HL Deb 17 December 1980 vol 415 cc1105-16

2.48 p.m.

The Earl of Cromartie rose to call attention to the need to evolve a suitable plan to revert to a single tier system in Scottish local government and to return to the cities and burghs their historic responsibilities in view of the need to reduce costs and increase efficiency; and to move for Papers.

The noble Earl said: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper, and to move for Papers. I shall not detain your Lordships for long, as I have spoken on this subject both before and during the debate on the so-called reform of Scottish local government in 1972–73. That some changes were needed was obvious to most thinking persons, and more particularly to those of us who were actively engaged in local government, but these changes could have been accomplished within a single tier authority and without the cumbersome, expensive and unpopular regional and district set-up.

Of course, most of us realised that, in no small measure, the device was intended to introduce into local government party politics, so often quite irrelevant to good local government, and which too often results in party political dogma taking precedence over the duty of a local authority to those it is intended to serve—the ratepayer and also the taxpayer. The latter provides the equalisation grants which are of paramount importance especially to places known as "fringe areas", where the cost of living is much higher, and transport either minimal or very expensive—often both.

The single tier system as it operates in the Western Isles of Scotland could well be taken as an example; and provided that the powers—which, incidentally, were guaranteed by the Act of Union in 1707—were returned to the cities and burghs, Fife could, with advantage, be an area for an all-purpose authority. There is one suggestion that I would put forward here: that the financial accounting of the very small burghs should be dealt with by the area authority.

During the debates on this subject we heard the words "grass roots" with some frequency; but by no stretch of the imagination can anyone say with truth that the present system has in any way increased the grass root involvement. Glasgow would become, again, a self-governing city and this would do much to remove the ridiculous position of Strathclyde, where more than half the population of Scotland have their being-2½ million of them—and it is called local government. Many areas which, much against their will, were forced into this vast authority could be hived off and be joined to an area with whom they have closer historical and cultural links.

My Lords, I do not propose to examine other regions—not even Lothian—except the Highland Region, with its small and scattered population, but of huge size; added to which are poor communications and sometimes a difficult climate. This region should be split into two all-purpose authorities. Controlled from Inverness would be the county of Inverness and South covering the existing area and perhaps part of Perthshire. North of this, from the excellent headquarters of Dingwall—the counties of Ross and Cromarty, Sutherland and Caithness, though it is possible that the latter might feel more at home with Orkney.

My Lords, there are those with vested interests, and I am not referring to officials but to elected members, who will object strongly, and here I would suggest that it may be time for councillors to be paid. The position at present is not satisfactory. There are councillors who claim no attendance allowance; and there are those who claim what are undoubtedly their legitimate expenses, as was done in the past; but, my Lords, there are others who would seem to be making a substantial second income. Also, I feel the change might curb the too frequent jaunts to foreign parts which are of doubtful value to the ratepayer

My Lords, we have been hearing of late much talk of the "referendum"; I suggest one for the ratepayers of Scotland. I personally have no doubt of the answer—a single tier, all-purpose authority, retaining the valuable community councils; indeed, some of the money saved by the abolition of the two-tier system might go as a modest grant to community councils who might welcome more secretarial help. My Lords, I realise that the Stodart Report on our local government is not yet available, but if I were a betting man I would lay odds that it would not advance my case, but rather opt for the status quo to give more time for the present system to "settle down". We have had seven years of it, and it is too long. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.

2.53 p.m.

Viscount Thurso

My Lords, the noble Earl, Lord Cromartie, has indeed set us an admirable example this afternoon of brevity in a short debate. He has also set us an admirable example by setting out clearly and concisely what his objective is, and given us a clear idea of what we have to talk about. I disagree with him about emphasis and I disagree with him over a number of suggestions he makes, but I certainly agree with the intent and purport of his Motion this afternoon.

There is no doubt that the reorganisation of local government, as it was carried out, was a disaster for local politics, for local government in Scotland. Whether it was done in order to introduce party politics into local government or not I do not know, but it certainly has not had that effect in, for instance, Caithness District Council where people do not particularly stand with labels round their necks. Nor, for that matter, would I think that politics particularly enter into the Highland Region. There you tend to get groupings of areas with like interests, all of which to my mind tends to prove the case that the needs of people in local government have not been satisfied.

