Lords Sitting of 22 March 1979

Preamble
The House met at three of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR On the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Derby.

SOUTH AFRICA: BRITISH AMBASSADOR'S SPEECH
Lord HATCH of LUSBY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether the speech made by Sir David Scott, British Ambassador to South Africa, in Port Elizabeth on 21st February 1979, represents their own policy towards trade with South Africa.
The MINISTER of STATE, FOREIGN and COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (Lord Goronwy-Roberts): My Lords, Yes. As Sir David Scott made clear, the United Kingdom and South Africa are of considerable economic importance to each other, but he also drew attention to the dangers of over-dependence on any one market, and referred to the growing volume of trade with the rest of Africa. As the Ambassador said, some 10 per cent. of our direct investment overseas is in South Africa and he said that it might be logical for us to try to reduce our commitment.
Lord HATCH of LUSBY: My Lords, will my noble friend accept that when I tabled this Question originally the full text was not available and I fully accept his interpretation of this speech? But would he not agree that there is some anomaly in the Government's ban on the sale of arms to South Africa and the apparent encouragement of trade which enables the South African Government to purchase arms elsewhere? Has he observed the history of sporting contacts with South Africa, where for 50 years in the friendly contacts between this country and South Africa separateness and aparthied have only increased, and that
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only when international action was taken did this decrease—
Several noble Lords: Speech! Order!
Lord HATCH of LUSBY: Can my noble friend reconcile the speech of our Ambassador to South Africa—
Several noble Lords: Out of order —reading!
Baroness LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOE: My Lords, the noble Lord is asking a question quite legitimately.
Lord HATCH of LUSBY: May I ask my noble friend whether he can reconcile the speech of our Ambassador to South Africa with that made in London in January by his right honourable friend the Secretary of State, who said that it is the Government's policy to reduce our economic links with South Africa?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I welcome my noble friend's repetitive use of the word "reconcile", which is entirely the preferred policy of Her Majesty's Government, in South Africa as elsewhere. There is no difference of intention and meaning between my right honourable friend's speech the other day, in which he indicated our very strong economic links with South Africa, and also Sir David Scott's same reference, to which he attached the proper suggestion that in view of the possible instability of South Africa because of its aparthied régime it would be well for this country to consider how best and to what extent to reduce its over-dependence on its economic links with that country. As I said in this House the other day, the extent of our links with South Africa is a power behind the influence which we are gradually exerting on the régime there, to improve its policies towards its black population.
Lord AVEBURY: My Lords, did our Ambassador point out how dangerous it is—and one only has to look at the situation in Iran—to put all one's eggs in one basket? Did he not further correctly remark that our trade with South Africa had slipped to fifteenth position in the British export league table, so that it is now behind our trade with Nigeria? Does this not indicate the

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risks to our trade with the rest of the world of undue dependence on that with South Africa?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, it is true that, relatively, our trade with South Africa has slipped down in order of magnitude. Nevertheless, it is still very considerable and, as I pointed out the other day, in content it is of immense importance as to our imports of vital raw materials to this country and indeed to the Western democratic world. I think the House would wish to be reminded of the general figures of trade in Africa as a whole so that the Government's thinking is better understood—and it is not, of course, entirely the thinking of the Government alone.
British exports to South Africa in 1978 were £667 million sterling; British imports were £767 million sterling: that is, an adverse balance against us of some £100 million sterling. British exports to black Africa in 1978 were £2,047 million; British imports from black Africa in 1978 were £1,239 million, a favourable balance to this country of about £800 million.
Baroness EMMET of AMBERLEY: My Lords, is it not clear that it is somewhat ungracious to attack a civil servant in this Chamber where he cannot defend himself? If the noble Lord had chosen to attack the right honourable gentleman the Foreign Secretary, we might have supported him.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I think Sir David Scott, as his name might imply, is well able to sustain the attacks even of my noble friend.
Lord PAGET of NORTHAMPTON: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, referred to the case of Iran. Is not the real lesson of Iran that we should be very careful to guard against a change of Government in South Africa which would deprive us of supplies vastly more vital to our economy than any that came from Iran?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, we must be equally careful that the prevention of a proper change of Government and of policy in countries like
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South Africa does not in itself in the future tend to deprive us of vital raw materials.
Lord REDCLIFFE-MAUD: My Lords, is the Minister aware that his reply will give great satisfaction to those of us who know the difficulty of making speeches as an Ambassador in a foreign country when in the home country doubt is thrown on the compatibility of what one has said with statements of one's political masters in this country? Is the Minister aware of the particular pleasure it is to hear him say what he has said about Sir David Scott, who perhaps has done more for this country in that particular place than anyone else in the world?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, my noble friend, who preceded Sir David Scott in the highest possible position on behalf of this country in South Africa, and whose words I very much appreciate, will, I know, agree with me that what we have tried to do is to emphasise the urgent need for a swift and orderly change of policy in regard to apartheid in South Africa, which in itself would make it much easier for us to continue our very strong and growing economic links with that country.
Lord BARNBY: My Lords, is it not a fact that in all these discussions of figures and comparisons of trade it is dangerous not to realise that the figures—for instance, those which have just been quoted—refer only to visible trade? We in this country in dealing with total trade always mention our invisible trade, but in respect of all the figures quoted invisible trade with South Africa was not mentioned. The total of the visible and invisible together exceeds by a good deal the figures the Minister has quoted.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I will certainly analyse these figures in the light of what the noble Lord has suggested, and with the leave of the House and, in response to a Question in the usual manner, I will seek to give further information. But I do not think that the general picture will be very different from that which I have tried to describe to the House this afternoon.
Lord GISBOROUGH: My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that British trade and investment have contributed to the

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situation which now exists wherein the per capita income of blacks in South Africa is between two and six times the per capita income of blacks in other so-called free countries?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, that may well be so, and we all rejoice in that and pay due tribute to those in South Africa of all nationalities who have contributed to that. But that is no substitute for other satisfactions the lack of which instigate action, not only in South Africa but in other parts of the world. It is not enough to secure economic justice. There must be social and what I would call subjective satisfaction to attend it.
Lord CLIFFORD of CHUDLEIGH: My Lords, when discussing trade with South Africa will the Minister bear in mind the great importance not only of raw materials that come from South Africa but of raw materials that come to this country around the Cape?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: Yes, my Lords, I think that normally raw materials from Southern Africa would come to this country around the Cape, would they not?

THE CLOSED SHOP: CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTION
3.19 p.m.
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will extend conscientious objection within closed shops, now limited to religious grounds, to wider grounds as recognised in the Military Service Acts of the Second World War, provided that the objector contributes to a humanitarian cause the amount his fellow workers contribute to a trade union.
Lord WALLACE of COSLANY: No, my Lords.
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, is the Minister aware that I believe in the closed shop as the best means of industrial
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negotiations, but that I also believe in freedom of conscience? Is this not the first time that conscience has been limited to religious belief? I am a humanist, but I hope I have a conscience. Does not the requirement to pay a sum equivalent to a trade union subscription to a charity remove the danger of mere escapism?
Lord WALLACE of COSLANY: My Lords, I respect, as indeed does every Member of your Lordships' House, the views of my noble friend Lord Brockway. As the House will know, in the recent joint statement of the Government and the TUC unions are advised to bear firmly in mind that the closed shop need not be a rigid arrangement. Arrangements should provide for conscientious objectors and can provide for certain categories of workers to be excluded from closed shop provisions. Indeed, I should like to add that the question of paying a sum to charity could be within the terms of such an agreement.
Lord ROCHESTER: My Lords, will the noble Lord accept that many of us very much welcome the fact that, in the guidance given in the recent statement by the TUC and the Government, the reasons for the exclusion of conscientious objectors from the closed shop provisions are not confined to religious grounds, and their exclusion is not made conditional on contributions being made to charities? Is he further aware that we welcome, in particular, the prospect thus opened up of a measure of all-party agreement at last on this vexed question?
Lord WALLACE of COSLANY: My Lords, the question of conscientious objection is rather difficult to define but I am sure that noble Lords will agree that it is quite easy to define religious views. The noble Lord is suggesting that there should be some sort of regulation or classification. That is not easy to define. But, under the agreement between the TUC and the Government, it is possible for cases to be dealt with during the negotiation of the agreement. The Government take the view that other grounds could be considered, but it is impossible to specify them.
Lord CARR of HADLEY: My Lords, while I admit that there are difficulties about defining conscientious belief, since

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it was possible to overcome those difficulties and to provide protection for all conscientious objectors from having to do National Service against their conscience in time of war, are the Government saying that it is both impossible and not right to do the same as regards a man's or woman's employment in time of peace?
Lord WALLACE of COSLANY: My Lords, with all due respect to the noble Lord, there is a big difference between war and peace.
Lord CARR of HADLEY: My Lords, there should be more freedom in time of peace.
Lord WALLACE of COSLANY: My Lords, there is a big difference between war and peace because it must be remembered that the decision to allow for conscientious objection to military service was made as part of the decision to make such service compulsory by law. Anyone who failed to convince the tribunals specially established for the purpose of determining the genuineness of the conscientious objector, was liable to a prison sentence. Therefore, the two situations are very different. I am sure that all noble Lords will recognise that all the moral, humanitarian and political considerations which may apply to refusing to fight in the war, are not appropriate for a decision on whether or not to join a union or, indeed, any particular firm.
Lord NUGENT of GUILDFORD: My Lords, is not the problem that there is a certain fall-out from the closed shop position whereby, if a union is not prepared to accept the advice of the TUC code, the individual member of the union who does not wish to accept the union line may be victimised by losing his union membership and thereby losing his job? Is not that the serious matter to which noble Lords opposite have not yet addressed their minds?
Lord WALLACE of COSLANY: My Lords, first, negotiations are not one-sided: they are between management and unions, and some managements would prefer to deal with a closed shop. As regards an individual faced with the situation of possibly losing his job or his
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union membership, there are avenues for him to appeal. He may do so via the TUC's Special Committee which has been set up, and also every individual has his legal rights of appeal.
Lord KINNAIRD: My Lords, will the noble Lord tell us why the Government are so frightened of dealing with this closed shop situation?
Lord WALLACE of COSLANY: My Lords, the Government are not frightened, but they are very conscious of the complexity and difficulty of such a situation. It is far better to deal with the matter with a proper negotiating attitude than to rush in like a lot of bald-headed bulls in a china shop.
Lord KINNAIRD: My Lords, is the noble Lord calling me a bald-headed bull?
Lord WALLACE of COSLANY: My Lords, on the contrary; I think I myself have less hair than the noble Lord.
Lord BLEASE: My Lords, would the noble Lord not agree that, in practice, there is a considerable amount of flexibility at negotiating level between management and trade unions in connection with this matter, and that all genuine cases are dealt with on a fair and equitable basis?
Lord WALLACE of COSLANY: My Lords, there are many cases of genuine agreements where flexibility is enjoyed. It is unfortunate that only as regards the rigid cases is there a great deal of publicity. The general feeling is that reason is prevailing and it is the Government's hope, and I trust the hope of all of us, that under the new arrangements there will be even greater consideration than in the past.
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, while I accept the Minister's statement of difference between military service and the closed shop, does not the character of conscience remain the same in both cases? Is he aware that I defended many men as conscientious objectors and gained exemption for them on political grounds? Conscience can be a matter of politics just as much as it can be of religion.
Lord WALLACE of COSLANY: My Lords, I respect my noble friend's record in this matter, but I must once again say that it is a very difficult matter and we cannot draw a comparison between war situations and peaceful situations. They are not the same. There is a right of conscience. However, I would add that although we talk about conscientious objection to joining a union, there are many people who would willingly take an increase fought for by a union but who would not be prepared to face the responsibility of union membership.
Lord CARR of HADLEY: My Lords, I should like to press the noble Lord a little further. If he accepts his noble friend's point that political belief as well as religious belief can be a matter of conscience, is he not aware—I am sure that he must be—that some unions, although not all, have among their objectives open support for one political party? If one does not happen to believe in that political party it really is a matter of conscience not to be forced, in order to earn one's living, to join a union committed to the support of a party one is opposing.
Lord WALLACE of COSLANY: My Lords, the noble Lord has, of course, heard of contracting-out and he is also aware of the fact that another political party receives massive financial support from management.
Lord CARR of HADLEY: That, my Lords, is not the point.
The LORD PRIVY SEAL (Lord Peart): My Lords, I have the feeling that noble Lords would like to progress because we have two Statements to deal with.

ARTS COUNCIL EXHIBITION: WITHDRAWN PICTURES
3.28 p.m.
The Earl of GOSFORD: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are aware that two works
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were withdrawn from the Exhibition "Lives" at the Hayward Gallery and whether they will take steps to prevent a repetition of this form of censorship.
The MINISTER of STATE, DEPARTMENT of EDUCATION and SCIENCE (Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge): My Lords, I am aware that two items originally selected for this exhibition were not in fact displayed because the Arts Council was advised that to do so might render it liable to legal proceedings. I cannot regard it as censorship for the Arts Council to choose not to display some of its own property in one of its own galleries.
The Earl of GOSFORD: My Lords, while I thank the noble Lord for that reply, I should like to ask him whether he is aware that those two pictures have already been publicly exhibited, one of them in an Arts Council show early last summer at the Serpentine Gallery? While accepting the fact that the noble Lord has no jurisdiction over the Arts Council, will he bring his considerable influence to bear by asking it to elaborate on the extraordinary statement that it has made?
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: My Lords, I do not think that it is very extraordinary. As regards the first part of the noble Lord's question, one of the pictures at any rate was exhibited at the Serpentine in an earlier exhibition, but without the captions which were subsequently added to it—by agreement, it is fair to say, with the organiser of the exhibition. It was the captions which were thought to be legally dangerous.
As regards the second part of this question, I am more accustomed to questions insisting that I should intervene to suppress pictures or events that certain noble Lords have not liked, than to questions insisting that such items should be shown whether or not they like them. There are four columns in Hansard of 24th March 1977 and five in that of 17th July of the same year where the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, made robust attacks on the Government for being too permissive. I think that the final answer is, and must remain, that although it would be wrong for the Government to intervene by way of censorship, it cannot be wrong for the

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promoting body—in this case the Arts Council—to exercise commonsense supervision over events it pays for with public money. The action was a perfectly proper one and within the Council's proper responsibilities.
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, can the Minister clarify one point? Is it the case that the Arts Council itself bought these pictures for £800, kept them for two months and then banned them from the exhibition without any discussion? Does not that have a very serious effect on the reputation of the artists? Will the pictures be returned to them?
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: My Lords, I cannot vouch for the amount of money paid, but certainly the Arts Council employs two or three contemporary artists each year to buy contemporary pictures. These two pictures were so bought and were exhibited without the captions. Objection was taken to the captions. There is no reason why they should not be exhibited again without the captions.
Lord NUGENT of GUILDFORD: My Lords, if the Arts Council got back its £800, I think it would have done a very good deal.

MALTA AND DEFENCE OF THE MEDITERRANEAN
3.32 p.m.
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether the presence of Soviet warships, including aircraft carriers, in the Mediterranean would justify review of the decision to abandon our association with Malta.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, Her Majesty's Government decided in the 1974 Defence Review, following consultations with our NATO allies, that the United Kingdom's defence effort should be concentrated as a first priority upon those areas in which we could
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contribute most effectively to the security of the United Kingdom and the NATO Alliance. The decision not to seek extension of the agreement under which British Forces are based in Malta reflected this reallocation of effort. The present level of Soviet naval forces in the Mediterranean does not call that decision into question.
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the decision, which was taken quite some time ago, was taken in quite different circumstances from those of today? The Russians are now in the Mediterranean; on the northern side of Africa we have Colonel Gaddafi of Libya who is hostile; and we have Mintoff on the other side of the Mediterranean who is resentful. Are we to understand that in the prevailing circumstances we shall abandon any possibility of maintaining the security of the West in the Mediterranean?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, to quote my Answer given a few seconds ago:
"The present level of Soviet naval forces in the Mediterranean does not call that decision into question".
I would remind my noble friend that the Government of Malta has declared that after 31st March this year these facilities will be available neither to the Warsaw Pact countries nor to NATO. In the meantime, negotiations between Malta and the Community continue, especially in regard to textiles and similar matters. I see no reason to doubt that Malta's connection with Europe will not continue and, indeed, increase. It is for future circumstances and also for the Maltese Government and its people to decide what the military and other arrangements, if any, are to be with Europe and NATO.
Lord CARRINGTON: My Lords, having had some experience of negotiating about bases in Malta, and having a certain amount of sympathy with those who would not seek to restart such negotiations, will the Government and the noble Lord give an undertaking that NATO and Her Majesty's Government will not be prepared to see the facilities in Malta fall into unfriendly hands, or potentially unfriendly hands?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, it is not the first time that I have shared the noble Lord's sympathies, especially in regard to certain negotiations. As to the very important point he made about our continuing interest in there being proper non-alignment in Malta—and, indeed, in the Mediterranean, if that is possible (a policy which the Maltese Government has said is its official policy)—certainly we shall be constantly in touch with that Government with a view to ensuring that any change in the situation does not adversely affect the security of the West and of this country.
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that I find his Answer—I am not blaming him for it—not only disappointing but highly dangerous? Does he imagine that the Soviets will ask for Mintoff's permission to obtain facilities which they may desire in Malta? They will take them when they want them. In view of the position in Cyprus and the somewhat uncertain position in Turkey, would it not be better for NATO to give this matter some consideration? Will my noble friend suggest that NATO might look at the subject again?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I am sorry to be both disappointing and dangerous at the same time. I never find my noble friend disappointing, but sometimes I do find him dangerous. As to the very serious point that he has raised, he has, of course, referred to the wider considerations for NATO—the shield of democracy in the West—of certain recent events in the Near and Middle East. There is no doubt that we shall need to examine and, indeed, we are examining very carefully—we are assessing once more—precisely what we and our partners in the West should do in relation to these events, and that certainly includes the Mediterranean.
Lord HANKEY: My Lords, all the same, will my noble friend not reconsider the point pressed by the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell? Will the Government bear in mind that in regard to any area where the Western Powers move out, the Eastern Powers seem to move in? The naval mission in India at present is a Russian one; the Russians have a naval base in India. Aden, which we have left, is now the principal Russian base in the
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Indian Ocean. The Russians have had bases in the Red Sea. Will the noble Lord not consider that it would be as well for us somehow to keep a hold on this and not simply to rely on a vague undertaking by Mr. Mintoff that he does not want to belong to either side?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTSMy Lords, I do not think that we ever find Mr. Mintoff vague; he certainly speaks for his people. In that sense we must defer to his and his Government's decisions, and seek to maintain a considerable friendship with Malta, a George Cross island. There are links between us of a psychological as well as an economic nature, and we must seek to build on them. However, I certainly do not underestimate what the noble Lord, Lord Hankey, and the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, have said, in that it is necessary—in fact, it is proceeding—for this country and its friends and allies to assess the position which has developed in the last year or so in the areas we have discussed today.

GOVERNMENT STATEMENTS
Baroness LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOE: My Lords, with the leave of the House, at a convenient moment after 3.30 p.m. my noble friend the Leader of the House will repeat a Statement being made in another place by the Prime Minister on devolution. This will be followed by my noble friend Lord Goronwy-Roberts, who will repeat a Statement on the tragic death of Her Majesty's Ambassador at the Hague.

DEVOLUTION: PROPOSED FURTHER ACTION
3.40 p.m.
The LORD PRIVY SEAL (Lord Peart): My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat a Statement being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister about the further action which the Government propose to take following the results of the referendums on devolution which were held in Scotland and Wales on 1st March.
The Statement is as follows:
"The House is aware that it is now almost 10 years since the Royal Commission on the Constitution was

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appointed at a time when there was much public dissatisfaction with the workings of government in Scotland and Wales.
"For a decade there has been intense debate about possible changes in the system of Government, not only in this House, where all parties have put forward their own proposals for improvement, but also in Scotland and Wales. Parliament itself has been engaged for almost two years in considering detailed legislation which included the proposal for advisory referendums to enable the people of Scotland and Wales to vote on whether they wished the Acts to come into force.
"The results of those votes fell short of the conditions laid down by Parliament. So today the Secretaries of State for Scotland and Wales are laying draft orders to repeal the Acts, as they are required to do by Section 85(2) of the Scotland Act and Section 80(2) of the Wales Act. The effect of these orders would be to repeal both Acts in their entirety. That is a fundamental decision and Parliament must have a full and early opportunity to debate and decide the issue. This is the Government's intention.
"If the House were to decide to repeal these Acts that will certainly not be the end of the matter. The debate will continue, especially in Scotland, where a majority of the votes cast was for the Act to come into force. Such a volume of opinion cannot sensibly be disregarded. The Government have now fulfilled their obligation to lay the repeal orders. We intend to proceed to the next stage, namely, to ask the House to debate and decide on the orders. But we also propose that before the House makes such an important decision there should be a short intermediate stage. As the House knows, the Government are themselves firmly committed to a policy of devolution. We shall therefore use this short interval to make formal approaches to all the other parties in the House urgently to discuss on a bilateral basis, taking into account the result of the Scottish referendum, whether a measure of agreement might not be found to provide for the better government of Scotland. We will be
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ready to consider carefully modifications which might now be proposed to the present Act and ready to consider no less carefully any other proposals that might emerge. The Government's intention is that such discussions should be brought to a conclusion one way or the other by the end of April at the latest.
"As for Wales, the same uncertainties are not present. There was a heavy majority vote against the Wales Act and the Government assume that Parliament will wish to repeal the Act. Nevertheless, agreement might be possible on further administrative changes which would improve the quality of government in the Principality. We shall therefore approach other parties to consider whether we can secure agreement on further devolutionary changes that would lead to a settlement in Wales within the same time limit of the end of April.
"The Government's conclusion is that the situation in Scotland makes it imperative that before any irrevocable step is taken by this House there should be one further attempt by the parties to get the matter right in a way that would not disregard the voting in the Scottish referendum and would strengthen the unity of the United Kingdom."
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
3.43 p.m.
Lord CARRINGTON: My Lords, we are grateful to the noble Lord the Leader of the House. I hope that he was gratified by the response which he has had to the Statement. Were your Lordships' House not so polite we should all have been rolling in the aisles. My Lords, of course this Statement has got nothing whatever to do with devolution; this is just an explanation of how an unpopular Government seek to stay in power, by delaying tactics and by subterfuge, for a few weeks longer. I do not really know who the noble Lord is fooling. He is not fooling me, and I doubt very much whether he is fooling anybody in your Lordships' House, least of all those who sit behind him.
As for all-party talks, the Government have refused my party's suggestions over the last 2½ years for all-party talks, and

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now, at the fag end of a Parliament, when the Government's plan for devolution has been rejected, they suddenly turn the somersault and expect us to take them seriously. The right thing for the Government to do, though it appears that they are not going to do it, is to stop all the wheeler-dealing, dissolve Parliament, and let the people of this country choose a new Government with a fresh mandate.
3.45 p.m.
Lord BYERS: My Lords, it may well be that we should have a General Election as soon as possible, and that has been our view in this party since October. As to the Statement itself, we welcome the proposal for all-party talks. There is so much dissatisfaction in both Houses, in Scotland itself, and in this country, with the Scotland Act as it now stands that, in our view, all-party talks are quite essential whether there is a General Election or not. Before or after the General Election, and preferably before, there must be all-party talks to try to get the system of devolution into far better shape than it would otherwise be. We in this party will certainly want to play a constructive part in such talks, and we feel that the sooner they take place the better. I would hope that the Conservative Party would also see its way to cooperate before rather than after the Election.
3.47 p.m.
Lord PEART: My Lords, I have noted carefully what the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition has said. I do not think he has really treated this subject seriously. The very fact that the Liberal Party, and not the Opposition, has shown positive leadership, is an indication. After all, there are many matters affecting Scotland which are important in the sense of local government and regional matters, and noble Lords know very well that an all-party talk would be a fruitful way of trying to deal with some positive problems which still affect these great regions. Therefore, I hope that the Tory Party, despite what their spokesman has said, will really think of this carefully, otherwise we shall be regarded as flippant politicians.
Lord SKELMERSDALE: My Lords, it seems to me that the referenda were
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specifically designed to ask an opinion of a specific electorate on a particular Act. The Statement recognises that this has been given, and it is the Act that is at fault rather than the idea of devolution. Could the noble Lord the Leader of the House say why, in this case, the all-party discussions, which I think we all welcome, should not be held after the Act has been repealed?
Lord PEART: My Lords, I think that the timetable is right. I would wish that there would be a positive response now in view of what I have said, and I hope that it will be taken up in the other place. I think that there is a general desire to look at this important matter. After all, many regional matters arise. I think of Wales, in particular, where, to give one example, I was involved in devolving some of our agricultural matters from the Ministry of Agriculture. This is the sort of thing that has to be considered. This is important for government, so I welcome what the noble Lord has said.
Lord FERRIER: My Lords, can the noble Lord say how such talks would deal with those, among whose number I include myself, who regard the referendum as being quite an unsuitable way of dealing with the matter at all, depending, as it did, on the list of voters in Scotland many of whom were not Scots at all?
Lord PEART: My Lords, it is not a question now about whether we should be ruled by a referendum, or anything like that. We believe now that inevitably, because of what has happened, the results, and having now to lay the orders, it would be right and proper to have talks, and all-party talks.

CHILD CARE BILL [H.L.]
3.49 p.m.
The LORD CHANCELLOR (Lord Elwyn-Jones): 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.

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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 la, and to be printed.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Lord PEART: My Lords, I beg to move the first Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
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 taking the Consolidated Fund (No. 2) Bill through all its remaining stages this day.—(Lord Peart. )
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Lord PEART: My Lords, I beg to move the second Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
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 taking the Administration of Justice (Emergency Provisions) (Scotland) Bill through all its remaining stages this day.—(Lord Peart. )
On Question, Motion agreed to.

CONSOLIDATED FUND (NO. 2) BILL
The SOLICITOR-GENERAL for SCOTLAND (Lord McCluskey): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a— (Lord McCluskey.)
On Question, Bill read 2a: Committee negatived.
Then, Standing Order No. 43 having been dispensed with (pursuant to Resolution), Bill read 3a, and passed.

