Lords Sitting of 2 December 1980

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

Aid to Developing Countries
Lord Brockway: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the first Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what reply they have made to the representations of Oxfam, Christian Aid, and Catholic Aid for increased aid to developing countries and the charge that in this regard Britain's name has never been so low in many parts of the world.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, my noble friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary met representatives of the organisations referred to on 11th November. He explained again that our first priority is to get the economy right and that the aid programme cannot be immune from the necessary reductions in public expenditure. My noble friend rejected the assertion that Britain's image has been eroded. Most developing countries understand our situation.
Lord Brockway: My Lords, is it not the case that the cuts in overseas aid are nearly four times as great as the cuts in other public services? With regard to the question of Britain's name standing low abroad, is the noble Lord aware that all of us who have any contact with different parts of the world know that this statement is true? Has the noble Lord noted the moving protest on this subject by the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I have of course noted what the most reverend Primate has said on this matter, but the fact remains that we have to tailor our programme for aid, as indeed all our other programmes, in accordance with our resources.
Lord Goronwy-Roberts: My Lords, can the Minister tell us whether the Government are giving further consideration to the conclusions and recommendations of the Brandt Commission on this particular matter? —especially in view of the fact that throughout the world, not least in the developing countries, there is a widespread feeling that the Government's initial attention to the Brandt Report—a very prestigious and substantial document—was perfunctory in the extreme.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I am not sure that I like the use of the word "perfunctory". I have in your Lordships' House made at least three speeches specifically on the report of the Brandt Commission, and certain of my honourable and right honourable friends have made similar speeches in another place, not to mention all the speeches that have been made by
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Government Ministers outside Parliament. We certainly regard the Brandt Commission's report as a most important document which deserves, and indeed has received, our closest attention.
Lord Brockway: My Lords, with reference to the Minister's statement—
Noble Lords: Order, order!
Earl Alexander of Tunis: My Lords, can my noble friend tell the House what steps are taken to ensure that money from Catholic Aid and various other charities goes to the right people in the developing countries? Is he aware that there is a saying that overseas aid is money from poor people in rich countries going to rich people in poor countries?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, that is a view, but it is the case that the charities referred to in the Question are reputable charities. As for the efficiency of their operations, I think that the noble Earl should direct his question to them.
Lord Brockway: My Lords, with reference to the Minister's statement that our economic position must be stabilised first, is he aware that one of the most moving memories of my life is of a speech before the First World War by Winston Churchill, in which he praised a ship in a storm going to the aid of another in wreck? Will the noble Lord say whether the report is correct that at the meeting referred to the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, stated that British aid, public and private, is second only to that of the United States? Does not the private aid include loans and investments on which interest and dividends are paid which are greater than all our annual aid?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, it is indeed the case that investment from private sources in the United Kingdom in third world countries is very substantial. Of course some of our public aid programme is on loan terms, as is the money that is provided by private sources. As to the noble Lord's reference to the speech of my late right honourable friend Mr. Churchill (or Sir Winston, as he became) about a ship in a storm, I would say that we must be careful that our ship does not go on the rocks.

Hong Kong: Small Business Evictions
2.42 p.m.
Lord Brockway: My Lords, with some apology I beg leave to ask the second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what actions they are taking to prevent the eviction of small businesses from Crown Land in Hong Kong.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, this is a matter for the Hong Kong Government, in which Her Majesty's Government would not wish to intervene.
Lord Brockway: My Lords, surely Her Majesty's Government have some responsibility for what goes on in Hong Kong. Is the noble Lord aware that the evictions are likely to take place next Thursday? Do they not relate to 126 factories—run by small businessmen—which have been rented for the last 10 years? Cannot Her Majesty's Government do something to suggest that these evictions be prevented?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, the Hong Kong Government have a duty to conduct their internal and economic affairs in the manner most beneficial to the people of the territory. The Hong Kong Government have successfully followed such a policy of not subsidising industry, and therefore Her Majesty's Government see no reason to intervene.
Lord Brockway: But, my Lords, is it not the case that the merchants themselves have made very reasonable proposals, including an offer that if the Government will provide sites for the 126 factories and adequate compensation they will agree to co-operate?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, those factories suitable for reprovisioning in what is called a housing authority flatted factory have been offered such accommodation plus an ex gratia allowance of 15 Hong Kong dollars per square foot of the area previously occupied. This applies, indeed, to 61 of the 129 operators in the particular area to which the noble Lord referred. Those same operators may alternatively claim an ex gratia allowance of 34 Hong Kong dollars per square foot without relocation in a flatted factory.
Lord Orr-Ewing: My Lords, will my noble friend perhaps point out to the House that the Hong Kong Government and our Governor there, Sir Murray MacLehose, have done a fantastic job in expanding the housing facilities in that colony to meet the needs of a population which has increased from 2½ million a decade ago to nearly 6 million now? This is a tremendous achievement which has been accomplished only by the sort of changes which I am afraid force people to move so that other people can be accommodated.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, my noble friend is quite right. The fact is that the squatter sites due for clearance are urgently required for redevelopment. The Tai Wo Ping site, as it is called, will become a public housing estate accommodating no fewer than 7,000 people. This is an integral part of Hong Kong's housing programme, and any delay would result in a serious shortfall in the number of new flats available in 1982 and 1983.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, will the noble Lord suggest to his right honourable friend the Prime Minister that Mr. Heseltine be replaced by Sir Murray MacLehose?
Lord Brockway: My Lords, may I ask the Minister whether he is aware that all of us appreciate what the Hong Kong Government have done in relation to housing; but, arising from his previous answer, is it not the case that the compensation offered is not only
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inadequate because of the factory values but pays nothing for the removal to new factories and pays nothing for the redundancy payments which will have to be made to 800 workers?
Lord Trefgarne: I do not agree, my Lords. I think the compensation is generous. In addition to the arrangements which I referred to earlier, some operators are entitled to an ex gratia allowance of 53 Hong Kong dollars per square foot; that is, those operators who are not offered, or whose trades are not suitable for, the so-called flatted factories to which I referred earlier. Furthermore, the Hong Kong Government have stated that there are short-term tenancies and waivers available in the new territories for nonpolluting industries.

Electricity Charges: Fuel Cost Estimates
2.46 p.m.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will direct the Electricity Council to refund to consumers of electricity the excess charges imposed in April as a result of the council's miscalculations of fuel costs.
The Minister of State, Department of Employment (The Earl of Cowrie): My Lords, the major part of the electricity supply industry's fuel costs arises in the winter months, and it is by no means yet clear that the industry has overestimated its fuel costs for the year as a whole. The Electricity Council has said that in the event of any such overestimate occurring this will be taken into account when tariffs are revised next April.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: But, my Lords, cannot my noble friend confirm that the Electricity Council themselves admitted that the price increases made in April were excessive inasmuch as they were based on an excessive estimate of the cost of fuel from April? In view of the inflationary effect of excessive charges by this monopoly supplier, will not my noble friend consider very seriously whether the right thing is not in fact to repay to the consumer the money unnecessarily exacted from him?
The Earl of Gowrie: My Lords, I very much share my noble friend's concern at the inflationary effects of any overcharging by nationalised industries or monopoly suppliers, but while the latest forecast suggests that average fuel prices in 1980–81 may not rise to the level originally estimated at the beginning of the year, it is of course still not clear how this coming first part of the winter will turn out. I repeat to my noble friend and to the House that, of course, we will see that the Electricity Council takes this into account when its new tariffs are made, so that inflationary adjustment will take place next April.
Baroness Wootton of Abinger: My Lords, is it not a fact that it does not make any difference what the future is going to be? The Electricity Council have admitted that they made a mistake in the past, and they have enjoyed the interest on the money they owed to their consumers for six months, at least, so it must be quite a substantial sum.
The Earl of Gowrie: My Lords, the system obtained for a time whereby consumers enjoyed the fuel cost adjustment which industry now enjoys and which quarterly-payers now enjoy, but in fact the Consumers Association very much objected to this, and this was one of the reasons why the system was changed. But I would suggest to the noble Baroness and to the House that I think the system will even out, because any overestimate in a given year will of course be allowed for when the next year's tariffs are set.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, if the suggestion made by the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, was accepted, would it not mean that the Electricity Council would have to increase its charges at an earlier date than would otherwise be the case; and would not the administrative costs of making a repayment such as he suggests ultimately fall on the consumer?
The Earl of Gowrie: My Lords, I take that point. I think Ministers are perhaps always in a rather uncomfortable role defending these large industries, which are very independent of them; but I think it is fair to the electricity industry to say that charges, which are related to fuel costs, which are themselves related to wage costs in the coal industry, to the supply of oil and gas, to the situation in the Middle East and to the rest, are notoriously difficult to forecast, and one therefore has to try to even the thing out over probably more than one fiscal year.
Viscount Eccles: Yes, my Lords, but is it not a fact that the Electricity Council have given a 24 per cent. wage increase because they had so much money?
The Earl of Gowrie: My Lords, I need separate notice of that; but I can tell my noble friend that my advice is that in the year 1979–80 the Electricity Council got their sums wrong on the other side of things and the consumers benefited accordingly.

Business
Lord Denham: My Lords, with the leave of the House, at a convenient moment after 3.30 p.m. my noble friend Lord Trefgarne will repeat a Statement on the Falkland Islands which is to be made in another place.
It may also be for the convenience of your Lordships if I say that, in view of the long list of speakers on the defence debate tomorrow, dinner will be available.

Merchant Shipping Bill [H.L.]
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to replace by amounts equivalent to special
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drawing rights of the International Monetary Fund the amount in gold francs specified in certain provisions limiting the liability of shipowners and others.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a.—(Lord Trefgarne.)
On Question, Bill read 1a, and to be printed.

Procedure of the House
The Chairman of Committees (Lord Aberdare): My Lords, I beg to move the first Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That the Select Committee on Procedure of the House be appointed; and that, as proposed by the Committee of Selection, the Lords following, with the Chairman of Committees, be named of the Committee:—

Airedale, L.

Boyd-Carpenter, L.

Byers, L.

Chitnis, L.

David, B.

Denham, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Edmund-Davies, L.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Ferrers, E.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L. (L. Chancellor)

Hill-Norton, L.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Irving of Dartford, L.

Listowel, E.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.

Maybray-King, L.

Mishcon, L.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Peart, L.

Shackleton, L.

Skelmersdale, L.

Sligo, M.

Soames, L. (L. President)

Underhill, L.

Wigoder, L.

—(Lord Aberdare.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

House of Lords Offices
Lord Aberdare: My Lords, I beg to move the second Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That the Select Committee on the House of Lords Offices be appointed and that as proposed by the Committee of Selection the Lords following, with the Chairman of Committees, be named of the Committee:—

Aldenham, L.

Allerton, L.

Ampthill, L.

Aylestone, L.

Bessborough, E.

Boston of Faversham, L.

Bruce of Donington, L.

Byers, L.

Chesham, L.

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Cholmondeley, M.

Cockfield, L.

Collison, L.

Darling of Hillsborough, L.

David, B.

Davidson, V.

Denham, L.

Dowding, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Eccles, V.

Edmund-Davies, L.

Evans of Claughton, L.

Ferrers, E.

Fortescue, E.

Goronwy-Roberts, L.

Gosford, E.

Greenwood of Rossendale, L.

Grey, E.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L. (L. Chancellor)

Hale, L.

Hampton, L.

Hayter, L.

Hill-Norton, L.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Jacques, L.

Kinnaird, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.

Lovell-Davis, L.

Lyell, L.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Nugent of Guildford, L.

O'Neill of the Maine, L.

Onslow, E.

Parry, L.

Peart, L.

Rochester, Bp.

St. Aldwyn, E.

Seebohm, L.

Sempill, Ly.

Shackleton, L.

Sherfield, L.

Soames, L. (L. President)

Soper, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Teviot, L.

Trefgarne, L.

Tryon, L.

Wells-Pestell, L.

White, B.

Wigoder, L.

—(Lord Aberdare.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Anguilla Bill [H.L.]
2.55 p.m.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. Your Lordships may find it helpful if I briefly review the events which form the background to the legislation now before you. Under the terms of the West Indies Act which came into operation in February 1967, St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla became an associated state with the United Kingdom, as did certain other of our former colonies in the Eastern Caribbean. The main effect of the
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constitutional development was to give internal self-government to these states, with the United Kingdom retaining responsibility for their external affairs and defence. Unfortunately, the move towards associated statehood caused longstanding differences between St. Kitts and Anguilla to come to a head in May 1967. Anguillan islanders, having said categorically that they would not be ruled by St. Kitts, forced the St. Kitts police contingent to leave the island.
Repeated attempts in succeeding months by the United Kingdom Government and by the Governments of independent Commonwealth countries in the Caribbean, failed to reconcile the differences between the islands. A visit to St. Kitts and Anguilla at the end of 1967 by representatives of Government and Opposition parties in the House of Commons facilitated an interim arrangement under which a British official was installed in Anguilla in January 1968. Talks that year in London between all parties concerned failed to find any new solution and the Anguillans reiterated their declaration of independence in January 1969 when it became necessary to withdraw the British official from the island. An attempt shortly afterwards by the then Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to obtain Anguillan agreement to the installation of a British Commissioner who could administer the island ended, as your Lordships will undoubtedly recall, in the Minister's abrupt departure and the subsequent landing of British troops and police on the island.
Only against this background was it possible to instal a commissioner. The Wooding Commission, set up jointly by Her Majesty's Government and the State Government to consider the problem, made strenuous efforts to find a solution. The recommendations in their report providing, inter alia, for an elected Council in Anguilla holding certain legislative, executive and fiscal authority and presented to Parliament in November 1970 (Cmnd. 4510) were, however, rejected by the Anguillans.
It became increasingly clear that the differences between the State Government and the Anguillans were irreconcilable and that a satisfactory basis had to be found to enable the British Commissioner effectively to administer the island. Her Majesty's Government were thus obliged to introduce legislation unilaterally in the form of the 1971 Anguilla Act. The then Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs said in introducing that legislation in another place that he hoped the House would "recognise the need to bring an end to the events of the last four years and to provide the opportunity for a fresh start". He also said that the intention was "to provide effective administration for a period of years to enable tempers to cool". Under the terms of the 1971 Anguilla Act, a new constitution was prepared for Anguilla and the Anguilla (Constitution) Order came into operation on 10th February 1976. Although this overrode the constitution of the associated state of St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla, it did not annul it and the formal integrity of the state was thus preserved.
Throughout this period the British Government continued to try to persuade the St. Kitts Government to accept the reality of Anguilla's separate status and to find some constitutional method of separating the island which the then-Premier, Mr. Bradshaw, would

