Lords Sitting of 6 November 1979

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Bradford.

INSULATION IN FACTORIES
Baroness VICKERS: 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 what savings in energy consumption and expenditure they would expect to arise from a programme of insulation of factories equivalent to the incentives relating to private sector housing under the Homes Insulation Act 1978.
The MINISTER of STATE, MINISTRY of DEFENCE (Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal): My Lords, the Homes Insulation Scheme provides for the payment of percentage grants subject to a maximum related to the cost of installing basic insulation in an average dwelling. An equivalent scheme for factories is therefore not a real option, in view of the great diversity of both size and construction among industrial buildings. As I am sure the noble Baroness knows, grants for insulating industrial and commercial premises are already available under the Energy Conservation Scheme.
Baroness VICKERS: My Lords, while I thank my noble friend for that reply, I should like to ask how the factories are progressing and whether they are taking advantage of this scheme. It seems to me that it would be very advantageous in more ways than one to have more factories using this scheme.
Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, total grants of the order of £1 million have been made under this scheme and the estimated savings run at about £1.6 million a year.

LITTER PREVENTION: BEVERAGE CONTAINERS
2.40 p.m.
Viscount MOUNTGARRET: 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, in order to discourage continual litter particularly in the countryside and to stop waste, they will take action to ensure that all ciders, beers, soft drinks and mineral waters are sold only in bottles and that those bottles carry a 50 pence returnable deposit on them.
The PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY of STATE, DEPARTMENT OF THE ENVIRONMENT (Lord Bellwin): My Lords, a detailed study into all aspects of the beverage container question is at present being undertaken by the Packaging and Containers Working Group of the Waste Management Advisory Council. The Government await the group's report, which they hope to receive early next year.
Viscount MOUNTGARRET: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for that reply. Is he aware of the potential hazard caused primarily to livestock, to say nothing of the hazard of fire, by bottles which are left lying around in the countryside by picnickers and the like who would have been more likely to return those bottles if a sizeable deposit had been charged? Is he further aware that, on the Continent and in America in particular, the deposits charged are substantial, with the result that there is considerably less litter than exists in this country?
Lord BELLWIN: My Lords, yes, indeed; and that is precisely why a study is taking place at present and why we await the results of that study with such interest.
Lord LEATHERLAND: My Lords, do I understand from the Minister's reply that a Quango has been set up to consider the question of empty beer bottles?
Lord BELLWIN: My Lords, if a Quango was set up—and if a Quango it

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is—it was set up under the previous Administration.
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, can the noble Lord tell us whether the Government are giving any encouragement to local authorities to set up schemes for collecting bottles? I know that I argued from his side of the Dispatch Box that it was not economic so to do. However, there is a danger. There are a great many of such bottles around now and some authorities are starting to collect bottles and establish bottle banks. What encouragement is the department giving them?
Lord BELLWIN: My Lords, I think that I can best answer by saying that this Government, in the same way as did the previous Government, are encouraging the "Keep Britain Tidy" campaign by making what might be considered a rather substantial contribution to the funds for doing that. Indeed, one hopes that we shall continue not only to give such support but to see that it is extended all the way round, because the problem is indeed one that ought to receive much consideration.
Lord WIGG: My Lords, would not the Minister consider that it would be in tune with current Conservative thinking if they asked schoolchildren to collect the bottles in exchange for their midday meal?

MULTI-FIBRE ARRANGEMENT QUOTAS
3.44 p.m.
Baroness HORNSBY-SMITH: 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 what steps they are taking to ensure that quota levels entered into under the multi-fibre agreement are honoured and what representations they have made regarding the over-running of such quotas which in some categories amount to over 100 per cent. above the agreed limits.
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, quotas established under the Multi-fibre Arrangement are enforced through the issue of import licences, and when the quota limit is reached no further licences are issued. My noble friend is therefore mistaken in her suggestion that some quotas have been exceeded.
Baroness HORNSBY-SMITH: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for that reply, may I ask whether he is aware that when the multi-fibre agreement was renewed in December 1977 very firm assurances were given to industry that, although the total package fell short of its requirements, the quota levels negotiated—including the ability to implement the basket extractor mechanism which gives rise to these appallingly over-excessive quotas—would be considered under the renewal? Is the noble Lord further aware that Poland exceeded its quotas by 109 per cent. in certain categories; Taiwan by 114 per cent. and Hungary by 90 per cent.? When will the obligations given under that renewal agreement operate and the controls made effective?
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, I am not certain whether the noble Baroness heard my original Answer. I said that no quotas have been exceeded, and that is the case.

THE ASTIN REPORT: GOVERNMENT ACTION
2.44p.m.
Lord HYLTON: 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 what are their reactions to the recommendations of the Astin Committee on the management of schools in Northern Ireland; how far the process of consultation has progressed and when they expect to publish their own proposals on this subject.
The PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY of STATE, NORTHERN IRELAND OFFICE (Lord Elton): My Lords, the report of the Astin

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Working Party was published on 28th June 1979 and interested organisations have been invited to submit their views on that report not later than 1st January 1980. The Government will take no decisions on the recommendations in the report until all the views received have been fully considered.
Lord HYLTON: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for his reply, which I realise can be only an interim one. Will he accept that there is a considerable body of opinion, which is pressing, and which succeeded in convincing Professor Astin's working party of the need for change and improvement in the present system?
Lord ELTON: My Lords, the pressure to which my noble friend refers is, of course, evidenced in the report itself. I have asked all the interested bodies to comment on the report by the beginning of next year. We have sent out 52 copies of the report and a further 750 copies have been sold by Her Majesty's Stationery Office to interested parties. Therefore, an interest is being taken in the contents of the report, which I hope will be reflected before the end of the year in submissions to my department and myself.
Lord MELCHETT: My Lords, will the noble Lord agree that there has been some feeling in Northern Ireland that to some extent the report has been shelved? Despite the very satisfactory number of copies of the report which have been circulated, will the noble Lord go a little further than he did in his original Answer and say whether the Government consider the present arrangements for managing schools in Northern Ireland to be satisfactory, or whether, when they have heard everybody's comments, they would like to make some changes?
Lord ELTON: My Lords, the working party was in fact set up under the aegis of the noble Lord, and I share his interest that the management of schools in Northern Ireland should be of the best possible form. I can only repeat that on numerous occasions, both through the media and at this Dispatch Box, I have said that I wish to have comments on the report's recommendations from
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those parties—and they are many—who have an intimate concern with this, before I consider the report. When I consider it, it will be in the light of those comments.

BAIL ETC. (SCOTLAND) BILL
2.46 p.m.
The MINISTER of STATE, SCOTTISH OFFICE (The Earl of Mansfield): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. The Bail etc. (Scotland) Bill forms an essential part of the major reform of Scottish criminal justice which the Government propose for this Session. The Government intend before the end of the year to introduce the substantial measure on Scottish criminal justice which was promised in Her Majesty's gracious Speech. However, we have brought forward as a matter of urgency this short but much-needed measure—the Bail etc. (Scotland) Bill—to deal with the acute staffing problems associated with Saturday courts and to reform the bail system.
The association of these two items may not be immediately obvious. The abolition of mandatory court sittings on Saturdays will lead to substantial savings in money and other resources but, as it could by itself lead to more people spending time in custody over the weekend if arrested on a Friday, it is clearly desirable to legislate at the same time on the system of release on bail in Scotland which the Government had in any case intended to reform substantially and in a way which should greatly reduce the numbers of those held unnecessarily in custody awaiting trial on a first appearance in court. I should stress that while the need to abolish mandatory Saturday courts was the reason for our promoting this Bill in advance of the more comprehensive criminal justice package, it is the reform of the bail system in Scotland which is significant.
This Bill therefore is modest in scope, but we believe that it will greatly improve the working of the criminal justice system in Scotland, making it more efficient and humane. Although some misgivings have been expressed about how some provisions in the Bill might operate in practice, it has generally been welcomed and,

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indeed, when the previous Government addressed themselves to the same problems in their own Criminal Justice (Scotland) Bill, very similar provisions were proposed.
The very full and thorough reports of the Committee on Criminal Procedure in Scotland under the chairmanship of the late Lord Thomson provide the basis for the reform of criminal justice in Scotland, and this Bill draws very heavily on the recommendations of that committee, although we have taken the opportunity to reflect on and, I believe, even improve on its recommendations.
The Government believe that our present system of bail in Scotland is most unsatisfactory, in that it does not fully achieve its principal aim of avoiding unnecessary pre-trial imprisonment. Clauses 1 to 9 of the Bill therefore provide for the abolition of money bail and the institution of a new system of release on conditions. Only in exceptional circumstances—where the court is satisfied that it is appropriate to the special circumstances of the case in question—can a deposit of money be required as a condition of hail. I should stress the significance of this to those who are more expert in the criminal law of England. Indeed, in parenthesis to those noble Lords who may be accustomed to sitting on the benches of the magistrates' courts in England, may I say that this Bill is a fascinating little cameo of the different conditions and indeed philosophy of the Scottish legal system compared to that which obtains in England.
In Scotland the only way of obtaining release on bail at present (assuming that the court has granted bail in principle) has been to pay over the sum of money fixed by the court. It is not possible to obtain release on the promise to pay if the accused fails to appear, nor on a surety being offered by a third party. This Bill will change all that and a system of conditions—but not recognizances—will become the basis of release on bail in Scotland. Failure to appear at any diet of which the accused is given due notice and breach of any conditions are to be statutory offences. At present in Scotland the only penalty for failure to appear is the loss of the comparatively small sum paid into court to secure release. The new Bill is therefore intended to make
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the bail system more humane by making bail more accessible to those who are granted it. It is also intended to make it more effective by providing more severe punishments for those who do breach bail.
The Thomson Committee's conclusion was that the accused's need to find money bail prevents his being released in many cases, at least in the first instance; and has no significant effect on the likelihood of his appearing at subsequent proceedings. Moreover, a very great deal of work is involved for the courts in collecting and accounting for the money involved. The conclusions reached by the committee were underlined by a Scottish Office Social Research Study on Pre-Trial Bail and Custody, which was published in 1976. That study drew on information about bail which was granted between February 1972 and January 1973 but there is nothing to suggest that the passage of time has cast doubt on its general conclusions. In that period the most common amount set for bail was £10 although there was a range extending from 50p to £1,000. The average amount fixed as bail was only about £14. Even in the period of the study these sums were relatively small, but more than a quarter (that is, 27 per cent.) of those granted bail were unable to deposit the money required immediately and were held in custody for at least part of the time between the grant of bail and the eventual trial. Nearly 2 per cent. of those granted bail could not find the money at all and spent the full time before the trial in custody.
This extension of imprisonment might arguably be justified if the money deposited was a guarantee that the accused would turn up in court, but the study also found that the amount of bail fixed appeared to have no significant effect in deterring those granted bail from absconding. I would remind the House that loss of bail money is the only penalty at present for breach of bail. The most common amount fixed for those who subsequently absconded—that is £10—was exactly the same as that for those who did not. Moreover, there was no more than a marginal and statistically insignificant difference between the average amount of bail fixed for those who subsequently absconded and the average amount fixed for those who neither absconded nor re-offended while on bail.

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A court is concerned with protecting the public and safeguarding the interests of justice from any undesirable consequences of an accused person being at large, and not merely with preventing the accused absconding before trial or avoiding his unnecessary detention. Under the present system of bail in Scotland, the fairly small amounts of bail set are designed only to ensure that the accused presents himself for trial when required. This Bill provides however that the conditions which may be imposed should be such as to seek to ensure not only that the accused appears at diets of which he is given due notice but also that he does not commit an offence while on bail; that he does not interfere with witnesses or obstruct the course of justice in his own case or anyone else's; and that he makes himself available for any necessary inquiries. It is therefore a much more subtle and effective instrument for securing the aims of justice while the accused is at liberty pending trial. The Bill itself does not lay down the conditions which the court may impose to achieve these ends; nor is it the practice in Scotland for the Crown or the Government to attempt to give guidance of this sort to judges. We might however reasonably imagine that a court might require an accused to hand over his passport or stay away from a particular area, place or person.
As I have said the only penalty for breach of bail at present is the loss of the relatively trivial sum paid into court. This Bill will make much more severe penalties available for the relatively serious offence of failure to turn up or breach of bail conditions. Thus an accused who absconds or breaches the conditions imposed on bail will be liable to a fine of up to £200; and to imprisonment for a period not exceeding 60 days where he is tried in a district court, or up to three months when he appears before a sheriff or in the High Court. In view of the considerable expense and inconvenience arising from the failure of an accused to turn up for trial under solemn proceedings, the penalties in such a case are even more severe. An accused granted bail in relation to solemn proceedings who fails without reasonable excuse to appear at any solemn diet of which he has been given due notice will be liable on con
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viction on indictment to a fine of unlimited amount and a period of imprisonment of up to two years, in addition to any penalty he may have incurred for his original offence.
The more extensive and yet specific aims of bail set out in the Bill and the power to impose conditions with enhanced penalties for breach of the law should give courts much more confidence that bail will not be abused. The Bill will, we hope, therefore lead to courts using bail more readily to release the accused before trial. Similar arguments apply also to police liberation and this should reduce the number of people who, though later acquitted or given non-custodial sentences, nevertheless at present spend some time in custody before they are tried. In any event, and we attach the greatest importance to this, the abolition of money bail is likely to lead to a reduction of over 2,000 a year in the number of needless committals to custody from the sheriff courts alone. I would emphasise that this minimal figure only includes those held in custody after bail has been granted until they deposit the sum of money required, and only from sheriff courts.
Our only significant departure from the Thomson Committee recommendations is that we are leaving open the possibility of the courts' requiring a deposit of money as a condition of bail in very special circumstances. Even the committee did not go so far as to suggest that there were no circumstances in which a requirement to deposit money would be useful and we believe there are cases where such a requirement might be appropriate. We have therefore included that option for the courts, although not for police liberation. The sort of cases we have in mind are, for example, major frauds, offences against fishing regulations by foreign skippers where large amounts of money are at issue and offences by people with substantial financial assets who lack strong roots in this country.
As I have said, only the courts will have the power to impose a requirement for a deposit of money, and only then if they are satisfied that the imposition of that condition is appropriate to the special circumstances of the case. I should also stress that any requirement to deposit money will be imposed as one of the conditions of release and will thus fit

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into the framework of the new system. In particular, such a requirement, like any other condition of bail, would be subject to appeal by both Crown and accused. We do not expect, therefore, that this power will be used often and never, we would hope, for small amounts of money. I can understand the fears of those who argue that the essential conservatism of the legal system will lead to continuation of money bail under a new name but I am sure that these fears are unfounded. This Bill simply leaves open the option of requiring a deposit of money where this is peculiarly appropriate, and we are confident that it will not be abused.
Another important aspect of the bail package is that the power of the police to release on interim liberation is being extended. At present the police may only liberate on the deposit of money and that is being abolished in parallel with the abolition of bail money itself. Moreover, the police are being given power to liberate those charged with any offence triable in the summary courts where at present they are only entitled to liberate those charged with offences triable in the district court, a much more restricted category.
Noble Lords might find it helpful if I were to outline the purpose served by the various clauses in the Bill. However, bearing in mind that the only noble and learned Lord down to speak is the noble and learned Lord, Lord McCluskey, I feel that I can shorten my remarks to that extent, because he will appreciate perfectly well, I have no doubt, what the clauses mean.
In conclusion, I should say a little about the provision on court sittings. Clause 10 provides that courts are no longer under a statutory obligation to sit on Saturdays. There are now acute difficulties in persuading court and fiscal support staff to work the unsocial hours which are necessary if Saturday court sittings are held. There are also problems over recruitment, given that most comparable clerical and typing jobs enjoy a five-day week. It is for these very practical reasons that the Government have concluded that Saturday courts should not in future be mandatory.
It will however be possible for courts to sit on a Saturday or, as is not the case
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at present, on a Sunday if this is deemed necessary, for example, after a riot at a football match. This introduces a desirable element of flexibility. It is, however, not expected that courts will sit on these days other than very infrequently. As I said earlier, the Government believe that the measures being adopted in Clauses 1 to 9 on the reform of bail and in particular the widening of the discretion of the police to grant interim liberation should obviate the risk that the abolition of mandatory Saturday courts might cause an increase in the number of those held in custody before trial.
I believe the Bill is a well thought out and useful contribution to the continuing improvement of criminal justice and procedure in Scotland. I hope it will enjoy the support of noble Lords on all sides of the House. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Earl of Mansfield.)
3.2 p.m.
Lord McCLUSKEY: My Lords, since time immemorial noble Ministers of State at the Scottish Office have risen to their feet at the Government Dispatch Box here to move the Second Reading of a Scottish Bill only to be dismayed and disheartened to see noble Lords rise in their hundreds from all parts of the House and pour out of the Chamber as if they had suddenly remembered that they had some pressing engagement elsewhere, and I fear something similar happened today. This phenomenon is not produced by any lack of eloquence or lucidity in the Ministers concerned. They have all been lucid and eloquent, none more so than the noble Earl. It derives, rather, from the comparative lack of interest here in domestic Scottish legal matters.
Lord DERWENT: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble and learned Lord to tell him that it is simply because of the fright we have of the Scots?
Lord McCLUSKEY: There must be more than one reason for everything, my Lords. I believe the irony of the whole situation is that the apathy of

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noble Lords about such matters has been matched only by their passion in opposing proposals we introduced in the last Parliament to ensure that such questions were debated not here but by Scots assemblymen in Scotland. None the less, the House will wish me to thank the noble Earl for his careful and helpful exposition of the principles and content of the Bill.
Indeed, my pleasure in hearing the noble Earl introducing the Bill is tempered only by my regret that the Government did not give his noble and learned colleague, the Lord Advocate, this excellent opportunity to break his long silence, but we must curb our impatience and hope he will soon have an opportunity to give the House the benefit of his wise advice. Perhaps I should also add that I regret to see from the list of speakers that no one will speak from the Liberal Benches. Now the Liberals are an important party in Scotland and care about these matters, and perhaps the remedy there lies in having a Scottish Liberal lawyer on the Liberal Benches in this House.
The Bill itself deserves, I believe, a modest welcome. It has respectable antecedents because it was largely conceived by my colleagues and myself in the last Government. We did a lot of work over a period of years in selecting and drafting a set of proposals for the reform and improvement of criminal justice and procedure in Scotland. But owing to the necessary pressures of the Parliamentary timetable, we had to cannibalise our proposals two Sessions ago and bring forward a small part of them only in the shape of the Community Service by Offenders (Scotland) Bill; that was regarded as urgent. Then our own Criminal Justice Bill, which itself was formed as the result of selecting from several hundred different proposals, fell victim last Session to the General Election. Now the Government have cannibalised another small part of that same Bill and incorporated that in this modest little Bill. One of these days we shall no doubt see the Government's own Criminal Justice Bill for Scotland and I eagerly await some authoritative announcement as to its contents. Indeed, I have put down a Question for Written Answer in the hope of discovering what is proposed.
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Perhaps I may be allowed to say that I am told that the BBC and the Scottish Press announced in the last few days that. I was an opponent of the Government's. Criminal Justice Bill and would lead, jointly with someone else, a campaign against it. That is not true. I have said no such thing and given no authority for any such statement. In so far as the Government's proposed Bill borrows from the measure which we introduced, I shall support it and invite my colleagues to do the same. In so far as the Government's proposals differ from what we decided upon, I shall examine the new proposals and form my view on their merits. If, for example, the Government should propose to give the police much greater powers than we proposed they should have, then we shall scrutinise these powers carefully, trying to balance the interests of the criminal authorities and the legitimate interests of the citizen. If the Government should propose to reduce the size of the criminal jury in Scotland from 15 to 12, I shall certainly oppose that piece of nonsense, as I did when I was in office. If the Government seek to reintroduce corporal punishment as the present Solicitor-General for Scotland did with the assistance of the present Under-Secretary of State, Mr. Rifkind, earlier this year, I shall certainly oppose that barbarous proposal. But I will not turn coat and oppose proposals of the kind which I myself would have supported had it been my privilege and responsibility to introduce a Criminal Justice Bill in this House.
Let me say by way of comfort to the Government in relation to this Bill that one of the problems of preparing a comprehensive Bill is the problem of striking the right balance between measures designed to ensure the easier conviction of the truly guilty and measures designed to protect the legitimate interests of the accused and of those who fall to be punished for their guilt. One result of this process of cannibalisation of which I have spoken is that by the time we come to consider the Criminal Justice Bill which the Government will introduce we shall already have enacted I believe—in this Bill and in the Community Service by Offenders Bill—some of the measures which were conceived in the interests of accused persons. And it would be quite wrong for me or for anyone else to leave

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that out of account in assessing the overall balance of the forthcoming Bill. All three measures must be looked at together as part of one package in order to see whether or not the proper balance has been achieved.
This Bill has our general support. Money bail in Scotland without conditions has, we believe, outlived its usefulness. My colleagues in another place opposed the retention in this Bill of a form of money bail—your Lordships will find it in Clause 1(3). I will not ask the Government to abandon this provision altogether; it has the support of Her Majesty's judges in Scotland and of a majority in the other place, and I acknowledge that there is a reasoned argument in favour of it. But I will ask the noble Earl, as I do now, to think again about the wording of the last four lines of Clause 1(3). I think this wording will make it too easy for the old-fashioned money bail to survive in cases where it is not now intended to survive.
The noble Earl referred to the three situations where he envisaged that money bail might continue to be used, and I do not dispute that it would make quite a useful contribution to the courts' techniques in relation to such cases, but I think there is a danger that if the words are not sufficiently tight, other cases may be drawn in. I shall ask the Government to consider adding other words or altering the existing words so that in that subsection something of this sort might appear:
"but only where the court, or as the case may be, the Lord Advocate, is satisfied that the imposition of such condition is the only course appropriate to the special circumstances of the case, and the accused agrees to the requirement".
Such wording would, I believe, restrict this requirement to the kind of case the noble Earl mentioned and the kind of case the Government have in mind, and effectively prevent the courts from slipping back into the too ready requirement of money bail.
Secondly, I believe that the penalty of two years' imprisonment—and let me repeat that: two years' imprisonment—introduced by paragraph (b) of Clause 3(3) of the Bill is quite unnecessarily severe. I have read with care the defence of that provision by the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, Mr. Rifkind, at the First Scottish Standing Committee on 10th July
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1979, and I do not agree with it. If by absconding and thus failing to turn up on the morning of his trial an accused person attempts to defeat the ends of justice, I think that he should be charged with that crime. From my reading of Scots law I am quite certain that if a person deliberately sought to defeat the ends of justice by failing to turn up on the morning of his trial—perhaps in order to allow much time to pass, witnesses' recollections to fail, witnesses to die, or evidence otherwise to be lost—he could be charged at common law with that crime. Then the whole circumstances, including his motives, could be gone into.
But what we are doing in this Bill is saying that if a person fails to turn up for a jury trial on the morning of the trial, the court—and that includes the sheriff—may impose two years' imprisonment in respect of that failure. So we leap from the present situation where he forfeits £10 or £14 to a sentence of two years' imprisonment, which of course is a maximum, and I think that this really goes too far. In approaching the matter in this way the Bill would give the sheriff in Scotland a power to send a man to prison for four years: two years in respect of the crime of which he was convicted, and two years in addition in respect of his failure to turn up for the trial on the first occasion. I do not believe that that is right.
In the discussions on the previous Bill there was a proposal put forward on behalf of the Opposition (as they then were) to extend the sentencing powers of the sheriff. There are arguments both ways on that particular question, and I believe that these arguments ought to be looked at carefully, and perhaps we shall look at them carefully in the context of the new Criminal Justice Bill. But to deal with this by a side door is, I consider, quite wrong. I hope that if noble Lords opposite, who hear or read what I say, believe that it is a danger to give a sheriff power to impose four years' imprisonment where he can now impose only two, they will perhaps speak to the noble Earl and ask him to modify this proposal which was not in our Bill and does not derive from the Thomson Committee on Criminal Procedure. I hope to return to this matter at the Committee stage.

