Lords Sitting of 5 July 1979

Preamble
The House met at three of the clock: The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Chelmsford.
The Duke of Argyll—Took the Oath.
The Lord Fisher—Took the Oath.

AIR WEAPONS AND THE EXISTING LAW
Lord GISBOROUGH: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are satisfied with the state of the law relating to the control and use of air guns and crossbows.
The PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE, HOME OFFICE (Lord Belstead): My Lords, air weapons account for a high proportion of those indictable offences known to the police in which firearms were reported to have been used, but they are rarely used in serious crime. We propose to consider whether the existing age limits for the purchase and possession of air weapons need altering.
Lord GISBOROUGH: My Lords, I welcome in particular the last part of that reply. Is the Minister aware that I have here a sheaf of cuttings with headings such as:
" Gun vandal hits woman in eye ";
" Youth fired rifle at girl ";
" Child shot in face ";
" Surgeon's plea on air guns "
and so on? Is the Minister also aware that air rifles are lethal? They frequently maim, blind or kill.
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, my noble friend is absolutely right to take this Question seriously. In 1976, and again in 1977, there were over 2,000 injuries connected with the commission of in-
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dictable offences. None the less, I consider that the problem of the misuse of air weapons, particularly by young people, is one more of enforcement than of inadequacy of existing controls.
Lord KILMARNOCK: My Lords, can the noble Lord tell me whether the Government have any intention of limiting the sale of these potentially lethal weapons by mail order firms?
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, this is a matter which we will be considering along with all other matters connected with air weapons.
Lord DERWENT: My Lords, when the Government are looking at this question will they bear in mind that in the case of a shotgun, for which a certificate is necessary, the police have to be satisfied that the owner of the shotgun has somewhere to use it? If he has nowhere to use it he will not get a certificate; he can be only a poacher or trespasser. At present one can buy an air gun and if one is to use it at all one is almost certainly either trespassing or poaching. Will the Government bear this fact in mind?
Lord BELSTEAD: Yes, my Lords; we most certainly will.
Earl GREY: My Lords, will the noble Lord include in the consideration the sale of catapults, as in my view they are lethal weapons?
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, I do not think that that comes quite within the scope of the Question.
Lord LEATHERLAND: My Lords, can the noble Lord go a little farther than he has done on the question of air guns? Is he aware of the fact that my back garden opens on to Epping Forest; I walk in the forest frequently, and I encounter large numbers of reckless youngsters with air guns over their shoulders? They are very dangerous indeed.
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, I agree; the noble Lord is right about this. But it is also right to bear in mind that the misuse of an air weapon, or indeed a crossbow, would almost certainly involve

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the commission of one or more offences under existing law. These might include offences against the person (of varying degrees of gravity) or the offence of possession of an offensive weapon.
Lord ELWYN-JONES: My Lords, have there ever been any prosecutions in regard to those matters? The statement of the law is correct, but one does not hear of frequent prosecutions.
Lord BELSTEAD: No, my Lords; one does not.

TWYFORD HIGH SCHOOL: SALE TO THE CHURCH
3.10 p.m.
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they endorse the decision of Ealing Council to sell the Twyford High School to the Church of England.
The MINISTER of STATE, DEPARTMENT of EDUCATION and SCIENCE (Baroness Young): My Lords, I am aware that negotiations have been taking place between the Ealing Borough Council and representatives of the Church of England about the possible sale of Twyford High School. Before the borough could close the school or the Church authorities establish an aided school in the premises, proposals to this effect would have to be approved by the Secretary of State under Section 13 of the 1944 Education Act. As my right honourable and learned friend would be called upon to make a determination if proposals are received, it would not be appropriate for me to express a view either in support of, or opposed to, the sale of the school before the content of proposals and objections has been carefully considered.
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that encouraging reply. Is it not the case that this is a highly respected, multiracial school with a very large proportion of the children holding faiths other than that of the
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Church of England? Is it not the case that all the trade unions at the school—the teachers' unions—are opposed to the transfer, and that the parents association is opposed to it, too? Is this not a case where, as has been suggested, the Minister should seek to reach a decision on the matter when the negotiations are ended?
Baroness YOUNG: My Lords, admissions to an aided school are of course the responsibility of the governors, but, before such a situation was reached, the points which the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, has made, and indeed other points that undoubtedly would also be made, would naturally all be before the Secretary of State and would be considered before a final decision was taken.
The Lord Bishop of LONDON: My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that this school is needed in order to match up to the first and middle Church schools; that there is very considerable support in Ealing for the school; and that it is not regarded as a sectional school, but as a contribution to the society and the community by the Church of England, so as to offer the kind of education that can be given in a Church school to the community as a whole?
Baroness YOUNG: My Lords, I am aware of the points that the right reverend Prelate has made and they, too, will be considered when the application, should it be made, is before my right honourable and learned friend.
Baroness WOOTTON of ABINGER: My Lords, is not this a rather unusual procedure? Can the noble Baroness tell us whether there are any precedents for it? Does it mean merely that the Ealing Borough Council is short of money and that the Church of England has got more; or what?
Baroness YOUNG: My Lords, the proposal is perfectly in order. With regard to finance, it is a separate issue as to whether or not the Section 13 proposal would be approved. I think it would be only right to say that in the present economic circumstances it would be unlikely that the borough council would receive more money than it would expect to do under its building programme.
Baroness WOOTTON of ABINGER: My Lords, would the noble Baroness answer the first part of my question; namely, whether there are any precedents of schools being sold in this way?
Baroness YOUNG: My Lords, I would have to write to the noble Baroness on that point.

RHODESIA: HARLECH MISSION
3.13 p.m.
Lord HATCH of LUSBY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will state their latest position in relationship with Zimbabwe-Rhodesia following the visits of Lord Harlech.
The SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN and COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS (Lord Carrington): My Lords, it is the Government's objective to bring Rhodesia back to legality in conditions of the widest possible international recognition, and to help bring an end to the fighting. The Government will be considering the best way of making progress in the light of the valuable discussions my noble friend Lord Harlech has been having with African, including Rhodesian, leaders.
Lord HATCH of LUSBY: My Lords, will the noble Lord accept that I do not intend to press him on this point today in view of the very delicate nature of the negotiations, in view of his long journey—from which we are pleased to see him return in good health—and in view of the debate which is to take place next week? But may I ask him one pertinent question which may very well have some effect before our debate next week: Would he agree that the comments in Australia of his right honourable friend the Prime Minister (made, I was glad to see, in his absence) will make his task and that of the British Government much more difficult at the Commonwealth Conference which is to take place next month?
Lord CARRINGTON: My Lords, I am overwhelmed with gratitude for the
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first observations of the noble Lord, Lord Hatch of Lusby. With regard to the question at the end of his friendly remarks, the answer is, no.
Lord HATCH of LUSBY: My Lords, I must press the noble Lord on this. Surely, to say in advance that Parliament is not going to pass the sanctions order, or is unlikely to pass the sanctions order, or will have difficulty in passing the sanctions order, in November is untrue, as the Government know they can get the sanctions order through if they deem it necessary to do so, arid is bound to exacerbate the suspicions of the rest of the Commonwealth as to the policy of Her Majesty's Government so far as Zimbabwe-Rhodesia is concerned?
Lord CARRINGTON: My Lords, my right honourable friend the Prime Minister was speculating, in exactly the same way as the noble Lord is speculating. Perhaps they could get together.

FOREIGN BOYCOTTS: CERTIFICATION REVIEW
3.15 p.m.
Lord JANNER: 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 review into " the desirability and practicality " of ceasing the authentication of negative certificates of origin, promised by Lord Goronwy-Roberts on behalf of the previous Government, in this House on 1st February (col. 432), has been completed and, if so, what is the result.
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, this review is in hand. The Government are consulting the Association of British Chambers of Commerce, and will then consult other interested bodies. We shall announce our conclusions as soon as possible.
Lord JANNER: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for that (if I may say so) rather unsatisfactory reply in view of the fact that this has been

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under consideration for a very long time, may I ask him whether he is aware that those who are coming to have documents authenticated are in fact of the opinion that the Government are helping them in favour of the boycott? Would he have a word with his noble friend the Leader of the House as to how he managed to stop a similar kind of thing in Iraq; and will he please assist in letting it be known that a boycott between friendly nations is a shocking thing?
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, we certainly do not agree that the boycott is in any way acceptable or satisfactory, but authentication relates only to signatures and seals on documents and not to the contents of the documents themselves. It in no way implies that the contents of the documents are condoned.
Lord BYERS: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether or not he is aware that the report of the Select Committee under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Redcliffe-Maud, exposed that myth, that it is not the document itself but only the signature of the attorney? Will he look at that report, when he will see that what he has said just does not stand up in the light of the evidence?
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, I have looked at the report, and the fact remains that the authentication of the signatures relates only to that fact; that is, to the authentication of the signatures themselves. We never condone the content of the documents.
Lord BYERS: In that case, my Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether he is saying that the Committee, when it reported, was totally wrong in the conclusion that it reached, particularly as to the evidence which was given and which was refuted by the noble Lord, Lord Caccia, who exposed the view of the Foreign Office that this was not authentication but merely authentication of the signature?
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, I am simply reporting the facts of the matter. I agree that the Committee said that some people were perhaps misled into thinking that the Government, by authenticating the signatures, condoned the
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content of the document; but that is simply not so.
Lord REDCLIFFE-MAUD: My Lords, would the noble Lord agree that, however tenuous is the connection between the authentication by the Foreign Office of these signatures and any involvement in the boycott process, it gives the very strong impression that there is a connection? Will the noble Lord also bear in mind, when considering the result of this inquiry, that a Select Committee which included Members from all parts of the House was quite unanimous in strongly recommending that the Foreign Office should cease to be asked by its Ministers to authenticate these documents, so removing the impression that the Government are anything but totally impartial as between the friendly States, both Israel and the Arab States?
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, as I said to the noble Lord, Lord Byers, it is certainly the case on occasions that the impression gets abroad that we are condoning the content of the documents; but I say again that that is certainly not the case. But a change in the practice whereby the Foreign Office officials authenticate these signatures on documents of all types without discrimination involves a difficult point of principle and a grave risk to our exports.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, may I support what has been said generally and join the Minister in emphasising that any further inquiry into this should make absolutely clear the difference between authentication of signature and condonation of content. I think that the Minister said quite a lot in support of that view. Perhaps a considered statement as a result of the continuing inquiry which, as I understand it, is going on, would be welcome to this House and to those who have shown an interest in this matter this afternoon, including myself.
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, I can undertake to keep the House informed on our consideration of this matter, but I cannot give any assurance that that will be in the very near future.
Lord CACCIA: My Lords, the Minister said that various interested bodies were going to be consulted—which, of course,

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we were glad to hear and expected to hear. May I ask whether, among those consultations, an attempt will be made to see whether there could be in this a joint European approach?
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, I think it is difficult to include necessarily all the EEC Governments in these consultations, but I can say that I think all the EEC Governments, without exception, follow the same practice as we follow.
Lord JANNER: My Lords, may I again make an appeal to the Minister to speed this up ?—because this is part of what I call the " blackmoiling " carried on against decent, reasonable nations like our own in order to make them party to what is an absurd thing; that is, the boycott of one of their allies, a people with whom we have diplomatic relations. It is a shocking thing.
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord.
Lord MISHCON: My Lords, in view of the noble Lord's very clear statement that some people, and possibly some countries, are misled by the authentication procedure, would he consider whether the Foreign Office should look at some wording above the authentication which will make it abundantly clear that the content of the document is not condoned?
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, I will certainly have another look at the wording, but I do not think, off hand, that it is possible to do much about it.

WALES ACT 1978 (REPEAL) ORDER 1979
3.23 p.m.
Lord BELSTEAD Lord BELSTEAD rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 22nd March 1979 be approved. The noble Lord said: My Lords, we have before us today a Motion approving the draft Order-in-Council repealing the Wales Act. Section 80 and Schedule 12 of the Wales Act provided that before the Act can be put into effect a referendum on that question should be held in Wales. Section 80 also provides that, if it appears to the Secretary of State that less than
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40 per cent. of the persons entitled to vote in the referendum voted " Yes ", or that a majority of the answers given were " No ", he shall lay before Parliament the draft of an Order-in-Council for the repeal of the Act. If the draft is approved by resolution the order may be made. If we approve this Motion today we shall therefore be approving repeal of that Act.
I do not think I need say anything about the 40 per cent. requirement or about the calculation of those entitled to vote. In the event, neither needed to come into consideration in the Welsh referendum. Of the valid votes cast only 243,048 were in favour of putting the provisions of the Act into effect while 956,330 were against—a majority of nearly 4 to 1. The outcome was the same in every county of the Principality—a heavy vote against. The Welsh people overwhelmingly rejected the provisions of the Wales Act. In accordance with the provisions of the Act, the draft repeal order was laid before Parliament by the previous Government on 22nd March and it now comes before your Lordships' House for decision today. The draft order was approved in another place last week by 191 votes to 8.
One of the principal claims for the Act was that it would provide closer democratic control over central government and central government decision-taking in the Principality. In suggesting that the Act be repealed, I do not want it thought that the Government are hostile or even indifferent to this laudable aim. We believe in more effective local scrutiny of the activities of government—not only in Wales but in the country as a whole. But we do not believe that the best way of achieving this aim in Wales is through the creation of an Assembly. We believe that the right approach is rather through improved parliamentary scrutiny; and the Government have already taken a number of steps to give effect to that belief.
Already, in the Government's short tenure of office, there has been a debate on Welsh Affairs in another place. It is intended also to have more meetings of the Welsh Grand Committee—and, indeed, the committee met only yesterday to discuss the economy in Wales. Some of those meetings might discuss the activities and reports of nominated bodies operating

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in Wales. Further, the Government have put forward proposals, which have now been agreed in another place, for a Select Committee to examine the expenditure, administration and policy of the Welsh Office and associated public bodies. Finally, the Secretary of State for Wales plans to encourage some of the leading nominated bodies in Wales to experiment by holding public meetings to present their annual reports. All this will add up to a substantial improvement in the accountability of government in Wales.
The Welsh electorate pronounced their verdict on the Wales Act on 1st March. I hope your Lordships will agree that we should now give effect to that verdict, and approve the Motion before your Lordships' House. I beg to move that the draft Wales Act 1978 (Repeal) Order 1979, which was laid before this House on 22nd March 1979, in the last Parliament, be approved.
Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 22nd March 1979 be approved.—(Lord Belstead.)
2.29 p.m.
Lord ELWYN-JONES: My Lords, it is not a particularly happy task to be a principal mourner and this seems to he my role today; hut I shall resist the Welsh temptation to linger long at the graveside of the Welsh Act which we are finally burying today. Although Lloyd George described the Welsh as a nation of quarrelsome nightingales, I think that one of the qualities that the Welsh people have is that they do not nurse grievances, and I certainly do not do so now. I believe that the devolution debates at least showed that there is a Welsh element in United Kingdom politics which I believe it would be folly to ignore. Although the attempt to cater for it in the Wales Act failed, the aim to increase democratic control over the machinery of government in Wales was not an unworthy one. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, has recognised this in what he has just said. The need for increased democratic control, I believe, remains. Similarly, there is a need to make the several nominated bodies in Wales—and there is a whole plethora of them—more accountable and more democratic.
Whether the Government proposal to deal with these problems by setting up a
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small Select Committee of 11 Members of Parliament on Welsh affairs will satisfy those needs and the feelings that exist about these things in Wales, remains to be seen. At one point in our debates on the Wales Bill the noble Lord, Lord Elton —whom I am glad to see is here to celebrate his ultimate victory—said:
" We believe in a louder and more effective Welsh voice in deciding how Wales should be run ".
Whether this group of 11 Members of Parliament will be loud enough and effective enough to deal with the shortcomings in Government that I have mentioned, also remains to be seen. The fact is that the issues which gave rise to the prolonged devolution debates both in Scotland and in Wales continue to exist. They cannot be just swept under a parliamentary carpet.
I think it was Seneca who said that that which is intolerable to endure is agreeable to look back upon. Looking back on the long devolution debates, I do not think they were intolerable to endure, but they are at any rate agreeable to look back upon. In particular, I treasure the memory of the courteous, witty and endearing speeches made by Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest. We all lament his recent passing; a great loss has been suffered by us all.
Our Welsh debates were characterised by moderation, good humour and a good deal of hwyel. The noble Lord, Lord Elton, indulged in a good deal of it as the debate went on, and I was prepared to give him honorary Welsh citizenship. So, my Lords, I say farewell to the Welsh Act without recrimination, but in the belief that we have by no means heard the last of the devolution debate, either in respect of Wales or of Scotland.
3.31 p.m.
Lord BANKS: My Lords, in the unavoidable absence of my noble friend Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran I should like to comment briefly on the order. We on these Benches regret that we should be faced with this order today. We supported the Wales Bill, although we were critical of its provisions, because we have long been committed to the concept of a Parliament for Wales and we felt that the Bill was a very modest step on the road to devolution.

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However, in the referendum the Welsh people decisively rejected the Act. Some no doubt rejected it because they were against devolution in any form; some no doubt rejected it because they were against devolution in the particular form in which the Act set it forth. As I said a second ago, we on these Benches were critical of the provisions of the Bill, and indeed on Second Reading I said that there was truth in the criticism that the Assembly might be no more than a glorified county council. It is possible that some who felt that, and who wanted to go further, rejected the Act as inadequate and voted against its implementation.
In any event, like the noble and learned Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones, I cannot believe that a Select Committee will be the final solution. Perhaps if an Assembly for Wales were presented in the context of a federal solution for the United Kingdom as a whole, and with wider powers, it would be acceptable to the people of Wales. We on these Benches will certainly continue to advocate such a solution.
3.33 p.m.
Baroness WHITE: My Lords, I had a self-denying ordinance on the debates on the Act which we are now burying because as chairman of a very active and successful Quango in the Principality I felt I should keep silent. We were one of the bodies which might have been subsumed by the Assembly and therefore had slightly too direct an interest in the matter. I must confess quite frankly that I am very glad that that particular possibility has been removed from us. On the other hand, I have another interest. It is now more than 10 years since Mr. Cledwyn Hughes (whom we shall shortly have the pleasure of welcoming to your Lordships' House) who was then Secretary of State, and I was Minister of State at the Welsh Office, put forward the proposal that arrangements should be made for the surveillance of nominated bodies in the Principality, and that they should be made more publicly answerable.
When the party now in Government came into office in 1970 they paid no attention whatsoever to that proposition. Subsequently, it was overtaken by the much more ambitious scheme which was ultimately rejected by the people of Wales. I am very much interested in the
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proposals now put forward by the present Secretary of State for Wales. As was said in another place, his propositions at least deserve a cautious welcome.
It would be inappropriate in this House to comment in any detail on the arrangements proposed in the other place beyond perhaps drawing attention to the fact that the Select Committee is to number 11 Members, of which six will be from the Government Benches, and that will take up the entire Government Back-Bench strength that is available for the purpose in the other House.
It is a little galling to those of us who are concerned that Welsh affairs should be considered in detail by the people of Wales that there will be six Conservative places on the Select Committee in return for 11 seats in the House of Commons, whereas the Labour Party in the other place will have something between five and three places, according to the places given to minority parties, in return for 21 Members elected to the House of Commons. Within the Welsh context there is a certain incongruity in this situation.
Nevertheless, we should wish this experiment well. It is not going to be an easy one to carry out for reasons which were given in some detail in the debate in the other place on 26th June, because, although the Secretary of State for Wales has general authority within the Principality, there are a number of bodies which operate there which are not appointed by the Secretary of State for Wales but by other Ministers. There are various curious anomalies, as might be expected in this field. Members of the Welsh Committee of the Arts Council, for instance, are nominated by the Secretary of State for Wales, but he has no control over anything that it does. I do not think that it would be appropriate to go into too much detail on this occasion as to how they intend to operate at the other end.
One should, however, comment on the fact that there is a good deal of very unclear thinking about nominated bodies. They are not at all popular at the moment, and I can think of a number of them myself that I would not grieve over very much if they were disbanded. I am a member of one which might well be done away

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with for various reasons which we have made very clear to the department concerned.
It is disturbing that there should be this lack of clarity of thought. So far as the ends of policy and administration are concerned, it is extremely important that they should be determined by democratically-elected bodies. But the implementation of those ends, the carrying out of the functions, are not necessarily susceptible to democratic processes in the way in which they are sometimes referred to. I was a little disturbed when my noble and learned friend used the phrase that they should be " more accountable and more democratic ". More accountable, certainly. It depends what you mean by " more democratic ".
I have not unlimited faith that elected bodies will necessarily choose the most appropriate persons for complex affairs which may require specialist knowledge which they are not themselves capable of judging and in fields in which they have inadequate experience to decide who are the appropriate persons. In those circumstances, I think it is far better that bodies should be nominated. There may be occasions in which it is appropriate that elected bodies, particularly local authorities, in this case in the Principality, should put forward a list of persons from whom a selection might be made. But if one is trying to get a balanced team that is not something that one can do by committee. The sooner that some of those who are criticising nominated bodies recognise these facts, the better for the body politic.
As for accountability, that is another matter. Where that is concerned, I am strongly in favour of having a very considerable degree of public questioning and discussion of the manner in which the bodies concerned are carrying out the ends which have been entrusted to them. May I speak for a moment as chairman as one of these nominated bodies; namely, the Land Authority for Wales? That happens to be a peculiarly successful one, if I may say so, which is an embarrassment to Her Majesty's Government at the moment. We should be delighted to appear before the Select Committee or any other appropriate forum and to give an account of our stewardship and explain
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in greater detail than one normally can in a printed report just how we try to operate. If we are questioned, we shall be glad to admit that sometimes we have made errors of judgment but also show how in other cases we are pursuing ends which we believe are fully compatible with our purpose. We shall be glad to explain to any interested party how we are endeavouring to carry out the duties entrusted to us. That is a thoroughly healthy thing to do, and something I have long thought should be in operation. In so far as the Select Committee in the other place is able to deal with the matter, we should wish it well. I doubt myself whether it can be accepted by any means as the final stage in this process, but it is a beginning, and I think we should give it a fair wind.
3.42 p.m.
Lord SKELMERSDALE: My Lords, I was particularly pleased to see this order on today's Order Paper—not that I want to rake up any stale coals or to accuse this or that Member of your Lordships' House of any dreamt-up or real infamy that I might bring forward, but because I feel it is perhaps a little overdue. I know there are good reasons for it. The 1st March, St. David's Day, is now four months ago and of course a lot of water has passed under the bridge since then. Not only have we had the results—which came out very quickly—of the referenda, but we have had a change of Government, and I think it would be fair to say at this point that, as we have had these very concrete results from the referenda, and particularly the Welsh one that we are now discussing, whatever Government were now in power would be moving this order.
I had the luck to be in Bangor in North Wales last weekend and I discovered something which, though it did not alarm me, did interest me. On Saturday there was a demonstration of young people of Welsh nationalist views. I have since discovered that Bangor has always been a centre of nationalist cohesion, so that, if there was going to be a demonstration, that was the obvious place for it.
This leads me to suppose that this issue of nationalism, and probably of devolution itself, is not something that is going to go away. It is going to come up

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again and again and again during the course of my lifetime. I would hope that, when it does come up again or at the appropriate time, the then Government will look into exactly what it is the people want and try to get a Bill on to the Statute Book which expresses their hopes and desires, rather than do what I think happened in this case: namely, to suggest a scheme which the people of Wales did not want.
3.44 p.m.
Lord RAGLAN: My Lords, I hope that during the course of my remarks this afternoon I might contribute towards an explanation of some of the things which the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, may find interesting about nationalism. I think I ought to say, first of all, that I was sorry not to have been able to take part in the debate on the Scotland Act last week. I spoke quite a lot during the passage of that Bill and should have liked to say something on its repeal. Nevertheless what I have to say on this Motion I think would apply equally to the Scotland Act.
I was one of the very few people on my side to show " disloyalty " in opposing both Acts very strongly; but my views were vindicated by the fact that only 7 per cent. of the electors in my county voted for this Act. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones, has just said, I do not think this is the last we shall hear of this matter. To the extent that the passage of these two Bills consumed an immense amount of time and energy which might have been better devoted to matters which in fact would have been of more benefit to us, it is a pity that they were brought. But I do not blame the last Government for bringing in the Bills. That one Government or another would have had to bring in a Bill of some kind was in my view inevitable, considering the passion with which a number of distinguished people in Wales and Scotland attached themselves to the cause, and in view also of the way in which Governments of all three colours over the decades have either encouraged or not discouraged them.
Although the great thing is that it has at last been thrashed out in the open, the difficulty has been and still is that in presenting arguments against devolution,
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as it has been called, one comes up against minds which are so prejudiced that it is perhaps not possible to move them with rational discussion. Thus the noble and learned Lord, Lord Kilbrandon, could say to your Lordships last week in connection with the Scotland Act—and I am quoting from column 1638 on 28th June:
" There is nothing at all in this Act which is not confined to the internal government and administration of Scotland. If the English say that they do not like the Act, it is a fair retort that they are called upon neither to like it nor dislike it, because it does not affect them ".
Of course, the Scotland Act would have affected the English; that for one thing was what the West Lothian question was all about. And this Act likewise would also have affected the English; but it is part of the intellectual outlook of the nationalists that their minds tend to be closed and they cannot look beyond the confines of the area of what they take to be their own country.
So I think it is very important to be as clear as possible about understanding what nationalists believe in. As we know it today, nationalism was shaped largely by mystical philosophers of the 19th century. They believed that history was a force carrying humanity irresistibly forward in a continuous progression of achievement. They acknowledged that some societies appeared to be more forward than others, and so they opined that we were divided into species called " nations ", each with its own defined geographical area, and that these nations would arrive independently of each other at an ultimate condition of progress and grace. In a famous phrase, the 19th century German philosopher, Hegel, said that this would take us another 18 centuries and that we would be led there by the Germanic nations. He thereby contributed towards considerable trouble in this century!
The theory of nationalism dictates that each species, as well as being of the same blood, requires its own culture, flag, anthem, costume and so on, as the outward signs of its homogeneity, and that it should also develop independently its own institutions of government. It therefore follows that if you believe that Wales or Scotland is a nation, you believe that it should have its own parliament. So anyone thinking, much worse saying, that Wales should not have a parliament

