Lords Sitting of 23 October 1979

Preamble
Reassembling after the Summer Recess, the House met at half-past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Chelmsford.
Several noble Lords—Took the Oath.

SALMON PRESERVATION IN UK WATERS
Lord BALFOUR of INCHRYE: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper. In doing so I would apologise to some noble Lords, for it is clear that I should have added Wales, as has been forcefully pointed out to me by various noble Lords.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what further steps they propose either by legislation or order, for better preservation of salmon in the rivers of Scotland and England and the surrounding sea waters within the control of the United Kingdom.
The MINISTER of STATE, SCOTTISH OFFICE (The Earl of Mansfield): My Lords, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Scotland is reviewing the law and the administration of salmon fisheries in Scotland, and he expects to make an announcement in due course. Informal consultations have recently taken place with representative bodies on a number of policy issues, including salmon protection, relating to inland and coastal fisheries in England and Wales.
Lord BALFOUR of INCHRYE: My Lords, while thanking the Minister for that reply, may I ask whether he is aware that Norway, Iceland, Ireland and Canada have already updated their conservation legislation in order to meet the increasing danger from new technology to the diminishing stocks in in-season rivers? Could he further say that this country will not have to wait for some international convention but feels the need for urgent unilateral action to stop the present danger of the extinction of salmon?
The Earl of MANSFIELD: My Lords, my noble friend's Question falls into two parts: first, what I might call the domestic front; that is, the taking of salmon in the sea not so far from our coasts. The whole question of salmon protection is currently under review. In the meantime the fisheries departments are seeking to

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improve operational co-ordination of existing protection measures on both sides of the border. In an international sense, because British salmon are indeed taken many hundreds of miles from our coasts, the Government are at present considering proposals from the United States Government for an international convention to control salmon fishing at sea. I do not believe therefore that unilateral action on our part is either possible or desirable at present.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY: My Lords, can my noble friend confirm that, because salmon returning to their rivers to spawn swim close to the surface, they could virtually be wiped out by unrestricted continuous drift netting round the mouths of rivers and that this threat has arisen only within the last 20 years because of the new man-made fibres? Previously, the salmon were strong enough to break the mesh.
The Earl of MANSFIELD: My Lords, my noble friend is referring to mono-filament nets; but better scientific evidence of the effect of these nets is needed. The question is being kept under review.
Lord CLIFFORD of CHUDLEIGH: My Lords, is it not the fact that salmon from our rivers go off to Greenland and elsewhere? And would it not be possible to have some international agreement whereby we can stop the salmon being (shall I use the word?) poached off Greenland before they come back to our rivers in this island?
The Earl of MANSFIELD: Yes, my Lords, this is the international part of the reply which I was attempting to make to the supplementary question of my noble friend Lord Balfour of Inchrye. There are two parts. There is the domestic salmon protection and also international measures. It is these which at the moment the Government are considering in the light of various proposals made by the United States Government.
The Earl of ONSLOW: My Lords, if, as I believe is the case, it is the Danes who are the major culprits in fishing salmon in their feeding grounds between Canada and Greenland—and they, the Danes, have no natural salmon spawning rivers and
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have no interest in keeping salmon spawning rivers—can my noble friend undertake that this will be brought very much into the consideration of Her Majesty's Government?
The Earl of MANSFIELD: My Lords, we have our differences with the Danes over various fishing matters, but I think that it is right to say that there has been considerable co-operation between Her Majesty's Government and the Danish Government for some considerable time as to the fishing off Greenland. But I agree with my noble friend that this is not a question that we can ever put aside.
Lord LEONARD: My Lords, will the Minister be so kind as to let me know whether this is an auspicious opening for the House of Lords, or have you your priorities right?
The LORD PRESIDENT of the COUNCIL (Lord Soames): My Lords, having heard that supplementary question, I think that it would be a good idea if we moved on to the next Question.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY: My Lords, before we do so, as only three minutes have passed, can my noble friend confirm that, because salmon fishings are highly rated as in paying local rates in Scotland, a great deal of finance comes in to local authorities and it is an important element in the economy in Scotland?

LICENSING COMPENSATION FUND: DISPOSAL
2.45 p.m.
The Earl of KIMBERLEY: 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 they propose to do about the disposal of the Licensing Compensation Fund when the Brewers' Society have submitted revised proposals.
The PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY of STATE, HOME OFFICE (Lord Belstead): My Lords, revised proposals have been received from the Brewers' Society and have been

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discussed with them. Further consultations within Government will need to take place before a decision can be reached on the disposal of the funds.
The Earl of KIMBERLEY: My Lords, may I thank my noble friend for that Answer? I think it is the thirteenth in four years. Does he not agree that it is time the Brewers' Society proposals were put into action? Further, does he not agree that some of the money should go towards rehabilitating the unfortunate alcoholic in this country?
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for his interest in an important fund. If I may first reply to the first part of his supplementary question, we have taken a step forward. We now have proposals from the Brewers' Society and we really do have to look at them to see that they are practicable and not too costly to administer. Regarding the second part of my noble friend's question, the Government attach importance to the principle accepted by other parties to the discussions that the money should be used, at least in part, for public purposes such as those that the Erroll Committee had in mind some seven years ago. These include the types of purpose which I know my noble friend has in mind.
Lord PAGET of NORTHAMPTON: My Lords, in view of the Government's need for early and urgent popularity, is there not a case for devoting this fund to reducing the price of beer? It would be the only price that is reduced.
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, maybe that would help with alcoholic troubles; maybe it would not. From the time that the Erroll Committee sat, most people have felt that at least part of these funds should be devoted to trying to help generally with the problem of alcoholism.
Lord JANNER: My Lords, will the noble Lord inform the House for how many years this fund has been held up? The charities—which are very well deserving—need the money. When he meets the Brewers' Society again will he explain why this matter has taken so many years? How many more years is it going to take before the charities benefit from the fund?
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, I do not think I wish to go back to the time of pre-1904 licences. But, to be more helpful to the noble Lord, a genuine answer is that the Brewers' Society scheme has to be looked at carefully—and we received it only in July—first of all to see whether it is too costly to administer. The question of administering a trust has to be worked out, and I must be blunt and say that the distribution of these moneys will need legislation.
Lord ELWYN-JONES: My Lords, will the Minister say how much money there is in this fascinating "kitty"?
Lord BELSTEAD: Over £4 million, my Lords.
Lord HAMNETT: My Lords, is the Minister able to give the House any information as to when there are likely to be any enactments arising from the Erroll Committee Report?
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, I think that that goes a little wider than the Question I was asked. If the noble Lord cares to put a Question down, I shall do my best to reply to him.

GENEVA DISARMAMENT COMMITTEE: PROGRESS REVIEW
2.49 p.m.
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will report on the progress of the Geneva Disarmament Committee which is considering the recommendations of the United Nations Special Assembly on Disarmament.
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, we have already done so. A review of the work of the committee can be found in the first issue of the Government's Arms Control and Disarmament Newsletter and in the speech made by my honourable friend the Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs to the First Committee of the United Nations on

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October 17th. Copies of both are in the Library of the House.
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, should not the House and the public be made more aware of what has been happening at this committee? Has it not discussed the test ban treaty, nuclear disarmament and a ban on chemical, radiological and new weapons of destruction? Surely, this House and the public ought to have more information. What has occurred since the speech of the Foreign Secretary at the United Nations Assembly?
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord that the proceedings of this committee ought to be more widely disseminated, but I do not think there is anything more we can do than we have done already.
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, may I ask two specific questions arising from these discussions. First, the negotiations regarding a ban on chemical weapons between the US and the USSR having dragged on for four years, is it not possible for the Geneva Committee itself to prepare a convention? Secondly, with regard to the objection of the West to a ban on new weapons of destruction until a weapon has been identified—is that not too late? Cannot research on new weapons of destruction be put into operation?
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, if I may take up the point made by the noble Lord concerning chemical weapons, the committee on disarmament has not yet been able to start negotiating a treaty text because of the need to avoid impeding the bilateral US and USSR talks. While we acknowledge the pressure for the committee to start multilateral negotiations on chemical weapons, we believe such negotiations will be useful only if both the United States and the Soviet Union are in broad agreement.
On the more general point of restricting new weapons before they are even developed, I think the noble Lord has a point, but I would remind him that in this, as in many other spheres of disarmament negotiation, we are anxious that any treaty we negotiate is effective and must include proper confirmatory arrangements.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, may I put two points to the Minister. First, does he agree that while it is essential that the United States and the Soviet Union should be in fundamental agreement on all practical forms of disarmament, including the banning of chemical weapons, which has been raised this afternoon, nevertheless it is also essential for the enlarged committee in Geneva to have a say in these matters? In the past there has been a suspicion that disarmament talks have been confined to the negotiations of the two super powers without the rest of the world being properly consulted. I hope the Minister will confirm that Her Majesty's Government will take that view in regard to the work of the Geneva Committee.
The second point is this: relating to our ambassadorial representation in Geneva for this purpose, can we take it that our permanent representative in Geneva for disarmament purposes will continue to have ambassadorial status and that his base will be Geneva rather than London?
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, two points again: I shall have to take advice on the precise diplomatic status of our representative in Geneva and I will write to the noble Lord, if I may. On the question of whether we should proceed with negotiations for a multilateral treaty on, for example, chemical weapons while bilateral talks between the US and the USSR are in progress, that is a matter of judgment, I think; and our judgment is certainly that these bilateral talks would be impeded if we were to proceed on a multilateral basis at this time.

GATWICK AIRPORT: SECOND RUNWAY AGREEMENT
2.54 p.m.
Lord BOYD-CARPENTER: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they were consulted in advance by the British Airports Authority as to that authority's intention to give an undertaking to the West Sussex County Council not to build the second runway

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at Gatwick for 40 years and whether they regard themselves as bound by this undertaking.
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, the present Government were not consulted about the agreement and are not parties to it. Not being parties to the agreement, the Government cannot be bound by it. The Government will reach their view on this and other matters concerning expansion of London's airports when they receive shortly the reports of the Advisory Committee on Airports Policy and the Study Group on South-East Airports.
Lord BOYD-CARPENTER: My Lords, while thanking my noble friend for that wholly satisfactory reply. may I ask him to confirm what I think is his implication—namely, that if, either as a result of the current review of the London airports or for other reasons at any time during the subsequent 40 years, while the Government will no doubt be in office, they will regard themselves as wholly free to direct the British Airports Authority to construct a second runway if in the judgment of the Government it is required?
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, I am in some difficulty in replying to that supplementary, because of the quasi-judicial functions of my right honourable friends the Secretaries of State for the Environment and for Trade in relation to the forthcoming inquiry into a second terminal at Gatwick. I think it would be inappropriate for me at this stage to express a view such as that for which the noble Lord asks.
Lord BOYD-CARPENTER: My noble friend, I think, misunderstood my Question. I did not ask him to confirm what the Government would do; I asked him to confirm that the Government could, if they so wished, give such a direction.
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, I do not think I can go further than my original Answer, and perhaps I might quote just one sentence from it:
"Not being parties to the agreement, the Government cannot be bound by it".
Baroness BURTON of COVENTRY: My Lords, could the Minister see that publicity is given to that welcome reply?
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Is he aware that the opinion of people who are interested in these matters is that really it has been no use pursuing the question of the second runway, because the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, has tried on many occasions and we have always been met with the fact that the British Airports Authority would not con-done it? May I ask him, finally, whether he would not agree that it is probably even more important to have a second runway at Gatwick than to have a second terminal?
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, the Government have not yet reached their conclusion in this matter. As I said in my original Answer, we are awaiting the reports of the Advisory Committee on Airports Policy and of the Study Group on South-East Airports. Until those reports are received we have an open mind on these matters, and certainly we have reached no conclusion as to whether or not there should be a second runway at Gatwick. When our predecessors were in office they announced in the 1978 White Paper that they saw, if my memory serves me aright, "no future" in the proposal for a second runway at Gatwick. We reserved our position on that White Paper when we were in Opposition, and are not yet in a position to announce our conclusions.
Lord HARVEY of PRESTBURY: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the cargo village at Gatwick was built on land that might have been available for the second runway? Is he aware that, even if the Airports Authority and others concerned were to agree that a second runway was necessary, it probably could not be built?
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, I am aware that the cargo village recently constructed at Gatwick is along the line of one of the possible sites for a second runway.
Lord MURRAY of GRAVESEND: My Lords, is the noble Lord not aware of the fact that obviously the building of runways at airports is a very explosive matter for a lot of people living in the area? Will the Minister make sure that the West Sussex County Council and the British Airports Authority are informed that the Government are not bound by their decision?
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, I am in fact certain that the British Airports Authority and the West Sussex County Council are well aware of the thoughts contained in my Answer today.
The Earl of ONSLOW: My Lords, is the noble Lord not aware that large numbers, if not the majority, of people both in Sussex and in Surrey, where I live, would be wholly opposed to the building of a second runway at Gatwick airport, especially after this pledge by the county council concerned that a second runway would not be built? Is the noble Lord aware that local feeling runs very, very high indeed?
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, the position is not entirely one for the local authority. There are other people concerned, including the Government and the British Airports Authority.
Lord HAWKE: My Lords, may I confirm what my noble friend Lord Onslow has said—
Several Noble Lords: No! Question!
Lord HAWKE: My Lords, is the Minister aware that his answer will be received with the greatest regret by all the inhabitants of West Sussex? Does this mean that any bargain done with the aid of a Government agency can be repudiated by the central Government if they wish to do so?
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, the final conclusion in this matter must rest with the Government and we have not yet made our decision.

