Lords Sitting of 17 July 1979

Preamble
The House met at a quarter past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR On the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Peterborough.

LORD STEWART OF FULHAM
The Right Honourable Robert Michael Maitland Stewart, CH, having been created Baron Stewart of Fulham, of Fulham in Greater London—Was, in his robes, introduced between the Baroness Stewart of Alvechurch and the Lord Peart.

LORD UNDERHILL
Henry Reginall Underhill, Esquire, CBE, having been created Baron Under-hill, of Leyton in Greater London—Was, in his robes, introduced between the Baroness Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe and the Lord Murray of Gravesend.
The Earl of Mar and Kellie—Took the Oath.
The Lord Barnard—Took the Oath.
The Lord Wheatley—Took the Oath.

OVERSEAS AID AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT
2.44 p.m.
Lord ORAM: 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 increase the proportion of overseas aid which is applied to projects in rural areas; and what role they envisage for co-operatives in achieving sound rural development in developing countries.
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, while we do not regard it as realistic to set overall targets for particular sectors, the Government accept the need for assisting rural development, in accordance with our wish to direct aid to the people most in need. It is for individual developing countries to decide on the appropriate institutional framework for development, and where this includes co-operatives we shall continue to assist them within the limits of our resources.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for that reply, may I ask whether there are not two major aspects of co-operative societies which make them particularly appropriate as instruments for rural development? First, are they not particularly suitable for the small-scale labour intensive and locally controlled projects which are so much needed in the rural areas of developing countries? Secondly, since it is an important principle of co-operatives that their control is democratic, on the principle of one member one vote, are co-operative societies not an important training ground for the conduct of democratic government?
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, I think both those points are very true. We shall certainly bear them very much in mind when deciding our priorities.
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, may I ask the Minister whether he will pay special attention to this proposal: Is it not a fact that a great deal of our grants to these countries goes to an élite, through Governments, and never gets to the poorer sections of the community? Is it not possible to make it a condition of these grants that they should go to the great majority of rural workers and their very successful co-operatives?
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, we certainly hope that our aid does not go to the élite only, as the noble Lord suggests, and we will certainly bear the other points very much in mind.
Lord DRUMALBYN: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether it is possible to treat co-operatives as non-governmental organisations within the meaning of that word in the Commission?
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, I do not think that is necessarily the case. The noble Lord is generating certain fears in my mind with that expression, I must say, but I think he has a point.

CRUDE OIL IMPORTS IN MAY 1979
2.47 p.m.
Lord BALOGH: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the first Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what was the value and tonnage of crude oil imports in May 1979
The MINISTER of STATE, DEPARTMENT of EMPLOYMENT (The Earl of Gowrie): My Lords, the Department of Energy's preliminary estimate is that about 4·7 million tonnes of crude oil were imported in May, with a landed value of about 560 million dollars.
Lord BALOGH: My Lords, may I ask two supplementary questions. First of all, are those figures consistent with the claim that we are getting the full premium on North Sea oil? Secondly, 4·7 million tonnes means that more than half of our requirements are still imported.
The Earl of GOWRIE: My Lords, I am not sure that the second part of the supplementary was a question, but certainly as world prices have increased we are getting very good value for our superior grade of North Sea oil. The differential value between imports and exports is now standing at a little over 40p a barrel.
The Earl of LAUDERDALE: My Lords, would the noble Earl not agree that it is necessary to export some of our premium oil because it is unsuited to our needs in this country, which have to be met by importing?
The Earl of GOWRIE: My Lords, it is a pleasure to agree from this Box with my noble friend.
Lord WYNNE-JONES: My Lords, will the noble Earl not agree that what is done with our oil depends entirely upon
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the strange peculiarities of the distillation processes of international companies and is not a matter of national policy? Is it not surprising that we in this country put ourselves entirely in the hands of the seven sisters?
The Earl of GOWRIE: My Lords, I do not agree with the noble Lord. This country has a very strong interest in the flexibility of the distillation processes, and that is why we keep a close eye on them.
The Earl of LAUDERDALE: My Lords, would the noble Earl not agree that the seven sisters now have a gigantic ugly sister in the shape of BNOC, which conducts many of our export operations?
The Earl of GOWRIE: My Lords, I was undertaking a personal and interior wager as to whether BNOC would come into this question.
Lord WYNNE-JONES: My Lords, is it not true that we are really being saved entirely by the intervention of our own innovation—BNOC—not international innovation? Is it not true that if we did not have BNOC we should be entirely at the mercy of international combines?
Lord LEATHERLAND: My Lords, may I ask the noble Earl …
Several noble Lords: Answer!
The Earl of GOWRIE: My Lords, I am not sure that the noble Lord was asking for information. He was stating a point of view about the British National Oil Corporation.
Lord WYNNE-JONES: My Lords, may I make a comment? I was asking for information and I continue to ask for information. The information for which I am asking is whether the noble Earl is in a position to tell the House what is decided by the Department of Energy.
The Earl of GOWRIE: No, not at present, my Lords. However, the moment that I am in such a position I shall of course honour my obligations to do so.
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, arising out of what my noble friend has said, will the noble Earl confirm that the

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Government will keep the BNOC in being and continue to exercise control over our North Sea oil and not allow it just to be exploited by the multinational oil companies, although I appreciate the work that they do?
The Earl of GOWRIE: My Lords, I have been very concerned not to weary the House with the answer that I always have to give when the BNOC is raised—namely, that this matter is under review. It is under review and the moment that review is completed it will be my job and my honour to let the House know what has been decided.
Lord LEATHERLAND: I should like to ask the noble Earl whether, in stating the value of this oil to Britain, he can explain it in terms of pounds sterling in addition to explaining it in dollars?
The Earl of GOWRIE: My Lords, I think that there are at present many nations throughout the world who would prefer that oil transactions took place in sterling rather than dollars. Nevertheless the dollar is, as it were, the trade currency in the oil business.

OIL RESERVES OF THE FORTIES FIELD
2.53 p.m.
Lord BALOGH: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what is the latest estimate of the tonnage of the reserves of the Forties Field.
The Earl of GOWRIE: My Lords, the operators' estimate of recoverable reserves from the Forties Field are given in the 1979 report to Parliament by the Secretary of State for Energy—commonly known as the Brown Book. I have recently placed a copy in the Library of the House. Taking production from the Field to the end of May 1979 into account, the recoverable reserve remaining is estimated at 176·5 million tonnes.
Lord BALOGH: My Lords, does the noble Earl realise that those figures mean that the value of a share in BP is between £15 and £20 according to this country—that is, anything between 50 and 100 per cent. above the quoted price on the Stock Exchange? Will he note that we should not sell at such depreciated prices?
The Earl of GOWRIE: My Lords, I shall certainly take note of the point which the noble Lord has in mind. However, as my right honourable friend the Chancellor said at the time of his Budget pronouncement, it would, of course, be for him to make the decision when any sales were made; and I am sure that he would be very sensitive as regards the timing of any decision that he made.
The Earl of LAUDERDALE: My Lords, will my noble friend confirm to the House whether or not it is true that the figure given for the remaining recoverable reserves of the Forties Field is about 75 per cent. of what there was when it was first found?
The Earl of GOWRIE: My Lords, I think that my noble friend is right, but I really need notice of the matter and might have to give confirmation after doing some research.

HOTEL BILLS AND VAT
2.55 p.m.
Earl ALEXANDER of TUNIS: 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 consider exempting the hotel industry from the new VAT increase in order to encourage foreign exchange.
The MINISTER of STATE, TREASURY (Lord Cockfield): No, my Lords, VAT is a broad-based tax on consumer expenditure, and reliefs can only be justified on the most stringent criteria. It would not be appropriate to exclude the hotel industry from the VAT increase announced in the Budget.
Earl ALEXANDER of TUNIS: My Lords, while thanking my noble friend for that reply, may I ask whether he is aware that hotel prices in London now exceed those of other capital cities, even during the off-season? Would he not review the VAT rate, since this industry is a large money earner?
Lord COCKFIELD: My Lords, the Government fully appreciate the important contribution made by the hotel industry in common with other industries which produce invisible earnings. But, in the Government's view, it is unlikely that the increase in the rate of VAT on hotel accommodation would, of itself, deter many potential overseas visitors, whether they come on business or on holiday, given the many factors which people take into account when planning a visit abroad.
Lord BLYTON: My Lords, can the noble Lord tell me why hotels should be relieved from VAT when housewives have to pay the increased rate of VAT on everything that they buy? The increase will create terrible trade union difficulties during the winter of this year.
Lord COCKFIELD: My Lords, as the Government do not propose to relieve the hotel industry from VAT, the noble Lord's question does not arise.
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, have the Government lost their heads completely? Why are they not a little rational and pragmatic about this question for a change? Do they realise what the effect of an increase in VAT means to the tourist industry, upon which we rely because of the decline in our manufacturing exports? Do they realise that now and again people need to go on holiday? Is it not asking too much of these people to pay not only the very high cost of accommodation, which no one would deny—it is not everyone who can afford it—but also the increase in VAT?
In view of the dispute between the Prime Minister and Sir Keith Joseph about another matter, is it not time that Maggie looked into this matter herself and displayed the common sense which is attributable to her?
Lord COCKFIELD: My Lords, I am most obliged to the noble Lord for recognising the common sense which actuates the Government in all their policies. Far be it from me not to recognise a compliment paid by a noble Lord opposite. We have looked very carefully at the question of the importance of the hotel industry in relation to foreign earnings; the Government realise how important it is. They do not regard the VAT increase as a crucial factor here. However, perhaps the noble Lord would also care to take into account the fact that if relief from tax is given on one item of expenditure, the cost of the relief must be recouped elsewhere.
Lord PAGET of NORTHAMPTON: My Lords, can the noble Lord tell us whether there is any one industry which would not be well served by the removal of VAT? Is he aware that when the Spanish Netherlands rebelled against Spain they won the universal sympathy of Europe?—for they were rebelling against a 10 per cent. tax on trade transactions, which was clearly intolerable for a trading community.
Lord COCKFIELD: My Lords, I am most obliged to the noble Lord for the information which he has given us. All taxes are unpopular and everybody paying them would be only too glad to be relieved from them. The Government's policy is, in the long run, directed to curb the level of Government expenditure and thereby to reduce, we hope, the level of taxation.
Viscount THURSO: My Lords, has it occurred to the noble Lord that whereas the housewife does not pay VAT on food, the tourist does? Will he consider whether or not it is possible to relieve the food element in the hotel bill, covering bed and breakfast and so forth, from VAT?
Lord COCKFIELD: No, my Lords, it is not only the tourist who has to pay VAT on the food element in a hotel bill; the resident of this country also does. In fact, we are holding the scales fairly between the residents and the I visitors.
Earl ALEXANDER of TUNIS: My Lords, I should like to ask the Government one more question. If we exclude the tourist industry during the summer, during which time the hotels are all fully booked, during the winter they go through a difficult period. Would it not encourage those foreigners who visit this country anyway to come during the off-season period if we lowered the VAT rate during that time?
Lord COCKFIELD: My Lords, I am sure that the hotel industry itself will take every step it can to attract visitors during the off-season. However, in the Government's view this does not itself constitute a case for giving relief from VAT.

REGIONAL INDUSTRIAL POLICY
3 p.m.
Lord DENHAM: My Lords, with the leave of the House, at a convenient moment after 3.30 p.m. my noble friend Lord Trenchard will repeat a Statement being made in another place on regional industrial policy and selective assistance.

CHILD CARE BILL [H.L.]
The LORD CHANCELLOR (Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone): My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to consolidate certain enactments relating to the care of children by local authorities or voluntary organisations and certain other enactments relating to the care of children. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Bill read 1a, and to be printed.

FOSTER CHILDREN BILL [H.L.]
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to consolidate certain enactments relating to foster children as they have effect in England and Wales. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Bill read 1a, and to be printed.

EDUCATION BILL
3.1 p.m.
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, having been printed pursuant to Standing Order No. 47.
Lord DENHAM Lord DENHAM rose to move, That Standing Order No. 43 (No two stages of a Bill to be taken on one day) be dispensed with for the purpose of enabling the Second Reading of the Education Bill to be taken this day. The noble Lord said: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend the Leader of the House I beg to move the Motion standing in his name on the Order Paper. In moving this Motion I should like to say that I had very much hoped that it would not be necessary to move suspension of the Standing Order so as to take First and Second Reading of the Education Bill on the same day. Developments in another place have meant that the Bill did not leave the House of Commons until yesterday instead of last week as originally expected.
However, notice of the intention to take Second Reading today has been on the Order Paper for 10 days, since 5th July, which is the usual notice for a Second Reading debate. A number of your Lordships have indicated an intention to speak, and I therefore felt that it would be for the convenience of the House not to alter the arrangements at short notice, particularly in view of the printing difficulties.
Moved, That Standing Order No. 43 (No two stages of a Bill to be taken on one day) be dispensed with for the purpose of enabling the Second Reading of the Education Bill to be taken this day.—(Lord Denham.)
Baroness LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOE: My Lords, we are grateful to the noble Lord for explaining why Standing Order 43 should be dispensed with, and we understand the procedural necessity. But I must tell the noble Lord that on these Benches, and I think

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in all parts of the House, there is a real feeling of outrage that so important a Bill as this should be pushed through Parliament with such unseemly haste.
This Bill is not being taken in the usual summer rush with the Session ending in July. Her Majesty's Government look forward—and we hope, mistakenly—to a long period in office with a sizable majority in another place. Your Lordships should have been allowed adequate time for proper consideration of so important a Bill. Education is a matter which affects almost every family in the country, and any Government, one would have thought, would hesitate before bringing politics into education.
I am sorry to have to say this, but I thought that the House would like to know how the arrangements came to be made. When the timetable for the Bill was first put forward we learned that the Government proposeed to take it all in one week, with just one day for Committee and all the remaining stages. On behalf of the House we made very strong representations to the noble Lord the Chief Whip, that it was quite wrong that the revising Chamber consisting, as it does, of many Peers with great expertise, knowledge, and experience of education should not be allowed to consider the Bill with due care.
The only concession we were able to wring from the Government was that we could have one separate Committee day. Since the Bill has only today arrived from another place there will be practically no time to consider appropriate amendments for the Committee stage on Thursday. Of course the House will not want to put all the blame on the noble Lord, Lord Denham. The responsibility lies with his Government. I am sorry to say it, but your Lordships' House, and I am sure the country, will know and disapprove of the cavalier manner in which the whole matter has been treated.
Lord DENHAM: My Lords, I would not like to shelter behind my right honourable friends and my noble friends. As Chief Whip in this House, I must of course accept the responsibility. But I am, of course, very sorry indeed that this has been done. There are, I would submit, mitigating circumstances to the extent that we had a general election on 3rd May,
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and therefore the House met a week later, and there has been a very short time before the Summer Recess.
This is a one clause Bill. I appreciate the depth of feeling which noble Lords opposite have about the content of this Bill, but it is a one clause Bill, which I think I should like to put down for the record. It also implements an election Manifesto, and this Government intend to act on the policies which won us the election. It is necessary to make the position with regard to comprehensivisation clear before a new school year begins. It is, therefore, in the view of Her Majesty's Government essential that the Bill reaches Royal Assent before the Recess in order that this particular Manifesto commitment should be honoured. I do not of course expect noble Lords opposite to feel the same about this particular commitment as we do, but I should like to assure your Lordships that no discourtesy to the House was intended, and to apologise for the inconvenience caused by this rush to noble Lords in all parts of the House.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

ROSS AND CROMARTY (COASTAL WATERS POLLUTION) ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
Considered on Report.

LAW REFORM (MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS) (SCOTLAND) BILL [H.L.]
3.7 p.m.
The MINISTER of STATE, SCOTTISH OFFICE (The Earl of Mansfield): My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, that the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(The Earl of Mansfield.)
On Question, Motion agreed to. House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD DER WENT in the Chair.]
Clauses 1 to 8 agreed to.
Clause 9 [Jurisdiction of sheriff court in proceedings relating to trusts]:
The Earl of MANSFIELD The Earl of MANSFIELD moved Amendments Nos. 1 to 5:
Page 7, line 11, leave out ("the") and insert ("an")
Page 7, line 18, leave out second ("the") and insert ("an")
Page 7, line 24, leave out ("the") and insert ("an")
Page 7, line 30, leave out ("the")
Page 7, line 32, leave out from ("contract") to end of line 10 on page 8 and insert ("—

(i) where the truster, or any of the trusters, was at the date of the coming into operation of the trust domiciled in a sheriffdom, a sheriff court of that sheriffdom or

(ii) where sub-paragraph (i) of this paragraph does not apply, or where the applicant does not possess sufficient information to enable him to determine which sheriff court, if any, would by virtue of that sub-paragraph be an appropriate sheriff court, the sheriff court at Edinburgh;

(b) in the case of a marriage contract—

(i) where either spouse is, or was when he died, domiciled in a sheriffdom, a sheriff court of that sheriffdom; or

(ii) where sub-paragraph (i) of this paragraph does not apply, or where the applicant does not possess sufficient information to enable him to determine which sheriff court, if any, would by virtue of that sub-paragraph be an appropriate sheriff court, the sheriff court at Edinburgh.")

The noble Earl said: I beg to move Amendment No. 1 standing in my name. It may be convenient if I move Amendments Nos. 1 to 5 inclusive en bloc because they are basically and primarily drafting amendments and they all relate to the same clause. Unless any noble Lord objects, I shall pursue that course. The first four amendments make it clear that it is possible for there to be more than one sheriff court to be an appropriate court for the proceedings referred to in Sections 22, 23 and 24 of the Trusts (Scotland) Act 1921. The main amendment is the fifth amendment, which provides a new form of words for the definition of "appropriate sheriff court" which paragraph (d) of the clause inserts in the Trusts (Scotland) Act 1921. The definition as presently set out in the Bill contains certain ambiguities and does not meet every circumstance. It is clearly desirable that these matters should be resolved, and an attempt has also been made to simplify the provision and to
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achieve a greater degree of internal consistency in the Bill as a whole.
Lord HUGHES: The noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, was good enough to send me some information about the amendments which the Government were proposing to the Bill, all of which are of a drafting nature. A few minutes ago the noble Lord the Government Chief Whip was pointing out that one of the Government's Manifesto commitments was to achieve economies, and I must say that I would regard it as part of the duty of an Opposition to help the Government to achieve any economies where the benefit of the economy was going to be greater than the harm which is done. I would not say that all the economies which the Government are apparently contemplating would fall into that category, but one which I have no hesitation in agreeing to is that I should be helpful in any way I can, and in so far as this Bill is concerned, it is, to say the very least, that it is possible to cut down the printing costs. Even if I wanted to be terribly political, I would find it difficult to get up an argument about substituting the word "and" for the word "the", which is perhaps one of the more important of the amendments being put forward.
In pursuit of helping the Government in their economies, I suggest that the next time they bring forward a Bill like this they might be rather more careful in its drafting so that they do not need to go to so much expense in the Committee stage. The noble Earl will not take that as a personal criticism because I know he did not draft the Bill. As a matter of fact, I am not altogether certain that the present Government had anything to do with drafting the Bill; it may have been an inheritance. I wanted to make it perfectly clear that I have no objection to Amendments Nos. 1 to 5 being taken en bloc, nor do I have any objection to any of the other amendments, so I do not intend to say any more on the Bill.
The Earl of MANSFIELD: I am grateful to the noble Lord for that expression of support. My name is on the back of the Bill and if any blame is to be taken, I quite cheerfully take it on my shoulders. I am equally conscious that the noble Lord has kindly said that he wishes to see economies of printing,

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and no doubt that also applies to economies of breath, so I shall sit down without any more ado.
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Clause 9, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 10 [Power of sheriff to appoint judicial factor]:
3.13 p.m.
The Earl of MANSFIELD The Earl of MANSFIELD moved Amendment No. 6:
Page 8, line 30, leave out ("the") and insert ("an").
The noble Earl said: This is a drafting amendment consequential on the drafting amendments made to Clause 9. It makes it clear that it is possible for more than one sheriff court to be an appropriate court for the presentation of a petition for the appointment of a judicial factor.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
The Earl of MANSFIELD The Earl of MANSFIELD moved Amendment No. 7:
Page 8, line 42, after ("than") insert ("a").
The noble Earl said: This is a drafting amendment to correct the omission of the word "a" from the end of line 42 on page 8.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 10, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 11 and 12 agreed to.
Clause 13 [Power of judges to act as arbiters]:
The Earl of MANSFIELD The Earl of MANSFIELD moved Amendment No. 8:
Page 10, line 31, leave out ("Civil Service Department") and insert ("Treasury").
The noble Earl said: This is a drafting amendment. The appropriate department to give consent to the amount of the fees to be charged for the services of a senator of the College of Justice is the Treasury and not the Civil Service Department.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
On Question, Whether Clause 13, as amended, shall stand part of the Bill?
Lord McCLUSKEY: This clause, to which I extend a welcome, enables a senator of the College of Justice to be appointed as an arbiter, and that is a wholly welcome development; we have extremely good judges in Scotland who are able thus to accept appointment as an arbiter. I wonder whether the Minister of State could briefly outline the kind of thinking that instructed this clause and whether or not he is led by that same thinking to the conclusion that we might well be advised to use our same senators of the College of Justice to deal with some planning inquiries, particularly planning inquiries of great national importance, in Scotland.
The Earl of MANSFIELD: As the noble and learned Lord well knows, I am in the wrong country here. All I can do is to take counsel on the matter, if I may be permitted to use the phrase, and thereafter write to him, and if he disagrees with what has been proposed, no doubt he can take it up at a later stage in the Bill.
Lord McCLUSKEY: I should like the noble Earl to understand that I have great admiration for the judicial qualities of the senators of the College of Justice, and I feel it is rather unfortunate that they, who spend much of their professional careers at the Bar acquiring expertise in planning matters, find themselves on the Court of Session bench dealing with matters of lesser importance. It may be that we should somehow encourage these same judges to be involved, as has happened once or twice in England, in some of the more important planning inquiries. I add that in order to make it clear to the noble Earl that I make no criticism of the Bill, but merely wish to make the point that I think we are not using our judicial talent in Scotland as well as we might.
The Earl of MANSFIELD: I am obliged to the noble and learned Lord for those remarks. There is one sitting among us who will be well seized of what is behind the noble and learned Lord's remarks, and I will consider the matter.
Clause 13, as amended, agreed to.
Remaining clauses agreed to.
Schedules 1 and 2 agreed to.
Schedule 3 [Repeals]:
The Earl of MANSFIELD The Earl of MANSFIELD moved Amendments Nos. 9 and 10:
Page 20, leave out lines 19 to 21.
Page 21, line 3, at end insert—

("1979 c. 2.

The Customs and Excise Management Act 1979.

Section 175(2).")

The noble Earl said: These are drafting amendments. The words in Section 2(1) of the 1952 Act repealed in the schedule to this Bill were, in fact, repealed by the Customs and Excise (Management) Act 1979 and re-enacted in Section 175(2) of that Act. These amendments repeal that subsection.
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Schedule 3, as amended, agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported with the amendments.
3.20 p.m.
Viscount LONG: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now adjourn during pleasure until 3.30 p.m.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
[The Sitting was suspended from 3.20 p.m. to 3.30 p.m.]

EDUCATION BILL
3.30 p.m.
Standing Order No. 43 having been dispensed with pursuant to Resolution:
The MINISTER of STATE, DEPARTMENT of EDUCATION and SCIENCE (Baroness Young): My Lords, before moving that this Bill be now read a second time, I should like to express my apologies to the House. I can assure your Lordships that absolutely no discourtesy was intended. I came over early, as I thought—because I am somebody who likes to get to things in good time—only to find that I had mistimed it. I hope the House will accept my apologies on this occasion.
This is a short but important Bill, and it gives me pleasure to move its
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Second Reading today. I am well aware that its contents have been debated many times, both here and in another place; but that does not make this debate any less important. My only regret is that my noble friend Lord Butler of Saffron Walden is not in your Lordships' House today, for this Second Reading debate provides an opportunity to pay tribute to his Education Act of 1944. This must surely stand as one of the most remarkable pieces of legislation of our century. Although it has had a number of amendments, its structure remains the same; and the great changes that we have had in education have been achieved within that structure, which allowed for the evolutionary development of education while maintaining the important balance between central and local government, and county and voluntary schools.
The Act also laid down a number of general principles, one of the most important being that education for each child was to be according to his "age, aptitude and ability". But, to achieve this, the Act does not refer to particular types of school organisation. This afternoon we are here to discuss the responsible exercise of powers and duties by local education authorities. We are not here to discuss the relative merits, or otherwise, of any particular system of education, which will vary according to local circumstances. The great majority of pupils now attend comprehensive schools, and this will remain the pattern for the future. We have every confidence that, in deciding upon the pattern of provision in their areas, local education authorities will continue to act responsibly and responsively in the interests of all the children in their areas—and I stress this, my Lords, because we would not want anyone to doubt our commitment to this. In doing so, they will take account both of the need to improve educational opportunities and of the wishes of local electors. Our concern is the existence of their right to exercise such choice, free from the direction of central Government.
The Government believe that local people are the best judges of the right system of education in their area. We say this, first, on grounds of principle. The education service is a partnership in which responsibilities are assigned to both central Government and local auth-

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orities, and the 1976 Act upset this delicate balance. We do not consider that it is right that central Government should force change on an area where there is no local will for that change to take place. We do not consider that authorities should be compelled to remove good schools, both grammar and secondary modern, if local people are not convinced that the change is for the better. On purely practical grounds, establishing new kinds of schools, with inadequate time for planning, can place severe strains on staff and pupils, and cannot do the comprehensive cause any good.
Many authorities have decided not to have any selective schools. That is their right. Others may wish to continue with reorganisation. That, too, is their right. But some may wish to retain selection, if only in some areas, and we believe that this is also their right. I can understand that parents would wish to see an end to selection where the choice was between good grammar schools and bad secondary modern schools. But is this still a choice? Surely the choice is more likely to he between good schools of various kinds which meet the needs of parents and pupils and have their support, The Government do not believe in the destruction of good schools simply to satisfy a principle.
The Conservative Party has always been in favour of a variety of types of school and freedom of choice in education. In 1958 we published a White Paper entitled Secondary Education for All: A New Drive, which, among other matters, outlined the grounds for the establishment of comprehensive schools by those authorities which wished to do so. Indeed, my own authority, the City of Oxford, was one of the authorities to consider such schools and by 1968 we had agreed to adopt a middle school pattern for the City—a pattern made possible by legislation passed by a Conservative Government in 1964. Many noble Lords, including my noble and learned friend Lord Hail-sham and my noble friends Lord Eccles and Lord Boyle, will recall this measure and the encouragement given to local education authorities during the late 1950s and early 1960s to experiment with patterns of educational provision. It is ironic indeed to think that, without the experience gained from these types of school, the Education Act 1976, which was
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founded on that experience, would never have been introduced.
Today, therefore, we have before us a Bill to enable this freedom to continue. No more, but no less. It has only one aim: to restore to local authorities the freedom they had before the passage of the 1976 Education Act to determine for themselves the best pattern of secondary provision for their own area. It does not seek to put the clock back or to reintroduce selection in those areas where it has already been abolished. Nor does it prevent those authorities who wish to do so from continuing to reorganise their secondary schools. It simply restores the status quo as laid down in the 1944 Education Act.
I turn now to the provisions of the Bill. Clause 1 repeals Sections 1 to 3 of the Education Act 1976. These deal with the requirement laid on local education authorities to have regard to the comprehensive principle in their provision for secondary education, and to submit proposals, if so required by the Secretary of State, for reorganisation on those lines. The clause also contains transitory provisions rel ting to proposals submitted in response to those requirements and which had either been approved or are awaiting decision following the expiry of the two-month period for objections. I shall outline each subsection in detail.
Subsection (1) repeals Sections 1, 2 and 3 of the 1976 Act. There will accordingly be no legal duty on local education authorities to have regard to the comprehensive principle in the exercise of their functions relating to secondary education. The Secretary of State will be unable to place requirements on authorities, or the managers or governors of voluntary schools, to submit reorganisation proposals. Nor will he be empowered to direct that proposals submitted under compulsion under the 1976 Act be treated as if submitted voluntarily for the purposes of Section 13 of the 1944 Act. As stated in subsection (2), the remaining subsections of the Bill are concerned with proposals submitted in accordance with the requirements of the previous Secretary of State, which had been found satisfactory and which the authority and voluntary bodies concerned had been directed to treat as though they had been