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stands to be condemned not just for letting the side down but for being insulting to the political potential of the inhabitants of Wales and therefore to " the dignity of Wales ". That is a well-known phrase to us who live there.
I think it should be clear that the desire for a parliament, or for other specifically Welsh institutions, does not really stem from a wish for better government or for better institutions. Indeed, the question of the quality of the institutions does not really enter into it, being taken for granted. The primary requirement is that they should be exclusive. This is in order to obtain status in their own eyes—self-respect, one might call it. That is understandable, and that is why the nationalists, and what have been called the quasi-nationalists, are always full of complaints about how hard-done-by they are by the English, to whom they see themselves as being in subjection.
So they have been pushed on by a powerful sense of grievance, aided and abetted over the period of a century by ethnically-minded English people who have scented historical romance within easy travelling distance. If these people did not hold their mystical view of history, and if they did not insist upon politically and artificially dividing the Welsh from the English, along a fictitious border which was drawn in the Middle Ages and which is totally irrelevant to modern life, they would never have manoeuvred themselves into thinking that they were a politically emergent nation, and they would never have cast us, the Welsh, in the role of political juveniles.
Plaid Cymru knows what it believes in, and says that a separate Wales will never join the political grown-ups unless it goes independent. They are right, and I respect them for their views even though they are frankly racialist, and although their small following is bigger than they deserve. But what caused this Act to be brought in and passed were pressures from the quasi-nationalists, who really do not know what they believe in, and who go around with great big chips on their shoulders. They would like to pass on to us all their sense of inferiority and grievance.
They have been playing at Wales being a nation, and have inflicted upon us
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a kind of second-class nation status, and I believe that they created a worse kind of Government than if we had remained integrated with England. They have been in the habit of claiming to speak for none other than all the people in Wales. One continually hears them saying how the people of Wales want this and the people of Wales think that. But until recently the people of Wales had not been asked what they want or what they think, and the referendum in the secrecy of the ballot box showed, I believe, how few adherents these nationalists actually have.
Yet the fact is that in supporting political institutions, such as the Secretary-ship of State for Wales, Governments have been committed to separatism and therefore to the support of nationalism. This, I think, will lead to a dilemma in the talks which the Government say they are going to have, especially as even now the Government still feel bound to pay lip-service to nationalism and are, as the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, has told us, creating separate Select Committees for Wales and for Scotland. Once again, Wales and Scotland will be merely given second-best for nationalistic reasons. The Secretaries of State, being, as I think, Pooh-bahs over six or seven Ministries, are to get Pooh-bah committees attached to them, instead of the dozen specialist subject committees which Westminster Ministers will be dealing with.
So the nationalist wagon still rolls on and I believe that, for the sake of the better democratic functioning of our still united Kingdom, it really must be checked. Nationalism, at first sight, has the appearance of being a democratic ideology and seems to be a cause to which a good, liberally minded person might, or ought to, attach himself. But in case anyone thinks that, I should like to conclude by quoting from a little book by someone called Alfred Cobban, which was published 35 years ago and is called National Self-Determination. He examines nationalism with thoroughness and fairness, and in one passage he says that in view of the history of the movement and its very restricted democratic elements,
" We are bound to conclude that the association between nationalism and democracy may be the result of historical accident ".
I hope that that insight, coming as it does not from me but, with great reserve, from

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a distinguished historian, will help stiffen the Government in what I hope will be their resolve not to follow upon the same path in relation to Wales and Scotland as Governments have been wont to travel in the past approximately 100 years.
3.57 p.m.
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones, for his acceptance of this order. The noble and learned Lord, and indeed many of his noble friends, some of whom are sitting in the House this afternoon, together with my noble friend Lord Elton and other of his noble friends, laboured long and seriously over the Bill. If, in office, my noble friend Lord Elton had not disappeared across the water to Northern Ireland, I am sure that he would have wished to reciprocate the noble and learned Lord's courteous and humorous remarks.
As I understood him, the noble and learned Lord said that Parliament must not underestimate the importance of Wales in the affairs of the United Kingdom. In essence, I think that all the remarks of your Lordships who have taken part in this short debate this afternoon have been to the same effect, and the Government genuinely take that view seriously. With the conclusive vote of the people of Wales, we feel that we take this seriously by saying that we have to look to the future. We believe that the first reform that is needed is to increase Parliamentary control over Government and the bodies which Government appoints in Wales. It is for this reason that the remit of the Select Committee on Welsh affairs is widely drawn.
With respect to the noble Lord, Lord Raglan, the setting up of a Select Committee is not paying lip service to nationalism in Wales. In 1978, the Procedure Committee of the House of Commons recommended that there should be Select Committees covering all the Departments of State. But, of course, Scotland and Wales were left to one side because they were the subject of devolution legislation and the Government have decided that it is of the first importance that Wales should be provided with a Select Committee. It will cover the responsibilities of my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Wales.
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Of course, the noble Baroness, Lady White, is absolutely right that there will be some overlapping with other Departments, and the responsibilities which will fall within the ambit of the Select Committee for Welsh Affairs will have to be seen in the context of the other departmental Select Committees. But let me make it crystal clear that that does not detract from the fact that the new Select Committees will cover the responsibilities of the Secretary of State for Wales. If I may be allowed to say so, I think that the Government have started well in this respect. We have already seen the Welsh debate in another place, an active start by the Welsh Grand Committee and the setting-up of the new Select Committee to which I have just been referring.
Lord ELWYN-JONES: My Lords, I wonder whether it would be possible for the noble Lord to say if the Select Committee will sit in Wales from time to time and have public deliberations, if that is the right word?
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, I am afraid that the noble and learned Lord has bowled me out. I should like, if I may, to write to him on the matter. This will, of course, be a committee of another place—
Lord ELWYN-JONES: Yes, my Lords.
Lord BELSTEAD:—and, as the noble and learned Lord would be the first to tell me, it will be within their remit to decide where they will sit. None the less, I should like to collect what information I can gather on that point and write to the noble and learned Lord.
Baroness WHITE: My Lords, with great respect, the order which was passed in the other place would permit them to do so.
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Baroness. As I was saying, I think that this is not a bad start. Whereas at the beginning I said that noble Lords all agreed, in one sense, with the noble and learned Lord, perhaps it is fair to me to say that noble Lords speaking in this debate have also in essence said that if there is not to be a devolution Bill this is not a bad way of making a fresh start. In the hope that

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that is the right way of summing up what has been said this afternoon, I now ask your Lordships to agree to the passing of this order.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

EEC 14th REPORT—CULTURAL SECTOR: AND PROPOSED ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE
4.1 p.m.
Baroness SEEAR Baroness SEEAR rose to move, That this House takes note of the Fourteenth Report of last Session of the European Communities Committee on Community action in the cultural sector (R/2982/77) and proposals for a European Economic and Social Policy Research Institute (R/3184/78) (H.L. 97, 1978–79). The noble Baroness said: My Lords, before we commence the debate, may I say how delighted I am and how delighted, I am sure, your Lordships' House will be that the noble Lord, Lord Flowers, who contributed so much to the evidence which was given to the committee, has chosen to make this subject the reason for his maiden speech. I know that it is customary to congratulate a maiden speaker after he has made his speech, but on this occasion I feel that I am entirely safe in congratulating the noble Lord before he makes it and thanking him very much indeed for so doing.
The report which is before your Lordships' House today deals with three separate though related matters. In the report there are a number of individual items of a relatively insignificant nature, although some of them are important in their own right—for instance, matters dealing with free trade in cultural goods, copyright, protection against theft. These are practical issues of considerable importance, the objectives of which will be acceptable, I assume, to all Members of your Lordships' House and, indeed, to most persons.
The only reason for hesitation that the committee would have about considering these proposals is the possibility of a still further increase in bureaucracy in trying to bring about the very proper aims that are included in the suggestions and a
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doubt as to whether it is really necessary always to set up an EEC provision to deal with matters which could perhaps be dealt with by means of existing machinery. I am sure that we all agree that, while in this field, as in all others, we want there to be progress within the Community, we do not want to weigh it down with unnecessary additional bureaucracy. For example, in dealing with theft, it may well be that the existing Interpol provisions are perfectly adequate, or perhaps need only some slight alteration and development in order to achieve the objectives which are outlined in the report.
There is also difficulty about what is meant by a " cultural worker ". No definition of a " cultural worker " is contained in the Brussels proposals. If special provision is to be made for cultural workers, we must be clear about who the animal really is. This was not made at all clear in the recommendations which came before us. The strong feeling of the committee was that cultural workers should be regarded as self-employed persons and that if the provision for the protection of self-employed persons is adequate this should, in the main at any rate, be appropriate for dealing with cultural workers—that it is not necessary for persons who are defined as " cultural workers " to be treated as a class apart, as a different kind of animal from anybody who is earning his living by working for himself in his own, chosen way.
Apart from those reservations, there is general agreement that the individual items which are outlined here need some attention and that it is appropriate that they should be considered. However, they are not the main issues in the report which is before your Lordships' House today. Had they been the only items to be considered, we should not have thought that it was suitable to recommend the report to your Lordships' House for debate.
The first major consideration is the question of cultural policy within the EEC. A number of Members of your Lordships' House will at once raise the question whether cultural policy is, in any case, ultra vires. This issue comes up again and again. It is not easy to see, within the framework of the Treaty, that there is a specific mandate for dealing with cultural matters, though it would be

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possible, from the way in which the proposals were put forward, to recognise the fact that if cultural action is to be taken by the EEC it must be taken as a result of an indirect application of the Treaty—by a very considerable extension, perhaps, of Article 235. However, it is not the question of ultra vires which we should like to discuss in the debate this afternoon.
When the committee first looked at these proposals I think a good many of its members were divided as to the direction which should be taken in making recommendations. To anybody who wishes to see the Community develop into something which deals with matters of greater importance to the citizen than green pounds and budgetary squabbles, the idea that the Community should be taking a lead over some of those cultural matters which make the pulse of the ordinary citizen beat faster is an attractive proposition. Indeed, as those of us who have been involved in the EEC election campaigns know only too well, the pulse of the British people is not beating very hard at the thought of the EEC, and the injection of a new idea and a new leadership into the EEC concept might well be what is needed at present.
Although development along these lines is needed, this does not mean that it is right for the EEC to adopt a positive and specific role in the development of cultural policy. In the first place, the nine members of the EEC, and even the membership extended to 12 when this comes about, do not represent Europe. It is hard to see that there is a European Community culture. Indeed, the fact that these proposals were put forward when Greece lay outside the Community underlines the unreality of claiming that European culture is in any way identical with the culture of the Nine who at present make up the Community. Therefore, one has to ask whether this is the right area and the right place for the development of European culture. If one asks that question, the answer, surely, has to be, No, it is not.
Even more significant is the question: Is a Commission, a Community, an inevitably highly institutionalised organization, the appropriate body for the development of culture? There is something even in the term " cultural policy " which is repulsive.
You cannot have a culture which is developed as a matter of policy. The real outbursts of European culture have often come as a result of anger, of anguish, of protest. These are things which cannot be planned and regulated from Brussels, or even from Paris or Florence. So, much as one wants to see development in this field, much as one wants to see new creative impulses coming out of Brussels, one has to say this must not take the form of the development of cultural policies lined up with agricultural policies and regional policies. In culture the wind bloweth where it listeth and it cannot be regulated from Brussels.
This does not mean that there should be no effort made, more subtly and in ways of a different kind from those used in agricultural and industrial policies, to develop those areas of life which, although they are, thank heavens, beyond the clutch of the bureaucrat's hand, are of the greatest importance to the citizens of the Community. Surely it is desirable that resources should be made available and encouragement given from Brussels, through other institutions, to help in the development of established bodies who are working in this field, and in fostering small initiatives from which so often new movements, new developments in culture, unforeseen and unanticipated, come to grow.
We have suggested that through, for example, the Council of Europe, we should at least have much wider coverage of things European, some collaboration between the resources available in Brussels and the machinery and knowledge and contact in the Council of Europe; not only in the Council of Europe, but in other institutions such as the British Council, such as the European Institute. Help through bodies of that kind could show that the Community cares about things which ordinary citizens care about and which extra-ordinary citizens care about, because the Community is made up of the ordinary and the extraordinary, the exceptional and the average. Resources should be available to help in the development of this side of life which has been remote from the work of the Community up to the present. That is the way we would like to see the development of what is called, incorrectly, we think, cultural policy.

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The objections to cultural policy do not, however, apply to the third element in today's debate, the proposal to establish a European Economic and Social Policy Research Institute. The Commission and the other elements that go to make up the Community, working as they are in the development of economic and social matters relating to economic development, if they are to be effective, if they are to take wise initiatives, if they are to take stock of what has been going on and to bring about right changes as a result of that stocktaking, do surely need a research organisation of the highest possible quality. At present there is very little of the more long-term fundamental research going on in the area of the European Community.
If that kind of research is to be effective, and we believe it is very badly needed, it can only be effective if certain conditions are observed. One is that the research that is to be done should not be limited exclusively to the members of the Community; it should bring in countries which are affected by what happens in the Community and which can affect it. We all know, for example, that the North African countries will be increasingly affected by the enlargement of the Community. What is going on in regard to the relationship between Community action and developments in other countries close to the Community, close either geographically or because of economic and social considerations, needs to be taken into account in the work of such an institute as is proposed here.
It is also of the greatest importance that an institute of this kind should be staffed by people of quite exceptional order. It would be a disaster, and an expensive disaster, if this institute became a long-term home for displaced academics, and it is all too easy for something of this kind to happen. It would be disastrous if the recruitment to this institute had to be made on a strict rationing of jobs according to nationality. If either of these two things happened we would be better off without it. It is highly desirable that such an institute should be staffed by people who, though adequately paid, should not be so well paid that they can never return to the academic institutions from which they came. These are all
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real dangers, as I am sure your Lordships are aware, if a body of this kind is set up.
Above all, it is of the greatest importance that such an institute should be as independent of Brussels as it possibly can be in its financing; some money from Brussels, yes, but it is highly desirable that there should be money from other sources, so that Brussels can never have more than a minor say on the basis of the financial contributions that it makes. And, even more important, it should be independent in its management and independent in its right to appoint the scientists who will work there. If those conditions can be fulfilled, then indeed this would be an extremely good investment.
In regard to the economies the present Government are proposing—and we know we need economies—I read in the Press, though I have no reason to know whether it is true or not, that the Government's possible contribution of one-third of a million pounds to such an institute is being viewed with disfavour. I hope the noble Lord who is to reply for the Government will repudiate that suggestion. If this is done properly it will save far more than one-third of a million pounds, and it will see that the contribution that the British Government make to Brussels, be it excessive or be it not, is in fact well spent. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That this House takes note of the Fourteenth Report of last Session of the European Communities Committee on Community action in the cultural sector (R/2982/77) and proposals for a European Economic and Social Policy Research Institute (R/3184/78) (HL 97, 1978/79)—(Baroness Seear.)
Viscount ECCLES: My Lords, is it in order to ask the noble Baroness a question before she resumes her seat?
Lord TREFGARNE: No, my Lords; the Motion has been put.
4.19 p.m.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: My Lords, I think we would all like to hear the noble Viscount's question. Perhaps he would like to ask it of me later on and I will pass it on to the noble Baroness. I am in rather a difficult position today because I agree

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totally with the report of the committee of the noble Baroness and I thought she expressed the background to that report admirably; she did not say a single word I disagree with, and this does make speechmaking rather difficult. However, it does help one to be brief, which I shall endeavour to be.
The committee's verdict is not only sound, but extremely tactful. If I may dot the i's and cross the t's a little, what it is really saying is that it is less than certain that a cultural drive of the kind envisaged in the Commission's paper, R/2982/77, is an appropriate move at all. However, it is certain that, if that move is to be made, it must be made in conjunction with something wider, and the obvious choice to begin with is the Council of Europe which has 21 members including all the nine Members of the EEC. The Government must be careful not to miss any chance of getting any properly given money from the EEC which is not tied up with the type of strings about which the noble Baroness has been talking.
In my official capacity I attended the Council of Europe meeting in Oslo in 1976 and again in Athens this year. It is amusing to note that the turnover of Ministers of Culture is so great that I was the only Minister to attend both meetings. I am sure that at the next meeting the right honourable gentleman Mr. St. John-Stevas will be no less effective than I was. However, we were all—certainly the English delegation—a little puzzled at what it was all about. In Oslo I said that we did not have a Minister of Culture, that we thought that culture was an essential part of government, and that we dealt only with details through different Departments—for example, in my case the arts and in the case of the Department of the Environment, heritage and so on—which came as rather a surprise to those present.
However, at the Athens meeting the recommendation was put forward—and I discussed it with M. Lecat, who is the Minister of Culture for France, and I thought a most excellent thinker—that the committee should recommend that,
" the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe invite the CDCC "
—that is the body concerned—
" to study the preparation of a European Cultural Charter and report to the next Conference of Ministers responsible for Cultural Affairs ".
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I suppose that that conference will be at Luxembourg next year. Both M. Lecat and I said, " Don't let's go too fast on this. Both of our countries are doing a great deal about this sort of thing and we do not want to be diverted or confused, but we can hardly do less than ask to have papers prepared and leave our successors—in my case and possibly in his—to make a decision how far we go ahead after next year ".
Therefore, I do not think that that proposition—proposition No. 1—should go ahead until after the Council of Europe has produced papers for Ministers to consider, in which I hope and think they will discuss with the EEC the possible collaboration of the two. That would begin to make the sort of sense that we want to see.
In the three years for which I was Minister for the Arts I never made a speech on culture as such. It is not a matter that we talk about very much in England. We talk about specific matters and I made all sorts of speeches defending the Government for not doing things that others wanted them to do and vice versa. However, that brings me to the second point which the noble Baroness made; namely, that a body of this kind, if it were properly set up with the Council of Europe—and, as the noble Baroness suggested, included some kind of liaison with other interested people like North Africa—should still not be a body which does things itself. It should be a body which provides a proportion of money for existing international or national institutions, to do things themselves. It seems to me that the very idea that SEDOC—I cannot remember exactly what it stands for but, roughly speaking, it is the EEC's employment arrangements—should become the sole agency for the exchange of cultural personnel, is totally wrong. However, there are, as the noble Baroness suggested, many institutions—for example, the International Theatre Institute, the International Committee of Museums and many others—which are well suited to receive help and encouragement. That reminds me that last year when M. LeFort, who has just taken over the Paris Opera, came over here and gave a Press conference, he said that he wanted to see an organisation of opera houses which would have some kind of power in dealing with the broadcasting and television companies. That is the type of group which could be

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[Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge.] helped very much by being set up and assisted with money from this source.
Despite criticisms of various kinds, we in this country are satisfied with our system of arm's length assistance to the arts. Most of us feel that any more direct involvement by Government with the arts would be a mistake. It is fair to say that that is not true throughout Europe—it is certainly not true in France. M. Lecat has far more power than I ever had or Mr. St. John-Stevas will ever have. At any rate we were able to agree that we did not want to go too far in this direction. It was most agreeable earlier this afternoon to hear my noble friend Lady White as regards an entirely different subject—the Wales Bill—defending nominated bodies in defence of which I am always prepared to go to the wall.
Therefore, my attitude to the first proposition is that no action should be taken until the Council of Europe has discussed the problem fully next year at Luxembourg. I am sure that that is right. The noble Baroness's report has been widely appreciated by a group of very non-establishment people—about 150 of them—all connected with the arts, who met in May under the auspices of the Institute of Contemporary Arts (the ICA). They were clearly very suspicious of the kind of bureaucratic danger to which the noble Baroness has referred. I should like merely as a compliment to her and her companions on the committee, to point out that in their preliminary quotations on page 1 as regards " What others have said " they say as regards the Select Committee of the House of Lords:
" Any attempt to identify European culture with the Community would be artificial, and could damage culture on both sides of the Community's boundaries ".
They also say:
" To direct cultural activity from Brussels would be to run the risk of reducing the cultures within the Community to uniformity ".
People who are interested will find this a most interesting and helpful discussion, but really it is in almost total agreement with the noble Baroness's report.
As regards the second paper—R/3184/78—once again I totally agree with the committee's recommendations and with the noble Baroness's exposition. Roughly
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speaking—and I am dotting the i's again—they say that a European social policy and research institute is desirable, but only if it is entirely independent and in no way run by the Commission. That, I think, is not at all what the Commission had in mind, but I am sure that that is right. I thought that Professor Dahrendorf's evidence was conclusive in this sense, and it would be worth examining further the possibility, which was discussed with the noble Lord whose maiden speech we are so much looking forward to hearing in a few minutes, of setting up such an institute through the agency of the European Scientific Foundation. In relation to dealing with existing institutions Professor Dahrendorf suggested that the Hague Club, which is an organisation of European private foundations, might be a possible vehicle for something of this sort.
My Lords, I should like to end by congratulating the noble Baroness and her colleagues on a very wise report, while hoping that the Government, apart from being prepared, as she suggested, to put up a third of a million pounds towards anything which is properly founded, will not take rapid action here but will at least wait until after Luxembourg.
4.31 p.m.
Lord FLOWERS: I am most grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, for her very kind remarks about me and for the chance that this debate on the 14th Report gives me to address your Lordships. I am very happy also to follow the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, because he was kind enough to leave me in a reasonably non-controversial frame of mind!
The European idea is partly a matter of economic and social policy and partly a matter of history and culture. The Community, however, was created mainly to enable its participants to seek mutual support in their economic policies. It is not, in its present form, a natural grouping for cultural affairs. In the memorable phrase of Professor Dahrendorf that is in the printed evidence, it is not " a natural cultural space ". If the Commission is to rely upon the Treaty of Rome in order to assist the development of European culture, it will have to be extraordinarily sensitive to the fact that culture has to be seen in an historical

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context. It is a context that goes far beyond the economic perspectives of the present Community, into the membership of the Council of Europe at least, and many would say into the countries of Eastern Europe as well.
Moreover, it seems to me that our cultural heritage derives to a significant extent from our historical minorities. This is no peculiarity of Europe. If there be such a thing, for instance, as American culture, as distinct from the individual contributions of a great number of Americans, it surely derives very largely from the minority groupings of that great continent throughout its history. I am not sure that national Governments always pay sufficient attention to minorities. It would be extremely difficult for the Commission to do so above the heads, so to speak, of the national Governments. I believe it was Matthew Arnold who said:
" The men of culture are the true apostles of equality ".
Equality, yes, but not uniformity. Therefore I hope, if a mere physicist may have an opinion on such a matter, that the eventual outcome of these deliberations may be a loose association of the bodies responsible for cultural affairs in our various countries rather than a centralised cultural bureaucracy. There is much that the Commission could do, if it wished, to catalyse such an approach.
The proposal to set up a European Economic and Social Policy Research Institute raises some problems that are similar. For, although it is easy to accept that the Community is " a natural space " in which to apply economic and social policies jointly conceived, a wider space is desirable for the examination of their consequences and the exploration of alternatives. I agree with the noble Baroness that we have to be particularly concerned about countries that are not yet members of the Community. So I am glad to see in the Commission's recommendation that a number of European non-Member States might participate. That at least makes it a little more open-ended.
The proposed European Institute is often likened to the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. The prime function of Brookings is to conduct policy research into matters of current concern and to
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make their findings available (and I quote from the Encyclopaedia Americana) to,
" leaders in business, labour and the professions, senior civil servants, members of Congress and other Government officials ".
Its charter provides that the Institution (and I quote again),
" shall be administered without regard to the special interest of any group in the body politic, whether political, social or economic ".
That is to say, it is independent. In short, the role of a policy research institute is to examine the efficacy of current policies, to propose alternatives and to provide fresh food for thought to those who manage our affairs.
I cannot judge whether the time has yet come when the Commission, the Council of Ministers and the national Governments of Europe are willing to expose themselves to independent examination. I hope that the newly elected European Parliament will encourage them, but I doubt whether even they can manage without the help of an expert research organisation. After all, Brookings has functioned usefully for over 50 years in spite of the immense resources available to Congress. I am personally convinced that sooner or later it will be found essential to have a policy research institute in Europe which will act as a mirror, in the words of the 14th Report, to the organs of the Community and to the national Governments. I do not doubt that if it were available today it would be shedding fresh light on the Common Agricultural Policy, the regional development funds, the husbandry of natural resources and many other matters.
The report stresses—and rightly stresses—the independence that such an institute should have. It is not an easy matter. It must guard that independence while having close access to the organs whose policies it is studying. It cannot work in a vacuum. It must seek and respect confidence. But it must be the creature of nobody and especially not of the Commission.
It is here that I view with some concern the precise form of the Commission's recommendation. This makes clear that the institute would be negotiated at intergovernmental level; that it would be managed by a board appointed by the Commission and the national Governments and therefore with its budget not