EXCHANGE CONTROL: REMOVAL OF RESTRICTIONS
Lord DENHAM: My Lords, with the leave of the House, my noble friend Lord Cockfield will be repeating a Statement being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer at a convenient moment after 3.30 p.m.

INSURANCE COMPANIES BILL [H.L.]
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to extend the Insurance
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Companies Act 1974 to Northern Ireland; to amend that Act with respect to the functions of the Industrial Assurance Commissioner and for connected purposes.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a.—(Lord Trefgarne.)
On Question, Bill read 1a, and to be printed.

LAW REFORM (MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS) (SCOTLAND) BILL [H.L.]
3 p.m.
Report received.
The Earl of MANSFIELD The Earl of MANSFIELD moved Amendments Nos. 1 to 4 en bloc:
Clause 18 [Amendment of Marriage (Scotland) Act 1977]:
Page 13, leave out lines 7 to 17 and insert—

("(a) in section 6(5) (restriction as to date and place of religious marriage), for the words" 13(3) "there shall be substituted the words"23A";

(b) in section 8(1) (persons who may solemnise marriages), at the beginning there shall be inserted the words "Subject to section 23A of this Act,";

(c) in section 13 (preliminaries to solemnisation of religious marriages), subsections (2) and (3), which in so far as they are not inconsistent with the provisions inserted in the said Act of 1977 by paragraph (d) below are superseded by those provisions, shall cease to have effect;

(d) after section 23 there shall be inserted the following section—

("Validity of registered marriage,
23A.—(1) Subject to sections 1 and 2 of, and without prejudice to section 24(1) of, this Act, where the particulars of any marriage at the ceremony in respect of which both parties were present are entered in a register of marriages by or at the behest of an appropriate registrar, the validity of that marriage shall not be questioned, in any legal proceedings whatsoever, on the ground of failure to comply with a requirement or restriction imposed by, under or by virtue of this Act.
(2) In subsection (1) above, "appropriate registrar" means—

(a) in the case of a civil marriage, an authorised registrar; and

(b) in any other case, a district registrar.").

Page 13 line 20, leave out ("paragraph (a) and (b) of")
Schedule 3 [Repeals]:
Page 20, line 54, at end insert—

("1977 c. 15.

The Marriage (Scotland) Act 1977.

Section 13(2) and (3).")

In the Title, line 24, leave out ("preliminaries to marriage") and insert ("the validity of marriages").
The noble Earl said: My Lords, with the permission of the House—and it will be for its convenience—I shall move all the Amendments—that is to say, Amendments Nos. 1 to 4—together. These amendments have been drafted in response to comments made by the Law Society of Scotland, which pointed out that the provisions of Clause 18 as introduced did not go far enough. They suggested that the clause should amend the Marriage (Scotland) Act 1977 in such a way as to validate all marriages which had been duly registered, but which might theoretically be open to challenge on the ground of procedural defect or even non-capacity on the part of the celebrant.
As such defects are, almost invariably, the fault of clergymen or officials, the marrying parties being themselves in no way to blame, it is considered right that the opportunity should now be taken to remove any possible question about the validity of any marriage where such defects have occurred. These amendments make it clear that any such marriages are valid.
Amendment No. 1 effectively replaces the whole of subsection (1) of Clause 18 of the Bill, and is in four parts. Paragraphs (a) and (b) amend Sections 6 and 8 of the 1977 Act, which state that marriages "may be solemnised only" in accordance with their provisions, by inserting a reference to the new Section 23A inserted by paragraph (d). These amendments make it clear that, even if in a particular marriage the provisions of Sections 6 and 8 are contravened, that marriage will be valid. Paragraph (c) provides for subsections (2) and (3) of Section 13 of the 1977 Act to cease to have effect.
Paragraph (d) inserts into the 1977 Act a new Section 23A which validates in general terms marriages at which both parties were present and which were duly registered. This validation does not extend to marriages which contravene the provisions of Sections 1 and 2 of the 1977 Act, which deal with the substantive matters of minimum age of marriage
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and forbidden degrees of marriage. It is also without prejudice to subsection (1) of Section 24 of the 1977 Act, which, inter alia, makes the solemnisation of a marriage in certain circumstances an offence.
Amendment No. 2 is a drafting amendment consequential upon Amendment No. 1 and Amendment No. 3 gives formal effect to the repeal of Section 13(2) and (3), already removed by paragraph (c) of Amendment No. 1. Amendment No. 4 amends the Bill's Long Title by substituting a reference to "the validity of marriages" for the present reference to marriage preliminaries. This arises from Amendment No. 1.
It may be proper of me to say that I sent to the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, who has spoken for noble Lords opposite at previous stages of this Bill, a copy of the amendments before they were tabled, plus an explanation. I am glad to say that, while official duties keep him beyond the Border, he has expressed himself in writing to me as satisfied as to their propriety. My Lords, I beg to move.
Lord ELWYN-JONES: My Lords, not having had the advantage of seeing that private correspondence with my noble friend and being a little in the dark about this matter, may I ask whether, broadly speaking, this is a piece of benevolent retrospection?
The Earl of MANSFIELD: My Lords, if legislation putting right defects which are almost invariably the fault of clergymen or officials can be said to be anything but beneficial, yes, my Lords, it is.
Lord DRUMALBYN: My Lords, was I right in understanding my noble friend to say—I hope that I was not—that the effect of one of these amendments would be to validate a marriage which it was an offence to solemnise?
The Earl of MANSFIELD: My Lords, no. I think I am right in saying that the amendment is without prejudice to subsection (1) of Section 24 of the 1977 Act, which in itself makes the solemnisation of a marriage in certain circumstances an offence. What these amendments do is to validate a situation which might exist through no fault of the parties, but through

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what I shall choose to call a mistake on the part of those who carried out the ceremony of marriage in the first place.
On Question, amendments agreed to.

ECC 16th REPORT: LAWS ON CONSTRUCTION PRODUCTS
3.6 p.m.
Baroness WHITE Baroness WHITE rose to move, That this House takes note of the Sixteenth Report of the European Communities Committee on the approximation of laws relating to construction products (R/3289/78) (H.L. 64). The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I beg to move that this House takes note of the 16th Report of the Select Committee on the European Communities which deals with construction products. This may sound rather a dull subject for those who are not specialists in the matter, but in fact this report on a draft Directive and a draft resolution considers matters of quite considerable importance in the constitutional and administrative arrangements of the European Community.
In an accompanying memorandum, included in the report from the Department of the Environment, it is made quite clear that these documents may be regarded as a test case, and therefore it was the view of the Select Committee that we should draw the attention of your Lordships' House to these matters. The report was published on 23rd August and a Press notice was issued—again, because we felt that the matter was of concern not merely to those directly interested in the construction industry in the United Kingdom or elsewhere, but also because it raised these wider matters.
This is one of the relatively few occasions when I may express gratitude to the other place, because they had in fact looked at these draft documents before we did. We decided that it would be a waste of the time and effort of all concerned if we took further evidence from certain bodies who had already communicated to the appropriate committee in the other place. We obtained consent to take cognisance of those documents, and to that extent therefore this is a joint effort of both Houses of Parliament. The committee in the other place had, I think, hoped to have
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a debate but other matters intervened, and this was frustrated in the interests of the General Election.
As I said, we should make it plain that this is not just a run-of-the-mill draft Directive. There are, in fact, two documents directly before us; namely, a proposal for a draft Directive and a further one for a resolution which deals with the list of priority products which should be included in this operation. These documents were issued on 4th December last year, since when there have been further documents proposing some slight amendments to both the Directive and the resolution, to which I may turn in a moment. I am hoping that my noble friend Lord Hinton will deal with what I might call the practicalities of these matters, because I think no one in your Lordships' House could claim to have greater experience of harmonisation and standardisation of products than my noble friend. But I shall leave him to speak for himself.
I hope to deal more particularly with the procedural matters which are of more general interest and require, if I may say so, rather less specialist and technical knowledge than I possess. When I mention that I should perhaps, just by way of illustration, produce one item of information for your Lordships' House. There are no fewer than 17 pages of printed matter on the rule for the assessment of punched metal plate timber fasteners and, if you apply comparable instructions for every product that you can think of in the construction industry, you will see that to deal with that adequately you need an expertise which few of us possess.
Before I deal with the two principal documents in front of your Lordships, I think I should draw your attention to an extremely useful little periodical called European File which is issued by the Commission of the European Communities, the Directorate-General for Information. It is No. 12 in the current year's issue and it deals directly with the matter which is the substance of these proposals; namely, the removal of technical barriers to trade. It was issued in June of this year and was followed by two other booklets in the series which are also germane: No. 13, The European Community and Consumers and No. 14, European Competition Policy. For those of us who are not directly concerned with

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these matters but who like to keep ourselves as well informed as possible, these booklets are very useful.
No. 12, The Removal of Technical Barriers to Trade—which is what this exercise is all about—gives a very persuasive background, urging that this is a desirable exercise. It starts by suggesting that standardisation will help large-scale production, which ultimately, therefore, by economies of scale, should help the consumer. It is also necessary within the Community to protect consumers' health and to promote users' safety, and it continues:
"These norms should theoretically help to expand trade, but this is not always the case".
It points out, further, that each country sets its own norms but that rarely are these different national norms compatible with each other; and the creation of national norms sometimes has the undeclared objective of protecting national manufacturers, which can be very tempting in periods of economic crisis.
It gives various examples, one of which interested me as a housewife. Swiss producers have adopted standardised and completely original dimensions for their kitchen units and the structures into which they are to be fitted. The Swiss housewife can thereby not use kitchen units produced abroad alongside those manufactured in her own country. We can think of many situations in which similar practices might well prove very tempting indeed. It then points out that as early as 1969 the Community began this attempt to harmonise the norms in force in Member countries, with the objective of eliminating the technical barriers which restrict trade. There are a number of other non-tariff barriers to trade, but I think that we all agree that technical barriers are indeed among the most important.
If one were successful in this mammoth task of harmonising these various products which may be subject to trade between the members of the Community, then one would have an Economic Community of some 260 million consumers, and that might indeed be regarded as one of the main objectives of the Community. However, it is made very clear that this is bound to be an extremely slow process. Our booklet says that the elimination of technical barriers is a long-term project.
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It indicates that in the 10 years which have elapsed there have been no more than about 130 harmonisation exercises which are now actually operative—a not very rapid rate of progress—and it considers that there should be a minimum objective of 300 harmonisation Directives in the industrial field. They give no justification whatsoever for this particular number but simply seem to assume that that is about the limit of what is practicable, given the staff at their disposal in Brussels. They point out that no sooner have you settled one harmonisation exercise than another one comes up on the horizon. New barriers are, of course, being created every day.
As at the time of writing this descriptive booklet they had only, I think, 30 persons engaged on this exercise—who also had to keep up with updating earlier harmonisation proposals—the speed with which one can do anything is bound to be extremely slow. As they rightly say, it only needs one national civil servant to lay down a technical norm incompatible with those in other countries to create a technical barrier to trade. So the possibilities are endless.
It was because of the slow progress that was being made that the nominated European Parliament which was dissolved in the summer made some very vehement protests at the snail's pace at which this desirable procedure was being conducted and made it very clear that in their view a different procedure really must be adopted. The proposals which are before us this afternoon are partly, at any rate, the fruit of those protests at the slow pace at which these matters were being dealt with.
It is very easily understandable why our colleagues in Brussels have made the proposals that we are considering this afternoon. Originally, one would have had to use the procedure of Article 100 of the Treaty whereby these matters would go to the appropriate Council of Ministers who would have to decide, on a unanimity basis, as to whether or not the proposals were acceptable. It is quite plain from what I have already indicated that you cannot expect Councils of Ministers to go into the sort of details which have to be considered in draft Directives of this kind. Therefore the

