Lords Sitting of 31 October 1979

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

LORD HOOSON
Hugh Emlyn Hooson, Esquire, Q.C., having been created Baron Hooson, of Montgomery in the County of Powys and of Colomendy in the County of Clwyd, for life—Was, in his robes, introduced between the Lord Mackie of Benshie and the Lord Edmund-Davies.
BARONESS SKRIMSHIRE OF QUARTER
The Right Honourable Margaret Betty Harvie Anderson, O.B.E., having been created Baroness Skrimshire of Quarter, of Dunipace in the District of Falkirk, for life—Was, in her robes, introduced between the Baroness Northchurch and the Lord Nugent of Guildford.

TANKS: CANCELLATION OF IRANIAN ORDER
2.44 p.m.
Baroness VICKERS: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what action they propose to take in regard to the army tanks which were ordered by the Shah of Iran.
The MINISTER of STATE, MINISTRY of DEFENCE (Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal): My Lords, the Iranian order involved the supply of over 1,200 Shir tanks. When the Iranians repudiated their contract with us in February of this year it was necessary for us to bring the contracts with the Royal Ordnance Factory, Leeds, and its subcontractors to an end. ROF, Leeds, were then left with a small number of partly
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completed tanks and materials for others, which together amounted to nothing like the full order, which would have taken several years to complete. Various options are being considered for the disposal of these tanks, including the possibility of finding other customers.
Baroness VICKERS: My Lords, while thanking my noble friend for that reply, may I ask whether he does not think it essential for our Army to have the necessary equipment to carry out their full training and duties, and would it not be possible to have some of these tanks allocated to them?
Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Vickers, is quite right. The implications of the repudiation of the Iranian contract upon the British Army are being studied, and certainly one option includes the possible purchase of additional tanks to strengthen our existing armoured capability in the light of the growing threat from the Warsaw Pact.
Earl FORTESCUE: My Lords, if in the event the British Army does get some of these tanks, can my noble friend give an assurance that it will not delay the introduction of the successor to the Chieftain?
Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, that is an extremely relevant question. This is one of the most important considerations. The British Army is extremely anxious that the introduction of what is known as MBT.80 should not be delayed, should it be decided to take some of these other tanks into service.
Lord WIGG: My Lords, will the noble Lord be good enough to say whether the whole concept of armoured fighting vehicles is being studied in relation to the development of Copperhead and, if so, what steps the Government are taking about it?
Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, is the noble Lord suggesting that the day of the tank is over—because if he is, that is not the current perception, as far as I am aware, certainly of the British Army, or indeed almost any other army.
Lord WIGG: My Lords, I neither said it nor suggested it, but I read the American Secretary of State's Defence Statement every year and the Americans are obviously spending a considerable amount of money on the development of Copperhead, which, I hope the Minister is aware, is a laser guided weapon. If it is developed and is successful the whole concept of armoured fighting vehicles will have to be examined. I am not saying what should be done. All I want to know is whether, quite apart from spending money on a defence programme which I regard as useless, some regard is being taken of technical developments in other countries.
Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, the noble Lord is inviting me to indulge in a philosophical discussion about the whole nature of tank warfare in the future, which goes a little wider than the Question. What I am saying to him is that, although anti-tank weapons are increasing in their lethality, so is the defensive capability of tanks increasing; and the current thinking is that you still need tanks, and will need tanks right up to the turn of the century.

DOUBLE GLAZING AND ENERGY CONSERVATION
2.49 p.m.
Viscount MOUNTGARRET: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether in the interests of fuel economy, notwithstanding the present requirements to cut back Government expenditure, they will consider giving householders a grant towards the cost of installing double glazing.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, we have no present plans to do so.
Viscount MOUNTGARRET: My Lords, the brevity of my noble friend's reply leaves me a little stumped for a supplementary question. Surely my noble friend must be aware of the logic
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of the Government giving grants to householders for the insulation of their roofs to conserve energy. Would it not be logical to extend this to the double glazing of windows, in order also to conserve oil?
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, I totally appreciate what my noble friend is saying, but my advice is that double glazing is not cost-effective in terms of energy saved, unlike loft insulation, and of course it is much more expensive. It would therefore be a less effective use of our limited financial resources.
Baroness GAITSKELL: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether the Government are aware of what double glazing costs today, and whether they would take that into consideration when they are thinking about our energy position?
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Baroness; she has really taken the words out of my mouth. It is precisely because of the cost of double glazing that we think our resources can be better used. There are still, it might interest noble Lords to know, some 5 million dwellings without loft insulation, which we think is most needed.
Lord MOYNE: My Lords, I apologise to the noble Baroness for attempting to speak when she had risen. I merely wanted to make the point that a subsidy for people to buy extra clothes would be equally logical.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, that is another point.

EEC: BREACHES OF MULTI-FIBRE ARRANGEMENT
2.51 p.m.
Baroness HORNSBY-SMITH: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will make representations

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to the EEC to speed up the machinery for investigations into breaches of the multi-fibre agreement and other EEC textile arrangements by countries exceeding their agreed quotas, selling at politically manipulated prices or providing subsidies by way of supplying low cost fuel or selective tax reductions, in view of the estimated three years delay in cases of flagrant abuse already submitted.
Lord LYELL: My Lords, no quota under the Multi-fibre Arrangement has been exceeded. The Government are satisfied that where other suppliers exceed agreed or notified levels action is taken as quickly as possible. Allegations of dumping or subsidy are investigated by the EEC Commission under the relevant provisions of the GATT. I know of no case which has been subject to a delay of three years, but if the noble Baroness would care to send me details I will look into the matter.
Baroness HORNSBY-SMITH: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for that reply, I am frankly staggered by it, because there have been representations on excesses of quota, some of up to nearly 100 per cent., put by the industry to the EEC. Whatever it is called, whether it is exceeding the quota or whether it is breaking the understandings of the GATT and the multi-fibre agreement on unfair competition, there is ample evidence that goods are coming from Eastern Europe at prices less than they cost. Following the reply to a Question in the other place yesterday, the noble Lord must be aware that the American Government is aiding its industry by ill-concealed subsidies on fuel costs that have had a disastrous effect in the imports into this country of carpets and polyester fibres, which increased in the first eight months of this year by over ten times what they were in the whole of last year. Whether the noble Lord calls it dumping or not, it is not fair trading.
Lord LYELL: My Lords, my noble friend Lady Hornsby-Smith has covered a varied number of points in her supplementary question. However, she opened with a comment on quotas. It would be reasonable if I were to point out to my noble friend that, as regards particular textile quotas, under the Multi-fibre
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Arrangement the limit cannot be exceeded because we do not issue import licences beyond the quota levels. My noble friend mentioned other arrangements, but where restrictions are embodied in those other arrangements under voluntary restraint agreements, we in this country are not authorised to suspend the issue of licences; but, if it seems to the industry or to the Government that the agreed levels are about to be over-licensed, then the first action that the Government can and must take is to inform the Commission. My noble friend also raised a point about one specific aspect of imports from the United States. The Government are considering that point with urgency.
Lord RHODES: My Lords, is the Minister aware that the noble Baroness has a case and that what she says can be substantiated? Is the Minister also aware that there is grave reluctance on the part of EEC officials to invoke any of the safeguard clauses provided under the Treaty of Rome? One of the principal reasons for that is the shortage of staff. Whether the action is deliberate or not we do not know. However, we should be very glad if the Minister could find out.
Lord LYELL: My Lords, I am not entirely clear about where there is a staff shortage—whether it is at the EEC or in this country. If the shortage of staff is at the Commission I do not think that the Government can be held responsible. If the noble Lord is complaining of a shortage of staff in the Department of Trade, I would not necessarily agree with him on that score. Certainly the House may feel that my noble friend Lady Hornsby-Smith has a case. The Government are looking into it and are aware of most of the abuses. But, as I pointed out in my original Answer, if the noble Baroness knows of a particularly outrageous case of dumping I should be very glad to look into it and try to settle it.
Lord RHODES: My Lords, the noble Lord is confusing the issue. The noble Baroness is talking not about a case of dumping but about fixing the quotas. I should like to ask the noble Lord whether he will inquire in Europe. It is as regards the policing of the safeguards that labour is in short supply.
Lord LYELL: My Lords, so far as the Government are aware, the Commission is doing everything it can to invoke these safeguard arrangements, and I think the Government are satisfied that these arrangements are satisfactory. Nevertheless, I will look into the matter.
Lord DRUMALBYN: My Lords, is my noble friend able to say what happens to goods that are landed in excess of quota? Is it not the case that goods are sometimes landed in other countries—this even happens before they are actually landed—and then they are transferred to this country, and they get in?
Lord LYELL: My Lords, I think that question is verging away from the original Question. However, I shall certainly look into the matter and inform my noble friend in detail.
Lord HALE: My Lords, is not the noble Lord aware that the Commission itself has said time after time in evidence that it has not sufficient staff to monitor all aspects of this agreement? Some frontiers are not being pursued by officers of the Commission at all. Imports are coming in from all over the world. Is he further aware that another factory, which has been operating in Oldham for 125 years, has been closed down permanently within the last fortnight; that there has been an increase of 6,000 redundancies in the woollen section of the industry since this Government came into office; and that the Commission itself says that it is essential that the EEC should have a viable and successful operating textile industry? Is he also aware that the cessation of the multi-fibre agreement and the erection of factories in South-East Asia—usually with American capital—are rendering the situation beyond remedy unless there is immediate action by this Government?
Lord LYELL: My Lords, the Government are aware of the situation as regards products—under both the Multi-fibre Arrangement and other voluntary arrangements—entering the country from South-East Asia. However, I think that that question is a little wide of the Question that has been raised as regards the EEC Commission. The Government cannot be responsible for the shortage of staff in the EEC Commission, but the Government are doing their best to assist so far
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as possible in the monitoring. The Government are not responsible for the EEC.
Lord BARNBY: My Lords, is my noble friend fully aware of the degree to which the very efficient wool textile industry is now being oppressed by imports and that it is causing great unemployment and distress? In his second supplementary reply he put emphasis on the quotas. Does he understand that, apart from quotas, the main pressure comes from politically-priced products from Eastern countries? Also, is he aware that the result of the pricing of oil in the States enables yarns and other materials to come into this country? Will my noble friend alert himself to the extent to which unemployment has increased?—as has just been mentioned by a noble Lord opposite. In the last two years the way in which the high register of employment in the wool textile industry has fallen is distressing.
Lord LYELL: My Lords, the Government are indeed aware of the level of unemployment in the wool textile industry. Nevertheless, the Government believe in upholding agreements, such as are embodied in the multi-fibre agreement. I do not think that I can go much further on the question of United States oil pricing than I went in my original Answer to my noble friend Lady Hornsby-Smith. At present, that is as far as I can go.

NATIONAL BEEF BREEDING HERD
3.1 p.m.
Baroness ELLIOT of HARWOOD: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to prevent any further decline in the national beef breeding herd.
Lord SANDYS: My Lords, the June census results showed that the rate of decline of the beef breeding herd is much reduced, and with support levels for beef

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producers almost 14 per cent. higher than a year ago I should hope that this trend towards stability will continue.
Baroness ELLIOT of HARWOOD: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that reply, which is certainly quite encouraging. Does he realise that although it may be improving now the decline in production of beef has been so great that it is back to 1972–73 levels? It is very difficult to build up the national herd of beef if, at the same time, we allow the individual herds to get smaller. I hope the Government realise that this is a very urgent matter.
Lord SANDYS: My Lords, the Government indeed realise and appreciate that the present beef-breeding herd is at or approaching the 1972 level. Meanwhile, I must draw your Lordships' attention to the fact that the dairy herd is very much at the same level as it has been during the past eight or nine years. The only matter which is under direct domestic control by Her Majesty's Government is, of course, the hill livestock compensatory allowance, which is currently under review, and the Government intend to make an announcement on this before the end of November.

GOVERNMENT STATEMENTS
Lord DENHAM: My Lords, with the leave of the House, my noble friend, Lord Belstead, will at a convenient moment after 3.30 p.m. repeat a Statement being made in another place on the Report of the Committee of Inquiry into the United Kingdom Prison Services. This will be followed by my noble friend Lord Ferrers, who will repeat a Statement on the Council of Ministers (Agriculture and Fisheries).

ALCOHOL ABUSE
3.5 p.m.
The Earl of KIMBERLEY The Earl of KIMBERLEY rose to call attention to the growing seriousness of the problems caused by alcohol abuse in the United Kingdom; and to move for Papers. The noble Earl said: My Lords, the last debate in your Lordships' House
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on this subject was in March 1975, which is four and a half years ago. The Motion was then to call attention to the ever-increasing problem of alcohol abuse, May I state to your Lordships this afternoon that if ever Is use the words "he", "his" or "him", it refers also to "she". "hers", or "her".
As a recovered alcoholic, I am often asked for my definition of "an alcoholic". I reckon that it is someone who has a totally unsatisfactory relationship, both domestically and in business; someone who suffers from hangovers and amnesia and who is absent from work frequently. If these symptoms occur with monotonous regularity, in all probability that person has a drinking problem. Since our last debate, the problem has still further increased, causing even more devastation of both family and the community.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, perhaps the noble Earl will allow me to interrupt him. We on this side of the House quite frankly cannot hear him. Would it be possible for him to stand nearer a microphone? I would not interrupt him but for the fact that we want to hear what he says.
The Earl of KIMBERLEY: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, and hope that my new position is better. This increase in the problem has been caused partly by general ignorance of the illness, coupled with a reluctance to recognise the scale of the problem. The services for the sufferer and the family are still inadequate. In industry, both management and the trade unions do not very often recognise the problem drinker. In 1975 I suggested that some proportion of the tax revenue from drink should be earmarked towards helping to meet this nationwide disaster which, let us face it, costs us millions of pounds in shoddy work, accidents and absenteeism.
Today the alcoholic is rarely the "meths." drinker on the park bench or the proverbial stage drunk propping up a wall, although we do have a phantom drinker in the Palace of Westminster who, most days, leaves an empty wine bottle in one of the waste paper baskets in the Library. However, there is a growing awareness of the problem. That awareness has largely been brought about by action by the Government, voluntary

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organisations and the medical profession, as well as by the not inconsiderable amount of publicity through the wireless, television, newspapers and magazines.
So who is the alcoholic? He is the man or the woman next door, the duke or the dustman; he is in the boardroom or on the shop floor; he is a sad and lonely figure who thinks that the rest of the world is out of step with him. But, above all, he is a sick person, suffering from a severe illness which only too often leads to an early death, thus causing untold grief and suffering not only to his nearest and dearest but also to many innocent bystanders. There are some narrow-minded and bigoted people who say that the illness is self-inflicted and, as such, it is a just punishment. It is, they say, "something one does not really want to talk about in the best circles". But that attitude only makes matters worse, as the sufferer also has to bear a quite unjustified stigma and, as a result, is far less likely to ask for help.
In 1975 it was estimated that there were 400,000 alcoholics in the United Kingdom; in 1976 the DHSS said that there were 500,000, and since then the Office of Population and Census has put the figure nearer 600,000. As the alcoholic affects his family as well as outsiders, there must be nearly 2 million people who realise the gravity of the situation and the problem with which we are surrounded.
I should like to give a few brief figures, simply for comparison. The total number of drunken offences in 1973 was below 100,000 and in 1978 it was just under 109,000. In drunken driving offences in 1973, less than 50 per cent. of the unfortunate people had a blood alcohol concentration of 150 milligrammes, but in 1978 that total was raised to 58 per cent. Lastly, the per capita consumption of absolute alcohol was in 1973 7.9 litres and in 1976 9·7 litres. I am afraid that I do not have the figure for last year. Those figures speak for themselves and I shall not bother your Lordships with any more.
The Royal College of Psychiatrists commented on this upward trend when concerning itself with alcohol. It said:
"In any population there exists a small percentage of people whose drinking is on the borderline between relatively safe and harmful
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drinking. However, in a population of millions, a ' small percentage ' will imply hundreds of thousands of people. If for that sector of drinkers alcohol is made more available, in a borderline of drinkers the increase may be just sufficient to damage some tissues of his body, or crucially impair the capacity to work, or to make the marriage intolerable for the spouse. A further grave possibility is that the borderline drinker will increase his consumption just sufficiently to induce the dependence syndrome".
I think that the Royal College of Psychiatrists has given us a dire warning that we are
"in the grip of an endemic disorder of frightening magnitude".
Even the Commission of the European Communities has now entered the field. A report for the Director-General for Employment and Social Affairs, Health and Safety Directorate, said:
"The increased use of alcoholic beverages throughout Europe over the last decade or so has now produced a situation warranting grave concern characterised by widespread damage to the social well-being, the economic function and the health of the population".
The report goes on to urge action which needs to be taken by member Governments in the field of prevention, and the provision of treatment services, and also urges that these services must be adequately supported.
It is most gratifying that the last two Governments, both Tory and Labour, encouraged local services for alcoholics by making matching grants with local councils. These local councils have been more than ably aided and abetted by the National Council on Alcoholism under its indefatigable chairman, Sir Bernard Braine, and its director, Mr. Derek Rutherford, as well as the rest of his highly efficient though very small staff. But there are grave fears about the maintenance of these existing services, not just for the unmet needs in many areas but for sustaining even the present assistance, which in many cases is still not adequate. If the public expenditure cuts fall on these services it will, alas! in many cases mean no service, because alcoholism is still a dirty word and it is also unfashionable. In 1975 the Secretary of State for Social Services set up an Advisory Committee on Alcoholism, and it issued three reports. The first one was on Prevention; the second on the Pattern and Range of Services for Problem Drinkers; and the last one was on Education and Training. Professor Kessel of Manchester University and his

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colleagues deserve our congratulations. However, I understand that there has as yet been no official reply from the Government.
There are five main points that I should like to bring up over prevention. First, health education designed to alert people to the dangers of alcohol and to discourage excessive drinking should be encouraged and expanded. Secondly, the presentation of alcohol to society, particularly in advertisements and the media, should be modified to produce a less one-sided picture of its effects. Thirdly, fiscal powers should be utilised to ensure that alcohol does not become cheaper in real terms. Fourthly, legal restrictions on availability of alcohol should be enforced rigorously and not relaxed until there is sufficient evidence that to do so would not cause increased harm. Fifthly, people who may be developing a drinking problem should be encouraged to recognise the problem and to seek help.
The second report, on the Pattern and Range of Services for Problem Drinkers, emphasised the role of the primary care team and social workers in identification of the problem, backed up by specialist workers at the secondary level. I should like to give two short quotes here. First:
"We intend that every person with a drinking problem should be able to find the help he needs."
Secondly:
"People should find treatment and care near where they live, and the services providing this must be responsive to their individual needs, personal and social, and therefore capable of adapting to a variety of circumstances by providing a comprehensive range of treatment and care measures."
Having praised the report, may I say that perhaps it did not go far enough financially, but maybe this was because the shadow of economic restraints held it back. However, it pointed out that even within the present manpower resources, and with better co-ordination and co-operation between existing statutory and voluntary services, with only a little extra financial outlay a considerable effect and improvement could be achieved. But to tackle the problem 100 per cent, more money would be needed. If society wants to drink alcohol, then society should pay for the services for those who suffer, especially the families.
I am an executive member of the National Council on Alcoholism, and the
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council often finds itself in an impasse, as local authorities are often too slow or too idle to take advantages of the finance offered them by the Government. One local authority misguidedly thinks that if there is a deficit Central Government will make it up and, as a result, the local council gets no further grant aid. Somehow the Secretary of State must find an answer to this if these local services are not to suffer. Pressure must be put on the local and area health authorities to do more, but they must be backed up by a national response.
The Advisory Committee further urged the DHSS and the Welsh Office, regarding grant aid to voluntary bodies, to review their policies,
"with a view to providing a more flexible range of help to voluntary agencies as well as continuing a modest expansion of the hostel programme. We also consider that DHSS and Welsh Office should examine ways of providing an impetus to the development of services. In particular we consider that the provision of financial help from authorities to enable services in this field to be established should be considered. Possible ways of providing this finance would be:

i. special payments by DHSS and Welsh Office to Local and Health Authorities to help establish services;

ii. special arrangements to authorise for the same purpose;

iii. active support for urban aid proposals related to those with drinking problems;

iv. the provision of money to help for the payment of key staff. We consider that this is particularly important as the provision of one active co-ordinator in each Health Authority could, at only fairly slight cost to DHSS and Welsh Office, provide a considerable thrust to the development of services".

As I have said, the lead that the last two Governments have given has been most encouraging. There are now 20 Local Councils on Alcoholism. But this is only a beginning. The demands for these services grow daily. Since the last time I asked that industry and the trade unions should take a keener interest in this matter, the National Council on Alcoholism Working Party, under Sir Bernard Braine's chairmanship, has had a marked effect in this area. I understand that it has stimulated the Health and Safety Executive to look at codes of practice for problem drinkers. In fact, only last week in Cardiff Sir Bernard chaired a meeting of over 70 representatives from leading industrial firms and nationalised industries in Wales. Such a number would have been inconceivable 4½ years ago.