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only provided, but also controlled by the very bodies whose policies it would then be its duty to examine. That does not sound like independence to me!
There are several ways to achieve an acceptable degree of autonomy. The institute might be funded jointly by a group of charitable foundations. The noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kings-bridge, has already referred to that possibility. In that way no official funds would be involved. If alternatively the institute is to depend primarily upon community and Government funds, as I think it eventually must, one could interpose a suitable body trusted by both sides. It is the kind of role, although of course constitutionally quite different, that is played by the University Grants Committee, interposed between the Government and the universities of this country. How very precious that has proved to he to the autonomy of our universities and the freedom with which we do our work.
It is here that I have to declare an interest, because the 14th Report proposes that the European Science Foundation, of which at present I have the honour to be President, might be made responsible for setting up the institute and for continuing thereafter both to acquire its funds and to guarantee its independence. I was not sure that it is at all proper, having given evidence to the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, shortly before I took the oath in your Lordships' House, now to pop up in another guise to comment on my own evidence. I was assured that if I made a full confession I could rely upon the traditional indulgence of the House, if not in perpetuity at least on this occasion, and I can but try my luck!
I explained in that evidence that the European Science Foundation—perhaps I may call it the ESF for short—might, indeed, be a suitable body. I shall not repeat that evidence here, except to say purely by way of explanation that our chief aim is to assist in the development of a coherent European community of research and scholarship in all branches of learning, including the natural sciences, the social sciences and the humanities. The member organisations of the foundation are 46 research councils and learned academies, representing all these disciplines from 17 West European countries, inclu-
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ding those of the Community. All of them disburse public funds on basic research, but all are autonomous so far as their scientific judgments are concerned.
The ESF works in close harmony with the European Commission. It also has a good relationship with the Council of Europe, to which it voluntarily accounts for itself from time to time, as it also does to the European Parliament. Nevertheless, although it depends upon public funds, it is two steps removed, so to speak, from direct interference by Governments in reaching its conclusions and recommendations. We are already active in the social sciences. We have not yet tried to create a policy research institute because the proposal has been in governmental hands. We have been interested bystanders. But we shall do our best if our help is sought.
I must not trespass further upon the patience of the House in what might seem to be a commercial plug for the European Science Foundation. I have only one brief point to add, but it is, I think, important to emphasise something which the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, has already said. Whatever formal arrangements are eventually adopted—whether they are those recommended by the Commission or those suggested by the noble Baroness, or any others—the ultimate guarantee of success is the quality of the work that is carried out by the institute. That will depend entirely upon the excellence of its permanent staff and of the expert visitors it is able to attract for special studies. I submit that we should ask ourselves what formal arrangements are most likely to attract the kind of people whom we would wish to see in the employment of the institute. That is the paramount question.
4.43 p.m.
Lord O'HAGAN: My Lords, it is a real pleasure for me to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Flowers, on a truly distinguished and model maiden speech, drawing on depths of learning and expertise but putting that to the service of the House in a brief and non-contro-versial manner. If I may say so without impertinence, I hope that he will often come to our debates and show that he

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truly bridges the C. P. Snow gap of the two cultures, as he has today.
It was a special pleasure to hear him because, very largely, I agree with the main burden of his remarks. Before I discuss the report in detail, briefly I should like to give an indication of how I regard these matters. Apart from the election of the present Government in this country, probably the most significant European political event this year was the election of the Polish Pope. I speak as a Protestant. That is the event this year which will have long-term political significance within Europe, the event to which we should pay very great attention now and to which we should look for important political development in the future.
Therefore, I do not regard the European Community as representing Europe. I see Europe as a geographical expression to which the European Economic Community is attempting to give some form of democratic and political reality. When your Lordships, and in particular the committee of the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, study proposals of the sort that form the subject-matter of this report, that wider perspective about what is and is not Europe is very important to keep in mind. In that general context I would simply say that the noble Baroness has not gone far enough. Before the end of my political lifetime I look forward to applications to join the European Economic Community from Hungary, Poland and other States which are now neither free nor democratic. When we think about Europe, we must not say " No " to them merely because we stretch the boundaries as far as the member-States of the Council of Europe. We must think of the widest way in which we can interpret the geographical term " Europe " and then narrow it for practical purposes.
In that ecumenical spirit, I find it rather hard to say what I have to say next, because my attitude towards the proposal for a European Economic and Social Policy Research Institute is not wholly in tune with that of previous speakers in the debate. Although I respect the knowledge of the noble Lord, Lord Flowers, who speaks from experience, I have deep anxieties about the independence of research bodies, who
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pays them and what the burdens are for being paid. I very much admire the Rowntree Foundations, both the charitable and the non-charitable ones, and the Policy Studies Institute under Mr. John Pinder. Those bodies in the area of political research—either activist or general, practical or theoretical—have a great deal to offer. But it is of their essence that they are independent and are not beholden to their paymasters.
Although the committee believes that this proposal can be developed and adapted—and the noble Lord, Lord Flowers, seems to think so too—I am also doubtful that we can transplant what has been successful in the United States, which is essentially a country with a single language and a single political tradition going back several hundred years, into an expanding community of many languages and very diverse political traditions. We cannot transplant institutions just like that. Therefore, provided that these two misgivings can be overcome—and I hope that they can—I am sure that the European Parliament would love to have a policy research institute with which to equip itself in its struggle against bureaucracy and inefficiency both in the Commission and in the Council of Ministers. I look forward to its existing and to calling upon it.
Nevertheless, there is a danger that this proposal has already suffered various changes in the course of its evolution. It may now be in a state of some confusion, and its original purposes must be checked against these two criteria of independence and whether the whole notion can really be transplanted across the Atlantic. I conclude on that part of my remarks with the gloomy report to your Lordships that at the top of my copy of the Fourteenth Report, where it starts to discuss this proposal, I have put " Euroquano? ". That is what worries me about it. Nevertheless, I support its intentions and if it exists, and is to exist, I hope that Her Majesty's Government will see fit to develop it in its formative stages so that we can make a contribution to it and obtain benefit from it.
The real reason for my speaking this afternoon is that, like noble Lords who have spoken in the debate so far, I tend to shiver when I see the word " culture "

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in large letters on the front of a report. I suggest to your Lordships that your reaction, and I hope my reaction, would be quite different were the words to be, not " culture " but, for example, " the European heritage ". " Heritage " is, again, an abused word. It has assumed a rather bogus and specialist narrow meaning, but it sums up some of the matters that are important for the European Community to deal with, which, in my view, are not subsumed in the expression " culture ". Heritage is defined in my dictionary as, " What is, or may be, inherited ". So far as the Community is concerned it can only grow, expand and develop if it respects the social, political and cultural heritage on which it is based. It must grow from that. Respect what exists within the Community already, and build on the cultural and political traditions of its new members.
It cannot set up a harmonised standard for culture and enforce it on those citizens within its boundaries; but, through its activities it can either frustrate or help, the European cultural heritage—call it what you like, as long as it does not sound too unattractive—that we all know exists. There is something that people the other side of the Atlantic think of as Europe, and that is political culture, cathedrals, paintings, the opera, folk music, and a whole variety of things which have a European significance and are something that can be shared with those who are in countries, such as Hungary and Poland, as well as all the countries in the Community or which are likely to be in it soon.
I have talked in a woolly way because it is a woolly idea, but, to make it concrete, the European Community takes steps every day which affect the European heritage. Anything to do with a Common Agricultural Policy affects the landscape; anything to do with harmonisation of VAT affects buildings open to the public and repairs to old buildings, and the cost of running museums and opera houses; anything to do with town planning (in which the Community does not yet have a role but will be influencing gradually as the different traditions of member-States benefit from each other) affects the townscapes, the way our towns look. All these things have an effect on tourism, and tourism may well be one of the major foreign currency earners of the Community.
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There is a strong commercial interest in the Community respecting its own heritage because, if we do not preserve it we have not got it there for the rest of the world to come and spend their money to see so that we can preserve it. If we do not preserve it we turn the European Community into a bureaucrats' paradise, and stop it acting as a bulwark for the individuality of the citizens of Europe, which is what it was originally designed to be. When we are looking at these proposals about Community action in the cultural sector, my own view is that we in this House should ask the Commission to redefine what they are playing at. There is no one better qualified in this field, in my submission than the present President of the Commission, who is an historian with a wide interest in cultural matters.
It is essential to have first an historical approach, so that you can build on what European culture has been so far, and at the first stage make sure that what the European Community does in the future does not destroy that; so that the Community is a midwife and not an anaesthetist, or euthenasianist, or whatever the expression is, for what we have already in the form of culture in the European Community. Some of these pettifogging regulations dealing with the activities of cultural workers are a recipe for the death of cultural policy within the Community, and not its expansion.
We have to ask the Commission to think again, and to think rather more deeply, because the European Community, if it has a role—and I believe that it has —has to go back to the drawing board and ask its present President in the Commission to think what the role of the Commission can possibly be. I believe it has a role in so far as the new version of the Common Agricultural Policy will affect how much of our landscape is left within 20 or 30 years.
The Commission deals with education in some ways. That has some effect. Harmonisation of capital taxation would also have an effect on cultural heritage. All these things add up to what must be the beginnings of a Community policy on tourism, because the Community must look to tourism as a way of getting money for the Community's cultural heritage. If we can tear up some of the proposals that we have seen so far in this

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sphere, that should not act as a deterrent to the Commission because it is the Commission's job to propose, and it is Parliament's job to react. We should encourage the Commission to redefine what it is trying to do, but to persist in these fields.
I hope it is with that slightly chilling message that this report will be taken to Brussels: not chilling in the sense that it should deter them from trying again; but chastening, to make them think, " What are we really trying to do? How can we have a cultural policy that is not negative; that is open to all countries and all peoples who can call themselves European and may one day be members, and at the same time preserve what we all know and feel to be part of a genuine European cultural experience—although we hate saying it, and find it difficult to define?". For goodness sake, do not let Brussels define it, but let them encourage it where it exists and seek to preserve and expand it.
4.57 p.m.
The Earl of GOSFORD: My Lords, first of all, I should like to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, for giving us the chance to speak on this subject, and secondly apologise to her for not having been here at the very beginning of her speech. Secondly, I should like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Flowers, on his first speech in this House, which I know is a harrowing experience, and on the evidence he gave to the committee when he came along to speak to it as Sir Brian Flowers.
I want to speak to the visual arts side of this whole matter. I shall start with the document, Community Action in the Cultural Sector. This document has some good points, and we should not throw out the baby with the bath water. The noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, recently stated in this House that the British art market was booming. I expect that he means the antiques market, galleries which sell the work of dead artists, galleries which deal in the re-sale of well-known artists, and the auction houses. I am not concerned with these, nor am I concerned with archaeology and nuclear conservation, simply because both these areas are well catered for in this document.
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My concern is for the living artist. Here I must declare an interest, being an artist myself and also the current chairman of the Artists' Union. We artists do not want charity and handouts any more. As the Economic and Social Committee of the European Commission states in a report requested by the Council of Ministers:
" The Committee notes that Article 2 of the Rome Treaty does not distinguish between categories of workers. In the Committee's view, therefore, any discrimination against cultural workers should be eliminated and all should be treated as equal with other citizens in the Community ".
I go on past the parts in the document which I think the majority of living artists are not particularly concerned with, as these points do not affect them; that is, thefts and fakes.
The first point at which this document scores in relation to social aspects is where it says:
" The material success of some individual cultural workers has led to a misunderstanding about cultural workers in general on the part of the public as a whole.
In fact, such success is very rare. The majority of industrial workers would not accept the living standards of all but a few cultural workers, which are precarious and generally lower than their own. The highest proportion of ' proletarians ' (i.e., the underprivileged) is nowadays to be found in the socio-professional category constituted by cultural workers ".
I am not too happy with the phrase " cultural workers ", and I think everybody else feels the same, but it is a step up from artists being hippies, dreamers and all the rest of that caboodle. The document goes on:
" Since cultural workers are still often badly protected by social security, a series of measures should be taken to increase their cover against social risks, in the form of sickness, invalidy and old-age insurance and family allowances ".
The facts concerning social security are, first, that no category for artists exists. In the main, artists are largely unemployed and there is no unemployment benefit on self-employed status; there is only the basic sickness benefit and pension—and I underline " basic"—whereas other people are on earnings related benefit. But for them this is minimal because if artists have to take other jobs they are part-time by nature.
The second point comes under the heading: " Freedom of Trade in Cultural Goods ", where the document states:
" The practice of exempting creative artists in the plastic arts from formalities when transporting

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their own works should be generally applied and legalised ".
I think that speaks for itself. My third item comes under " Freedom of Movement " and this seems OK, except that a star system could produce exhibitions for only a small minority of artists, and therefore perhaps in different countries they might like to have a quota for their indigenous artists in specific galleries. On item four, " Harmonisation of Taxation ", the document states:
" The effect of VAT on culture is not a neutral one. By making cultural goods dearer, it restricts the circulation which they could enjoy. The situation is particularly worrying in the case of contemporary works. Their very creation may be threatened by marketing difficulties ".
VAT, I suspect, should be substantially abolished in this area. If possible, the tax on cultural workers should be spread over several years. The document states:
" Although it would certainly not be desirable for cultural workers to become privileged taxpayers, it is absolutely essential that they should cease to be discriminated against ".
The fifth point I wish to make—it is probably one of the most important—concerns an area which we in this country should take under our wing; it comes under the heading, " Harmonization of Laws on Copyright and Related Rights ". One item under this head has already been achieved in this country, namely PLR—public lending right—put through by my noble friend Lord Donaldson of Kings-bridge, and I might tell my noble friend that the Institute of Contemporary Arts held a very good conference recently; the only trouble was that it was very expensive and the document which my noble friend has in his hand costs £10 for the first copy and £5 for subsequent ones, which is most unfortunate for artists. I cannot see many of them being able to afford that price. Perhaps if future conferences like that occur the Arts Council could make certain that any artist wishing to go could be subsidised.
To return to the subject of copyright, under paragraph 14 bis of the 1948 Brussels Convention on Copyright, which all the EEC countries except the Netherlands and the United Kingdom have signed and which, elsewhere in Europe, Yugoslavia has signed, droit de suite applies, as it does in Sweden and Norway. Subsequent Berne conventions have said the same thing, but have altered the number
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of the article. This is an area where we can certainly learn from France and other European countries where they have droit d'auteur, which is author's right. In France and elsewhere where this is used, " author " means " creator ", which means that it includes painters, sculptors and writers.
This of course includes both copyright and droll de suite, and the Artists' Section of the ICA conference came forward with the suggestion that there should be a national register for artists from which payments for droll de suite could easily be worked out and which would assist with employment prospects for artists. We should also learn from SPADEM in France, which, and I apologise for my French, is the Société de la Propriété Artistique et des Desseins et Modèles. They collect copyright and droll de suite fees and payments. The organisation is run by artists, though administered by laymen.
I say " Yes " on these matters, but only if the EEC's aim is beyond the Nine. It must go beyond the Nine to the Twenty, or the whole world; we depend so much on each other and our cultures are so intertwined that the idea of a " Nine culture " is totally unacceptable. Otherwise I fear, as the Council of Europe does, that the financial strength of the Nine will be dominant. So I say " No to Euro-rooms in museums and " No " to the promotion of a socio-culture within the Nine and any use by the EEC of the arts as a cultural morale-booster.
I come to the question of the European Economic and Social Policy Research Institute. Basically I fear these institutes and their respectability because it enables them to put a stamp on their activities which in turn precludes activities outside their remit. This, unfortunately, is how the Arts Council works, and indeed the Ministries; that is, if the Minister is asked a question, he refers to the Ministry or the Arts Council for advice.
If the advice needed is not in their remit, then by default that advice is brushed aside by the Minister, the department, and the Arts Council alike. With cutbacks in public spending looming large I fear that small, local cultural activity may become steamrollered and " EEC-fication " will take place. Therefore, I fear that an institute cannot escape this danger, especially if it is run along the usual lines

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of self-perpetuation. I feel that, if things are working correctly on the ground level, another paternal organisation is not necessary.
May I conclude by asking the Minister what steps he will be taking to ensure that the artists in this country are fully consulted? Here I wish to quote once more from the Economic and Social Committee of the European Commission, where it states:
"The Committee considers that representative organisations of cultural workers must be consulted regularly on all matters affecting their memberships before the Community Instruments proposed under this Community action are drawn up ".
5.12 p.m.
Lord ARDWICK: My Lords, first, I must congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Flowers, upon a most distinguished maiden speech. I hope that despite his important duties he will find time to come here occasionally—or preferably, often—in order to enlighten us, particularly when he can bring to bear an expertness, as he did today on the question of the setting up of the European Economic and Social Policy Research Institute. On that subject I wholly agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, who opened the debate, and with what I recall I read of the evidence of the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey: that it would be most improper if there were recruited a number of people who were paid salaries which are not obtainable in net terms anywhere in the world, and who were put there for life. I should much prefer a small staff of people appointed for periods of perhaps five or seven years, and I should certainly wish to get away from the Community's practice of appointing people in such a way that it is necessary to find, say, an Italian Socialist who is an expert in monetary policy so as to be able to fill a particular niche.
That apart, I fear that I am to be in a minority of one here this afternoon. I was the deputy director of the Nuffield Foundation, and so I was very well trained by the noble Lord, Lord Todd, and others in the art of cutting down large schemes for the spiritual regeneration of mankind, or schemes intended to find within five years the answer to certain great insoluble problems. I am pretty tough on this. But my scepticism was
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allayed by this 14th Report. I feel that it has managed to hit the Commission with every dead cat that it could lay its hands on. The committee was faced with a rather dotty document. The Commission has no competence at all in the cultural field, and so it has had to find slightly bogus and ingenious ways of getting around the problem by applying the economic and social rules to questions which are concerned with cultural workers, cultural exchanges, and so forth.
I believe that in one way our sub-committee was too kind to the document. It took it too seriously, and made too detailed an examination of this fantastic variety of subjects, which ranged from theft to copyright. Then, inevitably, came the summoning of witnesses who came—quite rightly—to defend their own sectional interests or to express the fears that they would lose their primacy, if not their function, if the Commission was to take over something in the cultural field.
As the report indicates, there is a strong feeling, perhaps even a majority feeling, in the European Parliament that there ought to be a cultural side of the EEC. I may say that I have been in Europe sufficiently long to be able to use the word " cultural " without a blush. The European Parliament agree with the Heads of State and Governments who say that Europe is an exceptional seat of development, culture and progress, and that it is indispensable to preserve it.
There is a very strong feeling developing in the Parliament that not even in an economic community can man live by bread alone; nor can the Community. If we are to be a real Community, then a cultural side must develop. If we are going to be even an effective economic committee, then we cannot go on selfishly pursuing our own immediate interests. We have to feel that the Community is more than just nine or 12 nations that have come together, but rather that it is an entity capable of joint action outside the economic field.
One of the unanswerable questions asked during the hearings was: Is there such a thing as European culture? I think it was a representative of the British Council who asked, What is European culture? One can ask the British Council

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what is British culture. We know that there is such a thing, but the great problem is, how can you define it, and who can define it? I go back for a few words of feeling on the subject to H. A. L. Fisher's introduction to his history of Europe. He wrote:
"We Europeans are the children of Hellas. Our civilisation, which has its roots in the brilliant city of Athens, has never lost traces of its origin and stamps us with a character by which we are distinguished from the other great civilisations of the human family: the Chinese, the Hindus, the Persians, the Semites ".
Of course, the nine member nations and the 12 member nations are not the whole of Europe, as has been said this afternoon. But the 12 member nations are a very large section of it. They are the heart of historic Europe, and I believe they are the heart of European culture, too. These are the nations of Shakespeare, of Dante, of Goethe, of Bach, of Verdi, and of painters and sculptors who range across the centuries.
Among the fears unfortunately expressed in our report is one that a dominant European culture might stifle the national cultures. I can think of nothing more improbable. There was also a fear that the fostering of culture by the Community might affect minority cultures, such as the Welsh lanugage or the Breton language; or that somehow the Icelandic culture might be threatened. It was not quite so clearly explained why this might be so, but I should be grateful if a subsequent speaker—perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey—can explain to me the peril in which Iceland stands as a result of the ambitions of the Brussels bureaucrats.
The great negative argument that culture costs money is advanced; or that if the money was spent by the rich EEC, it would diminish the cultural role of the Council of Europe which has to live on pocket money. I wonder whether the EEC could not issue a challenge to the other members in the Council of Europe—some of them are pretty well-to-do; the Swiss, the Swedes, and so on—that they might like to enter some kind of scheme and put up the required amount of money.
There is also the playing on the fear of Brussels bureaucracy. That is always a very good card to play, particularly if
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one wants to project a minimalist approach to the Community. I may say that " minimalist " is a polite word to use if one wishes to hold down the Community. One can add, too, Shylock's argument that it is not in the bond, that it is not in the Treaty of Rome.
What must be faced is the fact that the Community is outgrowing the Treaty, and will continue to do so. What must also be accepted, I believe, is that in the past year or two, particularly under the Presidency of Mr. Jenkins, the Brussels bureaucracy has begun to learn its limitations. Nobody believes any more in the old dreams, or nightmares, of a United States of Europe sharing the same law, the same taxes or a common culture. Brussels knows today that it will be allowed to do only those things which it can do conspicuously better than the member nations. The support of culture is not one of these things; it is best done at the regional and the national level. But this does not mean that the Community should not have a modest cultural role, tackling the problems of the producers and sponsors of culture which are subject to economic restraints, but also, and I think most important, enabling us to share with one another, and with the outside world, too, the finest fruits of our European civilisation.
5.21 p.m.
Lord McNAIR: My Lords, I was asked by my noble friend Lady Seear to support her in this debate because, I imagine, I am one of the small handful of Members of this House who are at present serving on the delegation to the Council of Europe. I only hope that when I have finished she will not be asking herself, " With support like this, who needs opposition? ". But, of course, the real answer is that, after the masterly way in which she introduced this debate, she clearly needs no support from any quarter. My few remarks will deal only with Document R/2982/77 about cultural workers. I mention this in case Brookings addicts might find this a convenient moment to refresh themselves. But I shall not take very long.
Before I get down to work, however, I should like to add my voice to those which have already congratulated the noble Lord. Lord Flowers, on his most effective maiden speech. I do so, not because it is

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the conventional thing to do but because I have a personal reason for being delighted that he has joined us in this House. When I was fairly new here, and with the reckless bravado of inexperience, I found from heaven knows where the temerity to take part in a debate on energy. Lord Flowers was the author of a report which was so superbly well written, so lucid, that it almost deluded me for a few days into thinking that I could understand some of the hazards and mysteries of nuclear energy. Anybody with that power to explain the inexplicable to the scientifically illiterate must surely be a very valuable addition to our ranks.
I have three points to make, two general and one more specific, and I shall take the general ones first. This communication 2982 does a great service to the ill-organised guerrilla army of cultural workers who are doing their best to resist the insidious approach of materialism and mass-production when it draws attention to their poverty. I am thinking, not of the middlemen but of the primary producers—the people who actually throw the pots, write the books and paint the pictures. I was going to quote several lines, but the noble Earl, Lord Gosford, has quoted some of them already.
The Earl of GOSFORD: My Lords, I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord McNair, for having taken away part of his speech. I did not know that he intended quoting.
Lord McNAIR: Not at all, my Lords. I shall quote only the very last sentence:
" The highest proportion of proletarians ' (i.e. the underprivileged) is nowadays to be found in the socio-professional category constituted by cultural workers ".
I prefer the word " peasants " to " proletarians ", if only because it has not been quite so badly mauled by writers like Marx and Lenin and, to my ears, it has a sturdier sound to it. How many of your Lordships, I wonder, have read the article at the bottom of page 2 of today's Guardian? It lists a nauseating catalogue of " perks " which are enjoyed by so many people in other walks of life. But not so the peasant craftsman. With no cut-price mortgage to help him, he probably lives in a very inaccessible place. If he needs a vehicle of some sort to get in and out, he actually has to buy it with his
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own money. He is probably not unduly worried by the fact that no conniving employer will help him with his BUPA fees or with the education of his children; but travel is very important to creative artists of all sorts, and when they travel they either hitch-hike or buy tickets at the market price, unlike the fortunate employees in the travel industry. Then, when they finally reach the precarious haven of their 65th birthday, they will almost certainly have nothing more to look forward to than the flat-rate pension, with all that that does not entail.
These people are utterly defenceless against the steamroller of inflation, just as they are totally guiltless of starting the steamroller up or of keeping it moving. They have never put in for any inflationary wage claim; they have never granted any inflationary wage claim and then passed it on to the consumer. They are, in a very real sense, the salt of the earth, and anything that the EEC or any other body can do to improve their conditions of work is surely to be welcomed.
This brings me to my second topic. Is the EEC the right organisation to concern itself with cultural workers, or should this perhaps be left to, for example, the Council of Europe, which is already active in this field and which has a very much more comprehensive membership? Taking a longish view, I believe that we are groping our way slowly towards what Winston Churchill called " some kind of United States of Europe "; and, as we move painfully forward, we are constructing a veritable labyrinth or cat's cradle of overlapping, interlocking organisations, none of them wholly satisfactory but all of them, I hope, doing something to sustain our progress. Mean-while, of course, these demarcation disputes are quite inevitable. Who does what? I think the commonsense answer sometimes is, " It does not matter as long as somebody does something ", but in this particular case one must qualify that by adding, " and as long as what is done is not in any way exclusive ". In his evidence to your Lordships' Committee, Professor Dahrendorf put it like this:
" It would be unfortunate if rules were established within the Community which made it more difficult rather than easier for people outside the Community to take part in whatever cultured concerns one might have ".