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submitted under Section 13 of the 1944 Act. In effect, this means two categories of proposal: those which the Secretary of State had approved under Section 13 and those where public notice had been given under that section but no decision has been taken.
Subsection (3) provides that, where proposals had been approved under Section 13 (4) of the 1944 Act, the Secretary of State may revoke the approval on the application of a local education authority or managers or governors of a voluntary school who had submitted the original proposal. Without this subsection it would not he possible to relieve any authority or governing body of their duty to implement the approved proposals—proposals which had been submitted under duress. Subsection (4) provides that, where public notice of proposals has been given by a local education authority or voluntary school governors but no decision has been taken on them by the Secretary of State, these bodies may elect that their respective proposals should continue to be treated as though they had been submitted voluntarily under Section 13. For such an election to be valid, it has to be made by the local education authority or governors, as the case might be, in writing before 31st December 1979. Where no election is made, the particular proposal will automatically lapse. Clause 2 covers the customary provisions relating to the citation, construction and extent of the Bill.
Our policy of removing compulsion to reorganise has been described as a threat to comprehensive schools and one which will serve only to increase educational inequality. I reject this absolutely. Local education authorities are concerned with the educational well-being of all their children. It is for them to decide whether the educational interests of their children are best served by changing their existing pattern or leaving the schools as they are. This decision will no longer be subject to central direction. It will be a matter for local consultation and, I hope, local consensus. Consensus is at the heart of educational change. Where there is consensus, change can take place in harmony and in an atmosphere of constructive co-operation.
Lord DAVIES of LEEK: My Lords, I apologise for not being in the House when the noble Baroness opened her speech. That was due to the furtive manner in which we were disbanded. May I ask the noble Baroness, when she uses that word "consensus" whether she is aware that in Section 2 of the Bill—and I have just been looking at it in comparison with the 1976 Acts—a governor of a school by application to the Secretary of State, can revoke the entire organisation of the local education authority. Here we have a revolutionary bit of power given into the hands of governors. If the noble Baroness knows how governors are appointed in county council areas—
Several noble Lords: Order, Order!
Lord DAVIES of LEEK: My Lords, the noble Baroness was kind enough to give way. I am not impinging on her courtesy; but noble Lords are impinging on mine. That is the point. Noble Lords have ruined the speech of the noble Baroness by their crude interruptions.
Baroness YOUNG: My Lords, it seems quite clear we are not going to get any consensus on the Bill this afternoon. In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek, the point about subsection (2) of the clause is that the governors of voluntary schools have always had the right to determine their own policies. What we are doing in this Bill is to return that right to them. We are not altering the situation as it was under the 1944 Act.
In the past we have been fortunate in having been able to secure change in this spirit. The 1976 Act was out of step with this spirit. It attempted to compel in an area where compulsion does not work because it destroys the essential consensus on which change must be based. Grammar schools have been providing for a diminishing proportion of secondary pupils and in many areas they are recruiting from a far wider geographical area than hitherto. I do not believe that they are a threat to comprehensive schools. My Lords, what we are aiming to do is to restore to local authorities the freedom they had before the 1976 Act to decide for themselves the variety of provision they should make for all their pupils.

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All the administrative actions we have taken and our legislative proposals form part of a coherent and liberating policy for secondary education. Local authorities will be able to promote the best educational policies for their areas without the unnecessary fetters of central Government directives. This Bill is a fundamental part of our policy and one which we believe commands a wide measure of support. My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be read a second time.
Moved, that the Bill be now read 2a.—(Baroness Young.)

REGIONAL INDUSTRIAL POLICY
3.45 p.m.
The MINISTER of STATE, DEPART-M ENT of INDUSTRY (Viscount Trenchard): My Lords, with the leave of the House, I should now like to repeat a Statement being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Industry. The Statement is as follows:
"The Government have completed their review of regional industrial policy and selective financial assistance in Great Britain within the context of their overall economic aims and the steps being taken to encourage national industrial vitality and prosperity. As the House knows, the Government seek to create conditions in which the whole country can prosper, including those areas with severe economic problems.
"As part of our general framework for industry, we propose to continue with a strong, but more selective, regional industrial policy. We shall maintain the three-tier structure of the Assisted Areas (AAs)—that is, Special Development Areas, Development Areas and Intermediate Areas—as well as the existing instruments of regional industrial policy, but concentrating on those parts of the country with the most intractable problems of unemployment.
"The Assisted Areas currently cover over 40 per cent. of the employed population. We propose over a transitional period of three years to reduce this to around 25 per cent. in order to focus on the remaining AAs more
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effectively, and to treat different parts of the country more consistently and fairly. We propose immediately to upgrade a small number of areas to take account of their changed circumstances. A number of Special Development Areas (SDAs) and Development Areas (DAs) will be downgraded by one step for similar reasons but these changes will not take effect until 1st August 1980. From 1st August 1982 we propose that a number of these areas should be further downgraded, but that of these those due to become non-Assisted Areas (non-AAs) should be the subject of a special review before such de-scheduling takes final effect. In addition, we propose that a number of Intermediate Areas (IAs) should become non-Assisted Areas in three years' time. Full details of these proposed changes in Assisted Areas boundaries and gradings are given in my Written Answer to my honourable friend the Member for Nelson and Colne and are available in the Vote Office, the Printed Paper Office and the Libraries of both Houses.
"We propose to maintain Regional Development Grant (RDG) at its present level of 22 per cent. in the Special Development Areas, so that assistance will not be reduced in the areas of greatest need. In Development Areas we propose that the rate of grant should be reduced from 20 per cent. to 15 per cent. on buildings, plant and machinery provided after 1st August 1980. We also propose that the 20 per cent. RDG on buildings provided in Intermediate Areas should be abolished from the same date. Finally, we propose to raise the minimum levels from £100 for plant and machinery and £1,000 for buildings to £500 and £5,000 respectively, in respect of expenditure defrayed on or from 18th July 1979.
"Full details of the transitional arrangements are given in my Written Answer to the honourable Member for Nelson and Colne.
"Our objective is to maintain reasonable stability in the framework of regional investment incentives and to avoid abrupt changes.
"In future regional selective assistance under Section 7 of the 1972 Industry Act

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will be provided in the AAs only where it is necessary to enable projects to go ahead. Particular attention will be paid to the provision of more productive and more secure jobs. I will say something about the future of national selective assistance under Section 8 of the Act in a moment.
"We consider that factory building is a useful and relatively inexpensive instrument of regional industrial policy and this will continue. We intend however to secure a greater element of self-financing.
"We have also reviewed the operation of Industrial Development Certificates (IDCs) in the light of our objective of reducing the burden of Government controls on industry. I am satisfied that the IDC procedure can still be useful in identifying large projects which are potentially mobile. I propose however to abolish IDCs in the IAs and to raise the exemption limit to 50,000 square feet in the non-AAs including the South East.
"We estimate that these changes will by 1982–83 lead to total savings of £233 million in the expenditure of £609 million on RDGs, regional selective assistance and factory building projected in the 1978 White Paper revalued at 1979 survey prices. Although expenditure on regional incentives will continue to be substantial, I must emphasise that regional differences will not be reduced simply by redistributing money from taxpayers: there needs also to be local enterprise and plenty of co-operation in making businesses competitive and profitable. Nothing will do more for the prosperity of a region than a reputation for effective work, high productivity and co-operation between workforce and management.
"Finally, I turn to our decisions on national selective assistance under Section 8 of the 1972 Industry Act—which can of course be paid to enterprises in the AAs as well as in the non-AAs.
"After consideration the Secretary of State for Energy, the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and I have decided to allow the Energy Conservation Scheme and the two remaining sectoral schemes, for Footwear and Redmeat Slaughterhouses, to
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run their course. All applications under these schemes and any outstanding applications under the other sectoral schemes that have already closed will be processed under existing criteria.
"The Selective Investment Scheme, for major investment projects, closed for applications on 30th June. All outstanding applications which have not yet been approved will be processed against the existing criteria, but we shall interpret these criteria somewhat more stringently than in the past, so that marginal projects will in future not be assisted.
"For the future, the Government will continue to provide assistance under Section 8, but more selectively than hitherto. We shall continue to offer assistance to enable internationally mobile projects to locate in the United Kingdom: this is an area where other governments are also very active. We intend also to support projects leading to very substantial improvements in performance, particularly in productivity, or projects which will result in the introduction of new products. In addition, every project will have demonstrated that it will result in a substantial net contribution to United Kingdom output or will introduce a significant degree of innovation to the United Kingdom. Assistance will only be given for projects that would not go ahead as proposed without it, and will be negotiated as the minimum necessary to achieve this.
"I am laying before the House the four orders required to introduce the changes in Regional Industrial Policy, one dealing with RDG, one with AA boundaries and gradings and two with IDCs. The RDG order requires an Affirmative Resolution and my right honourable friend the Leader of the House will be announcing shortly the date for a debate next week at the conclusion of which this Resolution will be moved."
My Lords, that concludes the Statement. I am authorised to say that noble Lords will have an opportunity to debate the Government's proposals next week when they consider the Affirmative Resolution to vary the rate of regional development grant in development areas.
3.56 p.m.
Lord MELCHETT: My Lords, we are grateful to the noble Viscount for repeating this Statement, and also thank him very much for telling us about the opportunity which we will have to debate the matter at greater length next week. No doubt the noble Viscount is as pleased as noble Lords in all parts of the House that his right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Industry's "U" turn yesterday has given us an opportunity to hear this Statement, and indeed gives the Minister responsible for what little is left of regional aid policy to announce the gutting of his responsibilities in person. The Statement is a long and complicated one, particularly the Written Answer which unfortunately only arrived in the Library in your Lordships' House while the noble Viscount was on his feet. I have no doubt that everyone will want to study it with care.
The detailed Written Answer reveals a massive downgrading of areas all over the country; in particular, clearly there will be catastrophic effects on areas like Yorkshire, Humberside and the North-West. And not only that: all these areas will find themselves being downgraded to intermediate area status, only a shadow of their former selves with, for example, the loss of regional development grant. I was particularly surprised to see in the Statement the likely effect that there will be on small firms, on which noble Lords opposite are always so keen on placing emphasis. They will now find life five times more difficult. I imagine that that will be the only effect of raising the minimum levels of RDGs on plant, machinery and buildings by 500 per cent.
Turning, if I may, briefly to Section 8, as far as I can see from the Statement—and may I ask the noble Viscount to confirm this—there is absolutely no change of principle in the way that Section 8 assistance is going to be employed, as incidentally, again so far as I can see, there is absolutely no change in principle proposed in the practice of regional selective assistance under Section 7. I wonder whether the noble Viscount can explain to your Lordships why the Statement appears to give a rather opposite impression.
Our regional policy up to today has been the envy of the world. In the
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decade from the mid-60s to the mid-70s, 300,000 jobs were created and probably another similar number—another 300,000 jobs—saved because of expenditure on regional aid. In this Statement it says that expenditure will be cut by a third, and maybe the noble Viscount could confirm that that means that in the next 10 years 100,000 jobs will not be created which otherwise would have been, and 100,000 jobs will be lost in the areas of this country where unemployment is highest. If the noble Viscount does not agree with that estimate, could he tell us what estimate, if any, was provided by his advisers when these policies were being considered?
Finally, the Statement talks about the need for plenty of co-operation. I should like to ask the noble Viscount how the Government propose to get it with a policy that flies in the face of all the advice which the noble Viscount has been given by both the trade unions and the CBI in recent days and, incidentally, from both sides of your Lordships' House in all the debates that we had have when this has been touched on since the election.
3.58 p.m.
Lord ROCHESTER: My Lords, from these Benches I should like to join in thanking the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, for having repeated this Statement. Like the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, we are glad it has taken the form of an oral rather than a written Statement so that we are in a position to ask at least some general questions. We realise, of course, that the Government are permitted to make substantial reductions in their overrall subventions to industry in one form or another, But there is clearly room for marked differences of opinion as to the extent and the timing of action to be taken in various ways.
The Statement has to be seen in the context of other Statements which we understand are to be made in the next week or so concerning such matters as the future of the National Enterprise Board, the shipbuilding industry and maybe other employment subsidies. The effect of these taken together is surely going to be to increase unemployment, at least in the short term, in areas which certainly will not be confined to Merseyside the North-East, Glasgow and so on.

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It will hit pretty hard places like Wales and Scotland and parts of Northern England from where I come.
One therefore asks the general question: Is this the time to be making cuts in regional aid of as much as £233 million out of a total of some £600 million over a period as short as three years? Would it not have been wiser to adopt a more gradualist approach—not simply to limit this agreement, which was a point touched on by the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, but to give the Government themselves time to see what effect their policies have on profitability, and particularly in order to maintain that degree of stability which would enable large-scale manufacturing industry to continue to plan with confidence investment programmes over periods up to 10 or 15 years ahead, as now has to be the case?
There are two other specific questions I should like to ask the noble Viscount, and I shall quite understand if he is not in a position to reply to them immediately. One is really to support an observation already made by the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, but perhaps to sharpen it up a bit. How do the Government reconcile the raising of the minimum qualifying values of £100 for plant and £1,000 for buildings to figures as high as £500 and £5,000 respectively with their declared objective—which we on these Benches certainly have for long advocated—of encouraging the establishment and development of small businesses? Has any attempt been made to quantify the effect of these changes on the setting up of such enterprises and, if so, with what result?
The second specific question is this: What criteria do the Government propose to adopt in identifying, for purposes of potential support, those projects referred to in the Statement which may lead to substantial improvements in productivity on the one hand, or to the introduction of new projects on the other?
4 p.m.
Viscount TRENCHARD: My Lords, bearing in mind that there is to be a debate, I will try to be as brief as I can in replying to the many points that have been raised. First, I should like just to say that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State was extremely conscious, as we all
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are in Government, of the parliamentary programme which has to be got through before the recess. In his mind there was never any intention of denying a debate: it was purely a question of how to announce a long and rather complicated notice.
The second point I should like to deal with concerns small businesses, which was raised by both noble Lords. The first thought that comes to mind when you raise thresholds is: is it going to affect small businesses? As is known, in my Department we have a Minister who is specially responsible for small businesses. In point of fact, a study of small projects reveals that as many of them come from big businesses, and virtually pro rata as from small businesses, this is not a system whereby the business is graded but one whereby the project is graded. If we apply inflation since 1972 to the minimum level, we account for two-thirds of the upgrading. The other one-third we have looked at very closely and, against the combination of administration costs and who will be affected, we have concluded that it will not affect small businesses adversely. That is something we can return to in the debate.
On the question of Section 8, the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, suggested that we had not changed anything. I think that when he reads the Statement carefully, and certainly when we have the debate next week, he will see that we have changed the criteria on which Section 8 has been administered and we have tightened them up quite considerably, particularly in terms of projects of major value to the economy as a whole. In addition to seeing how projects relate to the net wealth and the GDP of the United Kingdom, we will make an assessment of whether the project will go ahead without grant, which really has not been a major part of the criteria hitherto. Certainly, I am perfectly prepared to debate that aspect at length and in detail when we come to the debate.
On jobs created, the noble Lord gave many statistics and I will return to this in the debate; but there is considerable argument about the net result of the regional programme that has been in operation since 1972, both in the net addition of jobs regionally and—what is far more difficult to assess but far more important with high national unemployment—the net addition to the national

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number of jobs. Your Lordships may also have noticed that there is some evidence of a greater failure rate developing in relation to businesses started in the regions than started elsewhere. These matters I shall be glad to elaborate on during the debate.
Unemployment will get worse. I think all I want to say at this stage—and again we can return to it—is that unemployment has been getting worse, and getting very much worse, so that unless, on a national basis, we get an upturn and a recovery from industrial decline then it is no good talking about regional policy or any other policy. Therefore, this Statement is couched in the framework of our national policy, which is mentioned in the Statement and which was epitomised in the Budget and in other steps proposed, both at present and for consideration in the future.
We must make this policy cost-effective. In the situation of the country as it is today, we, cannot possibly continue with areas of waste and non-cost-effective policies; and when you consider the percentage of the population that over history has come to be regarded as belonging to the Assisted Areas, and when you consider further that nearly two-thirds of the travel-to-work areas of the country now have assisted status, I think you will he able to see—and certainly when we return to the matter in debate—that this situation had to be sorted out and that it had to be made fair and rational.
The noble Lord, Lord Rochester, asked: is this the time? I am aware that I am not going to be able to deal with one of his points but I will deal with this particular one. I hope that your Lordships will read very carefully the transitional arrangements, because the main part of this retraction of aid, so far as it affects industry, does not become effective until 1981–82 or 1982–83—those are the years when the cash flow of industry in the regions will be affected by the amounts concerned. We are quite clear about that and we are clear about the many problems that industry is currently facing in relation to a strong pound and high interest rates. However, I would ask your Lordships to consider very carefully before the debate the timing of these moves and the over-riding need, in our present national circumstances, to make sure that our policies are cost-effective.
Lord GLENKINGLAS: My Lords, I will not ask the Minister to make another speech, in view of the fact that he is obviously going to open the debate next week, but may I inform him that I personally think he and the Government are right. Is he aware that there was a very famous song from Gilbert and Sullivan:
When everybody's somebody
Then no-one's anybody "—
and this was happening rapidly to the assisted areas?
I should like to ask the Minister two further questions, neither of which need a long answer but both of which I should like to have fully answered next week. Having personally been rather heavily involved in regional policies some 15 to 18 years ago, I am doubtful—if I understood the Statement correctly, and it is a little difficult to do that when you have not read it beforehand—whether it is right to give London exemption up to 50,000 square feet for IDCs. In my day I believe it was 4,000. Fifty thousand seems to be a pretty big factory to build in the London area, where employment is already very good, when there are so many other areas that need employment. My second question is: Would he consider very carefully in the selection—if "selection" is the right word—of suitable industries from overseas, to choose those which are likely to be most useful to our developing industry, and give them very high selective help to bring here the companies that we really want?
Viscount TRENCHARD: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his endorsement, with which he started his question. In relation to the IDCs, it might be worth my mentioning that over several years now, under the previous Administration—and I am in no way criticising—over 1,000 applications have been received every year and the refusals, in the end, have been under 10. That was the highest figure, and there were fives and sixes in recent years. So that you have an enormous administrative system for very little. It is against an analysis of that system that we have concluded that we should keep control only of the really big projects in areas where employment is still—and there are not so many areas—relatively full. In regard to inward investment, the sentiments which my noble

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friend expressed are part of the reasons why we are toughening the criteria in regard to selective assistance.
Lord LEE of NEWTON: My Lords, the noble Viscount told us that the review is now completed. Is he aware that he spoke far more about the financial saving that the review will produce, than he did about the jobs that will be lost? Would he say whether, in the course of that review, the Government made any estimate of the total job losses which will result from it? Further, is he aware, when he speaks about the intermediate areas, that one of the lessons we learned was that when you have an intermediate area on the fringe of a development area and the intermediate area then disappears, they are in a far worse position than any area which is within 100 miles of a development area? That is because nobody will go into an area on the fringe of a development area where no assistance is given, while a development area is only a few miles further on. Will the noble Viscount therefore tell us, in view of the £200 million less and the fact that inflation will erode that which is left for development purposes, what are the levels of unemployment that he can see forthcoming in the next two or three years?
Viscount TRENCHARD: Yes, my Lords, We have looked very carefully at the job losses and I do not think, when the noble Lord reads the Statement, that he will feel that we overweighted the emphasis on savings. I have set that against the absolute need of national economics and the recovery of British industry nationally. We have never pretended that the steps in the Budget did not cost something. We believe that they will be effective, and that a regional policy can be effective only within an effective national policy. So far as job losses are concerned, we have looked at this long and deep. We have read the papers and works and surveys of people, within and without the Government, and I will certainly return to this subject in the debate. I think it is highly arguable as to what the net gain has, in fact, been. There are some very depressing statistics and very depressing situations where jobs are still being lost, mainly in the extremely difficult areas where we are
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maintaining the SDAs, where they are being lost faster than they are being created. So far as the noble Lord's point about fringes is concerned, the more areas you have the more fringes you have.
Lord MELCHETT: My Lords, with great respect to the noble Viscount, he has now avoided answering a simple and direct question twice, having made the Statement. My noble friend asked him and I ask him, if an estimate was made of the numbers of jobs that will be lost as a result of this package of measures, what figure was given to the noble Viscount by his advisers? He has told us that his advisers gave him a figure. Would he kindly tell the House what figure was given?
Viscount TRENCHARD: My Lords, we of course examined the effect of this policy within the national policy, and we believe that we shall turn around the industrial decline—
Lord MELCHETT: What figure?
Viscount TRENCHARD:—and the rising unemployment that we have inherited, and turn it into an upward movement. How do you estimate forward one part of a major policy, when you inherit the situation that we have inherited? I will return to this subject in the debate.
Lord MOYNE: May I ask a more friendly question? Are the Government bearing in mind the effect on national recovery of the minimum lending rate of 14 per cent.?
Viscount TRENCHARD: Yes, my Lords, and I do not think anybody in this country or anywhere else would like that rate to last any longer than is necessary. I shall not go into the reasons again, which have been expressed in your Lordships' House by my noble friends in economic debates, as to why we found it necessary to do that.
Lord PEART: My Lords, may I ask the noble Viscount to think again? Surely he can give us a figure for the unemployment which will be created. After all, we are to have savings of £233 million in expenditure of £609

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million. This is a big slice. Surely the noble Viscount can give us more details. Why is he so cagey? The new term "reduction of aid" means what?—severe cuts in aid, of course. We shall look forward to this debate and will criticise the Government's policy strongly, because I believe and I know that the country believes—and indeed the CBI believes—that aid should not be cut down in many of our regions. This will create more unemployment.
Viscount TRENCHARD: My Lords, I will say briefly, once again, that we do not anticipate that these changes of policy will have anything other, taken together, than a beneficial effect on employment, and that includes the regional element in it. I must remind the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition that when the previous Administration cut the regional employment premium in 1976–77, they cut it by £218 million—over 30 per cent. of the current expenditure on regional industrial policy. What notice did they give?—two weeks' notice. An announcement on 15th December 1976 took affect on 2nd January 1977. Did they give us an estimate of the number of jobs that would be lost by that much greater measure at no notice, at the drop of a hat? No, they did not. We are putting in an orderly and effective reform to save waste and have a much more cost-effective regional programme.
Lord HOWIE of TROON: My Lords, would the noble Viscount not prefer to do rather better than the previous Government have done, and improve upon the performance to which he has just objected? Might I make life easier for him? It is obviously very difficult for him to give these estimates of a wide-ranging nature, but since he is dealing out yet another heavy blow at the construction industry, albeit an indirect one, could he tell us what is the employment effect on construction, which must be easier to do than tell us the whole story?
Viscount TRENCHARD: My Lords, I think I will return to the detail of industries, on which I have some statistics, when we come to the debate. Of course we intend to improve on the record of the last Government and a mixture of a one-year to three-year transition period, during which a lot of other policies will come to fruition, will be a very large help.
Baroness FISHER of REDNAL: My Lords, will the noble Viscount take into consideration the effect upon regional aid arising from our membership of the EEC? Noble Lords on this side of the Chamber fought hard in the European Parliament for our fair share of regional aid from the EEC, and one of the chairmen—a Member of another place—was congratulated on the amount of money which came to the United Kingdom from the regional fund. May I remind the noble Viscount that Italy and the United Kingdom are the greatest beneficiaries from the regional fund of the EEC? But so far as I understand it, the money spent on regional aid by the EEC has to be matched by the Member States' Governments. Does it mean that if Her Majesty's Government decide to cut back on regional aid, it will mean a lessening of the amount which we shall get from the EEC regional fund?
Viscount TRENCHARD: My Lords, after a visit to Brussels last week and, in addition, continuous negotiations between officials and the officials of the Commission, I can assure the noble Baroness that there is no risk whatsoever in the next two years of our losing our share of the EEC regional or social funds. Furthermore, I found in Brussels that the Commissioner responsible for regional policy is also adopting a policy of concentration. He believes that it will be beneficial to concentrate aid in areas of real need. So there appears to be, in the longer term, a convergence of view. We do not believe that there will be any shortage of projects in the next two years to prevent us from taking up our full whack.

