathrow in 1949. At that time there were 12 airlines operating there; now there are 75. Indeed, 15 of these airlines have been accepted within the past four years, during which time the problem of saturation at Heathrow has been under discussion. I must say that I understand TAP's indignation when they state that
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they have been co-operating with the airport during this problem of congestion by so arranging matters that their arrival times profile is completely outside Heathrow's peak hours profile. At the very least it appears to me unfair that two of the longest established customers at Heathrow airport should be expected to accept a loss of traffic plus a loss of revenue and investment, to say nothing of bearing the cost of the move—and all without even prior discussion. That is hardly a prelude to amicable procedure!
As wiser counsels have now prevailed and discussions have taken place, I will leave it there except to say that, on a similar point, I understand that Air Canada have refused to move, saying that they were pioneers at Heathrow and that any congestion there is caused by airlines which came later than they did. 1 ascertained from Iberia that they had operated scheduled services from Gatwick in the past on an experimental basis. On the flights in question, a reduction of 42 per cent. in passenger carryings was experienced during the season they operated from Gatwick. The flights were subsequently returned to Heathrow, and passenger carryings restored. That experiment is worth a mention in view of what we are discussing tonight. It was for the whole of the summer season of 1976, from 1st April to 31st October, and concerned flights to Malaga and Palma.
During the past two or three months I have tried to look into these matters, and I am indebted to Iberia, TAP, British Airways, the British Airports Authority at Gatwick and British Caledonian, who all very willingly have given me much of their time. For two special reasons I should now like to come to the last named. British Caledonian believe in Gatwick; they consider it a fine airport and they want it to grow and develop so that everyone will consider it a fine airport. My second reason, as the House will appreciate, is that British Caledonian have a baggage check-in at Victoria Station—which is where I am really checking in for tonight.
My concern, as I think everyone here most patiently knows, is for the ordinary traveller with baggage up to 44 lb. in weight who has to get to Gatwick under his own power. He has no car and is unable to move his luggage unaided. It is

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my belief, based on past experience, that such ordinary travellers are considered last, if at all, by "authority"—and I put the word "authority" in quotes. It is an absolute certainty that their requirements, I think, most of your Lordships' requirements and, certainly, mine, will be ignored when flights are transferred to Gatwick unless we can rouse public opinion and force action to be taken.
It is a nuisance: it is troublesome; there are trains; there are porters; there will be wonderful facilities in the years to come; millions of people now use Gatwick. What is the fuss? One reason for this attitude is that those who make these decisions or who take this line of inaction do so, from desks, based on statistics. They do not have to carry heavy luggage; they do not have to search for a porter; they do not have to stand in the rain at one end of Gatwick station; they do not have to struggle over their luggage in the corridors of trains. In fact, some have never even visited Gatwick, much less flown from there. I suggest that desks and statistics are a poor substitute for actual happenings.
I spent considerable time at the central terminal of British Caledonian at Victoria Station, at two different times of day, and I wished that everyone who travels to Gatwick could go by them. You arrive with your baggage, it is checked in; and you do not see it again until you arrive at your destination—just as it used to be at the West London Air Terminal until January 1974, five years ago, when British Airways ignored the vote in this House and withdrew their check-in service. The British Caledonian terminal is above platforms 12 to 16; trains depart every 15 minutes to Gatwick and the journey takes approximately 40 minutes. All flights and trains are announced in the terminal. There is direct access from there to the correct platform via British Caledonian's own stairways. They have their own British Rail ticket sales office in the terminal. Concerning the actual numbers, the check-in staff total 25. In the six months from April to September this year, 82,153 passengers checked through the terminal. This number would have been greater had not the terminal to be closed for a length of time for refurbishing. British Caledonian estimate that the staff
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of 25 could have coped with 110,000 passengers.
My Lords, if you are not fortunate enough to go by British Caledonian, what do you do? Obviously, you go by train and you hope for a porter. As there seems to have been a flurry of activity and visits to Gatwick recently, I trust that it will be agreed that there are not many porters at Gatwick station, and, certainly, there are not enough. Getting heavy bags out of a train can be a problem. What is the traveller to do if no help is available?—bearing in mind that the train goes on elsewhere. If only authority could understand that this is worrying for elderly people, for those with children and, of course, for invalids and for those unable to move about easily.
Since travellers have told me of their worry about trains going on elsewhere from Gatwick, I have had the opportunity of talking to British Rail. I should like to express appreciation of their patience and help. They tell me that on every train to and from Gatwick, four coaches remain at Gatwick station so that passengers need neither feel hurried on arrival nor wait for trains to come in when they are departing. I was not aware of this myself when travelling either way; and I have asked British Rail if they could erect a poster, perhaps over the ticket barrier at Gatwick, telling passengers where the four coaches are awaiting them. Of all air travellers using rail at Gatwick about 90 per cent. travel to and from Victoria. The four coaches referred to carry the brand name "Rapid City Link". If these could have additional colour identification or markings, I think it would help passengers, especially at busy times.
Let us suppose that you get your baggage off the train without the help of a porter. You then have to climb the stairs leading to the ramp or bridge to move along to the actual concourse, passing through the ticket barrier somehow dragging your baggage with you. This is just about impossible except for the young, the hale and the hearty. This is what I mean by an "immediate" problem—and, please, I want an answer dealing with the 1st of April, not any later.
I am asking the Government tonight to agree that they will not force flights

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to transfer from Heathrow to Gatwick until there are at least adequate facilities for getting passengers' luggage from Victoria station up on to the concourse at Gatwick. Should any airlines transfer on 1st April without compulsion, then that particular airline must be made responsible for such facilities. I hope that the Minister when she comes to reply will tell us what is the position concerning actual airlines and Gatwick on 1st April. 1 know what it is; but I do not think that the House does and I feel it would be helpful if we could be told.
Furthermore, my Lords, it cannot be accepted that the Government, the Department of Trade or the British Airports Authority have any right to transfer passengers under present conditions. So what could they do, or see done, in the short or immediate term; that is, by 1st April next? Let us forget who is responsible; let us accept that the passengers have claims for consideration. I will not put forward structural alterations as the time is short up to the 1st April except to ask if anything could be done to enlarge or make more use of the goods lift on the platform at Gatwick station. That would be a help.
My Lords, I would suggest: (1) a plentiful supply of porters at Gatwick station (and at Victoria for trains arriving from Gatwick especially in the evening) so that passengers may be sure of help. That is a small but effective way of dealing with the problem by 1st April.
(2) a plentiful supply of porters where passengers claim their baggage on returning to Gatwick. There are not enough porters and not enough trolleys. Even if there were enough of the latter, you are not allowed to push these through the rail ticket barrier leading to the top of the stairs leading down to the platform. If you cannot carry your baggage you must have a porter. How, otherwise, are travellers expected to manage?
(3) more clerks on duty at the British Rail ticket office adjoining the ticket barrier. Those using Gatwick know that you have to buy a ticket to travel by rail before getting through the barrier. When I came back one evening there was one booking clerk on duty and a considerable queue. Several trains to London were missed.
These are simple suggestions, and if we are told they would cost money or that one lot of porters is the responsibility of British Rail and another the responsibility of the British Airports Authority, I am not interested, and neither is the passenger. Passengers pay to travel and it is the job of responsible "authority" to get together and co-operate to see that facilities are available.
I should like to make one point, offer one suggestion for the future and ask one question fundamental to the industry and the travelling public so far as the use of Gatwick is concerned. The one point is—and I underline this so much to my noble friend on the Front Bench for whom J have so much respect—that escalators are not the answer for passengers with heavy luggage. So if that is in my noble friend's script I hope it will be removed.
The one suggestion for the future is that the check-in service at Victoria station now operated so efficiently by British Caledonian be extended to other airlines. British Caledonian have capacity at their Victoria air terminal to check in passengers flying with other airlines; they are prepared to offer this facility and have also said that they would be pleased to provide a suitable identification for the airline concerned. However, they estimate that their present terminal will be too small in the early 1980s; but they are discussing possibilities for further expansion. If British Rail and British Caledonian cooperate by providing a much larger facility, then many more passengers flying from Gatwick airport will be able to take advantage of this Central London air terminal.
Finally, the one question I described as fundamental to the use of Gatwick. The latest figures published by the British Airports Authority showed that for the year up to October 1978, a total of 26 million terminal passengers used Heathrow. From the annual reports of the Authority, it appears that an additional average of 0.4 million transit passengers per year also used Heathrow, giving an annual total of 26.4 million. The Government have stated that the transfer of Iberian services to Gatwick from Heathrow would transfer 1·2 million passengers from one airport to the other. This number is less than the annual average growth at the airport and is therefore unlikely to