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find acceptable. It was not possible to do so before Mr. Bradshaw's death in May 1978. Meanwhile, the Anguillans continued to leave no doubt that they would not accept the authority of St. Kitts either as an associated or independent state but that they wished to preserve for their island a direct relationship with Britain. Mr. Bradshaw's successors accepted the principle of formal separation of Anguilla.
The previous British Government gave an assurance to the Anguillans last year, which they accepted and which the present British Government subsequently reaffirmed, that outstanding constitutional issues affecting Anguilla would be resolved by the end of 1979. This deadline appeared to have been met when, during constitutional discussion in London last December with the St. Kitts Government, the latter agreed to introduce the necessary separation motion in the St. Kitts Legislature early in 1980. This would have enabled the Order in Council to have been passed under Section 9(1)(B) of the West Indies Act 1967. However, the general election in St. Kitts-Nevis in February this year brought a different Government to office. It is a coalition Government and the constituent parties conform with the traditional definition of the term coalition and both "retain their own principles". There is nothing wrong with that. But the coalition Government have different priorities from their predecessors in office. While they are in no way opposed to the separation of Anguilla from the associated state they would prefer, at this relatively early stage of their Government, when they wish to give their attention to various other matters, that Her Majesty's Government handle this matter themselves. Given our commitment to the Anguillans, we cannot put off the formal separation of the island until a convenient opportunity arrives for the St. Kitts Legislature to take the necessary action. That is why I am obliged to take up your Lordships' time with this Bill today. The important thing is that the action which we are taking in the legislation before your Lordships today has the full support both of the Anguillans and the St. Kitts Government.
Your Lordships will note that the Bill is short. I hope that you will also find it straightforward and self-explanatory. If enacted, the Bill will permit Her Majesty in Council to make the further provisions for the future status and administration of Anguilla that we consider to be necessary at this time. The first subsection of Clause 1 empowers Her Majesty in Council to separate Anguilla from the associated state of St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla on a day to be appointed by Order in Council. The second subsection of Clause 1 makes provision for the future constitutional development of Anguilla and the attainment of independent status. For this purpose, the fourth subsection of Clause 1 ensures that draft Orders in Council receive the approval of each House of Parliament before submission to Her Majesty.
The Anguilla Act of 1971, to which I have already referred, is repealed by subsection (5) of Clause 1 but subsection (6) ensures that Orders in Council which have been made under that Act and the appointment under that Act of the commissioner shall not be affected by this repeal. Provided that the Bill before your Lordships is duly passed into law and the necessary
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order made under Clause 1(1), Anguilla will assume the status of a separate dependent territory of the United Kingdom. Thereafter, it will be for the Government and people of Anguilla to determine whether they wish to continue their present constitutional relationship with Her Majesty's Government—which has existed, de facto, for nearly 10 years—or become a fully independent state. Though there has been no indication that Anguilla intends to seek independence at an early date, Clause 1(3) of the Bill, as I have said, makes provision for the several constitutional options on independence which may be exercised in the future. At present, under the provisions of the Anguilla (Constitution) Order 1976, the Anguilla Government enjoys a large measure of autonomy in internal affairs. On formal separation, minor consequential amendments will require to be made to the present constitution order, and it is expected that, with the agreement of the Anguilla Government, the opportunity will be taken to devolve a further modest measure of local autonomy while retaining the ultimate authority of the Crown for the conduct of affairs on the island. Thereafter, in accordance with the policy of successive British Governments, further constitutional advance will only take place in the context of an agreed timetable for independence.
In considering the provisions for Anguilla's constitutional future, it is necessary to pay regard to the island's economy. Since the passing of the Anguilla Act in 1971, Her Majesty's Government have not only supported the territory's annual recurrent budget but have also made available aid funds to remedy the many years of neglect and to provide an acceptable level of infrastructure. Schools have been built or rebuilt, roads sealed and the airport improved. Work is now in progress to increase electricity generating capacity and to extend the distribution system. Attention will be paid to the need to ensure adequate supplies of fresh water. Without any natural resources other than a warm climate and fine beaches, the creation of a sound economy will depend to a very large extent on the development of tourism. In the past year or two, with aid funds being used to provide the required infrastructure, private investors have commenced the construction of a number of hotels and holiday villas. It is expected that tourism will shortly begin to make a significant and growing contribution to the island's economy, thus eliminating the need for continued budgetary support and, at the same time, providing much needed employment.
Anguilla may be small but, perhaps for this reason, it has many friends not only in the Caribbean but also, I know, in this country and in all parts of your Lordships' House. They will, I believe, welcome this Bill as marking not only the end of a brief and occasionally stormy period in the island's history but also the beginning of a new status and relationship which will ensure that the island's future will rest securely with the Government and people of Anguilla. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Trefgarne.)
3.3 p.m.
Lord Goronwy-Roberts: My Lords, I do not think that the House will wish to raise any objection to the

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passage of this Bill, which the noble Lord has described as being an enabling Bill and really one which does not confer independence on any part of the associated state of St. Kitts, Nevis and Anguilla but to provide for the detachment of Anguilla from the associated state as it was constituted some 15 years ago so that in due course, if the people and authority of Anguilla so desire, they may take the necessary steps in conjunction with us towards independence.
I think I am right in defining the Bill as being one for the detachment in a dependent status of Anguilla from another dependent associated state. Even so, although this is an important step as compared with the confirment of independence, which would raise acute constitutional and economic questions, nevertheless it is heartening to realise that what flows from this Bill, even in regard to the creation of a separate Anguilla—albeit in a dependent position—will be subject to the process of approval by both Houses of Parliament for Orders in Council laid on behalf of Her Majesty before the two Houses.
In agreeing to the passage of this Bill, therefore, this House and another place will not even be finally agreeing to the detachment of Anguilla in a dependent situation, although that is not to say that this is what we ought to do when the two Orders in Council come before us. I personally think—and I hope the House and the other place will find it possible to agree at that time—that this is what we ought to do. However, the noble Lord has quite rightly reminded us that in fragmenting further what was in any case a fragment of the Caribbean, an area where federation and association has proved very difficult and, in most cases, impossible to achieve, in the associated states of the three countries we are prospectively creating mini-states in relation to membership of international organisations. It is true that mini-states can qualify for associate membership of, for instance, the United Nations and its relevant agencies.
However, at this early stage, I think that it is right that we should ponder carefully the implications even of the detachment of this small island from the existing associated state because, as the Bill makes clear, it is the precursor of full-fledged independence. We shall therefore wish to discuss the Orders in Council more closely than most of us are inclined to do today when they are laid before this House.
I shall merely underline one or two things which the Minister has quite rightly put to the House. For instance, we must be careful that even an expansion of internal autonomy in Anguilla does not so overburden its own resources in manpower and otherwise that indeed it is unable to sustain in an orderly fashion—and I use the term "orderly" advisedly in view of fairly recent history—internal self-rule of an expanded nature quite as easily as we all hope it will. Very great care will have to be paid to whatever added powers the Minister thought might be extended to Anguilla when we do move by Order in Council to confer this detached status upon it. We shall need to be given details of how much, and for how long, we shall be giving aid to Anguilla even in a dependent capacity, always looking to the future, when even this small island may very well become an independent republic, as the Bill suggests.
The second point I want to make is this. What will
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be the impact of fragmentation, the detachment of Anguilla from St. Kitts-Nevis or indeed the remnant of the associated state on St. Kitts-Nevis? To that extent, resources of all kinds will be less. The law of comparative costs will apply in a negative way to the new truncated associated states. What will be the impact on that state if and when it moves in the direction of independence? One envisages a movement in St. Kitts-Nevis towards independence, especially if Anguilla moves in that direction. This is the nature of things in the Caribbean.
The only other point I want to put concerns Clause 1(2) of the Bill. This seems to my untutored eye to be a little vague. It says:
"Her Majesty may by Order in Council make such provision as appears to Her expedient for and in connection with the government of Anguilla".
I take that to refer to the arrangements contained in the necessary Orders in Council for the creation of a dependent state, separated from the present associated states and in present relationship with the United Kingdom. It does not refer to an intention by the United Kingdom to lay down the basis of government for Anguilla. It is not, surely, our intention to ensure that the Government of Anguilla as it evolves shall follow a pattern laid down by us. In these matters we hope and expect that democratic procedures are adopted and maintained after a new status is attained.
3.11 p.m.
Lord Glenamara: My Lords, I should like to say just one word about this Bill and to make two points about it. First of all, I very much welcome this Bill. The initial constitutional arrangement obviously could not stand. The distance between Anguilla on the one hand and St. Kitts and Nevis on the other hand was far too great; and so I am very glad indeed that the separation has come.
The Bill itself looks forward to independence for this small pastoral community. I do not believe that is the right solution. The obvious solution on the ground—it may not be so obvious here in the Palace of Westminster—is for some kind of federation between Anguilla and the nearby French and Dutch colonies. They can be seen across a narrow strip of water from Anguilla. Britain, Holland and France are members of the European Community. If the European Community means anything, it is surely not beyond its wit and ingenuity to devise some kind of constitutional arrangement to bring these three colonies together. It is quite ridiculous that this legacy of colonialism should be perpetuated by having three colonies: one British, one French and one Dutch, all moving towards independence, none of which can be viable on its own. Surely the unity in Europe could be translated into a unity among the three colonies of these three European countries.
The only other point I should like to make is this. The noble Lord looked forward to tourism as being the basis of the economy. Anguilla is a very small and very poor island, almost purely pastoral, without any town at all. I believe that tourism, important though it is, is an unreliable and undignified kind of basis for a community and for an economy. I hope that the noble Lord will speak to his right honourable

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friend in ODM, if it still exists—I think it does in some form or other—to try to give more help to the development of agriculture in Anguilla. That would be a reliable long-term basis for a community in the Caribbean. Tourism, important though it is, is not. It is because so many islands in the Caribbean are trying to base their economy entirely on tourism that they are coming to grief.
So I welcome this Bill and I hope that the noble Lord will look at the two points I have made: first about Britain, France and Holland coming together, with the Anguillans, of course. Secondly, I say: please do not rely entirely on tourism. The development of the agricultural and fishing industries is the only basis for a sound economy.
3.15 p.m.
Lord Northfield: My Lords, I intervene in this debate because I was part of the history which the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, referred to at the beginning of his speech. He mentioned that in 1967–68 representatives of the Government and Opposition were sent to Anguilla to obtain a temporary settlement. I was one of the two who went out there; and in fact we were not representatives of the Government and Opposition. It was a most strange thing—something which I do not think had ever occurred before. My noble friend Lord Shepherd, who was then, I think, at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, approached Sir Nigel Fisher, the distinguished Member of Parliament for Surbiton, and myself because of our knowledge of and connections with the Caribbean. He asked us to go to Anguilla to try to effect a settlement of the situation.
It was a very interesting mission. I may tell your Lordships that it was quite amusing, and indeed melodramatic. I remember landing by plane and being surrounded by armed Anguillans. We did not know they were all carrying revolvers at the time, but they made it pretty clear to us afterwards that if we had brought troops we would have been shot out of the ground. Secondly, we had our own radio man and were in daily contact with the Foreign Office in London. We were from Government but not of Government, so we were not really representatives of the Government or Opposition. We were most unusual emissaries of Her Majesty's Government, sent to get a settlement in this island.
When our settlement was agreed—and it took a great deal of persuasion of Mr. Ronald Webster and all the others who are now minor figures of history in the revolt—and ever since it was agreed, I have kept my peace over all the events that have occurred since. Today I want to speak about the history of these 12 years and make some very direct comments about it.
But, before doing that, let us just agree with my noble friend Lord Glenamara that the problem is not something of the making of St. Kitts. These three islands, St. Kitts, Nevis and Anguilla, were thrown together in colonial days and the possible friction that might have occurred between them did not show up while it was a colony because they were administered by Britain and were not, in a sense, sharing the government of their own state. The difference came when associated
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statehood, which was a sort of mini independence system that we introduced in the 1960s, made them have to live together and share problems.
The real historic differences between the islands then came to light. St. Kitts is a sugar island, very black in its population, with the people descended from the slaves who were brought there. Anguilla, many miles away across the ocean, and not virtually connected to St. Kitts as Nevis is, has a population which is really descended from pirates and seafarers and certainly very few slaves. Their economies are totally different. St. Kitts is mainly sugar and very little else. Anguilla is just a barren coral island. I am sorry to have to say to my noble friend Lord Glenamara that there is not much chance of improving agriculture there. It is so dry and barren that nothing very much will grow, except in one or two valleys and hills on the very small island.
These Anguillans are not like the Nevitians and the Kittitians at all. They are, by instinct, seafarers and travellers. Many of them live in parts of England now, I think, and they all travel to and fro from their island, almost by nature as travellers. A great deal of the economy of Anguilla is sustained by remittances from Anguillans in this country. The differences came to light when they had to share common problems in an associated state.
Nor was it a case of the Anguillans being neglected and downtrodden by those horrid Kittitians, as was said at the time—not at all. In effect, to use modern jargon, it was virtually a middle-class revolution. They felt themselves better off than the Kittitians and resented the low standards of communications and other things in their island. They were wanting something a great deal better. As a result of travel, their expectations were a good deal higher than those of the black, sugar-plantation population of St. Kitts. It was not neglect; it was greater expectations which formed the real difference when the mini-revolution took place. So that is the background.
I come now to the history of my own small involvement. I have kept quiet since the situation deteriorated after we had negotiated the interim settlement, because I thought it was the best thing to do in order that tempers should not be inflamed. But I want to tell your Lordships what we said to the people of Anguilla when we were over there for Her Majesty's Government. We were told to tell the Anguillans: "Look, you cannot have independence, for one very simple reason in international law. Britain has legislated to make you independent as part of a state, and once a sovereign country like Britain has legislated to make you sovereign, in this sense, we have no further power to legislate on your behalf." We went over this with the lawyers at the Foreign Office, who begged us to make this clear over and over again to the people of Anguilla.
Secondly, we had to keep in mind all the time a point raised by my noble friend Lord Goronwy-Roberts, that if this attempted independence were to succeed, there would be grave dangers throughout the rest of the Caribbean. There would be Barbuda, as is now the case, proposing—I will not put it higher than that; "pestering" would perhaps be a good word—independence from Antigua. One day we would have Carriacou wanting to be independent from Grenada. So the story could go on, with mini-fragmentation

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throughout the Caribbean, as we were told to tell the Anguillans, if we once gave way on Anguilla. When this settlement broke down, we got in a British administrator, we left goodwill all round and we left the Foreign Office to build on the interim settlement which we achieved.
I now want to say, bluntly, that I think the history of these last 12 years was, first, a history of failure by the Foreign Office. On the basis of the interim settlement which we achieved at that time the Foreign Office could have had a permanent solution, keeping the three islands together in a loose federation. But during that year after we had achieved the settlement very little was done; the situation deteriorated; initiatives which we took were not followed up; the Anguillans were not made to feel that the British Government were caring about building on what we had agreed; and the Foreign Office began then, after a year of neglect of the problem and of not really pursuing it properly, to turn tail on the very advice that we had been given. In other words, it began to say: "Yes, perhaps we can, after all, legislate for Anguilla even though our lawyers told you to tell them that you cannot do that sort of thing, once Britain has given independence."
This is a pretty sorry story, in the end, because it means that in many ways the Foreign Office—I say this openly now—is to blame for the way the situation has finally developed in that area. It was a very hard cross for Mr. Bradshaw and Mr. Southwell—two of the distinguished leaders of St. Kitts—to bear, because they were not to blame in this whole matter. They had been given a country—one could call it a state, anyway—which, in that sense, was not really unified and the British Government did not build hard to keep it unified after our interim settlement.
In these circumstances, I do not oppose this Bill. All that is now water under the bridge. But at least we ought now to recognise the dangers that we are in in this part of the world, as a result of that history. First, there might now be further fragmentation, or demands for fragmentation, as a result of giving way finally to Anguilla in this Bill. We have no alternative, I agree, but I want to point out that danger.
Secondly, I do not think we should be talking too loudly about further independence. I want to ask the noble Lord to reply to this question. Have we made absolutely clear to the people of Nevis—another part of the state which has been agitating for secession from St. Kitts—that this cannot be a precedent, and that they must not now start asking for independence from St. Kitts? This would be a ridiculous thing, anyway, because the two islands are almost joined. There is a very short patch of sea between them—
Lord Pitt of Hampstead: They are asking.
Lord Northfield: I agree, my Lords. They are asking. I want to come to that. I am glad that my noble friend Lord Pitt, who knows this area better than I do, has intervened at this point. They are asking, but not under the present Government of the state. The present Government is a coalition of politicians elected from Nevis together with the previous Opposition in the main island of St. Kitts. But what happens—and this is the danger—if, as is now on the cards according to the news coming from
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St. Kitts, it is not long before the Labour Party is again returned to power in St. Kitts? Will the people of Nevis then again start agitating for independence, and will Her Majesty's Government stand firm and say that there is no chance of Anguilla being a precedent?
The third danger is this. With Sir Nigel Fisher, who accompanied me on that mission all those years ago, I was very concerned, and am still concerned, that an independent mini-state of this character can be penetrated by very undesirable forces. There were, at that time, dangers of international gambling syndicates moving in, and all kinds of things which we had to try to head off and to warn the people of Anguilla about. That could occur with a very small island, not knowing its way in the world and being very short of money. Apart from living on remittances, Anguilla lived for a long time by selling postage stamps and false dollars. An island as short of money as that may turn to undesirable kinds of people, who promise big investments for their undesirable activities. Very often, people of that kind bring in not only undesirable commerce, or whatever you like to call it, but arms and guns as well, and it becomes an unruly situation which can be fraught with danger for that whole area of the Caribbean.
So after that history, and after the years that have passed, of a gradual drift towards final secession, very unhappily, and as a result of a lack of real strength of action in the Foreign Office, I cannot oppose this Bill; but, at least, I can say that those dangers still face us. They may well lead to calls for further fragmentation. We may well be faced with trouble from Nevis, if there is a change of Government in St. Kitts, and I hope that they are going to resist it. If we talk about complete independence, we may well be on the way to letting in these undesirable elements which can cause a great deal of trouble and unrest in that part of the Caribbean. So I hope we realise what we are doing in giving this Bill a Second Reading, and that we shall beware, as the years go by, of neglecting this problem and of letting the troubles mount.
3.28 p.m.
Lord Lee of Newton: My Lords, in the days which we have been discussing, I happened to be chairman of the conference which negotiated associated status for most of the Caribbean, including St. Kitts, Nevis and Anguilla. There had been a great deal of discussion by officials at the Colonial Office, long before the conference took place, and, to the best of my recollection, there was never one word of dissent from the representative of Anguilla to going into the three nation set-up. We were utterly amazed when Mr. Bradshaw and Mr. Southwell came back afterwards and said that trouble had begun in Anguilla. There was no suggestion of it. Indeed, if I recollect correctly, the only thing that they were asking for at the time was an airstrip, in order to facilitate more tourism and so on. Therefore, I think it necessary to point out that it was no fault whatever of the Government, or of the departments in Britain, that this affair arose.
Indeed, looking back on the whole of the period when we were granting associated status throughout the Caribbean, this was the only occasion when it went