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I simply do not believe that the EEC could ever be so stupid as to act as though its nine countries embraced the whole of European culture. You can pick names more or less at random. For example, a culture which omitted Ibsen, Mozart and Kafka, not to mention all the Russians and the Hungarians, could never conceivably describe itself accurately as European. But provided that any rules which are established, any conventions which are agreed, are left open for the accession of non-member States, then surely the EEC, which has the advantage that, in the last resort, it can legislate, should not be discouraged from any measures it can take to improve the lot of these people described as cultural workers. For example (and here I come to my final and specific point), this communication contains the suggestion on which the noble Earl has already touched but I think it can bear repetition—the suggestion which, if acted upon, would be of great assistance to practitioners in the plastic arts, painters, sculptors and the like. I came first into your Lordships' House just in time to play a not wholly mute but very inglorious part in the great campaign of public lending rights which had been waged by so many noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson. It was a subject in which I had been interested for many years, but whenever I wrote or thought about it I was always distressed by the thought that, while we were doing our best for writers, and while musicians were very adequately looked after by the Performing Rights Society, we were leaving painters, for example, very much out in the cold.
After the initial sale of a canvas—often for a very small sum of money when very hard up—a painter has no further financial interest, no further rights in his work. As his reputation grows, he can see it being sold and sold again with not a farthing of the profit accruing to him who made it. I imagined in my ignorance that this was a harsh fact of life about which nothing could be done. You can imagine my delight, and indeed my shame, when I learned from pages 21 and 22 of this document that it is almost only in these benighted islands that this injustice persists. In Belgium, Denmark, France, Italy, Luxembourg and in the Federal Republic of Germany, there are varying
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forms of what is called a " re-sale right " or, in French, a droit de suite. May I conclude my remarks by asking the noble Lord who will reply whether we must wait for an EEC Directive or whether the benign Government of which he is a distinguished member has any plans for bringing the United Kingdom into line with these other countries by putting an end to this particular injustice.
5.32 p.m.
Lord VAIZEY: My Lords, I should like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Flowers, on his maiden speech which was a very great contribution to this debate, as his future contributions will be to other debates. I can only hope that his study of the London medical school to which the noble Lord, Lord Annan, referred in the debate the night before last may result in a new experimental and adventurous medical school being attached to my own small university.
This has been a fascinating subject of study for members of Sub-Committee C under the chairmanship of the noble Baroness. It has also been an opportunity to approach a matter of some importance with, I think, fresh minds. I think that it gave many of us the opportunity to think deeply about the purposes of the Community and the way it works. Much of what I have to say has been said more ably by other noble Lords who have taken part in the debate but there are several points that I should like to underline.
First, why should the Community be concerned with culture at all? That is a fundamental problem. If you read the Treaty—and I imagine that all of us read it every night very carefully from cover to cover—the word " culture " never appears. That is not by accident. There are detailed references to molybdenum, lead and steel. Any metal in noble Lords' laboratories is there in the appendices to the Treaty. " Culture " is not. I think that many people seem to forget that the Treaty was signed for certain specific economic objectives; and, certainly, culture is not directly one of them. This seems to me to be a matter of high importance; because it seems to me to be dangerous for an international body to step outside the specific terms of the Treaty which establishes it; and if the

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Commission or the Parliament wish to do so then the proper way is to negotiate a specific extension of the Treaty to cover the matter.
Lord O'HAGAN: My Lords, I hate to interrupt my noble friend, but surely he would agree that there are many subjects not specifically mentioned in the Treaty on which any proposal of the Commission may have an influence in one way or the other. If every subject which impinged upon an activity of the Community had to be listed in the Treaty that he reads every night, it would be as long as the combined telephone directories of the United Kingdom and the rest of the Community. Surely, the point that he must take on board is whether his remarks mean that the Community cannot take account of the effects on other spheres of what it is legally entitled to do under the Treaty.
Lord VAIZEY: My Lords, if my noble friend would be a little less impatient, that was the point I was coming to. I should think that the other Members of the Parliament will regard his elevation to the post of Chief Whip as one of considerable importance in this particular context; because it is one of the central questions to which the Parliament must address itself. It seems to me that this subject is of sufficient importance for it to be properly studied, negotiated and agreed—not just as a by-product of the detailed negotiations about the future of molybdenum. The Treaty is relevant to culture only because it is concerned with the free movement of goods and people within the Community. A violinist and his violin can perform in London if he and it comes from Luxembourg; but the conditions are different, and, it may be, perceptibly different, if he comes from, say, Argentina or Afghanistan. That is the point that the noble Lord, Lord Ardwick, was pursuing. The consequences of har-monisation of the labour market are important for the arts, as my noble friend Lord Gosford mentioned this afternoon.
It is from this basis that demands for a cultural policy within the Community come. But it would be idle to deny—and the noble Lord, Lord Ardwick, mentioned this specifically this afternoon
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—that the idea of a cultural policy represents to some extent the ambitions of those who think there is a place called " Europe " and that Europe, whatever its dimensions may be, has to have something like a soul. Therefore, a high priority must be given to some set of policies which will lead to a Community band playing Beethoven's Ninth Symphony while we all eat paté de foie gras from Strasbourg—which is a slight modification of Sydney Smith's idea of heaven—which follows from the Treaty.
I admit that I am equally allergic to Eurofanatics who support any proposal, however daft, provided that it has nine flags on it and is measured in centimetres; as I am also allergic to professional pushers of cultural policies who see European funds as another bran tub in which to put their fingers. I think that this is a difficult area in which to formulate public policy. I have two grounds for worrying about a European culture policy. It is, in my view, as in that of other noble Lords, expressed no less eloquently than my noble friend Lord O'Hagan, wrong to identify European culture within the temporary boundaries of what is, basically, a technical piece of machinery for economic management in its origin, concept and present execution.
British culture, with its links with America, and with India, for example, could not fit in to such a straitjacket and Spain with its links with Latin America could not either. And what about Poland and Russia? Are they not European? Any positive development of cultural policy within the Nine, or even the Twelve, which implicitly push other areas of Europe on to the sidelines, would deform European culture.
I doubt very strongly, with the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, the wisdom of anybody's formulating a cultural policy even at the national level, let alone the supranational level. The spirit bloweth where it listeth. I fear the heavy hand of the State in the field of culture. It is something that we must fight continually to try to stop, however much we might want the goodies which the hand of the State may seem to have available to hand out. For these reasons, I hope that the British delegates and British Ministers will firmly sit on any notion of European cultural policy.

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On the other issue, the proposal for the European Institute, I am afraid that I go much further than my noble friends on the Committee—in fact I go so much further that I go right over the edge. I am opposed to it and I hope that my right honourable and learned friend in another place will not give a penny of the tax-payers' money to it. Let us be frank. I do not think that at this stage a European Institute of the kind proposed is at all necessary. I personally think that it is almost inevitable that it will in fact just become another Euro-Quango. Is there any evidence of an inability on the part of existing research institutions in Europe to undertake such research as is needed? I personally have looked as carefully as I can at this and I doubt very much whether that is the case.
Is there any doubt—and I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Ardwick, raised this point—that an international institute of this kind would pay very high salaries to people who can perfectly well do the work in their own existing institutions at the going national rate? Surely there can be no doubt at all that the pressure for harmonising salaries within the Community institutions will raise their salaries to astronomical levels, as they have already been in the so-called European University. This is, after all, our money that the Commission will be spending, and I cannot help feeling that the European slogan at the moment is that we pay and they eat! This is all cut out to be another butter mountain, and the idea of a mountain of sociologists is not one that personally attracts me.
The only sensible argument put forward in advocating it was that the Community would open its doors to these researchers who would be magically allowed in in some way to look at the way in which the policy was formulated and try to make it more rational. If that is the case, I cannot see why the Community cannot open its doors to anyone else who wants to pursue an honest and scholarly investigation into the way in which the European monetary system might work or the way that the agricultural policy works. Why does it have to be secret? I do not see any reason at all why it has to be secret. It certainly is the case that the real reason behind the argument that one wants to open the doors is that it is a way to put
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some kind of brain power into Brussels so that it can think about long-term issues, the argument being that bureaucracy is relatively inefficient, partly because it is overwhelmed with detailed day-to-day issues and therefore does not think about the long-term policies. I canot help feeling that this is a bad argument for setting up a Euro-Quango just outside the Commission.
There are other international institutions, of which the OECD in Paris is a perfectly good example, which do excellent long-term scholarly research in economics and other highly difficult and contentious subjects, with a world-wide reputation which is at least as high as the reputations of leading universities. If the real object of this proposal is to raise the quality of the Brussels bureaucracy, why in Heaven's name is not that done directly by recruiting better people and giving them more sensible jobs to do? That is probably the job to which the new Parliament might well direct its early attention under the enthusiastic whipping of my noble friend Lord O' Hagan.
5.44 p.m.
Lord KILMARNOCK: My Lords, I am possibly a more radical European than many of your Lordships, though not perhaps more so than the noble Lord, Lord McNair. I do not expect to see the full establishment of the United States of Europe in my lifetime but I hope my son will. Having thus, I hope, established my credentials as a European, I must go on to say that the first of the documents reported on seems to me a prime example of exactly what the Commission should not be doing. There are two fundamental flaws in the consultative document on Community action in the cultural sector. They have already been pointed out and I shall not dwell on them at any length. The first is that much of the terrain which the Commission wishes to take over is already occupied by the Council of Europe which of course represents 11 other European countries—with the accession of Spain, 12—over and above the Nine. Secondly, a fear was voiced by one of the witnesses for the Council of Europe who said:
" We would be afraid that in the desire to compensate for lack of progress in other spheres they "—

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that is the Commission—
" might seek to use the cultural field as a means of creating a Community identity, which failed to pay attention to the other 11 "
now 12—
"countries in the Council of Europe ".
Again, the same witness said:
" I think there are political reasons … and because of economic difficulties within the Community they are looking to … expand this idea of Community identity ".
The Sub-Committee's report shares this fear. In paragraph 12 it states that
" the countries outside the Community … may feel that the Nine are not promoting European culture, so much as using culture as propaganda to promote the internal unity and ideals of the Community ".
All this seems to me extremely unhealthy. Does it not begin to smack of the ideological state apparatus? And I am not exactly enamoured of the grisly, totalitarian term " cultural worker "—which, as the report points out in paragraph 19, is never clearly defined. I fear I may qualify as one myself, as I spend some two months a year conducting people round ancient monuments and lecturing them on the fine arts in Spain and Portugal. I therefore beg to remind the Commission that there are a number of quite specific ways in which the Community can both help so-called " cultural workers " and promote the cause of European unity without straying from the firm ground of the Treaty into the dangerous zone of " promotion of socio-cultural activities at European level."
In the first place, Europe would have far greater meaning for the average citizen of this and, I am sure, other countries, if the Customs Union were fully effective, which it is not as we have discovered from our inquiries in Sub-Committee B. The European passport—on which I believe a report is on the way from the committee concerned—would also have a considerable impact, as would eventually a European currency with tangible banknotes. These measures would do infinitely more to make Europe a reality than any number of artificially-inseminated cultural events.
In the second place, in matters of mobility of labour and freedom of establishment, which are fundamental to the treaty, there is a long way to go. If the treaty were properly applied across
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the whole field of work, there would be no need of special arrangements for " cultural workers ". For example, when I lead the tours I have mentioned, I am described as a " guest lecturer ". As far as the countries we visit are concerned, I am simply a guide like any other and some of the local guides take exception to my talking about their churches and their paintings. The Prado guides are particularly fierce; they will almost lynch an outsider. Of course, Portugal and Spain are only on the threshold of the Community, but when they enter the problem will persist, I am sure. If we are talking about " European culture ", it is this basic barrier that needs to be broken down, but it requires no special action in the cultural sector whatever; it simply requires the application of the treaty as it affects all types of work.
The most useful proposal in the consultative document—and this was referred to by the noble Earl, Lord Gosford, whom I should like to support—in so far as it affects writers, painters and other creative artists is that contained in paragraph 19, which states that:
" The system in force in certain countries of the Community, whereby cultural workers are allowed to spread taxable earnings arising in one exceptional year over several years, should be generally applied ".
Unfortunately, this does not fall within the Commission's competence, as it is a matter for national tax laws. But I agree that artists, writers or indeed any other self-employed persons with highly irregular earnings should be allowed to average them over, say, three years. I think at the moment there is a certain amount of discretion which lies with the inspector but an averaging over three years is not common.
I can think of the recent case of a distinguished but not wealthy artist who received an Arts Council grant in order to pursue his work; when this was added to his wife's earnings as a teacher, the grant was virtually halved. This is giving with one hand and taking away with the other. I very much hope that the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, when he comes to reply, will be able to give one some assurance that the Government will consider taking remedial action here. This is the type of specific remedy that will most help the so-called " cultural

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worker ". In some instances the Community can help; in others it is up to national governments. The rest is all an exercise in empty, pretentious, highfalutin' jargonry and should be rejected as such.
I turn to the proposal to set up a European Economic and Social Policy Research Institute, which I think is by far the more important of the two proposals reported on here. Though it does not cause me the same dismay as the other, it fills me with a certain amount of apprehension. I think this is the correct place to pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Flowers, for his fascinating maiden speech and indeed for the evidence he gave in his previous incarnation. With speakers of his calibre and that of the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, who is to follow me, it seems that I may be venturing where angels fear to tread. My excuse for speaking on it at all is that I was one of those who advocated Professor Dahrendorf's project for a European Brookings in your Lordships' House on 23rd March, 1977. As I recall it, Brookings is an independent, non-partisan organisation and is the single most important outside consultant to the Federal Government, but it relies on the Government for only 15 per cent. of its finance and works for the Government only on condition that its work will be unclassified and published.
How does this document match up to that? The Committee says in paragraph 9 that there is at present no outside body which can provide effective research on a wide front on European social and economic matters. Their concern, and that of most of those who gave evidence seems to have been mainly with the mechanisms for preserving the institute's objectivity and freedom from intellectual interference.
I entirely agree with that; but there seems to me to be an equally important requirement and the Committee puts its finger on it when, in paragraph 11, it touches on how the programme of topics to be investigated is to be decided. This is absolutely crucial to the credibility of the whole enterprise.
Let me be specific. I, together with various other Members of your Lordships' House, have an almost obsessive interest in unemployment. I think we are right
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to be obsessed. In proposing a Select Committee of your Lordships' House the other day, I instanced a number of background studies that we would require. Amongst them were studies of the likely effects of technological change on clerical staff, the effects of energy supplies and costs on jobs and the effects of Third World development on world trade.
If we do not get a Select Committee—I am still hopeful that we may—with power to commission its own studies, what are we to do? We shall have to rely on existing work or possibly on a charitable foundation to finance what we want. Would the proposed institute help us? I suspect it would be too grand and too remote. That is my fear. It is not only important to know what sort of questions can be asked of the oracle, but also who can ask them. During the taking of evidence, at paragraph 80, the noble Lord, Lord Chitnis, asked how the agenda for the institute was to be determined—quite right, that is vital. Yet it seems to me that there is some confusion here.
The last Government's Explanatory Memorandum of 13th December, 1978, says:
" The proposed institute's work would be related in particular to social and economic policy and should therefore be of interest both to government and opposition parties and to organisations outside government in all the participating countries ".
This is not the line taken by the Commission's own explanatory memorandum, which states:
" The institute itself would be responsible for drawing up independently its work programme.
It might, however, take account of suggestions made to it by the Community the governments of the States signatory to the agreement and the management board's own members ".
There is absolutely no mention here, or in Article 9, dealing with guidelines for activities, of opposition parties or organisations outside government. Furthermore, I am not entirely happy, with due respect, about the metaphor of the mirror chosen by the Committee. In paragraph 16 they say:
" [we] are convinced of the desirability of an institute that can undertake thorough analyses of policies and so hold a mirror up to the actions of the Community and national governments ".
But you can pick a mirror up, put it down, slant it and do what you like with it. Mirrors, after all, are used by many people for applying cosmetics, adjusting

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a tie, or the tilt of a hat; or they can be disregarded altogether. I do not believe that a mirror is exactly what is required.
If an institute is to come into existence, I should like to see something fundamentally simple and reasonably cheap. In paragraph 15 it is suggested that,
" research projects could be farmed out when desirable and the institute could conceivably assume an important role in co-ordinating research and disseminating findings, as well as undertaking work itself ".
That appeals to me rather more. I said in March 1977 that I was attracted to the idea of a federation of institutes to bring together the results of research. I see from the examination of Professor Dahrendorf as a witness on 17th January that the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey—as he has been too modest to quote himself, I hope he will forgive my doing it for him—stated:
" My own impression, for what it is worth "—
and the noble Lord's impressions are always worthwhile—
" is that there is not a single question which is not being exhaustively examined by some of the innumerable research institutions which litter the European countryside ".
If he is right, why can we not have, whether under the wing of the European Science Foundation or not, a practical and unpretentious set-up which would operate in three ways?—first, as a pool of existing knowledge so that independents like myself and my friends could get information on existing work relative to our concerns; secondly, as an honest broker, telling people where they can best commission the studies that they require; and, thirdly, undertaking original research in certain circumstances but always on the understanding that it is published and that it is clearly stated who has commissioned it and how it has been financed. Then we might be getting somewhere. But if the Institute is only going to get loaded questions from governments or Community institutions we shall not be any better equipped than we are already to meet the challenges and threats that lie ahead, and there will be no radical appraisal of policies.
I should like to end by asking the Government what is their attitude to this extremely important matter and whether they agree with their predecessors that opposition parties and non-governmental
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organisations should have a perfect right of access to any institute which might be set up.
5.57 p.m.
Lord KENNET: My Lords, can I start with the word " culture "? I think there is more in this than meets the eye, and I am one of those who hate to see it on the cover of this red volume containing the reports of the sub-committee. It is a famous trap to all Europeans, and has been for centuries now. In Germany there is the continuous confusion and the continuous attempts to disentangle culture from cult, in the sense of religious cult. The word in German still carries heavy religious or anti-religious connotation which it does not in any other country in Europe.
The French use the word in about the sense that it is used in this report. This report, like much Commission thinking, is conceived in French. But the French, of course, use the word in a way which permits them to have invented that most alarming profession; the profession of the so-called " cultural animator ". That is a profession, a trade, in France. You can be employed at a given salary scale with a given career structure as an animateur culturel. The picture is, of course, that culture is something that is lying around, waiting to have life breathed into it by a skilled bureaucrat. The painter cannot actually raise his right hand to the canvas until that has happened on a duly regionalised plan.
In our country, on the other hand, the word " culture " carries quite a different significance and it is a significance which I submit precludes its being joined with the word " sector ". There is no such thing as a " cultural sector ". There is no such thing as a " cultural worker ". The whole of this country and the whole of other English-speaking countries are one single cultural sector: culture is something which everybody has and which everybody takes to work with him. A worker in a car factory and a worker on a farm is just as cultural a worker as a painter, a dancer, a museum curator or whatever it may be. So let us try to get rid of the " cultural sector " out of our thoughts and our documents. Let us also get rid of the " cultural worker " and, above all, let us get rid of that " production of cultural

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goods and services " which I regret to see heads the evidence of the Society of Authors. My own trade union, the Writers' Guild, used more circumspect and, in my view, wiser language on this question in its evidence to the committee.
I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, that " heritage " is a good word, an exact word, and it is something about which the Community can and should concern itself. Maybe we should he safer if, when we were talking about this kind of thing, we spoke of the arts and the heritage. I am not sure that that is sufficient, but it is certainly English and it does not go against what is valuable, either in our language or in our society. The danger, of course, is that the more we talk about cultural sectors, the more we discuss, define and accord powers to this authority or that to regulate the terms of employment in the cultural sectors, the more we risk that those authorities may in time begin to concern themselves with the content of the arts, and that is something that needs no discussion at all. Once we hear of it, we know at once that we are, were and must always be against it.
The question of expenditure is another one. What is an art? I suppose that it is a way of delighting the tribe, any way of delighting the tribe, without creating wealth in itself. The arts have grown up over the centuries in Europe, as they have in other continents, and it naturally came about that some ways of delighting the tribe were found to be good and delightful, but extremely expensive. During the age of the princes, the money was found for that most expensive of all things, the orchestra, and after that the second most expensive, the corps de ballet. They are joined together in the monster spenders which we now have, and of course it is right for a democratic public authority to take over from the princes and continue to pay for those expensive ways of delighting the tribe. If the European Community wants to take a hand in that, I think it is dangerous, but it is perhaps not impermissible, so long as no control is exercised which would not anyhow have been exercised in the country concerned. For the rest, freedom is the only rule.
If I may now turn to the much more important proposal for the European
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Economic and Social Institute, I should like, first, to join with others in congratulating my noble friend Lord Flowers on a maiden speech which I think hit with uncanny skill the tone of voice which, at once, charms and impresses this House. I have heard other speakers do it, but seldom quite as exactly as that. Some of us have been speaking so far—and I think that the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, in particular, has been speaking so far—as if this was a proposal to set up a European Economic and Social Research Institute. Well, my Lords, it is not. It is a proposal to set up a European Economic and Social Policy Research Institute, and if we stick fast on that word " policy " and keep it in our minds, I think it can guide our thoughts through the complicated matter before us.
First, I want to talk about the very common use of the word " Brookings " as an analogy—we must have a European Brookings. If you look at the written constitution of the Brookings Institute, as the noble Lord, Lord Flowers, read it out, it is, as he said, a very neutral-sounding institute. But we know from the intellectual history of America in this century, that it is in fact a little more than that. It has been described as the government in exile. It has that role. Very many of the most intellectual statesmen of America have passed fruitful years there while waiting their turn, to the inestimable benefit of the United States as a whole. It also has another role which is a refinement of that. It sometimes constitutes faction in exile. It is possible to say, for instance, that under a Democratic President, it does not matter which, the Democratic Party in exile may be gathering down the street at Brookings, That function of Brookings cannot possibly be transferred to the European Community. There is no European Government, so there can be no European Government in exile; there are no real European parties; so there can be no faction of a European party which is in exile, and which could conveniently gather while waiting its turn at such an institution.
That makes it not easier to justify the creation of such a body but harder, because it deprives it of one enticement for highly intelligent, ambitious and, if you like, glamorous intelligences and intellects. It has to be a policy body, it has to be a policy review body and it has to do policy

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research. That is a great deal more than asking: how does European society and the economy work? If that was all it was, I would agree with the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, at once: there is no need for a new institution; it can be done anyway. It has to ask: what is the effect of the present policy?—in whatever field it may be. That can be done anywhere, too, really.
The European Community is about agriculture, as we all know. The rest is frills. One could ask: what is the effect of the common agricultural policy?— indeed, everybody is saying it all the time. It does not need a new institution to think and write well about that. But if you then establish that its effect is disastrous, as has been so often established, the question arises: what alternative policies would have been possible in the past up till now? Can we set them out? The third set of questions is: what would have been the effects of policies which were alternative to the CAP in the past? Can we set them out? Already we see that all these questions, except the first one—what is the effect of the CAP?—must depend on a fairly good knowledge of the outside world beyond Europe.
We can go forward and say, " That is all academic, but the policy research institute must go one further and ask: what are the alternative policies which might be adopted now, instead of the existing CAP, and can we talk about, discourse, guess, speculate and reason about what would he the effects of the policies that might be adopted now as alternatives to the CAP? As soon as we say that, we realise that this institute must be equipped not only to answer those questions, but also to answer questions about the likely course of events in the rest of the world outside the Community, and the likely course of events within the Community on factors other than agriculture—life style, demand changes and so on. There is a whole list of them that comes to everybody's mind at once.
It is possible to do this, but it is very difficult and there are not very many people in the world who have that combination of exact skill with breadth of vision which is required to do it. The problem, as the noble Lord, Lord Flowers, said, is how to get the right people. Those are the people who are needed.
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How can they be got into the institution, if it comes into being?
I want to say a word here, stemming from my own experience in the past. I am one of a line of people who have in the past proposed the creation of institutes rather like this, and, as we all know, we do not have an institute rather like this yet. Looking back at why the proposal that we made three years ago was not adopted, I am fairly clear that it fell down on an interesting paradox or dilemma about size. Big institutions are unpopular. Many noble Lords this evening have said " Euro-Quango, with fat salaries, eating everything ". People mistrust them, with or without reason—I think without reason. But people distrust them, because they are expensive and they may be conspicuous. They may even be hard to control, and we are all against control; we have just decided that. On the other hand, small institutions are unlikely to be able to provide much wisdom about a series of hypothetical questions on a changing and largely unknowable data base, affecting the present and future fortunes of a population of 260 million people in the Community as it stands today. This is not a job for four chaps and two secretaries, even if they have a driver. That is the paradox. When we attempted it in the Europe plus-30 operation, we were turned down because we proposed too many people. I see it as a danger that this one may indeed come into existence but may have so few people that it will not be able to do what it ought.
Lastly, on the question of OECD, the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, said that surely OECD can do everything which is required. I say, No, it cannot do all that is required. We have here a proposal for a policy study institute. Whose policy? I do not think that it will be the policy of the British and the French governments. They are fairly well supplied with instruments for policy research and policy study. We are speaking about Community policy.
The OECD is not qualified, either legally or professionally, to conduct studies relating to the policies of the European Community, because the interests of the European Community do not everywhere and always coincide with those of the United States, Canada, Japan and Australia, who are members of OECD.