CONSERVATION OF WILD CREATURES AND WILD PLANTS (AMENDMENT) BILL [H.L.]
3.52 p.m.
Read 3a.
Clause 2 [Vulnerable wild creatures]:
The PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY of STATE, DEPARTMENT of the ENVIRONMENT (Baroness Stedman)The PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY of STATE, DEPARTMENT of the ENVIRONMENT (Baroness Stedman) moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 2, line 30, leave out subsection (2).
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I will speak at the same time to the consequential Amendment to the Schedule; namely, Amendment No. 5. While I was in favour of the Amendment to the defence in the proviso of Section 1 of the 1975 Act moved by the noble Lord, Lord Craigton, on Report, subsequent reflection has led me to the view that his Amendment would not produce an acceptable result. First of all, the noble Lord's Amendment removes the need imposed by existing defence to consider the necessity for and hence the reasonableness of the accused's action. The noble Lord's Amendment does not mention the accused's action at all but would require him to establish there was no other reasonable course of action which he could have taken. Apart from ignoring the question whether or not the accused's action was justified, the form of words substituted would involve the accused in having to exclude so many possibilities that it might be impossible to use the defence successfully even in a case where the accused's action was reasonably justified.
On the assumption that it is correct to provide a defence in respect of serious damage to land, crops, poultry or any other form of property, which in the case

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of a farmer may seriously affect his livelihood, it would seem right to ensure that the accused has a defence if he can establish to the satisfaction of the court that the action he took was necessary for that purpose. The existing defence does that. The defence in its existing form, moreover, is a standard form of defence and is well precedented in other Acts; for example, it is to be found in the Protection of Birds Act 1954, the Deer Act 1963, the Badgers Act 1973 and the Deer Bill, which left this House as recently as 13th February. I therefore ask the House to agree to this Amendment and thus allow the proviso to Section 1 of the Conservation of Wild Creatures and Wild Plants Act 1975 to remain in its present form.
Lord CRAIGTON: I must put on the record, my Lords, the incredible experience we have had with this Amendment. I moved an Amendment in which I genuinely believe and which had been suggested to me by Friends of the Earth. At the last moment the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, who is always so helpful, said, "If you will add just one word to the Amendment—the word, 'reasonable'—I believe I can accept it." Accordingly, at the last moment I moved a manuscript Amendment to add the word "reasonable", and the noble Baroness accepted it. Now she says she does not accept it. I accept what she says very willingly—I never liked the Bill very much in any case—and of course I agree with her.
Lord SKELMERSDALE: My Lords, it is fair to say, as my noble friend just said, that the Government's attitude as personified by the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, has throughout the Bill been one of neutrality, not armed but decidedly helpful neutrality, and it would seem that on this occasion helpfulness has perhaps gone a little too far, which is why we have this slight impasse at the moment.
I made faint disapproving noises when this Amendment came up on Report, but I was in favour then, as I am now, of anything for a quiet life and I did not want the noble Baroness to teeter off the fence in the wrong direction. Perhaps it is a question now of whether she has actually fallen in the right direction or whether she had a slight push; I would not expect her to answer that. I am now
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satisfied that she has accepted the right advice of her Department and I hope your Lordships will agree that the situation is now back to square one, which is exactly where it should be.
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, I am grateful to both noble Lords for the way in which they have received the Amendment. This has been an extraordinary Bill in that it has virtually been rewritten on the Floor of the House. I hope that with the modest Amendments we have before us today we really shall have got the job right.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.

AMBASSADOR TO THE NETHERLANDS: ASSASSINATION
3.57 p.m.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I will, with permission, repeat a Statement now being made in the other place on the assassination of Sir Richard Sykes. The Statement reads as follows:
"Honourable Members will have been deeply shocked to hear this morning of the death of our Ambassador to the Netherlands, Sir Richard Sykes, and a member of his domestic staff, Mr. Karel Straub, a Dutch citizen. Sir Richard Sykes was shot while leaving his residence shortly after 9 o'clock this morning and four bullets were fired at the car at short range. According to an eye witness, the shots were fired by two men who have not yet been traced and no organisation has yet claimed responsibility for the incident. We are in close contact with the Dutch Government and with other European Governments.
"I know the entire House will be appalled by this premeditated act of violence and will join with me in expressing our sincere condolences to Lady Sykes and her family and to the family of Mr. Straub.
Sir Richard was an outstanding representative and his death is a great loss to this country, of which he was a distinguished servant; to the Diplomatic Service, of which he was a greatly liked and respected member;

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and, above all, to his wife and family, to whom we will all wish to extend our deepest sympathy".
Lord CARRINGTON: My Lords, in common probably with a number of your Lordships, I had known Sir Richard Sykes for a number of years, and it was a very great shock to hear the news this morning. He was not just a distinguished member of the Foreign Service, though he was certainly that; he was, too, a distinguished soldier during the war, but he was also one of the nicest and best friends anybody could have. I join with the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, in sending our sympathy to Lady Sykes and her family, and of course to the family of Mr. Straub.
Lord GLADWYN: My Lords, once again we must condemn an apparently senseless assassination and mourn the death of a brilliant and devoted public servant, to whose widow and family all our sympathy must naturally go out. What can be done to prevent possible future such outrages will, I have no doubt, be done; and while all necessary precautions will of course be taken, I am afraid that no security can be absolute. The sad fact is that a really fanatical and determined murderer will very often be able to kill, so our long-term hope, I suggest, can only be that the present wave of mad terrorism will subside when it becomes clear that no objective of the terrorist is in practice achieved by useless individual acts of violence.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, the House will unanimously join the two noble Lords and myself in the expressions of sympathy which have already been extended. In particular I endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, said about the enormity of the problem of achieving absolute security. The situation in this respect is being improved in the light of experience and following innovation, but we must all be most careful as to the possibilities of senseless acts of violence being perpetrated in the future by organisations and individuals over which and whom it is impossible to have total supervision and to exert total prevention.
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I was particularly moved by what the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, had to say about Sir Richard himself; I agree with the noble Lord. In peace as in war Sir Richard served this country with distinction and courage, and his death was in the line of duty, as one might expect. I, too, can claim friendship with Richard Sykes, and I know that what noble Lord, Lord Carrington, said about him is certainly true. He was a man who combined integrity and intellect to a remarkable degree.

CONSERVATION OF WILD CREATURES AND WILD PLANTS (AMENDMENT) BILL [H.L.]
Consideration of Amendments resumed.
Clause 7 [Minor amendments of the principal Act]:
4.1 p.m.
Lord SKELMERSDALE Lord SKELMERSDALE moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 6, line 27, leave out ("section 2(2)") and insert ("sections 2(2) and 8(1)").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, in moving Amendment No. 2 I shall, with your Lordships' permission, also speak to the consequential Amendment, No. 6. I am afraid that when I was preparing the new Clause 7 (containing a list of minor amendments to the principal Act) it escaped my notice that Section 8(1) was virtually identical to Section 2(2). Therefore, it is necessary to have exactly the same words in the Amendment Bill in order to marry up in the same way as the two sections marry up in the principal Act. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord SKELMERSDALE Lord SKELMERSDALE moved Amendment No. 3:
Page 6, line 28, leave out ("and").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, in moving Amendment No. 3 I also wish to speak to Amendment No. 4. In revising the wording I omitted to make the correct presentation to the Public Bill Office in your Lordships' House, and consequently in two places I included the word "and" twice where it should appear only once. I know from bitter experience that it is for

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exactly this kind of reason that Private Bills fail in another place, and I certainly do not want to go through the rather lengthy re-drafting again in a subsequent Session, and so I hope that your Lordships will agree to both Amendments Nos. 3 and 4. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord SKELMERSDALE Lord SKELMERSDALE moved Amendment No. 4:
Page 6, line 29, leave out ("and").
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Schedule 2 [The Conservation of Wild Creatures and Wild Plants Act 1975 as amended]:
Baroness STEDMAN Baroness STEDMAN moved Amendment No. 5:
Page 8, line 28, leave out ("no other reasonable course of action was open to him to prevent") and insert ("his action was necessary for the purpose of preventing").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, the Amendment to Schedule 2 to the Bill is a parallel Amendment consequential on the omission of subsection (2) of Clause 2, and in effect it restores the Keeling schedule to its original wording. I beg to move.
Lord SKELMERSDALE: My Lords, I wish to ask the noble Baroness whether I am correct in assuming that the words,
"his action was necessary for the purpose of preventing"
are not printed in bold type because they in fact restore the original words and that there are no new words, which would be printed in bold type were they added to the Bill by the Keeling schedule.
Baroness STEDMAN: That is my understanding of the position, my Lords, and I hope that both the noble Lord and myself are right about this.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord SKELMERSDALE Lord SKELMERSDALE moved Amendment No. 6:
Page 11, line 8, leave out from ("reference") to end of line 9 and insert ("to a dead creature shall be construed as including a reference to any part of, or anything derived from, such a creature.")
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The noble Lord said: My Lords, spoke to this Amendment when moving Amendment No. 2. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
4.6 p.m.
Lord SKELMERSDALE: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill do now pass. In doing so, as is customary in your Lordships' House, I should like to thank all the many people who have helped me with the Bill, both in the Chamber and outside. I have already referred to the noble Baroness and her most helpful officials, and I am very grateful to them. My noble friend Lord Mowbray and Stourton, on the Front Bench, has on this occasion been somewhat silent, but he has been of enormous help outside the Chamber, and I am most grateful to him. I am also extremely grateful to my noble friend Lord Craigton who has at times made useful comments, has been persuaded where persuasion was necessary, and, I should say in all fairness, equally has persuaded me where persuasion was necessary.
Moved, That the Bill do now pass.—(Lord Skelmersdale.)
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, I wish to thank the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, for his kind words about me, and to reiterate my gratitude to the noble Baroness the Minister, though I am becoming rather weary of directing all these praises to her; I feel that we are almost canonising her. As my noble Leader mentioned "the latter stages of a dying Government", I am not sure that in such circumstances we should canonise people, though perhaps it is the appropriate time. I also wish to congratulate my noble friend upon inheriting the mantle of our late departed friend Lord Cranbrook and upon doing that so well.
While on my feet I also wish to ask the recently canonised noble Baroness to confirm what she told me outside the Chamber: namely, that certain bodies in this country, because the Bill is so technical, are worried that it might not be enforced. Therefore, it has been suggested that various other measures should be written into the Bill to give powers of enforcement and prosecution to certain people

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or bodies. The noble Baroness has satisfied me on this point, and I now invite her to do so publicly to the House and to say that there are already sufficient powers for the public to take an interest in the Bill. Unless the public take an interest in these matters, no laws relating to them will be enforceable. It is no good speaking only of police or wardens, and I should like confirmation regarding the public's entitlement. With those words I again thank the noble Baroness and my noble friend.
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, in taking the noble Lord's last point first, I can certainly confirm that there are adequate powers to do all that we want to do in terms of policing the Bill (when it becomes an Act) and all the other Acts concerned with conservation and wild creatures. We see no problems arising in that regard. In this country we are lucky in that we have so great a number of voluntary organisations which are not only extremely enthusiastic but also extremely knowledgeable and are willing to give their services in helping to police these matters. There is certainly no lack of powers with which to carry out the duties and the responsibilities which we have imposed upon people through the Bill.
I also wish to thank both noble Lords for their comments, which apply not so much to me but to my officials for the help that they have provided. I am sure that the officials found the task as daunting as did the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, when we started virtually at square one and worked right through the matter again. I hope that the Government will remain in office long enough for the Bill to have a fair wind in the other place, so that the noble Lord does not face the prospect of having to go through the whole procedure again in another Parliament.
On Question, Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.

NATIONAL HERITAGE FUND (No. 2) BILL [H.L.]
4.10 p.m.
Lord REIGATE: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third
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time. I am not quite certain whether it would be better to speak at this stage or on the Question, that the Bill do now pass? I had originally understood that there might be an Amendment, but none has been put on the Order Paper, and I therefore think that it would be best if I said what I have to say now. I apologise for detaining your Lordships yet again on this Bill—my third speech on the subject in 18 months—particularly as it may not reach the Statute Book in this Parliament. How I envy the wild plants and wild creatures who have now been conserved with the sunshine of the Government's approval, which has not been given to my Bill!
The nub of the Bill, frankly, is a twofold aim—to remove the National Heritage Fund from Treasury control and to place it under independent trustees who can act quickly in an emergency and at a time when it would be impolitic for a Government to do so. I first introduced this Bill in 1977, in the month of June, and I withdrew it in the face of a very chilly Government response, intending to reintroduce it and ask for a Select Committee to consider the matter. Meanwhile, a Select Committee in another place jumped in and itself chose to examine the National Heritage Fund. It recommended precisely the main points in my Bill, together with certain other excellent suggestions which fall somewhat outside the scope of legislation. This was followed by an Early-Day Motion in another place, which was signed by 120 Members of all parties. These events set the alarm bells ringing, a faint tinkle reached the Government's ear, and they decided that they might perhaps have to take some action.
The moment therefore seemed ripe to revive my own Bill and test the temperature. I still find there is no particular enthusiasm. I may say that I have had warm support from other quarters, and particularly from the Press. Indeed, I have seen no unfavourable comment on the contents of my Bill. The Times in fact published a third leader warmly commending it. Unfortunately, that was the day that The Times died. I trust there was no link between those events, such as cause and effect. I delayed the Committee stage from then until February of this year, hoping that in the intervening months the Government might make up

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their mind whether they intended to adopt my Bill, as they could have done, or produce their own Bill.
All we have now is a White Paper. I know that there are no votes in fostering the national heritage, but, none the less, that does not absolve a Government from their duty. Faced with the Select Committee's report, and having rebuffed the stated opinions in your Lordships' House on my Bill on two occasions, the Government have had to do something. Events have shoved them rather unceremoniously into hasty action, and without much conviction or enthusiasm they have produced a White Paper. Before I say anything else about the White Paper, I should like to comment on and commend one particular point, which is the acceptance of the Commons Select Committee's suggestion that, in future, any purchases by the National Heritage Fund should be identified as such. I should like to add one further hope, and that is that the trustees, in their discretion, should consider identifying some of the fund's acquisitions as being the national war memorial of Dr. Dalton's original and very imaginative, but frustrated, intention. That was the finest part of his original suggestion, and, alas!, it has taken more than 30 years to bring it anywhere near fruition.
To turn back to the White Paper as a whole, we are now well into March, and we have no Government Bill as an alternative to mine. The White Paper is mainly a repetition of known facts plus a red herring about the "in lieu" proposals, on which I do not myself intend to comment. I think the noble Lord who is to reply will agree that he has had a had Press, and has very little support for his proposals. There is also—and I wish to be fair to the White Paper—a complete reversal of the Government's previous attitude to the main principles of my Bill, which they have now accepted without giving any justification for their total change of view. The Government have turned a complete and grudging, if somewhat slow, somersault, and have reneged on all the arguments loyally deployed by the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, on the Second Reading of my Bill in June 1977.
So there we are: we have a White Paper and no Government Bill. When will the
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Bill be introduced? All we know is that, in the words of the Minister,
"Officials are meeting more than once a week to draft it".
There is enthusiasm for you, my Lords! At that rate, when shall we get the Bill? Will it be before the end of June, before the Election, or even before the Election if it is postponed until October? I doubt it. Also, that statement is rather difficult to reconcile with another sentence which the Minister employed. I do not think he quite realised the import of what he was saying when he added:
"After full consultation, we shall have the opportunity to see what the Bill produces".
That rather gives the impression that he would not be aware of the contents. I am sure he did not really intend that.
My Lords, we have had no help whatsoever from the Government on this Bill, and I very much regret that. I should have been very happy if they had taken over my Bill and got it towards the Statute Book, because then we should have had some action earlier. It would seem that there will be no debate on the White Paper, and I think this will be the last opportunity to express our views. We have few differences between my Bill and the main principles of the White Paper, but I shall outline one or two minor differences.
Briefly, I and those who think like me are against appointing the trustees from designated areas to represent Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, as is suggested in the White Paper. Before you know where you are, you will have the statutory woman and the statutory trade unionist, and if you are to have a small body then I believe that simply will not work. Again, we think the trustees should be appointed by the Prime Minister and not by the Secretaries of State. That would give them the far higher status that this task would deserve. I think that the trustees should have power to acquire and hold properties. If they can acquire monies, as set out in the White Paper, why not properties? I do not agree with the White Paper's limitations on the trustees' freedom and authority. Some restraint is necessary, but the proposals in the White Paper are excessive.
So there we are, my Lords. It is disappointing to me. The chances of progress in this Parliament are very slender indeed. To my noble friends on the Front Bench

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I would say that if, after the Election, they find themselves on the other side of this Chamber, I shall give them three months' grace. Then, if they do not act, I shall introduce my Bill again. To the noble Lords who have supported me, and particularly to my noble friend Lord Cottisloe, I offer my warm thanks and would say only this: We shall get our Bill eventually. I beg to move that this Bill be read a third time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a.—(Lord Reigate.)
4.18 p.m.
The Earl of GOWRIE: My Lords, I hope my noble friend Lord Reigate will give me, not three months', but three minutes' grace on this occasion, to congratulate him on the persistence with which he has pursued this issue—and a very important issue it is—and also on the stoicism with which he has borne the considerable disappointment of it not being likely to get on to the Statute Book this time round. But I can say to my noble friend that I believe that, whichever Government are in power, his work and the work of others who are deeply concerned here is now irrevocable. I am sure that something will happen; and of course we would hope that it would be sooner rather than later.
The late Lord Attlee, when he was Prime Minister, I think, said that one of the many ironies about your Lordships' House was that it was the only place in the British Parliament where a Communist found himself sitting. I think he would also have enjoyed the historical irony that the war memorial pursued so sedulously by Dr. Dalton should find its resurrection, so to speak, at the hands of a Tory Back-Bencher of impeccable credentials like my noble friend Lord Reigate. I think the whole House would recognise the work that he has done on this and the merits of his Bill, and all that we would say is that we are extremely sympathetic to it and hope to make a Government and to put either his Bill or something close to it into action without too much delay.
4.20 p.m.
Earl HAIG: My Lords, I greatly welcome the National Heritage Bill and
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the Government White Paper, both of which are strong indication that steps are being considered to combat the erosion of the national heritage. I speak to some extent as spokesman for the National Gallery of Scotland who, in keeping with their native character, are urging a note of caution. Although welcoming the White Paper, the trustees are anxious that the present procedures whereby pre-eminent works of art are given to the nation in lieu of taxes should not be taken off the Statute Book until those responsible for operating the procedures are convinced that a satisfactory alternative has been evolved. They believe that the "in lieu" procedure should continue to work until such time as new machinery, which is practical and fast-moving, is ready to operate.
Perhaps there are one or two points that I might add. The procedures involved in a private treaty sale are, in my experience, not uncumbersome. In order to enable the new machinery to work efficiently we should not in the early stages lumber it with all the work that is involved in the acceptance of, the pricing of and the finding of homes for, preeminent works of art. There is a danger that the new trustees would be over-faced—and over-facing, particularly where artistic matters are concerned, which need fresh minds, can lead to bad judgment. Over-facing with inadequate staff would lead to slow procedures which would discourage the vendors from selling to national institutions rather than through the sales rooms.
Up to now, a great deal of work has gone on behind the scenes, and with amazing speed works of art have been evaluated from the pre-eminence point of view, depending on the demand for them from any particular gallery. At one time, a work may be pre-eminent in the eyes of London and not pre-eminent in the eyes of Edinburgh. It would be unwise to put these complicated researches all at once into the hands of a new body like the National Heritage Fund—and certainly not until it has been armed with an efficient staff and possibly with subcommittees to support it. As it is, what an appalling amount of ground the trustees will have!—covering painting, sculpture, militaria, land, houses. The mind boggles. "A jack of all trades is a master of none", as the saying goes. We all have

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known fellow-trustees who waste valuable time pontificating on subjects that they know little about.
In welcoming the proposal to appoint seven trustees, I stress the need for careful selection of candidates and for the trustees to be chosen not so much on grounds of a wide knowledge, although a general interest is essential, but for a profound knowledge in one of the aspects—fine art, architecture or money—described in this Bill. My own experience as a trustee stems from my time on the board of the National Galleries of Scotland under the chairmanship of the late Lord Crawford. To a large extent, the task of recommending trustees was his. He made his recommendations with great care. Thanks to him, important gaps in the collection were filled with the aid of moneys derived from the "in lieu" system. For example, Quentin Massey's "Portrait of a Notary", Elsheimer's "I1 Contento" and, since then, Guardi's "View of Venice". Today, we have a most comprehensive collection. It is true that we have no Michael Angelo and there are still important gaps to be filled. We have no Stubbs. So the National Heritage Fund will have a part to play.
The noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, in his speech about this Bill and about the drafting of the Bill eventually to be presented to Parliament, said that we are going to have complete consultation now. It is not for me to determine which Bill gives way to which on this particular racecourse. There is no evidence yet that the Government Bill is to be a starter. Whatever its chances may be, the noble Lord must recognise the need for holding discussions between interested parties now. Discussions should include the museum authorities, the Standing Commission and the National Trust. With regard to land, the Government would be wise to consult with bodies like the National Trust, the Historic Houses Association, the Historic Buildings Council and with some of the many organisations concerned with the land, like the Forestry Commission, the Nature Conservancy Council and the Countryside Commission. It may be that at some stage the Wildlife Trust and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds may be involved.
So many aspects need to be considered, and not least the question of chattels in
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smaller houses, chattels which are in danger of being sold to raise money which is needed because of heavy taxation and the cost of living. I must declare an interest as the owner of an historic house which is too small to be opened to the public and to live in at the same time. For owners like me, with few liquid resources, there is no alternative but to sell the contents. If things go on as they have lately, we will end up with houses with bare walls and no furniture. This is one example among the many wide-ranging problems with which the National Heritage Fund will have to deal. There is no point in trying to field national treasures without first trying to stop some of the causes of their disappearance. Otherwise, it is like bolting the stable door after the horse has escaped.
One possibility recommended by the National Trust for Scotland would be for the National Heritage Fund to have the power to give grants to a maintenance fund set up by owners when dedicating their houses and chattels to avoid capital transfer tax. Many owners deterred from dedicating their property because of lack of money would be helped by grants towards their maintenance funds. A final salient point which I should like to make is that, in my view, the National Heritage Fund should enable the leaving of works of art in private hands. This matter was touched upon in the White Paper. It may be that the National Heritage Fund, after accepting a work of art in lieu of tax or through private sale, should be allowed to recommend it remaining in the place to which it belongs. In the passage that the noble Lord knows so that I will not read it, the Government imply that it may be possible to examine the problem of extending indemnity to cover loans for pictures which are remaining in houses.
I would encourage this proposal. There will perhaps be risks and, certainly, a need for security and careful custodianship. On the other side, the advantages would be that concentrations of works would not go on filling up galleries in the big city centres; instead they would be distributed throughout the country. Visitors to stately homes, large and small, would benefit and would go home refreshed and exhalted, and their children better educated. Through this part of their work, the National Heritage Fund would feel that the great works of the past

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are not just being preserved but are being shown in situations which set them off to their best advantage. They would be stopping the trend towards bare walls of country houses and contributing to the enlightenment of the people of this country who would be able to absorb works which were life-enhancing and ennobling to their minds, spirits and hearts.
4.30 p.m.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: My Lords, I absolve the noble Earl, Lord Haig, from having made a Second Reading speech at this stage, which is not appropriate, but I know that he has been snowed up in Scotland and was not able to get here for the Second Reading. As I explained at Report stage, the Government will shortly be introducing a Bill to implement proposals in its White Paper, A National Heritage Fund. This will be a wide-ranging measure to reflect the wide-ranging nature of the Government's proposals. In this situation a Private Bill is out of place and the Government would certainly not want it on the Statute Book. We should not support such a Bill in the House of Commons, when we are about to give Parliament our own proposals. The Government and the noble Lord are journeying in the same direction; but we shall, as is customary in a journey of this importance, take our own train.
The noble Lord told us at Report stage that he is not one to take umbrage. This is a subjective comment which I shall not challenge, but his general attitude certainly seemed to me to be verging on the "umbrageiferous", if that be the right word. I certainly do not feel that the Government's attitude deserves any complaint. This is a most important issue, involving large sums of money—indeed, large sums of new money—for the arts and for the heritage. We in the Government, far from scraping our feet—if that is the right word.
The Earl of GOWRIE: Dragging!
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: Dragging our feet! We have studied assiduously the report of the Environment Sub-Committee of the Select Committee on Expenditure of the other place, and have responded with a White Paper setting out our intentions. The
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noble Lord will have noted that our proposals include the most important recommendation of the sub-committee: that is the setting up of a special heritage fund with independent trustees.
The chairman of the Environment Sub-Committee, Mr. Arthur Jones, MP, wrote to my right honourable friend the Prime Minister in warm terms, thanking him for meeting so many of the recommendations made by his committee. I hope noble Lords will not accuse me in turn of taking umbrage if I note that the speeches of noble Lords on Report stage of this Bill hardly reflected this attitude.
In particular, I should like to say a word about the "in lieu" business to which the noble Lord, Lord Cottisloe, referred in our last debate, and the noble Earl, Lord Haig, has mentioned today. The comments have gone wide of the mark. I feel very strongly that much of the concern over these proposals is based on a complete misunderstanding. There is no question of abandoning these provisions. The recommendation of the Select Committee was that it should be taken out of the hands of the Treasury. The Treasury has agreed to that. As the White Paper says, we have concluded that it would be more satisfactory if these arrangements were replaced by an expanded system of private treaty sales. We have given firm undertakings that the individual vendor will he no worse off financially than he would have been under the existing arrangements. New arrangements will be introduced to put prospective vendors in touch with institutions which might be interested in acquiring their property, and the acquiring institution will not have to contribute more to the acquisition than at present.
Given the strength of these undertakings, I cannot see what all the fuss is about. The only just complaint that the noble Lord has against the Government is that we have taken some time, and are still taking some time, to work out the right way to deal with this very complicated issue. We believe that we can devise a satisfactory scheme which will fulfil these undertakings; but we recognise that, for it to work well in practice, it must be acceptable to all those who might wish to make use of these provisions, and we are accordingly undertaking wide-ranging consultations. We have already had more

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than one discussion with museum directors. The Department of the Environment has had a meeting with the National Trust. We are continuing to discuss the matter with these people as we take advice from them and reconsider the detail of how best to achieve what we are all trying to achieve.
The noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, said one thing which I think is true: quoting Mr. Attlee or somebody, this I think is irrevocable. Our timetable is to have the White Paper, when we put it into the form of a Bill, operating by 1980, and so a start has to be made now. I estimate, without making a promise, that we shall have a draft Bill some time after Easter, not I think in June but by the end of May. If we do that, even if it is only a First Reading, that is there for all time and that is what we are very anxious to achieve, because we all realise that there may be not a different Government but a different Minister for the Arts later on.
It is just worth making this point: the noble Earl, Lord Haig, said that we must have a satisfactory alternative for the "in lieu" procedure. That is what the delay is about. That is what we are going to achieve with the help of the various people with whom we are discussing the matter.
4.37 p.m.
Lord REIGATE: My Lords, may I first of all thank my noble friends who have supported me, particularly my noble friend Lord Haig, who has fought his way through snow and ice bearing the device of support for the National Heritage Fund Bill which I very much welcome. I hope that the Government will take due note of all his remarks on the subject of the "in lieu" provisions. I have not dealt with it myself; it is extraneous to the Bill and, I would have thought, frankly, would have been dealt with in a separate document rather than a White Paper which purported to be dealing with the report of the Select Committee and the alternative Bill.
I am most grateful to my noble friend Lord Gowrie for his very helpful remarks. I am tempted to say that I look forward to when he introduces his Bill quite soon—the sooner the better. As for the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, I must congratulate him. I think that
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today's is the longest contribution that he has made to the debates on this Bill since it started, and I am extremely glad that I have at long last almost provoked him into showing a little anger, perhaps even a little umbrage. The adjective of umbrage is "umbrageous" not "umbrageiferous", as he seemed to think at one stage.
He remarked that Mr. Arthur Jones, who was the chairman of the Select Committee, thanked the Prime Minister for meeting most of the proposals of the Select Committee. He omitted to mention that Mr. Jones himself produced a Bill called the National Heritage Fund Bill, which is why my Bill, rather quaintly, having been originally called the National Land Fund Bill is now called the National Heritage Fund (No. 2) Bill. Mr. Jones's Bill received a First Reading but the Second Reading was blocked in the Commons. I should like to know at which stage Mr. Jones, faced with the opposition of the Government, decided to withdraw his Bill. I did not withdraw my Bill, and I have no regrets whatsoever. We have caused the Minister to get to his feet more than once, and also we have produced from him almost a date when we shall see the Government's Bill. If he had taken that more co-operative attitude earlier on in these proceedings, it might have saved a little time.
On Question, Bill read 3a, and passed and sent to the Commons.