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Mr. Ray Buckton, the General Secretary of ASLEF, speaking on behalf of the trades unions, said in February of this year to the National Council:
"The specialist statutory services are patchily distributed and poorly co-ordinated. If they were used by the majority of problem drinkers they could not possibly cope. Voluntary agencies have expanded to meet these unmet needs, and they do an excellent job. However, they are hampered by two factors, a shortage of funds and a lack of co-ordination with the statutory services.
"I cannot emphasise the deep concern felt by the trade union movement to improve the situation with regard to alcoholism at work. In order to assist management and trade unions in formulating a code of practice it will be absolutely essential to convince those ordinary working men who are problem drinkers, and their workmates, that they are going to be helped, not penalised.
"They must be encouraged to seek professional help with the certain knowledge that their job security and future career prospects are protected to the fullest possible extent. We are already pressing the HSC [the Health and Safety Council] to require employers to employ or to have on contract wide-ranging health and safety specialists. The relevant specialists would play a useful role in the early identification of the problem drinker."
My Lords, I have covered most fields except the courts and prisons. The magistrates and the police must be better educated and informed. It is a waste of time and money putting alcoholics in prison.
No doubt the Government will say that taxes are not gathered for specific purposes, but there is a precedent for special levies. The Licensing Compensation Fund was set up in 1904 to curtail the renewal of certain licences in an attempt to lessen alcohol consumption. Do we not therefore have a strong case to do the same as is done in New Zealand where there is a levy for this purpose? I have said that a society must look after itself, and our society, which last year obtained £2,585 million revenue from drink, must, I maintain, spend a not inconsiderable proportion of this sum to reduce the consequences that the abuse of alcohol does to society.
The cost of alcohol cannot be quantified by the price of a pint of beer or a bottle of Scotch. We must add the human costs—the battered wife, the confused and disorientated child and the health and social wellbeing of a once productive human being. If we are to win this battle, the greatest stumbling block, the stigma, must be removed, for it is completely
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unjustified. While it remains it prevents the unfortunate sufferer from admitting his illness, let alone allowing him to consider getting help and treatment. We must remember that the drinking alcoholic is partially insane and is totally incapable of fighting his addiction alone. He is one of the more unfortunate and lonely characters in the world, despised by many and understood by few. He has reached a situation from which he can see no escape, and as such continues down this ever steeper and more slippery slope towards his ultimate and premature destruction. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
3.23 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of SOUTHWELL: My Lords, I am sure the House would feel it very remiss if there were no comment from these Benches in this debate. I speak not as one who has any personal responsibility within my Church or anywhere else for any of these matters; I speak as one who is concerned as a citizen, as a Christian, as a parent and as one who in his own diocese must have some responsibility for seeing that social problems of one kind or another are studied and worked at. I am sure the whole House will be grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Kimberley, for introducing this debate and for the way in which he did it, with such clarity and sympathy.
The picture which the noble Earl painted of the present situation is very disturbing. In my speech I shall concentrate on a few issues that might perhaps provide opportunities for action, but first I wish to make it clear that we are speaking about the abuse of alcohol. Like a great many things in life, what can be a joy and benefit can become a terrifyingly dangerous commodity, and some people, as a result, feel that the only solution in this kind of situation is that of total abstinence for themselves. I admire them. I do not myself abstain. But none of us can make people moral by legislation ; all we can do is to provide certain protections which make it difficult for people who are vulnerable to do what is unwise for themselves and their friends, for, as has been pointed out already, every alcoholic is a person who has a family, with many people around him, so the total numbers involved in this country are considerable.

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The statistics published in the Home Office pamphlet Offences of Drunkenness, England and Wales, 1978 reveal the fact that prosecutions for drunkenness reach their peak among young people at the age of 18. The real worry today is that that problem is on the increase, and on the increase among young wage-earners, perhaps an increasingly affluent section of the population, and it is in that section that perhaps the problem is greatest. I am sure that problem drinking is the result of a whole complex of anxieties. I am told that mothers with young children are particularly vulnerable in this field, and of course this is a problem in all classes of society; what is drunk may be different in different areas of society, but I am alarmed at how much of what is called the hard stuff is drunk by the young.
As a country we are drinking far more alcohol, and it is therefore inevitable that there should be an increase in the problems that arise from it. I am told that 1969 was a significant year in our country in respect of this problem; there was a vast increase in the consumption of alcohol because at about that time it became very much easier to buy alcoholic drinks in the shops, and this leads me to one of the main suggestions I have to make. In this country there are very different policies about how alcohol is allowed to be sold. In the City of Nottingham, which is in the area from which I come, a very real effort is made to ensure that in large shops the sale of alcoholic drinks is confined to a particular part of the shop where it is enclosed and steps are taken to see that payment is made separately from other times; and this controlled sale outlet provides a much greater chance of being able to ensure that alcohol is sold to the right people. Indeed, many stores have expressed gratitude at the tough line which has been taken in this matter, feeling themselves that they can be much happier about the control of their sales in consequence. I am sure we must do all we can to help in this way so that the sale of alcohol through the shops is rather better controlled.
One factor in the increase in the sale of alcohol, as has already been pointed out, is the price. Twenty years ago the young could not afford to drink. At that time drugs were a greater problem
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than alcohol. Today, though many people may disagree with me, alcohol is relatively cheap; at any rate it is cheap enough to make it an increasing temptation for us all. I know that fiscal measures—increasing the price of drink—have been considered, and in the light of the problem we are facing today it may be that the cost of alcohol should be increased as a deterrent. The fact that the sale of alcohol is big business is evident by the amount of advertising that supports it, and I am told that even in magistrates' courts Queen's Counsel are employed to support applications for licences.
In the end, problem drinking is a personal problem on which an individual has to make a decision. As a parent I have always regarded it as a duty to teach my children how to drink so that they can cope with the temptation to drink too much, but parental responsibility is not at its highest in the country at the moment, and indeed it is well known that the children of alcoholics are more likely than any other children to become alcoholics. We need to maintain and increase educational programmes in schools and other places. This is part of the exceptional work of the National Council on Alcoholism, which has already been mentioned by the noble Earl and which, as your Lordships have heard, has over the years been trying to set up local branches. Many of these are voluntarily based, and the tragedy is that a considerable number of them may well come under threat of extinction because of a cut-back in local government financial support. In all cut-backs the voluntary field is beginning to feel the pinch, and I would plead for a recognition of the work which volunteers are doing and that it shall not be lost in an indiscriminate cut-back which disregards the quality of that work.
One interesting piece of work, which is quite local to me in Derbyshire, is that conducted by one of the Bishop's advisers who is himself concerned with educating those who are seeking to educate others—social workers, teachers and clergy. He is concerned about how to provide the knowledge and support that they need in educating and counselling those who are in a vulnerable position. I believe that one of the recommendations of the Government Advisory Committee on

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Alcoholism—which was quoted by the noble Earl—is very important: that anyone who is in need of help should be able to find someone to help. This requires publicity. It requires an adequate provision of help locally.
Several suggestions which will affect the availability of alcohol are being mooted at this time. One is the Bill—I think not yet published—which will be presented in another place and which will affect licensing hours. Another is the suggestion that there should be more adequate provision for children at public houses, so that they are not left at home, on the streets or in the car while their parents drink. I am sure that this has much to commend it. But the plain fact is that if the constant consumption of alcohol is made easier, the problems are bound to increase.
No one wants to deprive anyone of the pleasure of drinking, or of drinking in comfort, but I do not think that at this time we can as a nation afford to turn a blind eye to the danger signals in our society; and problem drinking is certainly throwing up a great many danger signals. I am told that addiction is much more likely among young people than it is among older people. That may be a comfort to me, my Lords, but it is not a comfort so far as the whole country is concerned. I am grateful to the noble Earl for giving us the opportunity to debate this subject. It is a matter which must not be left at the level of debate, but supported by wise legislation.
3.34 p.m.
Lord SOPER: My Lords, I am grateful, as the House will be, to the noble Earl for reintroducing this topic. I reflect that many years ago it was my privilege so to introduce it, and I remember repeating myself on a number of occasions when I ask the question, to which I find the answer perhaps more obvious now than heretofore, as to why it is that a problem of this size and gravity should require the constant attention of your Lordships' House, as if it has been under-valued, under-rated, and not understood. I suggest that there are probably two reasons. One is that alcoholism is an uncomfortable and unpopular topic, and suffers for the same kind of inhibition which I remember Calverley recorded in his poem about smoking:
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"Tobacco is a filthy weed,
I like it."
There must be a large element of secretiveness, some induced, some voluntary, on the question of whether or not this is a problem which needs the close scrutiny of such a debate as this.
The second reason is perhaps that there is a confusion among those who now belong to a group concerned with alcoholism, as if we are the residual legatees of the teetotal lobby, and this causes quite a number of otherwise wellwishers to suspect an extravagance in our claims today, as I think I must admit, as a life-long teetotaller, that I belong to the Band of Hope in which I was reared. It is not true that alcohol is the devil in solution, and if I may offer some slight comfort to your Lordships' House, it is my theological proposition that when the Kingdom of God comes, light wines will be permitted.
But the problem, as it now faces those who look out upon the social effects of the consumption of alcohol, altogether overshadows the personal concerns as to the probability of Hell for those who imbibe the alcohol itself. It is in this social context that I would seek to reinforce what the noble Earl has already said so cogently. This is a monster evil, and by any calculable determination it is the kind of evil which is tending to grow, and it is the kind of evil of which there is a form of geometric progression.
I shall confine myself to one or two additions to the statistics so economically presented by the noble Earl. It is true that over the last 10 years there has been an 87 per cent. increase in the total consumption of alcohol. It is also true that from 1955 to 1977 there has been an increase of 17,000 in the number of youngsters under 21 who have been convicted of drunkenness. I am careful to read these figures because, although generally I am not addicted to notes, I do not want anybody to get the impression that I am speaking vaguely or generally. These are attested statistics and should, I suggest, be accepted as such. Drinking and driving offences have doubled over the last seven years. What is more sinister is that there has been a progressive increase in the consumption of alcohol because of its availability and its relative cheapness, as my noble friend has already stated.
What brings many of these points to

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focus is the situation that now I endeavour to understand from the Government, though I find it confusing. So far as I am aware this is the position. Whereas up to 1973 the responsibility for custodial and other services for alcoholics was a matter for the Home Office, in 1973 it was passed over to the DHSS, which in turn passed it on to local authorities, though at the same time the department was prepared to make subventions to the local authorities in order that the services might be maintained. The decision has been taken to cease in a year's time, or in less than a year—and I read with great care—the funding responsibility for hostels in their areas by no less than 11 local authorities when the effects of circular 21/73 on funding will come to an end next year. Eleven local authorities have already indicated that they will no longer be able to support such institutions and services, and I suspect that over the next few months the number will tend to increase. It is known that there are 2,000 beds required, and I would beg to delay your Lordships by saying a little about the consequence of this particular situation as it affects those beds. According to the present calculations, the expiry of Government funding will mean that instead of the required 2,000 beds, no greater number than, say, 600 w ill be available.
I speak with personal knowledge of these matters, having been responsible for setting up one of the complete alcoholic services in London. I look with despair, almost, on what will happen when these services are no longer funded and, in most cases, have to cease. Two services—the Leeds detoxification service and the South-east London service—have already been declared to be no longer available for the allocation of resources. My Lords, if you are going to do anything at all for the alcoholic then it must be upon a three-tier system: first of all, there is the necessity for detoxification; secondly, there is the requirement for rehabilitation; and, thirdly, there is the need for the kind of protective housing which in normal circumstances will prevent the relapse of the man who recovers from an alcoholic condition but is never more than a permanent convalescent. There is no complete and final recovery from alcoholism to which any doctor
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would put his name.
These are conditions which I will not harass this House by repeating or by excoriating. It is my intention, rather, in the time which is available to me, to say something about what appear to be possible and sensible plans which can be put into operation to abate this scourge. The first is that the DHSS should take active and overall responsibility for the maintenance of those hostels which are efficiently run and those hostels which have demonstrated their ability to curb this evil. Secondly, that there should be a recognition on the part of those who took drunkenness out of the criminal law that they should reflect upon what they have done. Instead of sending the drunk to prison they imposed upon him a sentence of fine—which he was totally incapable of paying. Therefore he ended up in prison by a more circuitous route, but almost inevitably. It is a sheer waste of time to apply the fining principle to the drunk, who is totally incapable of paying it and, therefore, as I say, in fact ends up in prison.
As to the realm of advertisement, if it is good enough to attach in writing or script to a packet of cigarettes that smoking is a dangerous habit and can cause damage to health, then I would say that it is overwhelmingly important that every advertisement for the imbibing of alcohol should be accompanied by the statement—which every doctor would subserve and our experience would confirm—that alcohol is a dangerous drug and can cause damage to those who do not know how to use it moderately. I wonder what would be the effect on the innumerable and, to me, nauseating advertisements on television after nine o'clock at night, which seem to encourage the belief that if you desire virility then you must top it up with constant and copious draughts of alcohol. I find this ridiculous, I find it nauseating; and I should like to see those who participate in this particular exercise being required to say as part of their advertisement that of course the intake of alcohol will be dangerous if it is taken in immoderate amounts. It is as reasonable as the somewhat ineffective but at least well-intended attempt to curb the habit of smoking, and I believe it would be an excellent way of at least calling attention

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to the immoderate and, in my judgement, insufferable kind of greed which is stimulated by the kinds of advertisement which appeal, as it seems to me, to most of the seven deadly sins.
There is, my Lords, a sum—it is over £4 million in amount—which was part of the Licensing Compensation Fund. There are some who would regard this as tainted money and who would not like to touch it; but, strictly speaking, there are only two kinds of tainted money—that which is improperly minted and that which is illegally possessed. It may indeed be unregenerate cash, but I would offer it, shall we say? a second birth. If you will give it to me, I will baptise it, because I believe that this £4 million could be excellently used in the retention of the services which are now imperilled and which are a recognition that we live in a society in which the Muslim argument in the matter of alcohol is a lot stronger than most of us are prepared to admit.
May I, then, in conclusion, say a little about society. We are told that alcoholism is a stress complaint; that it is an accompaniment of "the rat race" I find it intensely disagreeable to contemplate the kind of attitude which is prevalent today that the end purpose of one's activity should be an enlightened self-interest, for in such days as these such enlightened self-interest is a stressful occupation, to be unfavourably compared, as I see it, with the community which I hope to serve. Secondly, it was said in the early days of the Industrial Revolution that two penn'orth of gin was the quickest way out of Manchester. Those who, in the last century, talked of religion as the opium of the people would, I think, have been much more accurate if they had talked about alcohol as being the opium of the people. It is my experience as a social worker that the attitude to alcohol is very often that it is a means of escape from a world in which people, especially young ones, find it pretty difficult to live, and in which many of them are denied the opportunity to make any contribution to the society in which they live.
Alongside all the efforts which decentminded people should make in the name of Christianity, in the name of humanity, for a curbing of this particular vice—this vice and this disease of alcoholism—
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it is at the same time not part of a Marxist doctrine but of a very sensible Christian one to suggest that, if you create a society in which there is less stress and less encouragement to opium, you will have created a society in which alcoholism will diminish. It is that hope which I cherish, and it may be that our discussion this afternoon may move in that direction.

PRISON SERVICES IN THE UK: THE MAY REPORT
3.47 p.m.
The PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY of STATE, HOME OFFICE (Lord Belstead): My Lords, with the leave of the House, I will now repeat a Statement being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Home Secretary. The Statement is as follows:
"The Report of the Committee of Inquiry into the United Kingdom Prison Services under the chairmanship of Mr. Justice May has been published today. First, my right honourable friends the Secretaries of State for Scotland and Northern Ireland, and I, thank Mr. Justice May and his committee for their remarkable efforts in producing so comprehensive a report in the space of only 10 months.
"The May Committee was established because, as I know my predecessor, the right honourable Member for Leeds South, will confirm, all is not well with our prison system. But, as the committee themselves have emphasised, that does not mean that nothing is right. I endorse entirely the committee's view that we have been fortunate indeed in the men and women who staff our prison services. This does not simply mean the prison officers and governors—it includes all of the staff of individual establishments, regional offices and headquarters. A particular tribute is due to the staff of the Northern Ireland Prison Service who have had to work under conditions of which the House will be only too aware.
"The report draws attention to some fundamental problems. The rise in the prison population and the consequent overcrowding in many prisons is perhaps the most obvious. The committee recommends that we should pursue

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alternatives to imprisonment wherever possible but concludes that there are no acceptable developments which will absolve us from the need to support for the foreseeable future a substantial prison population. Moreover, there are other major problems such as the decay of many of the buildings, the poor physical conditions and sanitary arrangements, the rise in the number of criminally sophisticated and violent offenders and the consequent increased problems of control.
"We welcome the report's insistence on the constructive aspects of imprisonment and its concept of positive custody ' with its emphasis on work, education and openness of approach. For non-violent offenders we welcome the committee's advocacy of shorter sentences.
"The committee saw one of the principal requirements for the future as being the improvement of morale and efficiency in the prison services. To this end, it has made a number of far-reaching recommendations, confined to England and Wales, on the management and organisation of the Prison Department. I welcome the objectives that the committee has set and its emphasis on the standing and sense of identity of the Prison Service and shall have them firmly in mind in considering this important group of recommendations.
"The committee makes a number of recommendations on pay and allowances, some for implementation straight away, and some for further consideration in conjunction with the unions concerned. It recommends that the pay of prison officers should continue to be linked with Civil Service rates under the formula which has been in operation since 1958 in accordance with the recommendations of the Wynn-Parry Committee. In recognition of the increased demands of the prison officers' job since the review by the Wynn-Parry Committee, the May Committee recommends new pay scales involving an increment of about 6 per cent. on the third stage of the pay increase agreed this year under the existing formula. The committee also recommends new pay scales for prison
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governors again involving an increase on the third stage of the Civil Service pay settlement and that all the new rates should date for pension purposes from 1st April 1979. The committee also considered a number of claims by the Prison Officers' Association for the payment of what are known as "continuous duty credits", and it recommends the acceptance of three of these claims from varying dates. In addition, the committee made recommendations relating to the Northern Ireland Prison Service. The Government for their part accept and are prepared to implement all these recommendations on pay and allowances.
"The committee stressed the need for greater efficiency in the use of manpower and for reductions in the present high level of overtime. We share the committee's view. We shall need to examine carefully in consultation with the staff associations ways in which we can achieve these important objectives and deal with the recommendations on such matters as industrial relations, the role and training of staff, recruitment and conditions of service. The committee has also recommended a significant extension of the prison building programme as well as improvements in working conditions and facilities for staff. We shall need to study these recommendations carefully, taking account of the nation's total resources and the many claims upon them and our commitment to support and improve the prison system.
"The May Report presents all of us who are involved in our prisons with an opportunity and a challenge—an opportunity to tackle the problems of our prison system and a challenge to build on what has already been achieved. As the committee has said, those who would turn their backs on our prisons, turn their backs on society and its values."
My Lords, that is the end of the Statement.
3.55 p.m.
Lord BOSTON of FAVERSHAM: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, for repeating this important Statement this afternoon.