The fact that they have to get together within a local authority and prove themselves to look after local needs shows that the grouping of the regions has been wrongly thought out in the first place. Indeed, I tend to think that the reason for the shape of local government in Scotland as we got it with reorganisation was really designed to act as a substitute for devolution. The argument which was really put across, certainly by some people who I know, was that if you created strong regional local authorities these would be able to compete with St. Andrew's House, to deal with St. Andrew's House on a level footing, and would therefore be able to look after the end of the local areas more effectively, and it would not then be necessary to have devolution in one shape or another.

This is just as foolish a way of going about devising a system of local government for Scotland as any other, because whether we eventually do have devolution in Scotland or whether we do not, whether we continue with the same system as we have now or whether some new system that we have not yet seen eventually comes into being and the building in Edinburgh is finally used as a Scottish Assembly, there will still need to be local government. There will still be a purpose for local government. There will still be a need that it be done in a proper manner; that it be done in a way which people understand; that people who are the electors, who vote for their local representatives, who vote for their local administrators, know what they are doing, can see their local administrators, and can see the shape of their local administration and make contact with it. There will also be a need to see that these local administrators are able to carry out effectively the job which is put into their hands.

Whether we have got the present shape of local government in Scotland to satisfy the desires of the party politicians or whether we got it to fob off the devolutionists or not, what we have got is a form of local government where the people who are governed do not necessarily know the people who are doing the governing. Indeed, the people doing the governing often do not even know the circumstances of the people who are being governed.

The noble Earl, Lord Cromartie, has drawn our attention to the happy state of the outer islands, and he hinted that as an inhabitant of Caithness I might be well aware of what goes on in Orkney. Indeed I am very jealous of what goes on in Orkney because they have an all-purpose authority, and it works 100 per cent. It works perfectly. They got rid of Stromness and they got rid of Kirkwall town councils and now run the whole of the Orkney Islands as one council. They carry out all the functions which it takes two tiers of local authority to do on the mainland, and they do it efficiently and to the satisfaction—and this is the point—of the electorate.

If one could model, as the noble Earl said, the shape of local government on this ideal, one would be going a long way towards restoring a proper, satisfying and efficient form of local government. Indeed, in a region like the Highland Region it has not been possible to produce the advertised savings because of the shape of the region. For instance, you cannot administer an area which is more than a day's journey from one end to the other and back without having district headquarters within the region. In Caithness, for instance, the number of people employed in the education office is exactly the same as the number before local government reorganisation. The only difference is that we now have to pay for a number of people in Inverness who are additional to those who always did the job perfectly satisfactorily in Wick. One could effect a quick and immediate saving in local government expenditure, if one were so minded, by going back to an all-purpose authority, even as much fractionalised as going back to the original counties. I do not think it would be necessary to do that, and an area where I slightly disagree with the noble Earl, Lord Cromartie, is where he refers in his Motion to returning to the cities and burghs their historic responsibilities". That is not truly feasible. Some of the mergers which have taken place between Royal Burghs and the land-wood areas and small burghs and the landwood areas we would not want to reverse. I do not think that would be wise, although I am sorry to see the Royal Burgh of Wick cease to be a Royal Burgh from an administrative point of view; I am sorry to see the Burgh of the Barony of Thurso cease to be an administrative small burgh; and I am sorry not to have provosts wearing the chains of those two burghs. However, I do not think it would be feasible to ask to go back to that situation, and one would have to get to a very large size of burgh before it would be possible to think of returning it to being an all-purpose authority.

But we should think now, and carefully, of a scheme to return Scotland to a single tier system. Such a system should have as its criterion a size of unit where the electors of the unit are able to understand the structure of the unit by which they are administered, it being a size where the administrators are able to know their patch really well.

A difficulty in dealing with local government is that there are so many functions to carry out, not all of which require units of the same size. It may well be that even if we were to return to single tier all-purpose authorities, in some areas we might have to retain some wider groupings, and I am thinking particularly of the police. If one area has worked reasonably well in local government reorganisation it has been the larger grouping of police forces. There can be unnecessary local rivalry between small police forces, when one wants to have an easy passage of information, assistance and so on across boundaries for efficient police work. However, that sort of thing could be worked out. There could be groupings of general purpose single tier authorities for certain purposes; in some instances it might be the police, in others water, and so on. If there were, say, two local authorities using the same main water supplies, obviously it would be helpful for them to work out a scheme whereby they shared the responsibility and administration.