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Clause 10, to which the noble Earl referred, enshrines what I see as a regrettable necessity. At the moment a court in Scotland may, and does, sit on a Saturday morning in order to deal with people who have been detained in custody since some time on Friday. This clause means the virtual end of Saturday sittings for dealing with persons detained in custody after falling foul of the law on a Friday night. Friday night is pay night. For many it is the end of the working week, and it is the night when people are most likely to get into trouble. As a result of this provision such people are unlikely to be released before Monday. They certainly could not apply before Monday to a court for release. However, I concede that we cannot hope to go on imposing the burden of Saturday courts on sheriffs, procurators fiscal, court staff and the police, and this clause must therefore stand.
But let me draw your Lordships' attention to the latter parts of the same clause—Clause 10. One sees from that that it is possible to have the courts shut for three consecutive days; that is to say, where there is a public holiday on Monday preceded by Saturday and Sunday, or indeed where there is a holiday on Friday followed by Saturday and Sunday. I wonder whether this does not perhaps go a little too far. Is it not possible to avoid the result that someone who is detained on a Friday cannot appear before the court until the following Tuesday morning?
In Scotland we have always prided ourselves—rightly, I believe—on bringing the accused before the court very swiftly. Would the noble Earl not consider a new subsection? Again, I cannot hope to draft as carefully as I might when we come to this matter at the Committee stage, but would he not consider a clause along the following lines:
"Where a court holiday occurs on a Friday or a Monday with the result that persons arrested on a Thursday or Friday respectively would have to wait three days before the next lawful day, the court shall sit at least once during such three days to entertain applications from such persons for interim liberation"?
That would mean that on the rare occasion—perhaps only once or twice a year—when there was liable to be a three days' vacation, as it were, of the court, special arrangements would be made.
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What the Government have done in introducing the Bill—and I fully understand and sympathise with them—is to treat as separable and urgent a few of the more technical and less controversial parts of the Criminal Justice Bill that we introduced. I regret, however, that they did not see it possible to go a little further and introduce at this stage the proposals to modify slightly the 110-day rule. As the noble Earl will know, our proposals were contained in Clause 20 of our Bill, and the modification was to allow the 110 days to run to the start of the trial, not to its conclusion. I should explain to those of your Lordships who are not familiar with the provision that we have an excellent provision that works in Scotland, yet I believe hardly anywhere else in the world, providing that if a person is detained in custody, he must be brought to trial, and his trial concluded, within 110 days of his being committed fully into custody. That is a summary of the provision and there are many modifications, but in essence it means that, however serious the charge, no person can be detained for more than about 3½ months.
The trouble is that in a number of modern cases, whereas a trial has started within 110 days, there have been great difficulties in getting it finished within that time. Accordingly, we introduced a proposal to have the 110 days run to the beginning of the trial, not to the end of it. That was not a controversial proposal; it was not opposed in the other place. I consider that it is fairly urgent because any week now another such case might come up despite the vigilance of the Crown Office and the procurators fiscal. So I believe that that is a matter which should have been attended to at this stage, and I ask the noble Earl whether it is too late to introduce this desirable reform, which was not opposed in another place and which I would hope would go through without controversy?
I have a number of criticisms of points of detail which I hope can be considered at the Committee stage, but I believe that the principles of the Bill are sound. It is a small but useful Bill, and I trust that your Lordships will give it your support. Subject to the points that I have made, and which I hope noble Lords will think about and perhaps speak to the noble

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Earl about, I would ask your Lordships to support the Second Reading of the Bill.
3.18 p.m.
The Earl of MANSFIELD: My Lords, I wish to thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord McCluskey, for his muted but nevertheless genuine welcome for this modest measure. I detected in his speech a great many references to what we know, or hope, will be a forthcoming Criminal Justice Bill. I am the first to sympathise with his very natural apprehension—and I must be careful with my metaphors here—that the legal child which he conceived is to be brought forth possibly in a form which may be slightly, or even materially, different from what he thought it might be. I do not propose to say any more about the Criminal Justice Bill; the noble and learned Lord must contain himself until it sees the light of day. I am aware that he has put down a Question for Written Answer, and that will be answered as expeditiously and as compendiously as possible, but I repeat that we must wait until the Bill sees the light of day before we can draw our conclusions.
One of the strange matters that a lawyer who practises in England—I was going to say "an English lawyer", but again I must be careful—finds is the curious distrust that the noble and learned Lord and his honourable friends in another place have for both the prosecuting authorities and the judiciary. When one peruses the Official Report of the proceedings as this Bill went through the other place one sees time after time this mistrust for what could happen if either sheriffs or procurators fiscal took the wrong view of their duty and used the powers which the Bill gives them in such a way that it would be onerous, if not actually unjust, to accused persons. That is something which I am bound to say I found rather surprising, and, if I may say so, the first point which the noble and learned Lord made as to the residuary requirement for money bail illustrates precisely this point. I would prefer to think that the courts will use this residuary discretion (if I may so call it) in a way which will, as it were, provide complete protection for accused persons, as is the whole design of the Bill, but which, on the other hand, will ensure the attendance
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at court of people who otherwise might not turn up if they did not have to deposit what will probably be very large sums of money to see that they do. This is something which I have no doubt we can go into in Committee, but at the moment, speaking for myself, I am satisfied that the provision is fair and at the same time reasonable.
Lord McCLUSKEY: My Lords, perhaps the noble Earl will allow me to say that I do not mistrust either the judges in Scotland or the prosecuting authorities in Scotland, but I am human enough to know that people make mistakes. It is possible—and there have been examples of it in the past—that a sheriff might get out of bed on the wrong side one morning and do something quite extraordinary. This kind of thing happens from time to time. The second point is that the judges, in construing the subsection to which I made reference, cannot look at Hansard to see the three cases which the noble Earl has in mind; they must look at the wording. I seek to achieve precisely the same object as the noble Earl, by tightening up the wording to ensure that the circumstances are, as he said in his speech, very special, and not, as the Bill says, simply special.
The Earl of MANSFIELD: My Lords, even I, as an honorary sheriff, made a mistake once, I believe, but it was put right on appeal, and there are full rights of appeal in this Bill which persons who find themselves in such unfortunate circumstances can invoke and pray in aid. As to the point which the noble and learned Lord made about my noble and learned friend the Lord Advocate, may I say that he is reserving his power for just such an occasion as the Criminal Justice Bill, when I, for one, shall be very glad of a 15-pounder alongside me.
The next matter which the noble and learned Lord raised was the maximum period of imprisonment which could be imposed by a court—that is, two years' imprisonment—if somebody (putting the matter colloquially) failed to turn up for their trial. The first thing I should like to say is that only when somebody fails to attend court are they liable to this rather more severe penalty. The second matter is that the court which sentences them has to be satisfied that they have

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failed to attend, in the words of the subsection, "without reasonable excuse"; so there is no question that they are not allowed to say a word in their defence, or that they will not be heard. They have to have failed to appear "without reasonable excuse". In other cases, of course, the maximum is far less; it is only three months. Let us realise that in ordinary circumstances a sheriff is entitled to impose a sentence of imprisonment of two years, so this is neither more nor less than the sheriff can customarily impose. Fourthly, and once more, my Lords, there is a provision that a person who has been so sentenced may appeal.
So, as I suggest, this is a provision to deal with somebody who quite obviously, by his absence from the court, has seriously interfered with the carriage of justice so far as he or she is concerned. For myself, I think it would be a thoroughly cumbersome way of going about things to make a new substantive offence, and to say, "You, John Bloggs, are now going to be charged with failing to attend '', as opposed, as it were, to wiping the slate clean at the conclusion of the trial, or whenever he happens to be apprehended. Again, that is a matter which we can come to in Committee if the noble and learned Lord thinks fit. The other matter to which the noble and learned Lord turned his attention was Saturday courts. I fully appreciate that, at first blush, if somebody were so foolish as to misbehave on a Friday night and Christmas or New Year fell on the Monday, they could languish in prison for no less than three days.
Lord MURRAY of GRAVESEND: My Lords, would the noble Earl give way at that point? Is it not the case that, in 1981, 1st January falls on a Thursday and that 2nd January is a Bank Holiday in Scotland, so it could be that he would be languishing in jail for four days?
The Earl of MANSFIELD: No, my Lords; Scottish courts sit on 2nd January, so 1981 is going to be all right. What I want to say is this, that the whole point of Clause 8 of this Bill—in other words, interim liberation (a splendid word that!) by the police—is designed for just this sort of occasion. That is to say, where it
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is not necessary, and indeed will not be desirable, for somebody to languish in prison, then it will be up to the police, in far wider circumstances than they have ever been empowered to do before, to admit somebody to bail. Because, as I said in my opening remarks, up till now the only conditions under which the police have been allowed to liberate persons who have been arrested are those in cases which would fall to be determined possibly by a district court; and if I illustrate that by saying that the maximum amount of money at stake in the case of theft is £20, noble Lords will see just how poor, if I may use that expression, just how puny, the jurisdiction of the district courts happens to be.
So, my Lords, I am not convinced at the moment that the noble and learned Lord's point that Clause 10 will of necessity cause people to be kept in prison for longer than they need is necessarily a good one. But I repeat what I said in my previous remarks, that if, for instance—and I am not going to be like the Solicitor-General for Scotland and illustrate what sort of commotion I have in mind—there is likely to be some sort of riot on a Saturday evening, there is no reason why the sheriff principal should not make prior arrangements for a court to sit on a Sunday (which has not been empowered before) so that, again, persons should not suffer incarceration longer than they have to without at any rate the opportunity to apply for bail.
Finally, the noble and learned Lord asks why we have not taken the opportunity in this particular Bill to further modify and indeed improve the reforming of Scottish law, and he mentioned the 110-day rule. My answer to that is that really the Government cannot win. On Thursday, when I was in your Lordships' House finishing off the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Scotland) Bill, the noble and learned Lord's noble and learned friend Lord Elwyn-Jones referred to my modest measure as "a rag bag". On the Tuesday, when I come forward with a small but nevertheless coherent and well-shaped package, I am then again criticised for not having gone further and turned it into a rag bag. But I can assure the noble and learned Lord that if he waits until our Criminal Justice Bill sees

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the light of day, then we can discuss all these matters fully, and no doubt at considerable length, and improve the law as best we can.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

MINISTRY OF OVERSEAS DEVELOPMENT (DISSOLUTION) ORDER 1979
3.29 p.m.
Lord TREFGARNE Lord TREFGARNE rose to move, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the Ministry of Overseas Development (Dissolution) Order 1979 be made in the form of the draft laid before the House on 25th October. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move that an humble Address to presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Ministry of Overseas Development (Dissolution) Order 1979 be made in the form of a draft laid before this House on 25th October. May I start by saying how much I regret the absence today of the noble Lord, Lord Brockway. Your Lordships may have heard that the noble Lord—whom I should like to call "my noble friend"—suffered an accident over the weekend and is in hospital. I am sure that we all wish him a speedy and full recovery.
I think it is my duty to give your Lordships a full explanation of the procedure we propose to follow with this order, together with a description of the practical consequences which will flow from it. I also propose, with your Lordships' permission, to make some observations on our approach to overseas aid generally, particularly in the light of the public expenditure White Paper published last week.
We propose that this order should be made under Section 1 of the Ministers of the Crown Act 1975. Section 1 of the Act gives Her Majesty power exercisable by Order in Council to provide for the dissolution of a Government Department in the charge of any Minister of the Crown and for the transfer of the functions previously exercisable by that Minister to any other Minister. By virtue of Section 5(I) of the Act, no Order in Council which provides for the dissolution of a Govern
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ment Department shall be made under the Act unless copies of it are first laid in draft before both Houses of Parliament and each House presents an Address to Her Majesty praying that the order be made. I should perhaps tell your Lordships that the other place agreed a Motion in identical terms to this one on Tuesday of last week.
Upon his appointment, my noble friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary assumed full responsibility for overseas aid and development, and the Ministry of Overseas Development became an Overseas Development Administration within the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. My noble friend's full title is thus Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and Minister of Overseas Development. These arrangements have already been put into effect administratively, in so far as is possible. However, this order is necessary to make formal provision for the dissolution of the Ministry of Overseas Development and for the transfer to the Secretary of State of the functions of that Ministry.
As part of the new arrangements, my honourable friend Mr Marten, the Member for Banbury, was appointed to be responsible to my noble friend for aid and development matters within the Foreign aid Commonwealth Office, and to be in charge of the Overseas Development Administration. He was given the title of Minister for Overseas Development. These arrangements stand. They have had, and will continue to have, a number of consequences. When development matters are considered among Ministers, they are handled by my noble friend in consultation with my honourable friend Mr Marten. That is the background to this order. May I now turn to what I believe to be the main advantages of the new arrangements.
I am sure your Lordships will agree that it is particularly appropriate to have the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary in charge of both the Government's foreign policy and their aid programme. This will ensure that all our dealings with oversea nations are conducted with consistency and, above all, represented in the Cabinet at the highest level.
The Government have responded speedily and effectively to the appalling

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plight of the refugees who were forced to leave Vietnam, and now to the threat of famine in Kampuchea. In Rhodesia, the future health and welfare of the people—all the people—has been in the forefront of our thinking.
As my noble friend moves to re-establish the position of Great Britain in world affairs, he will be able to ensure, within the compass of his own responsibilities, that our aid programme and our foreign policy are administered hand in hand, and that all the relevant considerations, including our ability to find the money, are brought together, co-ordinated, and finally implemented with efficiency and compassion.
It has been suggested that this order will have an adverse effect upon the reputation of our aid administration overseas. I reject that assertion completely. If the reputation of those administering our aid programme stands high in the eyes of the developing countries and of countries which share with us our responsibilities in the Third World—as I know it does—then henceforward that reputation will be enhanced. This Government have the greatest possible concern to ensure that public money is properly spent and those responsible for this task in the Overseas Development Administration will continue their former duties. The new procedures which this Government have introduced and which will be formalised by this order differ from the old mainly in that liaison between the two wings of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office will be closer. The experienced staff formerly of the Ministry of Overseas Development, who have been widely praised, will continue to contribute their expertise.
I have explained what I believe to be the major advantages of this order and I have, I hope, allayed any doubts which may have arisen. I should like in conclusion to emphasise that the new order in no way implies any reduction in the importance attached by this Government to the problems of the Third World. We remain committed in principle to the achievement of the target set by the United Nations that the developed countries should provide 0·7 per cent. of GNP as official development assistance——
The Earl of LONGFORD: My Lords, is the noble Lord prepared to tell us what
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proportion is provided at the present time?
Lord TREFGARNE: No, my Lords, I am not. I repeat that we remain committed to the principle of contributing 7 per cent. as official development assistance, although, like the previous Government, we are not yet able to set a date for achieving it. We give full weight to development considerations in our aid programme. We are at present reviewing aid policy, but I can assure your Lordships that we shall continue to take account of the needs of the poorest.
We have had to limit the planned increase in the aid programme below the rate that the previous Government had intended, but the reductions are no more than appropriate to those we have had to make in nearly all public expenditure programmes. I must say quite firmly that the plans of our predecessors could not have been sustained. The Shadow Chancellor, Mr. Healey, has recently admitted that, had he remained at the Treasury, some cut-backs would have been necessary. Indeed, he did prune the aid programme in 1976, when he proposed reductions for the years 1977–78 and 1978–79. The amount of those cuts substanitally exceeded in percentage terms the changes we have recently announced. There will still be a very substantial and important programme—we are planning to spend around £843 million this year on aid, of which £790 million is new money, the balance being recycled from the repayment of old loans.
This order is intended to improve administrative arrangements, not to change policies radically, We are certainly not reversing the policies of our predecessors. We have already demonstrated our commitment to the relief of suffering in the case of Cambodia and, within our present restraints, we shall see that a fair share is allocated to meeting such needs in the future. We are also concerned to ensure that our policies are efficiently integrated and, accordingly, I ask your Lordships to agree to the Motion standing in my name. I beg to move.
Moved, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the Ministry of Overseas Development (Dis-

721
solution) Order 1979 be made in the form of the draft laid before the House on 25th October.—(Lord Trefgarne.)
3.39 p.m.
Lord HATCH of LUSBY: My Lords, I should like to begin by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, for his kind words about my noble friend Lord Brockway, whom we all miss today, who would have been speaking in this debate and who has certainly done as much as or more than any other living Britisher for the cause of the Third World. I should also like to express my sympathy with the noble Lord opposite. He has the thankless task of answering for a number of departments. Although I believe he is based at the Foreign Office, he was not responsible for the decision which we are debating on this order this afternoon. I understand from the Minister concerned that that decision was taken on May 4th or 5th; in other words, it was taken within a few hours of the General Election results being known.
We are debating the fate of what was the Overseas Development Ministry and what is now the Overseas Development Administration. This was set up in 1964 under the very inspiring leadership of Sir Andrew Cohen and with a Minister, Barbara Castle, who was at that time in the Cabinet. It was an expression of the British contribution to the concept of internationalism, of a world of justice, and it was supported in its objectives by members of all and of no party. It was indeed a reflection of the fact that members of all communities in this country recognise the emotional and mental unease that we feel at a time when we in this country are living in a state of relative affluence while for every minute that this debate takes place 25 people somewhere in the world are dying, simply through malnutrition. The particular importance of this Ministry was that it was based upon the concept of the British contribution to development and, as a consequence, members of the Conservative Party, the Liberal Party, the Labour Party and members of no party supported its pioneering efforts in providing our contribution to a world of greater equity and justice.
Its special importance was that it was independent of other Ministries; it was
722
seen to be independent and, as it grew and as its influence extended throughout the world, this independence became of extreme importance and has been imitated in other countries. It therefore had an international reputation as a Ministry. When one adds to that the work often done on its behalf by the British Council, and the work done by the World Service of the BBC, this formed a unique triumvirate of British participation in international affairs.
One can contrast the independence which the Ministry had, the ability which it had, to push for the needs of people poorer than ourselves in this country. One contrasts the example to be seen in the United States, with its disastrous record of linking overseas aid with foreign policy; and perhaps above all with France, the culmination of whose disasters has been seen very recently in the kind of support that they have been giving to the former Emperor Bokassa and other tyrants of that kind, because French foreign policy and aid policy were inextricably linked together.
Fortunately, we are now able to see that the United States has learned its lesson. The United States is moving the opposite way from this Government. The United States has now set up an international development corporation separate from the State Department, very largely because it has learned the lessons of failure in linking aid with foreign policy. The party of which the noble Lord is a member at one time believed this. Their White Paper in 1970 said that the Conservative Government recognised that the management of overseas aid is a function distinct from the general conduct of foreign affairs. Apparently they have changed their minds since those days. We have not.
Secondly, I should like to pay tribute to the work of this Ministry over the past two or three years. I believe it began, under the distinguished leadership of the right honourable Judith Hart, to add an extra dimension to the simple issue of aid as a charity. It had begun to do what the Select Committee of the other place had proposed and pushed it to do: to link overseas aid with domestic economic policy. This is of tremendous importance to the future of this country and of equal importance to the peoples of