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We must admit that the interests of a social unit are bound to be reflected in the research done for that social unit, at least when we are speaking about economic and social policy research. I do not think that I need to expand on that. This should be recognised and admitted. In other words, if one is going to look at the future of Europe, one needs a pair of European, not OECD spectacles.
I think that the offer of the European Science Foundation to act as a filter for the money and the political control, as a way of laundering funds on their way through, is imaginative and good. I expect that it will find favour; I hope that it will. I have only one fear. My fear is not that the proposed new institute will in any way be harmed or lessened by the arrangement; but I do wonder what its effects will be on the European Science Foundation. I rather wish that the noble Lord, Lord Flowers, had talked to us about that. What else is the European Science Foundation going to be doing? Will it hold a whole fist of dependent institutions below it? And in what way will its own work evolve, apart from this rather conspicuous and heavy proposal which it has so courageously offered to make its own.
6.13 p.m.
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, as is so often the case when speaking from this Box, it is my duty, privilege and pleasure to be doubly grateful to Members sitting on the other side of the House. I am doubly grateful tonight to the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, first for raising this matter—which is most important and interesting—and, secondly, for giving to the noble Lord, Lord Flowers, the opportunity to make his most exceptional maiden speech, which it was a great privilege and pleasure to hear. Like other noble Lords, I hope that he will speak often, and soon, in your Lordships' House.
Since this Motion concerns two separate although not totally unrelated documents, perhaps, like other noble Lords, I can examine them in turn. May I begin with the Commission report entitled Community Action in the Cultural Sector, after which perhaps I may refer to the document Recommendation for a Council decision
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authorising the Commission to negotiate an Agreement to set up a European Economic and Social Policy Research Institute.
The Government are very grateful for the work put in by the Select Committee in examining the Commission's document and commend the thorough analysis and summary of the subjects under discussion. The Select Committee's report, together with the minutes of evidence, has been transmitted to the European Commission, and I am confident that these views will be taken fully into account when the Commission makes further proposals to the European Council.
Since the document was published, it has been debated both in another place and in the European Assembly. However, no firm proposals have yet been put to the European Council, and there is no likelihood of any immediate action in this area. Before the Commission forwards any concrete suggestions, it will have had the opportunity to consider constructive advice and criticisms from a wide cross-section of people and interests in all member countries of the Community, and to modify its proposals, as necessary. I am sure that the enlightening debate which we have had today will give further evidence to the Commission of the United Kingdom attitude towards Community action in the cultural sector and that the Commission will take this fully into account.
I wish to make it clear at this point that the Government believe that it would be undesirable for the Community to take on work which is already being done or could be better done in a larger forum, such as the Council of Europe or UNESCO. These organisations are well qualified and experienced to conduct and encourage European cultural activities. Your Lordships will be aware—my noble friend Lord Vaizey mentioned this—that the Treaty of Rome does not make direct provision for European cultural policy, or policies. I must point out that in this document the Commission does not propose a cultural policy for the Community and certainly does not recommend that the Community shall direct cultural activity from Brussels.
In fact, the document covers two areas. First, it makes proposals to improve the economic and social climate for cultural workers; and, secondly, it proposes to encourage further cultural co-operation

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among Community members. In its first aim of helping artists and workers in the cultural field, the Commission in this document makes various suggestions for the simplification of customs formalities, the harmonisation of copyright, the combating of theft and the achievement of greater security and freedom of movement for cultural workers, and for a measure of tax harmonisation. These proposals must be seen in the context of our own United Kingdom laws and regulations, and the Government will make it clear to the Commission that any Community proposals put to the European Council will have to take account of this fact and of the needs of other sections of society besides cultural workers.
The second aim of the proposals in this document is to encourage cultural co-operation. This latter aim is not to the exclusion of existing or future co-operation with other member and non-member countries, but I am sure that the House will agree that any modest and carefully planned encouragement to further cultural co-operation in this multilateral context will be beneficial and that our main concern should be to ensure that there is no duplication of work already being done by other bodies.
So far as copyright is concerned, the Government intend to present legislative proposals in the not too distant future, but any proposals from the Commission will of course be given most serious consideration.
Your Lordships will be aware that during the last Parliament an Act was passed to establish in the United Kingdom the principle of a public lending right. This was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord McNair, the noble Earl, Lord Gosford, and other noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kings-bridge, who played a conspicuous role in bringing the Bill to your Lordships' House.
Under this Act, a scheme will be made whereby payments made to authors are related to the number of loans of their books from public libraries. However, this scheme differs fundamentally from those proposed by the Commission, which are derived from existing schemes in Denmark, the Netherlands and West Germany. We do not agree that the
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Commission is right to give the preference it does to those schemes. A lot more work will have to be done before there can be any serious prospect of harmonisation in this field because of the differences between the existing schemes and between them and the United Kingdom scheme which has yet to be implemented. Furthermore, there are other member States which neither have nor are contemplating a public lending right scheme.
Noble Lords may be aware that the Council of Europe has recently published a report on public lending right which favours the United Kingdom scheme. The distinguished rapporteur was the honourable Member for Warley East, Mr. Andrew Faulds, who is a Member of another place. For the moment, we prefer the Council of Europe's proposals to those of the EEC Commission, but we shall keep an open mind.
On the question of the architectural heritage, the protection and preservation of that heritage already receives considerable attention from international bodies such as UNESCO and the Council of Europe. The Commission has made two proposals: first, to promote specialist training in conservation by awarding scholarships to existing institutions such as those at Bruges, Rome and Venice, and, secondly, to promote nuclear conservation techniques to halt the decay of materials which cannot be restored by normal methods. I am pleased to assure your Lordships that the Commission's proposals do not duplicate other work, and we welcome them. The United Kingdom record in this field is excellent and the Government will continue to take a keen and active interest in the preservation of monuments and ancient buildings.
The Commission report, Community Action in the Cultural Sector, has been considered by the European Parliament and has now been returned to the Commission with suggestions. Our information is that at the present moment action will not be hurried. It has taken a long time to reach the present stage of development and I can assure your Lordships that before further action is taken on the Commission's proposals the Government will be given ample time and opportunity to consider the proposals and their consequences, particularly in the light of the views of your Lordships

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expressed today, and those expressed in another place just a year ago.
The noble Lord, Lord McNair, and, I think, the noble Earl, Lord Gosford, also raised the question of re-sale rights of creative artists in the so-called plastic arts, known as droits de suite. The United Kingdom copyright law does not give artists and their heirs the right to an interest in any re-sale of their works and the Copyright Committee under the chairmanship of Mr. Justice Whitford, which reported in 1977, recommended against the introduction of such a right, concluding that it is not necessarily fair or logical and that there are serious practical difficulties. However, I can assure your Lordships that a final decision has not been taken by the Government and that the report of the Whitford Committee is at present under careful consideration.
The noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, again supported, I think, by the noble Earl Lord Gosford, raised a number of questions, in particular the case of copyright where a work has taken longer than one year to produce. I am advised that in that case the author may spread certain payments backwards over the previous three years. In addition certain lump sums in respect of copyright can be spread forward for a period up to six years where the copyright is sold more than 10 years after the first publication of the work. However, cultural workers are not exceptional in being subject to wide fluctuations in income from year to year. The case for introducing special provisions to mitigate the effects of irregular earnings has not yet, we believe, been made out and it would not be right to make cultural workers into a specially privileged class of taxpayers. In any case the substantial cuts in income tax introduced by this Government have already gone some way to lessen the problem of income fluctuation as it applies to United Kingdom residents.
Perhaps I may now refer to some other points among the many raised by the noble Earl, Lord Gosford, before I come to the matter of the policy research institute. The noble Earl, Lord Gosford, asked me first how we were going to consult among the artistic community—if I may refer to them as that—on these proposals. We shall certainly want to consult artists and I can assure the noble Earl that we shall
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make this point to the Commission for their consideration when they draw up their final proposals. However, we think that consultations on the Commission's current ideas would be premature. We must wait to see what specific proposals the Commission decide to submit to the Council of Ministers before we finally decide how to arrange for consultation in this country.
Another very important point raised by the noble Earl was the question of VAT charges. Unlike some other member States, the United Kingdom already operates a special system for works of art, antiques and scientific collections under which VAT is charged on the seller's margin and not on the entire selling price. This avoids the distortion of trade or accumulation of tax which would otherwise result when goods having borne VAT at the full rate when new, change hands between private owners and dealers thereafter. Thus the United Kingdom can support the Commission's proposal for such a scheme on a Community basis, though there is room for argument as to the exact form that any harmonised scheme should take. As to the possibility of some form of exemption from VAT on cultural goods, the United Kingdom could not support that proposal.
The noble Earl also asked me about the freedom of trade in cultural goods. The United Kingdom has been in the forefront in calling for greater simplification in customs formalities at the frontiers between member States as well as between the Community and third countries. Any measures specially designed to case such formalities for one class of goods, such as cultural goods, would need careful consideration since it is not certain that such singling out would he justified. For example, the United Kingdom is not convinced of the desirability of the proposal to exempt creative artists from formalities at frontiers when they are carrying their own works of art, as this would create a new exemption from VAT. On the other hand, cultural goods would benefit from general measures of simplification which we strongly support, subject of course to adequate control in the Community and national revenue being maintained.
I now turn to the proposal for a European economic and social policy research institute. First, I wish to congratulate

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the Select Committee on the work they have done on this proposal. Their report contains a lively appreciation of the reasons why we might want to set up this new research organisation in partnership with other countries of Western Europe, what we might hope to gain from it and where the problems lie. The Committee have raised some significant issues to which I shall refer in a moment. The origin of this proposal is in itself unusual. It stems from an initiative of the Ford Foundation which suggested that an institute might be set up in Europe on the lines of the well known Brookings Institute in Washington. The objectives of the proposed institute would be like those of the original Brookings Institute, to produce research of high quality on current problems of social and economic policies. In the words of the Select Committee report, its purpose would he partly—and these words have been referred to by a number of noble Lords, not always with approbation—
" to hold up a mirror to the actions of the Community and national Governments ",
and partly to break new ground in suggesting solutions to the policy problems with which Governments are faced.
Negotiations on this proposal have been proceeding for well over a year but no firm agreement has been reached. Several of the participating countries have had misgivings as to whether the proposed institute is really necessary, and we have heard these again tonight, and how it would relate to existing research bodies. The Government have been taking stock of the proposals in the light of their general concern at the level of public expenditure and in particular the burden of the total net contribution by the United Kingdom to the Community budget.
It is noteworthy that the project was designed to embrace not only the Community but also as many countries of Western Europe outside the Community as wished to join. The Ford Foundation attached great importance to that. Others, too, including the Select Committee have seen virtue in a new institution to span the divide between the EEC and non-EEC countries. The Government recognise the need for concerted efforts on problems which are genuinely common to all the countries of Europe, but there is
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also a danger that the proposed institute might be forced into trying to please too many customers at once. In the search for problems of interest to all, its work might become too diffuse or too general to be of practical value.
The Select Committee noted the possibility of setting up the new institute under the wing of an existing organisation such as the European Science Foundation under the leadership of the noble Lord, Lord Flowers, in the interests of economy. The Government's concern with greater economy has led them to consider whether perhaps the work envisaged for the institute could be carried out by existing organisations. It would undoubtedly be costly to assemble an entirely new staff and to provide them with a suitable new home. The Government would be reluctant to agree to that unless there was a clearly established case for doing so. We must therefore consider carefully whether the work of the new institute would be sufficiently distinct from that of existing bodies to justify the additional expense. A number of our EEC partners share our view that this needs to be studied more deeply.
There are, however, many research institutes active in the field of economic and social policy. We are fortunate in having several of high quality in this country. Influential institutes also exist in several other EEC countries and several international organisations cover this ground as well. One of the Government's concerns is that the proposed new institute might, especially if it were invested with considerable prestige, divert both funds and talented staff away from the institutions which we already have. This could detract from the efforts being put into the study of problems of specific concern to this country.
The question of financing is of central importance. The Select Committee laid emphasis, and rightly, on the need for the proposed institute to be completely independent of Governments and of the EEC Commission. The plans so far discussed would guarantee the institute a large measure of independence in formulating its research policy, but it is still envisaged that it would derive a major portion of its funds from Government sources. To that extent, it would inevitably he subject to some influence by

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Governments. Given that the fundamental purpose of the institute would be to analyse—and to analyse critically—the policies being pursued by governments, it is obvious that its position would be more comfortable if it were supported wholly by private funds. That, however, is not the proposition at the moment. The noble Baroness, Lady Seear, asked me about the reported decision—it is not a decision yet, I understand—that the Government should contribute one third of a million pounds for the initial setting up of this institute. I can confirm that there is I am afraid no more than a rumour to that effect, but the Government have certainly taken no decision in the matter.
I have outlined some of the points on this project on which the Government have reservations. I do not wish to imply that the Government are wholly opposed to it, however. They recognise the real concern that public policies should be subject to analysis and criticism of the highest quality. It may be that a new institute on the lines proposed could contribute to that. The negotiations in Brussels are continuing and the Government will continue to examine the points of difficulty more closely in discussion with the other countries concerned.
I think that in general the Government's role in all these matters of cultural effort and activity must be limited. As many noble Lords have indicated, culture tends to spring up from minority groups, from rural activities and all sorts of areas like that, and we do not believe that mammoth institutes like this policy research body, and even less the EEC Commission itself, are necessarily the right source for inspiration. But I promise that all these speeches of such importance that we have heard this evening will be given the very careful study which they deserve.
Baroness SEEAR: My Lords, it only remains for me to thank noble Lords for taking part in the debate this afternoon, which I think we all agree has been an extremely fruitful and interesting debate. I would like to say this to the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne. The economic and social policy research proposal is, of course, not really concerned with culture. These are two separate matters. The criticism made of cultural development
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cannot be levelled at the proposal for an economic and social policy institute. May I remind the House of the very important point the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, made when the question arose of overlapping. If this institute comes into being, it will be about policy in relation to Europe and in particular to the European Community. It is not true to say, when that is seen as its focus of activity, that there are many other organisations that are working precisely in that field; they are working in related fields but they are not focussed on that issue. It is on the question of the importance of having a high-powered body focussing on that particular area of European policy that this whole argument rests.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

OVERSEAS STUDENTS: POLICY ON UNIVERSITY ADMISSION
6.34 p.m.
Lord ALPORT Lord ALPORT rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what is their policy with regard to the admission of overseas students to British universities. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. Although I hold office at the City University, any views I may express are not necessarily those of the university or of the vice-chancellor, the council or the senate. It is true that we have a substantial number of overseas students attracted to our engineering and technological departments, to our business school and to the centre for banking and international finance. It is also true that, with only one other university, we did not increase fees for our overseas students when the first increase was authorised three or four years ago. More recently we have, along with other universities, used available resources in the shape of a hardship fund to enable students from overseas to continue their studies when a further increase was ordained.
I would not contest the claim of the noble Lord, Lord Annan, that London University is an élite institution, but he will, I am sure, recognise that a university such as the City, closely associated with the professional expertise of the City of London as a world financial centre, with 100 years of experience of training

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engineers and technologists, and soon to incorporate Gresham College from which sprang the Royal Society, has its own claims to significance in the field of contemporary higher education and has a particular attraction to young men and women from overseas.
When I occupied the lowliest post in the Government of the late Lord Avon, Assistant Postmaster General, I remember that the Iranian Minister of Posts and Telegraphs came to London to purchase equipment to modernise his whole national network. I asked him why he came to us rather than go to Germany or the United States. He said, " It is simply because I took my degree in England. I know your country. I know your abilities, and you are the country from which I would like to make the purchase ". Last September, when visiting Peking as a private citizen I called on the vice-chancellor of the Peking Technological University. I had a friendly, almost an affectionate, reception. I said, " Do you know England? " "Oh yes ", he said, " I was trained at the City and Guilds in London ". My Lords, you and I know that a young man or woman whose formative years are lived in any particular intellectual or cultural environment will carry the influence of those early years to the grave. I regard every young man or woman who comes here from overseas to receive his or her higher education as a long-term asset to this country. If that young man or woman feels that he or she owes an intellectual debt to an institution in any particular country it is a debt which will in time be paid.
It is difficult, I suppose, to evaluate the influence of the able, and no doubt much admired, vice-chancellor of the Peking Technological University, but I am certain that there must be many among his students who will rise to great responsibility in a country of immense political and material potential, knowing that their vice-chancellor owed his success and his initial training to a British institution, who will feel a particular and special sense of interest in our country. How much more will those young men and women feel a sense of affinity if they themselves have been able to come here for some of their training.
Her Majesty's Government are rightly intent on investing resources in sources of
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economic growth and political influence in the future. Growth depends on our ability to trade in a highly competitive world. It depends on whether in our relations with markets abroad there are those in government, in business and in commerce in the countries the world over who would prefer to deal with us rather than with the Russians or the Americans, or the French or the Japanese. We have no longer the advantage of control over vast areas of the globe as we had in the era of the Commonwealth and Empire. No doubt we must sharpen our competitive ability. But also we need the friendship and the interest of men and women who in the next 50 years will be in charge of the economic and commercial life of the countries with which we are trading. How better to ensure that than to receive them with open arms to our educational institutions and our universities of Great Britain? A distinguished ambassador this week said to me that the increase in fees for overseas students which has now been announced would certainly drive the students from his country to seek higher education elsewhere.
I ask the Minister of State whether she would prefer that students from overseas should go to the universities in Russia, East Germany, France or the United States in order to save £6 million, which represents about one-fiftieth of the annual loss of the Steel Corporation; or does she think that an investment in the higher education of overseas students here is a good investment? That is the argument which I would put to those who believe in cost-effectiveness and in the application of market forces to higher education, but it is not the argument which should, in my opinion, determine the policy of Her Majesty's Government in encouraging students from overseas to come to British universities.
Let me make it clear that the decision of the Labour Government to reduce the number of overseas undergraduates by 1981–82 to the 14,000 of 1975–76, together with the decision of the present Government to increase fees for overseas students by 33⅓ per cent., places on universities here an intolerable burden and will raise an insurmountable barrier against those from poorer countries and poorer Commonwealth and foreign

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families who wish to seek higher education here.
Surely we in Britain are not so miserably impoverished that, having lost an empire, we are not even able to provide for young men and women from the developing countries of the Commonwealth the educational advantages which they desperately need I say " the Commonwealth " because in my opinion we have a special obligation to them. However, my thoughts include all the countries of the third world.
I have tried in my earlier remarks to outline the hard-headed " nation of shop-keepers" considerations—the self-interest indeed which any Government in Britain inevitably and perhaps properly applies to public issues. But, frankly, I do not think that this nation, and particularly its young people, will be content with such measurements of policy. I do not think that a Conservative Government, who now shoulder the mantle of national leadership, should be happy to acquire the reputation of a Government who go out of their way to inflict very real hardships upon those from overseas who today study at their great institutions of learning, and, moreover, to prevent others who seek to do so in the future. That seems to me, as I have said, to be what the policy of the present Government and that of their Socialist predecessors are designed to do.
Therefore, the following are the questions which I ask my noble friend. First, is it the Government's policy to encourage or to deter students from overseas from obtaining higher education in Great Britain. Secondly, is it the Government's policy to follow their predecessors aim to limit the total of overseas students in 1981–82 to the same figure as 1975–76? I would add, in parenthesis, that I regard that decision as a direct interference in the independence of judgment and decision on the part of those responsible for the conduct of the affairs of the universities herein Great Britain. Thirdly, as an increase of fees for overseas students of 33⅓ per cent. will mean that any university, which feels a proper responsibility for those who have committed themselves to its charge, must give financial support in the case of hardship, will the Government, through the University Grants Committee, make an appropriate allowance to the hardship funds
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which each of us will have to establish? In the case of my university I would say at a guess that it will be about £100,000.
I know that one must not ask too much of Governments, particularly when they have just embarked on a particular line of policy. And I accept, as any reasonable person in this country should, that no one, whether they be United Kingdom born or whether they be from overseas, can be immune from inflation at present. But I ask the Government whether they will undertake to ensure that the increase of 20 per cent. will apply only to students entering universities in this country from overseas in September next, and that for those already here only the 9 per cent. originally announced will be applied to their fees. Moreover, will the Government ensure that the funds available to the British Council are sufficient to provide as many studentships as were available before the present increase in fees was introduced? Will the Government at the same time take account of the declining numbers of post-graduate research students and their importance both to the United Kingdom and to their countries of origin?
I ask no more of my noble friend than an answer in writing for the information of my university and, I hope, for its reassurance as to the wisdom and vision of Her Majesty's Government. I, of course, supported the Government elected in May in their policy of cutting State expenditure, but I hoped that they would not take the old-fashioned, blunt instrument of Treasury tradition by making cuts across the board regardless of the longer-term consequences. I hoped that there would be some intelligent system of priorities resulting from studies undertaken during the leisured years of Opposition.
In the world of education, the policy of any Government must be seen to be intelligent and fair. The decision of the Labour Government to straitjacket the numbers of overseas students by 1981–82 to the total for 1975–76 was not intelligent. The decision of the present Government to increase the fees of overseas students by a total of 33⅓ per cent. is not fair either to the students who have committed themselves and their academic careers to the universities of Great Britain or to those who are responsible for the integrity and management of our universities here, whose renown after all spreads over a

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commonwealth of learning covering the whole world.
I therefore pray that my noble friend, whatever may be in her brief—if I may say so without being impertinent in any way—will undertake with the Secretary of State to consider the representations which are made to her this evening from speakers from all sides of the House, whose only object is to ensure that this country remains a centre of academic leadership to which young men and women from all over the world are able to come to prepare for their life's careers.
National interests, as well as our reputation for fair dealing and academic enlightenment, are directly involved in the answer which my noble friend will give. If the Government get it wrong, however, I must warn them that they will alienate the whole world of higher education here and abroad on which, I believe, the successful future of this country directly depends.
6.48 p.m.
Lord GLADWYN: My Lords, I echo every word which the noble Lord, Lord Alport, has so eloquently said and more especially if—and I hope that they will not do so—the Government insist upon pursuing what I think is a thoroughly reactionary line. I hope they will at least make provision for a very adequate hardship fund which was not the case previously. Once again we discuss the condition of overseas students in this country and once again, as chairman of the United Kingdom Council for Overseas Students Affairs (UKCOSA) and a patron of the Council for Education in the Commonwealth, I should like to emphasise—as indeed the noble Lord, Lord Alport, emphasised—that, by and large these students represent a great potential asset to this country, not only because of the many millions of pounds (perhaps now about £250 million) they spend here annually, thus assisting naturally our balance of payments, but also because of the evident advantage to us of their making propaganda in favour of Britain when they return to their own lands; that is to say, of course, if they have been happy here during their stay. To these advantages—and this is something which I do not think the noble Lord, Lord Alport, pointed out, but which is very
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relevant—must be added the very real contribution to national research of the postgraduate overseas students.
Unfortunately there has always been a prejudice in this country against overseas students. The great majority, after all, are coloured, and many in this country believe that we have too many coloured people here as it is. A well-disposed earnest overseas student, intent on succeding in his course and then returning to his country, cannot easily be distinguished from an unemployed citizen of Great Britain of Asian or Caribbean descent, and unfortunately is often treated in the same way, irrespective of the great efforts of the Race Relations Board. Even when they are recognised as overseas students, they are—quite irrationally—suspected of taking the bread out of deserving British students' mouths.
I earnestly trust that the new Government will not be unduly influenced by such unworthy thoughts as these, which are common in this country, even though they may have a certain electoral appeal. Of course, there are some students who disappear and thus, in the long run, become illegal immigrants. But they constitute a very small proportion of the whole student body of, say, 80,000. If the measures to prevent them staying on illegally in this country are insufficient, that abuse should be rectified. But what is undeniable, as it seems to me, is that we should do everything in our power to make the stay of overseas students in this country profitable and rewarding both to ourselves and to them. For that reason we should obviously avoid taking any steps that would have the effect of killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.
Unfortunately, the Government have suddenly produced measures which will probably do precisely that. They have raised the fees of all students by, as I undertsand it, 33 per cent. There is, as I need hardly say, no acceptable basis for such an increase, which goes far beyond the inflationary effects on any notional cost of educating the overseas students, and must therefore be designed solely as a means of restricting their present numbers and even heavily reducing them.
Nevertheless, although I have always questioned the fiat statement that the cost of educating foreign students in this