VACCINE DAMAGE PAYMENTS BILL
4.38 p.m.
The PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY of STATE, DEPARTMENT of HEALTH and SOCIAL SECURITY (Lord Wells-Pestell): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a.—(Lord Wells-Pestell.)
The Earl of AVON: My Lords, as I said on Second Reading, we welcome this Bill. I rise now only because of some information which came to me today, and I should like to mention again one point that I raised on Second Reading; that is the starting date of eligibility for the

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payment. I received only today information from my honourable friend in another place, Mr. Newton (the Member for Braintree) about another case still alive after a vaccination in 1946. The family is called Goody. The case was raised in another place by the late Mr. Tom Driberg in 1947. This family have had 30 years of unimaginable hardship and suffering. Could not the Government find some way to help this family and the other few families who are ineligible because of the starting date of this Bill? Surely in this Welfare State of ours some way can be found for equality of payment for those who have suffered equal and even longer hardship. We are grateful to the Government for this measure and to the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, for his excellent exposition of the Bill.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I believe it was the noble Earl who raised this question on a previous occasion, and I pointed out to him that in my Second Reading speech I made it perfectly clear that these payments would relate to people who had suffered vaccine damage from the time when the National Health Service came into being on 5th July 1948. However, I think I also said on that occasion that we have gone into this matter very carefully. Like everything else, it has to have a starting point and, rightly or wrongly, the Government are of the opinion that the starting point should be when the Government had responsibility for the newly—constructed National Health Service on the 5th July 1948. I think it is very unlikely—I raised this matter with my right honourable friend—that the starting date will be made before then. I think it is unlikely at this stage that anybody who suffered vaccine damage before that will be included.
On Question, Bill read 3a, and passed.

KIRIBATI BILL [H.L.]
4.42 p.m.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a.—(Lord Goronwy-Roberts.)
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, I do not rise to renew controversy: indeed, I hope to do exactly the opposite, but I have had a letter from the distinguished constitutionalist who was the adviser to the Gilbert Islands Government. That letter seems to me to require some remarks today. He states that the people of the Gilbert Islands have been very much hurt by the absence of trust in their Government and their people shown by the safeguards which have been suggested in this House under the entrenched clauses of this Bill.
So far as the noble Lord, Lord Hale, myself and others are concerned, when we have urged that there should be safeguards to the entrenched clauses, we have been speaking historically, because there are so many instances where entrenched clauses and even Bills of Rights in the Constitution have not subsequently been observed. The last thing that was in our minds was any absence of trust in the present Government of the Gilbert Islands or in their peoples. This criticism might also apply to the safeguards which were introduced by the Government. Those safeguards were proposed in order that the Gilbert Islands might begin their independence without the difficulties of antagonism with the Banaban people; and I very much hope that the Government and peoples of the Gilbert Islands will now realise that none of us wish to express distrust of their administration of their people.
We wish the new Gilbert Islands success in their exciting endeavour of independence and I want to express solidarity with them in two respects. I do not know any government in the world, unless it is the Government of Tanzania, where Ministers so identify themselves with the people as they do in the Gilbert Islands. The Chief Minister has said he wants no trappings of office, and the adviser to the Government in his letter to me remarks how he met the Chief Minister going to buy a loaf of bread on an old bicycle, shoeless and without a shirt on. Perhaps that was natural, in the heat of the island, but I know of no Government in the world where the Ministers so identify themselves with their people as those who will now be advancing towards independence in the Gilbert Islands.
The second reason for our solidarity with them is their gesture for peace. They

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are entirely abolishing their army; they are committed to disbanding the Gilbertese defence force which has previously existed. In a small group of atolls in the Pacific, that seems a sensible as well as an idealistic policy to follow. I hope that their example in this respect will be followed by the newly independent islands of the world. I know of only one instance where it has been carried out before, and that is in Costa Rica in Central America. I want to say in these concluding words that we not only wish the Government of independent Kiribati success in this difficult task but we wish to express our identity with them in seeking social justice in their own country and peace in the Pacific.
Baroness ELLES: My Lords, in view of the fact that the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, has spoken I feel it is incumbent on me from these Benches merely to say two very brief words. First, I entirely endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, has said—shoes, shirts and a defence force do not bring happiness to people—and, secondly, I very much hope from these Benches that the people of the Gilbert Islands will on their independence achieve that happiness and prosperity which is due to them.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, before the Motion is formally moved, may I too say how much I appreciate the tone and substance of what my noble friend has said today and also of what the noble Baroness has contributed on this occasion.
Bill read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

SOCIAL SECURITY BILL
4.50 p.m.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I beg to move that the Commons Amendment be now considered.
Moved, That the Commons Amendment be now considered.
On Question, Motion agreed to.—(Lord Wells-Pestell.)

COMMONS AMENDMENT TO ONE OF THE LORDS AMENDMENTS
[The reference is to Bill (60) as first printed for the Lords. The Commons Amendment is printed in italics.]
COMMONS AMENDMENT TO ONE OF THE LORDS AMENDMENTS

  LORDS AMENDMENT
  After Clause 3, insert the following new clause:
  Amendment of provisions relating to earnings after retirement age
  .—(1) In section 30 of the principal Act (supplementary provisions about retirement pensions) the following subsection is inserted at the end—
  "(6) The Secretary of State may by order—

  (a) substitute for the period of 5 years mentioned in section 27(5) of this Act and subsection (1) above a shorter period; and

  (b) substitute for the ages of 65 and 70 mentioned in sections 26(1) and (3), 36(5), 37(6) and 79(2)(a) of this Act and subsection (3) above such lower ages as are appropriate in consequence of any provision made by virtue of paragraph (a) above.".

  (2) In section 167 of the principal Act (Parliamentary control of orders and regulations)—
  (a) in subsection (1) the following paragraph is inserted after paragraph (b)—
  "(c) no order shall be made under section 30(6),"; and
  (b) in subsection (3) after the words "section 17(3)" there is inserted "30(6),".
  (3) In Part II of Schedule 15 to the principal Act (regulations not requiring prior submission to National Insurance Advisory Committee) the following paragraph is inserted after paragraph 17—
  "17A. Regulations contained in a statutory instrument which states that it contains only provisions in consequence of an order under section 30(6) of this Act.".
  (4) Section 30 of the principal Act shall cease to have effect on 5th April 1984 and all references to that section in that Act or in any other enactment shall then likewise cease to have effect."
  The Commons agree to this Amendment but propose the following Amendment thereto:
  Line 27, leave out subsection(4).
  Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in their Amendment to the Lords Amendment to insert a new clause after Clause 3. I do not think it is incumbent upon me to take a great deal of your Lordships' time over this Commons Amendment. We discussed this Amendment at some length in a discussion which lasted for 55 minutes, and which occupied 18 full columns of Hansard. But perhaps I ought to make clear the effect of the Government Amendment carried in another place, proposing that subsection (4) of this new clause should be left out.

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  With subsection (4) removed, the clause reverts to the form it was in when I introduced it at the Committee stage of the Bill in your Lordships' House. As I explained to your Lordships at that time, the clause will enable the Secretary of State for Social Services, by Affirmative Order. to reduce the ages at which the earnings rule ceases to apply to retirement pensioners—currently, 70 in the case of men and 65 in the case of women. This would enable us gradually to phase out the earnings rule as a step towards abolishing it completely. But, as I made clear to your Lordships in introducing the new clause, the Government were simply taking power to make changes. The question of using that power would need to be considered in the light of the economic situation at the time, in relation to the many other claims on public expenditure and to the Government's expenditure priorities.
  Subsection (4), which is the matter now before your Lordships, was introduced at the Report stage of the Bill by the noble Lord, Lord Cullen of Ashbourne, and it provides, in effect, for the earnings rule to be finally abolished by 5th April 1984. I do not know whether there was any great significance in the famous 1984. It is important that I should explain clearly why the Government have sought to remove subsection (4). As I have made quite clear to your Lordships, and as has been made clear in another place, the Government are committed to abolishing the earnings rule for retirement pensioners. In this, I think I can say without fear of contradiction that there is nothing between the Government and the Opposition. I suppose that the only qualification is "when resources allow", which we feel is an important one, and it was this consideration which led the Government to remove subsection (4).
  The Government do not think it right to introduce into the Bill a provision which would commit the Government—whichever Government was in power in 1984—to the additional expenditure which would be involved in abolishing the earnings rule without regard to the resources which might be available at that time, or to the other priorities that the Government of that time would have. But it is only right that that Government should be able to determine their own priorities,
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  and that they should not be committed in advance, if I may say so with the greatest respect, to divert resources to the abolition of the earnings rule, if it were considered that there were more important calls upon those resources.
  The removal of subsection (4) would not limit a future Government's action in any way. We have already provided in the clause a power to ease the way to abolition of the earnings rule. If resources were available, there would be nothing to prevent a future Government from finally getting rid of the earnings rule by April 1984, if they wished to do so. A future Government would be very much aware of the views which have been strongly expressed in your Lordships' House, and in another place, that the rule should be phased out completely over the next five years, and they could be expected to take account of those views when considering what their priorities should be. But the Government feel that at least the decision—and any such decision—must be made by the Government of the time and not by this Government.
  I know that the Opposition take the view that the Government's estimates of abolition— which we say would cost between £64 million and £124 million, depending on how many people continued to forgo their pension after pension age—are far too high. This point was made more than once, quite properly, by the noble Lord, Lord Cullen of Ashbourne. I explained in some detail at the Report stage of the Bill why the Government cannot accept that view, and I do not propose to repeat today what I said then. The Government remain convinced that the cost of abolition would be very high, and in reading the report of the proceedings in another place when this matter was considered there on 19th March, I was interested to see that the noble Baroness's right honourable friend in that place accepted that the cost could be as high as £40 million.
  I have no doubt that in future years the cost of abolishing the rule will be different from the estimates to which I have referred, and different from the estimates made by noble Lords on the other side of the Chamber. But whether the cost will be higher or lower, I cannot say, and I do not think that any of us can at this stage. This will be a matter for

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  the Government of the day to determine, but, as I said earlier, the whole question of priorities, so far as that Government are concerned, will remain. We should not tie their hands in that way; and that is precisely what subsection (4) of the new clause would do. Therefore, I beg to move.
  Moved, That this House cloth agree with the Commons in their Amendment to the Lords Amendment.—(Lord Wells-Pestell.)
  Baroness YOUNG: My Lords, at this late stage, I do not wish to rehearse again all the arguments that we have had on this matter. Clearly, both sides of the House, and the Liberals, agreed that we should abolish the earnings rule for retirement pensioners. It is to us very disappointing indeed that, when this matter was debated in another place, it was lost by so small a margin of four votes only. It is particularly disappointing that that important Division should have taken place at the fag end of a dying Parliament, on a matter of some considerable importance to a lot of people.
  It is also very difficult for us on this side to avoid the conclusion that, at any rate in another place, the Government deliberately misled my right honourable friend and his colleagues over the Amendment that they were going to put down in your Lordships' House. Clearly, they believed that it would meet the point and include a date for the abolition of the earnings rule, but as the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, has made quite clear, although the Amendment admits in principle that the earnings rule should be phased out, it does not put a date on it. May I tell the noble Lord that the significance of the date of 1984 was that the earnings rule would be phased out within the lifetime of a Parliament, which is generally reckoned to be about five years. That is why that date was put in, and there was no other significance at all.
  As I said, we find this a disappointing matter. However, I should like to reiterate that when we form the next Government this is a matter to which we shall return. I also reiterate the pledge of my right honourable friend that we shall phase out the rule within the lifetime of the Parliament.
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE (EMERGENCY PROVISIONS) (SCOTLAND) BILL
5.0 p.m.
Lord McCLUSKEY: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. The need for the Bill arises because most of the courts in Scotland, including the Court of Session, the High Court of Justiciary and the Sheriff Courts are seriously crippled by a strike involving many of their staff. This strike is part of a national campaign of industrial action being taken by two Civil Service Unions: the Civil and Public Services Association, the CPSA, and the Society of Civil and Public Servants, the SCPS, in furtherance of a pay dispute with the Government. These unions have specially selected the Scottish courts for a total withdrawal of labour, and in the event some 84 per cent. of the staff of the Supreme Courts and some 83 per cent. of the staff of the Sheriff Courts are on strike.
Negotiations on civil service pay are carried out at national level. The Government have given assurances that the pay research settlements negotiated with the unions—and I should say that there are seven other unions not on strike—will be implemented, that the settlement will be staged, though the staging will be subject to negotiation, and that any dispute on the amount of pay research based settlements will be arbitrable under the terms of the Civil Service Arbitration Agreement, though the settlements will be subject to staging. Negotiations on pay, with a view to a settlement before 1st April, are proceeding.
We regard this strike as quite unjustified, beginning, as it did, six weeks before the settlement date and when negotiations were going on, as indeed they still are. The Secretary of State for Scotland and the Secretary of State for Employment met senior representatives of both unions involved no later than last week, on Tuesday, 13th March, and pointed out to them the problems the strike was causing and tried to persuade them to call if off. This they were not prepared to do, and the strike continues. I am sure we all regard the courts, and open access to them, as a fundamental part of our democracy, and it is intolerable that, for most of Scotland, the courts—and that includes the Supreme

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Courts—are virtually at a standstill and have been so for the last four weeks. At a debate on the position in the Scottish courts in another place on Tuesday, 13th March, there was agreement all round that the situation was deplorable and that legislation was required to ameliorate the position as much as possible.
Not all the courts have stopped entirely and the judiciary, in some cases with the help of staff who are not on strike, have been doing what they can to keep the courts in operation, and we are very grateful to the judges and staff concerned for their efforts and determination to keep the administration of justice in being. About 12 of the smaller Sheriff Courts are functioning normally. These are, in the main, single Sheriff Courts with a small administrative staff where sufficient staff have decided to remain on duty. In other courts, certain classes of business are being undertaken, again because sufficient staff is available to enable this business to be dealt with. All courts are dealing with very urgent matters—for example, interim interdicts and committals of persons charged with serious offences. In no case has a person been denied the opportunity to apply for bail. The High Court still sits to deal with bail appeals. But let there be no mistake. The courts, particularly the major and busier courts, are seriously crippled, and even with the determination of the judges to take on what is possible, nothing like the general run of work can be carried on where the majority of staff are absent. And that, unfortunately, is the position.
My right honourable friends the Secretary of State and the Lord Advocate have been keeping a close watch on the situation and the problems that have arisen. They have been much helped in their task by points raised by the Lord President of the Court of Session, by honourable Members in another place and many others. As a result, certain needs have been identified and are incorporated in the Bill now before your Lordships' House. Our aim has been to keep the legislation as short and simple as possible, an aim which I am sure will have the approval of all noble Lords.
In deciding what legislation is required, we have tried to maintain the balance
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between the needs of the community in the field of law and order and the rights of the individual. I believe the Bill achieves the necessary balance. The Bill is of a temporary nature, as is to be expected of emergency legislation, and I am sure your Lordships will appreciate that it will not cure every problem created by the strike. Most strikes cause inconvenience and even hardship to innocent parties, and this strike is no exception. I would emphasise, too, that the Bill in itself will not return the courts to normality. Only a return to work by all the staff can achieve that.
The aim of the Bill is, first, to extend certain legal time limits; secondly, to deal with the question of the 110-day rule; thirdly, to enable crimes to continue to be prosecuted; fourthly, to allow the courts to extend the range of business they can undertake, where that is possible; and, fifthly, to cope with a problem affecting the Keeper of the Registers in Scotland.
With your Lordships' permission, I shall briefly describe the main provisions of the Bill. Clause I establishes the temporary nature of the legislation. It provides that the Bill will cease to be in force one month after the date prescribed by an order made by the Secretary of State. It also provides that the period from 23rd February, when the strike began, to the date to be prescribed by the Secretary of State will be the "emergency period" for the purpose of the Bill. In other words, the Bill will be retrospective to 23rd February. If I may amplify that a little, the strike started on 23rd February 1979. Under the Bill, the emergency period starts on and includes 23rd February 1979, and comprises and includes two separate periods of time. They are, in chronological order, first, the period of the strike itself; and, secondly, the period that elapses between the end of the strike and the date prescribed under Clause 1(1). There is also a third period: a period of one calendar month starting on the prescribed date.
I cannot predict how long the strike will last. The degree of dislocation in the business of the courts will depend in large measure upon the duration of the strike. The Secretary of State will make his judgment when the strike ends as to how long or how short the interval needs

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to be between the ending of the strike and the start of the final month which follows the emergency period. It is hoped that that interval between the end of the strike and the prescribed date will be short; but I shall not attempt any guess as to how long it might be, as the factors which will determine its length are not known, or knowable, at this stage.
The Act has to have effect for the whole of the emergency period because it is, of course, quite possible that, in some cases, the time limits to which Clause 2 relate have already arrived. That is to say, the last date for raising an action or taking some essential step in relation to some legal proceedings may have been 23rd February 1979, or any date since then. Clause 1(2) therefore makes the Bill retrospective. That is essential, though regrettable. I should add that the same circumstances which make retrospection necessary would make it necessary to proceed with this Bill even if the strike were to end today. This is because only by primary legislation can certain rights lost as a result of the operation of a time bar be restored. The full resumption of work would not restore rights already lost.
Clause 2 provides that, where something requires to be done in relation to any legal proceedings and is governed by a time limit or period of time, it may be done at any time up to one month after the expiry of the emergency period. This provision will ensure that no person will, because of the strike, lose any rights to do anything in legal proceedings. Perhaps the most important right preserved by this clause is the right to raise an action of damages for personal injuries within the three-year period. This will enable such an action to be raised within one month of the end of the emergency where the three-year period expired during the emergency. To put it another way, Clause 2 has the effect that any time bar which would, in the ordinary operation of the law, affect legal proceedings, shall not have its normal effect. The clause therefore suspends the operation of any such time bar or limit until the end of the month which follows the emergency period. Thus, for example, if an action for personal injuries were due to be raised by, say. 10th March 1979 at the latest, the pursuer would be able to raise his action at any time before the end of
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the month referred to in Clause 1. So, in the case of time limits occurring while the strike itself lasts, the additional time will in no case be less than one month plus the time before the prescribed date arrives. This clause will therefore reassure the many people who have expressed concern that rights might be lost because they could not be exercised during the strike.
The extension of time limits will also apply to criminal proceedings and will ensure that where the time within which criminal proceedings must be taken expires during the emergency period, the proceedings may be raised within one month from the end of the emergency period. Certain other procedural periods of time laid down in rules of court will be suitably extended, as will the right to appeal against the decision of a licensing board.
I turn now to Clause 3 and the 110-day rule. As I have already mentioned we have tried in the Bill to maintain the balance between the public interest and the rights of the individual, and in this clause the public interest predominates. The purpose of the clause is to suspend the running of the 110-day period within which the trial of an accused person who has been fully committed, must be concluded. The clause provides that in computing the 110-day period no account shall be taken of any period during which an accused person is in prison and which occurs during the emergency period. No person who is judged to be a danger to the public (and unfortunately there are some) is being released. I can assure your Lordships that no person is being unnecessarily detained in custody—if possible they are released, but all will be brought to trial if the evidence warrants trial. I would also assure your Lordships that we shall continue to watch cases involving the extension of the 110 days with very great care.
Clause 4 makes it clear that criminal proceedings may be started and continued during the emergency by allowing the accused and witnesses to be cited to a criminal diet even though any ordinary sitting of the court has been suspended because of the strike. This will also enable court business to resume with the minimum of delay as soon as the courts return to normal. The clause also ensures that criminal cases do not fall because they

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are not called in court on the date which has been fixed for them during the emergency period. Any new date will be initimated to the accused person not less than seven days before it arrives.
The purpose of Clause 5 is to enable work to be carried on in the courts during the emergency period. Subsection (1) empowers a judge, including a sheriff, first to do anything during the emergency period in relation to legal proceedings which could be done by the clerk of court, sheriff clerk or other officer of court; and secondly, in any particular case, with the consent of the Secretary of State, to authorise any person to do anything in relation to that case which could be done by the clerk of court, the sheriff clerk or other officer of court.
There was considerable discussion of this clause in another place and I should perhaps explain a little more fully what this subsection is intended to do. The provision removes any doubt there might otherwise be about the validity of judges and sheriffs doing things, or authorising some other person to do things, which customarily or by statute are normally done by the clerk of court or sheriff clerk. For example, in a number of statutes duties are placed upon the clerk of court or sheriff clerk and judges and sheriffs are now, in relation to the business they are undertaking, carrying out duties which might be construed as being proper to clerks; the clause both empowers and validates such action. It also empowers a judge, in any particular case, to authorise a person to do such work but only with the consent of the Secretary of State. The necessity for the judge to obtain the consent of the Secretary of State was inserted by amendment in another place to make it clear that it was the Secretary of State who should decide when such a step should be taken.
If the strike continues for a substantial period then, though Ministers would much regret the necessity to do so, we cannot rule out the possibility that offers of outside help that have already been made may have to be accepted. This will be very necessary if the public interest requires that the range of business being carried out by the courts must be extended. The decision as to whether and in what circumstances the Secretary of State
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would be prepared to give his consent would be a question of policy for him to decide. There is no question of the judges, individually or collectively, being required to take a decision of this kind.
Clause 5(2) empowers a court to accept as valid a copy of an original document which has been lodged in court, and provides that any such copy shall be taken to be a true copy unless the contrary is proved. Many documents in cases are unobtainable because of the strike but copies of these will usually be held by the parties. If the parties are agreeable to using these copies so that progress in the case can be made, then this subsection allows a court to accept a copy in lieu of the original document. The purpose of subsection (3) is to ensure that if in the keeping of any record of the proceedings mistakes are made by a judge or other person doing anything by virtue of subsection (1), such mistakes do not invalidate those proceedings. Turning to Clause 6, the purpose of this clause is to permit the registration of deeds by the Keeper of the Registers of Scotland where this is being effectively prevented because deeds are not able to be stamped owing to the industrial action being taken in the stamp office in Edinburgh.
My Lords, as I said at the beginning of my speech, we have aimed to keep this Bill short and simple. It has a very limited purpose and it will not bring the courts back to full activity. I much regret, as do my ministerial colleagues, the necessity to introduce it at all, but it will help to deal with certain problems and, we sincerely hope, enable the courts to extend the limited range of business at present being undertaken. I commend the Bill to your Lordships, and beg to move that it be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—.[Lord McCluskey.]
5.17 p.m.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY: My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord for having explained this emergency Bill to us, and I say at the outset that we on these Benches welcome the action which the Bill represents. Indeed, we believe that the Bill is much overdue and that it is now urgently needed. Therefore we will help towards it being ready for Royal Assent this evening after having gone

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through all its remaining stages in this House. We certainly intend to co-operate.
It is an emergency measure and we think that it should have been introduced at an earlier stage in this deplorable strike. The Government are open to severe criticism for not having taken action until this late hour. We deplore the reasons which have made the Bill necessary because it appears that the strike has been selectively arranged by two Civil Service unions. It has almost paralysed the Scottish courts and it has been aimed with that in view. It is deliberate and, I suggest, inexcusable because it is causing injury and distress and loss in a haphazard way to individuals who happen to have cases waiting to be dealt with, or already being dealt with in the courts. To that extent the rights of those individuals are being damaged and eroded because cases are not being heard. Where time limits apply—and the noble and learned Lord referred to some of them—valuable time has been lost.
The Bill is especially needed because of the 110 day rule in Scotland. Briefly, that means that there is a period of 110 days in which a charge must be pressed or the accused person can go free. It is therefore a matter of public concern that persons charged with very serious crimes should not escape prosecution. Also, in the other direction, there is concern that because the system of justice has been bought almost to a halt, people should not be detained unnecessarily long while there is much delay in proceedings.
The Bill is a short one and it is rough and ready in its application. It falls inprecisely and unevenly in its treatment of certain persons variously affected by the standstill in a court or by inability to proceed in a court ab initio. It is imperfect and open to criticism. Those points have had attention drawn to them already, but it is acceptable because it is an emergency measure and the Bill is temporary in its nature. For we must recognise that if we pass this Bill, as I hope we shall, today, we are suspending the Scottish equivalent of habeas corpus.
The noble and learned Lord has himself said what I believe to be the situation, that it is impossible to tell how long this strike will continue. The other place took this Bill on Tuesday and also allowed
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all its stages to be passed in one day. They spent seven hours on the Bill; they examined it as closely as they could in that time and amendments were made to the Bill. One effect of that examination and of the amendments was to bring out clearly the Secretary of State's responsibilities at all stages, and I was glad to hear the noble and learned Lord underlining that point in his opening speech. It is difficult to place decisions on judges where any connection with the politics of a strike is involved. But it has been brought out in the debates in another place that the Secretary of State will retain his responsibility for all policy decisions.
My honourable friends in the Commons for Scottish constituencies examined the Bill as thoroughly as they could at short notice, and I suggest that they are to be congratulated on bringing out the points which needed to be discussed. I do not intend to go through those points again today, and I would suggest to your Lordships that we do not attempt further amendment today. Of course, if there is some point, perhaps a major defect in the Bill or some necessary addition, which has come to notice in the last 36 hours —because it is only 36 hours since the Bill was in the other Chamber—then we should discuss it and, if necessary, a manuscript Amendment could be made. When the Second Reading is concluded the Government can tell us the latest position on this. But I repeat that unless something has cropped up which needs to be done in the last few hours, we should not attempt to amend the Bill.
In agreeing with the noble and learned Lord that the Bill should be passed through all its stages quickly today and be ready for Royal Assent this evening, I must make clear my judgment and that of my honourable and noble friends that the Government should have acted much sooner. I do not criticise the noble and learned Lord, Lord McCluskey, personally; he is not involved in this because it is entirely a matter for the Secretary of State for Scotland. It must be said that the Secretary of State has been dilatory in facing up to a decision that clearly had to be taken, and which he has now taken almost two months to the day since this strike began. In Scotland the Secretary of State is the Minister responsible for