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I should like also to join him in thanking the chairman, Mr. Justice May, and the other members of the Committee of Inquiry for the thorough way in which they have carried out this inquiry, for all their strenuous work, sometimes carried out in unusually difficult circumstances, and also for having done their work so expeditiously for an exercise as demanding as this. It is true that it has taken longer than was originally envisaged, but it would have been quite wrong for them not to take additional time. I should like also to join with the noble Lord in the tribute he has paid to all of the staffs of the prison services in their very difficult and not infrequently hazardous task, and particularly to underline and commend his observations about the staffs in Northern Ireland.
I would ask the noble Lord to accept that we on this Bench agree that time will be needed to study many aspects of the report. It is a very detailed one. It will need close examination and, no doubt, consultation with appropriate bodies including the Prison Officers' Association. But there are some things which are more urgently needed, some of which the noble Lord has indicated in repeating the Statement this afternoon. I refer to some of the recommendations on industrial relations matters.
The noble Lord will recall the main reasons why the May Committee of Inquiry was set up originally, which concerned the very serious situation and industrial unrest, indeed approaching anarchy, in some quarters. I would ask him to bear in mind the need for some action on some of the recommendations on industrial relations—which matter is particularly important.
For the sake of brevity this afternoon, I would refer to four paragraphs only on this matter in the summary of recommendations on pages 286 and 287 of the report, where it is said:
"Despite the substantial fund of loyalty and sense of duty that still exists in the prison services, willingness to resort to industrial action has increased in recent years, and still continues".
It goes on:
"Action taken has affected the administration of justice, prison administration and the welfare of inmates and has, on occasions, run counter to the stated position of the POA on the limits of acceptable action".
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There are two other matters on the following page to which I would refer. They are:
"Staff must acknowledge that there are certain issues which can never he settled locally, and must be for national negotiation";
and:
"The Home Office and the CSD"—
that is, the Civil Service Department—
"should give consideration to a return to the situation in which matters of pay and conditions of service are negotiated directly between the Home Office and the POA".
There are important and urgent matters in the sphere of industrial relations which need more urgent attention than perhaps some of the other recommendations, and I would ask the noble Lord to bear that in mind. What he has said about pay, following the committee's recommendations on pay, I would welcome very warmly indeed and commend the Government for the speedy action they have taken.
I should also ask the noble Lord to bear in mind, in considering the action on this report, that as far as the structure of the prison services is concerned, particularly in England and Wales, full weight should be given to the need to maintain ministerial and parliamentary accountability. I think it noteworthy here that the report does not recommend, for example, a return to the old Prison Commission. The report also mentions—and perhaps he would feel that this is another significant point—the need to improve the lines of communication.
There are only two other brief points that I wish to mention. The first is the role of the prison officer. One of the commonest criticisms that one hears—and it comes from many prison officers themselves—is that they are not able to play a full part in the treatment and rehabilitation of offenders. I would ask the Government to keep that point, too, in the forefront of their minds in considering action. I think it is also vitally important in deciding on the future of the prison services to consider, at the same time, the alternatives to prison. Here I would agree with the pointers that the noble Lord has given. The report has some valuable comments on this. Also in this connection, there is at least the comment in one of the paragraphs of the Statement (where the noble Lord

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is referring to a passage in the report) saying:
"For non-violent offenders we welcome the committee's advocacy of shorter sentences".
This is something that my noble and learned friend Lord Elwyn-Jones urged on magistrates up and down the country during his period as Lord Chancellor.
The only other question I would ask the noble Lord is concerned with buildings. In a reference to the report the noble Lord said:
"The committee has also recommended a significant extension of the prison building programme as well as improvements in working conditions and facilities for staff."
In this connection I would ask whether or not the exemption from expenditure cuts of law and order matters applies here. In my submission, we must aim for greater public awareness of the problems of the whole of the prison services; and, given that and the will, improvements can and must be made.
4 p.m.
Lord WADE: My Lords, may I join in thanking the noble Lord for repeating the Statement. I should like to join most heartily in paying tribute to the members of the committee and, of course, in addition, to the chairman, Mr. Justice May. I would again pay tribute to the prison services. As to the recommendations, it is difficult to suggest degrees of importance; but would the noble Lord agree that high priority should be given to the recruitment of staff suitable for this type of rather specialised work and, secondly, to pressing on with a new building programme? It is true that all this costs money; but is it not also a fact that it would be a wise economy to incur this expenditure and that in the long run it would be for the benefit of the life of the community?
4.1 p.m.
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, I am grateful to both the noble Lords, Lord Boston of Faversham and Lord Wade, for their comments on this report. May I just say this in reply: although, as the committee says, there were fundamental reasons for the setting up of the May inquiry, of course the immediate reasons were the disputes on pay and conditions. The committee recommends that it is
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important to tackle the causes and not the symptoms of trouble. In picking out the particular recommendations on industrial relations which the noble Lord, Lord Boston of Faversham, picked out, I would guess that he agrees with that general recommendation of the May inquiry that it is the causes and not just the symptoms which need to be tackled.
I should like to give the noble Lord an assurance that my right honourable friend will be having early discussions with staff associations on the report's findings, not least on the matter which the noble Lord raised and on which I know the May Committee and many prison officers feel very deeply—the idea that the prison officer's role should be extended. On the second point to which I need to reply to the noble Lord, he was good enough to note in his remarks what the Statement said—namely, that my right honourable friend had accepted absolutely the report's recommendations about the increases in pay. So far as the building programme is concerned—a matter to which both noble Lords referred—your Lordships may like to know that there are five new prisons in planning at the moment—and this stems from the previous Government—which will provide some 5,000 new places by the end of the 1980s. We shall consider very carefully over and above that, taking into account our total resources, the further capital expenditure which the May Committee recommends is needed on our prisons.
The noble Lord, Lord Wade, asked about recruitment. He is absolutely right: the current shortage of prison officers at the moment, as against the staff establishment, is about 1,200. However, the current shortage, if one is to do away with unconscionable overtime, is about 3,500 prison officers. At the moment my right honourable friend's Department is engaged upon a considerable recruiting campaign and we are finding that there is a response.

ALCOHOL ABUSE
4.4 p.m.
Debate resumed
Lord AUCKLAND: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Kimberley has chosen

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a most opportune time to debate this extremely important social subject. It is perhaps a quirk of fate that it follows yesterday's debate on the misuse of drugs. It is a well-known fact that the menace of drugs, particularly among young people, has now to a large extent been replaced by the menace of alcohol. Not for the first time the noble Lord, Lord Soper, has contributed valuably to this debate his experience of working with many of these unfortunate people.
I have several close relatives who are engaged in the hotel and licensing trade. Certainly the Licensed Victuallers' Association are extremely concerned about the question of alcohol abuse and of alcoholism. Of course, it is a fact that alcohol abuse is the state of affairs which eventually leads to alcoholism. There are really two stages here. If the abuse of alcohol, particularly among certain young people, can be counteracted, then the dangers of full-blooded alcoholism can largely be arrested.
It was a relief to learn that the proposal to license motorway cafés and other places of refreshment has been turned down. I hope that my noble friend who is to reply can give a categorical assurance that this proposal really has been turned down. Speaking from the point of view of the insurance industry—in which I have an interest to declare—the licensing of these places would have brought enormous problems, particularly with young drivers who might be involved in a fearful accident which would cause not only possibly tragic loss of life and limb but enormous problems of litigation. Of course, on the roads it is quite possible for a person to drive off the motorway for two miles down an unclassified road to a public house, or even to pull into a layby and drink from refreshment provided from a picnic basket; but at least it is good to know that the idea of licensed premises on motorways is not to be with us.
I was particularly interested in the speech of the right reverend Prelate, the Lord Bishop of Southwell, when he referred to Nottingham, because our elder daughter now teaches in Nottingham and so we visit that city from time to time. There is a particularly interesting article on page 11 of the magazine called the Licensee, which has been provided to
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some of your Lordships today and which refers specifically to Nottingham:
"Magistrates in Nottinghamshire are pointing out to off-licences throughout the county the problems caused by alcohol being readily available in certain premises."
It goes on to say:
"And at a recent meeting of Eastwood LVA, members were told of a letter which has now been sent to off-licences by the clerk to the justices of the Nottingham and Bingham Petty Sessional Division. It was hoped that all courts in the county would send out similar documents."
Furthermore, the letter goes on to say:
"The main causes for concern are undoubtedly those off-licences which operate on a self-selection basis."
Only the other Saturday morning my wife and I were shopping in one of the large supermarkets in Surrey. It so happened that I was purchasing some wine. It is true to say that in this particular supermarket the wine and alcohol department is separated from departments selling baked beans and so on. However, I am convinced—and I discussed this with my wife (who is a magistrate) this morning—that the staff of these shops can rarely cover the proper supervision of youngsters who purchase a bottle of whisky or gin. I am speaking here not so much of wine as of spirits. These youngsters may say, "This is for my father", and the rather harassed young lady at the cashing-out desk has presumably to bear this in mind.
off-licences and public houses are subject to rigorous inspection. My wife serves prominently on the local licensing committee of our local magistrates' bench and I wonder whether my noble friend is satisfied that the same stringent rules apply to supermarkets and other places which serve alcohol—as I say, not so much wines, or even beer, but whisky, gin and other spirits—which young people consume and which can do untold damage. Nobody wishes to be a "Scrooge" in these matters, but it is quite clear from figures which have been published that there are all too many young people who are under age—sometimes well under age—consuming these drinks.
As regards sports grounds, I suppose it would be too much to expect any suggestion to be adopted that the Cup Final should be played on "dry grounds or that there should be further limitations on licensing premises at sports grounds;

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but this may well have to come because so much of the hooliganism which is caused by a small number of people—and I repeat" a small number of people"—at football matches and other sporting occasions is the result of too much drink having been consumed. Then vandalism increases. In magistrates' courts the defending counsel will often plead, "He had a little too much to drink". I hope that magistrates, on hearing that, will impose a much more severe sentence, because I have always believed that the taking of alcohol is no excuse for hooliganism or any similar crime.
We are approaching now the Festive Season, with office parties and so on. We are approaching the season when business people are under more and more stress, and all too often the bottle, whether it is in the boardroom or whether it is liberally handed round among young people at office parties and so on, can sow the seeds of alcoholism.
Mention has been made of mental hospitals and of the number of people undergoing mental tratment through having been forced, one way or another, into this very tragic situation. A very good personal friend of mine was captain of the England Rugby XV. He started at Lloyds of London at the same time as I did. Unfortunately, he became addicted to the gin bottle, and although he was cured of that he then went on to beer and died in his late forties, leaving a widow and young children. This kind of situation can be multiplied many times.
My Lords, I accept that this has been a gloomy speech. The debate is concerned with an unhappy but vital subject. It does not indicate that alcohol is evil—that is far from the truth: many worthy people are engaged in the making of wine or other forms of alcohol—but it is incumbent that everything should be done to prevent what is on the Order Paper—in other words," alcohol abuse"—before we get to the ultimate tragedy of alcoholism.

COUNCIL OF MINISTERS (AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES) MEETINGS
4.16 p.m.
The MINISTER of STATE, MINISTRY of AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES and FOOD (Earl Ferrers):
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My Lords, with the leave of the House, I should like to repeat a Statement which is being made in another place by my honourable friend the Minister of State, on behalf of the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. The Statement is as follows:
"My right honourable friend, who is this afternoon accompanying the Prime Minister on her visit to the Chancellor of the Federal German Republic, represented the United Kingdom at a meeting of the Council of Ministers (Fisheries) on 29th October and at meetings of the Council of Ministers (Agriculture) on 29th and 30th October.
"The Fisheries Council agreed to set up a high-level group of officials to consider the state of fish stocks and the proposals which the Commission intends to put forward for their future management. This will prepare the way for discussion at the next meeting of the Council on 3rd-4th December, and will enable a fresh start to be made on the negotiation of an acceptable common fisheries policy. The Council also extended to the end of the year, on terms which continue to safeguard the United Kingdom's position, the existing Council decision on fishing operations in 1979.
"At an informal meeting of the Council of Ministers (Agriculture), Vice-President Gundelach described the crisis approaching for the Common Agricultural Policy through its rising cost and the impending exhaustion of the Community's own resources ' which finance it. There was a general discussion of possible methods of reducing the cost of the policy, particularly on milk and sugar. The Commission will be making proposals in due course. My right honourable friend made it clear that the United Kingdom would not agree to any increase in the ceiling on own resources ' or any measures intended to evade the effect of that ceiling in limiting the cost of the CAP.
"The formal meeting of the Agriculture Council was concerned almost entirely with sheepmeat. My right honourable friend informed the Council of recent developments in relation to France's import restrictions and demanded an assurance that the French

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Government would comply with the judgment of the European Court by removing immediately and permanently all levies or restrictions of any kind on imports of sheepmeat from the United Kingdom. The French Minister declined to give such an assurance. Other Ministers expressed the strongest disapproval of France's attitude. My right honourable friend made it clear that this was the first time that a member country had decided positively to ignore the Treaty and the verdict of the European Court, and that this constituted a threat to the very foundations of the Community. The Commission supported the view of my right honourable friend and stated that the action of the French Government was not just playing with fire but was playing with potential catastrophe. The Commissioner stated that he would be raising this crucial issue at today's meeting of the Commission and would be recommending that they should take action against the French Government to secure early French compliance with the Court's decision.
"There was also some further discussion of proposals for a Common Market organisation for sheepmeat, but no progress was made. France proposed the unbinding of the Community's obligations to New Zealand and other third countries under the GATT, so as to enable the Community to control or reduce the levels of imports. My right honourable friend said that in no circumstances would we agree to any diminution of New Zealand's rights. He also rejected French suggestions for intervention measures, and made it clear that we could not accept proposals for Community financed premiums which discriminated grossly against the United Kingdom, or any regime which did not fully safeguard the interests of British producers and consumers, and New Zealand."
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
4.20 p.m.
Lord PEART: My Lords, I have carefully read the Statement, and I must say that if I were in the position of the present Minister of Agriculture in Europe, I should have taken a similar stance. I support very much what he has done
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and I welcome the Statement and the attitude of the Government on this matter I have one or two short questions on fisheries. I know that here there has been a problem, especially over Norway pout, and I saw some of the difficulties reported the other day in the Financial Times. I think it is the kind of problem which could easily be settled by bilateral talks between Ministers in the Council. I am sure, knowing his track record over the period when I dealt with him, that the new Danish Minister, Paul Dalsager, will be responsible on this matter.
On the other hand, I agree that it is a wise decision to set up this new high-level group of officials to consider the state of fish stocks, and obviously we shall have to look carefully at the proposals which come forward for their future management. No doubt this will provide us with an opportunity at some later date to probe the Government on this matter. I gather that this will prepare the way for a discussion at the next meeting of the Council on 3rd and 4th December, so I should be grateful if the House could be informed of progress in this field.
On the question of the exhaustion of resources, I noticed today, again in the Financial Times—which I think covers Europe very well—that Gundelach has stated that the Common Market is going broke. I know that some people would like this and would welcome it. I should not. I think it would be a tragedy if the Community ended with this kind of occurrence. I want the Community to work. I used to be a critic of the Community, but from my own experience there I believe that we should make it work and should make our own contribution felt. That is certainly the view of most people.
On the question of reducing the cost of the policy, particularly on milk and sugar, as I have said, the Commission will be making proposals in due course and I hope that the Minister will be firm on this subject. I am certain that he will. I know that he has said he will and that he would not agree to any increase in the ceiling on our own resources, or any measures intended to evade the effect of that ceiling in limiting the cost of the CAP.
On sheepmeat, which has, of course, captured the headlines, the Government's

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stance is quite right. I was glad that we were enabled to get at least one truck load of sheepmeat into France. We must keep up the pressure. I think that the French are very wrong here, and everyone accepts that. I am very glad that the noble Earl reported today on further discussions and proposals for a Common Market organisation for sheepmeat. He said that no progress was made. He also referred specifically to New Zealand. We must not let New Zealand down. I have said this over and over again, even when some of our own people were trying to restrict exports of New Zealand farm products and dairy products to this country. I have always—in Brussels and out of Brussels—defended New Zealand, because I believe that New Zealand is British in the best sense. That is not being a jingoist in any way. I hope that there will be no let down on this issue, because we owe so much to New Zealand farmers and to the New Zealand people. So, generally, I welcome the Statement.
4.25 p.m.
Lord MACKIE of BENSHIE: My Lords, I, too, should like to welcome the Statement. Particularly, it is right that we are now talking once again on a common fisheries policy. It is vital that we settle on a common fisheries policy in the near future, because we have tremendous problems coming along with the applications to join of Spain and Portugal. I would ask the Government to remain firm on one matter: that we in this country control the breeding grounds in our own areas. I say that because only we have the equipment and experience and—indeed, as would appear from the actions of some of our partners—the desire to control the breeding grounds. In this, I hope that the Government will remain firm.
With regard to sheepmeat, France is not being as clever as she usually is. She is not appearing to be communautaire, and I hope that, while being fairly firm, we shall not be too sanctimonious, as our own record in the Common Market under certain Ministers in the last Government—not the noble Lord sitting beside me—is not too good.
While I admit that the end price is the important thing for the sheep farmers of this country, I hope that the Government
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will not evade their responsibility for the hill farmers of this country, will look again at the compensatory allowances and will try to put them up to the maximum permitted under the EEC regulations. Of all the farming communities here who are genuinely suffering, there is no question that the hill farmers are the people who are most affected. I hope, indeed, that the Government will look at that point very closely. Otherwise, with regard to the top end of our costs in the EEC, there is no doubt that it must be done within our own resources. But I hope that if the Commission are talking again of a co-responsibility payment in milk, the Government will insist that this applies evenly over the whole of the EEC, and does not attack and do harm to the more efficient herds, particularly those in this country.
4.27 p.m.
Earl FERRERS: My Lords, I am grateful both to the noble Lord, Lord Peart, and to the noble Lord, Lord Mackie, for the support and welcome which they have given to this Statement. It is a very difficult situation indeed. I was glad to hear the noble Lord, Lord Peart, say that if he had been at the Council of Agricultural Ministers he would have taken decisions very similar to those which my right honourable friend has taken.
With regard to fisheries, about which the noble Lord, Lord Peart, asked one or two questions, I think that the best way of answering him is to say that the whole matter is still the subject of negotiation. These talks are to continue at a very high level, to see whether there is a way of getting over the problem and meeting the difficulties which other countries have found; and, indeed, which we have found. My right honourable friend is certainly open at any time to have bilateral talks with other Ministers on fisheries questions, and indeed he has done so. But I should like to give both the noble Lord, Lord Peart, and the noble Lord, Lord Mackie, the assurance that the fishing is to be discussed on its own merits. It is not a question to be traded over or bartered with any other aspects of the Community. It stands or falls and is discussed on its own merits.
The noble Lord, Lord Peart, said that he wanted the European Community to

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continue, even though he was not at first enamoured of it. I agree entirely. It would be a total disaster if circumstances were to come about where the Community did not continue. It is our fervent hope and desire that it will, and these discussions which we are having are in order to resolve problems which Member States have, both internally and in relation with others. This is something which is not a cause, and should not be a cause, of a breakdown. Nevertheless, the action which the French have taken over sheepmeat is unique, is unprecedented and is undesirable, in so far as it is an action which strikes at the heart of the concept of the European Community. We hope very much that they will see the light, that wisdom will prevail, and that they will turn round and agree to conform with the judgment of the European Court.
The noble Lord, Lord Peart, said that he did not want New Zealand to be let down, either, because they are the most British of people, in the most generous sense of the term. I agree with him. The Government are most concerned that the rights and agreements which have been arrived at for New Zealand should continue. I have had the privilege of going out to New Zealand and I realise how dependent that country is on its exports to the United Kingdom. This is part of the Community's responsibility, and they acknowledge it.
The noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, referred specifically to sheep farmers. While outside the general concept of the Statement, this question is attached to it because of the sheepmeat regime. I can assure the noble Lord that the present Government are highly concerned to ensure that the hill sheep farmers are reasonably, adequately and properly looked after and protected, in so far as it is consistent with Community obligations. I can give him an assurance that we are concerned to ensure that that part of the agricultural industry is permitted to continue and indeed, one hopes, to flourish.
Lord WALSTON: My Lords, as someone who sits on these Benches and as a very old supporter of the EEC, may I be allowed to add my voice to those who have welcomed the Government's line.
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I believe that they are taking a wise line, not only from the point of view of this country but also from the point of view of the future of the Community. May I assure the noble Earl that it is far better to be, as he and his colleagues are now attempting to be, tough, but in a very rational manner, over the two outstanding issues of fisheries and the import of New Zealand sheepmeat and our own export of sheepmeat to the Continent, rather than to shilly-shally and try to reach agreement on a matter of principle where there is only one question as to the right line to be taken.
Earl FERRERS: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Walston, for his support and for the observations he has made. These issues are so vitally important to individual industries within a country and within countries that it is very easy for them to get blown up, almost out of context. They are vitally important. However, the purpose of the EEC is to resolve conflicts and differences. It is our intention to resolve those differences and not to make them become a point of conflict.
Lord PORRITT: My Lords, I am sure that this is completely out of order but I should like to add my voice to that of the noble Lord, Lord Walston, in thanking the noble Earl for his remarks about New Zealand. I can assure the noble Earl that they will be very sympathetically received in the country to which he referred.