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wrong. We did the same thing with the whole of the Windwards, and apart from the fact that for a few months there was some silly stuff in St. Vincent there was never any problem in going ahead to associated status. My recollection is that in the legislation itself we tried to do what we could to ensure that the road was well open to independence. That was what we were trying to achieve.
I agree very much with what my noble friend Lord Northfield has just said of the dangers of more splintering. The Caribbean is difficult in that respect. We were hoping—and I am sure that my noble friend Lord Pitt would agree with me—that federation itself, when it first began, would be the answer to all these problems, and it was an immense disappointment that federation did not succeed. I still hope that one fine day it will come again, but along with my noble friend Lord Northfield I hope that we shall make it quite clear that any further splintering of this type is unthinkable.
As I see it, there is no reference in the Bill to the economics of all this. We all know that very many of the smaller ex-colonies—I am thinking of some in the Pacific as well—can never be economically independent. A while ago we had arguments about the Gilbert and Ellice Islands and Ocean Island. What we are undertaking is that in large measure we shall still be economically responsible for the future of a number of these islands.
I do not know what our position will be financially in respect of Anguilla in the days to come, but I hope we shall not assume that because of the fait accompli with which we are faced here we should want to be faced with any more of this kind of thing. My noble friend said what he thought was the cause of it. I think the personality of Mr. Bradshaw had quite a lot to do with it. I discussed it with him and with Paul Southwell and I know that there was a feeling that Mr. Bradshaw was being a little too dictatorial. I think he was turning up in uniform and wearing a sword, and I believe that was partly responsible for what happened.
3.33 p.m.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I am grateful for the support which has come from noble Lords, even if it was to some extent qualified by one or two of your Lordships. Although the purpose of the Bill is formally to recognise a situation which has existed for many years, its progress through Parliament will have real significance for the Anguillan people. The enactment of this Bill will remove a nagging and long-standing feeling of discontent among the islanders about their unsatisfactory status and will open the way for a new chapter in UK-Anguillan relations. We hope that it will continue to be a fruitful partnership in the development of the island.
What the future holds for Anguilla's constitutional development remains to be seen, but I emphasise that this Bill is a step forward. How Anguilla goes forward from here is a matter which has to be determined largely by the people themselves. I have emphasised the co-operation of the St. Kitts Government in the action we are taking. Nothing in the Bill detracts from the continuing constitutional development of St. Kitts-Nevis or from the right of the inhabitants of
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that state to determine their own future.
I will now turn to one or two of the points that have been raised. For example, the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, asked me what constitutional changes might be necessary before independence and which are made possible under this Bill. It will be necessary to make some minor changes to the present constitution order—the Anguillan (Constitution) Order 1976—as a consequence of separation; for example, to remove the reference to "associated state"; to provide for a governor instead of a commissioner, and so on. It is also intended to discuss with Anguillan Ministers some further changes, the purpose of which would be to devolve a greater measure of control of local affairs on the elected Government. It would not of course be in line with the policy of successive British Governments to grant full internal self-government save in the context of an agreed timetable for independence.
Several noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, and indeed the noble Lord, Lord Lee, asked me about the level of support which we shall be giving to Anguilla in forthcoming years. In the coming financial year it is expected that Anguilla will receive some £200,000 in budgetary aid, £601,000 in capital aid and £222,000 in technical co-operation assistance. This is a generous allocation per capita of about £154, so that the need for budgetary aid may well fall away in the next year or two when the tourist trade develops. It is hoped that it will be possible to continue capital aid and technical assistance at or about the present level while the need for it exists.
Lord Taylor of Gryfe: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord, but perhaps he could enlighten us as to what is the total population of Anguilla. The amount of aid that is about to be contributed adds up to about a million pounds. I am not against that but I am wondering whether the capital aid projects were related to British products and British production or unrelated to the source of supply.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I think the population of Anguilla is in the region of 6,500. As to the question of whether or not our aid is tied, I can tell the noble Lord that almost every allocation of aid that we make these days is indeed tied to British purchases.
The noble Lord, Lord Lee, and I think one other noble Lord also referred to the possibility of a future association in that part of the world now that this particular association of the associated states is to be broken. Initially, of course, this would be a matter for consideration by the Government and people of Anguilla themselves. If they considered that their future lay in this direction, that would be welcomed by Her Majesty's Government. It should also be noted that on separation Anguilla will become eligible for membership of a number of regional organisations, for example the Caribbean Development Bank, the Eastern Caribbean Currency Authority, and so on.
I think the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, also referred to the question of St. Kitts-Nevis now that the associated state is to be altered in this way. As my honourable friend the Minister of State announced in another place on 24th April, and indeed as I have mentioned in this debate, the new Government which took office after

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the general election in St. Kitts-Nevis last February are not able at this time to facilitate Anguillan separation in the state's legislature as had been agreed in talks in London last December. At those talks a timetable for independence for St. Kitts-Nevis this year was also worked out. The present St. Kitts Government are concentrating their efforts on economic development and other matters and have not yet indicated what priority they attach to the attainment of independence.
In bringing this Bill before your Lordships I also wish to advise you that our commitment to Anguillan Ministers implies that the Bill is needed for Royal Assent very quickly; that is to say, by the time Parliament rises for the Christmas Recess. I hope therefore that your Lordships will agree to conduct the Committee stage and the remaining stages with all possible despatch, and anticipating the co-operation of your Lordships in this matter, I shall be putting a Motion on the Order Paper today relating to the remaining stages of this Bill which are, I understand, to be taken—if your Lordships agree—on Monday, 8th December.
Lord Northfield: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord because he has not dealt with the most important point which my noble friend Lord Lee and I raised; and to some extent it was raised also by my noble friend Lord Pitt in his interjection, namely, whether it has been made absolutely clear that the precedent of the independence for Anguilla will not be allowed to influence the position with respect to Nevis, where there has been—and still is—a continuous pressure to separate itself from St. Kitts. I hope very much that the noble Lord will, as I believe the previous Government did, make it absolutely clear to the people of Nevis that this would be an absolute nonsense, that they cannot count on our support for it, and that they must not use the Anguillan example as a precedent.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I think the word "precedent" is the wrong word in this context. The fact is that each and every situation such as the one we are facing today is different and we would want to consider each case on its merits. This is, above all, a matter for the people of these islands themselves, and that is why this Bill is before your Lordships' House.
Lord Pitt of Hampstead: My Lords, will the noble Lord confirm or deny that when the conference between the Government of St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla and the British Government was held there was an agreement that after independence, in fact three months after independence, there should be a referendum in Nevis as to whether they should have separation from St. Kitts?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I am afraid I have no information about the referendum to which the noble Lord refers. If the noble Lord, Lord Pitt, and the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, will allow me, I will ascertain what assurances were given at the time of that conference and write to the noble Lords with the information. As I have said, our aid and other support will continue to be available to the associated state of
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St. Kitts-Nevis as it will be for the dependency of Anguilla. I hope your Lordships will therefore join me in wishing the Government and the people of Anguilla well for the future.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

The Falkland Islands
3.42 p.m.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, with your Lordships' permission, I will repeat a Statement on the Falkland Islands which is being made by my honourable friend Mr. Ridley in another place. The Statement is as follows:
"We have no doubt about our sovereignty over the islands. The Argentines, however, continue to press their claim. The dispute is causing continuing uncertainty, emigration and economic stagnation in the islands. Following my honourable friend's exploratory talks with the Argentines in April, the Government have been considering possible ways of achieving a solution which would be acceptable to all parties. In this the essential is that we should be guided by the wishes of the islanders themselves.
"My honourable friend therefore visited the islands between the 22nd and 29th November in order to consult the island councillors and subsequently, at their express request, all islanders, on how we should proceed. Various possible bases for seeking a negotiated settlement were discussed. These included both a way of freezing the dispute for a period or exchanging the title of sovereignty against a long lease of the islands back to Her Majesty's Government.
"The essential elements of any solution would be that it should preserve British administration, law and way of life for the islanders while releasing the potential of the islands' economy and of their maritime resources, at present blighted by the dispute.
"It is for the islanders to advise on which, if any, option should be explored in negotiations with the Argentines; my honourable friend has asked them to let him have their views in due course. Any eventual settlement would have to be endorsed by the islanders, and by this House."
3.45 p.m.
Lord Goronwy-Roberts: My Lords, we are grateful to the noble Lord for making the Statement in this place as it has been made in the other place. It is important to keep Parliament informed of all discussions relating to an issue quite as sensitive as this is. So far as I can see, there is nothing in this Statement today which in any way weakens, still less contravenes, what was said as recently as last Thursday in this House by the Foreign Secretary when, in answer to his noble friend Lord Morris, he said:
"I would repeat that no solution can be agreed without the endorsement of the islanders as well as that of Parliament ".—[Official Report, 27/11/80, col. 199.]
That is a double-barrelled proviso with which we wholeheartedly agree, that any solution which is

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finally found to be peaceable for promotion should have the endorsement of the islanders and also of the British Parliament. Subject to that all-important proviso, the Opposition—at least the Labour Opposition, and I am sure my noble friends below the gangway will agree—hope very much that every effort will continue to be made to improve the friendly and co-operative relations between this country and the Argentine, and certainly between the Argentine and the Falkland Islands.
The Statement refers to the way in which economic development in the South-Western area generally, in the seas between the Falklands and the Argentine, is being held back because of this continued uncertainty about the constitutional future of the islands. Once a solution which, in the first principle, is acceptable to the islanders, is also acceptable to everybody in the area, then, as my noble friend Lord Shackleton pointed out to us in his excellent report two or three years ago, there is a very great deal of economic development in the seas of that area which would redound to the benefit of the Falkland islanders and the Argentine, and indeed of this country. So we welcome the repetition of the proviso that no solution will be promoted by Her Majesty's Government unless it is endorsed by the islanders, and also that any such proposal would be placed before Parliament.
3.47 p.m.
Lord Gladwyn: My Lords, I need hardly say that we on these Benches go along with the Government's Statement that in this matter it is essential that we should be guided by the wishes of the islanders themselves, and that any eventual settlement would have to be endorsed by the islanders and by the other place, and presumably by this House also. Could the noble Lord indicate, supposing there was a solution agreeable to the islanders for exchanging the title of sovereignty against a long lease of the islands back to the British Government, how exactly that would result in "releasing the potential of the islands' economy and of their maritime resources"? What exactly would be likely to happen? And in that event, how would it benefit not only outside interests, including our own, but the interests of the islanders themselves? If that took place, how exactly would the interests of the islanders be promoted?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I am obliged to both noble Lords for their reception of this Statement. In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, I would say that most of the points which flow from his question would need to be negotiated with the Argentinians, when and if the islanders agree to that taking place. As the noble Lord will recall, Lord Shackleton's report, to which the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, referred, did spell out in very considerable detail the economic potential of the Falkland Islands and indeed the seas around them, and there, I would suggest, is where lies the great economic benefit to the people of the Falkland Islands. That is not to say that there are not most effective and successful businesses to be carried on on the islands themselves, but there is very considerable potential both on the islands and in the waters around.
Lord Shackleton: My Lords, if I may, I should like to congratulate the Minister of State for the energy and initiative he has been showing in a matter of immense difficulty. Would the noble Lord the Minister not agree that this is, of course, only a very preliminary statement, and that it is important not to come at this stage to too firm conclusions on this? I have no doubt that the islanders will have to think very carefully. May I ask the noble Lord to ensure that his honourable friend does not put the islanders in a position of either facing decline, because the British Government decline to continue such little assistance as they are already giving, or accepting this particular deal? But, at the same time, can he also tell us whether he foresees the possibility of some real development as regards fishing which will involve further Government expenditure? Can he say something about the dependencies of the Falkland Islands, and in particular I have in mind the beautiful island of South Georgia which is very much in the area where krill fishing may take place?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I can assure the noble Lord and the House that there is no question of any pressure or threats being brought to bear on the islands to agree to this proposal or to any other. As the noble Lord knows, the fact is that my honourable friend Mr. Ridley visited the islands and put the proposal, among others, to them. This is the one that they are now considering very carefully. There is no time limit on those considerations and when they are ready to convey their conclusions to my honourable friend he will be ready to hear them and to act accordingly.
As for the fishing, as the noble Lord rightly says, a large development of fishing in that area would involve substantial investment. I confess that I cannot see much in the way of Government funds being available for that purpose at present, but certainly there will be nothing in the way, so far as I can see, of private investment for that purpose.
On the question of the dependencies to which the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, referred, that is another matter which is somewhat fluid and flexible at present and would clearly have to form part of the negotiations with the Argentinians when and if we get to that stage.
The Earl of Lauderdale: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that his statement that there is absolutely no pressure being put on the islanders will be received with great satisfiaction and relief by those here who have the fate of the islanders very much in mind? Can he say whether he would not agree that there is a general interest among the Western powers on strategic grounds, if none other, that this matter should be resolved peacefully and sensibly?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, certainly there are reasons why this matter should be solved peaceably and sensibly. But the paramount reason why that should be so concerns, of course, the interests of the islanders themselves. The fact is that the Falkland Islands are under something of a blight at present. It is very difficult, because of the potential dispute over sovereignty, to encourage investment, for example, in the islands, and that is the principal reason why we are seeking a solution to this matter.

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As regards the strategic implications to which my noble friend referred, I point out that those apply both ways—both to the Argentinians and to ourselves. They are a very technical matter, but I must say that the strategic implications of the Falkland Islands with regard to the sea lanes round the Cape are not as important as they were many years ago.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, is it not putting pressure on the islanders for the Minister Mr. Ridley to go and negotiate in Buenos Aires on proposals which have not been submitted to the test of popular opinion in the islands themselves? Was not that the main reason why Mr. Ridley received such an adverse send-off from the islanders when he left recently?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, if I may say so, the noble Lord is wholly misinformed on this matter. Mr. Ridley has not negotiated anything with the Argentinians yet and he will not do so until he has obtained the approval of the Falkland Islanders themselves.
Lord Morris: My Lords, I welcome this statement in so far as it demonstrates Her Majesty's Government's understanding of the vitally important fact that the economy of the islands is dependent upon a political solution—of that there can be no doubt. Can my noble friend say that, if the proposed arrangements for sale and lease-back—some might even say "give-away and lease-back"—are put forward, they will not be put before the islanders as a package? The terms of the lease are absolutely essential to their interests—whatever our view of their interests may be—and we must have their demonstrable agreement to the individual terms of the lease. Also, will Her Majesty's Government clarify the position of the nationality of the islanders in the course of the forth-coming legislation? Finally, the excellent report of the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, has been mentioned. Does my noble friend recall the urgency of a major recommendation in that report that an airstrip be built, or at least repaired, as soon as possible in order to aid communications? Has there been any development so far as that is concerned?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, as regards the details of any leasing arrangement which may be decided upon or even discussed in the future, I must ask the noble Lord to wait for events before pursuing that line because it is very early days and the details must be for discussion between the parties in due course. We have no preconceived notions as to what those details might be. Indeed, my noble friend went on to refer to legislation. It is much too early to be speaking of legislation—we are nowhere near that stage yet.
As regards the nationality point which my noble friend raised, I point out that it is the case that not all the Falkland Islanders are entitled, as of right, to settle in the United Kingdom. However, that is a problem which we have faced before in other circumstances and if we have to face it again in this situation I have no doubt that we shall be able to solve it.
My noble friend also referred to the question of extending the runway on the airstrip in the Falkland Islands. The difficulty there, quite simply, is finding the money to do it with. Extending or building
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runways or providing the associated facilities is an extremely expensive business and I must confess that, like the other matter to which I replied to the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, I find it difficult to imagine that Government funds would be available for that project at present.
Lord Shackleton: My Lords, I should like to ask the noble Lord two more questions and I am very grateful to him for answering my previous questions so fully. Will the noble Lord ask his honourable friend that, in his negotiations with the Argentine, he will make clear that the people of the islands are as British as the members of your Lordships' House, if not more so so? They are totally of British stock and British in style. This is a matter that a proud people like the Argentinians ought to be prepared to take into account.
Secondly, will these negotiations have any effect in regard to Antarctic territories? I take it that any territory south of latitude 60 degrees will not be affected. Finally, could the noble Lord add something further on the dependencies?—not only the Falkland Islands which are 300 miles from the Argentine, but South Georgia which is another 700 miles from the Falklands, and by no stretch of the imagination could it ever have claimed to have been under Spanish occupation, unless we go back to the Treaty of Tordesillas.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, the question as regards the other islands, including the dependencies, which stretch, as the noble Lord says, many hundreds of miles from the Falkland Islands, is something which will have to be discussed in the context of an overall agreement on this matter. As the noble Lord will recall, we are already in disagreement with the Argentinians over the question of their weather station on the island of Thule, many hundreds of miles from the Falkland Islands. Clearly that matter too would have to be resolved in the context of an overall settlement.