1315
most matters relating to the judiciary and to the courts, having many of the functions which in England and Wales belong to the Lord Chancellor. Parliament has had very little time to examine and pronounce upon the Bill, which must be passed without delay. We shall watch very carefully the effects of the Bill in Scotland during the next few days and weeks, and will bring to the attention of Ministers, and if necessary your Lordships, any matters that arise about its application.
5.25 p.m.
Lord HOUGHTON of SOWERBY: My Lords, I rather expected to hear in the course of the debate on this Bill some remarks about the conduct of the civil servants concerned. I thought it was appropriate for me to intervene for a few moments to put another point of view on a situation which we all deeply regret. My noble and learned friend described the conduct of the civil servants concerned as unjustified. The noble Lord who has just spoken said it is a deplorable strike. Condemnation is freely thrown around when some people go on strike, but condemnation is sometimes surprisingly muted when other people go out on strike, the mineworkers, for instance.
In another place yesterday this Bill was described by one honourable member as a blacklegging Bill. One of the associations concerned in the dispute has a strike sheet in lurid form which they send round to all their members, including, of course, those on strike, and the headline in the latest issue to reach me says "Scabs Charter for Scots Judges". These are emotive words in trade union disputes. Words of this kind are really the very stuff of strike campaigns. I dislike them. I do not like this kind of stimulation of militant emotion on matters which should be capable of more rational treatment. Whether they are terms used by the striking unions or terms of condemnation used in your Lordships' House they are more calculated to inflame opinion than they are to advance the merits or justice of the matter. There are two organisations involved in this dispute, and I must say that after 40 years of the closest contact in and with the Civil Service I am astonished that what has happened has happened. I could never have
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believed that this situation would be reached in the Civil Service. I think we might ask ourselves why it has come about.
This Bill is clearly necessary at this moment. It was probably desirable at an earlier stage; I do not dispute that. It is an emergency Bill to deal with an emergency, and I give it my full approval. I see no escape from it. There are occasions in the course of industrial disputes when authorities and management may hesitate to take action to offset some of the consequences of the strike, but where the liberty of the subject is involved, where the administration of justice is concerned with the rights of the individual citizen to fair treatment at the hands of the law, then I think the Government are fully justified in safeguarding the rights and liberties of the subject and are fully entitled to do what they can, even to the extent of asking for a temporary change in the law, to see that people are not held for unduly long periods or suffer injustice.
While this Bill is regrettably necessary, I am not, however, for blaming everything on the staff. We maintain that the right to withdraw one's labour is a condition of being free men and women. How often have we heard the enunciation of that principle. Yet, when workers exercise that right they are frequently accused of being irresponsible or told that the withdrawal of labour is deplorable or unjustified. Granted that public opinion is entitled to give a verdict on any dispute that is a matter of public concern; but it is always difficult to fix responsibility. The words "justice", "justification" and "responsibility" are key words in all activities of this kind. Very often they are construed to mean what the users of those words want them to mean.
Where does responsibility lie in the present case? Does it lie with those who are on strike or with those who have created the conditions in which the strike has taken place? How do we apportion responsibility in these circumstances? Alternatively, is it all one-sided? Do we blame the Government, or do we condemn the civil servants? In condemning the civil servants one must bear in mind that one of the two organisations involved in the dispute—the Society of Civil and Public Servants—represents the executive classes and middle ranges of management

1317
in the Civil Service. They are perhaps the most responsible body of civil servants that one could find. The other organisation is the CPSA which represents the great mass of clerical officers, clerical assistances, typists and grades of that kind.
How come that so many civil servants previously of peaceful conduct, who have jettisoned the strike weapon as part of the equipment of negotiation and of industrial relations in the public service, are now in the mood which leads them to withdraw their labour in some key sectors of public administration? As my noble and learned friend has said, this situation has brought about the disruption of the Scottish Courts, and to overcome those difficulties we must consider the Bill.
My noble and learned friend introduced the Bill in temperate terms and I have no criticism, in general, of what he said. But, there is one point as regards this matter which I think I should correct. The Secretary of State for Scotland when introducing the Bill in another place on 20th March at column 1317 of the Official Report, said:
"As I said during the debate last Tuesday, strikes that start six weeks before the settlement date and where there is a process of negotiations going on cannot be justified".
Those are the exact words that my noble and learned friend used this afternoon. I must correct them both. The strike did not take place six weeks before the settlement date; it began six weeks before the operative date of a new settlement. There is a big distinction between the two. The operative date of a new agreement is 1st April 1979. Negotiations had not really begun within three weeks of the operative date of a new agreement.
In the United States when contracts come to an end it is customary for the unions and management to begin negotiations on a new contract well in advance of the expiry of the current one. Because of the nature of the information which the Civil Service Pay Research Unit has been accumulating over recent months, it was undesirable that negotiations should begin too long before the operative date, in order that the latest information and its careful examination could be undertaken before the negotiations actually began. However, I must stress the fact that 1st April is not the settlement date, but
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the operative date. Indeed, the Government themselves have decided that negotiations shall begin before the date which the Secretary of State said was the settlement date. One can never be sure in conducting negotiations of this kind whether, if one overruns the operative date, retrospection will be effectively safeguarded. Is it dated back? Those are the troubles which can occur if negotiations are too prolonged after the operative date has passed.
There is nothing in any agreement on Civil Service pay within my knowledge which says that negotiations shall not begin until the operative date of the next stage in the review of salaries. As it is, we are told that the negotiations have begun already. This strike would not have taken place if Her Majesty's Government, a few weeks ago, had been firm about their intentions on the use of, and the negotiations upon, the report of the Civil Service Pay Research Unit. What the Staff Side of the Civil Service Whitley Council were asking for was a restoration of negotiations on the fair comparability principle.
I was chairman of the Civil Service Staff Side in 1955 when, arising from the Priestley Commission's report, we introduced the principle of fair comparability. The Civil Service Pay Research Unit was set up to collect, distil and apply to the Civil Service scene information regarding comparable rates of pay outside the public sector. The operation of that principle was suspended by the present Government in a situation which I am not criticising. However, it was suspended and the Civil Service Pay Research Unit was disbanded or suspended and it was only over a year ago that the Government decided to resuscitate the Civil Service Pay Research Unit under an independent chairman—my noble friend Lord Shepherd—and to bring the result of the renewed consideration of fair comparability into the discussions this year. Here we are: that is the point that we have reached. The Civil Service has been looking, as other sections of the public service have been looking, for fair comparability.
We have passed out of the Welfare State: we are now in the comparability State. We are all being related to somebody else. This is a vast and complex

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field of relativities and comparabilities which is a veritable minefield for any Government that try to find a rational way through this jungle. The Comparability Commission which is being appointed is to deal with the claims of the local authority workers. For the first time it has been brought formally into a fair comparability review. The Civil Service already has its review. The teachers come next: a fair comparability exercise has been undertaken by both sides of the Burnham machinery.
What do the Government do? Apparently they offer them 8 per cent., or a reference perhaps to the Comparability Commission. Where are we all going? The nurses have not had their claim settled; no one has been settled in the public sector, except those who came first to establish their claim to the application of the principle of comparability: the defence forces, the police and the firemen. The firemen had to strike for it and the police had to threaten to strike for it. I do not know what the defence forces threatened to do, except leave.
Now we have the Civil Service, the nurses and the health employees. This is becoming one of the major issues of industrial peace in this country. The public sector is now so large and so important and is involved in such vital operations in the apparatus of the State and of the welfare of people, that if we cannot reach a settlement in this area, we are in for a very rough time indeed. I believe that in this situation could lie the seeds of administrative anarchy.
The restiveness of the Civil Service astonishes me. I confess that, like the Prime Minister, I failed to realise the full significance of what was welling up in the public sector at the turn of the year, which we have seen in some forms which are not only deplorable but even detestable. Pay in the public sector has fallen behind and we have had this trail of trouble and ill-will, and what is more, the revolt of the rank and file against their leaders. I stressed before, that in many instances the leaders have been taken charge of by the rank and file.
All our experiences over the past two months raise wide issues of industrial relations, principles of fixing public sector pay, social contentment, administrative
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efficiency and many other considerations which go pretty wide. Therefore, this dangerously poised position between selective strike action and more widespread disruption must be dispelled very quickly. It can be dispelled next week if the Government continue the negotiations, which have scarcely begun. No money has been mentioned; nothing has been put on the table. If preparatory postures are negotiations, then perhaps we have had them or are having them. But so far there have been no negotiations. They must begin next week.
I hope that next week the Government will be able to assure the staff side of the Whitley Council that they will hold firmly to a reasonable application of the principle of fair comparability, realising our present difficulties. There is surely a reasonable bargain to be struck, having regard to all the circumstances. Indeed, I doubt whether we need look at this problem in terms of the staff side of the Whitley Council being unreasonable and bloody-minded; I do not think they will be.
However, the crux of the matter, affecting this Bill, will come upon us next week. I sincerely hope that the Government will have the will to resolve this dispute and get everyone in the Civil Service back to work, and so take the heat out of the situation. It is a very grave matter indeed. There are other organisations which so far have not participated in this industrial acton, but which are leading a very troubled life indeed at present. I am deeply concerned that unless we are very careful the Civil Service National Whitley Council will be destroyed as a result of some unions fighting for it and other unions not fighting for it. The unions who have fought for it will say to the others, "You will not tell us what we shall agree to. We have had our people out on strike for two months. We have maintained them while they are on strike. Careers have been ruined. People have been suspended. Much money has been spent maintaining these people". They will say to the Institution of Professional Civil Servants and the Inland Revenue Staff Federation—of which I used to be General Secretary and at which my noble friend Lord Plant was my successor—"Who are you to tell us?" Those two organisations will be in a position where the militancy of the two bigger unions will prejudice the harmony

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of negotiations on the staff side. Surely we shall not have disruption in the Civil Service and the wrecking of the Whitley Council machinery as well?—because if we do, the end of this day will be a very sad one for those who have worked for 50 years to uphold the principle of reasonable, rational negotiation between the official and the staff sides in the public sector, who have a record of productive and constructive negotiation and consultation which is the envy of the world. Unless we are very careful, we are within 50 hours of destroying it.
5.47 p.m.
Lord WILSON of LANGSIDE: My Lords, your Lordships will surely be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, for touching upon those aspects of this dispute to which the Bill relates which have perhaps not been sufficiently regarded until now either in the other place or at large in the country. I only regret that I have not the expertise, if it were necessary, to follow the noble Lord further into these aspects. Understandably enough, there is widespread and profound concern throughout Scotland over the circumstances which have given rise to the need for this Bill. That concern derives not least of course from the circumstance that in Scotland we are traditionally proud of our legal system and our courts of justice.
Most of the questions which occurred to me as arising out of the actual provisions of the Bill were sufficiently answered by the noble and learned Lord, Lord McCluskey, in his presentation of the Bill and, as always, I am sure that your Lordships were grateful for its clarity and its qualities.
There are only two matters on which I wish to touch before I sit down. First, I wonder whether the responsible Ministers have been sufficiently alert to their responsibilities in this area. Together with the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy—and I think that the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, agreed with him—I cannot understand why the Government have been so slow to bring this measure forward. Therefore, I wonder whether Ministers were sufficiently alert to their responsibilities; because, of course, they are very clear, particularly in the Sheriff Court but equally perhaps in the Court of Session.
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They have clear responsibilities for the efficient administration and organisation of the courts. In view of what happened a few years ago, I should have thought that they might have been more alert to the situation because, of course, there was then a strike among the civil servants. It is perhaps significant and merits reflection that at that time the courts in Scotland were hardly affected at all. It was a very short strike—a token strike —and I think lasted just one day. However, even then it was unthinkable that the staff, particularly of the Court of Session, would ever have gone on strike.
What has happened to make 80 per cent. of these loyal public servants—when I knew them, very conservative public servants—change their attitude and come out on strike, so that the machinery of justice, of which we have been so proud, comes, practically speaking, to a standstill? I wonder, as I say, whether the responsible Ministers have been sufficiently alert to the needs of the situation. Perhaps it should be explained why, since the courts are of course concerned with the fundamental rights of the citizen, it was thought unnecessary to bring the Bill forward until now.
The only other point I wish to make is that I wonder what thought the responsible Ministers have been giving to the appalling chaos and confusion which I imagine will have to be dealt with if this strike goes on for much longer. Have the Government made their contingency plans? I do not ask them necessarily to tell us what they are, though we should no doubt be grateful if they felt able to do so. But I wonder whether they have them, because it will indeed be a big administrative problem to clear up. I know that many of the loyal sheriff clerks and clerks in the Court of Session are greatly perturbed as to how it may be possible to deal with this when the strike is over. The longer the strike lasts the worse the chaos and confusion will be, and we must keep in mind that this chaos and confusion, relates among other things to some of our fundamental human rights as citizens.
5.52 p.m.
Lord FERRIER: My Lords, when I passed through Edinburgh on Tuesday on my way to the airfield through the snow, my railway line having been blocked by a collapsed tunnel, I saw

1323
strikers' pickets at the rear entrance to the Sick Children's Hospital. I had such a surge of emotion that I said to myself that if the opportunity presented itself I should take part in this debate. So it is with that sense of immense regret and the deepest dismay that one acknowledges that a situation calling for legislation of the nature of this Bill has arisen in my native Scotland, of all places.
The noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, in his sympathetic, knowledgeable, and wide-ranging speech said, "How has it come about? Where are we all going to?" I share his dismay that it has happened at all. But to me it is only symptomatic of the gradual decline of our national moral fibre. I have viewed the steady deterioration in respect for law and order over the last few years in this country with such despondency that I feel we are already on the slippery slope that leads to civil commotion, disorder and possible violence.
We have now had a good look at the unacceptable face of present-day Socialism, and I do not like the look of it, no matter how honeyed are the Socialists' phrases, such as "industrial action" and "withdrawal of labour"—not strike; no, nothing violent—and so on. I therefore welcome this Bill and will delay its progress no longer. As my noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy said, it should have been initiated some time ago. The fact is that the pursuit of the dictatorship of the proletariat is becoming a threat to the wealth, the peace and the tranquility of the realm, for which those of us who attend Prayers daily pray. I support the Bill.
5.55 p.m.
Lord McCLUSKEY: My Lords, there are several points to which I ought to reply. First, there is the criticism made by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, and supported by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilson of Langside, and just now by the noble Lord, Lord Ferrier, to the effect that the legislation should have been introduced earlier. This is emergency legislation. Emergency legislation should not be a first reaction to a situation, however difficult the situation may be; it should be a last resort.
Secondly, the character of this legislation necessarily involves that judges may,
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in certain circumstances, do work which under normal circumstances would be done by the persons now on strike. The House will appreciate that judges are reluctant, and have been reluctant, to be hastened into taking over the work of persons on strike, because that might lead the judiciary to be accused by those on strike—and one heard the intemperate language quoted from one newspaper by my noble friend Lord Houghton—of entering on one side of a dispute which has certain political overtones.
Further, and this is not an idle matter, there is also the danger—and this is well recognised by the judges and ourselves—that if they undertake work which the strikers would normally have done, then that work might subsequently be blacked, as it were. A case tainted, as they see it, by work of this kind during the emergency period would then be subsequently blacked. This would create dramatically serious problems in relation to the law of contempt of court.
There is a third reason why we should not have been hurried into this legislation. The matter of course is urgent. But I think the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, would support me in saying that a considerable amount of work required to be done to get this legislation into the best possible shape. We do not like doing it, and this House does not like doing it: that is to say, taking legislation and passing it through in one day. Because however hard we may work, and however well we may think about these matters, it is desirable that if possible there should be a period for mature reflection to make a reassessment in the light of the arguments, and therefore we are reluctant to introduce legislation which is not able to be subjected to that kind of mature criticism.
It is important, therefore, that when we introduce it we ourselves behind the scenes in Government, as it were, should have spent as much time as we properly could in making sure that that legislation did not suffer from defects of a kind that could be avoided. I can assure the House that I took part in a number of discussions and that a vast amount of work was done before this legislation was introduced, and I believe that this has contributed to what some noble Lords have described as a delay. I hope that those who have listened to this debate, or will read of it,

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will not accept the criticism that the Government unduly delayed. In my judgment the Government did what was proper, and introduced the legislation at the proper time in the light of the circumstances I have referred to.
In view of what the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, said about amendment, I can inform the House that no remediable defect has come to our attention since this Bill first saw the light of day or indeed since its main provisions were first outlined on Tuesday, 13th March. Accordingly, the Government have no amendment to propose. I should certainly be grateful to the House not only for the support already expressed for the Bill in principle but for the fact that no Amendments are proposed here which would cause the Bill to have to go back to another place.
The noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, dwelt upon a rather wider question: the question of responsibility for the situation in which we now find ourselves. It was not my intention to go into that in any detail, and I do not propose to do so now. Lord Houghton spelt out in clear terms that those now on strike and taking this action feel they have a grievance, and he made clear what that grievance is said to be. But does he say, and do those on strike say, that everyone who has or feels he has a grievance is entitled to go on strike while negotiations continue, so inflicting permanent and irretrievable damage on members of the public with whom they have no quarrel? If one asks—I think this was foreshadowed by something Lord Campbell said—what is the character of this strike and who suffers, then the character of this strike is that no one who is now striking will suffer any loss because arrangements have been made within the union that those who are out on strike will receive full pay from union funds and contributions from other members of the Civil Service, so they suffer no loss. Who, then, suffers loss? Is it the Government? It is not the Government—the other side of the dispute—who suffer loss. Those who suffer loss are the private citizens and, in a real sense, the whole body politic, which is something entirely different from the Government.
The character of that damage—I can mention only a few cases—is that necessarily, because of the operation in Scotland
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of the 110-day rule, some of the people now detained in prison charged with serious crimes (some of whom, looking at the matter in the light of past events, may be declared innocent at their trials) will spend perhaps many extra weeks in prison. That is something we can never give back to them, so this damage is permanent and irretrievable, and that is a direct consequence of this strike action about which we can do nothing.
There are other less serious cases, but to the people involved they are serious cases. For a person whose divorce should have been finalised at the end of February or during March and who had arranged to marry—there may be children who would be affected by the change in status—that cannot now be done. Where there are wills to be confirmed and estates to be distributed, these matters cause real hardship in individual cases. I urge the strikers to recognise that what these people—these professional people —are doing is inflicting permanent and, in some cases, serious damage on people who have no part in this dispute and can do nothing to settle it.
These are important matters and we can understand that people have grievances. After all, the nurses have grievances, and Lord Houghton mentioned the nurses, but they do not go on strike. Sometimes one has to say, "I shall have to live with my grievance and find some other way of putting it right". The vital point is that the negotiations are continuing and all matters involved in the settlement are the subject of negotiation. It is, I repeat, deplorable that this strike, inflicting this type of damage, should continue in these circumstances.
I should reply to what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilson of Langside, said in the second point he raised—I have dealt with the first; namely, about the chaos and confusion which will arise, and there will be, as he said (and he has immense experience of these matters) serious administrative problems. I have to say about that at the moment that we cannot yet assess what they will be; as he rightly acknowledged, much will depend on the duration of the strike. Furthermore, it would not be for the Government to lay down hard and fast rules about what is to be done.

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The Government require to consult the judges, the sheriffs principal, the sheriff clerks themselves—they will have to deal with the problem as much as anyone in the end—the procurators fiscal, the police and the professional bodies representing lawyers in Scotland. Those discussions will then determine what requires to be done. That is the only answer I can properly give at this stage to that perfectly proper question which the noble and learned Lord asked. I do not think I can sensibly add to what I said in my opening speech and I thank noble Lords for their contributions to the debate.
Lord FERRIER: My Lords, something which the noble and learned Lord said tempts me to quote some lines from Burns:
"Let us pray that come it may,
And come it will for a' that,
That man tae man the world o'er,
Shall brithers be for a' that".
On Question, Bill read 2a: Committee negatived.
Then, Standing Order No. 43 having been dispensed with, pursuant to Resolution, Bill read 3a, and passed.

PREVENTION OF TERRORISM (TEMPORARY PROVISIONS) ACT 1976 (CONTINUANCE) ORDER 1979
6.5 p.m.
The MINISTER of STATE, HOME OFFICE (Lord Boston of Faversham)The MINISTER of STATE, HOME OFFICE (Lord Boston of Faversham) rose to move, That the draft Order laid before the House on 19th February, be approved. The noble Lord said: My Lords, the purpose of this order is to continue in operation for a further period of 12 months the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act 1976. The Act will lapse, unless renewed, on 24th March.
Before dealing with the case for renewal, I should like to look first at the contribution made to our deliberations by my noble friend Lord Shackleton in his report on the operation of the Act. All of us who are concerned in any way with this legislation must be very grateful indeed to the noble Lord for the clarity with which he has analysed its workings. He has given us, if I may say so, the definitive work on the Prevention of
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Terrorism Act. My noble friend had thorough discussions with those responsible for operating the Act, both in the police service and in the Government Departments concerned. He carried out a large number of visits to police forces throughout the United Kingdom to discuss with those on the ground the important work they did in connection with the Act and to see for himself the procedures as they operated and the conditions of detention.
The result is a detailed review of each of the powers in the Act and its operation. But his lucid report has enlarged not only our understanding of how the legislation works but also our appreciation of its effects on the liberties of the subject. It is here that my noble friend has made a particularly constructive contribution. Instead of indulging in the sterile polemics which all too frequently are the only product of discussions about terrorism, he has made some practical suggestions about how to alleviate some of the Act's adverse effects while preserving powers essential to the prevention of terrorism.
My noble friend's recommendations fall broadly into two categories: first, there are those which bear on the consequences of decisions made under the Act and of the procedures associated with it, and second, there are the powers themselves. In the first category, my noble friend has made recommendations on the provision of financial assistance to those affected by exclusion; on the need for a review of exclusion orders; on the improvement of detention conditions and procedures; and on statistics. In the second category, there are two main recommendations: on the one hand, in relation to the powers of detention at ports and, on the other, in relation to Section 11 of the Act; namely, the offence of withholding information about acts of terrorism. I will deal with each of these recommendations in turn.
My noble friend has recognised that the Act may have far-reaching effects. Exclusion may result in the break up of a family and in the loss, for the excluded person, of his livelihood. Two of my noble friend's recommendations were aimed at alleviating some of this hardship: first that there should be a review of exclusion order cases, and second, that financial assistance should be considered for relatives and friends of

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excluded persons for the purpose of making visits.
I accept that after the passage of time there may no longer be good reason to continue to exclude a person. He may have given up his involvement in terrorism and it is right that we should look again at the decision to exclude. My right honourable friend and I have accordingly given this matter careful thought. We have decided that three years is a sufficiently long period for a person who has genuinely given up a former terrorist involvement to demonstrate that he has done so. What we propose, therefore, is that after three years each excluded person will be asked whether he wants to have his exclusion reviewed, and if he does, to provide certain information about his occupation, residence, and so on during the period since his exclusion. We shall also ask the police to assess whether the exclusion of the person continues to be justified. My right honourable friend will then consider the case and decide whether or not to revoke the order.
We shall make an announcement giving full details of the scheme when it begins, and we shall make sure that the people excluded after that time are told about these arrangements at the time of exclusion. If we do not have the excluded person's current address when his case comes up for review, we must rely on him to approach us.
I hope your Lordships will agree that this is a fair and sensible scheme. Your Lordships will already have realised that as more than three years have passed since the first exclusion order was made, the review will begin with a backlog of cases. So it will not be possible straight away to review every case as soon as it is three years old, but we shall make three years our aim, and shall try to clear the backlog as quickly as possible.
Turning to my noble friend's recommendation about financial assistance, I must admit to some doubts. I cannot accept that exclusion necessarily results in hardship for the friends of excluded persons, and I do not think that financial assistance for them can really be contemplated. I recognise, however, that the family of an excluded person can suffer hardship, but I do not think that the provision of financial assistance towards the cost of making visits would do
1330
much to alleviate that hardship. Indeed, there is a danger that by giving such assistance we might encourage members of the family to act as couriers. What may be of more practical value is to offer the family some financial help towards their removal costs to enable them to join the excluded person in his new home. We are looking into this to see whether it is feasible.
My noble friend also looked at ways in which the effects of detention under the Act might be ameliorated, and he made three recommendations with this in mind. He made the valid point that police cells are not normally used, or indeed designed, to house suspects for periods as long as seven days; and my right honourable friend and I accept his recommendation that more thought should be given to matters such as diet, exercise, and comfort.
My noble friend also recommended that there should be greater uniformity of practice in notifying detained people of their rights. He describes in his report how, during his visits to police forces throughout the country, he noticed variations in the way in which people were informed of their rights. As he pointed out, one of the Administrative Directions to the Judges' Rules states that,
"people in custody should not only be informed orally of the rights and facilities available to them, but in addition, notices describing them should be displayed at convenient and conspicuous places at police stations, and, the attention of persons in custody should be drawn to these notices".
I have no reason to believe that these procedures are not followed, but I accept my noble friend's point that the way in which detained people are notified of their rights should, if possible, be the same at each police station. We are considering the best and most convenient way of doing this, and my right honourable friend hopes soon to be able to issue advice on this matter to Chief Officers of Police.
In addition, my noble friend recommended that steps should be taken to ensure that the fullest possible records of interviews with people detained under the Act are kept. As he pointed out, this is important for at least two basic reasons: a full record would help to protect the police against allegations that their questioning was in any way unfair, and it would also reassure the person detained