ALCOHOL ABUSE
4.34 p.m.
Debate resumed.
Lord PORRITT: My Lords, if I may resume this slightly staccato debate, first may I thank the noble Earl, Lord Kimberley, for introducing this subject which has already aroused considerable interest in your Lordships' House and which, I would suggest, is of increasing and very urgent importance. It interests me, too, that yesterday we should have had a debate on drugs, introduced by the noble Earl, Lord Denbigh. After all, alcohol is a drug. However, in the thoughts of most of the people who are concerned with these matters it is becoming separated from the hard drugs. It is

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becoming separated because it is taking the major place: not in the Press, not in the drama that it engenders in various media, but in actual fact.
Figures in respect of alcoholism are rather hard to discover and must of necessity be somewhat vague. However, I read recently in an American journal concerning the problem of alcoholism that the odds are now approximately 10 to one—that is to say, 10 alcoholics to one heavy drug addict. How genuine that is I cannot say, but it gives your Lordships some indication that the alcoholic is getting well ahead of the hard drug addict in this miserable race.
We are talking of a global subject. We are not unique in suffering from an overdose of alcoholism. In fact, the history of alcoholism is quite fascinating. It goes back well into Babylonian days, if not before. If one studies a graph of the incidence of alcoholism through the centuries, one finds that it is a quite steady graph showing a rise and a fall, a rise a little higher and then a fall, and a rise again. At the moment, we are on the rise again.
If one studies its history, it is interesting to see why the fall occurs and what stops the rise. In general, it is due to two things, both equally difficult. One is an excess of restrictive legislation which is almost self-defeating. The other is the decadence and disappearance of the country or race which over-indulges in alcohol.
As I have said, at present we are facing an increase everywhere in the world. America is suffering badly. The Continent of Europe is suffering, including even our friends in Russia who do not say much about it but who are, I believe, very seriously involved in this problem of alcoholism. Here in the United Kingdom, very sadly, we have had a sudden—and when I say "sudden" I mean in the last two or three years—upsurge in numbers. Even more sadly, this upsurge involves more women and children than ever before. I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Soper, who mentioned adolescents of 17 or 18. It goes below that age—considerably. Fourteen and fifteen year-olds are now by no means uncommon. I can give a personal example of this. I have a son who is a teacher. On several occasions he has had to send boys out of the room after the lunch interval
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because they were definitely under the influence of alcohol after the lunch break. That is an example of what is happening.
Your Lordships will have heard, and I believe that this is a fairly reasonable suggestion, that the total number of alcoholics known—and let us underline" known—" in this country at the moment is well over half a million: probably 600,000 to 700,000 people. Those are the known individuals, but the number unknown must be infinitely greater. If to every one of those known and unknown you add on their families, friends and co-workers, you have a large army under the influence of alcohol.
I was not intending to speak in the debate, but after what I have heard this afternoon I am glad that I decided to do so. Your Lordships have heard about a number of institutions, but not about the Medical Council on Alcoholism of which I am the humble president. The Medical Council on Alcoholism was founded by Lord Rosenheim, some 15 or 16 years ago, and I shall tell your Lordships why in a moment. He, very sadly, died and was unable to bring his enthusiasm and great knowledge to bear upon the problem. However, we have gone on. We have not struggled on; we have gone on steadily and slowly since then. And in recent years, thanks to the very marked co-operation of the National Council on Alcoholism and of Sir Bernard Braine in particular, its chairman, we have made rapid steps forward.
The National Council and the Medical Council both occupy the same building. This fact is due—let us give credit where credit is due—to the support, both financial and moral, of the Department of Health and Social Security, which, as noble Lords have heard, has sponsored a number of homes and hostels, drying-out homes, throughout the country. One hopes that they can continue. This combination of the NCA and the MCA has begun to produce results. I should like to say in passing that we have the very definite support of the Alcohol Education Council, a high powered body which works at the Maudsley Hospital and is therefore largely psychiatric. The combination of these forces has begun to show something really worth while.
The reason why I wanted to speak today—I am not being at all biased or

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narrow—was in order to try to underline the importance of the medical aspect of alcoholism. This has been called, and is still called in certain places, a disease. The name was quite popular but it is probably not a very good name to put to it. This afternoon somebody used the word "illness" and I think that is a far better term for it, but if we use the word "disease" it is easier to discuss because, from a medical point of view, we can speak about the diagnosis and the treatment and one cannot treat very effectively if one cannot diagnose. Before both, of course, there comes investigation and, having got that far, one can then begin to speak about prevention, which is the most important thing of all.
In this field of prevention, I want to stress the role of the doctor. I am not speaking of the specialist but of the average good, hardworking GP, on the simple basis that he is the man with knowledge—or we hope he has knowledge—who will get into the familial environment and be able to recognise early the symptoms which tend to point towards the development of alcohol dependence. That is a fairly simple statement but it is extremely difficult to do. The dividing line between hard social drinking and alcohol dependence is quite undefined and is very hard to define, but it is in that dim sphere that we hope an educated medical man will be able to help. The purpose of the MCA is to educate the doctor and the doctor-to-be. That may sound rather rude to our profession but in fact most doctors are woefully ignorant about alcoholism, just as most of them are woefully ignorant about first aid, but we try now to educate the doctor and, even more, the medical student by symposia, seminars, lectures, conferences and so on and also by publishing a journal which is sent free to every GP in the country. A marked and increasing interest is being shown by medical students, and that is very heartening. They now come to at least two—and we hope soon to have three—meetings a year in London and some provincial city and they hear eminent people talking to them in the morning and they discuss and ask questions in the afternoon. This has produced a great deal of interest. We have asked for a feedback and have got a very practical and good feedback from these students. This is not something that can happen in a
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day but we hope that we are going along the right lines here.
The MCA also wish to increase and improve the methods of treatment. I should like to say here that in my view there is an undue emphasis on psychiatry in the treatment of alcohol dependence at the moment. Obviously it is a very great and important factor but this is a multi-discipline trouble and it needs far more than the pyschiatrist and far more than medical people to treat it properly: the social worker, the psychiatric social worker and the clergy are all very important in the treatment of alcoholism.
The third hope of the MCA is of course to stimulate a degree of research. Research is always expensive and in spite of the DHSS help we are not a wealthy organisation. But we are on the way. I might also mention that we have produced some seven or eight films which are not only educating doctors but also the public and are being shown amid great enthusiasm at many meetings all over the country and in many schools. They are very well done, and indeed three of them are done for schools. They are highly educative. So some good work is being done, in regard to this perfectly ghastly disease.
Not only is the individual affected by this, as we heard this afternoon, physically, mentally and morally, but his family are markedly affected. Child battering and wife battering nearly always have an alcoholic background. The inability of a man to be able to support his home and his family leads to many tragedies—broken marriages and everything that follows therefrom. The effect on an alcoholic's co-workers has also been mentioned this afternoon and is vitally important. Alcohol on the work-floor—and may I say that I would include in the work-floor a surgical operating theatre—can lead to very unfortunate industrial accidents and also of course to an enormous economic loss to the country. Here again, figures become rather mythical but the sum involved in working hours lost owing to alcohol troubles of one sort and another is colossal. There is no other word to describe it.
If one wants to go further, the public in general are affected by the alcohol-

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dependant. By far the majority of severe accidents leading to deaths on the road now have an alcoholic factor very markedly evident in them. Violence, muggings, and so on, nearly always have an alcoholic background. So the sphere of evil—and one can only call it that—which the poor alcoholic spreads is very large. That is why I say that this is a problem which needs all the co-operation we can get from the voluntary bodies. The more they can get together, the better. I have not mentioned AA, who do magnificent work. The more these voluntary bodies get together, the stronger force they will be in dealing with this problem—particularly if they are supported, as they have been of late, by a sympathetic Government.
4.47 p.m.
Lord CHESHAM: My Lords, I do not think that I am any more qualified to follow the general tenor of this debate into the wider fields of the moral and social problems arising from the abuse of alcohol than I am to follow the noble Lord, Lord Porritt, into the medical field. As a matter of fact I could wish that I had been able to speak before him because what I am about to say might have induced him to say something more, but no doubt he will do so on another occasion.
There is one point only which I wish to make to your Lordships and it is specific to the subject of this debate. I make it because I believe it to be of great importance—indeed, of widespread importance—and also it has the demerit at times of being, I venture to think, unsuspected. It is also something to which, so far as I an aware, remarkably little consideration has been given and again, so far as I am aware, not very much action, even by way of research or investigation, has been taken.
I am speaking of the inter-relationship or inter-reaction of alcohol and drugs. The noble Lord, Lord Porritt, has just confused me by saying that alcohol is a drug anyway, so I had better explain myself. I refer to alcohol qua alcohol. The drugs I am speaking about are not the hard drugs, the harmful drugs, the anti-social drugs taken by addicts and people seeking for "kicks". The drugs in my mind are the beneficial drugs which are widely prescribed for us all by the
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medical profession. We are all of us subject to many ills. Things advance, new drugs are created and, in short, these days we are filled with pills. Many of these pills, particularly in the antibiotic sphere, and indeed a number of injections and inoculations which many of us customarily have in connection with travelling—much more widespread than it used to be—have a most unfortunate inter-reaction with alcohol. Everybody knows this of course. It is widely known to the medical profession; but it is not widely known to us in relation to some of the drugs we are taking. We do not know whether, having had the drug, we should abstain from alcohol for 48 hours or three days or 24 hours. I do not believe, to be quite honest, that the warning we get and the understanding of it is sufficiently widespread to be of much use.
As I say, the most obvious application of this is in driving. You do not necessarily have to be in excess of the 80 milligrams to be in a poor condition if you happen to have had a couple of flu pills as well as a lesser amount of alcohol; you may not be very capable. I think we should know a lot more about it. It may be that had I been able to ask for more information I would have got it. I shall get it in due course. I do not expect my noble friend who is to reply to this debate to come up with any answer on this because I had not the courtesy to tell him what I was going to talk about, but perhaps he will be able to enlighten me in due course. All I want to do is to stir this matter a little because I believe that very large numbers of the public are at risk. I am convinced that this must come under the term "abuse of alcohol", and that is why I raise the matter.
4.51 p.m.
Lady KIN LOSS: My Lords, I apologise for not having put my name down to speak. Having listened to many excellent speeches, I should like to refer to one remark made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwell. Other noble Lords have mentioned this matter too. He said that in the City of Nottingham there is a supermarket which has a separated part of the store for the sale of alcohol. This is excellent. In Yorkshire some supermarkets do this, but others do not. One supermarket in York sells alcohol from open shelves,

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and it can obviously be bought by anyone. I realise that purchasers should not be under 18, but it is hard to tell their age when there is the usual rush to get through the check-out. I read recently that one matter of some concern to these stores is the young, very often girls. They have very often left school only a short time before and are able to buy alcohol in these stores without trouble, since it is very difficult to say whether or not they are 18. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Sandys, would consider this point and consider too whether it is possible for some suggestions to be made to these stores in regard to the sale of alcohol, with the possibility of a cordoned off area.
4.54 p.m.
Lord HAWKE: My Lords, I think there is time for two minutes from me, though I apologise for not putting my name down in advance. I am by no means a tee-totaller, but I recognise that there exists an awful problem. We cannot fail to recognise it as we go about the countryside. We see young men with pot-bellies doing various jobs, and the odds are that they have been caused by drinking too much beer. In fact in talking with them you find that they have all got their capacity taped to the nearest pint, and they tell you they are men of seven pints or 10 pints a day. I even heard of a foreman who went up to 20 pints a day. That is absolutely intolerable. We all know of executives who have been corrupted by the occupational hazard of having to indulge in too many business lunches, where drink, being completely free, flows freely and is imbibed in larger quantities than is really wise or necessary. We know about the absenteeism that results from over-indulgence. We see the huge rows of cars outside the pubs every night, knowing that practically every one of those drivers is over the legal limit, but they never seem to be caught. And we know that almost every act of vandalism or hooliganism in the country is caused generally by young men who cannot hold their liquor. We do not know really what can be done about it. When such people get to the stage of being pronounced alcoholics a medical society or some such organisation may get to them and try to cure them, but then it is really too late.
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I think that there are one or two things that could be done. To start with, I regret to say, from the personal point of view, that drink is too cheap compared with the incomes of the young, particularly today. Then, ever since Lord Butler's Bill, off-licences have been proliferating all over the country. I do not know whether we could reverse that process. As for the drink being on separate shelves with a separate pay exit, I have never seen such a thing in all my life. Practically every village shop and all the supermarkets now have licences, and they certainly do not segregate the drink in one corner of the store—for security reasons; they do not want it stolen. The customer passes through the check-out point with bottles of drink along with the groceries.
I personally would like to see drink advertising banned from television. I think that that is probably impractical and will never come about, but it would be a very good thing. Much of drinking is prompted by example. In a television play which purports to portray middle class or upper middle class life the actors have one continual drink; if they are not drinking the one, they are pouring out the next one. And, incidentally, they do not drink like gentlemen; they pour out their whisky and drink it almost neat all the time. They do not know how to drink.
Once I had the temerity to take part in a national health debate and I made two suggestions which found some favour. I am going to repeat them now because I think they would be quite apposite. The National Health Service is very short of money and always will be very short of money. I think that there should be a levy on cigarettes to pay for the lung cancer part of the National Health Service, and I think there should be a levy on drink to pay for the road accident part of it. I know that the Treasury have disliked intensely the idea of earmarking any tax for any particular spending purpose ever since Winston Churchill pinched the Road Fund; but I believe that in our present state of affairs. when the National Health Service is in a parlous condition, those two suggestions should be tried. In that way we should be killing two birds with one stone.
4.59 p.m.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, there are a large number of social problems, and we might use the word "evil" so far as some of them are concerned, which do not attract a very wide audience or, for that matter, generate very much concern. They are often sunk without trace. This problem of alcoholism is one of them. That is why the noble Earl, Lord Kimberley, is to be congratulated on reminding us again of what is in fact taking place. To understand the problem fully we need to know a great deal more about what is below and beneath the surface. Statistics by themselves do not give us much of an idea.
I was glad to hear the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwell speak, because it was the Church of England which, through the Church of England Temperance Society, introduced the forerunner of the Probation Service, which is a very successful public service in the country today; it arose directly out of the Church of England Temperance Society.
I was glad also to hear the speech of my noble friend Lord Soper because I suppose that there is no-one in your Lordships' House who knows more about this problem than he does. Forty-three years ago when I was in my late twenties I was posted by the Home Office to the North London Magistrates' Court as the senior probation officer, and that post took in not only the whole of North London but a great part of East London. Either four days before I arrived at Islington or four days after I arrived there, someone who still bears the same name, Donald Soper, arrived in charge of the Methodist Central Hall. That marked, I think, the beginning of our work in that particular area—he was mainly concerned with this problem and I was more concerned with delinquency. As I have said, no-one knows more about this particular problem than he does.
I do not want to go over the statistics again other than to point out that in the past 20 years admissions into psychiatric hospitals for the treatment of alcoholism have increased twenty-five fold. Now about 14,000 persons are admitted per year to our psychiatric hospitals for the treatment of alcoholism and its effect. If one were to analyse the time and money involved at a time when we need all the
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resources we can get to treat people for what I shall term "normal illnesses", it would give some idea of how large a part of the resources of our National Health Service is earmarked for this particular type of illness.
The annual cost of road traffic accidents due to drinking is estimated to be in excess of £100 million a year. We do not know as much as we should know about the social, the mental and the physical disabilities that result from alcoholism. We know about the breakdown in family life, but drinking is so much more private today than it was 20 or 30 years ago. As I am sure my noble friend would agree, it was quite common in places like Islington to see policemen taking people off on a curious contraption to the police station because they were drunk and incapable.
However, as your Lordships will know, not only does alcoholism often lead to crime, but it is estimated that upwards of 40 per cent. of people in prison at present have a drink problem. Even when they leave prison they are still outcasts. Mental disability often resulting in the person going into a psychiatric hospital, where a cure is extremely difficult, and physical disability resulting in serious internal troubles very often produce a person who is no longer fit to work.
We are faced with a very serious social problem arising from alcoholism—I am almost tempted to say that it is probably more serious than the problems resulting from smoking, gambling and perhaps drugs. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hawke, when he says that the people who are benefiting should themselves make some contribution. The brewers, I believe, are making a profit of upwards of £400 million a year. I do not know the profits of the tobacco industry or the profits of the bookmakers and the betting shops, but one ought to ask oneself whether they should not be asked to make a contribution. As long ago as 1969 the Brewers' Society estimated that the brewing industry had a capital investment of £1,700 million and at that particular time it was almost equal to the total investment in the manufacture of foodstuffs. I have no reason to believe that it is any different at present.
Over the last 10 years for which figures are available, drunkenness offences committed

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by young men have increased by 50 per cent., while those by young women have more than trebled. In the past 10 years, deaths from alcoholism have trebled; those from liver cirrhosis have risen by about a third, and drinking and driving offences have more than doubled. We are living in a society where more than one in three of all drivers killed in road accidents now have a blood alcohol level above the legal limit, compared with one in six in 1966, when the limit was introduced.
Advertising alcoholic drinks costs something like £30 million per annum. I do not know what the Health Education Council receives at present, hut I do not imagine that it is much more than about £1·5 million. The Voluntary Code of Advertising has a special section on alcohol, but I would like some evidence that the advertisers take notice of it. I do not think that they take notice of it at all.
As my noble friend, Lord Soper said, we need the same volume of advertising in relation to drinking as we have in respect of smoking. Somehow or other we must make the public much more aware of the problem. I can remember the time when the temperance lobby came out in reply to an enormous 16-sheet poster saying "Beer is best" with a poster similar in every detail saying "Beer is best—left alone". I do not know why that disappeared, but it did disappear.
I should like to ask the noble Lord, Lord Sandys, who is to reply, what the Government are doing as regards this particular matter. Let me say again that I am not unmindful of the question of expense, but I would like to know what the Government are doing. I would like the names of the voluntary organisations—if they are not too many—involved in helping alcoholics, and to know how much of their help is educational and how much goes in helping the alcoholic and his or her family. I would like to know—a total sum will do—how much is given by way of Government grants to those organisations, and whether the sum has been or is likely to be cut in view of the Government's policy. I would also like to know the Government's proposals for the future.
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I would like to see a Government initiative in this matter with the CBI, the TUC, appropriate members of the medical profession and officials of the appropriate division within the DHSS. It is probably not generally known, but I can testify from my own experience that in the DHSS there is a very competent group of people who are extraordinarily well-informed in this particular area. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Porritt, will bear that out, because he has taken a great deal of initiative in running training sessions for doctors and he was good enough to invite me to two of them. I think he will agree that that is something that ought to have been done many years ago; nevertheless, it is happening at present. I should like to feel that the Department had some plans for taking the initiative. It is not of the slightest use to leave it to voluntary organisations to try to generate some sort of interest on the part of, for instance, unions and the CBI. The approach must be an official one by the Government. The Government took the initiative in the matter of smoking, hut many of us believe that alcohol abuse is far more serious than smoking or, if not far more serious, every bit as serious. If the Government can take the initiative in that particular sphere, as they did with smoking, they will be rendering a very important service to the community.
5.11 p.m.
Lord SANDYS: My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend Lord Kimberley for having initiated this afternoon's debate on the important subject of alcohol misuse, on which we have had an informative and very wide-ranging discussion. I welcome this opportunity to outline the Government's position on what is now widely recognised and (currency has been given to this in the course of the debate), both in its consequences and in its extent, as a very serious problem.
Some consequences of alcohol misuse—such as public drunkenness and drinking and driving, alcohol-related mental and physical illness—are tangible and measurable. Other aspects of the misuse problem—for example, its contribution to general crime and violence, disruption of family life, accidents at work and in the home—are less easy to quantify but certainly no less serious. The problem is not confined to a small minority. From

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the speeches made this afternoon I think we all recognise that.
Latest estimates by Government statisticians, given in a Written Answer in another place today, suggest that there were perhaps three-quarters of a million alcoholics in the United Kingdom in 1977, representing an increase of more than a third over the preceding 10 years. I think that that statistic is generally borne out by speeches from all sides of the House this afternoon.
Lord HAWKE: My Lords, can my noble friend explain exactly what is meant by an "alcoholic"? There must be some way of defining an alcoholic and it would be helpful to know.
Lord SANDYS: My Lords, I do not have the dictionary in front of me, but the Department's understanding of the word "alcoholic"—and I speak without the book here—is that it is someone who is known to have a recognisable drink problem. I hope that that will satisfy my noble friend.
When the families, friends, employers and workmates of these alcoholics are taken into account it is clear that a very large number of people in this country suffer the consequences of alcohol misuse directly and continuously. All measurable indices of alcohol-related harm have also risen sharply in recent years, as has the average per capita consumption of alcohol. Here many statistics have been showered upon us. I expect noble Lords have received information from professional bodies, as indeed we have, and from the trade itself. However, I should like to make one particular reference, which has, in fact, already been made by my noble friend Lord Kimberley. He referred to the report of the Royal College of Psychiatrists earlier this year entitled Alcohol and Alcoholism. That report stated that we are faced with:
"an endemic disorder of frightening magnitude".
I think that that is the measure of the problem.
We are all greatly indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Soper, for introducing the subject to your Lordships' House a number of years ago, and to my noble friend Lord Kimberley for introducing the debate on
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19th March 1975 and for the one today. Both my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Soper, from different sides of the House, have reminded us of the importance of this subject. We should do well to continue to regard the problem in some detail.
Although the alcohol misuse problem is not perfectly understood—and there is scope for further research into the factors which influence individuals to misuse alcohol—this does not give cause for inaction. Nor should any section of society regard the problem as one that can be left to the politicians, the medical profession, voluntary bodies or anyone else. Alcohol misuse affects us all, if not directly then—bearing in mind, for example, the economic cost of working days lost owing to alcohol-related sickness—indirectly, and we all have an important part to play. This is especially so of those in a position to influence others: employers, trade unions officials and those in the caring professions.
Measures to tackle alcohol misuse fall into two broad categories: prevention and treatment. I am glad that so many of the speeches this afternoon concentrated on the prevention aspect. In his introduction, my noble friend mentioned it and I was grateful that the noble Lord, Lord Soper, mentioned the whole aspect of treatment in its three-stage relationship, to which he gave particular emphasis in the course of the last debate.
The resources for treatment cannot stem or keep pace with this self-inflicted problem, and the main hope for the future must lie in prevention. The Government have before them several sets of recommendations—notably by the House of Commons Expenditure Committee in its Report on Preventive Medicine, the former Advisory Committee on Alcoholism in its Report on Prevention, and the Royal College of Psychiatrists in its Report on Alcohol and Alcoholism—on measures that they might take to limit misuse. Some of these recommendations—for example, those on the taxation of alcohol—are controversial. This reflects the difficulty in any free society of dealing with a commodity such as alcohol which gives harmless pleasure to most adults and which in this country generates considerable employment, export earnings and trade.