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proposal now before us is that implementing committees should be established which would have representatives of all the Member States but which would proceed, not by a unanimity rule but by a qualified majority. This would be under Article 155.
It is this proposal which has caused such considerable heart-searching among the members of our own Select Committee on the European Communities. It would alter very considerably the weight of authority in the Community and would have, in our view, certain extremely important practical disadvantages. At the present time, if we have the kind of draft Directive to which we are accustomed it is published in full text and can be, and is, commented on, and in our case is reported, if required, to your Lordships' House. And consultations can take place openly.
What we are very much concerned about with this new proposal is that we have no guarantee at all that the full details will be published, that the consultations will be open and that it will be possible, if necessary, to report more information to the parliamentary institutions in the Member States. So we are very much concerned both about the principle and to a somewhat lesser degree as to whether in fact this test case has been brought forward in an appropriate field; namely, the field of construction products.
I should perhaps say that, in the consultations which we have had with the interested parties in the United Kingdom, differing views have been expressed as to whether this is in fact an appropriate area in which to conduct this new and to some extent experimental procedure. The National Council of Building Materials Producers are quite blunt about it. They wrote to us as follows:
"We find it very difficult to understand the need for this directive when work is currently and satisfactorily proceeding towards the harmonisation of standards for a very wide variety of products".
On the other hand, only this morning I received correspondence from the British representative on the European Union of Agrément, which deals with innovatory products—new products which have not been fully accepted by the standards institutions in the various countries but
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which are nevertheless passed as being suitable for use or operation. They point out that the building materials producers in this country are among the more conservative element in the building trades, whereas their members are the active exporters, and they suggest that their members might perhaps see greater advantages in the proposed harmonisation than our building materials producers seem to find evident.
The chairman of the European Union of Agrément says:
"There might be opposition to the EEC framework directive from the traditional sector who have no interest in export but who expect that the imposition of international standards might in some instances allow the use of materials in the United Kingdom of a lower quality than before".
The letter proceeds:
"It is difficult to say to what extent exports might increase if barriers in Europe were removed. The Agrément Board knows of a number of cases where the time and cost of obtaining approval in Germany or France has made manufacturers decide to forego export to those countries.
I am in no position to judge as between these two organisations, or others who have expressed opinions, but it is clear that there are some differences of view and not unnaturally they vary largely according to whether one is or is not directly engaged in the export business.
To revert to the major matter of procedure, I should perhaps have pointed out, as we do in our report, that whether or not one is directly engaged in the export business the construction industry is a major component of our industrial scene, with some 14,000 firms employing nearly half a million people and with a turnover of over £6,500 million a year. So it is an area where what happens in the EEC context is of some considerable consequence.
I do not wish to go into too much detail on the procedural proposals that are before us because I think they are set out with great lucidity in the 16th Report which we are considering and I should be most interested to hear the views of other Members of your Lordships' House on the matters which are worrying us. I should perhaps make clear that in the procedure which is now proposed the aim might be total harmonisation which would be obligatory for all the products covered in all the Member States. Or there could be optional harmonisation; this would

21
mean that the Member States could not object to the import of products from other Member States which comply with the implementing Directives, but they could nevertheless permit the use of other products or plant which did not comply with the European standards but which were permitted under the national standards. If the proposal for the construction industries were for total harmonisation, then frankly I think we should be in serious difficulty, but fortunately the attitude of the Commission, so far at least, is that total harmonisation should normally be reserved for matters where either health or safety are at risk and that for industrial products of a more general nature the optional rule should prevail.
What we are really most concerned about is that we are apprehensive that rules may be accepted without adequate publicity and with no right of appeal. That is really the gravamen of the situation so far as we can understand it. It is true that in the amendments issued last month to the proposals before us it is suggested that the implementing committee should issue an annual report of what it has done, but of course that is ex post facto and is not going to help very much, apart from just having it on the record. It was also suggested that the committee should indicate the areas in which it is likely to proceed with harmonisation during the next two years, but there is no indication—still less any guarantee—that this will be more than a general indication of an area or a group of products in which it will be operating. That is a very different thing from publishing and having completely open to view to all concerned the precise proposals which are intended. If you are in the trade or business what you need are not general indications but the precise details of what it is you are going to be obliged to comply with. We feel that this is the very least one should insist upon if any matter is to be considered by this implementing committee, which is either able to make this decision itself on a qualified majority vote or is able, if it prefers, to send it up to the Council of Ministers and, if the Council of Ministers does nothing about it for a period of three months, the proposal becomes operative notwithstanding.
So we feel that absolutely maximum publicity is essential. We do not think it
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is sufficient to say that there will be consultation with experts or with interested parties, because there is no guarantee as to who is going to be consulted. If it is carried on behind closed doors we think it will be a grossly unsatisfactory way of conducting the matter and we believe in any case that, at least until we have had greater experience of this type of procedure, even if the matter is delegated to an implementing committee—which would indeed save a great deal of time at the ministerial level—we should adopt the unanimity rule and not the qualified majority rule, if only until we see how this kind of operation works and how satisfactory it is. So we make this point plain in our report, that if there were a total harmonisation—which we are not dealing with in this particular report—it should go to the Council under Article 100 as it does now. If it is optional we can see the point of having a committee of implementation, but it should publish its precise proposals at the outset and it should adopt the unanimity rule. We suggest that there should be a review of the procedure, we say possibly after five years, to see how we are getting on. It might then be that we would have such confidence in the way things were being conducted in Brussels that we could agree to a qualified majority rule, but at the present time we think that that is premature.
My Lords, I hope I have indicated the reasons why we have apprehensions about this particular procedure. We see the possible advantages in certain areas. I would not myself wish to go into the second document this afternoon, which gives the proposed list of priority products to be dealt with, beyond saying that again there are strong differences of view as to whether or not those particular products are the right ones to start with; but I would regard that as being too technical to be appropriate for discussion. I hope that your Lordships will agree, from what I have very briefly indicated to be the main problems in this area, that the committee was justified in bringing it to your attention. I beg to move.
Moved, That this House takes note of the Sixteenth Report of the European Communities Committee on the approximation of laws relating to construction products. (R/3289/78) (H.L. 64.)—(Baroness White.)
3.32 p.m.
Lord HINTON of BANKSIDE: My Lords, as the noble Baroness, Lady White, has indicated, there was some debate in your sub-committee as to whether the procedure which is proposed in this Directive was entirely appropriate. I do not propose to deal with that question, but rather to leave it to those Members of this House who are better qualified to talk about it than I am. My intention is to confine myself to the purely practical problems of standardisation. It so happens that I have been more than normally exposed to those problems during my career.
Although the British Standards Institution was formed in the late 1920s, the first real attempt at firm standardisation was made by Imperial Chemical Industries in the early years of the 1930s. At that time I was chief engineer of their alkali division and I was given the additional task of doing standardisation for the whole of ICI. That work was done by a committee which was made up of representatives from all of their divisions. It was a herculean job. It took several years, and it was not merely outstandingly successful but also was taken as a model by many other firms who wished to have true standardisation in their organisation.
At the outbreak of war I was seconded to the Ministry of Supply and there I was in charge of the Royal Filling Factories and carried through a standardisation scheme for all the small tools and the many thousands of fillers' components that are used in the final assembly of explosives stores. After that I moved to atomic energy where I standardised all of the general stores and engineering materials for their industrial establishments. From there I moved on to the Central Electricity Generating Board where I did a similar job. So I have seen something of standardisation in my time.
It is, I think, almost axiomatic that if you have one supplier and one purchaser standardisation is easy. If you have two suppliers and two purchasers, it becomes quite extraordinarily more difficult, and the difficulty of standardisation increases pretty well exponentially as the number of suppliers and number of purchasers increases. But not only does the difficulty of standardisation increase with the increase of numbers of suppliers and
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purchasers who are concerned, the quality of the standards specifications also tends to fall. There is a very good and simple reason for that. All standardisation is a compromise between the views of a number of manufacturers and a number of buyers, and the more manufacturers and the more buyers you have concerned the more compromises you have to make and the more flabby your standard specification becomes.
Your sub-committee was told in evidence that there are in the United Kingdom some 14,000 firms producing materials for the building trades, and the number of purchasers for those trades must be even greater. The difficulty of standardising with such a large number of manufacturers and such a large number of purchasers is, I think, obvious. It is true that there is some rudimentary standardisation in the building regulations, although it is interesting to note that they are not standardised for the whole country in that the London building regulations are different from those in the Provinces. But that standardisation under building regulations aims only to ensure the stability, the safety, the sanitation and the fireproofness of the building and does not attempt to go further than that. If I can give a simple example of how far it falls short of true standardisation; my own house, which was built within the last 20 years under LCC building regulations, has got, I can easily count, six different doors in it and not merely do those doors differ in method of construction but they differ also in outside dimensions.
Your committee was told that the British Standards Institution have got a staff of 23 working on standardisation of construction materials, and in addition to that technical staff of 23 there is a supporting staff of about 40. But what matters most is that that staff merely supports and services the committees which do the actual standardisation, and the number of members of those committees which are considering standardisation within the construction industries is something between 2,000 and 3,000 men. If a working force of 2,000 to 3,000 people fails to do full standardisation of building construction materials for a small country like ours, the imagination almost boggles when one tries to think of the size of the organisation which would

25
be needed to do similar standardisation for all the nine countries of the EEC. There are, it is true, national standardisation organisations in most if not in all of the Member countries of the EEC, and the work of those national standardisation organisations is co-ordinated by a body which is known as the Comité Européen de Normalisation, CEN for short. Standardisation over a still greater number of countries is carried out by the International Standards Organisation (ISO). In addition there is, as the noble Baroness mentioned, a body called Agrément, but its decisions have far less force and are far less useful than the decisions of the two standardising organisations.
I am told that the standards which are produced by both CEN and ISO are less precise than those produced by the British Standards Institution. That is naturally the case because they have more bodies with whom they have to reach compromises and therefore decisions become more difficult to reach and more flabby when they are reached. Both CEN and ISO are producing results less quickly than is desired by the EEC and it is for that reason that the proposals contained in the Directive are put forward. I think that none of us would dispute the desirability of obtaining normalisation between the components concerned as quickly as possible.
On first reading, the Directive appeared to imply that the EEC desired to set up its own co-ordinating organisation, thus duplicating the work which is being done by CEN and ISO. If such a new organisation was initially in the minds of the Commission, I understand that that is no longer its intention and that its present proposal is to expedite the production of international standards by encouraging and helping collaboration with CEN and ISO, rather than by setting, up its own new organisation. I understand that fruitful discussions between the EEC, CEN and ISO are going on and I suggest that they should be allowed to take their course, with some encouragement. But in no case would I feel that it was wise for the EEC to build up a staff of its own to expedite the standardisation of construction materials and components for the whole Community.

EXCHANGE CONTROL: REMOVAL OF RESTRICTIONS
3.42 p.m.
The MINISTER of STATE, TREASURY (Lord Cockfield): My Lords, with the leave of the House I shall now repeat a Statement being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Statement reads as follows:
"With permission, Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a Statement about exchange control.
"In my Budget Statement on 12th June I announced our intention progressively to dismantle these controls. I made a number of relaxations at that time; and again on 18th July, when I informed the House of the first major move towards liberalising outward portfolio investment.
"I have now decided to remove all the remaining exchange control restrictions from midnight tonight, apart from those still needed, I hope not for long, in relation to Rhodesia.
"With that single exception, there will from tomorrow be full freedom to buy, retain and use foreign currency for travel, gifts and loans to non-residents, buying property overseas and investment in all foreign currency securities. Portfolio investment will be wholly freed; and the requirement to deposit foreign currency securities with an Authorised Depositary is abolished. Foreign currency accounts can be held here or abroad. Passport marking for travel funds can now be abolished. The necessary Treasury orders are being laid this afternoon.
"The removal of controls will lead to public expenditure savings of about £14·5 million a year, which represents the current cost of about 750 staff at present employed on exchange control work at the Bank of England and about 25 at the Treasury. I would like to thank all those who have had the task of administering the controls—not only in the Treasury, the Bank of England and Customs and Excise, but also those in the private sector, whose co-operation has enabled the system to work.