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that if he were to make a complaint, all the information would be available. We have therefore accepted this recommendation as well. My right honourable friend proposes to issue guidance to Chief Officers on the best way of implementing these three recommendations, which we believe will lessen some of the adverse effects of detention under the Act.
My noble friend considered in some detail the powers which the police have at ports to examine and detain travellers. They may detain a person at a port for up to seven days on their own authority, and that period may be further extended on the authority of the Secretary of State. There has been criticism of the fact that a person may be detained by the police for as long as seven days without the reasons for detention being examined by any independent authority, and my noble friend made two recommendations aimed at meeting this concern. He recommended that the total period of detention permissible at a port should not exceed seven days, and that the police at a port should have power to detain on their own authority for only 48 hours, the authority of the Secretary of State being required for a further period of detention of up to five days. My right honourable friend and I have accepted these recommendations, and my right honourable friend has made an order—the Prevention of Terrorism (Supplemental Temporary Provisions) Amendment Order 1979—implementing them. He has also set in hand arrangements for implementing my noble friend's recommendations about the way in which statistics about the use made of the Act are compiled and presented. My right honourable friend has arranged for the publication of the relevant statistics at quarterly intervals.
I come now to the one recommendation which my noble friend made which my right honourable friend and I find we cannot accept. This is his recommendation that Section 11 of the Act, which makes it an offence to withhold information about acts of terrorism, should be dropped. Noble Lords may remember that this section was introduced in 1976 as a result of an Amendment put down in another place. The Government did not initially believe that it was necessary, but were persuaded by the arguments put forward at that time. We have
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therefore taken careful account of these arguments when considering my noble friend's recommendation. One of the things which seems to have influenced him in making this recommendation was the fact that this section has been little used in Great Britain, but this is one of the reasons why, after careful thought, we have decided not to advise the dropping of Section 11. We think that more time is needed to see how effective it really is. We have also sought advice from the police. They believe that Section 11 is useful, and it will not have escaped the attention of noble Lords that a number of people have been charged under this section in connection with the recent bomb attacks. My right honourable friend has accordingly decided that Section 11 should be retained for the time being, but that, if the Act is renewed, the question should be re-examined next year.
I come now to the Act itself, and the question of whether it should be renewed. Before deciding on this, your Lordships will, I know, wish to have the customary report on the use which has been made of the Act. Between 29th November 1974, and 28th February this year, 3,862 people in Great Britain were detained under the Act—2,685 at ports or airports, and 1,177 elsewhere. In this period, my right honourable friend and his predecessor approved extensions of detention beyond 48 hours with respect to 379 persons detained inland, and made 166 exclusion orders. One hundred and twenty-three people were removed under this legislation to Northern Ireland, and 27 to the Republic of Ireland. Six persons were already outside Great Britain when the orders were made. Twenty-six people made representations under the legislation against their exclusion orders. Seven persons had their orders revoked as a result of these representations, and five for other reasons.
Before concluding my report on the use made of the Act, I turn briefly to the question of criminal charges. Up to the end of February 1979, 58 people detained under the Act were charged with offences or conspiracy to commit offences under the Act, and a further 203 were charged with other offences. In addition, eight persons were charged with offences under the Act after being detained under other powers. I should, however, introduce a note of caution here. Some critics have

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pointed to the relatively low number of charges as evidence of the fact that the Act is not effective. But this ignores the point that the Act is primarily a preventive measure, and that, where the police have evidence of the commission of a substantive offence, they would normally use other powers available to them to arrest and detain the suspect. It cannot be said too often that the powers contained in this Act are exceptional, and that we should not allow ourselves to be lulled into accepting them as a permanent part of the criminal law. That is why it is entirely right, in my submission, that we should be required every year to think very carefully about whether these powers should be renewed. I certainly hope that in the not too distant future we shall be able to dispense with them, but that time is not yet.
Noble Lords will recall the incidents of last December and this January. Little imagination is needed to realise the terrible devastation which could have been caused, particularly by the bombs planted on Canvey Island and at Greenwich. On those occasions, fortunately, no one was killed or seriously injured; but we cannot rely upon such good fortune to protect us from the activities of that minority which appears to think that the answer to the problems of Northern Ireland lies in the killing and maiming of innocent people. We must make it quite clear that the Government will never give in to blackmail. The most effective way of doing this is to ensure that the police, on whom we rely for protection, are given the powers which they need to detect and apprehend those responsible for these attacks. This is an appropriate point, perhaps, for me to place on record our warmest thanks to the police for the selfless determination and skill with which they combat the threat of terrorism in this country, and also the bravery and proficiency of the bomb disposal officers, members of the Fire Service and all others involved in combatting or dealing with the effects of terrorism.
My Lords, there are some who have criticised this Act on the grounds that it infringes civil liberties. That is a valid point, and it is one which my right honourable friend the Home Secretary has always accepted. However, it is his duty, and ours, if I may say so, to seek to achieve a balance between the need to preserve civil
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liberties and the need to protect the lives and property of the overwhelming mass of the law-abiding citizens of this country. Indeed, I would remind noble Lords that in preventing terrorism we help to preserve the basic civil liberties themselves, to which my noble friend referred in the concluding paragraph of his report. Those are the rights to stay alive and to go about one's business without fear. I believe that the implementation of my noble friend's recommendations will make a useful contribution towards the protection of civil liberties, and I believe that the renewal of this Act will make an equally useful contribution towards the protection of the public. I would therefore ask noble Lords to support me in the Motion for renewal. I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft Order laid before the House on 19th February, be approved.—(Lord Boston of Faversham.)
6.24 p.m.
Viscount COLVILLE of CULROSS: My Lords, just before the noble Lord rose to move this Motion the House had been dealing with all the stages of an emergency Bill. I had forgotten that in November 1974 your Lordships, having debated a Green Bill on the Thursday, were here at five past nine on the Friday morning in order to pass on to the Statute Book the original 1974 Act; and this was done amid the revulsion that attended the bombings in the public-houses in Birmingham and similar evil horrors that the Provisional IRA had committed. One thing has not changed from that day to this, and that is that in all quarters of the House, whatever the views of noble Lords may be on other things, we do not doubt that we have to have adequate powers to deal with terrorists who behave like that, and who behave in the way that we have seen them behave since.
It is difficult, of course, when this matter comes up year by year, to say anything very original, but there is one thing that has to be done on each occasion. We will have to surround it with all our usual phrases—and there are some extra things to say this year—but there is one thing that has to be done, and that is that we have to judge, as the noble Lord, Lord Boston, has just said, whether we should extend these powers for a further

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year. The reason for that, of course, is that even in 1974 there was no disguising the fact that the powers in the Act as we now have it, and as it was then, encroach very substantially upon important personal liberties; and, so, every time we extend it we have to look to see whether there is a true justification for doing so, either in the existing form or with modifications—and the justification is the one issue, really, that is paramount before this House this evening. It has been explained to us by the noble Lord today, and of course it was explained yesterday in another place by his right honourable friend; and for both those careful expositions we are all very grateful.
The order has survived a searching scrutiny, taking many hours yesterday in another place, much of which was rightly dealing with points arising on individual cases, where honourable and right honourable Members had had constituency problems which they had had to deal with, and where, of course, a number of honourable Members from Northern Ireland also had a good deal of great relevance to say. I am extremely pleased to see my noble friend Lord Brooke-borough in his place to contribute from that quarter here, although the rest of us may have had, perhaps, less daily contact which may inevitably occur and which have to be carefully examined—and I know they are carefully examined—there is the point that the noble Lord has just made, that the other personal liberty is also at stake: the liberty not to be shot dead or blown up by some callous and wholly inhuman terrorist with distorted values, if you can call them values at all.
My Lords, to whatever depths those against whom we struggle may sink—and one would think it would be difficult to sink much lower than they do—the one thing that, as responsible legislators, we must be very careful of is this: We must assume and maintain only the minimum powers that are needed to fight back against them. So, if there are improvements to be made in the machinery that we have devised, then there is no time like the present to examine them and to put them into effect; and I was very pleased to hear what the noble Lord said (which, of course, was an echo of what was said yesterday) about the improve-
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ments that are being made—and there in his place is the noble Lord to whom we are all indebted, the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, whose careful inquiry has led to the identification of these points and the ability to put them right so quickly.
Of course I join, as I am sure the whole House joins, in the thanks to him for taking a good deal of time and trouble, and using, I would think, a good deal of imagination, and certainly a great deal of assiduity and energy, in finding out what it was that was wrong and making practical suggestions about how to put it right. He had to accept as part of his terms of reference the need for this legislation. We do not have to do so in this House; because the day after tomorrow it runs out, as the noble Lord has told us, unless we agree. But, of course, in practice on a matter like this your Lordships can only judge upon the basis of what well-informed people tell us. On this occasion, what they all say is unanimous. The noble Lord's right honourable friend the Home Secretary, in another place said yesterday that these powers are still essential for the task for which they were introduced. He says so; he says that the police say so; and the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, said that the Royal Ulster Constabulary say so. I think the police force in this country say so—but that was last year; and I notice that my honourable friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds who is up to date with the news from the police, yesterday said that the police in both parts of the United Kingdom still say so. I was interested to see—and perhaps it is a little wry comment—that even the Provisional IRA have acknowledged that these powers are indeed frustrating their aims in this country. That, surely, is tribute enough.
Then, my Lords, one might say that perhaps it has been successful, that all is now well and we can relax our guard. The noble Lord, Lord Boston of Faversham, has reminded us of Greenwich and Canvey Island. Without being in any way alarmist, and without knowing whether or not it is at all true, there have been threats in the multiple elections that we have coming up this year—whether the IRA have picked it up from the terrorists in Rhodesia or vice versa, I do not know—

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that we shall be subjected to disruptions in that event. On the "tape" outside, there is a suggestion—and again I have no idea of its authenticity—that the disgraceful and lamentable killing of our Ambassador at The Hague may have some connection with the Provisional IRA, even upon the basis that it is now so difficult for them to operate in this country that they have had to attack British targets abroad. That is no comfort to the wretched family of Sir Richard Sykes, but it may show that the provisions that we are discussing are still all too necessary for us to have as part of our internal machinery —if, of course, there is anything whatever in this suggestion.
The noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, has recommended the changes to which the noble Lord, Lord Boston, has referred. I am agreeably surprised that, for all the care in his scrutiny, he found so few matters on which to recommend changes. In that event, it must be all the more worthwhile to take advantage of the opportunity to take up all the suggestions that he makes except for the one about Section 11 of the Act. He did not know—and I am sorry that for the moment he has had to leave the Chamber—and he cannot have known, that not only had the Royal Ulster Constabulary used the powers in Section 11, I think, over a period of time; but he certainly could not have known that some of the people arrested as a result of recent bombs and who live in or around Braintree, have been charged under this very section. This has happened since his report was published. The noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, having now returned to his seat, perhaps I may repeat that since he recommended that Section 11 should have been dispensed with there have been the events which have led to people being charged in Essex under this section. One would think, therefore, that its usefulness for at least another year has been reinforced.
My Lords, I would support the Government in what they have decided to do here, particularly as the whole of this procedure is being kept under review all the time. I would not go so far as to say with its author, the honourable Member for Islington South and Finsbury, that this should be a permanent part of our criminal law. I agree entirely that it should be reviewed again and its usefulness
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reconsidered. But, for the moment, it would seem that is still serving a useful purpose and I support what the Government say about that. I would also support—and I think that this is all one needs to say about this at the moment—the rapid acceptance of the Bennett recommendations about various events that have come to light in the interrogation procedures. This seems to me to be exactly the right reaction that we should give to a report of this sort. Beyond that, one cannot possibly go in advance of any investigation as to conceivable offences that might have been committed and which have been investigated in that way. I welcome the quick response that the Government have made to these suggestions and I welcome also the inquiry which is being made into the allegations recently put forward by Dr. Irwin.
My Lords, there is only one thing I should like to ask the noble Lord. It arises from paragraphs 146 and 148, towards the end of the report of the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton. It is really the relationship between the procedures when people are detained under these powers and are interrogated and the similar procedures under the Judges' Rules which would apply when a charge is anticipated under the ordinary criminal law. I can quite see that the Judges' Rules are of no direct relevance when there is not going to be a charge laid, because there is no question of the admissibility of any statement since there would be no court appearance and no judge to rule it inadmissible. I am not entirely sure, as I read this passage in the noble Lord's report, and I am wondering whether he is saying there has been any departure from what would be the Judges' Rules procedure either as to records of interviews or access to solicitors; and, if so, whether this is something which ought to he remedied. I suspect that he is not; and that he is merely saying that, although the Judges' Rules do not strictly apply, they are being complied with and should be complied with.
So far as access to solicitors is concerned—and I have looked up the book, not being a criminal lawyer myself—I note that there is a period of time where a suspect is not allowed access to his solicitor if it would hinder or interfere with the course of the investigation. I suppose that must be only for a certain length of

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time. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Boston, can confirm that I am right in thinking that these procedures are being followed as if the Judges' Rules apply; and that it is only that the noble Lord is recommending a few particular adaptations to a case where there will be no trouble but merely, perhaps, an exclusion order, if that is approved.
Lord SHACKLETON: My Lords, before the noble Viscount leaves that point, I think that he ought not to assume that he is right in drawing the conclusion that he has drawn as to what I actually meant.
Viscount COLVILLE of CULROSS: My Lords, that is an interesting comment. Therefore, there may be more point than I thought in the question that I put to the noble Lord, Lord Boston. If it can be cleared up at some time, I think it right that it should be cleared up; because the Judges' Rules were invented for a purpose, and the purpose was a civilised one and one relating to fairness. If there is something that underlies the noble Lord's remarks in these paragraphs, I would hope that it would be explored.
Lord SHACKLETON: My Lords, perhaps I can help the noble Viscount. I do not want to take part in the debate. Quoting from the introduction to the report, on the subject of police powers and procedure I say:
"The more I searched for certainty of fact and unanimity of opinion as to what powers do or ought to exist, the more elusive these things became".
Viscount COLVILLE of CULROSS: My Lords, the mystery does not become clearer as the noble Lord intervenes. Possibly, the noble Lord, Lord Boston, would like to look into this and let me know. I would suggest that the mere absence of a possible charge and trial ought not to make a fundamental difference to the methods under which suspects are interrogated and otherwise dealt with. This is, indeed, part of the spirit of Lord Shackleton's suggestions. If there is something that could be explored, I shall leave it to the noble Lord and I shall not pursue it this evening. Having said that, I accept that we have
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to renew this order for another year and that the noble Lord has made out his case. He has certainly convinced me, and I would be prepared to advise those on this side of the House that until 1980 we must continue to have these powers.
6.40 p.m.
Lord WIGODER: My Lords, these periodic proceedings for the extension of the Prevention of Terrorism Act inevitably cause heart-searching problems for people of liberal minds. There is the obvious conflict which I do not need to stress between the threat to civil liberties which is posed by this Act and is posed increasingly as it tends to drift through constant renewal into a state of semi-permanence, and the equally obvious threat that is posed to our liberties by the appalling and outrageous acts of the terrorists.
In that situation, it is not very helpful to approach this whole problem in terms of deep-seated political principle; the matter has to be approached in practical terms. Each provision has to be looked at to see to what extent it is effective. In so far as it is effective, I believe that it should be supported; in so far as it proves to be either ineffective or excessive, it should be opposed. The great virtue of the wholly admirable report by the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, was that it provided such a very clear picture of the actual working of each section of this Act in turn. It did so in such a way as certainly to convince the Liberal Party in both Houses of Parliament that there is a formidable case for supporting the approval of the continuation order which is before your Lordships today.
At the same time, there are obviously matters which arise out of that report and the working of the Act to which consideration will have to be given in the very near future: the whole question, for example, of the power to proscribe certain organisations. I strongly suspect that has proved to be no more than a cosmetic power; I doubt if it has achieved anything of any practical value. It has perhaps served to increase to some extent the morale of the population who are at risk from the terrorists and that of course is in itself a worthwhile object but perhaps one that ought not to be exaggerated.

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As to the powers of exclusion, I note with approval that the Minister and his right honourable friend have agreed that there should be periodic reviews of such exclusion orders as have been made. There is inevitably a demand that there should be some form of judicial review or appeal procedure where exclusion orders are being made. Noble Lords will have read with great interest what the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, said about that matter. I believe that he is absolutely right: exclusion orders have to be recognised for what they are, as executive acts. As with deportation orders in certain spheres, any attempt to impose a form of judicial review on top of what is and must be an executive, administrative act is bound to fail.
The third area with which the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, dealt was the operation of Section 11. I respectfully support what he had to say, and I differ from the view which the Government have decided to take. This view was expressed by myself and my colleagues when the Act first came into force. It seems to us that there was something unrealistic, particularly in the circumstances that exist in Northern Ireland, in making it a criminal offence for a person to fail to disclose information about his neighbours' activities. We doubt whether that is an effective provision, and we certainly press the noble Lord for information as to its effectiveness when this matter comes next to be considered.
As to the powers of detention, there is no doubt on the figures that they have been to some extent effective and any effectiveness, bearing in mind the appalling consequences that might follow from one of these acts of terrorism, does—and I say it with some reluctance—justify the sweeping powers of detention that are given under this Act. They are sweeping without being novel. We tend to talk as though it is quite impossible under our ordinary law for people to be detained in custody before they are charged for a period of three, four, five or six days. It has frequently happened in numerous cases in the ordinary criminal law. It is not the novel power that it is sometimes said it is.
One sympathises with the agitation which has taken place that people who are detained under Section 12 should
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have immediate access to legal representation. One's instincts say that this is obviously desirable; it is obviously fair and it is obviously just. Yet, again, I cannot help thinking that the reservations expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, on this matter are justified. Not to put too fine a point on it, there is no doubt that there are now a very small number of lawyers who are practising who are prepared to become politically committed alongside their clients, and one is obviously worried as to the dangers that might arise from allowing people who have been detained under Section 12 immediate contact with lawyers who might be prepared to take action out of sympathy for the cause for which those who are detained stand.
The proposal as to Section 13, the ports control, that time limits for detention should be modified, has been accepted by the Government, and we welcome that. Perhaps in a sense it was hardly necessary to refer to the separate sections of the principal Act today because the only choice before us today is whether to renew the Act; there is no choice as to amending any particular provisions within it. On balance, I am in no doubt that we have no alternative but to renew the Act as a whole. I hope that there will not be a similar order brought forward next year but that the Government will instead do what they did in 1976, which was to reintroduce the Act as a substantive Bill so that full and detailed consideration can be given to every part of it. Some of the amendments may then be brought forward which have been postulated in Lord Shackleton's report to which I referred today.
6.49 p.m.
Viscount BROOKEBOROUGH: My Lords, I rise to support the Government in the extension of this Act. Before I go into it, I should like to join in the tributes which have been paid to the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, for his report. His experience in Northern Ireland goes back nearly 40 years, and nobody in this House has more practical experience and more sympathy with the problems in Northern Ireland than the noble Lord. It gives me great pleasure to pay tribute to him, his report and those who wrote it. It is so clearly written that nobody could misunderstand it.

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I should like to discuss this Act in the context of Northern Ireland and especially in the context of the Bennett Report and the now notorious television programme which was used to do "one-upmanship" on the Northern Ireland Office presented by London Weekend Television. With all the fuss that has been caused by the apparent attempt to discredit a doctor, a lot of points have been lost in the smoke. I think that it is necessary to state absolutely clearly, as my noble friend Lord Colville did, that the emergency which existed at the time this House passed the original Act is still in existence today. In Northern Ireland we are still virtually at war with the terrorists. I do not want to detain the House tonight by paying a long tribute to the Royal Ulster Constabulary, to the Armed Forces and the UDR, but I cannot let it go because parts of the Bennett Report have in fact appeared to criticise the Royal Ulster Constabulary. I do not believe personally that any other force could have stood for 10 years with such a blameless record as they have.
At this moment not only the security forces and the police but also the ordinary citizens of Northern Ireland have been deprived of civil rights for 10 years. It is their civil rights—and even their right to life—which are being denied to them by the terrorists. It seems to me that, in the public discussion that has been going on, that fact has been forgotten; that it is the rights of the ordinary person in Northern Ireland and to a lesser extent, thank goodness! in this country, which have to be protected. If I draw your Lordships' attention to one or two events which have happened only in the last few days, it is because I feel very strongly about them.
Let us take the case of one man, Sergeant McConkey, who is aged 28; he comes from a place a short distance away from me and I know the family extremely well. He is now lying in hospital with no legs, one arm off and nearly blind. That surely is a deprivation of civil rights. Last week a little girl aged 9 was shot and wounded on her way to school, and only a few days ago some civilians were wounded and two soldiers were murdered in an indiscriminate attack by mortars in Newtown Hamilton.
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I feel very strongly that when we discuss these matters with reference to the Bennett Report and to the suggestions, as yet unproved, that the interrogators of the Royal Ulster Constabulary have been assaulting prisoners, we should consider the assaults on Sergeant McConkey and on all those soliders, and compare their injuries with the bruises which terrorists may have suffered as a result of interrogation. We must get the context right.
But, having said that we must get the context right and must look after the ordinary citizens and the security forces, of course we have a secondary duty. That is to see that no illegitimate force is used by the authorities on somebody under interrogation. A proper balance really must be kept, however, and in the discussion about the Bennett Report, and indeed almost one could say in the Bennett Report itself, I feel that this balance has not in fact been kept. In our efforts to prevent power being used by the interrogators to assault or in any way affect the civil rights of suspects, we must not make arrangements which will blunt the instrument of interrogation. If the conviction rate goes down, the murder rate goes up—I have seen this in my own country—and you end up with sectarian murder in the place of justice. That is the issue. Sectarian murder at the moment is not a major issue but if we blunt the instrument of interrogation we shall definitely run back into that situation.
Interrogation is not a matter—and people are inclined to forget this—of beating a confession out of someone. With all the experience we have, that is counter-productive. But neither is it a question of a cosy tea-time chat or a well-conducted seminar. Even a child who has pinched a lump of sugar does not find the interview with its mother or father prior to confession a very pleasant thing. Certainly interrogation in a serious crime must create a much greater tension than exists in the questioning of children. It is a question of psychological pressure to elicit information. People are talking about confessions as if they were the only thing that is wanted from these suspects. The fact is that these IRA operators are all well known and they are all known to be involved: what is missing is the evidence to convict. At the present moment, it is just as important to get information about the whole of the

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terrorist organisation as it is to get a confession. So I am quite confident that the question of assault can be fairly dealt with, but in doing so we must not blunt the instrument.
There are two recommendations in the Bennett Report which, in my opinion and in the opinion of many others who are directly involved, will in fact blunt that instrument. The first is the recommendation that nothing should be done to cause physical exhaustion to the suspect. To enforce that literally is impossible, because what is the definition of "physical exhaustion"? I do not know whether or not the Government have accepted that recommendation, but to do so would nullify the advantage which this Act gives in allowing seven days' interrogation.
I know that my noble friend Lord Colville does not agree with me, but believe that an even worse recommendation—which has been accepted—is that every 48 hours a suspect can have a comforting visit from a solicitor. My Lords, the solicitors involved in these cases are for the most part experts, politically involved, as the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, said, in the aims of the IRA. Can there be anything more comforting than to have every 48 hours—just when the tension is perhaps about to produce the information that is required—a visit from a solicitor who is an expert in these matters? It seems to me ironic that police in this country can still use that seven days' detention without any hindrance while the police in Northern Ireland, where the revolution is still very much alive, are denied that.
Lastly, in the Bennett Report, there is a recommendation to install television in interrogation rooms. Unless we go the whole hog on the installation of television and install it not only in interrogation rooms but also in the cells of the suspects we shall fail to get the advantage which we should get—which is to see to it that false accusations about the police are stopped. It is in the cells after interrogation that the suspects in fact inflict a lot of the damage upon themselves; and then we have these rumours. I think the installation of television should go even as far as the lavatories, because if they find a television set in their cell they will inflict the damage somewhere else. I should like to have an assurance from the Government on that particular situation.
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It has been said time and time again that in this particular battle we are fighting for the minds of people. I was interested to see that the Irish Ambassador in Washington drew attention to this matter. His remarks were not very widely reported in the British Press but what he said was that immense damage would be done by the misrepresentation of the Bennett Report in America and that it would increase the flow of funds from America to the IRA. About a week ago I raised with the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, the question of the public reputation of this country in America, with regard to Northern Ireland. All the reports that I get are that we stand very low; and, indeed, the other day we saw Senator Kennedy making remarks which I do not think were appropriate. I think that the situation in America is extremely serious. We have very bad publicity there on these issues of H Block and interrogation.
Even before the Bennett Report was published, the attack on our institutions had already begun. The now notorious London Weekend Television programme was shown. It is such a biased programme because it is only when a programme is biased that it sells well. It has sold to something like 160 stations throughout the world. Nothing could be better, if you want to make money out of a television programme, than to make sure that it is sold throughout the world, and you will get it sold in such places only if it is biased against the institution.
I know that the Secretary of State agrees that this programme was a highly articulate, efficient and skilful piece of IRA propaganda. In the first instance, it was calculated to discredit the police, and, in the second, to discredit the Army. In the section of that film which dealt with the Army, there was no mention at any time of the casualties that the Army have suffered—290 killed and some 3,000 wounded. There was no mention at all of any of that. So far as the public is concerned, anybody seeing that film in a country outside this will have no knowledge of the hundreds of hours a week that the Army have to spend in protecting the lives and civil rights of ordinary citizens.
Lastly, the film attacked the courts. How much easier it would have been for that attack to succeed had we in this

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House not persuaded the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack that the courts of Northern Ireland should rest in his able hands. It would have been an ideal opportunity for them if the courts now rested in the Northern Ireland Office, and I feel so glad that the noble and learned Lord saw fit to accept the responsibility.
I do not want to inhibit the media from discussing topics. Indeed, this is a very relevant topic for them to discuss. But the television service is a kind of semi-monopoly, and in those conditions it should observe some balance, particularly when the Constitution of the country is under attack. It was, to me, a most peculiar situation, that a highly talented journalist of known Republican-Marxist views— she has declared it absolutely publicly—should have been entrusted with the task of organising a report which involved the inclusion of a section of recent Ulster history.
Those who did not see the programme should note that the history started in 1968 and went up to 1972—Bloody Sunday—but it went no further. We did not have the La Mon disaster, when the IRA incinerated a whole restaurant full of people. We did not see the killing of two youths the other day, on their way to a dance, who were blown to pieces by the IRA. No, my Lords, we could not have that. First, it would not help to sell the programme; and, secondly, it would justify the powers for which the Government are asking today.
But taking the Bennett Report and this film together, I feel that the Secretary of State—and he is a man I much admire for his handling of these affairs—must have realised in advance that this assault was about to come. In the Northern Ireland Office, they have a very close feel and knowledge about what is going on, what television programme is coming up and what is the content of that programme; and it was, and is, in my view, the Government's duty to put the case for the security forces. This ought to have been done, and done in advance of the attack by this television programme.
I wonder—and I have considerable experience from being in charge of the Department of Information in the Govern-
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ment of my noble friend Lord Moyola in 1971—whether there is a case for reviewing the set-up of information, and for having what I would describe as a director of truth, because what we must have is a positive policy of telling the truth; not a policy of denying lies, which is what we are doing. If we always deny lies, we can never catch up, because once the lies are ahead the truth never overcomes the lies. There has been much experience gathered in the last few years about the psychology of anti-terrorist warfare, and I wonder whether there is a case for appointing somebody, such as Dr. Clutter-buck or Professor Wilkinson, to advise the Government on a long-term basis about getting ahead of the game and telling the truth.
I end with a quotation from Milton, who said:
"He who seeks to overcome by force alone hath overcome but half his foe".
Nothing is truer than that, so far as our information service is concerned. I support the Government.
7.6 p.m.
Lord HUNT: My Lords, having listened to my noble friend Lord Brookeborough, I feel that I must rise very briefly to say a word in support of what he said about the Royal Ulster Constabulary, and against the propaganda to which that force is now liable to be subjected, in so far as that has a bearing on this order.
It is now a little over nine years since my colleagues and I reported to the then Northern Ireland Government on the police force in Northern Ireland, but I have an abiding memory of a force which was not only individually courageous, but was corporately highly disciplined, forbearing and even-handed in its dealings with the public. I cannot believe that that general impression—that truth, as I saw it then—has altered over the years between, despite the many things that have happened of a terrible nature in Northern Ireland.
I find it perhaps more alarming than intolerable that the high reputation of that splendid force, the RUC, should be tarnished in the public mind by the actions of what must have been a very few officers in that force, and without, no doubt, the knowledge of the great majority of men