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However, it is misused with very serious consequences by a significant minority. That significant minority has been measured by statisticians at 750,000 but, if we take into account—as did the noble Lord, Lord Porritt—all those affected, we have a figure vastly in excess of that number.
A major aim of any preventive strategy must be to inform the general public of the consequences of misusing alcohol. To this end the Health Education Council has been running in the North-East of England, in conjunction with local organisations, a campaign to promote sensible drinking. The Government recognise the importance of health education and, as part of their general review of Quangos, will be reviewing the role and function of the Health Education Council to make it a more effective force for the promotion of good health. Health education which gives people the facts, so that they can take informed and responsible decisions about their own drinking, can address people as adults in a free society. Most people are interested in the facts, and the Press and broadcasters have been playing, and will play, an important part in presenting them.
It would be a very great mistake if we did not mention the role which children have to play in the whole of this theme. For children and young people by far the most important influences are the attitudes of their parents and contemporaries. The Department of Education and Science handbook Health Education in Schools points out that the attitudes that do most to determine the behaviour of adults are established at a much earlier age than is often realised, even in early childhood, and the responsibility of parents is fundamental and unavoidable. But this handbook also suggests that the subject of alcoholic drinks might slip naturally into various parts of the curriculum—for example, in home economics discussing types of drinks and their compatibility with food may well be most constructive as a safeguard against "excessive drinking" caused by ignorance and bravado. For older children discussions are suggested on the reasons why people drink, the dangers of excessive drinking and guidance on behaviour when in the company of heavily drinking friends. I commend such discussions to parents, as well as teachers,
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concerned to help young people to decide their attitudes to drinking.
The Government recognise the importance of encouraging school children to adopt a sensible attitude to alcohol. I have already referred to the advice which the Department of Education and Science has published in the handbook Health Education in Schools. The Health Education Council's Working Party, in its campaign in the North East on responsibility on drinking, is in close touch with the Teachers Advisory Council on Alcohol and Drug Education and has provided seminars for teachers and others concerned with young people. We hope to learn more from this campaign about the most effective ways of educating people about the dangers of misusing alcohol. The licensed trade and supermarkets, as well as the police, have been giving a good deal of attention to their by no means easy responsibility for preventing under-age drinking. The encouragement of responsible attitudes to alcohol in young people is a matter on which the Department of Health and Social Security and other organisations are concerned. But for all adults concerned, parents, teachers, and others, it is important to remember that example is better than precept.
I have referred to recent sets of recommendations before the Government. These are being closely considered by the Health and other Ministers concerned, who will decide their response in due course. The DHSS has brought together representatives of the drinks industry and trade and the Health Education Council to discuss the common interest in promoting responsibility in drinking. The drinks industry is also currently revising its code of advertising practice for alcoholic drinks. The DHSS has commissioned the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys to carry out a survey of drinking habits in England and Wales. This should give us for the first time a comprehensive picture for England and Wales of when, and how much, people are drinking—and hence a better understanding of why some of them misuse alcohol.
I think here I must pause to pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Soper, who said in the opening remarks of his speech that alcoholism was a subject which was underrated, undervalued, but not under-

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stood. I think that here the Government are attempting to play a full part, through all those discussions, conferences, and work in the prevention field, in attempting to make this subject become a reality to the public at large. In prevention lies the best hope of limiting the alcohol misuse problem in future. But the Government are also very much aware of the immediate importance of promoting adequate counselling and treatment services for victims of misuse.
The problems of alcohol misusers and their families are of course tackled every day by general practitioners, health visitors, social workers and others within the statutory health and social services. Specialist provision for treatment of alcoholics is also provided within the National Health Service, where there are now 32 specialist units in England and Wales and three in Northern Ireland. In Scotland, and also in the rest of the United Kingdom, treatment for alcoholism is provided in most psychiatric hospitals. I pause here because at the time of the last debate, when the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, referred to this in replying for the Government, he mentioned that there were 22 of these specialist units, very often associated with hospitals but not in all cases. It is a tribute to those who have worked in the Department and local authorities that the remit and the numbers of these specialist units have been greatly increased in the last five years.
Health Ministers will be considering, in the light of comments received from the field on the Advisory Committee on Alcoholism's report on the Pattern and Range of Services for Problem Drinkers, whether health departments should issue any further guidance in this area. The report of the Federation of Alcoholic Rehabilitation Establishments on Community Services for Alcoholism was issued on 18th September 1979. My honourable friend, the Parliamentary Secretary for Health and Social Services was, with Mrs. Helene Hayman, co-chairman of the working party. While he cannot in his current capacity as a Minister be committed to its recommendations, he will certainly be able to ensure that they are considered as part of the total policy review. The Advisory Committee's final report, on the education and training of professional staff and voluntary workers
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in the field, was published last month. Comments have been invited from professional and other bodies and will be considered by Health Ministers in due course.
The training, education and above all improved confidence of members of the professions concerned may well be the key to more effective services for problem drinkers in the future, but let us not overlook the contribution which the health and personal social services are already making. I have mentioned the alcoholism treatment units. In addition an increasing number of consultant psychiatrists are taking a special interest in the misuse of alcohol, and developing services accordingly. Admissions to mental illness hospitals and units in the United Kingdom of patients with a primary or secondary diagnosis of alcoholism or alcoholic psychosis totalled 22,000 in 1976. There is also a hitherto unrecognised burden in that research now suggests that between 15 and 20 per cent. of the patients in acute medical and some other wards of a district general hospital have a drinking problem. Doctors, nurses and social workers have long been treating the symptoms of problem drinking, and I am sure they will welcome additional information which may help them to do so more effectively.
But the State cannot realistically be expected to meet the full range of health and welfare demands arising from alcohol misuse. Fortunately, voluntary organizations—some with financial support from Government—have long played a major role in this area and, as the Government proceed to cut income tax, public spending and bureaucratic involvement, it naturally looks to the voluntary sector to play an increasingly important part in helping the victims of alcohol misuse. On 15th June my honourable friend the Parliamentary Secretary for Health and Social Services announced in another place that there would be no reduction in this financial year in the total level of grants provided by his department to voluntary organisations. I emphasise that in reply to a question by the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell.
Thus the Government will continue to offer support at as high a level as possible, having regard to its strategy on cash limits for public expenditure and to the

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general economic circumstances. But I would repeat what my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Social Services said last June:
"I do most emphatically urge the voluntary movement to recognise that its independence is threatened if it becomes too heavily dependent on Government finance. … finance for the project work of voluntary bodies should wherever possible derive substantially from private funds …".
Moreover, the Government believe that services developed to respond to a local need must look for any financial support at local level. While the difficulties facing voluntary bodies in the alcohol misuse field should not be underestimated, those organisations that demonstrate their value and effectiveness as part of the total pattern of services available should start to make it known that they are not just "asking for charity". They have something practical to offer in exchange for local support to problem drinkers themselves, to their families, their employers and to the local community, which until now did not realise that problem drinkers can be helped to help themselves.
As I know that the noble Lord, Lord Soper, and others are particularly concerned about future funding arrangements for hostels for alcoholics, I hope your Lordships will bear with me if I explain the Government's position on this. Health Ministers are considering representations from Lord Soper and others that the department's scheme for grants to voluntary organisations providing hostels for alcoholics should be extended for two years. The clear agreement with the local authorities when the grants started was that if, after the initial five years of pump-priming by the department, these voluntary organisations needed further help they would look to the local authorities. Consequently, funds have not been set aside beyond March 1980 by the department for hostels already funded for more than five years. The amounts involved for the individual authorities concerned are not large, but there are difficulties in transferring funds intended for other priorities. We are considering how best to help these voluntary organisations, in consultation with the local authorities concerned.
I wish now to explain the Government's position on detoxification centres. The setting up on an experimental basis of
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two such centres was recommended in 1971 by the Home Office Working Party on Habitual Drunken Offenders. Subsequently, centres were opened, in May 1976, at Leeds and, in November 1977, at Manchester. The DHSS agreed to fund both centres for an experimental period of three years only. It was agreed from the outset that the appropriate health and local authorities would review the value to them of the centres and would be responsible for any funding beyond the initial three years. In fact, DHSS funding at Leeds was extended for six months to give the local authorities more time to reach a decision, and an urban aid grant for the centre has been arranged for the period December 1979 to March 1980.
Although the Leeds and Manchester detoxification centres have been funded centrally during their initial experimental period, it would be quite contrary to the Government's policy of devolving responsibility down to the lowest effective level for this arrangement to continue once the centres have become established as part of the local range of services for alcoholics. To do this would mean that the Government was subsidising in perpetuity these services in a few privileged areas; that cannot be right. The Government's future policy on detoxification centres will be determined in the light both of the research being undertaken at Leeds and Manchester and of any further advice Ministers may receive on the best way of treating habitual drunkards.
In the time available, I will take up some other points made by noble Lords during the debate. I wish first to stress a difficulty I am in; all spokesmen in this House answer of course for the Government as a whole and not for any particular department—a very well recognised custom. Nevertheless, in respect of this debate a very large number of departments are concerned and perhaps I may be permitted to cite them: they are the Home Office, the Department of Health and Social Security, the Department of Trade and Industry, the Treasury, the Department of the Environment, the Department of Employment and Productivity and the Office of Fair Trading. But that may not be all because of course the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has a special interest in the drinks industry, and there are others.

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I will attempt to touch on some of the principal questions that have been asked and give some specific answers. My noble friend Lord Auckland wanted me to give a categorical statement about applications for licensing motorway cafés. I can tell him that the granting of any licence for the sale of alcoholic drinks at a motorway service area is specifically prohibited under Section 9 of the Licensing Act 1964, and the Government have no proposals to change that provision. I hope he will be satisfied with that reply.
The noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, was good enough to give me advance notice of a series of questions, and I will deal with them as best I may. His particular questions related to grants to voluntary organisations concerned with alcoholism in the current year, 1978–79, and he wanted to know those voluntary organisations assisted by public funds. There are 59 hostels which are assisted on both capital and revenue account to the extent of £463,640 in the outturn. As for the other organisations—and I will not give the precise grant for each one but will total the amount at the end—we have the Alcohol Education Centre, the Alcoholics Recovery Project, Aquarius, which is a Birmingham and Midlands group specifically concerned with alcoholism, the Federation of Alcoholic Rehabilitation Establishments the Helping Hand Organisation headquarters, the Helping Hand Organisation Bedford Advice Centre at Ealing, the Medical Council on Alcoholism, of which the noble Lord, Lord Porritt, is president, the National Council on Alcoholism, of which the noble Earl who initiated the debate is an executive member, the Norfolk Council on Alcoholism, the Salvation Army Detoxification Centre at Tower Hamlets, the South East London Consortium and St. Botolph's. Taking all those organisations together with the 59 hostels to which I referred, the total funding has been £840,431 to date. The outturn, however, excludes coloration sums paid during that year, 1977–78, and therefore there is a small note to be added to that figure.
I was grateful to all noble Lords who raised the matter of the sale of alcoholic drinks, and I will reply in a general way in regard to off-licences, because I think this is at the root of so many of the selling problems. The right reverend Prelate
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the Lord Bishop of Southwell introduced this matter and it was echoed by subsequent speakers on both sides of the House. Perhaps it would be more useful if, rather than to reply to individual questions, I were to say that magistrates can refuse off-licences where they are not satisfied with the arrangements to safeguard against the sale of drink to those under age. That provision exists for all magistrates and it is a matter which might be drawn to their attention; one result of this debate may be that this matter will be brought to public attention.
The supermarket sections of the Wine and Spirit Association have been giving attention to preventing sales of alcohol to persons under age, and I am sure that they will have regard to the concern expressed in the House this afternoon. This situation involves constant vigilance. What we have been debating is in a sense part of a much greater problem which more specifically concerns the Home Office, namely, the subject of licensing as a whole, and I do not think that it would be profitable to continue in that sphere in the course of my reply.
My Lords, having been speaking for 29 minutes, I feel I should draw my remarks to a close, but I should like to say that in introducing the debate the noble Earl has put his finger on a subject which involves one of the three great evils in our society which were referred to yesterday by my noble friend Lady Macleod of Borve. She cited drugs, alcoholism and smoking. The noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, said this afternoon that he considered that perhaps smoking was the least of the three evils. Nevertheless, these three matters will be the subject of constant interest by Her Majesty's Government.
5.41 p.m.
The Earl of KIMBERLEY: My Lords, I shall sum up very briefly. I am most grateful to all noble Lords, from a variety of walks of life, who have participated in the debate. I consider that those who have taken part represent a very good cross-section of the community. I must agree with what the right reverend Prelate said about young people drinking what he called the "hard-stuff". As the right reverend Prelate said, drink may be more expensive now than it was before the war, but on the other hand wages have gone up

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pro rata and in comparison drink is now probably cheaper. I was very happy to hear the right reverend Prelate's speech. I thought it a speech of great feeling and one which showed great knowledge of the whole problem.
The noble Lord, Lord Soper, is probably the most experienced person on this subject in your Lordships' House, He has been dealing with it for many years longer than I have. He realises the size and gravity of the problem, and he has probably done an indescribable amount of good in relation to it. He realises that drink can be a monstrous evil, and it can, as he said, involve a geometric progression. But we must also remember—as I am sure he does—that to many alcohol is also a great boost and gives great joy and happiness, and if not abused is completely harmless.
The noble Lord referred to a point I mentioned earlier about fines and prisons, and he spoke about how some people who are fined for being drunk cannot pay the fines and so end up in prison. When I spoke earlier about the question of prison and the alcoholic I was not referring to the hooligan who gets drunk at a football match. Obviously the young hooligan at a football match, or in a games stadium, is a very different kind of person from the alcoholic, as my noble friend Lord Auckland, said, and it is not for me to judge here today how such a person should be dealt with. When I referred to prisons I was referring to the problem drinker—or, for want of a better word, the "alcoholic". I was very happy to hear my noble friend Lord Sandys state that licences are not to be given to motorway cafes; that can be only a good thing.
I was delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Porritt, (the President of the Medical Council on Alcoholism) took part in the debate because he has made a greet study of the illness, disease, or call it what you will. I thought that the statistics he gave of there being 10 alcoholics to one drug addict were most pertinent. It probably emphasises to a large degree how great is the problem of alcoholism and of how, if we are not careful, it may get completely out of hand. The noble Lord gave one other unhappy figure. I had said that I thought the total of alcoholics was 600,000, but he put it nearer three-quarters of a million, which means that perhaps more than
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2 million people are affected directly or indirectly by the problem.
My noble friend Lord Chesham mentioned a point concerning alcohol and drugs. Of course there are such things as seasick pills and tranquilisers, and it is stated on the bottle, usually in very small print, that if one takes such a pill one should not drink. My noble friend said, quite rightly, that more should be done to try to ensure that the general public absorb this warning. The noble Lady, Lady Kinloss, was probably answered by my noble friend Lord Sandys on her point about magistrates granting licences for the sale of drink in shops and similar premises.
My noble friend Lord Hawke spoke about business and executive lunches. For many years I thought it quite impossible to do one's job and go out to business lunches in case one drank at great length and in great quantity. I believe that there are many people who think this. All I can say is that if people are prepared to persist and try hard enough they can have many executive and business lunches, yet still survive and not get drunk at them. I am not implying that the noble Lord gets drunk, but it is not necessary to do so.
The noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, spoke of the ominous figures of admissions to psychiatric hospitals. That did not make good hearing, and I have no doubt that it will not make good reading in Hansard tomorrow morning. The noble Lord made several pertinent statements, and one was particularly so; namely, that so often the abuse of alcohol, particularly among the younger members of our society, leads to crime. As has been said today, the only way that we can try to cope with this problem educationally is through the parents, the schools, and the various voluntary organisations, with the help of the Department of Health and Social Security, the Home Office, and other bodies.
Most of the questions of the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, were answered by my noble friend, and this has made my summing-up much easier. I was very happy to hear from my noble friend Lord Sandys that the Government view the problem in a very serious and grave way. I did not expect my noble friend to answer every question today, nor necessarily to comment on everything that had been

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raised; but when the debate is read and studied by the various departments and by, hopefully, one or two other Government Ministers, we might come back to the old chestnut, that perhaps a levy should be put on drink in this country, as it is in New Zealand, so as to try to make the problem smaller.
I hope that the debate has given the various departments food for thought, and I wish to thank all noble Lords who have taken part, the many who have listened to my perhaps too lengthy peroration, as well as to all the other speeches. I should like to end by saying that I have no desire to stop people drinking, but only to try to warn those who may be in peril of what alcohol abuse can do to them. My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

MUSEUMS AND GALLERIES: STANDING COMMISSION REPORT
5.50 p.m.
Lord MONTAGU of BEAULIEU Lord MONTAGU of BEAULIEU rose to call attention to the report by the Standing Commission on Museums and Galleries on their proposed Framework for a System of Museums; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I should first declare an interest, as vice-president of the Museums Association and also chairman of the National Motor Museum. It is, I think, some time since this House, or indeed the other place, has had a debate on museums and galleries, and this important subject perhaps deserves longer discussions. Nevertheless, today the debate specifically concerns the report of the working party set up by the previous Government and chaired by Sir Arthur Drew, chairman of the Standing Commission on Museums and Galleries. Its purpose was to pursue certain recommendations made in the Wright Report. What, I hear your Lordships ask, was the Wright Report? It is in fact the report which the Drew Report was reporting on—that typically British political manoeuvre, particularly when a report's recommendations are politically or financially embarrassing or inopportune.
So, for your Lordships' information, the Wright Report was produced by the Arts Committee of the Department of Education and Science, and it reported in 1973 with certain recommendations, mainly with regard to Government grants for museum buildings, the suggested Housing Museum Fund and other proposals concerning a national system of museum services. So in 1975 the Standing Commission was directed to set up a working party with the following terms of reference:
"To continue the work already begun by the Commission on the designation and the proposed centres of excellence and, with advice from the Area Councils and local authority and university and private museums, to produce a preliminary plan for a National System of Museum Services, as envisaged in the Wright Report".
The report on the report was duly published last January, after three years' work, and from the then Government there was a deafening silence; but I am delighted to see that the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, will be speaking later in the debate, so it may be that we shall have the benefit of what his Government's view would have been.
So this is the first time that this important report has been debated in Parliament, and I hope the Government will welcome this opportunity to make suitable comments and point the way to the future. However, I think I speak for museum managements and their professional staffs when I say that the report was reasonably well received and met with general approval. The important exception was perhaps the concern expressed by specialist curatorial groups, who are worried about the maintenance of adequate standards for their collections in the future. But it could be hoped—and, indeed, I believe the Standing Commission has already assumed—that the report has been or will be agreed by Government in principle, although it is most unlikely that there will be any new money to implement some of the recommendations. I think it is agreed by all that it is most important that the working party's report should not be shelved because of lack of finance. It indeed sets guidelines for generations to come, and I believe that all planning for museums should be based on this report.
My Lords, there were in fact 39 separate recommendations which covered subjects