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country is about £100 million a year—for that assumption would seem to include such things as the upkeep of buildings and, indeed, the maintenance of professors, which would have to be incurred even if there were no overseas students—I do not deny that we might consider reducing the total number of students somewhat below the present level of 80,000, though not perhaps to the 1975–76 level, which is, I think, the present intention. If that is so, there are two ways of accomplishing the end. One is the brutal, sledgehammer method of raising fees, even for those who have aleady come to this country on certain financial assumptions, thus causing acute distress and the maximum amount of ill-will. The other is by some system of selective quotas, agreed with the universities and centres of learning in this country. That is a principle which is not easy to apply in practice, but there is no reason why it should not be taken seriously by the Government in close co-operation with the education authorities concerned.
In any case, before reaching any definite conclusion, will not the Government agree to have talks with their EEC partners with the object of achieving a common attitude towards overseas students?—thereby perhaps doing something to spread the load if the resources here are considered to be in any way inadequate. As I know from talks with the Commission, it has very useful proposals to make in this connection. In Germany I believe that Herr Strauss seems to have good ideas and in France there is always the admirable Mme. Weill, although, as I understand it, she is no longer a Minister.
Another profitable line which might be explored is that of diverting some of the monies now devoted to overseas aid to a system of scholarships for students from the less developed countries of the Commonwealth. Perhaps certain abuses in the distribution of our aid have now been corrected, but even so there is a certain volume of informed thought which thinks that it is, to a considerable extent, still misdirected. Therefore, if such aid could now be directed towards the maintenance of deserving overseas students, not only would our own balance of payments be improved, but a very genuine form of assistance to the less developed countries in the Commonwealth
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could be achieved. Perhaps Mr. Neil Marten, of whose skill none of us has any doubt, might take this possibility into account?
I must say that it seems rather odd that at the precise moment when the Government, and indeed Her Majesty the Queen, are attaching such importance to the Commonwealth Conference in Lusaka, we should be doing something—and perhaps even planning something more—which is designed to create the maximum of in a large number of Commonwealth countries, many of the poorer ones not relishing, to say the least, the necessity of now baling out many of their young hopefuls in this country.
I leave to the last any mention of the proposal put to the Secretary of State for Education and Science by UKCOSA and the CEC nearly two years ago for the constitution of some kind of advisory commission for co-ordinating general policy as regards overseas students. We should indeed like to hear fairly soon what the new Government think of these proposals and, if possible, we should like to talk to them, quite informally, before they make up their minds. I know that they have come to power to some extent on what is called an " anti-Quango ticket ", but even if the proposed commission would be a Quango, it would be a very inexpensive one! What is really needed is only the appointment of someone in the Government's confidence who could give impartial advice on the whole policy to be followed, on the assumption, of course, that overseas students are a body which, as such, should be encouraged and helped, and not regarded as some kind of abuse—though, equally, if there are abuses they might well be considered by the impartial adviser and solutions recommended by him.
The fact remains that if the Government do not like the proposal for a commission, or some variant of the idea, they must do something to improve the present system of decision-making so far as the whole overseas body of students is concerned. I believe that they will—it may be that I am wrong—find hardly any responsible academic who approves of the present system in which a dozen departments all seem to have their own conflicting ideas about how overseas students should be handled, with the

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resulting abundance of confusion and distress. I know, for instance, that the British Council, if consulted, would supply very considerable evidence to this effect.
When they were last in office the Tories did, indeed, take a welcome step by appointing Anthony Kershaw, then a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, as a sort of co-ordinator of the various departmental policies. Although he did not have the possibilities that might be open to an advisory consultant of the type which we now recommend, for some time he did much useful work which was much appreciated by the student body. Therefore, if as I say, the idea of some kind of advisory commission is rejected—and we still earnestly hope that it will not be—please, Tories, in your wisdom appoint some successor to Kershaw who will enjoy the same confidence in academic and student circles as was enjoyed by that excellent man. We much look forward to hearing what I believe must be the first indication of the new Government's views on a most important issue. We recognise that, as yet, they have not had much time to consider it and that their conclusions may, therefore, only be provisional; but we trust that they will be constructive and forward-looking.
7 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of CHELMSFORD: My Lords, there must be many in this Chamber and elsewhere who would deem it quite impossible for a large group of bishops to agree unanimously about any subject. Recently we had a meeting of most of the Anglican Bishops of England, Scotland and Wales, as a result of which on their behalf the Archbishop wrote to the Secretary of State on this subject. They said:
" The welfare and proper development of many overseas countries depends on the building up of an educated leadership, and we believe that this country's continued contribution to that end, through the availability of educational opportunities, far outweighs any economies that may be effected by the present proposals.
" We are also concerned "—
and I have heard this in other places—
" over the contraction in Research within our own centres of learning, and of the impoverishment both for our own society and for overseas societies which will ensue from greatly reduced exchange ".
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This letter received support from a number of fellow bishops overseas who share this concern. One such, the Bishop of West Malaysia, has a son in Chelmsford, of all places, because in that part of the world Chelmsford is the mecca to which you go if you want to become a member of the Institute of Secretaries. We entertain him and his friends at home, and naturally they are deeply disturbed. They cannot see how from that impoverished part of the world there can be many students forthcoming in future.
There are many issues here. Most of them have been raised already: the financial and commercial considerations; the political, ethical, cultural and educational considerations. We have had the facts set out to us. Obviously there is going to be a very big drop in the numbers, and equally obviously this is intended. It is going to change the whole pattern of overseas work in this country, and also the pattern of what our institutions of higher learning can do about it.
One effect will be to reduce the numbers who can come from the poor countries, whereas the wealthy countries—there are many now which can afford to send students—will take more places, and a further disturbance and lack of balance will ensue. The places of education themselves are very disturbed about the effect of the drop in numbers. I was in a polytechnic in my diocese recently. They are in great disorder, wondering how to establish their curricula this autumn in view of the drop that is coming.
We must all of us recognise the urgent need for the Government to plan to increase national prosperity, and the need which is laid upon them for brave decisions. But surely we must not surrender long-term idealism which, even in the imperial days of this land, was part of our motivation—and a great part. We must not surrrender that, just for commercial ends. Renewed prosperity, for which we hope, must needs be put to the service of the whole world. The scaling down of the student body is of far greater significance than the cut in overseas aid, regrettable though that is. The money saved by cutting down the number of students is small compared with the other.
Why do they want to come to this country anyway? Obviously, basically,

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to qualify themselves the better to make good in life for themselves; to return to their own lands, and increase the prosperity of those lands. I ask what greater contribution this country can make to world prosperity than to help in this way. It is more than a matter of college curricula. Lessons are not confined to the laboratory or to the classroom. When these young men and women come here, they will learn informally about our society; about us as a people; about our culture. They will discover values and goals by which we live. One sometimes is a little daunted wondering what kinds of values and goals they may pick up.
What is the alternative? Had he been here, the Bishop of Saint Albans would have spoken to this, because he has just returned from a long tour of Eastern Europe and Russia in connection with the Orthodox Patriarchates. He visited Belgrade, Sofia, Bucharest and Moscow. He tells me that going to universities in all those places, as he did, he discovered large numbers of students from the third world, and among them large numbers of Commonwealth students doing courses of four, five, or six years in many different disciplines.
He said he found that many of them had problems of adjustment, and uncertainties about their future, finding themselves in a totally alien society. But he also says that he found on the part of none of them any anxiety about money. They were being looked after very nicely. Nor, he said, were they bothered about failure in hospitality, and that ill accords with what we heard the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, say, of our own hospitable habits—although there is much given, but not enough.
They find themselves in lands committed by their Governments to atheistic philosophies which are strange to them, though many of them are not Christians. They find themselves among proponents of Marxist-Leninist Communism, with an avowed aim to convert the world to their way of thinking and acting. These young men and women will go back to their own places again, bearing this message in many cases. It must have a considerable effect upon them, just as exposure to our society must have a different but considerable effect.
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To put it at its lowest—and I just repeat now what the noble Lord, Lord Alport, said—it is a commercial thing. I found a quotation of an African over here on a course. He said:
" As a production engineer, in the future I am likely to look to Britain for machine tools and other products. If I had gone to Germany for my training would shop in Germany ".
But there is so much more to it than that. We—we hear this so often—are having to cope with our imperial past. The presence of foreigners in any society reflects the place of that society in the world. The black presence in Britain is the consequence of British colonial history, and so the changing pattern of overseas students reflects the changing position of Britain as a world power. Now we are an international provider of technical services, and a very valuable contribution this is.
The presence of overseas students raises for us the question as to the extent to which we can accept that new role, and how we are to fulfil its moral and/or commercial obligations. For example, is education for people from developing countries to be seen as a form of aid? Or entirely in commercial terms? Or as a proper opportunity for sharing in prosperity? It is relatively easy to give. We all get a warm feeling when we are able to give something away, and there is ample evidence of the desire and the will in this country to give to those in need. We have seen a tremendous leap forward in donations, for instance, to Christian Aid and War on Want, and all the other charitable institutions. It is much harder to receive than to give. It hurts to give, but it is devilish difficult graciously to receive.
We must know that, while aid is necessary, it is given these days in other ways. It is not just money doled out. Where did I see the advertisement? " You don't give a man a fish, you give him a fishing rod so that he can discover his own dignity ". What the poor countries need is not for us to give them dole, even if we can afford it, but to help them build up their own lands so as to give them the dignity of independence, independence of charity, for their own survival as peoples and as people.
In any event, the rich diversity which they bring is another contribution when

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they come. They come bringing their own gifts—of human experience, culture, religious insights which enrich us all, and of knowledge, and their manners and customs, which we sometimes find bizarre and in some cases offensive, are theirs and we may learn from them. We have much to learn from them of the extended family and the respect which they pay to their senior citizens. We have much to learn of their culture and history, and surely all of us in this Chamber have experienced our own gain by our intercourse with such people and the enriching and deepening of our own lives and experience.
A final point which really lies outside any expertise I have: we sent two letters from the bishops, one about aid and the other about students, one to the Minister of Overseas Development and the other to the Secretary of State for Education and Science. I gather that if we went a little further we might be dealing with matters, or be on the fringe of so doing, which involve the Home Office and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. I wonder whether we do not need a Minister of some kind to consolidate these questions.
7.13 p.m.
Baroness WHITE: My Lords, against the background of general policy so eloquently deployed by the noble Lord, Lord Alport, to whom we are all greatly indebted, it seems to me that there are probably four main issues on which we should like to take the mind of the Government. The first of course is the immediate matter of fairness and justice to students who are either already in mid-course or to whom firm offers have been made for the next academic year. The next area of concern is the arbitrary effect of the measures taken by both the previous Government and the present one on particular institutions or particular courses within those institutions.
Thirdly, we should learn what is their view on the relationship, within the context of overseas student expenditure, between expenditure on the non-advanced courses, which are mainly in the public sector, and the advanced courses, which are partly in the public sector, in polytechnics and colleges, and partly in the universities. Finally, one would wish to know what is
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the basic policy of the Government towards the reception of overseas students in this country. If there are to be, as there may well be, further economies in the university system, on what principles are they likely to affect overseas students?
The immediate concern of course—this has been touched on by several speakers already in the debate—is for what many people feel to be the obligation (not a legal one but an obligation of honour) towards overseas students who are already here or to whom firm offers of places have been made. So far, the universities have been told of the increases in fees which are to be demanded, but nothing specific has been vouchsafed on what extra resources, if any, will be made available to meet hardship cases. The universities simply do not know within what conditions they are expected to operate, and time is running out. Personal and academic decisions have to be taken; we are already at the end of term and still no hard information has been given.
A Press notice dated 12th June was issued from the Department of Education and Science in which reference was made to discussions on details which were to take place between the Department and the local authorities, on the one hand, and with the University Grants Committee, on the other. I am a member of the UGC, although naturally I do not speak for them on this occasion. But I can assure the House that while the UGC has been given information, it has not been asked for an opinion. I say that because I think it should be put on record, otherwise those concerned who might have seen the Press notice might have been under some misapprehension.
Many university administrators to whom I have spoken are frankly resentful at being put in a position where they can tell the students by how much the fees are going up but they have no idea what resources may be available to their own universities to meet any particular hardship cases. This situation is extremely damaging to our good name in all the countries from which our overseas students come, and this failure to give both sides of the equation at the outset—the scale of fees and what may be allowed as a counterbalance—is very much to he regretted. Rumour has it that the total

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allowance towards hardships in the university sector will possibly be about £300,000—this is compared with a cut of some £6 million—and perhaps the noble Baroness in her reply will be able to give us some more authentic information on this point. I assure her it is extremely urgent.
Apart from this immediate problem, there is the action of this Government and their predecessor in using methods which take no account of the different circumstances in different universities. In the case of Mrs. Williams, she chose to use student numbers as her blunt instrument; the present Government are using cash fees as theirs. Neither takes account of the possible effect on our university system. The base line of overseas students in 1975–76, which was the instrument of the previous Administration, can be extraordinarily arbitrary, and perhaps I may take a few examples from the university colleges of Wales, with which I am most familiar, and we can see this very clearly indeed.
In University College, Cardiff, for example, where they have a very high proportion of overseas students, the major increases in student numbers in fact occurred immediately after 1975–76, and so any cut based on that has had a completely disproportionate effect. Similarly in Swansea, which also has a very notable record in work for overseas students, it just happened, purely fortuitously, that 1975–76 was a year in which they had relatively few students. One would wish to know whether the present Government are proposing to maintain the student number approach or whether they are going to rely exclusively on higher fees. At the moment, as we understand it, the student number consideration is still operative.
At the present time the universities do not know what attitude will be taken on particular courses which have been instituted in some universities at the request of the Department of Education and Science itself or at the request of the British Council. These courses are tailored directly for overseas students or are dependent on them for their viability. Again, I draw my examples from the university colleges of Wales. In Cardiff, for instance, there is a course for in-service teachers which was established in its present form at the request of the DES. In fact only about
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one-third of the students attending that course are from overseas, but the fees that they now pay cover about half of the direct costs of the course. If, because of the increase in fees, the numbers of overseas students drop, the course, which provides as to two-thirds for United Kingdom-based students, will cease to be self-financing as far as direct costs go. The university will have to consider very carefully whether it can possibly afford to carry it on for United Kingdom students.
At the University of Wales Institute of Science and Technology there is a post-graduate diploma course in teaching English as a foreign language. The British Council is very closely associated with this. There is also a course there in town planning, particularly geared to conditions in East Asia because UWIST is one of the four or five places in the United Kingdom which have been asked to establish courses directly tailored to the needs of students from particular areas of the world where the physical conditions may be different from those in this country; and East Asia was the area allocated to UWIST. What is to be done with that course, unless the British Council is to receive sufficient funds to be able to sustain the students who are attending it? At the moment nobody knows.
All these courses are such obviously good invisible exports. I have here a copy of a letter sent by the Principal of University College, Cardiff to the chairman of the University Grants Committee. I may say that I received it from the Cardiff end, not from the London end. It is pointed out in the letter that as a deliberate matter of policy University College has set out to provide courses to meet the demand from overseas, and has built up a high reputation in and maintained close academic links with a number of developing countries. If that special relationship is now to be broken because students will not be able to afford to come here, many years of patient effort will have been wasted and the college's reputation could be irretrievably damaged. I am quite certain that examples of that kind could be adduced from many other universities in the United Kingdom.
There are some very important self-financing courses which are not affected, nor were they affected by the demands of the previous Administration, and which

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are outwith the calculations. I have in mind, for instance, the Centre for Development Studies at Swansea, or the diploma course in port and shipping administration at UWIST. We hope that these will continue, but that is simply not true of a number of other courses, some of which are particularly tailored for overseas students and some of which are jointly for overseas and United Kingdom students. So one must ask the Government to look very urgently at the other side of the equation, as to what provision is being made to sustain courses which will be particularly affected, and what resources will be made available to the British Council or the development programme for this purpose.
This brings me to the third issue; namely, the balance between the advanced and the non-advanced courses. It is calculated that at present there are 85,000 overseas students in this country, of whom 19,000 (in round figures) are post-graduates, 38,000 are undergraduates (or the equivalent), and 28,000 are here on non-advanced courses. It is of course true that non-advanced courses are less expensive; incidentally, the fees also are lower. Nevertheless, 28,000 students on non-advanced courses is a very considerable number. It seems to me—and I think that the general tenor of the debate would support this view—that if we are considering this matter in terms of investment for the United Kingdom, and possible future benefits, probably the post-graduate courses are the most important. They are also the ones, plainly, which are the most difficult to establish or to sustain in the countries of the developing world themselves, whereas by now the majority of those countries may well be in a position to provide non-advanced courses themselves, or it might be much more economical for us, in concert, one would hope, with many other countries, to aid such work in those countries, rather than to bring students here.
There is also the consideration that if a student comes here and spends three years on a non-advanced course, he or she can then establish a resident's claim to grants for higher education. I suggest that if we have to economise in this sphere, it really is essential to make quite certain that the post-graduate courses do not suffer. It may be more difficult politically, but it
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seems to me that that is a matter of policy which really ought to be tackled, and I hope very much that we will have an assurance from the Minister that that is being done.
Finally, my Lords, what of the future? It is a very crude approach to make decisions purely in money terms or purely in number terms, but if further economies are to be enforced on the universities, at least they ought to be told what is the policy of Her Majesty's Government towards overseas students. Are they to be kept as a proportion of home students? Is it to be a pure function of the market? Is it to be a function of the aid programme? One appreciates that the present Government have not had much time to consider their stance, but they have lost no time at all in putting up the fees.
I very earnestly ask the noble Baroness who is to reply that, if she is unable this evening to answer that more wide-ranging question—and I appreciate that she may not feel able to do so—she should take it very seriously indeed; and I hope that on some future occasion we are able to ask her the results of her consideration.
7.28 p.m.
Lord ANNAN: My Lords, I must start by saying that in this debate I speak only for myself, and I must say most emphatically that I do not speak for the University of London, or indeed the majority of universities at large. Ever since Mr. Crosland introduced in 1967 a differential scheme for overseas students, I have been out of step with the vast majority of my colleagues in the universities on this matter. I was then the only Member of your Lordships' House who supported him during the debate we had. I did so because I knew that, faced with the 1967 cuts, he wanted to find funds from within the DES vote for the black area schools. I said then that if I had to choose, I would put the interests of immigrant children in deprived schools in our country before the interests of students in higher education from other countries; and I have not changed my mind.
On the general principle may I say that I do not see how one can argue that the Government have no right to impose a ceiling on the number of overseas students

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in institutions of higher education. The numbers have risen year by year. Year after year the DES asked universities, polytechnics, and colleges not to increase the numbers. The numbers continued to rise. The noble Lord, Lord Alport, referred to an ambassador who said to him that the 30 per cent. increase would drive students away from our shores, to Russia and to other Communist countries. I am bound to say that the 300 per cent. increase made by the Labour Government in 1975 had no such effect, except that of a mild hiccough.
In some undergraduate courses in the public sector the vast majority of students are from overseas; and so they are in a few universities at the post-graduate level. Of course we want students to come here from overseas. Of course Government acknowledges the spin-off benefits referred to this evening. But can any responsible Member of your Lordships' House seriously deny that the Government, as the guardian of the taxpayers' money, are entitled to declare that only so much shall be available for the education of overseas students?
Lord ALPORT: My Lords, perhaps I may interrupt the noble Lord merely to say that of course the Government have the right to do whatever they like. They cart do any foolish thing, or anything which they conceive to be in the national interest but which other people consider is not in the national interest. But that does not justify the noble Lord's argument.
Lord ANNAN: My Lords, may I put another question to the noble Lord, Lord Alport? If he takes that view, what else in higher education does he want to cut? Because the noble Lord is advocating simply additional public expenditure, which this present Government, under a mandate on which they won a general election, are trying to cut.
Lord ALPORT: My Lords, I think the noble Lord should read my speech. He may have listened to it perhaps not as attentively as I should have liked, because I in fact accepted that they had a right to increase, and would indeed make additions to, the fees of overseas students; but I asked them to mitigate that increase in a way which I thought, at any rate, might
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bring it within the realms of fairness so far as the overseas students are concerned.
Lord ANNAN: My Lords, I shall try to meet the noble Lord's point in a later part of my speech. Could I continue by saying that the last Labour Government favoured a quota, and I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady David, will accept that five letter word as a description of what was done. Theoretically, of course, universities were free to admit any number they liked, but they were told that if they were above target they would not receive any additional money for doing so. But the UGC was a little more explicit. Universities were told that, if a substantial number were admitted above target, then that would be taken as evidence of slack in the system and the university's grant would be in danger of being cut—and if that is not a quota I should like to know what is.
At this point, my Lords, I must put to the noble Baroness the same question as has already been put to her this evening. Does the increase by 31 per cent. of the overseas student fees indicate a change of policy? Will the UGC be informed next year that there will now be no quota but that the fees will again be raised by another percentage? In other words, is a quota being abandoned in favour of rationing by the purse? Or will fees be raised again, over and above the rate of inflation, and the quota retained?
When I come to fees I am afraid that, again, I am as hopelessly out of step here as I was over the quota, because I am bound to declare that I have never seen any prima facie reason why a differential fee should not be charged, except in the case of EEC students under treaty obligations. The state universities in the USA and provincial universities in Canada charge a differential for out-state students; and if home as well as overseas student fees were raised to the same level, large numbers of our own boys and girls would never get to a university or college. It is equally true that if overseas students' fees were kept at exactly the same level as home fees, the proportion of home under-graduates would fall even further, and many students from social classes 4 and 5—the very students which at any rate I want to encourage to enter higher education—would be excluded. Are we being asked tonight to admit even greater

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numbers of extremely clever Chinese students from Hong Kong and Malaysia in preference to our own children from sixth-forms of comprehensive schools?
I do not want to be misunderstood though I recognise that I shall be misunderstood. All students are by definition poor, only some are poorer than others. But let us study the facts of this matter—and I hope that the right reverend Prelate will allow me to take issue with him on this point. Ask any registrar in the University of London, by far the largest centre for overseas students, and he will tell you that the students from the third world countries invariably come from their well-to-do families. How could it be otherwise? Whereas there are indeed poor students from North America; students whose parents earn comparatively little in their own country and whose children have to earn and save and pay their own way through college in order to come to take post-graduate courses here—and I know that the late Secretary of State, Mrs. Shirley Williams, was one of the first to recognise this point.
But, having said this, I want to say to the noble Lord, Lord Alport, that we are very much in his debt for having opened up this subject tonight. I know that some noble Lords may have a solution to this problem, which is to create a certain number of scholarships for overseas students which would fall on the Ministry of Overseas Development Vote. A fee which represents the true cost of a student place could be charged, and the MOD could earmark part of their funds to subsidise the fees of students from the third world. Now, if we assume, as I think we must assume, seeing that the present Government are determined to cut public expenditure, that there are no additional funds for MOD, what does this mean? It means presumably that Malawi, for example, would be told that they would be able to buy scholarships instead of, say, lorries. In effect, this means favouring academic institutions at the expense of British industry. It may be that that is the right thing to do, but I think that that is what it means. But if Britain withdrew material aid and substituted for it sub-sidised places in higher education, will not third world countries declare that they, and they alone, should nominate the
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recipients of this aid? Universities will not like that.
It was always rumoured that Mrs. Shirley Williams, when she was Secretary of State, was on the point of imposing a set of national quotas, so that so many would go to poor third world countries, so many to OPEC countries, so many to North American countries. I am bound to say that such a scheme would have been a nightmare for universities and polytechnics to administer. Overseas students are admitted by departments, and not by a central registrar. 1 have just asked Dr. John Black, the principal of Bedford College, London, to make a study of this problem, and it is clear from his admirable report, a copy of which I should be very glad to give to the noble Baroness if she wishes, that whatever system of monitoring is adopted, or however much admission procedures are centralised, any method of control is likely to be hit or miss.
The margin of error could be as high as 15 per cent.—far higher than the 6 per cent. which I think the UGC was ready to allow. UCCA forms do not reveal a student's status; that can be established only during the admission process. What is even odder is that the USR form, which the UGC require universities to fill up, includes only a proportion of students of overseas domicile. The proportion may be as low as 55 per cent., because all sorts of students who come from overseas are not really classified as such. That is a point which I beg noble Lords to bear in mind; there are numbers of students classified as overseas who in fact have been in this country for two years, and, therefore, although they come from overseas, are classified as home students.
It is at this point that I am afraid I have to say to the noble Baroness that I must leave her side and put some questions to her which are in a rather different tenor. Large increases in fees produce genuine cases of hardship, and it does not improve the temper of staff or of students to be told that a hardship fund exists which, on inspection, turns out to be, not an additional pot of gold but an injunction by the UGC on universities to find the money themselves by digging into their pockets, which the Government are busy picking. I mean by this that no doubt the UGC will tell us that a certain sum from our fund is earmarked to be a hardship