723/>
the Third World. It was then able to see that through the Ministry of Overseas Development the infrastructure could be built with overseas investment to enable the development of better standards of living with greater purchasing power and, therefore, with the greater opportunity to buy the goods of our country and the other countries in the developed world. Twenty-five per cent. of our exports today go to developing countries. The aid programme itself is linked directly to the domestic economy of our country by providing, according to the latest reckoning, 40,000 jobs in this country.
I hope that the noble Lord will not tell us that the Government should like to do a great deal more in the provision of overseas aid when our economy is in a stronger position. That is not the point. That is missing the point which I have been trying to make in this House ever since I entered it. The aid that goes to overseas countries is not dependent upon economic growth in this country; it is in itself the seeds of that growth. Instead of talking—as many noble Lords opposite do—about pruning the trees in the hope that they will grow higher, do they not realise that they are cutting the roots of those trees that can supply the sap of our own growth?
We are told that the Ministry is to be absorbed into the Foreign Office. This is a measure which I greatly deplore. We have seen—and I am sure the noble Lord will be the first to agree with me on this—a dedicated group of civil servants in that Ministry. In the applications for Civil Service posts a very large percentage of young people specify the Ministry of Overseas Development as their first preference. This is a sign of the dedication of the young to the contribution of this country to the concept of one world.
Lord SOMERS: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord? Would he not agree that there is something in the old adage that charity begins at home, that there are many causes in our own country that are quite as urgently in need of help as those of overseas countries?
Lord HATCH of LUSBY: My Lords, my answer to that is very simple: we are a trading country; we cannot look parochially to the economy of this country as though it were surrounded by a wall.
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In our own interests, and in the interests of solving our own social and economic problems, it is essential that we look to the market, which consists of half the world, that today is unable to buy our products.
What I should like to say to the noble Lord about what is really an apologia—and remember, my Lords, that this issue was considered to be sufficiently important in the other House for there to be a debate lasting between four and five hours —so far as the inclusion of the Ministry of Overseas Development into the Foreign Office is concerned, is that I believe that to be not just a blow to the morale of the staff of the Ministry of Overseas Development, although it is—it is much more important than that.
I wish that the noble Lord the Foreign Secretary had been able to be with us this afternoon, as he took the decision. It is a decision of policy and certain consequences flow from that policy. We now have foreign policy dominating our policy on overseas aid, and I believe that it is a bad thing. There should be tensions; often in the past there have been tensions. The noble Lord spoke about the cuts that had been made by a previous Chancellor of the Exchequer. Let me remind him that they were restored, and that when cuts were made the Ministry of Overseas Development was given very special treatment. Let me remind him also that the last Government had already pledged themselves to make, and had made the budgeting arrangements for, a 6 per cent. increase in real terms in the Ministry budget over the next four years.
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, I am obliged to the noble Lord for having given way to me. I think that his right honourable friend Mr. Healey has said since he went into Opposition that the programme that was foreseen by the then Government at the time of the election could not have been sustained. I do not really think that a 6 per cent. increase, which was certainly in the last Government's original programme, would have stood the light of day.
Lord HATCH of LUSBY: My Lords. that may be the opinion of the noble Lord: it is not my opinion, and it is not my opinion according to experience. As I have just pointed out, when cuts have been

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made in public expenditure in the past by a Labour Government, the Ministry of Overseas Development has been given special preference in——
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, not in. 1976. When the noble Lord and his noble and right honourable friends were in power, as I said in my opening remarks, Mr. Healey in 1976 announced cuts for the years 1977–78 and 1978–79 which were of the order of 9 or 10 per cent.
Lord HATCH of LUSBY: Indeed, my Lords; and I have already answered that point. Those cuts were restored, and from this year, 1978–79, the budget of the Ministry of Overseas Development was increased by 6 per cent. in real terms and it was planned to be increased by 6 per cent. in real terms over the next four years.
I want to come to the crucial point of what are the consequences of the control of the Foreign Office over overseas aid. We have already seen them; we have had six months' experience. As the noble Lord said, this administrative action was taken last May. I understand—I believe this is not denied, and I would not stand pat completely on this figure—that the programme to India is to be cut by 40 per cent. This has not been denied; but when you talk about maintaining the principle of aid to the poorest, I would point out that the per capita income of an Indian is roughly 150 dollars. The per capita income of a Turk is 1,000 dollars. Out of the reduced budget on overseas aid, this Government have managed to find £15 million for the Turkish Government. It seems to me that this is surprisingly close to a foreign policy directive that because Turkey is an important area for NATO the Ministry is ordered by the politicians in the Foreign Office to use its aid in support of Turkey, while it is being cut to many countries such as India.
One can refer to the Home Secretary's announcement that the programme for refugees in Latin America is to be wound up. One can refer to the fact that it is now admitted that the aid that has gone to Kampuchea is being hindered at least by the fact that the Foreign Office insists on continuing to recognise the Government of Pol Pot. As we see the aid programme now coming under the aegis
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of the Foreign Office, so that programme itself and the size of that programme come within the whole of the Foreign Office aegis. I suggest that already discrimination is being seen, Whereas we had budgeted for a 6 per cent. real increase in the aid programme this year, the present Government have budgeted for what comes down in real terms to a reduction of 5 per cent. We have seen the proposed cuts in the BBC World Service, and I need to say little more about that because so much concern has already been shown.
Let me come to the operations of the British Council, which has worked closely with the Ministry of Overseas Development, often as its agent. I understand that the British Council has been told to cut its budget this year by 11·5 per cent.: that is for the coming financial year. This, I understand, in fact, through redundancy payments and the like, is a real cut of 15 per cent. Yet the British Council is responsible for the provision of cultural opportunities and for the spreading of British culture—are we ashamed of spreading British culture?—among people who want to hear about how our institutions work. They are responsible for the teaching of the English language, of extreme value to British businessmen; for the educational services which have been provided for bringing overseas students into this country, training them, helping them to go back and again assisting them in the development of the British connection, which is so important to our overseas trade. I do not think we should neglect the fact that the British Council has also been responsible for the dissemination of the various art forms that are indigenous to this country to other parts of the world.
Finally, I want to come to a matter which is very close to my heart and which I must summarise very quickly: the running down and probable eventual extinction of the development educational programme. I asked the noble Lord in question last week whether he had read the Schlackman Report. He did not answer but I hope he has by now, because that Report shows that 64 per cent. of the people of this country believe that this country is too poor to help overseas countries, but when those people are told the amount of aid then their opinion changes. There is a great belief in this

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country that we just pour out aid willy-nilly, and when the facts are known opinion changes. That is the job of development education. I would remind the noble Lord also that when the Report of the Committee on Development Education was drawn up, it was approved not just by the Ministry of Overseas Development but by the Treasury, the Foreign Office, the Department of Education, the Northern Ireland Office, the Welsh Office and the Scottish Office. I would ask him whether those other Ministries were consulted before the decision was taken to run down to a minimal amount the involvement of the Government in development education. I would remind him also that his Prime Minister signed a document in Lusaka which included this phrase:
"… to improving the public understanding of the need for change in the countries participating in the interdependent international system".
I would remind him, too, that the Minister he has referred to, Mr. Marten, said in another place just last week that,
"It is important that people in Britain should understand the problems of development and the extent of our interdependence with the Third world".—[Official Report, Commons, 30/10/79; col. 1181.]
Really, this is either a hyprocritical statement or an ignorant one when, at the very same time, the same man is closing down the Advisory Committee on Development Education and running down the involvement of the Government in development education, which is essential to underpin the overseas aid programme of this country and the concept of the people of this country of the rest of the world. I can tell the noble Lord that we shall continue to press for the renewal of that involvement, and I hope that many noble Lords on the other side of the House will do so, because it is already evident that every major Church and every major voluntary organisation in this country, which the Conservative Party was so anxious to support in its Manifesto, has protested against the running down of the development education programme as a disservice to this country.
Morally, this order is wrong. I do not believe that noble Lords will support a philosophy which gives massive tax rebates on the one hand, and cuts down aid to starving people on the other.
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Economically, it is wrong. It is a distraction from our opportunity to restructure the industry of this country, and to associate it in an expanding trade programme with the peoples of the world who today are unable to buy our products, but on whom we depend for many of the materials essential to this country and on whom we also depend for an expanding economy.
Politically, it is wrong. The noble Lord spoke of the efforts to re-establish the power of Great Britain, the British Isles. I do not want to re-establish that kind of power, but I believe that we have a much greater power—the power of influence—and that influence can be seen when we practise what we preach, when we see and recognise our neighbours as world citizens and when we get away from the philosophy which, at a time of professed stringency, will add 3 per cent. to our arms budget and take away 5 per cent. from our overseas aid programme.
So I hope the time will come when, having reviewed the effects of this order, the Government will return to an independent, internationally recognised Ministry, able to re-establish its reputation in this country and throughout the world. I also hope that there will be Members on the other side of the House, as there were in another place, who will support this attempt to persuade the Government that they are wrong now and that they must reverse the effects of this order.
4.3 p.m.
Lord BANKS: My Lords, I should like to join with the two noble Lords who have already spoken in expressing the hope that the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, will soon be restored to full health and to his place in this House. I should like also to thank the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, for his very clear explanation of the purpose of this order, even although, like the noble Lord, Lord Hatch, I am unable to approve that purpose. It seems to me that this order is an example of one of the least satisfactory characteristics of British politics at the present time. It is an example of the way in which an incoming Government undoes the work of its predecessor.
The Ministry of Overseas Development was set up by the Labour Government of

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1964–70, it was abolished by the Conservative Government of 1970–74, it was reestablished by the last Labour Government and now the present Conservative Government want to abolish it again. These seesaw politics must inevitably be very unsettling and disturbing, and surely what was required was a period of continuity rather than yet another about turn. But there are other and substantial reasons why we on these Benches oppose this change.
We oppose the dissolution of the Ministry of Overseas Development, first, because we think it is wrong in principle to bring aid under the Foreign Office. Aid, we think, should not be seen as an arm of foreign policy and we feel that it is easier for Third World countries to deal with a specific aid Ministry, than to deal with the Foreign Office. Also, the principle of aid for the poorest which is supposed to underlie our aid programme may not always accord with quite understandable and legitimate Foreign Office priorities.
Secondly, we feel that there is a need for a Minister, backed by an independent Ministry, to stand up for the aid programme within the Government. We also believe that a stouter defence of that programme will be made by a Minister who has sole responsibility for it, than by a Minister who, quite rightly, is preoccupied with East-West confrontation and with the future of Zimbabwe-Rhodesia. We think that relations with the Third World are so important that this Minister with sole responsibility should be in the Cabinet.
Thirdly, we think it unwise to abandon a Ministry which has established so high a reputation as the Ministry of Overseas Development has. It is not in the interests of Britain to do that. Our fourth objection is this. The aid programme has been cut. It has been suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Hatch, that the cut is 5 per cent. in real terms, and he has referred also to the cuts in the services of the British Council and in the development education programme. I know—and the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, has made this point—that it is not the first time that aid has been cut. But there are suspicions—they may be very unfair—that the present Government are less enthusiastic about aid than their predecessors, and the dissolution of the Ministry of Overseas Development
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will tend to confirm people overseas in that opinion.
Of course, I agree that the Foreign Office must take an interest in aid, but they have to take an interest also in the overseas activities of many other Government Departments. They have to take an interest in trade, but we do not have the department responsible for trade as part of the Foreign Office. It has been argued in another place that the Foreign Office have a clearer idea of where British interests lie. But overseas aid is not primarily concerned with British interests, though of course those responsible for administering it cannot ignore them. But that is not the primary aim and the primary responsibility. So, for all those reasons, my noble friends and I are unable to express support for this order.
4.8 p.m.
Lord ALPORT: My Lords, I wish to intervene very quickly and shortly in this debate, simply because I should like to advance a different version of the history behind this Ministry of Overseas Development from that which has been advanced from the Benches opposite. In fact, the Ministry of Overseas Development developed from the ideas that were put forward by the Commonwealth Relations Office in about 1960, when Mr. Duncan Sandys was Secretary of State and Mr. Harold Macmillan was Prime Minister. It seemed to the Commonwealth Office at that time that it was most important that the political factor in aid should be removed, both in relation to the Colonies and in relation to foreign countries—and I suppose, as well, in relation to the increasing number of Commonwealth countries that were coming into being at that time. We felt it was wrong that the aid effort of this country should be regarded by sensitive public opinion in Third World countries, as I suppose we would now call them, as being part of the political effort of the United Kingdom. My noble friend the Minister said that one of the objects of this action was to advance the position of Great Britain in world affairs. We did not think at that time that aid was a way in which you advanced politically the position of this country anywhere. Indeed, we felt that it was one of the ways in which we could produce something

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which cost us a good deal of money and which was politically counterproductive.
Quite recently there has been a very good example of this. The noble Lord, Lord Hatch of Lusby, mentioned the United States and their policies. Not very long ago, and apparently in protest against the belief that the Pakistan Government were developing some form of nuclear weapon, the United States cut off overnight the whole of their aid programme—not only their military aid but also their peaceful aid. This has caused such resentment in Pakistan towards the United States Government and the American people generally that I am sure it has hardened any opinion that there may be in favour of the development of nuclear energy in Pakistan. So far as the United Kingdom was concerned, this was one of the dangers that we felt the use of aid for political purposes might run us into.
I say "we" because I was present at that particular time and my experience bears out a good deal of what has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Hatch of Lusby, and by the Liberal speaker. Certainly it was the Conservative view then, and so far as I personally am concerned it is my view at the present time. Our idea was not particularly original. I think the first country which tried to separate aid from politics was Canada. The Canadians had an organisation which administered the aid the Canadian people were giving to developing countries separately from their Ministry of External Affairs. When the proposal came from the CRO to the Prime Minister, and presumably to the Cabinet, it was agreed, and it was from the germ of that idea that the present Ministry developed. It should be realised, if only from the point of view of accurate history, that this was not a Labour Party idea or a Liberal Party idea. It came from the Conservative Government of Mr. Macmillan in 1960.
I suppose—and I regret it—that idealism and sensitiveness to the feelings of overseas countries has somewhat declined in this country over the last few years. The intervention of my noble friend—that charity begins at home—reflects the sort of attitude which I fear too many people have in their minds now. So far as I am concerned—and I believe that there are many people in all parties, and certainly
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in the Conservative party, who share this view—I do not regard this country as a pauper. I do not regard this country as ceasing to have a role—idealistic, no doubt, but important— in the world which enables us to go to the aid of people who desperately require that aid.
I am sorry, therefore, that this decision has been taken. I know very well that the Foreign Office have always resented the removal of their control over aid which existed before 1960. Now they have got it back. The CRO has gone, the Colonial Office has gone and now the Ministry of Overseas Development has gone, and we have the Foreign Office. I have the greatest admiration for the Foreign Office but I am not sure that it is always the most sensitive organisation for dealing with problems which in the past, I always thought, were rather well dealt with by other Ministries.
Lord SOMERS: My Lords, in view of what the noble Lord has said, may I say that I had no intention of conveying the idea that our home interests are the only ones which matter. Certainly aid to countries which need it is most important; I agree wholeheartedly with that. However, there is a school of thought in this country that foreign aid is the only aid which matters. Nevertheless, there are a good many things at home which also matter.
Lord ALPORT: My Lords, I know perfectly well the kindheartedness of my noble friend, and I would not in any way wish to criticise him. However, his intervention has given me the opportunity to say that this debate has gone on rather longer than I expected. I had not intended to take part in it. As I have to leave at half-past four, I hope that the House and the Minister will not regard me as being unduly discourteous if I leave then.
4.15 p.m.
Lord SOPER: My Lords, once again we are surely talking about a matter far greater and more significant than administrative changes. Last week we discussed a reduction in public services to miserable and helpless alcoholics. Yesterday, in another place, there was a fiery debate on the reduction of services in the realm of education. The debate this afternoon is about the reduction of services. I am

733
deeply disturbed and begin to wonder how much longer the Government may be able to maintain the argument that it is necessary, in the interests of economics and other matters associated with economics, to practise what does increasingly appear to a great many people to be a form of moral barbarism. I use that word advisedly. I think that in the process we are becoming uncivilised, and I intensely regret that process.
It is perfectly true that the dissolution of this particular administration does not in itself prevent the achievement of those aims which first caused it to be put into operation, and I appreciate the difficulties and problems which have already been ventilated. I speak in the presence of my forthcoming Archbishop and I think that makes a quorum. So we can say that we are united in our belief that this whole attitude towards a reduction in the public services, particularly to those who are least capable of helping themselves, is a retrograde step and that no economic condition can finally justify it. I do not believe, for instance, even on the ground of economic convenience, that it would be a disaster if these services were increased. I share with my noble friend Lord Hatch of Lusby the belief that to raise the standards of help to those now impoverished in the economic field may be to our advantage as well as to theirs.
However, it is not to that that I would venture to address my remarks. I would venture to speak about the British Council. The evidence of the general trend of Government proposals is already clear. The British Council has been reduced very largely in its opportunities, and the present depredations will increase next year and the year after. May I adduce two of the areas in which I believe this is disastrous.
I share with the noble Lord opposite the view that this country has a very great deal to contribute. I do not believe that we are down and out. I think that there are many who look with envious eyes at the achievements we have already attained in the field of democratic and institutional Government. I was much encouraged when the British Council found a way of penetrating the Iron Curtain by means of its production of artistic and other shows which were presented behind that Iron Curtain, for this seemed to me to be the
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only way, in many cases, in which people living in that Cloud Cuckoo Land would be able to appreciate something of the qualities of this country, despite its economic conditions and despite the propaganda so frequently and, in my judgment, malevolently directed against our own condition. That will go. I have evidence, with which I shall not delay the House but which seems to me to be unequivocal, that the reduction of 15 to 20 per cent. will mean that that kind of overseas communication in places where I believe it is most needed, and the kind of qualities which we should cherish and of which we should be proud, will cease.
I am even more concerned about the educational facilities, for the British Council has been able to prosper in places like Rhodesia. Here we are the inheritors of the churchmanship which provided primary and secondary education for thousands of black and white Rhodesians hitherto. It is the British Council which has been able to supplement that elementary education with opportunities for further education in which at this very moment 2,000 of the inhabitants of that beleaguered country are able to acquire the kind of dispassionate education with which I believe they can contribute to its ultimate emancipation from the troubles which now beset it.
But principally, my Lords, I cannot but register my own entire and increasing disapproval at the disagreeable and, to me, quite inhuman attitude which not consciously but inevitably categorises a government which believes that to get itself out of its economic necessities it is necessary to reduce its commitments in the civilised world in which I believe it has the most finally to contribute. Therefore, I join with my noble friend Lord Hatch and others in repudiating the underlying principle which governs this particular measure, and hoping that even at the last this Government will see the error of their ways. It would not disturb me too much if public opinion unseated them. What does disturb me is that while they are here they are, in my judgment, creating an impression throughout the rest of the world which is not conducive to their own merit and certainly does not produce the kind of advantages which even economic stringency of a most required type would demand. It is in that sense that I venture to intervene this afternoon and to hope

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that this kind of barbarism will cease and in its place we shall learn to be a civilised community, believing, as I do, that what is morally right in the end can never be politically wrong.
4.22 p.m.
Lord HANKEY: My Lords, having been one of the delegates who was responsible for organising the foundation of OECD, with its great interest in development, and having subsequently served on the Development Aid Group of OECD, I agree with a great deal of the regret which has been expressed about the inevitable cutting down of development aid. But I underline the adjective "inevitable". It is always tempting to attack any particular section of expenditure on which reductions have to be made. The bald fact is that this country has been going down hill for years, and unless public expenditure is cut it will continue to go down hill and in 20 years we shall be a real slum. I am afraid it is inevitable. I regret it as much as anybody but it is inevitable that there should be cuts right across the board. The Foreign Office is having to make some and I think that cuts in development aid (among other things) right across the board are inevitable.
But from what has been said in this debate anyone would think that aid was being turned off altogether. It is not. The Ministry of Development Aid may not be called the Ministry but there will he an administration. I know from personal experience, because I co-operated with it closely, that the Development Aid Administration in the early 70's was extremely efficient, very hard working, and forward looking. I have no doubt that a great part of it will continue and I am sure that will continue to be equally efficient and equally sensitive.
I do not think it is fair to suggest, as my noble friend Lord Alport did—I am sorry that he is not in his place—that the Foreign Service may be less sensitive to the needs of foreign countries. In my experience they are extremely sensitive. Our embassies and legations are often teased by their fellows in our service for becoming so closely associated with the countries in which they work, and I know
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that it will be extremely good for them to be more closely connected with aid questions.
It is a good thing that we should look at aid against the whole background of our foreign policy requirements. By that I do not mean that we should be really tough about it. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hatch, that there have been certain developments in the United States of America which have been deplorable. I do not think they have treated Turkey very well. I could give any number of examples, but they have been extremely generous over the whole field and I see no reason why the United Kingdom should become unduly tough in its relations with other countries simply because we are going to have this extremely able department under the overall control of the Foreign Secretary. It is going to have a Minister of its own, and I am sure that he will have influence with our very able Foreign Secretary.
Finally, my Lords, there have been some happenings which have been hard to explain. I do not want to prolong the length of this debate, so I will give just one example. A year last August we gave an interest-free loan to Mozambique of £10 million and no repayment was going to take place until, mainly, the 'nineties. I think some repayment was going to take place in the 'eighties, but nothing very much. This was at a time when they were supporting Marxist guerrillas armed and financed by the Russians and the guerrillas were murdering nuns and school teachers, some of whom no doubt had had help from the British Council in the past. It did not seem to make any sense to give that loan. I was unable to get any explanation in this House. It went through, I think without any proper discussion here. That is just an example. I welcome the measures which are now being taken and I think the Government have been very reasonable about the matter.
Lord HATCH of LUSBY: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, may I just answer the point that he has made about the loan to Mozambique. In fact, the loan to Mozambique was a loan to a friendly country, a country which had just emerged from many years of colonial rule. It was a loan for development and

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it has been used for development, but, so far as the harbouring of guerrillas was concerned, those guerrillas who were being assisted by the Mozambique Government were in fact fighting against the rebels who were against the Queen.
4.27 p.m.
Lord TAYLOR of GRYFE: My Lords, I spend a good deal of my time travelling around the world financing industrial development, and that travelling includes frequent visits to the developing countries, and I want to ask the noble Lord just what the impact of the administrative changes will be on the excellent liaison which exists between the Department of Industry and the Overseas Development Ministry at the present time. Most countries which are engaged in financing international contracts, particularly in the Third World, have very substantial subvention from their aid programmes. It is a matter of vital importance to British industry that the continued relationship between the Department of Industry, which sometimes influences aid expenditure, should be continued, because in many parts of the world British contracts are lost on account of the element of aid that is built into the bids of other competitive countries. That is a matter which I should like to see clarified under the new arrangements.
The other point is this. I am filled with admiration for the work of the Ministry which is now to be absorbed into the Foreign Office, but I must say, too, that I try to be fair about this matter. I read the report of the debate in the other place, and I recognise that during the period of office of the last Government there were times of tension between that department and the Foreign Office. There were occasions when the policies were not entirely consistent. I have also listened to the argument today and, while I would prefer to see a degree of consistency between foreign policy and aid policy, I am afraid that the transfer of the department to the Foreign Office will mean that instead of consistency there could be domination by the Foreign Office. That would be unfortunate, although, as I say, in the light of my own experience I can see something in the argument. The debate today has gone well beyond the area of administrative
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change; it has developed into a debate on the whole subject of aid. Perhaps that might be more appropriate for a future occasion when we have more time to expand on this very important issue.
I must say that I cannot support a Government which is concerned with the defence of democracy and proceeds to interpret that defence in terms of increased military expenditure while cutting back on aid programmes, because democracy will survive not because of the strength of its arms but because of the power of its ideas. I believe we gain a great deal more from being charitable and generous and compassionate, and showing that we are that kind of society, than by engaging in the continued expansion of armament expenditure.
I hope that the Government will think twice about cutting aid in any form. We talk about the commitment to 0.7 per cent. of GNP, and I was delighted to hear the Minister's commitment to that as a long-term aim. But, you know, at the end of the war, when this country had been bombed, when many of our resources were depleted, this country committed itself to 1 per cent. of its GNP for reconstruction and aid to people who were less fortunate than we were. This country committed itself to 1 per cent. of its GNP to the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, and we were morally better people and we felt better for it. I would hope that our contribution to aid will make us more proud of our demorcatic society.
Lord NOEL-BAKER: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend to recall that after the 1 per cent. given by this country to UNRRA had been exhausted in constructive and most valuable work, a second 1 per cent. was voted by Parliament for that purpose within a year of the termination of the first expenditure.
4.33 p.m.
Lord HUNT: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, who is to reply, has heard an almost unanimous chorus of dissent and disapproval and regret at the Government's intention to dissolve the Ministry of Overseas Development and absorb it into the Foreign Office. I am sorry to have to add another voice to the regret, but I feel that I must stand up and do so.