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ranging from direct Government grants for major capital works to house or rehouse major collections, to the setting up of county museum consultative committees, the widening of the functions of area museums councils, the need for the national museums to accept a positive responsibility towards provincial museums, the request for better training and so on. But, in my reckoning, of the 39 recommendations as many as 22 can be implemented immediately without any new money. I believe it is clearly the Government's duty to encourage the Standing Commission to seek ways to implement these no-cost recommendations and to give support to this example of self-help.
Of course, two of the most important recommendations were, first, the need for designation of outstanding museums outside London. This, of course, I recognise, will cost money, but this money should come from the key-sector expenditure. The second most important recommendation was the setting up of a museums council which would advise the Standing Commission on all matters referred to it and which would also be able to initiate matters for consideration by the Standing Commission. This council would indeed represent all museums in this country, including national, provincial, private, service and university museums, as well as including members of the Museums Association representing the profession.
Since at the moment there is no opportunity for the profession to express their ideas collectively, I have no doubt that such a body would perform a very useful function and would remove the feeling at the moment that the Standing Commission, because of its terms of reference, is sometimes rather remote from what is going on outside the national museums. I do not in fact believe that this is true, but, on the assumption that the Government would be unwilling to create and finance a new Quango, I am glad to report that the Standing Commission has already started meetings with the directors of the national museums, the council of the Museums Association and other interested bodies in order to establish a continuing dialogue with them. These regular meetings are being organised by the Standing Commission, using its own existing, admittedly slender, resources; and I think these meetings will
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in the meantime act as a national forum for all museum interests, and will help the Commission to represent its views to Government.
My Lords, perhaps this is an appropriate moment for me to remind the House that the Standing Commission was set up in the 1930s to advise on the development of national museums and co-operation between the national and provincial museums. Nevertheless, the Standing Commission is the supreme and only body representing the rest of the museums and their interests. Today, many feel—and I think the Standing Commission itself agrees—that perhaps neither the composition nor the powers of the Standing Commission are absolutely right for this last part of the 20th century, and should be looked at urgently. However, I do not believe that the setting up of a museums council should in fact be considered as another Quango, for, as I have said, it could initially be the existing, democratically-elected council of the Museums Association, which has been in existence since 1890; and this council could perhaps be augmented when necessary to represent every constituent interest, not forgetting the private sector. I am asking tonight, therefore, that if the Government cannot immediately agree to the setting up of a museums council then at least they should bless the idea that the Standing Commission and the council of the Museums Association should regularise their relationship, perhaps in preparation for the day when an official marriage can be arranged, as is the case in other Commonwealth countries.
My Lords, many of the no-cost recommendations relate to the services provided by the area museum councils. I believe that their functions can be widened without further increasing overheads. At the moment, the most important way in which the area museum councils are helping the many smaller museums in their area is by co-ordinating and encouraging the leading local museums to provide curatorial and conservation advice to museums where such expertise is lacking. Other recommendations are, I think, uncontroversial and sensible, but I believe that area councils would operate more effectively if they operated at arm's length from local politics. There is at the moment a disturbing trend that local politicians are getting too involved and

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the policy towards museums is becoming a political football.
With regard to the general raising of standards of museums in this country, I am glad that the Museums Association is carrying out its accreditation scheme, and it should be encouraged to develop this as soon as possible. There were, of course, a lot of other recommendations in the Drew Report: that there should be county-wide museum consultative committees representing all museum interests; that university museums should form joint committees with local authorities; that the museums of the Royal Navy, the Army and the Royal Air Force should continue to receive support from the Ministry of Defence; and—a particular item in the Drew Report—that special attention should be given to the development of the exceptional possibilities offered in the Portsmouth area for a Royal Naval Museum. With the running down of Portsmouth, this once great naval base offers an ideal opportunity and an ideal site such as few nations have to display everything, from the recently-discovered Tudor warship "Mary Rose", through the "Victory", the "Foudroyant" and up to the most recently acquired "Bulwark", not forgetting the historic naval docks and workshops.
One question which has been a great source of worry to museums for some years is the indemnity arrangements. I know how much the proposed new indemnity arrangements with regard to objects on loan from provincial museums have been welcomed. However, many feel very strongly that there should be a further extension of the Treasury indemnity system to cover loans from whatever source, including private to provincial, university or any museum whose security systems are judged adequate. So far as I am aware, there have been very few claims on public revenue for losses or damage over the past years, and I am certain that increased indemnity would go a long way to encourage the movement of artefacts and make them more accessible to the public outside the national museums. It is also particularly vital that indemnification will cover an object accepted in lieu of capital transfer tax but left in situ where it has spent many centuries and is closely associated with the site or the family who originally owned it.
So, my Lords, here we have this important report, much of which can be implemented, I think, without further cost. Nevertheless, it should be stated that the financial implications to the Treasury represent only a meagre £6 million a year—a sum which would revolutionise the museum scene in this country over the next ten years and would only then bring British museums up to the level of spending of other museums in the western world. The fact that it represents the same sort of money spent annually on military bands or on the military mission in Washington is perhaps irrelevant; and I am not so naive not to realise that in the present environment and political climate asking for money is rather like being Oliver Twist.
However, there are ways out of this dilemma. The Government are rightly preaching and backing a policy of self-help, and perhaps one of the brightest aspects of the museum scene in Britain has been the successful growth since the war of the independent and private museums. The Association of Independent Museums, founded only two years ago, now has about 200 members and, so far as I know, they are all viable; and, almost without exception, one of their members has been awarded the first prize in the Museum of the Year Award in recent years.
My Lords, perhaps one should ask why. Is it because their independence leads them not only to greater flexibility but, more important, makes them financially independent, too? Unfettered by politics or lack of rate support grants, perhaps they are more sensitive to what the public wants and what interests the tourists—for otherwise they would fail. I am now expressing a personal opinion and not one of the Museums' Association when I say that I think an immense amount could be achieved, particularly in the non-national museums, if a sensible and universal charging system were introduced with suitable exemptions for children and old age pensioners. Local authorities already have that power and I find it strange how many councils apparently are prepared to see their museums suffer with regard to purchase grants, deteriorate with regard to maintenance and allow their museum staffs' pay to fall badly behind that of other

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professions—all sacrificed on the altar of the principle of free museums. I believe that we are virtually the only country in the world now that practises such (what one might call) an archaic 19th century religion. It is certainly not practised in Eastern Europe or in the richer countries such as the United States.
There is also an unfortunate trend in some local authorities of making their museum directors answerable to the authorities' directors of leisure—whose knowledge or experience of museums is often nil. Hence, museums do not always get a voice on committees or the access to their chairmen which they deserve. It is inevitable, if a council has to choose between building a new swimming pool for the kids, an incinerator to burn the rubbish, raising their own staff salaries or voting more money to the local museum, that, unfortunately, it is always the museum that comes off worse.
If, however, museums can cash in on the leisure age and tourism, they can still easily stand on their own feet if allowed to keep the money they earn, and also would become much stronger and contribute much more to the preservation of the country's heritage. Unfortunately, one must accept the fact that charging at museums became such a political hot potato back in 1974 that it is natural that any government would feel reluctant to raise the subject again. I hope that the present Minister for the Arts will not take a scare from this. I am delighted that a past Minister of the Arts, the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, will be speaking later and I feel that his efforts will one day be more recognised than they then were. Many of us feel that the political opportunism of that time which produced the cancellation did a great deal more harm than good.
However, I have some encouraging news for the Government. It is that since 1974 there has been a major reassessment by the museum profession of this problem. I believe that the climate has changed and that museum charges, if imposed now, far from being greeted in a hostile fashion, would be welcomed by a large majority of the museum directors of this country. I am delighted that Exeter Council have given the lead and will be charging at their local museums next
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year. Perhaps they see that such a policy must inevitably come; and the sooner it comes, the better. The alternative must inevitably be a general deterioration of museums, a growing inability to purchase new exhibits and save important items from leaving this country, the running down of services to the public, a failing in their conservation responsibilities and sacrificing the career prospects of their staffs. We know how unpopular is Sunday morning closing and closing one day a week. What will happen next year if this goes on? Will there be closing for the whole of Sundays and, perhaps, two days a week? Who knows?
I can assure the House that, much as overseas visitors enjoy our free museums, at the same time many despise us for such a short-sighted and stupid policy which leads to so many of our national treasures being lost overseas through lack of proper finance. In America and in Canada the tax system annually enriches and encourages museum endowment. I believe that the Government have already committed themselves to review this policy and I am sure that we all look forward to hearing their decision.
However, enough on that subject. There are many other distinguished speakers this evening. I will end by saying that I hope the Government will accept the Drew Report in principle. It is not a rigid or long-term comprehensive plan. The object of the report is to point ways to improve local museums and to enable them to receive the enormous number of visitors and tourists to this country as well as our own people, especially the children. My Lords, to sum up, I urge the Government to consider seriously four main points in addition to the various no-cost recommendations in the Drew Report: first, the encouragement of the Council of the Museums' Association to develop and act as a representative body of the museum world pending the setting up of the official council; secondly, to reform the tax system to that it may benefit museums and galleries of all sorts; thirdly, to extend the indemnification system so that national, provincial and private treasures can be more widely seen by the public; and, fourthly, to do all they can to encourage local government to make their museums self-supporting—but to make it clear that that money should be used further to

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improve the expenditure for museums in their areas. For such museums are just as much part of our heritage as are our historic houses and castles.
My Lords, the difficulties should not be exaggerated. The report only proposes further steps down the path which has already been trodden profitably. With regard to new finance, in most cases the recommendations say that Government should not be called upon for all but only part of the cost. In any case, expenditure will take many years. Therefore, a clear statement of policy is now required in order to make a start. For Heaven's sake! do not let us have another report on this report. The time for some action has clearly arrived. The right action will have a long-term benefit for our museums and galleries and for the nation as a whole. I beg to move for Papers.
6.10 p.m.
Lord DAVIES of LEEK: My Lords, my first pleasant task is to thank the noble Lord, Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, for raising this vital issue, Framework for a system of museums, the report of the working party of Sir Arthur Drew and his team. Having been a member of commissions and committees a number of times over the years, I know how much hard work has gone into the production of the report. I wish to join the noble Lord who has just sat down in paying tribute to the Drew working party's report, particularly for its reference to and derivation from the 1973 Wright report.
Why have I taken part in this debate, my Lords? I have always been interested in museums. I have to declare an interest: I happen to be the president of the Chatterley Whitfield Mining Museum Trust. As this is only a two-and-a-half hour debate, and in order not to suffocate in a blizzard of verbiage, the Minister who is going to reply, I have sent him what I was going to say together with letters from some of the departments that wrote to us. Therefore I will not bore the House by reading paragraphs that may be vital to my musuem but which will be deadly boring read out at this time of
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night when the entire debate has to finish in two-and-a-half hours. Having said that, may I add that any Member who would like to know about the Chatterley Whitfield Mining Museum can receive a brochure from me, with pleasure. We have as vice-presidents Sir Derek Ezra, Joe Gormley—bless his heart!—the noble Lord, Lord Norton, Sir Peter Parker, the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, and the Lord Mayor of the City of Stoke-on-Trent. Here is my opportunity to pay tribute to the citizens and the council of the city of Stoke-on-Trent, together with the county.
Now I will begin what I want to say. The Chatterley Whitfield Mining Museum is administered by an independent charitable trust whose objective is to take advantage of the unique opportunity offered by a common or garden pit or colliery. It was made famous by Eliza Hermitage who, at the magnificent age of 101, was taken to our pit. We took the dear old lady down 700 feet to see the workings of a colliery and she got a lump of coal out for herself. Her next ambition—and here the Government can help—is to travel on Concorde.
I say to the noble Lord, Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, that this is a thrust into the industrial archaeology of the future, showing Britain, not as a nation of shopkeepers, but as the workshop of the world. We were made the workshop of the world because of the coal that we had. This site covers 18 acres and is adjacent to the city of Stoke-on-Trent. We are grateful to the Department of the Environment and to others for the recent land reclamation schemes that include also some significant buildings and plant and machinery, all of vital importance to the task of restoration.
Every aspect of mining activity will be displayed to the public on the surface. But it is the retention of shafts and the underground workings—and the winding of the colliery—which allows the museum to present the story of coal in its full, realistic dimension of dynamic vitality. Coal was the basis of our prosperity and we should keep this alive and have an understanding of it. In the sphere of education particularly, this museum is unique, and it makes the museum of national rather than local importance.

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Having opened only at the end of May 1979, the museum has already received over 20,000 visitors. Half of those visitors—10,000—were students and the remainder came from home and abroad. There were Dutch and Norwegian buses there the other day. The Foreign Office even sent some Russians to have a look at our pits. I have seen Russian pits and they can be proud of them. The nature of the project means that the costs are high. Work on the capital appeal is well advanced. Over £200,000 has so far been committed to the project by the National Coal Board, the local authority, the Department of the Environment and industry and commerce. We have not called on the Government and gone weeping; we have endeavoured to collect whatever we can. Now we are seeking further commitments and we shall ask the unions and the mining industry; and maybe we shall want to tell the Government how they can help. If the noble Lord who is to reply cannot answer all the questions—and it would not be fair to expect him to do so—and if his officials feel that there is something in depth that they could tell me, perhaps they would write to me, as the debate must be brief. Even if they précis the answer in only a dozen sentences, that will be helpful.
On 25th March 1977 Chatterley Whitfield Colliery, which was the first in Britain to mine one million tons of coal a year, closed after 140 years of production. There is nothing like this pit as a museum in the whole of Europe. It is the first museum of its kind. There are others that call themselves mining museums but they do not have a pit, a winder and a shaft with the fans going, with the different kinds of mining and the conveyor belt system. Britain's emergence as a manufacturing country was dependent on coal, which continues—and will for more centuries than one—to be needed to boost our economy, even if only for the ultimate derivation of valuable material from the coal itself.
A social, historical and technical study of mining is still of importance. This museum provides a vivid picture of the industry. The younger generation who visit it and who go down the shaft some 700 feet to see the different historic ways of mining will always remember it and be glad that they visited it. The Minister
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will see from the brief which I handed in for his information what this unique and excellent project offers. There he will find a long list of attributes of the museum: educational visits for schools, colleges and parties. Any child above 12 years of age can go down that mine. The noble Lord will see from the map on page 74 of the Drew Report that there are some 8 million people in the Midlands area. The mining area of Chatterley Whitfield serves the whole of that.
Reference has been made to tourism. Does this noble House realise that last year 12½ million people visited Britain and spent £3,500 million? That is more money than from the export of our motorcars, more money than from the export of our steel or even coal. Instead of "yammering" for the juggernaut industry to have acres and acres of farmland dug up so that they can run, like neurotic ants from one end of Britain to the other, let us get back on the railways, calm down and keep the delightful equanimity of the British countryside so far as we can. It is our last asset. As Bernard Shaw said in a preface to one of his cantankerous plays:
"We shall end up as a nation selling chocolate and inviting visitors."
If we are not careful that will be very near the truth. This museum is already a tourist attraction in the West Midlands area and particularly in North Staffordshire. I do not want to hammer home that point any further: this is one of the most intelligent debating Chambers in the world and the point is made.
The other point I should like to make—and here comes the sting in the tail of this little speech—is that I believe we are in an anomalous position because we have to pay value added tax at 15 per cent. Over 20,000 people visited us and I told this House that 10,000 of them were students from schools and colleges, some doing degree courses, some doing geology, some vulcanology and some technology. I do not know what is more educational than for those young fellows and girls to go down that pit to see geology in reality, which is "dead chemistry" in a way. I do not know what is more educational. We are not asking for all our sins to be wiped away. All we say to the Government is: "Be fair to us. We will pay

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VAT on those who come 'swanning'— and, fair play, ' swanning' is of value, especially when they come from Holland, Russia or Norway—but what about the students who go down? For heaven's sake! let us pay the lower rate on that, or you can wipe it out altogether and we will clap our hands with glee; but, please, consider it in depth".
Now I must pay a tribute to the local people in Newcastle-under-Lyne to whom we have written. I will not read their letters: they were courteous, but they said: "Look, we are limited by …"and then they gave the law. Noble Lords opposite have the opportunity to look at that, and we can see, even from the Drew Report, that educational museums should be looked at in a different light.
The rise in VAT from 8 per cent. to 15 per cent. has seriously affected museums, theatres and cinemas, and, with all due respect—I do not want to drive it home as a bitter political point—I think it is penny wise and pound foolish. My niece wrote to me from Los Angeles last week and said, "Uncle, I am trying to come but I find that London now is more expensive than San Francisco or Los Angeles". We are pushing up prices and killing the goose that lays the golden egg. For heaven's sake! let us go steady on VAT. I have a granddaughter who has gone on the stage. I think she has been "resting" for about 12 weeks but she has a job for Christmas, thank God! Anyone visiting a theatre, if he takes his wife and two children, will be the other side of about £25 or £30 for one little colourful, or uncolourful, night out, depending on the quality of the actors. So I hope that in regard to museums somebody will look at this point.
I will not repeat the letters because I have tried to make them clear. I am grateful to the Minister, because I know that already—he will be pleased to see that I am throwing my papers away—he has had the wires moving and that somebody is taking an interest. I make an appeal because I think this mining museum, initiated by members of the Coal Board and by people locally, will be a contribution to the tourist industry and to the educational opportunities of the youngsters and it will be something worth while. I hope that the Government may see their way to do something about the problem
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of VAT. Finally, may I say "Thank you" to the noble Lord, Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, and to the producers of this working party report. It gave me the unique opportunity of trespassing on other people's speaking.
6.24 p.m.
Lord BEAUMONT of WHITLEY: My Lords I certainly would join in the gratitude extended to the noble Lord, Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, for having produced for our debate this evening this very important topic which, thank goodness! we in this House do have time to take notice of. I think we have a particular duty at this moment to pass on a message to the Minister for the Arts that we do understand the very real problems which he faces. I do not think there is much dispute that, with Britain in its present state, a certain amount of pulling-in the belt is needed, and it is totally unrealistic to think that the arts can escape any cuts that are to be made. All we can hope and pray for is that the cuts will not be disproportionate.
Since the job of the Minister for the Arts was started, we have been extremely lucky in our Ministers, and we are very lucky tonight to have two previous Ministers for the Arts speaking in this debate. I think neither of them will take it amiss if I say that we are doubly lucky in our present Minister, because he combines three attributes which have not been combined before. Not only is he a lover of the arts, which Ministers have been before and which the Ministers present here are, and not only is he a professional politician—and I know some of your Lordships will agree that is an asset—but he is also in the Cabinet. Since he has the desire to fight for the arts and possibly more ability than some of his predecessors, we hope for great things from him, while realising that his monetary schemes will be very much circumscribed.
We may argue among ourselves about where in this country's affairs we need retrenchment. Retrenchment is needed, but when that great Liberal, John Bright, produced his famous quotation about retrenchment he combined it with reform; and it is not true that you cannot combine retrenchment with reform. As the noble Lord, Lord Montagu, has already pointed out, there are a large number of recommendations

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in this report which do not need any extra money at all. Certainly, in the few short things I wish to say this evening, I am going to concentrate on matters which do not need any great expenditure.
Today I want to suggest three reforms, two of which come from the recommendations of the report and one of which does not. The one which the report actually dismisses is the recommendation which came from the previous report on which this one is a comment: that is, the establishment of regional centres as centres of excellence. This was what the Wright Report suggested. Obviously, to set up centres of excellence of that kind is going to need a certain amount of money; but what I should like to ask for now is the recognition that such a policy would be a good thing. The Drew Report actually dismisses this, mainly so far as I can discover, for the reason that it would be extremely difficult to set them up. There is absolutely no doubt that it would be very difficult to do. The regrouping in provincial centres of museums which are at the moment under different control would be very complicated, but if the Minister at present has no money to offer us he presumably has got hard work, and perhaps this point might be looked at again, even though this present report has abandoned the idea.
It particularly appeals to us on these Benches because it builds tip the idea of regional centres of excellence, and I think that is extremely important. It is very important not just that we should push out the good things from London but that we should establish places in every region where there are the good things of life, to be regarded as centres to which people will come from all over the country, and indeed from all over the world, to see. So I should like that to be looked at again. That would have the very important effect of concentrating the attention of local government rather more on the whole question of museums and the arts.
As has been pointed out, we have the rather unfortunate situation that in the past, with the big, new local government units, museums and the arts have often been pushed away under department of leisure activities, lumped in with sports and all kinds of things. There are dis-
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graceful stories, which are substantiated, of directors of museums not even being allowed to sign letters or of letters having to be signed by their superiors, and if we follow this idea of centres of excellence we shall be able to combat that.
If we followed what the noble Lord, Lord Montagu, recommended, which is more charging in local museums—I do not want to go into that thorny question now, but I agree that the right place to start would be the local museums and the local areas where powers already exist—that would have the additional advantage, whatever disadvantages it might have, of giving that museum and that department, which would be seen as a money-earner, a very great deal more standing in the whole local government situation. That is my first suggestion.
My second suggestion, which is recommended in the Drew Report, is that museum grant aid should be removed from the rate support and administered separately. That certainly would cost no more money. It is merely a way of channelling money in a different way and, again, it would enhance the place of the local museum director in his relationship with the council, because if you cannot give the museums extra money it would at least be one way of seeing that the money that was available got to the right place, and of seeing that museums and their directors had their rightful position in the local situation.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, I am sorry but I missed one point. What should be removed from grant aid?
Lord BEAUMONT of WHITLEY: My Lords, it is the element in grant aid which is in theory for museums, but which at the moment goes into the whole block of grant aid and is spread around the country, without differentiation between where there are museums and where there are not. I am suggesting that money should be separated and separately allocated.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: My Lords, it is discussed in chapter 14, is it not?
Lord BEAUMONT of WHITLEY: Yes, my Lords, I am very grateful for that help. The third point which I should like to