Housing (Northern Ireland) Order 1980
4 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Northern Ireland Office (Lord Elton): My Lords, I beg to move that the Draft Housing (Northern Ireland) Order 1980, which was laid before the House on 5th November in the last Session of this Parliament, be approved.
This order consolidates, with amendments, over 30 housing enactments dating back to 1890. The majority of the provisions retain the wording and arrangement of the original legislation. However, in a number of instances this has not been possible and some minor amendment has been required. A few substantive changes have also been made. These include a number of specific amendments which have been made to the order since it was published for consultation in July 1980. There is not much point in discussing the measures of consolidation, other than to welcome an improvement which will make the law a much more weildy instrument, ready to hand for a great many more people than could hitherto make use of it. I therefore intend, with your Lordships' permission, to

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confine my remarks to outlining the substantive amendments embodied in the order.
The first of the changes made since the publication of the order occurs in Article 2, where the definition of "owner" has been extended to make clear that where notices are served under the order these can be served on an agent where it is not possible to trace the owner. This change was made in response to requests made during the consultation period.
Part II deals with the constitution and financing of the Northern Ireland Housing Executive. Your Lordships will note in Article 15 a further change from the published order in that the limit on the executive's borrowing from the Consolidated Fund is being raised from £850 million to £950 million. This is intended to meet the executive's likely borrowing requirements up to midsummer 1982. That is the only new provision in Part II.
In Part III, which provides for the development functions of the Housing Executive, Article 29 is new. It clarifies the power of the executive to produce and supply heat to its tenants and to others. It is based on Sections 11 and 12 of the Great Britain Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976. This puts beyond doubt the power of the executive to supply heat under a district heating scheme to ancillary buildings such as schools and health centres as well as to its houses. This obviously makes economic and practical sense.
Power to enable the executive to revoke declarations of proposed redevelopment or clearance areas and clearance, demolition or closing orders have been provided in chapters II and III of this Part. These are on the lines of the powers already available to housing authorities in Great Britain. In addition, Article 49 now provides for the executive to amend a redevelopment scheme in a significant way if this proves necessary.
This brings me to a further substantive change which has been made following the consideration of comments received during the consultation period. The published draft order proposed that the executive's powers to take action to secure the demolition or improvement of unfit houses should become discretionary. This was because of the practical and financial difficulty facing the executive in dealing with the large number of unfit houses there are in Northern Ireland. This proposal has however, proved unacceptable to a considerable body of opinion in Northern Ireland. It has, therefore, been decided to leave the law as it stands for the purposes of this order and the executive will continue to have a statutory responsibility.
Part IV provides for a system of grants payable by the executive for the improvement, repair or conversion of houses. Under Article 85 the executive may carry out improvements or repairs with the agreement of house owners. Another substantive change to the order since its publication has been made in this part to take account of changes in the grants structure provided for in the Housing (Improvement, Intermediate and Repairs Grants) Order (Northern Ireland) 1980, which came into operation in August 1980. Consequential amendments have been necessary in Articles 68 and 72 and in Schedule 5. Parts V and VI are as published in the original draft and incorporate no significant changes in the law.
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Part VII provide a code for the information, administration and financing of housing associations. This, again, is merely a measure of consolidation and clarification. However, I now come to the final change which has been made to the order since publication. Article 117 of the published draft order provided for the transfer of authority to make loans to registered housing associations from the Northern Ireland Department of Finance to the Department of the Environment for Northern Ireland. In order to give effect to this change, which clears the way for a more effective method of financing associations, certain consequential provisions have been necessary. These take the form of powers to enter into loan agreements and to secure loans on the revenues of an association. In addition, Article 123 places a restriction on an association's power to mortgage its property and makes that restriction a charge to be registered in the Statutory Charges Register in accordance with Article 161. I believe that this order will be welcomed by those who press for consolidation of legislation generally, and especially by those who have to use planning legislation every day. I commend the order to your Lordships and beg to move that it be now approved.
Moved, that the draft order laid before the House on 5th November be approved—(Lord Elton).
4.6 p.m.
Lord Blease: My Lords, first, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Elton, for a very comprehensive and helpful explanation of this considerable weighty draft order. It extends over a considerable period of years. It brings into consolidation 90 years of legislation which, I agree with him, will be welcomed by the general public and by housing practitioners alike. I should also like to take this opportunity to congratulate all those who have contributed to the completion of the task, which was initiated by the last Administration.
However, unhappily in my opinion, the timing of this order for parliamentary approval gives rise to a considerable degree of irony. On the one hand, one could say that the Government now propose to make clearer what are the functions of the Housing Executive and housing associations. But, on the other hand, is it not ironic that at this very point in time they have also determined to deny the resources adequately to fulfil those functions?
As a result of recent Government cutbacks and Statements, a great deal of confusion now exists among both the general public and housing practitioners, and I am sure that, when it is proposed to simplify the legislative framework, the Minister will welcome the opportunity further to clarify the Government's intentions with regard to the financial limits within which these legislative functions are performed. One would hardly need to go further than Article 6 of the order which describes the general functions of the Housing Executive and which says:
"The Executive shall—

(a) regularly examine housing conditions and need;

(b) submit to the Department for approval its programme for such years and in such form as the Department may determine for meeting housing needs".

Perhaps the Minister would like to comment on recent press statements and articles by the chairman of the Housing Executive, Mr. Charles Brett, by the

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Chief Executive Officer, Mr. John Gorman, and by the Chairman of the Housing Council, Mr. Norman Ferguson. These three, along with others, referred to the functions of the Housing Executive. On 21st October, speaking on behalf of the entire Housing Council, which represents each of the 26 elected district councils, Mr. Ferguson stated to Mr. Philip Goodhart, the Minister for Housing:
"Essentially what we wish to say to you, and through you to the Prime Minister and her Cabinet, is that present funds for housing in Northern Ireland are insufficient to meet the need".
Mr. Ferguson, who is an Official Unionist in the South Down constituency, pointed out:
"We understand that what we seek is in fact a larger share of U.K. funds. We make no apology for this, for just as we are frequently reminded that the per capita expenditure is substantially higher here than in other parts of the U.K., we may fairly remind all concerned that so is our share of bad housing".
Mr. Ferguson stated that the anticipated number of new buildings started for 1980–81 was 1,083 houses. This compares with 5,136 in the last financial year under the previous Labour Administration. Last month there were over 13,000 construction workers unemployed compared with 8,200 in July this year. This takes no account of the spin-off effect on workers in allied construction industries and trades.
Since the business we are considering today is to clarify the legislative framework, I am sure the Minister will be able to elucidate a number of points that arise concerning landlords, tenants, owner occupiers and construction workers, all of whom are expected to operate within the framework of this substantial draft housing order. Mr. Charles Brett, the chairman of the Housing Executive, stated on 16th October that at a very minimum they need an annual building programme of 5,000 new dwellings, 1,200 rehabilitated houses and 350 cottage improvements. Anything less than this will see a further serious deterioration of the housing position in Northern Ireland.
Politicians of all parties have supported Mr. Brett's call for a clarification of the Government's housing policy. May I ask whether the Government are committed to helping those areas in the United Kingdom which have higher levels of unfitness in housing to catch up with the rest? I am aware that in parts of inner London, Manchester, Glasgow and Liverpool conditions may be as bad as in parts of Belfast. But the question must be asked: is it not part of the Conservative Party's declared social philosophy to concentrate resources where they are most needed? If it is, can it be genuinely claimed that Northern Ireland is getting its fair share of resources for housing?
I am sure that the Minister will agree that there is a great deal of disaffection in the Province at the moment on the subject of EEC funds. Perhaps the noble Lord may be in a position today to indicate the Government's views on the question posed by Mr. Brett on 16th October when he addressed the Northern Ireland Housing Council. He said:
"As to the availability of EEC funds, I am frankly bewildered by the discrepancies between the recent statement of Mr. Burke, the EEC Commissioner, on this subject, and those coming from the Government. Is Mr. Atkins prepared to say plainly whether the Government is prepared to accept, and pass on to the Northern Ireland Housing Executive, additional funds for housing in Northern Ireland, if it transpires that these funds are indeed available?"
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As regards the tenants of the Northern Ireland Housing Executive, may I ask the Minister whether he will clarify the Government's intentions in respect of the Secretary of State's much canvassed principle that rent increases must be in real terms? Are rents to be increased by highly inflationary amounts? If so, will the money he available to carry out the much needed management, maintenance and modernisation? For, as the Minister will already know from existing reports, very large numbers of public authority houses in Northern Ireland have not been well maintained for the past 30 to 40 years.
I should also like to draw to the Minister's attention that it appears that there are a large number of tenants in Northern Ireland who may qualify for rent and rate rebates but who do not claim these rebates. It has been stated by some that in England 80 per cent. take up the rebates to which they are entitled compared with only 40 per cent. in Northern Ireland. Could the Minister indicate whether the Government will commission research in Northern Ireland, such as has been undertaken by the Department of the Environment for England and Wales, into the reasons for this apparently confused area of rent and rates rebates?
Finally, since the order brings together so much recent legislation on improvement grants and on housing action areas, could the Minister tell us whether he is satisfied with the level of private investment in older houses? Now that the Government seem to be setting their face against bringing under public ownership these older type houses, can we be assured that private landlords, or the owner occupiers, can save this important part of the housing stock in Northern Ireland? Or, if this assurance is not forthcoming, are we to conclude that the consolidation of this legislation is sadly irrelevant when so much of it will not now be activated?
What we have here is an order which will be welcomed by the public and practitioners, as the Minister has said, but they all declare with one voice that the Government's public expenditure policies are creating waste and deterioration of resources which will set back housing conditions by years. This is the shared view of the 26 district councils, the local political parties, the Northern Ireland Housing Executive, the construction industry, and the Northern Ireland Committee of the Irish Congress of Trades Unions. They have all declared that, notwithstanding the legislation that is there provided, the fact is that these cutbacks and the Government's policies concerning housing will mean a deterioration of the situation. All of them know that there can be no justification for a situation where 14 per cent. of houses are statutorily declared unfit; 30,000 people are on the housing accommodation waiting list, and yet we have over 13,000 unemployed construction workers.
From this side of the House we support the order, but with the reservation that we need to be further convinced that the Government have the will to activate and implement the provisions of this legislation.
Lord Hampton: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Elton, for going over this somewhat complicated order. I wish to speak very briefly. I have listened with great interest to what the noble Lord,

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Lord Blease, has said, and it is sad to hear confirmation of what one believed to be the case—of the deterioration of the position. I should like to support the noble Lord, Lord Blease, in his query. Can the Government confirm that they are committed to special aid for Northern Ireland? If the Secretary of State says that increases must be in real terms, how is this to be enforced at the present time of mass unemployment? Apart from that, I think we must go forward and support the order.
4.18 p.m.
Lord Elton: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Blease, and to the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, for their support for this order. The noble Lord, Lord Blease, used the occasion, having welcomed the undoubted gains of clarification and consolidation, to call into question the economic policies which lie behind housing policy, and their implications for the people who live in the houses. He criticised Her Majesty's Government for not devoting sufficient financial resources to the housing programme of the Northern Ireland Housing Executive and the voluntary housing movement.
The Government's economic priority is to reduce the level of inflation, and to keep it down. Your Lordships' House will be aware that the rate of inflation is coming down, but constraints on public expenditure are inescapable if this process is to continue. Housing services have already had to bear a proportion of the reductions and will, I am afraid, have to continue to do so over the next few years.
Noble Lords will remember the review of public expenditure priorities which we held in Northern Ireland last summer, following the particularly harsh impact of worldwide recession upon employment prospects in the Province. Following that, the Government redeployed resources to meet the demands for new industrial development and to place the Province's industry in as competitive a position as possible. To make this process less painful and more effective, Her Majesty's Government agreed to release a further £48 million from the United Kingdom contingency reserve. This does not increase the overall level of public spending in the United Kingdom as a whole, but it does represent a further very significant response by the Government to the particular needs of Northern Ireland. The Government believe that in providing support for the electricity industry and in maintaining support for existing manufacturing industry and for new investment, both of which mean jobs, they are steering a sensible course.
To help meet the needs on the economic front, it has been necessary to claw back some resources from services which have improved their relative position in recent years. Housing is a case in point. Even allowing for the reduction in monies announced in August 1980, the Housing Executive will still be spending nearly £295 million on revenue and capital needs in the current financial year. Over and above that, the Government will be assisting the programmes of the voluntary housing movement by some £12·8 million, which answers another question asked by the noble Lord. Beyond that, a further £3 million will be spent on other housing services, including administra-
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tion. This means that a total sum of about £310 million will be spent on housing services in Northern Ireland in 1980–81. That is no small sum. The problem is not small, but nor is what we are doing about it.
The noble Lord asked whether Her Majesty's Government would give preference to areas of greatest need, and the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, is interested in this as well. I must point out that on a per capita basis, public spending on housing in the Province continues to be 50 per cent. higher than it is in Great Britain. Furthermore, the number of starts in the first 10 months of this year was 300 more than it was in the same period last year. Prior to this year, one in every 35 houses in the public sector started in the United Kingdom was being built in Northern Ireland. During the current year, one in 18 starts is being made in the Province. If special treatment is asked for, it is certainly being given. The Government are clearly committed to help solve the housing problems in Northern Ireland. Given their overall economic policy, to which I have referred, the financial resources allocated to housing services are sufficient to sustain a reasonable volume of housing activity. When enough will have been done, I do not know. We can only do what we are able to do without prejudicing the whole of the economy, and that in my belief we are doing.
The noble Lord then quoted Mr. Charles Brett and others in another context, but again in connection with the financial situation, and this relates to the EEC. The Government have kept the Commission fully informed of the evolution of their thinking on integrated operations and certainly intend furnishing the Commission with the finalised version of the integrated operations memorandum as soon as the present round of consultations is complete. But the noble Lord I think believes that there is £100 million available in somebody's hand to scatter about the streets of Belfast, Londonderry, Omagh and elsewhere. So far as the Government are aware, no new financial instrument has been or will be created to channel funds into integrated operation areas. That being the case, the Government do not understand how funds which would not be earned by the United Kingdom as a whole—for example, the United Kingdom's share of the Regional Development Fund or the rebate on the United Kingdom budget contribution—are to be made available for Belfast or elsewhere in the Province.
Until we know in what form and through what financial instruments the Commission proposes to make money available for projects within the integrated operations framework, it is not possible to answer questions of the sort the noble Lord is asking. However, if the Commission's estimate is based on funds which would in one form or another be available to the United Kingdom in any case, this revenue is already taken into account when deciding levels of public expenditure. If that is the case, then, as my right honourable friend has already said, there is no crock of gold waiting to be dug up in Brussels.
The noble Lord then referred to the rates of rents at present and in the future. On a comparison with those in England and Wales, I can say that the current average rent of a housing executive house is £7·23 per week. The average for council houses in England and Wales is about £1 per week higher than that. The