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I had experience of the Ministry of Overseas Development in the 'sixties, and again with the administration when it was taken into the Foreign Office in the Heath Administration, and more recently when it was recreated a Ministry. I am in no position to say with proof that as an ODA, as district from an ODM, the ODA was notably swayed and influenced by Foreign Office policy when it came within the Foreign Office. What I am able to say with personal conviction is that as a Ministry, independent and separate from the Foreign Office, it was seen by the outside world to be administering aid to countries which, despite our own difficulties, were and are in greater difficulties, and doing so in an open and even-handed and impartial way. I think that a great deal of loss is incurred when that being seen to be independent and impartial ceases to be the case.
I have only one other point to make; namely, that my connection with the Overseas Development Ministry in. the `sixties came about through my being president of the Council for Volunteers Overseas. That council and the bodies which worked under its umbrella—VSO, UNA, IVS and the Catholic Institute for International Relations and other volunteer-sending bodies—recieved support and financial help from the Ministry. One thing I can say with absolute certainty is that the young people in this country who volunteer their help to countries and individuals in those countries who need help, do not do so because they are interested in British foreign policy. They are interested in the intrinsic troubles and needs which they hear about and in regard to which they have a basic urge to go and help.
I should like the Minister when he comes to reply to assure this House—as I hope he will be able to do—that the Council for Volunteers Overseas and its constituent bodies will continue to receive such help as the Government feel able to give, quite irrespective of the turns and twists of policies of the Foreign Office, and only on grounds of meeting that wish of young people to help other people overseas.
4.36 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of St. ALBANS: My Lords, I came this afternoon to listen and not to speak, but I am provoked to
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intervene briefly because Lord Hatch mentioned the anxiety of all the Christian Churches about this move to wind up the ODM, which has been such a friend to many of the more progressive movements, and for the international awareness of the Churches, and also because Lord Soper has testified to the degree of Christian unity that is felt on these issues.
It is a fact that the bishops of the Church of England, associated with some other bishops of the Anglican Communion, after considerable thought and some research, took the trouble to write a letter to Her Majesty's Government during the summer appealing for the Development Education Fund, a small sum of money but of considerable significance in the generation of understanding in this nation of voluntary aid development. We also associated that with a letter written about overseas students, a matter which is in a whole constellation of issues about which there is anxiety in the Christian conscience of this country. I have to say that we do not feel that representations of this kind have been treated with the seriousness they deserve. In my own immediate experience the Development Education Fund has created a network of centres around this country and has spawned a number of projects, of quite small dimension but of that voluntary character which should presumably appeal to the commendable attitude of the Government towards people taking responsibility for their conscience. This fund seems to have been lost with the department or else seems to have been terminated.
Secondly, in order to broaden out the question, I should like to say that in the early part of this year I spent three months in Eastern Europe, and in meeting young people, particularly in the universities, one was conscious of the extent to which there was present there a group from the Third World, from developing countries, with no money problems, receiving a great deal of hospitality and real priority to their education. Along with that, one could not help noticing that when Governments spoke to visiting prelates about matters they found unsatisfactory in one's country they rated highly what they might regard as "distortion" on the BBC. I was impressed to discover that an investment in truth is still something of which this country may be proud.

741
Apart from that, at the type of peace conference which is promoted in Eastern Europe the question often asked is: "How much is being done to educate the people of your country, as we do in our democratic society, about the needs of the poor of the world; and how far are you able to break out of the type of charmed circle of the converted as regards international awareness?" One had a card that one could play in such difficult debates. They were prepared to listen to that point and to turn off some of the denunciations of colonialism, Zionism and capitalism because it seemed to be a valid point and one which we had some experience in developing.
Therefore, it is a great disappointment to return to this country and discover that the Christian conscience must fight for these things now and in the years ahead.
4.42 p.m.
Lord RITCHIE-CALDER: My Lords, I commiserate with the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, in his now recognisable role as the receiver in political bankruptcy. He was the spokesman on the question of the World Service of the BBC. He had to defend an indefensible case. Today once again, he is the spokesman and the present Government have abandoned any attempt to appeal to heart and mind —they have abolished the mind by withdrawing access to it and they have forgotten the heart. This is a matter that I find most regrettable, not just as regards the high moral level to which my noble friend, the right reverend Prelate, Lord Soper, and many other speakers referred. In a sense it is much more than that because that would be unreal unless we meant what we said—that is, unless we backed it up by positive policies.
Like my noble friend Lord Taylor of Gryfe, I have travelled a great deal in the Third world and I happen to know a great deal about the mistakes which have been made by multilateral and indeed our own aid programmes. However, we have learned something very profound. I wish to point out to the noble Lord, Lord Somers, that his intervention showed once again how completely we misunderstand what we are talking about. This is not charity. I am not derogating charity. This is investment in the future
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of the world. It is investment in the future of Britain; and investment in all the high objectives for which any Government should be standing. We are now deliberately saying—and I have said it with great emphasis when I have travelled around, and it has been demonstrated by the right honourable Judith Hart—that we did know what we were doing. We knew what we were doing—but no longer. We are blundering once again into that utterly crazy world which we have helped to produce and as regards which our motives are the wrong motives. Aid should be a positive input or transfusion into the debilitated systems of the world. If we are to put that in the hands of a foreign policy which will manipulate SALT treaties on the one hand and buy Turkey on the other, then we shall destroy not only the people for whom we have withdrawn aid, but the credibility of this country totally. We have lived on that credibility and we have benefited from that credibility.
The noble Lord, Lord Soper, said that we do not, in fact, think that this country is down and out; it just looks like that because like the noble Lord over here we keep on saying that we are down and out. We are not down and out. We are a very rich country, but the use of our riches is misdirected. That is something that we must recognise beyond peradventure. Like what happened in a recent debate on the World Service of the BBC, what is happening today is that this country, this empire, is not going out with a bang; it is not going out with a whisper. Now it is going out with a whimper.
Lord HANKEY: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, I should like to say that I did not say that this country was down and out. I said that it had been going downhill for years. That is not quite the same thing. I share the noble Lord's view that this country is not down and out. On the other hand, I am sorry that he seems to imply that the Foreign Service cannot be trusted to deal with aid responsibly.
Lord RITCHIE-CALDER: My Lords, of course not. What we are talking about here should be basically a disinterested service—a disinterested recognition that we must invest in order to recover on these investments. That can only happen

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in a real world of development. What we are doing now is to say that we are not interested and that we shall demonstrate that aid is nothing else but the manipulation of foreign policy.
Lord MILVERTON: My Lords, I should like to say how much I agree with those who have expressed their concern. Many Church people and others would be most concerned if overseas aid was likely to become less; in any way weaker; or not so effective. The people of Chippenham—the area in which I live—sent a petition asking that, if anything, overseas aid should be increased. Many of us believe that we can give moral and spiritual aid and we must presumably trust that so far as possible overseas aid will be used for good rather than (shall I say?) "not good" things. As the noble Lord, Lord Soper, and the right reverend Prelate have said, many Church people will be concerned if this link—because that is what it is—becomes weaker and less.
4.49 p.m.
Lord GLADWYN: My Lords, before the noble Lord replies I should like to make one point and I shall take only two minutes. I do not think that anyone —the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, or the Government generally—can have any doubt as to the unpopularity, in this House at any rate, of the proposal to wind-up the Ministry of Overseas Development and to absorb it into the Foreign Office. There may be, as he says, a logical reason for doing so, and I would not dispute that. But it certainly will not be a popular move. The fact is that they have decided to do it. It is going to be done, and although people here may protest we must grin and bear it. If we do not like it, it is something that is over the bridge and we must recognise that it is going to be done.
I should like to point out that two years ago we had a debate on the Berrill Report, and we criticised to a large extent what the Think-Tank were proposing should be done in regard to the Foreign Service. But we disagreed totally with them on their proposals regarding the overseas programme of the BBC, and equally totally on their proposals for economies in regard to the British
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Council. Recently in this House we had a very good debate on the Overseas Services of the BBC. I do not know whether it was as a result of feeling in this House, but when the White Paper was published we noticed that the Government had had second thoughts and did not propose to cut the Overseas Services of the BBC by £4 million but only by £2·57 million. I believe that it is even conceivable that, due to the considerably greater uproar in another place, they may have second thoughts and not cut the Overseas Services of the BBC at all.
But as yet in this House we have had no debate on the very substantial proposed cuts that the Government want to make in the British Council's vote. think it was the noble Lord, Lord Hatch of Lusby, who said that effectively it was a cut of 15 per cent., which would have a very severe effect on the Council's activities. As I must relate this in some way to aid, I should like to know to what extent this very large cut will, for instance, affect the aid which is being organised and administered by the British Council. Can we be assured that this proposed cut of 15 per cent. will in no way affect the aid programme of the Government?
Finally, I should like to inquire when, if at all, we shall be able to discuss the proposed cut in the British Council vote in the same way as we recently discussed the proposed cuts in the Overseas Services of the BBC. I hope that when the Minister replies he will be able to give me some assurance on that point.
4.52 p.m.
Lord UNDERHILL: My Lords, it was my intention to intervene in this debate at the start and raise the matter of the British Council, but in view of a number of speeches that have been made I decided not to say anything. However, in the light of the debate I still believe that the Minister must tell us precisely what will happen as regards the British Council. It is not only a question of the educational work that the British Council performs; it is not only a question of the image which it gives of this country, the achievements of this country and the background of this country; but, even from the narrow angle of dealing with our friends in the world and letting them know precisely where we stand and of our own interest

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in creating the right atmosphere for our trade and services, one would have thought that the work of the British Council would have continued. As has rightly been said, following on projected cuts in the BBC External Services, this seems to be the height of folly. First, it is the best way to lose possible friends and, secondly, it is the best way to lose possible trade. I hope that the Minister will give us some assurance that this matter will be reconsidered.
4.53 p.m.
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, the order before the House this afternoon in no way relates to the total quantity of aid. It does not relate to how much money we should give to this or to that country; nor does it have anything to do with the matter so close to the heart of the noble Lord, Lord Hatch of Lusby, and indeed to the heart of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Saint Albans—development education.
The change which we seek to formalise by this order before your Lordships this afternoon is an adminstrative change. As I said in my opening remarks, there has been no reversal of policy upon the advent of this Government. The main thrust of overseas aid will proceed in the same direction as it did under our predecessors. Yes, we have had to review some of the figures that were put before us when we came to office, but so indeed would the other party if they had won the General Election. The noble Lord, Lord Hatch, disagreed with the figures which I have put before your Lordships, but my information is that the cuts which were made by his right honourable friend Mr. Healey were largely sustained, although I agree that a small percentage of the figure for the 1977–78 cuts was later restored—£25 million-worth of it.
Much has been made of the fact that under the previous Administration there was a separate, special Ministry for this purpose—as indeed there was—and we were led to believe that the Minister in charge of that Department, Dame Judith Hart as she now is, was a Cabinet Minister of high rank. I should not wish for one moment to decry her skill or her performance—certainly not from this Box. She was not in the Cabinet or, if she was, it was only for a short time. She was
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ultimately a Minister of State, in theory responsible to Dr. David Owen, who was then the Foreign Secretary. The present arrangement is that Mr. Neil Marten is a Minister of State responsible to my noble friend.
Complaint has been made that we shall now be associating our foreign policy too closely with our aid decisions. I believe that under the other Adminstration it went the other way. Your Lordships may recall that our predecessors undertook to supply ships to Vietnam. If ever there was a case of aid policy departing too far from foreign policy—because those ships were supplied under concessional terms—that was surely it.
One noble Lord referred to aid to Cambodia. It is perhaps right that I should tell your Lordships that there are two programmes of aid to Cambodia with which we are directly concerned. First, there is EEC aid. There is now a total —and I am compressing the figures before me—of 29 units of account being made available by the EEC for food and other supplies to Cambodia. We also have our own bilateral programme. We are making a bilateral gift of the equivalent of 5,000 tonnes of wheat in the form of 1,800 tonnes of rice; I am advised that rice is more nutritious for people in that part of the world and so one does not have to supply so much to provide the same nutritional value. We also have an aircraft which has been based in Bangkok for the last few weeks and which will remain there for a while yet.
Several noble Lords raised the matter of the British Council. The interests of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and of the Overseas Development Administration in the work of the British Council are rather different. The former is concerned with the Council's cultural and information work abroad and the latter is concerned with its educational and training aspects. For that reason, as your Lordships will appreciate, the British Council receives grants from both the overseas representation and the aid votes; and the Overseas Development Administration within the Foreign and Commonwealth Office will continue to have direct dealings with the British Council. I cannot pretend that the British Council will be exempt from consideration in the cuts which we are

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making, but we shall certainly do our best to ensure that the effect of those cuts is kept to a minimum.
The noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Gryfe, asked about relations or, if I can put it another way, the interface between the Department of Industry and the Overseas Development Administration. The new arrangements will not jeopardise the already excellent relationship which exists between the DOI and the ODA within the Foreign Office. As I said earlier, we are reviewing aid matters generally and, if we identify ways of improving the relationship we shall certainly implement them.
The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, also asked me about volunteers overseas. Again, I am not sure that that is directly related to this order, but I shall try to help him if I can. The Government fully recognise the invaluable contribution made by the Council and by the voluntary agencies generally. I can assure noble Lords that the help for such activities will continue to have priority. As I said at the outset of these closing remarks, this order is not about the total quantity of aid, nor even about our aid policies; it is about an administrative arrangement within the Government. For that reason, I hope that your Lordships will agree to it.
5 p.m.
Lord HATCH of LUSBY: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, may I ask him three specific questions arising out of his answer. First, he tried to convince us that there was no change in the policy of the new Administration so far as aid is concerned. Will he tell us whether or not the present Government believe in direct Government monetary support for development education? Secondly, he said that this was simply an administrative matter and suggested that there was no policy difference. Then he gave the instance of the ships to Vietnam, and commented on that that this was surely a big gap between the aid policy and the foreign policy. Does not this then imply that in future it will be foreign policy that decides what aid policy shall be?
Thirdly, in his reference to the British Council, he somewhat unctuously mentioned that he would try to keep the cuts to the British Council to a minimum. Is it not the case that the present cut to the British Council is 11.5 per cent., which
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may very well be in real terms next year 15 per cent., whereas the cut to the Foreign Office itself is a mere 3 per cent.?
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, I think that the noble Lord is stretching the rules of order somewhat to ask for those points "before I sit down". However, I shall do my best. May I take up the point of development education because the noble Lord, Lord Hatch, was not the only noble Lord to refer to this matter, and I know his interest in it. Of course it is important that people in Britain should understand the problems of development and the extent of our interdependence with the Third World.
The voluntary agencies, and many individuals, have for long led the way in explaining these issues, and we hope that they will continue to do so. What is in question, however, is how far this work should be boosted by Government funds. These must come from an aid programme which cannot be exempted from the general restraints that we must impose on public spending. Every pound spent on development education in Britain means one less pound available for direct spending upon aid overseas. We believe that most people would agree that our ability to provide direct help, whether for long-term development or short-term emergency relief, must come first. The previous Administration had ambitious plans to spend something like £9 million on development education over the next few years. These could not have been sustained. Our own spending will be over £600,000 this year. While I cannot say what will happen thereafter, we intend to provide enough over the next two years to allow existing schemes to come to fruition.
The noble Lord went on to complain about my reference to the ships for Vietnam. We maintain quite strongly that the decision taken by our predecessors to provide concessional facilities for the purchase of those ships by the Vietnamese Government was a mistake, and way out of line with our then foreign policy interests. The noble Lord also asked me about the British Council. I am afraid that I am not in a position to go further than what I have said already, except to say and re-emphasise that we shall do our best to see that the cuts which may inevitably have to be made in the budget of the British Council are kept to a minimum. I beg to move.
On Question, Motion agreed to:
Ordered that the said Address be presented to Her Majesty by the Lords with White Staves.

ECC 10th REPORT: PASSPORT UNION
5.4 p.m.
Lord GREENWOOD of ROSSENDALE Lord GREENWOOD of ROSSENDALE rose to move, That this House takes note of the Tenth Report of the European Communities Committee on a passport union in the European Community (R/1874/75) (H.L. 58). The noble Lord said: My Lords, there has been for me a certain irony in the debate we have just listened to because when I made my maiden speech in your Lordships' House nine years ago it was in opposition to the order amalgamating the old Overseas Development Ministry into the Overseas Development Administration. I thought that it was a mistake then, and nothing I have heard this afternoon has made me change my point of view. I say it with the greatest respect and affection for the Minister who is to reply to this debate. In my early days in another place I was frequently not wholly in harmony with the policies pursued by Mr. Ernest Bevin, but my heart was lifted when, on one occasion, he was asked the aim of his foreign policy and he said,
"It is to go to Victoria Station, get a railway ticket, and go where the hell I like without a passport or anything else".
It looked to me at that time as though the promised land was just around the corner, but it was not. The Cold War flourished, espionage became more intense, and terrorism began to acquire something akin to respectability. And the abolition of the passport became more and more a pipedream.
With those optimistic beginnings, I should never have expected that I should be speaking in your Lordships' House about the difficulties and dangers of getting rid of the passport system. But I am quite certain that all noble Lords who sat on the Select Committee and who studied this problem with care are fully seized of the difficulties and dangers that are involved. I should like to thank all noble Lords in the House who helped us to prepare the report; to wish the noble Lord, Lord Fairfax of Cameron, good
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luck when he comes to make his maiden speech in a few minutes' time; to thank our officials, the Government departments, and the other bodies who gave evidence to us; and also to thank the Lord President of the Council whose advice was absolutely invaluable to us in our early days.
We decided broadly that proof of identity will be needed so long as countries have to combat crime, including terrorism, or to control immigration, or to carry out deportations, or to conduct health checks. We must not fall into the trap of not appreciating that this country is not typical of most of our partners in the Community. We have a long island frontier; the points of entry are fairly easy to control; and if we did not have that advantage there would have to be a great deal more police supervision than I think would be generally acceptable to the people of this country.
The proposals that we studied originated in the Commission in 1974, and they were twofold. The first was that all Community nationals should have a uniform passport. That is to say, a passport which would show the country from which they came but would also include the fact that that country was a member of the Community. The second aspect was that passport control at internal frontiers should be abolished. The second possibility was quickly abandoned by the Community, and I shall therefore confine myself to the former proposal which is, I think, one which is at any rate superficially attractive.
Your committee would welcome a change, but—and I hope that this does not sound too Irish, if I dare use the adjective—only if it is a change of form and not of substance. We say that because the authority of passports differs from one country to another; the issuing power inside the country differs; the scope of the protection they give differs as well. I do not think that any of us would want to surrender anything which we regarded as being a specifically British characteristic, or benefit, in the passport that we carry.
But that does not mean, of course, that we should not adapt our passports so that in using them travellers would be symbolising a new growth in internationalism as well as proclaiming their national pride in their own land, and we