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raise is a step forward in dealing with the Standing Commission. I think that changes are needed, and the noble Lord, Lord Montagu, has talked about some of them. But, in spite of the fact that the Standing Commission has already made some changes to give itself greater access to the professional museum world and better consultation with the experts, as the noble Lord has pointed out, from what I understand from museum directors a certain amount more could, without much expense, be done, to strengthen the regular consultation with the professionals on all these matters.
Times of retrenchment are not just times of misery. They are times of opportunity and times when we can turn to and undertake some of the laborious housekeeping which, in rather happier times, tends to get brushed under the carpet. In times of prosperity there are certain things which can be reformed and which should be reformed but which are neglected. I hope that the Minister for the Arts will turn his attention to this aspect, and I have every confidence that he will.
6.35 p.m.
Viscount ECCLES: My Lords, as other noble Lords have said, we are very grateful to my noble friend Lord Montagu of Beaulieu for drawing our attention to this working party's report. My noble friend is the most popular and outstanding champion of private museums, not only in this country but in all Europe. He has brought pleasure and some instruction to millions of people—as the report now says at £1.40 per head—and the success with which he develops the motor museum is surely a lesson for everybody.
As has been said, the working party's report continues and adds to the report of the Wright Committee. I appointed that Committee because, in spite of the valiant work done by the late Earl of Rosse, to whom I should like to pay a tribute, the public did not know nearly enough about the financial and structural weaknesses of the non-national museums. As the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, has said, one of the key recommendations was for centres of excellence. I remember saying to Mr. Willie Wright "What we want are teaching hospitals with groups of hospitals of different sizes all around
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them, and why cannot we have that in the museum world?" That idea became, I think, the centres of excellence and I still think that it is a good idea.
What the Wright Report did was to show up the extent to which the provincial museums have been neglected in comparison with London and the nationals, and now, I am glad to say, we have the Drew Report which still further adds to our knowledge and proposes a national organisation which is to be split into two parts, one a grand advisory council and the other an executive commission with duties not unlike those of the Arts Council. I expect there will be general agreement that some such body is needed in order to put the case before the public and Parliament for local authority, university and private museums, and to encourage common services which would be of great benefit to hundreds of museums. I support this proposal, provided that care is taken not to create an organisation too similar to the Arts Council.
There is a fundamental difference between the clients of the Arts Council and the non-national museums. Music, drama and dancing are all, so to speak, foot-loose. Their quality does not depend on the place where a play, a ballet or a concert is performed. But, by contrast, most provincial museums owe their charm to their situation and their attraction lies in local history and local culture. How their collections have been made, where they are housed and how they are cared for by the local people give them their character. They do, and they should, differ widely one from another. For example, prints and drawings of White-haven or Newcastle look very well shown there. But if you were to show them in Weymouth of Canterbury, they would not be half so interesting. It is the local character that matters. Therefore, it would be wrong to press these local museums into some kind of national mould, shaped and monitored by some Quango—because that is what the report asks for—domiciled in Piccadilly or at some other fashionable London address.
Your Lordships will know that there are, scattered about the country, a few very special collections of national importance and their claims are easily recognisable. The museums that require our help are those that serve a peculiarly

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modern need; that is, the desire to get away from the dominance and life-style of the metropolis.
Science and technology, those masters of our contemporary world, assume that we all want to be the same. It is good to see that a kind of revolt is growing against the attempt to make us all members of a rootless, international society. Searching for evidence that they have something special of their own, people are taking more and more interest in local history and local culture. For them, the museum in the place where they live is a signpost in the search for their identity.
We see that such museums and hundreds of houses open to the public are growing rapidly in popularity. I think one reason why we are going, in increasing numbers, to these places is to discover more about ourselves: what our ancestors were like and why we can be proud of the place where we live. Much as non-national museums require more support, we must not allow their essentially local character to be endangered for the sake of a tidy structure created to assess nation-wide Government grants and to produce a uniform system of pay and conditions for work in the museum service.
I should like particularly to draw the attention of the House to the last point. The museum service is one in which the volunteer, the amateur and the part-time worker have a very great contribution to make. I hope that all your Lordships wish to preserve the voluntary element, and that for two reasons.
First, the more people who participate in the institutions which symbolise their community, past and present, the better. Such institutions bring their neighbourhood to life, and that is what a great many people desire today. If in their spare time those people are willing to do some job, under supervision, in their local museum, that is all to the good. I am thinking of part-time warding, help with conservation, showing parties round, maybe sitting at the door and taking entrance fees. We know that many museum directors and keepers very much welcome this kind of help. We must take care that such cooperation is not sacrificed to the desire for a closed shop, a desire which is certainly held by a few people.
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Secondly, the museums are short of money. They find it difficult to pay the staff they have. The volunteer helps to make whatever money is available go further. We all know that many of the curatorial staff are poorly paid and we would like to see them get more. This is not a problem that we can run away from; it is very urgent. I notice that the Drew Report backs the Museums Association in asking that the staff of the designated provincial museums—those are the 20 or 30 best; I do not know exactly how many—should be paid at the same rates as staff in the national museums. That means Civil Service scales. On the present unsatisfactory level of staffing, the report says that it would cost an extra £1 million a year, of which the Government should pay 80 per cent. in direct grant. This is asking for an open-ended commitment which I hardly think would commend itself to the Treasury. Further, if pay in the designated museums were raised in this way, obviously the staff in the other museums would have a very good claim, too. Therefore the estimate in the report might prove to be much too low.
As I have said, we cannot brush this problem aside. We must somehow find a way to make a beginning in raising pay. Therefore we come to the question: how is the money to be found? I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, that in present circumstances there is not likely to be much more from the Government. Inflation must first be stopped. There must be a change of heart in industry and production must be put in front of restrictive practices. It is a melancholy thought that extra recruiting for the museum service and raising the pay of those who are so badly looked after today depends on whether or not inflationary wage claims are pressed.
For the moment we must look for other sources of revenue. My noble friend Lord Montagu of Beaulieu mentioned entrance charges. So does the working party report. In Section 5.15, it notices that where a local authority museum is charging there appears to be no deterrent effect on the number of visitors. I think all those who have looked at these cases know that. They might have drawn our attention to the now well-established fact that where a museum charges, it has more interest and more money to make the

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collections attractive and to install the amenities which the public appreciate. Visitors have to pay, but more of them come.
In Section 8.10, the report observes that entrance charges are actually an advantage which the lucky private museums can enjoy more easily than the local authority museums. My noble friend Lord Montagu of Beaulieu has in his own museum illustrated how great this advantage can be to the public, and so would the National Trust and several excellent local authority museums. Parliament thinks it right to charge for medical prescriptions and school meals. Can it then be wrong to charge something for a visit to a museum, especially as we now have evidence that the results will be that the museum will be better run?
When I see the Victoria and Albert, that great and glorious museum, shut on Mondays, I wonder whether the public would not prefer to pay an entrance charge on two or three days a week and have the museum open every day. The tourists on whom we depend so much would undoubtedly be delighted. Many of them spend only a night or a couple of nights in London; they would far prefer to pay something than make the journey to South Kensington and, when they get there, find the door shut in their faces.
There is another source of non-Government finance, and that is the contributions made by the friends and supporters of a museum. These have been developing well. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer would only give an annual income tax relief on subscriptions up to a limited amount, I believe that many museums would benefit rapidly and substantially. They could pay their staff more and they could improve their premises. There is no reason why local authorities should not give a rate rebate to supporters of their museums. Their loss in revenue would be much less than the cost of the direct grant. That, of course, applies to the Treasury, too.
In short, I could sum up my chief comments on the working party report as follows. We need a national body, but not at the expense of the local character of most of the museums in question. The volunteer and part-time element in running
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provincial museums should be encouraged and any move towards a closed shop discouraged. Finally, in seeking more money, we should look to entrance charges and income tax or rate relief on annual subscriptions and with the new money we could make a start in paying the staff decent salaries.
6.50 p.m.
Lord JANNER: My Lords, I should like to join with those noble Lords who have spoken so far in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, for having introduced this matter, because in my opinion by so doing he has done an extremely valuable service to us on a subject in which many of us have had an interest from time to time. I should like to add that noble Lords who have spoken so far have certainly covered much of the ground that I had desired to cover. Therefore I am not proposing to keep the House for any great length of time.
I shall try to tell your Lordships the position in respect of this matter from the viewpoint of the Association of Metropolitan Authorities, of which I have the honour to be a vice-president. Consequently I shall be speaking on their behalf and indeed to a considerable extent, if not entirely—because none of us is in entire agreement with everything that everybody does, even in our own organisations, as is well known to your Lordships—I shall be endorsing their view.
It took many years to produce the Wright Report which, although unacceptable in certain regards, led to the Drew Report. In our view this report represents the last real opportunity to preserve the international collections which are housed in some major provincial museums. The report is welcomed as a basis for a partnership between Government and local museums which will be of significance for the cultural heritage of our nation. In our view the principle of designation is central to the report and will be of ultimate benefit to all museums, not just to those designated. If the Drew Report were accepted it would mean that Government money would be used to maintain and develop such major collections as those in Birmingham, Bristol, Cambridge, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester and Sheffield. These are collections comparable to those in national museums and

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they create demands and obligations on the museum authorities, such as very high standards of care, curatorship and conservation.
The Drew Report also proposes changes in the organisation and work of area museum councils and the establishment of a central governing body. Both of these are reforms which would make the museum service stronger and would equip it to meet the challenge which increased leisure and other social changes will, we hope, bring in the last quarter of this century.
The association therefore welcomes the Drew Report and accepts it in principle. At a time when local government finance is under pressure it could be easy, but wrong, to be negative about Drew. The association has agreed that museums and galleries represent an acceptable case for specific grant even at a time of financial difficulty, and as your Lordships are aware local government does not often accept that there is a case for any new category of specific grant. We believe that the costs suggested in the Drew Report are greater than they need to be because Drew proposes designation for the whole of the museum service and money would come from the present British Heritage Fund because these collections are of much greater significance and appeal than the local area in which they reside.
We believe that the Drew Report has arrived at the eleventh hour. The major provincial collections are being eroded because local authorities are having to carry a very great burden in order to keep them. They must be preserved as part of the national heritage and Drew presents the opportunity to create a partnership between central and local government which should now be taken. In the interests of the coming generations, who will probably have greater leisure in which to enjoy part of Britain's heritage in a provincial setting, I believe that the report itself is of considerable value. That opinion is also held by my colleagues.
I should like to make a comment on another matter in which, together with other Members of both sides of your Lordships' House, I happen to be interested. I believe that help could be given to a project—for example to provide a much more suitable place for a music
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museum which a Mr. Frank Holland is running at the present time. It is a museum of musical instruments. He is being impeded in his efforts to have a museum in the house which was owned and occupied by the late David Salomon. in whom your Lordships will probably understand that I have a particular interest because of the fact that he was the first Jewish Member of Parliament. He left an estate and the beneficiaries of that estate have handed the property itself to Kent. They are using a large part of this building, contrary to the wishes of the beneficiaries, for a school for training nurses, which could of course be carried out in any ordinary building. It is desired that the centre for these musical instruments should be housed in this place at Tunbridge Wells in order that they may be added to a very interesting musical instrument, namely the largest organ in the world which is there at present, and so form a valuable museum.
I have spoken about this with colleagues and I am hoping that this and like suggestions which have been put forward will assist in expediting a knowledgeable understanding of the importance of utilising this historical house, as I have indicated the original beneficiaries themselves, who were relatives of Salomon's, are desirous and anxious that it should be used to this, the best purpose. I do not want to go into more detail as it is late at night. All I should like the House to understand is that those of us who are interested in that house, a small private project, believe that there is an opportunity now, instead of dragging on for further years, to get the matter settled as speedily as possible.
7.1 p.m.
The Earl of PERTH: My Lords, I did not put my name down to speak, but there is a little time available and I shall not be more than five minutes. All of us who care about these things owe our thanks to the authors of the Drew Report, and also to the noble Lord, Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, for introducing this short debate tonight. As I read it, the main feature of this report is an organisational one. I am not very good at organisational charts. It was very important to hear that the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, broadly favours the suggestion of a commission which will allocate money and

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therefore be the top body—because, after all, the power of the purse is the important thing—and then you have a council for policy. The noble Viscount gave us a warning about the relationship with the Arts Council. I think there is another factor which has to be taken into account, namely, the relationship with the Heritage Fund when it is set up, because in one way or another the Heritage Fund is going to benefit the museums in many respects. So while I am all for the commission and for the council, I think we want to go a little slowly perhaps in deciding how it should actually function.
Another matter strikes me in this report. Perhaps it is necessary since it is about museums and galleries, and it covers those very fully; but it hardly touches upon the National Trust houses or the Historic Houses Association. They are mentioned in one paragraph. No evidence was submitted by those bodies, and yet I think we all recognise today that the line between museums and galleries and the National Trust houses and historic houses is a very narrow one, if it exists at all. I would hope, therefore, that in any body that is set up the National Trust—or the National Trust for Scotland, which did give evidence—or the Historic Houses Association will be brought into the net, if they wish to be. I think that becomes more important because today, as your Lordships know, it is policy more and more to leave certain works of art which are owned by the nation in the private houses, or at any rate in the National Trust houses. That must be right, but it means that they are part of this story; it is not just the museums and galleries.
What are the kind of questions that the council is going to deal with? They are listed in some detail here, and of course travelling exhibitions are a very important part. It seems to me, as several of your Lordships have said, that given the present tight money position in the country we cannot expect the sort of figures which are outlined in the report to come from the Government. I very much support the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, and the noble Lord, Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, on the question of charges. One wants to go slowly, perhaps charging on only two or three days in the week. I remember that I advocated that policy in days long
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ago and got into great trouble in your Lordships' House; but never mind, I remain undaunted on it. I think if you have travelling exhibitions and make charges for them and if you cannot get the money any other way, nobody would resent that; they would be only too glad of it.
Another way in which the Government can help is by considering how much they can allow the various bodies which are not strictly national museums to have their insurance covered by Government insurance policy. We all know how very onerous are insurance charges in connection with any exhibition. I saw some figures the other day, although I did not write them down, about the actual cost to the Government of insurance over the last five years or so. The figures were incredible; they were either £2,000 in one case for the whole of the five years or not more than £20,000. If that is the case, I hope very much that those who are considering this question of insurance in a limited way will try to think of it in a wider way, in order to see whether they can widen it in some way. I know the Government do not charge for these insurances, but if they accepted the idea that travelling exhibitions should make charges they could say, "And, what is more, we will ask for, let us say, 5 per cent. of the total takings towards building up the special insurance fund", so that in the end the Government do not lose anything at all.
Lord DAVIES of LEEK: My Lords, if I may intervene, I am so grateful to the noble Earl for raising that very point, particularly with regard to a mining museum, mining machinery, and where mining lore influences the running of the museum. A terrific problem exists there which one day will have to be faced.
The Earl of PERTH: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek. I said that I would be five minutes. I see that six minutes have passed, so I will sit down.
7.7 p.m.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: My Lords, the noble Lord. Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, welcomed me in this debate and said that he hoped that I would tell him what my Govern-

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ment's view would have been. I shall tell your Lordships what my view is, and the difference between those we shall never know. Before I begin may I take up two points which a number of noble Lords have raised. One is the question of indemnity, which is clearly most important. In my time we made two important advances here. The last was in getting indemnity for the very large insurance for the splendid exhibition which is opening next week at the Royal Academy. So far as I am concerned, every Arts Minister has to fight with the Treasury on this, because the Treasury's attitude will always be the same; they will say, "You are asking for money, and whether you call it this or that, it is still money". So I should like at this stage to wish the present Minister the best of luck in carrying on the good work in this particular direction.
I am not going to be involved in the argument over charges. It is true that a number of museums I have seen would like to charge, and it is true that a number would be horrified at charging. I do not wish to get mixed up in that matter at this stage, but it is something which has to be considered in due course. It took a wrong turning at the beginning, and it may well be that after a certain amount of time, provided museums are allowed to settle whether they charge or not and to keep what they get without interference, there might be a case for it.
I must join with everybody else in expressing our gratitude to Sir Arthur and his colleagues. I will here correct the noble Lord, Lord Montagu. This report was not commissioned by the Government; it was commissioned by the Standing Commission on its own basis. So it is all the more to be commended for having done so. I should like to join with the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, and say how sad we are at the death of the noble Earl, Lord Rosse, who was its distinguished chairman for so many years and who made such a notable contribution to this particular area of the arts.
What is really important about this report—which I think everyone realises—is that it is drawing attention for the second time in six years to the anomalous and unsatisfactory state of the thousand or so provincial museums and galleries outside the direct control and responsibility of the Government. We cannot be criticised
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in this country for neglecting the national institutions: they are not neglected. We have in the national institutions some of the finest collections of pictures and of all kinds of museum objects in the world. They are well maintained, well housed, well displayed, adequately financed and extremely well managed by a learned and wholly dedicated staff. In the last two years we have enormously increased their purchase grants, and although no good museum director is ever for a moment satisfied, I do not think that the Government have anything to apologise for here.
However, as regards the provincial museums the case is far different. They are not a Government responsibility, and responsibility for their proper maintenance varies among local authorities, dependent on the rate support grant; universities, dependent on the University Grants Committee; and private boards of trustees who raise money wherever they can, sometimes easily, but more often with painful difficulty.
As most noble Lords who have spoken have recognised, the brutal fact is that money is the problem—the flow of money for maintenance, conservation, development, display, education and capital, and especially proper staffing. It is not the material or the people who are at fault. The material is better and more distinguished than I had any conception of before I toured many of the museums to see for myself. But conservation lags far behind and there is a long backlog. The people running the museums, from top to bottom, seem to me of very high quality and to suffer, as the noble Viscount suggested, from many anomalies of pay and staff structure and often from frank underpayment. The difficulty is that with some hundreds of differing local authorities, 300 or so private museums and some especially high quality university museums, there is no common ground for applying for more money or for insisting on a proper nationwide staff structure. The problems are really difficult and it was essential to have a full report and recommendations from the museum world itself before those problems could possibly be tackled. However, now we have it.
I had hoped that it would become my duty to try to unravel this tangled skein,

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and I am jealous that my successor has this opportunity, fraught with difficulties though it is. But I wish him luck, and we shall do what we can from this side to help. The difficulty is that, as there is no direct Government responsibility and as the Minister already has large direct responsibilities in the museum world which take a great deal of money, it is hard to persuade any Government, gratuitously as it were, to take on further large responsibilities. That is why it is so important to try to find a route through which money can flow, and that is what the report is trying to do.
My own experience is that once you have a recognised route, an agreed procedure, you can squeeze out something, however small, to get started, and then you can perhaps get a rise to balance inflation. Then, once in a while, comes an easier year and you can have your figures jumped up to something nearer what you really need. We did that with the purchase grants over the last two years, and if one studies the grants to the Arts Council since the war one will find that they have followed that pattern. But the fatal trouble with the provincial museums is that there is no agreed procedure.
Let us look briefly at the actual proposals. There are, of course, a number of proposals of a secondary kind which have been referred to and which I shall not deal with. The report rejects the Wright Report's suggestion of "Centres of Excellence" and I cannot fault their argument. I think that the kind of thing they are trying to do will produce the same sort of result that Wright wanted to produce, without the very complicated local authority problems and geographical problems which the idea involves.
Instead, they have suggested three major changes: First, the selection of the dozen or so finest provincial museums and galleries as "Designated Museums", which will be entitled to direct subsidy by way of Government grant for both maintenance and capital. They suggest that accreditation by the Museums' Association should be a necessary preliminary and that the Government should give 50 per cent. towards agreed capital development and 80 per cent. towards resulting increased maintenance charges. Secondly, they recommend that other
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museums with outstanding specialised collections should be able to get a once-only direct grant, up to 50 per cent., for better housing and display, and that others who could prove a real housing need should be equally entitled to a once-and-for-all 50 per cent. grant. Thirdly, they recommend that the financial contribution to the Area Museums Councils, paid through the Standing Commission, should be doubled and made available for capital needs as well as maintenance and conservation. These are important recommendations and they all involve money. We know the problems. We have talked about this matter and I am not going to say that it should be dealt with by any Government in 10 minutes.
If we look at page 60 of the report, we see how the authors conceive that the additional £6 million, which they think should be added annually to support the provincial museums, should be made up. I suppose that today the most we could hope for is that it will be possible to accept that all or most of the suggestions are not only desirable expenditure, but urgently necessary and must be fulfilled as and when finance permits. To show willing, the Government should make a start in two ways: first, by increasing the grant to the Area Museums Councils, paid through the Standing Commission. I think that both need strengthening and nothing gives strength so effectively as more money to distribute. But first, as the report says, the Councils must be given a proper legal status, and their local consultative and advisory boards much improved. Each area has one or more distinguished directors of one or more distinguished museums. Those experts must be as closely involved as possible in the administration and management of the councils. This recommendation is one which will directly affect the problem raised by the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek, whereas the designated museum one would not. Therefore, this is most important.
As regards the second recommendation, I think that the Government should try to put aside something towards the crying needs of the dozen or so museums proposed to be designated. Their plights vary from fair to dreadful. I do not think that people realise how serious the needs of some of them are and how rapidly, with the savage cuts in the rate support