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resolve any problems at Heathrow, bearing in mind that most of Iberia's services operate out of peak hours.
It is therefore clear that if the solution to congestion at Heathrow is the transfer of services, then obviously it will require more than just the transfer of the Iberian services. Two other possibilities have been mentioned but it does not appear, to me anyway, that the numbers involved therein would relieve the Government of further action—namely, the transfer of other services. I believe that to secure both goodwill and discussions in an atmosphere of goodwill, it would be helpful if the Government were to disclose the plans they consider necessary to the carriers concerned, and the dates on which they feel these plans must be operational.
My Lords, under our procedure I have no chance of making any remarks at the end of our debate so I should like to thank the House for its patience. I should like to thank all those taking part and I hope that everybody who reads this debate will know that this is one in which all Parties have taken part. This is nothing to do with any particular Party. I should like to congratulate the Minister on her appointment—her promotion—and I am sorry that it means that I shall be losing her from my pursuits. She may not be sorry, but I am. I should like to take this opportunity of thanking her for all that she has done to help and to wish her the best of success in the future. In conclusion, I know that she has visited Gatwick.
8.35 p.m.
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, I must start by declaring an interest in this matter because I work for one of the airlines that operate from Gatwick—not British Caledonian—and I must therefore tell your Lordships about that. I hope your Lordships will agree that, far from causing me any bias in the matter, it gives me some modest degree of authority with which to speak on these matters in your Lordships' House. I was delighted when I saw that the noble Baroness, Lady Burton of Coventry, was proposing to raise this matter because, had she not chosen to do so, I might well have been constrained to do just that myself. Happily, she has done it and done it much better than I could have done. She has as she usually does—
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and as she explained—laid particular emphasis upon the needs of the passengers—and quite right too. Speaking from my position, perhaps I can talk about the airlines, how we see the problems both at Heathrow and at Gatwick, and how concerned we are by the Governments present efforts to solve the problem.
I find this particular saga—the noble Baroness referred to the difficulties that Iberian Airlines faced, and TAP have had much the same problem—as yet another example of the Government's efforts to get its way by diktat without any real consideration of the niceties of the consideration. The noble Baroness—and I made a note of her words—said that the Government acted neither courteously nor flexibly nor sensibly. I would add that I am not sure that they acted lawfully, either. The Government will know of course that foreign airlines operating into the United Kingdom do so under cover, first, of the relevant bilateral agreement—in this case the bilateral agreement between Spain and another one with Portugal—and, secondly, with the permits, as they are called, issued under the bilateral agreement. It is a matter for consideration whether the agreed terms of the permits can be varied by one party or another simply by diktat, as I have said.
I will revert to the question of Iberia in a moment. I want first to consider the situation which has caused the Government to embark upon this somewhat hazardous course. Nobody denies there is considerable pressure at Heathrow, particularly at the peak hours; the pressure as we all know is for the moment anyway principally confined not to the runways or even the taxiways, but the terminals. The peak hours at Terminals 1 and 2—which are the two terminals which are relevant in this argument—are not the same. But for reasons best known to the British Airports Authority—and certainly kept from me—British Airways have virtually exclusive use of Terminal 1 at Heathrow, thus I would say imposing restraints upon the maximum efficient use of Terminals 1 and 2 together. Foreign airlines, although they may wish to use Terminal 1 at off-peak times, are not permitted to do so.
It may be that there is some agreement between the British Airports Authority and British Airways which I do not know

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about. If there is such an agreement, it is acting against public interest. There are, may I say in parenthesis, some additional problems at Terminal 3 from where all the long haul airlines operate. The most obvious problem to the user of Terminal 3 is the shortage of immigration officers, particularly at the non-British passport desks. I have had occasion to come into Heathrow in the early hours of the morning, around breakfast time—when I admit so many other flights are also arriving—and the queues waiting to have their passports seen to at all the desks, including the ones for the unhappy British subjects, are frankly a national scandal. It is time that the Government did something about it. I know that the British Airports Authority, to be fair to them, have brought constant pressure on the Government to increase the number of immigration officers at Terminal 3. We understand that a very small number of additional officers are to be made available for this coming summer season but there are not enough of them in the winter, let alone the summer.
When the Government decided to move traffic from Heathrow to Gatwick, they presumably ascertained that the problem was a peak-hour one, as I have said, and therefore one would have thought they would have chosen peak-hour traffic to move; but, as the noble Baroness has explained, they did not do that. For some extraordinary reason they proposed to move the flights operated by Iberia and TAP, which are non-peak traffic. I find this hard to credit but it is apparently the case that of 13 flights operated by Iberia in the summer, for example, in and out of Heathrow, only two operate during the peak hours. Those two no doubt would have been included in the diktat, but so would the other 11 which were off-peak flights. As I say, I find that very difficult to credit.
The next assumption—and I would call it a false assumption—that the Government made with respect to the traffic which they chose to direct away from Heathrow, was that it had little or no "interline" content. This is a rather technical term which no doubt your Lordships and certainly the noble Baroness will understand. It means that certain flights coming in from Spain, for example, include passengers who do not
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want to go anywhere in the United Kingdom: they want to change flights and go on elsewhere. The truth of the matter is that the great bulk of non-interline traffic moving between Spain and the United Kingdom does not move by Iberia services at all but by charter flights. It therefore happens that Iberia have a greater percentage of interline traffic on their flights than other carriers operating to and from Spain. But the Government claimed, quite wrongly in my opinion at least, that there was very little interline traffic on these services and that therefore there would be no difficulty in moving flights to Gatwick.
The next false assumption, in my view, which the Government chose to make was that capacity at Gatwick was more than adequate to cope with these flights. If the Government think that, they really are living in Cloud-Cuckoo-Land. I have no doubt they were told that by the British Airports Authority, and in that case the British Airports Authority are living in Cloud-Cuckoo-Land as well. I am quite convinced that Gatwick is approaching saturation much more quickly than people imagine. It is already the busiest single-runway airport in the world—by a mile—and yet the Government expect virtually to double the existing usage at Gatwick with the existing runway and terminal facilities. I say that is simply not possible.
Gatwick presently carries around 8½ million passengers a year. The next busiest single-runway airport in the world is, I believe, Palma, where so many of the flights from Gatwick go. That is presently coping with around 7 million passengers a year. They already have two terminals at Palma but the Government seem to think that we are going to get 16 million passengers through Gatwick with one runway and one terminal. They also think that we are going to get 35 million—would you credit it?—when the next terminal is built. Perhaps both the BAA and the Government have forgotten that the maximum capacity of an airport is not the maximum number that you can get through the terminal or the maximum number you can get on the runway, but the maximum number you can get through the bottlenecks on the airport—for example, the taxiways and the parking areas, which are already overstrained at some periods.