The longer we persist with the present shape of local government in Scotland the longer we shall perpetuate unnecessary cost and a continuing estrangement between the administrators and those administered and a growing rivalry between two tiers of local government. I therefore support the Motion and hope your Lordships will listen carefully to what is said.

3.6 p.m.

Lord Taylor of Gryfe

My Lords, my qualification for entering this debate is twofold. Many years ago I sat on the Glasgow City Council with the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, who I see on the Benches opposite. My other qualification is the fact that I live in the much-maligned Strathclyde Region, and perhaps experience of the Strathclyde Region is more relevant to the debate, with no disrespect to Caithness and Ross and Cromarty, where a very small proportion of the total number governed exist.

The noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, said that in the present situation the people did not know who were the governors and the people who governed did not know their people. In my local newspaper every week is a long column advertising local authority surgeries in the Strathclyde Region. The local councillors come once a week and invite their constituents to discuss their local problems, so it is not fair to say there is that difficulty.

When we talk about reorganising local government, we must remember that the present structure is only five years old, so inevitably there are difficulties, even disenchantment on the part of some people who had high hopes for reorganisation. Remember, too, that the reorganisation was introduced on a totally non-party basis; it arose from a close examination of the structure of local government conducted under the chairmanship of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wheatley. It was not imposed for any party political purpose. It was established because the existing arrangements in local government and the boundaries which existed had become inappropriate. For example, planning and housing problems in the City of Glasgow could no longer be solved within the boundaries of the city. Consequently, we had to reorganise the government of local authorities to provide for these requirements, the changed structure of services, the dispersal of population and the big problems of planning. All of those had to be taken care of and could not be contained within the previous structure.

The Motion calls for— a suitable plan to revert to a single tier system in Scottish local government". But there was not a single tier system before 1975. Local government in Scotland consisted of four counties of cities, 21 large burghs, 176 small burghs, 33 counties and 196 districts, all with separate functions and many of those functions overlapping. So we cannot revert to a single tier system, as the Motion suggests, because that system was irrelevant; and in fact it did not exist.

We created the new system. I agree that there is certain dissatisfaction with the present arrangements. This arises for a variety of reasons. First, we destroyed traditional loyalties. People had loyalties to their own local authority or city council—organisations which had existed for centuries. There was local pride in those organisations, and difficulties can arise if centuries of history and loyalties are disturbed by the imposition of a new pattern which may be necessary and which in this instance has been in existence for only five years.

Secondly, the new experiment in local government has been conducted during a period of economic recession, which in turn reflects on the local authority. I understand that a Statement is to be made later today on rate support grant in Scotland, and that will announce the imposition of further restrictions on local authority expenditure. If, as a result of that Statement, certain services are discontinued in the Strathclyde Region, that will inevitably reflect on the region itself. During a period of recession local authority services need to be expanded, yet it is in that period that they are being cut back. There will be disenchantment with the pattern of local government due to reasons that are beyond the control of the Strathclyde Region, or other regions.

I agree completely with the noble Earl, Lord Cromartie, when he says that councillors should be paid. When the Local Government Act was passing through this House I moved an amendment to that effect, your Lordships divided and voted 44–44, and the amendment was not carried. That was unfortunate because I believe that the present system does not necessarily attract a wide enough range of people to public service. I also believe that there should never be built into a system an incentive to hold more meetings than are necessary. I consider that that situation could be amended without the drastic reorganisation that the noble Earl, Lord Cromartie, has in mind.

May I ask for a little more understanding about the problems of the Strathclyde Region? The region has a revenue budget of £1,161 million. It is much larger than many countries whose representatives are participating in debates at the United Nations in New York. The region has massive responsibilities for social services, housing, planning, and so on. It is in a sense a very large government. Despite all the pressures and constraints on public spending, that "government" last year achieved a variance of less than 1 per cent. on its total budget. I am engaged in a number of businesses and I wish that some of them could reflect similar good housekeeping. I regard that as a major achievement, and I consider that the local authority has behaved with a great sense of responsibility.