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summed up our general view in paragraph 26 of the report:
"The Committee support the proposal for a uniform European passport, as a modest symbol of the Community's identity, provided that passports retain their national character. The Committee strongly urge Her Majesty's Government to take a constructive part in any discussions on this proposal".
I think there would be a great deal of support for that point of view, and in my view it reflects very badly on the Community that they have not made more rapid progress in that direction.
Some of the objections that have come up in the course of discussions have been almost too trivial for words. On page 16 in the statement provided for us by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office there is a section entitled:
"Obstacles to agreement on a standard European passport".
It says:
"1. There is disagreement between Germany and the United Kingdom over the use of languages in the passport, and over the form of the outside cover.
2. The United Kingdom favours the use of the national language plus either English or French. The Germans favour the use of all six official Community languages plus Irish. With regard to the front cover, the United Kingdom favours the name of the issuing state to appear above the words ' European Community ': The Germans would prefer the words ' European Community' at the top".
That really seems so trivial that I think it appalling that it should have been necessary for us to receive evidence on a matter of that kind. I am fairly sure, and I believe most of my noble friends on the committee are fairly sure, that this passport will come, but not yet, and I was greatly encouraged to discover that Commissioner Davignan, that most urbane and civilised of men, took the same view as we did and seemed to have high hopes of something being achieved, even if in the not too near future.
In the meantime we must do whatever else we can to ease the traveller's way, and I think the most promising aid to facilitate travel, and one worthy of study is the machine readable passport, a project which has been greatly helped by the interest of the noble Lord, Lord Soames, and certainly it appealed to every one of us who sat on the Select Committee. In paragraph 23 we used a sentence of which we were rather proud:
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"At the turn of the twentieth century the passport came to terms with the camera; now is the time to bring it to terms with the computer".
In so doing, we moved the Select Committee, as it were, into the computer age because the machine readable passport is one which can be scanned by a machine and its details checked by computer. It would probably look like an existing passport with a machine readable section, rather like a credit card let into the cover. It would be readable by the human eye as well as by the machine; the information it absorbed would be quickly processed in the computer and basically it would have a number of advantages. It would be very quick; we have every reason to suppose it would be very accurate; it would be much less burdensome for the traveller; it would put less pressure on immigration officials; criminals could be more readily spotted and we could avoid those horrible black looks from which so many of us must have suffered at one time or another.
The initiative in promoting a machine-readable passport came from the International Civil Aviation Organisation, and the European Community have not entered this field. We were told by the Home Office that they were taking a leading role in international discussions about the standardisation of passports, but without any obvious results. Certainly we on the Committee were unanimous in supporting the principle of a machine-readable passport, and we should appreciate hearing from the Government what plans they have in this respect and what help they are giving to the necessary research.
There is one other suggestion we make which I should bring to your Lordships' attention which should make travel easier, and it comes towards the end of our report. There we suggest that as long as travellers are obliged to carry identity documents there might be a case for adding extra information on a purely voluntary basis. I emphasise that we were determined that it must be on a purely voluntary basis and that nobody should have to have this additional information on unless it was at their own request. It would be possible to include details, for example, of the holder's blood group, it could give his National Health Service number or his status under other national health regulations. If one's passport, one's

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machine readable passport, included items of information of that kind it would probably be much more effective in ensuring that anyone taken ill abroad got the right treatment, and it would probably save them a great deal of expense as well. We found that when we put this to the Commission they were sympathetic to it and we hope it will not be lost sight of in the discussions which we hope will be restarting once again.
The standard European passport has the committee's support but it is probably not a project which is worth undertaking on its own. If, on the other hand, it were part of a general campaign to make travel easier and was linked with the adoption of machine readable passports, it could do much more for the average individual in the European Community than at least some of the Directives and regulations with which the committee is usually concerned. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That this House takes note of the Tenth Report of the European Communities Committee on a passport union in the European Community (R/1874/75) (H.L. 58).—(Lord Greenwood of Rossendale.)
5.18 p.m.
Baroness ROBSON of KIDDINGTON: My Lords, I was delighted when I was invited by the noble Lord, Lord Greenwood, to join this Committee to examine the possibilities of introducing a European passport. I must say at once that unfortunately, because of many other commitments I had, I was not able to be present at all the Committee meetings, for which I am deeply sorry, but I attended some of them.
I accept every word the noble Lord, Lord Greenwood, said about the possibilities of moving towards a European passport or a European passport union. I am slightly sad that we should have to come to your Lordships' House with such a limited recommendation at the end of our deliberations. Paragraph 15 says:
"The Committee were therefore glad to learn from Commissioner Davignan that he considers this part of the proposals dead".
That is the part dealing with the passport union. I may be too much of an idealist, but I would say it was an over-statement to say I am glad the proposal is dead.
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I am one who believed that the creation of a European passport union would be instrumental in welding together the different peoples of the Community, and making a whole of it; so I cannot say that I am glad that the proposal is dead.
I accept that the difficulties that exist at the moment are such that we cannot proceed along those lines. As has already been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Greenwood, one of the saddest difficulties and greatest obstacles to the creation of a European passport union is the increase in terrorism that has taken place ever since the idea of the abolition of internal frontiers was first mooted. This I believe is a terrible indictment of modern society and an enormous threat to the democratic way of life in which all members of the Community believe; and this is what makes it so tragic.
In the report we also refer to the passport unions that exist in certain parts of the Community, such as the Nordic Union. We state—and it is true—that it is obviously easier to create a union among a small number of peoples of not very large populations, and of a very homogeneous way of life. I still believe that we can learn something from the way in which they are working their kind of union. I have made some inquiries, and it seems to me that the Nordic Passport Union works without the immigration laws and the terrorist laws being identical in all the countries. This is an interesting point. Immigration into the Nordic States is purely by work permit. If an immigrant enters illegally through Denmark, for instance, and he does not have a work permit, he then makes his way to Sweden and is discovered there without a work permit. On his passport it will be clearly stated that he entered through the Danish border. There is an agreement between the four Nordic nations that a person of that kind is immediately returned to Denmark because it is that country's responsibility to deal with that illegal immigrant. I believe that that kind of arrangement could be extended to an area greater than the four Nordic countries. Unfortunately the tourist arrangement in the Nordic Union is identical to that of many other countries among our European partners, under which a person has a permission to stay for three months and as he books in, a hotel is forced to register the fact that it has a foreign visitor

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staying—something which we in this country do not believe is the right kind of thing for us.
One objection contained in evidence given to us in the committee came from the British Airports Authority and it related to the problem of what would happen about duty-free drinks if there was a passport union. The Airports Authority claimed that it made enough on duty-free drinks to enable it to keep airport charges at a reasonable level. I inquired about what happens in Scandinavia. Although they have a complete passport union, if one travels between Sweden and Denmark, for instance, and one is in Denmark for more than 24 hours, one is entitled to take duty-free drinks back from that country to Sweden. Your Lordships may ask how does this happen if one does not have a passport and one has free access; it happens on one's return ticket. It is possible, I believe, to work systems of that kind.
We should not assume that a passport union in the Community is dead for ever. If we do, we are abrogating our belief in the Community as a whole. I accept that it is not feasible at the moment. Nevertheless, I am sad that we have to come to the House and give your Lordships that advice.
The noble Lord, Lord Greenwood, mentioned one other point related to the computerised passport, particularly with reference to health information being stated on a passport, and I agree with him a hundred per cent. that this should be voluntary, not compulsory. I wonder whether even before we have a European passport Her Majesty's Government would look into the matter so as to help people who are having problems with Form E 111. If nationals of this country voluntarily ask to have health information put on their British passports at the moment, would that not be helpful to the people of this country? I join with the noble Lord, Lord Greenwood, in sincerely hoping that the Government will do their best to further this first step towards a uniform European passport.
5.26 p.m.
Lord FAIRFAX of CAMERON: My Lords, I understand that a maiden speech in your Lordships' House should preferably be short and uncontentious, and
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should be delivered on a subject of which the novice knows something. Of these criteria I can promise to fulfil the first, and I do not expect to infringe the second, for I hope that it would not be presumptions to say that at the beginning of its deliberations the committee found the question wholly uncontentious. This was a subject not to inflame passions, but to be approached with an open mind. There were no strong partisan views. For that reason it is perhaps a particularly appropriate subject for a maiden speech. So far as the third condition is concerned, I should like, first, to thank the noble Lord, Lord Greenwood of Rossendale, for having given me the opportunity to acquire some expertise on this subject. It is an opportunity for which I am particularly grateful. So, although I do not pretend to speak with any great expertise on the subject, nevertheless I can come before your Lordships feeling less like David before Goliath than I otherwise might have done.
Turning now to the substance of the report, let me say at first that I shall try not to cover any of the ground that has been covered in previous speeches. There are two distinct limbs to the report. The first concerns the question of introducing a uniform passport. The second is the much more ambitious concept of establishing a passport union, a free travel area. It was thought that within such an area the citizen, whether or not from a member country, would be able to roam freely without check or hindrance. It is a grand idea, and it is entirely consistent with the ethos of the Treaty of Rome and its provision for freedom of movement. Proponents of such a scheme could point —as the noble Baroness has done—to the Nordic travel area and the special arrangements that at present exist between the United Kingdom and Ireland. But unfortunately the problems posed and the hurdles to be vaulted are enormous.
Both the schemes that I have mentioned depend upon a far greater homogeneity of policy and law than exists at the moment between, for instance, the United Kingdom and either Italy or Germany. The implications for immigration of both humans and animals, security, and the control of terrorism and crime are vast, and in my view are undoubtedly unacceptable to member Governments, given the state of our nations at the

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beginning of the 1980s. For instance, the obvious trick for someone wanting illicitly to get himself, his cat, or his cocaine to a particular place within the Community would be to enter the Community at a slack point and from there he could expect to travel as freely as a bird throughout the countries within the Community It seems fairly clear to me, then, that attractive though the concept of a Common European Community free travel area may be, at the moment it is not a viable proposition.
Furthermore, given that the aim is to make travel not only easier but swifter, it is difficult to see how passport union, standing by itself, could achieve this without the simultaneous abolition of other checks at frontiers which are not based on the passport. I am thinking of things like Customs and health checks. For example, I understand the preoccupation with preventing the arrival on our shores of rabies. These checks clearly cannot go, but they certainly hold the traveller up; and the time it generally takes to go through passport control fades into insignificance in comparison with the time it takes a juggernaut driver to clear all his documentation with the relevant authority at a frontier, or for an airline passenger to retrieve his luggage, if he can find it at all. It is not for nothing that a cynical slogan for modern air travel may be, "Breakfast in Brussels, lunch in London, luggage in Los Angeles". With substantial problems like these, to abolish passport control within the Community would, I feel, be misguided, would help little and would simply open up Pandora's box.
However, as your Lordships have heard, there are two limbs to this question which the Committee has studied in its report, and realistic prospects of progress look brighter on the second limb, which is that of introducing a standard-form European passport for use by citizens of European Community countries. In the first place, I feel it would be a tangible symbol of European unity. At the same time, I recognise that, particularly in this country, there may he a fervent reluctance to use a document which could be seen as yet another token of the subjugation of this country's individuality and identity to Europeanism. Without doubt a passport is something which people really feel
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represents, not a nationality but also nationalism and patriotism. For that reason, I do not think that the possibility of strong, popular reaction against the possibility of introducing a common-form European passport should be underestimated.
On the other hand, standardisation would offer a useful opportunity to incorporate into the passport some of the new innovations about which we have heard this evening. In the first place, it seems worth while looking into the question of making passports machine-readable. This would mean that passports could be scanned electronically by a machine, which would itself be linked to a central data bank. It is clear that a method like that would be much more efficient in, for instance, detecting those people who in the normal course of events would be refused entry into a country, such as, fugitive offenders. There would be no need to have those massive lists of names, the size of telephone directories, which you find at some ports of entry, where you have the hapless passport authorities flicking through them. With a machine-readable passport, the name would trigger the base in the data bank, and somebody who was not meant to enter the country could quickly be detected far more efficiently. Therefore, I would hope that not only would a machine-readable passport be more efficient but it might also be quicker, which is really, I suppose, the essence of what we are talking about.
Secondly, there has been talk of including in the passport data relating to health. It seems to me that the bearer's blood group could very usefully be included, and those further details which at the moment are supposed to be included on Form E111. Before I sat on this Committee I certainly had not heard of Form E111, and I do not think anybody else had; but, simultaneously, there appeared in the papers several advertisements explaining its use to the readers of those papers. I think the substance of it is that if you fill in this form you are entitled to a certain amount of reciprocal, free medical attention in those countries within the European Community where it is applicable. I was unfortunate enough to be involved in a car accident in France this summer, and I know that none of the people on board who were injured—

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and, luckily, that did not include me—was armed with this E111; and they were therefore denied the opportunity of being afforded medical aid on a free basis, to which they might otherwise have been entitled if they had been armed with E111s. If that sort of information could be included in the passport, I feel that would be a very worthwhile innovation.
In conclusion, my Lords, I feel that, superficially, a free travel area probably holds enormous appeal. It is a delightful thought, that you could skip within the European Community from one country to another without having to show any form of identification at the frontiers; and it would be the essential test, I suppose, of a European Community which had the attribute of a single country. But, of course, in practice it is totally unattainable; and it could not be achieved simply by abolishing passport checks, as I have tried to show. There are other checks which simply cannot go, so abolishing passport control would not help at all.
Conversely, what is possibly attainable —namely, the introduction of a common-form European passport, which would be a tangible symbol of European unity—might, I feel, attract universal derision, almost, from those citizens of the European Community, and particularly people in this country, who would feel that it was a token of the further erosion of their national identity; and I feel that there might be a strong reaction against any mooted idea of introducing such passports. But if a new passport like that could be shown to have proper advantages, incorporating the innovations of which I have talked—more efficiency, more speed to the traveller—then it may be an appropriate moment to attempt to launch a common-form European passport in the continuing interest of European unity and harmony.
5.37 p.m.
Lord MURRAY of GRAVESEND: My Lords, this is the first opportunity I have had in your Lordships' House to congratulate a maiden speaker, and I should like to do so most sincerely for a very lucid, articulate and concise speech. The only thing I found missing was the controversy. However, I thought that, in his opening, t0he noble Lord, Lord Fairfax of Cameron, also felt that controversy
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might be in order on another occasion, perhaps, and I am certain that he will enter into any controversies which arise in this House. On behalf of your Lordships, I should like to thank him for his maiden speech.
This is a very welcome and very thorough report, and I found that it was a mine of useful information. One of the things that is happening in this country is that when we talk about the European Community we all get obsessed with sheepmeat, wine lakes and beef mountains, and in many ways we begin to lose sight of what perhaps we should be doing in Europe, and of what we are perhaps not doing. Because I believe that people in this country feel that they are not part of the European Community, and that they are no more part of it than they were on the day of accession——1st January, 1973. I think that this House and the other place, and politicians generally, ought to be doing more, rather than just talking about the problems of sheepmeat. We know that those problems are serious, but rather than talking about all the economic difficulties I think we ought to talk about some of the wider things that we can be doing in Europe—and a uniform passport is one of the ways in which we can move in that direction.
The noble Lord, Lord Greenwood of Rossendale, quoted Ernie Bevin over 30 years ago, when he spoke of how he would like to see people moving all over the world without the necessity of passports. The problem, I think, is that when Ernie Bevin said that it was in the time when Lancaster aircraft were converted to carry eight people and they were using old-fashioned York and Hastings aircraft, not when they were carrying 31 million passengers in and out of Britain, as they did in 1978. I think that is one of the problems: it is the sheer volume. In the late 1940s, during the term of office of the first Labour Government after the war, I do not think anybody believed that there would be the rush, the bustle, the movement of people that there now is every day of the week, every week of the year. That has partially made the difference. It is easy for a PLO terrorist to get on a plane from the Middle East and to be in London within half a day and for terrorists, of whatever sort, to be moving all over the world, threatening

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people wherever they go, because the world has shrunk in terms of passenger travel.
I think that some of the suggestions in the report for removing some of the difficulties of travel ought to be investigated by the Government—outside, in a way, the European Community and the way we handle this question within the Commission. We have to remember that the Commission set up a working party which has done absolutely nothing for the last two years. It may be that this Government ought to give some impetus on the problems of obtaining and using uniform passports. There is no doubt that one of the problems about travel arises when people arrive at their destination: the difficulty is the time that people sometimes have to spend in waiting to clear through immigration and customs and in waiting for their baggage which, as the noble Lord, Lord Fairfax, has said, may be in Los Angeles while they are in London.
I think that the question raised in the report about the machine-readable passport ought to be seriously considered. Perhaps we have some problems at London Airport when we arrive, but I do not think our problems are anything like the problems of arrival in New York when they go through the book that they have to check you out, or check your visa. You may be waiting in the queue for almost an hour to get through immigration control. Certainly, the US, which prides itself on its computerisation, ought to be looking at this as seriously as we are.
One of the things which is noticeable when travelling by car in Europe—apart from the controls in London and Brussels—is that for the rest of the time, you easily can sail across, or motor across, borders between Germany and Luxembourg and Luxembourg and France without (unless a terrorist check is on) much let or hindrance. That is noticeable because we happen to be on the external frontier.
On the question of a uniform passport, I may say that I was fortunate to be one of the delegated Members to the European Parliament for three years. Members of that Parliament had what was to all intents and purposes a uniform passport. They insist on calling it a Laissez-passer. Nevertheless, it was a uniform passport.
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I never used mine when I came into Britain. Some of my colleagues did so and had great difficulty in getting past immigration with that uniform passport. I did not use mine because the officials had to read through everything before they decided whether one was allowed in. But it was a uniform passport.
I never heard of any difficulty which was occasioned by the order in which the languages were used on the European passport. This one, starts in Danish and ends in Dutch. Nobody, as far as I know, argued in the European Parliament about whether their language was first, second, third, fourth or fifth. Certainly, the German objection is a rather strange one, in terms of the number of languages, in wanting the addition of Irish. In the European Parliament itself none of the documents is in Irish. They have the standard languages but they do not distribute documents in Irish. I found it strange that the Germans wanted suddenly to introduce Irish on to the passport.
There was one thing in the report which I was hoping it would bring out further, but it did not. I understand the Committee went to London Airport and talked with immigration officers. I wish there had been in the report some written evidence from them as to their views on the introduction of a uniform passport or the relaxation of passport rules.
One of the other things which I think the Government should think about—again it is outside this report—is the question of Form E 111. I think it is serious because we are told that citizens from all over the world can come to this country and receive medical treatment. There are people who say that it is abused. I do not believe it is. I do not think that somebody who comes to this country on holiday or business and who suddenly falls ill should have to worry about whether they can pay the sum of x, y or z.
It seems to me that the Government should be working on reciprocity, certainly within the Community, without the bother of E 111. I would take the view that the production of a British passport, without any documentation, ought to be all that is necessary to receive medical treatment. The document raises the question of how many people apply for form

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E 111. I did so before I went on holiday. I think it is another burden, in a sense, on the National Insurance offices. They have to do this job, to issue these documents, have them filled in and arrange the necessary signatures and stamping. I see no reason why, if you are a British subject, and there is a reciprocal arrangement with some European country, you should not use your passport as proof; and that that is all that is needed.
I think that one of the other anomalies that I was disturbed about in the report —again it is outside the terms of reference of the report—was the letter from Shelton Orsborn on the question of fuel importation into Europe. I found it ludicrous that coaches with parties of tourists going to France were being stopped and having the diesel fuel in the tanks measured and, if it was over 100 litres, they were fined on the spot and had all sorts of problems. Not only that, but a Mr. Gilby, who wrote the letter, said that they could be going along the road after leaving the port and be stopped again and fined again. And they had the same problem in crossing the German border. I do not think that we ought to accept that. It is in the report and I think if it is true—and I have no reason to doubt it—the Government should be doing something about that outside the Community purely on the basis of some reciprocal arrangement. I understand that the same thing does not apply when French or German coaches come to this country. Regarded from those points of view alone, it is a valuable report.
One of the other things I should like to do is to congratulate the Passport Office on their work over the past 10 years. From the figures given in the report, we learn that they issued this year half a million more passports than they did 10 years ago; and the staffing figure is only nine above what it was 10 years ago. That is remarkable. We hear a lot of criticism in Parliament, in this House, in the other place and outside, of civil servants; and the criticism in very many cases we know is unjust. We ought to congratulate the Passport Office on their work.
It is a very valuable report. I think that if the Government do not act on the uniform passport—and I realise the diffi-
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culties; and the report outlines the difficulties—certainly some of the points raised in this report ought to be raised outside the Commission and the European Assembly and dealt with fairly quickly by this Government.
5.49 p.m.
Viscount AMORY: My Lords, I should like with enthusiasm to support the congratulations which the noble Lord, Lord Murray, offered my noble friend Lord Fairfax of Cameron on his excellent maiden speech. I do so with added enthusiasm because, 70 years ago, either the noble Lord's grandfather or his great-grandfather took me out shooting. That was 70 years ago, when I was 9¾ years old. I do not want my noble friend Lord Fairfax to interrupt me at this point, for he will probably say: "No, it was my great-great-grandfather who took you out shooting."
I agree entirely with the observations that our chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Greenwood of Rossendale, has made and the excellent exposition he made, which means that there is very little I need say. Also, I agree with the excellent points made by my noble friend Lord Fairfax of Cameron. I hope that anything I say will be treated with reverence because, as I told the committee, my first passport—and, for all I know, the passport I am still using—begins: "I, George Nathaniel Marquess Curzon …" which shows that it is now quite a dated document.
There are many burning issues in the EEC now; but from the evidence the committee received, the passport union does not seem to be among them, either in the United Kingdom or in other EEC countries, as things stand at present. Anything approaching passion was notably absent from the evidence that we received. As the noble Lord, Lord Greenwood, said, the original proposal for the passport union seemed attractive and in line with EEC philosophy. In the five years since then, as the report said, discussions have been desultory and progress minimal. The original proposals, the noble Lord, Lord Greenwood, said, involved two practical steps: a common form of passport, and the termination of internal and external checks.
It seems astonishing, so far as the first goes, that four or five years' discussions at official levels should not have produced