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Government are considering the implications for Northern Ireland of the consultative document on council house rents issued by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Environment on 25th November 1980. That addresses itself to the wider problems which the noble Lord mentioned and discussions will shortly take place with the Northern Ireland Housing Executive on that question.
The noble Lord then brought to my notice the question of the uptake of the rent rebate scheme. At 30th September of this year, some 73,000 tenants were receiving assistance towards their rental payments. That included 23,000 tenants receiving rent rebates under the executive's scheme and a further 50,000 tenants assisted with their rents through supplementary benefits. I should add that the executive publicises the rebate scheme very widely indeed. It has gone to the length of advertising in the media and circulating information leaflets and application forms to all tenants, and in fact each rent book includes a rebate application form. The executive is presently reviewing again what further steps it can take to increase the take-up.
I think that deals with all the specific questions the noble Lord asked. I should as a matter of courtesy thank him for giving me notice of a number of questions. Noble Lords who may have noticed the thickness of the combined files beside me will realise that I could not have answered in such detail had I not known what the noble Lord was going to ask me.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Building Societies and Tax (Northern Ireland Consequential Amendments) Order 1980
4.26 p.m.
Lord Elton Lord Elton rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 5th November be approved.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this order amends the Building Societies Act 1962 and the Income Corporation Taxes Act 1970. The amendments are consequential to the Housing (Northern Ireland) Order, which your Lordships have just approved, and for technical reasons they are dealt with separately in this Order in Council under the provisions of Section 38(2) of the Northern Ireland Constitution Act 1973. As all the provisions under this order are consequential upon the housing order, I hope your Lordships will give it your formal assent. I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 5th November be approved.—(Lord Elton.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Leasehold (Enlargement and Extension) Amendment (Northern Ireland) Order 1980
4.28 p.m.
Lord Elton Lord Elton rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 12th November be approved.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the need for this order arises from a judicial decision of this House in December 1978 in Wentworth Securities Ltd. v. Jones. That showed the existence of a major loophole in the
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legislation relating to leasehold enfranchisement. In order to plug this loophole, the Leasehold Reform Act 1979 was enacted for Great Britain. This order proposes to do the same for Northern Ireland so as to ensure that long leaseholders are not effectively deprived of the rights granted to them by the Leasehold (Enlargement and Extension) Act (Northern Ireland) 1971. This Act provides that a long leaseholder of a house who pays ground rent is entitled to purchase the freehold compulsorily on favourable terms, provided certain conditions are satisfied, and it corresponds to the Leasehold Reform Act 1967 which applies to England and Wales.
In Wentworth Securities Ltd v. Jones this House in its judicial capacity held that the landlords had created a conveyancing device which was highly successful in increasing the price to be paid for the freehold. It increased the price from £300 to £4,000, an increase of some thirteen-fold. The device was ingenious and its use had not been anticipated when the Leasehold Reform Act 1967 nor the Leasehold (Enlargement and Extension) Act (Northern Ireland) 1971 were drafted, thus leaving a gap in the legislation open to exploitation by landlords and their legal advisers.
The aim of the order therefore is to close that gap and to ensure that the price payable under the Leasehold (Enlargement and Extension) Act (Northern Ireland) 1971 by a leaseholder claiming the freehold cannot be artificially increased by transactions involving the creation, transfer, or alteration of the terms of an intermediate lease which have taken place after 15th February 1979. That is the operative date for the corresponding legislation which applies in England and Wales; that is to say, it is the date on which the Leasehold Reform Bill was introduced in another place. On that date, the then Government signified their intention to remedy the defect exposed in the legislation by the Wentworth case, and I consider it proper that there should be no hiatus between the enactment of the Leasehold Reform Act 1979 and the present order during which a swift and clever lawyer in Northern Ireland—and there are many such—could have produced a scheme similar to that which the order seeks to frustrate.
This order will close the loophole in the law and ensure that the leaseholders in Northern Ireland will be free from potential exploitation from which their fellow occupants in Great Britain are protected. I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 12th November be approved.—(Lord Elton.)
Lord Blease: My Lords, from this side of the House we formally welcome the order as a very useful piece of legislation and support its approval.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Education (Northern Ireland) Order 1980
4.32 p.m.
Lord Elton Lord Elton rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 28th October be approved.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move that the draft Education (Northern Ireland) Order 1980 be

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agreed to. This order, which was laid before the House on 28th October 1980, during the last Session of this Parliament, amends the principal enactment governing education in Northern Ireland; namely, the Education and Libraries (Northern Ireland) Order 1972.
Two provisions which appeared in the published proposal for this order no longer feature. It was as a result of your Lordships' robust action that a parallel provision that charges should be made for school transport was deleted from the Education (No. 2) Bill. It was therefore decided not to proceed with those charges in Northern Ireland. That proposal has accordingly been deleted from this Instrument. The proposal also envisaged the removal of the requirement that by-laws made by education and library boards should be confirmed by the department. However my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Environment is discussing with local authority associations the policy in relation to the confirmation of by-laws in England and Wales, and I should not wish to proceed in advance of the outcome of those discussions.
That brings me to the principal effect of this order. It replaces in Article 3 the duty of education and library boards to ensure that sufficient nursery schools and classes are available in their areas with a discretion to provide nursery education. The law at present in force in Northern Ireland has a similar effect to that in England, Wales and Scotland before it was amended by the Education Act 1980. Like Sections 24 and 25 of that Act, this article replaces the requirement on education and library boards to ensure that sufficient nursery schools and classes are available in their areas by a discretionary power to provide nursery education. In doing so it merely recognises what has always been the position in practice and understanding. Section 12 of the recent Act also provided that the discontinuance of nursery schools shall be subject to the approval of the Secretary of State for Education and Science. It has not been necessary to take similar steps relating to Northern Ireland, because the establishment and discontinuance of grant-aided schools are already subject to the approval of the department under the provisions of Article 11A of the 1972 order.
I should make it clear once again that this legislation does not herald any intention on the part of Her Majesty's Government to downgrade nursery education. Some people seem to think that it does, and I would draw to their attention the fact that the number of nursery places provided in the province has risen by 650 in the year to September 1980, and that that follows an increase of 625 in the previous year.
I know that the noble Lord, Lord Dunleath, has taken a close interest in this matter, and he has written to me on the subject. His principal concern, beyond securing that nursery education should not be diminished by this order, has been to ensure that nothing shall be done that might hinder the continuance, or expansion, of the integrated nature of many nursery schools. His particular proposal was that where, for reasons of good financial husbandry and management, nursery provision was made by means or establishing nursery classes within an existing primary school, those classes should be managed as a distinct unit
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within the school by a separate management committee. The noble Lord is not here. I shall not spend much time on this point, but I would say that while I have great sympathy with his aims, we have looked at the means that he put forward to achieve them and have found them not to be practical. However, my department and I are well aware of the need to provide in nursery classes a place more sheltered than that in primary classes four to seven, and I do believe that the existing provision does meet this requirement.
I turn now to the removal of some of the department's supervisory powers over education and library boards. Noble Lords will appreciate that since boards are entirely dependent on the department for their finance, it is not possible for them to have the same freedom of action as local authorities in England and Wales. However, Articles 4 to 6 represent a modest relaxation of detailed control. Article 4 frees from departmental control the amount of fees which may be charged for board and lodging at primary, intermediate, and special schools. Article 5 removes the requirement that library fines and certain charges for library services be authorised by regulations. Borrowing of books will continue to be free of charge. Article 6 removes the department's detailed control over boards in respect of their organisation of, and participation in, conferences relating to their functions.
The rest of the order is largely of a technical or administrative nature. I do not think that I need to take up the time of the House in dealing with the detail of the articles individually. Very briefly, Articles 7 and 8 regularise administrative practices. Article 9 makes explicit provision for salaries and allowances to be calculated where necessary upon a basis determined by the department. That is a technical amendment which does not represent a change in either the policy or practice of the department. The other articles tidy up the statute book by removing unnecessary provisions. I shall do my best to deal with any points that noble Lords wish to raise, and I commend the order to your Lordships.
Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 28th October be approved.—(Lord Elton.)
4.37 p.m.
Lord Blease: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord for the way he introduced the order and explained it in considerable detail. I was pleased to hear the helpful remarks that he made about some of the Government's intentions concerning nursery education. The noble Lord has already indicated that he is aware of the widespread concern that has been expressed in Northern Ireland about the proposal in Article 3 of the order. I consider it difficult to reconcile what the Minister has said with what is contained in the order. I am not alone in that. The Minister will be aware that education and library boards have expressed great concern about it, and parent associations, the trade unions and, in particular, the Irish National Teachers' Organisation have all expressed opposition to the order, especially Article 3, relating to nursery schools.
If, as the Minister says, it is the Government's intention to promote and encourage nursery education, then I cannot understand why they should choose an occasion like this to remove the duty placed on educa-

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tion and library boards to provide nursery education and have instead an arrangement for a purely discretionary power. The Minister himself is an experienced teacher, an educationist, and a parent. Along with others, I was pleased to read what he said on 21st October 1980 when opening a nursery school at Bally-sally, Coleraine. He indicated support for, and encouragement of, this form of pre-school education, and said:
"This specialised nursery provision is something for which I am sure your community is grateful. I sometimes think that the Government and the department get less credit than is due for their treatment of this age group of children.
"There is already in the Province a strong tradition of sending children to school in the year before they reach compulsory school age".
The Minister will also know of the recommendations of the Northern Ireland Department of Education's specially-commissioned working party on social priority schools, which submitted its report to him on 18th December 1979. Notwithstanding what the Minister says concerning the provision of nursery schools in Northern Ireland, this is what was said in the general findings of that report, at page 47:
"Within the structure of the education system the earliest stage of involvement is generally regarded as being nursery education, … The level of provision in Northern Ireland has lagged behind that of other parts of the United Kingdom, but we believe that the developments of the last few years have been encouraging. We have also been pleased to note the collaboration of the Department of Education with providing bodies to emphasise the needs of deprived areas and the attempt to ensure that these receive priority without curbing too drastically the expansion of pre-school facilities on a wider front".
Then, in the recommendations, on page 60 of the report Recommendations 34 to 37 state:
"That the expansion of nursery school provision be continued, including the conversion of suitable accommodation as nursery units … That recognition be given to the development of good home/school relationships as one of the principal benefits of nursery education … That suitable in-service training be provided for nursery school staff and all involved with pre-school children …".
My Lords, I think that what I have said about the concern, what the Minister has stated and what is contained in this order is also expressed to some degree by that excellent monthly publication of the Northern Ireland Council of Social Service called SCOPE—A Review, of Voluntary and Community Work in Northern Ireland. In their May 1980 issue they stated:
"Can anyone doubt that if the existing 'duty' is replaced by a discretionary power, that the Boards will increasingly view nursery education as less essential in terms of their obligations to provide education facilities generally. The value of nursery education both for the personal development of young children and as a foundation for later education is widely supported. In the 1978 Policy Document it was stated that 'The Government remains of the view expressed in the Discussion Paper, that the current level of provision for the under fives in Northern Ireland is so low that it is vital that all provision for the under fives is increased'.".
I do not want to go on at any length with this particular subject because I think the Minister will be well aware of the opposition to this in Northern Ireland, but I would particularly quote from a memo, circulated by the Northern Ireland Pre-school Working Party. They state:
"Nursery education is a valuable and enjoyable experience for 3–5 year olds. It gives them stimulation, play opportunities and social contact. It is an important preparation for primary schools …
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"In Northern Ireland we have suffered from a chronic shortage of nursery school places".
Then, with reference to nursery school education and poverty, they state:
"Nursery education is particularly important for families on low incomes and in poor housing conditions. Our greater level of poverty thus necessitates a greater level of nursery provision. This is stressed in two recent reports on Northern Ireland; the Black Report on the law relating to children and the McIntyre Report on inner city areas".
I should like to conclude by asking the Minister, notwithstanding his earlier, qualified statement, about what he proposes as regards the Government's policies for the future for nursery school education in Northern Ireland. Are there to be no more new nursery schools in Northern Ireland? That, I think, is a question which is occupying the minds of many people, particularly in the rural areas, where small schools of this kind are of great value to many local areas. Is there to be a closure of existing nursery schools and of nursery classes? Would the Minister explain in more detail, perhaps, what are the Government's proposals for the future of nursery school education in Northern Ireland? With those remarks, I withhold my support until I hear from the Minister in a little more detail what the Government's policies may be concerning this matter.
4.46 p.m.
Lord Hampton: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord for explaining this order, too. I had anticipated that my noble friend Lord Beaumont would be speaking to it because of his experience on education and his interest in Northern Ireland, but, unfortunately, due to a tragedy in his family, he is not able to be here. I am glad, of course, that the charges for transport were dropped, as the Minister said; and that he feels that what is happening in relation to nursery schools does not mean that they are being downgraded. We have listened to the noble Lord, Lord Blease, who obviously has a very different view of things. I can only express my own view, that nursery schools are extremely important, perhaps particularly important in Northern Ireland, and I trust the Government will do all they can not to downgrade them.
There are only two small queries that I should like to raise at this time. Article 8(2) refers to the requirement that:
"a board, in accordance with a scheme framed by the board and approved by the Department, … provide books and materials free of charge for all pupils",
and it goes on with a reference to controlled grammar schools. This is a slightly vague statement, I feel, because I know that in my home county of Worcester, my home town, they may say that they have to provide the books free of charge but in fact they are in very short supply. What does it mean; and why is it being introduced (I am not quite clear) at this particular time of difficulty, anyway? The other query is a fairly lighthearted one, and it is: What is a peripatetic teacher?
4.47 p.m.
Lord Elton: My Lords, may I deal with Lord Hampton first on this occasion, who, though we regret not seeing the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, we are very glad to see in his place. The answer to his question

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about the provision of books and materials in particular sorts of schools is really very similar to the one I am about to give to the noble Lord, Lord Blease, to the larger question about nursery schools. It is that we have all along been providing these books and materials free as if it was a statutory duty. In fact it is not a statutory duty. Therefore, we have been doing it, as it were, ex gratia. We are bringing the law into step with what everybody has hitherto supposed it to have been and behaved as if it was. So this does not evidence any change in policy.
My Lords, a peripatetic teacher is one, not so much who strides about the classroom talking with a piece of chalk as he goes from one end to the other, but one who dashes from one school to another where his skills, which are in short supply and usually rather specialist, are in demand. This is particularly common among teachers of music, where some of the more difficult instruments do not attract a great following in one particular school, such that the music staff there cannot cope—whether it is the shawm, the sackbut or the dulcimer, I do not know—and the teacher can teach the skill in this instrument at one school in the morning and then in the afternoon go on to another.
On the question of the nursery provision, I must again say that the situation we had hitherto was that there was a statutory requirement upon education authorities both here and in the Province to provide nursery education for all who required it, all that might benefit from it, anybody who was eligible, et cetera. It was entirely open-ended. It extended the responsibilities of departments, boards and local authorities virtually to the cradle. Nobody is disputing that it is a good thing to have more nursery education; and nobody is disputing that it is a particularly good thing to have it where the homes are disrupted or the social circumstances are such that the children are handicapped thereby. Nobody doubts that, on the contrary, where families are very small and sheltered it is a good thing to bring them into the socialising influence of a larger group.
What we are saying is that this cannot be provided straight through from cradle to A-level, as it were, at a blow. As I have already shown, we are increasing the level of provision in the Province. We did so last year; we have done so this year. There will also in fact be 100 places further (to answer the noble Lord specifically) later in this school year in the Province. This is not the harbinger of a great closure by Her Majesty's Government of a valued facility: it is a recognition that it is not realistic to try to provide an enormously increased level, which statute would demand if it was compulsory, but to sustain what we have and to progress at a respectable speed. The speed would be greater if we had more resources but I have already this afternoon had occasion to remind the noble Lord that resources are extremely short.
He will agree with me, I am sure, that the great thing at the moment is to get the parents in work and jobs ready for these children when they come out of their education. To extend education closer to the cradle is not a luxury; it is desirable but expensive; and something that we cannot undertake completely without regard to other financial considerations. That being so, it is proper to put the authorities, the boards,
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in a right relationship with the statute book and their jobs and say that they have the power, the discretion, to do this; but that they are not absolutely required to do that which they could not do without doing it at the expense of others of their functions for which resources are more urgently needed.
I hope that I have said enough to reconcile, in the words of the noble Lord, what I am saying with what the instrument does. I can scarcely say more. The noble Baroness shakes her head. There are more nursery places now than there were last year and there will be more nursery places later this year than there are now. We are continuing on the right road. I think the noble Baroness has little cause to shake her head. I hope the noble Lord will support me.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Wisley Airport
4.51 p.m.
Lord Nugent of Guildford Lord Nugent of Guildford rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have for the future of Wisley Airport.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to ask the Unstarred Question concerning the future of Wisley Airfield standing in my name on the Order Paper. Wisley Airfield must be well know to many of us. It lies alongside the Wisley Horticultural Gardens which we often have much pleasure in visiting. How delighted I am that my noble friend Lord Aberconway, who is chairman of the board of the Gardens, is here tonight to make his maiden speech on this particular theme. Wisley stands on the western edge of an extensive, attractive area of open common land which lies between Cobham, Ockham and Ripley, the Wisley and Ockham Commons in particular. It lies right in the middle of London's green belt. This area of open land, mostly common land, is the first major stretch of open countryside for the Londoner to enjoy when he comes out of London for the weekend or for the evening in summer. Its preservation from development is crucial to the whole concept of the London green belt. The London green belt is a belt of land of about 10 to 15 miles in width round Greater London and it is literally the lungs of London for the Londoner to come out and see a bit of green grass and have the right to walk there. It should be added that the site of the Wisley Airfield lies in the middle of a dense network of footpaths and bridleways linking the Thames with the North Downs. These are all public rights of way.
Great consternation has been aroused in Surrey generally and the Guildford Borough Council particularly by the proposal to develop the Wisley Airfield as an executive jet airport by an commercial company called Jenstate. I understand that a public inquiry has been fixed for 20th January for the appeal of the developer to be heard against the Guildford Borough Council's refusal of consent. A factor which arouses particular concern is the breach of the past undertaking by the Property Services Agency, which owns the site on behalf of the Government, with regard to the disposal of the airfield, when no longer required for test-flight purposes by BAC or the responsible Government departments. BAC gave up their lease in 1972.
The history of the airfield is that it was originally requisitioned in wartime in 1943 for wartime purposes and from that time there has been a clear undertaking that when it was no longer required for these purposes it would be returned for its pre-war agricultural use. Over the intervening years this undertaking has been re-stated from time to time by various Government departments who have been responsible for authorising this special occupancy. The local authorities, the Surrey County Council and the Guildford Borough Council, insisted that when the property was sold back to its pre-war owner, Lord Lytton, all the buildings and hard standings, including the runway, must be removed to ensure a return to its agricultural use before the war and to preserve the general policy of conserving the green belt. More recently, after a good deal of discussion, these conditions were con-confirmed and a letter was sent by the PSA on 15th November 1977 to the effect that Wisley Airfield would not be sold until both the buildings and the runway had been removed. Further letters were written in 1978 confirming this and, finally, there was a letter from the junior Minister of the Department of the Environment Mr. Ken Marks, on 6th March last year (1979) to the Dorking Member of Parliament, Sir George Sinclair, making the same confirmation.
It was thus a great surprise to everybody when the axe fell on 13th July last year with a letter from the PSA stating that the sale would be made with the runway still in situ. This decision by the PSA makes the site available for future use as a commercial airport, in direct breach of all the undertakings over the previous 36 years and in direct breach of the major conservation considerations for the green belt. My noble friend Lord Onslow will deal in more detail with the particular villainies of the breach.
As the PSA is part of the D of E, public confidence is seriously concerned for the impartiality of the appeal procedure to the Secretary of State for the D of E at the public inquiry next month. Therefore, I must ask my noble friend Lord Trefgarne—and may I thank him for appearing once again on the Front Bench (he seems to be in continuous occupation of it today) to deal with this tricky debate—to give us an unequivocal assurance tonight that when my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Environment, acting in his quasi-judicial capacity, comes to consider the merits of this appeal, he will regard the action of the PSA in this matter not as part of his own department but as an independent authority acting on its own account.
To the merits of the appliation to develop Wisley Airfield as a general aviation airport with particular emphasis on executive jets—and I understand the proposal is for air movements of 30,000 per annum so that if will be a busy airport—there are two objections. First, on air traffic control grounds, I should like my noble friend to tell us what advice the National Air Traffic Services has given on this issue. Wisley lies about half-way between Heathrow and Gatwick. Presumably both main air traffic routes and stacking operations are using the air space overhead all the time. What are the dangers involved? What restrictions on flying from Wisley would be needed if it were allowed to become a general aviation airport?
In this connection I should inform the House that American experience shows that a number of mid-air collisions over New York and Los Angeles were mostly caused by general aviation planes, mostly jets. My noble friend has much professional knowledge of these matters and can no doubt confirm the danger of mixing general aviation, small plane flights, with main traffic routes in this way.
Finally, I come to what I believe is the major objection to this development which would be a savage breach in green belt conservation policy. Since the 1947 Planning Act, all Governments have wholeheartedly supported the conservation of the green belt surrounding the vast area of Greater London. The county and district authorities, with their responsibilities for local planning, have fought a vigorous campaign during the past three decades to repel the repeated attacks of developers on both the inside and the outside rim of the green belt.
I need hardly remind your Lordships that incentive in terms of cash to change the existing agricultural use of the land into residential or industrial development is enormous. Accordingly, the campaign is fought with no holds barred by the developers, and the defence by local authorities has been skilful and resolute over the years, strong in the knowledge that almost invariably if a developer went to appeal his proposal to develop would be rejected by the Secretary of State.
The present Secretary of State has as recently as last August declared his firm support for the conservation of London's green belt as one of the basic principles of the strategic plan for the South-East region. In a letter dated 7th August this year, written to me as chairman of the Standing Conference on London and South-East Regional Planning, he said this:
"There should continue to be the strongest restraint on development in the metropolitan green belt".
It could not be more unequivocally stated than that. This letter has of course been published and it covers a whole range of matters to do with the strategic plan.
It is therefore clear beyond a peradventure that the proposed development of a busy commercial airport—with the inevitable service industries and commerce which would necessarily grow up round it—at Wisley would constitute the single biggest breach of the green belt, and Government policy supporting it, since the policy was established a third of a century ago. Throughout these years I have had an active part in helping to defend it. It is therefore pertinent to ask my noble friend to state whether the Government's official policy on conserving the green belt as stated by the Secretary of State in his letter to me last August still stands in the unequivocal terms which I have read out. That is my first question to my noble friend.
Furthermore, as the PSA's decision last year to break all past undertakings to remove the runway before sale back to the previous owners alone makes this major development physically possible, I must ask my noble friend to tell us whether the Secretary of State was informed before the PSA took the decision and, if so, his reason for approving it. I shall await my noble friend's answers with great interest because