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"Under arrangements announced in this House in 1971, exchange control has been used to prevent United Kingdom tax incentives supporting the leasing abroad of foreign equipment. I propose to introduce in the 1980 Finance Bill provisions, which will take effect from tomorrow, to continue to prevent this. Further details on this matter are available in the Vote Office."
Perhaps I might add in parenthesis that they are available in the Printed Paper Office as well. The Statement continues:
"From tomorrow, we shall be meeting in full our Community obligations on the freedom of capital movements.
"Exchange controls have been with us in one form or another for just over 40 years. They have now outlived their usefulness. The essential condition for maintaining confidence in our currency is a Government determined to maintain the right monetary and fiscal policies. This we shall do."
That is the end of the Statement.
Lord BRUCE of DONINGTON: My Lords, the House will be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Cockfield, for repeating the Statement. I personally am grateful for the short notice which I had of the Statement, and for the provision of a copy of it. Detailed comment examining all its economic, political and social implications will probably have to be made on a later occasion.
I am astonished at the Government's sense of priorities in making a Statement of this nature. The Government have made their decision within the context of rising unemployment; the highest inflation rate in Europe; a shortage in industrial finance of some £2·38 billion, according to today's Financial Times; the Financial Times index going down by noon today a further 3·3 points to a new figure of 463·4; and a declining market for gilts. That is the context within which the Government Statement is made. No real reason is given for the steps being taken, apart from the somewhat derisory, although significant, amount of £14·5 million that will be saved on some 775 staff—750 at the Bank of England and 25, we are given to understand, at the
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Treasury. It works out on average, as your Lordships will note, at some £20,000 per annum each. The other reason given is, of course, that it brings us within the Community obligations. We are most grateful for the additional indication of the Government's fidelity to a Community spirit, especially at a time when some countries, particularly France, seem bent on avoiding every regulation that is put forward within the EEC. One comes to the final reason: the controls have outlived their usefulness. Time alone will show whether or not they have outlived their usefulness. Sometimes when a gesture of this kind is made and controls are freed, for the first two or three days it is perhaps interpreted in the outside world as meaning that the Government have supreme confidence, and even the rate of exchange might go up. It is when the outflow occurs that the trouble will begin.
I want to ask the noble Lord some questions, which I hope he will be able to answer. What outflow of funds do the Government envisage as a result of this abolition of controls? What concept have they formed as to how much of the outflow will go into personal and other property investment abroad?—particularly at a time when we are suffering from severe accommodation shortages in the United Kingdom. How much outflow will go into industries abroad, particularly in countries such as Korea and Brazil, which are setting up industries on the basis of being able to employ labour at one-eighth of the cost of labour in the United Kingdom, and of re-exporting products to the United Kingdom in competition with our own industries? How big a dagger is being thrust at the heart of some of Britain's industries? What impact does the noble Lord, or his right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, think this will have on the rate of inflation?
It may well be that part of the intention—one does not know because no reason is given—is slightly to ease the position of sterling against the dollar and against other European currencies. If that is so, this of course will increase the cost of imports into the United Kingdom. One thing we can conclude from this extraordinary announcement is that it rules out the possibility of any decline in the

29
minimum lending rate for the next foreseeable period. I hope that noble Lords opposite and their supporters in another place will be busily telling that to small businesses in the United Kingdom. The result is that it will leave the United Kingdom highly vulnerable.
This is not the abolition of one or two controls; this is the abolition of a whole system of controls that has been built up over 40 years for the protection of sterling. Are the Government so sure that over the next year, or perhaps even less, they will be in such firm circumstances that they will not need to exercise exchange control again? If they do find that necessary, will the noble Lord give some indication as to how they propose to proceed in those unfortunate circumstances?
Baroness SEEAR: My Lords, I, too, should like to thank the Minister for the Statement that he has made this afternoon and I welcome it. We believe that controls have been excessive and that this is a very desirable step in the direction of free movement of capital which is long overdue and which honours our EEC commitments. However, I would ask the Minister what the anticipated effect will be on the exchange rate of sterling, and in what way, if any, the dollar premium will be affected by the introduction of this change.
3.54 p.m.
Lord COCKFIELD: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, referred to this Statement as having been made against a background of rising unemployment, a high rate of inflation and pressures on company liquidity. This is, of course, the price that we are having to pay for five years of Labour Government and if, therefore, what my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has announced this afternoon represents a complete break from the policies which were followed by the previous Administration—which led to the disastrous results which the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, has outlined—I should have thought that that was the strongest possible argument in support of what we are now doing.
These controls have long outlived their usefulness. They impose considerable burdens on industry and
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on private individuals. There is no reason to suppose that they assist the national economy in any way. Our belief is that it is important that we should get growth back again into the national economy, and this represents an important and desirable step in that direction. The noble Lord specifically asked what outflow was expected as a result of the abolition of control. Very simply, the answer is that there will be flows across the exchanges in both directions; there will be flows in as well as flows out. At this stage nobody can say precisely what the net effect will be, but we do not expect it to he very great.
We have proceeded in this matter with caution and responsibility. There were two earlier major relaxations which have brought no untoward effects, and we believe that the third one will be taken by the British economy with benefit. The noble Lord also asked what would be the effect on the rate of inflation. He did not seem to be able to make up his mind whether it was a good thing for the rate of exchange to go up or for it to go down. We do not think that in itself this measure will have a great effect on the rate of exchange, which depends upon much more important and fundamental factors, particularly the creation of a sense of confidence in British industry and in the British economy generally, which lies at the heart of our policy.
I greatly appreciate what was said by the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, when she welcomed this move towards freedom. On this matter our views are much the same as those of the party which she represents. The noble Baroness asked specifically what the anticipated effect on the exchange rate would be. I can only say that this depends upon the size of the flows across the exchanges. There may be some immediate effect one way or the other—we cannot say which way—but we believe that in the long run the rate of exchange depends upon the strength of the British economy, and that is what we propose restoring.
Lord PLANT: My Lords, the noble Lord has said that this will benefit the British economy. As the action which the Government propose will stifle investment in Britain, will he please explain that statement?
Lord COCKFIELD: My Lords, there is no reason whatever to suppose that this measure will stifle investment in the British economy. Investment in the British economy depends as much as anything on the prospects for the British economy, and particularly the prospects for profits. We are doing everything we can to restore confidence in the British economy. All the evidence of the past is that direct investment overseas by British companies, and, indeed, by British individuals, has tended in the long run to benefit the British economy by creating greater export opportunities.
Lord HANKEY: My Lords, will the Minister reply to the interesting point raised by my noble friend Lady Seear as to whether this will affect the investment premium? Will that continue?
Lord COCKFIELD: My Lords, I must apologise for not having answered that point. I was endeavouring to make a large number of notes, and unfortunately I did not reply to it. The investment dollar premium market is a private market for which the Government have no responsibility at all. It is difficult to believe that in the absence of exchange control such a market will continue.

ECC 16th REPORT: LAWS ON CONSTRUCTION PRODUCTS
4 p.m.
Debate resumed.
The PRINCIPAL DEPUTY CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES (Lord Greenwood of Rossendale): My Lords, I should like, if I may, in taking the House back to the report of the Select Committee, to thank my noble friend Lady White for the clear way in which she explained to your Lordships the contents of the report of the Select Committee, and also to say how much we look forward to hearing Lord Bellwin's reactions to the points which have been made in our short debate.
When the Directive and the Resolution swam into my ken earlier this year I expected that I should be able to spend a number of happy hours studying the very real problems of an industry in which for some time I have played some
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part. But as I got down to the Resolution and the Directive I realised that the significance of the report and the significance of the suggestions of the Commission were much more important than those which applied simply to the building industry, grave as those problems are. Today we are, therefore, touching on subjects of much greater importance.
It seems to me that unless a firm stand is taken by Her Majesty's Government this could be starting, as it were, a seeping process eroding the powers of the Council, and perhaps through that eroding the powers of the national Parliaments. I believe myself that the Council is of the very greatest importance because it is through the Council that the national Parliaments can make their views felt. If we start going behind the backs of the national Parliaments, then of course we are going to destroy the faith a lot of us have been trying to build up in the concept of a democratic European constitution.
Yesterday, in order to clear my mind on this problem, I tried to analyse what exactly is involved in the proposals that have come to us from Brussels. I think I can best put it like this: if the present proposal was adopted without amendment a series of Directives laying down common EEC standards for construction products could be adopted by a qualified majority vote without reference to the Council of Ministers, where our national ministerial representatives have a right of veto under the Luxembourg Convention.
The Directive would set up a special committee consisting of representatives of Member States to which draft implementing Directives could be referred. This was the committee to which my noble friend referred in her speech. Votes of the Member States would be weighted, and 41 votes out of 58 would be sufficient for a proposal to be adopted. Proposals not adopted by the committee will be referred to the Council of Ministers, which would also act by a qualified majority. If the Council did not act within three months, draft Directives would automatically be adopted. This procedure would not only eliminate the Member States' right of veto under Article 100, which we have discussed on other occasions, but also result in there being no publication of the Directives concerned while they were still in draft.

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It is not surprising, if one accepts that analysis as a fair one—and that is what I have tried to make it—to find the Consumers' Association, in their excellent document of 2nd March, ending:
"In view of the great issues of principle and the serious flaws in detail, the whole Directive should go back to the drawing board".
The Select Committee went very thoroughly into that possibility. I think if anything we may have tried too hard to make helpful suggestions which would facilitate the reaching of some agreement. But certainly the proposals in the report—and my noble friend Lady White deserves most of the credit for those proposals—are genuinely intended to make things a great deal easier for the Community.
I hope that the Government will be prepared to look at the matter with as critical eyes as we had in looking at it on the Select Committee, but will also be quite adamant in insisting that none of the rights of this Parliament, or this country, shall be in any way eroded. So, therefore, I endorse very much the speech which my noble friend made, and also the views of the Consumers' Association. I hope very much indeed that Her Majesty's Government, and their representatives, will take very seriously indeed a case which can be a precedent of the greatest importance, and I hope we shall not be allowed to drift into a situation wherein the rights of this House and another place can be impaired.
4.6 p.m.
Lord THOMSON of MONIFIETH: My Lords, I should like to join in the thanks to my noble friend Lady White and to the Select Committee for the work that they have done on this particular Directive. I think that Parliament, the nation, and indeed the European Community ought to feel grateful for the vigilance with which they detected the important issue of principle and pursued the issue of principle beneath what, on the surface, is an extremely technical and complex Directive.
Perhaps I might preface my remarks by a general comment. What worries me about this Directive is that is shows a tendency on the part of the European Commission towards an excessive degree of zeal for an excessive degree of harmonisation in terms of daily life within the European Community. As your Lord
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ships know, I myself feel strongly about the importance of the European Community in world affairs, and the importance of British membership within the Community. But I think that the European Community ought to be principally about a limited number of big issues: of deploying the united economic power of the European Community in the great negotiations which go on in terms of world economic affairs; of creating a customs union; of using the influence and resources of the European Community in new forms of partnership with the Third World; of promoting an increased degree of monetary co-operation. These are things that the European Community ought to be about.
There is a danger of the European Community—and perhaps particularly of the European Commission within the Community—these days being tempted to get too bogged down in the details of everyday life, details that are best left to national Administrations. I do not think that the European Community, about which I remain enthusiastic and indeed passionate, ought to spend too much of its time and resources on the approximation of laws with regard to the components for waste evacuation installations. The report mentions the recent draft Directive on lawnmower noise, to which the Select Committee has given some attention. I used to be the Commissioner for Regional Affairs in the European Community and I saw a good deal of the Community from one end to another. I would rather see the Community engaging its activities on things other than lawnmower noise.
I noticed in Greenland, when I was there, that no igloo was complete without its motor lawnmower! In Sicily the problem was far more to get enough water to make the grass grow than to cut it. I am told by my old colleagues, that the wits around the European Commission—I do not know whether it is true or not—say that in its original form the draft Directive on lawnmower noise sought to lay down an approximation of the hours when we should all use our motor lawnmowers, and that this arose because some earnest Commission official was much disturbed early on a Sunday morning by his neighbour's habits with his motor lawnmower! More seriously, repeat that I think there is a danger of