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May I, in parenthesis, mention the other difficulties at Gatwick. I do not want to sound unduly cynical—I have done pretty well so far!—but there are some extraordinary rules at Gatwick, which are public knowledge and well known. There is one in particular I should like to refer to. That is that all the new airlines who are operating at Gatwick, and also some of the old ones, are required to take the services of the established handling agents. There are three firms doing handling at Gatwick. There is British Caledonian, which the noble Baroness has told us are prepared to handle other airlines; there is British Air Tours, which is a division of British Airways, and there is a firm called Gatwick Handling Services which I understand is largely owned by two of the other major operators at Gatwick. So all new operators, including Iberia, if they were to move to Gatwick, would be required to take the services of one or other of these companies. I would not want to distinguish between those companies but I would say that they all have their drawbacks.
The noble Baroness also referred to what she called the "lost passengers": that is, the passengers who have no car but who might have a lot of baggage and who perhaps check in at Victoria and take the train to Gatwick, but are not travelling on British Caledonian so they have to look after their own baggage all the way down to Gatwick on the train. I would say there is a problem for those passengers and I would certainly support the suggestions made by the noble Baroness for easing their journey. There is also a problem for those who check in their baggage with British Caledonian, and in theory do not see it again until they reach their destination, because British Rail are pretty slow and lose a good lot of it. I have recently spent a good deal of time in my aircraft waiting for British Rail to deliver baggage to our handling agent so that the aircraft can be taken off to its destination, because certain of our flights are handled by British Caledonian.
I wonder now how the Government have chosen to act in this matter of Iberia to which the noble Baroness has referred. I mentioned earlier that I did not think they were acting in compliance with the relevant legislation and I should
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be glad to hear what the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, is going to say about that. For example, did the Government, once it was apparent that Iberia were not going to go quietly, use their influence, if they have any, with the British Airports Authority? Did they use their influence to have the landing slots, as they are called, of Iberia at Heathrow withdrawn? Iberia have heard down the grapevine that that was going to happen. I would not wish to say whether or not it is true, but I should like to hear what the Government actually said to the BAA at the time they were hoping that Iberia would move down to Gatwick, bag and baggage.
I did say that the Government have to vary the permit issued to Iberia under the bilateral agreement and I presume that in doing that they were relying on the powers granted under Article 58 of the 1976 Air Navigation Order. I would say that particular power is at best doubtful in these circumstances, and in any event I think that the Government ought to consider whether, at least at the time they set out on this path, they had completed the "due inquiry" called for under Article 58.
I do not think I will go any further into the saga of Iberia because the noble Baroness has done so better than I could have done. I would like to hear, as I think would the noble Baroness, about what the position now is. The Government announced that services were to be moved on 1st April. There has been no formal retraction from that position although I think we all believe that is not now to be the case. But if 1st April is not to be the date, what is the new date to be, and does that new date apply also to Air Canada, who are equally incensed at the thought of having to move?
My Lords, I do not deny that a problem is looming at Heathrow, but I would say that the impact of that problem could be postponed by more effective management of the existing facilities at Heathrow. The problem certainly will not be solved by endeavouring to move out those who are not contributing to the problem. But where the problem does exist, it is better solved by providing the facilities required and, as I have said, securing better use of the facilities that we have. I think that the Government have once more come away with egg on their faces in this matter,

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and I hope that the noble Baroness can put some of that right tonight.
8.50 p.m.
Earl AMHERST: My Lords, I should like to congratulate the noble Baroness on her perseverance, which has enabled us to debate again this vexed problem. On a Starred Question which she asked on 12th December, I asked a whole lot of supplementary questions relative to the rail access between Victoria and Gatwick. Since then, I have had a lot of information about British Rail's plans in the matter. Therefore, tonight I want to limit my remarks to the question of the rail connection between London and Gatwick, and my questions will be in amplification of the answers which I received on 12th December. I think that the overall question here is one of timing, and when the noble Baroness replies I hope she will be able to tell us when these plans will start to be implemented and when they will be completed. At the present moment, as I understand it, British Rail are providing four services a day to Gatwick. As I pointed out in my original question, at the rush hours these are——
Lord PONSONBY of SHULBREDE: My Lords, does the noble Earl mean four services a day or four services an hour?
Earl AMHERST: My Lords, I am most grateful for that intervention. I meant four services an hour, and 1 regret my inaccuracy. Most, if not all, of those services go on to other destinations. The noble Baroness has been more lucky than I have with the service to Gatwick, because I have usually found that most trains from Victoria divide at Gatwick, and both sections then go on elsewhere. This means that other passengers who are not air passengers are on the trains and, as I pointed out the other day, the congestion in the rush hours is appalling. The air passengers' baggage is lumped together in the aisles of these trains, which makes entrance to or exit from these trains very difficult. Should there be any kind of emergency, where it was necessary to evacuate the coaches and get passengers detrained in a hurry, there might well be a very great public risk.
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I understand that to meet this problem British Rail propose to introduce this year coaches modified to take these additional amounts of baggage, and I should like to ask: will these coaches be attached to the ordinary trains to Gatwick, will they be limited only to the rush hours or will they be reserved for air passengers only? I am told that this summer there is to be a new service, which will be entirely separate from British Rail's existing services, and which will run between Victoria and Gatwick at the weekends. What is to be the frequency of this service, and will it be reserved for air passengers and their baggage?
I have been told of a very fascinating plan under which British Airways intend to provide a connection between Gatwick and Manchester. This immediately prompts the question of what will be the frequency. There is also the intriguing problem of how they will get the trains from the Southern Region across South-West London to North-West London, so as to connect with the main Euston-Manchester trains. It would seem to be quite a problem. Furthermore, the Southern Region use a third conductor rail to get their electricity, whereas the main line Euston-Manchester uses an overhead conductor. Will that raise a problem? I do not know.
I am told that British Rail have plans to improve the general concourse in Victoria Station, and that work is already in hand. In addition, they are to provide a booking office where air passengers can book their tickets. I do not know whether or not there is to be one ticket window, but it should avoid the vexation that now arises when, of the 13 second-class windows and the four first-class windows at Victoria Station, more than half are not manned and are not open. In the rush hour, there are long queues of people trying to buy tickets. If an air passenger has not already bought a rail ticket by the time he buys his air ticket, he will probably get caught in a queue and miss his flight.
I entirely endorse what the noble Baroness has said about porters, both at Victoria Station and at Gatwick. This is a most important question. I am told that British Rail intend to build a new station at Gatwick. This should be completed in 1981 and will have escalators, but these do not provide the same facility as a

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moving staircase. However, 1 may be wrong and it may be available a year earlier. But what is wanted is not only a moving staircase up from the platforms to the bridge which leads across into the terminal building, but also a moving staircase along that bridge. It is a long way to the terminals. I hope that if this facility is to be installed it will not be like Heathrow which has travelators which, for most of the time, do not travel and do not move.
It will be interesting to know whether the platforms at this new station are to be totally covered for the whole of their length, because if you are at the end of the existing platforms you may have a long walk in the rain. So that the new ones ought to be covered. Furthermore, in the interim until they get the moving staircase, could British Rail consider installing a moving baggage belt such as they have at the terminal at Parkeston Quay at Harwich, where the passenger can put his baggage on the moving belt and walk alongside it up from the train and down to the quayside? It would, at least, help if such a belt could be placed on the platforms and on the connecting bridge.
Lastly, I understand that there is a plan for an entirely new and separate service to Gatwick. This is a very long-term plan and, as yet, there are no details available. I may be running over my time, so I shall end by saying that I hope the noble Baroness can answer the questions I have raised, of which I have given her prior notice. May I also congratulate her on her promotion, and thank her for the kindness I have received when she has been dealing with my questions.
8.59 p.m.
Lord BALFOUR of 1NCHRYE: My Lords, in the few minutes that I shall endeavour to detain your Lordships, I undertake not to cover Iberia, the legal issues of Iberia, Heathrow management, Air Navigation Order No. 58 or the problems of Heathrow's terminal usage, all of which seem to me rather irrelevant to the drafting of the Question by the noble Baroness, which I am very glad to support, which asks for consideration "of the immediate problems arising". I do not think that those which have been raised this evening are immediate problems. Indeed, I think that they would be better dealt with by the noble Lord, Lord
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Boyd-Carpenter, in his Motion which is already set down in the Minutes.
I went to Gatwick the other day, and in a moment I shall tell your Lordships of my adventures there. However, my overriding impression of Gatwick was of unused capacity. Instead of the 16 million passengers which Gatwick could handle now, it is handling 9 million, while Heathrow is reaching its top limit. In order to increase passenger handling from 9 million to 16 million, not only must you have the transfer of airlines—a point which I do not intend to deal with this evening—but also you must provide comfort for passengers from the moment that they arrive at Victoria Station until they get into their aircraft. 1 have nothing but praise for the terminal facilities at Gatwick. Indeed, I should like to endorse what the noble Baroness who is to answer the debate said on 12th December: that Gatwick has extensive new facilities which are among the most modern in the world.
May I concentrate for a few moments upon questions which the noble Baroness, Lady Burton of Coventry, dealt with; namely, the immediate problems for passengers. Having said that the terminal facilities at Gatwick are splendid, may I go on to say that British Rail and the Post Office have not phased in their expansion in line with the expansion, thought and development that has been put into the terminal. As the noble Baroness said, air passengers just say, "We're air passengers". They do not differentiate between the Post Office, the railway they are travelling on and the airport. They just say, "We're air travellers and we're not going to divide up the considerations between three different Government Departments".
My first adventure with regard to Gatwick was endeavouring to telephone Gatwick. I held on for 40 minutes, in which time I could have got down to Gatwick by train. That was not a very happy introduction to communications, so far as the Post Office are concerned. I admit at once, however, that that is past history. I understand that on 2nd March a computerised telephone system, run not by the Post Office but by the British Airports Authority, will come into operation. I understand also that the switchboard at Gatwick which has caused