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I feel that they are of paramount importance to all the people of Surrey, and indeed all the people of London, in preserving this essential amenity for all Londonders—the green belt.
5.4 p.m.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, I am sure that the House will be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, for putting down this Unstarred Question. He did it in his usual gracious manner, and his dulcet tones are always loved in this House. If I do not follow him in the same moderation but have some anger at what has transpired, I know that the House will not misunderstand me.
In this very House, while the Local Government Bill was being debated, I endeavoured, together with some of my noble friends, to say that the Secretary of State was, under that Bill, being given powers which were too great. They were too arbitrary and too dictatorial. I want to repeat more than once in the course of my remarks that I do not propose to try to make any political capital whatsoever out of what I am trying to say. The noble Lord opposite smiles but I intend to keep to that with great seriousness.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I was smiling at something else.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, I always hope that the noble Lord is smiling at something that I have said which is witty, and I am sorry if that is not so. We were assured from the Benches opposite that local government could always trust in the sagacity, moderation, judgment and justice of a Secretary of State, and that indeed one need have no apprehensions and the public could similarly be assured.
I repeat what I said before: the importance of the matter that we are considering today lies not so much in the points made with such force in regard to amenities, in regard to the need to preserve the green belt, which were put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Nugent. The importance of this discussion is whether or not Government departments, of whatever political colour—and I repeat it—are to be trusted by local authorities and by members of the public, upon whom they are entitled to rely.
Having said that, may I just tell your Lordships a little of the history that the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, was not able to give because he was circumscribed by the very good time limit that he imposed upon himself. The correspondents in this case ought to be heard. They speak for themselves. This agricultural land is in the centre of one of the lovely spots of England. It is so right that reference was made to the noble Lord, Lord Aberconway, who will be speaking subsequently. The House has waited 27 years to hear him and I know that it is going to be worth while to have waited all that time.
From the very beginning, the local authorities were assured at the time of requisition during the war that this land would not only be used, after the national purpose had been served, for agricultural land, but that it would be sold to the local authority. Nobody knows better than the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, that there was a happening in 1954 in which, if I may say so,
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his name emerged unscathed, as did that of his noble colleague who is so much respected in this House, the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, who at that time, if I remember correctly, was a junior Minister at the Ministry of Agriculture. We all remember that famous case where a Minister of great repute did something which is not so often done these days on matters of honour.
The Minister resigned because he felt that his civil servants had behaved in a way for which he had to accept responsibility. It was a very respectable resignation. What that matter then meant was that herafter if land was requisitioned it could not be sold to anybody else if the previous owner prior to the requisitioning was anxious to acquire it back or there was a successor of his who wished to do so. As a result of that, the local authority, after 1954, could no longer, because of the Crichel Down code, as it has come to be known, demand the right of first refusal to this land. But the undertakings that were firmly given in order to ensure that this could be used only as agricultural land, were that as soon as the user for national purposes ceased, the hangars would be taken away, the buildings would be taken away and the runway would be taken away: a very important matter, and one which, I am told—and I ask the noble Minister to correct me if I am wrong—would cost some £7 million to put in motion. I would ask the House to remember that figure against a figure that I shall mention in a moment.
There was also a firm undertaking that rights of way, which were so valuable at that time, over the agricultural land would be restored as they were prior to the requisitioning. I hope not to take too long, but this is a matter of such importance. I repeat that I am not concerned whether it is a Labour Minister, a Conservative Minister, or any other Minister: I am concerned only for the good of government, whatever be the political complexion.
May I just refer your Lordships to some correspondence dated 16th February 1960 from the Ministry of Aviation to the clerk of Surrey County Council. This refers to the right of way—still not restored, my Lords—and this is what the letter says:
"I note that the county council, Guildford Rural District Council and the Ockham Parish Council have decided not to object to the making of an order—"
I am leaving out some words which are unnecessary—
"stopping up the public rights of way across Wisley airfield on condition that the Ministry gives an undertaking to restore the public rights of way when the airfield use ceases. I have to inform you that in the peculiar circumstances relating to Wisley airfield the Ministry accepts this condition and hereby gives the undertaking that in the event of the airfield becoming no longer used in connection with the development and testing of aircraft, the Ministry will arrange for these public rights of way to be reinstated to a condition similar to that before the airfield was constructed, and rededicated for public use".
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I do apologise for interrupting the noble Lord, but it might enable him to cut his speech rather shorter—not that it is too long—if I tell him that we quite accept the undertaking on the rights of way.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, how delighted I am to hear that, because your Lordships will now hear what transpired. I am surprised at the Minister's quick intervention, because no doubt he will as quickly

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intervene to answer my next point. It is this: this land has been sold back to the successor of the original owner who, in my judgment is blameless in this matter—I refer to the noble Earl, Lord Lytton—in June of this year for a figure that he revealed in the press today of just over £200,000. It was sold to him on one day, with exchange of contracts and completion within 24 hours. As a struggling member of the solicitors' profession who has been endeavouring to persuade Treasury Solicitors and the legal departments of Ministries to complete a transaction within months, I wish to proclaim to the House something which ought to be written up in The Guinness Book of Records: that this exchange of contracts and completion took place within 24 hours. And, my Lords, do you know what explanation was given by the Minister in another place? It was that he had to do it in order to avoid a caution being registered to effect protection of the right of way that the noble Lord the Minister now says he regards as being binding upon him. The noble Lord the Minister will answer that point, if not at once then hereafter, but I will give him the opportunity to answer it now if he wishes—
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, perhaps the noble Lord will be precise as to where my honourable friend said that in the other place.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, indeed I will; and, if the House will forgive me, I will revert to it hereafter and I promise to read the precise portion of Hansard. I have here a photostat copy; which perhaps I can read now, as it might be more convenient. I am referring to the debate in another place on 24th July 1980 on the Motion for the Adjournment, at col. 909:
"In a Written Question I asked my honourable friend"—
and I quote from Mr. Keith Wickenden—
"when the transfer took place. The answer was on 20th June, three weeks after notice of legal caution had been received from the Surrey county council. It was contracted and completed on the same day. I have never known that happen even in the commercial field, where things happen fast, let alone with the Government legal services".
Then in reply the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg, said this, at col. 912:
"My hon. Friend referred to the proposed registration of a caution against the registered title of the land by the Surrey county council. He felt that it was a somewhat unfair procedure that the PSA should have completed the sale prior to the lodging of that caution. Again, that decision was taken by me, and my officials were instructed to expedite the sale so as to avoid the Government's intentions being frustrated by an act by a local authority—these are the important words—which had no legal justification. I stand firmly by that decision".
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, it might be convenient if I put right the noble Lord's mind on that particular point. The sale was indeed completed on the day the noble Lord mentions, but that had nothing to do with the undertaking to restore the rights of way, which was a valid undertaking and which remains. It was done in order to prevent the sale being frustrated altogether, because had the caution become effective I understand that the purchasers would not have wished to proceed with the purchase.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, I am covered with amazement, and I wonder really whether the noble Lord the Minister, who has such a reputation for clarity and for never even getting anywhere near misleading the House, wishes to conduct the argument in this way. But possibly I will be able to abbreviate this part of my submission to the House by saying that I personally do not understand—and no doubt the noble Lord will explain to the House—what it means when a Minister says he accepts that he has a responsibility to reimpose and reconstruct a right of way, and then, when a local authority endeavours to protect that right by registering a caution, he completes a purchase within 24 hours to avoid the local authority putting upon the title the very obligation which the Minister now says that he has. I have no doubt that the noble Lord, with his lucid mind, will be able to overcome the difficulty, but I can only say with all humility that, with my humble mind, I cannot. I find it absolutely—I do not want to use too strong a word and I was going to say "reprehensible"—that where an undertaking is admitted in this House to be binding, somebody can say that it is proper for a Minister to rush through a sale in order to stop what he regards as a proper undertaking being registered against the very land that the Minister is seeking to sell. To me, this is something that is novel in the governmental life of this country and I do not want to see it repeated. I was going to read some more correspondence, but I can observe the clock and—
Lord Bruce of Donington: Go on!
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, my noble friends are always very kind to me, but noble Lords opposite are possibly not so willing. But perhaps your Lordships will take it from me—and I am perfectly prepared to read the correspondence hereafter—that time and time again the promises have been repeated to the local authorities concerned: "Don't worry. The runway will be broken up. There will be a separate contract to take up the runway. Thank you, local authorities, for telling us how we can take up the runway without having to pay somebody to do it, because somebody will pay us for taking up the runway as a result of the scrap that can be obtained" Then, suddenly, a sale is announced and takes place within 24 hours for a figure which is now public property—and all credit to the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, for having written to the press today to reveal the price—of £211,000—
The Earl of Onslow: My Lords, if the noble Lord will give way, I think the figure was £307,000 for 270 acres.
Lord Mishcon: Yes, my Lords. I am much obliged for that correction. I know that it works out at £1,100 an acre. I emphasise that there is nothing improper in what the noble Earl has done. But the Minister could not wait for the result of the planning inquiry, although it was fixed for January, and the land was sold in June. I am not talking about the noble Earl, Lord Lytton—trading people, a company, have put in the application—but is it realised that this land, with this runway, is worth somewhere in the region of £10 million if this planning permission is given? It cost £7 million to put in that runway, and

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the value of the land for civil airport purposes must be another £3 million. If the Minister thinks that I am astronomically wrong about that, then he will say so and I shall be reprimanded in the course of his speech.
It is not only a question of transactions of this kind, which are alien to our tradition—I put it in that very direct way—with contracts and completions being rushed through to defeat the proper registration of things against title by a respectable and much respected local authority. There are people who purchased houses in this area, believing in the assurances that were given by government that all this would be restored for agricultural land purposes. They have been sorely let down as a result of believing in government. The local authorities have been let down.
I cannot comment on an appeal which is now sub judice. The noble Lord, Lord Nugent, gave very forceful reasons as to why many of us pray that the planning permission will fail. But we cannot say any more about that, and we cannot debate it in the House today. What we can debate is the breach of solemn undertakings. The runway had never been taken up in spite of promises that it would be done before there was any question of a sale, and the rights of way have not been put back in spite of undertakings that have been given. This is a sorry chapter in the history, which I regard as a very fine history, of the department which the noble Lord has the sorry task of defending this afternoon.
5.25 p.m.
Lord Aberconway: My Lords, you can readily appreciate, having enjoyed the devastating eloquence of the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, the strength of feeling that brings me before you to speak for the first time in—as you must now be tired of hearing—27 years. I hope that your Lordships will overlook any failures on my part to observe the verbal niceties and usages of this House. I address your Lordships more particularly as President of the Royal Horticultural Society, whose garden at Wisley lies at its nearest point to Wisley airfield some 400 yards away in a direct line with the runway, just across the other side of the A3 road.
Wisley is a beautiful garden—some say, the most beautiful garden in England. In the 12 months just ended, it gave pleasure and instruction to some 411,000 visitors. Had this flying been taking place then, their peace and contentment would have been rudely shattered. I am told that 30,000 aircraft movements is the likely height to which the traffic at Wisley airfield will build up in due course, on seven days a week from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. That makes, on average, a landing or a take-off every 12 minutes. The figure of 30,000 is not mine. It is the figure put forward by the proponents of this project as a support and justification, if you please, for their activity. A visit to Wisley Garden in these circumstances would be not a pleasure but a penance.
We all recognise that environmentally distasteful and destructive measures must sometimes be implemented. We recognise that, and we support them so long as they are done on someone else's doorstep and not our own. That is not my argument this afternoon. My argument, or this part of it, is the the airfield's
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proximity to Wisley Garden and the great number; 400,000 or more—of visitors to Wisley Garden make this issue a very special case.
The Royal Horticultural Society has spent considerable sums of its Fellows' money on improving, developing and extending this garden. It did this relying on the many repeated assurances—officially given, freely given, over a considerable period—that the runway would be removed, as the noble Lord has said, once test flying and development flying had ceased. They ceased in 1972, when the last of the aircraft built at Vickers Weybridge—the old Brook-lands, with its short runway—skipped over the few miles to Wisley with its longer runway. Then all flying ceased.
I am told that a maiden speech should not be controversial. What I have finally to say to your Lordships is not controversial. It brooks no dispute. This is a shoddy, shabby story, as you will appreciate from what the noble Lord has said, and, in justification of what I say, my noble friend and kinsman, Lord Onslow, will, I understand, presently be unfolding to you in further detail this saga of broken promises.
To my mind, this case is on a par with that of Crichel Down. They are not precisely similar but the story is no less horrific. Crichel Down was a case where land was not sold back to the family from whom it was orignially requisitioned; this is a case where the land, when it was sold back, was sold back free from those restrictions which the Government had promised would be imposed, restrictions on which the Royal Horticultural Society relied and upon which many other people also relied in buying land or property nearby. I have no wish to see the family from whom the land was requisitioned being permanently deprived of it. What I cannot understand is that it has been passed back to them without any restrictions and in a state physically in which it can be put to very much more lucrative use than ever it could have been put to as agricultural land.
My Lords, this is a red hot potato straight from the soil of Crichel Down. I earnestly appeal to the Minister, when the report of his inspector on the forthcoming appeal comes to his desk, to refuse that appeal and thereby to avoid the name of Wisley Airfield being inscribed alongside that of Crichel Down on the roll of dishonour of government and civil service.
5.33 p.m.
The Earl of Onslow: My Lords, the pleasure of congratulating a good maiden speaker is certainly enhanced by the fact that the maiden speech was made by a kinsman. As to what he will be like when he is controversial I do admit to some inside knowledge. The fact that for 27 years my noble friend has not made a maiden speech and now has decided so to do on Wisley shows how strong are his feelings and the feelings of those of us who live and have our being near this airfield. The noble Lord, Lord Aberconway, is not a man of straw. He is, as he has said, the president of the Royal Horticultural Society; he is chairman of English China Clays; a director of the National Westminster Bank and of Westland Aircraft. He was chairman of John Brown and is deputy chairman of Alliance and London Insurance. He also runs—and runs well—a large estate and garden in North Wales.