Despite the many demands on its services, and the fact that it operates in one of the most depressed areas of the country, the region was able to retain its rate per pound at 64p, as against 81p for the Lothian Region, and 73p for the Highland Region. So there, again, was an instance of good housekeeping and concern for the ratepayers.

I should like the experiment of Strathclyde to be given more time and understanding, and I hope that at this early stage in the reorganisation of local government we do not try to upset the existing arrangements. Those of us who lived through the last reorganisation know very well that it was a very expensive business. Local authority employees were very well protected in redundancy arrangements. During the last reorganisation terms were negotiated which were perhaps appropriate but also very favourable terms. To revert to a single tier, as is suggested in the Motion, would cost us millions of pounds in a period when we are limiting expenditure on essential public services. For these reasons I cannot support the Motion before the House.

3.16 p.m.

Lord Campbell of Croy

My Lords, we are grateful to my noble friend for giving us this opportunity to review local government in Scotland after about five years of the present system being in operation. My noble friend was lucky in the ballot. He came first in the first ballot of the Session, and the only mischance that I see in that, and which he could not possibly have foreseen, is that the report of the Stodart Committee is not yet available. The committee was set up to look into the subject that is before us today, and it was instructed to report in December—this month. So I would ask my noble friend Lord Mansfield, when he replies, whether he can give an indication of when the report will be published. No doubt the Secretary of State for Scotland will wish to look at it himself before it becomes public.

I believe that most of us will agree that there are some elements of local government in Scotland which are not at present functioning as smoothly as we would wish. My noble friend's solution is that there should be a new single tier system. That, I suggest, certainly should be considered. My noble friend is in a very good position, and he speaks with good reason, because under the old system he was the convener of the county of Ross and Cromarty. That county was exceedingly successful, in particular when it had to tackle the new and testing problems which the discovery of offshore oil produced.

In that part of Northern Scotland—and my own home is close to it—the defects and shortcomings of the previous system were not reflected. Due to geography and the spread of population, the ill-effects of conflicting policies of neighbouring local authorities and the lack of expertise and resources among some small authorities were not as apparent in that area as they were in other parts of Scotland. So my noble friend speaks with authority from an area where the old system was made to work satisfactorily. I am not as certain as he is, however, that the solution is a new single tier. By all means let it be considered, but I believe that we should await the Stodart Report.

Could there not also be other causes for the malaise which exists in some parts of Scottish local government? I shall give one example. When the new system was being created in 1974–75 my impression was that some of the new councils took on staffs that were much too large. There was over-recruitment. The Conservative Party had left government, and therefore I am not in a position to report because I was not a close observer of the scene. But I had the impression that there was over-recruitment. Certainly we had beforehand recognised the possibility and we had endeavoured to do what we could to prevent the expansion and empire building which we felt might take place. Indeed, we were preparing for the prospect of many redundancies among local government officials. We set up a staff commission to help steer into new jobs outside local government those who became redundant during the reorganisation. My understanding is that it was the staff commission itself which became under-employed. Indeed, the members of the staff commission became redundant; and I would ask my noble friend the Minister whether, when he replies, he can confirm the reports that appeared in the press in about 1977 that there were then more full-time local government officials in Scotland than there had been under the previous system, even though there were only about a quarter of the number of the councils which had been in existence before. Whatever the figures, this was certainly not what the Wheatley Commission had contemplated.

The report of the Royal Commission on Local Government in Scotland, which was presided over by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wheatley, has been much criticised. I should like to say a word or two to put it into perspective. I believe that that Commission performed a notable service for Scotland on a subject on which it is impossible to please everyone, and a subject which is bound to raise sharp controversy. There were some minority reservations to the report, but it was unanimous in recommending a two-tier system for Scotland. I would just remind your Lordships that the three main political parties were well represented. The late Betty Harvie Anderson was a member, and it is only her sad, early death which has prevented her from contributing to this debate and telling us at first hand about the Wheatley Commission's recommendations. For the Liberal Party there was Mr. Russell Johnston, a leading member of the party in Scotland and the Member for Inverness; and for the Labour Party there was Tom Fraser, a former Member of Parliament and Minister. There were also other distinguished members from Scotland. The geographical spread was there, too.