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so many thousands of passengers to suffer delays, is not the most modern of switchboards and that it was not even new but second-hand when it was installed at Gatwick by the Post Office. This supports my statement that perhaps the Post Office have not phased in their expansion quite so quickly and efficiently as those responsible for the terminal.
I arrived at Gatwick as a very sick man. I have a stick. I suffer from arthritis, neuritis and any other "itis" that one cares to mention. I hobbled along the platform and asked how I could get up the stairs. I was told that there was a luggage lift. I found that luggage lift but it did not say that it was for the use of disabled or handicapped people. A porter was about to put some luggage into the lift and I asked him whether I could go with him. I was told that I could not, and when I asked him why I could not use the luggage lift he told me that he had no authority to allow me to use it. I asked him who could give that authority and he told me to go back to an official on the platform.
Unfortunately, no official was to be found on the platform, so I had no option but instantly to cure my arthritis and neuritis and walk up the two rows of stairs, after which I came into a narrow passage that was divided in the middle by a barrier. One half was for people going to the trains and the other half was for people coming from the trains. There was a long queue of passengers with their luggage because, curiously enough, I am informed that most passengers prefer to hang on to their luggage rather than to take the risk of it going to the wrong destination. So there they were, shuffling along. And where were they shuffling to? They were shuffling not to a beautiful exit but towards one very senior member of British Rail who sat in a little cabin which was so narrow that a second ticket collector could not have been placed opposite. Everybody had to pass under this gentleman's surveillance and surrender his ticket.
In the summer, when the queues are even longer, I do not see how there can be anything but long delays which may well cause some passengers to miss their trains. Even at Kensington High Street Underground station, which I use a great
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deal, there are nice wide exits with at least two and, if necessary, three ticket collectors. Is it not possible for British Rail to reconsider this comparatively small matter which would give a great deal of comfort and easement to passengers?
May I next consider the passenger on his return journey. At the moment, just one little ticket office is open. I believe that British Rail open at least one more ticket office during the summer. I could not help wondering and asking why they could not have automatic ticket machines at Gatwick, if not at Victoria Station. I was told that it had been tried but that foreigners do not understand automatic ticket machines and therefore do not operate them properly. Not everybody, however, is a foreigner. The queues at the ticket office would be reduced if some automatic ticket machines were installed. Then the foreigners could go to the ticket office, while the comparatively few Britons would be able to use the automatic ticket machines.
May I next ask why there could not be a large notice on the platform which says, "Airline porters are available"? That would tell people who find that all the porters are busy and engaged that porters will be coming back in a few moments. As well as a luggage lift notice, why not have a notice saying, "For use also by physically incapacitated persons"? It is a small point, but one which does not seem to have been tackled hitherto. These small points which I am putting forward are aimed only at increasing the comfort of the passengers. I am quite sure that what I call the "no" attitude of mind of officialdom in many Government Departments and certainly in British Rail will have a field day when they read Hansard and think of all these suggestions which will give them so many opportunities to say, No, which is so dearly beloved by bureaucracy. Despite that danger, I am so bold as to suggest that these small points should be attended to at once, because every point attended to will please passengers and attract further business.
I have only a few words to say about the use of Gatwick by airlines. I am not going to deal with the questions that were touched on by the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, but one airline, Braniff, resisted

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most strongly being moved from Heathrow to Gatwick. Today I understand that if it had the option that airline would not go back to Heathrow because it finds the facilities at Gatwick so much better, easier and more adaptable than those at Heathrow. So there is hope for other airlines which, whether voluntarily or compulsorily—I am not dealing with that at the moment—one day will have to go to Gatwick. I believe that in the final event they will not regret having done so.
9.10p.m.
Lord KILMARNOCK: My Lords, my intervention will be extremely brief. In the first place I speak as a consumer—as a passenger. My home is in Spain and when I come over to attend debates or a Committee in your Lordships' House I usually fly Iberia from Malaga to London. Unfortunately, I am unable to claim the expense of these journeys from the Accountant, but at least until now I have been able to rely on a regular, efficient service to Heathrow. On the last flight we arrived two minutes early and I was at Cromwell Road 45 minutes later. If I had not taken the airport bus 1 could have taken the underground to any one of a number of Central London stations. Speaking personally, I strongly object to being re-routed via Gatwick and a sleazy train service to Victoria or even an expensive car or taxi journey in default of trains.
Turning to less personal considerations, I understand that as a result of legal proceedings by Iberia the deadline of 1st April for the removal of their services from Heathrow to Gatwick has been lifted; they have thus gained a stay of execution. I also gather that Spanish representatives were over here last week putting their views, and were again invited to inspect the two airports. They have now returned home to contemplate the matter, and I am told that a further meeting will take place shortly, either in Madrid or in London.
The Government are perfectly at liberty to attempt to convince the Spanish national airline of the virtues of Gatwick, but equally I should have thought that any national airline should be allowed to form its own view of the facilities at Gatwick, especially if any credence is to be given to the statement in the airport policy White
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Paper of February of last year, paragraph 17, that:
"It is not the Government's intention to dictate to airlines and airline authorities the precise conditions under which they should operate, but to give the maximum scope for commercial decision".
This seems particularly relevant to the case of Iberia. They have put high on the list of their objections the inevitable loss of revenue. As the noble Baroness, Lady Burton of Coventry, has already told us, they state that they operated scheduled services to Gatwick as an experiment but they lost 42 per cent. of their passengers, which they recouped when they returned to Heathrow.
Of course Heathrow is not perfect; I believe it has a very bad record for baggage thefts. But Gatwick has a worse reputation, both nationally and internationally, and I think we cannot blink that fact. There is only one runway—and I see that is to be the subject of an Unstarred Question by the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, tomorrow. As has been touched on a number of times this evening, the terminal building is badly designed. I am thinking particularly of the staircases mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, and that long corridor or bridge without the conveyor belt which one finds, for example, at Brussels, which I think was one of the points made by the noble Earl, Lord Amherst; and the rail link, too, leaves much to be desired.
If the Department of Trade wants to sell Gatwick to the national airlines of other countries surely its first task ought to be to improve the facilities and to make it more attractive. If Gatwick puts its house in order, the Spanish, Portuguese and other airlines might indeed be approached again, politely, let us hope, this time, let us say in 1981 or 1982, or whenever the improvements have been completed.
There is another very important consideration, perhaps the most important of all. This is not a question of my convenience or Iberia's convenience; it is a question that affects the convenience of almost every charter flight passenger in this country. Of course, by setting the annual throughput of passengers at Gatwick against the annual capacity it is possible to show that the airport can handle an increased flow of traffic.