35
the Commission getting too much into the details of daily life. I was much reassured by what the President of the Commission, Roy Jenkins, told the British CBI the other day. He said that he was seeking to get the Commission away from any sort of notion that if it moves, harmonise it.
I am conscious in making these general remarks that of course there is a problem about the interaction of the great issues on the less great issues, and the problem in this particular case, to which my noble friend Lady White drew attention in her characteristically reasoned manner, is that if you seek, as I would, a customs union, you cannot have a true customs union if there are various non-tariff barriers to trade, including technical non-tariff barriers to trade. Therefore, in my view there is a strong case for removing non-tariff barriers to trade. However, one should be prudent and thoughtful about the best tactics in approaching this. I recognise perhaps more than most in this House the frustrations of Commission officials with endless delays in the Council of Ministers and elsewhere in regard to their various ideas, but I do not think the way proposed in this Directive is the best way to overcome those frustrations, and I would lay down three guidelines.
First, I believe there is an obligation on the Commission in regard to any Directive removing non-tariff barriers to trade to prove the need to remove them—to provide the evidence and show that there is a strong case. I notice in the evidence given to your Lordships' Select Committee that grave doubt was cast as to whether that need had been proven, and indeed the Consumers' Association said in terms that no evidence had been produced as to the extent of the present restrictions.
I must declare a certain interest, in that I am chairman of a body called the Advertising Standards Authority, which is much involved in the draft Directive on Misleading and Unfair Advertising on which your Lordships' House has produced an excellent Select Committee report and a debate. In regard to that draft Directive, over many years it has been asserted by the Commission that the justification for the Directive was that differing laws and arrangements in regard to the control of advertising standards was
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a distortion of competition. But I think I am right in saying that over all these years that has remained an assertion which has never been backed up by evidence. It is in my view very necessary that if a case for harmonisation is to be made, it should be thoroughly backed up by evidence.
Secondly, when a case is found to be made, there is the choice between optional harmonisation and total harmonisation. As often as possible the Commission should go for optional harmonisation; that is, for enabling those undertakings which wish to be in the field of the total Community market to adopt the regulations, and for those who wish to remain idiosyncratically within their own national market to do so. The noble Baroness conceded that the Commission had said it was its desire to do that, and that is certainly the general thrust of Commission policy. Nevertheless, with regard to this particular Directive, although the Commission says in its paper that as a general rule the Commission is in favour of resorting to the optional method of harmonisation in the implementing of Directives, this general rule of course does not exclude the possibility of using the total harmonisation method should this prove to be essential in the case of certain specific problems or in regard to the use of certain products.
Therefore, what we face in connection with the present proposed Directive is that there could be propositions for total harmonisation that would go through the Commission procedure proposed without any reference to the Council of Ministers. Accordingly, my third piece of advice to my former colleagues in the European Commission is that they really should not seek to deal with their frustrations over delays in the Council of Ministers by in effect short-circuiting the Council of Ministers. I thought the Consumers' Association evidence on this was very pungent and to the point. They said in their evidence to your Lordships' Select Committee:
"We think the European Community is on a most dangerous road. We understand the desire to remove barriers to trade, but this must not be done by giving the bureaucracy the right to impose statutory requirements."
I strongly endorse that, and I endorse it out of my own experience of four years as a member of the European Com-

37
mission. I believe the European Commission is an essential institution of the Community. In my view, unless there was a purely European body to take the kind of initiatives that the Commission has taken on European monetary reform recently, the Community would move much more sluggishly than it does.
I also not only believe, but know, that the Commission enjoys the loyalties of a very devoted group of public servants with a high degree of expertise. But I say seriously—and I was conscious of this in the days when I was in Brussels—that the Commission must always be very cautious about its degree of democratic legitimacy within the European Community. Commissioners are appointed for four years and are sacrosanct during that term. The officials of the Commission are quite properly there in permanent post. They have no mandate arising from an election in the way national Governments and Parliaments have, and therefore they should be very cautious about the degree to which they seek to cut out the democratic processes.
Apart from that, it must be faced that the European Commission is not the best organised body in the world; it is in fact a rather small, though devoted, body of people. The noble Lord, Lord Hinton of Bankside, produced impressive figures about the numbers of people involved in seeking standardisation in building and construction in this country; they amount to almost the total number of officials engaged in the work of the European Commission as a whole, outside the translating and interpreting field. It is recognised that the internal structure of the Commission could do with improvement. In fact, the present Commission set up an independent review body for this purpose which has just reported, and some of your Lordships may have seen the report. It confirms what has long been my view of one of the Commission's weaknesses; namely, that it is excessively vertical in its organisation. They said in the report:
"The lack of adequate co-ordination among members of the Commission and a certain lack of encouragement from them for central coordination and planning among senior officials is particularly evident. The result has been a lack of structural co-ordination amongst Directors-General and a growing emphasis on the roles of the personal staffs of the Commission."
That independent review committee went on to emphasise the need for:
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"strong co-ordination procedures and proper machinery for arbitrating between the claims of competing sectors … Co-ordination within the Commission itself is at present insufficient. It cannot be replaced by co-ordination at administrative level, which is then too often informality and takes place at too late a stage in the decision-making process".
My experience was that an official in the Commission is able to advance a particular proposal, often in a highly complex and technical field, to a degree of development that would be quite impossible for an official in our national Administration, who would have to consult other departments with an interest in the matter. Then, when the decision finally surfaces, it goes through via a written procedure which means that the members of the Commission who carry the ultimate responsibility very rarely have any opportunity to see or express a view on the merits of those proposals.
It is for these reasons I believe from my experience inside the Commission that the proposals in this particular Directive for decisions being taken by a qualified majority within the Commission, with the Commission in the chair and without any previous publication of the papers, is, as the Consumers' Association said, a thoroughly dangerous proposal. I therefore very much endorse the proposals put by the Select Committee of your Lordships' House in its paragraph 33; that is a reasonable compromise and an effort to be helpful in these matters. It is that where there are proposals for total harmonisation they should certainly go to the Council of Ministers under Article 100; that where there is a proposal for optional harmonisation there should be within the Commisssion procedure an adequate period—your Lordships' Committee proposes three months—during which the proposals should be given adequate publicity; and that, finally, any decision on these proposals within the committee that the Commission chairs should in fact be taken on a unanimity basis. I believe that these are sensible and democratic proposals.
My Lords, I conclude by going back to my initial general remarks. I believe that once again your Lordships' Select Committee has made robust, but realistic, proposals about how best to react to suggestions coming out of the European Commission. I hope that the report that we have before us will be accepted

39
by Her Majesty's Government. I hope, equally importantly, that it will be accepted by the European Commission in the spirit in which I know it is offered. I hope that, as the Community develops, the European Commission will be highly selective in the proposals that it puts forward for harmonisation. In particular, I hope that in the field of consumer protection, for example, it will recognise—perhaps this is true equally of harmonisation of building regulations and such matters—that it has a very important role to play in terms of exchange of information about the best practice in the various member countries of the community; but it should be very cautious about seeking to impose a uniformity on the practices in the various member countries. Finally, I hope that, liberated from some of the less important issues, the Commission and the European Community will be able to concentrate and to make really great progress on the great issues on which so much depends in the future.
4.22 p.m.
The Earl of SHANNON: My Lords, as previous speakers have mentioned, I know that the whole House agrees with the valuable work of our European Communities Committee and its sub-committees. Sub-Committee G has rightly drawn the attention of your Lordships to the proposal we are now considering for a variety of reasons, some of which appear to be of great constitutional importance, but for my part I wish to make only a very brief intervention, on one particular aspect of the proposal, which I see was, quite rightly, noticed and questioned during the proceedings of the sub-committee by the noble Lord, Lord Ironside. I refer of course to the proposed criteria in Annex VI covering requirements for bodies who carry out independent testing in the absence of the self-certification procedure.
For your Lordships' convenience I should like to paraphrase Annex VI. Clause 1 basically requires the body to be competent. Clause 2 then seeks to debar almost all those bodies who have special competence in this field. I agree that there is a small mollifying sentence on exchange of technical information, but this does not really much affect the disqualifying power
40
of the clause. I appreciate that various amendments have been suggested to make the clause more workable, especially that, I believe, put forward by the European Parliament, but this still leaves the clause with what could be serious deficiencies, especially in regard to definition.
It would be most desirable to remove Clause 2 altogether, but that would of course raise the objection that the testing body must be seen to be impartial, and this is highly laudable from a consumer point of view. But the real difficulty of Clause 2 lies in two words, "design" and "maintenance". Any laboratory which has in any way ever contributed by research or development to the sum of total knowledge in this field can be disallowed as having taken part, however indirectly, in the forbidden activities. Above all, in view of the European Parliament's suggested amendment, where does technical advice and consultation stop?
Those very bodies whose work has enabled them to be eminently qualified under Clause I are therefore automatically excluded under Clause 2. This, strictly interpreted, excludes contract research laboratories, research associations, and even universities, if they have ever made a contribution in this field by contract work, co-operative work, or, I suggest, even a thesis, especially if the author is now on the university staff.
This particular subject received considerable attention at the meeting last week in Brussels of the Federation of European Industrial Co-operative Research Organisations, of which I am the Secretary. That organisation strongly supported the amendment which was proposed in this country by the National Council of Building Material Producers, which would allow the traditionally accepted research bodies in this field to be accredited, although one understands that they would prefer to see deleted the words, "design", and "maintenance", as well. I confirm that the Council of the European Federation would also like to see those words deleted. We must be careful that this proposal receives careful attention and consideration for many reasons in addition to that to which I have particularly referred, because once enacted it can, and in all probability will, be used as a pattern for future harmonisation proposals in many other industries.

41
The European Community looks to new technology to maintain its economy in the face of the pressure from the developing world. Those institutes, research organisations, and seats of learning who contribute to new designs and maintain products—not only keeping them working but maintaining them technologically in advance so that they can secure a market—are already in many cases the accepted bodies to test impartially often with tests which they themselves have invented. We must not allow this apparently small clause to be accepted as it stands, however well-intentioned it appears to be at first glance.
4.28 p.m.
The PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY of STATE, DEPARTMENT of the ENVIRONMENT (Lord Bellwin): My Lords, I welcome the opportunity to respond to the points raised by noble Lords in this debate. I should also like to congratulate the Select Committee on producing such a clear and—if I dare say it—such a constructive report. I am sure that the Select Committee has made a most important contribution to the debate on a most difficult subject. We could not have had a better illustration of the value and importance of the parliamentary scrutiny process, which is highly relevant to this particular Directive. I can assure the House, without hesitation, that both the report and the debate have been an invaluable guide to the Government in dealing with the Directive. I am sure that the debate to be arranged in another place shortly will be equally instructive.
As the noble Baroness, Lady White, said, construction plays a major part in the economies of each of the Member States of the Community. The scope of the draft Directive covers an extremely wide range of products. It therefore has, potentially, widespread implications for United Kingdom trade and industry. Moreover, if the procedure proposed for implementing Directives were agreed, it would undoubtedly be repeated in framework Directives for other industries. The implications of the draft Directive in its current form therefore go much wider than the construction industry alone and, as noble Lords have said, we must examine it with particular care.
The Select Committee and the industry have questioned the need for the Directive.
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In its report last year on Directives under Article 100 (of which this is one), the Select Committee said:
"The Commission should when preparing a draft proposal demonstrate that divergences between national laws are affecting the functioning of the Market, and affecting it directly and to a substantial degree.".
I am sure that that is right. In this report the committee say—and again I quote—that they,
"agree with the Economic and Social Committee that the existence of major barriers should be established before implementing directives are brought forward".
The report goes on to say that the committee,
"are not satisfied that the need for the present proposal has been demonstrated".
This view has been strongly supported by United Kingdom industry and those noble Lords who have spoken today, and I think it is fair comment. The preamble to the draft Directive makes a series of assertions but quotes no examples. There is no quantification.
The object of the Directive is the removal of non-tariff barriers to trade—an object which I am sure the whole House would endorse. It is no good having a common market without tariffs if Government regulations still prevent, or at any rate inhibit, trade. The question is: How far does this in fact happen? The United Kingdom delegation pressed this question at the opening meeting of the Council Working Group on this Directive in Brussels last month. Several other delegations were also concerned. The Commission accepted that the present priority list in the draft resolution was open to negotiation; it was only a first assessment based on limited information. The list will be reviewed, and we are in touch with United Kingdom industry to ensure that we reflect its precise, up-to-date views in the discussions. There is no doubt that the present list is too long, and we must ensure that as far as possible it includes the items desirable for British industry.
But, while we have reservations on the number of implementing Directives we may need, I am sure there will he some. For example, drafts on glass and fire-testing are already in an advanced stage of drafting. Others may be needed to deal with barriers between other Member States affecting products which the United Kingdom does not export. We must