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fund; or, if it is not earmarked, it is notified as such. Of course, that means that that will naturally be spent on hardships; one could not dream of spending it on anything else. But I will come back in a moment to the difficulties of administering a hardship fund.
Can I ask the noble Baroness about this hardship fund? The experience of administering hardship funds is really very sobering. I found that to be so when I tried to administer the last one, after 1975. First of all, an enormous amount of work was cast upon the registrar and his staff—a staff depleted, I may say, by years of cuts in the university's budget. Then, secondly it is impossible in most cases to check the truth of the applicants' claim for hardship. In the case of one ethnic group, I could only conclude that a plague had struck the country or that a quite exceptional economic catastrophe, both unreported in the Press, had occurred, because all the students from this group reported either that their father had died or that their business had gone bankrupt and that they were therefore unable to provide the additional funds required for the increase in fees. Of course, there were many other cases in which there was genuine hardship. But it was impossible to separate those whom one suspected were telling a tall tale from those who were genuinely unable to raise the extra money.
May I move to the second question which I want to put to the noble Baroness. The Government is filled with those who have sent their children to independent schools. Can they not follow the practice of the public schools, who now inform parents in good time of any proposed increase in fees? I know that the Government were elected at an awkward time not merely for the Labour Party but for the universities; and the Government may well say that they had no alternative to acting as they did. But the universities had already told students that they had a place at a stated fee and the universities are now having to tell them that this fee will be increased.
Next, may I plead that if the Government intend to continue to impose quotas, they should relax entirely the quota on post-graduate overseas students. MSc courses are particularly valuable for these students and no British student
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is excluded—and that is the point—because home student numbers are controlled at the post-graduate level by the number of studentships awarded by the Research Councils or by the departments. Furthermore, the overseas post-graduates who study for the PhD in scientific departments are invaluable members of research teams. Cut them out and you remove pairs of hands and you remove brains which vitalise scientific departments. I have said that a strong case exists for limiting undergraduate intake. Can the Minister at any rate give an assurance this evening that the principle of post-graduate quotas will be re-examined? After all, if the Government are asking education and the arts to bring in private enterprise to help in funding them, is this not a laudable way to do it? It helps the universities, does not disadvantage home students and increases the funds available for research.
Finally, may I plead that some institutions or even departments within universities be treated as special cases? London University is bound by the quota but we are greatly embarrassed by the fact that there are certain institutions—the School of Oriental and African Studies, the London School of Economics, Imperial College, the Royal Postgraduate Medical School, the School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the British Post-graduate Medical Federation—which are institutions which by their charters or their nature were always intended to provide special facilities for students from overseas. Will the Government please consider asking the UGC to invite the universities to make out, if they so wish, a special case for any particular unit or department which was set up to provide special facilities for those from overseas? I believe that this would create a great deal of goodwill while, at present, I am afraid that, on this issue, successive Governments have created only ill-will in the universities.
My Lords, that is the gist of the questions that I want to put to the noble Baroness. I remain, as I say, unrepentant on the general principle, but I believe that there are actions which could be taken by Government which would change the situation materially for the better for overseas students of a particular type, for the universities themselves and, I believe, for the Government, in the goodwill that they could create within the universities.
7.45 p.m.
Lord VAIZEY: My Lords, as always, people are in favour of cutting public expenditure except for the thing that they are specially interested in. So it is, as we have heard tonight, with education. I note that the present Secretary of State already has been reported in the educational Press as fighting valiantly against cuts in his Department's estimates. Presumably the authors of those reports assume that the Secretary of State fought the election on a private manifesto. This Government got in, as the noble Lord, Lord Annan, pointed out, on a Manifesto designed to cut public expenditure.
Within that general context, overseas students do present an exceptionally difficult problem. We are, I suppose, all of us, opposed to discrimination which looks racial or national in any way. We are most of us aware that overseas students represent a valuable contribution to our intellectual community. That the university without foreign students is a rotten university, seems to me to be a self-evident proposition. Furthermore, I think we all accept that students educated here are usually among the best ambassadors for Britain that there could be. That being said, I do not find myself persuaded by the argument that overseas students are really invisible exports, but, by any criterion one can think of, they are undoubtedly invisible imports which may or may not eventually lead to exports.
It must be said that the evidence of the past 100 years, to which the noble Lord, Lord Kaldor, frequently draws attention in economic debates, hardly suggests that our record in having foreign students in this country has noticeably helped our overseas trade position.
Lord GLADWYN: My Lords, would the noble Lord not recognise that these students bring in a great deal of money to this country? Is that not to be set off against the account?
Lord VAIZEY: My Lords, there is a difference between gross and net. It is also true that when foreign visitors come here and spend money on hotels, they eat asparagus grown in Israel; and that bit of asparagus is attributed to Israel's balance of payments while the rest of their expenditure is attributed to their
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own country. I am sorry, but if the noble Lord mutters throughout the time I am speaking, it is impossible for me to answer his question.
Why is this discriminatory policy adopted by successive Governments? It has been maintained as the noble Lord, Lord Annan, pointed out, for 12 years. Like the noble Lord, Lord Annan, at a very early stage I was concerned with Tony Crosland's decision to introduce the discriminatory charges; so I thought that it might be helpful if I gave some of the background as I see it. At this hour and having been in the Chamber all the afternoon, I shall not detain your Lordships for very long but I think what I have to say is relevant.
Before the war, the universities and colleges got much of their then very small income from fees; the UGC grant was only a topping up of their incomes. Students then largely paid their fees themselves, often with two or three scholarships. I myself had three scholarships at Cambridge. They also had to get a maintenance grant to live on or else be kept by their parents. The present position arises from the post-war problem when the great bulk of students were ex-servicemen who had all their fees paid and also got maintenance grants given to them out of the ex-servicemen's scheme. From 1948 onwards, almost all British students were raised, as it were, to the status of ex-servicemen. At that stage, with most of the fees received by universities and colleges paid by the State or the local authorities, over 90 per cent. of the income of the universities came directly from the UGC. The fee had become a purely nominal concept which could have been abolished and made the accounting easier, rather like the penny which is charged when one goes into Kew Gardens which does not even pay the man who collects it.
In 1966, in one of the nation's perennial financial crises, it became clear that not only was the number of British students 10 times greater than it had been 20 years before, but that very large numbers of overseas students were being educated freely at the expense of the taxpayers. So with a little half-hearted compromise—which the noble Lord, Lord Annan, has just specified to your Lordships—the fees were raised. The fees for the British

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students continued for the most part to be paid by local authorities or by the State out of public funds, while the overseas students paid more because their fees were differentially raised. That is where the problem arose. It is very important that this has so far been a bi-partisan policy because the fees were last raised on this discriminatory basis by Shirley Williams.
The argument at that time for this discrimination—and I remember it very clearly—was threefold: first, it was asked whether, if we wanted to subsidise foreign students, it was not best to choose carefully the students to whom we wanted to give this pretty hefty subsidy. Should it not best be directed at those students who actually needed help? There are many foreign students—and I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Annan, 100 per cent.—especially those from very poor countries, who are from extremely rich families.
Lord GLADWYN: My Lords, is the noble Lord suggesting that the majority of students from poor countries come from rich families?
Lord VAIZEY: My Lords, if the noble Lord would listen and would stop interrupting he would have heard that I said " many ". Of course I did not say " all ". I said " many " students. The people one sees in Oxford and Cambridge are not the people from the villages, they are the people from the big houses; and the people who have come by and large—almost overwhelmingly—from the really poor countries have been well off. Quite candidly, the principle seems a perfectly acceptable one. I see no reason why the rich should not pay something towards the cost of their education.
Next, I come to the shift to fees as a source of university income as a way of relating total university income to student demand. That seems to me not too unacceptable as a way of regulating the way in which universities receive income. Lastly—and this is the point which has been raised by all Peers so far—there is the device of putting up fees as a way of choking off overseas demand for places. Clearly that was the most questionable part of the matter. It has
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been questioned very vigorously tonight. The fee has in fact been used to some degree as a substitute for effective immigration control, and frequently in some areas has been a substitute for effective admissions policies.
Nevertheless, if the way in which universities and colleges are to be financed is increasingly to be from fees rather than direct grants from the UGC or local authorities then, so far as universities are concerned, there is no real difference in shifting over from the grant basis to the fee basis because, so far as British students are concerned, over 95 per cent. of the fee income comes from the same pocket. It comes eventually from the taxpayer. The increased fee does, as noble Lords have pointed out, raise a serious obstacle to overseas students who wish to come here, whether they come from rich or poor countries, or whether they come from rich or poor families.
An issue of principle has been raised tonight. Clearly, as a nation we are—and particularly those engaged in university education—against discrimination. As so often happens, that principle comes up against another: we cannot subsidise everybody from overseas indiscriminately. The nub of the question really is: what is the urgency of the matter in the present situation? Frankly, so far, the balance of the evidence does not suggest to me, apart from matters to which I shall refer in a minute, that this question of fees has been the most serious issue in the welfare of overseas students.
Many of the important questions raised by the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, were highly relevant and should be studied very carefully by the Government and institutions concerned. Student welfare is of central importance. I must reiterate the point which the noble Lord, Lord Annan, so effectively made: the most extraordinary thing is that every time the fees have been raised the number of students has increased I can only conclude that higher education is what economists term the superior good: as the price rises so does the demand, rather as it does for old masters. I must confess that the noble Lord, Lord Annan, and I are the odd men out tonight perhaps because we work in universities rather than listen to what universities say. I am supporting both Mrs. Williams and

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the present Secretary of State in their general policy.
I want now, having supported the Minister on the Front Bench—less effectively probably than the noble Lord, Lord Annan, but no less sincerely—to say that I think there are immediate difficulties and problems. First of all, what is irritating is the way that these decisions have been taken—not only by the present Government but repeatedly in financial crises—so late in the day that the invitations for the students for the next academic year have already been issued. The admissions process is effectively completed round about Christmas time for a good many students. There is also the great question of bad faith which affects the students already on course. Whether one agrees or disagrees with the arguments which have been advanced tonight about discrimination in fees, it seems to me that the question of bad faith for students already on the course is a serious one. It is parallel to the sudden cancelling of studentships already promised to named individuals by research councils which has just happened as a result of recent Government cuts.
There we have a classic case of a problem arising from political events and the timing of an election. To any of us who have worked in universities throughout this period of cuts the foreign student is a familiar red herring advanced at such times by the Department to safeguard from the ravenous Treasury Ministers animals which, so far as the Department is concerned, are far more sacred than foreign students.
That is a pity on two counts: it is very hard luck on existing students, and it is bad luck on the reputation of this country overseas when this sort of thing happens without any plan. I strongly support what other people have said. Nevertheless, the elections cannot be chosen to coincide exactly with the long vacation so that universities can get a year's notice.
I have written out a lot of questions to put to the Minister but they are exactly the same as those posed by the noble Lord, Lord Annan, so will the Minister take from me the fact that the questions the noble Lord, Lord Annan, posed to her are very much the questions that practical people working in the universities and colleges are asking up and down the
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country. Even if she cannot give an answer tonight—and I know that it is not within her own ministerial responsibility and that it is early days yet—it would be good and reassuring if we could go back to our colleagues and say that the Department is looking into these matters and that we shall have a proper longer-term policy eventually. Whether or not we like the particular policy is a matter for subsequent discussion.
7.59 p.m.
Viscount CRAIGAVON: My Lords, I too am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Alport, for giving us a chance to debate this subject again. This is the third time I have spoken about overseas students, and I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Young, in her reply is going to confound my sense of déjà vu. I should like to concentrate in detail on two main longer-term points: namely, costs to this country of overseas students, and then the subject of quotas.
Part of my sense of déjà vu arises from the recurring disagreement, in this debate and in newspapers about the true cost of overseas students to this country. I hope the noble Baroness can give us her opinion of the precision of the figure of £94 million per annum, which seems to be the officially quoted element of subsidy. Perhaps it should not be expected that she should take into account wider effects outside her Department's responsibility, as other estimates of cost do.
I find it depressing, to say the least, that argument founders at this basic level of the simply different assumptions that are brought to bear. On this issue of cost, what is needed is a much greater consensus brought about by detailed and intelligent analysis of the effect on cost both within and outside the universities—the effects within depending, for example, on the nature of the subject, contribution to research, marginal considerations and so on, and the effects outside the universities being, for example, foreign exchange, later technological spin-offs back to this country, and so on. Some of these facts are difficult to quantify, but I am optimistic that very much more detailed work could be done.
In an attempt to achieve a more widely accepted consensus on cost, may I put a

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modest proposal to the Government?— namely, that they should encourage some organisation, probably voluntarily funded, to conduct a detailed investigation into this particular aspect of overseas students; that is, the cost to the country. The main object would be to achieve as much of a common base line as possible that could be accepted by all sides and, beyond that, to make explicit differing assumptions that have been brought to bear on discussions of cost. That may sound naively simple, but I think that is the sort of information that is desperately needed in this area.
If it is not the practice of the Government to promote such enterprises directly, and if they could not get, for example, the University Grants Committee to promote it, then I would hope that some respected body such as the Committee of Vice-Chancellors could encourage the creation of such an investigation. The essential thing would be that, at least at its formation, it was respected by all sides. I know there have been attempts at producing general cost figures but only by interested parties, with results that have not convinced other sides. My aim in this, beyond hoping for some sort of consensus, is to provide a base for an informed public opinion and to make differing assumptions explicit, particularly the many facets that are the concern of different Government departments.
At the moment, when the Government issue figures for rises in overseas students' fees, the amount of subsidy of £94 million, or whatever, appears as an inexorable figure; and on that basis the public can only make a simplistic judgment. The issue is much more complex, and this at least should be an area where academic inquiry and greater intellectual honesty are possible. It would be those latter grounds—of the integrity and force of the conclusions—that I would hope the Government would be convinced by, if they chose not to be involved themselves in any such investigation.
Before I go on to my second point of quotas, may I say to the noble Baroness that I found it refreshing to discover last week in the Guardian that other views, critical of the Government's recent action can emanate from Smith Square. A statement was issued by the Federation of
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Conservative Students (whose president I see is someone called Mark Carlisle) and it said:
" The Federation … believes that the universal increases in overseas student fees are both inefficient and inequitable. Localised quotas and universal fee increases merely lead to institutional imbalance and hardship funds that are expensive to administer."
It goes on later:
" In the short-term the Federation is urging the Government to limit the fee increases to those overseas students commencing courses in 1979–80 and, if not, to ensure that full guidance is given to the institutions for the provision of adequate hardship funds."
That raises a number of issues which I do not myself want to go into. The noble Lord, Lord Annan, gave excellent examples of the problems of administering hardship funds; but I think it is understandable and healthy if younger Conservatives do feel that a less political and longer-term view of the problem should be taken.
If I now mention the word " quota ", I am not referring to regressive or punitive quota systems. There have been harsh experiences of these at the non-university level, but, as I understand it, in universities a semi-informal quota has been in operation. The working of this system seems to take place largely behind closed doors, sometimes with the help of nods and winks; and, if I can give a rather extreme analogy, this may stem from the same reasons that society tacitly allowed doctors privately to take decisions about euthanasia. Different criteria and standards may prevail in different parts of the country but, broadly speaking, we may think that they get it right—although in fact we cannot ever judge that properly. But as also in the case of student quotas, it is easier not to have to parade and justify in public a whole set of value judgments on which choices are based.
I fully realise the difficulties of formalising any system of quotas but, provided they are not regressive, such a method has always seemed to me preferable to rationing by a punitive level of fee. So I am supporting flexible and humane quotas that can respond to the needs of particular institutions. Some courage will be needed to articulate just how criteria can be applied, particularly as in the past—sometimes justifiably—the word " quota " has elicited automatic student hostility. If quotas are to gain any respectability, the

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trend must be that they become more openly administered and I hope the Government will encourage that trend in practical and sympathetic ways.
Finally, I would also ask the Government to take a very much longer-term view of the whole problem and not to sacrifice to short-term political advantage one of our most valuable contributions to the world. We have not only past traditions and standards to offer. In the future we also want to be in a position to offer and influence the development of computer-based technology and micro-processors in the developing world. The Question put by the noble Baroness, Lady Vickers, in this House yesterday on the way in which the French are training their teachers in computer methods is a significant pointer that we should note, both for our own use and for the future likely requirements of overseas students.
To sum up, my Lords, on both costs and quotas, I am asking the Government to make more information available, or rather to create the atmosphere in which such open government is encouraged.
8.7 p.m.
Baroness VICKERS: My Lords, I should like to join in the thanks which have been extended to the noble Lord, Lord Alport, for the very excellent way in which he opened this debate. He left, for me at least, and no doubt for many who have spoken, very little to say in a brief speech. But I should like to say to the right reverend Prelate that in 1961 when I was in China, under a very different régime, there were a whole lot of Africans there and I said " Good morning " to them when I was visiting the Great Wall, and they replied. When I returned I found they were not allowed to speak one single word to me. Things have changed in Peking now but that was the atmosphere, and I agree that it is very dangerous to allow these people to get a completely different aspect of life if we can offer them a better alternative in this country.
I should like also to say that I am speaking from personal experience. I was in Malaya for many years, and one of my duties there was to recommend students to come to this country. Of course, I saw them when they came back
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and heard their views and heard how they had, or had not, benefited from all their contacts. I also heard about their difficulties and later we were able to help perhaps with a better selection of students the next time. I should like to assure the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, that they were not the rich. This in fact was soon after the war and we had actually to help them with their clothes from the welfare stores. Those were the types of person who were intelligent and who we thought would benefit from coming over to this country. It is interesting that Malaysian students now make up the greatest number of foreign students in this country.
When I was living in Devonport I used to have students from Dartmouth to stay with me in the Christmas Recess. I would ask the Minister to let me know whether the Ministry of Defence is also putting up the fees for these overseas students. They have been a very good contact and I still keep in touch with many of them. I was also for many years in the other place joint chairman of the Council for Education in the Commonwealth, and for 20 years I served on the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, which has given me the chance of visiting most of the countries. When MPs come from these countries for courses run by the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, or meet in conferences overseas, they have one great thing in common; most of them have been educated in this country and they get down to business quite quickly. Whether they come from India or Africa, they have many interests in common, a common language and no interpreters are needed. This is a tremendous help in keeping peace between countries.
I should like to suggest to the Minister that she should get in touch with the many Commonwealth countries, and explain that the Government need to save £6 million a year—although we have to remember that there will still be £94 million being paid by taxes in this country—and ask whether they would agree to a certain sum of money being allocated for students in our aid programme. I think that this would be worth while. Very few of us have knowledge of how this aid programme is spent, but I do not think there would be any better way of spending it than in sending

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students to this country. They would then be able to go back and play their part in providing better standards in their own countries, so that less people would need help in the future.
What is generally forgotten—although I think it was mentioned in passing by the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn—is the invisible earnings that come to this country from these students, while they are actually here. Recently, a competition was held by UKCOSA, when more than 80 students wrote essays. One of the students wrote,
" Outside the Communist and the non-English speaking countries, Britain is the last country I would choose to study in."
Fortunately, he changed his essay and vindicated his study here. But I should like to point out that he came from Nigeria and had the greatest difficulty. He gave me a detailed list of what he had to get to come to this country, and explained how he had to scrounge and borrow money to do it. He was a teacher in his own country and was given leave to come here. He ended up by agreeing that he had really benefited and had changed his mind. He said:
" I think it would be in order to reflect on the rightness of my decision in 1975 to come to Britain. I think it was the best decision made at the right time."
That is somebody who changed his views about life. I remember the story about Mark Twain, who said that he had " pulled through another day ". That man has pulled through his days and has gone back contented. There was a girl student who said: " I do not regret coming to the United Kingdom. When I first came I was a girl from a sheltered background. I have become more independent with a broader outlook on life, not so hasty to pass judgment and realising that between black and white there are many shades of grey ".
I put down two questions for Written Answer and I shall not repeat them. But one of the main difficulties for authorities is changes in policies which aggravate people overseas and in this country; and reorganisation is very difficult. I attended a meeting chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, which was addressed by Sir Roy Marshall. Sir Roy Marshall is a very helpful and
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wise person in these matters, and is the Secretary-General of the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals. He said:
" The form which rationing by the purse has taken since 1967 is the imposition of differential fees—higher for overseas students than home students. No institution wants to do this: by their constitutions, whether created by Royal Charter or otherwise, they have the power to fix their own tuition fees and left to themselves they would not have introduced differential fees. They do not like having two classes of members, one paying a higher fee than the other. Such a system is divisive and disruptive: it raises problems of definition on the borderline (who is a home student, and who overseas) and it has proved ineffective in reducing numbers. Nor has it put any extra money in the hands of the institutions: they simply get less from the government. Yet institutions have had to do what they do not like, for government has calculated grant to them on the basis that they will charge differential fees at a specified level. Government recognises this autonomy but can hardly be said to respect it."
I should also like to suggest that the historical association and the continuing relationship with the Commonwealth is of special concern to the developing countries. There are quite a number of countries, including France, which charge nothing at all to their students. The other day, I heard the example of the Cameroons. As your Lordships know, the Cameroons is half-French and half-English, and they joined together after a referendum. It will be very odd if the English-speaking ones come to England and have to pay fees, and the French-speaking ones go to France and pay no fees.
The hardship grant, which at one time was £10 million, certainly never reached those in need. I remember the time when in Plymouth we had a lot of Biafrans. Could I get any money to help them pay their fees? It was practically impossible. But during the revolution in Nigeria they were cut off from their home supply. It is extremely difficult to deal with hardship. Therefore, I should like to ask the Minister whether she will consider contacting the countries and settling matters direct with them, which would be much better. I should also like her to see whether she can help Commonwealth students through aid with less aid for non-Commonwealth students, except for a few very poor developing countries, such as Indonesia and Thailand, whose students have been coming here for some years and who still need help if their countries are ever to succeed in becoming prosperous and

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improving their standard of living. I hope that the Minister will be able to reply to those few suggestions, if not now, at a later stage.
8.17 p.m.
Baroness SEEAR: My Lords, I shall be very brief, but having worked for 30 years in an academic institution with a very high percentage of overseas students from all over the globe, I feel that I simply must speak to urge the Government again about this policy and, at least, if they have to make economies, to make them in a rather different way. I wonder whether these economies in the costs of overseas students have really been accurately assessed, and I agree with the noble Viscount, Lord Craigavon, that we need to look at these sums in a number of different ways.
Of course, the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, is right, in that the moment a student is accepted he is an import, rather than an export. But that is the beginning of the story and not the end. I have taught both rich students from American and Arab countries, and extremely poor ones. The very rich students—I am generalising from a small sample—are so pursued by rich relations that I should think that the benefit to the balance of payments, from all the cousins, sisters and aunts who turn up and spend money here, far outweighs anything we pay on subsidising their fees while they are living here.
Then, again, there is the long-term issue. From my experience over 30 years, and the contacts which students maintain with the institutions which have taught them, the pleasure with which they come back and the encouragement they give to other people to come here and trade here, I am sure that this must add up to something very substantial. To take only one example of the way in which old students return back to the place in which they were taught, that great new library that the LSE has opened, partly as a result of Government help—it would never have gone up only with Government help—is largely a result of the noble Lord, Lord Robbins, going around the globe visiting old LSE overseas students, who subscribed magnificently to get that library up in the centre of London. That is one small example, but it is symbolic of the kind of return that overseas students make as the
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years go by, which is extraordinarily difficult to cost. So I question whether the amount of money which it is said we have to expend without adequate return from overseas students is a genuine figure.
Then there is the question of the value to our institutions of having overseas students. I can certainly testify about what it means to United Kingdom students—who still tend to be fairly insular—to have the experience of studying with, getting to know and establishing real friendships with, people from overseas. At that stage in their lives they develop relationships which they would never develop in any other way. There is no question but that there is an academic advantage when students of good quality come from overseas to join in the life at one of our universities. It is a real benefit both to home students as well as to students who conic from overseas. I cannot agree with the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, that most of the students are rich. Of course, some of them are very rich—
Lord VAIZEY: My Lords, with great respect to the noble Baroness, what I said was that many students are rich. It is a general truth, I think, that in poor countries the great majority of people can scarcely afford to move from their own villages. My experience as a university lecturer for 25 years and as one who has visited 40 underdeveloped countries, many of them frequently, is that the great majority of the people who are able to get money together to come over here come from the better-off classes.
Baroness SEEAR: My Lords, there are the " better off " and the " better off ", are there not, and some of them are very wealthy people. I agree, of course, that we do not get the sweepers from Calcutta. Nor do we get the sweepers from the East End of London, if it comes to that. However, we do get people—I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, has had the same experience—from very modest families who have scraped together the money, with fifth cousins putting up the money, to make it possible for their relatives to come to this country. The number of brothers who have been over here who are sending younger brothers to this country and paying for their education in this country out of their British earnings is, in my experience, considerable. I do not have the

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overall statistics, but certainly it is not the experience of those institutions in which I have worked that overseas students are all rich people. They are not the poorest of the poor, but certainly they are not the richest of the rich. They are not people who can easily put their hands into their pockets, or into their fathers' pockets, and find the extra money which is now being asked from them.
Lord VAIZEY: My Lords, this is a slightly barren argument. If what the noble Baroness says is true, it is very odd, since the Robbins Report showed that the social classes from the United Kingdom who enter the London School of Economics make this institution one of the most exclusive Socialist institutions in this country.
Baroness SEEAR: My Lords, it is not the purpose of our debate this evening to discuss the class structure of the London School of Economics, exciting though that would be. I accept the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, that he said " many " and not " most ". However, we are becoming slightly purist in the distinctions that we are making. A considerable number of overseas students do not come from the wealthiest classes, and they would certainly find that it was very difficult to find this money.
I understand the desire of the Government to cut back on public expenditure. Provided that it is cut back in the right place I agree with it. However, we still pour money into things from which there can be no future return. The phrase " lame ducks " is overworked, but we are still wasting money in many directions, and we know that we are. We are subsidising industries in this country for which there is no future. If we cut out that kind of wasteful expenditure we shall not need to worry so much about what we spend on overseas students.
May I make two practical points about what might amount, in these sorry circumstances, to a modification—supporting what I believe has already been said by other speakers, but underlining it, if I may. First, while I believe that it is wrong to put up these fees, if one wants to restrict expenditure it is better to look hard at standards: to make sure that
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people do not come to our universities—this applies to United Kingdom students as well as to overseas students—who are not of a standard fully to benefit from that ecucation. Therefore, the selection of students for our academic institutions, both from overseas as well as from home, is a matter which needs to be looked at.
Furthermore, we need to look at the way in which overseas students are selected so that the ones who come here are those who can really benefit. This is very important. I am the first to agree that it is very difficult to get this right. Those of us who have worked upon the problem know how difficult it is. It is wasteful of resources to admit into our universities, either from overseas or from this country, people—and I believe it to be a small percentage—who are not going to benefit very much from the education they receive while they are here.
If we have to make this economy, may I implore the Government not to make it at the expense of the graduate students. Increasingly, the university institutions of developing countries are able to give adequate—and, one hopes, more than adequate as time goes on—undergraduate instruction. However, it is very difficult for them, simply because of the numbers and the facilities available, to give the kind of graduate courses and higher degree courses which the brighter of their graduates ought to have. These are the people who, having had the advantage of higher degree and post-graduate work of one kind or another in this country, go back to their own countries to take up positions of leadership and to formulate and apply policies in those developing countries. They are key people—the ones whom, above all others, we ought to be assisting and in whose path we should put no obstacles. If we have to discriminate, let us discriminate between the undergraduate group and the postgraduate group.
Finally, I have heard at least two other speakers—unfortunately, I was unable to be here for the whole of the debate—make the point that surely it would be sensible, if there is no other way around the problem, to divert some of the aid towards financing students. Those of us who have had anything to do with the question of aid know that by no means all of it is used for the best purpose. Let

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me leave it at that. May I ask the Government to consider whether or not some of that money could be earmarked at least for graduate students to come to this country and bear no increase in their fees.
8.27 p.m.
Lord JANNER: My Lords, I appreciate that the hour is very late. Consequently one has to compress what one has to say into a few short sentences. First, may I compliment and thank the noble Lord, Lord Alport, for having asked this Unstarred Question. I should like to speak about many of the matters which have been raised, but time is not available.
The House ought to know that I am speaking now as the vice-president of the Association of Metropolitan Authorities. The Association believes that the current subsidy presently borne by local education authorities in the non-university sector should be removed. The current subsidy will remain so long as the fees, which are normally determined upon the Secretary of State's recommendation, remain at less than full cost. Even the 22 per cent. increase in the fees for overseas students which was announced last month by the Government for the 1979–80 academic year will produce fees which cover only some 40 per cent. of the cost of tuition. Yet overseas students' fees are already quite high, and the differential over home students' fees looks unfairly discriminatory.
The Association argues that what is needed is a radical shift in policy, under which overseas students would normally be charged full cost fees. Any subsidy would be overt—I shall have something to say about that matter in a few minutes—and when met in the United Kingdom would be a charge on central government resources. Some overseas students, as we have already heard, come from wealthy families or from States which are amply able to give full grants for study in the United Kingdom. We feel that overseas students who do not have such support, including many from developing countries, ought to be supported by the United Kingdom as an act of national policy.
With regard to the benefits which overseas students bring to a college, the
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Association of Municipal Authorities confirm that they are real but that they cannot be quantified in cash terms. One of the most solidly economic, as distinct from humanitarian or cultural advantages, is realised when the student qualifies and returns home, as we have already heard, with skills learned on British equipment and British machinery, possibly in the workshops of industry as well as in college. But that is an economic advantage to the United Kingdom and not to the college or to its local education authority. They also call upon the Government to rationalise and so make fairer the various and incompatible definitions of overseas students in several branches of the law—immigration, fees, awards and race relations. One could of course elaborate considerably upon these points but I do not propose to do so.
There are two other points I should like to raise. First, I should like to commend what my noble friend Lady White has said. I am particularly interested in the university and college of which she has spoken and I need hardly say that I endorse her views. I happen to be a governor of one of them. Secondly, I think the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, was right but I am not quite sure whether she covered the whole point of what I think ought to be done with regard to the admission of overseas students.
The House will not be surprised when I say that I am deeply disturbed about the way in which some students are sent over here specifically for the purpose of creating political difficulties. We have a large number of students who are subsidised by some Arab countries to come here with the specific purpose of creating difficulties, both from the ordinary political point of view and from the point of view of anti-Semitic movements. This is the case not only in this country. Arab monies are being spent on the campuses of many other countries, in particular America, and I think the Government should look closely into the question of whether a student is really coming here for the purpose of study at all, or whether he or she is coming here for the purpose of carrying on a political campaign, much of which, in my view, is very detrimental to the interests of our own country. I hope the Government will give very careful consideration to this point.