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and women in the RUC. I can only say that this has a very strong bearing on this order, because it must be of absolutely fundamental importance that nothing should be done to undermine the morale of the RUC, on whom the people of Northern Ireland so greatly depend, and I naturally support the renewal of this order.
7.8 p.m.
Lord BOSTON of FAVERSHAM: My Lords, may I first say how grateful I am to those noble Lords who have spoken in support of the Motion for this order, albeit with the reservations which we all share. Perhaps I may also join with all those noble Lords who have spoken, in warmly thanking my noble friend Lord Shackleton once again for the tremendous amount of work which he did, indeed, put into drawing up his report. I am sure that we are all immensely grateful to him. The noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, referred to our Ambassador in the Hague. So far as that situation is concerned, there is nothing that I can add to what my noble friend Lord Goronwy-Roberts said this afternoon, but I am quite sure that we all share in what the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, said, in our wish to have our feelings of sympathy and distress sent to the family.
The noble Viscount, Lord Brookeborough, referred to the Royal Ulster Constabulary, as did the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and I certainly join with them in the tribute that has been paid. As the noble Viscount, Lord Brookeborough, indicated, they really are in the front line of these activities and they deserve our strongest praise and commendation for the work that they do. I should also like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, for what he said about the Motion. Before I come to a rather more detailed point, may I say, so far as his suggestion is concerned, that if your Lordships pass this Motion tonight the Government might consider next year reintroducing the Act as a Bill. I shall certainly see that the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, is conveyed to my right honourable friend so that we can bear it in mind when we are giving further consideration to these matters.
A further point which has been raised relates to the Judges' Rules and also to
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the Bennett Report. Perhaps your Lordships will allow me to take two or three minutes to deal, at least in part, with this point. Concern was expressed by the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, the noble Viscount, Lord Brookeborough, and the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, about the recommendations relating to access to solicitors which were made in the Bennett Report, published last Friday. The question of access is very important. First, may I say that I am able to make it quite clear that the Judges' Rules, the administrative directions to the Police and Section 62 of the Criminal Law Act 1977 all apply to people detained under the prevention of terrorism legislation in exactly the same way as to people who are detained under other powers.
There are two particular points to note about these provisions, and they are these. First, none of them recognises any right for a solicitor to be present when a person in custody is questioned. The right which is recognised is the right to contact or to consult. Secondly, the rights to which I have referred are all subject, in effect, to important provisos. These provisos recognise that there may be a good reason in a particular case for holding a person incommunicado. For example, the police may have arrested one member of a gang and fear that premature disclosure of the arrest may lead to the escape of his associates, the destruction of evidence or attempts to interfere with witnesses. This was a point to which the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, alluded in his remarks.
The provisos are not to be applied indiscriminately, but they are essential in particular cases where the kind of circumstances to which I have referred may apply. Clearly the Judges' Rules envisage that the fact of arrest should not operate as a matter of routine to prevent someone obtaining legal advice, if he wishes to do so. Equally, Section 62 envisages that an arrested person shall be able to let a relative or friend or a solicitor know of the fact of his arrest and his whereabouts. As noble Lords know, the general question of access to legal advice is central to the work of the Royal Commission on Criminal Procedure who are, I understand, commissioning research on these very matters as well as considering the issues of principle involved here. The question of access to solicitors does not stand

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alone. It needs to be seen in the wider context of the right of silence, the status of the Judges' Rules, the control of police questioning and so on. Evidence which has been submitted to the Commission from various quarters, including the Home Office, attests to the widely divergent views which are held on these questions. On the substance, therefore, I think that we must leave it to the Commission itself to evaluate the evidence before them and to make what recommendations they judge to be appropriate at the end of the day.
The only other thing that I should like to add in relation to the Bennett Committee to which the noble Viscount, Lord Brookeborough, also referred is that it was set up following the allegations of ill-treatment which were made by Amnesty International about interrogations in Northern Ireland of terrorist suspects. No such allegations have been made about the questioning of suspects in Great Britain. The recommendations of the Bennett Report are directed solely at interrogations of persons suspected of scheduled offences—that is to say, the wide range of serious offences contained in the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act. As we know, the special provisions of that Act do not apply in Great Britain, so I do not see any immediate need, so far as Great Britain is concerned, to import the extra safeguards which the Bennett Committee have recommended for the different situation which exists in Northern Ireland. The implementation of the Bennett Report in Northern Ireland is a matter for my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. I think that those are the main points. Therefore, I simply commend the order to your Lordships' House.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

ROYAL ASSENT
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that the Queen has signified her Royal Assent to the following Acts:

Public Lending Right Act,

Electricity (Scotland) Act,

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Wages Councils Act,

Agricultural Statistics Act,

Capital Gains Tax Act,

House of Commons (Redistribution of Seats) Act,

Criminal Evidence Act,

Vaccine Damage Payments Act, Social Security Act,

Administration of Justice (Emergency Provisions) (Scotland) Act,

Consolidated Fund Act.

THE PAROLE SYSTEM
7.16 p.m.
The Earl of LONGFORD The Earl of LONGFORD rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will institute an independent inquiry into the whole parole system as recommended in the 15th Report of the House of Commons Expenditure Committee, Session 1977–78 (H.C. 662—I). The noble Earl said: My Lords, I rise to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. I should like to begin by reading a few lines from the Fifteenth Report of the House of Commons Expenditure Committee:
"The Sub-Committee feel that the whole subject of parole and the criticisms which have been made of it, and the possible alternative models which might be adopted, are too complicated and specialised for them to embark on in the available time. But we regard the internal inquiry by officials as too limited in response to the criticisms of parole, and the great importance of the system to the smooth working of the penal system. We recommend"—
and their recommendation was endorsed by the full Expenditure Committee—
"that an independent inquiry should be instituted into the whole parole system …".
It is following that recommendation that I venture tonight to bring this matter before your Lordships.
I shall not spend time discussing whether parole in the abstract is a good idea. I am still—as I was when I opened a debate on parole in your Lordships' House in 1975—a strong and unrepentant believer in the parole system, or in the principle of parole. I still believe that it offers a measure of hope and encouragement and moral incentive to prisoners, and in that way offers genuine help to them in improving their conduct. I still believe, moreover, that any adequate parole

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system is bound to reduce considerably the number of men and women in prison, which today most of us regard as an urgent objective, even allowing for the great increase in crime in recent years. Many of us are aware—and no doubt the Minister is the most aware of all—of the serious situation, for example, in Walton Prison, Liverpool, where it is perhaps no coincidence that there are 1,600 prisoners in a prison intended for 850. I need not drive in the moral.
Again I shall not spend time asking whether the authorities operating the system are entitled to say that parole has been a success in this country. Certainly I would not say that it had been a failure. I have a vested interest, if you like, in applauding parole, since I was chairman of the Labour Party Committee—which included the present Lord Chancellor and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, who regrets that he is unable to be with us tonight—which came out with the first considered proposals for parole in 1964. I readily acknowledge, therefore, that the parole system has done and is doing much more good than harm, which is far from saying that it is beyond serious criticism.
I cannot fail to refer to the retirement of Sir Louis Petch as chairman of the Parole Board and to the appointment of Lord Harris of Greenwich as his successor, to whom, once again, I wish everything good in his new role. I hope that he will treat it, if not as quite a full-time job, which is how I think the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, treated it, then, at least very nearly so. Once again I wish everything good to Lord Harris of Greenwich in his new life. I have frequently differed from Sir Louis Petch about matters affecting parole, but I can never forget the unfailing courtesy with which he has always treated me, even at times under considerable provocation, and the gallantry with which he faced his recent severe illness, from which I am glad to think that he has now recovered. I wish Sir Louis a long and happy retirement after many years of dedicated service to the State.
What then of the future? To quote an important document which is shortly to be published by NACRO:
"There is widespread agreement that the present system is in need of revision, although feelings differ as to what form this revision should take".
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There are two points there and I think each is put rather mildly in that sensible statement by NACRO. In this situation when you get the need for change generally admitted but a widespread difference of opinion, what usually happens is precisely nothing. The critics are played off against each other, unless one of two things emerges: either a Minister who has time and energy and imagination enough to produce his own solution, accepted ultimately, of course, by the Government, or a committee under a chairman of the type of Lord Beveridge, or Lord Robbins or Lord Wolfenden—to mention the first three noble Lords who come into my mind—produces a report of social dynamism.
I certainly will not rule out the first alternative of the inspired Minister. It might be the noble Lord, Lord Boston of Faversham: it might be, under certain unmentionable circumstances, the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, or even the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder. Why not? I believe that everything in this world happens eventually. Those are all possibilities, but under the present political circumstances we cannot expect the latter alternative to be hastily realised. So the inquiry is the only possible and urgent answer. I may be told that an internal review has been proceeding within the Home Office. The Parliamentary Sub-Committee, as I said earlier, considered that that was quite insufficient, and I personally agree with them strongly. I would concede, however, that if a Green Paper—about which we may or may not hear something from the Minister—is coming out shortly it might be commonsense to wait for its appearance. But I am sure that Green Paper or no Green Paper an independent inquiry as recommended by the Parliamentary Sub-Committee is indispensable.
In the debate which I opened in this House in 1975 I rehearsed most of the leading criticisms of the present parole system. Broadly speaking, all those criticisms apply today, but I will not take the House through most of them now. When we were discussing the Home Office on 31st January the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, referred to what he called the anxiety-making slowness of decision-making.
"believe the time has come"—

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said the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, at the end of January—
"after 11 years of operation to dispense with much of the elaborate and time-consuming processing of cases which is carried out in the Home Office parole unit".
That is what Lord Hunt said then, and no doubt he believes it still.
Of course, I could give many examples because so many come my way. I will give one illustration which reached me yesterday and which I have not had time to pass on to the noble Lord, but I presume he may have had a chance to look into it. A noble Lord wrote to me as follows:
"The case arises in connection with my agricultural mechanic"—
and he gives the name—
"who has now been in prison 9½ years for the murder of his wife, of which I am convinced he is innocent"—
that is not really the point, one way or the other.
"But be that as it may, he"—
that is his agricultural mechanic, now serving a life sentence—
"was told last October that he was being reviewed for parole, since when he has heard nothing, despite the fact that I believe he has excellent reports from all the prisons. I cannot believe that it has taken six months for the powers that be to make up their minds and the delay seems to me to be a quite unnecessary refinement of torture. Would it not be possible to be kinder in cases of this sort?"
I appreciate that in a life sentence there are one or two complications which do not arise habitually, but I quote that one example out of many of how the system involves very disquieting delays. However, I shall leave that topic to others this evening, except to say that I am sure there must be much more devolution. I could name at least three ways in which this could be done, but I am ready to accept the great advantage of this issue being tackled afresh by the independent inquiry.
The other and more fundamental weakness of the present system which I shall go into more carefully is the failure to give reasons, in however general a form, for negative decisions. This failure to give reasons has, of course, been criticised many times here and in many other places and with most authority recently, perhaps, by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, as the former chairman of the Parole Board in the speech on 31st January, from which I have
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quoted. I would myself also insist at this point on the need for a prisoner to be given a chance to be heard before the local review board, but again I must leave that point at the moment.
Mr. Paul Cavadino, of NACRO, a genuine expert, has summed up the defect of the present system as well as anyone—and now I am quoting this representative of NACRO:
"To deny parole to a prisoner who has been waiting anxiously for three or four months for a decision, and to give no formal explanation, is likely to induce cynicism and bitterness about the whole procedure. It is bound to give rise to the suspicion in an inmate's mind that the decision in his case has not been considered carefully hut has been arrived at arbitrarily".
He continues:
"Moreover without being given reasons for his failure, it is difficult for a prisoner to work constructively for his release".
I think we would all agree that the last point cannot be rubbed in too often.
We must remember that it is not only the prisoner but usually, in my experience, the local prison authority who are trying to help the prisoner, who are themselves given no clue as to the reasons for the negative decision. Why are the Parole Board so obdurate in this negative attitude? If I provide an explanation which they would regard as unfair they must realise that they deliberately refrain from giving us material for an adequate judgment. I myself cannot resist the conclusion that a crucial reason why the Board will not give reasons is that in many cases their actual reasons are not such as they would wish to avow publicly.
Take a case that I raised in the 1975 debate, that of Mr.John Poulson, for example. I mention that because I mentioned it before. If the board had had to give reasons for not letting Mr. Poulson have parole the first time round, when he was already a sick man, they would have had to explain why he was refused parole on the first occasion. I am glad to say he was granted it later. They would have found it most difficult to provide a reasonable explanation why it was impossible to grant him parole the first time and why. a little later on, they decided that it was in order. I do not think anybody would say that, somehow or other, he had become a more reliable citizen.
A week or two ago I was visiting a prisoner who has served many years of a

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long and determinate sentence and who has been refused parole several times. The prisoner in question is supported in his parole application by the governor, who is frankly bewildered by this refusal. The governor asked me recently: "What has the Parole Board got against Andy?". The man's name is not "Andy", but I will give him that pseudonym. I know his name, but whatever he may or may not be called he is a very well known prisoner. I said I supposed that the Parole Board thought there would be an outcry if he were released, though personally I am sure there would not be. I can only think of one other explanation, which I will come to in a moment.
When I say that fear of public opinion is the only, or at any rate the predominant, reason why certain persons are not released, the authorities become rather hot under the collar as far as their officialese permits them. I know that the noble Lord would always exercise perfect charity towards anybody's criticism, even if he thought it was not quite fair. The Parole Board say that when a prisoner, admittedly not dangerous, is not allowed parole there can be many other factors in addition to public opinion. I am quoting from official communications which are not marked "confidential".
Let us focus on that for a moment. What are these many other factors? In such communications, letters written to me about prisoners every now and then, the authorities, which is usually a Home Office Minister, mention retribution and deterrence. Here we are reaching the heart of the question. Let us forget public opinion for the moment and concentrate on these factors, retribution and deterrence. I place this fairly and squarely before the House, and ultimately the Minister. Are these factors, or are they not, to be taken into account in the parole decision, whether by the Parole Board or the Home Secretary, and whether what is under discussion is, strictly speaking, parole or release on licence? Until we get a straight answer to that question, instead of a string of calculated evasions, which I am bound to say I have received for a good many years, we cannot even pretend that we know what goes on behind the scenes of parole, or how the parole system really works or what are the criteria actually relied on,
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whatever may be written down in the reports.
If we read through the report of the Parole Board for 1977, with an appendix discussing at great length what is meant by suitability for parole, we will not find retribution and deterrence treated there as the factors which determine the decision. Reference is made briefly in the report to the need for retaining the confidence of the public; but that is a different question, as I have tried to indicate. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Boston, would be the last to accuse me of only taking up the cases of well-known prisoners. Like his predecessors, he is constantly assailed by myself on behalf of prisoners of whom the public has never heard, and I am afraid that is part of his cross. May I say, since I am not always as kind as I might be about Home Office officials, that the answers I have received from Ministers, assisted by their excellent advisers, always indicate that a great deal of trouble has been taken to look into the case and perhaps almost as much trouble to present it in the most favourable light; at any rate, a lot of trouble one way and another has been taken over these answers over the years.
The Parole Board point out in their last report that what they call the overall Parolingrate—that is, the percentage of determinate sentence prisoners eligible who receive parole at some stage—has now risen to 62 per cent. But this figure is not as impressive as it sounds. In a great many cases in my experience the prisoner is not released on parole until very near the end of his sentence. But that does not affect this figure of 62 per cent. If you released everybody a month before the end of his sentence you could call it 100 per cent. So the figure of 62 per cent., has to be looked at with caution. In the great majority of cases, the effect on public opinion would not usually be important. So I am afraid the Parole Board decide in many cases that a certain crime deserves a certain sentence quite irrespective of the progress made by the prisoner. One is forced to that conclusion. In other words, they see themselves as a sort of judicial longstop, a longstop for the judiciary, which is surely not their intended function.
My Lords, let me leave no doubt as to what I am saying. I am making two

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points. First, I am saying that to allow public opinion, disgracefully inflamed in some cases by the popular Press, to decide the fate of a particular prisoner is a ludicrous caricature of democracy. One national daily, for example, has recently conducted a very biased poll in regard to the parole or release on licence of a particular prisoner. Surely no one is going to say that the Parole Board or the Home Secretary ought to be influenced by a poll of that kind, even if it were conducted, as this certainly was not, with scrupulous objectivity. Whatever may be said about the need for the general operation of parole to comply with public sentiment, surely it is absolutely contrary to natural justice and is introducing a principle of mob rule or lynch law if a particular prisoner is dealt with according to public opinion stirred up in that particular way and interpreted by these very hostile elements.
Secondly, I am submitting that to allow retribution and deterrence to play their part, and maybe a dominant part, in the decisions is to introduce a crucial element of resentencing. Those conceptions may well be necessary elements in the original sentence, but if the Parole Board relies on them it is doing the work of the judge over again, without legal safeguards and with no protection for the prisoner. If the crime and its circumstances are to be studied— and in the Parole Board appendix it is suggested that attention should be paid to the crime—it should, and this is apparently what the Parole Board has in mind on paper, only be studied as to the light it throws on the future conduct of the prisoner; it should not go towards a verdict as to how long the prisoner ought to stay in prison irrespective of his conduct. Otherwise, the whole process of collecting elaborate dossiers about a prisoner's progress turns into a cynical humbug.
My Lords, before I close I must say a few words about life sentence prisoners. I do not want to make too much of life sentence prisoners because the problems are different here, though very acute in their own way. The problems are admittedly special, if only because there is no such thing as a third of a life sentence. If a train robber is given 30 years—an appallingly long sentence—you can say that after 10 years he comes up for parole; yet if someone who has committed a
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grave crime is given a life sentence, you cannot say that after a certain number of years he is entitled to be considered. But even in the life sentence cases the voice of natural justice and human decency must surely be attended to.
Nearly two years ago Lord Gardiner, Lord Carr, Lord Hunt and myself waited on the Home Secretary and urged that any prisoner who had served 10 years at the outside should be at least considered for parole: not given parole but considered for parole; allowed on to the course as you might say, or, taking an analogy from croquet, be allowed to have a shot at the first hoop. That is what we four submitted, without reference to any particular individual, and that would have been at least a beginning which would hold out a little hope.
The Home Secretary turned down that request, and I am afraid his hardness of heart has not stopped there. Recently a life prisoner who has served over 13 years in prison, has not been in category A during the last six years, and has been described by Sir Louis Petch as not dangerous any longer, has been informed that consideration for parole cannot be entertained for at least another three years, with no assurance whatever that it will be entertained at that time. In other words, in the case of this prisoner—and no doubt we shall be told that this person is treated as others are treated—there will be no assurance, after 16 years in prison, of consideration for parole. If we heard of someone being treated like that in the Soviet Union or Chile, we might call it mental torture. There is no need to change the label because it is occurring in our own country, where our responsibility is infinitely greater.
I must return, more coolly, to the general question of what reforms in our parole system are just and practicable bearing in mind the immense complexity of the subject to which the Parliamentary Committee has borne witness. My own point of view is largely summed up by something the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, said to the Annual Conference of the National Association of Probation Officers in 1976, and I assume that it is still his point of view. He said:
"I would like to see parole denied only in exceptional cases and to see reasons for such exceptional refusals explained to prisoners.

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There is still an element of re-sentencing in the process of assessing people serving determinate sentences which in my view should not be there".
That I believe, sums up the matter.
There is plenty of room for argument as to whether these changes can be effected under a system such as the present one, which is still administrative in principle, or whether we must turn, as Dr. Roger Hood and others have suggested, to a system which was in some sense judicial. I can see advantages in either course. I would not be dogmatic about their respective merits. I would be perfectly happy with either outcome. The great thing is that we should get on with the job, more concerned with the human beings than the system, and yet aware that unless we get the system right we are doing a grave injustice to human beings. For that purpose I am sure that an independent review as recommended by the Parliamentary Sub-Committee is the all-important prerequisite.
7.43 p.m.
Viscount COLVILLE of CULROSS: My Lords, no one who has ever had dealings with the noble Earl, Lord Longford, or who has heard him speak, doubts that his prime concern is with human beings and such, I would suggest, should be the concern of all those who attempt to say anything upon this subject. However, I remind him that a parole system which does not command public credibility and public acceptability will not prevail or last. In saying that, I am not talking about the more flagrant and extravagant things that are said in the Press: I am talking about something which relates much more to a ground swell of opinion, very often in a particular locality. I respectfully suggest to the noble Earl that if he disregards that in his reforming zeal, he does so at his peril.
It is some time since I had anything personally to do with the parole system, but, as I read the submissions on this subject which were made from various sources to the Sub-Committee which has made this recommendation, I recognised, that perhaps not surprisingly, after 10 or 11 years, there are now a number of new ideas and radical approaches which have been put forward and which must obviously command attention—especially as they come from sources such as the Probation Officers' Working Party, NACRO and
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people of that sort. They are criticisms and suggestions from informed and sensible people, and we must look at them carefully. For myself, they seem to vary so much from the extreme of wanting automatic parole after perhaps a third of the sentence, to the ideas of those who now think that, having tried the experiment, there should be no parole at all, with roughly every station in between, that I am bound to say I feel the internal review that is going on—I know not how far it has got—cannot possibly be the end of the matter.
If there is a Green Paper on the horizon, it will lead, I hope, to further informed public criticism and no doubt to discussion in Parliament. But, we must, if we are contemplating changes, have the widest possible public discussion of what we are doing and, if we are to decide in the end that we shall not have any changes or none but fairly marginal ones, the reasons must be such as to convince those who are now, and who for some time have been, saying that there is a decisive need to bring about a revision of the system.
Therefore, I hope that one way or another the Government are in train of producing a type of reappraisal—I am not necessarily saying that it should be an independent inquiry—which will really give the opportunity to look at all these suggestions and open them to public discussion. Thus, if people—and this is inevitable—have their ideas turned down, they will at least know that their ideas have been treated with justice and with due consideration and that there are good reasons why they have been dismissed. I say this because it seems to me that we are getting to the stage of a very severe dispute about the whole system, at least as to its administration. I should think that nobody would for one moment really expect the parole system to be abolished. We are trying to talk about improvements and changes to it.
The noble Earl has touched upon two issues, one of which is speed of decision. There cannot be many people who would wish to deny that that is a desirable aim. But there are, as always in this area, other sides to the argument which I do not say are in any way conclusive but which we must bear in mind. The inevitable first port of call of those who wish to have speed is that there should be delegation. I do not think that it very much matters

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whether there is more delegation to local review committees or to regional, district or area committees or whatever they may be. However, that is what is being suggested, and of course it is right that that should be done.
However, the moment one starts introducing that type of solution, one runs into the sister problem which is equally important and equally liable to cause grievance—namely, lack of consistency between the decisions on what would at least appear to be parallel cases. I shall simply illustrate that in theory, because I am not suggesting that this is necessarily an issue where there is consistency: I just do not know. However, I would guess that in cases relating to offences of possession of drugs, particularly soft drugs, with only the slightest suspicion of pushing them, different boards, different review committees, different officials, and different Ministers are all capable quite honestly, genuinely and sincerely of holding very different views about what should be done. Of course, the result of that can, if one is not careful, be gravely inconsistent decisions on individual cases. I only put forward that example because I myself happen to find this a particularly hard subject and I know that I benefited very greatly from discussing it with the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and his colleagues on the board. I think all of us learned a good deal about the subject there and perhaps it aided us to be consistent.
In the evidence given by the Probation Officers' Working Party to the Select Committee the view was expressed that there is a marked degree—I should almost think that they meant an alarming degree—of inconsistency among the local review committees at the different establishments. I think that NACRO said the same in its evidence. Therefore, I would need convincing that a new district or regional organisation, with comparatively slender central co-ordinating powers, would have the effect that we all desire. I am very much afraid that there would be a premium on being in the South-Western area, because the Bristol district committee was particularly lenient with non-violent burglars, or those who committed some such offence. The danger here is that, although the moment it came to light one would try very hard to retrieve such a situation, it is not easy to
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do so in fact and it is almost impossible to do so in reputation. Therefore inconsistencies are a real difficulty which one must face and seek to resolve.
The noble Earl related a good deal of his speech to reasons. I hope that I know the prison system well enough to understand very fully what it is that this cry for help is about. I think that I also know the prison system sufficiently well to know that the giving of reasons could, in its turn, create almost as large a problem as the refusal to do so. That one must take into account and bear in mind. I do not know what stage the Parole Board's reasons experiment has reached and I certainly do not know what conclusions Ministers will draw from it. What I say now really derives from my own thoughts on this matter, aided by the evidence given to the Select Committee by the chairman and secretary of the Parole Board, which is printed in the book of evidence which the Select Committee published.
First, there is the question of the practicability of producing reasons which would do the job that the noble Earl wishes. I wonder what, in fact, the noble Earl expects by way of reasons. I do not think that he will get a carefully detailed reason, specifically tailored to the facts relating to an individual prisoner, which will be considered at some length by the Board. It is inconceivable that that sort of reason should be able to be given or that it would be right to do so. At the most I would anticipate a fairly stereotyped set of reasons, one or more of which would be produced. I wonder how much that would help.
Of course, the reason for my recollection is that when one is deciding an individual case, one does not necessarily do so for any one reason or, indeed, any two reasons. It is a matter of an overall impression. I also believe that when there is not one Minister but a panel of several people trying to decide, they may all come to the same conclusion but for totally different reasons. Therefore, the job of providing something satisfactory is increasingly hard.
There are also, of course, cases where we cannot tell the true reason. We cannot say to a prisoner, "In every other respect you are wholly fit to go out on parole, but the home circumstances report has just disclosed that your wife is living with a

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lover, and we think that if you go out and find this, you will run amok." We cannot give that sort of reason. That is, of course, an extreme case and I hope that it will never happen, but there are plenty of reasons which one simply cannot give to a prisoner without doing him and his family enormous harm, and retarding his progress.
Then it occurred to me to think that on the, I hope, very few occasions when I recommended that the Secretary of State should disagree with the Parole Board I, too, would have had to suggest a reason. Some of the decisions contained at any rate an element of an attempt to take account of what I said at the beginning of my speech—namely, the effect on public opinion as to the credibility and acceptability of parole. I do not know how that can be put into a reason, at least a reason that would ever satisfy a prisoner.
Finally, Sir Louis Petch in his evidence gave some examples of reasons that might be given. He said:
"Let us think of four typical causes for concern. The nature of the offence is such that we will not let him out yet—in other words, the retribution, deterrent purpose;"
about which the noble Earl spoke. Sir Louis continues:
"the mental state of the prisoner is such that it is not safe to let him out; the home circumstances to which he will be returning look so disastrous that we will not let him out, or, his behaviour in prison has been awful and we are not letting him out yet".
The last chairman of the Parole Board said:
"Of those four things only one is something which he can do anything about, and that is his behaviour in prison".
Certainly a good deal of the burden of the request for reasons has been that the prisoner would like to know what he can do about it so that he gets a favourable response next time. However, that illustration surely shows that three out of the four are completely out of his control. It must be realised that this should be taken seriously into account.
It seems to me that the matter goes a little further; and this is perhaps where I look at the matter rather more through a lawyer's eyes, but also with the background of my own experience in the Home Office. When one discusses the nature of the parole system at present,
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one must appreciate that it is surely executive. In many ways it is very similar to the release of persons who are detained in special hospitals under the Mental Health Acts. Of course, the considerations are quite different, but it is a similar type of executive action. There is good cause for this. The prisoner has committed an offence for which he has been tried and found guilty, and has been sentenced to a determinate term by a judge. By no means infrequently the judge has sentenced him, at least in part, for the protection of the public.
Again let me take an extreme case, because it illustrates what I wish to say. Let us assume that he was a rapist. He is released on parole and does it again. The newspapers say, "Who released this rapist?" At the moment it is the Minister who has to say, "I did; I overruled what the judge passed by way of sentence. I thought that it was right to do so". What do we say to the victim of the second offence or to the girl's parents? It is no use saying "Well, of course, he would have been out in three months anyway". The girl's parents, her friends and the girl herself would say, "Maybe he would, but he would not have done it to me". If one makes that sort of mistake, it is right that one should take the responsibility. I suppose that in the end if you make a bad enough mistake or do it often enough, you must face the possibility of resigning. That is what an executive decision means and that is where the responsibility lies. Personally, I would not shrink from it when I am attempting to administer this sort of system.
There are other executive decisions and NACRO has drawn a parallel, for instance, with the immigration appeals system. I find a marked distinction between that and the question of parole. It is perfectly true that there is a public interest in preventing people entering this country when they should not, but in those cases there is no question of the protection of the person and of the property of members of the public from attack, violation and injury by the person who has actually been committed to prison for a similar or another offence. I do not think that it follows at all on the analogy that there should be an appeal in this sort of case.