43
accept that. I do not think it is realistic, as some have suggested, to oppose the framework Directive itself as a matter of principle. It is no help to attack the EEC as a matter of course at every opportunity. We must work within the EEC machinery to achieve the results we want. That does not mean unquestioning acceptance of the procedures put forward under the present draft Directive, and I shall come to those shortly. Moreover, we shall certainly need to be convinced of the need for each implementing Directive as it comes forward; and I am sure the Select Committee have proposed the right approach.
Noble Lords this afternoon and in committee—and industry in our consultations—have raised numerous points on the technical content of the Directive. For example, what criteria will govern the choice between optional and total harmonisation? I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Thomson of Monifieth, that harmonisation should normally be optional; but are the safeguards adequate, particularly in relation to self-certification and imports from third countries? Do the criteria for approval bodies fit United Kingdom circumstances—for example, in relation to research associations?
I cannot answer all these points today. We have already given notice in Brussels that we shall wish to raise these and other points in the detailed discussion of the draft, article by article, which will start in the Council Working Group on Thursday. I can assure the House that I will study the report of this debate very carefully and ensure that these points are taken into account by my officials in the negotiations.
However, I should like to touch briefly on what the noble Lord, Lord Hinton of Bankside, has said about the problems of international standardisation. No one has more experience in this field than the noble Lord, and I do not for a moment wish to suggest that he is in any way exaggerating the difficulties which face the standards-making organisations in reaching agreement on precise standards. It is true, too, that nothing in the present proposals will solve that problem. But I think there will usually be a fair measure of agreement on the areas which ought to be covered in a standard—for example, for
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a door, its stability and its resistance to impact and fire; for glass, its strength and clarity—and, as I said before, we can surely agree with the intention of ensuring that, once we have an agreed standard, it is applied to break down barriers to trade. That is what the proposal before us is all about.
My Lords, it has its problems. The main comments in industry's representations in the Select Committee's report and in this debate have, of course—and quite rightly—concentrated on the procedure proposed by the Commission for the adoption of implementing Directives. The primary aim of the proposed procedure is greater speed, so that once the standards exist there is no unnecessary delay. The Community's programme of Article 100 Directives is well behind target. The noble Baroness has argued that that does not in itself matter, but, clearly, where there are barriers to trade we should remove them as quickly as possible. A second aim, I assume, is to reduce the load on Ministers.
However, I am not at all sure that the cure is not worse than the disease. Indeed, would it even cure the disease? The Commission propose that responsibility should be delegated to a Committee of Implementing Directives, operating with a qualified majority vote. Ministers will be involved only if the Commission's proposal fails to receive 41 votes in favour out of 58, or if the committee fails to take a decision within the timetable determined by the Commission. In these cases Ministers will still be involved, and time may well not be gained. The procedure will also make little difference to implementing Directives which are unanimously supported: these should be processed quickly anyway, without placing an undue burden on Ministers. The procedure can therefore achieve the twin aims of speeding up and of reducing the load on Ministers only in those cases where there is a qualified majority but not unanimous support. Surely there will be few of these.
This limited potential gain must be weighed against the various objections that the noble Baroness and noble Lords have mentioned today. A Member country could be required to accept products to a standard it regarded as undesirable, possibly to a lower standard

45
than it applies at present. If the Directive required total harmonisation, this would become the only acceptable standard. This could have implications for health and safety. It could certainly affect our international trade and adversely affect United Kingdom industry by introducing competition from imports currently regarded as unacceptable. It is not clear how far the procedure will provide for proper consultation with the industry. The noble Baroness has stressed the vital importance of consultation in the widest sense, and I entirely agree. However, I was glad to hear that the Commission have recognised the need for this, and have put forward amendments to provide for it. We shall be looking at these very carefully to see how far they go towards what we would regard as acceptable.
Finally, and most importantly, the procedure would remove ministerial and parliamentary control over what is essentially a legislative process. It is hard to see where or how parliamentary scrutiny could be fitted in; and the Council of Ministers would be removed from the picture if a proposal secured a qualified majority in the committee. We and several other Member States therefore expressed strong reservations on this proposal at the first meeting of the Council Working Party in Brussels last month. We are now waiting to see how the views of other Member States develop, and whether any alternative proposals emerge for speeding up the implementing procedures.
The Select Committee have put forward their own alternative—I hesitate to call it a compromise. I think they are right to distinguish between the two main features of what the Commission are proposing: unanimity and the principle of delegation to the Commission. These are two separate issues. I am sure your Lordships' House will agree that we must maintain the unanimity principle. Qualified majority voting has already been accepted in relation to adaptation of existing Directives to match technical progress. In such cases policy is not at stake, but to apply majority voting to the range of decisions involved here—for example, whether there should be an implementing Directive on a particular product, whether harmonisation should be total or optional, the standard to be adopted, the nature of the approval procedure, and so on—
46
would be quite another matter. These are matters of policy, not technicalities.
There may, however, be scope for speeding up the procedure and reducing the load on Ministers while retaining the unanimity rule. The Select Committee suggest drawing the line between optional and total harmonisation and allowing only the former to proceed by the committee methods. But I am not sure this would be right. To remove the right of appeal to Ministers—and perhaps also the scope for parliamentary scrutiny—even in relation to optional Directives could create pressures which might make it difficult for the United Kingdom to resist developments which could have adverse effects on British industry or existing levels of safety, for example, by requiring us to accept products of a lower standard than we require at present.
My Lords, I think we must therefore maintain our opposition to the procedure proposed by the Commission. We would, of course, be ready to consider any alternative proposals that might be put forward which would achieve the objective of greater speed in areas where the case for harmonisation was established but would not concede any of the vital points to which I have just referred. I am most grateful for the contribution made by the committee, by the noble Baroness and by noble Lords. It has been a most helpful debate.
4.42 p.m.
Baroness WHITE: My Lords, I should like to thank warmly all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. The Minister's speech was very encouraging and I am sure that we are all grateful to him for it; he went further than I thought he might. But these are serious matters and I was particularly grateful to my noble friend Lord Thomson of Monifieth because he widened the debate by asking, I think, the most important question of all. Are these very detailed matters what the Community was really created for? I think that that is the nub of the matter. If we could get that straight, then I think there would be less occasion for differences of views between some of us and our very warm friends in Brussels. On a personal basis we have the warmest regard for all of them, but we find ourselves frequently in the difficult position of appearing to

47
disagree and having to pursue our principles with firmness.
My Lords, with these expressions of gratitude and the feeling that the work of our committee, onerous as it sometimes is, is at least appreciated in certain quarters of your Lordships' House, I beg to move.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

EEC 17th REPORT: AQUATIC ENVIRONMENT: POLLUTION
4.44 p.m.
Lord ASHBY Lord ASHBY rose to move, That this House takes note of the 17th Report of the European Communities Committee on draft Directives on the discharge of aldrin, dieldrin and endrin into the aquatic environment (6995/79) (H.L. 65). The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. Your Lordships may wonder why the Select Committee has brought this report for debate. It concerns two very technical Directives which have only a very local application to matters in Britain. Its purpose is to provide for the diminution of discharge of three notorious pesticides, aldrin, dieldrin and endrin, into water. This is a purpose which is entirely consistent with the policies of the Government; and, indeed, the agricultural uses of these pesticides have already been phased out. Deaths due to them, of birds, have diminished from as many as 23 in 1973 to none at all now, and in every way the purpose of these Directives discussed in the report is consistent with what Britain is already doing.
Indeed, my Lords, the Commission sees only two kinds of production of these dangerous pesticides which need legislation at all. One is the manufacture of them and the other is the use of them for moth-proofing woollen products. They are not manufactured in Britain so that that part of the Directives does not apply to us. But dieldrin is still used in one part of Yorkshire and, in a small scale, in some other parts of Britain for the moth-proofing of wool. For practical purposes, it is the discharge of dieldrin into one river, the River Calder, which would be affected by this Directive.
The Department of the Environment find the Directives acceptable to the
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United Kingdom in principle. This is because a few years ago a very important principle was agreed by the Council of Ministers after a good deal of pressure from this country. The conflict arose because a Directive was published to cover all so-called blacklist substances which were to be discharged into water. The dispute arose not because anyone disagreed that those things should be controlled but because the Commission wanted the control to be by blanket standard emission standards from the sewers and discharge pipes of the factories. This the British thought to be—since it was irrespective of the use to which the river was put and irrespective of the capacity of the river to disperse and dilute the waste materials—a wasteful, expensive and inefficient way of having an environmental control policy.
We pressed for an alternative, one which has long been used in Britain, namely, to set environmental quality objectives in the environment itself. That is done by setting standards for the water into which the wastes are discharged and gradually tightening those standards as science produces new techniques for doing so. It means that the standards used will differ from one stretch of water to another, whether it is being used for a trout stream or whether it is being used to empty the sewers of industrial cities; but the objectives are so set that they ensure there is no damage to human health or to the lives of creatures in the water.
After some argument, in December 1975 the Council of Ministers agreed to this compromise. Member States now have the option to control pollution of these blacklist substances either by controlling emission standards or by setting environmental quality objectives This is what we wanted; and this is what we now have. But we have been waiting for the first specific instance of a control of a specific substance; and now it has come. This is one of the first of several Directives based on the 1975 decision. It is soon to be followed by another one on the control of the discharge of mercury into water. That is on its way. These are going to set a precedent for legislation for many years to come and, therefore, it is important to look at the small print of these Directives.
There is a pair of them, although it was unnecessary to put them into a pair. One deals with emission standards and the other with environmental objectives. They offer a choice between emission limits and environmental quality objectives. So far so good. This is what we asked for. But is it a genuine choice? Your Select Committee does not believe that it is; and that is why this matter has been brought to your Lordships' House for debate.
If one is going to argue this, it is necessary to base it on the Commission's own definition of pollution. Although it is a clumsy one, I would ask your Lordships, for the purpose of the record, to allow me to read it. Its definition is the discharge of substances into water
"the results of which are such as to cause hazards to human health, harm to living resources and to aquatic ecosystems, damage to amenities or interference with other legitimate uses of water".
My Lords, what this amounts to is that things which cause hazard and harm are causing pollution—and one must distinguish that from contamination, which is the presence of things in water which are not causing hazards or harm. This is the background. What do these Directives about dieldrin and other pesticides require from Member States? I discuss only the requirements of dieldrin from moth-proofing plants because that is the only process which is of any relevance to Britain.
The first Directive sets a limit value for the emission of dieldrin. It is 60 parts per billion (an American billion, a thousand million) in the waste water discharged into the river. Clearly, the Commission considers that this is going to be a little difficult because it allows factories time to build treatment plant. The limit is not to become binding until 1986, six years ahead. The second Directive offers the other option, the one we asked for: an environmental quality objective for the river into which the wastes are discharged. The level proposed for this—and I apologise for these figures—is 0·005 parts per billion. Unlike the first option, this level has to be reached in two years' time, which gives the impression that it is an easier option.
These are the requirements which the Select Committee challenges because they make a nonsense of the options agreed
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by the Council of Ministers after great pressure from the British Government in 1975. At the risk of being slightly tedious to your Lordships, I must try to explain why this level makes nonsense. First, the two options are mutually contradictory and inconsistent. Suppose we complied with the first Directive? Suppose we reduced emissions to 60 parts per billion in the Calder River? Would this result in an environmental quality objective of 0·005 parts per billion? It certainly would not. After doing a little arithmetic, which is fully within the capacity of the staff of the Commission, it has been found that it would need a flow of one hundred times that of the Calder at its minimum value in order to produce that degree of dilution; in fact many times the flow of the Thames at Teddington.
So the two proposed standards simply do not match. This could either be a deliberate soft option for those Member States that want to choose an emission standard or it is a sign that the scientific basis for these figures is very suspect. That is not the only difficulty. The standard of 0·005 parts per billion is inconsistent with two other Directives which have already been published by the Commission and agreed by the Council on their own definition of pollution. For instance, the Commission has already agreed in principle that the level of dieldrin in water to be used for human consumption is to be not more than 0·1 part per billion—that is, 20 times higher than the level proposed in this Directive—so the limit has obviously not been set to make the water safe to drink.
What about the fish? Three years ago the Commission published its own water standards for fish. In this Directive, which has now been adopted, pesticides are not included at all. However, it is possible to calculate what the safe level will be because it is known that for a coarse fish like the roach—and we are talking about coarse river fishery in the Calder—about two parts per billion is the beginning threshold value for damage, and the level of dieldrin in the Calder varies a good deal; but it is in the region of 0·1 part per billion, that is one-twentieth of the danger level.
So on two counts, both falling in the definition of pollution by the Commission