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I produce these curricula vitae not to embarrass him but to indicate to your Lordships the seriousness of his speech and the weight that should be attached to it, apart from his native eloquence.
My noble friend Lord Nugent is the most honourable and loyal of Conservative Privy Councillors—and I do not say that in the sense that Mark Antony said that Brutus and Cassius were honourable men, to go on to stab him in the back. I say it with total conviction. For him to express the degree of concern that he has on the action of a Conservative Government is not perhaps unprecedented, but the use of the word "villainies" by him certainly is and it must be judged in the light of his fierce loyalty. I am especially grateful to him for putting down this Question. He is a man of strong and forthright speech; a velvet glove but a steel hand are obvious. The noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, was devastating.
My Lords, Wisley, as your Lordships now realise, was requisitioned in 1943 and pledges were given after the war to sell to the Surrey County Council. But as Russia proved a menace and post-war reconstruction was hard Surrey County Council agreed, with misgivings, to its continued use and the extension of its runways. The aircraft noise warning signs came down in 1972 and flying ceased. Since then Surrey County Council has been trying to get the hangars and runways pulled down as promised and the land returned to agriculture. It is accepted that, if the Crichel Down code applies, the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, has the first right to buy. Neither Surrey County Council nor the Guildford Borough Council are in the agricultural business. It suits neither Mr. Twyford nor Mr. Watts to be seen walking around with gum-boots on and straw in their mouths. They would be quite happy for the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, or his successors to farm there indefinitely, but, a £100 company called Jenstate, with the support of the noble Earl, want to continue flying and to turn Wisley into an airport for executive and private flying with, as your Lordships already know, 30,000 take-offs and landings a year.
Private flying does not just consist of people buzzing gently about in Tiger Moths. There are private 707s belonging to Arab Sheiks and rich Americans; Lear Jets and BAC 1-11s are quite large aircraft, some of which are privately owned. Large numbers of British companies use executive jet aircraft and they would and could all use this airfield if planning permission is granted on appeal.
Wisley's airfield comprises 270 acres, as has already been said, approximately halfway between Gatwick and London Airports. It is within 400 yards of access to the new M.25 and, if I were Jenstate or the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, I would drool at the financial prospects. I would consider that, for my purposes of aviation—though I know nothing of air traffic control—it would be an ideal spot. Forty minutes from Central London. Mark you well, my Lords, I spoke from a narrow aviation point of view.
My remarks really fall into three groups: was the Government right to sell the airport before the planning inquiry set for January next year settled its future? Did they act in good faith? Did they obtain a fair price? Also did Wisley fall within the Crichel Down code?
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The good faith argument must be faced first. I now quote from some of the letters from Government officials and Ministers and, if I repeat some things that the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, has said, I do it without apology because they must be repeated and hammered home into the heads of Ministers. On the 10th December 1947, Mr. Bickford of the Ministry of Town and Country Planning wrote and said:
"The Ministry of Supply consider they are justified in obtaining formal legal title—provided that they are prepared to offer it for sale to the Surrey Councy Council at such time as it is no longer to be used as an airfield".
On 21st January 1948, Mr. Dowling, Ministry of Supply, wrote:
"This Department will offer its interest for sale to your Council at such time as Wisley Airfield is no longer required".
The noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, has quoted the letter of 16th February 1960 and my noble friend Lord Trefgarne—who seems to have been on his feet nonstop today, and I must congratulate him on his energy—has acknowledged the undertaking on the question of public rights of way.
In October 1964 the runway was extended, one of the conditions of planning being a requirement—
"That all buildings and installations be demolished and removed and the site left in a clean and tidy condition by March 1988 and making the permission personal to BAC only".
on 14th June 1977:
"It has been decided"—
note the word "decided"—
"to include the runways as a separate lot in the proposed sale by tender of the assets at Wisley".
This was not a civil servant, but Ken Marks, Under-Secretary of State in the Department of the Environment. Identical words appeared in a letter from the Property Services Agency on 17th June 1977 from a Mr. Garland. On 15th November, Mr. D. M. Brown of the Property Services Agency said:
"We do not propose to effect the sale of Wisley Airport until the removal of the building and runways has been completed".
On 17th August, 1978, a new gentleman from the Property Services Agency, Mr. Fern, wrote:
"As soon as the other buildings are cleared we shall proceed with the sale of the runways".
On 11th December 1978, Mr. Montgomery of the Property Services Agency gives a new undertaking to the same effect.
On 14th March 1979, Mr. Fern again reinforces and reiterates the letter of 11th December 1978. On 6th March 1979, Mr. Ken Marks again:
"It is the Property Services Agency's intention, following the removal of the hangars and buildings to invite tenders for the sale and removal of the runways".
On 23rd May—and please note that date, my Lords, because there was a new Government—our friend Mr. Fern again:
"I have little to add to that which has already been said to the effect that unless we receive instructions to the contrary"—
I shall come back to that a little later—
"our intention is still to follow the completion of the contract to remove the buildings with a contract to remove the runways".
On 13th July 1979 poor Mr. D. M. Brown has to eat his words, but alas! he shows no embarrassment:
"It has now been decided that the disposal of the Government interest in the airfield should be effected as soon as possible …

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This means, of course, with the runways and associated hard-standings in situ".
Interestingly, I received a letter from a gentleman living in one of the affected villages which said—I understand that in September 1979 the property Services Agency wrote to inquirers in the East Horsley area,
"When the airfield was originally acquired, it was necessary to close several public rights of way but a formal undertaking was given by the Ministry of Aviation in 1960 that these would be rededicated before the airfield was sold out of public ownership".
I do not think they have been.
"Property Services Agency will implement that undertaking and is discussing with Guildford Borough and Surrey County Councils the action necessary".
In an Adjournment Debate in another place on 24th July 1980, my honourable friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg, said:
"No undertaking was given to remove the runway".
I must therefore think that Mr. Finsberg's advisers cannot have shown him a copy of any of these letters. If they had, I find it totally incomprehensible that he could have said what he did.
As is known, Surrey County Council attempted to enter a caution—Lord Mishcon has dealt at length with this—in the Land Registry to enable them to hold up the sale because of the 1947–48 promises to sell. Lord Lytton has behaved over this whole sorry affair with complete integrity, and I, like Lord Mishcon, make no criticism of him at all. In his circumstances, I think I would have attempted to do exactly the same thing. He heard of this and so he and the Property Services Agency completed the contract within 24 hours. Can my noble friend tell me of any other contract of sale which has been completed by the Property Services Agency within 24 hours?
The Under-Secretary of State said, again in the Adjournment Debate:
"That decision was taken by me, and my officials were instructed to expedite the sale so as to avoid the Government's intentions being frustrated by an act by a local authority".
Is it not a sorry state of affairs that a Minister of the Crown resorts to the practice of avoiding, by legal contrivance, legal obligations which his department has undertaken to a local authority? Perhaps I might point out to your Lordships, if you did not already know it, that the treaty guaranteeing Belgium's neutrality was not a legally binding obligation, nor was the guarantee to Poland in 1939.
I have perhaps dealt with the subject of broken promises for too long, and to accuse one's own Government of this sort of behaviour is a most unhappy thing to have to do, especially when they are receiving a certain amount of criticism and having a hard time with their economic policies, and when they are led by such an admirable woman as my right honourable friend the Prime Minister. But it appears that my honourable friend Mr. Finsberg
"has left undone those things which he ought to have done, and done those things which he ought not to have done".
I will not go so far as to say that there is "no health in him" or that "he is a miserable offender". I may, however, think it.
In a letter to the Daily Telegraph the noble Earl,
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Lord Lytton, tells us that the land, all 270 acres of it, was sold to him at a price of £307,000 or £1,137 an acre. This would appear perfectly reasonable for land if it was certain that the land was subject to the Crichel Down Code. But, my Lords, I have grave doubts whether it was. The Crichel Down code as defined by Mr. Taverne in the House of Commons in January 1970, in vol. 794, No. 40 is as follows:
"Land is regarded as outside the scope of these arrangements (i.e. the Crichel Down Code) which are intended for land which is to continue in agriculture indefinitely".
I suggest that if Jenstate are prepared to spend an estimated £30,000 on an appeal, they first of all do not intend this land to be used for agriculture indefinitely, if at all; and, secondly, that there was no "hope value" reflected in the price paid by the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, to the Property Services Agency. Was there in the contract any clause saying that if planning consent were granted then the Crown would receive an added value? If not, why not?
It has been said that to remove the runways would prejudice the Secretary of State's quasi-judicial powers in appellate matters. I am absolutely convinced that failing to dig up the runways as promised is more prejudicial to the Minister making a sound judgment. He has positively encouraged Jenstate to hope that they will have some success with their appeal. He has further given away the value of the runway, 85,000 tonnes of saleable material for which, in 1977, a substantial public company was prepared to pay £19,987, and for some extraordinary reason, 50p.
To summarise, I suggest the Government have encouraged Jenstate with their appeal. By so doing they have put a hope value upon the land at Wisley airfield which has not under any circumstances been reflected in the purchase price; and by putting that hope value on Wisley airfield they have breached the condition of indefinite agricultural land use in the Crichel Down code. Therefore, the Secretary of State was not entitled to offer it to Lord Lytton for sale.
Furthermore, the Secretary of State has by his action made it impossible to reconcile his function as the appellate authority with his administrative function in ratifying the sale of that airfield. So the Minister has, by not determining the planning status before the sale, deprived the taxpayer of getting anything like the true value for his assets, and he has possibly handed large sums on a plate to a collection of businessmen who, having seen the opportunities, have acted upon them, totally and completely legitimately. I interject one criticism of Jenstate, which is to regret that they have hidden behind anonymity and the £100 company. After all, they have nothing to be ashamed of.
My Lords, I have this to say to the Secretary of State for the Environment, if he does not know it already. By the actions of his department he has aroused feelings of such intensity among the Surrey people of our neighbourhood which I honestly did not believe to be possible. The Ripley, Ockham and Wisley Conservative Association has withheld its contributions to constituency funds as its only method of protest, in spite of the extraordinarily co-operative and helpful attitude of its Member, Mr. Keith Wickenden.
Last Friday, the Surrey Advertiser had a small

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column saying that I would be happy to receive letters on the subject of Wisley airport, as it was being discussed in your Lordships' House today. They arrived by every post; they were delivered round by hand. They all, except for one, complained either at the prospect of an airfield or at the duplicity of the Government, or both. This was not Mr. Arthur Scargill on a flying picket; this was not a rent-a-mob crowd. All classes, all ages and both sexes wrote: an ex-president of the Law Society, a retired brigadier of 33 years' service, a lifelong Conservative who talks of disgust at the Government's lack of honesty. From many people in East and West Horsley, Ockham, Ripley, East and West Clandon, Guildford, Send, Merrow, Hatchford, Effingham, Leatherhead, Esher, Burpham, Jacobs Well and Woking, letters came saying, in effect: "I shall be grateful for anything you can do to stop this airfield".
There is a frightened letter from an old and sick spinster. An architect wrote Ito the Secretary of State saying that successive Governments had promised to return the land to agricultural use and the present Government would obviously lose much support if the application were upheld. There is a letter from the headmaster of a middle school in Send whose final paragraph reads:
"I have never written a letter in protest before this on any matter. This, I think, proves how strongly I feel about this particular case".
There is one from an ex-headmaster of a private school; several letters complaining about the intrusion upon the Royal Horticultural Society's gardens to which my noble friend Lord Aberconway has referred. There are bitter complaints about the abuse of green belt land, to which Lord Nugent has so eloquently alluded.
I received a copy of a letter to Mr. Heseltine from the sort of businessman whom the present Administration considers vital to the economic recovery of this country, saying:
"Having already reconsidered my position as a Conservative, if this final insult is allowed to proceed I am confident that I and a large proportion of the inhabitants of these villages will consider that your Government does not justify our further confidence".
A letter from a private pilot said:
"and most important, it was the word of this government, Churchill no less, that promised this land would be returned as agricultural land once the war was over".
These are extracts from but a small part of the mail I have received in two days. Five hundred people packed in and stood outside Ripley village hall to hear Keith Wickenden speak a few weeks ago. The Secretary of State has received enormous numbers of letters. Responsible officials of Guildford Borough Council tell me that in their experience no planning matter has ever aroused such hostility as this one. They have received between 400 and 500 letters. Keith Wickenden informs me that since his election he has not received so many letters on any other subject except abortion, and perhaps that is appropriate. I must plead with the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, when he comes to answer, to understand the beliefs of the people of the area, that they feel cheated, and I would suggest to your Lordships that I have produced sufficient evidence to justify that belief.
Ultimately, I just wonder why Mr. Fern of the
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Property Services Agency said in a letter written on 23rd May 1979 and already quoted:
"Unless we receive instructions to the contrary",
and why in the Adjournment Debate in another place, the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment went on and on saying that it was his responsibility and his alone? I just wonder whether he overruled the advice given to him by his officials, because, if not, those protestations of his responsibility and his responsibility alone remind me of Queen Gertrude's comment about too much protestation by the Player Queen.
5.51 p.m.
Lord Reigate: My Lords, I apologise for detaining your Lordships, but I can assure your Lordships that I shall be brief. In particular, I apologise for the fact that my name is not on the list of speakers, but I had not anticipated that this debate would come on as early as it has come on. I wish to support my noble friends Lord Nugent of Guildford and Lord Onslow in their protest, but first I should like to congratulate my noble friend and my old friend Lord Aberconway. I was going to say "my noble old friend", but that does not sound quite right, so he will have to be my friend twice over.
The specific angle that I wish to mention in this debate is the question of the airport. I cannot go into all the other legalities which have been dealt with so ably by the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, and my noble friends. First, I think that it is quite clear that this is the wrong place even to contemplate an airfield, whether it is for executive jets or for any other purposes. Certainly this crowded south-western section that lies around the metropolis is the wrong place. If there is to be an executive jet airfield anywhere, I should have thought that the logical place to have it would be to the east of London. Presumably executives wish to call on their bankers in the City and it would be much more convenient to have it on that side than on the south-west.
The proposal at present is the subject of an inquiry and I sincerely hope that the Secretary of State will reject the application for what is such a very unsuitable location. Therefore, I doubt whether my noble friend can give us much satisfaction today while the inquiry is pending, although it seems to me that he has tried very hard to make somebody else's case for them. But perhaps he will explain—although he cannot justify it—the total and inexplicable breach of faith by the Government.
My reason for intervening is that I have some memories of Gatwick. When I was a member of another place Gatwick bordered on the edge of my constituency. There were four Members of Parliament concerned—the Members for Reigate, Horsham, Dorking and East Grinstead. I do not know about my other colleagues, but for 20 years the file on Gatwick was the largest that I had on any subject. I remember the original inquiry when Gatwick was mooted in, I think, about 1951 or 1952 and my noble friend Lord Boyd of Merton came down and justified his proposals to a hostile audience and a few friendly people. I was among the hostile section. However, it came into being and it impinged on the life of the communities for miles around, for better or for worse.