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an agreed common form. Active interest, support and prodding at ministerial level does not seem to have taken place. What we are talking about is, of course, as the noble Lord, Lord Greenwood, said, a change of form and no great change of substance. It is difficult to believe that, if Ministers had exerted pressure on their officials, the relatively simple matter of devising a common form would not have been solved by now. It must be remembered of course that the passport that results must be usable for all countries and not only for EEC travel. In passing, I should like to say how much I agree with the tribute that the noble Lord, Lord Murray of Gravesend, paid to the officials of the passport office. It is very well deserved indeed.
As regards the other aim, of the removal of checks, the practical difficulties are obviously much more formidable. Sadly, it needs saying that today the needs of security and even immigration control seem greater than ever, and the police forces in every country have a hard enough job to do at present with security. It is clear the possession of some means of identification for people crossing frontiers, both external and internal, is going to continue to be necessary in present conditions. So unfortunately the laudable aim of the late Ernest Bevin for absolutely free, documentless travel is not at present realisable.
As the committee say in paragraph 26 of their report, since passport control cannot be ended, the object must be to make control as light and quick as possible This seems an eminently sensible approach. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Greenwood, that one way in which the committee were impressed was with the possibility of devising a machine-readable passport which would also be capable of course of being read by the human eye. This we were told was probably technically feasible and therefore should be practically considered. Another was by the incorporation on a standard passport of certain additional information relating to health requirements. The noble Lord, Lord Murray, doubts whether they would be needed as an addition. If they were, and if they are, then the question should be considered whether they could not be incorporated in a single passport.
We were not, however, optimistic about
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progress being made even with these limited objectives unless Ministers took a renewed interest in these questions and provided an impetus. Vicomte Davignon seemed alone to have retained a degree of hopeful optimism. There are some issues of course about which, in spite of lack of progress, one can feel comforted by what one of our distinguished predecessors called the "inevitability of gradualness". In this case, there is no such inevitability of progress with the number of pressing problems which the EEC has. I believe that the committee are right in the report which has been prepared under the beneficent and wise chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Greenwood, to urge Her Majesty's Government to press forward with a limited number of improvements and simplifications which seem to the committee to be well within the field of practicability.
5.57 p.m.
Lord PLANT: My Lords, may I too pay tribute to the excellent speech of the noble Lord, Lord Fairfax of Cameron. I hope that we shall hear more from him. I want also to pay tribute to the excellent chairmanship of my noble friend Lord Greenwood, who gave us a very wide brief and helped us to prepare a document which I think will be of some value to the Government in pressing ahead with the issues that we have before us. When Ernest Bevin made his statement I agree that there was not the flow of passengers and travellers that there is today. We have to accept that it is not possible to do what he thought could be achieved even during his tenure as Foreign Secretary. Terrorism and other issues mean that the passport has to be retained.
However, if we have to retain the passport and we are members of the European Economic Community the Government must make things more flexible and thus give less cause for irritation to visitors to the United Kingdom and to citizens of the United Kingdom visiting other parts of the EEC. While it is true that generally the United Kingdom immigration service investigate outward and inward travellers more thoroughly than most other countries, they certainly give an air of great efficiency and a complete absence of official or bureaucratic rudeness—something that I have encountered in other countries. Some travellers seem afraid of immigration

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and customs formalities; probably they have read too many novels. If therefore we can not only speed the flow, but also reduce personal confrontation, we shall do much to help travellers. So I believe that a further review by the Commission may lead to some harmonisation of passport laws. That is surely not too difficult if we are to make steady progress to further integration. A machine-readable passport clearly has to come. The committee are right in pressing the Commission to study seriously machine-readable passports and brush aside the many difficulties which will be suggested. The present leader of the House told us that he was very much in favour of the machine-readable passport, and if your Lordships read page 41 of the report you will see what he had to say.
Like my noble friend Lord Murray of Gravesend, I accept that too many of us think of ourselves as within the EEC but still not part of it. It would help towards further integration and a feeling of unity if we had a common passport. It should be of the same colour and the same format but retaining distinguishing sovereign marks, probably on the cover. I, too, am greatly in favour of some health statistics in the passport and of using it in some way to help travellers with the problems of form E 111. I think the suggestions made by the noble Baroness, Lady Robson, and my noble friend Lord Murray should be considered by the Government.
The committee have done well to urge further consideration of the whole issue and I believe they have given some impetus to the Government and, I hope, to the Commission to review these problems with alacrity. Like my noble friend Lord Murray, I had a laissez-passer when I was a member of the governing body of the International Labour Organisation. I certainly never used it to get into the United Kingdom—it would only have delayd matters—but it was accepted very freely in Switzerland and in France.
My noble friend Lord Greenwood has emphasised some of the objections we encountered. Many of them, as he said, were trivial but they were a demonstration of national pride, and if the European Economic Community means anything for the future it is that some national traditions have gradually to dis-
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appear. I believe that the acceptance of this report by your Lordships will give a much needed impetus to the Commission urgently to consider the many problems which clearly have to be solved.
6.3 p.m.
Viscount ULLSWATER: My Lords, I should very much like to add my congratulations to those of others before me on the maiden speech of my noble friend Lord Fairfax. He has shown us a glimpse of his agile brain and, with his barrister's mind, he will be able to enlighten your Lordships on divers subjects in the future. I am sure we would welcome that. I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Greenwood of Rossendale, for putting down the Motion before us tonight. The noble Lord has put the case for acceptance of this report most succinctly and has picked out really all the salient points the committee discussed from the report. I had the honour to be a member of that committee and I think it came to the only conclusion that was possible. I would just go over one or two of the opinions they gave.
In the first instance, there is still a need for an identity paper of some kind, and the passport is the internationally recognised one. It provides a check on the movement of criminals and terrorists, and I would venture to say that the last few days have shown how difficult it is to take men like Jacques Mesrine or to apprehend an escaped convict like Michael O'Rourke, who must have passed out of one country and into another undetected. I do not think it is fair to the public at large to allow such men to wander around Europe unchallenged, and so a passport is needed to check undesirables. Immigration control is another stumbling block for the free movement of people from one country to another and, while these controls remain, a passport showing the nationality of the holder will be required.
The committee went on to press for a machine-readable passport. In my own mind, it will not significantly speed up the traveller because the time spent on passport control is not as great as that spent on the baggage claim area for a holiday or business journey. Immigration control will always take a certain length of time which an EEC passport, as opposed to a national passport, will not

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alter. However, on the plus side, a machine-readable passport will allow the provision of a greater number of ingress or egress points controlled by a supervisor and, where baggage is not involved, a faster passage through frontiers.
Perhaps the most important improvement to present-day passports, which has been mentioned once or twice before, would be the inclusion of the health status of the holder: by that I mean not only the current vaccination certificates needed for travel all over the world but, perhaps more importantly, with the harmonisation of health controls among Member States, the provision of free hospitalisation and medical attention for United Kingdom passport holders in the eight, and soon to be 11, other countries of the EEC—thereby overcoming the necessity of filling in form E 111 before the journey is started. The foregoing matters led the committee to their conclusion as pointed in the report. It is a conclusion with which I concur, and I hope Her Majesty's Government take note of this report and are more prepared than their predecessors to see the move continued.
I should like just to ask your Lordships to cast your minds forward to the reasonably near future—say in five years, or 1984. I think there will be a demand for greater information and the compiling of more statistics to control a more mobile world, with improved communications. Government bodies will be looking to monitor more closely the shifts in population, and their make-up on an age pattern, in order to provide the educational and welfare facilities that will then be needed. I believe we must take a pragmatic view of what life may be like in the future, and I think it is unreasonable to believe that the freedom of movement which we think of as being a possibility now will not in fact become possible. It may prove difficult to accommodate those from the poorer parts of the North of England, Southern Italy, parts of Spain and Portugal or the Greek islands who migrate to well-paid jobs in Germany, Belgium or the South-East of England. It would put a great strain on the social and welfare provisions of these relatively small areas, and the setting up of so-called "ghetto labour-forces" which upset all the local inhabitants. This touches also on immigration and its control. I believe that the integration of different ethnic popula-
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tions will not take place if there are too many migrants to be swallowed into a native population. I do not discount, either, the added pressure of colour integration.
My prediction, if it should be spoken of in that way, is of a world of even greater violence—not from the general breakdown of law and order but from the upsurge of more vociferous minority groups, each with its own interpretation of freedom. Crime, or the detection of crime, is increasing and criminals have a tendency to resort to greater violence to achieve their unhealthy aims. Community responsibility is diminished by the onslaught of so much collective State intervention. This intervention is the root of documentation and, because of this need for increased documentation, it will be necessary for us all to carry a form of identification permanently with us. I think that George Orwell has come uncomfortably close to the truth. Between now and 1984, however, the move towards common citizenship in Europe may be apparent, and I urge Her Majesty's Government to reflect on the content of this report and to support the conclusion that the Select Committee reached.
6.11 p.m.
Lord INGLEWOOD: My Lords, I should first like to add my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Fairfax of Cameron. I think he made a good choice of subject for a maiden speech, and it certainly was a good maiden speech. I shall try not to repeat the points that have already been made in this debate, but it will be difficult to keep entirely to new matter. First, I shall mention Mr. Bevin, because when passports are talked about his remark often comes to the fore, and I do not think he is by any means the only one among us who has had that romantic view. Certainly, many people to whom I have talked since this committee was sitting echoed his wishes, and felt that probably those in charge of the different systems of control that we have at frontiers are altogether too bureaucratic. We in the committee did not find that at all, but I think that the general public believes it.
It is no good being romantic today. One hundred years ago there was much less travelling abroad and a passport was

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not strictly necessary. But over the last 50 years there has been a great increase in travel by all classes. People are now travelling more often, they are travelling farther, they are travelling faster, there is an increase in crime—not just terrorism, but serious crime and minor crime—and there is greater awareness of health hazards. All this points to the fact that we must have some form of checks—identity documents—and checkpoints where documents are examined.
What we in Parliament, and Governments, have to do is to search for a fair balance between a too tight bureaucratic system of control, and a system that is so lax that it is ineffective. We, of course, are members of the European Community but we are not always so ready to notice that we are in a different position from other countries because we are an island. That means, in particular, that our controls at points of entry on the frontier can be very different from what there would be if we had nothing but land frontiers. Also, as a country we have a great dislike of identity cards, such as is not shared by other members of the Community who find them of great use.
Not so long ago a German police officer of some seniority, who was on a course in this country, said to me, "What the English fail to see when they criticise the German system of identity cards is that in Germany there are far fewer arrests on the streets and far fewer nights spent in detention at police stations, because we have a much better system of identification and more knowledge of people's permanent place of abode". That hardly comes within this debate, but it shows that some of the things that happen on the Continent which we dismiss may not necessarily have all the disadvantages that we are apt to suppose. What we want is a system that is acceptable and that is not extravagant in manpower.
One suggestion, which has not yet been mentioned this evening, is: Why can we not have passports examined on boat trains, such as between the Channel ports and London? It happens on the Continent. Surely that would save a great deal of time here. I knew a British police officer who, some time ago, was on official attachment to a Continental force and who found that part of his duties on
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the other side of the Channel was examining passports on trains. He told me that one should not run away with the idea that such a check can be other than a very simple examination, because if you have some slight suspicion that some detail has been scratched out and something else written in, you can hardly do much in a railway compartment in poor light to check with six or more passengers very close to you. Further, unless you maintain a certain speed in going down the train, the chances are that the train arrives at the station where many of the passengers will get out without their passports having been examined at all.
All the same, I am sure that we are right to work towards a passport that is, in part, readable by machine. Such a passport could still be read in the ordinary way by control staff, because there are not many countries which would find it worth their while, at the start at least, to make a very big investment in the equipment for reading such documents, which has to be the same all over the world. There is just one other point about the passport that is machine-readable, which has not been mentioned. There will be some number or code embodied in it, which the owner of the passport would know but which no thief could read. The owner of the passport would push it into a slot and would tap out a code. If the code that he typed out was the same as the invisible code on the passport he would get a green light and go through. If it was not, then a red light would come on—I am speaking figuratively—and some official down the line who was checking at the barrier would see that there was something wrong and would go and see for himself.
But none of these checks that we are talking about is any real defence against incompetence or sheer awkwardness. I went to Czechoslovakia on business only about a month ago, and on my return the staff were just pure awkward. It was very easy going in, and my colleague was even asked why a Member of your Lordships' House did not have a special passport and should be travelling on an ordinary passport. So much for the classless Communist Eastern Europe! But on the way back I was held up for a very long time, for no good reason that I could see, except that the men at the barrier wandered into

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a vineyard alongside to pick grapes. A machine-readable passport is no defence against that kind of mentality.
I am glad that the EEC have given up the idea of checks at internal frontiers. It would be placing an impossible task on the staff checking documents on the perimeter. Even if, in theory, we harmonised the immigration rules of the different members of the Community, there would frequently still be special regulations dealing with health and so on. The amount of knowledge and information that would have to be in the heads of those checking passports at the perimeter is beyond what one could expect of any official.
There is one other point that has not been mentioned. Although we talk of other countries having identity cards and, to some extent, duplicating the system by having both a passport and an identity card, we in this country issue a so-called Visitor's Passport as well as the normal one. I heard not long ago of the case of a man charged with drug offences, who when his passport had run out had obtained a Visitor's Passport and had since been travelling about the Mediterranean. I thought it was worth going to a main post office this morning to find out whether I could get one too. I got an application form and found that if I signed only once at the bottom—a false declaration—I could have a Visitor's Passport handed to me across the counter. There was no reason for this application to be countersigned by anyone else, and by making just one false declaration, saying that I did not hold another valid passport, it would have been given to me and I could have shown it to your Lordships here this afternoon. This is something that we ought to look into.
I have also been told by a friend in the police that, having got the second document, I could go abroad on it with my real passport in my pocket. I could then give my real passport to some friend who might like to come to this country, but who would rank as an illegal immigrant and come back on any Visitor's Passport. With my real passport he could then unpick it and fake it in various ways. Tam asking whether the existence of these Visitors' Passports may well contribute to the number of real passports falling into wrong hands. I must not expand on
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that, but I thought that the point was worth making.
Viscount AMORY: My Lords, I think that the point made by my noble friend is very well worth making, and I hope he will pursue it further. What he told me about the ease with which you can get these Visitors' Passports really horrified me.
Lord INGLEWOOD: My Lords, it horrified me, too, and that is why I went to a post office to check. There is, perhaps, a perfectly good reason and purpose behind it, but it seems to me that it is all too easy to get something which is called a passport and which has the same validity when travelling around the countries which are listed in it. When the noble Lord winds up, no doubt he will be able to say something about all this. I do not want to exaggerate or give the wrong impression, but I do think that the present position invites cheating.
If we have common rules for the issue of passports within the Community, we ought also to work towards common rules for refusing passports and for taking them away in the very rare cases where this should happen. All this supports the case of the noble Lo: that at the present time the best thing that we can all do in our several countries is to work towards a passport part of which is machine-readable. We must move step by step.
One speaker mentioned that after a long period very little progress had been made by the Commission and their officials. I hope that this debate will encourage all those concerned to look again at this whole question and to take some steps forward, even if they cannot take all the steps forward that we feel are desirable at this time.
6.21 p.m.
Lord BRUCE of DONINGTON: My Lords, we on this side of the House and I am sure all noble Lords wish to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Greenwood of Rossendale, and his committee on the production of yet another excellent report. Despite its slimness, this report is encyclopaedic when one considers the extent of the information that it contains. After reading through it, one is bound

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to know a very great deal indeed about the underlying reasons for bringing forward proposals for some kind of passport union in Europe and also about some of the facts which have a bearing upon it.
I should also like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Fairfax of Cameron, on his maiden speech. Bearing in mind that it was non-controversial, it displayed a degree of virtuosity. We look forward very much indeed to being informed by him when, as is inevitable after the passage of time, he adopts a more controversial role.
Turning to the points which have been made by the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, I do not propose to deal with them myself. However, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, will be able to comment upon the remarks that were made by the noble Lord during the latter part of his speech.
Today we are considering a report produced by the Select Committee on the European Communities, of which we are invited to take note. It has arisen from a communiqué issued at the European Summit meeting held in Paris in 1974. This provided for a working party which, among other things would—
"study the possibility of establishing a Passport Union and, in anticipation of this, the introduction of a uniform passport.… It will, in particular, provide for stage-by-stage harmonization of legislation affecting aliens and for the abolition of passport control within the Community".
If there is one thing which has emerged from the report and, indeed, from the contributions of your Lordships this evening, it is that the question of the abolition of passport control is not, in the words of Commissioner Davignon himself, for mature consideration at the present time. This is putting it at its mildest. So it is not perhaps surprising that much of this afternoon's debate has centred around whether there should or should not be a European passport. This implies, I suggest, although it has not been directly stated, that so far as we in the United Kingdom are concerned a European passport should be in substitution for a British passport. It has to be considered, I think, in that context.
I gathered the impression this afternoon that many noble Lords regard the British passport as very little more than a travel
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document. The report makes it quite clear that it is much more than that. Indeed, this is implicit in the words which appear on the front of every passport:
"Her Britannic Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs requires, in the name of Her Majesty, all those whom it may concern to allow the bearer to pass freely without let or hindrance and to afford the bearer such assistance and protection as may he necessary".
The words "requests" and "requires" are of some significance because they imply to the holder of the passport, in so far as this can be perceived, appreciated and understood by those in other countries, that the whole power of the unitary State is behind it. As the report states at paragraph 6:
"A passport has more than Community significance. It provides prima facie evidence of the nationality of the bearer from which the possibility of protection by the issuing State may flow".
Indeed, this is why most people in the United Kingdom are quite proud of their British passport. It is evidence of nationality and it carries with it the implication that if the holder gets into difficulty the power and influence of the United Kingdom, in so far as this is apprehended in the other states concerned, is placed at their disposal. For example, if one is in difficulty abroad one may with confidence take one's United Kingdom passport to the Embassy, and one does receive such assistance as the Embassy is able to provide. It is therefore a document of some value.
It has been suggested that it would be better if we had a European Economic Community passport. Of course, this would be a different document, because it would not be issued by a unitary State; it would not be issued on behalf of a coherent body having a coherent body of laws; and it would not have the same degree of united implication that the ordinary national passport has. Indeed, it is nowhere suggested in the report that the issue of a European passport would make it any easier for anybody to go through the existing passport controls. It has not been shown in any part of the evidence that travel delays would be minimised. However, the point has been made by my noble friend Lord Murray of Gravesend and, indeed, by others that the issue of a European passport and its accepted use would somehow be taken as a symbol of

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our commitment to European untyi. Those are the main grounds upon which the adoption of a European passport has been commended this afternoon to your Lordships.
I venture to put forward the idea that we may have got it the wrong way round. Perhaps it would be better to work for practical unity within Europe and for the closer coming together of the Member States of Europe to a point where it would be possible progressively to abandon some of the internal controls. Then, when that was done, a European passport would in fact symbolise a practical unity that had been achieved and would mean something.
So I think there is a danger that we might support the idea of a European passport purely as a symbol, because there is a point where a symbol can become a gimmick. I have ventured to make the point many times not only in your Lordships' House but also in Europe that the great difficulty about securing progress in the European Economic Community is that from time to time—in fact almost perpetually—Commissioners and others invite our eyes to contemplate distant vistas and to devote a tremendous amount of time to debating things like economic and monetary union which, as we know, cannot be achieved for some considerable time yet, instead of getting down to the practical problems which arise from our membership of the Community in order to promote a far greater unity in Europe than there is at the moment.
As and when we do achieve that, as I sincerely hope we shall, we may then be able to have a European passport that really means something; that is a symbol of an existing unity in which people may then have confidence, rather than being symbolic of something that may be achieved later. The greatest danger in these matters is always that we may take the achievement of a symbol as being the substitute for hard and constructive work, building bit by bit the Europe that we hope to see. With that contribution, my Lords, I hope your Lordships will be pleased to note the report of the Select Committee and will regard it as something on which future progress will be made.
6.33 p.m.
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Fairfax of Cameron,
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made a quite remarkable and excellent maiden speech, which I am sure all your Lordships appreciated. I hope that my noble friend will intervene again in your Lordships' affairs, soon and often. The report before us this evening is a most helpful one and the Government greatly welcome it. We agree with its general interest in removing restrictions on travel between the countries of the European Community. We also agree that a political will is needed if we are to make progress in this direction. The British Government certainly have the will to make a success of our Community membership. The Prime Minister has made it clear that there are certain important problems—notably the size of our net contribution to the budget—which we are determined to resolve at an early stage. This is our priority and pressing concern. But it is only one side of the coin. The Community has positive goals and aspirations. The Government want to pursue these in the interests of people in Britain and in the Community as a whole. It is in this spirit that we approach the proposals for passport union which are the subject of the debate today.
As other noble Lords have said, the apparently simple phrase "passport union" can have a number of different meanings. One of the many values of the report which we are debating today is that it provides a clear and thoughtful analysis. Anybody concerned with this subject in the future will I believe regard the report as a basic document. It first makes the distinction between passport union in the sense of a standard European passport and passport union in the sense of abolition of frontier controls within the area of the Community.
Perhaps I can deal first with the more fundamental question of frontier controls within the EEC and it may be helpful if I say a little about our current system. Our immigration control has two broad purposes. First, to deny entry to certain individuals (essentially criminals and terrorists); secondly, to control classes of people coming here for long-term purposes such as employment or settlement in accordance with the Government's economic and social policies. Membership of the Community means that controls of the second kind have little application to Community nationals who are broadly