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I listened to what the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, said about unused capacity; but I would point out that he made his visit and had his adventures in January and not in July or August. Surely the real point is that the vast majority of traffic handled at Gatwick is seasonal charter traffic. The proposal that all scheduled flights to and from the Iberian Peninsula should be added to the existing peak period bulge is surely absurd. Who is going to suffer? Not only I, when I attempt to get to your Lordships' House; not only Spanish businessmen coming to London; not only English businessmen who will increasingly want to travel to Spain when that country enters the Common Market; not only United Kingdom exports by airfreight, but literally millions of our own already long-suffering holidaymakers heading for a well-earned respite in the sun from this troubled land of ours.
Finally, may I ask the noble Baroness to tell us when she comes to reply if it is still the Government's intention in principle to move the Spaniards and the Portuguese to Gatwick, regardless of the reasoned representation of Iberia and the threat to the flying amenities of the British public, or whether they will go to the next round of talks in a sensible and civilised mood, laying aside their pistols before they sit down at the table? If the latter course is not followed, this sad affair is in danger of developing into a duel. Retaliatory measures are likely to be taken, with great reluctance, I am sure, against British carriers, and British holidaymakers and British businessmen will be the main sufferers.
9.17 p.m.
Lord PONSONBY of SHULBREDE: My Lords, I put my name down to speak in this short debate on Lady Burton's Unstarred Question in the hope that I might be able to contribute something useful following an inspection of the facilities at Gatwick airport earlier today. I hope perhaps I may be able to do that, but before dwelling on that I should like to make an overall point, one which concerns me very much. This is the tourist situation of London as a gateway to Europe. One is concerned that if in fact we are not able to cater for the increasing number of visitors to London
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over the next few years there is a very real danger that we shall find international flights switching from London to Amsterdam or Paris as their European gateway. Therefore I think airports policy is a terribly important question. I do not want in a sense to go back, and this is not the time to go back, over the experience of the past. I think one must be aware that we must at any given point of time and at this particular time see that we can handle and can go on handling the increasing number of passengers who are coming into London.
As has already been said, the capacity at Heathrow will become critical in the early 'eighties, particularly so as the construction of the fourth terminal at Heathrow is likely to be delayed. Another question one might ask, and in a sense this is again not something that I would like to debate this evening, is how London would cater for so many extra visitors in the future. On that point the evidence shows that the stay of a visitor in London is becoming shorter and shorter, and this is a trend which has gone on for some years. Bearing in mind this situation, I think it is important that proposals to use up the considerable additional capacity that is at Gatwick should be taken up before Heathrow is absolutely saturated.
In introducing this Unstarred Question my noble friend Lady Burton referred to and made great play of the way in which the negotiations were handled with regard to Iberia and the Portuguese airline. I understand, from talking to British Airports Authority officials today that informal consultations had been taking place about the transfer for a period of two years, and it was only because those negotiations did not reach any conclusion that the decisions which were taken last year were taken at that time.
The other point which was not mentioned is that British Airways is to transfer some of its Iberian services to Gatwick in April. I understand that the services to be transferred are those services—although British Airways might not like it to be said in this way—which go to the holiday resorts in the Iberian Peninsula and not, in a sense, the services which go to the main cities there. Despite everything which has been said this evening, there is a firm logic behind the proposals to transfer this particular section

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of traffic to Gatwick, in that a great deal of the traffic tends to be terminal. The noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, spoke about "interlining". The research shows that there is a very small amount of interline traffic on these services.
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, if the noble Lord will allow me, I can tell him the figure precisely. On the Iberian service it is 22 per cent.
Lord PONSONBY of SHULBREDE: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, for that figure. He also mentioned the question of capacity at Gatwick. I understand that at present there are 100,000 aircraft movements a year at Gatwick, including light aircraft. The configuration worked out by the British Airports Authority is that in order to cater for 16 million passengers one would have to increase the number of movements to 160,000 a year, and in the view of the British Airports Authority that figure is well obtainable.
The other comments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Burton of Coventry, the noble Earl, Lord Amherst, and the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, referred very largely to the question of the railway station and the problems which arise in that connection. I certainly support the noble Baroness, Lady Burton, who took the view that there should be a greater adequacy of porters at the station. The point is that a new station is at present being built and it is scheduled for completion in 1981. The noble Lord, Lord Balfour, mentioned how Braniff is at present very satisfied with the facilities at Gatwick. One could add as regards Delta, which volunteered, in a sense to have Gatwick as its London gateway—I gather that it said that it had inspected the facilities at Gatwick and decided that the facilities there were the ones which it wanted and not those at Heathrow—that its introduction of a service has also gone very well.
I hope that I have made some useful comments. However, before closing I also should like to add congratulations—I have already made them personally—to the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, on her promotion.
Baroness BURTON of COVENTRY: My Lords, I should like to point out to
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my noble friend that I do not think that he has addressed one word as to how the lot of passengers is to be improved by 1 st April.
9.25 p.m.
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, may I first thank noble Lords for their congratulations and say that it is with some regret that I am going to leave airports and aircraft. I have enjoyed the few months that I have spent in the Department of Trade dealing with them. However, tonight my noble friend Lady Burton of Coventry is concerned about the problems for the airlines and the passengers which she believes will result from the transfer of the air services to Gatwick Airport. I hope that I shall make it clear in the course of my reply why the Government believe that these transfers are not only necessary, but are also in the interests of the passengers and the airlines concerned; and the importance which we attach to presenting a correct and up-to-date image of the very high standards achieved at the new Gatwick. I was delighted to have the support of the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, in my earlier comments on the fact that Gatwick is a very fine airport.
Self-criticism is always salutary but as a nation we have a tendency to look on the negative side and this is not always well-understood by our friends abroad. That is why I am glad of the opportunity tonight to say again that Gatwick is a fine new airport; it is comparable to the best in the world. It is a spacious airport; it is attractive, efficiently run and we should be proud of it. The passengers and the airlines who use it are complimentary, even enthusiastic. The new airlines, especially the major United States carriers, Braniff and Delta—as the noble Lord, Lord Balfour, and my noble friend Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede have said—are finding Gatwick an outstanding commercial success. It is the airport where all the State visits start, and for good reason.
Everyone who has spoken tonight seems to have paid a very recent visit to Gatwick. I interrupted a holiday and went down there on 4th January. I travelled on an ordinary second-class ticket from Victoria on the 8.50 train in the morning. The journey took us 39 minutes and there were trains leaving every 15 minutes.

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I am not aware of any other airport in the world which is so well-connected to a town centre, with services running through the night. I know that it is not the frequency of trains which my noble friend and the noble Earl, Lord Amherst, are complaining about, and I readily accept that there is room for improvement as regards luggage handling, escalators, and so on. I raised these points when I was at Gatwick and I was impressed by the very close co-operation between the airport authorities, the airlines and British Rail, and the detailed consideration which they have given to improving their services to meet passenger needs. I shall return to this later when I deal with the rail link. During the last few days I have also visited Heathrow, and without wishing to rub any salt into the wound—because the British Airports Authority is doing its best to cope with the bustling and growing traffic there—if I were a passenger and had to choose, without any hesitation I would choose to travel from Gatwick.
I have the greatest sympathy with my noble friend in raising these matters; I understand her motives and I applaud what she is trying to do. There is no room for complacency. I have no doubt that we must always aim for the highest standards. However, my noble friend and other noble Lords have raised several points in the House in the course of Questions on previous occasions and again during the debate today which, in effect, call into question the ability of Gatwick to fulfil the role which has been assigned to it and the implementation of the Government's transfer policy. These matters are of crucial importance to the Government's policy for handling the demand for air transport in the London area, and to our air service negotiations with foreign Governments. Therefore, I welcome this opportunity to set the record straight. I intend to deal, first, with the Government's policy in general terms, the redistribution of traffic, the position at Gatwick and, finally, the rail service between Gatwick and Victoria Stations.
Considerable doubts have been expressed in the House on several occasions about the adequacy of the Government's proposals for handling air transport demand during the 1980s. There are still those in this House—but not Members who have
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spoken tonight—who wring their hands and pine after the gradiose Maplin, which we are told might have solved all our problems. But I am equally sure that if we had continued with the Maplin project, questions about the transfer of services to Maplin and the provision of road and rail access would have been no less intense, while the astronomic cost of the whole operation would have continued to be a major cause for concern. After abandoning the Maplin project in 1974 and taking into account the fall in demand resulting from higher oil prices and the growing trend towards larger aircraft and more efficient passenger load factors, the Government adopted the only sensible solution in the circumstances: to make full use of the runway capacity at the existing London airports during the 1980s, and to undertake immediately a study of the options for providing additional airport capacity when that would be needed. I shall not dwell tonight on the detailed conclusions regarding the London airport system which are set out in the White Paper on Airports Policy and are to be the subject of another debate to which my noble friend Lord Jacques will be replying for the Government early next month.
As the House will be aware, the major expansion of Stansted airport is one of the options being considered for the longer term, but no further developments beyond those set out in the White Paper are envisaged at Heathrow, Gatwick or Luton. My Lords, while air traffic demand in the London area into the 1980s will have to be accommodated at the four existing airports, there will need to be a major redistribution of traffic between them. However, this is, and always has been, an integral part of the Government's airports policy and planning.
In concluding in the Airports Policy White Paper that Heathrow airport should not be expanded beyond a four-terminal airport with an ultimate capacity of around 38 million passengers a year, the Government took into account the environmental nuisance caused by a major airport to those living in its vicinity, and the operational problems, including road and rail access, of handling very large numbers of aircraft movements and people. We must face the fact that with the traffic levels expected during the next few years,