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itself—human health and the health of fish—the environment quality objective proposed just does not make sense. There remains a very important fact, that the fish and other living things accumulate dieldrin from water, and they concentrate it enormously in their own tissues. If people then eat the fish they might be at danger. Experts are reluctant to commit themselves to precise figures for the amount of dieldrin which fish and other living things will accumulate from the environment. However, it is a general consensus that it is up to levels like 10,000—a multiple, that is, of 10,000 of the concentrations outside.
If the Calder carried trout, salmon or eels—which it does not because of pollutants other than dieldrin—then there would be an indubitable case for monitoring the dieldrin level of the fish. Then consent levels on the river could be imposed which would guarantee that the acceptable daily intake, if people ate the fish every day—and it is reckoned that about 100 grammes a day is the maximum one might expect people to eat—would be safe. This is exactly what is being done all the time in Britain in waters where fish are eaten. But coarse fish are not eaten in Britain, and the present use to which that stretch of water is put does not justify such drastic lowering of the dieldrin level either—to come back to the Commission's own definition—on grounds of hazards to human health or on grounds of harm to living resources.
Finally, there is a practical difficulty about settling a standard of 0·005 parts per billion which the drafters of the Directive do not seem to have noted. The waters which fall into a river from a mothproofing plant contain many impurities. If one wants to analyse the water containing those impurities for the concentrations of dieldrin, one simply cannot detect levels lower than about 0·01 parts per billion, so the level proposed in the Directive is one which could not in fact be measured, except by most refined and difficult research techniques. So the idea of monitoring concentrations of that level as a routine matter simply is not on.
These are the reasons why I think it is not an exaggeration to say that "nonsense" is the word that has to be used for this option offered to the nation States in
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the Community which prefer to take environmental quality objectives rather than emission standards. How did the Commission come across this figure? The Directive states that the figure was reached:
"after consulting a group of national experts",
and also on the basis of a study made by consultants in the Agricultural University of Wageningen in Holland. But as with previous Directives about the environment, scientific evidence for the decision is not given and the consultants' report is not published.
However, I have talked with the British experts in this matter and their view is clear from what I have already explained to your Lordships. I have managed to see a copy of the consultants' report. Again for the record, I should like to read the conclusion of that report:
"This leads to the rather disappointing conclusion that most toxicological studies made so far with the aim to assess the environmental hazards of aldrin, dieldrin and endrin … have been inadequate in the sense that for the aquatic environment no practical environmental threshold levels can be derived from their results".
The Commission then concludes, based on that conclusion, without providing any of the consultants' data that the environmental quality should be set at a level which is inconsistent with two other Commission Directives, unjustified on grounds of safety to human beings or wildlife, and below the limits detectable by routine analysis. As one of our witnesses put it, data appeared to have been plucked out of the air using a concentration factor much higher than the one thought to be reasonable by British experts.
The result is that, despite the compromise agreement made with great difficulty by Her Majesty's Government in 1975, we are not offered a practicable choice between emission standard and environmental quality objective. I am sure that I speak for the sub-committee which scrutinises environmental Directives for the Select Committee when I say that as committed Europeans we all want to reach amicable agreement with the Commission over an environmental policy for the Community, and we all agree that dieldrin is a harmful substance which ought be phased out as soon as satisfactory alternatives are found. The alternatives in use are not at present satisfactory because not enough is known

53
about them. But we see no prospect of amicable agreement unless the Commission can be persuaded to adopt two simple principles when it prepares its Directives.
The Select Committee is asking Her Majesty's Government to press upon the Commission the adoption of these two simple principles. The first principle is to abide by a declaration of the Council of Ministers made in 1973 about the environment. This declaration is the only authority for having a European environmental policy at all. It states that protection of the environment should be achieved
"at the lowest cost to the Community"
and that in setting quality objectives
"proper account must be taken of the specific characteristics of the regions in question".
This means the deployment of our limited resources in places where they could be most cost-effective. It means that we should have different environmental qualities for rivers, depending on whether they carry game fish, coarse fish or no fish at all. Following this policy in Britain over the last 20 years, some of them under the chairmanship of the noble Lord at present on the Woolsack, we have increased the amount of unpolluted rivers by about 4,500 kilometres and we have diminished the amount of badly polluted rivers by about 1,500 kilometres. I doubt whether any other Member State in the Community can match that record. A doctrinaire pursuit of uniform emission standards would wreck this policy; it would waste money which otherwise might be spent on improving the environment elsewhere, so we must insist on flexibility in meeting standards.
The second principle is to insist on free and candid disclosure of the scientific evidence on which Directives are based. It simply is not good enough for the Commission to say, "After consulting a group of experts, we set such and such standards". The Select Committee has now got plenty of evidence that the experts' advice is not always taken. To comply with some of these Directives—for instance, that proposed for fish—would put Member States to enormous expense and to expect them to incur this enormous expense without even seeing the data on which the standards are based is, I suggest, an intolerable situation.
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I am afraid it is true—and we regret it—that there will be perpetual wrangling over environmental policy in the Community until this freedom of information is secured.
I should like to come back to what I said at the beginning—that we entirely agree with the purpose of the Directives, which is to control the level of pesticides in the environment. We go on to say that they are not even sound for that purpose, because they make no provision for monitoring anything except the manufacture and the moth-proofing processes.
The last report of the Royal Commission on environmental pollution pointed out that there are other dangers of dieldrin. Some of the dieldrin which is used for wood proofing has caused harm to life, and it is the British policy of having an environmental quality objective for the whole of the environment which enables us to distinguish these things and to control them when we find them—a thing we could not do if we adopted a standard blanket emission policy with no variation.
Compared with the Common Agricultural Policy, the Commission's environmental policy for Europe may well be a small matter, but it is a perpetual source of irritation. So the message which I bring from the Select Committee to your Lordships' House is to urge Her Majesty's Government to continue to resist this doctrinaire imposition of fixed emission standards as a means for protecting the environment. It is a sure recipe for not getting the best value for money.
Finally, my Lords, we would urge Her Majesty's Government to persuade the Commission to put into its Directives two ingredients: flexibility to take account of local differences in the environment and local conditions, and a full disclosure of the scientific evidence on which these Directives are based. If this were done we could begin to have what we would like to have—that is, confidence in the Commission's environmental policies.
Moved, That this House takes note of the 17th Report of the European Communities Committee on draft Directives on the discharge of aldrin, dieldrin and endrin into the aquatic environment.—(Lord Ashby.)
5.6 p.m.
The Earl of CRANBROOK: My Lords, at the very outset I wish to stress to you—and I am sure your Lordships will join me in recognising this—that the draft Directive which we are discussing is, as the noble Lord, Lord Ashby, has said, laudable in its general objectives. The substances whose discharge into the waters of Community Members is to be controlled are poisons, as your Lordships will very well know. The effect of these poisons is cumulative and so may not be seen immediately. It may in fact take many years to become apparent. The poisons are absorbed into fish and other living organisms—in the case of fish, chiefly through their gills, because the fish is unable to excrete the poison it has accumulated in its tissues. The poison can be further accumulated in the tissues of predatory creatures, whether birds or men, who eat the fish. The problems in this country in the past have unfortunately brought about death in avian predators rather than in man; but this is none the less a problem of which we must all be aware, and we must congratulate the Commission on turning its attention to the environment and on tackling this one specific aspect at this juncture. I feel it is the duty of your Lordships' House to support the Commission and the Council over this initiative in their efforts to reduce or to eliminate these substances from the environment.
The topic and the discussion—and this includes the discussion of the report of the sub-committee of the Select Committee—are in fact very technical. I suspect that it may be this technicality which has occasioned something which can scarcely be called a debate, when two members of the sub-committee speak to each other across your Lordships' Chamber. None the less, I feel it is perhaps because the terminology, and even the jargon, that are used in the Directive, and to some extent in the report on it, are unfamiliar to your Lordships, so that fewer people felt able to come forward to join in the debate. I feel that perhaps I should not be exaggerating the situation if I were to say that a number of your Lordships, if you were to meet a nanogramme in the dark, would not know whether to stamp on it or to put it on the record player!
This House is therefore extremely fortunate in having among its Members—
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and this must surely be one of the great merits of this House—the noble Lord, Lord Ashby, who has given your Lordships such an extremely lucid exposition both of the draft directive and of the perils which lie therein. He has highlighted anomalies in the technical aspects of this draft directive. Certain of the aims of the directive may in fact be unattainable or, as he pointed out, if attained, may be unascertainable—simply because the detection methods for discovering the presence of deildrin in the sort of place it is normally found (that is, a river) are inapplicable because of the presence of other pollutants.
Moreover, as the noble Lord, Lord Ashby, has pointed out, the targets expressed in one manner as environmental quality objectives are not compatible with the alternative targets expressed as levels of emission. This also adds to the extremely unsatisfactory nature of the draft directive as it stands. Capacity to interpret technical documents of this nature is not necessarily expected of members of a national or a Community legislature. Members of such bodies must normally rely on their technical advisers to interpret for them and translate into familiar terms the units, the language and the experiments that are discussed in the technical papers. In addition, as the noble Lord. Lord Ashby, has stressed, the primary evidence itself—the scientific data—must be made available so that those qualified, those national experts whose advice is so important, are able to assess and evaluate the information on which documents such as this Directive are based.
Both the noble Lord, Lord Ashby, and myself, in my own smaller way, being connected with the scientific community, feel very strongly that evidence which is not published is evidence which is in a sense worthless. We are accustomed to evaluating scientific evidence, but we require to see the data in every case adequately summarised. We can criticise this draft Directive because it is deficient in this aspect. The technical data—the evidence on which the standards were based—are not provided. Without this, as I said a moment ago, our own national agencies, which are very well equipped with experts whose evidence was extremely important to the sub-committee, cannot assist us with their assessment of the merits of this Directive.