The Wheatley Commission set out their reasons for their recommendation, and I shall try to put them only very briefly. The first was that there should be larger units of local government in order that there should be consistency in policy over recognisable areas; and the second was that industry and others coming in with developments should not find themselves having to deal with a multitude of local authorities, all with different requirements and different procedures to be followed. This had certainly acted as a brake on industrial development in Scotland previously. So there was broad agreement that there should be larger units taking into account population as well as geographical areas.

One of the problems in Scotland which all noble Lords from Scotland will know is that half the population of Scotland lives in a very small area in and around Glasgow; and that, of course, has raised the particular issue of Strathclyde. On that issue I will only say that I think it was a very difficult one to decide. The Wheatley Commission were unanimous in recommending this large area. In fact, the one which came into existence was smaller than that which Wheatley recommended; but there were very sound arguments, which were put in both Houses of Parliament, for dividing it up. The Wheatley Commission felt that it was important that there should be consistent policies over what is a comparatively small area, though densely populated, rather than the previous system, where a number of authorities appeared to be adopting policies which conflicted with, and indeed in some cases militated against, the policies of their neighbours. That was one of the very difficult questions which had to be decided; but, as regards the principle, both the major parties had agreed that there should be larger units. The Conservative Party, in government, had issued a White Paper in 1963 recommending this; while statements and studies made by the Scottish Labour Party indicated that they were also broadly in agreement.

There was a conclusion, therefore, that a tier of large authorities—a dozen or so—would be appropriate for Scotland. But that would mean that councillors were too remote from the individual and from local communities, and therefore the Wheatley Commission suggested that there should also be another tier of much smaller authorities; and during the course of the consideration of that report the Government of the day added to the functions of the tier of smaller authorities the function of housing, that being something which affects individuals.

My Lords, the Wheatley Commission Report was published in September 1969. A debate upon it took place in the House of Commons on 10th and 12th February in the Scottish Grand Committee, and I think that the position was summed up as concisely as it could be by the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Marnock, who is to speak later in this debate, when he said at that time, on 10th February, at column 10: It is almost unanimously agreed that reorganisation of local government is necessary and that a two-tier system is desirable". He then went on to say: There is no consensus of opinion about the particular form which such a system might take. This was predictable". How right he proved to be, my Lords ! But he accurately stated to the Grand Committee the position as it was then, of virtual unanimity upon a two-tier system.

I think it is some consolation to my noble friend Lord Cromartie, or should be, that it was inevitable that, in those circumstances, the two-tier system should be adopted, if only for a trial period. A single tier system was considered by the Wheatley Committee and was firmly rejected.

But the possibility of a single tier was not overlooked in those days of 1970 and 1971. A year before the Bill for local government was presented to Parliament, the Government of the day reorganised the National Health Service in Scotland, and for that we adopted a single tier of health boards, in contrast to the system in England and Wales, where a two-tier system of health boards was adopted. In that case there was substantial support for the Government's proposal among medical and administrative opinion in Scotland, but there was no counterpart where local government was concerned; there was no such support for a single tier system. There were difficult issues, such as Strathclyde, which arose from the Wheatley Report, and I certainly will not raise them again in this limited debate—noble Lords from Scotland will themselves immediately identify the problems. They were ones where the arguments were finely balanced and it was difficult to decide which way to go. The decisions has to be taken because otherwise the whole reform would have been held up.

My Lords, when the Wheatley Commission's report was discussed in this House, which was on 9th December 1969, my noble friend Lord Cromartie himself spoke on the two-tier system and raised no objection to it at all. He drew attention to various points concerning the Highland Region, as it was proposed, and I am glad to say that some of them were adopted; for example, the most-purpose authority status for the three island groups, which he suggested at the time. That was not proposed by the Wheatley Commission, and, as noble Lords from Scotland will know, I was occupying the unenviable position of Secretary of State for Scotland at the time the Wheatley Commission report had to be implemented, so I in fact took that decision myself, to make the three island groups most-purpose authorities. The noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, called them all-purpose authorities, but I would point out that they do not cover fire or police, and I think for the very reason which he himself gave—that police forces, if they are too small, cannot be as efficient as they would be otherwise.