EDUCATION BILL
4.21 p.m.
Second Reading debate resumed.
Baroness DAVID: My Lords, it is 14 years since Circular 10/65 signalled a countrywide change from the selective to the comprehensive principle in education. I had not expected to have to fight this old battle again. We are leaping into the past. The present Bill has been called in another place, nasty, brutish, short and a number of other Hobbesian names. I shall not use any such epithets. They are not my style,

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passionately as I feel on this subject, and they are not perhaps suitable for your Lordships' House.
I merely say that this Bill is unnecessary, irrelevant and totally inappropriate to the needs of education and of the country in the 1980s. To bring such a Bill forward, taking up the time of Members, Officers of both Houses, officials in the DES, LEAs and members of LEAs seems to me to show a great lack of proportion when economy, we are told, is the order of the day and when educational authorities up and down the country are grappling with such really pressing problems as the education and training of our 16 to 19-year-olds, an age group where there is much alarming and horrifying unemployment, and the crisis of falling rolls.
The Bill that was brought forward by the last Government and which fell at the Dissolution was attempting to deal with just those matters, and a certain amount of agreement was being reached by all parties. That Bill also dealt with the constitution of governing bodies and the representation of parents and teachers, giving effect to some of the recommendations of the Taylor Report. It is odd that in the debates in both Houses on the 1976 Act, there were constant references by the Conservatives to the lack of mention of parents in the Bill—see Dr. Rhodes Boyson, col. 1313, 4th February 1976. We can now see the hypocrisy of those references, for there is no mention of parents in this Bill, despite what appeared in the Tory Manifesto.
The abolition in Clause 1 of the present Bill of the duty to give effect to the comprehensive principle seems ridiculous when every authority in the country, bar Kingston, has comprehensive schools, and most authorities a very high proportion of them. With 85 per cent. of the children in the country in comprehensive schools, there can be no turning back of the tide. Mr. Carlisle's school does not seem to have taught him about King Canute. I thought that the Secretary of State's speech at Second Reading was very inadequate. He said what he was repealing but he gave no guidance about what his beliefs were and what his policy was to be. There were a few mutterings over parental choice, but we all know what that means in the selective system—choice for a very few. Guidance and
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policy is what one expects from the national head of state education.
There should indeed be a delicate balance between central and local government and it is valuable to keep that balance, but we need a framework of national policy within which to work. This does not mean uniformity. One only has to go into any two comprehensive schools in the same town to find that out. What we now have is a vacuum, with no leadership from the Secretary of State. We are back to where the present Prime Minister brought us with the publication of Circular 10/70, after she discovered that she could not just cancel Circular 10/65 by ex cathedra statements to the Press. She had announced that grammar schools were a good thing, but her party's Manifesto promised—I quote, and noble Lords should listen to this:
"… to take into account the general acceptance that 11 is too early to make a final decision which might affect a child's whole future".
That ruled out any dictatorial solution. Therefore the point which she selected to stress was that LEAs could go their own way. Indeed, they were invited to relinquish plans for comprehensive reorganisation. Do noble Lords see any resemblance to what is happening now?
The Times Educational Supplement of 3rd July 1970 noted
"… a sharp break in the continuity of educational policy and the negative nature of the operation".
The TES went on:
"What she"—
Mrs. Thatcher—
"advances is not a policy, and, as a substitute for a positive line, the slogan leave the decision to the LEAs' can only be described as dishonest".
The TES remembered Boyle with regret, as also I quote:
"… those embarrassing scenes each year at the Tory conference when there was a baying for his blood. Boyle baiting replaced the ritual debates on hanging and beating as the occasion for backwoodsmen to let off steam".
Well! Evidently, said the TES,
"Mrs. Thatcher is unlikely to care much for the balance of educational opinion which has been steadily moving towards agreement on comprehensive education".
But the consensus is not dependent on the incumbent of Curzon Street. If it is soundly based, the view that secondary education must be unified will prevail, and Mrs. Thatcher will find herself isolated. The article ends by saying that,

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"What is needed is a policy for secondary education which can be explained and defended, something more substantial than muddled thoughts on co-existence and parental choice … which means recognising that continuity is a necessary virtue in educational policy making".
But now Tory history repeats itself. The Secretary of State was positively evasive when he was asked by Mr. Christopher Price in the Second Reading debate whether he would use his powers under Section 13, as the present Prime Minister did when she was Secretary of State. She managed to incense a number of Conservative controlled authorities by turning down plans which had been carefully prepared after much consultation with the DES as well as with local people. For example, Barnet submitted a scheme—its third effort—in 1970, and after long delays—delays were a means to frustrate LEAs' supposed freedom—had it turned down in July 1971.
Three annual conferences of the AEC, in 1971, 1972 and 1973, passed resolutions protesting against the Secretary of State's high-handed actions. I quote that of 1972:
"While recognising that the Secretary of State must have regard to educational considerations in general, local needs and wishes in particular and the wise use of resources when considering schemes for the reorganisation of secondary education, this Association believes that each LEA has the right to organise secondary education in its area on comprehensive lines and that any such scheme proposed by an LEA should not be modified by the Secretary of State so as to interfere with this concept".
The other resolution of 1973 said that:
"This association strongly supports the principle of comprehensive education and is concerned that the continuance of selective systems in many areas of the country is resulting in inequality of opportunity, social divisiveness, inadequate facilities for ROSLA and wastage of resources".
I ask the Minister whether she and the Secretary of State are going to use those same high-handed methods. After all that happened in those four years, 1970 to 1974, is it surprising that the incoming Labour Government felt that an Act had to be passed to make clear what the overall policy was? In defence of those operating the 1976 Act, I must say that where authorities were facing genuine difficulties over numbers, population change, buildings, et cetera, the Department did not hurry to enforce compliance.
With the increasing mobility of people in this country it is even more essential
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than it was to have a national education policy and that is what Section 1 of the 1976 Act provided. People are changing jobs much more and moving from county to county; it would be quite intolerable for a boy or a girl who had been to a good comprehensive school to move to an area where grammar and secondary modern schools existed side by side and to be placed in a secondary modern school where opportunities must inevitably be much fewer, as would be likely if the grammar school was full. When the Minister replies to the debate, can she make clear what guidance will be given to LEAs about such a situation and what is the Government's policy of transfer at 12 or 13 if that imperfect predictor, the 11-plus, has made mistakes, as inevitably it will? Can we hear something on that?
The question of the curriculum was raised several times during the Committee Stage in another place and it is appropriate to mention it here when speaking of transfers. It is important that there should be consultation between neighbouring schools about the syllabus if there is a likelihood of children transferring, but I was a little apprehensive when Dr. Rhodes Boyson talked about core curriculum in Committee. From the way he spoke, I had a suspicion that there would be some rigid instructions issued from the centre. We do not want to move to the Continental system, as in Germany or France, where the Minister is alleged to be able to look at his watch at a given hour and to say " Now all over the country they are studying such and such a book ". I hope we shall also hear the Minister's views on this aspect of the curriculum.
I should now like to return to the question of falling rolls, which I mentioned earlier. This creates a major problem for every authority in the country because even if—rarely—the population is rising in some parts of the area, in others the reverse is happening. If there are to he grammar schools retained and grammar schools are to be filled up, as one expects they will be, the numbers in the secondary modern schools will go down, opportunities will be less, the subjects which can be studied will be fewer and inevitably the pupil-teacher ratio will get worse as a result of the cuts that have been ordered.

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I do not believe that, as the Minister said in her opening speech, the choice will always be between good schools of various types. I should like to hear what she thinks about falling rolls and what will happen when the grammar and secondary modern schools are there together. Children in those schools may well get a raw deal. There will inevitably be a lowering of the academic quality of the intake. I do not trust the grammar schools not to poach. I have heard a grammar school head saying that he would be very happy to take greater numbers from the secondary modern schools in the town at the end of their second year and he hoped for 25 per cent. of assisted places if that scheme came in. He had no thought for the other two schools, with hardly a bright child left to stimulate the rest, or for the morale of the staff at those schools which have a large proportion of their brighter children snatched away after two years. What has the Minister to say on falling rolls? We are told that a Bill is to be brought forward next year but that will not be through in time particularly if, as is rumoured, there is to be a recess on into November. To me this is a very urgent matter. LEAs need now the authority to declare a planned operating capacity for their schools and even more will they need it if this Bill is passed.
No doubt many noble Lords will have read, or at least heard of, a recent much discussed piece of research Fifteen Thousand Hours by Professor Michael Rutter. Professor Rutter and his team sought to discover the reasons why 12 schools in inner London with very similar catchment areas showed such different results or "outcomes", as he called them. Three years were spent on this research. The schools differed markedly in behaviour and attainments, in the regularity of attendance, the proportion staying on until after 16, the success in examinations, the delinquency rates. The results were not as would have been expected from the histories and records of the children when admitted to the schools and the differences were not due to physical factors, such as the size of school, age of buildings, split sites, the space available. The outcomes were influenced by factors outside the teachers' immediate control, although that was very
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important. The academic balance in intakes to the schools was particularly important and more important than the social mix. Examination successes tended to be better in schools with a substantial nucleus of children of at least average ability, and delinquency rates were higher in those with a heavy preponderance of the least able. This effect of balance in the intake was most marked with respect to delinquency. The importance of the academic mix is what I want to emphasise. By keeping grammar schools, we are depriving the other schools of just those children who provide a stimulus to the rest and the party that calls itself the party of law and order should note the findings on delinquency.
I was interested to see in last Saturday's edition of Education that Mr. Carlisle had agreed to the DES spending £100,000 on a five year follow-up study to the Rutter Report, so presumably he accepts and respects the findings to date. Would that they affected his policy! Instead of abstracting some of the most gifted children we should surely be spending time and money on seeing how best to help all the gifted children within the comprehensive schools and making sure that we are doing the best for them and stretching them. This in turn will stimulate all children in the schools.
Today in the Guardian there is an article on another piece of research by Joan Freeman on gifted children. I shall quote briefly from that:
"The evidence provided by this research does not support the stereotype of the unhappy gifted child who has to be kept apart from other children and given special education for his or her own good. Very highly gifted children from normal homes were seen to be happy and doing well at their local schools".
I shall now say a word on finance. I know that the Speaker's ruling in another place was that there were no financial implications to this Bill and of course I accept that so far as this Bill is concerned, but one knows only too well the cost in the time of officers, members and officials in preparing schemes of reorganisation. Furthermore in a great many cases staff must have been appointed for September 1979 by the end of May, or even earlier in the case of heads. Presumably they will have to be paid the salaries for those jobs even if plans are revoked. I have heard that some teachers in Tameside have been

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paid for as long as three years for jobs that they are not doing and I grudge these wasted resources in start times. The Bill is wasteful in other ways. Why should authorities who have made proposals and published notices and who want to go ahead have to go to the trouble of electing so to do and writing to the Secretary of State?
I should like to ask two questions on Clause 1(3). Are authorities to be allowed to revoke, however far plans have gone ahead and when appointments have been made, and are authorities to be allowed to unscramble plans which have already been put into operation? I gathered from what the Minister said in her opening speech that there will be no going back, but I should like to hear that confirmed, as already we are hearing of action by the Conservative members of the Education Committee of the London Borough of Bexley, suggesting that they may, against the wishes, apparently, of the head, the teachers, parents and governors, try to dismantle the one all-ability school at Erith and go back to separate grammar and secondary modern schools. I also want to ask whether the words "managers and governors concerned" in that Clause refer only to the managers and governors of voluntary schools. The notes on clauses says "voluntary schools" but it does not seem to me to be clear in the Bill.
What is so deplorable about this Bill is the uncertainty that it will cause. Those LEAs who are hesitating or moving towards revocation may well have different councils and councillors next May who may wish to reorganise, and there will be a reversal. It is significant that the two Bolton constituencies where there have been strong grammar school lobbies returned two Labour Members at the last election. How appalling it is that children's education and teachers' jobs can be messed about in this way. We want stability.
We have been moving, and are bound to move, towards a fully comprehensive system. The other served in the past, to provide as it was designed to do, the professional classes, the civil servants and the colonial adminstrators, but what the nation is now short of is a different category of citizen. What we are all saying, over and over again, is that we want more skilled men and women,
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more engineers, more and better managers, more technicians, yet those who moan loudest at our lack of them do not seem to make the connection that the shortage is due to a fault in our educational system. This Bill shows in those who are bringing it forward a blind ingorance of both the needs of society today and the educational needs of a country that has to live by its wits and its creative powers in industry and business, and has to live in the 20th and not the 19th century.
I am sure we all know enlightened Conservatives who have helped to pioneer the change to comprehensive education in their counties, and I simply do not understand how they can stomach this Bill. In trying to hang on to the grammar schools, which of course we all admit have done a good job in the past, the Government are looking backward and not forward. This Bill will make selection at 11 no longer illegal. By bringing it in the Government are showing a callous and wicked disregard of all those children who, by that iniquitous discredited exam, the 11-plus, are doomed to a feeling of failure and an inadequate secondary education where there will most certainly not he equality of opportunity for every child.
4.41 p.m.
Viscount SIMON: My Lords, we are discussing this Bill this afternoon under some little difficulty, as the noble Baroness, Lady Llewelyn-Davies, mentioned on the Business Motion. The Bill came to us only a few hours ago, and up to the time this debate started no Hansard was available to report the final discussions in another place yesterday. The noble Baroness, Lady Young, did her best to enlighten us, and I am sure we are all very grateful to her. Her best, is she will allow me to say so, is always pretty good; she was clear, she was charming. Was she convincing? Unfortunately, she did not convince me. I still do not quite understand what is the hurry about this Bill, why we are being pushed to deal with it so rapidly. But I hope that when she comes to sum up she will be able to reply to that point. Of course, we do not want uncertainty to last too long, but it is important to get these things right and I would have thought that we should have given more time to examine

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not just the Bill in itself, which is fairly simple, but its implications.
The noble Baroness indicated that this Bill was fulfilling a Manifesto pledge. I feel bound to say on that that I do not think the Government can claim they got a mandate for this Bill. If there is a difference of opinion between those who favour selective and those who favour non-selective types of education, she will find that the parties that prefer non-selective types actually polled more votes than the party that prefers selective education. So if there is a mandate it is a very thin one.
I tried to look at the Bill from outside, because I am not an educationalist at all, to find out what the object was; and I put it down as to give freedom to local education authorities to choose the pattern of secondary education in their areas. The noble Baroness made the point that it was not so much giving them freedom as restoring the freedom which they had before, and she seemed to imply that that in itself was an argument for doing it. But I suggest to your Lordships that that begs the question as to whether what we were doing before was right, and I would have thought that the experience had shown that that arrangement was not really working properly.
Of course, the idea of whether it is giving or restoring freedom to the local authorities is superficially attractive to many Liberals, as indeed it is to me superficially attractive. But I would make a few short points about that particular issue. To us, devolution of decision-making down the line has to be considered as part of an overall programme, and I find no evidence that this Bill is more than a one-off operation designed, if I have interpreted it correctly, to let off the hook certain local education authorities who believe in a selective system. There is no evidence I see that this is part of a general devolution programme.
Moreover, the type of devolution we recommend involves first the establishment of democractically elected authorities in regions, regions which will be larger than the existing counties. I emphasise "democratically elected" because I take that
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to mean that they are elected on some method or other so as to produce in the council chamber a balance of political feeling that reflects the balance of opinion in the region. I am going out of my way not to refer to proportional representation, but that is what I mean. I think this is very important, and to our mind it is a prerequisite of that kind of devolution. So I would regard it as altogether premature to devolve little bits of decision-making, and in some cases, as in this case, on major issues, to the existing local authorities.
Then, again, when we have reached the hoped-for position where regional authorities are established, Parliament will have to consider over what range they should have powers and responsibilities. In the field of education, I looked at the 1944 Act, which governs us today, and it imposes upon the Secretary of State the duty of controlling and directing the development of secondary education, and upon local education authorities the duty of preparing plans. I interpret this as meaning that the Secretary of State—subject, of course, as he is, to parliamentary control—decides policy, and the local education authorities carry it out in whatever way they think best having regard to their individual circumstances.
Even when we reach the stage at which we have these regional authorities established I do not feel that the overall policy on secondary education is something that should be dealt with regionally rather than nationally. I think I am here echoing something the noble Baroness, Lady David, said. On such an important matter as this we must surely have a national policy. Nobody would suggest that the local authorities should have the right, for instance, to alter the school-leaving age. But the pattern of secondary education is just as important.
So it seems to me that if the Secretary of State wishes to repeal Section 1 of the 1976 Act and wipe out the commitment to non-selective secondary education he ought to put something in its place; otherwise, as the noble Baroness, Lady David, said, local education authorities preparing their schemes will be preparing plans in a vacuum—perhaps not quite a vacuum, for the Secretary of State has certainly broadly hinted that he favours

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the selective system. Indeed, if I understand the Bill correctly, it provides that even if a non-selective proposal has been approved, and presumably plans are in hand to implement it, this approval can be revoked. Consider what confusion that will ensure. And who are the victims?— the children.
I think it is tragic that the argument between the merits and demerits of selective and non-selective secondary education—and there are merits and demerits on both sides; I recognise that—has become part of the two-party conflict. This means that with every change of Government there is a change of attitude, if not direction. I am not quite clear whether under the Bill change of political control in local education authorities will also produce a similar see-saw effect. We in the Liberal Party are firmly in favour of steady progress towards non-selective secondary education. So we find ourselves on this issue in alliance with noble Lords on our left and against this Bill.
But I hope we are not so prejudiced as to reject out of hand the possibility of finding some compromise which might take this issue out of party politics for 20 years or so. Then Parliament, the local education authorities, the teachers, the school governors and managers, with the active help of parents, could all get on with the very urgent tasks of improving what we already have. Let them all concentrate their attention on the children whose chances in life can be so vitally affected by the decisions they make Perhaps when after the Recess we get the larger educational Bill we are promised we shall find an opportunity to pursue this idea.
4.50 p.m.
Baroness BACON: My Lords, I entered another place in 1945. I spent 25 years there and I have now spent 9 years in your Lordships' House. In all those years this mean little Bill is the most reactionary that I have ever seen. I do not think that it was improved this afternoon by the manner in which it was introduced. We have from the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Young, a hurried and theoretical explanation. I found it extremely difficult to appreciate that she was talking about the education
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of children and their future. We never heard a word about children. We never heard anything about the effect on children or teachers. The noble Baroness gave the impression that this was just a minor technical Bill and not a Bill about different schools and comprehensive education. However, my Lords, it is.
The 1976 Act of Parliament speeded up comprehensive education, whereas this Bill is designed to slow it down. Furthermore, the Bill will mean that in many local areas throughout the country old battles will be re-opened and the whole issue will be fought once again. Mention has been made, particularly by my noble friend Lord Simon, of the fact that we should take comprehensive education out of politics. I am very sorry indeed that the organisation of secondary education has become a political matter because I have always regarded it as an educational matter.
Before I entered Parliament I was deputy head of a large secondary modern school. I was at that time also a member of the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party. I think that I can claim, without being immodest, that in those early days I brought to the notice of the Policy Committee of the National Executive of the Labour Party the injustices that were being done to children by separation at the age of 11 into two types of schools. I did not regard it as a political decision—indeed, I have never done so. My views have always been based on my experience as a teacher. We all know, especially in small towns, the divisive effect of separation into two types of schools: on the one hand, those who in the past have passed the examination for the grammar school and have been able to stay at school until 18 and perhaps go on to college or university; and on the other hand, those who fail and who go to the secondary modern schools and who ,in the past, left school at 15 and went straight into industry.
Separate schools divide the community, and in many instances they have divided families. I well remember twin girls in my school, one of whom was very bright and would have passed any examination, and the other, who was just average. As to the one who was bright, the parents decided that they would give up her chances because they did not want the two girls

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to be educated in separate schools. I think that today the noble Baroness who introduced the Bill never thought of those human factors—she just talked about a technical Bill. I am not saying that every-one will go to school until the age of 18 and then go to university. However, everyone should have a fair chance and should not consider themselves to be a failure at the age of 11.
In another place the Secretary of State for Education and Science, Mr. Carlisle, said that 83 per cent. of all children in the secondary stage are now in comprehensive schools. Throughout the 1960s there was a certain consensus between the parties, although they did not entirely agree. There was still an argument about the speed with which we should proceed with comprehensive education, but I thought that everyone accepted the principle that we should go towards a system of comprehensive education in this country.
During the 1960s many local education authorities prepared to change from selection at 11. Let me stress that they were not only Labour areas. I was a Minister at the Department of Education and Science from 1967 to 1970, and I was being pressed as much by Conservative education authorities and by those who called themselves independent education authorities, as by Labour authorities, to give them the wherewithal and the building facilities to get ahead with comprehensive education. In his place as a Minister I see on the Front Bench opposite the noble Lord, Lord Bellwin, who was the leader of the Conservative group in the constituency which I represented in Parliament. I am sure that he will remember that when the Conservatives were in power his Conservative education chairman came to me with a deputation to see whether we could give more resources so that comprehensive education could be speeded up in Leeds. I thought that we had a consensus of opinion. However, it all changed in 1970.
Your Lordships may ask why it changed in 1970. It changed in 1970 because Mrs. Margaret Thatcher was appointed Secretary of State for Education. She had scarcely been in the Department a few hours before she decided to withdraw Circular 1065 which the late Mr. Anthony Crossland had issued. That
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circular did not compel local education authorities to go comprehensive: it merely encouraged them to do so. However, as soon as she arrived there she scrapped that circular. Her reasoning was very simple—namely, that she (Mrs. Thatcher) had been educated in a grammar school and she (Mrs. Thatcher) had done well. Therefore we must preserve that system.
However, I was educated at a grammar school and so were many of my noble friends. I do not think that noble Lords on the Government Benches and Government Members in another place can teach us, on these Benches, anything about grammar schools, because we were educated in them. However, many on the Government side in both Houses have rarely seen the inside of a State grammar school because they were educated at other establishments—not comprehensives, but I admit they were run on comprehensive lines.
Grammar schools have done very good work in the past; but let us remember that on average only 20 per cent. of the children in our country went to grammar schools, and 80 per cent. went to secondary modern schools. In some areas the percentage was more pronounced than that. Those of us who went to grammar schools were the lucky 20 per cent. While the present Government wish to retain those advantages for 20 per cent. of the pupils of secondary age, we want to extend those advantages to all, including the 80 per cent., and that is what the whole issue is about.
The whole aim of comprehensive schools is to make available to all the opportunities enjoyed by the few. Not every child is of equal ability, but we can give them equality of opportunity. Indeed, I think that the present comprehensive schools give a greater range of opportunity which was not available in the small grammar schools of the past. Let us not forget that, until comparatively recent times, the grammar schools catered for the average child as well as for the bright child, and it is only in recent years that fees were abolished in the old grammar schools. I remember that in the school that I attended we used to have a house-craft class which was mostly for paying pupils who could not attain the standard of those who had passed the "scholarship" as we called it at that time.

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We are now told that this Bill is about choice for local authorities. We have heard the argument that comprehensive education is right for some areas but not for others. That I just cannot understand. What is it that is so distinctive about a few areas in the country, which makes it right still to continue separation at the age of 11 while other areas do not? I can see why in some areas, for practical and geographical reasons, it is better to have a middle school rather than an 11-to-18 school. I can see why in some areas it is better to have 11-to-16 schools with sixth-form colleges, and I agree that these matters are best left for local solution. However, I simply cannot understand why it is better to have an 11-plus exam and segregation at the age of 11 in some areas and not in others.
It is said that it is a matter in which parents could have a say. I want parents to have a say in the education of their children. But very often the parents are asked the wrong question. They are asked: Which kind of school would you like your child to go to—a secondary modern school, a comprehensive school or a grammar school? When the parents are asked in that way I know that many will answer, a grammar school ". However, with the 11-plus the choice is not in the hands of the parents. The question ought to be: Do you as parents want a system where one in five children go to a grammar school and the remaining four out of five go to a secondary modern school? That is the question which should be asked.
I was interested to hear the noble Baroness, Lady Young, again speak about comprehensive schools running in the same areas as grammar schools. That is absolute nonsense. Apart from creaming off, surely it is wasteful of teachers and equipment, particularly at sixth-form level, to have two schools in the same area with sixth-forms, and with highly-qualified teachers. That is just a nonsense and always has been.
I now turn to the point about local choice. The Government say that the only reason they introduced the Bill is because they think that local authorities should choose what they do in their own areas. However, this comes very strange from a Government which very shortly
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will introduce a Bill to compel local councils to sell their houses, whether or not they want to and without consideration of their waiting lists. Of course, the Government will say that that is quite different.
But I agree that the whole question of ministerial powers and local authority powers in education needs examining. There are many actions which are taken by the Government which ought to be left to the local authorities. I have pored over maps—and I can see quite a few people here who used to be at the Department of Education and Science—of areas and towns which I have never visited in order to see whether or not it is right for a particular child to go to this school or to a school a mile down the road, because parents have the right to appeal to the Minister. I believe that this is a matter which should be left at local level. If we think that the local authority is not the body to deal with it, we should have some kind of local tribunal.
However, I agree with my noble friend Lord Simon from the Liberal Benches that some things must be decided on a national basis. He has instanced what I was about to instance; namely, the school-leaving age. We do not say to local authorities: "Please yourself, whether you have a school-leaving age of 14, 15 or 16 ". That is laid down nationally. I believe that selection at the age of 11 is such an important principle that it should be decided nationally. There are also the practical difficulties involved when people move house, moving from one area to another. Within this principle there is great scope for variety to suit the local area.
We shall be discussing the details of the Bill later in the week when we come to the Committee stage but, like my noble friend Lady David, I am a little unsure about the meaning of some of the subsections. They will cause confusion in the local area. It means that some of the schemes, which have already been agreed at local level, will be passed back again. I have before me a report from the Yorkshire Post dated Saturday, 23rd June, headed "Tory chief backs all-in go-ahead ". It reads:
"A Conservative council chief said yesterday that North Yorkshire should press ahead with its plans for comprehensive education at York—despite the Tory Government's moves to save grammar schools. Councillor John Clout, the leader of York City Council, said that local