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Members of your Lordships' sub-Committee were not informed of the full background to the preparation of this report. It may be a fact that the Commission lacks the extent of technical advisers and interpreters of scientific information that is necessary. A moment ago, the noble Lord, Lord Thomson, referred to the Commission as a small but devoted body. If we are to improve this small but devoted body, and provide it with the technical assistance that it needs, it will obviously cost money. But although it will cost money, I think that Her Majesty's Government may have to look to this aspect, because unless this deficiency is remedied future directives that we can expect in this series may not prove to be any more acceptable than that which is before us this evening.
5.13 p.m.
Lord SHACKLETON: My Lords, despite the remarks of the noble Earl, that this is really too technical a subject for the bulk of us even to discuss, I hope that your Lordships will allow me to intervene, if only because it recalls some of the great debates that we had 15 or 20 years ago when so much of the avian life—and indeed foxes—was being destroyed by the use of mercury seed dressings and, in particular, chlorinated hydrocarbons. This is a subject with which your Lordships have been concerned over a number of years. After hearing the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Ashby, there is really nothing further to say on the merits of the argument. It was a most formidable and decisive speech and I would not attempt to adduce again the arguments that he put forward. I should, however, like to comment on some of the remarks of the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, because he directed his remarks to the system and to how we can improve, particularly in the European Community, the getting of sensible reports on matters of great technical importance.
First, I should like to say that we are very grateful not only here but throughout the country to the sub-committee, and, in particular, to the noble Lord, Lord Ashby, for the part he has played in trying to introduce sense into environmental questions as they are considered by the European Community. I am a little more hopeful about the future, because having recently looked through
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the list of European MPs on the Conservative side—I confess that I have not looked at the Labour list but there are not many of them, I regret to say—I have noticed that there are a number of Members of the European Parliament who are technically very well qualified, including one Conservative member who is, in fact, an environmental affairs adviser. He happens to be a personal friend of mine and used to work towards me. I hope that this is a matter which will be considered within the European Parliament. I have no doubt that the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray, will need no further persuasion on the merits of this question. But I must say that if the European Commission is to produce reports of this kind, it will do real damage to the cause of those who support sensible environmental measures.
The noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, is probably the greatest expert on mammals in South-East Asia, and he and I last met when we were discussing the conservation of forests. But I wonder whether it would be possible to arrange, either through the members of the sub-committee or perhaps through the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee, that some representations are made direct to the Commission on the quality of the advice that they are receiving. I agree so strongly with the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, that it is intolerable that the evidence for the assertions and the conclusions of this report is not available. It is only through the initiative of the noble Lord, Lord Ashby, that we know even that that advice does not necessarily coincide with the conclusions of the report.
Furthermore, I should have liked to ask the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook—and perhaps on another occasion I may do so—to explain the rather interesting philosophic concept that he put forward, that levels may be attainable but they are not necessarily ascertainable. This seems to me to be an interesting philosophic point, which it is perhaps beyond the range and capacity of scientists, as opposed to philosophers, to answer. I hope that I did not misinterpret him. I also hope that the Government will take a firm and constructive line, with a view to ensuring that better consideration is given to these problems in the future. Meanwhile, I strongly support everything that the two noble Lords have said.
5.17 p.m.
Lord DAVIES of LEEK: My Lords, I am delighted to have had the privilege of listening to both speeches. I stand up here in support of 3 million fishermen, who fish in Britain nearly every weekend. I should like to know, first, how much real consultation there was with the freshwater fishermen of this country; and, secondly, how we are to protect our environment if these insidious pieces of trespassing go on from time to time. Apparently, the philistines think that people are idealists if they want to protect our rivers, our mountains and our beautiful environment.
I want to give full marks to this noble House. It is only in a place such as this that, in this materialistic world, you can have a little debate such as this, which is very worthwhile. I hope that more attention will be drawn to these Directives, and I wish to congratulate the people who have taken the trouble to study this vital problem in depth—and I have read some of the material—and its effects upon our environment.
5.19 p.m.
Baroness WHITE: My Lords, perhaps I might be allowed to add, in reply to my noble friend Lord Shackleton, that arrangements have been made for a visit to Brussels in the first week of December by representatives of the sub-committee of the Select Committee. I trust that the noble Lord, Lord Ashby, and the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, will both be able to come, so that we can try to put to our friends in Brussels the very real difficulties which we find not through any antagonism whatsoever towards the objectives, which are common to both of us—over the scientific methods employed, and the lack of publication of scientific data on which we could reach considered judgments. This is a peculiarly difficult Directive. We hoped that we should not have to discuss these water Directives again. But we were entirely convinced, as the noble Lord, Lord Ashby, made all too clear, that what we were being asked to do was just practically unattainable or unascertainable. It was a nonsense. The degree of particularity we were required to observe was quite unnecessary and was just not practicable for anybody who had studied the matter with water from a river, not water in a laboratory.
5.20 p.m.
Lord BROWN: My Lords, perhaps I may make a very short interjection. I have constantly wanted to make the remarks I am going to make in relation to various measures proposed by the EEC. If one makes what I call blunderbuss legislation to apply to detailed matters in all member countries, one is bound to produce something which at times is unsuitably clumsy for the effect it is trying to produce. Here is an example.
It would be very difficult to produce one standard piece of legislation to look after pollution in every country without its appearing to be rather stupid. It has often occurred to me that some process should be available within the EEC Commission for legislating to the effect that each member country has the responsibility of checking its legislation and introducing new legislation where it thinks that it could be improved, subject to monitoring by the Commission and advice from the Commission if it does not come up to the standards which they think should be applied. In other words, we should have a situation in which the Commission can influence each country to produce legislation in its own Parliament that is suitable for its own conditions and make sure that it does so, instead of this blunderbuss attempt which goes on all the time and which at times produces the sort of result we are facing this afternoon and which at other times produces a very absurd situation.
5.22 p.m.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, it is my very pleasant duty to speak in this debate today on behalf of the Government. I say "pleasant" advisedly, because in our view the report of the Select Committee which leads us to this debate on the draft Directives is an excellent and very useful one. The Government welcome it. The work of the Select Committee in this field is now well known, and not only in the United Kingdom. I understand, for example, that the committee's reports are awaited and read with great interest in the EEC Commission. The authority and quality of the reports by this Select Committee are therefore well established. This latest one on the Drins Directives is no exception.

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I should very much like to pay tribute to the quality of the debate. At one time I thought that just the noble Lord, Lord Ashby, and I were going to speak, but I have been much heartened by such learned eloquence from my noble friend Lord Cranbrook and the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, followed by the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek, the noble Baroness, Lady White, who is such an expert on water matters, and the noble Lord, Lord Brown. All speakers have given the Government valuable points to bear in mind.
I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, said that it is a very technical subject. Indeed it is, and the noble Lord quite rightly paid tribute to the way in which the noble Lord, Lord Ashby, introduced the debate and put everything so eloquently and clearly. It is also a great pleasure to me to be able to say to the noble Lord, Lord Ashby, that the forthright views which he has expressed are very similar to those of the Government. We have been pressing—and will go on pressing—during the negotiations in Brussels for answers to some of the very pertinent questions which he has put. In my view, he has rightly identified two of the key issues for the Government in the negotiations on these proposals, and I can assure him that we have taken careful note of the points he has made.
Let me sketch in some of the background to these proposals from the Community. As the noble Lord has said, the important point about these draft Directives is that they are the first offspring of a major parent Directive in the environmental field. This is EEC Document 76/464, adopted by the Council on 4th May 1976, and dealing with "pollution caused by certain dangerous substances discharged into the aquatic environment of the Community". The Directive provides a framework for measures to control water pollution caused by the discharge of harmful substances. These are grouped into a black list and a grey list on the basis of their polluting effects. The main criteria used have been "toxicity, persistence and bio-accumulation".
The 1976 Directive does not in itself establish limits or standards for any of these dangerous substances. The idea always was that these should be laid down
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in subsequent Directives and it is the first of these which is before us now. The proposals themselves are not of major significance. The drins are, indeed, nasty substances which should be controlled, but they are not in wide use; in fact, as the noble Lord said, the proposed Directives will bear on only two Member States, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. But, as the first in a whole series of Directives, there are principles and precedents at stake here which make our debate today wholly appropriate and justifiable.
One important principle which I must mention has already been referred to. This is the so-called "parallel approach". The vital compromise reached in 1976 and enshrined in the parent Directive is that Member States could operate by either Environmental Quality Objectives, which we call EQOs, or Uniform Emission Standards, which we call UESs. This remains vital to United Kingdom interests. Industry in general, and the water industry in particular, support the Government's preference for EQOs as an effective policy for controlling water pollution, a policy which is soundly based in both scientific and economic terms. I very much welcome the support for this approach in the Select Committee's Report. But, as the noble Lord, Lord Ashby, has already said, we must ensure that the parallel approach in EEC law is a genuine one. There is cause for a good deal of concern about this in the current proposals. I can assure the House that we will continue to pursue this point in Brussels. This issue goes well beyond the subject matter of these texts, and we must get it right.
I should like to add here that there is no question about the United Kingdom's commitment to controlling black list substances in the environment. Indeed, we consider that our record here is already a very good one. It is simply a matter of making sure that there is parity between these two different—in their environmental effect—approaches in EEC Directives.
I have already referred to the narrowness of these proposals from the EEC. As I have said, they affect only two Member States. So far as the United Kingdom is concerned, the EEC proposals deal only with discharges of dieldrin by

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our mothproofing industry, which is largely based in Yorkshire. Traces of drins can be found elsewhere in the United Kingdom, but these would not be covered by the present texts. The agricultural use of these pesticides is dealt with in another Directive, on plant protection products. There is some room for doubt as to whether something of such limited application justifies a Community Directive. In the early discussions in Brussels, we have already raised this question. But the Commission has been under pressure from a number of countries to make progress with proposals under the parent Directive, and the drins presumably seemed a simple place to start.
The narrow impact of the proposals obviously means that during the negotiations most Member States are concerned only with issues of precedent. As I have said, we are very interested in these issues, too. We are already in consultation with all those organisations and industries interested in the draft Directives and, with the help of the Select Committee's Report and the speech made by noble Lords today, the United Kingdom will play its part in making sure that all these issues are very thoroughly examined and discussed.
There is one other particular issue I should like to mention before I conclude my remarks. This concerns the scientific basis of the Commission's proposals. I understand the various comments about this made by the noble Lord, Lord Ashby, and indeed those highlighted in the committee's very able report. It is a very clear objective of this Government to ensure, so far as they can, the respectability of EEC legislation, in both scientific and economic terms. My colleague, the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, explained the Government's commitment to this in a debate in another place during the summer on the Directive on Sampling and Analysis. From this point of view, we cannot regard these drins proposals as an auspicious first step down the road of the new Environmental 131 Directives. They relate only to the discharge of drins by two particular industrial sectors; so any other drins in Community waters can, presumably, be left undisturbed.
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The particular quality standard proposed has been very effectively criticised by the noble Lord, Lord Ashby, and by other noble Lords in this debate today. The Government share the doubts which have been expressed about the derivation of this figure, its justification and its implementation. So we do not think these are very good proposals for controlling pollution by the drins in Community waters; nor do they commend themselves, in their present form, in terms of the precedents set for what should be an important series of environmental Directives. The noble Lord, Lord Ashby, expressed the hope that we would adopt the two principles which he enunciated in connection with these drins: the proper protection of the environment at the proper lowest possible cost and also that in connection with evidence on which directives were taken, as my noble friend Lord Cranbrook said, data must be made available for their evaluation. I wish to assure him that we thoroughly support the two principles for which he has asked and we will fight hard for them.
The noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, said that the speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Ashby, was formidable and decisive. How right he was. The noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, is himself such an expert on these matters that I feel extremely humble when speaking in reply for the Government in front of so many experts on these complicated chemical matters.
The noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek, asked about fishermen. The answer is that the Commission did not consult with fishermen, but this Government have their interest very much in mind and are well aware of the need for present protection of fisheries. The noble Lord, Lord Brown, referred to "blunderbuss legislation". I have already explained that, as the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, and others have said, we do not like legislation on which data are not available and therefore we do not know on what grounds it is founded. The noble Baroness, Lady White, will be pleased to know that in connection with the arrangements for further meetings in Brussels the Government are pursuing matters on a parallel course and I was glad to hear that the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, was impressed by the quality of some of our Euro M.P.s who will be taking up this matter.

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The Government agree with the rest of our partners in Europe that pollution by black list substances into the aquatic environment should be controlled, as I have said. So we welcome the appearance of these first proposals which we have been debating today under the parent Dangerous Substances Directive, Environment 131. But as these drins proposals are the first of their kind, like other Member States we shall be concerned as much with the principles and precedents involved as with the particular details concerning the drins themselves. There are undoubtedly problems in these texts, both general and specific. The Government's approach will be the same as with any proposals within the Community: we shall seek to co-operate with our fellow Member States in order to consider and develop the best solution.
The Government are grateful for the very detailed consideration of these draft Directives on the drins by the Select Committee. Its report, as I have said, is excellent—an important contribution to the consideration of these proposals within the United Kingdom. We are also grateful to the House for arranging this very worthwhile debate today. I can summarise my own remarks in concluding the debate as follows: we agree that in this present form there are many problems with these draft Directives—and some of these problems are important ones; we shall be seeking changes in the texts during the negotiations; to this end we are very greatful for and, I repeat, have taken careful note of, the points made in this report and in the debate today.
5.35 p.m.
Lord ASHBY: My Lords, it remains for me to thank those noble Lords who have turned what I feared was to be a duet into a debate, and a very profitable one. I particularly thank the noble Earl, Lord Cranbrook, and the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, for guiding the discussion into constructive channels be-
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cause I felt that what I had to say to the House was rather destructive. But the embarrassment which your sub-committee finds all the time is that it has exactly the same aims as that part of the Commission which is responsible for creating an environmental policy, and our difference is only on means. It is to overcome this clash of beliefs in means that a debate such as this may be very healthy and helpful to the Commission.
I was also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek, for speaking on behalf of fishermen. My own experience when I was chairman of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution was that very great care was being taken by what are now the regional water authorities to look after the interests of the fish. I think it comes back again to the principle which I was trying to enunciate: the best way to safeguard the welfare of the fish is similar to the best way to safeguard the welfare of people; namely, to deploy limited resources in the places where they are most needed. That is what we have been pleading with the Commission to do, informally and through reports of the Select Committee.
Finally, it is with very great pleasure and satisfaction that we note that Her Majesty's Government find themselves in harmony with the views of the Select Committee on this and I am sure the Select Committee will be grateful if it has made some small contribution to the advocacy of the Government in connection with this case in Brussels.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

BRITISH RAILWAYS (No. 2) BILL
Brought from the Commons, read 1a and referred to the Examiners.