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On the subject of appeals, to whom then does one appeal? Incidentally, if there is to be an appeal by a prisoner who has been refused parole, would you have an appeal against the grant of parole by his former victim? I think it bears consideration, although I am sure in the end the answer would be, No. If you are talking about appeals, then reasons of course are the way in. In any executive decision, particularly if it can be said to be quasi-judicial, the moment reasons are given there is a handhold for the courts. I would not, as a lawyer, for a minute wish to deny that that is correct.
If on a parole decision, or on any other decision, an executive act or quasi-judicial act is carried out and reasons are given for it which clearly disclose on their face that quite the wrong considerations were taken into account, or something material was completely left out of account, then I think it is right that the decision should be capable of being overruled by the courts. This is what is likely to happen if you have reasons.
It probably would not happen very often but, if it did happen, let us consider further what would then be the result. Of course, to start with it would take a good deal of time, so that it would not get the person out of prison quickly because the process of judicial review does not usually take less than quite a few weeks, and quite likely months. But what if the refusal to let him out were to be quashed by the High Court? It is sent back then to the Secretary of State. What then? Is he to consider the same old material as he had before him on the previous occasion? If so, is he going to come to a different conclusion from his previous one? Or is he going to start again with new material, in which case it certainly is not going to result in the man being let out any more quickly.
I noticed that as you come towards a more judicial system—and this is certainly on the way to it—Sir Louis told the Select Committee that, in his view, a judicial system could very well result in fewer people being let out on parole than the executive system that we have now. I do not want to go on about this because I know that there is a full consideration going on at the moment. But I am bound to say that I would think that if you
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wished to talk about appeals, if you wished to talk about appearances before the board or panel which hears the case, if you wished to talk about reasons which bring in justiciability before the courts, you are moving away from the system that was laid down by the Criminal Justice Act 1967 not just in detail but in substance and in principle. You are moving away from the executive decision of the Minister. You are moving over to a partly, or completely, judicial system. Maybe that is what Dr. Hood wants, but let us recognise that it is something very different indeed.
This is no conclusive survey at all. They are some thoughts that I had when I was considering it, but I believe they underline the profundity of what we are talking about. It is not a simple little matter of speeding it up; a simple matter of communicating the reasons for the prisoner. The implications are far-reaching, profound, and difficult. If we can solve them, and improve the system, let us do so; but let us not pretend that it is going to be easy.
8.4 p.m.
Lord WIGODER: My Lords, we are all indebted once again to the noble Earl, Lord Longford, for introducing a debate on this important aspect of our penal system. I am sure we would all agree that the introduction of parole in the Criminal Justice Act 1967 was a dramatic step forward in our treatment of prisoners. The way in which the Parole Board has operated, to begin with under the extremely wise leadership of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, has led to that system developing and being very largely accepted; accepted, indeed, to the extent that it causes no surprise today to the general public to learn that over half of those prisoners who are eligible for parole do receive it at some stage during the term of their period of imprisonment.
The beneficial effects of parole are of course self-evident. It means first that over 50 per cent. of the prison population are able to integrate themselves in the community at an earlier date than would otherwise have been possible. It means secondly that it has been possible substantially to reduce the still appallingly overcrowded conditions in our prisons. It means thirdly—and this is not in itself a

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reason for any particular reform—that a substantial amount of public funds have been saved by the granting of early release to prisoners in this way.
However, so great and so dramatic has been the progress of the parole system that I believe it can now be accepted as being a success, to the extent that we can afford to look squarely at the disadvantages which, at the same time, have arisen and see to what extent they can be resolved in the future. The first problem that has arisen, and I regard it in some ways as the most important one, is that, every year until he receives parole a prisoner's hopes are built up over the months; his spirits rise. He, and often his wife, are told by various social workers, for example, that it is quite obvious that parole is going to be obtained this year; the reports are all favourable. Then suddenly, and crushingly, parole is refused. The effect on the morale of a prisoner and his family can be extraordinarily damaging. I have seen myself how depressed and morose for substantial periods after refusal of parole a prisoner and his family can be. That is so, and it is a situation that is bound to be so so long as parole remains, as it is at the moment, discretionary. It is bound to be so whether or not reasons are given. Even if reasons could be given, this would not reduce the feeling of disappointment and bitter anti-climax that is so often occasioned.
I entirely agree with the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, that although in theory it is desirable to give reasons, in practice if reasons are to be given, to be of any use they have to be detailed and they have to be scrupulously honest. I find it difficult to see how that could be done in every case. If it could not be done, then it seems to me to be impossible to embark on doing it in a limited number of cases. The third area in which difficulty arises at the moment is a feeling among prisoners that the local review committees are inconsistent as between themselves, and that decisions sometimes arise favouring one prisoner whereas someone in exactly the same position in a different area finds his application refused.
The fourth difficulty that the parole system has now come to face is the fact that there must quite inevitably be the occasional error of judgment, the occasional miscalculation. Perhaps even
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without there being an error of judgment or a miscalculation there must inevitably be the occasional instance in which some prisoner commits a notorious crime while on parole. When that is done, it is quite inevitable that the media will represent it as a breakdown of the whole parole system.
It is perhaps worth commenting, because it sheds a little light on what I am going to suggest is the way forward, that I have never known the Press to comment when a prisoner commits some notorious crime after being released on remission. Remission is taken for granted, and is accepted by the community. If a prisoner who has behaved himself comes out after serving two-thirds of his sentence, it never occurs to anyone to point out that the system is failing if that person then commits a further offence.
I mention that because we are reaching a situation when the large majority of prisoners who are eligible for parole are obtaining it, and the more prisoners who obtain parole the less there becomes any realistic distinction between parole and remission. If the great majority of prisoners are being released before their time in any event, there is very little distinction, except a terminological one, between the two concepts, and I suggest that, on reflecting on this, perhaps we can see an indication of a way forward.
For example, it may be that we could amend the rule whereby a prisoner is entitled to a third remission, if he is of good conduct, and say he is entitled to a half remission on his sentence in the event of his behaving himself during his sentence. If that were so, it would be possible largely, though not entirely, to do away with the whole concept of parole; it would be possible to say that as of right—as a general, though not an invariable, rule (I shall come to that shortly)—prisoners could be released after serving half their sentences.
It would of course be necessary, certainly highly desirable, to retain the great advantages of the parole system in giving support to prisoners when they are released in such circumstances, and clearly they would have to be regarded as being on licence for some period after their release and be entitled to the proper support of the probation service. If we could move forward in that way, it would

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relieve enormously the pressure on our greatly overcrowded prisons; it would mean that prisoners as a matter of general course were released earlier than they are now under the present remission rules, and I believe the community would accept that rather more readily than it is prepared at the moment to accept a further extension of the parole system, with what the public see as the dangers involved.
I accept at once that if we are to move in this direction there is one worry—namely, that if the courts assume that whatever sentence they pass will in effect be halved, there is bound to be a temptation for the courts to increase the length of sentences. That consideration applies particularly where courts are sending people to prison for long periods for the specific reason that it is necessary that the community should be protected against a particular prisoner for a substantial time.
It was for that reason that I said one might consider as a general, though not an invariable, rule that prisoners might be entitled to remission half way through their sentences. I would certainly accept that there should be power in a judge, if he is imposing a sentence specifically to protect the community against a prisoner for a period of time, to be able to say so in terms and that, if he says so in terms, the rule as to an automatic right to release half way through the sentence should not apply.
Although the rule as to an automatic right of release would not apply, I suggest that it might still be possible to say that, where a recommendation of that sort is made, such a prisoner should have the right to apply for consideration of his case. The Parole Board might then be able to consider such cases after the prisoners had served half their sentences, to see if and when it might be possible to release them. That would leave an important function for the Parole Board. It would at the same time mean that the board itself could deal with the applications, because they would be a comparatively small number, and it would not be necessary for the local review committees to be involved.
I put those thoughts forward with some hesitation because I perhaps see this problem from a rather different aspect from that in which it is sometimes seen
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by the noble Earl or Lord Hunt. On occasion I have the task of sending people to prison and I frequently have the task of seeing my clients after they have been sent to prison, sometimes while serving their sentences and sometimes when released from prison. I put those forward not as a criminologist and entirely accepting that there is scope for a great deal of research before we decide on the best way to proceed. But I believe it should be possible for us to make progress; it should be possible for us to reach a system by which, effectively, the great majority of prisoners are released at an earlier stage than they are at present, with safety to the community. I support the noble Earl in his suggestion that there are ample grounds here for scope for an independent inquiry and review of the whole system.
8.17 p.m.
Lord HUTCHINSON of LULLINGTON: My Lords, parole is a subject which all those concerned with the criminal process should consider and discuss. It has certainly become one of the vital steps in that process. I was a little depressed as I listened to the speech of the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross. It seemed to me the sort of speech one expects from the representative of the Home Office. His last words—that much needs to be done but we must all realise it will be very difficult to do it—were,I am afraid, the approach that all through one's professional life one has found so often when problems arise in that Department.
I suppose the most daunting and responsible decision which has to be made during the criminal process is the moment when one deprives another human being of his liberty and then, of course, the treatment one meets out to that person once he is put in prison, hidden from the public gaze. I submit that that treatment is one of the key tests of the degree of civilisation of any society. It is parole which says yea or nay to the prolongation of the process of incarceration, and so one's attitude is affected, indeed conditioned to the process in relation to parole by one's view of the circumstances in which persons serve their imprisonment. If the prisoner is leading a constructive life in conditions, though unpleasant and punitive, which enable him to regain some

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self-respect, the problems of parole assume no great urgency and one can feel one's way towards a sensible and acceptable procedure where individual prisoners are given an appropriate release. But that is not the case in this country.
During the 30 years of a working life in the criminal law, I have, like the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, visited clients in custody before, during and, where they have pleaded guilty, after trial, and even sometimes, on rare occasions—when juries have disagreed with my submission—when they have pleaded not guilty. On such occasions one visits them in a professional capacity, not as an official, and not as a "do-gooder" (if I may use that phrase), although that is a cap that I should be quite prepared to wear on other occasions. One visits them as a person with a job to do. Thus one has perhaps a direct, detached, and yet intimate, relationship with the persons whom one is representing, and that gives one a particular privileged insight into the effect upon them of both imprisonment and parole.
I can only say that the conditions at the moment below the courts and in the prisons of this country are a disgrace; they are one of the few disgraces left in the social aspect of life in this country. One might go to the London magistrates' courts and see how persons are held—persons who at the time of being held are innocent of any offence. One might go, as so few judges do, to the squalor of the cells and to the passages of the Central Criminal Court, where men are banged up below the fur and ermine of the City aldermen and the judges who are pacing above them on their Wilton carpet.
One might go to Wandsworth, to Pentonville, to the Scrubs, to Brixton, to Walton, to Strangeways, to Horton Prison in Bristol, or to Birmingham. The conditions in those places can only he described as degrading. They are degrading to those fine prison officers—and I emphasise the word "fine"—as most of them are in this country, and who are dedicated to their job; and of course they are degrading to the prisoners who are serving their sentences there.
A Home Secretary must stop fiddling about with Criminal Justice Bills, Criminal Law Bills, and criminal procedure, and instead plan a crash programme to destroy
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these Dickensian blocks of degradation, and thereafter rebuild prisons, so that officers can use their skills and dedication to work with prisoners. Prisoners can then work in order to earn and so compensate their victims and keep their own families while they are serving their sentences, and at the same time restore their self-respect. If this is not done, there will be in the Prison Service an explosion which so many of us have prophesied for so long, and which each day we see drawing nearer and nearer. Indeed, I submit that already the conditions in prison have almost reached that stage. I say this because now among the experts "rehabilitation" is a dirty word.
So parole is now looked upon, is it not?, by the officials and by many others simply as a safety valve, or a wastepipe down which sufficient inmates of the prisons can respectably be drained in order to make room for those who are to follow. That is not the kind of approach that there should be to this vital question of parole. As the new chairman of the Parole Board will well remember, in 1975 Mr. Roy Jenkins urged—almost directed—the Parole Board to loosen its criteria, not because the prisoners were not getting their desserts, but simply because the situation in the prisons was so grave that somehow the prisoners had to be got out so as to make room for the others who were entering those dreadful 120-year-old buildings with cells each of which was built for one man but now having to hold three.
I am largely uncritical of the way the parole system works because only numbers matter, and the run-of-the-mill sentences in this country at present are totally negative. It is only when he is released on parole that any constructive work is done with the ordinary prisoner; and of course I do not include in that observation the open prisons, some of which are absolutely first class.
I wish to pay tribute to the increasing army of people who make up the local review committees and the Parole Board. I believe that now the Parole Board consists of about 50 members. Unlike some Members of the Front Bench opposite, I do not decry and denigrate QUANGOS. The disinterested layman's contribution to these areas of officialdom

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is, in my view, a precious manifestation of British democracy in action, and it is a vital contribution in the criminal process. It is vital in the jury. It is vital in the lay magistracy. It is vital in the parole system.
I believe that all those people do a magnificent job. I know some of them; they work enormously hard, and they do the work for nothing. But they are overworked, and they are in danger of being drowned in a sea of paper, as is anyone who works on a QUANGO these days. A report on only one person who is coming up for review as to parole may extend to 50 foolscap pages. I understand that over 10,000 prisoners are coming up for review—I am sure that the Minister will let us have the actual figures—and so one can imagine the oceans of paper flowing around the country from one person to another in the great endeavour to ensure that justice is done.
I wish to go along with previous speakers and concentrate upon the two matters which I submit must, and can, be rectified. Like the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, I have repeatedly witnessed the disrupting and distressing effect on families, particularly the families of people with whom one has kept in touch as clients, when the question of parole looms on the horizon. I have seen, too, the hopes that are raised, so that for the man concerned in prison the whole matter becomes an obsession. Again as the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, said, one is aghast at the effect upon this man when he is turned down. First, there is an explosion of anger, followed by a long period of depression. The procedure is inscrutable. It is paternalistic. It is long, drawn out; and it ends with no reasons being given for the decision.
Indeed, the result of parole, which I support 100 per cent. as an idea, is that all the sentences in this country over 18 months have now become indeterminate sentences; and they are ended administratively, not judicially. The result is that all the drawbacks of the indeterminate sentence are now applicable to all these sentences over 18 months; and, speaking for myself, I am not happy that these sentences should be decided as to their length by what one can only call, but not offensively, faceless officials. I think
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that, at the moment, that is one of the greatest problems of parole, and, therefore, we must have a system which is open and which gives reasons, so that people know why they are turned down. Here, I would take issue with the noble Viscount about the problem. It is not so insufferably difficult to give reasons. Anyone can stand up and give examples of how difficult it is; but, as I understand it, there is this experiment which is being carried out at the moment, of seeing whether the LRCs and the Parole Board can in fact set down reasons, and perhaps the Minister will tell us something about it.
As I am sure any lawyer will agree, to give reasons is the absolutely vital matter in the criminal process. To give reasons, whether by the magistrate or the judge, concentrates the mind and makes quite sure that you feel something is this or that, and that it is not that you do not like the face of the person you are dealing with, or whatever. To give reasons, to spell them out, you have got to concentrate; you have got to make sure that the person whose future you are dealing with has the reasons and can criticise them; and you must have the courage to give them.
I see no reason at all why reasons should not be given, except this. Of course, the reasons which, more than any other, sway the members of these boards, I imagine, and indeed understand, are the reasons which come from the prisons, which come from the prison officers who look after the particular prisoner. It is felt that you cannot let a man go on serving a sentence of imprisonment when he knows that the officer on the landing gave him an adverse report, because then he will feel that it is that officer who has kept him in prison, and this would undermine the discipline in the prison.
But the point about it is this—and I would ask the Minister to tell us about it. The hospital unit now at Wormwood Scrubs operates a different régime, a relaxed régime, where warders (or prison officers, as I must call them) are not just turnkeys. They are prison officers who are operating within an area which outside is secure, but which inside gives you no view of security; who are mixing with the prisoners, talking with the prisoners and so on; and who are operating in an area where the atmosphere is a totally different

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atmosphere. In that unit you discuss parole in a perfectly straightforward way. Probation officers come in from outside, join in and discuss together the prisoner's view and so on. Long before parole comes up, discussions about the parole and the chances a prisoner has got, the obvious drawbacks and so on—your offence was a very serious one; it is very unlikely you will get it the first time round—are held and the whole matter is talked about. Why it cannot be talked about otherwise is because of the dreadful conditions in prisons where prison officers have not got these relations with prisoners and are just turnkeys, where people are locked up for 20 hours out of 24, where there is no communication and where, therefore, all these things have to be kept secret and cannot he talked about.
I hope the Minister will be able to give an assurance that there is no truth in the rumour which I hear, that this particular unit at Wormwood Scrubs is going to he wound up because they happen to have a new principal medical officer, or some such reason—because the matter is awkward, the matter is new, it does not fit in. I sincerely hope that one of the most vital experiments being carried on in the Prison Service at the moment is not going to be snuffed out, because it is an example and it shows how we could, if the matter was organised differently, give prisoners reasons for their refusal of parole.
As to the other matter of the time element, on which I would also agree with previous speakers, this can surely be dealt with. We need not be defeatist about this. We must lighten the load of these people who are being drowned under paper. Would it not be possible, in the case of all sentences of, say, five years and under, for the presumption of parole to be made; that is, that prisoners would get parole unless there were reasons against it? That would mean that all the cases in which there was no good reason would simply have no paper attached to them at all, and the only ones where the paper flow would appear would be those in which there was a good reason. Those cases would be discussed, read and considered: but with all the others it would be presumed that people would get parole unless there was a good reason, and that good reason would be conveyed to the person concerned.
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As to the matter that was raised about consistency, I would suggest that these decisions could be made locally, by the local reviewing committees, and that there is no need to go centrally. The noble Viscount, Lord Colville, said that consistency was vital. You cannot get consistency in the criminal process. This cry for consistency is ridiculous. Every judge in the country has a different view about offences. It is inevitable, where human beings have to sentence people and deal with matters, that they will have different views. We all have a different view about which offences are the most serious. You cannot have consistency. Of course you can try not to be too inconsistent, but there must be inconsistency. Secondly, each case is different from every other one. There are no parallel cases. There are always elements in every offence which arc different from the elements in other offences. This cry for consistency, I would suggest, is really an impossible one; it is a theoretical cry. There is no reason why these matters should not be dealt with locally, and if there are inconsistencies that is just too bad. There are inconsistencies in sentencing, and there always will be, because every case and every individual is different, and cannot expect to have the same approach made when the only equality between the offences is, say, the quantity of the drug, or some such element as that.
The only other two matters I should like to raise with the Minister are these. In the case of these long sentences which go to the Parole Board. it would. I appreciate, be ridiculous to apply the percentage of 50 per cent., as the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, was suggesting. You cannot apply, can you, percentages across the board? If someone is sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment for a very serious offence, it would be ridiculous that he would automatically get parole at 7½ years or, if sentenced to 10 years. at five; whereas if he is sentenced to three years and it is one-and-a-half it is a completely different matter. I should not have thought that percentages are really sensible in this matter.
What I wanted to ask the Minister was this. In the long-sentence reviews, is it necessary to have the family visited automatically at the first review?—because of the pain and suffering brought by these visits, these long inquiries by probation

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officers (with perhaps the best will in the world) when it is perfectly obvious that he is not going to get parole on the first time round and probably the second time round. Is it necessary to have these family visits and these long reports, having regard to the pain that they cause?
The other question is this: In those sentences where there is a recommendation by the judge that someone should not be released for so many years, is the Parole Board governed by that recommendation?— because in my experience, from clients I have had, it would seem impossible for the parole board to advise parole or achieve parole where a recommendation has been made by a judge:"… until he has served the full period recommended". I would hope there is no such direction. I would have thought that any judge worth his salt would understand and agree that during a long sentence nobody can look into a crystal ball and say, "This man must inevitably serve the period which I am advising"—because so many things can happen in a period of 15 to 20 years. I am afraid that I am not enthusiastic for the noble Earl's suggestion that there should be yet another inquiry in a world in which we seem to have inquiries into everything every five minutes. I think the inquiry which is going on in the Home Office at the moment is sufficient and, in my opinion, what is wrong with parole is the administration of the prisons.
8.44 p.m.
Lord HUNT: My Lords, in thanking my noble friend Lord Longford for raising this question with the Government I must confess (and he is aware of it) that I had reservations about the timing of this discussion this evening, coming as it does before the report from the Home Office on its internal inquiry. I also think (and he is aware of this also) that the sensible way to proceed is to await that report before demanding another—and following the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson—yet another independent inquiry into the parole system.
Having said that, I acknowledge that our discussions this evening, having listened to them—and I found them interesting and constructive—may not be too late to be helpful to those who are
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still engaged in the Home Office study and to an eventual independent inquiry if that seems to be called for. So far as my contribution is concerned, my noble friend Lord Longford has quoted me so generously that your Lordships may share my doubts as to whether it is necessary for me to make a contribution at all. But I have a few points to make; and all the more so because of the interest with which I followed the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson, just now.
Any discussion about the parole system must begin with the original purpose in the 1967 Act. It seems to me that there has been a change in its purpose since the idea was adumbrated in the 1965 White Paper. I quote from that White Paper words which are familiar to the noble Viscount and others:
"Prisoners in some cases are likely to be made into good citizens if—before completing the whole of their sentence—they are released under supervision with a liability to recall if they do not behave".
That purpose, according to the statistics, has not been fulfilled. There is little evidence to show that by parolling recidivists any impact is made on their propensity to continue to commit offences, albeit in many cases comparatively minor offences.
So far as parole is concerned—and here I listened with interest to the noble Lord—its official value now seems to be to reduce the overcrowded prison population. That purpose, it is interesting to recall, was strongly denied in 1967when we first went into business. Speaking at a NACRO Conference in 1975, Mr. Roy Jenkins the then-Home Secretary said:
"There is scope for making parole progressively more acceptable so that the system can make a greater contribution to reducing the prison population".
Those words were a preamble (as many will know) to the new guidelines that Mr. Jenkins gave to the Parole Board, upon which greater numbers of prisoners are now, and have been since, paroled.
Sir Louis Petch, to whom I, too, take this opportunity to pay a warm tribute on his impending retirement from a job which from personal experience I can say is extremely responsible and most exacting and demanding, is quoted as pointing out that the paroles announced in his 1977 Annual Report amounted to the population of six major prisons. My

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guess, looking at the later figures (which I have had unofficially) is that that figure has increased to a saving of prison space to the tune of about eight prisons. Is this now the purpose of parole? I hope the Minister will enlighten us when he comes to reply. If so, in conjunction with a recall rate of around 10 per cent., it should also be perceived not so much as justifying parole but rather as a devastating commentary on the length of prison sentences in general which accounts for so much of the problems and the over crowding in our prisons.
Seen in this perspective, parole could be dubbed a mere palliative for an expensive, largely negative penal policy in regard to the use of imprisonment, the length of prison sentences in our criminal law. But to say this would be to do less than justice to parole. It has achieved a great deal else; for instance, in bringing about a better degree of co-operation within our penal system as a whole; in improving prison documentation and, therefore, creating a better knowledge and understanding of individual prisoners by prison officers in prison. And, not least, in helping many prisoners to gain a measure of self-respect and self-confidence in settling back into the community. And, lastly but not least, in bringing public opinion to accepting treatment in the community for the more serious offenders. Even should there be—and let us hope there will be at some time—a scaling-down significantly of the length of sentences, I believe that there would remain a place for the parole system.
On this premise, I think the time has come to modify certain principles and procedures. Parole is neither a wholly executive nor totally a non-judicial process. It is a hybrid. The board and the Home Office, on behalf of the Home Secretary, as has been mentioned critically this evening, take into account the gravity of the offence. That is a factor that has already been fully weighed, as I understand it, in pronouncing the original sentence. In this respect, I go with other noble Lords in saying that the board is exercising a judicial function and, in effect, is retrying a case. I must accept and admit that, while I was chairman of the Parole Board, I found that acceptable. But my noble friend Lord Longford has quoted me as saying that I did not. But
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since, and for quite a long time now, I have been convinced, so far as the board are concerned, that it is wrong. It should be axiomatic that gravity is a matter for the courts and very exceptionally—in the case of determinate sentences—for the Home Secretary.
My other point of principle is that prisoners should have two rights in addition to the purely negative one of refusing to be considered for parole. These have been rehearsed this evening and I am not going to join the debate by arguing the pros and cons. They come out extremely well, if I may say so. The first right is that prisoners should have a right to a hearing before a review committee, if they wish. The second one—all too often mentioned this evening—is that they should be given reasons if, exceptionally, they are turned down. On both these points, and particularly the latter one, there has been prolonged discussion, not only this evening but over the years, outside this House. There has been a good deal of experimentation but there has been a failure to fulfil a matter of natural justice for too long.
It is now six years since, when I was chairman of the Parole Board, we started experiments in the formulation of reasons. As long ago as 13th July 1977, in answer to a Written Question put down by the noble Lord, Lord Leatherland, the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, revealed that experiments were shortly to be made in giving reasons by the local review committees. The great majority of refusals of parole are made by local review committees—over 3,000 a year.
Will the Minister, when he replies, tell us what is the position now? What has been the purpose of all this experimentation, if it is to come to nothing? Why is it that offenders who are detained under the Mental Health Act—and this was mentioned by the noble Viscount—are, as I understand it, furnished by the mental health tribunals with reasons for not being released while supposedly sane prisoners cannot be told?
Speaking of prisoners' rights, I do not see parole as a right. I differ from other people here; I believe the early release from prison should remain a privilege. I do not favour an automatic, built-in parole period in a sentence. I would go no further than saying that parole of one