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parents were opposed to the 11-plus and that the battle for all-in schools should not go back to square one".
There is a lot more, which I shall not read which is rather damning to the Conservative Government. But at the end it says:
"The county's assistant solicitor … said that the change of Government has made the original timetable impracticable.
Almost £1 million has been deleted from North Yorkshire's education building programme ….
He told a meeting of the Education Committee that the programme has been cut from £2·8 million to £1·9 million".
That would mean that York could not go ahead with comprehensive education in 1981, as they had planned.
In conclusion, I believe that although this Government have been in office only a matter of a few weeks, as usual they have acted before they have thought. The noble Baroness said, in introducing the Bill, that it was mooted in the Manifesto. So it was. But I am sure that when everybody voted in May, they did not vote with this principally in mind. I admit that in some areas they did. I believe that Tameside voted with this in mind. But what happened in Tameside? In Tameside there was a very good result indeed at the parliamentary election, but the Conservatives were thrown out at the local elections. So although this Bill was included in the Manifesto, it does not seem to have done much good in the borough of Tameside. This is more than a technical Bill. It is more than just local choice. I believe that this is a declaration by the Government that they do not really believe in comprehensive education and that they want to put back the clock.
5.8 p.m.
Viscount ECCLES: My Lords, my noble friend Lady Young is speaking twice in this debate and, according to custom, she used her first speech to introduce the Bill which, I must say, I find rather more simple than some noble Lords opposite. However, of course, behind the Bill lies the question of the present state of comprehensive education, how we should judge it and what we should do about it. Therefore, I am extremely grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Bacon, with whom I have had many conversations and debates on education
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over many years, during a large part of which we certainly had the consensus which I regret so much is not present any more. I have never listened to the noble Baroness speaking on education without having great sympathy with what she said, and I have learned a good deal. I am bound to tell her that I think there is another side to the question whether comprehensive deserves to be—and this is where politics come in—100 per cent. It was not the Conservative Party who introduced the 100 per cent. principle into the reorganisation of our schools—it was not in the 1944 Act. The Labour Party, for reasons that appeared quite good to them, wanted this. That was the time when politics entered into this subject.
Comprehensive schools have been in existence for a long time—I should have thought enough time for us to make a fair and reasonable judgment of what their contribution has been. I think one ought to compare comprehensive schools today to oysters. Oysters when they are good are very good. They are unbeatable. But when oysters are bad, they are not only bad they are positively dangerous. That really is a fair description of the comprehensive schools today. Some of them are truly excellent—and I have visited a number myself—and some, and this is what we have to recognise, are doing worse by their children than any secondary schools we have ever known.
Several noble Lords: No!
Viscount ECCLES: I am sorry, but this is true. Of course the party opposite will not agree. It was said the other day in another place that the gap in standard between the best and the worst comprehensive schools was not a little, but much wider than the gap between grammar schools and secondary moderns. I have done my best to check that. Unfortunately, it is only too true. When the noble Baroness, Lady David, talks about a child moving from one area to another, and moving from a comprehensive school and then having to go to a secondary modern, I think with her experience she must know that there are many secondary moderns which are giving a far better education to their children than a good number of comprehensives.
Baroness DAVID: My Lords, will the noble Viscount give way? I certainly believe that there are some very good secondary modern schools, but I do not believe that there is nearly so much opportunity in a secondary modern as in a fully comprehensive school in the number of subjects you can do, such as languages, sciences, and crafts.
Viscount ECCLES: My Lords, I am going to come to the range of subjects in comprehensive schools a little later in my speech. I should like to take your Lordships back to the beginning of comprehensive schools. When I went to the Ministry of Education in 1954 it was already clear that the tripartite system which was laid down in the 1944 Act was not going to be carried out. Fresh ideas about secondary education were needed. As I think the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhill, will remember, I welcome a substantial experiment in comprehensive schools. We hoped to get the best of both worlds, the educational and the social, by establishing comprehensives where the local people wanted them and where no grammar school had to be destroyed—schools that were large enough to contain within them a sixth form equivalent to that in a good grammar school. The whole range of ability and aptitude would be gathered under one roof, and the able children would have all the options available in a grammar school. The eleven-plus could be abolished with substantial advantages to children from all kinds of backgrounds.
I have to tell your Lordships that I was attracted to this comprehensive experiment, but from the beginning I asked my advisers this question: Do you think that the local authorities can find the head teachers and deputy heads with the exceptional capacity required to manage schools of 1,500 or more pupils? Will not the administration differ in kind as well as in degree from anything we have ever tried before? My advisers could not answer that question because no one had had enough experience of maintained schools of this size.
Nevertheless, with my blessing a number of local authorities set up comprehensive schools and some excellent head teachers were appointed. But, as your Lordships know, Kidbrookes and Dame Molly
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Greens do not grow on every bush. This was exactly what I had feared would happen. The nature of the experiment was such that it ought to have been explored step by step. But when the Labour Party got into power they, and the local authorities who wanted to go comprehensive, were in such a hurry that they brushed aside the problems of size.
Then fortune did not favour the comprehensive experiment, and this for two reasons. First, the number of young teachers coming out of the training colleges increased so fast that the age composition of the staffs in many schools was thrown out of balance. As a result, turnover in staff became disastrously rapid. I think I am right in saying that the rate of turn-over was very much greater in the new comprehensives than it was in either the grammar schools or the secondary moderns. Then, perhaps more serious still, during the period when the larger schools were being established—and I am thinking especially of those in inner cities—the moral fabric of our society was deteriorating. The statutory leaving age was going to be raised to 16; a number of children were resenting more and more their last year; they were more difficult to control; they got out of hand earlier; there were also racial problems, and problems of weak teaching and weak discipline.
No one on either side of this House, or of another place, anticipated the extent of these difficulties. They took us all by surprise. Unfortunately, inquiries into what was happening were resisted far too long. But the public got to know by direct experience, and the media, with their usual relish, reported the trouble spots. Then Mr. Callaghan became Prime Minister. He was impressed by the anxiety and fears of parents. He made that speech which we all remember.
Lord TAYLOR of BLACKBURN: My Lords, would the noble Viscount give way a moment? May I just ask the noble Viscount about the advice that was given to him by his advisers when he was Minister of State in the Department? Was it right advice?
Viscount ECCLES: I am sorry; did the noble Lord ask whether the advice was right?
Lord TAYLOR of BLACKBURN: Yes. Was the advice right?
Viscount ECCLES: My Lords, they could not give me advice on whether we could find the number of head teachers, but it turned out that my fears were justified. You cannot otherwise explain the enormous staff difficulties in many of the big comprehensives in the cities.
To return to Mr. Callaghan—and I say all credit to him—he started the debate on standards. I never thought that much would come out of that debate because there were a great many people not particularly interested in it. But that does not matter. What does matter is that the problems are still there, and they are difficult to solve. This Bill will do good in a few areas, but we must look beyond it and ask what should now be done to help the general run of comprehensives.
We must start from the facts. We now know that, apart from the shining exceptions, the majority of comprehensives pose this dilemma; either you have a school large enough to contain within it a grammar school sixth form, in which case the size, especially in big cities, makes that school unmanageable; or you have a school small enough to be manageable, in which case the sixth form cannot offer the options which children should have in their own interest and in the interests of the nation.
My amendments to the 1976 Act, which the Government rejected without reasoned argument, were based on the recognition of that dilemma. Section 1 of that Act abolished selection on grounds of ability, except for music, dancing and handicapped children. The result was inevitable. Grammar school sixth forms, which were going to be botched up with secondary moderns, were weakened, and in some cases very severely weakened, and parents saw their children deprived of the kind of education they wanted for them.
I am not talking without the book. A recent survey of the comprehensives in London shows how serious the consequences have been. Barely half the children in the London comprehensives can study to A-level French, mathematics or any technical subject. If noble Lords want the details, they were given in
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another place on Second Reading and I will not trouble the House with them now. It is no good the supporters of comprehensives saying that when children reach the sixth form they can attend classes in another comprehensive where the subject in which they are interested is being taught by graduate teachers. To study these subjects to A-level and beyond, almost every clever child needs graduate teaching all the way up his or her grammar school.
My amendments to the 1976 Act would have given local authorities discretion within the comprehensive system—I emphasise that; within the comprehensive system—to select on grounds of ability for a subject like mathematics, and possibly others, and that discretion was as necessary to children as it is in the interests of the nation, which so badly needs the skills founded on a subject like mathematics.
For a very long time we have had in this country two systems of education, the maintained and the fee-paying. In the '50s we hoped to raise the standards in the maintained schools to the level where parents would find it unnecessary on educational grounds to pay fees at an independent school. Of course, if they wanted a boarding school that was another matter. We succeeded in the primary schools but we failed in the secondary schools. The bridges which we tried to build between the two systems were neither broad enough nor strong enough, and now the Labour Party has destroyed the bridge offered by the direct grant schools, and the 1976 Act continued the process of division between the systems. I ventured to tell your Lordships at the time that that Act would inevitably lead to a boom in independent schools, and that is exactly what has happened.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: My Lords, the noble Viscount said we had failed to bring the non-fee paying schools up to the level of the fee-paying schools, but that is a wide generalisation. It is certainly true in some cases but it is certainly not true in others. I have two grandchildren at a fee-paying school and two grandchildren at a comprehensive school. I also have some grandchildren whose parents cannot decide which to do because they do not

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think the fee-paying schools in their area are any good. The noble Viscount has oversimplified the matter very much.
Viscount ECCLES: I understand what the noble Lord is saying, my Lords, and of course one of the difficulties about a debate on education is that one can pick out a good school here and a bad school there of every variety. We tried very hard to raise, let us say, the chances of getting into a university—I must produce some sort of measure for one school against another—and it has been much improved, but we have never got it far enough. If we had, we should not have Oxford and Cambridge now, as a deliberate policy, giving places to children from comprehensive schools who have one less A level than those who come from independent schools. That is a most extraordinary thing to happen. I was saying that the 1976 Act was divisive, and the part played by education in creating divisions in our society has been enlarged and sharpened—and by whom? The answer is, by the Labour Party, which so often accuses us of perpetuating class division.
I come to the excellent suggestions of the noble Viscount, Lord Simon, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bacon. We must stop this political ping-pong with secondary education. When the Labour Party are in power, the 100 per cent. comprehensive principle is put on the Statute Book; I cannot think of anything more political than that. Then, when we are in power, variety in secondary schools is restored. It will not do. This instability is not fair to either children or teachers. Now we have a new Government and we have a Prime Minister who was Secretary of State for Education and Science, and, as we on this side know well, Mrs. Thatcher has a great interest in children and cares a great deal about education.
I wonder: could we start again? Could my party, because we are in power, take the initiative and invite the Labour and Liberal Parties to work out with us and with the Churches and local authorities a new Act of Parliament to overcome the very grave difficulties which now face our secondary schools, principally because the comprehensive experiment has been hurried at such a rate? That Act could
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also clear up some other sections in the 1944 Act which need revision. I believe that if we put the interests of the children first we could recapture the spirit of co-operation which animated my noble friend Lord Butler of Saffron Walden and the late Lord Chuter-Ede.
I took part in that Act; I took part in every Committee stage in another place. My Lords, you would not recognise education today compared with what it was then, with everybody putting the interests of the children first. I do not believe there is any other way but a new Act based on a consensus by which we can restore stability and hope of constructive progress on behalf of the children, their parents and the teachers.
5.29 p.m.
Baroness GAITSKELL: My Lords, I am enjoying this debate. I wish at the outset to comment on some of the previous speeches. I enjoyed the speech of my noble friend Lady David and agreed with everything she said. I also enjoyed the remarks of the noble Viscount, Lord Simon. I disagreed with him on only one point, and that was when he said we could not be political on education. If education is going to be, has to be, a national matter, it cannot help but be political in a democratic society.
There is little left for me to say after the speech of my noble friend Lady Bacon. As for the remarks of the Viscount, Lord Eccles, I can only tell him that there are good schools of every kind. When my husband was alive we went round every kind of school and we found good and bad schools at every tier—public, secondary modern, comprehensiive, and so on. The whole of our education has to be upgraded, and our schools have to have more help and more finance.
My immediate reaction to this Bill is like that of my noble friend Lady David; namely, that it is unnecessary and harmful from beginning to end. Education is the last area to which we should cause unnecessary upheaval and difficulties with every change of Government. This can only damage the State sector of education at a time when it could be improved in many and various ways, and so give our children a better chance in life. The Conservatives always talk about choice;

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I wonder whether noble Lords have noticed that it is always said to be a matter of choice. Yet very often it is choice without chance for most of our children. All that this Education Bill does is help the private and direct grant schools, taking out for them insurance policies (so to speak) and even going so far as to propose the seduction of the clever children from comprehensive schools, stealing them for the private and direct grant systems. This is an absolute scandal.
This kind of action will sow the seeds of resentment among other less privileged parents and pupils in Britain. These measures will result in a generation full of bitterness and envy. After all, my Lords, the latest figures which I have read in Where, the education magazine for parents, show that by January 1978 comprehensive secondary schools in England and Wales were attended by 83 per cent. of our children. Today my noble friend Lady David said that 85 per cent. of our children were now in comprehensive education.
Why are the Tory Government now proposing to set it all back—back to the time of selection? How can anyone deny that this turning back of the clock and the disruption that will follow, for no good reason, is unnecessary? Other changes could be made. There are many changes and improvements that we could make in all our different types of schools. We could have better teacher training; that would go a long way towards improving our schools. There is also the scandal of the shortage of books. Here we are, an advanced Western country, with a shortage of books in our schools. It is unbelievable; it is a scandal. What about the wholesale sacking of teachers? The mind boggles over the number of teachers who are to lose their jobs because of this Bill. We could get rid of oversized classes, and get an advantage from the falling birthrate by having smaller classes.
The naked Tory philosophy of excellence for the few, with protection of élitism, can only breed class divisions. Perhaps this is the most dangerous situation in this scientific, technological age when it is necessary to educate as many of our children as we can. To babble about choice when, as I have said, there is no chance for under-privileged children is
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just hypocrisy. Educational standards cannot be raised by expenditure cuts. This is really an Alice in Wonderland situation. It is lunacy to say—and it has been said; I have read it—that educational standards can be raised by making expenditure cuts.
The General Secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, Mr. David Hart, said that his association regarded the local government expenditure cuts as,
"the most damaging attack on educational standards by any Government since the Second World War".
Mr. Hart has not only spoken; he has sent letters to the parents telling them just what the expenditure cuts will mean. Three cheers for Mr. David Hart! He has really done a marvellous job. This move of his is really an inspiration, because many parents do not know exactly the difference between all the schools. As I have said, thousands of teachers are to lose their jobs. How profligate can a Tory Government be?
When Mrs. Thatcher became the first woman Prime Minister in the West I could not help feeling pleased. But since then every move from her and her Cabinet has filled me with the gloomiest forebodings. I say this not only because she is so Right-wing, but also because her guru is Sir Keith Joseph—a fact which compounds my worst fears. Many Conservatives regard equality as a dirty word, and Sir Keith Joseph, during the election campaign, blamed what he called the egalitarianism of the Labour Government for all our troubles, all our economic difficulties and ills. Yet he must have noticed that the struggle for equality is going on all over the world, not only in Britain. So finally may I respectfully point out that equality is an eight letter word, not a four letter word as Sir Keith Joseph regards it.
5.38 p.m.
Lord ALEXANDER of POTTER-HILL: My Lords, when I came to your Lordships' House this morning in order to look at the Bill I intended to make a speech of very considerable length—and I might do so yet. My concern was that I believe that we have reached a point of time in relation to the education service when there are vital problems which must be faced and resolved. I do not believe that the Bill

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makes any contribution to their solution. Indeed, I think that it may well aggravate the difficulties. My real theme is, a plague on both your Houses. Unless, my Lords, you cease to make education the plaything of party politicians, there is no hope for the education service.
I go back 34 years, when I first became secretary to the Association of Education Committees, at the beginning of the operation of the 1944 Act. I believe profoundly in the principle to which the Bill gives expression; namely, the rightness of a local education authority determining how to organise its schools, believing—as I did then, and as I know now—in the principle of distribution of power in the education service. For the better part of 20 years that worked very successfully. As the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, reminded us, there was a substantial period of time when there was no party political argument, when there was a consensus opinion, and when the local authorities had continuity and stability in the organisation of their schools. It is true that they varied in their approach.
I believe that period was the most successful in the development of the education service in the whole of the history of England: roughly, 1945 to the middle 1960s—1964–65. Indeed, our problems have arisen from our own success. The secondary modern schools which were established were so successful that they built up a substantial pressure for more places in grammar schools in order to do justice to the thousands of children in secondary modern schools who were successfully passing school certificate and subsequently O-level examinations. So the selection which had operated at the level of, roughtly, 15 per cent., one in six, moved to one in five, to 20 per cent., to one in four, to 25 per cent., and in some areas to one in three, to over 30 per cent. Nobody could defend selection at that level. This was the genuine division of the sheep and the goats.
Therefore, the pressure in support of comprehensive education greatly increased. That pressure started the conflict between the two major political parties. I remember it well—a colleague of mine moving, at a Conservative Conference in Scarborough, a resolution in support of the tripartite system; and
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then a resolution at the Labour Party Conference, within a matter of weeks, in support of the comprehensive system. The tragedy of this situation was that, from that point of time, for the next 10 years there was no continuity and no stability in our secondary schools system. Every change of party political control at local authority level meant a reorganisation. I recall one of my most distinguished colleagues retiring at the earliest possible date, having prepared five reorganisation schemes in nine years, none of which was really carried into effect.
Baroness BACON: My Lords, would my noble and very good friend allow me to interrupt him? I have been following him very well, and agreeing with most of what he said, but it is not true, except of a very few local authorities, that the situation changed when there was either a new Labour or Conservative local authority. As I said in my speech, in the period about which he is speaking there were many Conservative and Independent local authorities anxious to press ahead with comprehensive schools.
Lord ALEXANDER of POTTER-HILL: My Lords, I do not dissent from that, but it is equally true that there were areas where every change of party political control, which very often happened every two years, meant a new scheme for the reorganisation of their secondary schools. Have a look at the record of Birmingham, and you will find the answer.
The effect was a simple one, my Lords. Education had become the plaything of party politicians. This was the reality. Consensus had ceased. I accept that in the 1976 Bill the Labour Party were making a genuine attempt to create national unity, in the sense of saying that there is a national pattern. But in fact we had failed to analyse the essential problems of the comprehensive school—problems to which the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, referred earlier. As I see them, there are really three. First of all, I think, long since, consensus opinion rejects the very large school, for the reasons which the noble Viscount gave. That being so, we must accept that it is neither educationally viable nor economically viable to maintain sixth-forms in comprehensive schools of reasonable size. I think that is now almost a matter of agreement. It raises

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the problem of the education and training of the 16 to 19 year-old groups, to which I hope to return in a few moments.
Lord TAYLOR of BLACKBURN: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord to give way for one moment? Is he generalising when he makes that statement, or is he localising it?
Lord ALEXANDER of POTTER-HILL: My Lords, I am not quite sure I understand the noble Lord, but, then, he knows that I never have really understood him, even when he was my president. I am stating a simple fact: that the average size of a sixth form in a comprehensive school of reasonable size—and I go up as far as 1,000—is neither educationally viable nor economically viable. It requires a staffing ratio of probably about one to four or five if you are going to cover the necessary range of subjects, and that is a very expensive process. That being so, we must look at that as a problem.
But there are other problems, Again, interestingly enough, there is complete party political agreement on the fact that those who have limited ability require special arrangements for their education. There is no problem; there is complete party political agreement that those who are handicapped require special educational provision. There is even party political agreement that those who have special talents, if they happen to be in music and movement, require special educational treatment. But there is not agreement that, just as the bottom 2 or 3 per cent. in the range of ability need special educational provison, so do the top 2 or 3 per cent. in the range of ability. This is where the problem has lain. This is the cause of this Bill.
I gather we are going to have another Bill, probably in the autumn, offering national scholarships to try to meet this problem of the top 2 or 3 per cent. of ability. I think it is only fair to tell the Government in advance that I shall be even more opposed to that Bill than I am to this one. I am appalled at the idea of admitting publicly that the national system of education is incapable of educating our most able children. Nor would I expect the independent schools to find it acceptable, for the obvious reason that a change of Government could mean that
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the whole scheme would be scrapped and they could be left carrying the burden—a burden that they could not reasonably carry. But there is a further reason. I gather from the Secretary of State's recent statement that he hopes to have 90 independent schools that would co-operate. My Lords, if he can find 90 independent schools that are capable of fully stretching the top 2 per cent. of ability, he is a better man than I am. There may be nine but there certainly are not 90.
Therefore, surely we come back to a relatively simple proposition. On all sides of the House we have had expressions of the desire to find consensus opinion. The noble Viscount has said what I tried to write 10 years ago in a little book entitled Towards the New Education Act: that we had reached the point of time when we needed a new Act on which we could find agreement at national level, leaving local authorities to operate within a framework which was agreed. May I venture to suggest the fundamental provisions of such an Act? I do not think there is a problem in the primary stage. I think we must re-define secondary education as from 11 to 16. I think we must prescribe that, in general, it will be based on comprehensive organisation, but that it will be a duty of a local education authority to make special provision for the handicapped children and for the bottom 2 per cent. or 3 per cent. in the range ability. Equally, it will be a duty of a local education authority to provide for those who have special talents and for the top 2 per cent. or 3 per cent. in the range of ability.
I would then expect the Act to provide a new stage in the educational system—what I call the tertiary stage—from 16 to 19. For, let us face it, this is the biggest educational problem of the day. It is not a matter of sixth form education as we have known it in the past. We need a new conception of the education and training from 16 to 19; certainly, for some, full-time academic preparation for entry to university but, for others, full-time education in technical and commercial subjects leading to industry and commerce and, for others, sandwich courses leading to qualifications of a technical nature or craft courses to lead to qualifications of the City and Guilds.
The children that we are dealing with are going to spend most of their lives in

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the next century, not in this one. They have to be prepared to hold jobs in a highly technological society. This seems to me to require a new stage defined as the tertiary stage, with regulations peculiar to that age group, the 16 to 19-year-olds; and, frankly, in my judgment, provided in tertiary colleges which maintain the principle of the comprehensive school but which offer a full range of courses—and which would he not merely educationally advantageous but would be very much more economic. I have been to visit some of those which have already been established and, coming back to the noble Viscount's point, I believe that you can then compete at 18-plus for entry to university with the independent sector—
Viscount ECCLES: Which you cannot now.
Lord ALEXANDER of POTTER-HILL: My Lords, I would agree. This seems to me to be not an unreasonable proposition. What am I asking? I am asking the present Government to accept the general principle of comprehensive education. I am asking the Opposition to accept the logic, the reasonableness, of providing specially for the top 2 per cent. or 3 per cent. of ability, just as they provide for the bottom 2 per cent. or 3 per cent. of ability. This is not an unreasonable thing to suggest. Let us not under-rate it! The special needs of the top 2 per cent. or 3 per cent. are no less difficult than those of the bottom 2 per cent. or 3 per cent., and are no less important to the welfare of the nation. Nor is this a new idea. Russia does it; China does it; almost every country that has had long enough experience of the comprehensive system has come to this conclusion.
My Lords, I am most grateful to you for bearing with me for so long. I would plead with the Government—not about this Bill; let it go through! It does not matter—to go away now and to do as the noble Viscount has suggested: get together at national level with the main political parties and find a compromise that all can accept in the interests of the children of this country and, in the long term, in the interests of the future of this nation.
Baroness GAITSKELL: My Lords, I before the noble Lord sits down may I
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ask whether he would clarify a point? I agree with everything that he has said, but I do not understand why he refers to the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, as being on his side. I am not against the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles; but I do not understand what he is saying about that.
Lord ALEXANDER of POTTER-HILL: My Lords, there were two points with which I found myself in full agreement with him. One was that there had been a period when he and I had occasion to work together when there was consensus opinion at national level, and this led to a very real success in the development of schools. There is another point that he made with which I would agree. He said that we had reached a stage where we desparately needed a new Education Act which could embody consensus of opinion.
5.55 p.m.
Lord DAVIES of LEEK: My Lords, it has been fascinating to listen to speeches by speakers of eminence in the educational world—the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhill, and the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles. It has been fascinating to find that the final summary of the noble Viscount's speech was the constructive sentence: we should try to take party politics out of the question of education. Those of us who have devoted our lives in extra-mural work and in working in all types of education believe that our children should not be Aunt Sallies for political parties when they happen to be in power for a brief period of five years. Nevertheless, I pay tribute to my own party in so far as in its period of power it tried to do all the constructive things that have just been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Alexander. I also want to pay tribute to the Butler Act. That was one of the monuments to the Conservative Party in the period of the war. We were offering our children all kinds of possibilities. I came into this Government in 1945 and we tried to implement the 1943 Act—
Baroness BACON: It was a Coalition.
Lord DAVIES of LEEK: My Lords, as my noble friend has said the Butler Act was from the Coalition.

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But I wish to take up the distortion of statistics which the noble Viscount fell for, although I do not want to delay the House. Professor Michael Rutter was quoted by my noble friend on the Front Bench and the research team for the Institute of Psychiatry monitored the development of 1,400 children in a six-mile tenement block development for 15,000 hours of work. They found that there was no doubt that it exploded the myth that schools do not matter and also the myth that comprehensive education was the Aunt Sally of the educational world. Further on, the Ministers of Education give in Answers the information that when looking at the Welwyn and Hatfield comprehensive system in the 1968 to 1975 period, it showed that the number of O-level passes increased under the comprehensive system by 95 per cent. against the increase of about 24 per cent. in similar age groups in other places. I could go by that; but if we start quoting things in support of our arguments on each side of the House, we know that this could become just a cheap political debate.
The fact is that there are balances and imbalances throughout the entire educational system. Those of us who deal with children—and this is much the most important thing about this Bill—must ask what this does to our children and to the child who is going to work with the silicon chip in the next century. What does this Bill do? Does it increase unemployment among the teaching profession when 50,000 are now looking for jobs? Why ruminate about the lack of fully-qualified people to teach mathematics when there has not been the encouragement and the opportunity for mathematicians to get the education that some of them desire? I have had plenty of experience of that. I lived with a mathematician for a long time.
I want to take another point. The sixth form college found the answer to the comprehensive school. Nobody was expecting to find in the comprehensive system a sixth form at each school. But, as in Stoke-on-Trent, for instance, we established the sixth form college for the 16 to 18-year-olds; and that system has proved to be most popular. In 1965, the concept of the sixth form college was a new and untried concept. Circular 10/65 stated that only a limited number of I experiments would be sanctioned. Now,
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however, sixth form colleges are a well-known and established feature of the comprehensive system. Let me leave it at that, my Lords.
Is it the intention of this Conservative Government to destroy the sixth form colleges with a comprehensive system? Are they going to destroy the scores of sixth form colleges that now have masters and mistresses with the ability to teach the advanced subjects that lead on to higher levels of university education? If this is so, it is a Samsonian policy of manufacture: tearing down the temples altogether. Looking at this Bill, it is no good pretending that we are giving too much power to some people in local authorities and governors of schools. I come from a rural area and have lived in city areas. In some of the rural areas of Britain the governors are not appointed on any basis of true consensus at all; they are appointed by the party that is in power and often they show their prejudices in education. They cannot control their own kids but tell teachers with classes of 40 and 50 children how they should control them.
One of the disgraces of British education is the size of the modern class. We have been talking about it since the 1914 war. I think these matters ought to be looked at. Let us look at some of these myths, the myth of the golden age of our Empire, power and great education. If anybody wants to read a famous book about this he should read Metropolitan Man and find out that in the 1910s one in three people in London were laid out on a workhouse slab. That was the poverty of Great Imperial Britain. What about education? In the Boer War only one in three people could read, One in three of the troops was illiterate. In 1925 the British Army was so concerned with illiteracy that it produced a book to teach troops to read. The Ministry of Education published this official document. The educational system was rotten to the core. It was a system that believed the children and the ordinary people were there to obey their betters.
The 1939 War Office—and some of us had to help here—were confronted with illiteracy again. Almost one in five people were unable to write a simple letter. Their reading age was below 10. That

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was the British educational system when Germany was leaping ahead. Today, under this Bill, it seems we are harking back to that condition in society again. The spin-off of comprehensive education is something bigger than just literacy or numeracy. It has to do with art, science, languages and music, not the narrow thing: "Can you count to look after my engines?" "Can you read my instruction on a tachograph?"
The comprehensive educational system tried to build something spiritual and moral in our children. To do that they need the necessary buildings and smaller classes, which those who were lucky enough to get to Eton or Harrow had. I like the people who have had that kind of education telling us how we can run our ordinary classrooms in the old-fashioned councils. That system of education should—it is not quite possible—be available to almost all.
Our schooling system really is the scaffolding upon which we have to develop, construct and involve the abilities of our children for the benefit of society as a whole. A suggestion has come from the Opposition Benches and the Cross Benches that there ought to be a getting together to see that in the next 20 years or so we do not muck about with the educational system but spike down something that would be constructive for all. The foundation of a social, moral and intellectual step forward, we believe, was something in the Education Act 1976, which gave power to require local authorities and voluntary school governors of England and Wales, who had not already done so, to abolish selection at 11-plus.
Are the Conservatives in Britain asking for the 11-plus examination to come back again?—this terrible, soul destroying thing for our children. We have not heard about this. That is the wickedest way of all of dividing children who have different rates of development—trying to separate the sheep from the goats by some kind of examination. The statutory basis of our system was the 1944 Act. Before that, as I said, the only elementary education ended at the age of 14, except for the under-privileged.
When I was a lad in a Welsh school near mining and agriculture I could have passed a marvellous examination at 12
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years of age called the labour certificate. Do your Lordships know what would have happened to Harold Davies, as he then was? If I had passed this marvellous examination I would be a man: I could wear a belt; I could wear what we call "Yorks" and work on the coal face. I could go behind the old man shovelling up the muck, because at 12 I had proved myself so clever that I need not stay in school until I was 14—one of the wickedest pieces of selection in the history of Britain. Is there any noble Lord here who knew of that? That was one of our systems—the labour certificate—in some of our old schools. They wanted young labour, and in the mining and farming areas many a lad rued the day that he passed his 12-plus examination.
The legal basis for a system in which all children, regardless of their parents' social and financial status, would have access to schools and provide a variety of instruction as may be desirable is one of the great things that the Education Act of 1944 stood for. We really hoped that that would be our aim. It was Butler who introduced it, but it is a sad day today that it is his party that is now moving backwards in the field of education.
When the war was at its height, Britain was being scourged by Hitlerism. Every man, woman, boy and girl was appealed to, with promises of the great future after we had won the war. This week in my study I dug out a little pamphlet called Educational Reconstruction, Cmnd. Paper 6458, setting out promises to the children of Britain when we had won the war. There were going to be opportunities; schools were going to be opened. The children were going to be fed; they were going to be looked after; they would have the equipment. What happened to it? Now the school milk and school meals are being cut and there is a vicious Conservative scythe going through fields that should yield fruit so far as children are concerned. My Lords, look it up. It was that White Paper. I call it a glyptic. Do you know what a glyptic is?
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: No.
Lord DAVIES of LEEK: I will tell you, my Lords: it is a carving on ivory or on a gem. That was a glyptic carved out of war-time euphoria and Tory