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it is not only unrealistic but probably not feasible to continue to rely on Heathrow as the only major international airport for the South East.
I am sure my noble friend is not suggesting this; I am sure she is not advocating the unlimited expansion of Heathrow; but if she is not, then she must accept that there is no alternative to the Government's policy of moving traffic to Gatwick, unless she would rather see the increasingly congested Heathrow sink into chaos.
Baroness BURTON of COVENTRY: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt my noble friend, but really and truly she is not addressing herself in the slightest to the Question I asked. I have raised the Question of the immediate problems arising from the transfer. I have not heard one word, except about future developments of the airport. I shall be most disappointed if I do not get an answer that has some effect on passengers up to 1st April.
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, with respect, I said the way in which I was framing my reply, and I am coming to that point. I am setting the background for it. I am sure that my noble friend is not advocating the unlimited expansion of Heathrow. As we see it there is no alternative to the Government's policy of moving the traffic to Gatwick, without Heathrow sinking under the chaos. We are not prepared to let this happen, and that is why £100 million have been spent on the complete redevelopment of Gatwick airport, which has been turned from a small base for charter traffic into a first-class international gateway equipped with the most modern and extensive facilities.
This was not done overnight. It was carefully planned over several years so that Gatwick could fulfil the role of London's twin international airport. It now, as we have been told several times tonight, has a capacity of 16 million passengers a year and had a throughput of only around 7½ million, last year. It has the runway capacity, as Lord Ponsonby said, of 160,000 aircraft movements a year and a current usage of between 98,000 and 100,000. Assuming the average number of passengers per aircraft continues to grow as expected, the British Airports Authority are satisfied that 25 million passengers a year could be
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handled with the single runway. The Government see no reason to dissent from the Authority's conclusion which I discussed with them in detail when I visited Gatwick only last week.
If we compare this with the position at Heathrow airport, where airlines are finding it difficult to obtain take-off slots and passengers already experience considerable inconvenience, the conclusion is clear. The existing capacity at Heathrow will be exhausted from 1981 and no further capacity can be provided before 1984 when, subject to the outcome of the public inquiry which has just been completed, a fourth passenger terminal could be available. However, this would only provide for another two to three years' growth of traffic. Therefore, in the circumstances, it is essential to transfer a significant volume of air traffic from Heathrow to Gatwick which has been developed to meet the shortfall in capacity. No responsible Government would shirk from this decision, however unpopular it may be, initially, with those who are asked to move their services.
I want to make one point absolutely clear. The conclusions we have reached have not been arrived at lightly; we have not taken last minute muddle-headed decisions. On the contrary, we have gone into the problem in depth over the last few years and examined all the possibilities with the advice of the experts, and despite what my noble friend said about the shortness of discussions, as far back as 5th April 1977 when the then Secretary of State for Trade announced the Government's transfer policy, he said:
"However, to ensure an efficient allocation of air services between the two airports, further action is required which would involve the transfer of scheduled services of British and overseas operators from Heathrow to Gatwick; this would contribute to the establishment of a viable network of scheduled services from Gatwick. This is one of the issues being considered in the present renegotiation of the United Kingdom/United States Air Services Agreement and discussions have also been initiated with the Canadian, Spanish and Portuguese Governments and similar discussions may take place later with other countries. I wish to emphasise that the implementation of these policies must be carried out so as to avoid discrimination between foreign airlines and their British competitors. Any proposals by newcomers to start operations from Heathrow and requests by existing operators to introduce additional capacity to and from Heathrow, will be considered by the Civil Aviation Authority and my Department in the light of this policy".

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That was the policy which the then Secretary of State announced on 5th April 1977. He said then that the discussions had been initiated with the Canadian, Spanish and Portuguese Governments. Meetings were held with the Spanish and Portuguese authorities in Lisbon and Madrid between 29th and 31st March 1977 to discuss the move to Gatwick, and on 28th June of that year a British Airports Authority team, accompanied by Department of Trade officials, visited Madrid for a presentation of Gatwick Airport. The Spanish and Portuguese authorities were informed of the Government's intentions nearly two years ago and every effort has been made to present the facts and to discuss with Iberia any points they wished to make. We have had these and our objective from the beginning has been to reach a mutually satisfactory agreement.
I am pleased to say that on Monday and Tuesday of this week, BAA and the Government were able to welcome the delegation from the Spanish Government to the United Kingdom. That delegation visited Gatwick on Monday and Heathrow yesterday. During the course of the visit to Gatwick, in addition to a briefing by BAA and touring the airport, the Spanish deputation were able to meet representatives of British Caledonian, Braniff and Delta to learn of their experiences operating from Gatwick, and talks will now proceed with the Spaniards and with the continued full participation of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office with a view to reaching an agreement by Easter.
This means that the air services of the Spanish national airline Iberia will not be moved to Gatwick by 1st April, and this in itself is an indication of the Government's willingness to be flexible as regards timing. Discussions with the Portuguese Government will be pursued in parallel with a similar objective. I am glad to say that, in accordance with the Government's request, British Airways are planning to move to Gatwick by 1st April this year their services to several destinations in Spain and Portugal, and the others will follow later.
In addition, following the conclusion of a new Air Services Agreement with the Scandinavian Governments on 22nd December, it has been agreed that both
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SAS and British Airways will operate services between Copenhagen and Gatwick and SAS a service to Jutland starting next April. This is to be followed by daily services from Stockholm in 1980 and from Oslo in 1981. Among other things, these services to Scandinavian destinations will provide useful connecting flights for passengers from the Iberian Peninsula and other destinations who wish to continue their journey to Northern Europe, without the need to transfer to Heathrow. Even without these recent additions to the range of services available from Gatwick, there are already 13 domestic destinations and 56 international destinations served from Gatwick by scheduled carriers. There is a helicopter link with Heathrow for those passengers who need to transfer to the other flights, and a limousine service is provided by airlines between the two airports.
I cannot accept that airlines or passengers will find Gatwick less convenient than Heathrow. On the contrary, they would be the first to suffer if the situation at Heathrow were allowed to deteriorate, and the modern facilities and greater flexibility in scheduling flights at Gatwick are bound to be superior to the growing congestion at Heathrow. I must admit to being puzzled by my noble friend's suggestion that, assuming all the Iberian traffic were to move on 1st April, which I have now said it is not to do, immediate problems would arise for passengers and airlines. Gatwick is ready to receive them; the railway link has ample spare capacity to cope with the additional demand. I am sure that my noble friend is aware that last year 7½ million passengers used Gatwick, and the major world airlines, such as Delta and Braniff, which have only recently started operating, have expressed their satisfaction with the airport. Gatwick will not be getting 1·2 million extra passengers all at once—they will be spread throughout the year.
I should like to turn now to another question which has been raised; namely, why have we selected Iberia to move, together with the Portuguese airline TAP and Air Canada? First, I should stress that it is not airlines we wish to transfer, but services to particular destinations, without any discrimination between foreign operators and their British competitors on the same routes. There is