I think that we must, none the less, be ready to adjust to experience and to change. The fact that virtually nobody, including my noble friend Lord Cromartie, objected to the two-tier system when the Wheatley Commission report was being debated in 1969 and 1970 in both Houses of Parliament is a reflection of the general feeling at that time. If we are now to look at this and see whether a single tier system can be set up, or any other system in the light of the Stodart Report, there will still be two problems which must be faced in any restructuring. First, if there is to be a single tier system, the units must be small enough not to be remote from the communities they represent, and yet they must be large enough not to nullify each other's policies by adopting different or conflicting ones. The second factor that must be borne in mind is the boundaries between towns and urban areas, on the one hand, and the countryside around them, on the other. There are extensions of real boundaries when the building of houses is carried out on the edges of a town or when industrial estates are set up. The argument and the feuding which used to go on in the old days when boundaries were being adjusted, or attempts were being made to adjust them, showed that that system of trying to cordon off towns from the country was not workable.

My Lords, I will end by giving an example under the former system. This was experienced by the Clyde football team when they were playing at home at Shawfield. In the first half, their goalkeeper would be in the city of Glasgow, but at half-time, when they changed over, he was in Rutherglen. It was very difficult to adjust the boundaries in those days or to reduce the unproductive hostility which arose between neighbouring small authorities and between the country areas and the towns.

I hope that the Government will take fully into account what my noble friend Lord Cromartie has said and what others will say in this debate; but I myself should like to see the report of the Stodart Committee before making a judgment.

Lord Lovat

My Lords, before the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, the ex-Minister, ex-Secretary of' State for Scotland, sits down, may I ask whether he would not agree that the crofter counties have their peculiar problems and that surely it must have been wrong in the Wheatley Report to add the county of Argyll to the Strathclyde Region? It continues to rankle in every Highlander's mind.

Lord Campbell of Croy

My Lords, this is a problem, and we dealt with a crofting Bill at some length three or four years ago in this House. But it is even more difficult than that because the Isles of Bute and Arran have been added to the Highland Development Board area and there are a number of boundaries of that kind which do not accord fully with local government boundaries. It is one of the many complications which arise in Scotland.

3.33 p.m.

Lady Saltoun

My Lords, I should like to give your Lordships three examples of things that are bad in the present system and were very much better, in some places, before. Before the reorganisation of local government in Scotland, Fraserburgh burgh council employed general labourers except where special skills were required. Those labourers all received the same rates of pay and were taken on on the understanding that they were prepared to work in any department. Thus we never had the situation where, for example, in severe weather in winter, the gardeners were sitting twiddling their thumbs in the greenhouses while other people had to be employed on clearing the streets of snow and ice. Now everything is departmentalised and each department employs labourers for their purposes only, so that if for any reason those labourers cannot do their job, they are idle instead of getting on with a job for another department. This either means employing far more labour at great extra expense to the ratepayers or having the work less well done or even sometimes not done at all.

My next point is this. Funds are now allocated to each department for their purposes only. They cannot be switched to another department where the need may be greater. Also, if a department has not spent its entire allocation before the end of the financial year, it risks getting a smaller allocation for the following year. This does not make for good housekeeping. I should like to give you an example, again from my own district. Banff and Buchan District Council are proposing to spend approximately £70,000 on a sports pavilion for the playing fields in Fraserburgh. They have produced a grandiose design where something much simpler would have been perfectly adequate, because they must spend this money before the end of March—and, even in the present stage of Britain's finances, it cannot be diverted to necessities like housing, cleansing, repairs to pavements and so on. Moreover, they have to borrow the money and the loan has to be serviced—by the ratepayers. It is about as sensible as if a man were to tell his wife that she had to spend a certain amount on toys for the children every year, even if the family got into debt doing so, the children went hungry and the rent could not be paid.

My last point is that in towns and boroughs in the old days, if people had complaints or problems they knew exactly whom to go to—the town clerk, the burgh surveyor or whoever—and that person's office was nearby. Now nobody, or very few people, know where to go. The department concerned may be many miles away in some other town, and often people are shunted from person to person or from department to department and no one knows whose pigeon it is or who is prepared to take any responsibility. There is little liaison between departments. East is East and West is West And never the twain shall meet —sometimes se ms to be their motto.

People are naturally very discontented—and not only the ratepayers who have to foot the bill. I do not know whether or not it would be possible to go back to the old system as proposed by the noble Earl, Lord Cromartie, but, whatever happens, these are the kind of things that I hope the Government will consider in future legislation.