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free to come and go in accordance with their rights under the Community treaties. The immigration control at the ports for EEC nationals is therefore largely concerned with identifying a tiny minority in the context of controlling crime and terrorism. It is therefore a much simpler procedure than that which applies to other nationalities.
EEC nationals arriving at our major ports are therefore dealt with separately. Our system of "channelling" has the great advantage of dealing quickly with the large number of people who can be passed through the control with minimal formality rather than making them wait behind those who require closer examination. The principle is exactly the same as that which leads our banks to have special quick service counters and supermarkets to have special check-out points for people with only a very small number of purchases: those of us who, when wanting, to cash a cheque, have found ourselves behind someone paying in the week's takings in coin or making some complex international transaction will readily understand the common sense of such an arrangement.
EEC nationals do not have to produce a passport on arrival. A valid national identity card is sufficient. We propose at the end of the year further to reduce formalities for EEC nationals. They will no longer be required, as a matter of routine, to complete a landing card and an embarkation card on arriving and departing. This change demonstrates, I believe, our readiness to look afresh at long-established formalities and retain them only if they genuinely serve a necessary purpose.
The Committee pointed out in its report that the advantages of abolishing immigration control are slim. But the consequences of abolition are potentially dangerous. So far as EEC nationals themselves are concerned, the abolition of all checks would, as I have said, make it easier for criminals and terrorists to enter this country. But the concept of completely free movement within the perimeter of the Community could also mean that anyone from outside the Community, once admitted to a Member State, would be free to travel without further formality to any other Member
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State. This would have serious consequences for immigration control. So long as there are different immigration procedures in different Member States, an immigration officer in any Member State would have to master all the details of procedures in all the other States. As an island, our system relies heavily upon control at the port of entry, whereas some other Member States place greater emphasis on internal police controls. The Committee was very much against this here, and rightly so. The abolition of all controls within the Community would enable a person to enter where controls were least stringent and then to travel freely to any other Member State.
The noble Baroness, Lady Robson of Kiddington, referred to the arrangements which apply in the Nordic countries and I think the distinct difference between those procedures and the ones we have is the degree of police surveillance which takes place after travellers have entered the country in question. We prefer to exercise our controls at the border. Your Committee rightly recognises the risk of such an arrangement not only to immigration control but in such matters as prevention of terrorism. The Government therefore agree with the views of the Committee that the right course is to concentrate on simplifying the procedures at ports for EEC nationals rather than to abolish all immigration controls within the Community.
Turning to the more specific issue of the format of passports themselves, I was interested to note the connection which the Committee saw between this and the proposal for a machine-readable passport or card. There is indeed a link between the two. On the first, the Committee considers that the proposals for a uniform passport offer a potential modest boost to the ordinary man's sense of being part of the European Community. The question of the uniform European passport has been dormant for some time. Work has, however, continued under the auspices of the International Civil Aviation Organisation on a machine readable passport. A panel of experts was asked to study the question and their report is now being considered by the Air Transport Committee of ICAO. We and our Community partners have taken an active part in these studies and we support the principle of a

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machine-readable passport. These studies are well advanced.
There is a substantial measure of agreement within the panel of experts on the basic specification required to produce the machine readable capability. Indeed, we did prepare a specimen in accordance with what has so far achieved a pretty good consensus in ICAO, although I must tell your Lordships that this is not yet the formal position of the Government. The machine-readable card—I have one here—is about twice the size of the average credit card, but in other respects is rather similar; it is made of a similar sort of material, but the card itself can be interrogated by machine where that equipment is available.
Already some of our EEC partners are moving towards the introduction of a machine readable identity card that would meet the specifications, and it is very likely that such cards will be presented at British ports and airports within the next year or so. There is, of course, no suggestion of introducing compulsory identity cards in the United Kingdom.
We hope that the work being carried out by ICAO will lead to agreement to introduce machine readable passports by many countries, not only in Europe. This work adds a new element to the discussion on a common format passport for the Community. A common format passport which also provided the advantages of the machine readable passport has attractions. It should give the traveller the practical benefit of less delay at points of entry. It would also give people a greater sense of belonging to the European Community. And it would help to show to the rest of the world that the Community has its own political identity.
I should perhaps take up one of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington. I think he was under the impression that these passports will be centrally issued within the Community. That is not so. The present proposal is that these passports should continue to be issued by individual States to their nationals but in accordance with a common format.
The Committee suggested that passports might fulfil a greater number of functions; for example, they could include health details. While seeing the attraction of
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these arguments, we should perhaps tread cautiously. We do not want to complicate the task of securing international harmonisation by trying to achieve too much with one document. We also have to be very careful about the requirements of privacy. We should not compel people to have on the passport personal information which is not strictly necessary. But I recognise that the Committee were anxious that the inclusion of medical information should be on a strictly voluntary basis.
Perhaps I can refer to a related point at the same time, and that is the question of the E 111 form which several noble Lords raised. Under present arrangements, if one is to travel to a country within the EEC and one imagines one may wish to take advantage of reciprocal medical arrangements, one must apply in advance for one of these forms. Unfortunately, the entitlement to these benefits is not uniform throughout the Community, and, although one may well be entitled to the benefit of the National Health Service here in the United Kingdom, it does not necessarily apply that one is so entitled in other EEC countries. Indeed, one's entitlement may vary from year to year because it depends upon, among other things, whether one is self-employed or paying contributions, or what one's contribution record is. For that reason, bearing in mind the fact that passports may often be valid for 10 years, we are in some difficulty about using the passport to convey information concerning the eligibility for benefits at the present time. We recognise that the present E 111 form arrangement is not perfect. We are hoping to extend the range of benefits that can be obtained within EEC countries so that the eligibility scale is more in line with that of the United Kingdom. But for the moment we are obliged to continue with the present arrangement.
Machine readable passports do not mean the disappearance of a national passport. Of course, the machine readable data would have to be standardised in the passports of all the countries which adopted this type of document, to avoid the need for a multiplicity of machines to read them. But this does not mean that there must be total uniformity of every feature of a machine readable passport or card.

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Your Lordships may already know from the public announcement on 26th July that we have produced a specimen machine readable passport made out, for some extraordinary reason, to Sir Walter Scott. This comprises a machine readable card, which incorporates a photograph and the data presently contained in the first few pages of the current passport. This might go in a hard cover booklet which would look very much the same as our present passport and which would also have conventional pages for visa endorsements. Although this is only one of many possible arrangements, the format of the card itself accords with specifications recommended by ICAO, and it can be assumed that an internationally agreed machine readable travel document will generally have the layout of this specimen. But it will still be possible for each country's travel documents to have a national identity and a European dimension (taking the shape, for example, of a distinctive common format) in the passports of all members of the Community if this is what we all in the end decide upon.
We have also prepared a specimen of what the common format of a European passport might look like. As your Lordships can see, it looks on the face of it very much the same as the present British passport. We hope it will have provision for the machine readable card to which I referred, and it certainly contains those fine words inside the cover which the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, read out to us. I must emphasise, however, that, if proposals for a common Community format were implemented, the prerogative to issue passports would, of course, remain with member States.
There are one or two other points that perhaps I could deal with. The noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, asked about the British Visitor's Passport. It is indeed true that British Visitor's Passports valid for a limited number of countries can be obtained comparatively easily from any post office. It is a popular document with the public; over 1 million are issued annually. If it were abandoned a great strain would be placed on the resources of the Passport Office, and I can offer no assurance at this time that we will be able to withdraw it in the foreseeable
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future. However, we are well aware of the abuses to which they are subject. For example, a person who obtains a British Visitor's Passport to which he is not entitled and uses it to travel abroad and return to the United Kingdom does not thereby gain legal residence here. I must assure your Lordships that in our consideration of machine readable passports we will bear in mind the comments on British Visitor's Passports which have been made here this evening.
The noble Lord, Lord Murray of Gravesend, asked me a specific point about the dipping of tanks of coaches and other vehicles arriving in EEC countries, particularly from here. I have no detailed knowledge of that difficulty before me at the moment, but, if I may, I will look into the matter and write to the noble Lord.
My Lords, I am sure that the Committee were right to conclude that it is along this path that we should proceed if we are to make progress on a European dimension for the national passports of Members of the Community. When the proposals are further advanced, the Government will look at them with sympathy.
6.50 p.m.
Lord GREENWOOD of ROSSENDALE: My Lords, I should like briefly to express my appreciation of all the speeches which have been made in this short debate, from that by the noble Baroness, Lady Robson of Kiddington, to the one which we have just heard by the Minister. They were all most kind in their references to the work of the Committee and they were all extremely solid and constructive contributions.
I should like specially to pause to say thank you to the noble Lord, Lord Fairfax of Cameron, for what I thought was a model maiden speech which was characterised by grace and a warm sympathy with the problems. I know that it bodes well for the future. It is not easy to make demands upon the young Members of this House who have the obligations of bringing up families, developing their careers and involving themselves in professions. When we do put these additional burdens upon them, we should be particularly grateful to them for accepting the responsibility and being prepared to help the House in that way. Your Lordships

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would not expect me, with my background, to be an uncritical admirer of the hereditary principle, but every day in this Chamber I look around and I ask myself where the young men would be if it were not that they were here because of the hereditary principle. They make a contribution and the noble Lord, Lord Fairfax, has given us striking evidence of that.
I should like to make one point. We should not be too defeatist about the possibility of matters speeding up. I am not over-optimistic, but one remembers that, when Commissioner Davignon told us that he was optimistic about future progress, he told the Committee that one reason which had led to recent inactivity was the wish of the British Government not to complicate plans to introduce direct elections. I am looking to the new Government to find some other source of embarrassment which they can use in order to galvanise the Commission and make it more positively forward-looking than it has been in the past.
Finally, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, very much indeed for the practical work that he has done. Indeed, I am prepared to offer a small prize to the noble Lord who will get to the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood's post office first thing in the morning and bring the noble Viscount, Lord Amory, up to date. With those few words, I ask leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

BRITISH AIRWAYS' FUTURE STRATEGY
6.53 p.m.
The Earl of KIMBERLEY The Earl of KIMBERLEY rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are satisfied that the future strategy of British Airways is adequate to meet the problems facing the industry. The noble Earl said: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In view of the proposed forthcoming sale of shares in British Airways to the public, I feel that it may well clear the air if tonight I raise a few controversial points, even at the risk of unpopularity in certain areas. I also hope that, under its new status, certain strategic errors with which British Airways seems
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plagued, will be able to be rectified, and as such I hope that my criticisms will be accepted in a constructive manner.
The object of the BOAC/BEA merger was to create a world airline through existing manpower and resources. It was to be more flexible and competitive, while simultaneously reducing wasteful duplicate administration. However, because of the entrenched attitude of key management, problems have arisen which have caused a marked decline of confidence in the upper echelon of management by those of more humble status, be they captains or cleaners. That has resulted in a lowering of morale to an alarming level. The two pyramids which should have integrated themselves into one are still side by side, and they sit with a third and very bureaucratic one sitting on top of them.
British Airways is top-heavy in administration and over-manned by perhaps 7,000 or 10,000 in those areas the merger was supposed to reduce. For example, a directive to reduce manning leaves the boardroom, it goes to the top echelons and is passed to middle management where this directive is most necessary. But middle management then puts the axe in at the level which can least afford it—engineers, pilots, loaders, and traffic handlers. The former Chairman. Sir Frank McFadzean, a tough and experienced industralist, tried to streamline the operation but even he could not cope with all the in-fighting. The amorphous mass of British Airways administration remains much the same, and the only sufferer is the passenger through insufficient tarmac-level personnel, which means that the airline fails to meet its schedules.
British Airways, like other large organisations, suffers from a lack of communication inside itself. However, that could be off-set by management's determination to promote good relations with its work force. Your Lordships may be surprised to know that BEA employed a consultant psychiatrist, Mr. Russel Smith, who advocated a policy of confrontation as the most efficient way to obtain the maxi mum productivity. Unfortunately, that policy appears still to be maintained at most levels and has had a disastrous effect on industrial relations. Management is despised; getting people to work becomes a problem; responsibility is not re-

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warded, and leadership is not encouraged. A reluctant workforce with little pride in the company, which resorts to restrictive union practices, combined with over-manning and under-utilisation practices leads only to inefficiency and a waste of money.
British Airways accountancy is run on a mini-budget system employing several thousand accountants. The system causes constant "Who pays for what?" bickering; massive over-charging for key equipment, which has even resulted in its standing idle because nobody knows who will pay for it. For example, British Air Tours once asked the European Division for a quote for handling 707s at Lisbon. The quote was rejected in favour of that of TAP which was less. However, if that is rationalised, money left the company, and even if the European Division's quote was far higher, it would still have been cheaper than paying out money to TAP.
Very often the aircrew and tarmac level personnel exist in shabby surroundings of litter and peeling paint. It could well pay some of the accountants to step out of their pristine offices and see conditions at the coal face at first hand.
British Airways is desperately short of aircraft. The buying policy of the European Division has resulted in inadequate capacity in the medium range caused by the Trident fiasco. Whatever British Airways may say, there has been an unbelievable lack of forward planning, and I have said that in your Lordships' House on several occasions in the past. British Airways has naturally denied that charge, but this lack of foresight means that British Airways has to react to events instead of anticipating them. As a result, it is often too little, too late, as well as probably being the wrong aircraft. This then leads to wholesale cancellation of services, and to sub-chartering. To lose revenue in that way is both inexcusable and commercially disastrous.
Comparisons are odious, but British. Airways staff productivity on short haul is about 25 per cent. of the best United States carriers. For instance, on the London-Glasgow run the wages cost per passenger is about £8 on a 344-mile route. On a similar route in California by
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Pacific South-West, it is about £4 and the American staff are paid twice a much. British Airways on short haul carries about 760 passengers per employee, and its equivalent in the United States, like South-West Texas or Pacific South-West, is 2,800 passengers per employee. Unfortunately, the baggage handling produces the same sad story. Over here it is about eight bags a minute and in America about 16 bags a minute.
Regarding maintenance, the aircraft are adequately maintained but are often inadequately cleaned inside and out. The last results in lower performance and increased fuel consumption. When a new aircraft is ordered the research and development section insists on a "bespoke tailor" requirement. This not only delays service entry, but also reduces operational flexibility. The buying policy leaves no buffer for unexpected expansion of demand. Even allowing British Airways the benefit of the doubt that the 737 is more suitable for its needs than the 1–11, the decision to purchase the 757 paper aeroplane instead of the airbus seems very odd. One wonders why there is this urgency for British Airways to buy American, and in particular Boeing, unless there are some other influences of which the public and T are unaware. Here it is perhaps pertinent to note that the following European airlines have all ordered the airbus in one or other form: SAS, Lufthansa, Hapag-Lloyd, Air France, Air Inter, British Caledonian and Laker, K LM and Martin-Air, Iberia, Alitalia, Sabena, Austrian Airlines, Olympic Airlines and Swissair.
Not long ago in this House I asked the question, "Can all these airlines be wrong?" At the moment the only two contenders for the 757 are British Airways and Eastern Airlines in America, and even Eastern uses the A300 on its shuttle services from New York. I am told that British Airways intends to cram about 223 passengers into the 757 at a full fare whereas Laker puts about 215 into an airbus at a cheap rate. So the excursion passenger will travel both in more comfort and at less expense.
I believe that British Airways does more damage to British industry and our balance of payments deficit than any other company in the United Kingdom. For two decades it has actively pursued a policy of not buying British unless under

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Government persuasion. It has then derided the aircraft, and the Government have usually had to subsidise the operation —for instance, as in the case of the VC.10, the 1–11 and Concorde. It cannot deride the airbus because it has not ordered any, but should it find itself in the position of having to, there will be a very long wait for delivery, as it will be at the bottom of the customers' list.
On page 52 of the annual report of British Airways it states:
"A substantial proportion of the fleet commitments is payable in US dollars, and approximately 20 per cent. thereof is covered by contracts for forward purchases of US dollars over the next two years at various rates of exchange".
Capital expenditure commitments are £950·7 million, which must be getting on for 50 per cent. of our balance of payments deficit for this year. In fact, since writing this down I have discovered that from January to August 1979 our balance of payments deficit was £443 million in US dollars—that is in eight months.
However, on the credit side British Airways has championed Rolls-Royce and has even paid for having that company's engines fitted to 747s. But perhaps to the cynic this could be due to the numerous malfunctions of the Pratt and Whitney JT9Ds which have caused many passengers to be delayed, sometimes for days, thus necessitating British Airways doling out free drinks, meals and hotel rooms. The service is creditable, but at what cost in lost revenue, and transporting spare engines. Page 15 of the annual report devotes four paragraphs to the Trident fiasco, but virtually only two small throw-away sentences on the problems of the 747 and the TriStar.
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, can my noble friend tell me what he is talking about when he refers to the "Trident fiasco"?
The Earl of KIMBERLEY: My Lords, certainly. In saying that I refer to the cracks in the wings which put the entire Trident fleet out of service for a certain period of time. Further on on the same page there is a profound statement about the EEC:
"Until recently British Airways has scarcely been affected by the British membership of the EEC. It is now clear, however, that air transport will be of increasing interest to the Commission,
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and we have taken steps to ensure that we are kept closely in touch with and influence what is happening in Brussels".
About time too, for there are two factors which will affect British Airways after 1980. One is the EEC regulations which will require open tendering from all European countries for equipment, and the second is the new routes within Europe which will be open to independent airlines. I am sure that Her Majesty's Government will give strong backing for British Caledonian and our great entrepreneur, Sir Freddie Laker, in their campaign to extend their routes.
On 23rd October last, in another place, during the Second Reading debate on the Competition Bill, at column 272 in Hansard the Minister for Consumer Affairs, Mrs. Sally Oppenheim, said:
"But we believe that competition is a potent weapon, both in the fight against inflation and in the establishment of consumer sovereignty".
I agree with her. In fact, it could be very desirable for the CAA to alter the licensing obligations, thereby encouraging greater competition which would lower the air fares on British airlines. The announcement or leak that British Airways wants to get rid of 26 unprofitable routes and that four independent airlines are keen to compete for them must only be good.
Reverting to the merger, this produced operating problems of procedure on the flight deck. The European and overseas divisions have been working towards a common operating procedure, but it is still some way from fruition. For instance in the European division TriStar is approved by the CAA for landing in extremely foggy weather whereas the same aeroplane in the overseas division is not. However, as in many ways the merger appears to have been more of a take-over by BOAC, there appears little urgency at the moment to bring the overseas division up to the same standard.
Divisions in the pilot work force at union level seem to be deliberately unresolved by the company for industrial reasons. The matter is further complicated by retaining flight engineers in the overseas division. I believe that there are many progressive airlines which use the European division operating procedures and which have no flight engineers. British Airways co-pilots have morale problems due to the absence of a career

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structure—for instance, in aircraft expectation. Many co-pilots have been in the same type of aircraft for over 10 years. Other airlines consider this to be a dangerous practice and retrain their co-pilots at five or six year intervals, thus giving added benefit and experience for command. In other words, the basic problem is long haul v. short haul. There is no common seniority system. If a Trident captain wants to transfer to the overseas division, he has to start right at the bottom again.
I now give some praise. British Airways' ground engineers are superb at all levels. They are perhaps the company's real strength. But there seems to be a curious reluctance to pay them the going engineering rate and as a result key men are often lost after a great deal of time and money has been spent on training them. British Airways should perhaps pay more than their competitors, otherwise the engineers vote with their feet. Hundreds left last year over a £3 pay dispute. Disenchantment leads to restrictive practices affecting the flexibility of aircraft. European division engineers will not service an aircraft standing on an overseas division hard standing. Page 20 of the annual report states that:
"Engineering management is at long last nearly unified".
But how long is "at long last"?
Congestion is the bane of all airlines and as such is one of British Airways most serious problems. Flights at peak periods are subject to anything up to three-quarters of an hour airfield delay. This delay is naturally compounded when the aircraft is turned round at the other end for its return journey.
We are still considering a third London airport, but we have two perfectly adequate and good ones at Gatwick and Stansted, but both need two operational runways. Should there be any disagreement, not from your Lordships' House but outside, I would humbly suggest that the person who disagrees obviously never flies with the European division of British Airways at peak times. It is true that air congestion was partially solved by the wide-bodied jumbos on long hauls. But the proliferation of short-haul mini aeroplanes is threatening disruption on a far larger scale. This is why British Airways should rethink its aircraft procurement
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policy. It seems uncommercial for British Airways to fly three-engined TriStars to Paris when Air France flies two-engined airbuses to London. Is there not supposed to be a worldwide fuel shortage?
Air travel is international. British Airways' thinking tends at best to be national and I cannot even praise its domestic routes and services. British Airways must formulate an international policy if it is to make some sort of order out of the impending chaos resulting from narrow concepts, narrow minds and narrow-bodied aircraft. There is still time before it is too late for British Airways to re-think its forward planning needs. I can only hope that by selling off part of British Airways to the private sector—if anybody will buy it—this may prove to be the catalyst to make the airline fully competitive again in the world market, so that once again we may fly the flag and arrive on time.
7.11 p.m.
Lord HAYTER: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, has had a tremendous ear-bashing today in a variety of different contexts, and I hope that I shall be very gentle and not disturb him at all. I am obliged to the noble Earl, Lord Kimberley, for asking this Question, because I rise, although it may not look like it, like a phoenix from the ashes. My little Quango has been disbanded. I was chairman of the Little Neddy which looked after international freight movement, and it would therefore be on my conscience if I did not speak on this Question in the context of air cargo.
That is fair enough because we are talking about the problems of the industry. We are also, in a way, talking about the problems of industry, and the air cargo side has been perhaps not as widely recognised as it ought to be in various circles. For example, last week you may have seen a large article in the Financial Times about the "Civil Aviation Authority's Unenviable Challenge". There was not one word about cargo in it. Yet another article on Monday; "British Aviation Changes Course". Again not one word about cargo. And yet, as these wide-bodied aircraft come into use all over the world, this further subordinates cargo policies to passengers.