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no question of victimising anyone. In determining their policy for the transfer of air services, the Government were influenced by four main considerations: first, that the services to be transferred should involve major blocks of traffic, since a significant number of passengers will need to be moved out of Heathrow during the next few years; secondly, that routes with a large element of interlining passengers—that is, those people changing planes in London, as the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, explained—would be more difficult to move; thirdly, that routes served by third parties in addition to the airlines of the two countries concerned would present especially difficult problems; and fourthly, that from the standpoint of air traffic control, routes to the South and West of London are the most suitable for transfer. The Iberian services of British Airways, Iberia, TAP, and Gibair match very closely these criteria, as do air services to Canada.
On the other hand, a complete transfer of all Scandinavian services, for instance, would have created serious problems for the control of aircraft, as it would involve a considerable number of cross-overs with North-South traffic to and from Heathrow. All these factors were very carefully considered, the traffic was analysed, surveys were carried out to assess the extent of interlining on particular routes, and we are only too willing to discuss all this data with the airlines concerned, as we have done, in particular, with Air Canada. That is the rationale behind what we are trying to do. We have not jumped to conclusions on the spur of the moment. As to further transfers, none is being considered at the moment, but we will keep the position under review, in the light of the development of traffic at Heathrow and Gatwick, and of course we will continue our policy of establishing new services at Gatwick.
My noble friend is worried that there may be chaos at Gatwick at the height of the summer season. Last year there was chaos everywhere as a result of the French air traffic controllers' strike, and I hope—as I am sure everyone else does—that that situation will not be repeated. I would not pretend that a major airport at the height of the season is a quiet, restful place where everything works smoothly at all times. However, I see no reason to expect chaos at Gatwick, which
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is working at half its capacity, nor can I see any justification for planning larger airports merely to cope with possible annual disruption by French air traffic controllers, Spanish hotel staff, or what-have-you.
The British Airports Authority earned well-deserved praise last summer for the way it handled the difficult situation to which I referred by providing additional accommodation for stranded passengers, television sets to entertain them, additional catering facilities, and so on. Improvements have also been made in the handling of standby passengers, whose numbers exceeded all expectations in 1978, which was the first year of price-cutting on the major routes. Improvements will continue to be made as a result of experience and close co-operation among the airlines, the Airports Authority and the Railways Board. Let us give them the chance to promote the new Gatwick without depreciating their efforts and undermining the confidence of foreign airlines and Governments.
As to the rail link between Victoria and Gatwick—and that, I think, is the main problem of the handling of passengers at Gatwick at the moment—I have discussed British Rail's plans for improving the services with the general manager of Southern Region. He well understands the needs, both of the regular commuters using these services and of airport passengers with bulky luggage. His staff at Gatwick and at Victoria have instructions to ensure, whenever possible, that the luggage is placed in the luggage vans of the trains. But, as has been said tonight, quite naturally most people prefer to keep their luggage in sight. In order to meet their wishes and at the same time to avoid the inconvenience caused by luggage being stacked in gangways and doorways, British Rail are this year introducing a number of trains that include coaches modified so as to give additional luggage space, and these will be increased in number as more coaches become available after modification. The upholstery and external paintwork of these coaches will be distinctive, so that airport passengers will know which ones to use. I understand that, although the special coaches will not be reserved exclusively for air passengers, the services will be arranged as far as possible to give them high priority. Trains including these coaches will provide a 15 minute Victoria/

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Gatwick service throughout each weekday, and there will also be other trains which will stop at Gatwick.
Furthermore, by this summer British Rail will provide at peak weekends an entirely separate train service for airport passengers travelling between Victoria and Gatwick. There will be a half-hourly service with no intermediate stop. Also scheduled to start in May this year is a through service between the airport and Manchester, which will comprise two trains a day in each direction with intermediate stops at Stockport, Crewe, Wolverhampton, Birmingham, Coventry, Oxford, Reading and East Croydon. The noble Earl, Lord Amherst, asked me how we were to get from one line to another. I think that is rather a technical problem. I hope the route has perhaps explained it to him, but I will certainly see that he has more detailed technical information about it in the post. All these measures are going to help to meet the peak summer pressure on the rail services and will make it more bearable for people getting from British Rail into the airport.
I understand that at present it is simply not possible during the week to provide separate services for airport passengers without adversely affecting some 10,000 commuters each day, and they also, my Lords, are entitled to consideration by us. I understand that British Rail are working out plans for overcoming this problem so as to provide rail services that would cope with the full growth of their airport envisaged in last year's White Paper, but these plans themselves are at an early stage and I have no definite details tonight. They are also in the future, which my noble friend is not concerned with; she is concerned with what we are doing at the present.
My Lords, British Rail are also modernising the stations used by the passengers to the airport. Gatwick Station is being entirely rebuilt at a cost of about £6 million. There will be a new concourse above the station platforms, with ticket offices and all the usual station facilities, connected by a short walkway to the airport terminal at the same level. There will be baggage lifts and escalators connecting this concourse with the platforms below, and trolleys will be available close by the top of the escalators. The new platform
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canopies will also cover the sections of the trains which are used by the airport passengers. We have to accept that there are many practical difficulties in constructing a new station on such a busy line as the one serving Gatwick. None the less, a substantial amount of work on re-alignment of the track and moving one of the platforms has already been done.
British Rail now expects that two of the new escalators will be brought into service next year, with the station being fully completed in the following year. In the meantime, porters are available for taking luggage the short distance between the platforms and the airport terminal building by means of the existing goods lift. Unfortunately, practical difficulties rule out other temporary arrangements for helping passengers such as the moving belt which the noble Earl, Lord Amherst, has suggested. I will certainly take note, and have done so already, of the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, that there might be some clearer information that disabled passengers can use the lifts and that porters are available—if there is a rush, wait and a porter will come!
Earl AMHERST: My Lords, in particular the disabled?
Baroness STEDMAN: Yes, my Lords, in particular the disabled. The trolleys are provided for passengers to use. But, as my noble friend has said, the trolleys cannot be taken on to the station platforms because of the risk of their rolling on to the track. The number of porters and trolleys provided is a matter of management for the BAA and British Rail to decide, but I will certainly bring to their attention the views expressed here today on the adequacy of the numbers generally available at present and see whether we can get that position improved.
At Victoria, the other end of the line, work is under way on a £45 million scheme including the re-signalling and track modernisation of the approaches to the station. This will enable improvements to be made in all the train services using Victoria, including those from Gatwick. There will be significant improvements to the station itself, including enlarging and renovating the concourse area, providing new ticket barriers for Platforms 9–15,