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promises. Those promises were in the Butler Act and it is left to this lady Prime Minister to destroy it.
It was old Cobbett in 1807 who denounced the proposed education schemes as indoctrination of the poor with the principles of submission. That is the trouble, once you teach a lad to read, you never know what he is going to read next. They started him on the Bible. That led of course to the broad-mindedness that William Cobbett wanted to see. But then we come to the Jeremiads:
"Education should not be left to the caprice or negligence of parents, to chance, or confined to the children of wealthy parents.
"It is a shame, a scandal to civilised society, that part only of the citizenry should be sent to colleges and universities to learn to cheat the rest of their liberties".
That was a wicked saying, said at one time by somebody who looked on education as a privilege, just to create an imbalance between the rich and the poor. Education, beyond all other devices of human origin, is the great equaliser of mankind and of all conditions of men. It is the balance-wheel of our social machinery and without it you get the "yobboism" that you see around the world today—the cheap music and the rather vicious forms of art that are pushed out on the television.
The question is: is all this going to be reversed by the right honourable lady who is Prime Minister? Are her henchmen to roam through the corridors of power like predatory Teutonic fifth-century tribes, ululating malicious hostility to works of constructive education that have been there before? There were ululations from a noble Lord opposite when I happened to interrupt the Minister today. I was interrupted by the noble Lord when the noble Baroness was courteous enough to give way. They get hot under the collar because they realise—
Several noble Lords: Order, order!
Lord DAVIES of LEEK: Let me finish the sentence—it is a compound, complex sentence. The trouble is that they are hiding their heads in shame. Look how empty the Benches are. They are really upset about this Bill the Prime Minister has brought in. The noble Viscount wants to interrupt me—with pleasure: now I will sit down.
Viscount MONCKTON of BRENCHLEY: My Lords, I have enjoyed every minute of the noble Lord's speech, but I hope he will remember who it was who destroyed the grammar schools that have produced some of the greatest Labour and national leaders this country has ever had. I also hope he will remember that even under a Labour Government there was still a unit in the British Army where it was necessary to teach people to read and write. That was going on under a Labour Government: I am not sure whether it is still going on. So it is not all black and white. Surely grammar schools and comprehensives can go on together?
Lord DAVIES of LEEK: My Lords, the noble Viscount is reiterating what I said at the beginning of my speech: you have to look at both sides. I was one of those who taught those who had to teach others to read. That was during the war when for a long time they were looking for people capable of explaining the alphabet to some noble officers—well, they ask for it! I do not like being interrupted but I enjoy it sometimes. After all these reports had come in to the House, we were told in 1964 in the Queen's Speech:
"My Ministers will enlarge educational opportunities".
I think it is time we stopped this shadow-boxing and got down to making Britain great again. I made a similar statement the other night when we were talking about children in the debate initiated by the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips. I would say to all sides of the House: it is time we stopped shadow-boxing about education and got down to giving that education, no matter how poor we may feel. It has been the custom of Welsh parents and the custom of the Scots, although we were a poor people, to struggle to give basically good education, university education; and I want to see that spirit imbued into the people of Britain again. We can never be great if we have a dowdy educational system. For God's sake! I would say to the Conservatives: stop this shooting down of some of the good things that have been done by the party that was in power before: let us get together and build an education system of which we can be proud. Let us scrap this Bill and get together on educating our children.
6.14 p.m.
Lord HUNT: My Lords, we have listened to some very remarkable speeches this afternoon, including the latest one by the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek. I have listened with a very proper respect to a number of your Lordships who know a great deal more about this subject than I do, because you have been professionally or politically directly involved with secondary and other ranges of education. Therefore it behoves me, certainly at this stage of the debate when all, or nearly all, that could be said has been said, to be extremely brief. Indeed I shall be brief; but I have seen from a different perspective than has been put forward this afternoon quite enough of the ill effects of early segregation in the very sensitive period of a young person's life that is covered by secondary schooling to be quite certain where I stand in regard to this Bill. I am strongly opposed to it and it seems to me that I must say so.
It is perfectly true, as the noble Baroness, Lady Young, said, that it is within the policy of the present Government and it is left to the discretion of local authorities to make the decision whether or not to retain or, where they have gone already, to restore, selective schooling after the age of eleven, and whether or not to reintroduce the procedures—with the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek, I would call them the "discredited procedures "—for making selection to grammar schools or relegation to so-called modern schools at the tender age of 11, and making that selection not on the intrinsic merit or the quality of our young people but simply on the basis of an intelligence test. This is, of course, an open invitation to Conservative-controlled authorities to take yet another kick—we heard of "swiping the ping-pong ball" from the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, "shadow-boxing" from the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek, and I would call it "taking another kick "—at the political football of education and put the clock back on progress.
Your Lordships may doubt, on listening to some of what has been said today, whether there has been progress. I would be the first to admit that in regard to comprehensive education it as been halting and very imperfect progress, but it has been progress in a most necessary direction—that is, in bringing all children
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between 11 and 16 under the same roof, in the same complex and on the same campus, sharing a whole range of activities that they can share without needing to have a lower or higher IQ, rubbing shoulders with each other, totally regardless of the social status of their parents, maybe being streamed progressively according to their abilities and having—mention has been made of this this afternoon—where appropriate the outlet of sixth form colleges, which surely provide the answer to the point raised by the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, of the danger of making comprehensive schools too large.
Comprehensive schooling has made strides in blending and uniting the young generation. This Bill, in passing the buck to local authorities, will in my view accentuate the existing patchwork of greater or lesser opportunities in education, not only according to the area of the country in which children happen to be living but according to the political complexion of the local authority. That is wrong. I regard this Bill as socially retrogressive because, by relegating to a lower status those schools which will have once again, in those authorities who choose to put them there, the task of catering for lower academic attainment—and not only that, but for those children who are slower learners—it will widen the gaps in our society. It will do nothing to advance the notion of "one nation ", which incoming Prime Ministers are wont to declare as their aim when they arrive at the door of No. 10 Downing Street.
The best hope—in my view, the only hope—of uniting a community both racially and communally—and who of your Lordships who have followed the events in Northern Ireland would not agree that that is basic to the need there?—as well as socially, regardless of the status and influence of their parents, is to bring its future citizens together in a common place of learning at the secondary stage. This maxim applies especially to the question of fee-paying education, but that matter is outside the scope of this Bill So to the extent that the Bill, when and where enacted and acted upon, is adopted by local authorities, it will be a divisive influence in inducing a sense of rejection and failure among those children who are put into the secondary modern range of schools. It will do nothing to reduce, and may well do something to increase,

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the very serious problem of juvenile delinquency and I therefore consider it to be a socially dangerous step. My Lords, I intend to vote against the Bill.
6.21 p.m.
Baroness STEWART of ALVECHURCH: My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Hunt, with whose views about comprehensive schools I find find myself in complete agreement. This Education Bill reflects the determination of the Conservative Government to deprive thousands of young people of education beyond the age of 15 or 16. It is true, as has said in this House, and as has also been said by Dr. Boyson in another place, that if certain areas wish to retain their comprehensive schools they may do so. If certain areas wish to change to comprehensive education they may do so. But the main purpose of the Bill is to establish a selective system of education, in which the brightest children of secondary school age will be educated in grammar schools, while the rest will attend schools staffed and equipped for pupils who are assumed to lack academic ability, and who are not expected to remain at school beyond the age of 15 or 16.
This system of education is based on the assumption that an accurate assessment of the educational potential of young people can be made at the age of 11, and that a large proportion of pupils who fail the 11-plus examination are, and should be treated as, second-class junior citizens. Speaking both as a former WEA tutor and as the present chairman of the governors of a comprehensive school, I am convinced that this argument is fallacious and misleading. Among students I have known have been some who obtained a university honours degree in middle-age, having left school at the age of 14 or 15, and there have been many others who, had they been given the opportunities and encouragement in their school days, could have obtained professional qualifications.
As a school governor, I know that the examination achievements of young people depend no less upon the encouragement and help that they receive at home and at school, than upon their own innate ability. An examination at 11-plus, whose purpose is to cream off the brightest children from the rest, must inevitably
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have a depressing effect upon the 80 or 90 per cent. of the pupils who fail the test. In effect, adults are saying to these pupils: "You are second-class citizens, and as adults you will be expected to fulfil this role." Inevitably, this kind of approach to young people has an adverse effect upon their behaviour. Young people, no less than adults, require a purpose in life. If, for example, they believe that they have the ability to pass O-and A-level exams, and that it will pay them to do so, they will do the work required. If, on the other hand, they are given the impression that they will probably fail the exams, and that anyway they have little to gain from them, then they may play truant from school, or work off their discontent by anti-social behaviour or by more violent means.
May I say that, while I am wholly opposed to an educational system based on the assumption that at the age of 11 an accurate assessment can be made of the intellectual ability of young people and of their future contribution to society, I know that in every new intake of young people into a comprehensive school there may be one who is a budding Charlotte Bronte, or an Isaac Newton or a Henry Moore, and that it is in the interests of mankind that their talents should be recognised and developed. But the biographies of British geniuses do not suggest that they would have been frustrated had they been educated in a modern comprehensive school.
It is true that not all comprehensive schools can provide a full range of A-level subjects for their sixth form, and Dr. Rhodes Boyson referred recently in another place to inner London schools in which only half could provide tuition in A-level pure maths; and in only two-thirds of the schools could students take French at A-level. My experience of this field is that this problem, which I know does arise, can be partially, if not completely, solved by co-operation between two schools and I do not think it is one about which we need be greatly concerned. May I say, in conclusion, that I wholly agree with my noble friend Lady Bacon, that this is a most reactionary Bill and I find it difficult to believe that the Conservative Party can support it in this day and age.
6.26 p.m.
The Earl of SWINTON: My Lords, there was a headmaster of a grammar

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school who was a pillar of the establishment in the part of the world where he taught. He was a member of the church, and I think he was even a member of the local golf club. He had only one failing as a good Christian, is that he had an intense hatred for the headmaster of the local secondary modern school which was just down the road. He had nothing good at all to say about that man. It happened that one day the head of the secondary modern school died. He had a chronic ulcer brought on by the difficulties of teaching the type of pupils that he had in his school, although the head of the grammar school was heard to remark, in a rather unchristian and uncharitable way, that he thought it might have been brought on by an excess of drinking beer in the local pub, and by certain relationships which he had had not only with young female members of his staff, but even—the headmaster of the grammar school said in an aside—with some of his older female pupils.
This caused the headmaster of the grammar school enormous pleasure. He thought: The rest of my life is going to be marvellous. I have got rid of my enemy."But two weeks later he died. He had a heart attack, while he was trying to explain to his governors why he had not had a single Oxbridge pass in three years at his centre of academic excellence. So he went up to Heaven and he was going up to the pearly gates when, suddenly, through the railings, who should he see but the headmaster of the secondary school. A look of horror came over his face, as he realised that for the rest of eternity he would have to share with his enemy. So he rang the bell and summoned St. Peter out. He asked St. Peter: "What is happening? What is that chap doing up here?". St. Peter replied, "Have you not heard? We have gone comprehensive up here!"
I have had two experiences of going comprehensive and all that it means, with the public meetings, the meetings with staff, with governors of the school and the discussions. The first was in the halcyon days of the old North Riding. I see the noble Baroness, Lady Bacon, nodding. It was one of those wonderful independent councils which could be spelled with both a big and a small "c". We went comprehensive some years ago,
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and I must refute suggestions made by the Party opposite that politics are brought in by the Conservative Party, because certainly there was no pressure on us either to go or not to go comprehensive. So we went, and I found it a most rewarding and pleasant experience going around to these meetings. Obviously, there were some objectors. Some people did not like the idea in principle. Some did not like the details. But, on the whole, they were willing to listen. They were reasonable and we achieved our object.
I was involved again after local government reorganisation in the new county of North Yorkshire, under the present legislation, and I was concerned with those parts of the county which were not reorganised on comprehensive lines. That was not a pleasant or a rewarding experience, especially in areas such as Ripon and Skipton where there was, and is, a huge majority in favour of retaining the existing system of secondary education. During this latter performance, I was never convinced that the comprehensive pattern of education was not the right one for all of those areas, and I still feel that the comprehensive education system should be adopted in this country. Equally, I was absolutely sure that to impose a system like this by force was utterly wrong. It is quite fair to go forward. One can reason, argue, coax and persuade. We should, by all means, try to persuade people to see the logic of the comprehensive idea, but we should not bully and force them into it when there is strong and overwhelming local feeling against it. Surely the local education authority, with their sound knowledge of local conditions, must be allowed to do what they think is best in their area and use their judgment.
The noble Baroness, Lady Bacon, made much of the fact that a leading Conservative councillor in York had said that he thought that York should go comprehensive. That is an absolutely excellent statement. Everybody has been saying this afternoon that we ought to keep education out of politics. It is excellent that a Conservative councillor has got up and said that he thinks that we in York ought to go comprehensive. In time, the schools which will not be reorganised may come to appreciate what they are missing. When they come round

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to what I believe to be this sensible point of view, then, with support from their local education authorities, they may amicably opt for comprehensive status. If, however, they are forced, against local public opinion, to go comprehensive, there will be continuing and an appalling atmosphere. I do not think it is very difficult to imagine that:, under the existing legislation, a school could be made to go comprehensive but that the head teacher, or the governors, or even the local education authority would make sure that it did not work. Surely it is much better to let them go comprehensive by themselves. That is why, despite the fact that I am very much in favour of the comprehensive principle, I support this Bill. I do not believe in force, and certainly I do not believe in the use of force in this context.
I have enjoyed very much several of the speeches which have been made this afternoon, although quite honestly, I found that one or two were irrelevant. I think that the noble Baroness, Lady Gaitskell, referred to private and direct grant schools. I have read the Bill, but I cannot find any mention in it of private and direct grant schools. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhill, has left the Chamber because I wished to tell him that I enjoyed listening to his speech. I always appreciate what he has to say. By all means let us have a new Education Act. That is a splendid idea, but it does not have a great deal of bearing on the subject which we have been discussing this afternoon. I enjoyed also listening to the speech which was made by the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek. He is a splendid teacher. He has taught my daughter once or twice in your Lordships' guest room, and she has always enjoyed being taught by him.
This is a very simple Bill. It restores an option, a choice to local education authorities. I think that is where it should be put. Although I support comprehensive education, again I say that I also support wholeheartedly this Bill.
6.32 p.m.
Lord MURRAY of GRAVESEND: My Lords, two former Conservative Prime Ministers have used the theme of "one nation". I take the view that this Bill is
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completely contrary to that Tory so-called philosophy. I believe that it is quite dogmatic and quite doctrinaire. In fact, the Bill is more dogmatic and more doctrinaire than anything which the Tory Party can frighten the British public with as to what the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party might be saying. However, we should not be too harsh on the Conservative Party because, at bottom, they do not understand education. In fact, the right honourable Mark Carlisle ought to be renamed "Secretary of State for Non-Education". Apart from what they are trying to do in this Bill, the number of cuts which are being made in educational services is, again, quite doctrinaire and quite dogmatic, but they are in line with Tory philosophy.
I say that the Tory Government do not understand education because we have the most Right-Wing public school Cabinet that we have ever had this century. I did not say that. Peregrine Worsthorne said that, and he is absolutely right. In this House we have three members of that Cabinet, all of them Old Etonians. And the majority of the Cabinet consists of public schoolboys who are mainly Old Etonians. How can we expect them to understand the problems of parents in ordinary areas—whether they are working-class areas in the worst parts of our inner cities or whether they are the people of Gravesend—when we are speaking about education and selection? But this is in line with Tory thinking in most policy areas.
I am sorry that the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, is no longer in the Chamber because I wanted to say something about his point concerning what happened in our schools and in our society during the 1950s and the 1960s. I should have liked to remind the noble Viscount—and I hope that he will read Hansard—that this was the period when we had "never had it so good". This was the period, from 1951 to 1964, which saw the introduction of commercial television and the philosophy of not just standing on one's own two feet but treading on other people's. It is no good Conservative politicians harking back and saying that this is all part of the problem because, if they want to examine it, history will show, so far as that is concerned, that this was one of the worst periods in British history.

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The noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, spoke earlier about what will happen to industry and regional aid, but he did not tell us how many people will be unemployed. At a time when we in this country are facing the possibility of even more severe unemployment, we ought to be looking at the question of widening the educational horizons of our young people. We ought to be spending more money on education. One of the problems is that many of the children who are educated in our schools are pushed out into the world without jobs, and they are not capable of handling the problem. This means that they create further problems for society. We ought to be spending more, not less, on education.
I suppose that I ought to declare an interest. I have two children, both of whom are at comprehensive schools, by my choice. They are in the area known as Thames-side—not Tameside which has caused certain difficulties and which I hope will cause further difficulties for this Government who have spoken so inadequately about choice. However, in the Thames-side area, which embraces the area that I used to represent and which is my home at the present time, there has been intransigence on the part of the Kent Education Committee.
Tory spokesmen, particularly in the House of Commons, have said, "The people decided at the General Election that they wanted our policies and they have said that they want every policy", as though each policy they have picked up they have an absolute mandate for. I would suggest that in the period between 1964 and 1970 the people of Gravesend, Dartford, Rochester and Chatham gave the Labour Government a mandate for the introduction of comprehensive education in that area, but the Kent Education Committee, because of their intransigence, refused to accept that mandate. Since the mid-sixties, and during the recent period of Labour Government, the Kent Education Committee fought tooth and nail against the introduction in that area of fully comprehensive education.
Therefore, in Thames-side we have a botched up scheme. Children go to what are now known as high schools at the age
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of 11, and at the age of 13 they are selected, not by examination but by recommendation, either to stay on at the high school or to proceed to an upper school. The situation, therefore, is that in very many cases, children are wasted for two years, or their education is interrupted because there is possibly another process to be gone through of changing schools.
I never understand what the Conservative Party mean by "choice". What choice is given to the 75 per cent. of children who do not go on to the upper schools? When we speak about choice and the 11-plus examination, what choice do 75 per cent. of our children have who do not go to grammar schools, which take only 25 per cent. of the school population. They have the choice of the limited education, and yet we are continually being told that this is the people's choice. It is not at all.
However, to come back to the Thames-side system, where selection has been replaced and a quarter go on to the upper schools, the problems have become acute, and naturally the National Union of Teachers in my area are concerned about what is happening and feel that children in that area are being severely disadvantaged. In 1967 the scheme was introduced under pressure—and if we want to talk about choice, my noble friend Lady David mentioned Circular 10/65 which the late Anthony Crosland introduced in 1965. That gave choice because within what they were asking local authorities to do to change education there were something like six possible choices of a comprehensive system that could be adopted by the area. That was giving local authorities the opportunity to look at the education system.
I believe that in Gravesend particularly we have serious problems. But the three comprehensive schools in Gravesend, where we have the two-tier system with the 11 to 13, making virtually a three-tier system, the comprehensives are oversubscribed. People are queueing up to try to get into that part of the educational system in that area which has gone comprehensive. I believe that there will be serious difficulties educationally in the area if we do not phase out the present inadequate system.
It will be a period for this Government and for the people of this country where

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we are, with the Government's attitude towards education, towards social services and towards employment, in a worsening situation. But I think the worst of it all is what is happening in education, because that is where our future lies. We are talking continually about the new processes, the computerisation of our society, the micro-electronic systems with silicon chips; yet in fact with a Bill of this nature we are prepared to say that we are going backwards.
I am not convinced, as much as the Conservative Front Bench in this House, and no doubt in the other House, are saying, "Well of course, nobody wants to go back to selection at the age of 11. Nobody wants to go back to the 11-plus". I do not believe that. I believe that there will be some backwoodsman in Tory local authorities who will be anxious to go back to the 11-plus, to the selective system of education in this country. Otherwise, why provide for it? Why introduce a Bill of this nature at all; or, if you are introducing a Bill, why not frame it in such a way that selection at 11 could not be reintroduced?
I believe it is possible that we may get some authorities doing this and claiming, as the Conservatives claim at the present time, that they have an electoral mandate. I believe that, with our limited resources in so many ways the need for a better educational system, and the strengthening and encouragement of those local authorities, both Conservative and Labour, who have gone comprehensive, would be better served by the Government withdrawing this Bill.
6.44 p.m.
Viscount HAMPDEN: My Lords, having listened to most of the speeches this afternoon and, when not listening, reading that excellent book Who's Who, I have discovered that all the noble Lords who have spoken before me in the debate have a far wider and longer experience in education than I have, and it is therefore with some trepidation that I enter the debate at this stage. One point encourages me to do so, which is that I have had first-hand experience over the last two years of the effect of a rigid education policy, as put forward by the last Government, on a London school. For the last
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14 years I have been a governor of a south London school called Emanuel, and those of your Lordships who are not immediately lulled to sleep by the motion of a British Rail train will have seen the school just south of Clapham Junction railway station. For many years it has as a grammar school served the population of south London—Wandsworth, Putney, Battersea, Clapham—and, as one would expect, it is a grammar school with an excellent educational record, looking after poorer boys. It is also ranked as one of the top rowing schools. It has won many cups at regattas, culminating two years ago with the entire crew being selected to represent this country in the Junior World Olympics at Montreal, which I think is a fine achievement for a grammar school without the resources of a big public school.
Unfortunately, the Labour-dominated ILEA were determined that Emanuel, however successful, was not to be allowed to retain its independent status within the system. They put forward a number of plans for merging the school with other local neighbourhood schools, none of which was acceptable either to the governors, the parents or the staff. It is interesting to note that one of the leading opponents of any of the ILEA schemes was the senior master of the common room, himself an admitted socialist, who appeared and argued forcefully on television against the ILEA proposals. Some of your Lordships may have seen him. However, the governors are not anti-comprehensive school. Emanuel is part of the Westminster School Foundation, one of whose other schools is the City of Westminster School, not 400 yards from here, and the governors have agreed that that school should become comprehensive. There is no feeling against comprehensive schools, and that is why I slightly take issue with the noble Baroness, Lady Bacon, who said that she opposed the idea that a comprehensive school was good in one area and bad in another. I think it is wrong to believe that there should be a universal formula for all areas.
However, when the plans of the ILEA came to no good it withdrew its support from the school and Emanuel is now an independent fee-paying school. It is flourishing and doing well, but it is not carrying out the policy for which it was founded, which was to look after poor

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boys. We are hoping for bursaries and, as chairman of the bursary appeals, I look into the applications for bursaries and see what sacrifices parents are making in South London in order to try to give their boys good education. We are hoping to be helped by the Government by means of the assisted places scheme, which I believe is coming on later. My Lords, all I hope is that this Bill will go through and that other schools will not be faced with the ordeal with which we were faced at Emanuel during the last two or three years.
6.48 p.m.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: My Lords, the noble Baroness has not had what might be called over-whelming support for her Bill. I suppose the last speaker, who declared himself to be in favour of comprehensive schools in general, came about as near as any speaker has been. We know that the noble Viscount has always been in favour of comprehensive schools and of making them better, and a severe but interesting critic of them.
The noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhill, put forward some propositions for a new Bill and if the noble Baroness, Lady Young, will accept the one he put to her, I will accept the one he put to me. What he suggested to her was that the Conservative Party must accept the comprehensive principle; what he suggested to me was that the Labour Party must accept that the top two or three talents should have special treatment. I would accept that on the ground that we could discuss at what stage. This has not been mentioned so far, but if it were done at 16 or 17, going to a separate sixth form school, my own view is that it would be perfectly all right. I think the noble Lady will find it difficult to accept what he asked of her but both he and the noble Viscount and three or four of the speakers on my own side of the House have said that we ought to take education out of politics.
It is perfectly clear that education ought not to be in politics, as a party political football, but when I am confronted with a Bill of this kind, which is Party political and only Party political, it is asking rather a lot of the last speaker on the Opposition side not to be mildly political.
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What has in fact happened is that all the speakers on my side really have said the same thing in rather different ways. We are all going to say the same because we all think the same, and I am going to say it too. I think it is so important that it should be said, that there should be a record of why people in the Labour Party believe what they do believe in this particular case, that I think your Lordship must forgive me if some of the things I say have been repeated, possibly in better words, by my colleagues behind me.
My Lords, we believe that there is only one way of achieving parental choice of any significance in schools, and that is by raising the standards of the maintained schools until they are all so good that no parent can grumble at sending her child to school B because school A is already full up. This is a point which, in a sense, the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, made, though he said we have not got there, and of course I know that. This being so, we have worked very gradually towards this end for 15 years, with occasional sporadic help from the Tory Party and much hindrance, and we have succeeded in providing comprehensive education for 83 per cent. of our children.
The schools are not all equally good; this, of course, we know. And we know that social conditions, which again the noble Viscount referred to, which need radical improvement, are an integral part of the problem. In fact, if I may criticise what the noble Viscount said in criticism of comprehensive schools, the criticism is of social conditions rather than of teaching ability, of social conditions rather than the provision of facilities, though some of the facilities are very bad. I have been to a comprehensive school in London which has an 80 per cent. immigrant population, which is booming and doing extremely well, having done very badly for about 7 years. This happens in all schools. You get something going wrong; you get a good man in who puts it right. There is no generality to be made from this. We are clear that the way to move towards making these schools equally good involves finally ending the argument which we have been talking about all the afternoon and using gradual and gentle persuasion, backed in the end by compulsion, to bring into the line the last 17 per cent. That was