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I could give instances of where universities are today passing resolutions of a very serious nature politically, but it is too late tonight to go into that detail. I shall, however, be happy to provide the noble Baroness, Lady Young, with any information that she may want. I can assure this House that it is an extremely serious matter and, in my view, it is really disreputable to utilise our universities and campuses for the purpose of carrying on antagonistic and bitter racial difficulties.
8.34 p.m.
Baroness DAVID: My Lords, like other speakers I welcome this debate and thank the noble Lord, Lord Alport, for initiating it. We are all anxious to know what this Government's intentions are for the future, particularly in the light of the swingeing increases in overseas students' fees recently announced for 1979–80. I was surprised that the noble Lord had confined his Question to students in universities, when we have so many in the maintained sector of higher education. In 1977–78 there were 35,200 in universities and 22,900 in further education. In 1978–79 there were 36,500 in universities and 21,000 in further education. All these, surely, should be under discussion at the same time. In fact, references have been made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford and by my noble friend Lady White to that section.
If I may make an aside, I have constantly been surprised, when listening to debates in this House on a number of subjects—the shortage of engineers, the reluctance of graduates to go into industry, our lack of skilled manpower—that the role of the maintained sector, a very important role for the country's economic welfare, was so seldom referred to. We are very well endowed in this Chamber with vice-chancellors and others from the university world, and very delightful they are, but I sometimes wonder whether, in order to redress the balance a little, it might not be a good thing if we had one or two Members (because I do not believe that we have any) who had immediate and personal experience of the work done in polytechnics and colleges of higher education.
Having listened to the debate in this House last July, and having read earlier debates in this and another place on this
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subject, I have no doubt that certain things are agreed on by all parties, although on others there is disagreement. The most important thing that I hope we are all agreed upon is that we welcome overseas students to this country and we want to have them here; and enthusiasm has been shown here tonight. I think this is for three reasons: first, a multicultural mix is undoubtedly good for educational establishments in that it has both educational and social advantages for both sides.
Secondly, students who come here to study and go back to their own countries are at any rate eventually, I would tell the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, a valuable export. They not only enrich those countries with the knowledge and experience and technical skills they have gained, but they also take back information about our trade and industry and about our art and literature which will give positive help and encouragement to our trade and exports and make for good and friendly relations—assuming, of course, that they have had a happy time here. I hope the suggestions made in the survey prepared by the Grubb institute in 1976–77 have been acted on. Thirdly, as the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, said, they themselves and their families and friends who visit them here, contribute large sums of money to our economy. Some people claim that more is contributed than they cost in subsidies (a figure of around £100 million) to the taxpayer and ratepayer.
So much for areas of agreement: now for the disagreements. First, on the differential between the fees of home and overseas students. Of course, there were violent feelings in 1967 when Tony Crosland introduced it. My party looked on it, at best, as a very regrettable necessity in the light of the economic circumstances. Mrs. Williams said in a speech on 19th December 1978 to the World University Service conference that in 1979–80 fees were to be kept at the same level, in real terms, as for 1978–79 and that the increase would be no greater than that. She had earlier said in a speech in another place, on 25th November 1976, when announcing changes in the fee structure for 1977–78 —and I now quote:
"We are thus not able immediately to eliminate the fee differential between home students and overseas students on courses at these levels."
She was referring to higher level courses.

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" But I ask the House to observe that the differential will be much narrowed. … Our policy remains to work towards the abolition of the differential as soon as economic circumstances permit."—[Official Report, Commons, 25/11/76; co1. 188.]
I know that that remained Mrs. Williams's policy and it still is the policy of the Labour Party—that we should move towards a phasing out of the differential.
What this Conservative Government have done is to increase the differential substantially. Instead of the 9 per cent. increase envisaged by the last Government and announced in Circular 3/79, they have raised it by 21½8 per cent. for post-graduates and 22½1 per cent. for undergraduates and higher level courses. What is the aim of this Government? Is it to move towards charging the full economic cost for all overseas students? That is what Dr. Rhodes Boyson, now the Minister responsible for higher education, advocated at one point. But in the same debate in another place from which I have just quoted. Mr. St. John-Stevas regretted that Mrs. Williams had not been able to do what Mr. Mulley had said he hoped to do and let the differential cease. I quote:
"… it is that proposal from which the Secretary of State is now departing. I do not think that I shall be alone in considering that to be a retrograde step."—[Official Report, Commons, 25/11/76; col. 203.]
Mr. St. John-Stevas then wanted to be rid of the differential. Whose voice is going to be listened to now? And are the increases to be compensated for by increases in the overseas aid budget?
We must remember that the differential is very unpopular among all students here. I also was going to quote the Federation of Conservative Students, which the noble Viscount mentioned. Those Conservative students were particularly anxious for the students who were going to have fee increases in mid-course. The vice-chancellors and principals have also expressed their displeasure.
The Government have said that a hardship fund will operate, and many speakers have mentioned this. The noble Baroness was kind enough to send me a message from her office yesterday to say that the fund would he just off £800,000. I think we all want to know how this will work. Presumably the University Grants Committee will be told that they have some of it in their grants, and, in the maintained
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sector, I suppose there will be a sum allowed in the rate support grant. I look forward to elucidation from the noble Baroness on this point. If the money is put into the rate support grant I think there is no real evidence that it will be used for this purpose. From my experience of working on a local authority, it is very difficult to get a respectable sum into the discretionary grant budget. And when hardship cases do come up, the buck is often passed back to the college where the student is, the message being, " You can give a grant but you can find it out of your own budget "; and that budget of course is being squeezed and squeezed.
One last point on the differential. It gets very bad publicity abroad, where it is widely reported and commented on adversely. It is important to remember what the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, said about the Queen's proposed visit to Zambia. The second point of disagreement is the quota. Again there are not many who like it. I think possibly the noble Lord, Lord Annan, was not altogether against it, and perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey. But it was put on with reluctance.
Lord VAIZEY: My Lords, as the noble Baroness has mentioned me twice perhaps she will be kind enough to give way. I am actually against the quota. What is coming out from the speech of the noble Baroness is that all parties in office are against differentials and quotas and all parties in Government are in favour of them.
Baroness DAVID: My Lords, I do not think that is quite so. I am sorry I got it wrong so far as the noble Lord was concerned. I was about to say that I think we must allow that the DES has the ultimate responsibility to plan the overall size and structure of the higher education service. In parenthesis, I should like to ask the noble Baroness if we are going to hear anything about the Oakes Report shortly. Of course, in the document Higher Education into the 1990s (a Discussion Document) the DES under the last Government was doing just that, trying to make an overall plan. It seems reasonable that there should be some guidance about the percentage of foreign students, but there must be flexibility, because educational institutions differ so greatly in organisation and requirements. Some can

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cope with a higher proportion of overseas students than others, and it is most important that the final selection should be made by the individual institution, which best knows the standards and the mix that will suit its particular quality and needs. Here I think the point the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, made about standards is extremely important.
Of course, it was because of pressure of applications for places, the high increases in numbers between 1970–71, when there were 24,000 overseas students in higher education, and 1975–76 when there were 48,000, that some action seemed necessary. But to keep the facts in proportion it should be remembered that the total number of students had been rising very rapidly. The total number in higher education in Great Britain in 1970–71 was 446,300, in 1976–77 it was 516,000. It was the time of great expansion generally.
The Labour Government announced that there would be resources through grants to universities and rate support grant sufficient to maintain the same number as in 1976. But the policy has not been rigidly enforced; a flexible approach has been allowed, as the figures for overseas students in the last three years show; 54,900 in 1976–77, 58,100 in 1977–78 and 57,500 in 1978–79. It is obvious that a quota is very difficult to adhere to and control, and it creates great difficulties for certain universities and colleges and particularly some departments in them, as the noble Baroness, Lady White, emphasised. Again I ask, what is this Government intending to do? Is it going to control applications and numbers, and is the policy to be the same for post-graduates and undergraduates? I think a good case has been made by other speakers for looking on post-graduates quite separately.
The third area of disagreement is on funding and discrimination. Which Government Departments, assuming overseas students are to be subsidised, should pay and how much? How much should the ratepayer be expected to contribute? There are four different groups of students: rich students from rich countries, rich students from poor countries, poor students from rich countries, poor students from poor countries. Are they all to be
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treated alike? Most poor students from poor countries come under their own steam with no Government grant from their own countries. There may be students who want to come who will not be backed by their own governments if they are not in sympathy with those in power at the moment. And we have to remember our obligations to our European partners in the EEC. Subsidy has been indiscriminate. Should it remain so? Who should get help and who should make the decisions? How should what funds there are be best spent? The problems, administrative as well as moral, are immense.
One would like to see a simplified structure. No wonder the complexities cause delay in proposals coming forward. Interdepartmental agreement had to be reached; many departments are involved. Trading relations have to be considered, and the reactions of the students and those teaching in the universities and colleges. Any sudden change can have very dramatic effects. We had not succeeded in coming up with a set of proposals that satisfied us by the time Parliament was dissolved in April. It is over to the new Government now, and I look forward, though with some trepidation, to what the noble Baroness has to say.
8.48 p.m.
The MINISTER of STATE, DEPARTMENT of EDUCATION and SCIENCE (Baroness Young): My Lords, at the end of this debate I am not sure that the noble Lord, Lord Alport, would actually believe me if I said I was very grateful to him for introducing this Unstarred Question this evening, but I am sure he will appreciate it when I say that I do think it is an important matter he has raised. I think it quite right that the very real strength of feeling shown in the debate this evening should be expressed, and at this stage in the Government's life. I know that the debate will be studied very carefully by my right honourable and learned friend the Secretary of State. I recognise that a great many important and interesting suggestions have been made.
I hope the House will appreciate it if I do not comment on all those matters; that does not mean to say that they will

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not be taken into careful consideration when we are looking at our future policy. Like the noble Baroness, Lady David, I was very struck by one suggestion made by the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, about the importance of standards of entry for our institutions. I would, however, before going further, like to say how much I appreciated the speeches of the noble Lord, Lord Annan, and my noble friend Lord Vaizey.
The noble Lord, Lord Alport, has raised a number of points and I hope in the course of my remarks to answer them all. If I do not answer points on which he would like further information I will, of course, write to him upon them. I have already said that this is an important subject, and your Lordships' House has demonstrated its interest in it on a number of occasions in the last few years. I would say at the outset that the Government share this interest and concern on the question of overseas students. But it would be right to say that this interest and concern must be tempered by practical considerations.
Free academic interchange is a noble ideal extending back to medieval times. But, there cannot, I suspect ever have been a time when practical considerations did not enter into the picture. Nowadays, with our present economic problems, it must be all the more obvious that complete freedom of access—in effect an open-ended commitment—is now out of the question. We have always been a net importer of young people who have wanted to study at our institutions of learning. This is not merely a matter of history, of the legacy of Empire and Commonwealth. It has a solid foundation also in the excellence of our educational system—a fact of which we should all be rightly proud. Indeed, it is not only a metter of pride, but one of responsibility. We recognise that, within the pattern of worldwide student interchange, we have an obligation to play our part, and we must be prepared to share our educational system with students throughout the world.
As many noble Lords have recognised in the course of this debate, there may be incidental benefits to us all in this in the form of an enlightened self-interest. Because, as so many noble Lords have argued, provided (and this, I think, is a
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vital proviso) we ensure that foreign students are made welcome and are given the kind of education they and their countries need, we shall not only create for ourselves a valuable fund of international goodwill, but may also obtain significant, if unquantifiable, commercial advantages. That point was made by the noble Lord, Lord Alport, who gave several examples from his own experience, and it was also made by the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn.
I recognise also that having overseas students serves to enlarge the horizon of our own student population and of our own institutions of learning—something of which we are, perhaps, still very much in need. In saying that I am only echoing what many noble Lords have said this evening. However, I wanted to make it clear that we, in the Government, share these ideals. What I have to add is that a certain hard reality must also intervene.
I should like to say at the beginning of my remarks that the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, and the noble Baroness, Lady White, raised the point about a residence claim. I would not in any way wish the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, on this matter to be taken as a correct interpretation of Conservative policy on immigration. The fact about residence claims by students on non-advanced courses, is that, by being on a non-advanced course for three years, and so acquiring three years' residence, they can then go on to a mandatory award. In fact, it is not quite as simple as that. It is a rather more complex matter involving what is known as " ordinary residence ", and that has a legal interpretation. If I may, I shall write to the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, and to the noble Baroness, Lady White, on this matter as they did particularly raise it.
Until three years ago, succesive Governments allowed the situation over the increase of students to develop naturally. I do not in any way wish to criticise that—it was our accepted tradition. But by 1976 it became clear that the scale of provision for overseas students was, in fact, outpacing our resources. It is worth looking at the figures. Between 1970–71 and 1978–79, the number of overseas students more than doubled—in the universities alone they increased from 18,000 to 36,500 and in all our institutions from 32,000 to 85,000.

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A great deal has been said about the effect of the increase of fees and the cost, but as the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, and the noble Lord, Lord Annan, said, the curious fact is that, as it has become increasingly expensive to come here, so the total number of students has increased. If we look at the total number of students today, we find that in the universities there are 18,400 post-graduate students and 18,100 undergraduates, making a total of 36,500 students in all. That accounts for approximately 10 per cent. of all students in the universities, and, if one did a type of arithmetical, broad calculation, one might almost say that it was the equivalent of four universities. If one considers the students in the polytechnics, there are 1,000 post-graduate students and 20,000 in other advanced further education establishments. That, again, is quite a proportion of the polytechnic population.
Interestingly, as the noble Lord, Lord Annan, made clear, a limit was imposed through the University Grants Committee, but the fact is that there has never been a shortage of overseas students, and the latest figures suggest that 8,500 more students are in our universities than has been allowed for by the grant formula. I give this information because it is a matter of fact and something that we must consider as a background to this whole debate. For, however much we wish to fulfil our international obligations, a development of this magnitude presents immense problems, not only for the institutions themselves, but for those responsible for funding them—in the case of the universities the Exchequer, and in the case of maintained institutions very largely the local education authorities, which means of course, the ratepayers as well as the taxpayers.
Baroness WHITE: My Lords, I hesitate to interrupt but I do so in order to get the record straight because it is important. Will the noble Baroness tell us whether the 8,000 that she mentioned, as though they were also a problem, are not either self-financing in the proper sense of that word or directly exchanged?
Baroness YOUNG: My Lords, I cannot answer that particular question; I can only say that the total numbers that I have been given—and I believe them to be
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accurate—indicate that there are 8,500 more students than the grant formula would have allowed for in the universities.
Baroness WHITE: My Lords, would the noble Baroness try to make it clear that they are not necessarily any burden?
Baroness YOUNG: My Lords, I was not arguing that they were a burden. That was not the point. I was merely saying that, whatever one may say about the rise in fees or otherwise, it has not had the effect of diminishing the numbers of students coming here. That was my argument and I think that the figures bear it out.
As a result of the increase in the numbers of students, the previous Administration, as the noble Baroness, Lady David, explained very clearly to us, came to the conclusion that it must impose a limit on the numbers of overseas students. In fact, it was decided—and this is a point that the noble Lord, Lord Alport, raised, and I think that what I am about to say will answer one of his questions—that it would be the policy of the former Labour Government to reduce the numbers of overseas students to the 1975–76 level by 1978–79. I think that I should make it clear that we intend to continue that policy pending further consideration of a longer-term policy—that is to say, financial provision for both universities and maintained establishments has been geared to the number of overseas students which the Government consider the country can afford.
I should like to add some further figures lest this should be thought to be unduly restrictive. I should place on record that the total provided for in the current year was 72,000, compared with the figure of 32,000 only 8 years ago. Therefore, that is the situation and, I think, the answer to the first question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Alport, although as I have indicated the numbers, in fact, are not diminishing but are still increasing.
The second point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Alport—in fact it was raised by every Member of your Lordships' House who spoke—was the question of the increase of the tuition fees for overseas students which has just been announced. I must place on record that I and my colleagues accept the very real difficulties that face universities, polytechnics and

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other institutions of further education, and the difficulties that will arise for the students themselves. However, I feel that I should say something further about the background of the situation.
For two years these fees had been held at the same real cost—that is to say, they had gone up only in step with rising prices. As part of the contribution which the education service had to make when we were considering the Government's economic policies, we were faced with the need to reduce expenditure on a number of heads and one of those was the charge made to overseas students. I shall not pretend to the House that this was an easy choice or one that any of us would like to have to introduce. But the fact was that we had to make some sacrifices in order to reduce public expenditure. If we had continued to spare visitors from abroad, the burden would have had to fall still more heavily on other sectors of the education budget provided for our own students.
I recognise that the timing of this has not been helpful. The fact that the general election took place at the end of the academic year, when decisions about next year's students would have already been made, makes it that much more difficult. However, the Government recognise these difficulties. Having made the decision to increase the fees, let me say that the average overseas student will still only be paying for some 40 per cent. of the cost of his course, and the remaining 60 per cent. is a charge on public funds, either by the rate-payer or by the taxpayer.
A number of noble Lords asked me how the total subsidy for overseas students has been made up. I think it was the noble Viscount, Lord Craigavon, who quoted the figure of £94 million as the official figure. That is not quite accurate. The figure within the education budget has been given as more than £100 million. I can only assume that the £94 million has come about by subtracting the £6 million from £100 million. The fact is that the figure is now certainly higher than that, and in a recent Answer to a Written Question in another place my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer gave the figure as being £130 million. I am aware of the very interesting economic discussion that went on between my noble friend Lord Vaizey and the noble Baroness, Lady
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Seear, as to whether or not that was a true figure. I do not intend to add to that very interesting debate. But the fact is it is what the cost is to the education budget; for our purposes this evening that is what we are talking about. A considerable amount of subsidy is being given to overseas students.
I should like to turn now to the question of hardship, which again has been raised by a number of noble Lords. The total amount which has been given towards hardship is £500,000 for the remaining financial year and £800,000 for the full academic year. This will be divided equally between the universities and the other institutions as a contribution to those who suffer hardship. It is also right to say that the students to whom I have referred are by no means all the students. Many overseas students, for whom the United Kingdom Government take responsibility, come as part of the aid programme. I should like to confirm that their tuition fees will, as in the past, always be paid in full. It might be helpful if, at this point, I were to say a little more about them.
Our aim is to help developing countries to build up their own manpower resources, wherever possible through their own institutions. Where training in the United Kingdom is appropriate, we provide it mainly through our technical co-operation arrangements with individual countries, under which some 9,000 students are brought here every year on courses relevant to their country's development priorities. The selection of students and trainees is agreed between Her Majesty's Government and the over-seas governments. A further 6,000 students are supported under other aid-funded schemes, including British Council scholarships, the British contribution to the Commonwealth Scholarship and Fellowship Plan, Inter-University Council arrangements and support for refugee students from certain countries.
The ODA has also helped some students in need outside these schemes: chiefly privately sponsored students from developing countries. Full fee support was furnished under the Overseas Students Fees Award Scheme, which was first introduced in 1968–69, but which is now being phased out. Under the Fee Support Scheme, introduced for the

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academic year 1977–78, up to 600 new awards have been available annually for selected privately supported post-graduate students from developing countries, on courses of developmental value, who are recommended by their colleges and who have suffered hardship as a result of fee increases of recent years.
Training for development is an essential function of the aid programme and in general we expect to continue to provide support for overseas students, subject to periodic review in relation to changing priorities and to the money available. Therefore, many of the poor students come in this way and will continue to have their fees paid in full. I hope that that will be of some assurance to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford who particularly asked about the poor students.
I felt that it would be unwise to go very far in the debate which we had across the Floor of the House on whether or not there are any or many poor students. But if one actually looks at the cost of being an overseas student in round figures and if one takes, for example, a post-graduate student, the fees now would be £1,230 a year. The maintenance of the student will probably be £2,000 a year; it might be a little less but he will be living here for 52 weeks of the year. He will have his air fare to pay for in order to get here, which will probably be another £350. Therefore, in round figures, the total cost would be £3,580 a year and slightly less, of course, if he goes home only at the end of his studies. The latest fee increase of £220 amounts to 6 per cent. of that total budget and even if one assumes that he lived in rather more spartan conditions and journeyed home only once in a three-year course, involving a budget of £2,850, the proportion of the fee increase within that would be about 8 per cent. Therefore, one must see the fee increase in relation to the total budget.
Lord ANNAN: My Lords, is the noble Baroness taking into account the rise in the cost of living?
Baroness YOUNG: My Lords, I have deliberately given very general round figures. However, I hope that I have
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said enough to indicate that it is never a cheap proposition to be an overseas student, and within the whole budget the actual increase of the fees is a relatively small proportion. I have been asked by many noble Lords who have spoken this evening about the Government's overall policy on overseas students. I regret that at this stage of the Government's life we are not ready to give a definitive answer to that question. I have indicated our general line on numbers, but I would not want this to be taken as our last word on the subject.
A number of Ministries are concerned in the policy for overseas students—a point referred to again by a number of your Lordships, and no doubt one of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Janner, speaking on behalf of the Association of Metropolitan Authorities. There are the Foreign Secretary; Home Secretary; Treasury Ministers; the Secretaries of State for Industry, for Trade, as well as the education Ministers. What I can say is that I will promise the closest liaison between their departments in the formulation of policy. All I ask from those who are very concerned about, and in many instances critical of, our policies is a recognition that the policy that we have adopted this summer must have regard to economic facts and to the pressures on the education budget in particular.
I should like to reaffirm that the Government will take careful account of all the points that have been raised in the House tonight. We shall give due importance to the deserved reputation of our universities and other public institutions as internationally renowned centres of learning. We recognise particularly the valuable contribution which post-graduate overseas students can make to research in medicine, in science, and technology. Their presence here, and that of their compatriots studying at lower educational levels, can forge lasting friendships between individuals and between our country and theirs.
We shall also take full account of the longer-term trade benefits which may well accrue, as well as the more immediate ones which can arise from the educational element in package deals which secure major contracts for the United Kingdom. In framing future policy the Government

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will bear in mind how much we have to offer as a country to the education of students from abroad. But I hope I shall also carry the sympathy of the House in saying that we must ensure that our contribution is within our means and not more than we can afford out of the funds available for the whole of our education service, and particularly our students at home.