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Its establishment was inevitable for two reasons: first, there was a national need for an airport. One may think that it was in the wrong place, but there was a national need to be filled and I emphasise "national" rather than "sectional". Secondly, Gatwick—and this is a fact which people had almost not realised at the time—had been an airfield for nearly 20 years before it was enlarged into being the second London Airport. Neither of those reasons applies in this case, and I think that that is a very good reason for its rejection and I support my noble friends entirely in what they have said.
5.56 p.m.
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, for enabling the House to discuss this grisly and sordid tale this afternoon. However, let me first congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Aberconway, on his maiden speech. I was told when I came to this House that the longer one put off making one's maiden speech, the more courage one needed to make it. If that is so, the noble Lord, Lord Aberconway, must have super-human courage. I hope that, having taken the plunge, he will give us the benefit of his clear, foreceful and unarguable logic again in the near future.
The tale of broken promises and broken faith "villainy" as the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, called it—unfolded in this debate, does not need to be repeated by me this afternoon. The chain of promises that the land at Wisley would revert to agricultural use when Government use ceased, dating from the time when the the Minister of Aircraft Production, Sir Stafford Cripps, assured the late Lord Chuter-Ede, then a member of the Surrey County Council, that this was a temporary wartime expedient only, up until the letter last May, quoted by the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, when the Government said, and reiterated again, that they would knock down the hangars and take up the runways before any sale was made, lulled people in the area into a sense of security over that period of 36 years. They thought, with due reason, that this would never become a general aviation airport and, as my noble friend Lord Mishcon said, people bought and sold property in the area on that basis with full confidence.
My noble friend Lord Mishcon also tackled the problem from the point of view of the erosion of the green belt and that is extremely important for Londoners. But I should also add, that if one was contemplating an airport in this area with, as has been said, 30,000 movements a year with private jets, executive jets, and scheduled services to other places in the United Kingdom, it would cause very great air traffic control problems in the London area.
As I have said, I do not wish to reiterate what has been said today. I think that the Government have some very difficult questions to answer. They have to answer, first, why the land was sold back to Lord Lytton when it had not finally been determined that its proper future use was agriculture. Secondly, they must answer why it was sold at agricultural-use value when planning permission was possibly in the offing which might affect its re-sale at a higher value? They have to answer why the rights of way have not been put back and are no longer criss-crossing the area,
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as described by the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, in his speech, and why it passed back to the original owners—as was forcefully stated by the noble Lord, Lord Aberconway—without any restrictions as to the purpose for which it should be used.
I had intended to refer to the statement by the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, Mr. Taverne, in 1970, but the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, has quoted the relevant sections of that statement which, I think, make it quite clear that the Crichel Down procedures apply to land which is to continue in agricultural use indefinitely.
The noble Earl, Lord Onslow, gave us a very long and full catalogue of all the assurances, ending up with the assurance of 23rd May, and he concluded his speech by quoting the meaningful words:
"Unless we receive instructions to the contrary".
As the noble Earl pointed out, 23rd May was shortly after a change of Government; no doubt the civil servant was writing that letter with the thought that his new masters might be giving him new instructions, and we wonder what those instructions were. The noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, will soon have an opportunity to tell us.
But this is a very sordid story; it is a story of the hasty disposal of public assets not in the public interest. I would add that the taxpayer is paying, and possibly could be paying very heavily, for this unexplained, unwarranted action by the Government. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, can make out a good case this afternoon, but I am rather doubtful. From what has been said in your Lordships' House this afternoon, I think that he is on a very sticky wicket.
6.1 p.m.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, as every noble Lord has said, your Lordships will be grateful to my noble friend Lord Nugent of Guildford for raising this subject, which clearly has the interest of a number of your Lordships who have taken part in this short debate. First, I should like to congratulate my noble friend Lord Aberconway on his splendid maiden speech. As he reminded us, a maiden speaker is constrained to be uncontroversial in his first intervention in your Lordships' House, and having regard to the very high feelings which have been generated by this matter, I think that my noble friend did very well to speak in the moderated tones that he did. I understand his strong feelings and, indeed, the strong feelings of other noble Lords on this matter, and I hope that I shall be able to set some of your Lordships' fears at rest during the course of my remarks. However, I hope that my noble friend who spoke for the first time this afternoon will intervene again in your Lordships' House soon and often.
I should like to start by reminding your Lordships briefly of the history of Wisley Airfield. My noble friend Lord Nugent of Guildford did this, as well, but perhaps I may recite the history with a slightly different slant. It was acquired during the war by the then Ministry of Supply, and the airfield was then eventually leased to Vickers Armstrong, which subsequently became the British Aircraft Corporation. In 1972 BAC terminated the lease, and the Ministry of Defence, in whom the ex-Ministry of Supply property had

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become vested, decided that Wisley should be disposed of. That was 1972, my Lords. This disposal only happened earlier this year—that is eight years after the decision had been taken—when the airfield was sold by the Property Services Agency of the Department of the Environment, who act for the Ministry of Defence in such matters, to the noble Earl, Lord Lytton.
Listening to your Lordships today, I think that there are three main strands which need to be unravelled. There is, perhaps most importantly, the question of future aviation use at the airfield. Secondly, there are the circumstances in which the Government decided to sell the land with the runway in situ; and, thirdly, there is the action taken to avoid the effect of the caution registered by Surrey County Council. I shall, if I may, take these in turn.
The question of planning permission for the future use of Wisley for aviation is at the moment the subject of an appeal to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Environment. For this reason I cannot comment on the merits or otherwise of particular arguments whether Wisley should or should not be used for flying again—I am sure that your Lordships will appreciate the Government's position on that point. A public local inquiry will commence on 20th January 1981 before an inspector appointed by the Secretary of State and, at the discretion of the inspector, anyone who wishes to do so can make representations about the proposed development. Following the public inquiry, my right honourable friend will consider the inspector's report in reaching his decision on the appeal. Nevertheless, I should like to explain briefly how policy with regard to both the metropolitan green belt and to air traffic considerations is dealt with in the context of deciding whether or not aviation should be permitted in a particular place. I must emphasise again, though, that these are general considerations only and I cannot, as I have explained, comment on the merits or demerits of Wisley as an aerodrome.
Green belts are used to contain the sprawl of built-up areas. Inside these areas planning permission is not normally given for the construction of new buildings or the change of use of existing buildings that would be inappropriate to the open character of the undeveloped part of the area. It is usually a feature of the planning policy for a green belt to secure the continued operation of viable agricultural holdings and to provide opportunities for recreation.
In so far as the green belt contains necessary developments associated with the life of the urban community, these pose considerable problems. But then planning policy must be to locate those developments, such as motorways, at a distance from towns and villages. It is also necessary to consider how to resolve the problems of location of other developments that may be associated with a new service provision. This will often be the consequential demand for housing resulting from the growth of employment in the green belt.
The Government want to encourage the small-scale business, and many can be carried on in rural areas without causing unacceptable disturbance. Whether the development of a business in a green belt is open to planning objections will often depend on its character and the number of employees, and hence the consequential development pressure.
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On the more general question of air traffic, as my noble friend Lord Nugent of Guildford well knows, it is becoming increasingly difficult for business aviation users to find room to operate from Heathrow and, in particular, Gatwick. This is due to the growth of commercial airline traffic which, inevitably, is given precedence over executive jets at BAA airports, and, indeed, to the growth of business aviation itself. None the less the economic penalty of being unable to provide effectively for business aviation would be considerable, and it remains our policy, as it was that of our predecessors, that appropriate facilities should be provided.
The problem was foreshadowed in the mid-1970s when the Standing Conference on London and South-East Regional Planning, of which my noble friend is chairman, joined with the Civil Aviation Authority in a comprehensive study of aerodrome facilities in the South-East. They produced two invaluable reports recommending that business traffic be accommodated at a number of selected aerodromes. These did not include Wisley, which had already ceased to operate, and which, in airspace terms, and as the standing conference noted, is located below one of the Heathrow arrival stacks, and is also beneath the busiest departure sectors for the London airports.
Following this advice, the previous Government concluded in their White Paper of 1978 that the airports at Biggin Hill, Leavesden, Luton, Northolt, Southend and Stansted, could satisfactorily fill the business aviation role. The present Government generally endorse these conclusions, while recognising that other aerodromes in the South-East might also contribute to handling this type of traffic. However, more recently it has emerged that air traffic control restraints would appear to rule out Biggin Hill from a role as the major business airport for London.
However, it has also to be recognised that air traffic management in the very congested airspace of the London area has been primarily directed at ensuring that the capacity of the existing London airports is exploited with maximum efficiency and safety. The development of additional aerodromes with air traffic requiring access to the airways system could have an adverse effect on the existing highly developed and inter-acting air traffic control structure as a whole.
I turn now to the circumstances surrounding the sale of the land to the noble Earl, Lord Lytton. These were explained in some detail by my right honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in an adjournment debate in another place on 24th July this year, which has been referred to several times; and since then the matter has been referred to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration, the Ombudsman.
It has been suggested that the PSA had given an undertaking some years previously that the airfield would not be sold before the runway had been removed. No such undertaking—either legal or moral—was in fact given. The PSA had said that it was their intention to remove the runway before selling the land if that were economically possible, and indeed had invited tenders for the sale of the runway for removal as hardcore. But it had been made clear at the time that the PSA did not consider itself under an obligation to do this.

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Before the tender procedure could be completed, the appeal was lodged against a deemed refusal of planning permission by the local planning authority. Since the decision on the planning appeal lay with the Secretary of State for the Environment, it was considered that it would be prejudicial to his position in hearing the appeal if the agency had proceeded with the removal of the runway in the absence of a legal liability to do so. The decision was taken not to proceed with removing the runway before the planning appeal had been settled.
The Earl of Onslow: My Lords, how can the noble Lord possibly say that no undertaking was given when I, and several other noble Lords, have read out letter after letter saying that sort of thing? This has no bearing on the facts whatsoever.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, as the noble Earl will know, and as the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, will also know, the correspondence of Administrations prior to the one in which I serve is not available to Ministers in this Government. I can, however, refer indeed to the letter of 23rd May 1979, to which the noble Lord referred, and he quoted from that letter, and I indeed have a copy of the letter in front of me. Certainly there was a declaration of intent, but a declaration of intent is not the same thing as giving an undertaking.
Let me give your Lordships an example. Very frequently I telephone my wife in the evening to tell her that I have an intention of being home by ten o'clock. Unfortunately, your Lordships sometimes detain me and I am not able to meet that declaration of intent, and I do not get home until one o'clock in the morning. But that is quite different from giving a categoric assurance that I will be home by ten o'clock, which I do not do.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, the Minister is very courteous, and I am sure what he wanted was a direct quotation of an undertaking so that he could deal with it. I shall now read it. It is contained in a letter from the PSA dated 17th August 1978.
"The delay caused by the abortive tender action is of course regrettable, but as Mr. D. M. Brown said in his letter dated 15th November 1977, we do not propose to effect any sale of Wisley airfield until removal of the buildings and runways has been completed".
When he next telephones and says that there is a delay in this House, I am sure the noble Minister will want to explain to his wife what he proposes to do immediately before he returns home. I hope that he will be as precise as this letter is, and that his word will be kept.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, as the noble Lord has said, that letter was written in the time of the previous Administration, and of course I have not seen a copy of it; but it sounded to me another declaration of intent, which is not the same thing as an undertaking.
Lord Glenkinglas: My Lords, will the noble Lord give way? I think that the noble Lord, probably by mistake, totally misled your Lordships when he said that when a Government changes the Minister cannot
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see the papers of the previous Administration. Of course they can. The only thing they cannot see are the comments of the particular Minister upon them, but all the papers are available.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I am advised that my noble friend is not correct, and that I am not entitled to see the correspondence of the previous Administration. In any event, I have not seen it. Nor indeed have my honourable and right honourable friends. At the same time it was this Government's policy to accelerate the sale of surplus Government lands so that the receipts would help, as quickly as possible, to reduce the public sector borrowing requirement. If the sale of the land had had to await the result of the appeal the receipts would have been delayed—and there was and is nothing to prevent further planning applications followed by further appeals. So the delay could have stretched on indefinitely: and there had already been a delay of eight years. Since, as I have said, the Government were under no obligation to remove the runway before selling the land, it was decided to sell the land, under the Crichel Down procedure, to the noble Earl, Lord Lytton. The land was sold at current market value as assessed by the district valuer.
Lord Nugent of Guildford: My Lords, may I put this point? I am sorry about asking my noble friend so many questions. Does he not recognise that selling the land back to the previous owner, the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, with the runway intact, was flatly prejudicial to the prospect of the land going back to agriculture according to the undertaking which, I am sure my noble friend will agree, was absolutely unequivocal from the day when the property was first acquired?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, when the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, acquired the land, as my noble friend says, the runway was indeed in situ. If the noble Earl was intending to use the land for agriculture, as presumably he was because that was the only planning permission available at that time, then of course he would have had to remove the runway, and no doubt the noble Earl took that into account when deciding to go ahead with the purchase.
The Earl of Onslow: My Lords, is the noble Lord not aware that the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, had put in planning permission for its use as an airfield, and that planning permission had been applied for before it was sold? Furthermore, had it been sold after it had been established that planning permission had been allowed for an airfield, is he aware that the public sector borrowing requirement would have fallen by something like £10 million, as opposed to £307,000 plus the £19,000 which no doubt they could have had if they had dug up the runway?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, if planning permission had existed which would have authorised the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, or anyone else, to operate Wisley as an aerodrome, it is of course the case that the price to be paid would have been much higher. But if my right honourable friend had waited until the planning appeal had been settled and permission granted for aviation use before selling the aerodrome, he would

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then have been accused by my noble friend, I suspect, of rigging the planning appeals to increase the reduction in the public sector borrowing.
Lord Beswick: My Lords, it is a little unfair to tax the noble Lord, but he appears to have had official advice, and therefore it would be helpful to the House if he would make clear what he has been advised. Is the noble Lord saying that, if an undertaking is given to a member of the public, a succeeding Government are not entitled to see the terms of that undertaking?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, it may well be that officials are entitled to advise an incoming Government of undertakings made by the previous Administration, but, as I have been at pains to explain, no such undertaking existed in this case.
There has been reference to the registration by Surrey County Council of a caution against the registered title of the land. I will not deny that the PSA moved swiftly in the closing stages of the sale in order to prevent the caution from taking effect. But in answer to the point put to me by my noble friend Lord Onslow about whether there were any other examples of contract and completion being on the same day, I must tell my noble friend that there are very often transactions of this nature which take place without any contract at all. So the answer to my noble friend is, Yes, many.
But I emphasise that the reason for doing this was to avoid the frustration of the Government's intentions by an act which it was considered had no legal justification. I want to take up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, who thought, mistakenly I must tell him, that the caution was entered in relation to the restoration of the rights of way. It was not entered in that connection at all. The connection was against the sale of the land on the basis that the Surrey County Council should have been sold the land, and it had nothing to do with the undertaking of the rights of way. Had this act succeeded the only effect would have been to delay the sale and the receipt of the proceeds. I believe therefore that the swift action in completing this sale was entirely justified.
There have been a number of newspaper articles which have been frankly mischievous and ill-informed about this entire business, and have not helped people's understanding. There have been hints of improper behaviour by a Government department. As I have explained, we have not broken any undertakings; where we have given undertakings we intend to honour them in full. In particular I acknowledge unreservedly that an undertaking was given to restore the rights of way to a condition "similar to that when they were closed".
That will be done, but it cannot be agreed that public money should be used as the local authority have suggested, to replace a pre-war lane with a 36 ft. wide roadway with an 18 ft. carriageway apparently leading to an overgrown track, or to remove one kilometre of runway more than 50 metres wide in order to provide a soil surface footpath one metre wide. No reasonable person could accept that that would restore the situation to what it was before the war, and we are in the process of discussing with the local authorities precisely what needs to be done in order to meet the
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undertaking. But I also have to tell the local authority that we shall not be able to restore the singing birds on the trees either.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, I interrupt the Minister this time with some vehemence. Is he really answering the complaints of the local authority by mockery? I cannot interpret his words about singing birds in any other way. Does he not feel the strength of feeling in this House, let alone in local authorities, which makes a comment like that completely uncalled for?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I wish to make it quite clear that the action of the local authority in entering the caution on the Land Registry was in our view designed to frustrate the execution of Government policy in this matter, and that is why we have to deal with it very firmly. I also wish to demonstrate by my remarks that some of the suggestions which have been made as to what we should do to restore the rights of way are unreasonable.
I trust your Lordships will understand why I have not been able to give a clear-cut answer this evening to the question whether flying will resume at Wisley. In fact, nobody can give that answer until a decision has been reached on the planning appeal. But I hope I have been able to set some minds at rest about other aspects of this affair, and I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Nugent of Guildford for having given me the opportunity to do so.