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the purpose of the first section of the 1976 Act, which this Bill intends to repeal.
Why do we do this on this side? Why do we think like this? Compulsion is a most unattractive weapon. Is it really necessary to go so far? Well, we believe there is no other way, because the very existence of schools peopled through selection on grounds of ability undermines the possibility of improvement in the comprehensive or secondary school alongside. Every one of my colleagues has made this point. The noble Lord, Lord Alexander, made the point that at a certain stage when the percentage became too big this was an inevitable conflict. It is not very difficult to understand, and, in my opinion there is not a single head of a comprehensive school who does not believe it to be true. If the noble Baroness knows any, I should be glad to write to them. If there are several schools in the same neighbourhood and the top 10 per cent. or 20 per cent. of children are creamed off after an examination and sent to one, while the remaining 80 or 90 per cent. go to the others, it does not take much intelligence to understand that the academic results of the selected school will be better than the others, and that ambitious parents will urge their children to work especially hard to get in; worse, these children, so urged, who fail may be scarred for life by the disappointment and sense of failure. Yet at a later age some of them may turn out to be very much brighter than those who passed.
I do not think there are many people today who want to bring back selection at 11-plus. Certainly the noble Lords, Lord Elton and Lord Belstead, with whom I argued for what seemed like several years over the 1976 Bill, which we turned into an Act, never suggested that this should be done. I do not think the noble Baroness would suggest this. I think it is possible that her Leader, the right honourable lady the Prime Minister, might suggest that it should be done. I think possibly the honourable gentleman the present Parliamentary Under-Secretary might think so. But their views are not echoed, I think, in ordinary Conservative thinking.
Most Tories assert that they are not in any way against comprehensive education. They agree that in good conditions it can be as good as the best grammar schools
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and that they certainly do not wish to re-introduce selection as a standard routine. This, I believe, is the general Conservative view. If I am wrong, the noble Baroness will correct me. In other words, implicitly, rather than explicitly, they admit that the continuance of some selective schools must have an adverse affect on the other non-selective schools in the area.
How is it that, believing, as most of them do, that comprehensive education is good and fair, they can deliberately take action to make it more difficult for it to succeed? The reason is due to almost complete confusion, based on the word "freedom". When I was young we used to laugh about the Tory use of the word "freedom"—freedom for both rich and poor to sleep on doorsteps, we used to say. This freedom is something like that. It is freedom for the 10 or 20 per cent. of parents whose children can do well in the exam to send them to the best school, while 80 per cent. have no freedom of choice at all except between schools which they know to be less good than they would be but for the grammar school round the corner.
The difficulty from our point of view in this whole argument is that some of the grammar schools were, and are, very good indeed, and it is always grievous to modify something which is in itself good. But in a very large number of cases this has been done willingly and successfully, and excellent and effective comprehensives have resulted.
The ugly truth is this. Any parent worth his salt will try to get the best for his child; that is human nature and in no way objectionable. It is a well-known fact that children from better educated homes learn faster, though they may not be more intelligent than children of less well educated parents. This means that there is a strong class interest in preserving the selective system, because in that way your child will get a better education even though everybody else's will get a worse one. It is quite legitimate that the parents should feel like this, but it is the job of Government to look after all its citizens and not to favour only the better educated. Yet that is exactly what this Bill is trying to do.
I have restated our case in rather a long-winded way, but it is important

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to put on record why we on this side regard this Bill with such repugnance. It is a ruthless attempt to back-pedal. I remember Evelyn Waugh once complaining that the Tory Government had not put the clock hack one minute. Well, he could not complain about this one.
The Government have not made the only excuse which could justify their action, which would be that they think the system of selection by ability to be fairer and better than the comprehensive system. They have not made this excuse—to their credit, be it said—because they know it is not true. No, they have settled for diminishing standards for 80 per cent. in favour of higher standards for 20 per cent. and this is entirely due to the fierce pressures from the middle class families concerned. It is no good saying that all the Bill does is to remove compulsion and let the thing evolve gradually.
The noble Earl, Lord Swinton, and his colleague the honourable gentleman, Mr. Van Straubenzee, who spoke on Second Reading in the other place, are both convinced that the comprehensive system is right for now and right for the future. I wish their colleagues would listen to them. They do not; that is the trouble, I suppose they managed to vote for this Bill on the grounds that the system would gradually take over anywhere and there was no point in making too much fuss about it. But I think that it is much more serious than that. Although a very large number of children are being happily educated in comprehensive schools to the satisfaction of their Conservative parents and under the direction of Tory councils, yet there is a powerful and ruthless element of Tories who are totally anti-comprehensive and who want to start unpicking the careful structure which has been so painstakingly built up. The passing of the Bill will produce instability and uncertainty throughout the whole educational system.
To take such doctrinaire action, which must have a lowering effect on educational standards for the bulk of the children of this country, is bad enough. However, it is being done at a time when the Government are cutting the rate support grant by the huge figure which varies from £300 million announced by the Chancellor to £360 million announced by the right honourable gentleman Mr. Heseltine,
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plus another £460 million in the current year, which comes to about £800 million I do not know what the right figure is but perhaps the noble Baroness can tell us; it is certainly not less than £300 million—and when one considers that 70 per cent. of the rate support grant goes to education the cuts cannot but be terrible. The headmasters, to whom my noble friend Lady Gaitskell referred earlier, have already made their protest and instructed their members to write to parents warning them what to expect: reduction in nursery schools, in art and music teaching, in sport; less of almost everything. The final cynicism is hardly credible—in spite of these cuts, the Government are allocating £50 million to £60 million of what is left to pay for places at fee-paying schools.
I suppose that we shall have an opportunity to discuss these cuts later on when the details are announced and I shall not develop them now. But to cut public expenditure, however much one may disagree with how it is done, is one thing. To contribute to the inevitable lowering of standards which such cuts cannot but impose by a doctrinaire measure like this Bill is even worse.
I must quote my last words on the Bill three years ago after long and heated debates. I said that two-thirds or three-quarters of the teaching staff in this country teach in comprehensive schools. I went on to say that nearly all of them are dedicated to the work that they are doing, think that they are doing it in the right way and want help to go on doing it. That Bill gave them some help. Its repeal will pull the carpet from under their feet. It is a retrograde step of the most disagreeable kind. Impotent though we are in this House we shall, nevertheless, muster a strong vote of bitter protest when we come to the Committee stage and I look forward to the support of my noble friends behind me in making that as difficult as we possibly can.
7.3 p.m.
Baroness YOUNG: My Lords, whatever may be said about education, we have certainly had a variety of opinions expressed in the course of our debate this afternoon. A number of noble Lords have said and have asked whether we cannot take education out of politics. I

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am one of those who would, in fact, welcome that. I made the most moderate opening statements but, from what they have said, the noble Baroness, Lady David, and the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, have decided to raise a spectre about this Bill. They have certainly frightened themselves and those sitting behind them and I do not know quite what effect they have had on us. But, as it is a spectre which is really of their own making, I do not think that we need take quite as seriously as they do all the statements that they have made.
For the truth of the matter, as I indicated at the beginning of my remarks, is that the Bill does not put the clock back. It is not intended to put us back anywhere at all except to what was allowable under the 1944 Education Act. Noble Lords need not take it from me or from my colleagues, but they should take it from a noble Lord who is regarded by everybody as an education expert; namely, the noble Lord, Lord Alexander of Potterhill. He may not have agreed with everything that I had to say, but he was the one who said that there had been a consensus in education until the late 1960s. That is true, and for most of the period when I was a member of a local education committee there was a consensus on education.
As regards the disagreement that has arisen, one of the major issues was the 1976 Act which, for the first time, forced local authorities into a certain form of education. All that this Bill will do is to put it back as it was previously.
I was deeply disappointed to hear what the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, had to say. After all, he, above all, must believe in selection of some sort or he would not, presumably, have picked such an excellent mountaineering team to go with him up Everest. But, whether or not he believes in selection, he must believe in selection at some point in people's lives. The noble Lord, Lord Peart, says that that is a silly statement. However, I understand from people who know about sporting activities that excellence is picked out very early. Often children in schools are selected at a very early stage to do well in sporting activities, and I do not regret it. I congratulate them for doing it. All I am saying is that we accept at various stages the principle of selection.
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However, it is said that this is a Bill that would put the clock back and divide society. What in fact we are suggesting is that local authorities, local people, should have the right to choose the sort of education that they want for their children, which is asking that local government should work as it has in the traditional sense. I was very interested in the important point that my noble friend Lord Swinton made about the authorities in which he is working and about which he is so knowledgeable. Of course, comprehensive schemes do work well. They work very well where people really believe in them and want to have them. However, they do not work so well when they are forced on people who do not want to have them. That is what the 1976 Act did.
Lord DONA LDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: My Lords, I should like to make a small intervention. Is that really true? Has the noble Baroness any evidence? It is certainly what one might expect, but I have never heard of a single case of a comprehensive which has rather unwillingly accepted a scheme and then works badly because of it. There may be such cases, but I have never heard of one.
Baroness YOUNG: My Lords, I believe that the best comprehensives in this country—and I absolutely accept what the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, said about the ones to which he referred—have worked very well because everybody has completely believed in them and has wanted to make them work well. I believe them to be good schools and I would not wish them to change. However, I do not think that that is the case with all comprehensive schools, and I think that if we are trying to force reluctant authorities to undergo these comprehensive schemes—
Lord MURRAY of GRAVESEND: My Lords, the noble Baroness cannot get away with this. She made a statement about a bad comprehensive system being forced on to people and then, when she is challenged by my noble friend, she does not answer the question. It really is unfair.
Baroness YOUNG: My Lords, if the noble Lord, Lord Murray of Gravesend, wants to take me up on a point he might at least get the facts right about what I was asked and what I replied because I do not think that he did so in the statement that he has just made. The point that I was making—and if he considers the matter I think that he will agree with me—is that if one wishes to have a successful enterprise of any sort one must have the willing co-operation of those who are to work in it. One will have a much better enterprise if those people are willing than if they are unwilling.
I believe that some of the authorities that do not wish to go comprehensive will not make the best of what they have if they are forced to do so. That is the point that I am making. If, at a later date, they wish to go comprehensive, there is nothing in the Bill to stop them doing so and they will do so willingly. And because, over a long period of time, this has been possible it has worked well and authorities have gone comprehensive as my noble friend Lord Swinton said, and as the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, said in his most thoughtful speech. In fact most authorities have gone comprehensive. Many have been Conservative controlled authorities and many, of course, have been Labour controlled authorities. However, they have gone comprehensive by their own choice and many of them are very successful indeed.
I would not want anyone to assume that I do not think that comprehensive schools can be successful. But there is a difference between areas. The noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, laughs, and says that I am just going to support comprehensive schools. But there is a great deal of difference between a country area which has no long-established grammar schools and inner cities which have had very distinguished grammar schools with excellent records, as my noble friend Lord Hampden pointed out; and which have done excellent service to the community which they have served and which, in fact, will be destroyed. We cannot say that what will take their place will equal what has gone. Therefore, the situation is different.
It is because we believe that there are differences—differences in history, in area
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and in the characters of schools—that we simply say that the local people should have the right to decide what it is they will do, and should not be forced. I was surprised when the noble Baroness, Lady David—who, after all, has herself had such a distinguished career in local government—should suggest that the Secretary of State for Education should take greater powers to tell local authorities what to do in education. I sometimes think that I should quite like to tell local authorities what to do.
Baroness DAVID: My Lords, I said that we wanted a framework of national policy, and that we needed a balance between central and local government.
Baroness YOUNG: My Lords, I am glad to hear the noble Baroness say that because, of course, we want a balance between central and local government. Nobody is arguing that each local authority should decide at what age children should go to school or at what age they should leave school. But there is plenty of room for discussion of one of the points which the noble Baroness and other noble Lords have raised, which is the whole issue of the content of education. I hope that on our later Education Bill we shall have an opportunity to look at what I regard as one of the most important issues in education, which is the content. After all, it is what goes on in the school, not what sort of a school it is, that is the mos important question before us.
I have been asked a number of detailed questions, to which I should like to try to reply. The noble Baroness, Lady David, asked whether local authorities can revoke under Clause 1(3), irrespective of the stage of preparation that has been reached in reorganisation. The answer is that they can. The point is that the stage has been reached under duress. The noble Baroness also asked whether Clause 1(3) enables a local education authority to unscramble an existing scheme. The answer to that is, no: the Bill relates only to proposals not yet implemented. Any change as to an existing scheme requires Section 13 notices, as, of course, is laid down.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: My Lords, as a new scheme?
Baroness YOUNG: My Lords, yes. Any intention to alter an existing educational scheme would require the local authority to go through all the Section 13 procedures. The noble Baroness also asked the meaning of "managers" and "governors" in the Bill. In this sense the meaning of managers and governors of voluntary schools is made clear by Clause 1(2). Lastly, any proposal made under Section 13 for comprehensive reorganisation, or any proposal to reintroduce selection will be considered by the Secretary of State on educational grounds and the wise use of resources, the attitudes of both parents and teachers and the expressed views of local people. Full account will be taken of objections received. These arc, of course, exactly the criteria that have been used by Ministers ever since the Education Act 1944.
Briefly, I should also like to say a few words about a core curriculum. My right honourable and learned friend the Secretary of State is at present considering a summary of replies received from local education authorities in response to Circular 14/77 in order to decide the most appropriate form of consultations—I would certainly expect these to involve local authorities, teachers and the Schools Council, as well as other bodies—before we consider exactly what proposals we would make in the light of the information that we have.
On the question of transfer arrangements, these have always been matters for local education authorities in consultation with the schools in the area. Local education authorities have many years of experience, and I do not accept that they are in need of central guidance on this point. A number of noble Lords raised the point of and the difficulties arising from falling school rolls. I accept that falling rolls present great problems and difficulties for local education authorities. The key is probably the size of the school which enables educational opportunities to be preserved without an unacceptable rise in the unit cost.
Local education authorities will reach different conclusions according to their particular circumstances. This may involve joining two or more schools or closing schools in order to preserve units
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of an educationally viable size; or local education authorities may decide to limit the admission of pupils so as to avoid a school being full and another one next to it nearly empty, for there is nothing more destructive to good education than a school dying on its feet. The noble Baroness may be glad to know that it is for this reason that the Government plan to include in the second Education Bill legislation to enable local authorities to operate admission limits. The details are yet to be worked out.
I hope that the House will give this Bill a Second Reading. I do not believe that the Bill will do what noble Lords opposite have suggested. I believe that it gives us a chance to keep all those parts of the education system on which we all agree and which are good. It takes us back to a consensus situation in which it is possible to have these different types of educational systems running, one authority next to another. No authority will be made to change against its will, but if it so wishes, every authority is free to change. Having accepted that that is the principle of the Bill—no more, no less—I hope that we may look to an educational consensus in which we take note of the really important matters.
As my noble friend Lord Eccles said, it is true that people have been dissatisfied with the education system and it was for that reason that the great debate on education was opened. This is a serious matter. Education is far too serious for us not to get the very best for all our children. The real question which we should be debating is the content of education, leaving the local authorities to consider the form of organisation in which it should be carried out.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

EUROPEAN ASSEMBLY (PAY AND PENSIONS) BILL
Brought from the Commons endorsed with the certificate from the Speaker that the Bill is a Money Bill within the meaning of the Parliament Act 1911; read 1a, and to be printed.

AIR NAVIGATION (NOISE CERTIFICATION) ORDER 1979
7.17 p.m.
Lord TREFGARNE Lord TREFGARNE rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 20th June, be approved. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the first of the three Motions standing in my name on the Order Paper. With your Lordships' permission, I shall speak now to both the Air Navigation (Noise Certification) Order 1979, laid before the House on 20th June, and the Carriage by Air Acts (Application of Provisions) (Second Amendment) Order 1979, laid before the House on 22nd May, subsequently moving the latter only formally. The third Motion standing in my name, dealing with Lloyds (General Business) Regulations 1979, is an entirely different matter to which I shall speak separately.
The first order is intended to replace the Air Navigation (Noise Certification) Order 1970, as amended. It carries forward most of the provisions of the old order, but widens the scope of aircraft noise certification. Rather than prepare a further amending order, it seemed preferable to begin again with an entirely new and comprehensive order. Noble Lords may recall that a very similar order was considered by this House during the last Parliament. However, that version was not approved in the other place before the recent election, and in the interval opportunity has been taken to amend Article 6(1) following the undertaking to review its provisions given at that time by the then Government.
The purpose of the 1970 order was to give effect in the United Kingdom to noise emission standards to which Members of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) had agreed in 1969. These standards applied initially to new types of heavier subsonic jet aeroplanes, but were later extended by ICAO to new production of older types of such jets; and effect was given in due course in the United Kingdom to this extension of the original ICAO standards.
Since the original ICAO standards were introduced here by the 1970 order, ICAO has adopted new and more stringent standards for new (post October 1977)
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types of heavier subsonic jet aeroplanes, and introduced other changes including standards for propeller driven aeroplanes. The United Kingdom now needs to give effect to all these new standards and to extend, following an earlier ICAO decision, the applicability of the original subsonic jet standards to smaller subsonic jet aeroplanes. It is these new standards which the draft order before us will bring into effect; at the same time the order will give effect to the requirements of the EEC draft Directive on Limitation of Noise Emission from subsonic Aircraft—which was given support in the other place on 19th June.
The ICAO standards are set at levels which have been shown to be technologically feasible and economically reasonable for the class of aeroplane to which they apply. The aviation industry in the United Kingdom has for some time known of these latest ICAO standards which were published in detail in July of last year, and of the United Kingdom's commitment to introduce them.
This order, like the 1970 order, is drafted very broadly to bring within its scope whole categories of aircraft, while at the same time making provision for exemptions by the Civil Aviation Authority after consultation with the Secretary of State. It is the order and the associated CAA exemptions document which together give the detailed and desired effect. It is proposed that exemptions should in general be given to categories of aeroplane for which there are no ICAO standards. But exemptions will not, in general, be given to non noise-certificated light propeller driven aeroplanes (other than home built aeroplanes) first entered on the United Kingdom register from 1st January 1980; nor to non-certificated subsonic jets on the United Kingdom register after 1st January 1986. These important steps are consistent with ICAO policy on restricting non-certificated sub-sonic jets and with the recommendations of the European Civil Aviation Conference (ECAC); although, in some respects, the United Kingdom restrictions are more stringent than the minimum of the ECAC recommendations.
Aircraft noise constitutes a formidable problem around the United Kingdom, and indeed other, major airports, although noise certification standards already

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applied should ensure a continuing improvement in the noise climate around most airports throughout the next decade. However, the Government are well aware of, and understand, the feelings of people living near airports and are concerned to continue to seek further achievement in reduction of noise at source, by pressing ahead with improved standards. Introduction of these new standards demonstrates the importance attached to reducing aircraft noise, while at the same time recognising the legitimate rights of users, operators and manufacturers.
These new standards strike a balance between these conflicting interests; and they will contribute to a significant reduction in noise at most airports in the future. Noise certification has already contributed to a marked reduction in the noise climate around our airports, and at Heathrow about 34 per cent. of all movements are by the newer noise certificated jets, compared with about 28 per cent. one year ago, and 19 per cent, two years ago. I hope that the House will approve this order.
I come now to the second order, which also affects air transport, but there the similarity ends. It deals only with non-international carriage and changes only the way in which the limits of the carrier's liability are expressed. The provisions of the Warsaw Convention as amended at The Hague—which apply to the international carriage by air of persons, baggage and cargo—are given effect in this country by the Carriage by Air Act 1961. Article 4 of the Carriage by Air Acts (Application of Provisions) Order 1967 applies the provisions of Warsaw/Hague—with certain exceptions, adaptations and modifications—to non-international carriage and to the carriage of mail or postal packages. The 1967 order limits the carrier's liability in respect of the death of, or injury to, a passenger to the sum of 875,000 gold francs (3⅓ times as much as the limit in international carriage).
The amendment order would substitute 58,000 special drawing rights for this gold franc limit and make equivalent substitutions in the case of baggage and cargo. This amendment is desirable because, under the amended articles of the Inter-
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national Monetary Fund, there is no longer an official link between sterling and gold. Two protocols to the Warsaw Convention, which were adopted at Montreal in 1975, substitute amounts in special drawing rights for amounts in gold francs; and the Carriage by Air and Road Act 1979 gives effect to Protocol No. 2. That change in our domestic law will be brought into force when Protocol No. 2 has been ratified by the 30 States needed to bring it into operation. There is, however, no need to wait until then before making a change in respect of non-international carriage.
The advantage in making a change now is that we can apply to non-international carriage the new procedure for converting into sterling the sum specified in the order. At present the sterling equivalent is specified by order and a new order is made from time to time as the value of sterling fluctuates. The current Sterling Equivalents Order was made in January 1978. A new order was made on 29th June and comes into effect on 1st August. By reference to the average value of sterling in May of this year, it specifies £35,860 as the equivalent of 875,000 francs. Under the amended Application of Provisions Order, the Treasury will certify the current value, using the IMF daily rate. This will ensure an accurate and up-to-date result in place of the out-of-date approximation used at present.
Your Lordships approved the first draft of the order when it was laid before the last Parliament, and I hope you will approve this one also. I now beg to move the first order standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 20th June, be approved.—(Lord Trefgarne).
7.28 p.m.
Lord PONSONBY of SHULBREDE: My Lords, on behalf of the whole House may I thank the noble Lord for explaining in detail the contents of these two orders. I am sure that noble Lords will be interested to read in Hansard tomorrow the details of what the noble Lord said. I think noble Lords will have been particularly interested and pleased to hear that 34 per cent. of aircraft movements at Heathrow comply with the new orders.

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Obviously arrangements are in hand for the level of compliance to increase continually during the next few years. I am sure that those who reside near Heathrow airport will be pleased to know that in fact noise levels are likely to decrease in the future. With those remarks may I thank the noble Lord for explaining the orders.
7.29 p.m.
Lord AIREDALE: My Lords, with regard to the noise certification order it is not so much the Second Report of the Joint Committee in this Session which is of interest but rather the Fifteenth Report of the Joint Committee in the last Session, because at that time the order which came before the Joint Committee was merely an enabling order which only said that the Authority may issue a noise certificate even although the applicant has fulfilled all the requirements. It seemed to the Joint Committee that it was impossible to envisage circumstances in which the applicant had fulfilled all the requirements demanded of him, and yet the Authority would still be justified in withholding a certificate.
The Joint Committee expressed their disquiet about this. The Joint Committee, therefore, are gratified to find now that the order which comes before us is not merely enabling, it is mandatory. It says that if the application fulfils the requirements, the Authority shall issue a certificate. This seems the only just course to adopt and I am pleased that this change has been made between the last order and this one.
7.30 p.m.
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, I am obliged to both noble Lords for the helpful observations they made. The noble Lord, Lord Airedale, is right that a slight but none the less important change was effected between the last order in the last Parliament and this one. The noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, referred to the reduction in noise around airports. Under this regulation and the associated ones, non-noise certificated aircraft were not admitted on to the British register from 1st October last year, and will not be permitted to operate—I am referring to British registered aircraft—after 1st January 1986, so certainly there will be a
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steady improvement in the noise climate around our airports between now and then. I am obliged to both noble Lords for their helpful observations and I hope that your Lordships will now approve the order.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

CARRIAGE BY AIR ACTS (APPLICATION OF PROVISIONS) (SECOND AMENDMENT) ORDER 1979
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, I beg to move the second Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 22nd May, be approved.—(Lord Trefgarne.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LLOYD'S (GENERAL BUSINESS) REGULATIONS 1979
7.32 p.m.
Lord TREFGARNE Lord TREFGARNE rose to move, That the draft Regulations, laid before the House on 12th June, be approved. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I fear I cannot deal with this order quite so shortly as we have dealt with the last two. It is a very technical and important matter and affects a good many people, so I hope your Lordships will bear with me if I deal with it in rather more detail.
These regulations are the fourth in a series giving effect to the EEC non-life Directive, or, to give it its full title, the European Communities First Council Directive on the Co-ordination of Laws, Regulations and Administrative Provisions Relating to the Taking-up and Pursuit of the Business of Direct Insurance other than Life Assurance. The Directive was adopted in July 1973. It dealt with general insurance business, not life assurance business, and introduced a large measure of harmonisation into the supervision of insurance by the Governments of Member States.
To set the present reulations in context, your Lordships may find it helpful to be reminded of the other regulations already made to implement the Directive. The

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first of these, the Insurance Companies (Classes of General Business) Regulations 1977, modified the Insurance Companies Act 1974 by introducing new classes of general insurance business in line with those contained in the Directive in place of the classification contained in Section 1 of the Act. Those regulations came into operation on 1st January 1978. The change they brought about was almost entirely technical, with no direct effect on the operations of existing companies or Lloyd's.
The Insurance Companies (Authorisation and Accounts: General Business) Regulations 1978, which came into operation on 31st July 1978, dealt with authorisation to carry on general business and with related matters. The Insurance Companies (Solvency: General Business) Regulations 1977, which I shall be referring to as "the solvency regulations", are the most relevant to today's business. They introduced modifications to the solvency requirements contained in the Insurance Companies Act 1974. They apply to insurance companies only. They do not apply to Lloyd's.
The solvency margin requirements in the Directive do, however, have to be applied to Lloyd's, and that is the purpose of the regulations we are considering today. They apply to the general business of Lloyd's as a whole the same solvency requirements as now apply to the general business of most insurance companies with their head office in the United Kingdom. In the extremely unlikely event of Lloyd's as a whole not meeting those requirements, the regulations also enable the Secretary of State to intervene in broadly the same way that he may in the affairs of an insurance company that does not meet these requirements. Your Lordships may find it helpful if I go through the regulations with some care, though Regulations 1 and 2 are conventional and I do not think call for any detailed explanation. If, however, noble Lords raise any points on them or on any other aspects of those regulations, I hope to be able to answer them when I reply.
Regulation 3 is the heart of the matter. It applies to Lloyd's requirements analogous to those imposed by the solvency regulations on British insurance companies. Before explaining the regulation, it may be helpful to your Lordships
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if I summarise the principal features of the solvency regulations as they apply to British insurance companies. The regulations require each British insurance company to maintain a margin of solvency, that is to say an excess of assets over liabilities, not less than the greater of two sums. The first sum is calculated from the company's recent world-wide premium income, the second from its recent worldwide claims payments. If a company fails to maintain this solvency margin, the Secretary of State must require it to submit for his approval a plan for the restoration of a sound financial position. If the company's position deteriorates further so that its solvency margin falls below one-third of the minimum I have referred to, the Secretary of State must require the company to submit for his approval a short-term financial scheme. If the company fails to submit an acceptable plan or scheme, the Secretary of State is entitled to exercise his powers of intervention in Sections 29 to 37 of the Insurance Companies Act 1974 in order to protect the position of policyholders. These powers include requiring the company to maintain assets in trust, to limit its premium income, to cease carrying on certain types of business, or—in extreme cases—to cease accepting business.
The Directive requires Lloyd's to maintain a solvency margin on the same basis as an insurance company. This is not entirely straightforward, since the insurance business at Lloyd's is conducted by individuals, each of whom must meet his liabilities from his personal assets. Although Lloyd's maintains central funds from which to meet the insurance liabilities of any member who defaults, it is not an insurer, and strictly has no need to meet the liabilities of defaulting members. We therefore had to decide which assets should be taken into account when calculating Lloyd's solvency margin. Our conclusion is that Lloyd's should be permitted to take account of the net personal assets of its individual members—that is, their real assets disregarding their insurance liabilities—and the net assets of Lloyd's itself. Its solvency margin comprises the difference between the total of these assets and the insurance liabilities of individual members; individual members are not required to maintain individual solvency margins, although the rules of Lloyd's require that