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I hope you will take it from me that nearly one-fifth of imports into this country by value come in by air, and nearly one-fifth of the exports of this country by value go out by air. So you have a tremendous impetus here for the export and import business of this country. Now all this serves to emphasise British Airways' traditional role as the national carrier, and it speaks for the industry in many contexts, particularly with the International Air Transport Association and with Government. It is therefore all the more important to make sure that cargo is playing its relevant part in their considerations.
I understand that there is not a single director on the board responsible for, or knowledgeable of, air cargo. This seems to me quite astonishing. Secondly, I understand that the board as a whole is rather slow to react to the changing demands of the international air freight industry—and they change very quickly these days. Thirdly, there is a failure to maintain the competitive service standards —and that is a common problem for national airlines. They are rather inclined to rely on their own reputations. Fourthly, how important it is for the board to have genuine consultation at top level with the other major interests in their context: the freight forwarders; the customs; and this computerised cargo-processing system.
However, all is not lost. I am a little more optimistic than the noble Earl who put forward this Question, for at senior cargo management level quite a lot of things are happening. There is the new commercial rating policy; they are consulting more with the bodies that they should be consulting with; and they played a significant part in the development of a project called the freight forwarders bond at Heathrow. It was developed as a result of my Little Neddy. It really is the facility at Heathrow which enables cargo to come in there from the various airlines, he sorted out by the freight forwarders, and then to find its proper destination elsewhere, maybe in Europe. It is so successful that it has been generally agreed that it has to be expanded 200 per cent. But there are many complications, and I cannot quite see, now that my Little Neddy has been disbanded,
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who is going to come to some of those conclusions. I shall come back to that in a moment.
I shall now plunge into future strategy. It has been said that one could not be satisfied with the British Airways' future strategy about cargo because nobody has ever heard of it. There is a certain element of commercial secrecy behind which they take shelter. But a lot would be gained if we could see, particularly in the new context, the appointment of a cargo product director to the main board. I happen to know that there is a very sizeable and quite expensive research programme going on, and that should be directed by one of the top people in the organisation.
Secondly, one would hope that there would be a strengthening and a stabilising of cargo management, and in particular the establishment of a better cargo career structure so that young men going in would know that their future was reasonably assured in the light of their own ability. These things would provide leadership and confidence in the workforce, and they improve the terminal handling, and as a result both British Airways and the United Kingdom industry as a whole would benefit.
Today's rapid development and the high competition in air cargo requires national strategic planning, and that is where, to the extent that the Government share in the responsibility for British Airways, they must take a part. So I get back to the beginning. We have to meet the problems of the industry in competition with the other airways in Europe. We have to meet the problems of industry to ensure that the goods can flow as freely, as quickly, and as efficiently as possible. It is a pity that my Little Neddy is no longer there to help, because some of these things cannot be done by British Airways alone. Take that freight forwarders bond area. There are endless complications there which I shall just outline in a few words: the unions; the customs; the International Trade Procedures Board; the freight forwarders industry; industry itself as represented by the CBI. All these have to be drawn together if it is going to be a success.
Until there is a change of heart towards air cargo in British Airways as a whole, I

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think the only possibility of bringing some of these projects to fruition will be the British Overseas Trade Board, for which the Government are in part responsible, together with that famous organisation to me, though maybe not to you, called SITPRO, which stands for the Simplification of International Trade Procedures—vital to all of us in industry mixed up with exports and imports. But it is not only in this area of the freight forwarders bond but in the general furtherance of air cargo expansion against our competitors in Europe, who are very alive to many of these projects, that I hone that British strategy from the British Airways' point of view will become clear, and that the Government will be backing them to the best of their ability.
7.18 p.m.
Lord PONSONBY of SHULBREDE: My Lords, I sometimes feel that we expect perfection of some of our national institutions and that we enjoy attacking the Post Office, British Rail, or British Airways. Perhaps this is because we all have our own personal experiences of where things have gone wrong. The noble Earl, Lord Kimberley, certainly enjoyed himself this afternoon. He raised the important question of whether British Airways' strategy was adequate for meeting the problems facing the industry.
Certainly the major problems which one sees air transport facing in the 1980s and beyond are the continuing demand of the leisure traveller. The tourist industry sees the demand for travel increasing, and that in fact in the course of time the leisure traveller will become more and more important for airways vis-à-vis the business traveller. Another problem in the air transport industry which it is facing acutely at the present time is the question of escalating fuel costs. In the USA they have been up 72 per cent. in the last nine months, with a consequent pressure on the earning capabilities of United States' airlines. We know that during the first nine months of this year profits were down some 50 per cent on last year. These pressures will make British Airways think very carefully about the type of aircraft it flies, the routes it operates and the fare structures it has.
On the question of the type of aircraft, this was dealt with to a considerable extent
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by the noble Earl, who informed your Lordships that British Airways are going for the Boeing 757, whose operating costs, if powered by the RB 211 engine, British Airways believe will be between 5 and 10 per cent. lower than those of any other comparable aircraft. Lord Kimberley criticised this decision on a number of counts, but perhaps to some extent on the basis that all the other European airlines which had ordered the Airbus could not be wrong. It should be said that at the time the order was placed for the 757s, the Airbus was not available with an RB 211 engine, and that this availability apparently came about only during this summer. On all counts, it was and is a fair decision to have decided to purchase the 757.
The other problem I mentioned was competition for the custom of the leisure traveller. This has led to intensive fares competition, as witnessed by the present applications before the Civil Aviation Authority. Application has been made by Laker Airways to operate 666 routes and, perhaps rather more reasonably, by British Caledonian to operate 20 routes. It is ludicrous to think that Laker actually intend to operate 666 routes in Europe when one considers that the biggest of America's airlines, United, operates only 400 routes throughout the United States. Whatever the outcome of the applications and whether European fares are slashed or not, everything will depend very much on the attitude of the receiving nations, and I understand, to mention only a few, that the Swiss, Germans and French are against any considerable dropping in fares. As an article in the Financial Times pointed out last Friday:
"If anybody is looking for an early breakthrough in cheaper fares in Western Europe, he is likely to have to wait some time. In the meantime, British Airways, with its partner flag-carriers of other European nations, will continue with its own steady erosion of air fares, offering cuts wherever it can on a bilateral basis".
It is well known that British Airways is able to, and does continually, offer an increasing range of special types of lower fare which people can avail themselves of in special situations.
One of the other main prongs of Lord Kimberley's attack on British Airways was criticism of the internal working of the airline, and there was considerable validity in his remarks. Certainly the

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productivity of British Airways per employee is below that of other comparable world airlines, and this is recognised by British Airways. It could of course be that British Airways, with 60,000 employees and possibly 10,000 too many—Lord Kimberley gave a slightly lower figure—is too big to be able to weld into a single corporate whole. But they are trying to do something about this internally and I understand are currently involved in operation QARP, which stands for Quality and Reliability Plan, which is aimed at motivating the staff to remember that passengers are the reason for the airlines' business. What Lord Kimberley said with regard to middle managers needing more support from the top is also a criticism which I have heard.
It is not right for us this evening to consider whether the decision to merge British European Airways and BOAC was or was not right, but it is certainly the case that the proposal at the time by Sir Ronald Edwards in his report on the British Air Transport Industry in the 'seventies, which proposed a federation, might have been more successful, as then one would have had a situation similar to that which, in a sense, is now crystallising, as mentioned by Lord Kimberley, in that the work of British Airways is breaking down more and more into activities on long and short-haul routes. I doubt whether the other issues about British Airways which we are not discussing this evening—and I would refer to the sale of the shares of British Airways —will affect these issues at all; I think it is largely one for internal management.
The problems which noble Lords have discussed this evening and the problem of freight as raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hayter, are matters of concern, and we are surely all concerned to see that our national airline enjoys the prestige which we would wish it to have. Having flown on airlines other than British airlines, one can understand the point of some of these attacks, but I hope, and I am sure all noble Lords will hope, that the prestige of British airlines can be enhanced. I look forward to hearing the reply of the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, and I congratulate him on his stamina this afternoon in having dissolved the ODM, introduced machine readable passports and now perhaps saved British Airways.
7.28 p.m.
Lord TREFGARNE: Two down and one to go, my Lords! The noble Earl, Lord Kimberley, has displayed a commendable sense of timing in raising this Question. We have all had cause recently to cast our eyes both backwards and forwards in relation to British Airways. The look backwards was occasioned by the 60th anniversary of the airline's first regular international scheduled service. It was on 25th August 1919 that a converted bomber left Hounslow for Le Bourget under the flag of Air Transport and Travel Limited, a forerunner of what is now British Airways. The flight took two and a half hours, and it is a measure of the airline's progress when we consider that Concorde takes little more than that to cross the Atlantic. The forward look came with the publication last week of the Government's Civil Aviation Bill, which provides for a major change in the status of our national airline from a nationalised industry to a private sector company in which a proportion of the shares will be held by the general public.
There have been many changes in between these two events, including the various stages of State ownership which culminated in the creation of the British Airways Board in 1972. This was a crucial development designed to fuse together the operations and resources of the erstwhile air corporations and thus provide a single entity offering worldwide services, and to reap the economies to be gained from a large, integrated organisation. The merger was a mammoth task and it took a considerable time to be implemented properly. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to those throughout the airline whose efforts have enabled the merger to be carried through successfully.
Amidst all the changes which have occurred over these last 60 years, British Airways—in whatever form—has shown itself capable of meeting successfully the challenges of a growing, innovative and increasingly competitive industry. A few brief facts will illustrate that success. British Airways' route network is the largest in the world. The airline serves around 180 cities in 80 countries. In 1978–79 it carried nearly 16 million passengers and clocked up 36,000 million revenue passenger kilometres. Cargo and mail amounted to well over 1,000 million

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tonne kilometres. Total turnover was £1,640 million, on which the profit for the year was £110 million.
As well as operating scheduled air services, the British Airways Group undertakes a wide range of other activities, for example, British Airtours operates in the charter and holiday markets and British Airways Helicopters has established itself firmly in the North Sea offshore market. In addition, there are the highly successful International Aeradio Limited, and numerous other subsidiaries operating in industries related to the airline, such as hotels, holidays, and engine overhaul. It will be obvious from what I have said that British Airways has grown over the years into a large and diverse organisation.
I referred briefly to the constantly changing environment in which British Airways, in common with all airlines, has to operate. Some of these changes have been foreseeable, but others have come quite by surprise. For example, the massive and unforeseen increase in fuel prices in the early 1970s came at a time when the newly created British Airways Board had hardly had time to get on its feet. Although this resulted in two loss-making years in 1974–75 and 1975–76, the airline made an admirable recovery thereafter for which all concerned can take credit. Over the past year or so fuel prices have again caused serious problems, and I will return to this later.
Another example of the changing airline world is the pressure for low fares, about which we have heard an increasing amount over the past couple of years, and which is very much in the news today in this country. British Airways has this factor uppermost in mind in its strategic thinking, and is already closely associated with the trend towards low fares.
My noble friend Lord Kimberley has not spared us the details of the problems which all airlines face in the future, and in this he is quite right. British Airways has been among the first of the world's airlines to address itself squarely to the problems and challenges which lie ahead. Before formulating its present corporate strategy, British Airways set its sights to the mid-'eighties to try to make reasonable assumptions about what the international airline industry would look like then and
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the sort of service it would have to provide in order to continue to compete successfully. Nineteen Eighty-Six—just after all the old aircraft which do not meet modern noise standards would have to be phased out—was taken as a representative year. British Airways saw continued growth of the market combined with a major increase in the proportion of that market represented by leisure travel, and a fall in the real level of fares, and decided that the only recipe for success was to continue to serve all segments of the market and to grow in order to maintain its total market share.
At the same time, the airline has set itself a financial objective which may be expressed as follows:
"To generate a cash flow that will pay interest on loans and currently payable tax, pay an appropriate dividend on public dividend capital, and fund an asset replacement programme at current cost and a reasonable proportion of capital expenditure on assets needed for expansion".
That objective is a testing one, and is reflected in British Airways' current statutory financial target of an average annual return on net assets of 6 per cent. in real terms.
In order to remain a market leader, weather the future changes in the industry and achieve its financial objective, British Airways has developed a strategic plan to adapt its products and to reduce costs. The main elements in this plan are a redesign of the product range, a rationalisation and complete modernisation of the aircraft fleet and a substantial increase in staff productivity. The first of these items involves a better recognition of the different needs of business and leisure traffic. Business travellers and others paying full fares have increasingly complained that they are not getting a fair deal from the airline in comparison with those travelling on various kinds of dis-counted fares. The new strategy is designed to eliminate these complaints and at the same time to produce an attractive, but simpler, service for leisure passengers which will be financially and competitively successful.
The second element—rationalisation of the fleet—involves a policy which will give British Airways a highly competitive four-type fleet in a few years' time. Future operations will he based mainly

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on the Boeing 737, the Boeing 757, the Lockheed TriStar, and the Boeing 747. These fleet plans require a very large capital investment programme. In addition, British Airways will of course continue to operate Concorde at the top end of the market. Your Lordships will be aware that the airline are to acquire a sixth British-built Concorde for the supersonic fleet, and it is open to them to make proposals to the Government regarding the seventh such aircraft if they wish. Concorde operations by foreign airlines have been facilitated in conjunction with British Airways, and it is clear that Concorde services by any airline other than British Airways or Air France can be a practical proposition only with extensive support from either of these two main carriers. British Airways is therefore continuing to play its full part in the pioneering of supersonic civil air travel.
The rationalisation of the fleet will have many cost advantages for British Airways and is a major feature in progress towards the low cost targets which the airline has set for itself. The new fleet will be more fuel efficient and quieter than current operations. It will fully meet the new noise regulations due to be applied in the United Kingdom from 1st January 1986. As regards energy consumption, the position is put into stark perspective if I quote British Airways' own estimate that by 1986 the airline's total traffic will have doubled with an increase of only 25 per cent. in fuel consumption.
The right fleet will therefore make a substantial contribution to the success of British Airways' strategy, and I should like to make a brief reference here to an important, related point. Your Lordships House has in the past, and again tonight, heard criticisms that British Airways' fleet plans are too heavily dependent on American aircraft rather than British or European aircraft. I can understand the sentiments of those who express such views, but in the prevailing environment of the civil aviation market it is essential for an airline to be able to choose the aircraft which is best suited to its own particular route pattern. Flying the right aircraft on the right routes can make all the difference between profit and loss, and the Government firmly believe that it is the management of British Airways who are best placed to decide which aircraft
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will produce the best results on their route network and that they should therefore be free to exercise their own commercial judgment in this respect. British Airways' preferences for certain aircraft types imply no criticism of competing aircraft from a different source, but simply reflect what they consider to be best for their own circumstances. The airline's preference for Rolls-Royce engines which already power its TriStar fleet, part of the 747 fleet, and will power the 757s, is similarly based upon commercial considerations.
Several noble Lords were particularly critical of British Airways' choice of the 757. Again, that choice was a purely commercial decision, based upon the airline's particular requirements. We could no doubt have a very long and inconclusive debate on the merits of that decision, but we are not here to do the management's job. Mr. Ross Stainton, the chairman, has stated recently that the developing fuel crisis emphatically underlines the commercial rightness of their decision to buy this aircraft, and that the airline's calculations show it will burn between 30 and 40 per cent. less fuel per passenger than the Trident 3. He has also pointed out that, because it is smaller than its rivals, the 757 represents flexibility in deployment, which British Airways consider a valuable commercial plus factor in the fiercely competitive environment they expect to face. With respect, I would suggest that there is nobody in your Lordships' House with sufficient knowledge of British Airways and its particular commercial requirements to say that the airline's decision is wrong, and that they should be acquiring an alternative type of aircraft. The best service the Government can render British Airways is to give its management the freedom to exercise its commercial judgment in matters such as this, because they are the people best placed to make those decisions.
Returning to the details of British Airways' overall strategy for the future, the third element I mentioned is the need to increase staff productivity. This is vital. The right product combined with the right aircraft will not be sufficient to ensure the success of the airline's strategy without a significant contribution to cost reduction from better productivity. This is not to say that productivity has stood

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still in the airline. Over the past 10 years, available tonne kilometres produced per employee has risen from just over 78,000 to almost 135,000. But this trend has to be continually and more rapidly improved if British Airways' costs are to be contained at a level which will enable the airline to continue to compete successfully in the future. The required improvement in productivity is one of the management's priority objectives in British Airways' overall strategy, and particular efforts have been made over the past couple of years to secure the necessary increases, both by normal managerial action throughout the airline and by the linking of increased pay with increased productivity. Steady progress has been made, and the airline's employees at all levels are to be congratulated on this. However, the momentum has to be increased. The need is simply illustrated by British Airways' forecast that by 1986 the doubling of the airline's traffic will be achieved with fewer staff than are currently employed.
A related and important factor is the quality of the airline's service. I have no doubt that many noble Lords could provide examples of individual complaints about flight punctuality, baggage handling, et cetera, and it is no use denying that there are such cases. British Airways are fully aware of this and are making strenuous efforts to improve their performance with a quality and reliability campaign which covers the whole airline. They realise it is no good having the right product at the right price if it cannot be delivered in reliable working order on time.
These, then, are the essential elements of the strategy, but, in formulating it, British Airways recognise that there are a number of external constraints over which they have little or no direct control. These include the speed and manner in which the world moves towards deregulation, the problems of United Kingdom airport capacity, the problems of air traffic control congestion, the position regarding aviation fuel supplies and their desire for freedom to acquire the aircraft of their choice. I have already dealt briefly with the last point, but noble Lords will be aware that over the past months another of the items mentioned —aviation fuel supplies—has had a
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dramatic impact on all airlines. Fuel price increases over the past year have placed a large, additional and unavoidable burden on airline costs, including those of British Airways. The magnitude was illustrated by Mr. Ross Stainton when, on the publication earlier this year of the airline's 1978–79 report and accounts, he indicated that British Airways' previous forecasts of the future nature of the airline industry had assumed that by 1986 crude oil prices would have risen by 15 to 20 per cent. in real terms. He then went on to say—and I quote:
"As far as fuel prices are concerned the 1986 in our prediction has already come and gone".
British Airways have also suffered recently from another factor over which they have no control—the strength of sterling. While this represents some advantage in respect of the airline's dollar-priced expenditure, such as oil and aircraft, it has precisely the opposite effect on revenues. The proportion of British Airways' revenues earned abroad is approaching two-thirds, and a strong pound means a fall in the sterling value of overseas receipts from ticket sales when they come back across the exchanges. Despite a growth in traffic higher than forecast, these factors are combining to create an extremely difficult year for British Airways, as noble Lords may have read from recent Press accounts. The airline is therefore engaged in a cost-cutting exercise to preserve, so far as possible, the level of profitability necessary for its large investment programme.
One aspect of cost-cutting which has recently received much public attention is the decision to withdraw from a number of United Kingdom domestic routes. I do not propose to go into this question in great detail, because it is a commercial decision by the British Airways Board, and they have fully explained their reasons for it: that is, that the relatively small number of routes in question are loss-making, could not be turned round to make a profit and could not justify the investment in new aircraft to replace the aging Viscounts. Given the competitive climate in which British Airways have to operate, it is essential that they should be free to take and implement decisions such as this without interference. In this particular case your Lordships will have noted that other United Kingdom airlines have applied to take over the

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routes, and thus the interests of the travelling public should not be adversely affected, It is an imperative for any business to concentrate its resources, and not to fritter them away or under-employ them. It would, however, he wrong for Ministers to dictate to British Airways how that principle should be implemented.
The question of freedom brings me conveniently to another major aspect, without reference to which my answer to the noble Earl would be incomplete. I refer, of course, to the Government's plans to change the status of British Airways from that of a nationalised industry to a private sector company in which the general public holds a proportion of the shares. The Bill which provides the framework for this has been published, and your Lordships will have the opportunity to debate it in due course. The essential policy intention as regards British Airways is to release the airline from the existing régime of Government controls which are applied to any nationalised industry. British Airways are by no means a monopoly, and have to operate on a commercial basis. The Government's proposals recognise this, and, when implemented, will free the airline from controls imposed by the Government on important matters, such as borrowing powers, cash limits and financial targets, and controls of investment. Controls of this nature will be replaced by the disciplines of the commercial and financial markets, which, in the Government's view, is an infinitely preferable arrangement given the airline's particular circumstances, and one which will enable the management to plan ahead without fear of intervention, such as cuts being imposed on financing for its capital investment programme because of the Government's wider public expenditure considerations. Thus, in future, the airline's success will depend entirely on its own efforts, and the Government believe such freedom will be essential for British Airways to face successfully the challenges which lie ahead.
My Lords, I have taken some time to reach the answer to the Question asked by my noble friend Lord Kimberley, but that Question was widely drawn and a proper understanding of the background is almost as important as the answer itself. Like any large organisation, British
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Airways throw up individual matters which can be criticised, and indeed are. In this repect, they know their weaknesses and are making every effort to improve where necessary. But it is all too easy to concentrate on the particular, and my noble friend's Question requires us to stand back from what I might call day-to-day matters and look at British Airways more broadly, and at the plans they are making for the future. As I have indicated, those plans are based on realistic assumptions which boil down to the simple fact that life for all airlines is going to become more difficult, and only the fittest will survive. British Airways have identified what they need to do, not only to survive but to do so successfully. Although the problems have been increased by recent events largely beyond British Airways' control, their central strategy and determination remain. Nobody pretends that the road ahead is easy or that the mere existence of a plan is enough in itself, but the Government's firm answer to my noble friend's Question is, Yes, we are satisfied that British Airways' strategy can meet the problems facing the industry, and I am sure your Lordships will join me in wishing all those who work in the airline every success in their efforts.

CITY OF LONDON (VARIOUS POWERS) BILL GREATER LONDON COUNCIL (GENERAL POWERS) BILL GREATER LONDON COUNCIL (MONEY) BILL
Examiner's Certificate that no further Standing Order is applicable, read and ordered to lie on the Table.