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grant, they must become worse. If I may take one example to illustrate the point—my own university museum, the Fitzwilliam, is so under-nourished that it is open only for five and a half days a week, and only half its galleries open at that, with a grave risk of having to close on Saturdays as well as Sunday mornings. Yet its collections are without question, subject by subject, of the same order of excellence and display as anything in the national collections, and its significance far exceeds its use to the university. The university population is around 13,000, but its visitors last year amounted to 196,000. Like the other museums recommended for designation, it is an asset of the clearest and most obvious national importance. Yet its annual purchase grant is derisory. Although, admittedly, it can get money from the V. and A., the museum still has to find half, and the question is, where from?
In my opinion the Government must admit at least a partial responsibility for these dozen or so outstanding museums and galleries and I suggest that they should make a start now. I should like to see them put aside £1¼ million—about a third of what the Report on page 60 thinks is necessary—for this purpose, and another £ ¾ million to increase the grant to the Area Councils. This total figure of £2 million is not large, but would be an earnest of the Government's future intentions and would transform the current gloom in the provinces to real hope.
I spoke of the rate support grant. I, personally, am a good deal attracted—as I think was the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley—to the very tentative suggestions in chapter 14 about the Government rethinking its role in relation to museums and galleries. There may here be a simpler way of doing what we all want to see done, but it will need much thinking out. At the moment about £13½ million out of £22 million is spent by local authorities on museums and galleries and comes from the rate support grant, and certainly not all this is, in fact, spent on museums and galleries. If the £13, ½ million could be extracted and given perhaps to the Arts and Libraries Branch to distribute, either direct or through the Standing Commission, on a 50 per cent. basis to such local authorities, universities
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and private trusts as were prepared to put up plans and pay for half, this would provide the agreed route along which money could begin to flow to all provincial museums and galleries.
The sums would need to be increased as the national finances allowed and as the beneficiaries were prepared to put up more themselves. The £2 million to which I have just referred could perhaps be regarded as the first increase. Whichever method may be used, the new factor on which the whole reasoning of the report hangs must be accepted by Government. This is very clearly stated in paragraph 10.6 on page 42 of the report. It says:
"we regard it as an essential element in the successful working of a central body that the Government recognises that it has itself a central role to play in the development of a national system of museum services. This is indeed fundamental to all our recommendations".
This will be a hard nut for the Minister to crack. No efficient civil servant will lightly agree to his Department shouldering a commitment in an obvious growth area when there is no vestige of legal necessity to do so. But, as several speakers have said, our country's treasures are not only to be found in the national institutions; nor only in those proposed as "designated". They are spread around the land in splendid profusion, and it is as much a Government's duty to see that they are properly looked after as to preserve the national heritage in private hands.
At this stage I shall not say anything about the recommendation for a new central body in the form of a museums' council. If the Standing Commission is well and truly strengthened and has regular meetings with the Museums' Association and other relevant bodies—indeed, with people like the National Trust, as was suggested by the noble Earl, Lord Perth—there may be no need for another body. Time will tell. I should not be in favour of creating one at this stage. What we want the Minister to do is, first, to recognise that there is a Government responsibility here; and, secondly, to make a start in the two ways that I have indicated.
I should like to conclude by begging the Minister to respond generously and constructively to this challenge. Every Minister in a change of Government finds himself inheriting much that his predecessors have prepared and initiated, and until now the present Minister has had a

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paucity of major announcements to make beyond his confirmation, welcome as it is, of our initiatives in granting indemnity to the Royal Academy for its current most important exhibition, and in transferring £15 million from the moribund Land Fund to a new Heritage Fund. I cannot class as a major announcement his transference of the excellent Arts and Libraries staff, without its deputy director, from one building to another. We have always had a bipartisan policy and, for what it is worth, that transference is one of the things with which I do not agree.
But though we may criticise the Government, we do not need to criticise the Minister. We know that his heart is in the right place and that all he can do to help the arts he will do. Now, at last, he has been able to tell us something which will cheer his supporters and quieten his critics, in making a firm promise to find £2 million for public lending right by 1982. I see that the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, is looking pleased. Whether or not the Government will still be in Office is another point, but if by then it is our turn to inherit promises, I hope and think that this is one we shall be happy to keep.
The Minister now has this great opportunity offered by the Drew Report. Its main thrust—more help for the provincial museums and galleries—is supported by every thinking person in the world of the arts. If the Minister can work out an effective way of giving that help, not necessarily in the exact terms of the report, and if he can make a start in providing some extra cash, he will II have earned the gratitude of the whole artistic world and will have the fullest support we can give him from this side of the House.
7.25 p.m.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, I, too, should like to begin by thanking my noble friend Lord Montagu of Beaulieu for initiating this debate. In particular, I should like to echo the remarks of my noble friend Lord Eccles about my noble friend. I have possibly known my noble friend Lord Montagu longer than any other Member of this House; I knew him as a child and have continued to be amazed at the way in which he has advanced in public esteem and at the way in which he has enhanced so much in this field which we are discussing tonight.
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I am also very grateful to all the other noble Lords who have contributed to this important debate, including as it has two former Ministers of the Arts and a chief Crown Commissioner. Like other noble Lords, I wish to pay tribute to Sir Arthur Drew for his report, which I personally found very thought-provoking and interesting, as well as being a useful contribution to the whole question of the future of our country's museums. Moreover, I am very glad to say that I understand Sir Arthur Drew is still continuing his excellent work on our museums.
The museums of this country are, as we all know, a vital part of the rich heritage of our past, and they make a most important contribution to the educating and civilising influence to which people of all ages should be exposed. Local museums have a significant role to play in the quality of life and we cannot over-emphasise their importance. The Government are conscious of the burden on local authorities, many of which have recently made great efforts to improve their contribution to the arts. It is hoped that others will feel able to follow their example and will not single out the arts for discriminatory treatment with regard to economies.
Local museums are a partnership between the local authorities and local interests. In a few areas, the Regional Arts Associations have contributed in various ways to the local museum provision. The noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, drew attention to the need for regional centres of excellence. One thinks of how the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, and the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, helped to achieve this sort of thing at York by moving that excellent Railway Museum which is now so much a draw in that part of the North, which needed some help of this kind.
As has been said, it is also important to attract children and young people to museums at an early stage, and there is still much to be done in this direction. But the Government welcome efforts that are being made by means of education programmes and holiday programmes. The importance which the Government attach to preserving the national heritage and to making it accessible to as many as possible can be

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seen from the speed with which they have brought forward proposals for the National Heritage Fund legislation. I should like to thank my noble kinsman Lord Perth for the kind remarks he made about this. The National Heritage Fund legislation has been widely acclaimed as being of great significance. But the Government cannot implement in five months a programme which is expected to span at least five years.
Many museums testify to those who by their brilliance, self-reliance and determination added so much to the spiritual and material well-being of their fellows. Our first priority is to create the conditions under which such people can again thrive to the mutual benefit of all. Only a flourishing country can afford to support the flourishing arts and museums for which we are striving. The noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, drew attention to money being the problem. How right he is!
A vigorous start has been made in reducing the burden of taxation on the individual, and let us hope that much of the income tax relief which has today found its way into many people's pockets will be spent in a way which helps the arts. The creation by the Government of a separate Office of Arts and Libraries is, I hope, further evidence of the importance which the Government attach to this part of their responsibilities and of their intention to do all in their power by example and encouragement to foster the interests of all museums. I think your Lordships will agree with me in that.
But while the major task of establishing a healthy economy is taking place—and reduction in public expenditure is a vital part of the Government's strategy—the Government will be taking careful stock and planning for the improvements of the future. Sir Arthur Drew and his working party have therefore done a most valuable job not only in recommending a framework for a system for museums but also in providing a reasoned vehicle for the informed discussion of the many and important issues surrounding the rich variety of museums in which our country abounds. Noble Lords have not tonight criticised public expenditure cuts as such. They have merely feared what the results might be for local authority spending. We have had a very reasoned debate, and I am glad
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that we have managed to keep party politics out of this debate tonight.
The noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek, talked about prices in this country compared with Los Angeles. I would agree with the noble Lord that we would be living in a dream world if we thought that public expenditure could continue to increase unchecked, as some members—not in this House, perish that thought—of a party different from mine do appear to think occasionally. We have to cure inflation, and nothing is going to deter us, because everything else depends on that. Not only jobs and pensions but hospitals, schools, and museums, and the arts in general.
There have been fears that the local authority cuts will discriminate against the arts. In the present economic circumstances it would not have been right to exempt the arts, but the Government hope that all aspects of the arts, including local museums, will in due course benefit from the reduction in taxation. In the meantime, we believe that it is important to encourage increased private and industrial sponsorship, and my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is looking at ways to advance this. We are convinced that there is a good deal of support which can be raised in the regions, and it is in this direction that we hope to concentrate our efforts. I should like to thank the noble Lords, Lord Beaumont of Whitley and Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, for the kind words they have said about my right honourable friend and the way they wished him success. I am very grateful, and I shall pass on their kind words to him.
Most major museums have received a good deal of support over the years from "Friends of the Museums", and it may be that local museums could benefit even more from help of this kind. We recognise that many local museums are facing very difficult problems indeed in caring for their collections. The Drew proposals are a serious attempt, by a body for which the Government have a great respect, to find ways in which these problems might be eased. But I think there would be a good deal of difference in their reception by the various interests concerned, and there is room for a lot of argument about their practicability and effects. Moreover, in the present economic situation,

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they present the particular difficulty of requiring additional expenditure by central and local government. Your Lordships will not expect me to say that this is something we could easily contemplate in the near future. The Drew Report has been the subject of much discussion, and is going to go on being so.
The Government have had a meeting with the Association of Metropolitan Authorities, who have been considering a workable adaptation of the recommendations in the Drew Report. Basically this would involve separation of designation and funding. They have been asked to submit their proposals. Meetings will also he held with the Association of County Councils and the Association of District Councils to hear their views, which are awaited by us with great interest. The Chancellor may well have consultations with other interested bodies too.
Your Lordships may well ask why we are taking so long to consider the Drew proposals. I should like to say that, on my arithmetic, we, with all the work of a new Government, have had the report very little longer than the noble Lord's late Administration. I have noted my noble friend Lord Eccles' warning about a sprouting Quango which might arrive in Belgravia. I am not sure that we wish to see this animal arrive, but who knows? The issues which the report raises have implications for the relationship between central and local government in museum matters, and these are going to require careful study in the light of the Government's policies, particularly at a time when we are trying to reduce central Government controls over local authorities.
It is to the benefit of all concerned that there should after the publication of the report be time for all views to be aired. Sir Arthur Drew has himself commented on what he regards as gaps in the report, which have become more obvious as time has gone on. The Government will play their proper role in the discussions on the report. It should not be overlooked that the main thrust of the Drew Report is about museums controlled by local authorities. It recommends, for example, an all-round improvement in both the quality and quantity of staff to approximate to those of the national museums in the capital. Although the national
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museums cannot be exempted from their share of any reductions in public expenditure, they nevertheless set a high standard in all museum matters. The establishment of out-stations by the national museums is a valuable means not only of making national collections more accessible to the public but also of displaying in the provinces the importance the Government attach to the care of the heritage. In this way, the Government set an example which should lead to a general raising of standards in museums.
My noble friend Lord Montagu of Beaulieu inquired why the recommendations in the Drew Report that involve no extra costs cannot be implemented. I hope noble Lords will appreciate that very few of the recommendations are totally unrelated to the main tenor of the report. Therefore, they cannot really be implemented by the Government without prejudging a wider decision on the report in its entirety.
There are other areas of concern to the Drew Report where the Government are already making a valuable and significant contribution. In the present financial year we are making £1,266 million available to Area Museum Councils towards the costs of co-operative schemes for local museums and galleries, and a total of £1,478 million has been allocated to the Science and the Victoria and Albert Museums to aid purchases by local museums. The Standing Commission on Museums and Galleries is co-operating with the Area Museum Councils in a study leading to a legally recognised status for the councils, and I welcome this initiative by the Standing Commission. Also, the National Heritage Fund legislation proposals include provisions for indemnities which should help in making the heritage more widely accessible. My noble friend Lord Montagu and my noble kinsman Lord Perth asked about this point.
For actual details of our proposals in this field I must ask noble Lords to await the publication of the National Heritage Fund Bill, which I hope is not far distant. It is the Government's firm intention as opportunity presents itself to build on this substantial base of assistance to local museums, which is itself additional to that made available by way of the rate support grant.

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I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek, for, as he told the House, sending me his questions and most helpful points along with the interesting brochure about his delightful museum. He mentioned the Chatterley Whitfield Museum, of which he is president. I gather that my department's regional office is very much in favour of this unique mining museum, so much so that it has spent, or is proposing to spend, some £103,000 on works to the museum, both above and below ground. Moreover, the regional office is sending nearly £1 million additionally on reclamation works to the adjacent site which is currently occupied by coal spoil tips. When this land, amounting to over 300 acres, has been restored for recreational purposes, visitors to the area will have a large area of open space and the mining museum as a double attraction, and the spin-off from each one will, we hope, help the others.
Lord Davies is a model in this House. He is a Peer of strong political views who gets his points across and gets answers. We are grateful to him for the way he always puts his points; he fights for them, and I for one am grateful to him. He talked about how we in this country might be reduced to showing people our countryside and selling chocolates. I do not think he would be very good at that. I had two young cousins aged seven or eight staying here just before Christmas, and instead of selling chocolates he bought them chocolates. He is indeed a benevolent member of the Opposition.
Lord Davies in particular asked about the VAT situation. This is a complicated point, as he will appreciate, and all I can tell him—I apologise for the technicality of my reply—is that from the beginning of VAT, from April 1973, the theatre and other cultural institutions have pressed the Government for admissions to be zero rated. This request has consistently been refused because it is the essential nature of the tax that it bears on consumer expenditure generally in the domestic economy. The necessarily limited reliefs for the most part can be justified for compelling social reasons. All discretionary expenditure has from the beginning been subject to the tax and a concession in this area would present particular difficulty because it would
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not be possible in practice to justify refusing similar treatment for many cultural, recreational or sporting activities, all of which in their own way are of value to the community and can be argued to be worthy of relief by reference to their particular problems and circumstances.
Lord DAVIES of LEEK: My Lords, a pit is unique. If that is conceded, I cannot see pit museums springing up like mushrooms. This is the one and only such museum in Europe and it is educational. But I would never argue with the noble Lord, whom I consider a friend, and I will leave the matter there for further consideration.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, I can only quote to the noble Lord some of his noble friend's remarks: "All Ministers of Arts and their minions fight for Arts. The Treasury does not always give way". Lord Davies suggested that museums and galleries should in part count as educational establishments. There are certain educational exemptions, but it would be difficult to establish that museums and galleries are any more educational than concerts or performances of classical plays and so on. Local authorities are able to obtain relief on the running costs of local museums and of course on any tax involved in the purchase of new objects. Private museums have to pay tax on admission charges, but they too may seek relief on objects purchased.
One useful further source of financial assistance to museums has been the progress in the preparation and printing of attractive and informative catalogues and the tremendous growth in sales through shops attached to museums. This is an area which local museums could develop with great benefit to themselves, and I have noted the points which several noble Lords made about whether they would be able to keep those profits for themselves.
In this context, Lord Montagu and the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, mentioned museum charges. Having sat beside the noble Viscount when he was Minister and heard him argue so vigorously his views on this matter, I feel slightly anxious that he will not have any raised blood pressure or be upset at the fact that I am

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now perhaps taking a different view, because I have to tell the House that the Government are not in favour of general museum charges as such, but do not object to charges for special exhibitions. We believe that the national collections should be freely available for all to see. We are aware that some local museums charge an entrance fee and that local authorities have the power to implement such charges, but we would certainly not encourage them to do so.
Lord Donaldson raised the question of points of excellence, areas of excellence and museums of excellence—special regional places—and he mentioned in particular the Fitzwilliam, a museum for which, with him, I share great affection; its director is a great personal friend of mine and I agree with Lord Donaldson that it is second to none in the provincial field. We hope that the University of Cambridge will do everything it possibly can to ease the museum's problems. As the noble Lord said, there is already a significant Government contribution available through the local purchase fund of the V & A Museum and through the South Eastern Area Museum Council, half of whose expenditure is repaid by the Government.
Lord Donaldson and Lord Beaumont referred to the rate support grant, gave views about it and asked if the Government would comment on the subject. I have to tell the House that we do not think it is quite true to say that there is an element in the rate support grant which in theory is for museums. The grant is a block sum which each authority is free to spend as it wishes according to its views on the needs of particular services. To remove one service from the ambit of the grant and to make separate provision for it would raise fundamental questions about the general principle that local authorities are free to allocate their grant as they see fit. I do not think this suggestion would be attractive to local authorities in general and I would not like to leave the House with any impression that there was a prospect of it being pursued at present.
I should like, in conclusion, to do as Lord Donaldson asked me, namely to respond generously, but in times of economic hardship it is not always easy to do so. Thus, I have to say that museums, like so many of this country's
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institutions, are based on a partnership between central Government, local government and private organisations and individuals. Much could be done to improve the co-operation within the existing framework and the Government propose to do all they can in this respect, but they also look to those who share this responsibility for improving the nation's museums to play their part as well.
7.50 p.m.
Lord MONTAGU OF BEAULIEU: My Lords, we have had a most interesting and perhaps important debate on a subject which must be of national importance. I have been delighted at the bipartisan atmosphere that has prevailed in all parts of the House and has been reflected in the speeches; indeed it has also been enhanced by the speeches of two ex-Ministers for the Arts. The noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, has very fully replied to and covered the speeches made by noble Lords, but I should like to make one or two comments. I should like to say how much I agree with my noble friend Lord Eccles about the importance of local involvement, and I am sure that this is a matter in which Area Museums Councils can do much more to help co-ordinate and advise.
I am very glad that my noble friend Lord Perth raised the question of historic houses. May I draw his attention to paragraph 8.14 in the Drew Report which looks to Area Museum Services to encourage membership which involves historic houses and their contents, whether or not they are officially museums, as a component part of the museum provision in the area. I believe that Sir Arthur Drew had that in mind when he wrote the paragraph. I am most delighted that my noble friend mentioned the National Heritage Fund. When it is set up, it will create a great burden of consultation with the Standing Commission, and I have no doubt that the Museums Association Council can play its part in giving advice. It is very important that that advice should be of high calibre. That is also applicable to the chairman and trustees of the new National Heritage Fund who must go calmly and professionally about their task when it arises.
I listened with great interest to what the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kings-bridge, said with regard to museum

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charges, and I think I detected a slight change in direction from the quite adamant views that were held by his party in 1974. I hope that that is perhaps true. At least he said that he felt that times are changing, and perhaps his views will prevail against some of the more adamant views of his colleagues. But I appreciate that politically this is a hot potato and although I was disappointed to hear the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, say that it was not possible even to encourage local government to make charges, perhaps I should leave this point and accept it as a political, and not a practical, decision.
However, the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray, has proved that the Government are taking the report seriously. We have had a positive, not a negative, response tonight, and I am most grateful for that. The noble Lord has certainly given great food for thought for museums and perhaps a little food for museum stomachs as well. I should certainly like to join in congratulating Sir Arthur Drew upon the report. Knowing him, I am sure that he will persist and ensure that the report is not forgotten; and so indeed will I. My Lords, with the leave of the House, I beg to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

SHEFFIELD GENERAL CEMETERY BILL
Recommitted to an Unopposed Bill Committee.
VAN DIEMEN'S LAND COMPANY BILL [H.L.]
Commons amendments considered and agreed to.
CHILD CARE BILL [H.L.]
Reported from the Joint Committee with amendments, and recommitted to a Committee of the Whole House; Bill to be printed as amended.
FOSTER CHILDREN BILL [H.L.]
Reported from the Joint Committee with amendments, and recommitted to a Committee of the Whole House; Bill to be printed as amended.