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they should have minimum personal fortunes and make deposits at Lloyd's.
Lloyd's will, let me emphasise, have no difficulty in meeting the solvency margin imposed by these regulations. Lloyd's net premium income in 1977 was £1,600 million. If this were adjusted in accordance with the arrangements in paragraph 2 of the schedule, Lloyd's notional gross income would have been of the order of £1,900 million and its required solvency margin about £150 million. Lloyd's have sent us figures which show that the Corporation and the members of Lloyd's held assets valued at over £700 million in addition to those required to meet their insurance liabilities. On this basis, it is clear that Lloyd's possessed a solvency margin almost five times greater than will be required under these regulations.
The second feature peculiar to Lloyd's is the basis of calculation of its premium income. Whereas the calculation for companies is based on gross premium income, the Directive and this regulation recognise that Lloyd's brokers deduct their commission before passing the premium to the underwriter. Lloyd's premium income is therefore generally given and indeed generally known only net of broker's commission. To restore comparability with the requirements for insurance companies, Lloyd's total net annual premium income is therefore for the purpose of the calculation of the solvency margin to be scaled up by a flat-rate percentage. This scaling-up factor is to be fixed by the Secretary of State, and will reflect the most recent data on commissions paid. This dispensation is provided for in the Directive and implemented in the schedule to these regulations.
I should now like to move on to Regulation 4. It is most unlikely that Lloyd's would ever fail to meet the solvency critiera, but the Directive requires that a supervisory authority should have the power to intervene if necessary. Regulation 4 therefore gives the Secretary of State the power to intervene in the affairs of Lloyd's as a whole if it should ever fail to meet the solvency requirements under these regulations or the obligations under Section 74 of the Insurance Companies Act 1974. Section 74 deals with the annual deposits by Lloyd's of a statement of all its business.
The intervention powers are prescribed in Part 2 of the Act. They have so far applied to insurance companies only. Within the framework of Sections 73 and 74 of the Act, Lloyd's has been essentially self-regulating. I must emphasise that we have no expectation of using these powers of intervention in relation to the members of Lloyd's together.
I have already taken up some time in introducing and explaining the regulations. They enable this unique British institution to be accommodated satisfactorily within a Community system of insurance supervision without diminishing in any way Lloyd's ability to continue to carry on business in its established way. The regulations have been accepted by the Committee of Lloyd's, and I commend them to your Lordships. I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft regulations, laid before the House on 12th June, be approved—(Lord Trefgarne.)
7.41 p.m.
Lord PONSONBY of SHULBREDE: My Lords, I am sure that the House will again be very grateful to the noble Lord—this time for explaining the draft regulations and for telling us about the new margins of solvency required at Lloyd's. Judging from the noble Lord's explanation, the proposed solvency margins seem to be very reasonable indeed. I feel that the fact that as from 1st August Lloyd's has to comply with these regulations can only help to underwrite the worldwide reputation of Lloyd's as an institution. Furthermore, people who deal with Lloyd's will know that Lloyd's is having to comply with these new regulations and that will give them added faith in the institution. I believe that, particularly in view of reported large claims against Lloyd's in recent times, this proposal will be beneficial to the institution.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

HYPNOTISM BILL [Hi.]
7.43 p.m.
The EARL of KINNOULL: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. I have often heard it acclaimed that this House has, through its

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diverse membership, the capacity to field an expert on any subject, however complex, specialised, or obtuse. If I were asked to test that claim by a choice of any subject, I think that high on my list would be hypnotism. I am told that to learn to become a hypnotist in its very basic form can take as little as four minutes, but that apparently simple, single skill unlocks doors on the control of another person's mind which in itself unleashes ethical and medical arguments that have raged almost continually for the past 25 years.
Is it a skill, a science—as the medical profession claim—which in the wrong hands could inadvertently prove exceedingly dangerous and against which the public should have some form of protection, or is it a skill, as many lay hypnotists claim, that has never been proved, and will not be proved, dangerous to the public? That is an argument that is not new to either Parliament or the Government. Parliament faced a very similar argument in 1952 when it came down in favour of the medical world. I refer to the Hypnotism Act; and the principal purpose of this small Bill before your Lordships tonight is to extend a little the provisions of that Act.
Without wearying the House at this late hour, I should like to recall that hypnotism goes back a very long way in history. It was a subject which successfully baffled, intrigued, mystified, and confused generations as to its value or chicanery. If one looks back to the early records, one sees that ancient civilisations used it as a means of healing, usually in religious settings. But perhaps in medical terms it first came to prominence when Anton Mesmer, a leading Austrian physician of his day, began publicly to use it as a therapeutic aid in the mid-18th century. He was very swiftly denounced and ridiculed by his member profession, even to the point of hostility. But the development of hypnosis continued over the next 100 years through such names as Charcot, Bernheim, James Braid and, of course, Sigmund Freud. It developed, and through it emerged the growth of what is now modern psychotherapy.
I think it is true to say that in the last 30 years Britain has seen a substantial advancement in and acceptance of hypnotism in the medical world as a serious therapeutic aid to medicine. It has arisen partly, first, by a committee that was
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formed in the early 1950s by the British Medical Association to examine the value of medical use of hypnosis; secondly, by the Hypnotism Act 1952; and thirdly—and by no means least—by the formation by the Royal Society of Medicine of a branch society known as the British Society of Medical and Dental Hypnosis. It is this new society, which I think was formed two years ago, which not only set the seal of approval for the medical use of hypnosis, but also encourages wider training of hypnosis in medical schools; and I am told that currently about 150 doctors and dentists are being so trained each year.
One could say that in Britain today there are three categories of hypnotists. There is obviously the medical category in which doctors, dentists and psychiatrists use a wide applicaton of hypnosis—in birth delivery, in extraction of teeth, and even, I am told, in operations. But much more prevalent is the treatment of the common anxiety-related problems, such as hypertension, migraine and nervous asthma, and there is also the treatment of alcoholics and drug addicts.
Then there are those who use hypnosis and are known as lay hypnotherapists, and sometimes they advertise, to the annoyance of the Law Society, as medical hypnotherapists. But they have no medical background, no society, no code of conduct; nor have they passed an examination. However, they advertise their service which deals with anti-smoking and slimming, as well as drug addiction and other anxiety-related problems. I am told that there are about 1,500 lay hypnotherapists operating in Britain, and that there are being set up what are known as suggestive relaxation conditioning centres—which is a rather long phrase for hypnotism—which claim that 60 per cent. of their cases are successful.
Many of these lay hypnotists are experienced people, even though they are not medically trained. They face a problem which is parallel with that which estate agents faced in Parliament last year, because anyone can call himself a lay hypnotherapist; and I was glad to see this week that there is likely to be formed a voluntary association of lay hypnotherapists, which could undoubtedly enhance the movement in the eyes of the public.

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Then there is the third, and much the smallest, group of hypnotists; namely, the stage hypnotists. I am told that there are about 15 active stage hypnotists in this country. Some of them have been practising for many years—25 or 30 years, I have heard—and clearly are very experienced. In one case of which I was told a stage hypnotist had handled a total of 100,000 people on the stage with no repercussions and no post-hypnotic problems. But here again, there is no code of conduct, no training is sought, and anyone from the very experienced to the totally inexperienced can apply to perform.
The Bill before your Lordships seeks principally to amend the 1952 Hypnotism Act. That Act was the first recognition by Parliament that the public should have some form of protection against stage performances in theatres, and that protection was in the form of a licensing procedure through the local authorities. The Act defined hypnosis on the stage as a process which produces induced sleep or trance in a person and increases the susceptibility of that person's mind to suggestion or direction. That is a precis of the wording of the 1952 Act. The Act further went on to include provisions for a licensing procedure for all theatres and places of public entertainment, and it imposed fines for a failure to obtain a licence. It banned those under 21 years of age from taking part as volunteers on the stage. This, of course, has now been reduced to 18 years of age. It gave power to the police to enter premises if they had reasonable cause to suspect the contravention of the Act; and it specifically exempted exhibitions for scientific and charitable purposes. It also exempted, I would say by default, the licensing of clubs.
My Lords, the principal purpose of the Bill before your Lordships is to seek the inclusion of the licensing of club performances. It also contains other provisions concerning advertisements and the sale of records and tapes capable of producing hypnotism, to which I should like to refer briefly later. In trying to persuade my noble friend and the House of the very good case for this Bill, perhaps the most direct question one could ask rhetorically is: What is the scale of need for extending the licensing to clubs? The answer would, I believe, be twofold:
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first, that the majority of stage performances that are now carried out are in fact carried out in clubs and not in theatres; and, secondly, that the need remains the same as Parliament recognised in 1952. And why should the public be granted a degree of protection in theatres, but not the same protection in clubs? Is it not inconsistent?
The second question I should like to pose, again rhetorically, is: What is the evidence in support of this need? The Bill is supported by all the major medical bodies in Britain—the Royal Society of Medicine, the Royal College of Physicians, the Royal College of Psychiatrists, the British Medical Association and the British Dental Association. It is a formidable list, and I hope that there has been some communication between these bodies and my noble friend's department to demonstrate what has occurred. If not, I would suggest to my noble friend that I should endeavour to obtain information, which almost certainly can describe each case only very generally, as obviously each case will be confidential.
My Lords, the basic worry as regards stage hypnosis as far as the medical world is concerned, as I understand it, is that the stage hypnotist has no prior knowledge of the medical history of the volunteer, and if that volunteer happens to be anxious by nature he could become more anxious, or if he is depressed he could become more depressed. So, in the view of the medical world, it is vital that the stage hypnotist should know and should have a prior knowledge of the medical history of volunteers. There is also worry that post-therapy is not often completed, and that an induced suggestive state is only half removed. Other evidence for the need, I think, could be obtained by reference to the Journal of Mental and Nervous Diseases, which is a medical record of these sort of cases.
There is, of course, a sizeable file of Press cuttings, some of which record the degrading spectacle of volunteers quacking like ducks after performances, and other, more serious cases, but on none of them would I rest my case tonight, through lack of verification. However, I should like to draw the attention of both the House and my noble friend to one case that was quoted in a letter read out by a

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Member of Parliament in another place in 1972. It described the case of a young girl who had volunteered to go on the stage and had subsequently suffered acute mental distress, and who, despite treatment, had not recovered even after three years. Perhaps that is the case which emphasises the support of the medical profession.
My Lords, I think it is fair to ask: How is the licensing procedure under the 1952 Act working? If there is a weakness in my case of support for the Bill tonight, or my argument, it would in fact be the current licensing procedure. This is something which I hope we could examine at the Committee stage of the Bill, if it is granted a Second Reading. It seems odd that theatres are licensed rather than the performer; and one has heard criticism that there is very little prior consultation between the licensing authority and the experts, checking up on the experience of the performer, or indeed discussing the matter with medical opinion. It seems that the licensing policy up and down the country is patchy and fragmented, and in certain areas, like the GLC, they simply have a "No" policy, whoever the stage performer is, whatever the conditions and however great the demand. I hope we can examine that at the Committee stage.
Clause 2 of the Bill includes a prohibition on advertising except where authorised exhibitions have been licensed. It also seeks to prohibit the sale of records inducing hypnotism. This clause was originally drafted because it seemed somewhat offensive to witness advertisements guaranteeing the cure of smoking addiction, and slimming, when it was known that the hypnotist had had very little experience. It has been pointed out to me that Clause 2 as drafted would inadvertently limit established lay hypnotherapists from conducting their business. As this was not the intention, perhaps I could advise the House at this stage that if the Bill reaches Committee I shall wish to examine this clause again to meet this worry.
My Lords, hypnotism is not a subject I would normally commend for introducing yet further legislation, but tonight I do so because this small, modest Bill seeks only to complete what Parliament saw fit to do 27 years ago. The Bill seeks, not
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to ban stage hypnotism, not to spoil an entertainment which to many is highly popular, not to take away the livelihoods of stage hypnotists, but simply to add a safeguard which the whole of responsible medical bodies support; and none of us who accept this strong medical advice would wish to wait for a tragic case to occur before introducing some form of control. My Lords, I commend this Bill, and beg to move that it be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Earl of Kinnoull.)
7.58 p.m.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I have listened with very considerable interest to what the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, has said with regard to this Bill which he is introducing, because I want to say at the very outset that I hope the House will be able to persuade him to withdraw it. I think there are very grave reservations as to whether people should be allowed to act as hypnotists at public-gatherings. This is precisely what the 1952 Act permits them to do, and, if I may say so, I think the present Bill does little more, if anything, than extend to clubs the provisions of the Hypnotism Act 1952 and increase the maximum fine for those found guilty of an offence from £50 to £500. I would suggest, unless the noble Earl can advise me that I am wrong, that his present Bill does little apart from adding those two things to the 1952 Act.
The Earl of KINNOULL: My Lords, would it help the noble Lord if I were to answer that point now? In fact, the Bill goes a long way towards controlling stage hypnotism. It does not seek to ban—which I understand is what the noble Lord would like to see happen, not only in clubs but also in the theatre—which is something that I would not support; but at the moment stage hypnotism acts almost always take place in clubs. It is this form of control that this Bill is seeking to provide for.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl. As I understand it, the 1952 Act controls demonstrations of hypnotism at places licensed for public entertainment. Where the local authority has the power to grant

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licences for the regulation of public dancing singing, music and public entertainment, the 1952 Act included power to attach conditions regulating or prohibiting the exhibition, demonstration or performance of hypnotism. So that the decision rests entirely with the local authorities. I am wondering how many local authorities since 1952 have refused to allow hypnotists to perform. I have not been able to find any such case, and therefore it means that it rests entirely with the local authority. And I do not think, if I may say so with respect, that the local authority is in a position to make a judgment.
The Earl of KINNOULL: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt again, but I think the noble Lord said that he had found no local authority which had exercised its power to prohibit a stage performance of hypnotism. If he were to ask the GLC, he would find that they have a general rule—I do not remember its number; but I spoke with them yesterday—that, as a matter of policy, does not allow stage hypnotism in theatres, except for charity performances.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, what I am getting at is that the onus is entirely on them; they can do so if they wish. While a local authority may decide that they will not allow a hypnotist to perform under certain circumstances and certain conditions, all over the country hypnotists do in fact give exhibitions. The noble Earl is going to include clubs, but from the fact that clubs are to be included, it does not necessarily follow that hypnotists will be prevented from giving performances. It only means that the hypnotist, whoever he is, must get authority from the local authority to put on his performance.
I was reading an article, which I am sure the noble Earl has seen, in yesterday's Guardian which drew attention to the fact that there are something like 150 commercial hypnotists. That article, went on to refer to one particular man:—
"… of usually impeccable self-control who wandered round his home town begging policemen: ' Help me! Somebody has stolen my belly button'."
They give other instances of where the police have had to get the hypnotist to come along to try to release persons from the particular control under which they had been placed.
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Hypnotism is like a good many things, like psychiatry, psychology and psychotherapy, which are all right in the hands of people who know exactly what they are doing. The only people who know what they are doing are people who have been very carefully selected to do it and who have undergone skilled and expert training in the hands of those who are able to help them to become hypnotists. I know that the noble Earl has the best intentions and he wants to control this; but I am saying that we must do more than control it. We must make it impossible for people with no competence at all (other than the fact that they can hypnotise people) to do this unless they know exactly what they are doing.
One of the real problems that I want to mention is this. I have no medical competence at all or qualifications; but I believe it is medically desirable that any would-be hypnotist should have a fairly accurate and detailed knowledge of his subject's medical history. There is no doctor or consultant in this country who would dream of putting a person under hypnosis without knowing at least the medical facts of the individual. There can be depressives, psychotics and others with mental and psychiatric problems. I accept that they can be helped by hypnosis, but I think it highly dangerous that there should be on the Statute Book any Act which would enable an incompetent body like a local authority to exercise this kind of control. Perhaps I ought quickly to qualify that by saying that I mean "incompetent" in the sense that they are not in a position to judge whether people whom they have never seen, are never likely to see and who are likely to attend these performances, should be invited to place themselves under hypnosis. I think we ought to be careful to see that people who practice this kind of hypnotism have a fairly wide and accurate knowledge of their subject's medical record.
The noble Earl asked: "Is it a skill?" I do not know whether it is a skill or not. I know that certain people in the community can do it. What I say is that it can cause, does cause and has caused, considerable havoc in a large number of cases. I want to join with the noble Earl in trying to do something to control this situation. There are a number of what I believe are called "cowboys" in this particular field. They ought to be stopped.

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I am not in favour of the local authority having the power to say that a certain person, for the purposes of entertainment, should give a performance of hypnosis.
I should like to see the noble Earl withdraw this Bill. I wish that we could withdraw the 1952 Act as well, but we cannot do that. I should like to see him withdraw this Bill, in the hope that he could persuade his noble friend on the Front Bench that some sort of inquiry should be undertaken into the whole question of hypnotism. The noble Earl rightly pointed out that there is a fairly reliable, competent body made up of a number of medical concerns. I think that there ought to be some kind of inquiry as to whether hypnotism should be completely controlled in the same way as are some professions which are supplementary to medicine. They can be counted on one hand. Although there are a large number of other bodies who want to become professions supplementary to medicine, for various reasons (many of them good) they are not accepted. I think that we have reached the stage where this matter needs to be looked into.
I hope that I can persuade the noble Lord, Lord Sandys, to say that if asked to do so, he would see whether his right honourable friend the Secretary of State would be prepared to set up a committee and it is not for me to suggest its composition—to inquire into this subject, in the hope that it can be done very quickly. I also hope that, meanwhile, the noble Earl will feel that perhaps this is not the right time to pursue the matter.
8.10 p.m.
Lord MILVERTON: My Lords, may I say that I heartily agree with the words of the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell. From the angle of my church, the Church of England, I am sure we agree with what he has said: one is playing with something which could be dangerous fire as well as something which could be very good. What he said was very sound.
Lord BANKS: My Lords, may I add a brief word to what has been said by other noble Lords. I had not intended to intervene in the debate, but I have listened carefully to what has been said by the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, and the noble
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Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell. I have a good deal of sympathy with the aim of the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, who, as I understand it, thinks that hypnotism for entertainment purposes should be banned or at any rate very strictly controlled. I am inclined to think that he is right in saying that.
However, at the same time, I cannot see why in the meantime we cannot have this Bill, which is at least extending the degree of control beyond the present level and making control a little more effective than it now is. So I should be inclined to support the point of view of the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, while supporting also the sentiments expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell. I hope that in passing this Bill—if that is what happens—we would not be ending the matter but beginning it and going further if he would like to do so.
Lord SEGAL: My Lords, I also would venture to support the plea for restraint in this matter. To the best of my knowledge, hypnotism has a certain very narrow field of usefulness in certain carefully selected cases, provided that it is undertaken by a fully qualified medical man. Preferably, hypnotism as a means of therapy should be conducted in absolute privacy; the only exception one might allow for is where it is used as a demonstration for medical students to prove its efficacy or otherwise as a method of therapeutics. In America, hypnotism is very widely practised by skilled registered medical practitioners in a narrow field of child hypnotism, where one has a patient who is resistant to ordinary and orthodox treatment but is susceptible and is receptive to what one still regards as a relatively unorthodox form of therapy.
Here, one ought to proceed with the utmost caution. Hypnotism has a very limited field of usefulness; but to prostitute a recognised method of therapy by qualified medical men into a form of public entertainment ought, to my mind, to be anathema to any wise, sensible, thinking person. That is why I believe that here one ought to proceed with the utmost caution. I venture to reinforce the plea so strongly put forward by my noble friend Lord Wells-Pestell that this matter requires careful investigation. It needs further inquiry—even research—before

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any form of legislation is attempted, and I too support his plea that at this stage it would be wise to withdraw this Bill.
8.14 p.m.
Lord SANDYS: My Lords, I intervene at this point in the debate in order to explain the Government's attitude to the Bill and to give your Lordships an indication of those issues arising from the Bill which seem to call for particular attention. At this point, I think that it would be for your Lordships' benefit, to say that there are, as your Lordships may or may not be aware, two identical Bills before Parliament at the present time. In another place a Bill has been introduced in similar terms. The Bill before us now—if we were to proceed with it—would assume that there would be a parallel process going on—should it go on—in another place.
Before I go further, I should like to say in response to Lord Wells-Pestell's request to set up a committee that I shall naturally bear his remarks to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State, but I can do no more than that and can give no assurance whatsoever at this stage as to whether a committee would or would not be set up as a result.
The Government can well understand the concern felt by those who use hypnotism as a therapeutic instrument. The noble Lord, Lord Segal, referred to this as a doctor, and your Lordships were particularly glad to have his advice in this matter. The consequences which may follow from its use in other ways by people who have not the same medical or other professional qualifications, and who are not bound by the same professional code are something which we should ponder upon.
It was this concern which led to the passing of the Hypnotism Act 1952 and, as my noble friend Lord Kinnoull said, the British Society of Medical and Dental Hypnotists has for some years been expressing the view that the system of control established by that Act needs to be strengthened. Whether a need for amending legislation has been established is a question on which the final decision rests with your Lordships and with Members in another place. In considering this question, we are bound to take account of the opinion held by those who are
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experts in this particular field. But we are in no way bound to follow the views of the experts or those who claim to be experts. Our duty is to exercise our judgment, and to bring to bear our own expertise as legislators, which includes an awareness that legislation is not necessarily the best remedy for all human ills.
I think that the first question which the House needs to consider is the scale of the problems which are said to arise from the present state of the law and which enactment of this Bill would solve. I am afraid that it is on this basic point that the Government find themselves at variance with the views put forward by my noble friend, Lord Kinnoull. The British Society of Medical and Dental Hypnotists has brought to the notice of successive Governments a number of reports of harm alleged to have resulted from particular performances in which hypnotism was used as a form of entertainment. We have carefully considered this material, but our conclusion is that these incidents are insufficient either in number or seriousness to justify a change in the present law. And I have also to tell your Lordships that there is no other information available to the Home Office, the Scottish Office or the Department of Health and Social Security which indicates that problems exist on a scale that justifies amending legislation.
There are two distinct areas in which the Bill now before the House seeks to extend the law. My noble friend Lord Kinnoull explained this in some detail. I hope in repeating the views of the Government simply to underline what has been stated already, if perhaps to give greater emphasis here or there. First, the Bill would amend the Hypnotism Act 1952 so as to strengthen the controls which the Act provides over the use of hypnosis in the field of entertainment. It is important to remember that the 1952 Act confined its attention to performances of hypnotism in places of public entertainment—that is to say, places to which the public are admitted whether on payment or otherwise. That Act accordingly built to a large extent on a system of licensing controls over public entertainment which were well established. What this Bill now seeks to do in Clause 1 and in the Schedule is to effect a significant extension of the

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scope of the Act of 1952 by bringing clubs of all kinds within the controls exercised under the Act either by local authorities or licensing justices. In particular, it would be made an offence to give an exhibition, demonstration or performance of hypnotism by any living person in any club without permission of the controlling authority. In addition, the police would have a right of entry—and I stress this point—into clubs where there was reasonable cause to suspect a possible contravention of the Act.
I suggest that your Lordships should give very serious consideration to the question whether these additional powers are necessary. As I have already indicated, the Government's view is that the need for them has not been proved. Before we further extend the reach of the law, and the scope for control by public authorities, into an activity which involves no element of force or fraud so far as the Bill is concerned, we ought to require evidence of harm or abuse which is serious and widespread. Here, in parenthesis, I should say that any committee of inquiry would indeed investigate any evidence which could be adduced in this field. I welcome the suggestion made by the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, should your Lordships think fit to support him in his proposal. It seems to me very significant that neither the police nor the local authorities, who are responsible for enforcing the existing law, appear to have received any substantial volume of complaints indicating that the law is defective.
At this point, I turn to what my noble friend Lord Kinnoull said. He suggested that the law, if not defective, was insufficient in its scope. The view of chief officers of police and local authorities who have been approached by the Home Office on this matter is this: it is not necessarily so far assumed that a case has been made out. The conferment of additional powers will necessarily make demands upon their limited resources of finance and manpower, and I am sure that in reaching a decision about this Bill the House will think long and hard as to whether it is right to impose any further burden on the police or local authorities.
The second area in which the Bill would introduce new controls is in the publication of advertisements and in the issue of
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records relating to hypnotism. Clause 2 makes it an offence, punishable on summary conviction by a fine of up to £500, to take part either in the publication of any advertisement relating to hypnotism or in respect of any person as a hypnotist or in the issue to the public of any record capable of inducing hypnotism. "Record" is defined in Clause 2(5) by reference to the Copyright Act 1926 as—and I quote:
"any disc, tape or other device in which sound is embodied".
I understand that what the sponsors of the Bill have in mind is not music of a kind which induces a drowsy or trancelike state, so much as records containing spoken words which purport to provide some sort of do-it-yourself hypnotism course. Again I would suggest to your Lordships that the evidence of abuse which has so far been presented is not strong enough to justify the extension of the criminal law. For our part, the Government have seen no evidence of any substantial dangers resulting from advertisements or from the sale of records capable of inducing hypnotism.
In concluding, I should like to make it clear that the Government's mind is in no way closed on this subject and that the responsible departments are willing to consider any fresh evidence advanced in support of a change in the law and to seek the views of the licensing authorities as to whether new controls are required. For the present, however, we are not satisfied that there is a need for further legislation to protect the public from the misuse of hypnotism, and I would advise your Lordships not to give this Bill a Second Reading.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, I wonder whether we can crystallise this. Is he saying that the Government are of the opinion that the problem is not so serious as to require additional legislation?—because, if so, then I think we support the noble Earl.
Lord SANDYS: My Lords, from my last statement I hope it was clear—certainly we intended to make it clear—that the Government's mind is not closed on this. In other words, the Bill which is before your Lordships we believe to be unsatisfactory and insufficient in the

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areas to which it directs attention. We believe that a further examination of this subject, rather than legislation, is required at this present time.
The Earl of KINNOULL: My Lords, I should like to thank every speaker who has taken an interest in this short Second Reading debate. It is an example of a Private Member's Bill coming on very late. I should have insisted on my right to take it at an earlier stage, because it would have been fairer to the House in judging whether or not this Bill should receive a Second Reading.
It was very interesting to sec that those who did take part seemed to be arguing against me on opposite sides, although I think the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, was right in saying that he is not on the same side as the Government. He wants to ban the subject and therefore thinks that the Bill is insufficient. What my noble friend is saying, with respect to him, is that there is insufficient evidence even to extend the present legislation.
I should like to put to the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, the point that the British medical body—that is all the societies—regard this Bill as important because it will at least regulate where stage hypnotism acts are now being performed. I should like to make that clear, because I may not have explained that sufficiently clearly when I spoke earlier. At the present time, if we simply do nothing we shall be back at square one and all the performances can carry on in the clubs, with the inherent danger continuing, as the noble Lord recognises.
I hope the House will not find it disagreeable if I say that I am in favour of taking the view put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Banks, which is that the Bill should be given a Second Reading and examined in Committee, because there are areas of the Bill which should be examined, particularly with regard to licensing. I think that some good could come out of that. If we let the subject drop, it will go back into the wastepaper basket and will not reappear for some years. I therefore beg to move that this Bill should receive a Second Reading.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

DIOXIN AND SYNTHETIC CHEMICALS: HAZARDS
8.29 p.m.
Lord HALE Lord HALE rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they can now reconsider their attitude to the increasing danger in the use and manufacture of synthetic chemicals with especial reference to dioxin. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I rise to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. It arises out of a Question which appeared a week or two ago on the Order Paper, when we were asking only about dioxin in its role as a pesticide. Your Lordships will see that the Question today has been widened quite considerably because the question of its role as a pesticide arose directly out of the recent and much publicised decision of the American Environmental Agency on this matter—as I understand it, in not banning its use but in view of the evidence obtained from Oregon in issuing an order which they call a "rebuttable presumption"—which means that anyone who has been brought under question or is using matter brought under question should reply within a limited period, saying that they were using every method of safety.
The noble Lord, Lord Sandys, could not have been more helpful or more courteous, and he at once handed me a copy of the report of the Pesticides Advisory Committee. That is an independent committee of experts that comes down from time to time to consider this matter, and I was tremendously impressed by its report. Once more, for the eighth time, it was summoned by the Minister to consider certain problems which have been raised and, as I understand it, it will shortly be reassembling to consider the full report of the American environmental agency and the evidence that has been produced. I would draw its attention to a rather strange article in the Guardian, which appeared after the Question was put down and two days before it was due to be answered.
It is not for me—it would not be appropriate or sensible—in 15 minutes to try to deal with the Pesticides Committee's report. As I said, it is an excellent report by an admirable committee. They have clearly taken each question seriously. They are some of the experts of whom one takes notice on occasions, though I much