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widening the corridor between Platform 15 and the parcels block, modernising the ladies' toilets, increasing the number of public telephones, opening more shops, improving the lighting and cleaning of all the brickwork and stonework. Surely noble Lords and the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, will accept that that shows that British Rail are trying to put their house in order.
I understand from British Rail that many of these improvements to the station will be evident this summer. In addition there will be rail-air hostesses available to help airport passengers, there will be a booking-office window solely for tickets to Gatwick and the number of special trolleys for passengers to use will be doubled, bringing the total number to 400. If experience shows this is not enough, I am sure it will be raised again in this House and we can put additional pressure on to the authorities.
All in all, these various improvements will undoubtedly add up to a much improved rail service. It is not possible to make changes in a week or two, but many will have been completed in time for this summer. For the period until the other improvements have been introduced, British Rail and the BAA have taken the steps that I have outlined to ensure that the airport enjoys the highest possible standard of rail service.
I would also like to refer to the new and most useful facility for travellers which was opened at Gatwick Airport last December. That is the Tourist Information Centre which is being run on behalf of the English Tourist Board. It provides information for travellers on London, South-East England and the rest of Britain and stays open until 8 p.m. every day of the week. The staff there can assist people coming into Britain on route planning, places to visit, towns, villages and seaside resorts, as well as keeping very much in contact with the London Tourist Board, of which my noble friend Lord Ponsonby, who has joined us tonight, is Chairman. The travellers will have easy access to detailed information about where to go and accommodation, et cetera, in London.
The noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, asked a number of questions. He asked whether
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the Government arranged for the landing slots to be withdrawn from Iberia. The allocation of slots is a matter for the Heathrow scheduling committee on which all the airlines are represented. The Government are not represented on this committee and have not attempted to influence it in any way.
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, is Iberia represented?
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, I am advised that the airlines are represented.
Lord TREFGARNE: My question was: Is Iberia represented?
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, I could not say. It is simply that "airlines are" represented. So far as powers to direct airlines to Gatwick are concerned, I do not think there is any doubt that we have the powers, but we do not want to use powers; we want to come to mutual agreements about this matter. I shall certainly check on the legal position and write to the noble Lord.
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, I am much obliged. This is a most important point. I am most anxious to know what powers there are. I do not believe there are any, actually.
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, my understanding is that we have some powers tucked away in some vague regulations. We do not want to use powers; we do not want to start wielding the big stick; we want to have these things mutually agreed between us. My noble friend Lady Burton of Coventry, I believe, asked about the enlargement of the goods lifts at Gatwick and making increasing use of them. I am not sure in the short term that we shall need them, that it is really practicable or whether we can even enlarge the existing lifts; but I was assured when I visited them that those lifts were available for disabled and handicapped people to use. Quite recently, I wrote to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, who asked a question on this point following one of the recent Questions in this House, and I advised him—I agree with some trepidation—that he could be taken up in a goods lift.
Lord BALFOUR of INCHRYE: My Lords, could you ask British Rail to have a notice put up? The luggage lift is there at present and there should be a notice saying it is available for the handicapped and disabled.
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, I will certainly put that to British Rail. I am sure that they will receive it. We were advised when we were there that there is no problem about handicapped people; but certainly if there were people with severe handicaps, it is helpful if the authorities are advised the day before so that there are adequate people to help. We shall see that that point is covered. Regarding the need for more clerks to be on duty in the rail ticket office at Gatwick, I can see there are problems there, particularly if a large jumbo jet comes in with several hundred people and not enough clerks are available. British Rail are aware of the problems and it is something about which they are having discussions with some airlines to see whether it is possible even to sell tickets in flight so that passengers can get them before they come off the aeroplanes. There are various discussions of this kind going on between the British Airports Authority, the various airlines and British Airways.
So far as the automatic ticket machines are concerned, I am advised that an experimental one has been established at Waterloo. There have been quite considerable problems of coping with £1 notes. We think that there might even be more problems with Gatwick because the figure there is £l·85p. It is certainly something I shall bring to their attention to see whether it is something they have thought about and whether it is practicable.
The other point which the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, made was the fact that there was only one person on duty collecting and checking rail passenger tickets. I have made some inquiries about this. I understand it was due on that particular day to staff sickness and the coincidence of several retirements from the railways at that time. I can assure him that there will be no such problem in the new station because three entry and three exit points will be provided. We have also taken his point up with the appropriate authorities about it taking the noble Lord as long to get through on the telephone as it would have
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done to go to Gatwick to deliver his message. Certainly, when we have the new facilities there that problem at least ought to go away.
The noble Baroness, Lady Burton of Coventry, also raised the question of the efficiency of British Caledonian check-in facilities at Victoria and that this ought to be available and we ought to try and sell it to more airlines. Apart from Braniff, I am advised that no other airline has expressed any interest in having its own check-in facilities at Victoria. This is certainly a point which we will bring to the attention of British Rail who are anxious to make things as easy as possible.
On the scheduled flights from Gatwick to Iberian destinations in 1976, my noble friend Lady Burton spoke to me a few days ago. The noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, has talked tonight about the trial services from Gatwick to Iberian destinations. My information is that Britsh Caledonian operated a low frequency scheduled service to Las Palmas and Tenerife which each carried about 10,000 passengers a year, and a weekly service to Lisbon which carried only 1,200 passengers in 1976. I am not quite clear what my noble friend is suggesting. I think it would be unwise to draw any conclusions from this information, bearing in mind the parallel services at higher frequencies which were available at Heathrow at the time. At the moment, we have been able to get no information about any supposedly trial services from Gatwick to the Iberian destinations.
The noble Earl, Lord Amherst, referred to the travelators. We certainly cannot fit them into Gatwick as it is at the moment and I am told that there will be no need for the travelators once the new Gatwick station has been completed, since the walk between there and the airport will be limited then to a matter of 30 yards.
I think I have dealt with most of the matters, though perhaps not in as much detail as some noble Lords would like. I will check Hansard, and if there is anything I have not covered or have not covered adequately, I will certainly write to the noble Lords who have taken part in this debate so that they all have the answer. Before I close, I should like to emphasise just a few points. First, the traffic at London is just too large to be

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handled at one airport. We need the two major international airports and we may need a third one in the future: that is why Gatwick is being redeveloped. Secondly, unless we are willing to lose traffic to the Continental airports by allowing Heathrow to deteriorate, it is essential for us to transfer traffic to Gatwick, and we must do this in a planned and rational manner. Nothing is going to be gained by fanning any arguments about "grandfather rights at Heathrow" or "Who should go first?" In my opinion, the first to go will be the first to benefit. The Government's objective is to achieve these necessary transfers by mutual agreement. The British Airports Authority offer lower charges at Gatwick, together with other incentives to the airlines, including every possible help in achieving the move and promoting their services from Gatwick.
As to the railway link, I know at the moment this is not adequate but I have outlined the improvements which are in hand, those which are planned and perhaps the small matters to which we can pay attention now to make life happier for the few intervening months. We look forward to all these improvements because of the additional comfort they are going to bring to the passengers. But let us not lose sight of the fact that the rail link is adequate to cope with the growth in traffic. It offers a frequent and convenient service which is virtually unrivalled anywhere else and certainly in Europe.
My Lords, this has been a useful debate. I hope it has given my noble friend Lord Jacques some idea of what is facing him in taking over this subject from me. It is obvious that we still have differences of opinion, but I am certain that my noble friend and others will ensure that the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, is kept aware of any problems and that we can keep our pressure on the various authorities at Gatwick to maintain and improve the services offered to the travellers.
Baroness BURTON of COVENTRY: My Lords, before my noble friend sits down, which is my only opportunity of asking something, may I say that I know she has done her best. I do not know whether she realises the deep resentment and indignation I feel at the type of reply we have had. We have
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had a long, long story that the Civil Service always gives about the future of Gatwick and how splendid it will be—which is something I have never denied which was—what shall I say?—an imputation that I have wondered about this. I asked a specific Question tonight about the travellers and their baggage, and getting out to Gatwick. At least three-quarters of the reply has been about the future of Gatwick and all the facilities which I think are excellent. I must complain. I think that the Civil Service, if they do not wish to give a direct answer, go all round the world and answer everything else; and I do not think it is good enough.
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, I must take exception to that. This is not a Civil Service reply; this is the Departmental reply. It is a reply submitted in my own knowledge of my visits to Gatwick and Heathrow. I think it was important that we had the setting, what had led up to this situation, what was leading up to the changes and to the transfers; what we had in mind for the future and what we are doing for the present. We are satisfied that even if the change were to take place on 1st April, which it is not—that is still a date to be agreed in the future when the airlines have gone back and consulted with their Governments—the facilities at Gatwick are adequate. There are the porters there; there is the regular train service; there is the facility for using the luggage lifts and there are facilities for disabled persons. British Rail and the British Airports Authority are only too anxious to make sure that everyone who uses Gatwick does have a proper and a civilised service when they get there.
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, if the noble Baroness is still on her feet, may I ask her one very small question? Is she aware that her description of the so-called negotiations in March 1977, and subsequently in July 1977, is wholly disputed by Iberia, who are, to say the least, highly incensed? They feel that the Government's first formal intimation of the Government's requirement of them to move was on 22nd August 1978, in a letter from the Department to the manager of Iberia here in London, which said that the Government had decided—if I remember rightly; I did see the letter—and

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will she undertake to look into the position of the so-called consultation?
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, I will certainly look into it, but as I gave it tonight is how our departmental records show what took place.
Lord TREFGARNE: In error.