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third of the sentence should be a normal expectation—the noble Lord will agree with me there—by prisoners, and that that expectation should exceptionally be qualified by a recommendation by the court that it should not be granted at the earliest eligible date. Here I find myself in agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder. It should also be qualified by serious misconduct during the course of the sentence, and reviews would have to take both these considerations into account.
Given that parole should be discretionary, who should take the decision? The present system is hybrid in this respect also. The Home Secretary holds formal responsibility. But in practice it amounts only very exceptionally to his personal scrutiny and decision and also exception- ally to the decision of a Minister on his behalf. What is more, the board, despite its formal position as an advisory body, exercises absolute power in refusing parole. It is worth remembering that the Secretary of State has no power to release prisoners who are turned down by the Board. Seen in the perspective of 11 years' of experience, I believe that this untidy situation should be straightened out. The board, which is already semi-executive, by exercising discretionary powers in a negative sense should now—with certain exceptions—exercise them in a positive sense, too, by granting parole as well as refusing it. This does not mean that the Home Secretary would cease to be accountable to Parliament for the operations of the board. It is he who appoints the chairman and its members, and of course they are responsible to him. He can sack them if necessary. It is worth remembering that, in the course of every year over the many years that the scheme has been in existence and with the many thousands of prisoners who are paroled every year, the Home Secretary's disagreements with his Board can be counted on the lingers of one hand. Surely the Parole Board has shown its wisdom and good sense and can be trusted to take decisions.
The Home Secretary would of course continue to be responsible for taking decisions on the conditional release of life sentence prisoners and would make decisions about paroling offenders guilty of very serious offences for which an exceptionally long prison sentence has
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been awarded. So I should like to see a more independent system which would be more dynamic and less bureaucratic. As to the structure of the system, the noble Earl, Lord Longford, has quoted from my speech of 31st January. I merely say that I stand by what I said then. It is now, after all the case knowledge which has been gained, needlessly complex. I would simplify and speed up the whole cumbersome machine. I would regionalise the system, making regional boards responsible for a wide range of cases. Such boards might well dispense with the need for local review committees. They could be peripatetic, visiting prisons and thus reducing the element of inconsistency to which the noble Viscount referred and to which I also attach importance, but only as much importance as I would to the inconsistency or otherwise of courts of law.
The regional committees would then be in a position to interview prisoners who wished to be interviewed and to give reasons—probably personally—to the prisoner at the time of the review. I see the board exercising more of a policy-making role, advising and supervising the work of the regional boards, being a watchdog for consistency, much less burdened than at present to the tune of over 5.000 cases a year.
There remains the need to have a new look at the rules and procedures in regard to the supervision of paroled offenders. I wanted to say something about this but the hour is late and I have spoken rather long. I shall say this about the probation service, which has that heavy responsibility to the general public for that part of the system. Putting aside the size of the current salaries claim which has been advanced by the National Association of Probation Officers, I believe that the case for increases to officers of that service has to be taken seriously. I should like to make this point personally to the Minister who is going to reply. They are under-rewarded in comparison with other skilled professional workers in key areas. Feelings in the service are running pretty strongly—as I happen to know from personal experience—about this inequity and, dedicated though they are to their professional work, morale could be badly affected. Anything which is detrimental to the high quality of our penal system cannot be regarded with equanimity by Parliament or by the general public.
8.58 p.m.
Lord SOPER: My Lords, I notice that in the sequence of speeches, I seem to make up a kind of ecclesiastical rear. I have no objection to that whatever in the light of the fine, cogent speeches to which I have already listened; but I confess a certain unease if it he assumed that the Christian aspect of this case is a kind of backing up of something that already exists in the enlightened minds of the politicians or social reformers. Though the hour is late, I venture to introduce what to me is the convincing argument for the prosecution even to better results of the general system of parole. It springs in my estimation from the conception of what the Christian attitude to the prison system should be. Dogmatically, I believe the prison system, as it exists, is incompatible with the Christian faith. I wish that the Church had been more ardent in the prosecution of those ideas which could have taken root and fertilised into better ways of dealing with the problem of corporate sin, as in so many cases the Church has been expert in dealing with the problems of individual sin. Be that as it may, I am satisfied that the present system is irredeemable and sooner or later must give place to something which represents an attitude to human beings which can he reconciled with the Christian faith.
Your Lordships will permit a personal experience which confirmed after a very short time most of the things that my noble friend Lord Hutchinson has already said about prisons. After 30 years as a prison chaplain in Pentonville Prison, I am utterly convinced that it is a degrading and destructive influence and that the occasional benefits which accrue to those who have been subjected to this kind of enormity only emphasise the overall capacity of the prison system to represent that which an enlightened and civilised community would want to see even its worst citizens attain so that even those who seem beyond reparation at least should be treated in a civilised way.
Of course, the alternatives to the prison system do not immediately flow from a condemnation of it and I am not simplistic enough to think that we should therefore let all the prisoners out. Nor do I think there is anything to be said for the idea that most of them are victims of circumstance. What therefore has to be done,
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it seems to me, until we can provide a better system is to do our best to improve the one we have got.
There is in the New Testament a cautionary tale about an evil spirit which was turned out, but there was no substitution of tenancy and the last situation was a lot worse than the first. It would be ridiculous to presume to think that the Christian answer to the problem of prisons would be to knock them all down. Parole, as I see it, is one way in which you ameliorate a system until you are ready to find a substitute for it. Therefore I heartily agree with that which lies behind the concept of parole, because prison life is destructive and it is my conviction after a good deal of experience that if you put a man into prison for more than five years uninterruptedly you tend to destroy him. You may well create a situation that is irredeemable. I have seen it happen and 1 do not want to see it happen in the future; and if parole can help to reduce the amount of time that people spend in that kind of environment, then it has my hearty support.
Secondly, I am equally satisfied that there is an immediate reason for a diminution in the numbers of those who are incarcerated. I wonder whether psycho-locally the House fully appreciates—and I hope your Lordships will forgive this if it sounds impudent—what it means to live three in a cell which once upon a time had been created to accommodate one person. I think I know a bit about it, from sitting and talking to prisoners and from listening to what they say to one another. It is an abomination. Those overcrowded prisons are already unsuited in every respect, as the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson, said, but particularly unsuitable for the accommodation of three prisoners to a cell; obviously you cannot put two in a cell. Anything that can be done to reduce the number of prisoners in our prisons today should be acceptable to all who are looking to the future with any kind of hope.
There is another reason which impresses me more and more as I think about it; that is, that there is very little chance of the primary purpose of Christian punishment—which is reformation—taking place in an environment which is specifically artificial. The artificiality of the life of a prisoner is such as to render him less

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capable than ever he had been of taking his place again in the kind of world in which by some means or other he ought to be enabled to redeem himself and make some kind of restitution to the society which he has wronged.
It is therefore on the negative ground in the first place that I believe the whole system of parole is to be commended as one stage at which you reduce the number of those who suffer from a condition which the Church should have repudiated long ago and which is incompatible with a civilised society. But the moment we enter the field of the parole system we are hedged about with all kinds of difficulties, and they have been amply and cogently ventilated tonight. I believe there is every room for improvement in the light of the experience of many of your Lordships, which you have so explicitly set forth, and I hope that your words will be ardently read by those whose responsibility it is to look to the future.
I agree so heartily with those who claim that a prisoner is entitled to have a hearing. I do not subscribe to the idea that it is impossible to tell the truth. I think it is always safer to tell the truth if you can than to presume that you know better as to the psychological reactions of the person to whom you tell a lie. I am not sure that is true: in fact my own experience would contradict it; but I am sure that it is unfair and irrational for a man to be exposed to the pros and cons of a parole system when he is necessarily identified not with any of the propositions which take place in the consultation, but is dependent entirely on hearsay and dependent entirely upon his interior thoughts. Many a prisoner has a good deal of time to conduct those thoughts and the more he conducts them under those circumstances the more incomplete and imperfect they become.
Psychologically, I think it is very much better, for all the difficulties and dangers that may arise and all the particular circumstances which may make it more difficult than in normal circumstances, to give the prisoner the opportunity of being present. It is not good enough to tell him he can write about it. I suppose there are a great many very clever people whose writing is superior to their talking. My experience is that there is a great deal
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of horse sense and capability for sensible talking among prisoners who certainly could not write cogently, intelligibly or comprehensibly. It is a trust in the prisoner's capacity to respond to commonsense which I think is more to be valued than the presupposition of some prospective prognosis of danger and difficulty from which he will suffer if you try to tell him why he is refused, at one particular point, the kind of parole which is so ardently desired.
There is another aspect which impresses me considerably. It is highly likely that, if the parole system is increased and more and more are enabled to profit by it, there will be one quite substantial effect; that is, that more and more prisoners will come out of gaol and find themselves counselled and helped by probation officers. This is an expensive business, but, over and over again, it is the immediate release of a prisoner and the invitation by his pals to go to the pub and to soak himself immediately, which is one of the outstanding reasons for the return of that prisoner to the ways which had brought him disaster previously. If he knows that there is somebody who will be caring for him and will be advising him, there is a much better prospect that he will overcome the inevitable dangers and disasters of prison life, and have some reasonable chance of rehabilitation.
It is for that reason that I heartily commend the parole system. I commend it negatively—if you can have something which is negative in the right direction—and I commend it positively, because it opens up the prospect of increasing the possibilities of extra-custodial treatment; the recovery of the prisoner within the real world and not the world which is artificially constructed by a prison cell; the possibility of that prisoner, when he comes out, having the care and support of a system which still seeks to care for him and to help him. It is for those reasons that I believe that the parole system is to be cherished.
By whatever means it has to be improved, I shall not go into now, but it seems quite sensible that there should be an independent inquiry—I am not at all satisfied that an internal inquiry would do the trick—which will learn the value of that system which has already been tried and not found wanting, but which has been

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found difficult and therefore needs a greater application, if in future it is to redeem some, at least, of the evils of the prison system and provide some kind of doorway into that treatment of the antisocial members of our society, within Christian bounds, and with a greater hope of reformation as the ultimate purpose and, indeed, the ultimate goal.
9.10 p.m.
Lord BOSTON of FAVERSHAM: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Longford for giving us this opportunity to debate parole tonight. I should also like to thank him for giving me notice, with his customary courtesy, of points that he was proposing to raise. In addition, I should like to thank him for his kind remarks.
It is a fact of life that parole normally receives only bad publicity; publicity which can be misleading to the public. One failure can be headline news—and I do not for a moment complain about this: mistakes should not be concealed. But little or nothing is heard about the thousands of prisoners who receive parole and keep out of trouble during their licence period; the thousands who have justified the hopes originally expressed for the parole scheme—that is something which has come out tonight—and who have made it a success story. I would go so far as to say that parole has been and is a success story; and this also merits publicity although, understandably, it may not be headline material.
I should also like, on behalf of Her Majesty's Government, to take this opportunity to thank the Parole Board and to thank Sir Louis Petch for all the work he did while he was chairman of the board. All the members of the board, and indeed the members of the local review committees and those who help those bodies, do a tremendous amount of hard work. I should like to join with those other noble Lords who have thanked the first chairman of the original Parole Board, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, who paved the way in such large measure for the success that we have seen.
When the parole scheme was introduced in 1968, both the Home Secretary and the Parole Board approached their duties with a very proper caution. In 1969, the
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first full year of parole, only 1,800 prisoners—just over a quarter of those eligible—were granted a period of parole. After five years, the figure had risen to 3,500—just over a third of those eligible—and as it became clear that there was little justification for the fears expressed at its introduction, new and more liberal criteria—something which has been referred tonight—for the granting of parole were introduced in 1975 by Mr. Roy Jenkins, then Home Secretary, after consultation with the Parole Board.
As a result, releases continued to rise gradually but significantly until, in 1977, over 5,000 prisoners—slightly more than half of those eligible—were released on parole. By the end of that year, it was possible to say that nearly two-thirds of eligible determinate sentence prisoners—62 per cent. as quoted by my noble friend—were receiving a period of parole at some point in their sentences; that 3,500 prisoners were out on parole at any one time; and that, despite the scepticism of my noble friend, the average length of parole licences had risen from 8½ months in 1969 to 13½ months in 1977.
But parole cannot be adjudged a success merely by the number of prisoners released from prison, even though releases are a reflection of confidence in the scheme. A prisoner on licence is still a prisoner serving the sentence passed upon him by the court, but he is serving part of his sentence outside prison, under supervision in the community and on certain clear conditions. If the conditions are not observed by prisoners on parole, they are liable to be recalled to prison, as we know. Throughout the history of the parole scheme, it has only once been found necessary—and I think that this is a significant point—to revoke the licences of more than 10 per cent. of those released during a year. Although the figure rose to 10·3 per cent. in 1977, provisional figures suggest that it will have fallen below 10 per cent. again in 1978. It must be remembered in this context that less than half of those recalled are recalled for having committed further offences. Many are recalled merely for being out of touch with their supervising probation officers or for other breaches of conditions which, although regarded seriously, are not a repetition of their previous criminal behaviour.

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I hope that your Lordships will agree that parole has been, and is, a success. I hope, too, that it is clear from what I have said that the Government certainly welcome both this debate and public interest in parole and full debate upon it. The Expenditure Committee—which has been mentioned tonight by, I think, more than one noble Lord—did not express concern about the way in which the parole scheme itself is administered. Their point, as I understand it, was that because of the complexity of the scheme, and of alternatives which have been proposed to it, they did not have the opportunity to consider it in depth; but because of its important role in the penal system they thought that an independent inquiry should be held.
The Earl of LONGFORD: My Lords, I wonder whether I may venture to repeat what I said at the beginning of my speech? I quoted from a paragraph in the report of the Expenditure Committee where they referred to the criticisms which had been made of the parole scheme. In that short paragraph they referred twice to the criticisms which had been made. It was not only the complexity of the scheme to which the Expenditure Committee referred; they referred twice to the criticisms which had been made of it.
Lord BOSTON of FAVERSHAM: My Lords, I take my noble friend's point. Nevertheless, the point which I was making in this context is valid: that the Expenditure Committee did not have an opportunity to examine the scheme in depth, and this was a central reason why they felt that it ought to be subjected to an independent inquiry. But I wonder whether a public inquiry is the most effective way of unravelling a complex subject like this.
My right honourable friend the Home Secretary certainly recognises that after a period of 10 years the time is perhaps right for there to be a major public debate on parole: both on the way in which the scheme has developed during the last decade, together with an examination of ideas about how it might develop in the future. But whether the best method of stimulating a debate like this is by means of a public inquiry or by means of, say, a consultative document—and my noble friend referred to the possibility of a
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Green Paper explaining the complexities—is a matter which my right honourable friend is still considering.
It is not for me today to anticipate the outcome of those considerations but, in debating this question tonight, your Lordships will, I am sure, have in mind that an independent inquiry into the Prison Service is already in progress and that this inquiry may result in recommendations which could have significance for the working of any parole scheme. Your Lordships may feel that to mount a further inquiry into parole, even before the recommendations of Mr. Justice May's committee have been received, would he premature, to say the least.
Several noble Lords, including the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, my noble friend Lord Longford, the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, my noble friend Lord Hutchinson of Lullington and the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, suggested that prisoners should be given reasons for the refusal of parole. This has played a big part in our debate tonight. The Government have some sympathy with this view. A significant difficulty is explaining the weight given to the many factors which affect the decisions, and it may not always be easy for the panel of five people who consider the cases to agree about specific reasons, although there may be no doubt about the recommendation which they are to make. To give full reasons would require a carefully drafted essay, I think, embracing the various opinions in each case. However, as there are some 5,000 parole refusals each year, this would clearly be a formidable task, and one wonders whether it would be practicable.
Ways of overcoming this problem have been considered, and some suggestions have been put forward in your Lordships' House tonight. In 1976, the Parole Board conducted a limited experiment to assess the feasibility of selecting reasons for refusal of parole from a list of standardised causes for concern which indicate the main elements influencing the decision. This, too, has been referred to tonight. But as a large number of parole refusals are determined on the recommendation of the local review committee alone, it has been necessary to repeat the same experiment with five of these committees representing different types of prison.

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The results are now being collated and analysed. Before a decision is reached, we shall have to assess with staff in prisons the implications of giving reasons to prisoners, bearing in mind that they would have to be given in all cases once one embarked on a scheme of this kind.
We also need to consider the longer term implications and that need too was mentioned by the noble Viscount in the course of his speech tonight. For instance, can reasons be given without providing a quasi-judicial appeal procedure—or even a judicial appeal procedure? And if not, how will this affect the concept of parole as a privilege, as it now is? Would the present procedure have to be changed as a result? The aspect of appeal proceedings is only one mentioned by the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, and it was also a matter about which the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, was concerned.
These are clearly questions that merit wide and deep discussion. I think some alternatives proposed to the present scheme have been put forward primarily to overcome the difficulty of giving reasons. These are not without their drawbacks, though; and also themselves need careful debate. Other general suggestions for parole have been put forward both here and elsewhere and these need fuller discussion in detail than I am afraid time allows today. My point is that the Government do not dissent from the desire of my noble friend to open up the whole question of parole for public debate on these and other matters. If there is a difference between us—and there may not be—it is a difference as to the most appropriate method of doing this.
Perhaps I may now briefly take up some more specific points which have been raised. My noble friend expressed concern about the relevance of public opinion and also mentioned retribution and deterrence, but I think we must be clear whether this is with reference to release on parole or release on life licence, because there is a significant difference, as we know. Dealing first with public opinion, I am afraid I cannot agree with him that fear of public opinion influences decisions, if, as I think, that is what he is suggesting, but regard and respect for public opinion and public concern, which at times are very real, are important
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factors and, in my opinion, rightly so. It would be to fail in one's duty not to take these factors into account.
The Earl of LONGFORD: My Lords, will the noble Lord allow me to intervene on that point? Would he go so far as to say in the case of a particular prisoner that the board should take a kind of hypothetical public attitude in deciding whether or not that prisoner should stay in prison? I am not talking of general principles but a particular prisoner.
Lord BOSTON of FAVERSHAM: My Lords, my noble friend has asked a difficult question because he has asked me to comment on a particular prisoner, and has—
The Earl of LONGFORD: My Lords, I am sorry but I was not referring to one particular prisoner, I was asking my noble friend to imagine a hypothetical particular prisoner, whether a life prisoner or anything else, and asking whether he would say that the public attitude to that person should be decisive?
Lord BOSTON of FAVERSHAM: My Lords, what I am saying and what I hope I said—and I am sorry if I was not sufficiently clear—is this: when a parole board, when my right honourable friend, when local review committees are considering these matters, in my view they are bound to take into account the question of public concern. That is what I am saying and that is one of the central points to which I would adhere, for the reason that, were the public to lose confidence in any system of early release it would not be possible to sustain present procedures, let alone move towards the more liberal ones which some noble Lords want to do. I think we must not forget, also, the safety of a prisoner himself on release.
So far as retribution and deterrence are concerned, this brings to the fore the question of whether early release is a form of re-sentencing. Parole is not a re-sentencing process. Clearly, it is important that parole should not undermine the intention of the courts so far as retribition and deterrence are concerned, but one has only to examine the figures to see that many long sentence prisoners are given substantial periods on licence because it is

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thought that it is in the best interests of society and the prisoner that he serves part of his sentence under licence in the community.
With life sentence prisoners there is no question of the Parole Board "re-sentencing". Their role is, in effect, more akin to a sentencing one, for it is only on the board's recommendation that any indeterminate period of detention can become determinate. Where a person has been sentenced to a fixed term of imprisonment the maximum period of detention appropriate to the offence—subejct to the usual remission for good conduct—is determined by the court, and the function of the Parole Board is to consider whether the prisoner should be released earlier than in the normal course, and, if so, when. As I shall explain in a few moments, a life sentence prisoner can only be released by the Home Secretary, and whatever his own views on the appropriate period of detention may be, he cannot order this unless the Parole Board so recommends. I think other noble Lords have touched on this point.
My noble friend made some reference to the release of prisoners serving sentences of life imprisonment. I do not propose to take up all the points tonight, if he will forgive me, because although the Parole Board are involved in this aspect of their work is not part of the parole system itself. But I will comment on one or two of them in order to remove what I believe to be some prevalent misunderstandings.
It is misleading—and I am not accusing anyone of doing this tonight—and it is something which has been the subject of misleading comment, elsewhere certainly, to refer to a life sentence prisoner being granted parole or even being considered for parole. This is not so. These prisoners are not eligible for parole itself. The Parole Board are involved because the law provides that the Home Secretary cannot order their release unless he is recommended by the board to do so—as he is also required by law to consult the Lord Chief Justice and, if he is available, the trial judge. But the final decision rests squarely with the Home Secretary. He is not obliged to accept a recommendation by the board that a particular prisoner should be released; nor are the views of the judiciary binding upon him.
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I think this may go some way to meet the point which my noble friend Lord Hutchinson was mentioning, but if not I will return to it in a few moments.
There are important differences between the review by the Parole Board in the case of a life sentence prisoner and their review of a case of a prisoner serving a determinate sentence. One is that a life sentence prisoner has no statutory right to have his case reviewed after a specified time or at specified intervals thereafter. The times at which this is done are entirely at the discretion of the Home Secretary, though because it is clearly sensible to fix these in consultation with the Parole Board the timing of the first review is fixed following a recommendation from a joint committee of senior representatives of the board and of the Home Office; and the timing of subsequent reviews, if these are necessary, is on the recommendation of the board itself. But these again are only recommendations, which the Home Secretary need not accept if he thinks otherwise.
As my noble friend has said, in 1977 he led a deputation of noble Lords to urge on the Home Secretary that the case of every life sentence prisoner should be formally reviewed after he has been detained for not more than 10 years. My right honourable friend did not feel able to accept that. In fact it was for several years the practice for all such cases to be reviewed after seven years, but this proved to be unsatisfactory because it often raised prisoners' hopes falsely, another point which some noble Lords have touched on tonight, or caused unnecessary public concern. Consequently, on the suggestion of the Parole Board, when the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, was chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Carr, introduced the present procedure. This works very well, I think, and provides the maximum flexibility; and since the considerations that led to the change are just as valid today, I would submit, as they were, then my right honourable friend has no plans to change that.
Perhaps I may just deal now with some of the other individual points which noble Lords have raised. Concerning the points mentioned by the noble Viscount and the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, I think I have probably touched upon those as I

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have gone along, particularly in dealing with questions of reasons and other matters. My noble friend Lord Longford raised several points. As regards his first reference to a particular prisoner, I hope that he will forgive me if I resist being drawn into discussing individual cases tonight. I appreciate what he has said but I shall leave it at that.
Similarly, my noble friend mentioned another individual case without, of course, mentioning the name. He was good enough to send me a copy of the letter to which he referred and from which I think he quoted. I had a chance to read that letter today. Again, I hope he will forgive me if I say that I do not want to go into the details of that case either. I have read the letter and I am looking at its implications. However, I can say quite firmly that there has, as regards that case, been no undue delay. That much I have been able to establish already. My noble friend has consistantly and very thoroughly looked into the question of parole. This was a life sentence prisoner case so it was not a parole case as such. He is familiar with the procedures, which are rather detailed, and I shall not go into them tonight. However, perhaps I can take that particular matter up by writing to him.
My noble friend Lord Hutchinson of Lullington raised several points, one of which concerned the hospital unit at Wormwood Scrubbs. I have had a chance to visit that myself and was much impressed by it. I am sorry to say that I do not tonight have the information to hand which he particularly requested, but I understand his concern and if I may I shall make further inquiries and write to him about it. He also mentioned minimum recommendations by judges. That was not quite the point that I was discussing earlier in my speech. Those can be made only when a life sentence is imposed on conviction for murder and they are made only in a minority of cases. They must clearly be given considerable weight by the Parole Board and by my right honourable friend the Home Secretary. However, I can assure my noble friend that they are not binding.
My noble friend Lord Hutchinson also asked whether it was necessary for prisoners' families to be visited automatically in long sentence cases where
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parole is unlikely. The position is that every prisoner is entitled to be considered for parole on his parole eligibility date. Not to review the case properly by obtaining a home circumstances report would, we feel, be to prejudge the issue and the prisoner would be entitled to complain if one did not do that. Therefore, I appreciate the concern which my noble friend has expressed, but I suggest that this is an important part of the procedure.
The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, mentioned that he was in favour of waiting for the outcome of the internal review before considering the need for an independent inquiry into parole. He went on to suggest a number of improvements to the present system. I can certainly confirm that those are matters which will be taken into account at this time while the whole matter is being considered. I take the point which he suggested, that he wants some more independent element brought into the system if it is possible to do that. I also take his point about morale throughout the penal system. Of course, there is the inquiry taking place at present which I have already mentioned to your Lordships and we hope that the outcome of that will enable us to go forward.
I do not think that there is any specific point to which I am required to reply as regards the speech of my noble friend Lord Soper. I do not see my noble friend in his place at present, but we heard a most moving speech from him.
I hope, albeit very rapidly and not too sketchily, that I have dealt with some of the points of concern which noble Lords have raised in this debate. As I said earlier, I am grateful to my noble friend for allowing us this opportunity to debate this subject, although I am unable today to give the response he seeks to the suggestion that there should be an independent inquiry into the parole system. I hope that I have convinced him and your Lordships that the Government are very concerned about these matters.
As I have said, we welcome debate on parole both here and, perhaps even more importantly, more widely in the public forum. We have confidence in the present system, although we are not complacent about it. Our reservation is solely whether

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a public inquiry is the most appropriate method of inviting interest and informed debate on this topic. It is to that that my right honourable friend is addressing his attention.