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approved of what was said in a previous debate about the attention that one should pay to experts. They have put forward a series of propositions which are very impressive.
On the question of the Birmingham material, experiments have been conducted. Everybody knows of the whole tortuous history of dioxin. It is the most amazing substance and it produces the most conflicting results, in respect of which there are explosions when there appears to be no special cause for explosions, and in respect of which no simulated explosion can be produced when those investigating deliberately try to find the reasons and are prepared to take that risk. The committee point out that the use in this country has now been reduced from about 40 tons a year to a total of, I think, about three, of which only one is in forestry and two separate tons, roughly, are spread over herbicides and special activities. They point out that they themselves have reduced the dioxin content in forestry use—in this connection, they liken it to brushwood killers—which is now important for reasons which I may mention quite briefly.
They are dealing only with the impure dioxin which is produced virtually accidentally, but with some regularity, in the process of manufacture of the brushwood killers, and they draw a distinction between that and the dioxin used in Vietnam or at Seveso. This is difficult to do because, according to the experts, there are 60 different kinds of dioxin—on the basis of Professor Kekule's elaborate system of monkeys performing acrobatics while he was travelling on a bus from Clapham to Islington, or possibly from Islington to Clapham. This wonderful and fanciful system names, and purports to name, something like 4 million chemicals, supplemented by his dream at Ghent when he saw snakes embracing one another in the most curious and suspicious attitude, which produced benzine rings. All this is rather reminiscent of recent books on the atom.
No one can hestiate to say that the committee do full justice to the extraordinary position of dioxin. They themselves refer to it as perhaps the most dangerous poison known. What they say is, "We have not only prescribed in
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these brushwood killers an absolutely minimum dose of impure dioxin, but after a time we reduced it by one-tenth to what is now just about the lowest angstrom unit "—I must not use the word "percentage", because I am talking in terms of one in 10 million or possibly one in 100 million, although one in 10 million is the present limit—" and we have reduced it to such a low point that when the Government chemist investigates pesticides there any many in which he detects no trace."That does not prove that there is no trace, but at least it proves that whatever trace there may be is well below the limit and is perfectly safe. This I have found in other of these complicated chemicals.
I have tried for the benefit of other persons who are with us not to go too far into polysyllabic chemical names, and I hope to continue to do so. So that it is an excellent and admirable report, and it is a credit to the British system. It shows that ample precautions are taken, so far as precautions are taken, and it says that you are safe, provided that the rules and regulations are all carried out. Indeed, possibly I would go further and say that so many precautions are taken that it would require somebody of great ability, or great lack of discretion or care, to do anything with these which is not a matter of customary practice.
It is strange that the article in the Guardian—to which I do not attribute, with respect to them, too much importance—was produced to show what happened in mid-Wales. I am glad to see that my noble friend Lord Wynne-Jones is here, for I am not at my best when it comes to Welsh geography, or the Welsh language or pronunciation. There is a photograph of two distinguished local men making their way down a 45-yard shaft to find a series of drums and kilns, all of which are photographed and listed. Apparently they are relics of some of the operations carried on by the Forestry Commission in that area.
During the summer, the lady whose husband went down that shaft had a miscarriage. Her husband is a man of high repute and of considerable local knowledge. I sent that information to the noble Lord, Lord Sandys, and I think that he may have in mind the question of some further inquiry. As I say, I do not attribute any great gravity to the fact that

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a number of people are prepared to say that these tins contained noxious material and did not appear to have been cleaned. The tins had been left there in a damaged condition; they were somewhat noxious when they were approached and they were capable of giving alarm. What is serious about this matter is the local response. When these people went to their local officers and officials, they were told that the whole matter was being investigated by the Forestry Commission and that everything was perfectly all right—that of course no mistake of any kind could take place.
Where do we get to from there? We get to the point that we are importing what is described as the most dangerous poison in the world and that we are placing it in the hands of people who say, "We are not going to respond to public opinion" or, "We are not going to answer" or, "We are not going to reply" or, "We are not going to give any assurance that steps have been taken". What is more, we are told that this is an area where the public walk freely. Blackberries were growing in that area and people were eating the blackberries. Probably they did not come to any harm; I am not saying that they did. However, the Forestry Commission workers refused to consider the suggestion that a little notice should be exhibited indicating that spraying had taken place. Of course, all this may not be true. It is very ungenerous of me to say this. I say only that it is perhaps a fortuitous example of the fact that if one is dealing with such a poison—and what a poison!—one ought to take care.
I have already taken up a great deal of time on this matter. I said that I would turn to Vietnam, but it seems to me that Vietnam has been fully dealt with, in so far as it can be dealt with. It is no longer contested that much stronger poison was being used in Vietnam, that it was spread over a very considerable area of Vietnam and that it was on evidence that came forward as to the tetragenicity of dioxin that the U.S. people—including ex-President Nixon—resolved not to continue with its use. And its use was gradually diminished. I must say one word about the question of tetragenicity, which recalls thalidomide. All that we know about dioxin, which is uncontroverted, is that any number of experiments show that it is
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tetragenetic in animals and that it can produce results which involve the possibility of miscarriages, or the birth of monsters.
I was also going to say a word about the experiences at Bolsover. We are told that in the manufacture of dioxin there has been a series of 15 varied explosions. The first, in the United States of America, in 1949, at Monsanto, resulted in the incapacity of workers. The second was at BASF in Germany. There, a rather different explosion had similar results. Most of these incidents received little or no publicity and were suppressed. When the National Coal Board established a branch known as Coalite and Chemical Limited and when a four-storey modern factory was built near Bolsover, it was admirably provided with all possible equipment and with special cooling apparatus.
What often happens in the manufacture of 2,4,5 — T is an exothermic explosion. The normal operating temperature can go up safely to about 170 degrees, but if it passes beyond 200 degrees it can shoot up to about 400 degrees. At Bolsover they had a factory which complied with every possible condition and which made every provision which could be made. They carried on happily for three years, from 1965 until 1968. Then, at midnight on one occasion, there was an exothermic explosion. Indeed, Dr. May, who has recorded it in a wonderful and honest account, says that probably it was a double explosion. The exothermic explosion took place and the first major casualty was the superintending chemist—not because of poison—but because this explosion broke down walls and masonry and he was injured by the fall. A supplemental chemical explosion involving the heat of an overhead lamp applied to the fumes that were coming out, provided the rather special difference.
My Lords, I must proceed with very great speed indeed. The Coalite premises closed down for a time, it was carefully examined, workers were treated. The characteristic of dioxin is almost invariably chloracne, the siting of spots and sometimes of cysts which cover the body, not wholly dissimilar ill their appearance (except that they are much more unpleasant looking) to the ordinary appearance of the disease of pimples

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which trouble young men. Chloracne often responds to treatment but on other occasions it is almost impossible to treat and, if treatment does not succeed, it can be followed by some of the gravest diseases, resulting in death.
Although the actual four-storey factory building of Coalite was not greatly damaged, they removed much of the machinery and dumped it in a safe place 45 metres below ground. They continued very successfully in a new factory, although they discovered one extremely significant thing: when, having cured all the sufferers, they brought in people who had had no apparent contact at all with dioxin, those people began to suffer, and, as new people were brought in, it was decided that there was no process of decontamination which succeeded. Dr. May reports that, because of this, he got in touch with one of his customers in West Germany who had had the same trouble—that was the BASF explosion, from which, again, there had been fantastic results.
So I will come for a moment or two to Seveso in Milan, where Hoffman La Roche had a factory. Actually Hoffman have a subsidiary company in Switzerland known as Givaudan, which is a substantial company. Givaudan decided to establish a plant in the Icmesa company's rather old factory just north of Milan, in an area massed with people, where an open drain runs into the River Seveso, which passes through and under Milan and which floods most of Milan twice a year—an area through which an autostrada passes to the North, Sevesa being not far from the lovely country of the Lakes.
It was on 10th July 1976, which was a Saturday, at six o'clock in the morning an empty factory where the process of manufacture had been interrupted for the weekend, that, quite suddenly, a mass of gas or vapour came through the vent in the roof and began to make its way over one of the large overcrowded towns of the north of Italy. The noble Lord of course has the report, (which I understand has been translated) from the Government of Italy. All the medical evidence shows that the dioxin remains, that the risks have not been reduced and that Hoffman La Roche are now paying
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up to five million Swiss francs in temporary damages pending further litigation. A prosecution has been launched.
I will only say that this is a very grave matter. It is a matter which really must be looked at and, although in this country we have taken every precaution, this stuff is not necessary. It is a convenient method of destroying forests or brushwood or heather, but there are others. It is very nice to have something 20,000 times as strong as sodium cyanide but there are other preparations and therefore I venture to ask the noble Lord whether the Government will consider the documents that have been filed, whether he will make inquiries about the facts stated in the Guardian and whether he will bear in mind that the case for importing deadly poisons about which we still know little and the effects of which cannot be contained unless constantly watched is not made out. We do not do it and that may be the reply, but, so long as we are importing the product, we are taking, part in something in which a duty to the people should be paramount.
8.58 p.m.
Lord WYNNE-JONES: My Lords, I want to hold your Lordships' attention for a few minutes on a subject which is of very great importance; namely, the question of the production of chemicals. I know that to most people organic chemistry is extremely complicated and difficult. In fact, it is quite as easy as the Pools; I think that most people, if they put their minds to it, could win just as easily as they could on the Pools. Of course, I admit that normally one loses on the Pools; but, still, there is a chance of winning.
The point is that it is merely a matter of putting a certain number of things together. The only trouble is that one never knows what the answer is. If one takes this matter of dioxin, which is a very grave and serious matter, I have created a model here simply by taking a piece of paper and folding it roughly into a hexagonal shape. That is one of the basic shapes of organic chemistry. There is a material called trichlorophenol. "Tri" simply comes from the classics. as does "chloro" and "phenol". If we take a shape, such as I am illustrating, and put a chlorine atom at the first

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point, another at the second point and another at the third, and a hydroxin group here, we have trichlorophenol, which is a very good herbicide and is used regularly as a herbicide. The only trouble is this, that if you think of chlorine and hydroxina rather as two claws of a crab, and then you think of another crab coming up towards it, unfortunately the two crabs clamp together and they form dioxin. Dioxin is just like that; and whereas trichlorophenol is a very useful herbicide, dioxin is a very dangerous lethal substance. Unfortunately—and as a chemist I have to admit this—there is always one chance in a million, when you try to make that and two of them come together, that you get this highly lethal substance.
That is our real problem, that we always have a risk whenever we conduct any process in the chemical industry. It may be a very small risk, one chance in a million. And when we talk about risks, after all, the risks in nuclear energy are, on the whole, no greater than the risks which occur all the time in the chemical industry. People get themselves wildly excited about the possibility of nuclear energy creating something devastating. We are running the same risks every day of the week in every chemical industry of the country, and I speak as a chemist. It is really quite nonsensical to talk about what is going to happen unless we look carefully at all the possibilities. I think it is extremely important in every industry that we look with great care at all the possible risks that may exist. I think that is vital.
We should never have had any progress at all if we had taken no risks. Risk is part of the lot of humanity. Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward, and indeed we have got to remember that. We have to bear that in mind. That does not mean that we ignore risks. What it means is that we take every possible care to ensure that such risks are not going to be a deficit. In this case I think that it has been proved, as my noble friend Lord Hale has emphasised, that the dioxin risk is a very grave and serious one, and because of this it is essential that in everything we do in manufacture, of trichlorophenol for example, we take every precaution to minimise the risk.
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When I say "minimise" I do not mean that we make the risk disappear. There is no conceivable way of making any risk disappear. I think it is time that the country realised and humanity realised that we cannot conduct any sort of scientific work at all without risk. I have worked in laboratories all my life. I have had explosions in my own laboratory. I have done stupid things in my own laboratory. Many of the people working with me have done stupid things. What we are trying to do is to ensure that we minimise the risk and maximise the advantage of progress. Without that we shall get nowhere at all.
At the present time we ought to be very careful about our consideration of the whole attitude towards progress. Either we progress or we do not. I am absolutely convinced that a lot of the opposition to a great deal of what is done is based on the fact of ignorance, that people do not understand what the consequences are of not taking a risk. I think we have to be very careful about this. I would ask the noble Lord who is to reply to tell us the attitude of the Government on this. Of course, the Government are not omnipotent. I am not asking him to say that they are going to lay down absolute laws for this, that or the other. I am not so foolish, I hope, as to suggest that. What I would ask is this: Are we seriously going to look at all the processes that we carry out, whether they be chemical processes, whether they be nuclear processes or whatever they may be? And are we going to be certain that not only are we considering the technical process, but we are also taking very close account of all the human dangers that can arise?—and they can arise in all sorts of ways. I do not not want to say any more. I would merely like to leave that for the noble Lord to answer.
9.7 p.m.
Lord WALLACE of COSLANY: My Lords, I am sure the whole House will be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Wynne-Jones, for the very short course in chemistry which he has given us tonight. I was intrigued by his remarks. He made some rather reassuring remarks that I am sure my noble friend Lord Hale will not find readily acceptable. But I should say in all common fairness to my noble friend Lord Hale that nobody doubts in any

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way the deep sincerity and anxiety that he has on this and similar questions. I share his concern at the increasing use and availability to the general public of chemicals for pest control, herbicides and similar uses. Not all people read the small print on packages or sprays and by sheer ignorance or carelessness can cause damage to their own health and to others, in some cases even death.
In these matters we face a dilemma. In under-developed countries such chemicals expertly used can increase food production and eliminate disease. On the other hand, we can find the environment at home seriously affected by crop spraying and other uses of chemical preparations—for example, I understand that Europe's butterfly population is seriously threatened.
My noble friend's Question specifically refers to the control and use of dioxin which has no known commercial use, but it may be formed in trace quantities, as has already been explained, as an unwanted by-product during the manufacture of trichlorophenol. I understand that we do not manufacture that chemical in Britain. In fact, I answered a Question raised by my noble friend Lord Hale way back in 1977 on this issue. However, we do import what is needed into the United Kingdom for the manufacture of herbicides and antiseptics. As has been stated, our only factory was closed some time ago. That factory was, of course, at Bolsover.
The disaster at Seveso arose during manufacture, and my noble friend has outlined the terrible results. It is still a matter for international concern and still calls for action. Quite recently an explosion occurred in the United States in almost similar circumstances, with serious effects on health and environment. Other explosions have occurred in various parts of the world, happening mainly during manufacture.
No chemical product, however beneficial, should be put into manufacture or distribution until the most stringent safety precautions have been tested and proved beyond doubt, complete with the strictest possible international control. Such international control is not easy. Not all nations have the same standard of health
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and safety precautions and regulations as Britain has. Relaxing safety measures for an increased profit margin in this area is criminal, but it happens in some areas, let us face it.
Finally, in view of the increasing use of synthetic chemicals, to which I have already referred, I would strongly support my noble friend in asking the Government to reconsider the whole question, and I should like to put forward a suggestion. Incidentally, so far as possible I do not use chemicals in my garden. I prefer to use natural compost. I suggest that in the same way as warnings are put on cigarette packets—as I well know, as one who has not broken the habit—similar warnings could be placed on packages of chemicals which are openly displayed for use in the garden, in the countryside and elsewhere, because anyone can buy those chemicals.
We have now reached the stage when relying on people to read small print is not enough. At the manufacturing stage there must be the strictest possible control and rigorous checks on safety measures. I accept from the noble Lord, Lord Wynne-Jones, that the chances of an explosion might be minimal in the general sense of the overall production. But I am not so much concerned with that as with the effect of chemicals now so commonly in use in spraying to get rid, for example, of the present greenfly menace. Some chemicals can cause people harm but others are completely harmless. The country needs guidance, and I hope that the Government will take note of what I have said about putting visible warnings on packages of chemicals so readily displayed in our shops.
9.14 p.m.
Lord SANDYS: My Lords, the House will be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Coslany, for an admirably brief speech. The House will also be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hale, for bringing to your Lordships' attention this particularly important subject which has given us the opportunity of a debate, even at this hour. I hope that your Lordships will not mind if I extend my remarks in what will be quite a lengthy, but I hope not overlong, statement.
As the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Coslany, are so fresh in

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our minds, I think it would be for the benefit of the House if I were to reply, first, to his first and second inquiries about the labelling of packages because I believe that this is significant. I wish no discourtesy to the noble Lord, Lord Hale, in so doing, but it would be valuable to mention this. The packages of chemicals imported into this country containing dioxin are marketed under the trade name of Silvapron T and Silvex. Each package has the words: "Safety Precaution" written on it, and in bold letters the words "Keep out of the reach of children". These may not be the only precautions suggested, and had I had the opportunity of further advance notice on this, I should have been only too happy to look into the subject for the noble Lord, Lord Wallace. If he wishes to advance this problem further at this stage in the Session, I suggest that a Question for Written Answer may reveal the state of the law in regard to the labelling of these particular products.
I turn to the central issue of the Question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hale. As I have said, I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving us this opportunity to discuss the matter. I have listened with great interest both to his speech and to all the other interventions which have been made. Clearly, this is a subject of great public concern. I hope that this is a useful opportunity on which to put the Government's view.
The noble Lord, Lord Hale, in his Question mentions what he sees as an increasing danger posed by synthetic chemicals such as dioxin. Of course, in the compass of this short debate we could not deal in detail with the very large number of synthetic chemicals which number upwards of 50,000 different products which are now manufactured on a commercial scale in the developed world. But at the outset I ought to make a number of detailed points about dioxin simply as a matter of clarification and in view of the terms of the noble Lord's Question.
First, in using the term "dioxin", we must be clear that we are talking of one particular highly toxic chemical known to scientists as 2,3,7,8 - TCDD. This is the chemical which was released at Seveso, to which several noble Lords have referred, after an industrial explosion. There are other chemicals in the same
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group which are also known collectively as dioxins, but they are much less toxic and have not led to any concern. The dioxin about which we are talking is, however, a very toxic chemical indeed, and the noble Lord, Lord Wynne-Jones, referred to this.
Secondly, your Lordships are no doubt aware that this dioxin is not a chemical which has any known application for the benefit of man or animals. Indeed, it is not deliberately manufactured anywhere at all. However, as explained by the noble Lord, Lord Wynne-Jones, dioxin comes into existence during the manufacture of another chemical used as an intermediate in the chemical industry. This chemical is properly known as 2,4,5 - trichlorophenol and the dioxin thus becomes a contaminant within it. In turn, the trichlorophenol becomes the raw material from which certain very useful products are manufactured, notably the pesticide, 2,4,5 - T, referred to earlier, and the antiseptic which is very well known, called hexachlorophane. If dioxin is present in this raw material, it enters into these products as a contaminant.
The third point of clarification is to make clear that trichlorophenol is not now manufactured in the United Kingdom. In other words, the process which results in the formation of dioxin as a contaminant does not take place here, and could not therefore be a source of risk to our people through explosion or other industrial accident. Up to 1976 the product was manufactured at Bolsover in Derbyshire; the noble Lord, Lord Hale, referred to Coalite Limited as the manufacturer. But in that year the company concerned voluntarily ceased to manufacture. I understand that, even before it was closed down, the manufacturing process included a number of special design features intended to avoid the possibility of an accident such as actually occurred at Seveso.
Thus—and this is my fourth point—the only risk that could arise from dioxin in the United Kingdom would be through its presence as a contaminant in a limited number of products available on the United Kingdom market. The Government control the use of all the products concerned antiseptics and similar products containing hexachlorophane are controlled

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under medicines and other legislation, and the pesticides are controlled under the Pesticides Safety Precautions Scheme. Under these arrangements, the dioxin contaminant is controlled at a very low level, and provisions exist to monitor the position and to ensure that these low levels are not exceeded. So long as this is the case, the products concerned are safe to use because not enough dioxin is present to cause any harm. This is an illustration of the well-known principle that "the dose makes the poison".
To sum up the points of detail I wish to make at the outset, the dioxin we are talking about is an unintended contaminant, at very low and controlled levels, in certain products on the United Kingdom market; but the process which gives rise to it does not now take place here.
Concerning 2,4,5 - T, concern about dioxin has risen principally from its presence as a contaminant in the pesticide 2,4,5 - T. This is a useful herbicide, with a main application in forestry, and it has been on the market in this country for over 20 years, though usage has been decreasing during that period. The noble Lord, Lord Hale, specifically referred to the declining usage of this particular product. It is very effective against nettles and woody weeds like brambles—and I think all gardeners will recognise the value of herbicides—and, because it is selective, it destroys weeds without harming nearby grassland. I am sure noble Lords will appreciate how useful a quality this is. As I have said, the herbicide is cleared under the Pesticides Safety Precautions Scheme; and this clearance has been reviewed on no fewer than eight occasions.
There has in the recent past been increasing controversy about this herbicide, particularly in the light of the incident at Seveso and the use of the so-called "Agent Orange" by US forces in Vietnam. I hope that noble Lords see it as an advantage of the United Kingdom approach to these sensitive issues that we examine the scientific facts and do not—without hard evidence of risk—ban products which have attracted controversy. I hope that if the United Kingdom Government have taken a stand on a foundation of scientific fact it will not result in the charge of our being careless, or ignorant, of any risk to
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the health of our citizens from the use of 2,4,5 - T.
The scientific objectivity at which successive Governments have aimed is epitomised in the Advisory Committee on Pesticides, which has only recently made public its report on 2, 4, 5,-T. This report, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Hale, was published I think in March 1979 and is a document publicly available. It is one which has commended itself to a large number of outside bodies, and is in fact in the Library in your Lordships' House.
The committee which produced this document consists of an independent group of experts in the relevant scientific disciplines under the chairmanship of the well-known Professor Kilpatrick, Dean of Medicine at Leicester University. Over 20 years or more successive Administrations have looked to this committee for objective advice based on the highest of scientific standards. I am sure that in view of the fact that the noble Lord, Lord Hale, mentioned in his Starred Question a similar matter to which I replied earlier this month, and referred specially to this committee, it is a matter of public knowledge in your Lordships' House.
It would be foolhardy for any Government ever to abandon the terra firma of scientific fact and launch out into the uncertain sea of prejudice, half-truth and rumour, and I commend to the House the report of the Advisory Committee. After reviewing evidence from this country and abroad, the committee has concluded that the use of 2,4,5 - T can safely continue, even where it is contaminated with dioxin, so long as the level of the contamination is set at a low and controlled level. The committee gives specific attention to possible risks from the burning of weed treated with the herbicide, and concludes that there is no cause for anxiety from this quarter.
I think it would be useful at this point to quote from the report, because it is a valuable one. I wish to refer to the degradability factor which is contained in paragraph 13. I hope I shall not weary your Lordships by reading this extract and I do so because it is a matter of great public concern:
"Degradability: Although TCDD is relatively immobile within the soil, and under laboratory

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conditions has a half life of about a year, recent scientific work has demonstrated that, when a product containing it is sprayed on to leaf and soil surfaces, most or all of the TCDD disappears within 24 hours as a result of being broken down by light (26·5). It is also possible that some bacterial breakdown occurs (paragraph 26). TCDD was not detected in range land and rice fields exposed annually to 2,4, - T sprays".
The report goes on to say in paragraph 14:
"The Advisory Committee has evaluated the above evidence on the acute and chronic toxicity of TCDD, and whilst accepting that it is certainly one of the most toxic chemicals known, the Committee sees no reason to vary its judgment, first reached in 1970 and subsequently re-examined, that the use of brush killers containing 2,4,5 - T contaminated wtih TCDD can continue without risk, subject to the observance of a maximum allowable level of TCDD in the trichlorophenol used for its manufacture (see Annex C for information on the manufacture and formulation of 2,4,5 - T herbicides)".
I commend that document to your Lordships and to a very much wider public. It is a document to which Lord Hale referred, commented on and whose authors he complimented, recommending a much wider reading, and I feel that much good will be done by expanding our knowledge in this very difficult field. There is evidence that this useful report has been read by those who have earlier been concerned about this subject. Too often it is the scare story and the threat of disaster which is the stuff of headlines. I am glad to note that the thorough exposition of the scientific facts has not passed unremarked and that at least one newspaper has told its readers of these reassuring conclusions.
Since the committee's report was prepared, further material has become available from the United States purporting to show that there might be some link between the rate of miscarriages in women and the use of 2,4,5—T. As a consequence, the Environmental Protection Agency in Washington has banned most, but not all, uses of the pesticides. I believe it would be valuable at this point to mention a comment by the Department of Health of Wellington, New Zealand, on the conclusions reached in the United States. We are in a very international field here and nothing but good is served by publicity of what various national bodies reach as their conclusions. It is interesting to see what the New Zealand Department of Health says, in commenting upon the reports made in Oregon, in the
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United States of America, known as Alsea II.
These are the conclusions of the Department of Health in New Zealand:
"It is apparent from the foregoing that the report Alsea II is grossly inadequate from a number of points of view, although this critique does not claim to have dealt with them all. Because the authors of Alsea II have failed to consider and discount other more likely causes of the differences and correlations they obtained, it is felt that no weight whatsoever can be given to their conclusions".
Experts differ around the globe. Very prominent experts in the World Health Organisation have thought deeply about this subject and have published their comments. In turn their comments have been considered by many national bodies, with equally expert opinion, around the globe, and not all of them are of one mind. Nevertheless, the Environmental Protection Agency in Washington has banned most, but not all, of these pesticides; and it is a view taken by one Government. The results of the review by the Advisory Committee will be available soon, and noble Lords may think it significant that the authorities referred to in New Zealand, and indeed in Australia (which I have not quoted in detail) have already said publicly that they do not regard the new material as providing a scientific basis for any further restriction on use.
Unless and until we in the United Kingdom receive further advice from the Advisory Committee, the Government will continue to accept their recommendation confirmed earlier this year that 2,4,5 - T can safely be used in the recommended way for the recommended purposes. We further take confidence from the fact that a number of other Governments, both in Europe and further afield, share our view and have continued to permit the use of this product.
I should like to refer to particular points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hale. He referred to a very important article which appeared in the Guardian on 18th June this year regarding tins in a mine shaft in Gwynedd. I can assure your Lordships that the preliminary investigation showed that the tins contained only rusty water and were otherwise empty. Further investigation has taken place to discover whether there was any particle of contaminant, and I am assured that this is the present stage that the investigations have reached.

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The noble Lord also referred to Dr. May's report on the explosion at Bolsover in 1976. I do not know whether the noble Lord wished the Government to comment on Dr. May's report. However, the noble Lord made very complimentary comments on the veracity of the whole report.
The noble Lord's final point concerned imported poisons. I have already, in my remarks in answer to the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Coslany, referred to the products currently in use, and I suggested that we would look further into the question of the labelling of containers, whether imported or otherwise, should this be desired in any future Question, whether for written Answer or in the form of a starred Question.
Finally, I come to a question posed by a number of noble Lords; and I notice that the noble Lord, Lord Wynne-Jones, has left the Chamber. The question was: Are we going to look at human dangers? Naturally it is of acute public and prime concern to this Government, and indeed to any Government, that we should look at these dangers, and it is for that very purpose that the Advisory Committee on Pesticides was set up.